Signed: HUCK, Lieutenant and Commander, Horse Depot 2, X. Army Corps.
STATEMENT of Captain Lüdke, commanding 2nd Train Detachment, X. Army Corps.
On August 24th, 1914, the 2nd Echelon of Trains had assigned to it for quarters the villages of Acoz and Joncret. The staff of the 2nd Train Section, X. Army Corps, and Horse Depot No. 2, occupied quarters in Acoz. On our arrival at Acoz at 8.30 p.m. there was scarcely a villager to be seen in the street. The doors and windows of the houses were shut. After the horses had been brought into a barn opposite the church, the three staff officers took up their quarters in the empty and open house of the doctor, which was also opposite the church, but on the other side of the square. The men of the Horse Depot were still engaged in bringing their horses into the side street. When we officers had been in the house about half an hour, a hot fire was, as if by word of command, opened upon the doctor's house in which we were quartered and on the Horse Depot. The shots came from all the windows of the houses which lay opposite, and from those of the side street, in which a part of the Horse Depot had already taken up their quarters, though some were yet in the street. At this moment an artillery munitions column marched through Acoz past the square near the church. These troops were in the same way assailed by the fire of the inhabitants. In conjunction with the men of the Horse Depot and this munitions column we advanced against the houses from which shots were still being fired. At last the firing ceased. All the front doors were shut, and had to be burst open; all the back doors which led into gardens or the open fields stood open. When the houses were searched there were found in the priest's house the priest himself and two men, whom he had hidden in the loft, with cartridges in their possession. The priest and these two men were taken off by the munitions column, which continued its march. The houses from which shots had come were set on fire. The staff of the 2nd Train Section and Horse Depot No. 2 occupied quarters in Serpinnes. Next day I dispatched Non-commissioned Officer Trapp and Corporal Bölhof from the staff of the 2nd Train Section to Joncret with orders. At Acoz, which they passed on the way, they were informed by several non-commissioned officers and men of the artillery munitions column and by an artillery non-commissioned officer, that in the town hall, which lies near the doctor's house, several cases of dynamite had been discovered and some hundreds of guns and cartridges in packets. Each packet bore a label with the name of the townsman to whom they were assigned. The artillery munitions column took possession of these objects.