Part 14

At Auve nearly the whole town has been destroyed. At Etrepy sixty-three families out of seventy are homeless. At Huiron all the houses, with the exception of five, have been burned. At Sermaize-les-Bains only about forty houses out of 900 remain. At Bignicourt-sur-Saultz thirty houses out of thirty-three are in ruins.

At Suippes, the big market town which has been practically burned out, German soldiers carrying straw and cans of petrol have been seen in the streets. While the Mayor's house was burning, six sentinels with fixed bayonets were under orders to forbid any one to approach and to prevent any help being given.

All this destruction by arson, which only represents a small proportion of the acts of the same kind in the Department of Seine-et-Marne, was accomplished without the least tendency to rebellion or the smallest act of resistance being recorded against the inhabitants of the localities which are today more or less completely destroyed. In some villages the Germans, before setting fire to them, made one of their soldiers fire a shot from his rifle so as to be able to pretend afterward that the civilian population had attacked them, an allegation which is all the more absurd since at the time when the enemy arrived the only inhabitants left were old men, sick persons, or people absolutely without any means of aggression.

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.