A Brigadier-General of the British Cavalry Corps:
On September 6th, the day before we got to Rebais, we passed a lonely farm where we found a shepherd with the top of his head blown off by a rifle-shot. He had been asked by the Germans for bread, and, on failing to produce any, had been shot.
(46)
Statement by Major ——, O.C. of a Cavalry Field Ambulance:—On October 17th, at Moorslede, north-east of Ypres, the Germans were reported as having strangled a young baker in this place. The inhabitants stated that he had been taken by the Germans to bake for them, and that he attempted to escape. The enemy caught him and stuffed a woollen scarf he was wearing down his throat, causing suffocation. One of my officers, Lieut. P——, viewed the body in the convent next day, and found the scarf stuffed in the man’s throat.
(47)
Private R. McK——, 2nd Royal Irish:—On the advance from the Marne to the Aisne in September, we passed through a village and saw a baby propped up at the window like a doll. About six of us went into the house, with a sergeant, and found the child dead—bayoneted. We found a tottering kind of old man, a middle-aged woman, and a youth, all bayoneted. In another village our interpreter pointed out to us two girls who were crying; he told us they had been ravished.
(48)
Driver B——, R.F.A.:—Somewhere between Chantilly and Villers-Cotterets, about the end of August, just after we started advancing, we were marching through a village, and the villagers called us into a house and showed us the body of a middle-aged man, with both arms cut off by a sword, pointed to him and said “Allemands.” They told our R.A.M.C. men in French that he had been killed when trying to protect his daughter.
In the next village, before we got to the Aisne, the villagers showed us the dead body of a woman, naked, on the ground, badly mutilated, her breasts cut off, and her body ripped up. They said “Allemands.”