h which we
recaptured: "Every day we take many prisoners, but they are shot at once
as we no longer know where to put them."

Think of the diary in which a German soldier near Peronne recorded his
impressions of the day: "They lay in heaps of ten or twelve, some dead
and some still living. Those who could still walk were marched off.
Those who were wounded in the head or lungs, and could not lift
themselves up, were finished off with a bullet. That is the order which
we got."

A German soldier, while being nursed in a hospital at Nancy, confided to
Dr. Roemer that the wound in his stomach "had been inflicted on him by a
German N.C.O. because he refused to finish off a wounded Frenchman."

Wounded were not only massacred on the field of battle, but field
hospitals were also the scene of atrocities. At Gomery, in a casualty
clearing station, under Dr. Sedillot, there were numerous wounded
remaining in the German lines. A German officer with twenty-five men
visited the place and inspected it and retired, saying that all was in
order. But a N.C.O. and a party of soldiers remained in the street
outside. They were excited and kept shouting, "It is war to the death,"
and making signs of cutting throats. They rushed in and with their
revolvers shot down Dr. Sedillot (who happily survived, with others, to
give evidence), and set fire to the place. Maddened by the flames, the
wounded (many of whom had had amputations performed on them that very
morning) leapt from the windows on the first floor and fell into the
garden, where the executioners picked them up, gathering them in a
bunch, and shot them. In this way Lieutenant Jeannin and Dr. Charette
were murdered, and from one hundred to one hundred and twenty officers
and soldiers--whose wounds should have made them sacred--perished from
shot or fire after terrible sufferings.

When all is said, however, it is better to kill wounded soldiers by fire
or sword than by starvation, as the following incident shows: One
hundred wounded Frenchmen, together with Dr. Bender, were brought to the
Stenay barracks, and one hundred and eighty more came in shortly
afterwards; the latter, having been left out unattended on the
battle-field for five days, were in a terrible condition. Dr. Bender in
vain begged the Germans for help in getting the wounded men out of the
ambulances into the hospital. The Boches refused, and simply went on
sucking their pipes. Though wounded himself, the doctor, wi