_As a punishment for being suspected_ of having fired on
German sentries during the night of August 22d and 23d I
have received from the Commune of Erbéviller one thousand
francs, (1,000 fr.)
BARON ---- (illegible).
haupt. reit. regim.
In a commune of the Department of Meurthe-et-Moselle two nuns were for
several hours exposed without defense to the lust of a soldier. By
terrorizing them he obliged them to undress, and after having
compelled the elder to pull off his boots, he committed obscenities on
the younger. We undertook not to publish the names of the victims of
this abominable scene, or of that of the village in which it took
place, but the facts were laid before us under the sanction of an oath
by witnesses who deserve the fullest confidence, and we take the
responsibility of pledging ourselves as to their accuracy.
During our stay at Nancy and Lunéville, we had the opportunity of
receiving a good deal of evidence with reference to crimes committed
by the Germans in districts which were still occupied by their troops,
and which the majority of the inhabitants had been forced to evacuate.
The most cruel of these acts took place at the village of Emberménil.
At the end of October or the beginning of November, an enemy patrol
met near this commune a young woman, Mme. Masson, who was obviously
pregnant, and questioned her as to whether there were French soldiers
at Emberménil. She replied that she did not know, which was true. The
Germans then entered the village and were received by our soldiers
with rifle fire. On the 5th of November a detachment of the Fourth
Bavarian Regiment arrived and collected all the inhabitants in front
of the church. An officer then asked which person it was who had
betrayed them. Suspecting that he referred to her meeting with the
Germans some days before, and realizing the danger that all her
fellow-citizens ran, Mme. Masson with great courage stepped forward
and repeated what she had said, and declared that in saying it she had
acted in good faith. She was immediately seized and forced to sit down
on a bench beside young Dime, aged 24, who had been taken haphazard as
a second victim. The whole population begged for mercy for the unhappy
woman, but the Germans were inflexible. "One woman and one man," they
said, "must be shot. Those are the Colonel's orders. What will you?
It is war." Eight soldiers drawn up in two ranks fired three times at
the two martyrs in the presence of the whole village. The house of
Mme. Masson's father-in-law was then set on fire. That of M. Blanchin
had been burned a few moments before.
Mme. Millot of Domèvre-sur-Vezouze has described to us the murder of
her nephew, Maurice Claude, aged 17, of which she was an eyewitness.
On the 24th of August, at the moment when the Germans arrived at
Domèvre, this young lad was with his family in his father's house, at
the foot of a staircase, when he saw that soldiers were aiming at him
from the street. He stepped aside to shield himself, but was not able
to find shelter, and was struck by three bullets. Wounded in the
stomach, in the buttock, and in the thigh, he died three days later,
after having displayed admirable resignation. When he knew that he was
dying he said to his disconsolate mother, "I can well die for my
country."
The same day MM. Auguste Claude and Adolphe Claude, the latter aged
75, were also killed, and 136 houses in the village were burned by
means of incendiary cartridges. Further, two inhabitants, MM. Bretton
and Labart, were taken as hostages. It is not known what has become of
them since.
M. Véron, retired schoolmaster, at Audun-le-Roman, in the
arrondissement of Briey, made a deposition before us which runs as
follows:
"On the 21st of August, toward 5 in the evening, the Germans who had
occupied for seventeen days the village of Audun-le-Roman, began
without any reason to fire upon the houses with rifles and machine
guns. Four women, Mlle. Roux, Mlle. Tréfel, Mme. Zapolli, and Mme.
Giglio, were wounded. Mlle. Tréfel was struck while she was giving a
drink to a German soldier. Three men were killed: M. Martin, an
agriculturist, aged 68, whose house was burned, was led out and shot
in the street in the presence of his wife and children. M. Chary, aged
55, foreman roadmaker, was escaping from the conflagration, holding
his wife by the hand, when he was killed by rifle shots. I have seen
his body, which was riddled with wounds. M. Ernest Samen was struck by
five revolver bullets at the moment when he was shutting the door of
his coach house.
"I saw the enemy set fire to the Café Matte with petrol. Mme. Matte
went out with a little bag in her hand containing her savings, about
two thousand francs. She was robbed by a German officer, who snatched
the bag away."
The witness added that the Mayor must have been carried off by a
patrol, but in any case he had disappeared.
At Arracourt, M. Maillard was killed in the fields by a bullet which
went right through him; five houses were burned.
The village of Brin-sur-Seille was almost entirely destroyed by fire
lighted by cartridges and round fuses. Further, the wife of a man at
Raucourt who is with the colors, Mme. X., declared to us that she had
been raped in her own house in the presence of her little boy, aged
3-1/2, by a soldier who had placed the point of his bayonet on her
breast to overcome the resistance which she opposed to him.