III

Plate 5.

This (Plate 5) is the first page of an unsigned note-book:

“Langeviller, 22 August. Village destroyed by the 11^th Battalion of the Pioneers. Three women hanged on trees: the first dead I have seen.”[13]

Who are these three women? Criminals surely, guilty no doubt of having fired on the German troops, unless they had been telephoning to the enemy; and the 11^th Pioneers had no doubt punished them justly. But they have expiated their crime now, and the 11^th Pioneers have gone by, and of their crime, the newly advancing troops know nothing. Among these new troops will there be a commander, a Christian, to order the cords to be cut and to release these dead women. No, the regiment will march by under the gibbets, and the flags will brush by these corpses; they will pass along Colonel and officers, gentlemen and Kulturträger.

Plate 6.

And they know full well what they are doing: these dead women must remain these, as an example; as an example, not for the other women in the village—these had already no doubt understood—, but as an example for the regiment, and for other regiments who were to come afterwards. These must be made warlike, they must be taught their duty, that is to shoot women when the opportunity occurs. The lesson bore fruit indeed. Here is sufficient proof: the young soldier who had that day seen and told us of “dead for the first time” makes the following note on the 10^th and last page of his diary (Plate 6).

Plate 7.

“In this way we destroyed 8 houses with their inmates. In one of them two men with their wives and a girl of eighteen were bayonetted. The little one almost unnerved me so innocent was her expression. But it was impossible to check the crowd, so excited were they, for in such moments you are no longer men, but wild beasts.”[14]

And to prove that this murder of women and children is all in the days work of the German soldier, here is further evidence.

a) The author of an unsigned note-book (Plate 7) relates that at Orchies (Nord) a woman was shot for not having stopped at the word of command Halt! Thereupon, he adds, the whole place was burnt.[15]

b) The officer already mentioned of the 178^th Saxon Regt reports that in the outskirts of Lisognes (Belgian Ardennes) “a scout from Marburg having placed three women one behind the other brought them all down with one shot”.

Plate 8.

c) Let us now quote a few lines from the diary of a reservist a certain Schlauter (3^rd Battery of the 4^th Regt, Field Artillery of the Guard, Plate 8):

25^th August (in Belgium): Three hundred of the inhabitants were shot and the survivors were requisitioned as grave-diggers. You should have seen the women at this moment! But you can’t do otherwise. During our march on Wilot, things went better: the inhabitants who wished to leave could do so and go where they liked.[16] But anyone who fired was shot. When we left Owele, shots were fired: but there, women and everything were fired on [17]....