Fighting France Part 15

I swear to tell the truth and nothing but the truth.

On the 25th of August, 1914, the sixty-sixth and sixty-eighth Bavarian regiments were quartered together at Jarny. I was ordered to bring water for the soldiers, so went in search of a large number of water pails. At three o'clock in the afternoon an officer, who met me, told me I had carried enough water and ordered me to go back to my house. As the Germans were firing on our house with mitrailleuses, I took refuge in the cellar with my two sons, Jean, aged six, and Maurice, aged two, and also my daughter Jeanne, nine years of age. The Aufiero family was also there. Soon petrol was poured over the house; it got into the cellar through the air-hole, and we were surrounded by flames. I saved myself, carrying my two little boys in my arms, while my daughter and little Beatrice Aufiero ran along holding on to my skirt. As we were crossing the Rougeval brook, which runs near my house, the Bavarians fired on us. My little Jean, whom I was carrying, was struck by three bullets, one in the right thigh, one in the ankle, and one in the chest. The thigh was almost shot away, and from the place where the bullet through his chest came out the lung projected. The poor child said, "Oh, Mother, I have a pain," and in a moment he was dead. At the same time little Beatrice had her arm broken so badly that it was attached to her shoulder only by a piece of flesh, and Angele Aufiero, a boy of nine years, who followed a short distance behind us, was wounded in the calf of the leg.

Little Beatrice suffered cruelly and wept bitterly, but she did not fall down, continuing to go along with me.

While these things were taking place, the Perignon family, which lived next door to us, was ma.s.sacred.

When they were no longer shooting at us, I tried to wash my baby, who was covered with blood, in the brook; but a soldier prevented me, shouting, "Get away from there."

Finally we got to the road. Meanwhile they were driving M.

Aufiero out of the cellar. The Germans, who spoke French after a fas.h.i.+on, said to his wife, "Come see your husband get shot." The poor man, on his knees, asked for mercy, and as his wife shrieked "My poor Come," the soldiers said to her, "Shut your mouth." His execution took place very near us.

The Bavarians sent me, my children, Mme. Aufiero and her daughter to a meadow near the Pont-de-l'Etang. A general ordered that we be shot, but I threw myself at his feet, begging him to be merciful. He consented. At this moment an officer, wearing a great gray cloak with a red collar, said, as he pointed to the dead body of my child, "There is one who will not grow up to fight our men."

The next day, in my flight to Barriere Zeller, an officer came up and told me that the body of my dead child smelled badly and that I must get rid of it. Since I could find no one to make a coffin, I found in the canteen two rabbit hutches. I fastened one of these to the other, and there I laid the little body. It was buried in my garden by two soldiers, and I had to dig the grave myself.

APPENDIX IV

HOW GERMANS OCCUPY THE TERRITORY OF AN ENEMY

In the first days of April, 1916, the following notice, bearing the signature of the German commander, was posted on all the walls of Lille, the great town in the north of France which has been occupied by the Germans since the beginning of the war.

All the inhabitants of the town, except the children under fourteen years of age, their mothers, and the old men, must prepare to be transported within an hour and a half.

An officer will decide definitely which persons shall be conducted to the camps of a.s.sembly. For this purpose, all the inhabitants must a.s.semble in front of their homes, in case of bad weather they shall be permitted to stay in the lobbies. The doors of the houses must be left open. All complaints will be unavailing. No inhabitant of a house, even those who are not to be transported, can leave the house before eight o'clock in the morning (German time).

Each person may take thirty kilograms of baggage with him.

Should there be any excess over this amount, all that person's baggage will be refused regardless of everything.

Separate packages must be made up by each person, and a visibly written, firmly secured address must be on each package. The address must bear the person's name, surname, and the number of his identification card.

It is very necessary for each person to provide himself with utensils for eating and drinking, also with a woolen blanket and some good shoes and some linen. Each person must have on his person his identification card. Whoever shall attempt to evade deportation shall be punished without mercy.

ETAPPEN--KOMMANDANTUR

The threat contained in the notice cited here was carried out to the letter. Here is an account of it from the communication addressed by M. D----, formerly the _receveur particulier_ of Lille, to M. Cambon, formerly the French Amba.s.sador to Berlin:

On Good Friday night at three o'clock the troops who were going to occupy the designated section, Fives, came through our houses. It was dreadful. An officer pa.s.sed by, pointing out the men and women whom he chose, leaving them a s.p.a.ce of time amounting to an hour in some cases and ten minutes in others, to prepare themselves for their journey.

Antoine D. ... and his sister, twenty-two years of age, were taken away. The Germans did not want to leave behind the younger daughter in the family, who was not fourteen. Their grandmother, ill with sorrow and terror, had to be cared for at once. Finally they met the young daughter coming back. In one case an old man and two infirm persons could not keep the daughter who was their sole support. And everywhere the enemy sneered, adding vexatious annoyance to their hateful task. In the house of the doctor, who is B.'s uncle, they gave his wife the choice between two maids. She preferred the elder and they said, "Well, then she is the one we are going to take." Mlle. L., the young one who has just got over typhoid and bronchitis, saw the non-commissioned officer who took away her nurse coming up to her. "What a sad task they are making us do." "More than sad, sir, it could be called barbarous." "That is a hard word, are you not afraid that I will sell you?" As a matter of fact the wretch denounced her. They allowed her seven minutes and took her away bare-headed, just as she was, to the Colonel who commanded this n.o.ble battle and who also ordered her to go, against the advice of a physician. Only on account of her tireless energy and the sense of decency of one who was less ferocious than the rest, did she obtain permission, at five o'clock in the afternoon, to be discharged, after a day which had been a veritable Calvary. The poor wretches at whose door a sentry watched, were collected together at some place or other, a Church or a school. Then the mob of all sorts and conditions of people, or all grades of social standing, respectable young girls and women of the street, was driven to the station escorted by soldiers marching at the head of the procession. From there they were taken off in the evening without knowing where they were going or for what work they were destined.

And in the face of all this our people evidenced restraint and admirable dignity, although they were provoked that day by seeing the automobiles going around which were taking away these unfortunate people. They all went away shouting "Vive la France. Vive la Liberte!" and singing the Ma.r.s.eillaise. They cheered up those who remained; their poor mothers who were weeping, and the children. With voices almost strangled with tears, and pale with suffering, they told them not to cry as they themselves would not; but bore themselves proudly in the presence of their executioners.

Another doc.u.ment shows better than all this talking the treatment the French have been receiving from the Germans for over thirty months.

This doc.u.ment is a German notice which was found at Holnon, northwest of St. Quentin. The doc.u.ment bore the official seal of the German commander.

HOLNON, 20th July, 1915.

All workmen, women and children over fifteen years of age must work in the fields every day, also on Sunday, from four o'clock in the morning until eight o'clock at night, French time. For rest they shall have a half-hour in the morning, an hour at noon and a half-hour in the afternoon. Failure to obey this order will be punished in the following manner:--

1.--The men who are lazy will be collected for the period of the harvest in a company of workmen under the inspection of German corporals. After the harvest the lazy will be imprisoned for six months and every third day their nourishment shall be only bread and water.

2.--Lazy women shall be exiled to Holnon to work. After the harvest the women will be imprisoned six months.

3.--The children who do not work shall be punished with blows from a club.

Furthermore, the commandant reserves the right to punish men who do not work with twenty blows from a club daily.

Workmen in the Commune of Verdelles have been punished severely.

(Signed) GLOSE, COLONEL AND COMMANDANT.

APPENDIX V

HOW GERMANS TREAT ALSACE-LORRAINE

Von Bethmann-Hollweg, Count von Hertling and Herr von Kuhlmann state that Alsace-Lorraine is a province of the German Empire by right and by fact, and that it is firmly attached to Germany.

The following picture shows how this _German_ province is treated by Germany:

_Treatment of the Civilian Population_

The Government has established for the duration of the war an insurmountable barrier between Alsace-Lorraine, which is called a territory of the Empire, and the rest of the German states. Briefly, Alsace-Lorraine is treated as a suspect.

An inhabitant of Alsace-Lorraine can not mail his letters in Germany.

For example, Wissembourg is on the border of the Palatinate. There is a great temptation for the citizens of this town to a.s.sure a rapid delivery of their letters and their escape from annoying censors.h.i.+p by making use of the German mail system. A music teacher, Mlle. Lina Sch---- was sentenced to pay a fine of one hundred marks in March, 1917, for an infraction of this sort. The war council at Saarbruck, which p.r.o.nounced this sentence, had already, in June, 1916, sentenced for like cause, the Spanish Consul, to the payment of a fine of eighty marks because he had allowed a citizen of Sarreguimine to have letters to his sons, who were refugees at Lausanne, addressed to the Spanish Consulate.

In addition, German hostility to the Alsatians is shown by a number of childish measures against Alsatian uniforms and costumes, in proportion as they resemble the French.

In all seriousness the question arose of forbidding the Catholic Clergy to wear the soutane, as it was the custom in the Latin countries. It was given up; but steps were taken in the case of the firemen.

The _Nouvelle Gazette_ of Stra.s.sburg published an official notice, dated the ninth of December, 1915, which emphasized an order suppressing the uniforms worn by the Alsatian firemen because the cut was French, as was the cap, and complained that this order was not everywhere observed:

Recently, in the course of a fire which broke out near Molsheim, it is an established fact that the firemen wore their old Alsatian uniforms, and that the fire alarm was sounded by means of the old clarions of the type in use in France. The _Kreisdirection_ finds itself obliged to insist that the suppressed uniforms disappear, and that the clarions do likewise; and to ask that it be informed of contraventions that happen in the future.

Other societies and a.s.sociations, such as the singing societies which frequently still wear uniforms recalling those of the French collegians, ought to lay aside the forbidden garments, which are to be entrusted to the guard of the police.

But these puerilities seem insignificant compared to other things to which the people of Alsace-Lorraine have been subjected, things which unite them more firmly than ever to the French and the Belgians of the invaded regions.

The great deportations which have been practiced in France and Belgium have been repeated in Alsace as recently as January, 1917. The inhabitants of Mulhausen between the ages of seventeen and sixty years were a.s.sembled in the barracks at that place, whence they were sent into the interior of Germany.

This proceeding has been practiced on a large scale since the war's beginning. Preventive imprisonment, called _Schutzhaft_, was applied to Messin Samain, who was first incarcerated at Cologne and then sent to the Russian front, where he was killed. It was also applied to M.