One of the sentries patted the shoulder of the peasant at Melle when he
learned that the man had had the three members of his family done to
death. Personally, he was sorry for the man, but orders were orders.
[Illustration: CHURCH IN TERMONDE WHICH THE WRITER SAW.
The Germans burned this church and four others, a hospital, an
orphanage, and 1,100 homes, house by house. Priests, nuns and churches
irritated the German Army. This photograph was taken by Radclyffe
Dugmore, who accompanied the writer, to witness the methodical
destruction.]
I spent September 13 and September 23 in Termonde. Ten days before my
first visit Termonde was a pretty town of 11,000 inhabitants. On their
first visit the Germans burned eleven hundred of the fifteen hundred
houses. They burned the Church of St. Benedict, the Church of St.
Rocus, three other churches, a hospital, and an orphanage. They burned
that town not by accident of shell fire and general conflagration, but
methodically, house by house. In the midst of charred ruins I came on
single houses standing, many of them, and on their doors was German
writing in chalk--"Nicht Verbrennen. Gute Leute wohnen hier." Sometimes
it would be simply "Nicht Verbrennen," sometimes only "Gute Leute," but
always that piece of German script was enough to save that house, though
to the right and left of it were ruins. On several of the saved houses
the name of the German officer was scribbled who gave the order to
spare.
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