German Barbarism: A Neutral's Indictment

M. Bédier has reproduced in his book the actual original of this document.

Treatment of Prisoners in Germany

Once they had left the battlefields for the German fortresses, where they were to be kept under guard, it was inevitable that prisoners of war should be exposed to the most brutal ill-treatment, death, wounds and blows. A regular prison regimen following upon possible outrages on the field of battle would, of course, absolutely prevent that. But all the penalties which the prisoners could possibly be made to suffer under these new circumstances were heaped upon them in profusion. They were not allowed to have their letters; customs duties were imposed on the packages sent to them from their own country, and the transmission of these packages was irregular and uncertain; finally, some of these consignments were constantly and systematically looted.

The French Government complained. In fear of reprisals the Germans had to alter their ways, though in some respects they continued as before. They refused to sanction the pay of private soldiers and non-commissioned officers, who had been taken prisoner; they fixed the pay of inferior and superior officers at the ridiculous amounts of sixty and a hundred marks; they refused to serve out allowances of tobacco and cruelly cut short the supply of food.

These measures are significant. They show Germany’s view of the prisoner of war. The only favour she allows him is not to kill him, not to beat him, not to let him die outright of hunger. We speak here of orders given and measures taken by the higher command, for which no excuse that pleads the inhumanity of war could be admitted.

CHAPTER XI
THE MURDER, TORTURE AND VIOLATION OF WOMEN IN INVADED TERRITORY

The present and following chapters will contain the most abominable part of this indictment. We shall read the story of outrages of which women have been made victims by the German scoundrels. Were not these outrages, established as they are by certain reports, and confirmed by confessions which the Germans themselves have inadvertently made, the result of the unbridled instincts of an army in a state of delirium? We should like to think so, but the details to hand with regard to the circumstances under which these acts were performed compel us to recognise that something more is involved in them. They reveal the presence of cruelty and thirst for innocent blood in the perpetrators of these murders and acts of violence.

Crimes committed against octogenarian old women seem to issue from a special hatred, directed against those who gave birth to their enemies of to-day. The number of acts of violation committed by these invaders proves that there is inherent in the German mind a peculiar contempt for all human laws, a regular bestiality, a cynical audacity, which, if the reins are given to it, borders on madness.

In the performance of these abominable acts the Germans showed no trace of humanity. Their thoughts were incapable of going back to themselves and their fatherland, to the daughters, the fiancées, the wives, the mothers whom they themselves had left at home; wholesale murders, mutilations, tortures, treatment so frightful as to drive the victims crazy, refinements of cruelty by which the relatives and parents of the latter were made partners in their punishment, and in which, as we have seen, neither organisation nor method was wanting—such are the acts of which we are about to give proofs and examples.

Murders

In the story of the murders committed by the Germans, of which women have been the victims, we see almost always that these were surprised in the midst of their common daily tasks. The horror of the crime committed against them is enhanced. It is still worse when the massacred women were about to perform some act of charity. At Tamines, in Belgium, a woman was killed in the middle of the street as she was carrying a sick old man. At Mayen-Multien a woman named Laforest was seriously wounded, in the beginning of September, by a German horseman to whom she and her husband had been obliged to give hospitality. His excuse was that they were too long about serving him. At Hazebrouck, in the middle of the month of October, a German soldier, who was riding a bicycle, seeing in a corner a poor mother seated with her child sleeping on her knees, transfixed the latter with his bayonet, and at the same time wounded the mother in the thigh, without any of his comrades interfering. At Audun-le-Roman, Mlle. Tréfel was struck at the very moment when she was giving a drink to a German soldier.

Examples of such acts are innumerable. The most striking instances were those which took place at Malines, Gerbeviller, Audun-le-Roman, Boortmeerbeck, Neuville-en-Artois, Hériménil. At Hériménil, Mme. Truger, twenty-three years old, was shot by order of an officer. At Boortemeerbeck, the maid-servant of Mlle. van Hoorde was killed because she was accused of having assassinated an officer. This officer had committed suicide, after leaving on his table a letter in which he declared his intention. At Lunéville a young girl of sixteen years, Mlle. Weill, was killed in her own house by her father’s side.

In the same town a woman aged ninety-eight years was killed in her bed and thrown into the flames; at Triaucourt, Mme. Maupoix, aged seventy-five years, was so violently kicked that she died some days afterwards. Two other old women of the same place were shot dead. During the following night the Germans played the piano near the corpses. At Nomény several women were forced to make a long march on foot; an old woman, who was just on the verge of a hundred years, fell down in a state of exhaustion and died. At Hofstade, another old woman was found dead by the Belgian soldiers. She had been bayoneted several times as she sat down to sew. At Gerbeviller, widow Guillaume, aged sixty-eight years, was killed by a shot fired point-blank.

Wholesale Murder

In many cases the Germans went as far as general massacres. The excuse invoked by them was a pretended right of reprisals.

The most appalling of these butcheries seems to have been that of Dinant, which took place on the 22nd August and following days. “In these terrible days,” writes a Dutchman, M. Staller, on this topic, in the Telegraaf (translated in the Temps, 19th December, 1914), “at Dinant and also in the neighbouring villages of Anseremme, Leffe and Neffe, more than eight hundred persons were killed, amongst whom there were many women and children.” The XX Siècle published the names of about sixty women, several of whom were octogenarians, and of about forty children. The excuse put forward was that three German soldiers had been killed by the civilians (see further on).

“At Anseremme,” continues the Telegraaf, “eighteen women and two children were concealed under a bridge; the soldiers caught sight of them and fired with a machine-gun until there was no more sign of life; on the following morning they burnt the corpses, probably that they might not be accused of having killed defenceless people. I saw the horrible remains of the fire.”

Another massacre was that witnessed at Louvain. On the 27th August, at 8 o’clock, the order was given to the inhabitants of Louvain to leave the town, as it was going to be bombarded. Amongst these thousands of wretched people, pursued by the brutal soldiers, were large numbers of women, and some, who had not the strength to follow the procession, were shot.

Tortured Women

A humane reader cannot repress a tremor as he learns the story of the tortures inflicted on women by the Germans on several occasions. We should have spared our readers these stories, were it not necessary to pay special attention to them for the purpose of showing how far German barbarism can go.

At Dompierre-aux-Bois, after the bombardment which we have described, the Germans did not want to allow the people shut up in a church which they were bombarding even to go to look for water to tend the wounded. Women were compelled to wait without help, wounded, bruised, mutilated under the eyes of their parents, who were powerless to help them during a time of agony which for some lasted up to twenty-four and thirty-six hours. When they were dead, the Germans forced the men to dig a grave near the cemetery and to bury them in it. One of them found that in this way he was forced to bury without a coffin his wife, her mother and her sisters.

At Révigny the French Commission of Inquiry notes the case of a woman who was found killed in a cellar, with her breast and right arm cut off. Her little son, aged eleven years, also had a foot cut off.

M. Bonne, the senior curate of Étain, declares in his report that a woman of Audun-le-Roman, who was suckling her child, was tortured for refusing to give the enemy food. They mangled her abdomen and killed her child.

At Sempst, in Belgium, a woman was bayoneted, covered with petrol, and thrown into the flames. The fact is noted in the second report of the Belgian Commission of Inquiry. M. Pierre Nothomb relates the following facts: “On coming to Averbode, on the 20th August, the Germans saw a woman, who—seized with fear—concealed herself in a ditch. They killed her with lance-thrusts. An hour’s journey from there, at Schaffen, they disembowelled a young girl of twenty years. Peasants from the outskirts of Louvain went to Antwerp, on the 12th September, and told that at Wilzele the Germans wanted to burn alive Mme. Van Kriegelinen and her eleven children. The woman and eight children were burnt. We saw the corpses of the mother and her children, and were present at the execution.” The volunteer gunner de R— unpinned from the ground the bodies of a woman and her child, who were fastened to the ground by bayonets. Asked about what had passed at Boortmeerbeck, Dr. V— of Malines deposed: “Mme. Van Rollegem came to the hospital of Malines on the 22nd August. On Thursday the 20th, as she was fleeing from Boortmeerbeck with her husband, she was shot twice in the leg. She threw herself into the ditch to take shelter. Some minutes later the Germans who had fired on her came up to her again and made horrible wounds in her left thigh and left forearm. She remained like that without help until Saturday evening. The wounds were gangrened and worms were swarming over them.”

During the night of the 23rd to 24th August soldiers knocked violently at the door of the Château of Canne, owned by M. Poswick. Mme. Poswick opened the door; she was forthwith bludgeoned with the butt-ends of rifles. On Sunday, the 30th of August, a patrol of hussars, as a Lord’s day recreation, amused themselves by firing, on the Brussels road at Malines, at Catherine Van Kerchove, a woman of seventy-four years of age, at every part of her they could hit without killing her. A rifle shot carried off her right hand, another gashed her cheek. At Battice, before burning houses, the Germans made women go into them and shut them up there.

Sometimes German barbarism spent itself in putting people in captivity. At Dinant many women were kept shut up in the Abbaye des Prémontrés. Here they remained seated on the floor without food. Four of them were confined under these dreadful conditions (see Chap. XIII).

Poland and Serbia

Such acts were outdone at the other end of Europe, in the Eastern theatre of war. In Poland, at Khabbeck, the Austrians mutilated two women on the pretext that civilians were helping the movements of the Russian troops.

In the Podogorsky Arrondissement the Serbian troops found in the village of Jabonka the corpses of a young girl of about ten years old and of three old women, all three alike mutilated. Finally, Professor Reiss, of the University of Lausanne, who visited the Serbian territories invaded by the Austro-Hungarians, confirmed the authenticity of the mutilations in which the invader of Serbia had indulged.

“At Bastave” (he reports in his letter to the Temps of 22nd November) “nearly everybody took to flight when it was known that the Austrians were approaching. The two infirm women named Soldatovich, aged seventy-two and seventy-eight years, did not want to leave their house. They thought that even the most cruel men would do nothing to invalided old women. But when the peasants came back after the Austrians had gone, they found that the two poor old women had been violated, stabbed with bayonet thrusts, their noses, ears and breasts cut. Besides, mutilation was quite a usual practice amongst the murderers of the Austro-Hungarian army.”

These barbarous acts, when they did not cause the victim’s death, sometimes brought on insanity. This was the case, amongst other instances, with several women of Louvain, who were escorted by a detachment of the 162nd German infantry regiment to the riding-school of the town, and having, from want of room, passed a whole night standing, endured such terrible sufferings that they lost their reason.

Abduction

Let us take the case of abduction of women, led away by German soldiers and brought in troops to Germany. These wretched women were put down as hostages. It is, however, certain that in more than one case they were led away merely to gratify the soldiers’ lust.

At Marcheville the Germans carried off several hundreds of women, who were interned at Amberg in Bavaria in barracks. At Saint-Mihiel seven or eight hundred women were also carried off to Germany.

At Charleville the women were kept on the spot, but brought to their several tasks and kept under a regimen of forced labour. They were kept constantly employed in making equipments for the troops, earning a wage of half-a-loaf of bread. At Bignicourt-sur-Saulx forty women were carried off, as hostages it was said. The Hungarian dragoons in particular, in Poland and in the Lublin and Kielce regions, were noted for this kind of conduct, revived from the most barbarous periods of war.

The second report of the French Commission of Inquiry (Journal Officiel of 11th March, 1915) gives striking details of the fate of Frenchwomen who were carried away from their own country and interned in Germany.

For the most part separated from their children, there was no kind of violence to which they had not to submit. The lack of food induced among them frightful maladies, which they had to endure under the most horrible conditions. So acute were their sufferings, that afterwards, when they were released, they were very depressed, under the idea that they were still in prison, and were obsessed with morbid fears. Several of them, including some octogenarians, had to be carried on stretchers.

Violation

The number of women outraged by Germans where they lived is considerable. Violation was practised everywhere on invaded territory as a right of war, and without distinction of age. We feel in touch with an odious perversity as we read the story of these outrages, in which a depraved imagination is as prominent as their brutality.

On the 4th September, at Rebais, a young woman of twenty-nine years, a wine-seller, was accused of having concealed English soldiers at her house. The Germans undressed her, and compelled her to stay in that condition in their midst for an hour and a half. Then they fastened her to her counter, and threatened her with death. The wretched woman would infallibly have died had not orders, which suddenly arrived, compelled her torturers to be off and leave her in the hands of an Alsatian soldier, who released her.

The French Commission of Inquiry reports two cases of violation committed in each of the places it was able to visit, especially at Villers, Trumilly, Sermaize, etc. Special indignation is aroused by those of which quite young girls were the victims.

At Château-Thierry it was a girl of only fourteen years of age, who was dragged into a shop by three Germans, where, under threat of a bayonet, she was violated by two of them, while the third gave way to the young victim’s entreaties. At Begu-Saint-Germain it was a girl of thirteen years. At Loupy-le-Château it was on children of thirteen and eight years that such outrages were committed. At Magnières a little child of twelve years was violated twice by a soldier. At Suippy, on the 3rd September, a child of eleven years was for three hours the butt of the brutality of a man, who found her with her sick grandmother, brought her into a deserted house, and stuffed a handkerchief into her mouth to prevent her crying.

Unbridled bestiality of this kind had no more respect for age than childhood. The nature of some of these acts seems to prove the existence in the German race not merely of moral, but of physical defects. With amazement and disgust we put on record the evidence for acts which in ordinary life are found only in the diseased or maniacs.

At Vitry-en-Perthois a German violated an old woman of eighty-nine years, who died as a result. At Loupy-le-Château an unfortunate woman of seventy-five years was violated; at Suippes another old woman, aged seventy-two years, was seized by a German soldier, who was putting the muzzle of his revolver under her chin, when the woman’s brother-in-law came along and released her. In Serbia the corpses of mutilated old women, the discovery of which we noted above, were examined, and it was proved that these old women had been violated before being mutilated. In certain places soldiers were seen outraging dead bodies. This fact was established at Gerbeviller, the culprit being a Bavarian of the army corps commanded by General Clauss.

Hateful Consequences of these Acts

Several victims of these crimes died: others lost their reason. For a large number the natural consequences of these acts condemn them to become mothers.

Of all the victims of invasion, none have been more unfortunate than these. The practice of abortion cannot be tolerated. They are condemned to bring into the world the hateful fruit of savage bestiality. It should at least be admitted that they should be absolved from the duty of feeding and loving this offspring. A law to this effect will doubtless be passed in France. Permission will be given to declare that the children are the issue of unknown parents. The Committee for Public Assistance will assume responsibility and thus spare private families the morally intolerable burden of bringing up the children of Germans.

Resistance punished with Death

A number of women who resisted the violence of the soldiers were killed either by rifle shots or bayonet thrusts. At Esternay, on the night of Sunday, 6th September, the soldiers violated widow Bouché, her two daughters, and two women called Lhomme and Macé. When the mother resisted they fired on the whole group. Mme. Lhomme was struck, and Marcelle Bouché, who was seriously wounded, succumbed the following morning as a result of her wound. At Rebais, a lady of thirty-four years, who resisted the soldiers, was seized and strung up, but she was able to cut the rope with a knife which she found in her pocket. Then they beat her unmercifully, until an officer came up and released her.

In Belgium, at Aerschot, a young Belgian woman had to pay with her life for the intervention of her fiancé, whom the soldiers also massacred. More deplorable still is the case of a young girl of Louvain, whose body was pierced all over with bayonet thrusts, and who was then violated. Next day she was brought to hospital, but she succumbed to the wounds inflicted upon her.

Refinement of Depravity

In order to increase the horror of these scenes, the Germans were pleased to commit their crimes even in the presence of the parents of these wretched girls. It was not enough for them to shame their victim, they must do it under the eyes of those whose duty it was to defend her, and whom they first made powerless. Pierre Nothomb’s book contains numerous examples. We tremble with indignation as we read the story.

In France, at Coulommiers, a woman was violated on the 6th September before her husband and children. At Saint Denis-les-Rebais another was violated in the presence of her mother-in-law, who, being powerless to intervene, tried to prevent her little grandson, aged eight, from seeing this disgraceful sight. At Commigis (Aisne) a lady was made the object of violent and shameless acts by two Germans, also in her mother-in-law’s presence. At Raucourt (Meurthe-et-Moselle) the Germans violated a woman in the presence of her children.

German Admissions

On the question of the murder of women, young and old, M. Bédier’s book contains the admissions of the Germans themselves. Those of Blamont are told by the German soldier, Paul Spielmann (of the First Guards Infantry Brigade). “It was horrible: blood was plastered over all the houses, and as for the faces of the dead, they were hideous.

“Among them were many old women and one pregnant woman.” The excuse alleged was “there was telephonic communication with the enemy.” The existence of this telephone was the cause of this fearful massacre.

The outrages at Langeviller and another locality are put on record in an unsigned notebook of a soldier of the 11th Battalion of Pioneers. “Langeviller, 22nd August, a village demolished by the 11th Battalion of Pioneers. Three women hanged on trees: the first dead whom I had seen.” Why were these women hanged? We are not told. Eight days afterwards, he continues, “We destroyed eight houses. In a single one of them two men and their wives and a young girl of eighteen had been bayoneted. I was almost moved at the sight of the little one, her look was so full of innocence. But an excited body of men could no longer be kept in check, for at such moments we are no longer men, but beasts.” Here, we see, full confession is made. Another notes that at Orchies “a woman had a military execution.” Why? For not having obeyed the command to “halt.”

Something even of the acts of violence runs through these confessions. A soldier of the 12th infantry reserve, 3rd corps, writes, “I am forced to note one fact which cannot be due to accident, but there are, even in our army, some … who are no longer men, some … to whom nothing is sacred. Last night a man of the Landwehr, more than thirty-five years old, wanted to violate the daughter of the house on which he quartered himself, a mere little girl, and when her father intervened he pointed his bayonet against the man’s chest.”

CHAPTER XII
OFFENCES AGAINST CHILDREN, OLD PEOPLE AND PRIESTS

The plea of reprisals is no more valid in the case of children, old people and priests than it is in the case of women. All these classes of people have a right to consideration and to absolute respect from the invader. Every crime committed against them can bear no other name than wanton cruelty.

In the foregoing pages we have seen how children were killed with their mothers, and old women were outraged and killed. We must now unfold the chapter of crimes against the weak and against those whose character should have saved them from the violences of war. Ill-treatment, imprisonment, wounds, murder, torture—all these we hardly like to think that children, the personification of weakness and innocence, have had to suffer. Such has been the cruelty of the German troops in the field, that what has moved all men’s interest and compassion has, in several cases, only urged them on the more readily to violence.

Belgian and French Children ill-treated, wounded and killed

We have already told the story of the ill-treatment to which six to eight thousand people, who were packed together standing in the riding-school and had to pass the night there, were exposed at Louvain. A number of children were included in these. Several endured great hardships, and the youngest died in their mothers’ arms. At Dinant, in the slaughter which took place, several children were massacred.

In other cases we see that children were exposed to exceptional acts of violence. “On the way back from Tirlemont,” writes the special correspondent of the Times (29th August, 1914), “I met a little girl of eleven years old, who was stumbling and groping before her as if blind. A stroke of a lance had laid open her cheek and her eye. A poor peasant woman, her face wet with tears, told me that her husband had been killed in her presence by German horsemen, that two of her children, who were under nine years of age, had been trampled by their horses and that two others were missing. And this” (concluded the English journalist) “is not an isolated case; it is an example of what happens day by day in the areas occupied by the German soldiers, and, I regret to say, it is only an example among hundreds which have been attested beyond any possibility of doubt.”

Instances abound, and the following are a selection. At Louguyon, out of 153 people who were shot on the 23rd, 24th and 25th August by soldiers of the 102nd and 112th Prussian regiments, there were twelve children.

At Bantheville (Meuse), young Felix Miquel, aged about fifteen years, who had hidden behind a heap of wood so that he might not be arrested, got a violent sabre thrust from the soldier who discovered him, which split his lips; afterwards, as he was being led away, when he tried to hide in a wood, he stumbled against a sentinel, who with a bayonet stroke cut off a joint of his left hand.

At Mouchy Humières (Oise) a little four-year-old girl, who belonged to a family living in Verdun, was wounded on the 31st August by a German soldier. On the way from Bouligny to Mourière (Meuse) a child of fifteen years was shot in the groin as she was passing quietly by a wood in which a German patrol was concealed.

At Spontin, near Dinant, fearful reprisals were carried out because a poacher had killed a Prussian officer, and children of all ages were shot or butchered with their mothers.

In the outskirts of Malines many corpses of children were found on the spot where the Germans had left them unburied. At Morfontaine, near Longwy, two children of fifteen were shot for having warned the French gendarmes of the arrival of the enemy. At Gerbeviller a young girl named Parmentier, who was barely seven years old, was also shot. At Dinant, too, several children met with the same fate. At Aerschot the burgomaster’s two children were shot; the murder of the little girls Luychx and Ooyen, aged twelve and nine years, both of whom were shot, was also confirmed. Pierre Nothomb quotes the case of two little children two years old, named Neef and Deekers, who were massacred at Testelt. Sometimes the despicable torturers added obscenity to cruelty. At Bertrex a grown-up brother and sister were killed and, when the penalty was paid, their bodies were put naked, clasping each other as if they had been embracing.

Children tortured by Germans

At Hofstade, said Pierre Nothomb, a lad of less than fifteen years was found with hands crossed behind his back and his body pierced with bayonet thrusts. At Pin, near Izel, two young boys saw the Uhlans coming; the latter took them as they passed, and made them run, with hands bound, between their galloping horses. Their dead bodies were found an hour afterwards in a ditch; as an eye-witness said, their knees were “literally worn out”; one had his throat cut and his breast laid open; each had a bullet in his head. At Schaffen a lad was bound to a shutter, sprinkled with petrol, and burnt alive. The soldiers who marched on Antwerp took a butcher’s cleaver at Sempst; they seized a little servant boy, cut off his legs, then his head, and roasted him in a burning house. At Lebbeke-les-Termonde, Frans Mertens and his comrades, Van Dooren, Dekinder, Stobbelaer and Wryer, were bound arm to arm; their eyes were gouged out with a pointed weapon, then they were killed by rifle shots.

In France, at Dompierre-aux-Bois, the children who were wounded in the bombardment of the church found themselves left to their agony, without attendance and without food. The dead bodies of two children who had been killed by bayonet thrusts were found at Neuville-en-Artois. At Vingras a little girl of eight years was thrust into the flames with her parents, whose farmhouse had been set on fire. At Sommeilles the dead body of a child of eleven was found with its foot cut off. At Triaucourt the wretches burnt a two-year-old child.

In Serbia similar outrages were committed. M. Reiss, Professor of Lausanne University, has proved that children of two months old were massacred. “I found children in common ditches who were not more than two or three years old. Amongst the 109 hostages of Lechnitza who were shot in front of a ditch which had previously been dug out, and which was not less than twenty metres long, there were some children of not more than eight years old.”

German Admissions

We read above the admission of a soldier of the Prussian Guard, Paul Spielmann, about the massacre of a village which “had been in telephonic communication with the enemy.” Among those who were massacred he adds that there were three children. “I saw this morning (2nd September) four little boys carrying on two sticks a cradle in which was a child of five to six months old. All that is fearful to behold. Blow for blow. Cannon for cannon. Everything was given up to pillage.

“… I saw also a mother with her two little ones; one had a great wound on the head and the other had its eye gouged out.”

The German soldier, Karl Johann Kaltendshner, Ninth Company of the Regiment of Count Bülow Tervuenwist, who deserted and fled to Holland, and whose statements in the Telegraaf we have already quoted, tells the following story: “I have seen children in tears, clinging to their defenceless mothers’ skirts, coming out of a threshing-mill where they had sought shelter, and I have seen how these mothers and their children were killed in cowardly and cold-blooded fashion. Although we were compelled, under penalty of death, to obey all the orders of our officers, I have seen some of my companions who joyfully performed their melancholy work of massacre. At a certain moment I was myself required to shoot two boys, aged fifteen and twelve years old respectively, whose father had already been killed. I had not the heart to do it, and I had lowered my arm, expecting to be executed myself, when one of my comrades, jeering at my sentimentality, saved me by pushing me aside and himself firing on the two children. The eldest fell stark dead, and the second, who got a bullet in the back, was dispatched with a revolver shot” (Temps, 3rd January, 1915).

Outrages on Old People

At every place where the civil population was brutally treated, outraged or shot en masse—at Louvain, at Dinant—no exception was made in the case of old folk. People of seventy and eighty years of age had to bear forced marches, to remain standing in packed masses, where they were kept for whole nights, at the risk of death, as was the result for a large number. But, in addition to these common instances, outrages of a peculiar kind are not wanting. At Rebais-en-Brie an old man of sixty-nine years old, Auguste Griffaut, was struck with blows of the fist on the head, and finally wounded by a revolver shot. At Sablonnières another old man of the same name, Jules Griffaut, aged sixty-six, was tending his cows in an enclosed field when a German soldier, who was at the rear of a column, fired on him. In Belgium an old man of seventy years, formerly steward to M. Davignon, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Belgium, was shot by the Germans because to the first question that the latter put to him he replied that he was deaf, which was true.

Another was shot without mercy at Montmirail because he tried to protect a widow, named Naudé, who was in danger of being outraged by a non-commissioned officer.

At Lamath, in Lorraine, an old man called Louis, aged seventy years, was shot. At Domèvre-sur-Vezouze Adolphe Claude, aged seventy-five years, met with the same fate. At Lunéville an old alderman, Théophile Martin, aged sixty-three years, was commanded by an officer to come out of his house with his two daughters. As soon as they came out the old man saw from the revolvers and guns that were levelled at him that he was about to be killed. The young girls threw themselves on their knees and begged the Germans to spare their father’s life. It was in vain. Shots rang out and the old man fell. Again at Lunéville, M. Édouard Bernard, municipal councillor, aged sixty-five years, who had six sons at the front, was arrested. He was hardly allowed time to dress himself. He was taken away, and it is not known what became of him. M. Charles Chérer, husbandman, aged sixty-four, first cousin to M. Lébrun, ex-minister, got four bullets in his body. As none of the wounds which they made was mortal, the Uhlans dispatched him with revolver shots.

At Nomény M. Petitjean, aged eighty-six years, was struck as he was sitting in his armchair by a bullet which cracked his skull, and a German took pleasure in doing violence to the dead body (vide p. 148).

Finally, the number of old people who were taken away as hostages or simply deported to Germany was very large. Of that we shall speak in a subsequent chapter, but let us only note here that among the hostages who were taken away to Vareddes four old men were shot or bludgeoned with the butt-ends of rifles, their names being Jourdaine (73 years old), Liévin (61), Ménil (65) and Milliardet (78 years).

Torture of Old People

On the 26th August, not far from Malines, the dead body of an old man was found bound by the arms to a beam in the ceiling of his farmhouse. The body was completely burnt, except the head, arms and feet.

At Triaucourt, in France, an old man of seventy, Jean Lecouturier, was thrown into the flames of a burning house.

At Champuis, Jacquemin was bound to his bed by a non-commissioned officer, and left in this state without food for three days. He died some days afterwards. At Lavigneville (Meuse), on the 23rd September, MM. Woimbée, aged sixty-one years, and Fortin, aged sixty-five years, both farmers, were arrested in their own homes on the plea that they were francs-tireurs. Now, Woimbée had had his foot shattered two months before, and Fortin, who was afflicted with chronic rheumatism, had for long been unable to walk without the help of a stick. The Germans carried them off in their working garb, without allowing them to take any other clothes, and attached them to a convoy which contained about thirty soldiers who had been taken prisoner. Fortin, who could not get on, was bound by a rope, the ends of which were held by two horsemen, and, notwithstanding his infirmity, he had to keep up with the horses. As he fell every minute, he was struck with lances to compel him to get up again. The wretched man, covered with blood, besought them in mercy to kill him. At last Woimbée obtained permission to carry him to the village of Saint-Maurice-sous-les-Côtés, with the help of several of our soldiers. There the Germans made the two old men go into a house, compelled them to remain standing for two hours face to the wall and arms crossed, whilst they themselves rattled their arms noisily so as to make their victims believe they were going to shoot them. At last they decided to let them lie on the ground, and gave them a little bread and water. For more than twenty-four hours Woimbée and Fortin had had no food.

In Poland, at Andrief, the Germans, displeased because they had only got a little money from the alderman of the town, closed up the latter, M. Krassinsky, aged seventy years, in his house and set fire to it.

Outrages on Priests

The crimes committed in Belgium and France against the priests deserve separate treatment.

The German newspapers and the Emperor alleged, in justification of these acts, that at the beginning of hostilities the curés and nuns of the invaded regions had abused their spiritual authority over the civil population by rousing them to frenzy and inciting them to act as francs-tireurs. But of such acts Germany has brought forward no proof. On the contrary, the German Catholic bureau Pax and the Kölnische Volkszeitung took the trouble personally to refute a great number of accusations against the clergy, amongst others the famous legend of eyes being gouged out, of which we spoke above and with which German newspapers had connected the names of several priests who had been carried away to Germany.

As for the general plea that they had encouraged the civil population to resist, far from justifying the German conduct, it only makes it more odious, for what finer praise could be given to a priest in time of war than to say that he tried to stimulate the love of country among the faithful, especially when it is traitorously attacked by people who violate their pledged word?

Besides, the very accounts of the outrages in question show that the plea of reprisals has no validity. In these stories the immorality and blasphemy of the torturers reveals itself without any disguise. The worst criminal feels a kind of fear and remorse as he stands in the presence of God’s representative. This fear is unknown to the German soldier. The German invaders have even shown that they are devoid of respect for the sacred or charitable occupations in the midst of which they almost everywhere found the priests whom they have been known to massacre. With them everything has given way to the deliberate desire to sow terror among the civil population. In many places it is certain that this end could not be better attained than by ill-treating and massacring their spiritual heads.

Ill-Treatment

M. Auguste Mélot, deputy of Namur, published a book, Martyre du Clergé Belge, which throws light upon this conduct so far as Belgium is concerned.

The curés of Wygmael and Wesemael were forced to march, on the 29th August, before the army with their elbows bound together. A curé of Rotselaer and a curé of Wackerzeel, aged seventy years, were shut up for whole days in a church, almost without food and under dreadful conditions. They were finally brought away to Germany, where insults were heaped upon them. A German officer at Aix-la-Chapelle spat in the face of the curé of Rotselaer. Tainted bread was given them to eat. At last they were brought back to Belgium, by forced marches, from Brussels to Haeren, from Haeren to Vilvorde, from Vilvorde to Malines.

The Germans indulged in outrages of a disgraceful kind on the curé of Beyghem. The curé and the curate of Ellwyt were shut up for five days in their church. The curé of Schaffen-lez-Diest was hanged. They made him believe that he was going to be put to death, and when he was on the point of dying they loosed the rope; then they started again. Afterwards they compelled him to look at the sun, and if he lowered his eyes he was struck with the butt-ends of rifles and threatened with being hung up again. The curé of Yvoir was compelled to march in front of the troops as far as Marienburg, laden with a sack. At Pin the Germans made five priests walk for ten leagues, allowing them for food nothing but a little bread and water. The Superior of the French College of Florennes (in Belgium) was beaten, struck with butt-ends of rifles and with spurs on the back and the head. He was then stripped of his robes and left dying. The curate of Montigny-sur-Sambre was struck with the fist, and obliged to walk under the horsewhip, with hands bound, in front of the troops. The Bishop of Tournai, who was seventy-two years of age, was brought on foot, being beaten as he went, from Tournai to Ach.

Murder of Priests

According to inquiries made in four dioceses out of six, Malines, Liège, Namur and Tournai, it has been possible to fix the names of forty-four priests whom the Germans killed and of a dozen who are missing. These names are found in M. Mélot’s book.

These crimes took place when a priest took it upon him to resist some massacre or some other kind of crime ordered by the Germans. Thus M. Wonters, curé of Pont-Brûlé, was shot because he wanted to prevent a German soldier from ill-treating an old prisoner. Another was killed because he tried to prevent an act of violation which was about to be committed under his eyes. On other occasions the crime took place without motive, or at least the motive alleged was trivial. For example, the curé of Blegny was shot for having, so it was said, allowed an observation post to be placed in the belfry of his church. However, it is certain that he could not have prevented it.

Torture of Priests

Some priests died as a result of the agonies inflicted upon them. The executioners were not content with killing them outright; they wanted to make them suffer as well.

M. de Clerck, the curé of Buecken, who was accused of having fired on the Germans, was first placed on a cannon. When his tormentors had their fill of watching his terror, they threw him into a ditch. Then the soldiers took him, some by the arm, others by a leg, and dragged him over the pavement. Only then did they shoot him. However, it was certain that he had not fired on any one. He suffered from diabetes, and was confined to his bed when the Germans entered into the village, and they could not have been unaware of the fact, for it was from his bed that they went to take him.

M. Dergent, curé of Gelrode, found he was accused of spying for the English. Without any explanation he was brought to the town hall, ill-treated, brought in front of the church, struck with the butt-ends of rifles, then shot.

M. Glouden, curé of La Tour, and two other priests who, by permission of the German commandant, were taking up the wounded on the Ethe territory had a machine-gun turned upon them, and were then dispatched with revolver shots, by order of the same commandant.

The curé of Spontin was taken in his bed, dragged half-naked out of his house, and hung up several times, sometimes by the feet, sometimes by the hands. Afterwards he was stabbed with bayonets and then shot.

There is no better picture of the hatred of the Germans towards members of the Belgian clergy than the proclamation about hostages which was posted up on the 6th September at Grivegnée, especially when we know the fate which was almost always reserved for them. The proclamation said: “In the front rank were placed as hostages priests, burgomasters and other public officials.”

The Arrest of Cardinal Mercier

The abominable behaviour of the Germans to the Belgian Catholic clergy was crowned by the arrest of Cardinal Mercier, Archbishop of Malines. The following is the account of the circumstances under which he was arrested, given by the reverend prelate in a letter of the 10th January, sent secretly to all the parishes in the diocese of Malines.