e ground and all the hostages
taken from the city (a long list of whom is given in the proclamation)
immediately shot.

The evidence, however, submitted to the committee with regard to the
conduct of the German Army in France is not nearly so full as that with
regard to Belgium. There is no body of civilian refugees in England, and
the French witnesses have generally laid their evidence before their own
Government. The evidence forwarded to us consists principally of the
statements of British officers and soldiers who took part in the retreat
after the battle of Mons and in the subsequent advance, following the
Germans from the Marne. The area covered is relatively small, and it is
from French reports that any complete account of what occurred in the
invaded districts in France as a whole must be obtained.

Naturally, soldiers in a foreign country, with which they were
unacquainted, cannot be expected always to give accurately the names of
villages through which they passed on their marches, but this does not
prevent their evidence from being definite as to what they actually saw
in the farms and houses where the German troops had recently been. Many
shocking outrages are recorded. Three examples may here suffice; others
are given in the appendix. A Sergeant who had been through the retreat
from Mons and then taken part in the advance from the Marne, and who had
been engaged in driving out some German troops from a village, states
that his troop halted outside a bakery just inside the village. It was a
private house where baking was done, "not like our bakeries here." Two
or three women were standing at the door. The women motioned them to
come into the house, as did also three civilian Frenchmen who were
there. They took them into a garden at the back of the house. At the end
of the garden was the bakery. They saw two old men between 60 and 70
years of age and one old woman lying close to each other in the garden.
All three had the scalps cut right through and the brains were hanging
out. They were still bleeding. Apparently they had only just been
killed. The three French civilians belonged to this same house. One of
them spoke a few words of English. He gave them to understand that these
three had been killed by the Germans because they had refused to bake
bread for them.

Another witness states that two German soldiers took hold of a young
civilian named D. and bound his hands behind his back, and struck him in
t