claim that, in pursuance of this plan, on the night of August 26, the inhabitants opened a murderous fire upon the unsuspecting troops from house-tops, doors and windows; that a fierce street battle ensued, in which a number of women and children were unfortunately killed by stray bullets; and that, in retaliation for this act of treachery, a number of the inhabitants were executed and a portion of the city was burned.  Notwithstanding the fact that, as soon as the Germans entered the city, they searched it thoroughly for concealed weapons, they claim that the townspeople were not only well supplied with rifles and ammunition, but that they even opened on them from their windows with machine-guns.  Though it seems scarcely probable that the inhabitants of Louvain would attempt so mad an enterprise as to attack an overwhelming force of Germans—­particularly with the terrible lesson of Aerschot still fresh in their minds—­I do not care to express any opinion as to the truth of the German assertions.

The Belgians tell quite a different story.  They say that, as the result of a successful Belgian offensive movement to the south of Malines, the German troops retreated in something closely akin to panic, one division falling back, after nightfall, upon Louvain.  In the inky blackness the garrison, mistaking the approaching troops for Belgians, opened a deadly fire upon them.  When the mistake was discovered the Germans, partly in order to cover up their disastrous blunder and partly to vent their rage and chagrin, turned upon the townspeople in a paroxysm of fury.  A scene of indescribable terror ensued, the soldiers, who had broken into the wine-shops and drunk themselves into a state of frenzy, practically running amuck, breaking in doors and shooting at every one they saw.  That some of the citizens snatched up such weapons as came to hand and defended their homes and their women no one attempts to deny—­ but this scattered and pitifully ineffectual resistance gave the Germans the very excuse they were seeking.  The citizens had attacked them and they would teach the citizens, both of Louvain and of other cities which they might enter, a lasting lesson.  They did.  No Belgian will ever forget—­or forgive—­that lesson.  The orgy of blood and lust and destruction lasted for two days.  Several American correspondents, among them Mr. Richard Harding Davis, who were being taken by train from Brussels to Germany, and who were held for some hours in the station at Louvain during the first night’s massacre, have vividly described the horrors which they witnessed from their car window.  On the second day, Mr. Hugh S. Gibson, secretary of the American Legation in Brussels, accompanied by the Swedish and Mexican charges, drove over to Louvain in a taxi-cab.  Mr. Gibson told me that the Germans had dragged chairs and a dining-table from a nearby house into the middle of the square in front of the station and that some officers, already considerably the worse for drink,