CRUELTY IN FRANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 234, 12 March 1915, Page 5

CRUELTY IN FRANCE.

TERRIBLE INDICTMENT. PILLAGE, OUTRAGE, MURDER ANT) INCENDIARISM, The report of tlie French committee appointed to enquire as to acts commit- ; ted by the enemy in violation of the ' law of nations was published on January 8 in the Paris Journal Officiel. The report is signed by M. Georges Pavelle, First President of the. Court of Accounts; M. Armand Molkrd, Minister " Plenipotentiary; M. Georges Malinger. t Councillor of State; and M. Edmond j Paillot, Councillor at the Court of Cassation. It sets forth facts which go to prove that the Germans have been guilty ll of premeditated cruelty in the Departi incuts of the Seine-et-Marne, Meurthc-et-Mosclle, Oisne and Aisnc. In the course of the preamble to the report, the members o," the committee remark: — "We adduce an ample harvest of information, comprising a sufficiently limited part of tlie testimony we might have accumulated, had we not submitted each item of evidence to severe criticism and rigorous control. We have thought it our duty to retain only those things which have been irrefutably proved, and which constituted in a manner beyond question clearly characterised :■ criminal abuses.. We are quite certain ', that none of the incidents which we enumerate could, in good faith, be questioned. The proof of each one of them lies not in our personal observations alone; it rests chiefly upon photographic documents and upon numerous statements received in evidence in legal form under the guarantee of the oath. ■' , RUIN IN LORRAINE. "In the regions wtich we traversed, especially Lorraine, so frequently th-.i victim of warfare's scourge, we heard neither a single entreaty nor a single complaint; yet the appalling distress of which we have Von witnesses exceeds, in the extent of its horror, all that the imagination can conceive. On all sides tlie eye lights upon ruins. Eni tire villages have, been destroyed, either f by gunfire or flame, and towns that were formerly full of life are now but deserts strewn with wreckage. .When visiting the desolated places where the brand of the invader has done its work, one is continually under the illusion of walking among the vestiges of ancient cities which some great natural cataclysm has annihilated. Never has war between civilised nations partaken of the brutal and ferocious character of that which, at this moment, is being waged upon our soil by an implacable adversary. j OUTRAGES ON WOMEN. "Pillage, rape, incradiarism and murder are current practices among our ene- , mies. The facts that are daily being ' brought to light, while they constitute actual crimes against common law, punished in the code of all nations by the i most severe and degrading penalties, afi ford evidence of an astonishing retro- :! gression in German mentality since 1870. <■ Outrages against women and young girls r have been of unheard-of frequency. - They would have numerous if the leaders of an army whose discipline is exceedingly strict had troubled themselves to prevent them, but they may, for once in a way, be regarded as the individual and spontaneous acts of unchained brutes. "With the fires, robberies and murders it is otherwise. The commanding authority, as personified even in its highest representatives, will bear the crushing responsibility for them before huinanity. Tlie German Army constantly ' professes its utter contempt for human 1 life. Soldiers and officers alike do not • refrain from. putting wounded nien to death; they kill without pity the inoffensive inhabitants of the countries invaded by them, and in their homicidal rage they spare neither the women, nor the aged, nor the children. . The fnsiladcs at Luneville, Gerbcrvillers, Nomeny and Senlis are terrifying instances of this." SCENES OF CARNAGE. The report proper includes accounts of scenes of carnage, in which officers themr selves were not ashamed to participate. It shows, moreover, that -the liberty of f the subject, like human life, is an object , of absolute scorn on the part of the Ger- . man authorities. Almost everywhere citizens of all ages have been torn from '. their homes and led away into captivity. j Many of them have died or have been , killed en route. j Incendiarism, it is stated, is favored j by the enemy to an even greater extent than murder, as a means either of systematic devastation or of intimidation. Under the head of robbery, the committee encountered a steady flow of evi--1 dence. Wherever a body of the. enemy passed, the men, in the presence of their s officers, and often with their participa- ' tion, gave themselves up to mothodic- ' ally organised pillage. Cellars wye 1 emptied, "to the last bottle," safes broken open and considerable sums of money stolen. Silver, jewellery, pieI tuves, furniture, linen, dresses," ev:n children's toys, were taken and loaded II in conveyances to be sent towards the frontier. Against nil these exactions, '" as against all the crimes of the enemy, there has been no redress. S The report chronicles, in addition to numerous crimes against the civil population, numberless deeds committed against combatants in violation of tlie laws of war, as, for example, the murder of wounded and prisoners, the practice of ruses forbidden by international conventions, and attacks on doctors and ambulance workers.