Their Crimes - Various
At Pin, some Uhlans found two young boys on the road. They tied them by
the arms to their horses and galloped off. The bodies of the poor lads
were found a few miles away--their knees were "literally crushed"; one
had his throat cut and both had several bullets in their heads. At
Sermaize, a labourer, named Brocard, and his son, were arrested. His
wife and daughter-in-law, mad with terror, threw themselves into a
neighbouring stream. The old man broke away, and ran to try and save
them. The Germans dragged him away.... Four days later Brocard and the
son, on being liberated, returned home, and after a search, found the
bodies. The two women, while still in the water, had been shot several
times through the head. A parish priest named Dergent was taken to
Aerschot, stripped, and tied to a cross in front of the church; his
fingers and toes were crushed and broken with the butt-end of a rifle.
The inhabitants were made to pass in front of him and were each
compelled to urinate on him in turn; then he was shot and his body
thrown into the canal.[10]
At Herimenil, during the pillage, the inhabitants were shut up in a
church, and kept there for four days without food. When Madame Winger,
23 years of age, and her three young servants, one girl and two boys,
were too slow in leaving her farm to go to the church, the captain
ordered his men to fire on them. Four more dead bodies!
The Germans arrived at Monchy-Humieres. A group of inhabitants watched
them marching past. No provocation whatever was offered, but an officer
thought that he heard someone utter the word "Prussians." He at once
called out three dragoons, and ordered them to fire upon the group--one
killed and two wounded--one of the latter being a little girl of four.
At Sommeilles, when the fire--which destroyed the whole place--broke
out, Madame X. took refuge in a cellar belonging to M. and Madame Adnot,
who were there, with their four children, the eldest a girl of 11 years.
A few days after, on returning to the village, our soldiers found the
seven bodies in the cellar lying in a pool of blood, several of them
being horribly mutilated. Madame X. had her right arm severed from her
body; the little girl's foot had been cut off, and the little boy of
five had his throat cut.
At Louveigne a certain number of men were shut up in a blacksmith's
shop; in the afternoon the murderers opened the door as if it were a
pigeon-shooting competition, drove the prisoners out, and shot them
down--a ghastly group of 17 corpses.
At Senlis the heroic Mayor, M. Odent, and six members of his staff were
shot.
At Gerbeviller they forced their way into the house of M. and Madame
Lingenheld; seized the son, aged 36, exempt from service, and wearing
the badge of the Red Cross, tied his hands, dragged him into the street
and shot him. They then returned to look for the father, an old man of
70. Meanwhile the mother, mad with terror, made her escape. On coming
out she saw her son lying on the ground. As he still showed signs of
life, they threw paraffin over him and roasted him. The father was shot
later on with fourteen other old men. More than 150 victims were
identified in this parish.
At Nomeny, M. Vasse provided shelter for a number of neighbours in his
cellar. Fifty soldiers got in and set fire to the house. To escape the
flames the refugees rushed out and were shot one by one as they emerged.
Mentre was killed first; his son Leon, with his little eight-year-old
sister in his arms, fell next: as he was not quite dead they put the
barrel of a rifle to his ear and blew his brains out. Then came the turn
of a family named Kieffer. The mother was wounded; the father, his boy
and girl, aged respectively 10 and 3, were shot down. They fell on them
with fury. Striffler, Guillaume, and Vasse were afterwards massacred.
Young Mlle. Simonin, 17 years old, and her small sister, afraid to leave
their refuge in the cellar, were eventually driven out by the flames,
and immediately shot at. The younger child had an elbow almost blown off
by a bullet; as the elder girl lay wounded on the ground, she was
deliberately kicked by a soldier. At Nomeny 40 victims were identified.
And now we come to some of the _wholesale slaughters._ At Louvain, more
than 100 victims; at Aerschot, over 150; at Soumagne, 165; at Ethe, 197;
at Andenne, over 300; at Tamines, 400; at Dinant, upwards of 600, of
whom 71 were women, 34 old men of over seventy, 6 children from five to
nine years old, and 11 under five. At Aerschot, a first batch of 78 men
were taken out of the town, and ordered to advance in groups of three,
holding each other by the hand, when they were made to pass in front of
some German Military Police, who shot them all at short range with
revolvers. Others had their hands bound so tightly that many screamed
with pain: they spent the night lying on the ground, and were shot the
next day. Many, before execution, were compelled to dig their own
graves. At Dinant, the victims were placed in two rows, the first
kneeling, the second standing. Then came the order--"Fire!" At Tamines,
several hundred men were massed in the Place Saint-Martin, on the bank
of the Sambre. The assassins stood ten yards away and fired a volley.
All fell, but some were not wounded. The officer in command ordered them
to "stand up." A second volley was fired. As soon as the firing
finished, there was a frightful scene which lasted until the
evening--the killing of the wounded. Many soldiers, some wearing the
badge of the Red Cross, approached their victims by the light of small
lanterns, and passed through their ranks, clubbing them with the butt
end of their rifles, and stabbing with bayonets. A perfect shambles!
In these horrors we do not discern the musical note, or the
acknowledgment of the "Old German God." Yet, here is a specimen:--
At Andenne, Colonel Schumann, in command of the Potsdam Rifles,
organised a grand concert in the evening at the Place des Tilleuls. The
entertainment ended with a prayer!
It now remains for us to publish a few extracts from note-books found
upon officers and privates. Some are short items like the
following:--"Pepinster, 12th August. Burgomaster, Priest and
Schoolmaster shot, and houses burnt to the ground. We resume our march."
Another, "Villers-en-Fagne, village in flames. The population had
notified the French of the approach of the grenadiers; thereupon the
hussars set fire to the village, the Parish Priest and others being
shot."
Others enter into details of the executions. "_Leffe._ We shoot everyone
who fires on our men. We put three, one behind the other, and a Marburg
rifleman kills them outright with a single shot. It is war to the
knife."
Another expresses something other than enthusiasm for such work.
"Considering that the King (of the Belgians) has given orders to defend
the country by all possible means, we have been ordered to shoot every
male inhabitant. At Dinant more than 100 were collected in a crowd and
shot. A dreadful Sunday." Another, an aesthete, writes as follows:
"During the night many more civilians were shot, so many that we were
able to count over 200. Women and children, with lamps in their hands,
were compelled to witness the horrible sight. We afterwards ate our
rice among the dead bodies. Sadly beautiful." He adds (in shorthand)
"Captain Hermann was drunk."
Again another: "_Dinant._ We have been firing on everyone who showed
himself, or on those thrown out of the houses, men or women. The bodies
lie in the streets, in heaps a yard deep."
A Saxon officer writes: "My company is at Bouvignes. Our men behave like
vandals: everything is upset; the sight of the slaughtered inhabitants
defies all description; not a house is left standing. We have dragged
out of every corner all survivors, one after another, men, women, and
children, found in a burning cloister, and have shot them 'en masse.'"
The following depositions on the massacres at Nomeny are made by
prisoners, one a Bavarian officer in the Reserve, the other a private in
the same regiment. The lieutenant says: "I gathered the impression that
it was impossible for the officers at Nomeny to prevent such acts. As
far as I can judge, the crimes committed there, which horrified all the
soldiers who were at Nomeny later on, must be put down to the acts of
unnatural brutes." The soldier says, "At five o'clock regimental orders
were received to kill every male inhabitant of Nomeny, and to raze
everything to the ground; we forced our way into the houses." Here is a
more detailed account of a massacre near Blamont. "All the villagers
fled: it was terrible; their beards thick with blood, and what faces!
They were dreadful to look at. The dead were all buried, numbering
sixty. Among them were many old men and women, and one unfortunate woman
half confined--the whole being frightful to look at. Three children
were clasped in each other's arms, and had died thus. The Altar and the
vaulting of the church were destroyed because there was a telephone[11]
communicating with the enemy. This morning, 2nd September, all the
survivors were expelled. I saw four small boys carrying away on two
sticks a cradle containing a baby of five or six months. All this is
dreadful to see. Blow for blow: thunder against thunder! Every thing is
given up to pillage. I also saw a mother with her two children; one had
a big wound on the head, and one eye knocked out."
FOOTNOTES:
[8] They have decorated the pirates who sank the _Lusitania_. They glory
in the crime, and have even struck a commemorative medal in its honour.
[9] In this case, and many of the following ones, the reader is
requested to note, and remember, the _motive_ for the murders.
[10] This cruel treatment of the Abbe Dergent, priest of Gelrode, near
Louvain, is reported by a neutral witness, Father G., a student at
Louvain. The German soldiers accused the Belgian priests of every
conceivable crime; the Assistant-Priest of Sainte-Gertrude (Louvain),
who was remonstrating with a soldier, received this reply: "We are
Catholics too, but you are pigs and black devils." In Belgium about one
hundred of the clergy were massacred. Note further that in this
unfortunate country _doctors_ were particularly ill-treated;
thirty-seven being shot in the small parishes, while more than one
hundred and fifty disappeared altogether from large towns.
[11] To whom did it belong, and where was it? Telephones exist in every
district of Meurthe-et-Moselle. Besides, our army installed field
telephones which were not all destroyed at the time of their retreat. It
is a most foolish pretext, yet where can one find a more stupid one than
this? A German official communique, in order to prove that the general
rising of the people had been organized for a long time, declares, "that
depots of arms were installed, where each rifle bore the name of the man
for whom it was intended." It is absolutely clear that this applies to
arms taken from civilians by order of the local authorities in Belgium
and France, and deposited at the Town Hall, every weapon bearing the
name of its owner. Would they have taken that for an arsenal? No, stupid
as they may be, they are not so foolish as that. They feign stupidity
simply because they know very well that the conscience of the civilized
world is beginning to be moved.
OUTRAGES ON WOMEN AND CHILDREN
We might write a long and heartbreaking chapter on this pitiful subject,
but let the following suffice. The Report of the French Commission of
Enquiry concludes with these words, "Outrages upon women and young girls
have been common _to an unheard-of extent_." No doubt the bulk of these
crimes will never come to light, for it needs a concatenation of special
circumstances for such acts to be committed in public. Unfortunately and
only too often these circumstances have existed, _e.g._, at
Beton-Bazoches and Sancy-les-Provins, a young girl, and at St.
Denis-les-Rebaix, a mother-in-law and a little boy of eight years old,
and at Coulommiers a husband and two children, were witnesses to
outrages committed on the mother of the family. Sometimes the attacks
were individual and sometimes committed by bodies of men, _e.g._, at
Melen-Labouxhe, Margaret W. was violated by twenty German soldiers, and
then shot by the side of her father and mother. They did not even
respect nuns.[12]
They did not even spare grandmothers (Louppy-le-Chateau,
Vitry-en-Perthois ...).
Nor did they respect children.... At Cirey, a witness (a University
professor), whose statements one of us took down a few days after the
tragedy, cried to a Bavarian officer, "Have you no children in Germany?"
All the officer said in reply was, "My mother never bore swine like
you."
Now and then they let themselves loose on a whole family; at Louppy, the
mother and her two young girls aged thirteen and eight, respectively,
were simultaneous victims of their savagery.
The outrages sometimes lasted till death. At Nimy, the martyrdom of
little Irma G. lasted six hours till death delivered her from her
sufferings. When her father tried to rescue her he was shot, and her
mother was seriously wounded. Indeed, it was certain destruction to any
frenzied parent who tried to defend his child. A clergyman of Dixmude
says, "The burgomaster of Handzaeme was shot for trying to protect his
daughter." And how many other cases have occurred! We have not the heart
to continue the list.
FOOTNOTES:
[12] See the report of the French Commission (vol. i., page 35). See
also, in the "Reply to the White Book," p. 500, the moving letter of
Cardinal Mercier to von Bissing: "My conscience forbids my divulging to
any tribunal the information, alas, only too well substantiated, which I
possess. Outrages on nuns have been committed ..."
KILLING THE WOUNDED
There are _great numbers_ of wounded who, on their solemn oath, have
related how, when lying on the field of battle, they saw their wounded
comrades "finished off" by rifle or revolver shots, or by blows from
butt-ends, or by bayonet stabs, or kicked to death by German soldiers,
non-commissioned officers, and even by officers.[13]
We cannot pause to analyse these innumerable depositions. There is other
evidence. How often, when a counter-attack has put us in possession of
ground lost the day before, have we found poor fellows "finished
off"--with their throats cuts, as in the case of the two sergeants of
the 31st Chasseurs at the Pass of Sainte-Marie, or "with their own
bayonets driven into their mouths," like the poor little fellow of the
17th. The enemy often runs amok like this:--"On August 23rd, the Cure of
Remereville tended Lieutenant Toussaint (who passed out first at the
Forestry School in July). When he fell in battle, this young officer was
bayoneted by all the Germans who passed near him, and his body was a
mass of wounds from head to feet." At Oudrigny "a German officer met a
French vehicle showing the Red Cross flag, and loaded with ten wounded.
He deployed his company, and fired two volleys at it." At Bonviller, an
officer murdered nine French wounded, stretched helpless in a barn, by
shooting them through the ear. On 23rd August at Montigny-le-Tilleul, M.
Vital was caught in the act of tending a French soldier, L. Sohier by
name, wounded in the head and side. Such a crime deserved punishment,
and the wretches first shot the orderly and then the patient.
At Ethe they set a shed on fire and roasted more than twenty wounded who
were lying there.
We all know the celebrated order of General Stenger in the region of
Thiaville (Meurthe-et-Moselle):--"No prisoners are to be taken. All
prisoners, whether wounded or not, must be slaughtered."
It was not only in Lorraine that such orders were given. Listen to the
depositions of a German soldier: "The same day we saw eighteen other
Frenchmen. Lieutenant N. told us to shoot them as he did not know what
else to do with them."
Read this letter found at L'Ecouvillon in a German trench which we
recaptured: "Every day we take many prisoners, but they are shot at once
as we no longer know where to put them."
Think of the diary in which a German soldier near Peronne recorded his
impressions of the day: "They lay in heaps of ten or twelve, some dead
and some still living. Those who could still walk were marched off.
Those who were wounded in the head or lungs, and could not lift
themselves up, were finished off with a bullet. That is the order which
we got."
A German soldier, while being nursed in a hospital at Nancy, confided to
Dr. Roemer that the wound in his stomach "had been inflicted on him by a
German N.C.O. because he refused to finish off a wounded Frenchman."
Wounded were not only massacred on the field of battle, but field
hospitals were also the scene of atrocities. At Gomery, in a casualty
clearing station, under Dr. Sedillot, there were numerous wounded
remaining in the German lines. A German officer with twenty-five men
visited the place and inspected it and retired, saying that all was in
order. But a N.C.O. and a party of soldiers remained in the street
outside. They were excited and kept shouting, "It is war to the death,"
and making signs of cutting throats. They rushed in and with their
revolvers shot down Dr. Sedillot (who happily survived, with others, to
give evidence), and set fire to the place. Maddened by the flames, the
wounded (many of whom had had amputations performed on them that very
morning) leapt from the windows on the first floor and fell into the
garden, where the executioners picked them up, gathering them in a
bunch, and shot them. In this way Lieutenant Jeannin and Dr. Charette
were murdered, and from one hundred to one hundred and twenty officers
and soldiers--whose wounds should have made them sacred--perished from
shot or fire after terrible sufferings.
When all is said, however, it is better to kill wounded soldiers by fire
or sword than by starvation, as the following incident shows: One
hundred wounded Frenchmen, together with Dr. Bender, were brought to the
Stenay barracks, and one hundred and eighty more came in shortly
afterwards; the latter, having been left out unattended on the
battle-field for five days, were in a terrible condition. Dr. Bender in
vain begged the Germans for help in getting the wounded men out of the
ambulances into the hospital. The Boches refused, and simply went on
sucking their pipes. Though wounded himself, the doctor, with the aid of
two male nurses (Frenchmen both), had to do the whole thing himself.
For several days the Boches gave them no food at all. "Our poor fellows
screamed with hunger,"[14] says the doctor, on oath, and adds, "I had
sixty badly wounded with me, and begged the German army doctor to
operate, but he said he had no time. I then asked his leave to operate
myself, but his reply was, "You are in the German lines, and must
conform to our rules." The doctor ends his pathetic evidence with the
words, "Nearly all these unhappy men died of neglect."
We have seen doctors, like Professor Vulpius, actually steal money; but
of all the types of Boche doctors, the most hideous is the hero of the
following tale, taken from the deposition of Dr. Bender. "A French
soldier, at Stenay, was under my treatment. He had a wound in his
foot--not very severe, which did not need an operation at all. What was
my astonishment to find that a German army surgeon had amputated his
thigh? I could not help expressing my indignation, and the surgeon's
only reply was, "He will be a man the less against us in the next
war."[15] They will deny these crimes to-morrow, but in 1914 they
gloried in them.
On the 18th of October a Silesian newspaper published an article sent
from the front by a N.C.O., in which he says, "Men who are particularly
tender-hearted give the French wounded the 'coup de grace' with a
bullet, but the others cut and thrust as much as possible. Our enemies
fought bravely ... whether they are slightly or badly wounded our brave
Fusiliers spare the Fatherland as far as possible the expensive trouble
of looking after numerous enemies. In the evening, with prayers of
thanksgiving on our lips, we go to sleep." Are these mere boastings of
crimes? No. The article was submitted to the Captain of the Company who
certified it as correct and counter-signed it. The N.C.O., the Captain,
the Silesian public, the whole German nation were delighted to see this
abominable story of murder and shame appear in the paper under the
heading, "A Day of Honour for our Regiment."[16]
FOOTNOTES:
[13] Report of the French Commission, vol. iii.
[14] He adds that certain orderlies--Lorrainers, belonging to the German
Army--supplied them with food on the sly.
[15] French chivalry could hardly believe that a doctor would amputate a
wounded enemy's limb without absolute necessity and in mere revenge, but
such cases are, alas, not rare. See the awful tales of torture in the
"Journal d'un Grand Blesse en Allemagne," by Charles Hennebois (pp. 137,
146), and the statement of a German doctor (p. 87), "Your doctors in
France perform amputations as they please on our wounded. The order has
therefore been given to amputate without hesitation, as reprisals, every
damaged limb."
[16] Let us quote, to show the mental "make-up" of certain Germans, the
conditions in which Captain Coustre of the 108th and Captain Lesourd of
the 50th met their deaths. They were wandering over the battle-field
where the enemy had been repulsed. They heard a cry for help. There was
a soldier in one place and an officer in another who asked for a drink.
They stopped and leant over them to give them a drink from their flasks
when the wounded men blew their brains out.
SHELTERING BEHIND WOMEN
Let us call to mind the innumerable instances when the Boches put up
their hands, or waved a white flag, and cried, "Kamerad," pretending to
surrender: thus drawing our unsuspecting men towards them and then
suddenly moving aside, to leave the field open to a party of riflemen or
a machine-gun hidden away behind them. These are the tricks of cowards,
which were constantly employed at the beginning of the war, and our men
(at the cost of many victims) learned at last to guard against them. But
they have done even more cowardly things than this. There was the German
officer who, to protect himself from danger while taking observations,
put three children round him. At Nery, twenty-five persons, women and
children, were compelled to walk at the side of a Boche column to
protect it from being enfiladed. Near Malines, six German soldiers who
were taking with them five young girls, on meeting a Belgian patrol,
placed the girls all round them to prevent the enemy from firing. At
Jodoigne they put a Cure in front of them and made him walk with his
arms folded, and they did the same at Hougaerde to another Cure who was
killed. A similar fate befell several civilians at Mons. At Senlis, our
men were firing to cover our retreat, and the Germans took some
inhabitants out of the houses and made them walk in the middle of the
streets while they themselves kept along by the walls. Many of these
unfortunate people were killed. "In numerous places," says the Belgian
Commission of Enquiry, "the Germans made civilians--men and women--walk
in front of them." In this way a German column passed through
Marchienne, pushing ahead of them a body of several hundred civilians.
They took the road for Montigny-le-Tilleul, where the first important
battle with the French forces took place. At Sempst, during the fighting
on the 25th August, men and women were placed in the front rank of the
firing line. At Erpe, on the 12th September, a German column, attacked
by a Belgian motor-machine-gun, took out of the houses twenty to
twenty-five men and young people (including a child of thirteen), and
made them walk in front in the middle of the road. The machine-gunners,
seeing civilians in front of them, ceased firing. At Alost, a German
company attacked the bridge. In front marched some thirty civilians with
a machine-gun hidden behind them. At Nimy, with the butt-ends of their
rifles, they drove in front of them 500 men, women and children towards
the English, who in consequence dared not fire; and in this way the 84th
and 85th Schleswig Regiments were able to continue their heroic march as
far as Maubeuge.
When their adversary cannot actually see the human shield that they are
using, they send a warning. On the 7th September, 1914, the Death's Head
Hussars shut up all the inhabitants of the village with them in the
Chateau of Saint Ouen-sur-Morin, and then, to avoid being shelled,
informed the English of their "dispositions." They fired on anyone who
tried to escape. At Mouzon, we saw a number of civilians being pushed in
front of the enemy with the butt-ends of rifles, and we stopped firing.
The wretched people moved suddenly to one side of the road, uncovering
the Germans, and then we fired. The Boches, furious, fired their first
volley not at us, but point blank at these non-combatants, who were
decimated.