The result of the Haelen engagement was thus described in the dispatches of August 13: 

“The battle centered around Haelen, in the Belgian province of Limbourg, extending to Diest, in the north of the province of Brabant, after passing round Zeelhem.

“At 7 o’clock last evening all the country between the three towns mentioned had been cleared of German troops, except the dead and wounded, who were thickly strewn about the fire zone.  Upward of 200 dead German soldiers were counted in a space of fifty yards square.

“A church, a brewery and some houses in Haelen. were set afire, and two bridges over the Denier were destroyed by Belgian engineers.

“Great quantities of booty were collected on the battlefield, and this has been stacked in front of the town hall of Diest.  Many horses also were captured.

“The strength of the German column was about 5,000 men.”

Another report said of the encounter: 

“A division of Belgian cavalry, supported by a brigade of infantry and by artillery, engaged and defeated, near the fortress of Diest, eighteen miles northeast of Louvain, a division of German cavalry, also supported by infantry and by artillery.

“The fighting was extremely fierce and resulted in the Germans being thrown back toward Hasselt and St. Trond.”

Meanwhile the forts at Liege, to the southeast, still held out, though fiercely bombarded by German siege guns.  The fortress of Namur was also being attacked.  The Germans had bridged the river Meuse and were moving their crack artillery against the Belgian lines.  French troops had joined the Belgian defenders and the main battle line extended from Liege on the north to Metz on the south.

A visit to Haelen and other towns by a Brussels correspondent August 17, “showed the frightful devastation which the Germans perpetrated in Belgian territory.

“For instance, at Haelen itself houses belonging to the townspeople have been completely wrecked.  Windows were broken, furniture destroyed, and the walls demolished by shell fire.  Even the churches have not been respected.  The parish church at Haelen has been damaged considerably from shrapnel fire, “On the battlefield there are many graves of Germans marked by German lances erected in the form of a cross.”

ON THE BATTLEFIELD OF DIEST

A correspondent of the New York Tribune said: 

“Across the battlefield of Diest there is a brown stretch of harrowed ground half a furlong in length.  It is the grave of twelve hundred Germans who fell in the fight of August 11.  All over the field there are other graves, some of Germans, some of Belgians, some of horses.  When I reached the place peasants with long mattocks and spades were turning in the soil.  For two full days they had been at the work of burial and they were sick at heart.  Their corn is ripe for cutting in the battlefield, but little of it will be harvested.  Dark paths in their turnip fields are sodden with the blood of men and horses.”