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 last 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.
_Presented to the President of the Council by the commission
instituted with a view to investigating acts committed by the enemy in
violation of international law. Decree of Sept. 23, 1914. MM. Georges
Payelle, First President of the Cour des Comptes; Armand Mollard,
Minister Plenipotentiary; Georges Maringer, Counselor of State, and
Edmond Paillot, Counselor at the Court of Appeal._
To the President of the Council of Ministers:
Sir: Having been appointed by virtue of a decree of the 23d of last
September to carry out on the spot an inquiry in relation to acts
committed in violation of international law in the portions of French
territory occupied by the enemy which have been reconquered by the
armies of the republic, we have the honor to lay before you the first
results of our mission.
We have already a full harvest of information to submit. It includes,
however, a very limited part of the findings at which we should have
been able to arrive if we had not submitted all the evidence which was
laid before us to severe criticism and rigorous examination. We have
indeed believed it to be our duty only to place on record those facts
which, being established beyond dispute, constitute with absolute
certainty what may be clearly termed crimes, omitting those the proofs
of which were, in our view, insufficient, or which, however
destructive or cruel they were, might have been the result of acts of
war properly so-called, rather than of willful excesses, attributable
to the enemy.
Thus we are convinced that none of the incidents which we have
investigated could be disputed in good faith. In addition the proof of
each of them does not depend only on our personal observations; it is
founded chiefly on photographs and on a mass of evidence received in
judicial form, with the sanction of an oath.
The lamentable sights which we have had before our eyes have made the
task to which we all four addressed ourselves, with a close
association of ideas and feelings, a very grievous one. It would
indeed have been too painful, if we had not found a powerful support
in the sight of the wonderful troops whom we met at the front, in the
welcome of the military leaders whose kind assistance has never failed
us, and in the sight of the population who bear unprecedented
calamities with the most dignified resignation. In the districts which
we crossed, and particularly in that country of Lorraine which was so
frequently the victim of the scourge of war, not one entreaty for
help, not one moan, reached our ears; and yet the terrible misery of
which we have been witness surpasses in extent and horror anything
which the imagination can conceive. 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.
The mind refuses to believe that all these butcheries should have
taken place without justification. Still, it is so! It is true that
the Germans have always advanced the same pretext for them, alleging
that civilians had begun by firing upon them. This allegation is a
lie, and those who advance it have been unable to give it any
probability, even by firing rifle shots in the neighborhood of houses,
as they are accustomed to do in order to be able to state that they
have been attacked by an innocent population on whose ruin or massacre
they have resolved. We have many times ascertained the truth of this;
here is one among others:
One evening the Abbé Colin, Curé of Croismare, was standing near an
officer when the report of a gun rang out. The latter cried, "Monsieur
le Curé, that is enough to cause you to be shot as well as the
Burgomaster, and for a farm to be burned; look, there is one on fire."
"Sir," replied the priest, "you are too intelligent not to recognize
the sharp sound of your German rifle. For my part, I recognize it."
The German did not press the point.
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.
In the departments through which we have gone thousands of houses have
been burned, but we have only investigated in our inquiry fires which
have been occasioned by exclusively criminal intention, and we have
not believed it our duty to deal with those that have been caused by
shells in the course of violent fighting, or due to circumstances
which it has not been possible to determine with absolute certainty,
such as those at Villotte-devant-Louppy, Rembercourt, Mognéville,
Amblaincourt, Pretz, Louppy-le-Château, and other places. The few
inhabitants who remained among the ruins furnished us with information
in absolute good faith on this subject.
We have constantly found definite evidence of theft, 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.
The inhabitants have had no redress against all these exactions, any
more than they have for the crimes already described; and if some
wretched inhabitant dared to beg an officer to be good enough to
intervene to spare a life or to protect his goods he received no
other reply (when he was not greeted by threats) than the one
invariable formula, accompanied by a smile, describing these most
abominable cruelties as the inevitable results of war.
As you have already learned from reading the documents of which we
have sent you copies, we proceeded first to the Department of
Seine-et-Marne. We there collected proofs of numerous abuses of the
laws of war, as well as of crimes committed against common rights by
the enemy, some of which exhibited features of special gravity.
At Chauconin the Germans set fire to five dwelling houses and to six
buildings used for agricultural purposes with the assistance of
grenades, which they threw on to the roofs, and with sticks of resin
which they placed under the doors. M. Lagrange asked an officer the
reason of such acts and the latter merely replied: "It is war." Then
he ordered M. Lagrange to point out to him the situation of the
property known as the Farm Proffit, and a few moments later the
buildings of this farm were in flames.
At Congis a body of the enemy were engaged in burning a score of
houses, into which they had thrown straw and poured petrol, when the
arrival of a French detachment prevented them from carrying out their
design.
At Penchard, where three houses had been burned, Mme. Marius René saw
a soldier carrying a torch which, stuck in his belt, appeared to form
part of his equipment.
At Barcy an officer and soldier made their way to the Mairie, and,
after having taken all the blankets belonging to the schoolmaster, set
fire to the muniment room.
At Douy-la-Ramé the Germans set fire to a mill, whose situation they
had ascertained by inquiry in the neighborhood. A workman 66 years old
had a narrow escape from being thrown into the flames. By struggling
violently and clutching on to a wall he was able to avoid the fate
with which he was threatened. Finally, at Courtaçon, after having
compelled the inhabitants to furnish them with matches and faggots,
they sprinkled a great number of houses with petrol and set them
ablaze. The village, a great part of which is in ruins, presents a
lamentable appearance.
Together with these crimes against property, we have been able to
place on record in the Department of Seine-et-Marne many grave
offenses against the person.
Early in September a German cavalryman arrived one day at about 5
o'clock in the afternoon at the house of M. Laforest, at
May-en-Multien, and asked for a drink. M. Laforest hurried off to draw
some wine from the cask, but the German, no doubt annoyed at not being
served quickly enough, fired his rifle at the wife of his host, who
was seriously wounded. Taken to Livry-sur-Ourcq, Mme. Laforest was
there cared for by a German doctor and had her left arm amputated. She
died recently in the hospital at Meaux.
On Sept. 8 eighteen inhabitants of Vareddes, among whom was the
priest, were arrested without cause and led away by the enemy. Three
of them escaped. None of the others had returned up to Sept. 30, the
day we were there. From information collected, three of these men were
murdered. Anyhow, the death of one of the oldest among them, M.
Jourdain, aged 73, is certain.
Dragged as far as the village of Coulombs and being unable to walk
further, the unfortunate man received a bayonet wound in the forehead
and a revolver bullet through the heart.
At about the same time a man of 66, named Dalissier, living at Congis,
was ordered by the Germans to give up his purse to them. When he
proved unable to give them any money, he was tied up with a halter and
ruthlessly shot. The marks of about fifteen bullets were found on his
dead body.
On the 3d of September, at Mary-sur-Marne, M. Mathe, terrified at the
arrival of the German troops, attempted to hide himself under the
counter of a wine shop. He was found in his hiding place and killed by
a thrust of a knife or bayonet in the chest.
At Sancy-les-Provins, on the 6th of September, about 9 o'clock at
night, about eighty people were summarily arrested and imprisoned in a
sheep pen. On the next day thirty of them were taken by an officer's
order some five kilometers from the village to the barn called
"Pierrelez," where a German Red Cross ambulance was established. There
an army doctor (médecin-major) addressed some words to the wounded
under his charge, who at once proceeded to load four rifles and two
revolvers, their intention being obvious. Moreover, a French hussar,
who had been wounded in the arm and taken prisoner, said to the
priest, while asking him for absolution: "I am going to be shot, and
it will be your turn next." After having done as the soldier asked
him, the priest, unbuttoning his cassock, went and took his place
between the Mayor and another of his fellow-citizens, against a wall
along which the hostages were lined up; but at this moment two French
_chasseurs à cheval_ suddenly arrived, and the doctors, with their
ambulance staff, surrendered to these soldiers, near whom the hussar
had hastened to place himself.
As showing the responsibility of officers of high rank for these
proceedings, it is interesting to note that the schoolmaster at Sancy,
when he was about to be taken off with the others, was allowed to
retain his freedom as a favor by General von Dutag, who was quartered
on him.
On the 6th of the same month, after having set on fire some of the
houses in Courtaçon, a body of soldiers, believed to belong to the
Imperial Guard, took five men and a child of thirteen out into the
fields, and exposed them to the French fire so long as the engagement
lasted. In the confines of the same commune, Edmond Rousseau, liable
to serve in the 1914 class, was arrested for the sole reason that his
age marked him out as being on the eve of being called up to the
colors, and was murdered under tragic circumstances.
The Mayor, who was one of the hostages, when questioned as to the
position of this youth from the military point of view, replied that
Rousseau had passed the medical examination, that he had been declared
fit for service, but that his class had not yet been called up. The
Germans thereupon made the prisoner strip, in order to satisfy
themselves of his physical condition, then put his trousers on again,
and shot him within fifty meters of his fellow-citizens.
The town of Coulommiers has suffered considerable pillage. Plate,
linen, and boots were taken away, principally from empty houses, and a
large number of bicycles were loaded on motor wagons. The Germans
occupied this place from the 5th to the 7th of September. On this day
before they left they arrested, without any pretext, the Mayor and the
Procureur de la République, and an officer grossly insulted them.
These two officials were kept in custody until the next morning,
together with the Secretary of the Mairie. Guards were set over the
Procureur during the night, and did their best to persuade him by
remarks exchanged between them that his execution was imminent.
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.
In the same way, Mme. X., at Sancy-les-Provins, and Mme. Z., at
Beton-Bazoches, were the victims of similar outrages. The former was
forced to submit to the will of a soldier with a revolver at her
throat; the second, in spite of her resistance, was thrown upon a bed
and outraged in the presence of her little daughter, aged 3. The
husbands of these two women have been with the army since the
commencement of the war.
On the 6th of September, at Guérard, where two workmen, Maitrier and
Didelot, had been killed at the outposts, the enemy took possession of
six hostages. One only was able to escape and return to his village.
At Mauperthuis, on the same day, four Germans who had already gone in
the morning to the house of M. Roger, presented themselves there again
at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. "There were three of you here this
morning, and now you are only two. Come out," said one of them.
Immediately Roger and a refugee named M. Denet, who was a guest in the
house, were seized and led away. The next day, at the end of the
village, Mme. Roger found the body of her husband, pierced by two
bullets. Denet had also been shot, and his body was discovered some
little time afterward in such a state of decomposition as to make it
impossible to ascertain the nature of the wounds which the unfortunate
man had received.
In a hamlet in the same commune, M. Fournier, caretaker of a farm at
Champbrisset, resided with a Swiss named Knell. The Germans took them
on a cart as far as Vaudoy and murdered them. An inhabitant of
Voinsles, named Cartier, suffered the same fate. As he passed on his
bicycle along a road a little way from Vaudoy, he was stopped by the
Germans, who searched his bag, in which was a revolver. Cartier,
without any resistance, gave up his weapon of his own accord. His eyes
were bandaged, and he was shot then and there.
On the 8th of September at Sablonnières, where there were scenes of
general pillage, M. Delaitre, who had left his house during the battle
to take refuge under a culvert, was discovered in his hiding place by
a German soldier, who fired at him five times; he died the same day.
[Illustration: GENERAL CASTELNAU