CHAPTER XI

THE MURDER, TORTURE AND VIOLATION OF WOMEN IN INVADED TERRITORY

The present and following chapters will contain the most abominable part of this indictment. We shall read the story of outrages of which women have been made victims by the German scoundrels. Were not these outrages, established as they are by certain reports, and confirmed by confessions which the Germans themselves have inadvertently made, the result of the unbridled instincts of an army in a state of delirium? We should like to think so, but the details to hand with regard to the circumstances under which these acts were performed compel us to recognise that something more is involved in them. They reveal the presence of cruelty and thirst for innocent blood in the perpetrators of these murders and acts of violence.

Crimes committed against octogenarian old women seem to issue from a special hatred, directed against those who gave birth to their enemies of to-day. The number of acts of violation committed by these invaders proves that there is inherent in the German mind a peculiar contempt for all human laws, a regular bestiality, a cynical audacity, which, if the reins are given to it, borders on madness.

In the performance of these abominable acts the Germans showed no trace of humanity. Their thoughts were incapable of going back to themselves and their fatherland, to the daughters, the fiancées, the wives, the mothers whom they themselves had left at home; wholesale murders, mutilations, tortures, treatment so frightful as to drive the victims crazy, refinements of cruelty by which the relatives and parents of the latter were made partners in their punishment, and in which, as we have seen, neither organisation nor method was wanting—such are the acts of which we are about to give proofs and examples.

MURDERS

In the story of the murders committed by the Germans, of which women have been the victims, we see almost always that these were surprised in the midst of their common daily tasks. The horror of the crime committed against them is enhanced. It is still worse when the massacred women were about to perform some act of charity. At Tamines, in Belgium, a woman was killed in the middle of the street as she was carrying a sick old man. At Mayen-Multien a woman named Laforest was seriously wounded, in the beginning of September, by a German horseman to whom she and her husband had been obliged to give hospitality. His excuse was that they were too long about serving him. At Hazebrouck, in the middle of the month of October, a German soldier, who was riding a bicycle, seeing in a corner a poor mother seated with her child sleeping on her knees, transfixed the latter with his bayonet, and at the same time wounded the mother in the thigh, without any of his comrades interfering. At Audun-le-Roman, Mlle. Tréfel was struck at the very moment when she was giving a drink to a German soldier.

Examples of such acts are innumerable. The most striking instances were those which took place at Malines, Gerbeviller, Audun-le-Roman, Boortmeerbeck, Neuville-en-Artois, Hériménil. At Hériménil, Mme. Truger, twenty-three years old, was shot by order of an officer. At Boortemeerbeck, the maid-servant of Mlle. van Hoorde was killed because she was accused of having assassinated an officer. This officer had committed suicide, after leaving on his table a letter in which he declared his intention. At Lunéville a young girl of sixteen years, Mlle. Weill, was killed in her own house by her father’s side.

In the same town a woman aged ninety-eight years was killed in her bed and thrown into the flames; at Triaucourt, Mme. Maupoix, aged seventy-five years, was so violently kicked that she died some days afterwards. Two other old women of the same place were shot dead. During the following night the Germans played the piano near the corpses. At Nomény several women were forced to make a long march on foot; an old woman, who was just on the verge of a hundred years, fell down in a state of exhaustion and died. At Hofstade, another old woman was found dead by the Belgian soldiers. She had been bayoneted several times as she sat down to sew. At Gerbeviller, widow Guillaume, aged sixty-eight years, was killed by a shot fired point-blank.

WHOLESALE MURDER

In many cases the Germans went as far as general massacres. The excuse invoked by them was a pretended right of reprisals.

The most appalling of these butcheries seems to have been that of Dinant, which took place on the 22nd August and following days. “In these terrible days,” writes a Dutchman, M. Staller, on this topic, in the _Telegraaf_ (translated in the _Temps_, 19th December, 1914), “at Dinant and also in the neighbouring villages of Anseremme, Leffe and Neffe, more than eight hundred persons were killed, amongst whom there were many women and children.” The _XX Siècle_ published the names of about sixty women, several of whom were octogenarians, and of about forty children. The excuse put forward was that three German soldiers had been killed by the civilians (see further on).

“At Anseremme,” continues the _Telegraaf_, “eighteen women and two children were concealed under a bridge; the soldiers caught sight of them and fired with a machine-gun until there was no more sign of life; on the following morning they burnt the corpses, probably that they might not be accused of having killed defenceless people. I saw the horrible remains of the fire.”

Another massacre was that witnessed at Louvain. On the 27th August, at 8 o’clock, the order was given to the inhabitants of Louvain to leave the town, as it was going to be bombarded. Amongst these thousands of wretched people, pursued by the brutal soldiers, were large numbers of women, and some, who had not the strength to follow the procession, were shot.

TORTURED WOMEN

A humane reader cannot repress a tremor as he learns the story of the tortures inflicted on women by the Germans on several occasions. We should have spared our readers these stories, were it not necessary to pay special attention to them for the purpose of showing how far German barbarism can go.

At Dompierre-aux-Bois, after the bombardment which we have described, the Germans did not want to allow the people shut up in a church which they were bombarding even to go to look for water to tend the wounded. Women were compelled to wait without help, wounded, bruised, mutilated under the eyes of their parents, who were powerless to help them during a time of agony which for some lasted up to twenty-four and thirty-six hours. When they were dead, the Germans forced the men to dig a grave near the cemetery and to bury them in it. One of them found that in this way he was forced to bury without a coffin his wife, her mother and her sisters.

At Révigny the French Commission of Inquiry notes the case of a woman who was found killed in a cellar, with her breast and right arm cut off. Her little son, aged eleven years, also had a foot cut off.

M. Bonne, the senior curate of Étain, declares in his report that a woman of Audun-le-Roman, who was suckling her child, was tortured for refusing to give the enemy food. They mangled her abdomen and killed her child.

At Sempst, in Belgium, a woman was bayoneted, covered with petrol, and thrown into the flames. The fact is noted in the second report of the Belgian Commission of Inquiry. M. Pierre Nothomb relates the following facts: “On coming to Averbode, on the 20th August, the Germans saw a woman, who—seized with fear—concealed herself in a ditch. They killed her with lance-thrusts. An hour’s journey from there, at Schaffen, they disembowelled a young girl of twenty years. Peasants from the outskirts of Louvain went to Antwerp, on the 12th September, and told that at Wilzele the Germans wanted to burn alive Mme. Van Kriegelinen and her eleven children. The woman and eight children were burnt. We saw the corpses of the mother and her children, and were present at the execution.” The volunteer gunner de R⸺ unpinned from the ground the bodies of a woman and her child, who were fastened to the ground by bayonets. Asked about what had passed at Boortmeerbeck, Dr. V⸺ of Malines deposed: “Mme. Van Rollegem came to the hospital of Malines on the 22nd August. On Thursday the 20th, as she was fleeing from Boortmeerbeck with her husband, she was shot twice in the leg. She threw herself into the ditch to take shelter. Some minutes later the Germans who had fired on her came up to her again and made horrible wounds in her left thigh and left forearm. She remained like that without help until Saturday evening. The wounds were gangrened and worms were swarming over them.”

During the night of the 23rd to 24th August soldiers knocked violently at the door of the Château of Canne, owned by M. Poswick. Mme. Poswick opened the door; she was forthwith bludgeoned with the butt-ends of rifles. On Sunday, the 30th of August, a patrol of hussars, as a Lord’s day recreation, amused themselves by firing, on the Brussels road at Malines, at Catherine Van Kerchove, a woman of seventy-four years of age, at every part of her they could hit without killing her. A rifle shot carried off her right hand, another gashed her cheek. At Battice, before burning houses, the Germans made women go into them and shut them up there.

Sometimes German barbarism spent itself in putting people in captivity. At Dinant many women were kept shut up in the Abbaye des Prémontrés. Here they remained seated on the floor without food. Four of them were confined under these dreadful conditions (see Chap. XIII).

POLAND AND SERBIA

Such acts were outdone at the other end of Europe, in the Eastern theatre of war. In Poland, at Khabbeck, the Austrians mutilated two women on the pretext that civilians were helping the movements of the Russian troops.

In the Podogorsky Arrondissement the Serbian troops found in the village of Jabonka the corpses of a young girl of about ten years old and of three old women, all three alike mutilated. Finally, Professor Reiss, of the University of Lausanne, who visited the Serbian territories invaded by the Austro-Hungarians, confirmed the authenticity of the mutilations in which the invader of Serbia had indulged.

“At Bastave” (he reports in his letter to the _Temps_ of 22nd November) “nearly everybody took to flight when it was known that the Austrians were approaching. The two infirm women named Soldatovich, aged seventy-two and seventy-eight years, did not want to leave their house. They thought that even the most cruel men would do nothing to invalided old women. But when the peasants came back after the Austrians had gone, they found that the two poor old women had been violated, stabbed with bayonet thrusts, their noses, ears and breasts cut. Besides, mutilation was quite a usual practice amongst the murderers of the Austro-Hungarian army.”

These barbarous acts, when they did not cause the victim’s death, sometimes brought on insanity. This was the case, amongst other instances, with several women of Louvain, who were escorted by a detachment of the 162nd German infantry regiment to the riding-school of the town, and having, from want of room, passed a whole night standing, endured such terrible sufferings that they lost their reason.

ABDUCTION

Let us take the case of abduction of women, led away by German soldiers and brought in troops to Germany. These wretched women were put down as hostages. It is, however, certain that in more than one case they were led away merely to gratify the soldiers’ lust.

At Marcheville the Germans carried off several hundreds of women, who were interned at Amberg in Bavaria in barracks. At Saint-Mihiel seven or eight hundred women were also carried off to Germany.

At Charleville the women were kept on the spot, but brought to their several tasks and kept under a regimen of forced labour. They were kept constantly employed in making equipments for the troops, earning a wage of half-a-loaf of bread. At Bignicourt-sur-Saulx forty women were carried off, as hostages it was said. The Hungarian dragoons in particular, in Poland and in the Lublin and Kielce regions, were noted for this kind of conduct, revived from the most barbarous periods of war.

The second report of the French Commission of Inquiry (_Journal Officiel_ of 11th March, 1915) gives striking details of the fate of Frenchwomen who were carried away from their own country and interned in Germany.

For the most part separated from their children, there was no kind of violence to which they had not to submit. The lack of food induced among them frightful maladies, which they had to endure under the most horrible conditions. So acute were their sufferings, that afterwards, when they were released, they were very depressed, under the idea that they were still in prison, and were obsessed with morbid fears. Several of them, including some octogenarians, had to be carried on stretchers.

VIOLATION

The number of women outraged by Germans where they lived is considerable. Violation was practised everywhere on invaded territory as a right of war, and without distinction of age. We feel in touch with an odious perversity as we read the story of these outrages, in which a depraved imagination is as prominent as their brutality.

On the 4th September, at Rebais, a young woman of twenty-nine years, a wine-seller, was accused of having concealed English soldiers at her house. The Germans undressed her, and compelled her to stay in that condition in their midst for an hour and a half. Then they fastened her to her counter, and threatened her with death. The wretched woman would infallibly have died had not orders, which suddenly arrived, compelled her torturers to be off and leave her in the hands of an Alsatian soldier, who released her.

The French Commission of Inquiry reports two cases of violation committed in each of the places it was able to visit, especially at Villers, Trumilly, Sermaize, etc. Special indignation is aroused by those of which quite young girls were the victims.

At Château-Thierry it was a girl of only fourteen years of age, who was dragged into a shop by three Germans, where, under threat of a bayonet, she was violated by two of them, while the third gave way to the young victim’s entreaties. At Begu-Saint-Germain it was a girl of thirteen years. At Loupy-le-Château it was on children of thirteen and eight years that such outrages were committed. At Magnières a little child of twelve years was violated twice by a soldier. At Suippy, on the 3rd September, a child of eleven years was for three hours the butt of the brutality of a man, who found her with her sick grandmother, brought her into a deserted house, and stuffed a handkerchief into her mouth to prevent her crying.

Unbridled bestiality of this kind had no more respect for age than childhood. The nature of some of these acts seems to prove the existence in the German race not merely of moral, but of physical defects. With amazement and disgust we put on record the evidence for acts which in ordinary life are found only in the diseased or maniacs.

At Vitry-en-Perthois a German violated an old woman of eighty-nine years, who died as a result. At Loupy-le-Château an unfortunate woman of seventy-five years was violated; at Suippes another old woman, aged seventy-two years, was seized by a German soldier, who was putting the muzzle of his revolver under her chin, when the woman’s brother-in-law came along and released her. In Serbia the corpses of mutilated old women, the discovery of which we noted above, were examined, and it was proved that these old women had been violated before being mutilated. In certain places soldiers were seen outraging dead bodies. This fact was established at Gerbeviller, the culprit being a Bavarian of the army corps commanded by General Clauss.

HATEFUL CONSEQUENCES OF THESE ACTS

Several victims of these crimes died: others lost their reason. For a large number the natural consequences of these acts condemn them to become mothers.

Of all the victims of invasion, none have been more unfortunate than these. The practice of abortion cannot be tolerated. They are condemned to bring into the world the hateful fruit of savage bestiality. It should at least be admitted that they should be absolved from the duty of feeding and loving this offspring. A law to this effect will doubtless be passed in France. Permission will be given to declare that the children are the issue of unknown parents. The Committee for Public Assistance will assume responsibility and thus spare private families the morally intolerable burden of bringing up the children of Germans.

RESISTANCE PUNISHED WITH DEATH

A number of women who resisted the violence of the soldiers were killed either by rifle shots or bayonet thrusts. At Esternay, on the night of Sunday, 6th September, the soldiers violated widow Bouché, her two daughters, and two women called Lhomme and Macé. When the mother resisted they fired on the whole group. Mme. Lhomme was struck, and Marcelle Bouché, who was seriously wounded, succumbed the following morning as a result of her wound. At Rebais, a lady of thirty-four years, who resisted the soldiers, was seized and strung up, but she was able to cut the rope with a knife which she found in her pocket. Then they beat her unmercifully, until an officer came up and released her.

In Belgium, at Aerschot, a young Belgian woman had to pay with her life for the intervention of her fiancé, whom the soldiers also massacred. More deplorable still is the case of a young girl of Louvain, whose body was pierced all over with bayonet thrusts, and who was then violated. Next day she was brought to hospital, but she succumbed to the wounds inflicted upon her.

REFINEMENT OF DEPRAVITY

In order to increase the horror of these scenes, the Germans were pleased to commit their crimes even in the presence of the parents of these wretched girls. It was not enough for them to shame their victim, they must do it under the eyes of those whose duty it was to defend her, and whom they first made powerless. Pierre Nothomb’s book contains numerous examples. We tremble with indignation as we read the story.

In France, at Coulommiers, a woman was violated on the 6th September before her husband and children. At Saint Denis-les-Rebais another was violated in the presence of her mother-in-law, who, being powerless to intervene, tried to prevent her little grandson, aged eight, from seeing this disgraceful sight. At Commigis (Aisne) a lady was made the object of violent and shameless acts by two Germans, also in her mother-in-law’s presence. At Raucourt (Meurthe-et-Moselle) the Germans violated a woman in the presence of her children.

GERMAN ADMISSIONS

On the question of the murder of women, young and old, M. Bédier’s book contains the admissions of the Germans themselves. Those of Blamont are told by the German soldier, Paul Spielmann (of the First Guards Infantry Brigade). “It was horrible: blood was plastered over all the houses, and as for the faces of the dead, they were hideous.

“Among them were many old women and one pregnant woman.” The excuse alleged was “there was telephonic communication with the enemy.” The existence of this telephone was the cause of this fearful massacre.

The outrages at Langeviller and another locality are put on record in an unsigned notebook of a soldier of the 11th Battalion of Pioneers. “Langeviller, 22nd August, a village demolished by the 11th Battalion of Pioneers. _Three women hanged on trees_: the first dead whom I had seen.” Why were these women hanged? We are not told. Eight days afterwards, he continues, “We destroyed eight houses. In a single one of them two men and their wives and a young girl of eighteen had been bayoneted. I was almost moved at the sight of the little one, _her look was so full of innocence_. But an excited body of men could no longer be kept in check, for at such moments we are no longer men, but beasts.” Here, we see, full confession is made. Another notes that at Orchies “a woman had a military execution.” Why? For not having obeyed the command to “halt.”

Something even of the acts of violence runs through these confessions. A soldier of the 12th infantry reserve, 3rd corps, writes, “I am forced to note one fact which cannot be due to accident, but there are, even in our army, some … who are no longer men, some … to whom nothing is sacred. Last night a man of the Landwehr, more than thirty-five years old, wanted to violate the daughter of the house on which he quartered himself, a mere little girl, and when her father intervened he pointed his bayonet against the man’s chest.”