Gen. von Kluck's army arrived at Crépy-en-Valois on the 2d of September, and took four days to march through. The town was completely sacked under the eyes of the officers. In particular the jewelers' shops were ransacked.
Thefts of jewelry and body linen were committed in a house in which lodged a General commanding with some twelve officers of the General Staff. Almost all the safes in Crépy were gutted.
On the 3d of the same month, at Baron, an artist of great talent, Prof. Albéric Magnard, fired two shots from a revolver on a troop which was entering his property. One soldier was killed and another wounded. The Germans, who in so many places have committed the worst cruelties without any motive, here contented themselves with burning the property of their aggressor. The latter committed suicide to avoid falling into their hands. None the less the commune was sacked. M. Robert, notary, was robbed of his jewelry, his linen, and of 1,471 bottles of wine, and forced to open his safe and allow an officer to take 8,300 francs which were locked up there. In the evening he saw another officer who wore on his finger nine women's rings, and whose arms were adorned with six bracelets. Two soldiers told him, besides, that they received a premium of four marks whenever they brought their commanding officers a piece of jewelry.
In this commune, Mme. X., a most respectable young woman, was violated by two soldiers in succession in the absence of her husband, who is with the colors. One of these two men ransacked a chest of drawers while his comrade was committing his crime.
At Mesnil-sur-Bulles on the evening of the 4th of September two Germans arrived in a carriage and one on a bicycle and went to the house of the Deputy Mayor, M. Gustave Queste. As the latter did not understand them, he asked his cousin, M. Queste, Professor at the Lycée of Amiens, to act as interpreter for him. After having fulfilled this office the professor returned home. A few minutes afterward, hearing a shot, he went out to ascertain what was happening. He found himself in the presence of one of the three soldiers to whom he had just spoken in his cousin's house. This man, who was drunk, fired at him and killed him.
The same three soldiers, passing through Nourard-le-Franc, set fire to seven houses with torches which they had brought with them in their carriage. A few hours before their arrival at Mesnil-sur-Bulles a Uhlan patrol had already made a reconnoissance in this commune. Troopers entered the house of M. Amédée Queste, burst open a door, broke the furniture, and stole a quantity of jewelry as well as a sum of 60 francs.
At Choisy-au-Bac the Germans, who had been in the village since the 31st of August, willfully set fire on the 1st and 2d of September to forty-five houses under the grossly false allegation that they had been fired upon, and previously, in the presence of their officers, gave themselves up to a general pillage, the product of which was carried away in vehicles stolen from the inhabitants. Two army doctors, wearing the brassards of the Red Cross, themselves pillaged the house of Mme. Binder.
M. Morel, working carpenter, who was in his garden, was shot in the groin by a soldier who was passing on the road. He died next day. Four young men were taken as hostages and led away on the 8th of September. One of them was able to escape. His comrade, René Leclere, is said to have been shot at Besme, in the Department of the Aisne; as for the other two, no one knows what has become of them.
At Compiègne, which was occupied by the enemy from the 31st of August to the 12th of September, the château suffered comparatively little; the thefts there were not very important. But a great number of houses were pillaged. The house of Comte d'Orsetti, which is situated opposite to the palace, was literally sacked, principally by non-commissioned officers. Plate, jewelry, and valuables were collected in the courtyard of the château, examined, inventoried, and packed up, and were then loaded in two removal vans on which had been placed the Red Cross flag.
Application was made to Capt. Schroeder to put an end to the burglary and the scandalous orgy which was going on in the villa, and at last he went to the place; but after having glanced at the interior of the pillaged houses he went off again, saying, "It is war, and besides I have no time."