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- Before God and before Men, on our honor and conscience, without hatred and without anger, penetrated by the importance of the oath we are about to take, we all swear that we did not, in August 1914, know, see or know of anything that could have constituted an act of illegitimate violence against the troops of the invader. (en)
- Third criticism of my reports. "They contain nothing but insults against the Germans", you write. This is not true, Professor, and you know it. I defy you to cite an insulting expression you've read in them; there isn't one! I reported the facts; I didn't qualify them. I didn't need to; they were self-explanatory. Furthermore, I agree with you on the principle that insults are not arguments, and I think that expressions such as 'dirty inventions', 'bestial cruelties', 'atrocities that could not be more repulsive' are more the stuff of pamphlets than of history. I gather them from your work. To conclude this letter, I search in vain for the polite formula appropriate to the nature of our relationship. Please allow me, Professor, not to use any. (en)
- We are only waiting for the moment when the impartial historian can come to Dinant, see for himself what happened there, and interview the survivors. There are enough of them left to reconstruct all the facts in their truth and sincerity. Then it will become clear that there has never been a time when the innocence of the victims has been more clearly demonstrated, and the guilt of the perpetrators more obvious. Events will resolve themselves in the unleashing, within an army, of a cruelty as useless as it is inexplicable. Then the universe, which has already judged with extreme and just rigor the massacre of nearly seven hundred civilians and the destruction of an ancient city, with its monuments, archives and industries, will appreciate with even greater severity this new procedure which, to clear itself of a deserved accusation, stops at nothing and transforms unjustly sacrificed victims into assassins. (en)
- [...] And that's why I'm here today. I would like to ask you all to forgive the injustices that Germans once committed in this country. I ask this because I believe that such a request is more necessary than ever, precisely at a time when the process of European unification is intensifying, a Europe in which our two countries are jointly pursuing a policy aimed at preventing the recurrence of such crimes and suffering. (en)
- People of letters more concerned, it seems, with 'monetizing our disaster' - the expression is not mine - than with contributing to "bringing the truth to light", have already published high fantasy accounts. This is an insult to the memory of our martyrs. (en)
- I've barely crossed the twenty meters or so that separate us from the entrance to the bridge when I receive a whiplash-like blow to the knee that makes me miss my footing. The first four with me are also mowed down in the blink of an eye. I fall, and Sergeant Debout falls on top of me, killed stiff! Then, for half a minute, I'm surrounded by a hail of bullets. I can hear them cracking on the cobblestones and parapets, in front, behind and beside me! I also hear them thud into the corpses and wounded strewn across the ground. I think to myself: "My man, you're there!" Then, on reflection: "The only chance you've got of getting out of this is to drag yourself across the road to a house that's luckily open next door." (en)
- If I could have foreseen this march through Belgium and all the things that went with it, I would have refused to follow the army as a military chaplain. (en)
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