No depositions are before us which deal with events in the City of Liege after this date.  Outrages, however, continued in various places in the province.

For example, on or about the 21st of August, at Pepinster two witnesses were seized as hostages and were threatened, together with five others, that, unless they could discover a civilian who was alleged to have shot a soldier in the leg, they would be shot themselves.  They escaped their fate because one of the hostages convinced the officer that the alleged shooting, if it took place at all, took place in the Commune of Cornesse and not that of Pepinster, whereupon the Burgomaster of Cornesse, who was old and very deaf, was shot forthwith.

The outrages on the civilian population were not confined to the villages mentioned above, but appear to have been general throughout this district from the very outbreak of the war.

An entry in one of the diaries says: 

“We crossed the Belgian frontier on 15th August, 1914, at 11:50 in the forenoon, and then we went steadily along the main road till we got into Belgium.  Hardly were we there when we had a horrible sight.  Houses were burned down, the inhabitants chased away and some of them shot.  Not one of the hundreds of houses were spared.  Everything was plundered and burned.  Hardly had we passed through this large village before the next village was burned, and so it went on continuously.  On the 16th August, 1914, the large village of Barchon was burned down.  On the same day we crossed the bridge over the Meuse at 11:50 in the morning.  We then arrived at the town of Wandre.  Here the houses were spared, but everything was examined.  At last we were out of the town and everything went in ruins.  In one house a whole collection of weapons was found.  The inhabitants without exception were shot.  This shooting was heart-breaking, as they all knelt down and prayed, but that was no ground for mercy.  A few shots rang out and they fell back into the green grass and slept for ever.” ["Die Einwohner wurden samt und sonders herausgeholt und erschossen:  aber dieses Erschiessen war direkt herzzerreisend wie sie alle knieben und beteten, aber dies half kein Erbarmen.  Ein paar Schuesse krackten und die fielen ruecklings in das gruene Gras und erschliefen fuer immer.”]

VALLEYS OF MEUSE AND SAMBRE.

While the First Army, under the command of General Alexander von Kluck, was mastering the passages of the Meuse between Vise and Namur, and carrying out the scheme of devastation which has already been described, detachments of the Second German Army, under General von Buelow, were proceeding up the Meuse valley toward Namur.  On Wednesday, Aug. 12, the town of Huy, which stands half way between Namur and Liege, was seized.  On Aug. 20 German guns opened fire on Namur itself.  Three days later the city was evacuated by its defenders, and the Germans proceeded along the