At Monceau-sur-Sambre, on the 21st of August, a young man of eighteen was shot in his garden. His father and brother were seized in their house and shot in the courtyard of a neighboring country house. The son was shot first. The father was compelled to stand close to the feet of his son’s corpse and to fix his eyes upon him while he himself was shot. The corpse of the young man shot in the garden was carried into the house and put on a bed. The next morning the Germans asked where the corpse was. When they found it was in the house, they fetched straw, packed it around the bed on which the corpse was lying, and set fire to it and burned the house down. A great many houses were burned in Monceau.
A vivid picture of the events at Montigny-sur-Sambre has been given by a witness of high standing who had exceptional opportunities of observation. In the early morning of Saturday, Aug. 22, Uhlans reached Montigny. The French Army was about four kilometers away, but on a hill near the village were a detachment of French, about 150 to 200 strong, lying in ambush. At about 1:30 o’clock the main body of the German Army began to arrive. Marching with them were two groups of so-called hostages, about 400 in all. Of these, 300 were surrounded with a rope held by the front, rear, and outside men. The French troops in ambush opened fire, and immediately the Germans commenced to destroy the town. Incendiaries with a distinctive badge on their arm went down the main street throwing handfuls of inflammatory and explosive pastilles into the houses. These pastilles were carried by them in bags, and in this way about 130 houses were destroyed in the main street. By 10:30 P.M. some 200 more hostages had been collected. These were drawn from Montigny itself, and on that night about fifty men, women, and children were placed on the bridge over the Sambre and kept there all night. The bridge was similarly guarded for a day or two, apparently either from a fear that it was mined or in the belief that these men, women, and children would afford some protection to the Germans in the event of the French attempting to storm the bridge. At one period of the German occupation of Montigny, eight nuns of the Order of Ste. Marie were captives on the bridge. House burning was accompanied by murder, and on the Monday morning twenty-seven civilians from one parish alone were seen lying dead in the hospital.
Other outrages committed at Jumet, Bouffioulx, Charleroi, Marchiennes-au-Pont, Couillet, and Maubeuge are described in the depositions given in the appendix.