ange guns, aeroplanes, and
Zeppelins, merely noting that the Germans _were the first_ to fire
shells into the centre of towns indiscriminately. If they made an
exception, it was to aim at the cathedral square, when people were
leaving after Mass, as at Nancy, or into the market-place at the time
when women are busiest, as they did at Luneville.

We only mention here such outrages as were committed at close quarters
with hand-weapons, bayonets or rifles. The list is a long one. Will the
exact number of victims ever be known? In Belgium alone it has been
proved that up to now more than 5,000 civilians have been assassinated:
grown men, old people, women and children. They slaughtered their
victims sometimes one by one, sometimes in groups, often in masses. They
were not content only with killing. At one place they organised round
the massacre such tragic scenes, and at another displayed such
refinements of cruelty, that reason falters in face of their acts, and
asks what terrible madness has brought this race to such low depths? Is
it possible? Yes, it is. Judge by the following examples:--

At Foret, the village schoolmaster was shot for refusing to trample
under foot the national flag, torn down from the front of the school.[9]
At Schaffen, A. Willem was tied to a tree and burnt alive, and two other
unfortunate men were buried alive. Madame Luykx and her little girl, 12
years old, were shot together in a cellar. J. Reynders and his young
nephew, 10 years of age, were both shot in the street. At Sompuis, an
old man named Jacquemin, aged 70, was bound to his bed by an officer and
left there without food for three days, dying soon after his release.

A Westphalian prisoner states, "The commanding officer ordered us to
shoot two women, and we did so. One of them was holding a child by the
hand, and in falling she dragged the child over with her. The officer
gave orders to shoot the child, because it could not be left alone in
the world." At Rouves, a Government clerk refused to tell a Bavarian
officer the numbers of the French regiments in the neighbourhood. The
officer killed him with two shots from his revolver. At Crezancy,
another officer shot with his own hand young Lesaint, 18 years old, "to
prevent his being a soldier later on." At Embermenil, Madame Masson was
shot for having, in absolute good faith, given some wrong information.
As she was obviously in a state of pregnancy they made her sit down on a
bench to mee