In view of the military objective mentioned above and the serious straits in which the troops found themselves, treacherously attacked as they were from the rear, such action on our part could not be avoided.
The lives of women and children were, on principle, spared, so long as they were not caught in the act, or it was not a case of self-defence against their attacks (Apps. 5, 6, 25, 26, 28, 31, 35, 41, 47, 79). The fact that, despite this, women and children were killed and wounded is intelligible from the prevailing circumstances.
They were struck partly by shots coming from the enemy on the left bank of the Meuse and partly by stray shots during the house and street fighting (App. 10). In the shooting of the hostages at Les Rivages a few women and children were also hit. This happened in the case of some who, contrary to the arrangements made, had left their station which was apart from the male hostages, and had crowded together with the latter (Apps. 45, 46). That the troops of the XII. Corps did not show themselves harsh or cruel is proved by numerous cases in which they exhibited, under the existing circumstances, a solicitude, deserving special recognition, for women, old men, and children (Apps. 52, 53, 55, 58, 80-86). A number of women confined to their beds on account of child-birth were carried from houses in the danger zone to a sheltered place and laid on mattresses near our wounded (App. 5). Wounded inhabitants--the wounds mostly originated from the enemy's fire--were bandaged and given over to conscientious medical treatment (Apps. 7, 10, 29, 44, 47, 50-52, 68, 86, 87). Little children found alone were handed over to female care (Apps. 47, 51). The large number of women and children from burning Dinant who were in Les Rivages on the night of August 24th were sheltered in a house and provided with food and drink (Apps. 45, 51). In the morning they all received coffee from the field-kitchen of the Guards Regiment.
The account given by the surviving inhabitants of Dinant about the fighting for their town, and the statements thereto appended by the Belgian Commission of Inquiry, as well as those of the hostile Press, are marked by their complete silence as regards the part taken by the populace in the fighting against our troops, and, with intentional exaggeration, solely record what our troops have done to suppress this participation in the fighting. In face of what positively occurred, it is a malicious distortion of the actual facts to maintain that, because orders had been issued to give up all weapons, the inhabitants did not fire.