.AN APPALLING RECORD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16327, 9 March 1915, Page 3

.AN APPALLING RECORD

GERMAN OUTRAGES IN FRANCE.

REPORT OF FRENCH COMMISSION.

The first report of tho French Commission of Inquiry mm German outrages on French, soil is an even more terrible indictment against tile invaders than the several reports issued by the Belgian Government. Tho French commissioners (says the London correspondent of the Melbourne Age) have had fewer difficulties to contend with than the Belgians in obtaining sworn testimony to t-lie reported, bccause the scenes of the outrages in Belgium are still in the hands of tlio German invaders, whereas the atrocities that aro dealt with in the first French report took place in those districts from which tho Germans have been compelled to retreat. This French report fills 24 columns of the Journal Olliciel, and it is to be followed, by 400 pages of sworn declarations.

The commission consisted of M: Georges Payello (First President of the Court of Accounts), M. Armand Mollard (Minister Plenipotentiary), M. Georges Maringer (Councillor of State), and M. Edmond Paillot (Councillor of the Court of Cassation). "Tho report includes only a small part of the statements we might have set forth had we not exercised tho severest control on all tho information we obtained," say the commissioners. Wo record only facts incontrovertibly proved, discarding all those wh-ch wero insufficiently proved. Tho proofs are not derived solely from our observations, but. are supported by many photographic documents and by depositions made on oath. It may be affirmed that no war between civilised nations ever liore a character of such savage ferocity as that sho vn by ou.r implacable enemy. Pillage, outrage, arson, land murder aro the common practice, of our enemy; and tho facts daily revealed, which aro so many crimes against all laws, punished) as such by the laws of-, all countries, prove the most astounding retrogression in tho German mentality since 1870. Assaults on women and girls have been of a frequency unknown in warfare before. The many cases we have established can be but a negligible proportion of those committed. Had the commanders troubled .to prevent such outrages, few.er would have been perpetrated, but they may iu the last resort be considered as isolated and individual acts of brutality. The same cannot be urged for the theft, murder, and incendiarism of German troops. The German command, up to the most highly placed, must bear before humanity the crushing onus of these crimes. Wlrsrever cur inquiry has taken us we have found that die German army showed utter contempt for human life, that soldiers, andi even leaders, despatch the wounded, slay pitilessly inoffensive inhabitants of tho invaded territory, and in their homicidal fury spare neither old men, wom.en, nor children." Tho village of Dommeilles, in tho Department of tho Mouse-, was the scene of one of the most horrible tragedies recorded in the report. The village, which is now only a heap of ruins, was set on fire by Gwtnan soldiers. .When the houses began to burn, Madame X., • whoso husband was with the colours, took refuge with her four children in tho cellar of a married couple named Ardnot. Several days .afterwards the dead bodies of all the occupants of the cellar were found lying in poois of blood. Arnot had been shot; Madame X's breast and right arm had been cut off; her eldest child, a girl of 11, had a foot cut off; the throat of a hoy, aged five, had been cut. Madame X and her eldest daughter appeared .to have been violated. "We experienced a feeling of horror when we saw the pitiable ruins of Nomeny," state the commissioners.. "Apart from a few houses which are still standing near tho station, there remains in this little town only a succession of broken, blackened walls. • In the midst of the mass of ruins can be seen here and there a few bones of animals, partly calcined, and the carbonised remains of human bodies. The fury of a maddened soldiery was let loose there without restraint." The Germans entered the town at .'midday . August 14, set tho houses on fire,, and shot- down the inhabitants as they tried to escape. "The most tragic incident of these scenes happened at the house of 1 a man named V asse, who had collected people'* in his collar,continues the report. ."About 4 p.m. 5C soldiers invaded the house, broke in doors and windows, and finally set fire to thfe place. The refugees tried to escape, but were struck down one after another as thoy went out. M. Mentre was assassinated first; his son Leon fell next, with a young sister, eight years old, in his arms. He was not killed outright, and a rifle barriel was put against his forehead and his brains were blown out. Next "it was the turn of the Keiffer family.. The mother was wounded in the arm and shoulder. The father, a boy of 10, and a girl of three wero shot down. Tho murderers continued firing on them as they lay on the ground. The last wej-e a girl of 17 and a sister of three. The younger child was struck by a bullet in the elbow; tho elder flung herself to the ground and shammed death. A soldier kicked her as she lay." S •At Gerbevillcrs, where there were 475 houses, only! 20uare now habitable. More than 100 persons havo disappeared; 50 at least .were murdered, some in their houses, otheA ran' the!)fi3lds^ r 36 corpses havo so far bepn-o iderttiEted,! rftmomj them being six 'jl4. The Germans entored tpß-jHingenheld family, seizfed the' Sort, aged' 36; who was wearing a Red, CisSSir''finiKlfe't/'' d&gged him into the strc'Ctioraridii9h'ot c hijnt'' l "As he still moved, the .GfermaUSifeoakedSihis! body in petrol and s^t lr pr^. l tof.it,.bef<jr ; <sihis;pioth'er's eyes. They tneii, returned '.tp tollhouse, dragged out the ekjp'r' Hiqsenheld. and shot him in the evening.'V> ; <dTrivittcoUrt'''t , ho?G'e¥mans ,burned the village, and:;Oiigiaiiised. r ia murder of. the inhabitants. They began by setting j( a 'landed proprietor, jwjhOm/Ithjoy sh'otbflbwn.'tsis he ran out to Fiiaring for their lives; ja ,;pyng Proces, her mother, ' h £ r T^ n -sP°W^;.Caged' 71), and an-old aunt (iigecPo!*'triecl"to climb over a wall of their garden. succeeded in getting away;r;lmt('.'t;hd>rthreo old women were snot down. Thol cure of the village had the bodies into the house. During

the night that followed German soldiers played tho piano in tho room in which tho bodies of their victims wore lying.

Emborrrienl, near Lunoville, was the scene of a pathetic tragedy. Towards thj end of October an enemy patrol came upon a young woman, Madame Masson, who was about to become a mother, and asked her whether there were any French soldiers at Embermoni l . She said she did not know. The Germans entered the village, and were fired on by tho French. On November 8 live detachments of the Fourth Bavarian .Regiment entered tho village, and collected the whole papulation in front of the church. An officer then asked who was the traitor who had betrayed the German troops. Suspecting that the question might refer to her meeting with the patrol some day 6 before, Madame Masson very courageously went forward, repeated what she had said to tho patrol, declared that her answer had been given in good faith. She was told to eit down on a bench beside a young man who had been chosen by hazard as a victim. Tho whole population begged for mercy for the woman, but tho Germans were inflexible. A man and a woman, they said, mu6t be shot. Such wero the orders of their colonel. Eight soldiers then fired three times at Madame Masson and her companion on the bench in tho presence of tho whole village. At Herimenil, where the inhabitants were kept in church for four days, an officer was guilty of callous murder. . With a monocle in his eye, he watched the people enter tho church. Judging that Madame Winger and her three Gervants, a girl and two young men, wore not walking fast, enough, he gave orders to some soldiers to fire on them. All four wero tilled, and their bodies were left in the street for two days. On the following day tho Germans shot a man named Bocquel, who, not knowing of the orders that had been given that all tho inhabitants must present themselves at the church, had remained in his house. Thov also shot. M. Floretin, an old man of 77 years. M. Florentin, who received several bullets in the breast, w.as probably massacred because of his deafness, wlvch had prevented him from understanding tho commands of the Germans.

At tlio village of Bezu, on tho Aisne, a German soldier outraged a. girl of 13 years. At Crezaney an ofßccr dragged a young man named Lssaint out of a house . nnd shot him' dcarl with a revolver. Anothsr officer acknowledged t.hat his fellow officer had been " hasty." IST. Dupont. a tradesman, -was driven uphill by soldiers, who lunged p.t him with bayonets whenever hi stumbled. Finally he was killed by a bayonet thrust. In tho yillage of Maixe Mademoiselle A., aged 23 years, was violated by n'n» Germans during the night of 23rd and 24th August, and an officer who wp.R in a room above took no notice, although it is certa'n that he heard tho cri-R of the girl. At Marias thres girls, aged 18. 15. and 13, taken hv two soldiers from their sick mother's bedside, wher" they had sought refuge, and were violated in an r>dioinin<r room. Two nuns wre brutally treated bv p soldier. H° compelled th°m to strin. and then forced them to take off h : s boots before proceeding to outfage tho younger of them. outrates are but a f"w of recorded b" the French Commiss'on. The renort conr'ndo® by rrivir.nr a mir"V>e>* of instances of German v'olations. of the laws of war on t.h" battlefield which d"il chiefly with th" slaughter of the On" ease is ouoted of nine, wounded' French solders. lvine"at a farm, bo'ocr deliberately '-'lied bv the order of a German officer. Four so'diers •went from man to man. 'tis; >n the ear. A farmer's wife, who begged fo- m°rcy for wn« ordered to keen silent .hy th" officer, who put t.hf muzzl" of" b"? ""volver against her brecst to enforce obedience.