IN THE GERMAN GRIP.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1731, 28 June 1917, Page 4

IN THE GERMAN GRIP.

A TALE OF SUFFERING AND MISERY. A moving story of the sufferings of the people of the French village of Voyennes (now liberated from the’enemy) during the German occupation, is told in the Daily Chronicle by Phillip Gibbs, whose infor-. raation was obtained from the village priest. “For a year,” said M. le Cure Caron, “my people here have had not a morsel of meat and not a drop of wine, and only bad water, in which the Germans put their filth. “But those things do not matter, those physical things. It was the suffering of the spirit that mattered. And, monsieur, we suffered mentally so much that it almost destroyed our intelligence, it almost made us silly, so thateven now we can hardly think or reason, for you will understand what it meant to us French people. Me were slaves after the Germans came in and settled down upon us and said: ‘Me are home; all here is* ours!' They ordered our men to work, and punished them witii prison for any slight fault. They were the masters of our women; they put our young girls among their soldiers; they set themselves out deliberately at first to crush our spirit, to beat us by terror, to subdue us to their will by an iron rule. THE PROUD FRENCH SPIRIT. “They failed, and (hey were astonished. ‘We cannot understand you people,’ they said. ‘You are so proud; your women are so proud.’ And that was true. sir. Some women not worthy of the name ol french were weak —it was inevitable. alas! —but for the most part 1 hey raised their heads and said: ‘We are French; we will never give into you, not after one year, or two years, or three years, or four years.' The Germans asked constantly, ‘When do you think the war will end?’ We answered, ‘Perhaps in five years; but in the end we will smash you.’ And this made them very angry, so our people went about with their heads up, scornful, refusing to complain against any severity or any hardship. “Secretly among' ourselves it was different. We could get no news for months, except lies. We knew nothing of what was happening. Starvation crept closer upon us. We were surrounded by the (ires of hell. As you see, we are in the outer section of the great Somme battle line, and very close to it. For 50 hours at a lime the roar of guns swept round us, week after week, and month after month, and the sky blazed around us. - “We were afraid of the temper of the German officers after the defeat on the Marne, and after the battles of the Somme Germany was like a wounded tiger —fierce, desperate, cruel. Secretly, though our people kept brave faces, (hey feared what would happen if the Germans -were forced to retreat. “Last Sunday, a week ago tit this very hour, when the people were all in their houses under strict orders, and already the country was on fire with burning villages, a group of soldiers came outside there with cans of petroleum, which they put into the church. Then they sot lire to it, and watched my church burn in a groat bonfire. ARRIVAL OF THE BRITISft. “At this very hour a week ago 1 watched it burn. That night Hit* Germans went array t lino ugh Yoyennew, and early in the morning up in my attic, looking through a pair of glasses, I saw four horsemen ride in. They were British soldiers, and our people rushed out to them. Soon afterwards came some Chasseurs d’Afriquo, and the colonel gave me the news of the outer world to which we now belong after our years of isolation and misery. “Our agony had ended. The Germans knew they wore beaten, monsieur. A commandant of Ham said ‘We are lost.’ After the battles of the Somme the men groaned and wept when they were sent off to the front. ‘God,’ they cried, ‘the horror of the French and British gun fire! Oh, Christ, save us!’ During the battles of the Somme the wounded poured back a thousand or more a day, and Ham was one great hospital of bleeding llesh. “The - German soldiers have bad* food and not enough of it, and their people are starving as we starved. The German officers behaved to their men with their usual brutality. I have seen them beat the soldiers about the head while those men stood attention, not daring to say a word, but as soon as the officers are out'of the way the men say: ‘We will cut these fellows’ throats after the war. We have been deceived. After the war we will make them pay.’ ” So the cure talked to me, and I have only given a few of his words, but what I have given is enough,