CALLOUS WOMAN SPY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17258, 6 September 1919, Page 2 (Supplement)

CALLOUS WOMAN SPY.

ATTENDED EXECUTIONS.

TERRIBLE STORY UNFOLDED.

One of -the - most ■ terrible r monsters revealed by the war is Alice Aubert, one of the "25 informers of La6n"'now l being tried in Paris by court-martial for treason daring the German occupation. She is a woman of extraordinarily hard appearance, but with the remains,-of a sort of savage beauty. Her lover, a . young man named Reselle, is in the dock With her.

" YoU have the deaths of ;at least five FrancLmen !o2 $<siir '■ conscience," the president of 'qdffirt' i»ld her. She denounced several 'Bronch soldiers who were in hiding in the Laon district. ,The Germans shot them, and , Alice Aubert is alleged tor haver ho jrcpred 3 .German soldier's uniform to -attend the execution. After this the Mayors and h.i deputy and several other people were shot. One of Alice Aubert's victims was Mme. Daubenton, who was t sentenced to ten years' imprisonment for'giving the French soldiers a piece of bread. Alice Aubert twice visited Paris" on spying missions. On the first occasion she spent a fortnight in the capital to collect information for the enemy. In a wKiriiiig voice she told the court that Lieutenant von Heeringen, with whom she had an intrigue, compelled her to carry out these missions by horsewhipping her. The most ' monstrous crime alleged against her is denunciation of the Mayor of As3ia-sur-Serre, named Baiige. Even

the German military judges were revolted by her l ? fan According to her story, Kesalle, her lover, said to her one day Baage must dl ®- T ® ssot and I have sworn it. Tasßofc was Bauge's unsuccessful .opponent at the municipal elections. In revenge a charge against Bangs of harbouring trench spies dropped by aeroplanes was tramped up, and Tassot swore that he had seen them at the Mayor's bouse. Bauge was sentenced to death but his wife succeeded in proving his innocence and saving him, and the Germans shot Tassot instead for bearing fake witness. Reselle, a low-browed brute, vehemently denied his mistress' version of the story.