Present:
1st Lieutenant GRAU, as Officer of the Court.
Acting-Sergeant-Major LIMBÄCKER, as Clerk of the Court.
"THE FRONT," _February 28th, 1915_.
There appeared as witness Major-General Francke, who, after reference
to the significance of the oath, was examined as follows:
As to Person: My name is Franz Samuel Ludwig Francke. I am 51 years
old; Protestant; Major-General and Regimental Commander, Infantry
Regiment No. 182.
As to Case: I confirm that in Dinant a civilian who wore a white band
with the Geneva Cross was brought to me by a corporal and two men of
the 12th Company. The party assured me that they had seen an arm with
a Geneva brassard project from between the shutters of a window on the
first floor of a house distant about thirty paces from where I was, and
that it had discharged a pistol into the street which was thronged with
soldiers. Several dead and wounded soldiers were lying in the street
who could only have been hit from the houses or straight through from
the houses on the riverside. The soldiers stated that they had broken
into the house and had fetched out the occupants, among whom was this
man.
The civilian explained to me, without being asked, at first in hardly
intelligible German, and then in French when I addressed him in French,
that he was a doctor, and that he had protected the women who were in
the houses, and had not fired on the soldiers. I thereupon ordered him
to immediately bandage one of the wounded lying there. On his assertion
that he had no bandages, I told him to fetch some bandages from the
pharmacy which was situated directly behind me. I had already wondered
that he had not taken this simple step if he was really a doctor. As
I was very much occupied I could not watch him further myself, but
ordered a corporal and one man to accompany and keep watch on the
supposed doctor. Some time after, the corporal came to me and reported
that, as they entered the ground floor of the pharmacy, the doctor had
suddenly run into the rear part of the house and not into the room used
for the pharmacy on the street front, whereupon they had brought him
out and shot him.
Read over, approved, signed.
Signed: FRANZ FRANCKE.
The witness was thereupon sworn.
Signed: GRAU, 1st Lieutenant and Officer of the Court.
Signed: LIMBÄCKER, Acting-Sergeant-Major,
as Clerk of the Military Court.