[Footnote 103:  “Unser Vormarsch bis zur Marne” ("Our advance to the Marne"), by a Saxon officer, p. 22.]

This writer, too, chronicles many instances of kindness.  “I was billeted in a peasant’s house at the western exit of the village.  Three beautiful children, trembling with fear, watched us come in, for besides me there were twenty-four men.  We had received emphatic warnings from headquarters not to allow soldiers to be billeted alone.  The woman gave us everything she could find and it was almost necessary to use force to get her to accept payment."[104]

[Footnote 104:  Ibid., p. 25.]

“A load of shot struck the ground at the feet of my horse.  Before I had calmed the animal a N.C.O. marching at my side had finished off the dirty Belgian scoundrel, who was now hanging dead from a roof window.

“Foaming with rage, my field-greys surrounded the house, in which only a few of the dogs were taken captive, the others were immediately slaughtered.  A boy hardly fifteen years old was dragged out of a wet ditch with a gun in his hand.  Before being brought to me, this youthful swine had been thrashed from head to foot.  Besides the men, two women and a girl were taken.

“Meanwhile a terrible hand-to-hand fight was going on throughout the long, scattered village.  Infantry and artillerists smashed the doors and windows; no mercy was shown to anyone, and the houses were set alight.  An attempt to storm the church-tower failed because the occupants fired from above.  Bundles of straw were brought, paraffin poured on them, and the tower set on fire.  Above the roar of the flames we could distinctly hear the shrieks of the murderers shut in there.

“I gave orders to a squad to shoot our prisoners, but a deadly bullet finished the career of the lying, scoundrelly priest as he was trying to escape.  Our losses were remarkably small, only two men being killed and a number wounded."[105]

[Footnote 105:  Ibid., p. 43-4.]

In all cases where German soldiers asked for water from the inhabitants, the latter had to take a drink first.  “Before tasting the water both man and wife had to drink first, and as this scene was repeated on innumerable occasions, it was delightful to observe the comic desperation with which the people took their involuntary ’water cure.’"[106]

[Footnote 106:  “Mit der Kluck’schen Armee nach Belgien” ("With von Kluck’s Army into Belgium"), by Dr. Jos.  Risse, p. 17.]

Dr. Risse’s interesting diary contains one or two important passages illustrating the relation between conquerors and conquered.  Like many other German writers, he saw no hostile act on the part of the civilian population, but they came to him as rumours.  “That night we slept in a barn.  Here we heard that a village near Dahlem had been burned down because the inhabitants had cut the throat of a sleeping ambulance attendant.