GERMAN ATROCITIES.

Press, Volume LI, Issue 15393, 25 September 1915, Page 12

GERMAN ATROCITIES.

FURTHER EVIDENCE

MASSACRE IN A HOSPITAL. FRENCH OFFICIAL REPORT. (rROil OCR OWV CORBZSrONDENT.) IX)NIA>N*, August 4. The French Commission which was set up to verify acts committed by tho Germans in violation of international law has issued a report which only emphasises tho terrible findings of tho Bolgian Judicial Committee. Perhaps tho piece do resistance of this report is the narrative of the massacre of a great number of wounded in tho Red Cross Hospital at Ette, which «s told by M. Sedillot, a French military doctor.

One morning, ho says, the village was invaded by German troops. A lieutenant commanding 25 men visited the hospital and left saying that everything was right. But the men became very excited and yelled: "This is a war to tho death, anj the blowing out of brains." A minute or two later another officer rushed into th 0 place and fired at Dr. Sedillot, who luckily struck up the arm of his assailant and received the bullet in his shoulder. In a fit of exasperation the officer firod two more shots, hitting tho doctor m the right calf and the left arm. The officer then called to his men "Feuerl Feuer!" (fire), and an indescribable scene of carnage followed.

"Tho Germans set firo to the Hospital and obliged medical students and civilians who had escaped the bullets and were lying on the floor feigning death to run into the furnacc, pushing them into tho flames with their bayonets, while they brought more hay to keep tho fire alive. Inside tho hospital were between 60 and 80 wounded, most of them being unable to walk. Those who tried to escape by jumping from tho windows wero immediately shot."

Dr. Sedillot meanwhile had regained consciousness and witnessed what was happening, besides hearing the appeals of his compatriots for mercy. The Germans as they put the wounded to death laughed and continually shouted "Noch ein" (another one), as they fired at tho victims. Finally Dr. Sedillot was able to jump out of the window and, to crawl away to a cellar with a broken log. The next day -with three soldiers he was 'taken prisoner. While passing through tho village they satf-lymg all around the bodies of tho soldiers who had been shot. Tho doctor was taken' to two different nospitals for treatment, and then to Ingolstadt, where ho remained until March 21st, when he was sent through Switzerland and thence home to France. He states in his evidence that between 100 and 120 soldiers tvero murdered by shooting or burning. CIVILIANS AS SHIELDS. Tho report mentions nin o separate occasions on which tho German troops used French prisoners as screens to protect them against tho fire of the French troops. On August 27th, Lieutenant Nazat, of the 20th Infantry Regiment, wag placed with a section in a suburb of Mouzon to guard tho ruins of a dynamited bridge. He saw several Germans advancing over tho ruins, pushing French civilians before them. Some minutes later another group appeared, and endeavoured to qross the road, but they were stopped by the fire of the French troops and suffered heavily. The Germans thenplacod in front of them, covering the public highway, a dozen inhabitants of the village, including a priest and a youth fifteen years old. "We were so close," says Lieutenant Nazat, "that I shall always remember the sad, resigned attitude of tlieso poor people marching to their death.''

From behind these prisoners the Germans fired on the French troops. Tho French ceased firing for the time, but recommenced when the prisoners grouped themselves on one side of the road. The Germans then t seeing that their plan had failed, directed their fire on the unfortunate peoplo whom they had just been using as a screen, and several persons fell to earth. They were severely wounded, and succeeded in dragging themselves along the ground to the shelter of a protecting wall.

During the night of September 7th tho Death's Head Hussars, the favourite regiment of the Crown Prince, occupied the chateau of the fami'v of St. Ouen-sur-Morin and to avoid bombnrdmcnt they locked in the chateau with them the whole of the inhabitant)? of the village, a step of which they had previously warned tho British troops. KILLING UNARMED PRISONERS. The report states that unarmed prisoners were killed by the orders of General Stanger, commanding thooßth Brigade, who "was not ashamed, in an order the tenor of which has been communicated to us by the Ministry of War, to instruct his soldiers to 'massacre their adversaries, already placed in a position in which they' could not defend themselves." At Thionville, Lieutenant Stoy, commanding the 7th Company of the 112 th Regiment Infantry, put this order into execution. The order stated that no more prisoners were to be taken. Tho wounded, whether armed or not, were to bo executed, and j>risoners. even in great compact formation, wero to be put to death. No living man was to be left by tho troops. On August 2oth, near Courbesseaux, Sergeant Pageaut, of the 279 th Regiment Infantry, having received a bullet in his shoulder, was lying near a non-commissioned officer named Martin when a German section of tirailleurs arrived. The officer commanding them asked Martin if he was wounded, and when tho latter did not answer, dragged him to a standing position and fired point blank into his stomach. He then knocked off Pageaut's cap and said: "Are you wounded?" When Pageaut replied in the affirmative, raiEinr; his blood-stained cap, the German raised his sabre as a signal, and two soldiers pounded Pageant over the head with their rifle butts.

On the plain of Florenville, Corporal Arnault, of the 59th Jlegiment Infantry, after fighting throughout the day, was in tho midst of a detachment of 150 of his men. They had transported to tho shelter of a wood about twenty •wounded to administer first aid, but they had to be abandoned owing to tho sudden appearance of enemy reinforcements ; and tho men retired into the forest. Durin« tho night they saw the Germans with torches moving .to and fro about tho battle-field. "You ask what happened then?" asked the corporal. "We heard voices and cries, we distinguished movements —that was all. As soon as the Germans retired we hurried towards our wounded men, but not a single one of them was alive. The poor chaps had been finished off by blows from muskets and stabs from b'avonets."