THE UNSPEAKABLE ATROCITIES OF “CIVILIZED” WARFARE
DISCLOSURES MADE IN FRENCH OFFICIAL REPORTS AND NOTEBOOKS OF GERMAN
SOLDIERS -- NOTHING SACRED -- HIDEOUS FACES OF THE DEAD -- WOMEN
FORCED TO DIG GRAVES -- GETTING HARDENED -- WHOLESALE PILLAGE --
MUTILATIONS OF THE DEAD AND WOUNDED -- THE FRENCH REPORT.
The French official report on German atrocities contained records of
such horror that the whole civilized world stood aghast. Here at last
was war with all its multitudinous attendant crimes, more horrible than
the actual warfare itself because so causeless and so bestial. Many
stories of atrocities had been told by travelers and war correspondents
abroad; the official report from France verified these earlier accounts,
though there was still a vestige of doubt because it was a French report
of German atrocities; and then to back up this record and remove the
last shadow of disbelief, came the testimony of the Germans against
themselves, through the “War Diaries” of German soldiers, many of which
naturally fell into the hands of the enemy. Paragraphs selected from
these notebooks follow:
“In this way we destroyed eight dwellings and their inhabitants. In one
of the houses we bayoneted two men, with their wives and a young girl
eighteen years old. The young one almost unmanned me, her look was so
innocent! But we could not master the excited troop, for at such times
they are no longer men--they are beasts.”
NOTHING SACRED
“Unfortunately, I am forced to make note of a fact which should not have
occurred, but there are to be found, even in our own army, creatures who
are no longer men, but hogs, to whom nothing is sacred. One of these
broke into a sacristy; it was locked, and there the Blessed Sacrament
was kept. A Protestant, out of respect, had refused to sleep there. This
man used it as a deposit for his excrements. How is it possible there
should be such creatures? Last night one of the men of the landwehr,
more than thirty-five years of age, married, tried to rape the daughter
of the inhabitant where he had taken up his quarters--a mere girl--and
when the father intervened he pressed his bayonet against his breast.”
“Langeviller, Aug. 22.--Village destroyed by the eleventh battalion of
Pioneers. Three women hanged to trees; the first dead I have seen.”
HIDEOUS FACES OF THE DEAD
“The inhabitants fled through the village. It was horrible. The walls of
houses are bespattered with blood and the faces of the dead are hideous
to look upon. They were buried at once, some sixty of them. Among them
many old women, old men, and one woman pregnant--the whole a dreadful
sight. Three children huddled together--all dead. Altar and arches of
the church shattered. Telephone communication with the enemy was found
there. This morning, Sept. 2, all the survivors were driven out; I saw
four little boys carrying on two poles a cradle with a child some five
or six months old. The whole makes a fearful sight. Blow upon blow!
Thunderbolt on thunderbolt! Everything given over to plunder. I saw a
mother with her two little ones--one of them had a great wound in the
head and an eye put out.”
“At the entrance to the village lay the bodies of some fifty citizens,
shot for having fired upon our troops from ambush. In the course of the
night many others were shot down in like manner, so that we counted more
than two hundred. Women and children, holding their lamps, were
compelled to assist at this horrible spectacle. We then sat down midst
the corpses to eat our rice, as we had eaten nothing since morning.”
WOMEN FORCED TO DIG GRAVES
“Aug. 25 (in Belgium).--We shot 300 of the inhabitants of the town.
Those that survived the salvo were requisitioned as grave-diggers. You
should have seen the women at that time! But it was impossible to do
otherwise. In our march upon Wilot things went better; the inhabitants
who wished to leave were allowed to do so. But whoever fired was shot.
Upon our leaving Owele the rifles rang out, and with that, flames, women
and all the rest.”
GETTING HARDENED
“We arrested three civilians, and a bright idea struck me. We furnished
them with chairs and made them seat themselves in the middle of the
street. There were supplications on one part, and some blows with the
stocks of our guns on the other. One, little by little, gets terribly
hardened. Finally, there they were sitting in the street. How many
anguished prayers they may have muttered, I cannot say, but during the
whole time their hands were joined in nervous contraction. I am sorry
for them, but the stratagem was of immediate effect. The enfilading
directed from the houses diminished at once; we were able then to take
possession of the house opposite, and thus became masters of the
principal street. From that moment every one that showed his face in the
street was shot. And the artillery meanwhile kept up vigorous work, so
that at about seven o’clock in the evening, when the brigade advanced to
rescue us, I could report ‘Saint-Dié has been emptied of all enemies.’
[Illustration: THE ROAD TO YESTERDAY.]
“As I learned later, the ---- regiment of reserves, which came into
Saint-Dié further north, had experiences entirely similar to our own.
The four civilians whom they had placed on chairs in the middle of the
street were killed by French bullets. I saw them myself stretched out in
the street near the hospital.”
WHOLESALE PILLAGE
“Aug. 8, 1914. Gouvy (Belgium).--There, the Belgians having fired on
some German soldiers, we started at once pillaging the merchandise
warehouse. Several cases--eggs, shirts, and everything that could be
eaten was carried off. The safe was forced and the gold distributed
among the men. As to the securities, they were torn up.”
“The enemy occupied the village of Bièvre and the edge of the wood
behind it. The third company advanced in first line. We carried the
village, and then pillaged and burned almost all the houses.”
“The first village we burned was Parux (Meurthe-et-Moselle). After this
the dance began, throughout the villages, one after the other; over the
fields and pastures we went on our bicycles up to the ditches at the
edge of the road, and there sat down to eat our cherries.”
“Our first fight was at Haybes (Belgium) on the 24th of August. The
second battalion entered the village, ransacked the houses, pillaged
them, and burned those from which shots had been fired.”
“They do not behave as soldiers, but rather as highwaymen, bandits and
brigands, and are a dishonor to our regiment and to our army.”
“No discipline, . . . the Pioneers are well nigh worthless; as to the
artillery, it is a band of robbers.”
“Aug. 12, 1914, in Belgium.--One can get an idea of the fury of our
soldiers in seeing the destroyed villages. Not one house left untouched.
Everything eatable is requisitioned by the unofficered soldiers. Several
heaps of men and women put to execution. Young pigs are running about
looking for their mothers.”
MUTILATIONS OF THE DEAD
“On the 22d, in the evening, I learned that in the woods, about one
hundred and fifty meters north of the square formed by the intersection
of the great Calonne trench with the road from Vaux-les-Palameis to
Saint-Rémy, there were corpses of French soldiers shot by the Germans. I
went to the spot and found the bodies of about thirty soldiers within a
small space, most of them prone, but several still kneeling, and _all
having a precisely similar wound_--a bullet through the ear. One only,
seriously wounded in his lower parts, could still speak, and told me
that the Germans before leaving had ordered them to lie down and that
they had them shot through the head; that he, already wounded, had
secured indulgence by stating that he was the father of three small
children. The skulls of these unfortunates were scattered; the guns,
broken at the stock, were scattered here and there; and the blood had
besprinkled the bushes to such an extent that in coming out of the woods
my cape was spattered with it; it was a veritable shambles.”
“Dogs chained, without food or drink. And the houses about them on fire.
But the just anger of our soldiers is accompanied also by pure
vandalism. In the villages, already emptied of their inhabitants, the
houses are set on fire. I feel sorry for this population. If they have
made use of disloyal weapons, after all, they are only defending their
own country. The atrocities which these non-combatants are still
committing are revenged after a savage fashion. Mutilations of the
wounded are the order of the day.”
This order was addressed by General Stenger, in command of the
fifty-eighth German brigade, on the 26th of August, to the troops under
his orders:
“From this day forward no further prisoners will be taken. All prisoners
will be massacred. The wounded, whether in arms or not in arms, shall be
massacred. Even the prisoners already gathered in convoys will be
massacred. No living enemy must remain behind us.”
THE FRENCH REPORT
Having been instructed to investigate atrocities said to have been
committed by the Germans in portions of French territory which had been
occupied by them, a commission composed of four representatives of the
French Government repaired to these districts in order to make a
thorough investigation. The commission was composed of M. Georges
Payelle, First President of the Cour des Comptes; Armand Mollard,
Minister Plenipotentiary; Georges Maringer, Counselor of State, and
Edmond Paillot, Counselor of the Cour de Cassation.
They started on their mission late in September, 1914, and visited the
Departments of Seine-et-Marne, Marne, Meuse, Meurthe-et-Moselle, Oise,
and Aisne. According to the report, they made note only of those
accusations against the invaders which were backed up by reliable
testimony and discarded everything that might have been occasioned by
the exigencies of war.
The statement, which extends over many pages and contains over 25,000
words, is a record of the most fiendish crimes imaginable. “On every
side our eyes rested on ruin. Whole villages have been destroyed by
bombardment or fire; towns formerly full of life are now nothing but
deserts full of ruins; and, in visiting the scenes of desolation where
the invader’s torch has done its work, one feels continually as though
one were walking among the remains of one of those cities of antiquity
which have been annihilated by the great cataclysms of nature.
“In truth it can be stated that never has a war carried on between
civilized nations assumed the savage and ferocious character of the one
which at this moment is being waged on our soil by an implacable
adversary. Pillage, rape, arson, and murder are the common practice of
our enemies; and the facts which have been revealed to us day by day at
once constitute definite crimes against common rights, punished by the
codes of every country with the most severe and the most dishonoring
penalties, and which prove an astonishing degeneration in German habits
of thought since 1870.
“Crimes against women and young girls have been of appalling frequency.
We have proved a great number of them, but they only represent an
infinitesimal proportion of those which we could have taken up. Owing to
a sense of decency, which is deserving of every respect, the victims of
these hateful acts usually refuse to disclose them. Doubtless fewer
would have been committed if the leaders of an army whose discipline is
most rigorous had taken any trouble to prevent them; yet, strictly
speaking, they can only be considered as the individual and spontaneous
acts of uncaged beasts. But with regard to arson, theft, and murder the
case is very different; the officers, even those of the highest station,
will bear before humanity the overwhelming responsibility for these
crimes.
“In the greater part of the places where we carried on our inquiry we
came to the conclusion that the German Army constantly professes the
most complete contempt for human life, that its soldiers, and even its
officers, do not hesitate to finish off the wounded, that they kill
without pity the inoffensive inhabitants of the territories which they
have invaded, and they do not spare in their murderous rage women, old
men, or children. The wholesale shootings at Lunéville, Gerbéviller,
Nomeny, and Senlis are terrible examples of this; and in the course of
this report you will read the story of scenes of carnage in which
officers themselves have not been ashamed to take part.”
HORRIBLE CASES OF RAPE
Of the criminal attempts on women cited in the report two of the most
horrible occurred in the Department of Seine-et-Marne.
“Frightful scenes occurred at the Château de ---- in the neighborhood of
La Ferté-Gaucher. There lived there an old gentleman, M. X., with his
servant, Mlle. Y., 54 years old. On Sept. 5 several Germans, among whom
was a non-commissioned officer, were in occupation of this property.
After they had been supplied with food, the non-commissioned officer
proposed to a refugee, a Mme. Z., that she should sleep with him; she
refused. M. X., to save her from the designs of which she was the
object, sent her to his farm, which was in the neighborhood. The German
ran there to fetch her, dragged her back to the château and led her to
the attic; then, having completely undressed her, he tried to violate
her. At this moment M. X., wishing to protect her, fired revolver shots
on the staircase and was immediately shot.
[Illustration: THE BOMBARDMENT OF THE EAST COAST OF ENGLAND.
This scene, painted in Hartlepool, shows the effect of a bursting German
shell in the unfortified British town. Several women and many other
civilians were killed by the German raiders.]
[Illustration: PRUSSIAN SOLDIER KIDNAPPING A RED CROSS NURSE.
In spite of her prayer he seized her roughly, tied her hands together
and throwing her across his saddle rode away. Fortunately, a Cossack
appeared, pierced the scoundrel with his lance and rescued the woman.
(_Graphic copr._)]
“The non-commissioned officer then made Mme. X. come out of the attic,
obliged her to step over the corpse of the old man, and led her to a
closet, where he again made two unsuccessful attempts upon her. Leaving
her at last, he threw himself upon Mlle. Y., having first handed Mme. Z.
over to two soldiers, who, after having violated her, one once and the
other twice, in the dead man’s room, made her pass the night in a barn
near them, where one of them twice again had sexual connection with her.
“As for Mlle. Y., she was obliged by threats of being shot, to strip
herself completely naked and lie on a mattress with the non-commissioned
officer, who kept her there until morning.
[Illustration: “AT LEAST THEY ONLY _DROWN_ YOUR WOMEN.”]
“It is generally believed at Coulommiers that criminal attempts have
been made on many women of that town, but only one crime of this nature
has been proved for certain. A charwoman, Mme. X., was the victim. A
soldier came to her house on the 6th of September, toward 9.30 in the
evening, and sent away her husband to go and search for one of his
comrades in the street. Then, in spite of the fact that two small
children were present, he tried to rape the young woman. X., when he
heard his wife’s cries, rushed back, but was driven off with blows of
the butt of the man’s rifle into a neighboring room, of which the door
was left open, and his wife was forced to suffer the consummation of the
outrage. The rape took place almost under the eyes of the husband, who,
being terrorized, did not dare to intervene, and used his efforts only
to calm the terror of his children.
ARSON AND MURDER RAMPANT
“Personal liberty, like human life, is the object of complete scorn on
the part of the German military authorities. Almost everywhere citizens
of every age have been dragged from their homes and led into captivity,
many have died or been killed on the way.
“Arson, still more than murder, forms the usual procedure of our
adversaries. It is employed by them either as a means of systematic
devastation or as a means of terrorism. The German Army, in order to
provide for it, possesses a complete outfit, which comprises torches,
grenades, rockets, petrol pumps, fuse sticks, and little bags of
pastilles made of compressed powder which are very inflammable. The
lust for arson is manifested chiefly against churches and against
monuments which have some special interest, either artistic or
historical.
“Thousands of houses in the ground covered by the investigators had been
completely destroyed by fire. In the Department of Marne a great many
villages, as well as important country towns, were burned without any
reason whatever. Without doubt these crimes were committed by order, as
German detachments arrived in the neighborhood with their torches, their
grenades, and their usual outfit for arson.
“At Lépine, a laborer named Caqué, in whose house two German cyclists
were billeted, asked the latter if the grenades which he saw in their
possession were destined for his house. They answered: ‘No. Lépine is
finished with.’ At that moment nine houses in the village were burned
out.
“At Marfaux nineteen private houses were burned.
“Of the commune of Glannes practically nothing remains. At Somme-Tourbe
the entire village has been destroyed, with the exception of the
mayoralty house, the church, and two private buildings.
“At Auve nearly the whole town has been destroyed. At Etrepy sixty-three
families out of seventy are homeless. At Huiron all the houses, with the
exception of five, have been burned. At Sermaize-les-Bains only about
forty houses out of nine hundred remain. At Bignicourt-sur-Saultz thirty
houses out of thirty-three are in ruins.
“At Suippes, the big market town which has been practically burned out,
German soldiers carrying straw and cans of petrol have been seen in the
streets. While the mayor’s house was burning, six sentinels with fixed
bayonets were under orders to forbid any one to approach and to prevent
any help being given.
“All this destruction by arson, which only represents a small proportion
of the acts of the same kind in the Department of Seine-et-Marne, was
accomplished without the least tendency to rebellion or the smallest act
of resistance being recorded against the inhabitants of the localities
which are today more or less completely destroyed. In some villages the
Germans, before setting fire to them, made one of their soldiers fire a
shot from his rifle so as to be able to pretend afterward that the
civilian population had attacked them, an allegation which is all the
more absurd since at the time when the enemy arrived the only
inhabitants left were old men, sick persons, or people absolutely
without any means of aggression.
UNCONTROLLED SAVAGERY
“On the 6th of September at Champguyon, Mme. Louvet was present at the
martyrdom of her husband. She saw him in the hands of ten or fifteen
soldiers, who were beating him to death before his own house, and ran up
and kissed him through the bars of the gate. She was brutally pushed
back and fell, while the murderers dragged along the unhappy man covered
with blood, begging them to spare his life and protesting that he had
done nothing to be treated thus. He was finished off at the end of the
village. When his wife found his body it was horribly disfigured. His
head was beaten in, one of his eyes hung from the socket, and one of his
wrists was broken.
“At Montmirail a scene of real savagery was enacted. On the 5th of
September a non-commissioned officer flung himself almost naked on the
widow Naudé, on whom he was billeted, and carried her into his room.
This woman’s father, François Fontaine, rushed up on hearing his
daughter’s cry. At once fifteen or twenty Germans broke through the door
of the house, pushed the old man into the street, and shot him without
mercy. Little Juliette Naudé opened the window at this moment and was
struck in the stomach by a bullet, which went through her body. The poor
child died after twenty-four hours of most dreadful suffering.
CONSTANT EVIDENCE OF THEFT
“We have constantly found definite evidence of theft,” states the report
further, “and we do not hesitate to state that where a body of the enemy
has passed it has given itself up to a systematically organized pillage,
in the presence of its leaders, who have even themselves often taken
part in it. Cellars have been emptied to the last bottle, safes have
been gutted, considerable sums of money have been stolen or extorted; a
great quantity of plate and jewelry, as well as pictures, furniture,
‘objets d’art,’ linen, bicycles, women’s dresses, sewing machines, even
down to children’s toys, after having been taken away, have been loaded
on vehicles to be taken toward the frontier.”
Space forbids further quotation from the harrowing document, in which
one frightful tale succeeds another, until with a wave of sickening
horror the reader cries out, “Can such things really be?”
GERMANY DENIES ATROCITIES
“A chain of baseless fabrications” is the phrase used by Germany to
characterize the charges brought against the German armies by the French
government, claiming that “German army officers have, by every means and
with full success, effected the maintenance of discipline and the strict
observance of all the rules of war in each and all the spheres of
operation.”
The demolished villages and pitiful victims must tell their own tale of
terror. Doubtless many of the crimes committed have been without the
sanction of the German government or even without the authority of a
superior officer, but, even allowing for the partisanship that is
natural on the part of afflicted inhabitants, the testimony of the
French commission together with that of former Ambassador Bryce must
deeply affect the attitude of all thinking people toward warfare.