Chapter II: Sir Edward Grey's Reply (2)

Numerous crimes against the person have also been committed. In the majority of the communes hostages have been taken away; many of them have not returned. At Sermaize-les-Bains, the Germans carried off about 150 people, some of whom were decked out with helmets and coats and compelled, thus equipped, to mount guard over the bridges.

At Bignicourt-sur-Saulx thirty men and forty-five women and children were obliged to leave with a detachment. One of the men--a certain Emile Pierre--has not returned nor sent any news of himself. At Corfélix, M. Jacquet, who was carried off on the 7th of September with eleven of his fellow-citizens, was found five hundred meters from the village with a bullet in his head.

At Champuis the curé, his maid-servant, and four other inhabitants, who were taken away the same day as the hostages of Corfélix, had not returned at the time of our visit to the place.

At the same place an old man of 70, named Jacquemin, was tied down in his bed by an officer and left in this state without food for three days. He died a little time after.

At Vert-la-Gravelle a farm-hand was killed. He was struck on the head with a bottle and his chest was run through with a lance.

The garde champêtre Brulefer of le Gault-la-Forêt was murdered at Maclaunay, where he had been taken by the Germans. His body was found with his head shattered and a wound on his chest.

At Champguyon, a commune which has been fired, a certain Verdier was killed in his father-in-law's house. The latter was not present at the execution, but he heard a shot and next day an officer said to him, "Son shot. He is under the ruins." In spite of the search made the body has not been found among them. It must have been consumed in the fire.

At Sermaize, the roadmaker Brocard was placed among a number of hostages. Just at the moment when he was being arrested with his son, his wife and his daughter-in-law in a state of panic rushed to throw themselves into the Saulx. The old man was able to free himself for a moment and ran in all haste after them and made several attempts to save them, but the Germans dragged him away pitilessly, leaving the two wretched women struggling in the river. When Brocard and his son were restored to liberty, four days afterward, and found the bodies, they discovered that their wives had both received bullet wounds in the head.

At Montmirail a scene of real savagery was enacted. On the 5th of September a non-commissioned officer flung himself almost naked on the widow Naudé, on whom he was billeted, and carried her into his room. This woman's father, François Fontaine, rushed up on hearing his daughter's cry. At once fifteen or twenty Germans broke through the door of the house, pushed the old man into the street, and shot him without mercy. Little Juliette Naudé opened the window at this moment and was struck in the stomach by a bullet, which went through her body. The poor child died after twenty-four hours of most dreadful suffering.

On the 6th of September at Champguyon, Mme. Louvet was present at the martyrdom of her husband. She saw him in the hands of ten or fifteen soldiers, who were beating him to death before his own house, and ran up and kissed him through the bars of the gate. She was brutally pushed back and fell, while the murderers dragged along the unhappy man covered with blood, begging them to spare his life and protesting that he had done nothing to be treated thus. He was finished off at the end of the village. When his wife found his body it was horribly disfigured. His head was beaten in, one of his eyes hung from the socket, and one of his wrists was broken.

At Esternay, on the 6th of September, toward 3 in the afternoon, thirty-five or forty Germans were leading away M. Lauranceau, when he made a sharp movement as if to free himself. He was immediately shot down.

In the same town the following facts have been laid before us:

During the night, between Sunday, the 6th of September, and Monday, the 7th, the soldiers who were scattered among the houses pillaging, discovered the widow Bouché, her two daughters, and Mmes. Lhomme and Macé, who had taken refuge under the cellar staircase. They ordered the two young girls to undress, then, as their mother tried to intervene, one of the soldiers, bringing his rifle to his shoulder, fired in the direction of the group of women. The bullet, after having struck Mme. Lhomme near the left elbow, broke the right arm of Mlle. Marcelle Bouché at the armpit. During the following day the young girl died as a result of her wound. According to the declarations made by witnesses, the wound was horrible to behold.

Further, our inquiry in the Department of the Marne established other crimes of which women were the victims.

On the 3rd of September, at Suippes, Mme. X., 72 years of age, was seized by a German soldier, who pushed the barrel of his revolver under her chin and brutally flung her on her bed. Her son-in-law rushed up at the noise, fortunately for her, at the moment when the rape was about to be consummated.

At the same place and time little ----, 11 years old, was for three hours the prey of a licentious soldier, who, having found her with her sick grandmother, dragged her to a deserted house and stopped her mouth with a handkerchief to prevent her crying out.

On the 7th of September, at Vitry-en-Perthois, Mme. X., aged 45, and Mme. Z., aged 89, were both raped; the latter died a fortnight later.

At Jussecourt-Minecourt, on the 8th of September, toward 9 in the evening, Mlle. X. was violated by four soldiers, who broke in the door of her room with the help of a billhook. All four flung themselves on this young girl, who was 21 years old, and ravished her in succession.

As the bombardment of open towns constitutes without doubt a violation of international law, we thought it necessary to go to Rheims, which was for eighty days bombarded by the Germans. We received a sworn statement from the Mayor, from which we learned that about 300 of the civilian population had already been killed; we saw that in different parts of the town numerous buildings had been destroyed, and we took note of the enormous and irreparable damage which had been inflicted on the cathedral. The bombardment has continued since the 7th of October, the day of our visit; the number of the victims, therefore, must now be very considerable. Every one knows how the unhappy town has suffered, and that the attitude of the municipality has been above all praise.

While we were working at the Hôtel de Ville, six shells were fired in the direction of this building. The fifth fell only a short distance from the principal front, and the sixth burst fifteen or twenty meters from the bureau.

Next day we went to the Château of Baye and witnessed the traces of the sack which this building has suffered. On the first floor a door which leads into a room next to a gallery, where the owner had collected valuable works of art, has been broken in; four glass cabinets have been broken and another has been opened. According to the declarations of the caretaker who, in the absence of her masters, was unable to acquaint us of the full extent of the damage, the principal objects stolen were jewels of Russian origin and gold medals. We noticed that the mounts covered with black velvet, which must have been taken out of the cases, were stripped of a part of the jewels which had previously been affixed to them.

Baron de Baye's room was in the greatest disorder. Numerous objects were strewn on the floor from the drawers which remained open. A writing table had been broken open. A Louis XVI. commode and a bureau à cylindre of the same period had been ransacked.

This room must have been occupied by a person of very high rank, for on the door there still remains a chalk inscription, "J.K. Hoheit." No one could give us exact information as to the identity of this "Highness"; however, a General who lodged in the house of M. Houllier, Town Councilor, told his host that the Duke of Brunswick and the staff of the Tenth Corps had occupied the château.

The same day we visited the Château of Beaumont, which is near Montmirail, and belongs to the Comte de la Rochefoucauld-Doudeauville. The wife of the caretaker declared that this house had been sacked by the Germans in the absence of its owners during an occupation which lasted from the 4th to the 6th of September. The invaders left it in an indescribable state of disorder and filth. The writing tables, bureaus, and safes had been broken open. The jewel boxes had been taken from the drawers and emptied.

On the doors of the rooms we could read inscriptions in chalk, among which we took note of the following: "Excellenz," "Major von Ledebur," "Graf Waldersee."

MEUSE.

The Department of the Meuse, a great part of which the German armies still occupy, has suffered cruelly. Important communes there have been destroyed by fires lighted willfully by the Germans in the absence of any kind of military necessity, and without the population's having given any provocation for such atrocities by their attitude. This is the case particularly at Revigny, Sommeilles, Triaucourt, Bulainville, Clermont-en-Argonne, and Villers-aux-Vents.

The Germans having completely sacked the houses of Revigny and carried off their booty on vehicles, burned two-thirds of the town during three consecutive days from the 6th to the 9th of September, sprinkling the walls with petrol by means of hand pumps, and throwing into the houses little bags full of compressed powder in tablets. We have been furnished with specimens of these little bags and these tablets, as well as with fuse sticks of inflammable matter which had been left by the incendiaries.

The church, which was classed as a historical monument, and the Mairie with all its archives, have been destroyed.

Many inhabitants, among whom were children, have been taken away as hostages. They were, however, set at liberty next day, with the exception of M. Wladimir Thomas.

Few localities in the Department of the Meuse have suffered as much as the Commune of Sommeilles. It is nothing but a heap of ruins, having been completely burned on the 6th of September by a regiment of German infantry bearing the number fifty-one. The place was set on fire with help of machinelike bicycle pumps with which many of the soldiers were furnished.

This unhappy village was the scene of a terrible drama. At the commencement of the fire Mme. X., whose husband is with the colors, took refuge in the cellar of M. et Mme. Adnot, together with these latter and their four children, aged respectively 11, 5, 4, and 1-1/2 years. A few days afterward the bodies of all these unfortunate people were discovered in the middle of a pool of blood. Adnot had been shot, Mme. X. had her breast and right arm cut off; the little girl of 11 had a foot severed, the little boy of 5 had his throat cut. The woman X. and the little girl appeared to have been raped.

At Villers-aux-Vents, on the 8th of September, German officers invited the inhabitants who had not yet fled to leave their dwellings, warning them that the village was about to be burned, because, they alleged, three French soldiers had dressed themselves in civilian clothes; others gave the pretext that an installation of wireless telegraphy had been found in a house. The threat was carried out so rigorously that one house alone remains standing.

At Vaubecourt, where six dwelling houses were burned by the Württemburgers, fire was set to a barn with straw piled up by the soldiers.

At Triaucourt the Germans gave themselves up to the worst excesses. Angered doubtless by the remark which an officer had addressed to a soldier, against whom a young girl of 19, Mlle. Hélène Procès, had made complaint on account of the indecent treatment to which she had been subjected, they burned the village and made a systematic massacre of the inhabitants. They began by setting fire to the house of an inoffensive householder, M. Jules Gand, and by shooting this unfortunate man just as he was leaving his house to escape the flames; then they dispersed among the houses in the streets, firing their rifles on every side. A young man of 17, Georges Lecourtier, who tried to escape, was shot. M. Alfred Lallemand suffered the same fate; he was pursued into the kitchen of his fellow-citizen, Tautelier, and murdered there, while Tautelier received three bullets in his hand.

Fearing, not without reason, for their lives, Mlle. Procès, her mother, her grandmother of 71, and her old aunt of 81, Mlle. Laure Mennehand, tried with the help of a ladder to cross the trellis which separates their garden from a neighboring property. The young girl alone was able to reach the other side and to avoid death by hiding in the cabbages. As for the other women, they were struck down by rifle shots. The village curé collected the brains of Mlle. Mennehand on the ground on which they were strewn, and had the bodies carried into Procès's house. During the following night the Germans played the piano near the bodies.

While the carnage raged, the fire rapidly spread and devoured thirty-five houses. An old man of 70, Jean Lecourtier, and a child of two months perished in the flames. M. Igier, who was trying to save his cattle, was pursued for 300 meters by soldiers, who fired at him ceaselessly. By a miracle this man had the good fortune not to be wounded, but five bullets went through his trousers. When the curé, Viller, expressed his indignation at the treatment inflicted upon his parish to the Duke of Württemburg, who was lodged in the village, the latter replied: "What would you have? We have bad soldiers just as you have."

In the same commune an attempt at rape was made which was unsuccessful by reason of the obstinate and courageous resistance of the victim. Three Germans made the attempt on Mme. D., 47 years old. Further, an old woman of 75, Mme. Maupoix, was kicked so violently that she died a few days afterward. While some of the soldiers were ill-treating her others were ransacking her wardrobes.

The little town of Clermont-en-Argonne, on the slope of a picturesque hill in the middle of a pleasant landscape, used to be visited every year by numerous tourists. On the 4th of September, at night, the 121st and 122d Württemburg Regiments entered the place, breaking down the doors of the houses and giving themselves up to unrestrained pillage, which continued during the whole of the next day. Toward midday a soldier set fire to the dwelling of a clockmaker by deliberately upsetting the contents of an oil lamp which he used for making coffee. An inhabitant, M. Monternach, at once ran to fetch the town fire engine, and asked an officer to lend him men to work it. Brutally refused and threatened with a revolver, he renewed his request to several other officers, with no greater success. Meanwhile the Germans continued to burn the town, making use of sticks on the top of which torches were fastened. While the houses blazed the soldiers poured into the church, which stood by itself on the height, and danced there to the sound of the organ. Then, before leaving, they set fire to it with grenades as well as with vessels full of inflammable liquid, containing wicks.

After the burning of Clermont, bodies of the Mayor of Vauquois, M. Poinsignon, (which was completely carbonized,) and that of a young boy of 11, who had been shot at point-blank range, were found.

When the fire was out pillage recommenced in the houses which the flames had spared. Furniture carried off from the house of M. Desforges and stuffs stolen from the shop of M. Nordmann, a draper, were heaped together in motor cars. An army doctor (médicine-major) took possession of all the medical appliances in the hospital, and an officer of superior rank, after having put up a notice forbidding pillage on the entrance door of the house of M. Lebondidier, had a great part of the furniture of this house carried away on a carriage, intending it, as he boasted without any shame, for the adornment of his own villa.

At the time when this happened the town of Clermont-en-Argonne was occupied by the Thirteenth Württemburg Corps, under the command of Gen. von Durach, and by a troop of Uhlans, commanded by Prince von Wittenstein.

On the 7th of September half a score of German cavalrymen entered the farm of Lamermont in the Commune of Lisle-en-Barrois, and, after having milk given to them, went away apparently satisfied. After their departure rifle shots were heard in the distance. A little later a second troop, composed of about thirty men, presented themselves in their turn, and accused the farm people of having killed a German soldier. Immediately the farmer, Elly, and one of his guests, M. Javelot, were seized and taken to a place near, where, in spite of their protestations of innocence, they were mercilessly shot.

At Louppy-le-Château the Germans gave themselves over to immorality and disgusting brutality during the night of the 8th and 9th in a cellar where several women had taken refuge from the bombardment. All these unhappy women were vilely ill-treated. Mlle. X., aged 71; Mme. Y., aged 44, and her two daughters, one aged 13 and the other 8, and Mme. Z. were violated.

Hostages have been taken away from many communes. At the beginning of September, at Laimont, eight persons were obliged to follow the German troops, and on the 27th of October none of them had returned. The curé of Nubécourt, who was carried off on the 5th of September, has not yet reappeared in his parish.

At Saint-André, M. Havette, who was among the number of persons arrested, obtained from an officer permission to watch over the body of his wife, who had been killed on the previous day by a fragment of a shell. In the evening the inhabitants were ordered to collect together in a barn. Havette believed that he was exempt from this order by reason of the authority he had received, and remained at his house until 11 in the evening. When he left his house he was struck down by a rifle bullet.

Of the other villages besides those whose burning we have related, Vassincourt and Brabant-le-Roi were more or less completely burned. Up to now it has not been possible for us to ascertain completely the circumstances of their destruction. Our inquiry so far as it concerns them will be further pursued.

It has been brought to our knowledge that in the Department of the Meuse the enemy has committed acts of cruelty toward the French soldiers who were wounded and prisoners. We will set out the facts of this at the end of the present report.

MEURTHE-ET-MOSELLE.

We arrived in the Department of Meurthe-et-Moselle on the 26th of October, and visited a great number of communes in the arrondissements of Nancy and Lunéville.

Nancy, an open town into which the German Army has not been able to enter, was bombarded without formal warning during the night of the 9th and 10th of September. About sixty shells fell into the middle of the town and in the southern cemetery--that is, in places where there is no military establishment. Three women, a young girl, and a little girl were killed; thirteen people were wounded; the material damage done was considerable.

The enemy's aviators have flown over the town twice. On the 4th of September one of them dropped two bombs, by one of which a man and a little girl were killed and six people wounded, in the Place de la Cathédrale. On the 13th of October three bombs were thrown on the goods station. Four persons employed by the Eastern Railway Company were wounded.

When we reached Pont-à-Mousson, on the morning of the 10th of November, seven shells had just been fired by the German batteries a few hours before. It was the 24th day of the bombardment, which began on the 11th of August. The evening before a young girl of 19 and a child of 4 had been killed in their beds by fragments of shells. On the 14th of August the Germans took as their special objective the hospital, from whose towers floated Red Cross flags, visible from a great distance. No less than seventy shells fell on to this building, and we have witnessed the damage they have caused.

About eighty houses were damaged by the different bombardments, all of which took place without any warning. Fourteen civilians, mainly women and children, were killed. There were about the same number of wounded. Pont-à-Mousson is not fortified. Only the bridge over the Moselle had been put in a state of defense, on the outbreak of hostilities, by the Twenty-sixth Battalion of Chasseurs, who were then quartered in the town.

We experienced real horror when we found ourselves before the lamentable ruins of Nomeny. With the exception of some few houses which still stood near the railway station in a spot separated by the Seille from the principal group of buildings, there remains of this little town only a succession of broken and blackened walls in the midst of ruins, in which may be seen here and there the bones of a few animals partially charred and the carbonized remains of human bodies. The rage of a maddened soldiery has been unloosed there without pity.

Nomeny, on account of its proximity to the frontier, received from the beginning of the war the visits of German troopers from time to time. Skirmishes took place in its neighborhood, and on Aug. 14, in the courtyard of the farm de la Borde, which is a little distance off, a German soldier, without any motive, killed by a rifle shot the young farm servant, Nicholas Michel, aged 17.

On Aug. 20, when the inhabitants sought refuge in the cellars from the bombardment, the Germans came up after having fired upon each other by mistake and entered the town toward midday.

According to the account given by one of the inhabitants, the German officers asserted that the French were torturing the wounded by cutting off their limbs and plucking out their eyes. They were then in a state of terrible excitement. That day and part of the next the German soldiers gave themselves over to the most abominable excesses, sacking, burning and massacring as they went. After they had carried off from the houses everything which seemed worth taking away, and after they had dispatched to Metz the product of their rifling, they set fire to the houses with torches, pastilles of compressed powder and petrol which they carried in receptacles placed on little carts. Rifle shots were fired on every side; the unhappy inhabitants, who had been driven from the cellars before the firing, were shot down like game--some in their dwellings and others in the public streets.

MM. Sanson, Pierson, Lallemand, Adam Jeanpierre, Meunier, Schneider, Raymond, Duponcel, and Hazotte, father and son, were killed by rifle shots in the streets. M. Killian, seeing himself threatened by a sabre stroke, protected his neck with his hand. He had three fingers cut off and his throat gashed. An old man aged 86, M. Petitjean, who was seated in his armchair, had his skull smashed by a German shot. A soldier showed the corpse to Mme. Bertrand, saying: "Do you see that pig there?" M. Chardin, Town Councilor, who was Acting Mayor, was required to furnish a horse and carriage. He had promised to do all he could to obey, when he was killed by a rifle shot. M. Prevot, seeing the Bavarians breaking into a chemist's shop of which he was caretaker, told them that he was the chemist, and that he would give them anything they wanted, but three rifle shots rang out and he fell, heaving a deep sigh. Two women who were with him ran away and were pursued to the neighborhood of the railway station, beaten all the way with the butts of rifles, and they saw many bodies heaped together in the station garden and on the road.

Between 3 and 4 o'clock in the afternoon the Germans entered the butcher shop of Mme. François. She was then coming out of her cellar with her boy Stub, and an employee named Contal. As soon as Stub reached the threshold of the entrance to the door he fell severely wounded by a rifle shot. Then Contal, who rushed into the street, was immediately murdered. Five minutes afterward, as Stub was still groaning, a soldier leaned over him and finished him off with a blow of a hatchet on the back.

The most tragic incident in this horrible scene occurred in the house of M. Vassé, who had collected a number of people in his cellar in the Faubourg de Nancy. Toward 4 o'clock about fifty soldiers rushed into the house, beat in the door and windows, and set it on fire. The refugees then made an effort to flee, but they were struck down one after the other as they came out. M. Mentré was murdered first; then his son Léon fell with his little sister, aged 8, in his arms. As he was not killed outright, the end of a rifle barrel was placed on his head and his brains blown out. Then it was the turn of the Kieffer family. The mother was wounded in the arm and shoulder. The father and little boy aged 10 and little girl aged 3 were shot. The murderers went on firing on them after they had fallen. Kieffer, stretched on the ground, received another bullet in the forehead, and his son had the top of his head blown off by a shot. Last of all M. Strieffert and one of the sons of Vassé were murdered, while Mme. Mentré received three bullets, one in the left leg, another in the arm on the same side, and one on her forehead, which was only grazed. M. Guillaume was dragged into the street and there found dead. Simonin, a young girl of 17, came out last from the cellar, with her sister Jeanne, aged 3. The latter had her elbow almost carried away by a bullet. The elder girl flung herself on the ground and pretended to be dead, remaining for five minutes in terrible anguish. A soldier gave her a kick, crying "Capout."

An officer arrived at the end of this butchery, and ordered the women who were still alive to get up, and shouted to them: "Go to France!"

While all these people were being massacred, others, according to an expression used by an eyewitness, were driven like sheep into the fields under the threat of immediate execution. The curé, in particular, owed his escape from being shot to extraordinary circumstances.

According to the depositions which we have received, all these abominations were committed chiefly by the Second and Fourth Regiments of Bavarian infantry. To explain them, the officers have alleged that civilians had fired on their troops. As our inquiry has established formally, this allegation is a lie, for at the moment when the enemy arrived all arms had been deposited at the Mairie, and the part of the population which had not quitted the country had hidden itself in the cellars, a prey to the greatest terror. Besides, the reason alleged, even were it true, would assuredly be insufficient to excuse the destruction of a whole city, the murder of women, and the massacre of children.

A list of persons who were killed in the course of the burning and the shootings has been drawn up by M. Biévelot, Conseiller d'Arrondissement. The list includes no less than 50 names. We have not quoted all of them. For one thing, among the people whose death has been proved, some died under conditions which are not stated with sufficient precision; on the other hand, the dispersal of the inhabitants of the town which has now been destroyed made our inquiry very difficult. Our efforts will be continued. In any case, what we have already been able to establish beyond dispute is enough to give an idea of what was, on the day of Aug. 20, the martyrdom of Nomeny.

Lunéville was occupied by the Germans from Aug. 27 to Sept. 11. During the first few days they were content to rob the inhabitants without molesting them in any other way. Thus, in particular on Aug. 24, the house of Mme. Jeaumont was plundered. The objects stolen were loaded on to a large vehicle in which were three women, one of them dressed in black and the two others wearing military costumes and appearing, as we were told, to be canteen women.

On Aug. 25 the attitude of the invaders suddenly changed. M. Keller, the Mayor, went to the hospital about 3:30 o'clock in the afternoon and saw soldiers firing in the direction of the attic of a neighboring house, and heard the whistling of the bullets, which appeared to him to come from behind. The Germans declared to him that the inhabitants had fired on them. He protested, and offered to go around the town with them in order to prove the absurdity of this allegation. His proposal was accepted, and as at the beginning of the circuit they came across in the street the body of M. Crombez, the officer commanding the escort said to M. Keller, "You see this body. It is that of a civilian who has been killed by another civilian who was firing on us from a house near the synagogue. Thus, in accordance with our law, we have burned the house and executed the inhabitants." He was speaking of the murder of a man whose timid character was known to all, the Jewish officiating minister, Weill, who had just been killed in his house, together with his 16-year-old daughter. The same officer added, "In the same way we have burned the house at the corner of the Rue Castara and the Rue Girardet, because civilians fired shots from there." It is from this dwelling that the Germans alleged shots had been fired on to the courtyard of the hospital, but the position of the building makes it impossible for such a statement to be true.

While the Mayor and the soldiers who accompanied him were pursuing their investigation the fire broke out on different sides; the Hôtel de Ville was burned as well as the synagogue, and a number of houses in the Rue Castara, and the Faubourg d'Einville was in flames. The massacres, which were continued until the next day, began at the same time. Without counting M. Crombez, the officiating minister, Weill, and his daughter, whose deaths we have already mentioned, the victims were MM. Hamman, Binder, Balastre, (father and son,) Vernier, Dujon, M. Kahn and his mother, M. Steiner and his wife, M. Wingerstmann and his grandson, and, finally, MM. Sibille, Monteils, and Colin.

The murders were committed in the following circumstances:--

On Aug. 25, after having fired two shots into the Worms Tannery to create the belief that they were being attacked from there, the Germans entered a workshop in this factory, in which the workman, Goeury, was working, in company with M. Balastre, father and son. Goeury was dragged into the street, robbed there and brutally ill-treated, while his two companions, who were found trying to hide themselves in a lavatory, were killed by rifle shots.

On the same day soldiers came to summon M. Steiner, who had hidden in his cellar. His wife, fearing some misfortune, tried to keep him back. As she held him in her arms she received a bullet in the neck. A few moments after, Steiner, having obeyed the order which had been given to him, fell mortally wounded in his garden. M. Kahn was also murdered in his garden. His mother, aged 98, whose body was burned in the fire, had first been killed in her bed by a bayonet thrust, according to the account of an individual who acted as interpreter to the enemy. M. Binder, who was coming out to escape the flames, was also struck down. The German by whom he was killed realized that he had shot him without any motive, at the moment when the unfortunate man was standing quietly before a door. M. Vernier suffered the same fate as Binder.

Toward 3 o'clock the Germans broke into a house in which were Mme. Dujon, her daughter aged 3, her two sons, and M. Gaumier, by breaking the windows and firing shots. The little girl was nearly killed; her face was burned by a shot. At this moment, Mme. Dujon, seeing her youngest son, Lucien, 14 years old, stretched on the ground, asked him to get up and escape with her. She then saw that his intestines were protruding from a wound, and that he was holding them in. The house was on fire; the poor boy was burned, as well as M. Gaumier, who had not been able to escape.

M. Wingerstmann and his grandson, aged 12, who had gone to pull potatoes a little way from Lunéville, at the place called Les Mossus, in the District of Chanteheux, were unfortunate enough to meet Germans. The latter placed them both against a wall and shot them.

Finally, toward 5 o'clock in the evening, soldiers entered the house of the woman Sibille, in the same place, and without any reason took possession of her son, led him 200 meters from the house and murdered him there, together with M. Vallon, to whose body they had fastened him. A witness, who had seen the murderers at the moment when they were dragging their victim along, saw them return without him and noticed that their saw bayonets were covered with blood and bits of flesh.

On the same day a hospital attendant named Monteils, who was looking after a wounded enemy officer at the hospital of Lunéville, was struck down by a bullet in the forehead while he was looking through a window at a German soldier who was firing.

The next day, the 26th, M. Hamman and his son, aged 21, were arrested in their own house and dragged out by a band of soldiers who had entered by breaking down the door. The father was beaten unmercifully; as for the young man, as he tried to struggle, a non-commissioned officer blew out his brains with a revolver shot.

At 1 o'clock in the afternoon M. Riklin, a chemist, having been informed that a man had fallen about thirty meters from his shop, went to the spot indicated and recognized in the victim his brother-in-law, M. Colin, aged 68, who had been struck in the stomach by a bullet. The Germans alleged that this old man fired upon them. M. Riklin denied this statement. Colin, we are told, was a harmless person, absolutely incapable of an aggressive act, and completely ignorant of the means of using a firearm.

It appeared to us desirable to deal also at Lunéville with acts which are less grave, but which throw a peculiar light on the habits of thought of the invader. On Aug. 25 M. Lenoir, 67 years of age, together with his wife, were led into the fields with their hands tied behind their backs. After both had been cruelly ill-treated, a non-commissioned officer took possession of 1,800 francs in gold which M. Lenoir carried on him. As we have already stated, the most impudent theft seems to have formed part of the customs of the German Army, who practiced it publicly. The following is an interesting example:

During the burning of a house belonging to Mme. Leclerc, the safes of two inhabitants resisted the flames. One, belonging to M. George, Sub-Inspector of Waters and Forests, had fallen into the ruins; the other safe, belonging to M. Goudchau, general dealer, remained fixed to a wall at the height of the second story. The non-commissioned officer, Weiss, who was well acquainted with the town, where he had often been welcomed when he used to come before the war to carry on his business of hop merchant, went with the soldiers to the place and ordered that the piece of wall which remained standing should be blown up with dynamite, and saw that the two safes were taken to the station, where they were placed on a truck destined for Germany. This Weiss was particularly trusted and esteemed by the persons in command. It was he who, installed at Headquarters, was given the duty of administering the commune in some sense, and was in charge of the requisitioning.

After having committed numerous acts of pillage at Lunéville, after having burned about seventy houses with torches, petrol, and various incendiary machines, and after having massacred peaceful inhabitants, the German military authorities thought it well to put up the following proclamation, in which they formulated ridiculous accusations to justify the extortion of enormous contributions in the form of an indemnity:

NOTICE TO THE POPULATION.

On Aug. 25, 1914, the inhabitants of Lunéville made an
attack by ambuscade against the German columns and
transports. On the same day the inhabitants fired on
hospital buildings marked with the Red Cross. Further, shots
were fired on the German wounded and the military hospital
containing a German ambulance. On account of these acts of
hostility a contribution of 650,000 francs is imposed on the
commune of Lunéville. The Mayor is ordered to pay this
sum--50,000 francs in silver and the remainder in gold--on
Sept. 6, at 9 o'clock in the morning, to the representative
of the German military authority. No protest will be
considered. No extension of time will be granted. If the
commune does not punctually obey the order to pay 650,000
francs all the goods which are available will be seized. In
case payment is not made domiciliary searches will take
place, and all the inhabitants will be searched. Any one who
shall have deliberately hidden money or shall have attempted
to hide his goods from the seizure of the military
authorities, or who seeks to leave the town, will be shot.
The Mayor and hostages taken by the military authorities
will be made responsible for the exact execution of the
above order. The Mayor is ordered to publish these
directions to the commune at once.

Hénaménil, Sept. 3, 1914.

Commander in Chief,
Von FOSBENDER.

On reading this extraordinary document one is justified in asking whether the arson and murders committed at Lunéville on Aug. 25 and 26 by an army which was not acting under the excitement of battle, and which during its preceding days had abstained from killing, were not ordered on purpose to make more plausible the allegation which was to serve as a pretext for the exaction of an indemnity.

The village of Chanteheux, situated quite close to Lunéville, was not spared either. The Bavarians, who occupied it from the 22d of August to the 12th of September, burned there 20 houses in the customary manner and massacred 8 persons on the 25th of August, MM. Lavenne, Toussaint, Parmentier, and Bacheler, who were killed, the first three by rifle shots, the fourth by two shots and a blow with a bayonet; young Schneider, aged 23, who was murdered in a hamlet of the commune; M. Wingerstmann and his grandson, whose death we have recorded above in setting out the crimes committed at Lunéville; lastly, M. Reeb, aged 62, who certainly died as the result of the ill-treatment which he suffered. This man had been taken as hostage with some 42 of his fellow-citizens who were kept for 13 days. After having received terrible blows from the butt of a rifle in his face and a bayonet wound in his side, he continued to follow the column, although he lost much blood and his face was so bruised that he was almost unrecognizable, when a Bavarian, without any reason, gave him a great wound by throwing a wooden pail at his forehead. Between Hénaménil and Bures his companions saw that he was no longer with them; no doubt he fell by the way.

If this unhappy man was to suffer the most cruel martyrdom of all, the hostages taken with him in the commune had also to suffer violence and insult. Before setting fire to the village, the hostages were set with their backs to the parapet of the bridge while the troops passed by ill-treating them. As an officer accused them of firing on the Germans, the schoolmaster gave him his word of honor that it was not so. "Pig of a Frenchman," replied the officer, "do not speak of honor; you have none."

At the moment when her house was burning Mme. Cherrier, who was coming out of the cellar to escape suffocation, was drenched with an inflammable liquid by some soldiers who were sprinkling the walls. One of them told her that it was benzine. She then ran behind a dunghill to hide herself with her parents, but the fire raisers dragged her by force in front of the blaze and she was obliged to witness the destruction of her dwelling.

Like Nomeny, the pretty town of Gerbéviller, on the banks of the Mortagne, fell a victim to the fury of the Germans under terrible circumstances. On the 24th August the enemy's troops hurled themselves against some sixty chasseurs à pied, who offered heroic resistance, and who inflicted heavy loss upon them. They took a drastic vengeance upon the civilian population. Indeed, from the moment of their entrance into the town, the Germans gave themselves up to the worst excesses, entering the houses, with savage yells, burning the buildings, killing or arresting the inhabitants, and sparing neither women nor old men. Out of 475 houses, 20 at most are still habitable. More than 100 persons have disappeared, 50 at least have been massacred. Some were led into the fields to be shot, others were murdered in their houses or struck down in passing through the streets as they were trying to escape from the conflagration. Up to now 36 bodies have been identified. They are those of MM. Barthélemy, Blosse (Senior), Robinet, Chrétien, Rémy, Bourguignon, Perrin, Guillaume, Bernasconi, Gauthier, Menu, Simon, Lingenheld (father and son), Benoit, Calais, Adam, Caille, Lhuillier, Regret, Plaid (aged 14), Leroi, Bazzolo, Gentil, Victor Dehan, Charles Dehan, Dehan the Younger, Brennevald, Parisse, Yong, François, Secretary of the Mairie; Mmes. Perrot, Courtois, Gauthier, and Guillaume, and Mlles. Perrin and Miquel.

Fifteen of these poor people were executed at a place called "La Prèle." They were buried by their fellow-citizens on Sept. 12 or 15. Almost all had their hands tied behind their backs; some were blindfolded; the trousers of the majority were unbuttoned and pushed down to their feet. This fact, as well as the appearance of the bodies, made the witnesses think that the victims had been mutilated. We did not think we ought to adopt this view, the bodies being in such an advanced state of decomposition that a mistake on the subject might be made. Besides, it is possible that the murderers unbuttoned the trousers of the prisoners so as to incumber their legs, and thus make it impossible for them to escape.

On Oct. 16, at a place called Le Haut-de-Vormont, buried under fifteen to twenty centimeters of earth, we found the bodies of ten civilians with the marks of bullets upon them. On one of them was found a laissez passer in the name of Edward Seyer, of Badonviller. The other nine victims are unknown. It is believed that they were inhabitants of Badonviller, who had been taken by the Germans into the neighborhood of Gerbéviller to be shot there.

In the streets and houses, during the day of the sacking, the most tragic scenes took place.

In the morning the enemy entered the house of M. and Mme. Lingenheld, seized the son, 36 years of age, who wore the brassard of the Red Cross, tied his hands behind his back, dragged him into the street, and shot him. They then returned to look for the father, an old man of 70. Mme. Lingenheld then took to flight. On her way she saw her son stretched on the ground, and as the unhappy man was still moving some Germans drenched him with petrol, to which they set fire in the presence of the terrified mother. In the meantime M. Lingenheld was led to La Prèle, where he was executed.

At the same time the soldiers knocked at the door of the house occupied by M. Dehan, his wife, and his mother-in-law, the widow Guillaume, aged 78. The latter, who opened the door, was shot point-blank, and fell into the arms of her son-in-law, who ran up behind her. "They have killed me!" she cried. "Carry me into the garden." Her children obeyed and laid her at the end of the garden with a pillow under her head and a blanket over her legs, and then stretched themselves at the foot of the wall to avoid shells. At the end of an hour the widow Guillaume was dead. Her daughter wrapped her in a blanket and placed a handkerchief over her face. Almost immediately the Germans broke into the garden. They carried off Dehan and shot him at La Prèle, and led his wife away on to the Fraimbois road, where she found about forty people, principally women and children, in the enemy's hands, and heard an officer of high rank say: "We must shoot these women and children. We must make an end of them." However, the threat was not carried into effect. Mme. Dehan was set at liberty next day, and was able to return twenty-one days later to Gerbéviller. She is convinced, and all those who saw the body share her opinion, that her mother's body had been violated. In fact, the body was found stretched on its back with the petticoats pushed up, the legs separated, and the stomach ripped open.

When the Germans arrived M. Perrin and his two daughters, Louise and Eugénie, had taken refuge in a stable. The soldiers entered, and one of them, seeing young Louise, fired a shot point-blank at her head. Eugénie succeeded in escaping, but her father was arrested as he fled, placed among the victims who were being taken to La Prèle and shot with them.

M. Yong, who was going out to exercise his horse, was struck down before his own house. The Germans in their fury killed the horse after the master, and set fire to the house. Some others raised the trap-door of a cellar in which several people were hidden and fired several shots at them. Mme. Denis Bernard and the boy, Parmentier, 7 years of age, were wounded.

At 5 in the evening Mme. Rozier heard an imploring voice crying, "Mercy! Mercy!" These cries came from one of two neighboring barns belonging to MM. Poinsard and Barbier. A man who was acting as interpreter to the Germans declared to a certain Mme. Thiébaut that the Germans boasted that they had burned alive in one of these barns, in spite of his entreaties and appeals to their pity, a man who was the father of five children. This declaration carries all the more conviction, since the remains of a burned human body have been found in the barn belonging to Poinsard.

Side by side with this carnage, innumerable acts of violence were committed. The wife of a soldier, Mme. X., was raped by a German soldier in the passage of the house of her parents, while her mother was obliged to flee at the bayonet's point.

On Aug. 29 Sister Julie, Mother Superior of the hospital, whose devotion has been admirable, went to the parish church with a mobilized priest to examine the state of the interior of the building, and found that an attempt had been made to break through the steel door of the tabernacle. The Germans had fired shots around the lock in order to get possession of the ciborium. The door was broken through in several places, and the bullets had caused almost symmetrical holes, which proved that the shots had been fired point blank. When Sister Julie opened the tabernacle she found the ciborium pierced with bullet holes.

The excesses and crimes which were committed at Gerbéviller were principally the work of the Bavarians. The troops which committed them were under the command of the German General, Clauss, whose brutality has been brought to our notice in other places.

On the 22d of August the Germans burned part of the village of Crévic, using torches and rockets. Seventy-six houses were burned, including in particular that of Gen. Lyautey, which the fire-raisers had entered, led by an officer, crying aloud: "We want Mme. and Mlle. Lyautey in order to cut their throats." A Captain, leveling his revolver at M. Voigin's throat, threatened to shoot him and throw him into the flames, together with one of his fellow-citizens, "whose brains," he said, "we have already blown out." He was alluding to the death of an old gentleman, M. Liégey, 78 years of age, whose body was found in the ruins with a bullet wound under his chin. The officer added, "Come and see the property of Gen. Lyautey, who is in Morocco--it is burning." Meanwhile a workman named Gérard was forced at the bayonet's point to go up to his garret. The Germans set fire to a heap of forage and obliged Gérard to remain near the blaze. When the soldiers were driven out by the intolerable heat, Gérard was able to escape through a little opening, but he had had one cheek already badly burned.

At Deuxville, where the enemy willfully set fire to fifteen houses, the Mayor, Bajole, and the curé, Thiriet, were arrested. L'Abbé Marchal, curé of Crion, saw them both in his parish in the hands of the Germans; he approached his colleague and asked the reason of his arrest. The latter replied, "I made signs." L'Abbé Marchal gave him a little bread and went away; but he had scarcely gone thirty paces when he heard the sound of a volley. The two prisoners had just been executed. The next day an officer who spoke our language perfectly, and said that for eight years he had been attached to the German Embassy in Paris, told L'Abbé Marchal that the curé of Deuxville had made signs and had admitted it. "As for the Mayor," he added, "I do not believe the poor devil had done anything."

At Maixe the Germans burned thirty-six houses and murdered MM. Gauçon, Demange, Jacques, Thomas, Marchal, Chaudre, Grand, Simonin, Vaconet, and Mme. Beurton on the pretext that they had been firing at them. Gauçon was dragged from his own house and thrown on a dunghill where a soldier killed him with a rifle shot in the stomach. Demange, who was wounded in both knees while in his cellar, succeeded in dragging himself as far as the kitchen. The Germans set fire to the house and prevented Mme. Demange from rescuing her husband, and left their victims to be burned in the blazing house.

Mme. Beurton was also in her cellar with her family when two soldiers came down into it; one of them carried a lantern and the other a rifle. The latter fired haphazard on to the group and hit the unhappy woman. Vaconet was struck by a bullet in the side at the foot of M. Rediger's staircase; as for Simonin, he was taken away in the direction of Drouville. A few days afterward a German officer handed to M. Thouvenin, Municipal Councilor of the commune, a note stating that Simonin had been shot and that his last wishes were expressed in a document which was in the hands of the General commanding the Third Bavarian Division. On this document, of which a copy has been sent to us, appears the signature of an officer of the Third Regiment of the Chevauxlégers. The other victims at Maixe met their deaths under conditions which we have been unable to ascertain.

In the same village, Mlle. X., aged 23 years, was raped by nine Germans during the night of Aug. 23-24. An officer was sleeping in the room above that in which this revolting scene was being enacted, but he did not consider it necessary to intervene, though he must certainly have heard the cries of the young girl and the noise made by the German soldiers.