The general conclusion is that the burning and destruction of property which took place was only in a very small minority of cases justified by military necessity.
_Louvain._--Then the corps of incendiaries got to work. They had broad belts with the words "Gott mit uns" ("God with us"), and their equipment consisted of a hatchet, a syringe, a small shovel and a revolver. Fires blazed up in the direction of the Law Courts and St. Martin's Barracks.
A witness: "When we got to the Place de la Station ... not a single house in the place was standing."
On the 26th (Wednesday), in the city of Louvain, massacre, fire, and destruction went on. The University, with its Library, the Church of St. Peter, and many houses were set on fire and burnt to the ground.
_Tamines._--A witness went there on August 27th and says: "It is absolutely destroyed and a mass of ruins."
_Liège._--The Rue des Pitteurs and houses in the Place de l'Université and the Quai des Pêcheurs were systematically fired with benzine.
_Aerschot._--The houses were set on fire with special apparatus.
_Montigny-sur-Sambre._--Incendiaries, with a distinctive badge on their arm, went down the main street throwing handfuls of inflammatory and explosive pastilles into the houses. These pastilles were carried by them in bags, and in this way about 130 houses were destroyed in the main street.
_Namur._--A witness of good standing ... describes how the town was set on fire systematically in six different places.... Not less than 140 houses were burnt. On the 25th the hospital was set on fire with inflammable pastilles, the pretext being that soldiers in the hospital had fired upon the Germans.
_Dinant._--The town was systematically set on fire by hand grenades.... The houses and villages were pillaged and property wantonly destroyed.
At _Morlanwelz_, about this time, the British Army, together with some French cavalry, were compelled to retire before the German troops. The latter took the burgomaster and his manservant prisoner and shot them both in front of the Hotel de Ville at Péronne (Belgium), where the bodies were left in the street for 48 hours. They burnt the Hotel de Ville and 62 houses. The usual accusation of firing by civilians was made. It is strenuously denied by the witness, who declares that three or four days before the arrival of the Germans, circulars had been distributed to every house and placards had been posted in the town ordering the deposit of all firearms at the Hotel de Ville, and that this order had been complied with.