Part 16

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.

The Château of Beauzemont was broken into on the 22d of August. On the fifteenth day of its occupation, the wives of several German staff officers arrived in motor cars. Everything that had been stolen from the Château, especially plate, hats, and silk dresses, was loaded on the motor cars. On the 21st of October the Lieutenant Colonel commanding the ---- French Infantry Regiment took possession of this château. He found it in a state of disorder and revolting filth. The drawers of most of the furniture had been broken into and left open, and the floor of the billiard room was in a filthy condition. There was a disgusting smell in the bedroom occupied by the German General commanding the Seventh Reserve Division. The cupboard at the head of the bed contained body linen and muslin curtains full of excrements.

At Baccarat the enemy did not massacre anybody, but on the 25th of August they carried out a systematic pillage, and in order to be able to do this undisturbed they had ordered the population to assemble at the railway station. The pillage was carried out under the supervision of the officers. Clocks and various articles of furniture and objets d'art were carried off. When the inhabitants returned home they were ordered out again an hour later and informed that the town was to be burned. Indeed, the centre of the town was ablaze. The conflagration, which was started by torches and pastilles, destroyed 112 houses; only four or five were burned by shells. After the fire sentinels were placed, who prevented the owners from approaching the ruins of their houses, and when the blaze had abated the Germans ransacked the ruins themselves in order to gain access to the cellars. After this operation Gen. Fabricius, commanding the artillery of the Fourteenth Baden Corps, said to M. Renaud, the Acting Mayor: "I did not think that Baccaret contained such a quantity of fine wine. We found more than 100,000 bottles." One must, however, add that at the glass works the enemy really displayed comparative honesty, inasmuch as they only exacted, at the revolver's point, a reduction of 60 to 75 per cent. on the goods which they bought.

At Jolivet, on the 22d of August, M. Villemin was leaving M. Cohan's house with the latter and a M. Richard when German soldiers fell upon M. Richard. Struck on the head by the butt of a rifle, Richard fell. Cohan rushed back to his house. Villemin went to look after his cattle, after having followed Richard for a short distance as the latter was being led away by his aggressors. At about 5 o'clock in the evening he went out to see a neighbor, but was immediately arrested and shot. His assassins threw his body over a fence into a garden.

On the 25th of August, in the same commune, Mme. Morin's house was pillaged. The Germans took linen, plate, furs and hats. The next day the house was set on fire by lighting bits of wood found in packing cases.

At Bonvillers, on the 21st, 23d, and 25th of August, twenty-six houses were set on fire by the Germans, who made use of squibs and candles.

At Einville, on the 22d of August, the day the Germans arrived, they shot a Town Councilor, M. Pierson, whom they wrongfully accused of having fired on them. They also executed, without reason, MM. Bouvier and Barbelin, whom they had taken away a short distance from the village. They also massacred a poacher called Pierrat, whom they had found carrying a sack containing a small net and a gun in pieces. The wretched man was terribly tortured by them. Having dragged him beyond the village, they brought him back in front of Mme. Famôse's house. This lady saw him pass by in the midst of the Germans. His nose was nearly cut off. His eyes were haggard and, to quote the witness's remark, he seemed to have aged ten years in a quarter of an hour. At this moment an officer gave an order and eight soldiers went off with the prisoner. When they returned ten minutes later without him one of them said in French, "He was already dead."

On the 12th of September M. Dieudonné, Mayor of Einville, was taken off as a hostage with his assistant and another of his townsmen by the enemy at the time of their retreat. He and his companions were taken to Alsace, then into Germany, where they were kept until the 24th of October. Before his arrest, and during a fight which took place around his commune, M. Dieudonné had been forced, notwithstanding his protests, to commandeer several of his townsmen in order to bury the dead. Three of the inhabitants of Einville thus forcible employed on this duty were wounded by bullets; another, M. Noël, was killed by a fragment of a shell.

The farm of Remonville, situated within the boundaries of the same village, was burned down. The women were able to escape. Four men who were working on this estate must have been all killed. The bodies of two of them, Victor Chaudre and Thomas Prosper, were discovered two months later buried together near the buildings which had been burned. Both had been decapitated, and Thomas's head was smashed to pieces.

At Sommerviller the enemy's course on the 23d of August was marked by the sack of the cafés and grocers' shops and of several private houses, and by the murder of M. Robert, aged 70, and M. Harau, aged 65, who were killed by rifle shots. The latter at the moment when he received his death wound was quietly eating a piece of bread.

At Rehainviller, on the 26th of August, the Germans seized the curé, Barbot, and M. Noircler in the street. The bodies of these two men were found a long time afterward buried in the fields a few hundred meters from the village. Their bodies were in an advanced state of decomposition, and it was therefore impossible to ascertain the wounds which the curé had received; as for Noircler, his head was found in the grave by the side of the rest of his body, in a line with his hip.

[Illustration: AVIATOR-COMMANDANT MARCONNAY

One of the Oldest and Best Known French Military Aviators Killed During a Reconnoissance.

(_Photo from Underwood & Underwood._)]

[Illustration: GENERAL SIR DOUGLAS HAIG

Commanding the First British Army, One of the Six Armies Recently Incorporated.

(_Photo_ © _American Press Association._)]

In this commune twenty-seven houses have been burned. No one saw the fire lighted, but after the disaster a certain number of little fuse-sticks which the Germans frequently use for the purpose of fire-raising, and which the peasants call "macaronis," were collected.

At Lamath, on the 24th of August, the Bavarians shot an old man of 70, M. Louis, who had come out of his house to relieve the needs of nature. The unhappy man received at least ten bullets in the chest. His son-in-law, who was in an advanced stage of tuberculosis, was taken and led away. No news has been received of him. Two other inhabitants of the commune who were made prisoners at the same time as this man are still in captivity in Bavaria.

The Abbé Mathieu, curé of Fraimbois, was arrested on the 29th of August on the false allegation that shots had been fired at the Germans in his parish. In the course of his captivity, which lasted sixteen days, he was present at the murder of two of our fellow-countrymen, M. Poissonnier of Gerbéviller and M. Victor-Meyer of Fraimbois; the former, an invalid who could scarcely stand, was accused of having followed the armies as a spy. The latter had been arrested because his little girl had picked up a bit of telephone wire broken by shrapnel. One morning toward 6 o'clock the Bavarian officers went through a travesty of justice, reading documents drawn up in German, collecting the votes of eight or nine young Lieutenants to whom voting papers had been given. The two men were condemned unanimously and warned that they were about to die, and the priest was requested to give them the consolations of religion. They protested their innocence with prayers and tears, but they were compelled to kneel down against the embankment of the road, and a platoon of twenty-four soldiers drawn up in double file fired twice at them.

The village of Fraimbois was pillaged, and the objects stolen were loaded on to vehicles. The Abbé Mathieu complained to Gens. Tanner and Clauss of the burning of his bee-house, and received from the former the simple reply, "What do you expect? It is war!" The latter did not even reply.

At Mont three houses were burned with petrol. At Hériménil, on the 29th of August, the enemy, who had arrived on the 24th, were guilty of monstrous acts. The inhabitants were asked to come to church and were kept there for four days, while their houses were sacked and the French bombarded the village. Twenty-four people were killed inside the church by a shell. As a woman, who had succeeded with great trouble in leaving the church for a moment, was returning with a little milk for the children, a Captain, furious at seeing that this prisoner had been allowed to pass, cried out, "I meant that the door should not be opened! I meant the French to fire on their own people." This same Captain, a short time before, had been guilty of a revolting cruelty. He was present, eyeglass in eye, when Mme. Winger, a young woman of 23, was going to church in obedience to the general order, together with her servants, a girl and two young men, each of them 18 years old, and, considering their progress too slow, with a word he directed the soldiers to fire, and the four victims fell mortally wounded. The Germans left the corpses in the street for two days.

Next day they shot M. Bocquel, who was ignorant of the orders which had been given and had remained in his house. They also killed in his own house M. Florentin, aged 77. This old man, who received several bullets in the chest, was probably killed in consequence of his deafness, which prevented him from understanding what the enemy had ordered.

In this commune twenty-two houses were burned with petrol. Before setting fire to Mme. Combeau's house the soldiers dug up the floor of a cellar and distinterred the sum of 600 francs, which they appropriated.

On the 23d of August young Simonin, aged 15-1/2, living at Hadiviller, was going back from Dombasle when the Germans threatened him with their rifles and took him prisoner. They began by beating him unmercifully. Then on the orders of an officer, he was led away by a soldier. As he went along he saw his father about 50 meters off calling to him. The soldier then tied him to a telegraph pole, and fired on Simonin's father, who fell vomiting blood, and soon after died as he lay. Meanwhile, the young man was able to free himself from his bonds, and succeeded in running the gauntlet of several shots, one of which tore his coat.

At Magnières, where one house only was burned, a German armed with a rifle entered, toward the end of August, the house of M. Laurent and compelled a girl of 12, young ----, who had taken refuge there, to accompany him into a room, where he raped her twice, in spite of her ceaseless cries and groans. The poor girl was absolutely terrorized. In addition, the soldier was so threatening that M. Laurent did not dare to interfere.

At Croismare on the 25th of August, when the Germans were forced to beat a retreat, maddened by their check, they began to fire on everybody they met. A Uhlan officer killed with a rifle shot M. Kriegel, who had gone into the field to pull potatoes. He then saw MM. Matton and Barbier returning from their work. He rode up to them and ordered them to stop and stand up against an embankment. The two peasants thought at first that he was anxious to see them sheltered from the rifle shots that were being fired all round. But their delusion was soon dispelled when they saw him load his revolver. In the course of this operation three cartridges were dropped, and the officer ordered Matton and Barbier to pick them up. Barbier handed him one of the cartridges back with the words, "Do not do us any harm; we have just been working in the fields." "Nicht pardon, cochon de franzose, capout," replied the officer, and fired twice. Matton ducked quickly, and thanks to this movement was only hit in the right shoulder instead of full in the chest. As for Barbier, a bullet went through both his thumbs and ripped open his left forefinger.

At Réméréville on the 7th of September the enemy, alleging falsely that the inhabitants had fired on them from the steeple, set fire to the houses with the assistance of rockets. A few houses only escaped the flames. Before being burned the village had been bombarded by the Germans, who had taken as their objective an ambulance, whose flag they saw perfectly.

The commune of Drouville, which was twice occupied, was absolutely sacked on the 5th of September. The invaders burned thirty-five houses, using torches and doubtless petrol also, for they left on the spot a can which contained twenty-five to thirty liters.

At Courbesseaux arson and pillage were also committed on the 5th of September. Nineteen houses were burned, and M. Alix, who was trying to put out a fire in a stack of luzerne on his property, was shot at several times and obliged to flee.

Finally, on the 23d of August, at Erbéviller, a Saxon Captain found a very practical means of getting money for himself. He collected the men in the village and tried vainly, by threatening to shoot them, to obtain a declaration from them that the sentries had been shot at, although he knew perfectly well that it was untrue. Then he shut them up in a barn. In the evening he had brought before him the wife of M. Jacques, a retired schoolmaster, who was one of the prisoners, and said to her, "I am not certain that these are the men who fired. They will be set at liberty tomorrow morning if you can give me a thousand francs in the next few minutes." Mme. Jacques gave him the amount, and in reply to her request he gave her a receipt for it, and the hostages were set at liberty.

The receipt drawn up by the officer reads as follows:

Erbéviller, 23d August, 1914.

RECEIPT.

_As a punishment for being suspected_ of having fired on German sentries during the night of August 22d and 23d I have received from the Commune of Erbéviller one thousand francs, (1,000 fr.)

BARON ---- (illegible).

haupt. reit. regim.

In a commune of the Department of Meurthe-et-Moselle two nuns were for several hours exposed without defense to the lust of a soldier. By terrorizing them he obliged them to undress, and after having compelled the elder to pull off his boots, he committed obscenities on the younger. We undertook not to publish the names of the victims of this abominable scene, or of that of the village in which it took place, but the facts were laid before us under the sanction of an oath by witnesses who deserve the fullest confidence, and we take the responsibility of pledging ourselves as to their accuracy.