To sum up, the town of Dinant is destroyed. It counted 1,400 houses; only 200 remain. The manufactories where the artisan population worked have been systematically destroyed. Rather more than 700 of the inhabitants have been killed; others have been taken off to Germany, and are still retained there as prisoners. The majority are refugees scattered all through Belgium. A few who remained in the town are dying of hunger. It has been proved by our Enquiry that German soldiers, while exposed to the fire of the French entrenched on the opposite bank of the Meuse, in certain cases sheltered themselves behind a line of civilians, women and children.
On August 23rd, the Germans entered the village of Hastiere-par-dela.(1) They arrested Dr. Halloy, a Surgeon of the Red Cross, and shot him. Crossing the street, they went to the house of Alphonse Aigret, a butcher, drove out him, his wife and his children, and shot him and his elder son. Next they went to the farm of Jules Rifon, took him out of his cellar, where he had hidden with his daughters, and shot him. They also killed the farmer Bodson and his two sons, with ten other inhabitants of the village. The place was then sacked, and the greater part of the houses burned. The number of persons killed or wounded was very large.
The ancient church of Hastiere suffered odious profanation. Horses were stabled in it. The priestly vestments were torn and befouled. The lamps, statues, and holy-water stoups were broken. The reliquary was smashed, and the relics scattered about. Among them were some relics of the Eleven Thousand Virgins of Cologne, which had escaped the fury of the Huguenots of 1590 and the Revolution of 1790. The tabernacle resisted an attempt at burglary, but two of the four altars were profaned; the sepulchres at the altars were broken open and the remains in them thrown out and trampled under foot.
The parish priest of Hastiere, Abbe Emile Schogel, had taken refuge in the crypt, with his brother-in-law, M. Ponthiere, a professor of the University of Louvain, the wife and two daughters of the professor, two servants, the schoolmaster of the village with his wife and family, and other inhabitants. The Germans fired at them through the windows of the crypt, and then forced them to come up to the road, where they were brought before several officers, of whom some were intoxicated. Some questions were put to the Abbe, but he was given no time to answer. The women were then dragged apart from the men, and the priest, M. Pointhiere, the schoolmaster, and the other men were shot; their bodies were left lying on the road. All this happened on August 24th, 1914, at about 5.30 in the afternoon.