German Barbarism: A Neutral's Indictment

Other Results of the Second Bombardment of Reims (18th to 20th September)

The cathedral was not the only objective of the second bombardment. Not only were several houses also destroyed and several people killed, amongst others Dr. Jacquin, who lived next door to the mayor, but the Spanish consulate was bombarded, with the result that several neutral subjects met their death, a fact which was noted in a preceding chapter. The town hall, the musée, the sub-prefecture (historic monuments all of them) were almost wholly demolished. An auxiliary hospital of the Société des Sœurs de l’Enfant-Jesus was also cannonaded, and five Red Cross nurses were killed and two others wounded at the bedside of the wounded whom they had under their care.

Fresh Bombardments of the Cathedral of Reims (20th to 27th November)

After the 20th September, and in spite of the universal indignation aroused by the outrage which they had committed, the Germans continued the bombardment of Reims without intermission. But it was not until the last days of the month of November that the cathedral suffered fresh damage.

On the 23rd November a shell struck and went right through a bell-turret in the south tower at the top; on the 27th another shell, falling between the south buttresses, burst on the vault of the aisle. A third shell which fell on the vaults above the south apse, brought down a great deal of plaster in the church. A huge shell, which fell to the right of the cathedral, a little in front of the façade, damaged three statues over the small entrance to the right which until then had escaped. It was but one of many other calamities and one which completed the ruin of an historic monument. After the 20th November other shells destroyed a pinnacle, a part of the upper gallery in the apse and a part of this gallery beside the Salle des Rois.

Of the archbishop’s palace and the musées there remain, in a word, only the walls.

As for the statues in the cathedral which appear unharmed, they are burnt right through and crumble away at the touch. The crime of the barbarians is complete.

The Bombardment of the Cathedral of Reims is Inexcusable

In the words of M. Delcassé, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, in the protest addressed by him to the governments of neutral states on the morning after the first bombardment, the Germans committed this crime “without being able to appeal even to the appearance of military necessity and for the mere lust of destruction.”

Nevertheless the Germans tried to justify it by alleging—

These several excuses are worthless—

The criminal responsibility of the commandant of the German forces has, therefore, been proved in this matter.

Public Opinion throughout the World roused to Indignation by the Bombardment of the Cathedral of Reims

It is difficult to describe the indignation roused throughout all countries of the civilised world by the bombardment of the cathedral of Reims. The newspapers of the whole planet were its living mouthpieces.

In Italy a number of learned institutions sent protests, either to the French Embassy at Rome or directly to the German authorities.

The Association of Artists, especially, held a reunion, at which the most distinguished critics and artists of Italy were present, and which passed unanimously a resolution of protest.

The Giornale d’Italia, echoing the indignation of its country, declared that “this act destroyed all the ingenious and fertile excuses for Germany’s methods of war,” and that “no act of reparation could wipe out this act of purposeless barbarism, a crazy exhibition of wounded vanity and ruffled pride.”

In Greece the newspapers were unanimous in stigmatising German vandalism. Nea Hellas wrote: “In the name of art, in the name of the Parthenon half destroyed by the fire of the Venetian Morosini, Greece, the mother of civilised nations, appeals to belligerents to respect treasures of art, and asks the Germans to cease to dishonour their country.”

In Spain the destruction of the cathedral of Reims partly destroyed the long preparation of Spanish opinion which had been carried on in favour of Germany. The indignation of Spaniards was faithfully expressed by an article in the Libéral, in which the following words occur: “It seemed that the universal anathema heaped upon the Germans after the destruction of Louvain would have restrained their acts of unjustifiable destruction. The Emperor appeared to feel sorry in his letter of apologies addressed to the President of the United States; but his soldiers surpassed themselves, and the appalling barbarism of their achievement is unexampled in history.”

Finally, in America not only the general public but the Government were profoundly moved by the news of the bombardment of one of the finest cathedrals in the world. The American Consul at Lausanne was instructed by his Government, on the day after the crime, to go to Reims and make an inquiry on the spot. As for American newspapers, the following are extracts from them—

The Tribune said: “The destruction of the fine monument of the Middle Ages is an act of vandalism which puts German military methods on a level with those of the Goths and the Huns. The crime of destroying this venerable pile was committed by a nation which claims that its mission is to impose its civilisation on the rest of the world. By violating the laws of war, Germany is encouraging other nations to do the same.”

The World said: “Prussian militarism has outdone everything previously seen in the category of vandalism. Throughout the centuries, since the destruction of the Parthenon, the world has known no such act.”

The Sun said: “In spite of the regrets which Germany pretends to express, we cannot fail to draw the conclusion that the cathedral of Reims was the target of a deliberate attempt to destroy.”

Bombardment of Gerbeviller

The following are other examples of bombardments at this period, which were carried out at places less known, but in which the aim to destroy at any cost, by any means, and in violation of every law stands no less emphatically self-condemned. Of the picturesque little village of Gerbeviller there remains only a heap of stones, dust and ashes. The Germans bombarded it mercilessly in the month of August. Possibly this bombardment was due to necessity, but the precise aim of the German guns, posted in the outskirts of the village, reveals the criminal design at work. The village church was the chief object aimed at: it was burnt down by shell fire, the pretty palatine chapel demolished, and the château completely wiped out.

Bombardment of Dompierre-aux-Bois

On the 22nd September the Germans forced a way into Dompierre-aux-Bois. They entered each house with fixed bayonets, made all the men come out, and then shut them up in the church. On the following day it was the women’s and children’s turn, and so these poor people found they were compelled to face the fire of the German artillery which was let loose in the village. Men, women, children and old folk were, for five long days without ceasing, exposed to a rain of bombs and shells.

On the 27th September the Germans lay in ambush in the country behind Troyon so as to be able to fire on the fort from which the French were bombarding them. During the artillery duel which followed, the Germans thought it well not to forget the wretched people of Dompierre-aux-Bois, who were still shut up in the church. About five p.m. they fired at the church and a shell fell upon it. Forty persons were killed or wounded by the hand of the same people who forced them to stay in this spot, and who, from being their gaolers, made themselves their executioners.

Bombardment of Recquignies

According to the evidence of Dr. Barbey (Echo de Paris of the 20th January), the first German shells fired at Recquignies, in the beginning of the month of September, were aimed at the brewery, which the Red Cross flag upon it plainly marked as a refuge for the wounded. Four inhabitants were killed and two others were wounded.

Bombardment of Soissons

The town of Soissons was bombarded from the 13th to the 17th September almost without intermission. The post office and the Grand Seminaire are in ruins. The cemetery quarter of the town was set on fire. Happily the cathedral suffered little. But the Germans deliberately and with precise aim fired at the hospital. This bombardment was without any reason that could be admitted, for the town ought to have been protected from artillery, as the Germans occupied the hills to the north of the town when the French troops had taken a position to the south-east and did not discharge a single shell at it.

From the month of September the bombardment of Soissons was interrupted: it began again in the month of January. The Germans aimed their fire on the hospitals, the ambulances, and especially on all places where the wounded were gathered. During the bombardment, which was carried on almost every day in the month of January, the cathedral suffered a great deal; it was reckoned that in eight hours seventy-five shells of large calibre were fired at the building. The entrance, the pulpit, and one of the columns of the spire were ruined, and one of the bells broken. On the 15th January a young girl was killed in the Rue de la Barde, and many children fell victims to German barbarism.

Bombardment of Sampigny

On the 15th September and the 8th October the Germans, with the desire to wreak revenge, bombarded the private residence of M. Poincaré, the President of the French Republic. The second bombardment, in the course of which forty-eight shells were discharged at this residence, brought about its complete destruction.

It is well to note that this destruction was nevertheless denied by the Wolff agency, which declared that the story was a myth, and added that if the site upon which this residence stood had been burned, it could only have been done by the French artillery itself.

Bombardment of Arras

The town of Arras was included, during the month of October, in the theatre of military operations. The Germans found a pretext for destroying it by two bombardments, one on the 6th, the other on the 20th and 21st October, which sowed destruction and death in this town.

The first bombardment of Arras, which may be compared to that at Reims, was meant to destroy the town hall, a miracle of Flemish art, built at the beginning of the seventeenth century, one of the finest ornaments of northern France.

“On the 6th October, at six a.m.,” said the Liberté of the 16th October, “the first shells fell near the railway station. A little afterwards a bomb fell on the roof of the town hall. All day long the guns belched forth death, destruction and terror. The inhabitants took refuge in the cellars, and even the wretched wounded also had to be brought down into them, for, disregarding the Red Cross, the Germans plied with machine-guns all the streets round the town hall, in which there were several hospitals and ambulances.

“The Hôpital St. Jean was the scene of a frightful accident. A whole storey collapsed under the shells. A nun and some wounded happened to be in the storey below, and were buried underneath the ruins. It was not possible to recover their bodies until the evening, when the assassins of the Kaiser had ceased bombardment.

“The musée, the cathedral, the Church of St. John the Baptiste, the old Convent of the Holy Sacrament, with its seventeenth-century campanile, and the Ursuline belfry (a reproduction of the old reliquary of the Holy Candle) were damaged. The shells fired at the cathedral pierced its roof in two places and laid bare the vault.”

The town hall alone was struck by nine-tenths of the explosive shells thrown at Arras. Finally, the two old towers, so stately and so peculiar in appearance, which were all that was left of the old abbey founded by Saint Eloi, in the village of that name near Arras, were demolished by the Germans, who bombarded them without any excuse, for the mere pleasure of destruction.

The Germans cannot pretend that they did not know the site of all these monuments, nor that of the hospitals of Arras, for they had occupied the town one day in the beginning of September. No more can they allege that the French had made use of the quarter destroyed by them for attack or for self-defence, for this part of the town is in a hollow, which an army would never try to utilise.

As for the second bombardment of Arras (20th to 21st October), it was aimed at the belfry, the incomparable monument of the town which alone remained standing above the centre of the town hall. The building fell on the 21st, at eleven a.m., having been cut off close from the ancient roof of the structure round about it.

The Outrage on Notre-Dame of Paris

German aeroplanes made frequent moves towards Paris, of which we have already spoken. The outrage of the 11th October, 1914, deserves special mention, for this time the machine aimed at the cathedral. An incendiary bomb was dropped on Notre-Dame. This bomb set fire to one of the inner beams of the roof, smashed six of the stays of the north transept, and riddled with grapeshot the glass frame of the clock in the same transept.

This outrage, coming after that at Reims, roused fresh protests from neutral countries. The Messagero of Rome (13th October) declared, and with reason, that “the murder of peaceful citizens and the crime of throwing bombs on Notre-Dame need no comment.” These acts, the paper added, are a fresh crime against humanity and against art for which the civilised world will demand an account from the German people.

Bombardment of Hazebrouck

About the middle of November Hazebrouck suffered bombardment by a German aeroplane: a bomb killed a railway worker named Georges Demonvaux, and wounded two other people. The aviator came a second time, an hour afterwards, and threw three more bombs, aiming at the English and French Red Cross hospitals, which, fortunately, were only slightly injured.

Finally, to bring to an end the list of cruel bombardments, let us put on record that of Houplines (15th December), where fifty civilians were killed and St. Paul’s Church was destroyed; those of Dunkirk (24th December and 22nd January), where, besides the murder of many civilians, the United States Consul was wounded, and the consulates of the United States, Norway and Uruguay were damaged. The hospital was also struck by bombs. Finally, let us note the bombardment of Béthune, which was carried on almost without intermission, which caused the death of ten people, and which was aimed at the hospital, in the court of which a shell had fallen and burst.

The bombardment of Libau (in Courlande) is to be added to the foregoing. On the 28th March a German aeroplane caused the death of several persons and wounded a little girl. Let us add also that of Calais, where, quite recently, a Zeppelin damaged Notre-Dame Church. A chapel of the latter, dedicated to the Sacred Heart, had its vault broken in and its stained-glass windows shattered. These were of great artistic merit and represented scenes of the Crucifixion.

CHAPTER IX
KILLING OF THE WOUNDED BY GERMANS

The Wounded, the Red Cross, and the Geneva Convention

What is the aim and object of battles between belligerent powers? To put out of action as large a number as possible of enemy soldiers, and thus, as much as may be, to break the enemy’s resistance. That, at least, is the conception of the aim of war entertained by all civilised nations, since only barbarians, from desire for revenge, from blindness and brutality, would seek to do injury for its own sake, and to seize the opportunity of a state of war to gratify their instincts for plunder. This conception, let us repeat, Germany, like all other nations, has countersigned in solemn covenants.

Nevertheless, the aims which this war is laying bare in them are contrary to these pledges.

In fact, we see Germany deliberately killing either those whom she could prevent from doing her any injury by keeping them as prisoners, or even those who were non-combatants. Some have thought that the Germans aimed, in a manner, at the annihilation of the race in nations hostile to Germany. It would be dreadful if this were the case. As for ourselves, we shall neither say that this has not been proved nor that it is impossible. What is certain is that the number of outrages committed by Germany can only be explained by a deliberate attempt at barbaric destruction.

Beyond question they have attempted to damage the property of the enemy. Pillage in their eyes has not been one of the more or less inevitable concomitants of war: it has been one of its deliberate aims. Moreover, the policy of terrorisation is a part of their general plan of action. In their view fear is a good ally of invasion, and in order to reap all the advantage of it they have left untried no form of violence or even of cruelty.

Besides, we are not here concerned with policy shaped from above, by the Government or the higher command: in the rank and file we may take everything for granted. “Let us kill them all: there will be so many the fewer left.” Who knows how often this monstrous thought has entered the brain of people whose cruelty and violence is a part of their plans of war? How often has it not been a necessity to kill, as to sack, in order to overthrow, to reduce, to weaken an enemy nation not merely in war, but in general, and even as regards the future in which rehabilitation might be anticipated. But civilised nations look to treaties to prevent the rehabilitation of the enemy. By looting and robbing industrial establishments, the property of private individuals, the Germans showed that their peculiar method was to try to prevent it by war itself, to draw up a schedule of barbarism which by its very nature endangers life itself, which includes murder as well as pillage. Thus we understand how the Germans, both in theory and practice, have violated the most widely accepted conventions which, in the midst of the havoc of war, limit the right to kill either civilians or soldiers.

To begin with, the present chapter will be devoted to the complete denial of the principles of humanity laid down in the Geneva Convention. We reserve the right of discussion in subsequent chapters of the questions of the treatment of prisoners, of the massacre of civilians, etc. The violation of that part of the Convention of Geneva which bears upon the wounded and the Red Cross is, in fact, a deliberate crime, without any extenuating circumstances; it is inexcusable and unpardonable.

What are the terms of the Convention of Geneva? That “soldiers and other persons officially attached to armies shall, when wounded or sick, be respected and taken care of by the belligerent in whose power they may be, without distinction of nationality.” The latter, therefore, must look for and collect the sick and wounded, and prevent every act by any third party which might do them injury. These sick and wounded will be prisoners of war, but “prisoners who must be taken care of.” As for people attached to the Red Cross, it was declared, and Germany and Austria-Hungary subscribed both to this and to the preceding stipulations, that “the personnel engaged exclusively in the collection, transport and treatment of the wounded and sick, as well as in the administration of medical units and establishments, and the chaplains attached to armies, shall be respected and protected under all circumstances; if they fall into the hands of the enemy they shall not be treated as prisoners of war.”

Principles of the Geneva Convention which Germans have violated

We have already stated in the preceding chapter how seldom the Germans have carried out these principles, for, contrariwise, they have deliberately aimed their artillery at establishments for the shelter of the wounded, the sick, and the hospital services. This fact is not the only one which shows the contempt displayed by the Germans for the Geneva Convention. It seems that they have eagerly seized upon every opportunity which presented itself to violate this convention in every way. Not only have the wounded who fell into their hands not been properly treated by them, but in many instances these wounded have been put to death. Sometimes, before killing them, they treated themselves to the enjoyment of making them suffer. It is scarcely credible, but it is true, that in more than one case the killing of the wounded assumed the form of a command issued by the officers themselves. We have said that the Germans have also fired on ambulances. They have killed and ill-treated Red Cross nurses, male and female, and the doctors engaged on Red Cross work.

Killing of the Wounded ordered by Officers

The German wounded are many. It followed, therefore, that the German medical service was disinclined to encumber itself with relays of enemy wounded. Perhaps this is also the reason why orders were given to the soldiers to kill the wounded. General Stenger issued, on the 26th August, an order of the day giving instructions to make no more prisoners and to leave no living man behind. The authenticity of this order, the full text of which we give in the next chapter, was confirmed by the evidence of German prisoners.

The prisoners cross-examined, says the Temps, which reported the depositions, belong to the 112th and 142nd infantry regiments. They were put on oath and signed the report of their examination. A soldier of the 142nd deposed that, on the 26th August, about three o’clock, he was in the van of his battalion in the forest of Thiaville when the company order giving instructions to kill the wounded was sent along the ranks and repeated from man to man.

This prisoner added that as soon as this order was passed round, ten or twelve French wounded who were lying here and there round about the battalion were dispatched with rifle shots.

Another prisoner in the same regiment deposed that, on the 26th August, he saw a cavalry officer, unknown to him, come and give the order in question as coming from headquarters. Immediately afterwards rifle shots were heard coming from the head of the detachment in front of him.

A soldier of the 112th declared that he heard, on the 26th August, Captain Curtins, in command of the 3rd Company, say that henceforth no more wounded were to be made prisoners. Shortly afterwards he heard rifle shots fired at the French wounded who happened to be lying along the roads.

Another soldier of the 112th gave evidence that on the same day, between four and five o’clock, some French wounded who happened to be on the sides of the road from Thiaville to Saint Benoit, were killed by order of the commander of the 1st battalion.

About twenty German soldiers who were cross-examined admitted that this order had been given, but without giving details about the manner in which it had been carried out. Some prisoners, who did not know even in the field about the company order of the day, declared that they were subsequently informed of it by their comrades.

Moreover, the German soldier Karl Johannes Kaltenochner (9th company of the regiment of Count Bülow of Tervuenwist), who deserted and took refuge in Holland, declared in the Telegraaf of Amsterdam (Temps of 3rd January, 1915) that when Turcos were made prisoners the German officers did not take the trouble to send them to any place behind the lines, and gave orders to the soldiers to shoot them. He quoted Major Botwitz as having given orders to kill two Turco prisoners. It is not, then, to be wondered at that the soldier who made this disclosure accompanied it with the declaration “that the German soldiers have become like wild animals and think only of killing and pillaging.”

Finally, in the hospital at Nancy two German soldiers who were under treatment there made similar confessions. One of them, who had a wound in the stomach, confided to Dr. Rohmer that it had been caused by a revolver-shot from his officer, because he declined to kill a wounded Frenchman. The other, who was wounded in the back by a shot fired point-blank, declared to Dr. Weiss that, in obedience to the order of an officer, a soldier had fired on him to punish him for having carried several wounded Frenchmen into a village not far from the battlefield.

French and Belgian Officers killed by the Germans

The number of officers killed by Germans on the different battlefields to which the war has extended is certainly greater than one would think. The following are two attested instances—

On the 9th August, at Ormael in Belgium, the Belgian Commandant Knapen, who was already wounded, was killed.

On the 12th August, after the battle of Haelen in Belgium, the Germans killed, by a revolver-shot in the mouth, Commandant Van Daume, who had been seriously wounded.

On the 22nd August, at Gommery (Belgian Luxemburg) M. Charles Deschars, former commercial attaché of France at Berlin, was killed under the following disgraceful circumstances. M. Deschars, an interpreter lieutenant at the headquarters of General Trentinian, had been wounded at the battle of Elbe, in Belgian Luxemburg, on the 22nd August. On that day he had to be left at an ambulance in the village of Gommery. In the evening came a German troop belonging to the 47th infantry regiment, in command of a non-commissioned officer. The latter pretended that a shot had been fired at his platoon. He asked for an interpreter, and M. Ch. Deschars came down, helped by attendants. He went up to the German non-commissioned officer, and the latter, after exchanging some words with him, drew a revolver and blew out his brains.

After this murder the German platoon gave itself up to all sorts of excesses. Dr. Vaissières, who happened to be in the ambulance, was killed. Dr. Sedillot, surgeon-major of the 1st class, was wounded. The majority of the wounded were killed.

A similar crime took place during an engagement between French dragoons and German light cavalry. A French lieutenant, who afterwards told the story in the Matin of the 22nd August, finding he was wounded, called for help. A German came up and, seeing that he had to deal with an officer, appealed to his commandant, M. de Schaffenberg, of the Trèves light cavalry. The latter went behind the French lieutenant, took his cavalry revolver, and at point blank shot him in the stomach. The French officer’s orderly was spared only because Commandant de Schaffenberg thought he was dead.

Wounded Soldiers tortured before being put to Death

The German crime of killing enemy wounded assumes a still more dreadful aspect when it is committed only after the victims have suffered cruel treatment. The tortures inflicted on the wounded argue an exceptional ferocity in those who are guilty of them, and yet such cases are not rare.

On the 16th August, at Dinant, French soldiers were found with their heads smashed in by the butt-ends of rifles. On the 25th August, at Hofstade in Belgium, a soldier who had been slightly wounded was also killed by blows from the butt-end of a rifle. In a wood not far from the road to Malines, at Tervueren, eighteen Belgian riflemen were killed by bayonet thrusts in the head. One of the French wounded, who had been taken again by the French troops and then left at Besançon, had been struck on the head and sides with blows from the butt-end of a rifle and kicked. A German soldier had dragged him along the ground. Beside him another wounded Frenchman was dispatched with bayonet thrusts. The Belgian quartermaster Beaudin van de Kerchove (5th lancers), who had been wounded by two German bullets at the battle of Orsmael, on the 20th August, was also tortured. The French sergeant Lemerre, who had been wounded in the leg at Rembercourt by a bursting shell, was left on the ground for eight days by the German ambulance, who had, however, seen him. On the fourth day, on the order of an officer who, revolver in hand, was crossing the field of battle, this non-commissioned officer was wounded again by a rifle shot fired by a soldier.

The French Commission of Inquiry on their part quote three cases of torture inflicted on the wounded—

“On the evening of the 25th August,” say the Commission in their report, the Abbé Denis, Curé of Reméreville, tended Lieutenant Toussaint, who had only left the forestry school in the previous month of July. As he lay wounded on the field of battle, this young officer had been bayoneted by all the Germans who had passed by him. His body was one great wound from head to foot.

“At the Nancy hospital we saw Private Voger of the infantry regiment, who was still bearing the marks of German barbarism. Seriously wounded in the spinal column, in front of the forest of Champenoux, on the 24th August, and paralysed in both legs as a result of his wound, he had remained lying on his stomach, when a German soldier brutally turned him over with his rifle and struck him three times with the butt on the head. Others, who were passing near him, also struck him with the butt-ends of their rifles and kicked him.

“Finally, one of them with a single stroke made a wound below and three or four centimetres from each eye with the help of an instrument which the victim could not distinguish, but which in the opinion of Dr. Weiss, chief physician and professor of the faculty of Nancy, must have been a pair of scissors.”

These facts appear difficult of belief. Nevertheless a confession of similar deeds has been made by German soldiers; for example, Paul Gloede, of the 9th battalion of Pioneers (9th corps), actually writes in his notebook: “Mutilation of the wounded is the order of the day.”

Published Admission by Germans

These acts of German troops did not always make Germans ashamed. On the contrary, in certain cases they even thought it was a clever thing to boast about it. For instance, a story, which had come from the German non-commissioned officer Klemt (154th infantry regiment, 1st company), was published in a newspaper of Jauer in Silesia on the 18th October, 1914. The paper even put as a marginal note the following phrase “The 24th September, 1914, a day of honour for our troops.” In his pamphlet, German Crimes according to German Evidence, M. Bédier has put on record the non-commissioned officer’s story.

“We bludgeon and transfix the wounded,” says the wretch, “for we know that these scoundrels, when we have passed by, would fire at our backs. There lies at full length a Frenchman, face to the ground, but he is shamming death. A kick from the foot of a stout fusilier lets him know that we are there. Turning round, he asks for quarter, but we say to him, ‘That is how, you —, your tools work,’ and we pin him to the ground. Beside me, I hear strange crashing noises. They are blows from the butt-end of a rifle which a soldier of the 154th regiment is vigorously applying to a Frenchman’s bald head: very cleverly he used a French rifle for his work, lest he should break his own. Men with exceptionally tender hearts do the French wounded the favour of finishing them off with a bullet, but others distribute as many cuts and thrusts as they can. Our opponents had fought bravely: they were picked troops whom we had in front of us: they let us come as close as thirty and even ten metres to them: too close. Knapsacks and arms thrown in a heap prove that they wanted to take to flight, but at sight of the ‘grey phantoms,’ terror paralysed their limbs, and on the narrow path which they were taking the German bullet brought them the order to ‘halt.’ At the entrance to their hiding-place of boughs of trees they lie, groaning and asking for quarter. But, whether they were lightly or seriously wounded, the fusiliers spare the fatherland the expensive attentions which would have to be given to a crowd of enemies.”

The non-commissioned officer adds that Prince Oscar of Prussia, on being informed of the exploits of the 154th and of the regiment which with the 154th forms a brigade, declared they were both worthy of the name “King’s Brigade.” “When evening came,” he continued, “with a prayer of thanks upon our lips we fell asleep in expectation of the following day.” Then, having added by way of postscript a little bit of verse, “Return from Battle,” he brings the whole, prose and verse, to his lieutenant, who countersigns it, “Certified to be correct, De Niem, lieutenant and company commander.”

German Murder of People attached to the Medical Service and the Red Cross

No more than the wounded were people engaged in tending or transporting the wounded spared by the Germans.

We have said that in bombardments no distinction was made between Red Cross establishments and the others. But even outside these cases the Geneva Convention was so frequently violated that we are driven to attach no credence to the excuses invented in case of bombardment.

Enemy doctors, nurses male and female, ambulance workers have been often ill-treated, wounded and even killed by the Germans. We have noted one case, in reporting the murder of the French lieutenant Deschars who had been previously wounded. It is not the only one.

M. Pierre Nothomb reports several in his pamphlet, Belgique Martyre. We must also remember the testimony given by Dr. Barbey (Echo de Paris of the 20th January, 1915). Speaking of the cruelties committed by the Germans at Recquignies (Nord), this doctor says—

“On the afternoon of the 6th September German soldiers came to the ambulance; they were very much excited: two of them caught hold of me brutally and another presented his rifle at me. I explained to them that they were in a temporary hospital, where there were no arms, which was true, and, moreover, all arms had been punctiliously given up by the civilians at the beginning of the siege. The Boches searched everywhere without finding anything. Then they went off, leading the eight attendants and stretcher-bearers, whom, as they pretended, they needed to bring their wounded to Boussois. The little company set out. As they were passing before my house, which was still uninjured, the Germans, revolver in hand, compelled attendant Jus to set fire to it. They did the same with the mayor’s house, which was next door to mine.

“On the way back from this expedition, as the eight attendants, who all the time had been surrounded by Boches, were going along the railway-line from Paris to Cologne, the leader of the detachment suddenly caused a halt: the French soldiers were lined along the bank: they were ordered to raise their arms and they obeyed.

“‘Shoot them,’ commanded the leader. A volley rang out. The eight men fell. Without troubling further about them the bandits went off at once, shouting, for they were drunk… Fortunately, so drunk, in fact, that their bullets had nearly all missed. Only four of our attendants were wounded: Private Hacrien; Private Caudren, who had his leg broken; a private who was a native of Perenchies, and who had a bullet through his thigh, and a fourth private who sustained a not very serious wound on the knee. When the Boches were gone the four attendants, who were unhurt and who had been shamming death, lifted up their comrades and brought them to the ambulance.

“On the following day all the wounded under treatment in this ambulance were brought, without food, to Beaumont in Belgium, where a kindly major had them collected in a convent which had been transformed into a hospital. There I left them, as I had been authorised to go back alone to France.

“I set out on foot, without a copper, on an empty stomach. On the way, I met with a German patrol; without parley, the savages belaboured me with the butt-ends of their rifles and left me for dead, having just stripped me of all I had left—namely, my clothes.”

M. Herriot, Mayor of Lyon, on his part, in a letter to a French minister, declares that “he knows ten French doctors whose ambulances had been bombarded and their attendants killed,” and that “the Chief Rabbi of Lyon was killed as he was endeavouring to get the wounded out through the window of an ambulance which had been set on fire by shells.”

On the other hand, the French Commission of Inquiry states in its report that, on the 25th August, at Einvaux some Germans had opened fire at 300 metres on Dr. Millet, surgeon-major of the colonial regiment, just when, with the help of two bearers, he was dressing the wounds of a man who was lying on a stretcher. As his left side was turned to them they saw his brassard perfectly. Besides, they could not have been mistaken about the kind of job on which the three men were engaged.

“At Xivry-Circourt,” writes M. Bonne, senior curé of Étain, in a report which he drew up, “the Germans seized an ambulance and a convoy of wounded, only the first carriage of which succeeded in escaping, in a hail of bullets.”

In a report on the outrages and crimes committed by the Germans at Arras, M. Briens, prefect of the Department of Pas de Calais, remarks: “The most painful feelings have been roused by the taking away of all the wounded under treatment at the hospitals whom it was possible to carry… The surgeon-majors of the Medical Service and the Red Cross attendants were attached to this convoy of prisoners.”

Finally, before Lunéville, a French Red Cross nurse, Mme. Prudennec, while on the look-out for wounded on the battlefields, tended a German officer who, to show his gratitude, gave her a sabre thrust in return. The nurse was injured in the leg, and for five days remained wounded in the hands of the Prussians. But when the time came for them to retreat the Germans left behind the nurse (who was unable to walk), and so it came to pass that she was saved by French soldiers.

CHAPTER X
ILL-TREATMENT OF PRISONERS OF WAR

By common consent good treatment of prisoners of war is a law imposed on civilised nations. American instructions, in their article 56, do but put into words the feelings of civilised mankind when they say, “A prisoner of war must suffer no penalty in so far as he is a public enemy; no suffering, no dishonour will be intentionally imposed upon him by way of reprisal, neither imprisonment, nor deprivation of food, nor mutilation, nor death, nor any barbarous treatment.” Such is the line of conduct which belligerents long have followed in this matter; such is the idea they entertain of their duty in war.

The German Idea

In the present war, however, we have seen the Germans change all that: in this respect, as in so many others, they have shown unmitigated contempt for current conceptions of war. They have been seen to vent their hatred and desire for vengeance upon a prisoner. Therein is the reaction of a feeling of cruel pride. Have not the prisoners of war who fall into German hands committed the crime of offering resistance to the actions of the first people in the world? Consequently, M. Pierre Nothomb remarks, in his book, Belgique Martyre, “in the hands of the German a prisoner is not a soldier who has been unlucky, but a victim who is to endure his hatred.”

Germany took good care not to advertise this principle. It would have been too open a violation of the law of nations, and, besides, it would have exposed her to reprisals. Prisoners who surrendered in a body were spared up to a certain point. But the case was different with prisoners taken in little groups. Towards them, because their fate was more obscure, and the manner in which they were treated might appear to involve less responsibility for the whole system, no ill-treatment and cruelty, from insults to death, were omitted. They were jeered at, and from mockery their tormentors went on to blows and wounds.

Blows

At Camperhout (in Belgium) the Germans amused themselves with imposing on the prisoners fatigue-duty, in the course of which the latter were struck on the slightest pretext. A Greek, who was a volunteer in the French army, has told what happened, in a letter to the Nea Himera at Athens. “There were eight hundred prisoners of us, five of whom were Greeks. We were brought before German officers, who ordered us to undress. Then they had us tied with ropes and whipped by six German soldiers.”

They were undressed and stripped of what they had. “When I was able to get my clothes again,” said the same witness, “I found that a sum of 3850 francs and an old gold medal had disappeared.”

Cross-examination

At the same time that vengeance was being taken on the prisoners, attempts were made to extract from them information which would be useful for carrying on the war. They were questioned as to what they had seen, as to the enemy forces and the positions occupied by them, and in general on all military or strategic questions on which they might be supposed to have knowledge, as an hour previously they had been in the trenches. Sometimes, in order to obtain information like this, they were content to resort to a ruse; on other occasions they went as far as threats followed by actions.

Despicable German officers dared to cross-examine prisoners whom they had just made. Brought bound before the officers, the prisoners found they were ordered to reply under penalty of being tortured and killed. Near Aerschot, a Belgian soldier, who had been made a prisoner, understood that he was asked in this manner, by an officer and three soldiers, where were his regiment and the body of his troops. This soldier, who had refused to reply, was thrown to the ground, kicked, and finally abandoned, still tied with ropes.

On the 29th March the Germans took prisoner, north of Mychinetz, a Russian non-commissioned officer, Paphyre Panasiouk, and tortured him in the presence of ten German officers, who tried to drag information from him about the positions of the Russian troops. Having refused to act as a traitor to the advantage of his enemies, the wretched non-commissioned officer had the lobe of his right ear cut off by a German officer, who then, in four strokes, cut off the top of the ear, leaving only a piece of cartilage round the auricular passage. In the meantime, another officer was mutilating his nose, separating the cartilage from the bone, and biting him. This torture lasted for a whole hour, and the victim, who afterwards succeeded in giving his guards the slip, was placed in hospital at Warsaw, where the doctors photographed his mutilated face.

Murders

In other places prisoners were shot. In an official note of the Russian Government, a German officer was mentioned by name as having formally given the order to hang all Cossacks who should be made prisoner. This was Major Modeiski, of the German cuirassiers. In confirmation of the fact, it was stated that in many places Cossack prisoners had been hanged, shot or killed by bayonet thrusts; at Radom, in the middle of October, an officer and four Cossacks; at Ratchki, a Cossack; at Monastijisk, four Cossacks; at Tapilovka, the Cossack Jidkof, who had been made prisoner at Souvalki, etc.

At Chabatz, sixty Serbian soldiers, who had been made prisoner, were massacred, and in the Belfort region a large number of French prisoners were undressed by the Germans, who exposed them naked to French bullets, and threw others into the canal, only to take them out again and throw them in once more.

At Namur, during the retreat, Parfonnery, an infantryman, was made prisoner with a group of soldiers. “Their hands were tied behind their backs, they were bound together four by four; they were compelled to march all day, being struck with the flat of the sword and the butt-end of the rifle, and finally were thrown into the cellars of the Château Saint-Gérard.” Elsewhere another Belgian prisoner, who rebelled against this ill-treatment, had his neck twisted by his guards.

At Dixmude, Lieutenant Poncin (of the 12th Belgian Regiment of the Line) was shot after having been bound round the middle by a wire tied about ten times round his legs. On the 6th September a Belgian cavalryman, who had been made prisoner, was disarmed, then bound and had his bowels opened with bayonet thrusts. Near Sempst the Germans opened the bowels of two Belgian carabineers and pulled out their entrails; at Tamine the Germans tied a French officer to the trunk of a tree and harnessed horses to each of his legs. By forcing the horses to run, the wretched man was torn asunder. These latter facts are reported in M. Pierre Nothomb’s book. At Saenski (in the Souvalki area) a Cossack was burnt alive on the first of October. Other Russian prisoners also were condemned to die of hunger. In other places Cossacks were condemned to dig their graves and were shot.

German Admissions

In September 1914, when the Russians were forced to evacuate eastern Prussia before the advancing Germans, they had recourse to what was an indisputable right by making unusable such provisions as they could not carry away. In this way enormous quantities of bread were wet with petrol by orders from headquarters, so that the enemy could get no advantage from it. The Frankfurter Zeitung of the 8th October recorded this act as a crime which deserved punishment. Under the heading “A Just Punishment,” this paper had the hardihood to tell of the vengeance which the Germans enacted for it. The stores were at Insterbourg. The Russians, wrote the Frankfurter Zeitung, had reckoned without General Hindenburg’s sense of humour. When this general was informed of the matter, he said, “There is no accounting for tastes. The Russians have their tastes. This bread will do to feed Russian prisoners of war until these provisions are exhausted.” Let us not forget to notice the style of this article. This expression of the most cruel wrath, and of the keenest thirst for vengeance, is called “humour.” And in what journal? In one of the most influential and most moderate organs in Germany. There can be no more striking admission both of the acts of cruelty and of the barbaric passion which instigated them.

A perusal of the confession of these abominations, a confession, too, made in such terms, gives a better idea of the character and aims of this nation.

General Stenger, to whom we have already referred, the commander of the 38th Brigade, gave instructions for the massacre of the wounded in an order of the day which we reproduce verbatim, and which is so abominable that it is beyond criticism.