CHAPTER XXI

THEIR CRIMES

We must make it absolutely impossible for the wild beast to break out again. Our living ought to know the crimes committed in the name of Kultur, in order to take the necessary precautions against their recurrence. To our martyred dead, we have a sacred duty, that of Remembrance.

A little book was published at Nancy under the patronage of the Prefect of Meurthe, G. Simon, Mayor of Nancy, and G. Keller of Luneville, aided by the Mayors of the following towns, located at or near the battle front: Belfort, Epinal, Nancy, Bar-le-Duc, Chalons, Chateau-Thierry, Nelien, Beauvais, Baccarat, Luneville, Gerbiveller, Momemy, Pont-a-Mousson, Verdun, Clermont, Semaise, Rheims, Senlis, Albert.

It is a record of robbery, rape, repression and murder that will taint the German blood for generations, from Prince Eitel Fritz, the son of the Kaiser, who looted the Chateau Brierry Avocourt, down to the under officers, who searched private residences, which, open to the captors, it was forbidden to lock. It is a record of shame and dishonor, of brutal force, without a saving element of mercy. They struck their helpless victims singly, in groups, in hecatombs.

Individually, they followed the systematic teaching of organized butchery. The world knows about the murder of Miss Cavell, the Red Cross nurse; of Eugene Jacquet, the Freemason; of Captain Fryatt, the civilian sea-captain. This little book records the death of many others, innocent martyrs to the same glorious cause.

At Foret the public school teacher refused to tread the French flag underfoot and was shot.

At Schaffen, A Willem was burned alive, two others were interred alive. Madame Luykx and daughter, twelve years of age, refuging together in a cave, were shot. J. Reynolds and his nephew of ten years were shot, out in the street.

At Sompius, an old man, Jacquimin, 70 years of age, was tied to his bed by an officer and left there three days. He died shortly after his deliverance.

At Monceau-Sur-Sambre they shut up the two brothers S. in a shed and burned them alive.

At Momemy, M. Adam was thrown alive into the fire, then shot at with rifles and Mme. Cousine, after being shot, was thrown into the fire and roasted.

At Maixe, M. Demange, wounded in both knees, fell helpless in his house, and they set fire to it.

At Triancourt, Mme. Maupoix, 75 years old, was kicked to death because not enough loot was found in her closet.

At Conis, Madame Dalissier, 73 years, who declared she had no money, was shot through the body fifteen times.

At Rouyes, a farmer refused to tell where he got some French military clothes. An officer shot him twice.

At Crezancy, M. Le Saint, 18 years of age, was killed by an officer because some day he would be a soldier.

At Embermenil, Mme. Masson was shot because her servant, an idiot, gave a wrong direction. The madame, pregnant, was made to sit on a chair while they executed her.

At Ethe one hundred and ninety-seven were executed, among them two priests, who were shot because they were accused of hiding arms.

At Marqueglise, a superior officer stopped four young boys, and, saying that the Belgians were dirty people, he shot each one in succession. One was killed outright.

At Pin, the Uhlans met two young boys, whom they tied to their horses, then urged them to a gallop. Some kilometers away, the bodies were found, the skin worn away from the knees, one with throat cut, both with many bullet holes through the head.

At Sermaize, the farmer Brocard and his son were arrested. His wife and daughter-in-law were thrown into a near-by river. Four hours later, the men were set at liberty and found the two bodies of the women in the water, with several bullet holes in their heads.

At Aerschot, the priest had hung a cross in front of the church. He was tied, hands and feet, the inhabitants ordered to march past and urinate on him. They then shot him and threw the body into the canal. A group of seventy-eight men, tied three together, were taken into the country, assaulted en route, and shot at and killed the following morning.

At Monchy-Humieres, an officer heard the word “Prussians” spoken. He ordered three dragoons to fire into the group, one was killed, two wounded, one of them was a little girl of four years.

At Hermeuil, while looting the town, the inhabitants were confined in a church. Mme. Winger and her three servants, arriving late, the captain, monocle in his eye, ordered the soldiers to fire. The four were killed.

At Sommeilles, while the town was being burned, the Dame X. with her four children, sought refuge in a cave with her neighbor, Adnot, and his wife. Some days later, the French troops, recapturing the town, found the seven bodies, horribly mutilated, lying in a sea of blood. The Dame had her right arm severed from the body, a young girl, eleven years of age, had one foot cut off, the little boy, five years old, had his throat cut.

At Louveigne, a number of civilians took refuge in a blacksmith shop. In the afternoon the Germans opened the door, chased out the victims, and as they ran out shot them down like so many rabbits. Seventeen bodies were left lying on the plain.

At Senlis the mayor of the town and six of the city council were shot to death.

At Coalommiers a husband and two children testified to the rape of the mother of the family.

At Melen-Labouche, Marguerite Weras was outraged by twenty German soldiers before she was shot, in sight of her father and mother.

At Louppy le Chateau, it is the grandmother who is violated, and, in the same town, a mother and two daughters, thirteen and eight years old, were also victims of German savagery.

At Nimy, little Irma G., in six hours, was done to death. Her father, going to her aid, was shot, her mother, seriously wounded.

At Handzaerne, the mayor, going to the aid of his daughter, was shot.

At St. Mary’s Pass, two sergeants of the 31st Alpines were found with their throats cut. Their bayonets were thrust into their mouths.

At Remereville, Lieutenant Toussant, lying wounded on the battlefield, was jabbed with bayonets by all the Germans who passed him. The body was punctured with wounds from the feet to the head.

At Audrigny, a German lieutenant met a Red Cross ambulance, carrying ten wounded men. He deployed his men and fired two rounds into the vehicle.

At Bonville, in a barn, a German officer shot in the eye nine wounded French soldiers, who, lying stretched out, were unable to move.

At Montigny le Titcul, the Germans discovered M. Vidal dressing the wounds of a French soldier, L. Sohier, who was shot in the head. M. Vidal was shot at sight, then the wounded man was killed.

At Nary, they compelled twenty-five women to march parallel with them as a shield against the French fire.

At Malinas, six German soldiers, who had captured five young girls, placed the girls in a circle about them when attacked.

At Hongaerdi they killed the priest.

At Erpe, the Germans forced thirty civilians, one only thirteen years old, to march ahead, while, hidden among the crowd were German soldiers and a machine gun.

At Ouen-Sur-Morin, on Sept. 7, 1914, the Death’s Head Huzzars, the Crown Prince’s favorite regiment, drove all the civilians into the Chateau, then, sheltered by those innocents, they told the English, “Shoot away.”

At Parchim, where 2,000 civilians, French prisoners, were interned, two prisoners, hungry, demanding food, were clubbed to death with the butt end of rifles, while the young daughter of one of them was immediately given eight days “mis au poteau.”

At Gerberviller, at the home of Lingenheld, they searched for his son, a stretcher bearer of the Red Cross, tied his hands, led him into the street and shot him down. Then they poured oil on the body and roasted it. Then the father, of 70 years, was executed, along with fourteen other old men. More than fifty were martyred in this commune alone.

Sister Julia, Superior of the Hospital Gerberviller, reports: “To break into the tabernacle of the Church of Gerberviller the enemy fired many shots around the lock, the interior of the ciborium was also perforated.”

Statement of Mlle. ——, tried and acquitted for the murder of her infant, in Paris.

“At Gerberviller, I worked in the hospital. Going to the church one night, three German hospital stewards caught and assaulted me. I did not understand their language. I thought they were men. I did not know they were brutes.

“Yes, I killed the child; I could not bear to feel myself responsible for bringing anything into the world made by the workings of a German.”

In Belgium alone, more than 20,000 homes have been pillaged and burned. More than 5,000 civilians, mostly old men, women and children, with fifty priests and one hundred and eighty-seven doctors, have been murdered.

At Timines, 400 civilians were murdered.

At Dinant, more than 600 were martyred, among them seventy-one women, 34 old men, more than 70 years of age, six children of from five to six years of age, eleven children less than five years. The victims were placed in two ranks, the first kneeling, the second standing, then shot.

The foregoing statements, vouched for by the most responsible representative men in and near the invaded district, are some of the cases continually being brought to public attention.

This evidence is accumulative, convincing, damning proof, it is furnished by the bodies of the victims, by neighbor eye witnesses, by devastated, homes, and by mutilated wrecks, who survived—some being recaptured by French troops, others, repatriated as useless, sent back to France via Switzerland.

These, and other crimes, are corroborated in the four reports of the French Inquiry, in “Violations of International Law,” published, by order of the French Foreign Minister, by the twenty-two reports of the Belgian Commission, the reports of a German book published May 15, 1915, diaries and note books found on bodies of dead German soldiers, wounded men and prisoners. They are books of horror, but, books of truth, glaring evidence of murdered men, misused women, ruined homes. Much of them is actually furnished by perpetrators of the deeds. Comments are unnecessary, words inadequate, cold print fails.

FROM A GERMAN DIARY

“The natives fled from the village. It was horrible. There was clotted blood on the beards, and the faces we saw were terrible to behold. The dead—about sixty—were at once buried; among them were many old women, some old men and a half-delivered woman, awful to see. Three children had clasped each other and died thus. The altar and vault of the church were shattered. They had a telephone there to communicate with the enemy. This morning, Sept. 2, all the survivors were expelled, and I saw four little boys carrying a cradle with a baby five or six months old in it, on two sticks—all this was terrible to behold. Shot after shot, salvo after salvo—chickens, etc. all killed. I saw a mother with her two children, one had a great wound in the head and had lost an eye.”

L’ENVOI

Into Europe’s seething cauldron of blood and tears, American youth have been cast.

Patriotism, pride, resolutely demands that the Devil incarnate, who stirs his awful mess of ghoulhash, shall perish.

Our national peril, the whole earth’s dire need, assembling the Country’s selected young manhood, now make this a United States in fact—probably, for the first time since Washington and Valley Forge.

I have tried to make you see war as I know it, war with no footballs, portable bath tubs, victrolas nor Red Triangle Huts. Such blessings are God-sends—more power to His messengers!

I met a company of the 18th U. S. Engineers swinging along the tree-fringed macadamized highway toward the front. Clean-cut, well dressed, smooth-shaven, happy and gay. It was a joy to see them. It made a man feel proud to belong to the same race. They yelled a greeting in broken French to the dirty Poilu, who responded in the latest American slang, and marched away singing into the darkness, the words echoing loud or low, as different sections took up the tune:

“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword, His truth is marching on.”

Yes, Julia Ward Howe’s hymn is quite right. It sounds the keynote of America’s part in this world’s greatest tragedy of all history.

They returned a month later, boys no longer, but men who had been through the fire, and stood up to the grief. Tired, weary, chins pressed forward; hands on the straps to permit free heart action, dust swirled about the moving feet, and climbed up and settled on the stubby, unshaven face, streaked with perspiration, which in turn rose and formed an aura about the knapsack, as it bobbed up and down like a buoy on the sea. From behind the dust-topped bristles flash the steely eyes of the Soldier.

Such eyes! Not the calm, contemplative eyes of the sissy, but the strong, fierce, exaltant eyes of the man who has fought, and won.

One month had changed him; the longer he is in the Army the greater the change. Already he has seen there are things greater than fear, found something greater than Life.

He has realized that in union there is strength, that soldiers by acting together as a unit gain the objective, which brings the victory.

He wondered at the confidence of the French Poilu, and discovered that behind that soldier is every man, woman and child, every ounce of energy, every cent of money in France.

His mind wanders to his native land across the sea. True the Government is behind him—but all the people are not behind the Government. The International Socialist is still bent on destruction, and working for Germany; the pro-German is hiding his galvanized Americanism behind Red Cross and Liberty Loan buttons; the chatauquaized pacifist bemoaning this “terrible bloodshed” is trying to dig himself into a hole, where he can escape the U. S. draft. The foreign-language minister—exempted from military service, the only privileged class in America—is still talking denominationalism instead of patriotism; the Big Business banker, a deacon in church, prays with the Methodist sisters, works hand in glove with monopolists who have preyed upon the people, then offers 5 per cent in competition with the Government 4-1/4 per cent. He wants to make a profit for himself, rather than have the Government use the money to feed and clothe the soldiers on the front. The prohibitionists, not satisfied with war-time prohibition, with the control of liquor by the Government, through the Food Administration, wants to further embarrass the Government by agitating minor issues when every ounce of energy is needed to win the war. They know the soldier will come back a broader and wiser man, and they want to slip this legislation over in his absence. Then there is the political lawyer who thrives on trouble, gets fat on disaster, whose capital is wind, surplus hot air, whose services are for sale for cash. Usually a trimmer who crawled on his stomach for favors, he pledged himself in advance for votes. Backed by special interests, these decoys play upon the passions and prejudices of men, they array class against class, religion against religion, section against section. Elected by the people whom they betray, the people in return organize for protection, then the hypocrites wrap the robes of loyalty about themselves, rush to the head of the procession, climb the band wagon, seize the bass drum, and cry out: all those who don’t follow are “drunken, dishonest or disloyal.”

Beclouding the main issue—of America’s danger—scheming for power while soldiers die, too busy serving themselves, they have not time to serve the nation, they cannot see that their day is past and that they must give way to the men who will win the war—the soldier, the laborer, the producer.

The living soldier is part of the Government, he sees through and past the self-seeking tool or profiteer. He is not fooled by the political machine. He is no longer Republican, Socialist or Prohibitionist—he is American.

Supported by the non-denominational Red Cross and Y. M. C A., he is no longer Baptist, Methodist or Mormon—his religion is confined to Right and Wrong.

That may be all right living; but what of the dead? Dead? Who are the dead? Surely not the unselfish spirits who sacrificed their bodies on the altar of freedom. Their deeds and glory are immortal. Are they, themselves; anything less?

“They have passed into eternity,” we are accustomed to say. Eternity? Do you limit eternity? Can you locate eternity’s beginning, eternity’s end?

Then shall we presume to think those noble spirits who went forward to keep our own temporary abiding place safe for us a while longer, dead?

Water rises to its source—that is common knowledge. But, if we actually cannot see the thing, we often rely on established mental habit, prescribed for us, long since, by others.

The soldier, facing the truly big things of life, who learns to discard, in emergency, the book of rules, cannot believe his comrade, whose lifeless, torn body he left on the field, but whose spirit still inspires him, dead. In the strong days of his youth, he remembers, now, his Creator. He knows his absent comrade’s spirit lives—as does his own, responding to that urge to victory! and he knows that they shall both return unto God who gave them.

It is for us, still humanly on the job, to so manage that, when such brave spirits come back, either to resume their interrupted tasks or to take on greater, we shall have faithfully done our bit to make this old world a better place in which to live and work.

Science, from her laboratory, reports that nothing is ever lost. Real religion and science agree.

Transcriber’s Note

Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and are noted here. The following issues should be noted, along with the resolutions. The references are to the page and line in the original.

The document appearing on p. 247 has a caption which was incomplete.

55.27 Descendent of General Israel Put[man/nam] Transposed.

64.12 a civil mining engine[e]r Added.

67.21 held the mark[s]manship record in his regiment Added.

103.28 was arrested in Paris by the genda[r]mes Added.

107.8 He later became Commissioner of Police at Brazzaville? [Brazzarville]

153.11 so that their bodies [was/were] not noticed Replaced.

180.11 [“]At the first glance Removed.

185.21 I studied the pantomi[n/m]e for some time Replaced.

194.23 An enthusiastic, spirited volunte[e]r Added.

211.23 when Mad[a/e]moiselle changes to Madame Replaced.

237.4 They overr[u/a]n Luxemburg. Replaced.

237.17 By brute force they over[r]ide decency Added.

241.8 a Bavarian soldier of the German[y] army Removed.

247.1 in spite of its "sans prolongation," has been Missing. [...]

261.10 His truth is marching on.[”] Added.