Part 2 (2/2)
Vital was caught in the act of tending a French soldier, L. Sohier by name, wounded in the head and side. Such a crime deserved punishment, and the wretches first shot the orderly and then the patient.
At Ethe they set a shed on fire and roasted more than twenty wounded who were lying there.
We all know the celebrated order of General Stenger in the region of Thiaville (Meurthe-et-Moselle):--”No prisoners are to be taken. All prisoners, whether wounded or not, must be slaughtered.”
It was not only in Lorraine that such orders were given. Listen to the depositions of a German soldier: ”The same day we saw eighteen other Frenchmen. Lieutenant N. told us to shoot them as he did not know what else to do with them.”
Read this letter found at L'ecouvillon in a German trench which we recaptured: ”Every day we take many prisoners, but they are shot at once as we no longer know where to put them.”
Think of the diary in which a German soldier near Peronne recorded his impressions of the day: ”They lay in heaps of ten or twelve, some dead and some still living. Those who could still walk were marched off.
Those who were wounded in the head or lungs, and could not lift themselves up, were finished off with a bullet. That is the order which we got.”
A German soldier, while being nursed in a hospital at Nancy, confided to Dr. Roemer that the wound in his stomach ”had been inflicted on him by a German N.C.O. because he refused to finish off a wounded Frenchman.”
Wounded were not only ma.s.sacred on the field of battle, but field hospitals were also the scene of atrocities. At Gomery, in a casualty clearing station, under Dr. Sedillot, there were numerous wounded remaining in the German lines. A German officer with twenty-five men visited the place and inspected it and retired, saying that all was in order. But a N.C.O. and a party of soldiers remained in the street outside. They were excited and kept shouting, ”It is war to the death,”
and making signs of cutting throats. They rushed in and with their revolvers shot down Dr. Sedillot (who happily survived, with others, to give evidence), and set fire to the place. Maddened by the flames, the wounded (many of whom had had amputations performed on them that very morning) leapt from the windows on the first floor and fell into the garden, where the executioners picked them up, gathering them in a bunch, and shot them. In this way Lieutenant Jeannin and Dr. Charette were murdered, and from one hundred to one hundred and twenty officers and soldiers--whose wounds should have made them sacred--perished from shot or fire after terrible sufferings.
When all is said, however, it is better to kill wounded soldiers by fire or sword than by starvation, as the following incident shows: One hundred wounded Frenchmen, together with Dr. Bender, were brought to the Stenay barracks, and one hundred and eighty more came in shortly afterwards; the latter, having been left out unattended on the battle-field for five days, were in a terrible condition. Dr. Bender in vain begged the Germans for help in getting the wounded men out of the ambulances into the hospital. The Boches refused, and simply went on sucking their pipes. Though wounded himself, the doctor, with the aid of two male nurses (Frenchmen both), had to do the whole thing himself.
For several days the Boches gave them no food at all. ”Our poor fellows screamed with hunger,”[14] says the doctor, on oath, and adds, ”I had sixty badly wounded with me, and begged the German army doctor to operate, but he said he had no time. I then asked his leave to operate myself, but his reply was, ”You are in the German lines, and must conform to our rules.” The doctor ends his pathetic evidence with the words, ”Nearly all these unhappy men died of neglect.”
We have seen doctors, like Professor Vulpius, actually steal money; but of all the types of Boche doctors, the most hideous is the hero of the following tale, taken from the deposition of Dr. Bender. ”A French soldier, at Stenay, was under my treatment. He had a wound in his foot--not very severe, which did not need an operation at all. What was my astonishment to find that a German army surgeon had amputated his thigh? I could not help expressing my indignation, and the surgeon's only reply was, ”He will be a man the less against us in the next war.”[15] They will deny these crimes to-morrow, but in 1914 they gloried in them.
On the 18th of October a Silesian newspaper published an article sent from the front by a N.C.O., in which he says, ”Men who are particularly tender-hearted give the French wounded the 'coup de grace' with a bullet, but the others cut and thrust as much as possible. Our enemies fought bravely ... whether they are slightly or badly wounded our brave Fusiliers spare the Fatherland as far as possible the expensive trouble of looking after numerous enemies. In the evening, with prayers of thanksgiving on our lips, we go to sleep.” Are these mere boastings of crimes? No. The article was submitted to the Captain of the Company who certified it as correct and counter-signed it. The N.C.O., the Captain, the Silesian public, the whole German nation were delighted to see this abominable story of murder and shame appear in the paper under the heading, ”A Day of Honour for our Regiment.”[16]
FOOTNOTES:
[13] Report of the French Commission, vol. iii.
[14] He adds that certain orderlies--Lorrainers, belonging to the German Army--supplied them with food on the sly.
[15] French chivalry could hardly believe that a doctor would amputate a wounded enemy's limb without absolute necessity and in mere revenge, but such cases are, alas, not rare. See the awful tales of torture in the ”Journal d'un Grand Blesse en Allemagne,” by Charles Hennebois (pp. 137, 146), and the statement of a German doctor (p. 87), ”Your doctors in France perform amputations as they please on our wounded. The order has therefore been given to amputate without hesitation, as reprisals, every damaged limb.”
[16] Let us quote, to show the mental ”make-up” of certain Germans, the conditions in which Captain Coustre of the 108th and Captain Lesourd of the 50th met their deaths. They were wandering over the battle-field where the enemy had been repulsed. They heard a cry for help. There was a soldier in one place and an officer in another who asked for a drink.
They stopped and leant over them to give them a drink from their flasks when the wounded men blew their brains out.
SHELTERING BEHIND WOMEN
Let us call to mind the innumerable instances when the Boches put up their hands, or waved a white flag, and cried, ”Kamerad,” pretending to surrender: thus drawing our unsuspecting men towards them and then suddenly moving aside, to leave the field open to a party of riflemen or a machine-gun hidden away behind them. These are the tricks of cowards, which were constantly employed at the beginning of the war, and our men (at the cost of many victims) learned at last to guard against them. But they have done even more cowardly things than this. There was the German officer who, to protect himself from danger while taking observations, put three children round him. At Nery, twenty-five persons, women and children, were compelled to walk at the side of a Boche column to protect it from being enfiladed. Near Malines, six German soldiers who were taking with them five young girls, on meeting a Belgian patrol, placed the girls all round them to prevent the enemy from firing. At Jodoigne they put a Cure in front of them and made him walk with his arms folded, and they did the same at Hougaerde to another Cure who was killed. A similar fate befell several civilians at Mons. At Senlis, our men were firing to cover our retreat, and the Germans took some inhabitants out of the houses and made them walk in the middle of the streets while they themselves kept along by the walls. Many of these unfortunate people were killed. ”In numerous places,” says the Belgian Commission of Enquiry, ”the Germans made civilians--men and women--walk in front of them.” In this way a German column pa.s.sed through Marchienne, pus.h.i.+ng ahead of them a body of several hundred civilians.
They took the road for Montigny-le-Tilleul, where the first important battle with the French forces took place. At Sempst, during the fighting on the 25th August, men and women were placed in the front rank of the firing line. At Erpe, on the 12th September, a German column, attacked by a Belgian motor-machine-gun, took out of the houses twenty to twenty-five men and young people (including a child of thirteen), and made them walk in front in the middle of the road. The machine-gunners, seeing civilians in front of them, ceased firing. At Alost, a German company attacked the bridge. In front marched some thirty civilians with a machine-gun hidden behind them. At Nimy, with the b.u.t.t-ends of their rifles, they drove in front of them 500 men, women and children towards the English, who in consequence dared not fire; and in this way the 84th and 85th Schleswig Regiments were able to continue their heroic march as far as Maubeuge.
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