In a little farming village not many miles from Gerbéviller the
martyred, stands a battered square belfry, into which the Germans
lifted their machine guns, hoping to hold back the pursuit of the
French army, thus giving General Clauss time to retreat and "dig in"
some miles to the northeast. Tying the ropes to the axle of automobile
trucks, the Germans soon lifted their guns into the church tower.
They then drove the French women and children into the church and
used them as a screen, for no German ever exposes himself to danger
if he can possibly find a woman or child behind whom he can hide. One
young mother did not immediately obey, because of certain duties in
connection with her little child. With two other girls this young wife
was stood up against the stone wall of her own little house and shot,
for the purpose of teaching French women to obey instantly when German
savages command.
When all the women and children were packed into the church, a boy
was sent back to tell the French that if they fired upon the guns in
the church belfry, they would kill their own families. Two nights
later when a storm was raging, the women slipped a little boy through
the window, and sent word to the officers of the approaching French
army that their wives wished them to open fire on the German guns. In
blowing these weapons out of the belfry, the French killed twenty of
their own wives and children, who preferred to share death with the
men they loved, rather than suffer nameless indignities from German
brutes. In a hundred years of history where shall you find a record
of soldiers, whether red, black or yellow, save Germans, who were such
sneaking, snivelling cowards that they do not dare play the game fairly
and like men, but in their chattering terror use women and little
children as shields against danger? Of a truth, the "Potsdam gang" has
added a new word to the literature of cowardice.