The Desecration of Churches.
Other refugees from Lorraine had harrowing stories to tell of German
brutalities, and many made statements which were officially registered.
Whole villages, they said, had been put to fire and sword. One man told
an official of the Catholic Society that he had, with his own eyes, seen
two German soldiers chop off the arms of a child which clung to its
mother’s skirts. Other narratives show once more that the Germans
entered closed houses and shot or bayoneted the inmates on the pretence
that they had been fired upon by them. Miners had in many places been
wilfully entombed, and other miners had been forced to dig trenches for
the enemy under the threat of being shot. Germans had stabled their
horses in churches, which they desecrated, and even covered their
animals with priests’ vestments.
Under their usual plea the Germans burned the town of Burzweiler, in
Alsace-Lorraine, blowing up its factories.
An eye-witness, M. Gaudefroy-Demonhynes, who was attempting to return to
France from Baden, made a sworn statement to a Paris magistrate,
explaining how he had found himself on August 1st detained with other
Frenchmen and some Russians at the railway station of Lorrach, in Baden,
a few miles from the French frontier. The party were arrested by
soldiers and taken to the police station, where they and their luggage
were searched. They were then led under guard through the town amid
hostile demonstrations by the inhabitants to the square in front of the
railway station, where they found another party of about thirty
Frenchmen and twenty Russians.
One of this party, a French commercial traveller, a stout man aged about
forty, suddenly shouted “Vive la France!” Instantly the two soldiers
guarding him took him before an officer or a non-commissioned officer,
standing a few paces away from a group of officers. People standing
between M. Demonhynes and the scene prevented him from hearing what was
said, but a few seconds later a shot--only one shot--rang out.
“I don’t know who fired,” the witness says, “but I know that just before
the report the Frenchman was standing before my eyes against the wall of
a restaurant facing the station, held fast by his two guards in the
position of one who is about to be executed.
“Hardly had the shot rang out than protests arose from our little band.
Among those who protested most vigorously were three young Frenchmen
from eighteen to twenty years old. They looked to me like students
leaving Germany, like myself. I did not speak to them and do not know
their names. Just as the soldiers seized him and his comrades one of the
young Frenchmen tried to speak to an officer who was wearing a large,
light grey cloak. This officer did not listen to him. Some order must
have been given, I don’t know by whom.
“One of the three Frenchmen, who must have been told of the fate
awaiting him, cried out in German ‘Don’t hold us. We aren’t afraid; we
are Frenchmen!’
“This time the officer replied coarsely, half turning round, ‘Shut up.’
The three Frenchmen of their own accord placed themselves against the
wall of the same restaurant. Two lines of soldiers were drawn up on
either side of them at right angles to the wall. Other soldiers--how
many I did not count--took up their position in front of them about
eight yards away. A volley rang out. The three Frenchmen fell.
“Fresh cries arose from our party. Horror-stricken women began to weep.
I did not see the bodies removed, but I saw them fall to the ground.
“At this moment a great uproar broke out. Another Frenchman, a big man
with a great black beard, whose age and appearance I forget and whom I
did not know, began to shout, ‘Cowards! Murderers!’ Soldiers surrounded
him. He struggled with them. They speedily overcame him, and, without
taking the trouble to stand him up against the wall, without the
intervention of any officer, one of the soldiers thrust the barrel of
his rifle against his body and shot him down point blank before my eyes.
“I saw these same soldiers dragging his body along the ground. The man
was struggling still. I had not the strength to look any more. I heard
other shots. I don’t know if there were any other victims.”
The German troops allowed no considerations of religion or respect for
antiquity to interfere with their scheme of devastation. Great works of
art and architecture and ancient churches were destroyed by fire or
shell, and in more than one instance it is stated that cathedrals were
used for stabling horses. To-day many are the ruined churches in
Belgium. Of the beautiful cathedral of Louvain only the walls stand, for
the interior is reported to have been ruthlessly shelled, pillaged, and
finally set on fire. Other churches in the ill-fated city similarly
suffered, while at Malines, too, bare walls and loose masonry are all
that remain of what were until recently sacred edifices of exceptional
interest to visitors by reason of their ancient treasures.
“=We believe that some of the generals and some of the officers have
encouraged these crimes, which would be impossible without such
countenance. Yet we trust that there are still German officers
whose characters can be respected.=”
--From the _Morning Post_.