The Bishop of Namur writes:
"It is evident that the German army trod the Belgian soil and carried
out the invasion with the preconceived idea that it would meet with
bands of this sort, a reminiscence of the war of 1870. But German
imagination will not suffice to create that which does not exist.
"There never existed a single body of _francs-tireurs_ in Belgium.
"No 'isolated instance' even is known of civilians having fired upon the
troops, although there would have been no occasion for surprise if any
individual person had committed an excess. In several of our villages
the population was exterminated because, as the military authorities
alleged, a major had been killed or a young girl had attempted to kill
an officer, and so forth.... In no case has an alleged culprit been
discovered and designated by name."
This lie--that the peasants brought their own death on themselves--was
rehearsed before the war, as a carefully learned lesson. The army came
prepared to find the excuse for the methodical outrages which they
practised. In the fight in the Dixmude district, a German officer of the
202e Infantry had a letter with this sentence on his body:
"There are a lot of _francs-tireurs_ with the enemy."
There were none. He had found what he had been drilled to find, in the
years of preparedness. The front lines of the Yser were raked clear by
shell, rifle, and machine-gun fire.
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