TRAGEDY OF THE WAR.

Shannon News, 24 April 1923, Page 3

TRAGEDY OF THE WAR.

AN INNOCENT MAN SHOT.

The pitiful story of Jules Strimelle, the village blacksmith of a little French town near Maubeuge, shot as a traitor in 1914, has lately come out, “through the efforts of his widow to have her husband’s memory freed from the shameful verdict.” The story, whose "simple tragedy” has been called “equal to Guy de Maupassant’s most powex*ful tales of the FrancoPrussian War of 1870,” runs: Strimelle’s smithy was situated in the little village of Boussois on the outskirts of Maubeuge, close to the fort bearing the same name. On September 1 the village was bombarded heavily by the enemy. All the men of military age were gone excepting Strimelle, who, because of his utility to the military, was kept working at his forge. Women, old men and children were hiding in cellars. Suddenly the soldiers from the fort saw amidst the bursting German 77's two pigeons rise from the smithy. That was enough for them. A- few moments later three soldiers rushed the smithy and seized Strimelle and dragged him before the military officers. Strimelle was a spy. They had seen the pigeons released from his house while he was the only living being above ground. Only one conritfsion was possible. He must die' ffte ignominious death of a traitor. While Strimelle was .being dragged through the streets of Maubeuge by the excited soldiers —three territorials who las k".t their heads completely under the strain of events —the furii ous populace fell upon the smith, and when he reached the military headquarters it was as a shattered, manhandled wreck, bleeding from countless wounds, hardly able to stand, up, and with one of his eyes gouged but.

Stunned and hardly conscious of what was happening, Strimelle was unable to say a word in his own defence, even to deny the accusation brought against him. His silence was considered an admission of guilt, and three days later, on the eve of the fall of Maubeuge, the unfortunate smith fell, riddled with, the bullets of the firing-squad, ‘ ' But the truth he was unable to tell then is being told to-day by his widow, who has opened proceedings to have her husband’s memory freed from the shameful verdict and proclaimed an innocent victim of those terrible days. Strimelle, like many another blacksmith, was a great big, simple fellow. He Voved his two children passionately,, but in his big, warm heart there was- place for other affections, including his favourite pets—two pigeons which he kept close beside him in a special cage in the forge. A German shell which burst on that fateful morning just outside the smithy hurled the cage to the ground, and the frightened pigeons escaped through the open door. The soldiers saw them, and that was enough evidence to condemn the poor man.