[Footnote 100:  This may be true, but von Below could have said the same with absolute truth of German village fairs, Kirmesse, etc.—­Author.]

German papers of August 15th reported this official version, and four days later a proclamation was issued by State Secretary Dr. Delbrueck, calling upon all persons who had been ill-treated in Belgium to report themselves, so that the “numerous” newspaper reports could be confirmed or refuted.  The result of the inquiry has never been published.

From a number of witnesses who testified whole-heartedly to Belgian kindness, one will suffice.  A lady reported her adventures in the Vorwaerts of September 6th, from which the following sentences have been gleaned.  “Even if it is true that Germans were subjected to inconsideration and ill-treatment during their flight from Belgium, still there are hundreds of Germans who, like myself, met with generous sympathy and unstinted help.

“A Flemish servant refused her month’s wages, saying that her employers would need it on the journey.  Many Germans were offered homes in Belgian families till the war was over.  My own landlord in Brussels placed an empty flat at my disposal for German refugees.  At parting he and his wife were as deeply moved as we, and when I began to make excuses for being unable to pay the rent, she at once prevented me from speaking another word.  My husband was provided with a hat which looked less ‘German;’ they filled our pockets with provisions for the journey, and after his wife had embraced me and my child we left the house in silence.

“German refugees whom I met afterwards, related hundreds of similar acts of kindness.  When such severe accusations are raised against the entire Belgian people, justice demands this statement that Belgians in hundreds of cases, uninfluenced by the prevailing bitterness, showed themselves kindly, helpful and humane towards the Germans.”

In the second month of the war two representatives of the Social Democratic Party received special permission from the General Staff to visit Belgium and the theatre of war in Northern France.  Their report has been issued by the Vorwaerts Publishing House.[101]

[Footnote 101:  “Kriegsfahrten durch Belgien und Nordfrankreich” ("Journeys in War Time through Belgium, etc."), by Dr. Adolph Koester and G. Noske.]

“Concerning the events and conditions in Belgium many false reports have been spread abroad.  That is especially the case in regard to the terrible persecutions of Germans immediately before the outbreak of war.  The civil authorities (German) are now permitting full investigation in those parts of Belgium occupied by our troops, and it is already obvious that many exaggerations were circulated by German newspapers.  Without doubt beer-houses and business houses were wrecked, but the Tartar stories which were reported in Germany and Belgium, Herr von Sandt, Chief of the Civil Administration, puts down to hysterics, and the desire of some people to make themselves important."[102]