MEURTHE-ET-MOSELLE.
We arrived in the Department of Meurthe-et-Moselle on the 26th of October, and visited a great number of communes in the arrondissements of Nancy and Lunéville.
Nancy, an open town into which the German Army has not been able to enter, was bombarded without formal warning during the night of the 9th and 10th of September. About sixty shells fell into the middle of the town and in the southern cemetery—that is, in places where there is no military establishment. Three women, a young girl, and a little girl were killed; thirteen people were wounded; the material damage done was considerable.
The enemy's aviators have flown over the town twice. On the 4th of September one of them dropped two bombs, by one of which a man and a little girl were killed and six people wounded, in the Place de la Cathédrale. On the 13th of October three bombs were thrown on the goods station. Four persons employed by the Eastern Railway Company were wounded.
When we reached Pont-à-Mousson, on the morning of the 10th of November, seven shells had just been fired by the German batteries a few hours before. It was the 24th day of the bombardment, which began on the 11th of August. The evening before a young girl of 19 and a child of 4 had been killed in their beds by fragments of shells. On the 14th of August the Germans took as their special objective the hospital, from whose towers floated Red Cross flags, visible from a great distance. No less than seventy shells fell on to this building, and we have witnessed the damage they have caused.
About eighty houses were damaged by the different bombardments, all of which took place without any warning. Fourteen civilians, mainly women and children, were killed. There were about the same number of wounded. Pont-à-Mousson is not fortified. Only the bridge over the Moselle had been put in a state of defense, on the outbreak of hostilities, by the Twenty-sixth Battalion of Chasseurs, who were then quartered in the town.
We experienced real horror when we found ourselves before the lamentable ruins of Nomeny. With the exception of some few houses which still stood near the railway station in a spot separated by the Seille from the principal group of buildings, there remains of this little town only a succession of broken and blackened walls in the midst of ruins, in which may be seen here and there the bones of a few animals partially charred and the carbonized remains of human bodies. The rage of a maddened soldiery has been unloosed there without pity.
Nomeny, on account of its proximity to the frontier, received from the beginning of the war the visits of German troopers from time to time. Skirmishes took place in its neighborhood, and on Aug. 14, in the courtyard of the farm de la Borde, which is a little distance off, a German soldier, without any motive, killed by a rifle shot the young farm servant, Nicholas Michel, aged 17.
On Aug. 20, when the inhabitants sought refuge in the cellars from the bombardment, the Germans came up after having fired upon each other by mistake and entered the town toward midday.
According to the account given by one of the inhabitants, the German officers asserted that the French were torturing the wounded by cutting off their limbs and plucking out their eyes. They were then in a state of terrible excitement. That day and part of the next the German soldiers gave themselves over to the most abominable excesses, sacking, burning and massacring as they went. After they had carried off from the houses everything which seemed worth taking away, and after they had dispatched to Metz the product of their rifling, they set fire to the houses with torches, pastilles of compressed powder and petrol which they carried in receptacles placed on little carts. Rifle shots were fired on every side; the unhappy inhabitants, who had been driven from the cellars before the firing, were shot down like game—some in their dwellings and others in the public streets.
MM. Sanson, Pierson, Lallemand, Adam Jeanpierre, Meunier, Schneider, Raymond, Duponcel, and Hazotte, father and son, were killed by rifle shots in the streets. M. Killian, seeing himself threatened by a sabre stroke, protected his neck with his hand. He had three fingers cut off and his throat gashed. An old man aged 86, M. Petitjean, who was seated in his armchair, had his skull smashed by a German shot. A soldier showed the corpse to Mme. Bertrand, saying: "Do you see that pig there?" M. Chardin, Town Councilor, who was Acting Mayor, was required to furnish a horse and carriage. He had promised to do all he could to obey, when he was killed by a rifle shot. M. Prevot, seeing the Bavarians breaking into a chemist's shop of which he was caretaker, told them that he was the chemist, and that he would give them anything they wanted, but three rifle shots rang out and he fell, heaving a deep sigh. Two women who were with him ran away and were pursued to the neighborhood of the railway station, beaten all the way with the butts of rifles, and they saw many bodies heaped together in the station garden and on the road.
Between 3 and 4 o'clock in the afternoon the Germans entered the butcher shop of Mme. François. She was then coming out of her cellar with her boy Stub, and an employee named Contal. As soon as Stub reached the threshold of the entrance to the door he fell severely wounded by a rifle shot. Then Contal, who rushed into the street, was immediately murdered. Five minutes afterward, as Stub was still groaning, a soldier leaned over him and finished him off with a blow of a hatchet on the back.
The most tragic incident in this horrible scene occurred in the house of M. Vassé, who had collected a number of people in his cellar in the Faubourg de Nancy. Toward 4 o'clock about fifty soldiers rushed into the house, beat in the door and windows, and set it on fire. The refugees then made an effort to flee, but they were struck down one after the other as they came out. M. Mentré was murdered first; then his son Léon fell with his little sister, aged 8, in his arms. As he was not killed outright, the end of a rifle barrel was placed on his head and his brains blown out. Then it was the turn of the Kieffer family. The mother was wounded in the arm and shoulder. The father and little boy aged 10 and little girl aged 3 were shot. The murderers went on firing on them after they had fallen. Kieffer, stretched on the ground, received another bullet in the forehead, and his son had the top of his head blown off by a shot. Last of all M. Strieffert and one of the sons of Vassé were murdered, while Mme. Mentré received three bullets, one in the left leg, another in the arm on the same side, and one on her forehead, which was only grazed. M. Guillaume was dragged into the street and there found dead. Simonin, a young girl of 17, came out last from the cellar, with her sister Jeanne, aged 3. The latter had her elbow almost carried away by a bullet. The elder girl flung herself on the ground and pretended to be dead, remaining for five minutes in terrible anguish. A soldier gave her a kick, crying "Capout."
An officer arrived at the end of this butchery, and ordered the women who were still alive to get up, and shouted to them: "Go to France!"
While all these people were being massacred, others, according to an expression used by an eyewitness, were driven like sheep into the fields under the threat of immediate execution. The curé, in particular, owed his escape from being shot to extraordinary circumstances.
According to the depositions which we have received, all these abominations were committed chiefly by the Second and Fourth Regiments of Bavarian infantry. To explain them, the officers have alleged that civilians had fired on their troops. As our inquiry has established formally, this allegation is a lie, for at the moment when the enemy arrived all arms had been deposited at the Mairie, and the part of the population which had not quitted the country had hidden itself in the cellars, a prey to the greatest terror. Besides, the reason alleged, even were it true, would assuredly be insufficient to excuse the destruction of a whole city, the murder of women, and the massacre of children.
A list of persons who were killed in the course of the burning and the shootings has been drawn up by M. Biévelot, Conseiller d'Arrondissement. The list includes no less than 50 names. We have not quoted all of them. For one thing, among the people whose death has been proved, some died under conditions which are not stated with sufficient precision; on the other hand, the dispersal of the inhabitants of the town which has now been destroyed made our inquiry very difficult. Our efforts will be continued. In any case, what we have already been able to establish beyond dispute is enough to give an idea of what was, on the day of Aug. 20, the martyrdom of Nomeny.
Lunéville was occupied by the Germans from Aug. 27 to Sept. 11. During the first few days they were content to rob the inhabitants without molesting them in any other way. Thus, in particular on Aug. 24, the house of Mme. Jeaumont was plundered. The objects stolen were loaded on to a large vehicle in which were three women, one of them dressed in black and the two others wearing military costumes and appearing, as we were told, to be canteen women.
On Aug. 25 the attitude of the invaders suddenly changed. M. Keller, the Mayor, went to the hospital about 3:30 o'clock in the afternoon and saw soldiers firing in the direction of the attic of a neighboring house, and heard the whistling of the bullets, which appeared to him to come from behind. The Germans declared to him that the inhabitants had fired on them. He protested, and offered to go around the town with them in order to prove the absurdity of this allegation. His proposal was accepted, and as at the beginning of the circuit they came across in the street the body of M. Crombez, the officer commanding the escort said to M. Keller, "You see this body. It is that of a civilian who has been killed by another civilian who was firing on us from a house near the synagogue. Thus, in accordance with our law, we have burned the house and executed the inhabitants." He was speaking of the murder of a man whose timid character was known to all, the Jewish officiating minister, Weill, who had just been killed in his house, together with his 16-year-old daughter. The same officer added, "In the same way we have burned the house at the corner of the Rue Castara and the Rue Girardet, because civilians fired shots from there." It is from this dwelling that the Germans alleged shots had been fired on to the courtyard of the hospital, but the position of the building makes it impossible for such a statement to be true.
While the Mayor and the soldiers who accompanied him were pursuing their investigation the fire broke out on different sides; the Hôtel de Ville was burned as well as the synagogue, and a number of houses in the Rue Castara, and the Faubourg d'Einville was in flames. The massacres, which were continued until the next day, began at the same time. Without counting M. Crombez, the officiating minister, Weill, and his daughter, whose deaths we have already mentioned, the victims were MM. Hamman, Binder, Balastre, (father and son,) Vernier, Dujon, M. Kahn and his mother, M. Steiner and his wife, M. Wingerstmann and his grandson, and, finally, MM. Sibille, Monteils, and Colin.
The murders were committed in the following circumstances:—
On Aug. 25, after having fired two shots into the Worms Tannery to create the belief that they were being attacked from there, the Germans entered a workshop in this factory, in which the workman, Goeury, was working, in company with M. Balastre, father and son. Goeury was dragged into the street, robbed there and brutally ill-treated, while his two companions, who were found trying to hide themselves in a lavatory, were killed by rifle shots.
On the same day soldiers came to summon M. Steiner, who had hidden in his cellar. His wife, fearing some misfortune, tried to keep him back. As she held him in her arms she received a bullet in the neck. A few moments after, Steiner, having obeyed the order which had been given to him, fell mortally wounded in his garden. M. Kahn was also murdered in his garden. His mother, aged 98, whose body was burned in the fire, had first been killed in her bed by a bayonet thrust, according to the account of an individual who acted as interpreter to the enemy. M. Binder, who was coming out to escape the flames, was also struck down. The German by whom he was killed realized that he had shot him without any motive, at the moment when the unfortunate man was standing quietly before a door. M. Vernier suffered the same fate as Binder.
Toward 3 o'clock the Germans broke into a house in which were Mme. Dujon, her daughter aged 3, her two sons, and M. Gaumier, by breaking the windows and firing shots. The little girl was nearly killed; her face was burned by a shot. At this moment, Mme. Dujon, seeing her youngest son, Lucien, 14 years old, stretched on the ground, asked him to get up and escape with her. She then saw that his intestines were protruding from a wound, and that he was holding them in. The house was on fire; the poor boy was burned, as well as M. Gaumier, who had not been able to escape.
M. Wingerstmann and his grandson, aged 12, who had gone to pull potatoes a little way from Lunéville, at the place called Les Mossus, in the District of Chanteheux, were unfortunate enough to meet Germans. The latter placed them both against a wall and shot them.
Finally, toward 5 o'clock in the evening, soldiers entered the house of the woman Sibille, in the same place, and without any reason took possession of her son, led him 200 meters from the house and murdered him there, together with M. Vallon, to whose body they had fastened him. A witness, who had seen the murderers at the moment when they were dragging their victim along, saw them return without him and noticed that their saw bayonets were covered with blood and bits of flesh.
On the same day a hospital attendant named Monteils, who was looking after a wounded enemy officer at the hospital of Lunéville, was struck down by a bullet in the forehead while he was looking through a window at a German soldier who was firing.
The next day, the 26th, M. Hamman and his son, aged 21, were arrested in their own house and dragged out by a band of soldiers who had entered by breaking down the door. The father was beaten unmercifully; as for the young man, as he tried to struggle, a non-commissioned officer blew out his brains with a revolver shot.
At 1 o'clock in the afternoon M. Riklin, a chemist, having been informed that a man had fallen about thirty meters from his shop, went to the spot indicated and recognized in the victim his brother-in-law, M. Colin, aged 68, who had been struck in the stomach by a bullet. The Germans alleged that this old man fired upon them. M. Riklin denied this statement. Colin, we are told, was a harmless person, absolutely incapable of an aggressive act, and completely ignorant of the means of using a firearm.
It appeared to us desirable to deal also at Lunéville with acts which are less grave, but which throw a peculiar light on the habits of thought of the invader. On Aug. 25 M. Lenoir, 67 years of age, together with his wife, were led into the fields with their hands tied behind their backs. After both had been cruelly ill-treated, a non-commissioned officer took possession of 1,800 francs in gold which M. Lenoir carried on him. As we have already stated, the most impudent theft seems to have formed part of the customs of the German Army, who practiced it publicly. The following is an interesting example:
During the burning of a house belonging to Mme. Leclerc, the safes of two inhabitants resisted the flames. One, belonging to M. George, Sub-Inspector of Waters and Forests, had fallen into the ruins; the other safe, belonging to M. Goudchau, general dealer, remained fixed to a wall at the height of the second story. The non-commissioned officer, Weiss, who was well acquainted with the town, where he had often been welcomed when he used to come before the war to carry on his business of hop merchant, went with the soldiers to the place and ordered that the piece of wall which remained standing should be blown up with dynamite, and saw that the two safes were taken to the station, where they were placed on a truck destined for Germany. This Weiss was particularly trusted and esteemed by the persons in command. It was he who, installed at Headquarters, was given the duty of administering the commune in some sense, and was in charge of the requisitioning.
After having committed numerous acts of pillage at Lunéville, after having burned about seventy houses with torches, petrol, and various incendiary machines, and after having massacred peaceful inhabitants, the German military authorities thought it well to put up the following proclamation, in which they formulated ridiculous accusations to justify the extortion of enormous contributions in the form of an indemnity:
NOTICE TO THE POPULATION.
On Aug. 25, 1914, the inhabitants of Lunéville made an attack by ambuscade against the German columns and transports. On the same day the inhabitants fired on hospital buildings marked with the Red Cross. Further, shots were fired on the German wounded and the military hospital containing a German ambulance. On account of these acts of hostility a contribution of 650,000 francs is imposed on the commune of Lunéville. The Mayor is ordered to pay this sum—50,000 francs in silver and the remainder in gold—on Sept. 6, at 9 o'clock in the morning, to the representative of the German military authority. No protest will be considered. No extension of time will be granted. If the commune does not punctually obey the order to pay 650,000 francs all the goods which are available will be seized. In case payment is not made domiciliary searches will take place, and all the inhabitants will be searched. Any one who shall have deliberately hidden money or shall have attempted to hide his goods from the seizure of the military authorities, or who seeks to leave the town, will be shot. The Mayor and hostages taken by the military authorities will be made responsible for the exact execution of the above order. The Mayor is ordered to publish these directions to the commune at once.
Hénaménil, Sept. 3, 1914.
Commander in Chief,
Von FOSBENDER.
On reading this extraordinary document one is justified in asking whether the arson and murders committed at Lunéville on Aug. 25 and 26 by an army which was not acting under the excitement of battle, and which during its preceding days had abstained from killing, were not ordered on purpose to make more plausible the allegation which was to serve as a pretext for the exaction of an indemnity.
The village of Chanteheux, situated quite close to Lunéville, was not spared either. The Bavarians, who occupied it from the 22d of August to the 12th of September, burned there 20 houses in the customary manner and massacred 8 persons on the 25th of August, MM. Lavenne, Toussaint, Parmentier, and Bacheler, who were killed, the first three by rifle shots, the fourth by two shots and a blow with a bayonet; young Schneider, aged 23, who was murdered in a hamlet of the commune; M. Wingerstmann and his grandson, whose death we have recorded above in setting out the crimes committed at Lunéville; lastly, M. Reeb, aged 62, who certainly died as the result of the ill-treatment which he suffered. This man had been taken as hostage with some 42 of his fellow-citizens who were kept for 13 days. After having received terrible blows from the butt of a rifle in his face and a bayonet wound in his side, he continued to follow the column, although he lost much blood and his face was so bruised that he was almost unrecognizable, when a Bavarian, without any reason, gave him a great wound by throwing a wooden pail at his forehead. Between Hénaménil and Bures his companions saw that he was no longer with them; no doubt he fell by the way.
If this unhappy man was to suffer the most cruel martyrdom of all, the hostages taken with him in the commune had also to suffer violence and insult. Before setting fire to the village, the hostages were set with their backs to the parapet of the bridge while the troops passed by ill-treating them. As an officer accused them of firing on the Germans, the schoolmaster gave him his word of honor that it was not so. "Pig of a Frenchman," replied the officer, "do not speak of honor; you have none."
At the moment when her house was burning Mme. Cherrier, who was coming out of the cellar to escape suffocation, was drenched with an inflammable liquid by some soldiers who were sprinkling the walls. One of them told her that it was benzine. She then ran behind a dunghill to hide herself with her parents, but the fire raisers dragged her by force in front of the blaze and she was obliged to witness the destruction of her dwelling.
Like Nomeny, the pretty town of Gerbéviller, on the banks of the Mortagne, fell a victim to the fury of the Germans under terrible circumstances. On the 24th August the enemy's troops hurled themselves against some sixty chasseurs à pied, who offered heroic resistance, and who inflicted heavy loss upon them. They took a drastic vengeance upon the civilian population. Indeed, from the moment of their entrance into the town, the Germans gave themselves up to the worst excesses, entering the houses, with savage yells, burning the buildings, killing or arresting the inhabitants, and sparing neither women nor old men. Out of 475 houses, 20 at most are still habitable. More than 100 persons have disappeared, 50 at least have been massacred. Some were led into the fields to be shot, others were murdered in their houses or struck down in passing through the streets as they were trying to escape from the conflagration. Up to now 36 bodies have been identified. They are those of MM. Barthélemy, Blosse (Senior), Robinet, Chrétien, Rémy, Bourguignon, Perrin, Guillaume, Bernasconi, Gauthier, Menu, Simon, Lingenheld (father and son), Benoit, Calais, Adam, Caille, Lhuillier, Regret, Plaid (aged 14), Leroi, Bazzolo, Gentil, Victor Dehan, Charles Dehan, Dehan the Younger, Brennevald, Parisse, Yong, François, Secretary of the Mairie; Mmes. Perrot, Courtois, Gauthier, and Guillaume, and Mlles. Perrin and Miquel.
Fifteen of these poor people were executed at a place called "La Prèle." They were buried by their fellow-citizens on Sept. 12 or 15. Almost all had their hands tied behind their backs; some were blindfolded; the trousers of the majority were unbuttoned and pushed down to their feet. This fact, as well as the appearance of the bodies, made the witnesses think that the victims had been mutilated. We did not think we ought to adopt this view, the bodies being in such an advanced state of decomposition that a mistake on the subject might be made. Besides, it is possible that the murderers unbuttoned the trousers of the prisoners so as to incumber their legs, and thus make it impossible for them to escape.
On Oct. 16, at a place called Le Haut-de-Vormont, buried under fifteen to twenty centimeters of earth, we found the bodies of ten civilians with the marks of bullets upon them. On one of them was found a laissez passer in the name of Edward Seyer, of Badonviller. The other nine victims are unknown. It is believed that they were inhabitants of Badonviller, who had been taken by the Germans into the neighborhood of Gerbéviller to be shot there.
In the streets and houses, during the day of the sacking, the most tragic scenes took place.
In the morning the enemy entered the house of M. and Mme. Lingenheld, seized the son, 36 years of age, who wore the brassard of the Red Cross, tied his hands behind his back, dragged him into the street, and shot him. They then returned to look for the father, an old man of 70. Mme. Lingenheld then took to flight. On her way she saw her son stretched on the ground, and as the unhappy man was still moving some Germans drenched him with petrol, to which they set fire in the presence of the terrified mother. In the meantime M. Lingenheld was led to La Prèle, where he was executed.
At the same time the soldiers knocked at the door of the house occupied by M. Dehan, his wife, and his mother-in-law, the widow Guillaume, aged 78. The latter, who opened the door, was shot point-blank, and fell into the arms of her son-in-law, who ran up behind her. "They have killed me!" she cried. "Carry me into the garden." Her children obeyed and laid her at the end of the garden with a pillow under her head and a blanket over her legs, and then stretched themselves at the foot of the wall to avoid shells. At the end of an hour the widow Guillaume was dead. Her daughter wrapped her in a blanket and placed a handkerchief over her face. Almost immediately the Germans broke into the garden. They carried off Dehan and shot him at La Prèle, and led his wife away on to the Fraimbois road, where she found about forty people, principally women and children, in the enemy's hands, and heard an officer of high rank say: "We must shoot these women and children. We must make an end of them." However, the threat was not carried into effect. Mme. Dehan was set at liberty next day, and was able to return twenty-one days later to Gerbéviller. She is convinced, and all those who saw the body share her opinion, that her mother's body had been violated. In fact, the body was found stretched on its back with the petticoats pushed up, the legs separated, and the stomach ripped open.
When the Germans arrived M. Perrin and his two daughters, Louise and Eugénie, had taken refuge in a stable. The soldiers entered, and one of them, seeing young Louise, fired a shot point-blank at her head. Eugénie succeeded in escaping, but her father was arrested as he fled, placed among the victims who were being taken to La Prèle and shot with them.
M. Yong, who was going out to exercise his horse, was struck down before his own house. The Germans in their fury killed the horse after the master, and set fire to the house. Some others raised the trap-door of a cellar in which several people were hidden and fired several shots at them. Mme. Denis Bernard and the boy, Parmentier, 7 years of age, were wounded.
At 5 in the evening Mme. Rozier heard an imploring voice crying, "Mercy! Mercy!" These cries came from one of two neighboring barns belonging to MM. Poinsard and Barbier. A man who was acting as interpreter to the Germans declared to a certain Mme. Thiébaut that the Germans boasted that they had burned alive in one of these barns, in spite of his entreaties and appeals to their pity, a man who was the father of five children. This declaration carries all the more conviction, since the remains of a burned human body have been found in the barn belonging to Poinsard.
Side by side with this carnage, innumerable acts of violence were committed. The wife of a soldier, Mme. X., was raped by a German soldier in the passage of the house of her parents, while her mother was obliged to flee at the bayonet's point.
On Aug. 29 Sister Julie, Mother Superior of the hospital, whose devotion has been admirable, went to the parish church with a mobilized priest to examine the state of the interior of the building, and found that an attempt had been made to break through the steel door of the tabernacle. The Germans had fired shots around the lock in order to get possession of the ciborium. The door was broken through in several places, and the bullets had caused almost symmetrical holes, which proved that the shots had been fired point blank. When Sister Julie opened the tabernacle she found the ciborium pierced with bullet holes.
The excesses and crimes which were committed at Gerbéviller were principally the work of the Bavarians. The troops which committed them were under the command of the German General, Clauss, whose brutality has been brought to our notice in other places.
On the 22d of August the Germans burned part of the village of Crévic, using torches and rockets. Seventy-six houses were burned, including in particular that of Gen. Lyautey, which the fire-raisers had entered, led by an officer, crying aloud: "We want Mme. and Mlle. Lyautey in order to cut their throats." A Captain, leveling his revolver at M. Voigin's throat, threatened to shoot him and throw him into the flames, together with one of his fellow-citizens, "whose brains," he said, "we have already blown out." He was alluding to the death of an old gentleman, M. Liégey, 78 years of age, whose body was found in the ruins with a bullet wound under his chin. The officer added, "Come and see the property of Gen. Lyautey, who is in Morocco—it is burning." Meanwhile a workman named Gérard was forced at the bayonet's point to go up to his garret. The Germans set fire to a heap of forage and obliged Gérard to remain near the blaze. When the soldiers were driven out by the intolerable heat, Gérard was able to escape through a little opening, but he had had one cheek already badly burned.
At Deuxville, where the enemy willfully set fire to fifteen houses, the Mayor, Bajole, and the curé, Thiriet, were arrested. L'Abbé Marchal, curé of Crion, saw them both in his parish in the hands of the Germans; he approached his colleague and asked the reason of his arrest. The latter replied, "I made signs." L'Abbé Marchal gave him a little bread and went away; but he had scarcely gone thirty paces when he heard the sound of a volley. The two prisoners had just been executed. The next day an officer who spoke our language perfectly, and said that for eight years he had been attached to the German Embassy in Paris, told L'Abbé Marchal that the curé of Deuxville had made signs and had admitted it. "As for the Mayor," he added, "I do not believe the poor devil had done anything."
At Maixe the Germans burned thirty-six houses and murdered MM. Gauçon, Demange, Jacques, Thomas, Marchal, Chaudre, Grand, Simonin, Vaconet, and Mme. Beurton on the pretext that they had been firing at them. Gauçon was dragged from his own house and thrown on a dunghill where a soldier killed him with a rifle shot in the stomach. Demange, who was wounded in both knees while in his cellar, succeeded in dragging himself as far as the kitchen. The Germans set fire to the house and prevented Mme. Demange from rescuing her husband, and left their victims to be burned in the blazing house.
Mme. Beurton was also in her cellar with her family when two soldiers came down into it; one of them carried a lantern and the other a rifle. The latter fired haphazard on to the group and hit the unhappy woman. Vaconet was struck by a bullet in the side at the foot of M. Rediger's staircase; as for Simonin, he was taken away in the direction of Drouville. A few days afterward a German officer handed to M. Thouvenin, Municipal Councilor of the commune, a note stating that Simonin had been shot and that his last wishes were expressed in a document which was in the hands of the General commanding the Third Bavarian Division. On this document, of which a copy has been sent to us, appears the signature of an officer of the Third Regiment of the Chevauxlégers. The other victims at Maixe met their deaths under conditions which we have been unable to ascertain.
In the same village, Mlle. X., aged 23 years, was raped by nine Germans during the night of Aug. 23-24. An officer was sleeping in the room above that in which this revolting scene was being enacted, but he did not consider it necessary to intervene, though he must certainly have heard the cries of the young girl and the noise made by the German soldiers.
The Château of Beauzemont was broken into on the 22d of August. On the fifteenth day of its occupation, the wives of several German staff officers arrived in motor cars. Everything that had been stolen from the Château, especially plate, hats, and silk dresses, was loaded on the motor cars. On the 21st of October the Lieutenant Colonel commanding the —— French Infantry Regiment took possession of this château. He found it in a state of disorder and revolting filth. The drawers of most of the furniture had been broken into and left open, and the floor of the billiard room was in a filthy condition. There was a disgusting smell in the bedroom occupied by the German General commanding the Seventh Reserve Division. The cupboard at the head of the bed contained body linen and muslin curtains full of excrements.
At Baccarat the enemy did not massacre anybody, but on the 25th of August they carried out a systematic pillage, and in order to be able to do this undisturbed they had ordered the population to assemble at the railway station. The pillage was carried out under the supervision of the officers. Clocks and various articles of furniture and objets d'art were carried off. When the inhabitants returned home they were ordered out again an hour later and informed that the town was to be burned. Indeed, the centre of the town was ablaze. The conflagration, which was started by torches and pastilles, destroyed 112 houses; only four or five were burned by shells. After the fire sentinels were placed, who prevented the owners from approaching the ruins of their houses, and when the blaze had abated the Germans ransacked the ruins themselves in order to gain access to the cellars. After this operation Gen. Fabricius, commanding the artillery of the Fourteenth Baden Corps, said to M. Renaud, the Acting Mayor: "I did not think that Baccaret contained such a quantity of fine wine. We found more than 100,000 bottles." One must, however, add that at the glass works the enemy really displayed comparative honesty, inasmuch as they only exacted, at the revolver's point, a reduction of 60 to 75 per cent. on the goods which they bought.
At Jolivet, on the 22d of August, M. Villemin was leaving M. Cohan's house with the latter and a M. Richard when German soldiers fell upon M. Richard. Struck on the head by the butt of a rifle, Richard fell. Cohan rushed back to his house. Villemin went to look after his cattle, after having followed Richard for a short distance as the latter was being led away by his aggressors. At about 5 o'clock in the evening he went out to see a neighbor, but was immediately arrested and shot. His assassins threw his body over a fence into a garden.
On the 25th of August, in the same commune, Mme. Morin's house was pillaged. The Germans took linen, plate, furs and hats. The next day the house was set on fire by lighting bits of wood found in packing cases.
At Bonvillers, on the 21st, 23d, and 25th of August, twenty-six houses were set on fire by the Germans, who made use of squibs and candles.
At Einville, on the 22d of August, the day the Germans arrived, they shot a Town Councilor, M. Pierson, whom they wrongfully accused of having fired on them. They also executed, without reason, MM. Bouvier and Barbelin, whom they had taken away a short distance from the village. They also massacred a poacher called Pierrat, whom they had found carrying a sack containing a small net and a gun in pieces. The wretched man was terribly tortured by them. Having dragged him beyond the village, they brought him back in front of Mme. Famôse's house. This lady saw him pass by in the midst of the Germans. His nose was nearly cut off. His eyes were haggard and, to quote the witness's remark, he seemed to have aged ten years in a quarter of an hour. At this moment an officer gave an order and eight soldiers went off with the prisoner. When they returned ten minutes later without him one of them said in French, "He was already dead."
On the 12th of September M. Dieudonné, Mayor of Einville, was taken off as a hostage with his assistant and another of his townsmen by the enemy at the time of their retreat. He and his companions were taken to Alsace, then into Germany, where they were kept until the 24th of October. Before his arrest, and during a fight which took place around his commune, M. Dieudonné had been forced, notwithstanding his protests, to commandeer several of his townsmen in order to bury the dead. Three of the inhabitants of Einville thus forcible employed on this duty were wounded by bullets; another, M. Noël, was killed by a fragment of a shell.
The farm of Remonville, situated within the boundaries of the same village, was burned down. The women were able to escape. Four men who were working on this estate must have been all killed. The bodies of two of them, Victor Chaudre and Thomas Prosper, were discovered two months later buried together near the buildings which had been burned. Both had been decapitated, and Thomas's head was smashed to pieces.
At Sommerviller the enemy's course on the 23d of August was marked by the sack of the cafés and grocers' shops and of several private houses, and by the murder of M. Robert, aged 70, and M. Harau, aged 65, who were killed by rifle shots. The latter at the moment when he received his death wound was quietly eating a piece of bread.
At Rehainviller, on the 26th of August, the Germans seized the curé, Barbot, and M. Noircler in the street. The bodies of these two men were found a long time afterward buried in the fields a few hundred meters from the village. Their bodies were in an advanced state of decomposition, and it was therefore impossible to ascertain the wounds which the curé had received; as for Noircler, his head was found in the grave by the side of the rest of his body, in a line with his hip.
AVIATOR-COMMANDANT MARCONNAY
One of the Oldest and Best Known French Military Aviators Killed During a Reconnoissance.
(Photo from Underwood & Underwood.)
GENERAL SIR DOUGLAS HAIG
Commanding the First British Army, One of the Six Armies Recently Incorporated.
(Photo © American Press Association.)
In this commune twenty-seven houses have been burned. No one saw the fire lighted, but after the disaster a certain number of little fuse-sticks which the Germans frequently use for the purpose of fire-raising, and which the peasants call "macaronis," were collected.
At Lamath, on the 24th of August, the Bavarians shot an old man of 70, M. Louis, who had come out of his house to relieve the needs of nature. The unhappy man received at least ten bullets in the chest. His son-in-law, who was in an advanced stage of tuberculosis, was taken and led away. No news has been received of him. Two other inhabitants of the commune who were made prisoners at the same time as this man are still in captivity in Bavaria.
The Abbé Mathieu, curé of Fraimbois, was arrested on the 29th of August on the false allegation that shots had been fired at the Germans in his parish. In the course of his captivity, which lasted sixteen days, he was present at the murder of two of our fellow-countrymen, M. Poissonnier of Gerbéviller and M. Victor-Meyer of Fraimbois; the former, an invalid who could scarcely stand, was accused of having followed the armies as a spy. The latter had been arrested because his little girl had picked up a bit of telephone wire broken by shrapnel. One morning toward 6 o'clock the Bavarian officers went through a travesty of justice, reading documents drawn up in German, collecting the votes of eight or nine young Lieutenants to whom voting papers had been given. The two men were condemned unanimously and warned that they were about to die, and the priest was requested to give them the consolations of religion. They protested their innocence with prayers and tears, but they were compelled to kneel down against the embankment of the road, and a platoon of twenty-four soldiers drawn up in double file fired twice at them.
The village of Fraimbois was pillaged, and the objects stolen were loaded on to vehicles. The Abbé Mathieu complained to Gens. Tanner and Clauss of the burning of his bee-house, and received from the former the simple reply, "What do you expect? It is war!" The latter did not even reply.
At Mont three houses were burned with petrol. At Hériménil, on the 29th of August, the enemy, who had arrived on the 24th, were guilty of monstrous acts. The inhabitants were asked to come to church and were kept there for four days, while their houses were sacked and the French bombarded the village. Twenty-four people were killed inside the church by a shell. As a woman, who had succeeded with great trouble in leaving the church for a moment, was returning with a little milk for the children, a Captain, furious at seeing that this prisoner had been allowed to pass, cried out, "I meant that the door should not be opened! I meant the French to fire on their own people." This same Captain, a short time before, had been guilty of a revolting cruelty. He was present, eyeglass in eye, when Mme. Winger, a young woman of 23, was going to church in obedience to the general order, together with her servants, a girl and two young men, each of them 18 years old, and, considering their progress too slow, with a word he directed the soldiers to fire, and the four victims fell mortally wounded. The Germans left the corpses in the street for two days.
Next day they shot M. Bocquel, who was ignorant of the orders which had been given and had remained in his house. They also killed in his own house M. Florentin, aged 77. This old man, who received several bullets in the chest, was probably killed in consequence of his deafness, which prevented him from understanding what the enemy had ordered.
In this commune twenty-two houses were burned with petrol. Before setting fire to Mme. Combeau's house the soldiers dug up the floor of a cellar and distinterred the sum of 600 francs, which they appropriated.
On the 23d of August young Simonin, aged 15-1/2, living at Hadiviller, was going back from Dombasle when the Germans threatened him with their rifles and took him prisoner. They began by beating him unmercifully. Then on the orders of an officer, he was led away by a soldier. As he went along he saw his father about 50 meters off calling to him. The soldier then tied him to a telegraph pole, and fired on Simonin's father, who fell vomiting blood, and soon after died as he lay. Meanwhile, the young man was able to free himself from his bonds, and succeeded in running the gauntlet of several shots, one of which tore his coat.
At Magnières, where one house only was burned, a German armed with a rifle entered, toward the end of August, the house of M. Laurent and compelled a girl of 12, young ——, who had taken refuge there, to accompany him into a room, where he raped her twice, in spite of her ceaseless cries and groans. The poor girl was absolutely terrorized. In addition, the soldier was so threatening that M. Laurent did not dare to interfere.
At Croismare on the 25th of August, when the Germans were forced to beat a retreat, maddened by their check, they began to fire on everybody they met. A Uhlan officer killed with a rifle shot M. Kriegel, who had gone into the field to pull potatoes. He then saw MM. Matton and Barbier returning from their work. He rode up to them and ordered them to stop and stand up against an embankment. The two peasants thought at first that he was anxious to see them sheltered from the rifle shots that were being fired all round. But their delusion was soon dispelled when they saw him load his revolver. In the course of this operation three cartridges were dropped, and the officer ordered Matton and Barbier to pick them up. Barbier handed him one of the cartridges back with the words, "Do not do us any harm; we have just been working in the fields." "Nicht pardon, cochon de franzose, capout," replied the officer, and fired twice. Matton ducked quickly, and thanks to this movement was only hit in the right shoulder instead of full in the chest. As for Barbier, a bullet went through both his thumbs and ripped open his left forefinger.
At Réméréville on the 7th of September the enemy, alleging falsely that the inhabitants had fired on them from the steeple, set fire to the houses with the assistance of rockets. A few houses only escaped the flames. Before being burned the village had been bombarded by the Germans, who had taken as their objective an ambulance, whose flag they saw perfectly.
The commune of Drouville, which was twice occupied, was absolutely sacked on the 5th of September. The invaders burned thirty-five houses, using torches and doubtless petrol also, for they left on the spot a can which contained twenty-five to thirty liters.
At Courbesseaux arson and pillage were also committed on the 5th of September. Nineteen houses were burned, and M. Alix, who was trying to put out a fire in a stack of luzerne on his property, was shot at several times and obliged to flee.
Finally, on the 23d of August, at Erbéviller, a Saxon Captain found a very practical means of getting money for himself. He collected the men in the village and tried vainly, by threatening to shoot them, to obtain a declaration from them that the sentries had been shot at, although he knew perfectly well that it was untrue. Then he shut them up in a barn. In the evening he had brought before him the wife of M. Jacques, a retired schoolmaster, who was one of the prisoners, and said to her, "I am not certain that these are the men who fired. They will be set at liberty tomorrow morning if you can give me a thousand francs in the next few minutes." Mme. Jacques gave him the amount, and in reply to her request he gave her a receipt for it, and the hostages were set at liberty.
The receipt drawn up by the officer reads as follows:
Erbéviller, 23d August, 1914.
RECEIPT.
As a punishment for being suspected of having fired on German sentries during the night of August 22d and 23d I have received from the Commune of Erbéviller one thousand francs, (1,000 fr.)
BARON —— (illegible).
haupt. reit. regim.
In a commune of the Department of Meurthe-et-Moselle two nuns were for several hours exposed without defense to the lust of a soldier. By terrorizing them he obliged them to undress, and after having compelled the elder to pull off his boots, he committed obscenities on the younger. We undertook not to publish the names of the victims of this abominable scene, or of that of the village in which it took place, but the facts were laid before us under the sanction of an oath by witnesses who deserve the fullest confidence, and we take the responsibility of pledging ourselves as to their accuracy.
During our stay at Nancy and Lunéville, we had the opportunity of receiving a good deal of evidence with reference to crimes committed by the Germans in districts which were still occupied by their troops, and which the majority of the inhabitants had been forced to evacuate. The most cruel of these acts took place at the village of Emberménil. At the end of October or the beginning of November, an enemy patrol met near this commune a young woman, Mme. Masson, who was obviously pregnant, and questioned her as to whether there were French soldiers at Emberménil. She replied that she did not know, which was true. The Germans then entered the village and were received by our soldiers with rifle fire. On the 5th of November a detachment of the Fourth Bavarian Regiment arrived and collected all the inhabitants in front of the church. An officer then asked which person it was who had betrayed them. Suspecting that he referred to her meeting with the Germans some days before, and realizing the danger that all her fellow-citizens ran, Mme. Masson with great courage stepped forward and repeated what she had said, and declared that in saying it she had acted in good faith. She was immediately seized and forced to sit down on a bench beside young Dime, aged 24, who had been taken haphazard as a second victim. The whole population begged for mercy for the unhappy woman, but the Germans were inflexible. "One woman and one man," they said, "must be shot. Those are the Colonel's orders. What will you? It is war." Eight soldiers drawn up in two ranks fired three times at the two martyrs in the presence of the whole village. The house of Mme. Masson's father-in-law was then set on fire. That of M. Blanchin had been burned a few moments before.
Mme. Millot of Domèvre-sur-Vezouze has described to us the murder of her nephew, Maurice Claude, aged 17, of which she was an eyewitness. On the 24th of August, at the moment when the Germans arrived at Domèvre, this young lad was with his family in his father's house, at the foot of a staircase, when he saw that soldiers were aiming at him from the street. He stepped aside to shield himself, but was not able to find shelter, and was struck by three bullets. Wounded in the stomach, in the buttock, and in the thigh, he died three days later, after having displayed admirable resignation. When he knew that he was dying he said to his disconsolate mother, "I can well die for my country."
The same day MM. Auguste Claude and Adolphe Claude, the latter aged 75, were also killed, and 136 houses in the village were burned by means of incendiary cartridges. Further, two inhabitants, MM. Bretton and Labart, were taken as hostages. It is not known what has become of them since.
M. Véron, retired schoolmaster, at Audun-le-Roman, in the arrondissement of Briey, made a deposition before us which runs as follows:
"On the 21st of August, toward 5 in the evening, the Germans who had occupied for seventeen days the village of Audun-le-Roman, began without any reason to fire upon the houses with rifles and machine guns. Four women, Mlle. Roux, Mlle. Tréfel, Mme. Zapolli, and Mme. Giglio, were wounded. Mlle. Tréfel was struck while she was giving a drink to a German soldier. Three men were killed: M. Martin, an agriculturist, aged 68, whose house was burned, was led out and shot in the street in the presence of his wife and children. M. Chary, aged 55, foreman roadmaker, was escaping from the conflagration, holding his wife by the hand, when he was killed by rifle shots. I have seen his body, which was riddled with wounds. M. Ernest Samen was struck by five revolver bullets at the moment when he was shutting the door of his coach house.
"I saw the enemy set fire to the Café Matte with petrol. Mme. Matte went out with a little bag in her hand containing her savings, about two thousand francs. She was robbed by a German officer, who snatched the bag away."
The witness added that the Mayor must have been carried off by a patrol, but in any case he had disappeared.
At Arracourt, M. Maillard was killed in the fields by a bullet which went right through him; five houses were burned.
The village of Brin-sur-Seille was almost entirely destroyed by fire lighted by cartridges and round fuses. Further, the wife of a man at Raucourt who is with the colors, Mme. X., declared to us that she had been raped in her own house in the presence of her little boy, aged 3-1/2, by a soldier who had placed the point of his bayonet on her breast to overcome the resistance which she opposed to him.