The Inferno at VisÉ.

A correspondent of the Handelsblad was an eye-witness of the scenes in VisÉ, near LiÉge, when it was burned, and told a tale of German barbarity, and of the murder and torture of its helpless inhabitants, of a nature to make one’s blood run cold. As summarized in the Daily News the story is as follows:—

“It was an awful sight. Every house was a mass of flames, through which the streets were hardly visible.

“At the entrance of the Grand Hotel were three disarmed soldiers bound hand and foot. Entering the hotel, I found the floor covered with dead bodies. In that hall of the dead several soldiers stood guard. From this awful, nauseating scene I hurried back to the blinding glare and suffocating heat of the burning villages.

“The correspondent describes how a colleague supported an aged lady found lying near her blazing house. She pleaded, ‘Let me die.’ Poor, unhappy creature, bereft of home and even of adequate clothing, the aged

and defenceless victim of the Kaiser’s gallant army! He adds: ‘We fled from the scene that must for ever blur the scutcheon of the Kaiser, and I pray as long as I live it will never be my task to see such an inferno again.’

“Absolutely incredible was the picture of incidents connected with the burning of VisÉ by the Germans and the shooting given in private letters which arrived from Eysden, on the Dutch frontier, and seen by the Telegraaf. According to these letters, the Germans alleged that the citizens had fired on the troops. All the inhabitants were then hunted out of their houses to spend the night in the square watching the burning. Men were taken prisoners, and possibly shot, and the rest were driven out of the town, which was given to the flames. Eysden is filled with refugees—one hundred and fifty in one canteen and two hundred and fifty in the Protestant Church, while four hundred have been sent to Maastricht.

“Two trainloads of refugees came into Brussels from the Tirlemont district. The scenes I have witnessed,” telegraphs a Press Association correspondent, “and the stories told by these poor people would melt a heart of stone. Removal from the face of the earth—a phrase of the German papers themselves—continues to be the invader’s idea of how best to deal with unarmed, unoffending villages, the only crime of whose people is that they have fallen in his path.

“The Germans entered Tirlemont, in the vicinity of which they have been for some days. They were in strong force, mostly cavalry and artillery. The big guns shelled the place, and the cavalry played at war by attacking the flying and panic-stricken populace, shooting and stabbing them at random.

“Never have I seen such a picture of woe as a peasant woman and five children who stood bewildered in the Place de la Gare here, all crying as if their hearts would break. It was a terrible story the woman had to tell. ‘They shot my husband before my eyes,’ she said, ‘and trampled two of my children to death.’

“A German knocked at the door of the house of the Burgomaster at Venne, near the Dutch frontier, and when the Burgomaster’s wife opened the door she was knocked down and killed with the butt end of a rifle.

“A solicitor, who was a member of the Belgian Chamber, and who was staying in the house, rushed to the front door, and he also was instantly knocked down and killed with a bayonet thrust. On hearing of these atrocities the population fled in terror.”

Lancer’s Fiendish Act.

M. Isadore Felix Cruls, a Belgian refugee who arrived in London, had a tragic story to tell. He carried on a prosperous printing business at Saint JossÉ, a suburb of Brussels. When hostilities broke out he was called up for service in the Civil Guard, and stationed on the ChaussÉe de Louvain, the road between Louvain and Brussels. As reported in the Daily Telegraph, he stated:—

“At midnight on August 19th-20th I was on duty on the ChaussÉe de Louvain watching the refugees come in from the various towns and villages. The road was blocked when I got near. I saw that a party of German Lancers were at the rear of the procession of refugees. I saw one of the Lancers prodding a woman, who had four or five children walking by her side.

“There was an old woman, evidently the mother of the young woman, walking with them. One of the Lancers was amusing himself by pricking this old woman with his lance in order to make her walk along more quickly. The young woman turned round and shouted something at the Lancer, either by way of remonstrance or insult. I was not near enough to hear what she said. The Lancer took up his lance and ran it through one of the little girls who was walking along, clutching the hand of her mother. She was a fair-haired girl of about seven or eight years of age. When the crowd saw this they became infuriated, and a panic ensued. The Lancers bore down upon the people, scattering them in all directions. What became of these people I do not know.”