In the Department of Oise we have ascertained the following facts:
When on the 31st of August the Germans entered the village of
Monchy-Humières a group of about fifteen people were in the street
looking at them as they entered. No act of provocation was committed,
but an officer believed that he heard some one say the word
"Prussian." At once he directed three dragoons to fall out and ordered
them to fire. Young Gaston Dupuis was killed, M. Grandvalet was
wounded in the right shoulder by a bullet, and a little girl of 4 who
belonged to a family of refugees from Verdun was slightly wounded in
the neck.
Next day the commune of Ravenel was sacked, and the stolen objects
were taken away in a carriage. A man named Vilette, while bicycling on
the road near the village, met a motor car in which were several
Germans. They began to fire at him without any reason. He jumped down
from his machine and took to flight across country, but a bullet
stopped him on his way. He died a few hours afterward, leaving a widow
and two children.
On the same day, near Méry, the enemy opened fire on some English guns
which were drawn up at the place called Le Bout de la Ville, and an
engagement began between the cavalry of the two armies. At this moment
the Germans entered the sugar factory, which is situated in a hamlet
of the commune. They seized the manager, his family, and all the staff
of the factory, and, during the three hours which the engagement
lasted, made them walk in a parallel line to themselves in order to
protect themselves against the fusillade which was catching them on
the flank. Among the twenty-five people who were thus exposed to grave
danger were women and children. A work girl, Mme. Jeansenne, was
killed, and a foreman, Courtois, had a bullet through his left arm. At
10 in the evening, the enemy returned in force to the village. They
left the next day after having burned the houses and carried out a
general sack.
On the 2d of September the Germans entered Senlis, where they were
greeted by rifle fire from African troops. Alleging that they had been
fired on by civilians, they set fire to two quarters of the town. One
hundred and five houses were burned in the following manner: The
Germans marched along the streets in a column; at a whistle from an
officer, some of them fell out, and proceeded to break in the doors of
the houses and the shop fronts; then others came along and lit the
fire with grenades and rockets; patrols who followed them fired
incendiary bullets with their rifles into those houses in which the
fire was not taking hold fast enough.
While our soldiers were firing in the outskirts of the town, the
hostages who had been taken into the streets by the Germans were
forced to walk in the middle of the road, while the Germans prudently
kept to the footpaths. M. Levasseur, Mme. Dauchy and her little girl
aged 5, MM. Pinchaux, Minouflet, and Leymarie were among the number of
the hostages who were thus exposed to death. Near the hospital
Levasseur was killed. Soon Leymarie in his turn fell mortally wounded.
As he was carrying him to lay him at the foot of a wall, Minouflet was
struck by a bullet on the knee. An officer approached him, and told
him to show his wound, and then suddenly fired with his revolver into
his shoulder. At the same spot a witness saw another officer in the
act of torturing a French wounded soldier by beating him in the face
with a stick.
Meanwhile several murders were committed. M. Simon was dragged out of
his house and killed by a rifle shot in the side. At 2 o'clock the
Germans broke in the door of M. Mégret's house. The latter came
forward, promised to give them everything they asked for, and brought
them ten bottles of wine. He was murdered by a shot full in the chest.
MM. Ramu, Vilcoq, Chambellant and Gaudet, drawn by curiosity, went to
look at the burning forage store to which the French troops had set
fire as they retired. Enemy soldiers fired on them several times. Ramu
was wounded, Gaudet was killed on the spot, Chambellant received two
bullets, one in his right hand and the other below the groin, and died
a week later. MM. Simon, Ecker, Chery, Leblond, Rigauld, Louis, and
Momus were also killed in Senlis.
At 3 o'clock the Mayor, M. Odent, was arrested at the Hôtel de Ville
on the allegation, against which he protested, that civilians had
fired on the German troops. While he was being led away the Secretary
of the Mairie joined him near the Hôtel du Grand Cerf, and proposed
that he should go and fetch his Deputies. "It is useless," he replied,
"one victim is enough." The Magistrate was taken to Chamant, and
during the journey was the butt of hateful brutality. His gloves were
torn from him and thrown in his face; his stick was taken from him and
he was violently beaten with it on the head. Finally, toward 11
o'clock, he was made to appear before three officers. One of them
questioned him, persisting in accusing him of having fired or caused
others to fire on the Germans, and warned him that he was about to
die. M. Odent then went to his fellow-captives, handed them his papers
and money, shook hands with them, and with great dignity made his last
adieu. He then returned to the officers. On their order, two soldiers
dragged him ten meters away and sent two bullets through his head. The
murderers made a little hollow in the ground, and flung over the
corpse a layer of earth so thin that it did not cover the victim's
feet. A few hours before, 200 meters off, six other inhabitants of
Senlis, MM. Pommier, Barbier, Aubert, Cottereau, Arthur Rigault, and
Dewert, had already been shot and buried.
The same evening M. Jeandin, a baker, who had been arrested at 3 or 4
in the afternoon without any reason, and then taken by the Forty-ninth
Pomeranian Regiment of Infantry to Villers-Saint-Frambourg, was
fastened to a stake in a field and pierced repeatedly with the point
of a bayonet.
It is unnecessary to say that the town of Senlis was pillaged. While
the enemy sacked the houses they took pleasure in exciting the worst
instincts of the populace by offering part of the booty to women in
wretched circumstances.
At Villers-Saint-Frambourg the woman X. was raped by a soldier who got
into her house. After the crime she took refuge in a neighboring
house. The precaution was a wise one, for numerous comrades of the
aggressor broke into her house and, furious at not finding the victim
they sought, smashed the windows and seized the chickens, rabbits, and
pig which they found in an outhouse.
On Sept. 3 at Creil, under the orders of a Captain who tried to force
MM. Guillot and Demonts to show him the houses of the richest
inhabitants, the Germans scattered among the houses, breaking in doors
and windows, and gave themselves up to pillage with the complicity of
their leaders, to whom they came constantly to show the jewelry which
they had stolen. Demonts and Guillot were then led into the country,
where they found about 100 inhabitants of Creil and Nogent-sur-Oise
and the neighborhood. All these persons were forced to suffer the
shame and grief of working against the defense of their country by
cutting down a field of maize which hindered the firing of the enemy
and by digging trenches intended to shelter the Germans. For seven
days the enemy kept them there without giving them food. Some women of
the neighborhood were, fortunately, able to give them a little.
Meanwhile in the town several people were put to death. M. Parent, who
was escaping, was killed in the Rue Victor Hugo by a shot by a Uhlan.
As soon as he fell, troopers hurled themselves upon him to search his
clothes. M. Alexandre had his head shattered, at the intersection of
the Rue Gambetta and the Rue Carnot. Germans entered the shop of M.
Brèche, wine seller. Thinking, no doubt, that he was not serving them
quickly enough, they dragged him into the courtyard of Mme. Egasse,
his neighbor, where an officer accused him of having fired on the
soldiers, and ordered, in spite of his denial, that he should be shot
at once. Mme. Egasse tried to soften the murderers, but she was
brutally ordered off. From the room to which she went she heard the
reports, and through the window she saw Brèche's body stretched on the
ground. When she came down she could not prevent herself from
expressing her grief. The officer then said to her: "A dead man! We
see too many to take any notice. Besides, wherever we are fired upon,
we kill and burn."
A young man named Odener, carrying a bag of rice, had been taken from
Liancourt of Creil. When he reached the Place de l'Eglise, worn out by
fatigue and the ill-treatment which he had received, he put down his
load and tried to escape. Two soldiers took aim at him, fired, and
struck him down. A certain Leboeuf, who had been his fellow-prisoner,
died at Creil a few days afterward in consequence of a wound which he
had received on the way.
Gen. von Kluck's army arrived at Crépy-en-Valois on the 2d of
September, and took four days to march through. The town was
completely sacked under the eyes of the officers. In particular the
jewelers' shops were ransacked.
Thefts of jewelry and body linen were committed in a house in which
lodged a General commanding with some twelve officers of the General
Staff. Almost all the safes in Crépy were gutted.
On the 3d of the same month, at Baron, an artist of great talent,
Prof. Albéric Magnard, fired two shots from a revolver on a troop
which was entering his property. One soldier was killed and another
wounded. The Germans, who in so many places have committed the worst
cruelties without any motive, here contented themselves with burning
the property of their aggressor. The latter committed suicide to avoid
falling into their hands. None the less the commune was sacked. M.
Robert, notary, was robbed of his jewelry, his linen, and of 1,471
bottles of wine, and forced to open his safe and allow an officer to
take 8,300 francs which were locked up there. In the evening he saw
another officer who wore on his finger nine women's rings, and whose
arms were adorned with six bracelets. Two soldiers told him, besides,
that they received a premium of four marks whenever they brought their
commanding officers a piece of jewelry.
In this commune, Mme. X., a most respectable young woman, was violated
by two soldiers in succession in the absence of her husband, who is
with the colors. One of these two men ransacked a chest of drawers
while his comrade was committing his crime.
At Mesnil-sur-Bulles on the evening of the 4th of September two
Germans arrived in a carriage and one on a bicycle and went to the
house of the Deputy Mayor, M. Gustave Queste. As the latter did not
understand them, he asked his cousin, M. Queste, Professor at the
Lycée of Amiens, to act as interpreter for him. After having fulfilled
this office the professor returned home. A few minutes afterward,
hearing a shot, he went out to ascertain what was happening. He found
himself in the presence of one of the three soldiers to whom he had
just spoken in his cousin's house. This man, who was drunk, fired at
him and killed him.
The same three soldiers, passing through Nourard-le-Franc, set fire to
seven houses with torches which they had brought with them in their
carriage. A few hours before their arrival at Mesnil-sur-Bulles a
Uhlan patrol had already made a reconnoissance in this commune.
Troopers entered the house of M. Amédée Queste, burst open a door,
broke the furniture, and stole a quantity of jewelry as well as a sum
of 60 francs.
At Choisy-au-Bac the Germans, who had been in the village since the
31st of August, willfully set fire on the 1st and 2d of September to
forty-five houses under the grossly false allegation that they had
been fired upon, and previously, in the presence of their officers,
gave themselves up to a general pillage, the product of which was
carried away in vehicles stolen from the inhabitants. Two army
doctors, wearing the brassards of the Red Cross, themselves pillaged
the house of Mme. Binder.
M. Morel, working carpenter, who was in his garden, was shot in the
groin by a soldier who was passing on the road. He died next day. Four
young men were taken as hostages and led away on the 8th of September.
One of them was able to escape. His comrade, René Leclere, is said to
have been shot at Besme, in the Department of the Aisne; as for the
other two, no one knows what has become of them.
At Compiègne, which was occupied by the enemy from the 31st of August
to the 12th of September, the château suffered comparatively little;
the thefts there were not very important. But a great number of houses
were pillaged. The house of Comte d'Orsetti, which is situated
opposite to the palace, was literally sacked, principally by
non-commissioned officers. Plate, jewelry, and valuables were
collected in the courtyard of the château, examined, inventoried, and
packed up, and were then loaded in two removal vans on which had been
placed the Red Cross flag.
Application was made to Capt. Schroeder to put an end to the burglary
and the scandalous orgy which was going on in the villa, and at last
he went to the place; but after having glanced at the interior of the
pillaged houses he went off again, saying, "It is war, and besides I
have no time."
On Sept. 4 a soldier, who had gone to pass the night at the house
where Mme. X. was concierge, drove the husband with several of the
former's relations out of the house, threatening them with his rifle,
and then obliged Mme. X. to pass the night with him.
At Trumilly, where they remained from the 2d to the 4th of September,
the Germans pillaged the commune and carried off the product of their
theft in artillery wagons as well as in carriages. The first day, Mme.
Huet, on whom were billeted a part of the staff of the Nineteenth
Regiment of Hanover Dragoons and a great number of soldiers, saw a
non-commissioned officer take possession of a box containing her
jewels to the value of about 10,000 francs. She went to complain to
the Colonel, who contented himself with saying, with a smile, "I am
sorry, Madame, it is war."
On the 3d of September the advance troops had left, but stragglers
remained in the country. One of them, a soldier of the Ninety-first
Regiment of Infantry, on whose medal was engraved the name of "Ahne,"
stole in Mme. Huet's house 115 francs from the servants, 300 francs
from the mistress of the house, and 400 francs from M. Cornillet. This
man then went to the house of Mme. X., whose husband was with the
colors, and forced this woman to submit to him by threatening her with
his revolver.
During the occupation of the commune by the Germans M. Cornillet, the
victim of one of the thefts of which we have just spoken, had an
officer billeted upon him. After the departure of this guest he
discovered that the sum of 150 francs, which had been placed in the
wardrobe of the room in which the German had slept, had disappeared.
Finally M. Colas, an old man of 70, was searched in the street by a
soldier, and robbed of about 30 francs.
One of the most serious acts of which we have been informed in the
Department of the Oise was committed near Marquéglise, by an officer
of high rank. Two young men of Saint Quentin, named Charlet and Gabet,
who had left Paris to return to their native place with the object of
obeying the summons to be enrolled for military service, met on the
road two Belgian subjects making their way to Jemmapes, where they
lived. The latter offered them a lift in their carriage, and the four
men journeyed together as far as the village of Ressons, where they
were arrested by a German detachment. They were bound, and then taken
to the District of Marquéglise, and brought before a superior officer,
who questioned them. When he learned that two of them were natives of
Belgium this officer declared that the Belgians were "sales gens";
then without any explanation he took his revolver and fired on each of
the prisoners in turn. The two Belgians and young Gabet fell dead,
struck in the head. As for Charlet, who was wounded in the neck and
right shoulder, he pretended to be killed, and after the departure of
the murderer, was able to drag himself a certain distance. Before
being taken to Compiègne, where he died next day, the unfortunate man
was able to describe to the Abbé Boulet, curé of Marquéglise, the
cowardly deed of which his companions and himself had been the
victims.