I know that, after the volley had been fired from the house last mentioned, a high officer gave orders to clear the people from all the houses round the station; a number of women and children, also old and middle-aged men, were thereupon apprehended; a few of the men were shot according to martial law, but in a great number of cases it could not longer be ascertained whether they had taken part in the firing. These persons were first housed in the station; part of them were later on transported.
On August 26th a few isolated shots fell near the station. On my request, the commandant of a battalion--according to my notes it must have been Colonel von Treskow, 2nd Battalion, Reserve Regiment No. 76--had various houses on the road to Tirlemont cleared; this officer told me that in doing so he lost one of his reserve officers. I cannot say whether there were persons of the Garde Civique among the Belgians who fired on us.
As to the persons shot--I speak, of course, only of my own observations--it had been ascertained by witnesses that they were guilty.
Signed: KARL DÖRFFER, 1st Lieutenant of the Reserve.
Signed: HAHN, Captain and Officer of the Court. Signed: FRIEDRICH WALZ, Secretary.
Court of the Mobile Commissary Commando, 1, VII. Army Corps.
Present: President, ELBLE. Secretary, CASSER.
There appears on citation as witness Paymaster Otto Rudolph, Reserve Railway Constructing Company No. 11, at present at Péronne, who, after the importance of the oath had been pointed out to him, was examined as follows:
As to Person: My name is Otto Rudolph, aged 34; Protestant; police officer at Worms.
As to Case: The Reserve Railway Constructing Company No. 11, of whom I am paymaster, marched into Louvain on August 24th, 1914. My Commandant instructed me to arrange for quarters for the officers and the horses of the company near the principal railway station. I first applied to the proprietors of the hotels in the station square, especially to the proprietor of the Hôtel "Maria Theresa." Everywhere I was received in the kindest way. As the rooms of the hotel were, however, already engaged by officers of other units of troops, I could not get the necessary rooms. I therefore tried to find quarters in the main road leading from the town hall direct to the station, but the name of which I have forgotten. Here the necessary rooms were put at my disposal in the kindest way. In the house No. 105 of this street I found quarters for three officers. In the house diagonally opposite, the apartments of a bank official, I was also well received.