In the meantime house burners were at work.  On the 6th, Battice was destroyed in part.  From the 8th to the 10th over 300 houses were burned at Herve, while mounted men shot into doors and windows to prevent the escape of the inhabitants.

At Heure le Romain on or about the 15th of August all the male inhabitants, including some bedridden old men, were imprisoned in the church.  The Burgomaster’s brother and the priest were bayoneted.

On or about the 14th and 15th the village of Vise was completely destroyed.  Officers directed the incendiaries, who worked methodically with benzine.  Antiques and china were removed from the houses, before their destruction, by officers who guarded the plunder, revolver in hand.  The house of a witness, which contained valuables of this kind, was protected for a time by a notice posted on the door by officers.  This notice has been produced to the committee.  After the removal of the valuables this house also was burned.

German soldiers had arrived on the 15th at Blegny Trembleur and seized a quantity of wine.  On the 16th prisoners were taken; four, including the priest and the Burgomaster, were shot.  On the same day 200 (so-called) hostages were seized at Flemalle and marched off.  There they were told that unless Fort Flemalle surrendered by noon they would be shot.  It did surrender and they were released.

Entries in a German diary show that on the 19th the German soldiers gave themselves up to debauchery in the streets of Liege, and on the night of the 20th (Thursday) a massacre took place in the streets, beginning near the Cafe Carpentier, at which there is said to have been a dinner attended by Russian and other students.  A proclamation issued by General Kolewe on the following day gave the German version of the affair, which was that his troops had been fired on by Russian students.  The diary states that in the night the inhabitants of Liege became mutinous and that fifty persons were shot.  The Belgian witnesses vehemently deny that there had been any provocation given, some stating that many German soldiers were drunk, others giving evidence which indicates that the affair was planned beforehand.  It is stated that at 5 o’clock in the evening, long before the shooting, a citizen was warned by a friendly German soldier not to go out that night.

Though the cause of the massacre is in dispute, the results are known with certainty.  The Rue des Pitteurs and houses in the Place de l’Universite and the Quai des Pecheurs were systematically fired with benzine, and many inhabitants were burned alive in their houses, their efforts to escape being prevented by rifle fire.  Twenty people were shot, while trying to escape, before the eyes of one of the witnesses.  The Liege Fire Brigade turned out but was not allowed to extinguish the fire.  Its carts, however, were usefully employed in removing heaps of civilian corpses to the Town Hall.  The fire burned on through the night and the murders continued on the following day, the 21st.  Thirty-two civilians were killed on that day in the Place de l’Universite alone, and a witness states that this was followed by the rape in open day of fifteen or twenty women on tables in the square itself.