_c_) _Diary of a Saxon officer_ (_unsigned_) (178^{ th} Reg^t XII Army Corps, I Saxon Corps).
"26^{ th} August. The pretty village of Gué-d'Hossus in the Ardennes has been burnt, although innocent of any crime, it seemed to me. I was told a cyclist had fallen off his machine, and that in doing so his gun had gone off: so they fired in his direction. Thereupon, the male inhabitants were simply consigned to the flames. It is to be hoped that such atrocities will not be repeated."[7]
The Saxon officer however had already seen such "atrocities" the previous day, 25^{ th} August, at Villers en Fagne (Belgian Ardennes). "Where some Grenadiers of the Guard had been found dead or wounded", he had seen the priest and other villagers shot; and three days earlier the 23^{ rd} August, in the village of Bouvignes to the north of Dinant, he had seen things which he describes as follows:
"We got into the property of a well-to-do inhabitant, by a breach effected in the rear, and we occupied the house. Through a maze of rooms we reached the threshold. There was the body of the owner on the floor. Inside our men destroyed everything, like Vandals. Every corner was searched. Outside in the country, the sight of the villagers who had been shot defies all description. The volley had almost decapitated some of them.
"Every house had been searched to the smallest corner, and the inhabitants dragged from their hiding-places. The men were shot; the women and children shut up in a convent, from which some shots were fired. Consequently, the convent is to be burnt. It can be ransomed however on the surrender of the guilty and on payment of 15.000 francs."[8]
Sometimes, as we shall see, the diaries supplement one another.
_d_) _Diary of Private Philipp._ (Kamenz, Saxony. 1^{ st} Company. 1^{ st} Battalion of the 178^{ th} Regt.) The same day 23^{ rd} August, a soldier of the same regiment saw a similar scene to that described above, probably the same, but the point of view is a different one (_Plate 4_).
"In the evening, at 10 o'clock the first battalion of the 178^{ th} Regt went down to the village that had been burnt to the north of Dinant. A sad and beautiful sight, and one that made you shudder. At the entrance of the village there lay about 50 dead bodies strewn on the road. They had been shot for having fired on our troops from ambush. In the course of the night, many others were shot in the same way, so that we could count more than two hundred. The women and children, lamp in hand, were obliged to watch the horrible scene. We then ate our rice, in the midst of the corpses, for we had not tasted food since morning."[9]