"We arrived at the town of Wandre. The inhabitants without exception were brought out and shot. They all knelt down and prayed, but that was no ground for mercy. A few shots rang out and they fell back into the green grass and slept forever. It is real sport."—Page [34].
RUINS OF GERBÉVILLER
This once lovely village of Gerbéviller, is now called Gerbéviller the Martyred. In a rage of fury because of his enforced retreat before a French army, of two-thirds in number of his own troops, General Clauss looted this little city and massacred about one hundred of its people. Among the slain were fifteen very aged men, including the Mayor and his secretary, there being no young or middle-aged men left in the town who could be killed. Out of 475 houses, twenty at most were left habitable.—Page [37].
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE WRECKINGS
Two examples of wanton, unmilitary destruction. Above, a scene in Nomeny (Department of Meurthe-et-Moselle), and below, the splendid great Cloth Hall of Ypres. The former was simply the hell-blast of German passage; the latter, a distinct intention to destroy by fire a famous and beautiful edifice, made a target for the heaviest guns, with no remotest military reason—except "frightfulness."
