French Official Report on German Atrocities (continued 2)

The receipt drawn up by the officer reads as follows:

Erbéviller, 23d August, 1914.

RECEIPT.

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.

OISE.

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.

AISNE.

In the communes of the Department of the Aisne which we have been able to visit we have everywhere found evidences of acts of pillage and numerous crimes against women.

At Connigis on the 8th of September at about 8 o'clock in the evening Mme. X. was the victim of grievous violence at the hands of two Germans, who had gone to her parents-in-law's house, where she was living in the absence of her husband, who had been mobilized. One of the Germans held M. X., the father, in front of the door while the other, threatening the young woman with his rifle, committed acts of revolting obscenity upon her in the presence of the mother-in-law. When he had accomplished his crime he took the place of his comrade, mounting guard over M. X., while the former in his turn outraged the young woman.

At Brumetz, where the occupation by the enemy lasted from the 3d to the 10th, the village was pillaged. One house, as well as the château of M. de Maleyssie, a Captain on the staff of the Sixth French Army Corps, were burned.

At Chierry, the Château of Varolles was burned with torches with petrol. The Château of Sparre was also set on fire after it had been completely pillaged, pictures taken from their frames, and the tapestries cut up with blows of the sword.

At Jaulgonne, between the 3d and 10th of September, the Prussian Guard emptied the cellars, stole the linen, and did 250,000 francs' worth of damage. In addition, they burned a house on the allegation that the owner had fired on them when in reality he was hiding in terror in his cellar.

Two inhabitants of this commune were killed. One, M. Rempenault, aged 87, was found in the fields killed by a bullet; the other, named Blanchard, aged 61, had been arrested because the Prussians had seen him talking in a street with a French chasseur-à-pied, who, after having delayed in the village, had succeeded in taking to flight on a bicycle and escaped a rifle fusillade which was aimed at him. Blanchard was led into an outlying part of Jaulgonne and wounded with a bayonet by a soldier and then finished off by an officer, who shattered his head with a revolver shot.

At Charmel the Germans, from the moment of their arrival, entered the houses by breaking in the doors. They did not leave a bottle of wine in the cellars and they pillaged chiefly the empty houses, carrying away linen, money, jewelry, and other articles. At the house of the schoolmaster they took the funds of the School Savings Bank, which amounted to 240 francs. On the 3d of September, at 11 o'clock at night, they set fire to the château of Mme. de Rougé, and the same day one of them entered the house of Mme. X., seized her by the throat and violated her.

At Coincy, on the 3d and 4th of September, they emptied the cellars and sacked the empty houses and committed outrages on several women in the village.

At Bezu-St.-Germain, on the 8th of September, two soldier cyclists came to the farm of —— and passed part of the night there. Having obliged the inhabitants to go to bed, and having forbidden them on pain of death to move, whatever sounds they might hear, one of them went into the room of the little servant girl, aged 13, and, putting his hand on her mouth, committed a complete rape upon her. Hearing a loud cry, the farmer's daughter escaped through her window and called some officers who were lodging with a neighbor. One of them came down, had the two cyclists, who at that moment were coming from the farm, arrested, and marched to headquarters. The next day, when the victim was asked to recognize the culprit and point him out, he had disappeared.

On the 3d of September, at Crézancy, the soldiers made young Lesaint, aged 18, come out of his house, and an officer killed him with a revolver shot. One of the murderer's comrades declared later that this murder had been committed because Lesaint was a soldier, and when a man to whom he was speaking denied this, he added, "He was on the way to be one." He said also that the young man had stupidly caused his own death, because, with the intention of escaping, he had put out the candle which was lighted in his room. Now this candle had not been put out by the unfortunate Lesaint, but had been removed by a soldier who wished to visit the house. In any case, the officer reluctantly admitted that his comrade had fired too soon.

In the same locality M. Dupont, "gérant du familistère," was arrested on the 4th of September because he had tried to protect his till against a soldier who was in the act of ransacking it. With a trooper's cap on his head, which they had drawn down to his chin, and both his hands tied behind his back, he was made the butt of the Germans, who amused themselves by forcing him to go on to a very high slope, raining blows upon him and pricking him with bayonets every time he fell down. He was taken on the 6th to Charly-sur-Marne with a convoy of military prisoners, and on the 8th of September, in the morning, his murderers in their retreat forced him to follow the column. As he could not drag himself along in consequence of the violence which he had suffered, the Germans struck him with redoubled vigor and pushed him along, holding him under the arms. A kilometer further on they killed him with a blow from a lance or bayonet through the heart.

At Château-Thierry, where the German troops remained from the 2d to the 9th of September, the pillage was carried out under the eyes of the officers. Later on army doctors who remained in the town after the departure of the army were included in an exchange of prisoners, and their canteens were opened. They contained articles of clothing which were the product of the sack of the shops.

On the 5th of September the girl ——, aged 14, met a soldier as she was coming back from fetching some bread for her parents. She was dragged into the shop of a shoemaker, and from there into a room where two other Germans joined the first. She was threatened with a bayonet, thrown on to a bed, and violated by two of these men. The third was prepared to follow his comrades' example, but allowed himself to be moved by the child's entreaties.

The aunt of this young girl was also the victim of serious crimes at Verdilly, where her family have the farm ——. After having bound her husband four soldiers belonging to the heavy artillery chased her to the house of a neighbor, whom they terrorized with threats, and while one of them held her the others violated her in succession.

At Hartennes-et-Taux, in the Arrondissement of Soissons, the Germans, as everywhere else, pillaged the houses. At the hamlet of Taux they set fire to the straw with which they had stopped up the openings of an isolated cellar in which were three of the inhabitants whom they had taken for soldiers. The three men were suffocated by the smoke.

ACTS OF A MILITARY NATURE.

Acts committed in the violation of the laws of war and affecting combatants, murder of wounded or prisoners, stratagems forbidden by international conventions, attacks on doctors and stretcher bearers, have been innumerable in all the places in which there has been fighting. We have not been able to verify the majority of them because the witnesses are for the most part soldiers, who are obliged to move from place to place continually. Besides, these acts have been set forth in reports addressed by corps leaders to the military authorities, who may add them to the documents of our inquiry if they think fit to do so. Many are also attested by evidence collected by magistrates in hospitals, and we are engaged at this moment in analyzing them with a view to drawing up a supplementary report. A certain number, however, have been laid before us in the course of our investigation.

At Bar-le-Duc M. Ferry, the head surgeon, gave us a report of depositions made to him in the course of his duties. Sergt. Lemerre of the —th Infantry Regiment told him that on the 6th of September, when he was wounded in the leg at Rembercourt by a fragment of a shell, he had been left on the battlefield eight days by the German Red Cross people although they knew quite well that he was there. On the fourth day this non-commissioned officer received a further wound by a soldier, who fired at him on the order of an officer who was going over the scene of action with his revolver in his hand. Moreover, he repeatedly saw near him German stretcher bearers firing on our wounded.

The soldier Dreyfus of the —th Infantry Regiment related the following story to Dr. Ferry:

"On the 10th of September at Somaine, as he was leaving the battlefield, wounded, he met three Germans. He told them in German that he had just been wounded, but these men answered that this was no reason why he should not receive another bullet, and they thereupon shot him point blank in the eye."

At Vaubecourt an infantry sergeant and two soldiers were shot by the enemy. They alleged that one of the latter was found on the church tower in the village, from which he would have been able to exchange signals with our troops.

On the 22d of August a detachment of Germans arrived in the vicinity of Bouvillers in the Department of Meurthe-et-Moselle at the farm of La Petite Rochelle, where the owner, M. Houillon, had lodged some French wounded soldiers. The officer in command ordered four of his men to go and finish off nine wounded who were lying in the barn. Each one was shot in the ear. Mme. Houillon begged mercy for them, and the officer, placing the barrel of his revolver to her breast, told her to be silent.

On the 25th of August the Abbé Denis, curé of Réméréville, tended in the evening Lieut. Toussaint, who last July headed the list of candidates who left the School of Forestry. As he fell wounded on the battlefield this young officer was struck with bayonets by all the Germans who passed near him. His body was covered with wounds from head to foot.

At the hospital at Nancy we saw the soldier Voyer of the —th Infantry Regiment, who still bore traces of German barbarity, having been badly wounded in the backbone outside the Forest of Champenoux on the 24th of August, and paralyzed in both legs as the result of his wound. He was lying on his face when a German soldier turned him over brutally with his gun and hit him three times on the head with the butt of his rifle. Other soldiers passing by kicked him and hit him also with the butts of their guns. Finally one of them with a single blow caused a wound of about three or four centimeters under each eye with what Dr. Weiss, head doctor and Professor of Faculty at Nancy, thinks must have been a pair of scissors.

A hussar who was treated by the same doctor relates that, having fractured his leg falling off his horse, and being unable to extricate himself, he was assaulted by Uhlans, who stole his watch and chain after having taken his carbine and shot him in the eye with it.

Seven French soldiers, also treated by Dr. Weiss, told him that they had seen the enemy finish off the wounded on the battlefield. As they had feigned death to escape massacre, the Germans belabored them with the butts of their guns to see if they were still alive.

In the same hospital a German soldier wounded in the stomach told Dr. Rohmer that his wound had been caused by a revolver shot fired by his own officer because he had refused to finish off a French wounded soldier. Again, another German, wounded in the back, the result of a shot fired point-blank, told Dr. Weiss that a soldier had fired at him by order of an officer to punish him for having carried into a village near the battlefield several French wounded soldiers.

On the 25th of August, at Einvaux, the Germans fired at a distance of 300 yards at Dr. Millet, army doctor, belonging to the —th Colonial Regiment, just as, together with two stretcher bearers, he was attending to a man lying on a stretcher. As his left side was turned toward them, the enemy could perfectly see his brassard. And, furthermore, they could not mistake the nature of the work upon which these three men were engaged.

On the same day Capt. Perraud of the same regiment, having noticed that the soldiers of a section of men upon whom his mitrailleuses were firing were wearing red trousers, ordered the firing to cease. Immediately this section fired on him and on his men. They were Germans in disguise.

Believe us, &c.,

G. PAYELLE, President. ARMAND MOLLARD. G. MARINGER. PAILLOT, Rapporteur.

Paris, Dec. 17, 1914.