"LES SALES BOCHES"

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 10 August 1917, Page 1

"LES SALES BOCHES"

A co-respondent forwards to 'The: Times' some interesting extracts from a letter just received from an officer upon arrival in the reconquered portions of French territory. He says : It all smells of the Boche; you cannot mistake it. It is .awful passing tbroii"h this desolation: villages still smouldering, churches blown up. cemeteries everywhere desecrated, the furniture of the peasants scattered about outside the ruins of their cottages. Now and again you may sec a peasant searching over the pile of bricks that, was once his house, in the hc/pc of discovering hidden valuables. These folks arc very reticent, <ind do not like to talk abqui their experiences. ' . „ . All males between 15 and 60. as well a: all robust women, "were carried off. All mei were compelled to salute the Hun officer: by removing their caps and lowering then to the level of the elbow. There were fre quent roll-calls, and as each man answerec his name he had to lile past the Boche offi cer with uncovered head 15 metres befor reaching liim and 15 metres after passim him. . . . There are a lot of Boch babies about, and many women left with th Huns when they retired. LasU night a party of Boches arrived here and the news spread rapidly thro ujjfr the vi lage. Everyone collected" on the squar round the Huns and hooted and veiled a

them. " Ah, les sales Bodies: meurtriers: r . incendiaircs:' ah! les salot's, les voleurs, lest assassins, les cochous!" One old woman spat "\ in the face of a particularly arrogant-looking a Boche officer, and exclaimed: "Ah, sale t Boche, you have told the truth for the first j time in your life. You said we should see v you back, and sure enough we have." 1 iiucli merriment was "caused, this after- y noon when a party of- German prisoners were i told off to clean up some of the filthy mess E they made, the inhabitants gathering round \, and jeering at them all the while. a