CHAPTER XII

OFFENCES AGAINST CHILDREN, OLD PEOPLE AND PRIESTS

The plea of reprisals is no more valid in the case of children, old people and priests than it is in the case of women. All these classes of people have a right to consideration and to absolute respect from the invader. Every crime committed against them can bear no other name than wanton cruelty.

In the foregoing pages we have seen how children were killed with their mothers, and old women were outraged and killed. We must now unfold the chapter of crimes against the weak and against those whose character should have saved them from the violences of war. Ill-treatment, imprisonment, wounds, murder, torture—all these we hardly like to think that children, the personification of weakness and innocence, have had to suffer. Such has been the cruelty of the German troops in the field, that what has moved all men’s interest and compassion has, in several cases, only urged them on the more readily to violence.

BELGIAN AND FRENCH CHILDREN ILL-TREATED, WOUNDED AND KILLED

We have already told the story of the ill-treatment to which six to eight thousand people, who were packed together standing in the riding-school and had to pass the night there, were exposed at Louvain. A number of children were included in these. Several endured great hardships, and the youngest died in their mothers’ arms. At Dinant, in the slaughter which took place, several children were massacred.

In other cases we see that children were exposed to exceptional acts of violence. “On the way back from Tirlemont,” writes the special correspondent of the _Times_ (29th August, 1914), “I met a little girl of eleven years old, who was stumbling and groping before her as if blind. A stroke of a lance had laid open her cheek and her eye. A poor peasant woman, her face wet with tears, told me that her husband had been killed in her presence by German horsemen, that two of her children, who were under nine years of age, had been trampled by their horses and that two others were missing. And this” (concluded the English journalist) “is not an isolated case; it is an example of what happens day by day in the areas occupied by the German soldiers, and, I regret to say, it is only an example among hundreds which have been attested beyond any possibility of doubt.”

Instances abound, and the following are a selection. At Louguyon, out of 153 people who were shot on the 23rd, 24th and 25th August by soldiers of the 102nd and 112th Prussian regiments, there were twelve children.

At Bantheville (Meuse), young Felix Miquel, aged about fifteen years, who had hidden behind a heap of wood so that he might not be arrested, got a violent sabre thrust from the soldier who discovered him, which split his lips; afterwards, as he was being led away, when he tried to hide in a wood, he stumbled against a sentinel, who with a bayonet stroke cut off a joint of his left hand.

At Mouchy Humières (Oise) a little four-year-old girl, who belonged to a family living in Verdun, was wounded on the 31st August by a German soldier. On the way from Bouligny to Mourière (Meuse) a child of fifteen years was shot in the groin as she was passing quietly by a wood in which a German patrol was concealed.

At Spontin, near Dinant, fearful reprisals were carried out because a poacher had killed a Prussian officer, and children of all ages were shot or butchered with their mothers.

In the outskirts of Malines many corpses of children were found on the spot where the Germans had left them unburied. At Morfontaine, near Longwy, two children of fifteen were shot for having warned the French gendarmes of the arrival of the enemy. At Gerbeviller a young girl named Parmentier, who was barely seven years old, was also shot. At Dinant, too, several children met with the same fate. At Aerschot the burgomaster’s two children were shot; the murder of the little girls Luychx and Ooyen, aged twelve and nine years, both of whom were shot, was also confirmed. Pierre Nothomb quotes the case of two little children two years old, named Neef and Deekers, who were massacred at Testelt. Sometimes the despicable torturers added obscenity to cruelty. At Bertrex a grown-up brother and sister were killed and, when the penalty was paid, their bodies were put naked, clasping each other as if they had been embracing.

CHILDREN TORTURED BY GERMANS

At Hofstade, said Pierre Nothomb, a lad of less than fifteen years was found with hands crossed behind his back and his body pierced with bayonet thrusts. At Pin, near Izel, two young boys saw the Uhlans coming; the latter took them as they passed, and made them run, with hands bound, between their galloping horses. Their dead bodies were found an hour afterwards in a ditch; as an eye-witness said, their knees were “literally worn out”; one had his throat cut and his breast laid open; each had a bullet in his head. At Schaffen a lad was bound to a shutter, sprinkled with petrol, and burnt alive. The soldiers who marched on Antwerp took a butcher’s cleaver at Sempst; they seized a little servant boy, cut off his legs, then his head, and roasted him in a burning house. At Lebbeke-les-Termonde, Frans Mertens and his comrades, Van Dooren, Dekinder, Stobbelaer and Wryer, were bound arm to arm; their eyes were gouged out with a pointed weapon, then they were killed by rifle shots.

In France, at Dompierre-aux-Bois, the children who were wounded in the bombardment of the church found themselves left to their agony, without attendance and without food. The dead bodies of two children who had been killed by bayonet thrusts were found at Neuville-en-Artois. At Vingras a little girl of eight years was thrust into the flames with her parents, whose farmhouse had been set on fire. At Sommeilles the dead body of a child of eleven was found with its foot cut off. At Triaucourt the wretches burnt a two-year-old child.

In Serbia similar outrages were committed. M. Reiss, Professor of Lausanne University, has proved that children of two months old were massacred. “I found children in common ditches who were not more than two or three years old. Amongst the 109 hostages of Lechnitza who were shot in front of a ditch which had previously been dug out, and which was not less than twenty metres long, there were some children of not more than eight years old.”

GERMAN ADMISSIONS

We read above the admission of a soldier of the Prussian Guard, Paul Spielmann, about the massacre of a village which “had been in telephonic communication with the enemy.” Among those who were massacred he adds that there were three children. “I saw this morning (2nd September) four little boys carrying on two sticks a cradle in which was a child of five to six months old. All that is fearful to behold. Blow for blow. Cannon for cannon. Everything was given up to pillage.

“… _I saw also a mother with her two little ones; one had a great wound on the head and the other had its eye gouged out._”

The German soldier, Karl Johann Kaltendshner, Ninth Company of the Regiment of Count Bülow Tervuenwist, who deserted and fled to Holland, and whose statements in the _Telegraaf_ we have already quoted, tells the following story: “I have seen children in tears, clinging to their defenceless mothers’ skirts, coming out of a threshing-mill where they had sought shelter, and _I have seen how these mothers and their children were killed in cowardly and cold-blooded fashion_. Although we were compelled, under penalty of death, to obey all the orders of our officers, _I have seen some of my companions who joyfully performed their melancholy work of massacre. At a certain moment I was myself required to shoot two boys, aged fifteen and twelve years old respectively_, whose father had already been killed. I had not the heart to do it, and I had lowered my arm, expecting to be executed myself, when one of my comrades, jeering at my sentimentality, saved me by pushing me aside and himself firing on the two children. _The eldest fell stark dead, and the second, who got a bullet in the back, was dispatched with a revolver shot_” (_Temps_, 3rd January, 1915).

OUTRAGES ON OLD PEOPLE

At every place where the civil population was brutally treated, outraged or shot _en masse_—at Louvain, at Dinant—no exception was made in the case of old folk. People of seventy and eighty years of age had to bear forced marches, to remain standing in packed masses, where they were kept for whole nights, at the risk of death, as was the result for a large number. But, in addition to these common instances, outrages of a peculiar kind are not wanting. At Rebais-en-Brie an old man of sixty-nine years old, Auguste Griffaut, was struck with blows of the fist on the head, and finally wounded by a revolver shot. At Sablonnières another old man of the same name, Jules Griffaut, aged sixty-six, was tending his cows in an enclosed field when a German soldier, who was at the rear of a column, fired on him. In Belgium an old man of seventy years, formerly steward to M. Davignon, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Belgium, was shot by the Germans because to the first question that the latter put to him he replied that he was deaf, which was true.

Another was shot without mercy at Montmirail because he tried to protect a widow, named Naudé, who was in danger of being outraged by a non-commissioned officer.

At Lamath, in Lorraine, an old man called Louis, aged seventy years, was shot. At Domèvre-sur-Vezouze Adolphe Claude, aged seventy-five years, met with the same fate. At Lunéville an old alderman, Théophile Martin, aged sixty-three years, was commanded by an officer to come out of his house with his two daughters. As soon as they came out the old man saw from the revolvers and guns that were levelled at him that he was about to be killed. The young girls threw themselves on their knees and begged the Germans to spare their father’s life. It was in vain. Shots rang out and the old man fell. Again at Lunéville, M. Édouard Bernard, municipal councillor, aged sixty-five years, who had six sons at the front, was arrested. He was hardly allowed time to dress himself. He was taken away, and it is not known what became of him. M. Charles Chérer, husbandman, aged sixty-four, first cousin to M. Lébrun, ex-minister, got four bullets in his body. As none of the wounds which they made was mortal, the Uhlans dispatched him with revolver shots.

At Nomény M. Petitjean, aged eighty-six years, was struck as he was sitting in his armchair by a bullet which cracked his skull, and a German took pleasure in doing violence to the dead body (_vide_ p. 148).

Finally, the number of old people who were taken away as hostages or simply deported to Germany was very large. Of that we shall speak in a subsequent chapter, but let us only note here that among the hostages who were taken away to Vareddes four old men were shot or bludgeoned with the butt-ends of rifles, their names being Jourdaine (73 years old), Liévin (61), Ménil (65) and Milliardet (78 years).

TORTURE OF OLD PEOPLE

On the 26th August, not far from Malines, the dead body of an old man was found bound by the arms to a beam in the ceiling of his farmhouse. The body was completely burnt, except the head, arms and feet.

At Triaucourt, in France, an old man of seventy, Jean Lecouturier, was thrown into the flames of a burning house.

At Champuis, Jacquemin was bound to his bed by a non-commissioned officer, and left in this state without food for three days. He died some days afterwards. At Lavigneville (Meuse), on the 23rd September, MM. Woimbée, aged sixty-one years, and Fortin, aged sixty-five years, both farmers, were arrested in their own homes on the plea that they were francs-tireurs. Now, Woimbée had had his foot shattered two months before, and Fortin, who was afflicted with chronic rheumatism, had for long been unable to walk without the help of a stick. The Germans carried them off in their working garb, without allowing them to take any other clothes, and attached them to a convoy which contained about thirty soldiers who had been taken prisoner. Fortin, who could not get on, was bound by a rope, the ends of which were held by two horsemen, and, notwithstanding his infirmity, he had to keep up with the horses. As he fell every minute, he was struck with lances to compel him to get up again. The wretched man, covered with blood, besought them in mercy to kill him. At last Woimbée obtained permission to carry him to the village of Saint-Maurice-sous-les-Côtés, with the help of several of our soldiers. There the Germans made the two old men go into a house, compelled them to remain standing for two hours face to the wall and arms crossed, whilst they themselves rattled their arms noisily so as to make their victims believe they were going to shoot them. At last they decided to let them lie on the ground, and gave them a little bread and water. For more than twenty-four hours Woimbée and Fortin had had no food.

In Poland, at Andrief, the Germans, displeased because they had only got a little money from the alderman of the town, closed up the latter, M. Krassinsky, aged seventy years, in his house and set fire to it.

OUTRAGES ON PRIESTS

The crimes committed in Belgium and France against the priests deserve separate treatment.

The German newspapers and the Emperor alleged, in justification of these acts, that at the beginning of hostilities the curés and nuns of the invaded regions had abused their spiritual authority over the civil population by rousing them to frenzy and inciting them to act as francs-tireurs. But of such acts Germany has brought forward no proof. On the contrary, the German Catholic bureau Pax and the _Kölnische Volkszeitung_ took the trouble personally to refute a great number of accusations against the clergy, amongst others the famous legend of eyes being gouged out, of which we spoke above and with which German newspapers had connected the names of several priests who had been carried away to Germany.

As for the general plea that they had encouraged the civil population to resist, far from justifying the German conduct, it only makes it more odious, for what finer praise could be given to a priest in time of war than to say that he tried to stimulate the love of country among the faithful, especially when it is traitorously attacked by people who violate their pledged word?

Besides, the very accounts of the outrages in question show that the plea of reprisals has no validity. In these stories the immorality and blasphemy of the torturers reveals itself without any disguise. The worst criminal feels a kind of fear and remorse as he stands in the presence of God’s representative. This fear is unknown to the German soldier. The German invaders have even shown that they are devoid of respect for the sacred or charitable occupations in the midst of which they almost everywhere found the priests whom they have been known to massacre. With them everything has given way to the deliberate desire to sow terror among the civil population. In many places it is certain that this end could not be better attained than by ill-treating and massacring their spiritual heads.

ILL-TREATMENT

M. Auguste Mélot, deputy of Namur, published a book, _Martyre du Clergé Belge_, which throws light upon this conduct so far as Belgium is concerned.

The curés of Wygmael and Wesemael were forced to march, on the 29th August, before the army with their elbows bound together. A curé of Rotselaer and a curé of Wackerzeel, aged seventy years, were shut up for whole days in a church, almost without food and under dreadful conditions. They were finally brought away to Germany, where insults were heaped upon them. A German officer at Aix-la-Chapelle spat in the face of the curé of Rotselaer. Tainted bread was given them to eat. At last they were brought back to Belgium, by forced marches, from Brussels to Haeren, from Haeren to Vilvorde, from Vilvorde to Malines.

The Germans indulged in outrages of a disgraceful kind on the curé of Beyghem. The curé and the curate of Ellwyt were shut up for five days in their church. The curé of Schaffen-lez-Diest was hanged. They made him believe that he was going to be put to death, and when he was on the point of dying they loosed the rope; then they started again. Afterwards they compelled him to look at the sun, and if he lowered his eyes he was struck with the butt-ends of rifles and threatened with being hung up again. The curé of Yvoir was compelled to march in front of the troops as far as Marienburg, laden with a sack. At Pin the Germans made five priests walk for ten leagues, allowing them for food nothing but a little bread and water. The Superior of the French College of Florennes (in Belgium) was beaten, struck with butt-ends of rifles and with spurs on the back and the head. He was then stripped of his robes and left dying. The curate of Montigny-sur-Sambre was struck with the fist, and obliged to walk under the horsewhip, with hands bound, in front of the troops. The Bishop of Tournai, who was seventy-two years of age, was brought on foot, being beaten as he went, from Tournai to Ach.

MURDER OF PRIESTS

According to inquiries made in four dioceses out of six, Malines, Liège, Namur and Tournai, it has been possible to fix the names of forty-four priests whom the Germans killed and of a dozen who are missing. These names are found in M. Mélot’s book.

These crimes took place when a priest took it upon him to resist some massacre or some other kind of crime ordered by the Germans. Thus M. Wonters, curé of Pont-Brûlé, was shot because he wanted to prevent a German soldier from ill-treating an old prisoner. Another was killed because he tried to prevent an act of violation which was about to be committed under his eyes. On other occasions the crime took place without motive, or at least the motive alleged was trivial. For example, the curé of Blegny was shot for having, so it was said, allowed an observation post to be placed in the belfry of his church. However, it is certain that he could not have prevented it.

TORTURE OF PRIESTS

Some priests died as a result of the agonies inflicted upon them. The executioners were not content with killing them outright; they wanted to make them suffer as well.

M. de Clerck, the curé of Buecken, who was accused of having fired on the Germans, was first placed on a cannon. When his tormentors had their fill of watching his terror, they threw him into a ditch. Then the soldiers took him, some by the arm, others by a leg, and dragged him over the pavement. Only then did they shoot him. However, it was certain that he had not fired on any one. He suffered from diabetes, and was confined to his bed when the Germans entered into the village, and they could not have been unaware of the fact, for it was from his bed that they went to take him.

M. Dergent, curé of Gelrode, found he was accused of spying for the English. Without any explanation he was brought to the town hall, ill-treated, brought in front of the church, struck with the butt-ends of rifles, then shot.

M. Glouden, curé of La Tour, and two other priests who, by permission of the German commandant, were taking up the wounded on the Ethe territory had a machine-gun turned upon them, and were then dispatched with revolver shots, by order of the same commandant.

The curé of Spontin was taken in his bed, dragged half-naked out of his house, and hung up several times, sometimes by the feet, sometimes by the hands. Afterwards he was stabbed with bayonets and then shot.

There is no better picture of the hatred of the Germans towards members of the Belgian clergy than the proclamation about hostages which was posted up on the 6th September at Grivegnée, especially when we know the fate which was almost always reserved for them. The proclamation said: “_In the front rank were placed as hostages priests_, burgomasters and other public officials.”

THE ARREST OF CARDINAL MERCIER

The abominable behaviour of the Germans to the Belgian Catholic clergy was crowned by the arrest of Cardinal Mercier, Archbishop of Malines. The following is the account of the circumstances under which he was arrested, given by the reverend prelate in a letter of the 10th January, sent secretly to all the parishes in the diocese of Malines.

“You are, doubtless, aware of a communication made by the German Government to the Brussels daily papers, to the effect that the cardinal archbishop of Malines had in no wise been hampered in the exercise of his episcopal duties. The facts show how far this communication is from the truth.

“On the evening of the 1st January and on the following morning soldiers forced their way into the apartments of the curés, seized my pastoral letter and entered an injunction against it. They forbade the curés to read it to their flocks, threatening, in case of disobedience, the severest penalties to their parishes and to themselves.

“On the 2nd January, at 6 a.m., I received the order to appear during the morning before the Government, to give explanations with regard to my letter to the priests and their parishioners.

“On the following day I was forbidden to take part in the religious service at the Cathedral of Antwerp.

“Finally, I was not permitted to travel freely to visit the other bishops of Belgium.

“Thus your rights and mine have been violated.

“As a Belgian citizen, as pastor, and as a member of the Sacred College of Cardinals I protest energetically against the violation of these rights.

“Whatever interpretation others may have put upon my pastoral letter, experience has proved that it caused no risk of rebellion. On the contrary, it had the effect of calming and soothing people’s minds. I congratulate you on having done your duty.”

Using Cardinal Mercier’s pastoral letter as a pretext, the Germans proceeded to fresh acts of violence against the Catholic clergy. We need not, however, be astonished that this letter enunciated a certain principle—to wit, that the Belgians owed allegiance only to the King and to the Government of the nation of which they form a part. The Cardinal went on to instruct his people that none the less they should accept the actual situation in the occupied districts, and leave to the regular army the task of national defence. These declarations, which are in absolute harmony not only with the teachings of religion and the principles of the law of nations, but also with the laws of war, gave the Germans a pretext for ill-treating several members of the clergy, desecrating a certain number of churches, tearing the priests from their confessionals, and looting sacristies.

OUTRAGES ON THE FRENCH CLERGY

The town of Roye was occupied by the Germans on the 7th September. On the morning of the 9th a burial was taking place. At the very time when the service was being held in the church, a French machine-gun came into the town and forthwith began to fire at a German outpost which had taken up a position in the town hall. The Germans rushed madly into the church, to the number of about fifty, and, to the great indignation of those who were present, seized the two officiating priests and the two choristers. Still clad in their sacred vestments, the priests were led into the line of fire of the French machine-guns, and it was only by a miracle that they escaped the bullets. In the sequel, the machine-gun could not keep up its fire and had to leave the town.

During this time the crowd had escaped from the church by the sacristy and the adjoining gardens, and the coffin remained alone without celebrants or congregation. The Germans did not release their victims. They compelled the two priests and the two choristers to get into a motor, forcing them to remain standing, and brought them like that to Chauny, where the German general staff was installed. Their intention was doubtless to intimidate the villages through which this wretched party passed.

At Chauny the two priests and the two choristers remained for more than twenty-four hours without food or drink, and were kept prisoners for three days. Their release was only brought about through the intervention of the professor of German at the college of Chauny, who by dint of parleying and negotiation had them set at liberty; they returned to Roye, where they were believed to be dead.

In the diocese of Cambrai six priests were first of all killed by the Germans. The assassination of the Abbé Delebecque, of Valenciennes, which followed, must be described in detail.

On the 16th September this priest was coming back from a service which had taken place at Dunkirk for the repose of the soul of his father, who had died in the month of August. He was riding a bicycle and was carrying some letters written by soldiers. He was stopped by a patrol and accused of espionage. He was sentenced the same day at midnight. In spite of his denials and of the obvious proofs which he gave of his good faith, the council of war, consisting of officers, condemned him to death. Handed over to the charge of the German military chaplain, he passed the night in prayer before the Holy Sacrament in St. Nicholas Church. Then, having given confession and received the sacrament, he set out bravely at 5.30 on foot to the Dampierre Column, on the way to Denain.

As he went he was repeating the prayer for the dying. When he reached the spot fixed by the Germans he sent a letter to his mother, then knelt down and said to some people present that he gave his life for France. At six o’clock the Abbé Delebecque fell, hit by twelve German bullets.

A hole fifty centimetres deep was made and he was thrown into it. As the end of his cassock protruded, a civilian came and placed some stones upon it in the form of a cross, and some women threw flowers on the tomb of this martyr. Finally, the Superior of Notre Dame College, who had the German military chaplain lodging with him, with some difficulty got his consent to the body being given back to him, that suitable burial might be given to it.

On the other hand, the Curé Fossin, of Vareddes, was shot on the charge of having signalled to a French troop from the top of his belfry.

In the department of Meurthe-et-Moselle two curés were also shot, M. Thiriet at Deuxville and M. Barbot at Rehainviller.

But the most horrible outrage inflicted upon people dedicated to God was that suffered by two nuns in a commune of the department of Meurthe-et-Moselle. They were handed over defenceless to a soldier’s lechery. “The pledges which we have given,” writes the French Commission of Inquiry, which denounces this crime in its report, “prevent our making known the names of the victims of this disgusting exhibition, or of the village in which it took place, but the facts have been revealed to us under oath and in confidence by most trustworthy witnesses, and we take the responsibility of attesting their authenticity.”