Abduction
Let us take the case of abduction of women, led away by German soldiers and brought in troops to Germany. These wretched women were put down as hostages. It is, however, certain that in more than one case they were led away merely to gratify the soldiers’ lust.
At Marcheville the Germans carried off several hundreds of women, who were interned at Amberg in Bavaria in barracks. At Saint-Mihiel seven or eight hundred women were also carried off to Germany.
At Charleville the women were kept on the spot, but brought to their several tasks and kept under a regimen of forced labour. They were kept constantly employed in making equipments for the troops, earning a wage of half-a-loaf of bread. At Bignicourt-sur-Saulx forty women were carried off, as hostages it was said. The Hungarian dragoons in particular, in Poland and in the Lublin and Kielce regions, were noted for this kind of conduct, revived from the most barbarous periods of war.
The second report of the French Commission of Inquiry (Journal Officiel of 11th March, 1915) gives striking details of the fate of Frenchwomen who were carried away from their own country and interned in Germany.
For the most part separated from their children, there was no kind of violence to which they had not to submit. The lack of food induced among them frightful maladies, which they had to endure under the most horrible conditions. So acute were their sufferings, that afterwards, when they were released, they were very depressed, under the idea that they were still in prison, and were obsessed with morbid fears. Several of them, including some octogenarians, had to be carried on stretchers.