The Department of the Meuse, a great part of which the German armies
still occupy, has suffered cruelly. Important communes there have been
destroyed by fires lighted willfully by the Germans in the absence of
any kind of military necessity, and without the population's having
given any provocation for such atrocities by their attitude. This is
the case particularly at Revigny, Sommeilles, Triaucourt, Bulainville,
Clermont-en-Argonne, and Villers-aux-Vents.
The Germans having completely sacked the houses of Revigny and carried
off their booty on vehicles, burned two-thirds of the town during
three consecutive days from the 6th to the 9th of September,
sprinkling the walls with petrol by means of hand pumps, and throwing
into the houses little bags full of compressed powder in tablets. We
have been furnished with specimens of these little bags and these
tablets, as well as with fuse sticks of inflammable matter which had
been left by the incendiaries.
The church, which was classed as a historical monument, and the Mairie
with all its archives, have been destroyed.
Many inhabitants, among whom were children, have been taken away as
hostages. They were, however, set at liberty next day, with the
exception of M. Wladimir Thomas.
Few localities in the Department of the Meuse have suffered as much as
the Commune of Sommeilles. It is nothing but a heap of ruins, having
been completely burned on the 6th of September by a regiment of German
infantry bearing the number fifty-one. The place was set on fire with
help of machinelike bicycle pumps with which many of the soldiers were
furnished.
This unhappy village was the scene of a terrible drama. At the
commencement of the fire Mme. X., whose husband is with the colors,
took refuge in the cellar of M. et Mme. Adnot, together with these
latter and their four children, aged respectively 11, 5, 4, and 1-1/2
years. A few days afterward the bodies of all these unfortunate people
were discovered in the middle of a pool of blood. Adnot had been shot,
Mme. X. had her breast and right arm cut off; the little girl of 11
had a foot severed, the little boy of 5 had his throat cut. The woman
X. and the little girl appeared to have been raped.
At Villers-aux-Vents, on the 8th of September, German officers invited
the inhabitants who had not yet fled to leave their dwellings, warning
them that the village was about to be burned, because, they alleged,
three French soldiers had dressed themselves in civilian clothes;
others gave the pretext that an installation of wireless telegraphy
had been found in a house. The threat was carried out so rigorously
that one house alone remains standing.
At Vaubecourt, where six dwelling houses were burned by the
Württemburgers, fire was set to a barn with straw piled up by the
soldiers.
At Triaucourt the Germans gave themselves up to the worst excesses.
Angered doubtless by the remark which an officer had addressed to a
soldier, against whom a young girl of 19, Mlle. Hélène Procès, had
made complaint on account of the indecent treatment to which she had
been subjected, they burned the village and made a systematic massacre
of the inhabitants. They began by setting fire to the house of an
inoffensive householder, M. Jules Gand, and by shooting this
unfortunate man just as he was leaving his house to escape the flames;
then they dispersed among the houses in the streets, firing their
rifles on every side. A young man of 17, Georges Lecourtier, who tried
to escape, was shot. M. Alfred Lallemand suffered the same fate; he
was pursued into the kitchen of his fellow-citizen, Tautelier, and
murdered there, while Tautelier received three bullets in his hand.
Fearing, not without reason, for their lives, Mlle. Procès, her
mother, her grandmother of 71, and her old aunt of 81, Mlle. Laure
Mennehand, tried with the help of a ladder to cross the trellis which
separates their garden from a neighboring property. The young girl
alone was able to reach the other side and to avoid death by hiding in
the cabbages. As for the other women, they were struck down by rifle
shots. The village curé collected the brains of Mlle. Mennehand on the
ground on which they were strewn, and had the bodies carried into
Procès's house. During the following night the Germans played the
piano near the bodies.
While the carnage raged, the fire rapidly spread and devoured
thirty-five houses. An old man of 70, Jean Lecourtier, and a child of
two months perished in the flames. M. Igier, who was trying to save
his cattle, was pursued for 300 meters by soldiers, who fired at him
ceaselessly. By a miracle this man had the good fortune not to be
wounded, but five bullets went through his trousers. When the curé,
Viller, expressed his indignation at the treatment inflicted upon his
parish to the Duke of Württemburg, who was lodged in the village, the
latter replied: "What would you have? We have bad soldiers just as you
have."
In the same commune an attempt at rape was made which was unsuccessful
by reason of the obstinate and courageous resistance of the victim.
Three Germans made the attempt on Mme. D., 47 years old. Further, an
old woman of 75, Mme. Maupoix, was kicked so violently that she died a
few days afterward. While some of the soldiers were ill-treating her
others were ransacking her wardrobes.
The little town of Clermont-en-Argonne, on the slope of a picturesque
hill in the middle of a pleasant landscape, used to be visited every
year by numerous tourists. On the 4th of September, at night, the
121st and 122d Württemburg Regiments entered the place, breaking down
the doors of the houses and giving themselves up to unrestrained
pillage, which continued during the whole of the next day. Toward
midday a soldier set fire to the dwelling of a clockmaker by
deliberately upsetting the contents of an oil lamp which he used for
making coffee. An inhabitant, M. Monternach, at once ran to fetch the
town fire engine, and asked an officer to lend him men to work it.
Brutally refused and threatened with a revolver, he renewed his
request to several other officers, with no greater success. Meanwhile
the Germans continued to burn the town, making use of sticks on the
top of which torches were fastened. While the houses blazed the
soldiers poured into the church, which stood by itself on the height,
and danced there to the sound of the organ. Then, before leaving, they
set fire to it with grenades as well as with vessels full of
inflammable liquid, containing wicks.
After the burning of Clermont, bodies of the Mayor of Vauquois, M.
Poinsignon, (which was completely carbonized,) and that of a young boy
of 11, who had been shot at point-blank range, were found.
When the fire was out pillage recommenced in the houses which the
flames had spared. Furniture carried off from the house of M.
Desforges and stuffs stolen from the shop of M. Nordmann, a draper,
were heaped together in motor cars. An army doctor (médicine-major)
took possession of all the medical appliances in the hospital, and an
officer of superior rank, after having put up a notice forbidding
pillage on the entrance door of the house of M. Lebondidier, had a
great part of the furniture of this house carried away on a carriage,
intending it, as he boasted without any shame, for the adornment of
his own villa.
At the time when this happened the town of Clermont-en-Argonne was
occupied by the Thirteenth Württemburg Corps, under the command of
Gen. von Durach, and by a troop of Uhlans, commanded by Prince von
Wittenstein.
On the 7th of September half a score of German cavalrymen entered the
farm of Lamermont in the Commune of Lisle-en-Barrois, and, after
having milk given to them, went away apparently satisfied. After their
departure rifle shots were heard in the distance. A little later a
second troop, composed of about thirty men, presented themselves in
their turn, and accused the farm people of having killed a German
soldier. Immediately the farmer, Elly, and one of his guests, M.
Javelot, were seized and taken to a place near, where, in spite of
their protestations of innocence, they were mercilessly shot.
At Louppy-le-Château the Germans gave themselves over to immorality
and disgusting brutality during the night of the 8th and 9th in a
cellar where several women had taken refuge from the bombardment. All
these unhappy women were vilely ill-treated. Mlle. X., aged 71; Mme.
Y., aged 44, and her two daughters, one aged 13 and the other 8, and
Mme. Z. were violated.
Hostages have been taken away from many communes. At the beginning of
September, at Laimont, eight persons were obliged to follow the German
troops, and on the 27th of October none of them had returned. The curé
of Nubécourt, who was carried off on the 5th of September, has not yet
reappeared in his parish.
At Saint-André, M. Havette, who was among the number of persons
arrested, obtained from an officer permission to watch over the body
of his wife, who had been killed on the previous day by a fragment of
a shell. In the evening the inhabitants were ordered to collect
together in a barn. Havette believed that he was exempt from this
order by reason of the authority he had received, and remained at his
house until 11 in the evening. When he left his house he was struck
down by a rifle bullet.
Of the other villages besides those whose burning we have related,
Vassincourt and Brabant-le-Roi were more or less completely burned. Up
to now it has not been possible for us to ascertain completely the
circumstances of their destruction. Our inquiry so far as it concerns
them will be further pursued.
It has been brought to our knowledge that in the Department of the
Meuse the enemy has committed acts of cruelty toward the French
soldiers who were wounded and prisoners. We will set out the facts of
this at the end of the present report.