GERMAN REIGN OF TERROR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 239, 18 March 1915, Page 7

GERMAN REIGN OF TERROR.

CHATEAUX TILLAGED.

HORRORS OF WAR IX FRANCE. OFFICiAL 15 E PORT. The Commission appointed to enquire into the Herman atrocities, consisting of At. Payelle (president of the Colir des Comptes), Al. Alolhird (ex-Alinistor to Luxemburg), AI. Alaringer (Councillor of State), and Al. Puillot (Councillor of the Appeal Court), have presented a pre-' liniinary report to the Prime Minister, which was published in the Journal Ofliciel of January 7. The evidence which tne report is based has been tested rigorously. It was taken on oath. and supported by photographs. \\ herever it has been possible to give the Germans the benefit of the doubt they have, received it. "On every side," says the report, "the eyes resit upon the vuins of entire villages destroyed by bombardment and lire. Towns formerly bustling with life are nothing btfs do.-erts tilled with ruins. And when these desolate 'places where the invaders torch has done its work are visited there is the illusion that these are the vestiges of great cities of antiquity destroyed by a great natural cataclysm. I'illage, rape, incimiria on and murder are our enemies' common custom. The facts revealed show an astounding retrogression of German mentality since 1570."

a'lic preface fills 21 columns. I cannot (says the Times' correspondent) do more than attempt to indicate the terrible impression of fi'igbtfulness acquired from it. Rape with every imaginable rclinenient of cruelty and bestiality marked tile passage of the Iliins witii gha .tly frequency . Irrefutable evidence has been collected as regards a great many cases, hut owing to the natural reluctance of the victims to speak of the odious crimes of which they have been the subject the cases contained in the report represent a minute portion of the horrible German record.

ORGANISED ATROCITIES. 1 nless the discipline of the German army is hut a sham, ollicers, had tliev wished, could easily have reduced th'e extent of this crime. On several occasions, when the officers could have intercy look no action. ]Jut while (hex 1 outrages may be attributed to the individual savagery and licentiousness Df the inflamed soldiery, it is established beyond doubt by the report that incendiarism, murder and pillage from part of the German military equipment as ileiinitoly as do big guns. For crimes miller these three' headings the highest ollicers of the German army must he held responsible before history. The massacres at l.uncviHe. Gerheviller, Xomeny and Senlis afford terrible proof of this assertion. Villagers have been torn from their homes and marched off 'into captivity in Germany. Those who by their age or infirmities fell by the roadside were bayoneted or kicked to death. Tn many instances women and children have been placed as a screen In front of German troops during the lighting or a bombardment. The stories of rape are so horrible in detail that iiieir publication would seem almost jm-po-sible were it not for the necessity of showing to the fullest extent the nature oi the wild beasts lighting under tile German liag for German ideals and civilisation.

BESTIAL CRT.MFS. At Gcrbevillcr 20 out of 47.3 houses remain inhabitable and 100 persons have disappeared. Some wove taken to the fields and executed; others were assassinated in their homes, or shot, down as I hey tied from the ilanies. Here two of the most horrible crimes of the whole jerics were committed. The Germans entered a house, took away the ISli-year-old son, who was wearing a Red Cross brassard, tied his hands behind his back, shot him in the street, and then returned and fetched his 70-year-old father anil mother. 'They saw their son stretched on the ground. As the body still moved the Germans poured petrol upon it and set it alight in the presence of the terrified mother. At the same time the soldiers knocked at tile house occupied by a man and his wife and his mother-in-law, aged 7S. The latter opened the door, and was immediately shot. She fell back in the arms of her son-in-law, who carried her into the garden, where he covered the corpse, placing a handkerchief over her face. The man was taken and shot, while his wife was sent to join some 40 women and children, who were threatened with death by the officer—a threat not executed. At Gerheviller a woman was murdered and the stomach ripped open. Hero, again, the Bavarians were responsible.

At Luneville there were similar ghastly scenes, unwarranted by any act of the inhabitants or military necessity. Pillaging everywhere was on ndiK-t I'd on wnolosalo and organised lines, and where there was no time to carry away the contents of the houses, following the example of' civil thieves, the military bandits gave themselves up to destruction. The sack of the Chateau do Pave lias already boon described. Alaiiy other houses occupied hv German noblemen and generals and staff ollicers were ransacked and stripped of their contents, which were sent to Germany. The rooms the officers used wore left in such a state of filth as fo be indescribable in polite language. Thus, in the Chateau de Beaumont, whore their "Excellencies" Alajor l.odebur and Count Walilersee Were lodged, desks, strung boxes and jewel cases were all burst open and emptied, and the whole phre rendered unlit lor habitation. Cnmes against noufombatants— attacks upon doctors and tiring upon the Red ( l'oss, and the shooting of the woumlou they lay on the bat t ieilold- are so numerous that they v ill ferm the subject of a special re'iort.

At Coiiloinmiers on September 0 a woman was raped by a soldier whose husband and two children were kept in an adjoining room. In the neighborhood of Robais several mothers were outraged in the pre-once of thoiv children. One of the women whose resistait'o irritated the soldiers was strung up, but succeeded in cutting the rope and escaping.

AT A ciiATiun. A chateau Hour T.» I'erfe-flauclior occupied liy iln old l;■ -ill]<>!!inn. his female servant. and a woman refugee, was the scene of ierrilile deed's on SVpieniber !>. '•i-rmaiis, including a nn»-ct>mmii»iniu>tl of! !,«•]'. entered (1„. rlialean. After f.-cl- <'"■ linn-ooiniiii -ionrd ol)i,er, hav"la'|p a 7>roiii> s«| in the rofiiyec dm |Mvi]i.'i(.jnr, in order (o .:avo her f r( , ln tile inn.]! - -; ilosifni--, -vat; her to :i nci.nli'""Ti'in;: larm. The <!erman wont after lier, l.rmislit liit Imt-k. ami look lier i 0 ilie loft. Tlio prop,lor, wishing to summon a-;j:in,v, fired a revolver on (lie staircase. an;l was inmiwliaMY sliot 1)V tin- non-commissioned officer, who <hen made the woman come down from flu l loft, for,,,] !,(■-]• f,, step over tile l"'dy ol ilio old 111,111. and took lier into another room, wliore again, without sue-

cess, he tried to master Iter. Finally he abandoned her, threw himself upon the servant, and left the refugee to the mercy of two soldiers, who both violated. her in the room where lay the dead hoily of the proprietor. At Alontmirail on September 5 a noncommissioned olliccr attempted to violate the widow upon whom he was bil leted. ller father rushed to her assistance, and immediately 15 or 20 Germans broke down the door, dragged the man 1 into the street, and shot him, At Estornay on September (i soldiery while pillaging, discovered a widow, her two daughters, and two other women hiding in a cellar, anil ordered the two girls to undress. As the mother intervened, they tired upon !he group, wounding one and killing another.

[ The troops in the Afarne appear to have been completely out of hand. They had no respect even for age, and in two neighboring places a child of II and a woman of S!) served to satisfy the bestiality. It. is, however, impossible to distinguish among the Herman armies all the places through which tliev passed having been the scenes of similar horrors. Thus, in the Afeuse, among many instances of outrage cited, is the violation of a woman of 44 and her two daughters of 13 and S, who were odiously tortured on September 8 in a cellar at Louppy-le-Chatouu, where they had taken refuge from the bonibard-

PROFAXITY IX A CHURCH. While the 121st and 122 nd Wurtcmbci'g Regiments were burning and pillaging at Clermont,, in the Argonne, the destruction r which has already been nientioneil in the Times, sonic of them invaded the church am: danced to the sound of tin- organ, and then set the edifice on lire. The burning of Clermont was begun by a soldier who. after ha'.lujuh* a cup (if C<;l'i ee on a nieiiivlat<"d_ spirit stove, wantonly upset' the Spirit and gave the signal for the general conllagration, which was spread hv all means of incendiarism known to Herman civilisation, (leneral Von Duraeh and Prince Wittgenstein were in command of the troops responsible for this At Nonicny the Ge:".,ans arrived in a stale of terrible ferocity. For a whole day they gave themselves up to pillage, incendiarism, and massacre, and then set fire to the whole place, of which only a few houses now remain. The most iregie incident ot these horrible scenes is thus described in the report:— A man named A as,-e gathered some Of his neighbors i„ a, cellar. Towards I 0 clock some sii soldiers entered the house, breaking down the door and the windows, and set lire to the building. 1 he refugees endeavored to save themselves. hut were struck down one after the other as they enme out. Arentre was assassinated first. His son Leon, who bad a small sister eight Years of ago in his arms, was the next' to fall As he was not quite dead a rille was pressed fo his head and his brains were blown out

"It was then the turn of the Kiell'er family. The mother was wounded in tne arm and shoulder, and the father a small boy of and a girl of three v. oio shot. 'I lie executioners tired upon them as they lay on the ground. Then Striellert and one of Vasse's sons were massacred, while Aline Alcntre and AI G'uilhinine were dragged into the street and killed there. Finally, a young girl named Nimonin emerged" from the eelMr Avith a three-year-obi sister whose elbow was shattered bv a bullet. The elder girl threw herself on the ground feigning death, and remained for five minutes in terrible anxiety. A soldier kicked her body, crying 'Kaput."' At the. end of the' butchery the officers told the women who were still living to get U]). and shouted to them: "Go to France!"

The 2nd and 4th Bavarian Infantry I'eginients should be remembered when the day of reckoning comes. CASKS OF vivKBKR, It is impossible to give all the authenticated cases of deliberate murder COMtained in the report. -.fTiey include the case at Sermai::e where, while an old man was being taken away as a hostage, his maddened wife anil daughtir-m-law threw themselves in the river. The man, having freed himself, ran to rescue them; but the Germans dragged him away, leaving the women struggling in the water. The bodies were "afterwards found with she*; wounds in the head. They include organised battues in burning villages, where we,men and old men escaping from the burning houses were shot down as they rail.

A municipal councillor of Robais states that two British cavalrymen, surprised and wounded in that' district, were finished oil by the Germans, although both had dismounted and were holding their hands up when they were ,sliot. At C'hampuis a 70-year-ol'd man was tied to his bed by an officer and kept there three days without food, and died in consequence. Of the atrocities at Sommeilli's, which was destroyed by Ore by means of petrol pumps, the report "At the beginning of the fire Mine X. took refuge in a cellar with a neighbor and his wife and their four children, aged 11, n, 4, and II years. A few days later the bodies''of all those unfortunate people were discovered in a pool oMdood. The man had been shot, Afme X. had her breast and right arm foot, cut off, the five year old'boy his throat cut. Afme X. and a little'child had apparently been violated. At Triaueourfc. where the Duke of Wurtemberg passed, the village was burnt, and the inhabitants wore massacred as they tied from the burning houses." I quote' from the report: "Irritated, no doubt,, bv the remarks made by an officer to a soldier, against whom Mile I'roccs, a young girl of 10 years of age, had complained on account of his insulting proposals, they burned the village niM organised a massacre of the inhabitants.' First sotting fire to the house ot a peaceful proprietor, Jules Gant, and shooting him as he left his home to escape the flames, they scattered in the houses and streets,' firing on all round tlieiu. A youth of 17 years, Georges Leeourtier, who endeavored to escape, vas killed. Alfred Lallemand met with the same fate. He was chased into (he kitchen of a neigh-' iinr. T.autelior. where he was killed Lautelier was shot, in three places". learing, not without reason, for their os, Aflle Proees. her mother, grand-; mother (il years old), and an aunt (SI years old) endeavored to climb from their garden into the next by means of a ladder. Only the young girl succeeded in escaping to the other sj{h>. an-li avoided death by hiding in a cabbage field. Ihe three others were shot; down," On the following night, the Germans played the piano amidst the corps"s. Winn the cure protested the Duke of Wurtemberg replied: "What do you < vpoet? Like you, we have bad soldiers."