In the same village, on Thursday, Aug. 20, German soldiers were searching a house where a young girl of 16 years lived with her parents.  They carried her into an abandoned house, and while some of them kept the father and mother off, others went into the house, the cellar of which was open, and forced the young woman to drink.  Afterward they carried her out on the lawn in front of the house and attacked her successively.  She continued to resist, and they pierced her breast with their bayonets.  Having been abandoned by the soldiers after these abominable attacks, the girl was carried off by her parents, and the following day, owing to the gravity of her condition, she was administered the last rites of the Church by the priest of the parish and carried to the hospital at Louvain.  At that time her life was in danger.

On Aug. 24 and 25 Belgian troops, leaving the intrenched camp in Antwerp, attacked the German Army which was outside of Malines.

The German troops were driven back as far as Louvain and Vilvorde.

Penetrating the towns which had been occupied by the enemy, the Belgian Army found the whole country devastated.  The Germans, while retiring, had ravaged and set fire to the villages, taking with them all the male inhabitants, driving them before them.

Old Woman Killed by Bayonets.

Upon entering Hofstade, on Aug. 25, the Belgian soldiers found there the corpse of an old woman who had been killed by bayonet thrusts; she still held in her hands the needle with which she was sewing when she was attacked; one mother and her son, aged about 15 or 16 years, lay there, pierced with bayonet wounds; one man was found hanging.

In Sempst, a neighboring village, were found the corpses of two men partially burned.  One of them was found with his legs cut off at the knees, the other was minus his arms and legs.  A workman (whose charred body several witnesses have seen) had been pierced with bayonets, and afterward, while still living, the Germans soaked him with petroleum and locked him in a house, which they set on fire.  An old man and his son had been killed by bullets; a woman coming out of her house had been stricken down in the same manner.

A witness whose declaration has been received by Edward Hertslet, son of Sir Cecil Hertslet, Consul General of Great Britain in Antwerp, testifies to have seen not far from Malines on Aug. 26 (that is, during the last attack of the Belgian troops) an old man attached by the arms to a beam of a barn.  The body was completely burned; the head, the arms, and the feet were intact.  Further on was a body all over stabbed with bayonet thrusts.  Numerous corpses of peasants were found in positions of supplication, arms lifted and hands folded in prayer.  The Belgian Consul to Unganda, who had entered the Belgian Army as a volunteer, reports that everywhere the Germans had passed through the country was devastated.  The few inhabitants who remained in the villages told of horrors committed by the enemy.  Thus in Wacherzeel seven Germans are said to have consecutively attacked a woman, afterward killing her.  In the same village they had stripped a young boy, threatening him with death by pointing a revolver at his breast, piercing him with their lances, and chasing him into the open fields and shooting after him, without, however, hitting him.