"'No, I have seen them; the civilians have fired. Without doubt, it is not you who have fired, but it is you who have organized the resistance; it is you who have excited the patriotism of your parishioners, above all, among your young men. Why have you taught your young men the use of arms?'
"Without giving me time to respond, they led me away. They took me to the middle of the street in front of my house, with five of my poor old ones. A soldier was going to find a tent cord and tie us all together. They did not permit me to go into my house. They brought out afterwards before me five other of my parishioners, as well as three little chasseurs à pied that they were going to make prisoners. We waited there an hour. I saw passing a group of five of my people tied. I thought: What is going to happen to them?
"At that moment a captain on horseback arrived in front of us, reined up his horse in excitement, pulled his foot out of the stirrup and kicked our chasseurs in the groin. One of my people who was with me cried out: 'Oh, the pigs....'"
The Great German Staff believe these things are buried deep in burned cottages and village graves. They believe an early peace will wipe out the memory of that insolence. They have forgotten the thousands of eye-witnesses, of whom I have met some dozens, and of whom I am one. They cannot kill us who live to tell what we have seen them do. They cannot destroy a thousand diaries of German soldiers that tell the abominations they committed. This record will become a part of history. They thought to wipe out their cruelty in success. But the names of their victims are known, and the circumstance of their death. Not in China alone have they made their face a horror for a thousand years, but wherever there is respect for weakness and pity for little children.
X
THE EVIDENCE
I have told in these chapters of the peasants of Northern France, and I have given their life in war in their own words. I want to tell here how this material was gathered, because the power of its appeal rests on the recognition of its accuracy. A small part of the testimony I followed in long hand as it was spoken. The rest, three-quarters of the total testimony, was taken down in short-hand by one or the other of two stenographers. I have used about one-fifth of the collected material.
My companions were the well-known American writers, Will Irwin and Herbert Corey. Other companions have been Lieutenant Louis Madelin, the distinguished historian, whose work on the French Revolution was crowned by the French Academy; Lieutenant Jules Basdevant, Professor of International Law at the University of Grenoble; Lieutenant Monod, once of Columbia University, and always a friend of our country; Captain Callet, Professor of Geography at Saint-Cyr, now of the Etat Major of the Third Army; and the Baron de la Chaise. I don't wish to imply that the French Army is exclusively composed of scholarly gentlemen with an established position in the world of letters. But it happened to be the good pleasure of the French Minister of War and of the Foreign Office to make of our trips a delightful social experience. Most important, these men are worthy witnesses of the things I have seen, and the statements I have recorded.