When the Russian troops advanced on May 15th, Davidenko saw the bodies of many cossacks, who had been bayoneted or sabred to death in the trenches abandoned on May 12th.
The above facts have been confirmed by the evidence of Davidenko, who was interrogated as a witness by the Examining Magistrate of the second ward of Kharkov.
V. Murder of Wounded Soldiers.
On the retirement of the Russians, after the battle near Gumbinnen, in Eastern Prussia, August 7th, 1914, a junior subaltern, named Alexander Lappo, aged twenty-six, who had been wounded in the back by a piece of an exploded shrapnel, was left behind, lying on the field.
He soon perceived a group of about fifteen Germans, headed by an officer and a colour sergeant, following up their detachments, and shooting all the wounded Russians within reach as they marched along. There was no consideration for the fact that these Russians had been struck down at a considerable distance from the actual fighting, without having fired a shot. One of the Germans in this squad caught sight of Lappo and fired at him with his rifle. Lappo received the bullet in his left elbow. A second shot, fired by the same German soldier, hit a wounded Russian private Tartar, lying next to Lappo. The Tartar made one or two convulsive movements and expired. The pain from the wound in his elbow made Lappo moan rather loudly, and this attracted the attention of the German officer, who at once levelled his revolver and shot him in the neck. This second wound rendered Lappo unconscious and he only recovered his senses towards evening, when he was picked up by Russian Red Cross men. Lappo then noticed that his leather wrist band with a black watch, worth ten roubles, had been stolen, evidently by the Germans.
It is not certain to what troops of the enemy’s forces this German officer and the men under his command belonged, but the German soldiers killed in the battle near Stalupenen, on August 4th, 1914, in which Lappo took part, had the figures “41” on their shoulder straps.
The above described facts have been verified and established by a combined judicial and medical examination, and by the evidence of Lappo, given under oath before the Examining Magistrate of the Circuit Court of Vitebsk, district of Gorodok.
VI. Burning the Russian Wounded.
Evidence of the Private Nicholas Semenov Dorozhka
In the latter half of June the regiment in which this witness was one of the rank and file took part in a battle near Ivangorod. When the fighting was over, the regiment settled down to rest. Some of the men, however, went to help the sanitary attendants to bring in the wounded and place them in a wooden cart-house or shed, roofed with straw, at one end of the village. According to statements made by the Red Cross bearers, from sixty-six to sixty-eight men were lodged in this building. At eleven o’clock at night there was a sudden and violent rattle of rifle fire. The village had been surrounded by the Germans. The witness seized his rifle and started to leave with three comrades, but in the darkness they stumbled into a German trench, and were taken prisoners. Their weapons were taken from them, and all four Russians were led to the same cart-shed, to which the witness Dorozhka had assisted to carry the Russian wounded. A German officer on the spot gave an order to his German soldiers and then he gathered up an armful of the straw, littered over the floor of the shed, placed it against one of the corners of the building, and set fire to it with a match. The witness declares, that he almost fainted when he saw this officer setting fire to the shed. The straw blazed up at once, the flames began to envelop the wooden walls, and when it reached the roof, piercing shrieks came from the wounded inmates, calling for help. At this moment the officer who fired the shed approached the prisoners, who were standing near, and without uttering a word, he discharged his revolver point blank at one of the comrades of the witness, who instantly fell to the ground dead. Then this officer struck witness’s other comrade with something in the lower part of the body, and by the light of the conflagration witness noticed that the man’s intestines were protruding. Dorozhka rushed to one side and managed to break away from a group of German soldiers and escaped unhurt, although three shots were fired after him. The witness, after tramping all night, fell in with one of the Russian pickets.