FRENCH WOUNDED MASSACRED.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 225, 2 March 1915, Page 3

FRENCH WOUNDED MASSACRED.

GERMAN ATTACK ON AN AMBULANCE. A GRAPHIC ACCOUNT. The treacherous shooting of French wounded by German troops at the village of Gomery was briefly described in a cable message from Australia reecntly. The following account of the incident was written by a French Red Cross man, belonging to the Fourth '■Tiny Corps, who has just been released ,':-> iii G'-rmnnv:— "On 22nd August, at Gomery, two ambulances were formed, one in tile top of the village under Major Sedillot, doctor at Authon-du-Perehe, of the 20th Artillery, and the other at the chateau of Baron de Gerlaches under Major Dutheil, of the 14th Regiment of Hussars. The. battle lasted till niglit. and our troops had to retreat. By evening there was about three hundred wounded and there were wounded in all the houses and barns of the village. At nine in the evening a patrol of Lilians reached the castle, and the officer commanding it said: 'I respect the Red Cross and don't wjsh to come in.' At ten o'clock we got orders to go to the other ambulance. Immediately about seven of us hospital orderlies and stretcher bearers attached to the artillery set off, but we were stopped on the way, and went quickly back to the chateau. We had hardly cot there when another party of Uhlans began firing in the windows. Mile, de Gerlaches hurried to meet them, am" implored them not to fire as there were wounded men in the castle, and none of them had arms. The German officer commanding dismounted, and ied by some of his officers, searched the chateau all over, and accused us of having fired on themi. He onlv left after a lot of explanations. When he trot out, he sent for Major Dutheil, had him bound and took him off in the middle of six men with a revolver at his head and a. rifle at his back to look after the German wounded. As the •patrol passed through the village! it shot several French wounded under Major Dutheil's eyes. .At about >mtf past ten we succeeded in reaching Maor Sedillot's ambulance. As he needed a lantern. I went down to the village to try and get one. but suddenly I found that T was being pursued bv Germans. T got away, and put them off my trades by throwing myself into a bole that was full of mud, where T remained for about an hour, and then tried to togain the ambulance. . . managing at last to get back to the chateau. 1 Meanwhile, a German patrol had reached Major Sedillot's ambulanc". where they asked for an interpreter. Lieutenant Deschars, who was wounded, presented himself. After asking him some explanations, the German officer took out his revolver and shot him dead at point blank range. At the same moment the Germans th'-ew themselves on our wounded, on the doctors, and the hospital orderlies, and massacred some of them. I saw this at a distance nicrht at. the chateau was terrible. The night at the cateau was terrible. The only doctor left was M. Simonin, a chief officer in the first division of the Seventh Army Corps, who was immobilised because he had been wounded in the knee. T was left with a few stretcher-bearers to look after the three hundred wounded. On the morning of the 23rd. I saw from a window in the chat-au about 25 to 30 corpses of French wounded or orderlies who had been shot against the cemetery wall at Gomery.' Early the same morning another German officer came with his men to search the castle and to accuse us of lifcving fired On them. At 11 o'clock Maor uutheil was brought back to the chateau, but at mid-day the Germans took him away again with Baron Gerlaches, a servant and the cure. I think it was also about mid-day that they started setting Gomery on fire. At the door of every bouse that was set on fire six German soldiers were placed to prevent our wounded escaping. If one of the poor wretches tried to fly, he was shot at point blank range. I saw these facts so far as concerned the houses on the road leading to the chateau. The fire lasted till Monday, the 24th, and T. have no idea how many of the wounded died in this way. Those were spared who were in the church, the chateau, the school, and in one barn that, was not set on fire. On the 24th, about 4 o'clock, the German doctors came to look after our wounded, and they treated them just as they did their own men."

On September 10th the hospital orderly who wrote the above account was taken away prisoner to Mannheim.