ng Munich paper, "We had arrested three other
civilians when a 'good idea' struck me. We made them sit on chairs in
the middle of the street;--supplications from them, and blows with
butt-ends of rifles from us. At last they were seated outside in the
street with their hands convulsively clasped together. I felt sorry for
them, but the plan worked at once. As I learnt later, the regiment which
entered Saint-Die, further to the north of us, had precisely similar
experiences to our own. The civilians, whom they had put in the same
way in the middle of the street, were killed by French bullets. I saw
their dead bodies."[17]
FOOTNOTES:
[17] We have not, so far, come across any attempted justification, by
German authors, of these cowardly acts; but such we shall have without
fail. It is probable that the 93 "intellectuals" whose manifesto we
recall to memory a few pages further on are preparing a fresh "appeal to
the civilized world" with a view to explaining that the German
troops--the representatives and trustees of _Kultur_--are authorised by
God Himself to use _every means_ for the protection of their precious
lives.
MARTYRDON OF CIVILIAN PRISONERS
After having burnt our villages,[18] and shot the inhabitants by dozens
in some places, and by hundreds in others, they frequently deported all
or a part of the survivors to Germany. It is impossible at this moment
to establish the number of those deported, but they were sent off by
tens of thousands. These unfortunate people, men, women and children,
who had witnessed and survived fires and massacres, who had seen their
houses blazing and so many of those dear to them fall under the bullets
of the assassin, and who were forced in some places to dig graves for
their victims, and in others to hold a light for the executioners while
they were finishing off the wounded,--these poor wretches are despatched
to Germany.[19] What a journey, and what a place of residence!
Let us quote one story among a thousand. "Our escort was commanded by
two German officers. They were unapproachable. Anyone who tried to speak
to them was threatened with a revolver. In order that we might get a
drink, we were made to collect empty meat tins which served as our
drinking cups until we reached Cassel. We were abused and threatened
wherever we went. Sometimes they made signs to us that they were going
to shoot us, or hang us, or cut our heads off. They threw filth at our
heads and
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