Friday, August 24, 2007

Anniversary of the Dinant Massacre

On this day in history, In one of the worst atrocities of the First World War, German troops executed over 700 people in the Belgium town of Dinant, then sacked and burnt the town.
Nearly 700 Belgians, of whom 73 were women and 39 children, had been killed; and some 600 others who had been made prisoners had been sent to Germany, where they would be taught to live. Of the 1,400 houses which Dinant contained 1,200 were destroyed, burned from top to bottom, having first been pillaged; and the factories which had afforded a livelihood for several hundreds of hands, were now but heaps of ashes.

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