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N.B.—If it is desired to sing this as a simple Hymn, the Melody of the 3rd verse should be omitted and the words sung to the opening eight bars, as in the 1st and 2nd verses

(Copyright by The New York Times Company.)

The article which follows was written by H.G. Wells for publication in England. The British censor, however, refused to permit its appearance there, and thus it was printed in the United States for the first time byThe New York Timeson Feb. 7, 1915. In the development of his argument Mr. Wells points out that "the Dutch hold a sword at the back of Germany." That Holland has no intention of sheathing this sword, so removing a menace from Germany, is indicated by the recent cable from The Hague telling of the message sent by the Government to the Second Chamber of the Legislature dealing with pending legislation to prolong the term of enlistment in the regular army, in which this language is used: "The position of our country demands today, as it did in August, that our entire military force should be at all times available."

WHAT changes for Holland are likely to result from the present war?

Let me, as an irresponsible journalist, try to estimate them, and try to forecast what Holland is likely to do in the next few months. I do not want for a moment to suggest what Dutchmen ought to do; this preaching to highly intelligent neutrals is not a writer's business, but I want to imagine how things must look in the private mind of a wary patriotic Hollander, and to guess what may be the outcome. Because in many ways Holland does seem to hold the key to the present situation.

It is clear that whatever fears may have been felt for the integrity of Holland at the beginning of the war must now be very much abated. The risk of Germany attacking Holland diminishes with each day of German failure, and the whole case and righteousness of the Allies rests upon their respect for Holland. Holland's position as regards Germany now is extraordinarily strong materially, and as regards the Allies it is overwhelmingly strong morally. She has behaved patiently and sanely through a trying crisis. She has endured much almost inevitable provocation and temptation with dignity and honesty. Were she now subjected to any German outrage she could strike with her excellent army of 400,000 men at Aix-la-Chapelle, and turn repulse into rapid disaster.

That is the interesting thing about the Dutch position now. The Dutch hold a sword at the back of Germany. Were they to come into the war on the German side, they would, no doubt, provide a most effective but certainly not a decisive reinforcement to the German western front, but they would also lay open a convenient way for the Allies to the vital part of Germany, Westphalia. But were they to come in on the side of the Allies they would at once deliver a conclusive blow. They could cut the main communications of the German army in Flanders, they could round up and assist to capture a very large portion of the German western forces, and they could open the road not only to attack but to turn the Rhine defenses. In fact, they could finish Germany.

This situation is already fairly obvious; I betray no strategic secret; it must become manifest to every Dutchman before many more weeks. One has but to look at the map. Every day now diminishes the possibility of Germany being able to make any effective counterattack, any Belgian destruction, in Holland, and every day increases the weight of the blow that Holland may deliver. What are the chances that Holland may not ultimately realize to the full the possibilities of that blow and join the Allies?

Against her doing so is the consideration that she is doing very well as she is. She keeps her freedom. Practically the Allies fight to secure it for her. The dread of Germanization which has hung over Holland for forty years seems to recede.

And, of course, as a secondary restraining force there is the reasonable fear of devastation. The "good German" vindictiveness might make one last supreme effort.

But, on the other hand, is she really doing as well as it seems? Unless she intervenes this war will probably last for another full year. She wants it to end. It is a terrible oppression. Her army must remain mobilized, even if it does not fight. Her trade stagnates. She is incumbered by refugees. What if she struck to end the war and get the tension over? Not now, perhaps, but presently. Simultaneously with the Franco-British counter-stroke that now draws near.

And what if she struck also for a hatred of what has happened to Belgium? Suppose the Dutch are not so much frightened by the horrible example of Belgium as indignant. My impression of the Dutch—and we English know something of the Dutch spirit—is that they are a people not easily cowed. Suppose that they have not only a reasonable fear but a reasonable hatred of "frightfulness." Suppose that an intelligent fellow-feeling for a small nation has filled them with a desire to give Germany a lesson. There, it may be, is a second reason why Holland should come in.

And by coming in, there is something more than the mere termination of a strain and the vindication of international righteousness to consider. There is the possibility, and not only the possibility but the possible need, that Holland should come out of this world war aggrandized. I want to lay stress upon that, because it may prove a decisive factor in this matter.

The Dutch desire aggrandizement for the sake of aggrandizement as little as any nation in Europe. But what if the path of aggrandizement be also the path of safety?

It is clear that both France and Belgium will demand and receive territorial compensation for these last months of horror. It is ridiculous to suppose that the Germans may fling war in its most atrocious and filthy form over Belgium and some of the sweetest parts of France without paying bitterly and abundantly for the freak.

Quite apart from indemnities, France and Belgium must push forward their boundaries so far that if ever Germany tries another rush she will have to rush for some days through her own lost lands. The only tolerable frontier against Germans is a day's march deep in Germany. Of course, Liége will have to be covered in the future by Belgian annexations in the Aix region and stretching toward Cologne, and France will go to the Rhine. I think Belgium as well as France will be forced to go to the Rhine.

It is no good talking now of buffer States, because the German conscience cannot respect them. Buffer States are just anvil States. At any rate, very considerable annexations of German territory by Belgium and France are now inevitable, and Holland must expect a much larger and stronger Belgium to the south of her, allied firmly to France and England.

And to the north is it very likely that the British will be able to tolerate the continued German possession of the Frisian Islands? These islands, and the coast of East Friesland, have had but one use in German hands, and that use has been the preparation of attacks on England. Clearly the British may decide to have no more of such attacks. Every advance in scientific warfare may make them more dangerous and exasperating. The British intend soberly and sanely to do their utmost to make a repetition of the present war impossible. To secure this they may find it necessary to have Germany out of the North Sea. But they have no desire whatever to take either the Frisian Islands or East Friesland, if Holland will save them that trouble.

Now, suppose the Dutch will not think of this now. Suppose, for the want of their aid, the Allies are unable to press the war to the complete regimentation of Germany, what will be the position of Holland in twenty years' time?

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She will stand between England and Germany. A Germany incompletely beaten means an Anglophobe Germany. Belgium and France expanded, recuperated, allied, linked by a common literature and language, may be too formidable for another German attack. So that there is the possibility that in twenty years' time or so Germany, recovering and vindictive, may in some way contrive to hold off France and Belgium, and try her luck against England alone. By that time submarine and aeroplane may be so developed as to render a German attack on England much more hopeful than it is at present, especially by way of the Rhine mouth. What, in the light of the Belgian experience and the new doctrine of a "right of way," will be the outlook for a little isolated Holland, as small as she is now, as a buffer State in such a case.

She has always been claimed as a part of the great Pan-German scheme, and at any time she may find the German heel upon her face, vindictively punishing her for her lack of enthusiasm for Teutonic brotherhood. Hadn't she better get herself a little larger and stronger now; hadn't she better help to make the ending of the German threat more conclusive, and link herself definitely with the grand alliance of the Western Powers? Now she could make a very good bargain indeed. If she inquired she would find Britain ready enough to guarantee the integrity and protection of Holland's colonial empire forever by the British fleet. All the four Western Powers, France, Belgium, Holland, Britain, would be willing to make the most binding pledges for such mutual protection. It is the manifest common-sense of the settlement that they should set up such a collective guarantee. And, in addition, there are those Frisian Islands, and East Friesland, and that dangerous wedge that Germany drives into Holland along the Rhine. It is not difficult to map a very much improved Dutch frontier along the Ems, and thence striking down to the Rhine and meeting the iron country on the left bank of the Rhine, whose annexation and exploitation is Belgium's legitimate compensation for her devastation and sufferings. Here are the makings of a safer Greater Holland! Thousands of Dutchmen must be looking on the map at the present time and thinking such things as this. There, clearly and attractively, is the price of alliance.

The price of neutrality is an intact Holland—and a certain isolation in the years ahead. But still, I admit, a not unhappy Holland, Dutch and free. Until a fresh Anglo-German struggle begins. Yet, be it noted, a Holland a little helpless and friendless if some renascent Asiatic Power should presently covet her Eastern possessions.

The price of participation with Germany, on the other hand, is complete envelopment in the warm embrace of the "good German brotherhood"—the gradual substitution of the German language for the Dutch, and a Germanization of such colonies as the Allies may still leave for Holland, frequent State visits from Kaisers, and the subordination of Dutch mercantile interests to those of Hamburg and Altona and (Germanized) Antwerp. And—the everlasting howling everywhere of "Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles."

(No! No! They will never fight for the Germans. No sane people will ever fight for the Germans if they can possibly avoid it. Not even our press censorship, not even the Maximilian Krafts in our silliest weekly papers will provoke Holland to that.)

But I have a sort of feeling, for the reasons I have stated, that even without any serious breach of Dutch neutrality by the Germans, Holland may decide presently to put her troops beside the Belgians. And if, as is always possible, the Germans do make some lumpish onslaught upon Dutch neutrality, then I am convinced that at once that sturdy little country will up and fight like the very devil. And do remarkably well by it.

And I have a much stronger feeling that presently the Dutch Government will ask the Germans to reconsider their proposed annexation of Belgium. Upon that point Holland has absolutely dictatorial power at the present moment. She could secure the independence of Belgium at the cost of a little paper and ink, she could force Germany to evacuate her sister country by the mere movement of her army.

Having been instructed to investigate atrocities said to have been committed by the Germans in portions of French territory which had been occupied by them, a commission composed of four representatives of the French Government repaired to these districts in order to make a thorough investigation. The commission was composed of M. Georges Payelle, First President of the Cour des Comptes; Armand Mollard, Minister Plenipotentiary; Georges Maringer, Counselor of State, and Edmond Paillot, Counselor of the Cour de Cassation.They started on their mission late in September last and visited the Departments of Seine-et-Marne, Marne, Meuse, Meurthe-et-Moselle, Oise, and Aisne. According to the report, they made note only of those accusations against the invaders which were backed up by reliable testimony and discarded everything that might have been occasioned by the exigencies of war.

They started on their mission late in September last and visited the Departments of Seine-et-Marne, Marne, Meuse, Meurthe-et-Moselle, Oise, and Aisne. According to the report, they made note only of those accusations against the invaders which were backed up by reliable testimony and discarded everything that might have been occasioned by the exigencies of war.

Presented to the President of the Council by the commission instituted with a view to investigating acts committed by the enemy in violation of international law. Decree of Sept. 23, 1914. MM. Georges Payelle, First President of the Cour des Comptes; Armand Mollard, Minister Plenipotentiary; Georges Maringer, Counselor of State, and Edmond Paillot, Counselor at the Court of Appeal.

To the President of the Council of Ministers:

SIR: Having been appointed by virtue of a decree of the 23d of last September to carry out on the spot an inquiry in relation to acts committed in violation of international law in the portions of French territory occupied by the enemy which have been reconquered by the armies of the republic, we have the honor to lay before you the first results of our mission.

We have already a full harvest of information to submit. It includes, however, a very limited part of the findings at which we should have been able to arrive if we had not submitted all the evidence which was laid before us to severe criticism and rigorous examination. We have indeed believed it to be our duty only to place on record those facts which, being established beyond dispute, constitute with absolute certainty what may be clearly termed crimes, omitting those the proofs of which were, in our view, insufficient, or which, however destructive or cruel they were, might have been the result of acts of war properly so-called, rather than of willful excesses, attributable to the enemy.

Thus we are convinced that none of the incidents which we have investigated could be disputed in good faith. In addition the proof of each of them does not depend only on our personal observations; it is founded chiefly on photographs and on a mass of evidence received in judicial form, with the sanction of an oath.

The lamentable sights which we have had before our eyes have made the task to which we all four addressed ourselves, with a close association of ideas and feelings, a very grievous one. It would indeed have been too painful, if we had not found a powerful support in the sight of the wonderful troops whom we met at the front, in the welcome of the military leaders whose kind assistance has never failed us, and in the sight of the population who bear unprecedented calamities with the most dignified resignation. In the districts which we crossed, and particularly in that country of Lorraine which was so frequently the victim of the scourge of war, not one entreaty for help, not one moan, reached our ears; and yet the terrible misery of which we have been witness surpasses in extent and horror anything which the imagination can conceive. On every side our eyes rested on ruin. Whole villages have been destroyed by bombardment or fire; towns formerly full of life are now nothing but deserts full of ruins; and, in visiting the scenes of desolation where the invader's torch has done its work, one feels continually as though one were walking among the remains of one of those cities of antiquity which have been annihilated by the great cataclysms of nature.

In truth it can be stated that never has a war carried on between civilized nations assumed the savage and ferocious character of the one which at this moment is being waged on our soil by an implacable adversary. Pillage, rape, arson, and murder are the common practice of our enemies; and the facts which have been revealed to us day by day at once constitute definite crimes against common rights, punished by the codes of every country with the most severe and the most dishonoring penalties, and which prove an astonishing degeneration in German habits of thought since 1870.

Crimes against women and young girls have been of appalling frequency. We have proved a great number of them, but they only represent an infinitesimal proportion of those which we could have taken up. Owing to a sense of decency, which is deserving of every respect, the victims of these hateful acts usually refuse to disclose them. Doubtless fewer would have been committed if the leaders of an army whose discipline is most rigorous had taken any trouble to prevent them; yet, strictly speaking, they can only be considered as the individual and spontaneous acts of uncaged beasts. But with regard to arson, theft, and murder the case is very different; the officers, even those of the highest station, will bear before humanity the overwhelming responsibility for these crimes.

In the greater part of the places where we carried on our inquiry we came to the conclusion that the German Army constantly professes the most complete contempt for human life, that its soldiers, and even its officers, do not hesitate to finish off the wounded, that they kill without pity the inoffensive inhabitants of the territories which they have invaded, and they do not spare in their murderous rage women, old men, or children. The wholesale shootings at Lunéville, Gerbéviller, Nomeny, and Senlis are terrible examples of this; and in the course of this report you will read the story of scenes of carnage in which officers themselves have not been ashamed to take part.

The mind refuses to believe that all these butcheries should have taken place without justification. Still, it is so! It is true that the Germans have always advanced the same pretext for them, alleging that civilians had begun by firing upon them. This allegation is a lie, and those who advance it have been unable to give it any probability, even by firing rifle shots in the neighborhood of houses, as they are accustomed to do in order to be able to state that they have been attacked by an innocent population on whose ruin or massacre they have resolved. We have many times ascertained the truth of this; here is one among others:

One evening the Abbé Colin, Curé of Croismare, was standing near an officer when the report of a gun rang out. The latter cried, "Monsieur le Curé, that is enough to cause you to be shot as well as the Burgomaster, and for a farm to be burned; look, there is one on fire." "Sir," replied the priest, "you are too intelligent not to recognize the sharp sound of your German rifle. For my part, I recognize it." The German did not press the point.

Personal liberty, like human life, is the object of complete scorn on the part of the German military authorities. Almost everywhere citizens of every age have been dragged from their homes and led into captivity, many have died or been killed on the way.

Arson, still more than murder, forms the usual procedure of our adversaries. It is employed by them either as a means of systematic devastation or as a means of terrorism. The German Army, in order to provide for it, possesses a complete outfit, which comprises torches, grenades, rockets, petrol pumps, fuse-sticks, and little bags of pastilles made of compressed powder which are very inflammable. The lust for arson is manifested chiefly against churches and against monuments which have some special interest, either artistic or historical.

In the departments through which we have gone thousands of houses have been burned, but we have only investigated in our inquiry fires which have been occasioned by exclusively criminal intention, and we have not believed it our duty to deal with those that have been caused by shells in the course of violent fighting, or due to circumstances which it has not been possible to determine with absolute certainty, such as those at Villotte-devant-Louppy, Rembercourt, Mognéville, Amblaincourt, Pretz, Louppy-le-Château, and other places. The few inhabitants who remained among the ruins furnished us with information in absolute good faith on this subject.

We have constantly found definite evidence of theft, and we do not hesitate to state that where a body of the enemy has passed it has given itself up to a systematically organized pillage, in the presence of its leaders, who have even themselves often taken part in it. Cellars have been emptied to the last bottle, safes have been gutted, considerable sums of money have been stolen or extorted; a great quantity of plate and jewelry, as well as pictures, furniture, objets d'art, linen, bicycles, women's dresses, sewing machines, even down to children's toys, after having been taken away, have been loaded on vehicles to be taken toward the frontier.

The inhabitants have had no redress against all these exactions, any more than they have for the crimes already described; and if some wretched inhabitant dared to beg an officer to be good enough to intervene to spare a life or to protect his goods he received no other reply (when he was not greeted by threats) than the one invariable formula, accompanied by a smile, describing these most abominable cruelties as the inevitable results of war.

As you have already learned from reading the documents of which we have sent you copies, we proceeded first to the Department of Seine-et-Marne. We there collected proofs of numerous abuses of the laws of war, as well as of crimes committed against common rights by the enemy, some of which exhibited features of special gravity.

At Chauconin the Germans set fire to five dwelling houses and to six buildings used for agricultural purposes with the assistance of grenades, which they threw on to the roofs, and with sticks of resin which they placed under the doors. M. Lagrange asked an officer the reason of such acts and the latter merely replied: "It is war." Then he ordered M. Lagrange to point out to him the situation of the property known as the Farm Proffit, and a few moments later the buildings of this farm were in flames.

At Congis a body of the enemy were engaged in burning a score of houses, into which they had thrown straw and poured petrol, when the arrival of a French detachment prevented them from carrying out their design.

At Penchard, where three houses had been burned, Mme. Marius René saw a soldier carrying a torch which, stuck in his belt, appeared to form part of his equipment.

At Barcy an officer and soldier made their way to the Mairie, and, after having taken all the blankets belonging to the schoolmaster, set fire to the muniment room.

At Douy-la-Ramé the Germans set fire to a mill, whose situation they had ascertained by inquiry in the neighborhood. A workman 66 years old had a narrow escape from being thrown into the flames. By struggling violently and clutching on to a wall he was able to avoid the fate with which he was threatened. Finally, at Courtaçon, after having compelled the inhabitants to furnish them with matches and faggots, they sprinkled a great number of houses with petrol and set them ablaze. The village, a great part of which is in ruins, presents a lamentable appearance.

Together with these crimes against property, we have been able to place on record in the Department of Seine-et-Marne many grave offenses against the person.

Early in September a German cavalryman arrived one day at about 5 o'clock in the afternoon at the house of M. Laforest, at May-en-Multien, and asked for a drink. M. Laforest hurried off to draw some wine from the cask, but the German, no doubt annoyed at not being served quickly enough, fired his rifle at the wife of his host, who was seriously wounded. Taken to Livry-sur-Ourcq, Mme. Laforest was there cared for by a German doctor and had her left arm amputated. She died recently in the hospital at Meaux.

On Sept. 8 eighteen inhabitants of Vareddes, among whom was the priest, were arrested without cause and led away by the enemy. Three of them escaped. None of the others had returned up to Sept. 30, the day we were there. From information collected, three of these men were murdered. Anyhow, the death of one of the oldest among them, M. Jourdain, aged 73, is certain.

Dragged as far as the village of Coulombs and being unable to walk further, the unfortunate man received a bayonet wound in the forehead and a revolver bullet through the heart.

At about the same time a man of 66, named Dalissier, living at Congis, was ordered by the Germans to give up his purse to them. When he proved unable to give them any money, he was tied up with a halter and ruthlessly shot. The marks of about fifteen bullets were found on his dead body.

On the 3d of September, at Mary-sur-Marne, M. Mathe, terrified at the arrival of the German troops, attempted to hide himself under the counter of a wine shop. He was found in his hiding place and killed by a thrust of a knife or bayonet in the chest.

At Sancy-les-Provins, on the 6th of September, about 9 o'clock at night, about eighty people were summarily arrested and imprisoned in a sheep pen. On the next day thirty of them were taken by an officer's order some five kilometers from the village to the barn called "Pierrelez," where a German Red Cross ambulance was established. There an army doctor (médecin-major) addressed some words to the wounded under his charge, who at once proceeded to load four rifles and two revolvers, their intention being obvious. Moreover, a French hussar, who had been wounded in the arm and taken prisoner, said to the priest, while asking him for absolution: "I am going to be shot, and it will be your turn next." After having done as the soldier asked him, the priest, unbuttoning his cassock, went and took his place between the Mayor and another of his fellow-citizens, against a wall along which the hostages were lined up; but at this moment two Frenchchasseurs à chevalsuddenly arrived, and the doctors, with their ambulance staff, surrendered to these soldiers, near whom the hussar had hastened to place himself.

As showing the responsibility of officers of high rank for these proceedings, it is interesting to note that the schoolmaster at Sancy, when he was about to be taken off with the others, was allowed to retain his freedom as a favor by General von Dutag, who was quartered on him.

On the 6th of the same month, after having set on fire some of the houses in Courtaçon, a body of soldiers, believed to belong to the Imperial Guard, took five men and a child of thirteen out into the fields, and exposed them to the French fire so long as the engagement lasted. In the confines of the same commune, Edmond Rousseau, liable to serve in the 1914 class, was arrested for the sole reason that his age marked him out as being on the eve of being called up to the colors, and was murdered under tragic circumstances.

The Mayor, who was one of the hostages, when questioned as to the position of this youth from the military point of view, replied that Rousseau had passed the medical examination, that he had been declared fit for service, but that his class had not yet been called up. The Germans thereupon made the prisoner strip, in order to satisfy themselves of his physical condition, then put his trousers on again, and shot him within fifty meters of his fellow-citizens.

The town of Coulommiers has suffered considerable pillage. Plate, linen, and boots were taken away, principally from empty houses, and a large number of bicycles were loaded on motor wagons. The Germans occupied this place from the 5th to the 7th of September. On this day before they left they arrested, without any pretext, the Mayor and the Procureur de la République, and an officer grossly insulted them. These two officials were kept in custody until the next morning, together with the Secretary of the Mairie. Guards were set over the Procureur during the night, and did their best to persuade him by remarks exchanged between them that his execution was imminent.

It is generally believed at Coulommiers that criminal attempts have been made on many women of that town, but only one crime of this nature has been proved for certain. A charwoman, Mme. X., was the victim. A soldier came to her house on the 6th of September, toward 9:30 in the evening, and sent away her husband to go and search for one of his comrades in the street. Then, in spite of the fact that two small children were present, he tried to rape the young woman. X., when he heard his wife's cries, rushed back, but was driven off with blows of the butt of the man's rifle into a neighboring room, of which the door was left open, and his wife was forced to suffer the consummation of the outrage. The rape took place almost under the eyes of the husband, who, being terrorized, did not dare to intervene, and used his efforts only to calm the terror of his children.

In the same way, Mme. X., at Sancy-les-Provins, and Mme. Z., at Beton-Bazoches, were the victims of similar outrages. The former was forced to submit to the will of a soldier with a revolver at her throat; the second, in spite of her resistance, was thrown upon a bed and outraged in the presence of her little daughter, aged 3. The husbands of these two women have been with the army since the commencement of the war.

On the 6th of September, at Guérard, where two workmen, Maitrier and Didelot, had been killed at the outposts, the enemy took possession of six hostages. One only was able to escape and return to his village.

At Mauperthuis, on the same day, four Germans who had already gone in the morning to the house of M. Roger, presented themselves there again at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. "There were three of you here this morning, and now you are only two. Come out," said one of them. Immediately Roger and a refugee named M. Denet, who was a guest in the house, were seized and led away. The next day, at the end of the village, Mme. Roger found the body of her husband, pierced by two bullets. Denet had also been shot, and his body was discovered some little time afterward in such a state of decomposition as to make it impossible to ascertain the nature of the wounds which the unfortunate man had received.

In a hamlet in the same commune, M. Fournier, caretaker of a farm at Champbrisset, resided with a Swiss named Knell. The Germans took them on a cart as far as Vaudoy and murdered them. An inhabitant of Voinsles, named Cartier, suffered the same fate. As he passed on his bicycle along a road a little way from Vaudoy, he was stopped by the Germans, who searched his bag, in which was a revolver. Cartier, without any resistance, gave up his weapon of his own accord. His eyes were bandaged, and he was shot then and there.

On the 8th of September at Sablonnières, where there were scenes of general pillage, M. Delaitre, who had left his house during the battle to take refuge under a culvert, was discovered in his hiding place by a German soldier, who fired at him five times; he died the same day.

General Castelnau

GENERAL CASTELNAU

One of the Most Conspicuous of the French Commanders.

General Dubail

GENERAL DUBAIL

Commanding the French Forces Operating Around Verdun.

(Photo©International News Service.)

At the same place, M. Jules Griffaut, 66 years of age, was herding his cows peacefully in a field, when a detachment of the enemy passed 150 meters from him. A soldier who was alone in the rear of the column took aim at him, and shot him in the face. It is proper to add that a German officer took the trouble to have the wounded man attended to by a German army doctor, and that Griffaut recovered fairly soon.

At Rebais, on the 4th of September, at 11 in the evening, the Germans, after pillaging the jeweler's shop of M. Pantereau and loading the goods which they had taken on to a cart, set fire to the house. They also burned three private houses in the Rue de l'Etang by throwing lighted straw into them.

In this little town serious acts of violence were committed. M. Auguste Griffaut, 79 years of age, was treated with horrible brutality. They repeatedly struck him on the head with their fists. A revolver shot grazed his head. His watch and his purse, containing 800 francs, were stolen from his person.

On the same day, some German soldiers grossly ill-treated Mme. X., a wine-shop keeper, aged 29, on the pretense that she was hiding English soldiers. They undressed her and kept her in the middle of them completely naked for one and a half hours; then they tied her to her counter, giving her to understand that they were going to shoot her. They were, however, called out just then, and went away, leaving their victim in charge of an Alsatian soldier, who untied her and restored her to liberty.

Again, on the 4th of September, other soldiers attempted to rape Mme. Z., 34 years of age, after having sacked her grocery shop. Angered by her resistance, they tried to hang her, but she cut the rope with a knife which was open in her pocket. She was then beaten mercilessly until the arrival of an officer, who was fetched by a witness of the scene.

At St. Denis-les-Rebais, on the 7th of September, a Uhlan obliged Mme. X. to undress, threatening her with his rifle; then he threw her on a mattress and raped her while her mother-in-law, powerless to intervene, endeavored to keep her grandson, 8 years old, from this revolting sight.

On the same day, at the hamlet of Marais, in the Commune of Jouv-sur-Morin, the three daughters of Mme. X., aged respectively 18, 15, and 13, were with their sick mother when two German soldiers entered, seized the eldest, dragged her into the next room and raped her in succession; while one committed his crime, the other watched the door and with his weapons kept back the half-maddened mother.

Frightful scenes occurred at the Château de —— in the neighborhood of La Ferté-Gaucher. There lived there an old gentleman, M. X., with his servant, Mlle. Y., 54 years old. On Sept. 5 several Germans, among whom was a non-commissioned officer, were in occupation of this property. After they had been supplied with food, the non-commissioned officer proposed to a refugee, a Mme. Z., that she should sleep with him; she refused. M. X., to save her from the designs of which she was the object, sent her to his farm, which was in the neighborhood. The German ran there to fetch her, dragged her back to the château and led her to the attic; then, having completely undressed her, he tried to violate her. At this moment M. X., wishing to protect her, fired revolver shots on the staircase and was immediately shot.

The non-commissioned officer then made Mme. X. come out of the attic, obliged her to step over the corpse of the old man, and led her to a closet, where he again made two unsuccessful attempts upon her. Leaving her at last, he threw himself upon Mlle. Y., having first handed Mme. Z. over to two soldiers, who, after having violated her, one once and the other twice, in the dead man's room, made her pass the night in a barn near them, where one of them twice more had sexual connection with her.

As for Mlle. Y., she was obliged, by threats of being shot, to strip herself completely naked and lie on a mattress with the non-commissioned officer, who kept her there until morning.

We have also taken note of the fact that, as appears from declarations made by a municipal councilor of Rebais, two English cavalrymen who were surprised and wounded in this commune were finished off with gunshots by the Germans when they were dismounted and when one of them had thrown up his hands, showing thus that he was unarmed.

In the Department of the Marne, as everywhere else, the German troops gave themselves up to general pillage, which was carried out always under similar conditions and with the complicity of their leaders. The Communes of Heiltz-le-Maurupt; Suippes, Marfaux, Fromentières, and Esternay suffered especially in this way. Everything which the invader could carry off from the houses was placed on motor lorries and vehicles. At Suippes, in particular, they carried off in this way a quantity of different objects, among these sewing machines and toys.

A great many villages, as well as important country towns, were burned without any reason whatever. Without doubt these crimes were committed by order, as German detachments arrived in the neighborhood with their torches, their grenades, and their usual outfit for arson.

At Lépine, a laborer named Caqué, in whose house two German cyclists were billeted, asked the latter if the grenades which he saw in their possession were destined for his house. They answered: "No, Lépine is finished with." At that moment nine houses in the village were burned out.

At Marfaux nineteen private houses were burned.

At le Gault-la-Forêt seven or eight houses were burned. Of the Commune of Glannes practically nothing remains. At Somme-Tourbe the entire village has been destroyed, with the exception of the Mairie, the church, and two private buildings.

At Auve nearly the whole town has been destroyed. At Etrepy sixty-three families out of seventy are homeless. At Huiron all the houses, with the exception of five, have been burned. At Sermaize-les-Bains only about forty houses out of 900 remain. At Bignicourt-sur-Saultz thirty houses out of thirty-three are in ruins.

At Suippes, the big market town which has been practically burned out, German soldiers carrying straw and cans of petrol have been seen in the streets. While the Mayor's house was burning, six sentinels with fixed bayonets were under orders to forbid any one to approach and to prevent any help being given.

All this destruction by arson, which only represents a small proportion of the acts of the same kind in the Department of Seine-et-Marne, was accomplished without the least tendency to rebellion or the smallest act of resistance being recorded against the inhabitants of the localities which are today more or less completely destroyed. In some villages the Germans, before setting fire to them, made one of their soldiers fire a shot from his rifle so as to be able to pretend afterward that the civilian population had attacked them, an allegation which is all the more absurd since at the time when the enemy arrived the only inhabitants left were old men, sick persons, or people absolutely without any means of aggression.

Numerous crimes against the person have also been committed. In the majority of the communes hostages have been taken away; many of them have not returned. At Sermaize-les-Bains, the Germans carried off about 150 people, some of whom were decked out with helmets and coats and compelled, thus equipped, to mount guard over the bridges.

At Bignicourt-sur-Saulx thirty men and forty-five women and children were obliged to leave with a detachment. One of the men—a certain Emile Pierre—has not returned nor sent any news of himself. At Corfélix, M. Jacquet, who was carried off on the 7th of September with eleven of his fellow-citizens, was found five hundred meters from the village with a bullet in his head.

At Champuis the curé, his maid-servant, and four other inhabitants, who were taken away the same day as the hostages of Corfélix, had not returned at the time of our visit to the place.

At the same place an old man of 70, named Jacquemin, was tied down in his bed by an officer and left in this state without food for three days. He died a little time after.

At Vert-la-Gravelle a farm-hand was killed. He was struck on the head with a bottle and his chest was run through with a lance.

The garde champêtre Brulefer of le Gault-la-Forêt was murdered at Maclaunay, where he had been taken by the Germans. His body was found with his head shattered and a wound on his chest.

At Champguyon, a commune which has been fired, a certain Verdier was killed in his father-in-law's house. The latter was not present at the execution, but he heard a shot and next day an officer said to him, "Son shot. He is under the ruins." In spite of the search made the body has not been found among them. It must have been consumed in the fire.

At Sermaize, the roadmaker Brocard was placed among a number of hostages. Just at the moment when he was being arrested with his son, his wife and his daughter-in-law in a state of panic rushed to throw themselves into the Saulx. The old man was able to free himself for a moment and ran in all haste after them and made several attempts to save them, but the Germans dragged him away pitilessly, leaving the two wretched women struggling in the river. When Brocard and his son were restored to liberty, four days afterward, and found the bodies, they discovered that their wives had both received bullet wounds in the head.

At Montmirail a scene of real savagery was enacted. On the 5th of September a non-commissioned officer flung himself almost naked on the widow Naudé, on whom he was billeted, and carried her into his room. This woman's father, François Fontaine, rushed up on hearing his daughter's cry. At once fifteen or twenty Germans broke through the door of the house, pushed the old man into the street, and shot him without mercy. Little Juliette Naudé opened the window at this moment and was struck in the stomach by a bullet, which went through her body. The poor child died after twenty-four hours of most dreadful suffering.

On the 6th of September at Champguyon, Mme. Louvet was present at the martyrdom of her husband. She saw him in the hands of ten or fifteen soldiers, who were beating him to death before his own house, and ran up and kissed him through the bars of the gate. She was brutally pushed back and fell, while the murderers dragged along the unhappy man covered with blood, begging them to spare his life and protesting that he had done nothing to be treated thus. He was finished off at the end of the village. When his wife found his body it was horribly disfigured. His head was beaten in, one of his eyes hung from the socket, and one of his wrists was broken.

At Esternay, on the 6th of September, toward 3 in the afternoon, thirty-five or forty Germans were leading away M. Lauranceau, when he made a sharp movement as if to free himself. He was immediately shot down.

In the same town the following facts have been laid before us:

During the night, between Sunday, the 6th of September, and Monday, the 7th, the soldiers who were scattered among the houses pillaging, discovered the widow Bouché, her two daughters, and Mmes. Lhomme and Macé, who had taken refuge under the cellar staircase. They ordered the two young girls to undress, then, as their mother tried to intervene, one of the soldiers, bringing his rifle to his shoulder, fired in the direction of the group of women. The bullet, after having struck Mme. Lhomme near the left elbow, broke the right arm of Mlle. Marcelle Bouché at the armpit. During the following day the young girl died as a result of her wound. According to the declarations made by witnesses, the wound was horrible to behold.

Further, our inquiry in the Department of the Marne established other crimes of which women were the victims.

On the 3rd of September, at Suippes, Mme. X., 72 years of age, was seized by a German soldier, who pushed the barrel of his revolver under her chin and brutally flung her on her bed. Her son-in-law rushed up at the noise, fortunately for her, at the moment when the rape was about to be consummated.

At the same place and time little ——, 11 years old, was for three hours the prey of a licentious soldier, who, having found her with her sick grandmother, dragged her to a deserted house and stopped her mouth with a handkerchief to prevent her crying out.

On the 7th of September, at Vitry-en-Perthois, Mme. X., aged 45, and Mme. Z., aged 89, were both raped; the latter died a fortnight later.

At Jussecourt-Minecourt, on the 8th of September, toward 9 in the evening, Mlle. X. was violated by four soldiers, who broke in the door of her room with the help of a billhook. All four flung themselves on this young girl, who was 21 years old, and ravished her in succession.

As the bombardment of open towns constitutes without doubt a violation of international law, we thought it necessary to go to Rheims, which was for eighty days bombarded by the Germans. We received a sworn statement from the Mayor, from which we learned that about 300 of the civilian population had already been killed; we saw that in different parts of the town numerous buildings had been destroyed, and we took note of the enormous and irreparable damage which had been inflicted on the cathedral. The bombardment has continued since the 7th of October, the day of our visit; the number of the victims, therefore, must now be very considerable. Every one knows how the unhappy town has suffered, and that the attitude of the municipality has been above all praise.

While we were working at the Hôtel de Ville, six shells were fired in the direction of this building. The fifth fell only a short distance from the principal front, and the sixth burst fifteen or twenty meters from the bureau.

Next day we went to the Château of Baye and witnessed the traces of the sack which this building has suffered. On the first floor a door which leads into a room next to a gallery, where the owner had collected valuable works of art, has been broken in; four glass cabinets have been broken and another has been opened. According to the declarations of the caretaker who, in the absence of her masters, was unable to acquaint us of the full extent of the damage, the principal objects stolen were jewels of Russian origin and gold medals. We noticed that the mounts covered with black velvet, which must have been taken out of the cases, were stripped of a part of the jewels which had previously been affixed to them.

Baron de Baye's room was in the greatest disorder. Numerous objects were strewn on the floor from the drawers which remained open. A writing table had been broken open. A Louis XVI. commode and a bureau à cylindre of the same period had been ransacked.

This room must have been occupied by a person of very high rank, for on the door there still remains a chalk inscription, "J.K. Hoheit." No one could give us exact information as to the identity of this "Highness"; however, a General who lodged in the house of M. Houllier, Town Councilor, told his host that the Duke of Brunswick and the staff of the Tenth Corps had occupied the château.

The same day we visited the Château of Beaumont, which is near Montmirail, and belongs to the Comte de la Rochefoucauld-Doudeauville. The wife of the caretaker declared that this house had been sacked by the Germans in the absence of its owners during an occupation which lasted from the 4th to the 6th of September. The invaders left it in an indescribable state of disorder and filth. The writing tables, bureaus, and safes had been broken open. The jewel boxes had been taken from the drawers and emptied.

On the doors of the rooms we could read inscriptions in chalk, among which we took note of the following: "Excellenz," "Major von Ledebur," "Graf Waldersee."

The Department of the Meuse, a great part of which the German armies still occupy, has suffered cruelly. Important communes there have been destroyed by fires lighted willfully by the Germans in the absence of any kind of military necessity, and without the population's having given any provocation for such atrocities by their attitude. This is the case particularly at Revigny, Sommeilles, Triaucourt, Bulainville, Clermont-en-Argonne, and Villers-aux-Vents.

The Germans having completely sacked the houses of Revigny and carried off their booty on vehicles, burned two-thirds of the town during three consecutive days from the 6th to the 9th of September, sprinkling the walls with petrol by means of hand pumps, and throwing into the houses little bags full of compressed powder in tablets. We have been furnished with specimens of these little bags and these tablets, as well as with fuse sticks of inflammable matter which had been left by the incendiaries.

The church, which was classed as a historical monument, and the Mairie with all its archives, have been destroyed.

Many inhabitants, among whom were children, have been taken away as hostages. They were, however, set at liberty next day, with the exception of M. Wladimir Thomas.

Few localities in the Department of the Meuse have suffered as much as the Commune of Sommeilles. It is nothing but a heap of ruins, having been completely burned on the 6th of September by a regiment of German infantry bearing the number fifty-one. The place was set on fire with help of machinelike bicycle pumps with which many of the soldiers were furnished.

This unhappy village was the scene of a terrible drama. At the commencement of the fire Mme. X., whose husband is with the colors, took refuge in the cellar of M. et Mme. Adnot, together with these latter and their four children, aged respectively 11, 5, 4, and 1-1/2 years. A few days afterward the bodies of all these unfortunate people were discovered in the middle of a pool of blood. Adnot had been shot, Mme. X. had her breast and right arm cut off; the little girl of 11 had a foot severed, the little boy of 5 had his throat cut. The woman X. and the little girl appeared to have been raped.

At Villers-aux-Vents, on the 8th of September, German officers invited the inhabitants who had not yet fled to leave their dwellings, warning them that the village was about to be burned, because, they alleged, three French soldiers had dressed themselves in civilian clothes; others gave the pretext that an installation of wireless telegraphy had been found in a house. The threat was carried out so rigorously that one house alone remains standing.

At Vaubecourt, where six dwelling houses were burned by the Württemburgers, fire was set to a barn with straw piled up by the soldiers.

At Triaucourt the Germans gave themselves up to the worst excesses. Angered doubtless by the remark which an officer had addressed to a soldier, against whom a young girl of 19, Mlle. Hélène Procès, had made complaint on account of the indecent treatment to which she had been subjected, they burned the village and made a systematic massacre of the inhabitants. They began by setting fire to the house of an inoffensive householder, M. Jules Gand, and by shooting this unfortunate man just as he was leaving his house to escape the flames; then they dispersed among the houses in the streets, firing their rifles on every side. A young man of 17, Georges Lecourtier, who tried to escape, was shot. M. Alfred Lallemand suffered the same fate; he was pursued into the kitchen of his fellow-citizen, Tautelier, and murdered there, while Tautelier received three bullets in his hand.

Fearing, not without reason, for their lives, Mlle. Procès, her mother, her grandmother of 71, and her old aunt of 81, Mlle. Laure Mennehand, tried with the help of a ladder to cross the trellis which separates their garden from a neighboring property. The young girl alone was able to reach the other side and to avoid death by hiding in the cabbages. As for the other women, they were struck down by rifle shots. The village curé collected the brains of Mlle. Mennehand on the ground on which they were strewn, and had the bodies carried into Procès's house. During the following night the Germans played the piano near the bodies.

While the carnage raged, the fire rapidly spread and devoured thirty-five houses. An old man of 70, Jean Lecourtier, and a child of two months perished in the flames. M. Igier, who was trying to save his cattle, was pursued for 300 meters by soldiers, who fired at him ceaselessly. By a miracle this man had the good fortune not to be wounded, but five bullets went through his trousers. When the curé, Viller, expressed his indignation at the treatment inflicted upon his parish to the Duke of Württemburg, who was lodged in the village, the latter replied: "What would you have? We have bad soldiers just as you have."

In the same commune an attempt at rape was made which was unsuccessful by reason of the obstinate and courageous resistance of the victim. Three Germans made the attempt on Mme. D., 47 years old. Further, an old woman of 75, Mme. Maupoix, was kicked so violently that she died a few days afterward. While some of the soldiers were ill-treating her others were ransacking her wardrobes.

The little town of Clermont-en-Argonne, on the slope of a picturesque hill in the middle of a pleasant landscape, used to be visited every year by numerous tourists. On the 4th of September, at night, the 121st and 122d Württemburg Regiments entered the place, breaking down the doors of the houses and giving themselves up to unrestrained pillage, which continued during the whole of the next day. Toward midday a soldier set fire to the dwelling of a clockmaker by deliberately upsetting the contents of an oil lamp which he used for making coffee. An inhabitant, M. Monternach, at once ran to fetch the town fire engine, and asked an officer to lend him men to work it. Brutally refused and threatened with a revolver, he renewed his request to several other officers, with no greater success. Meanwhile the Germans continued to burn the town, making use of sticks on the top of which torches were fastened. While the houses blazed the soldiers poured into the church, which stood by itself on the height, and danced there to the sound of the organ. Then, before leaving, they set fire to it with grenades as well as with vessels full of inflammable liquid, containing wicks.

After the burning of Clermont, bodies of the Mayor of Vauquois, M. Poinsignon, (which was completely carbonized,) and that of a young boy of 11, who had been shot at point-blank range, were found.

When the fire was out pillage recommenced in the houses which the flames had spared. Furniture carried off from the house of M. Desforges and stuffs stolen from the shop of M. Nordmann, a draper, were heaped together in motor cars. An army doctor (médicine-major) took possession of all the medical appliances in the hospital, and an officer of superior rank, after having put up a notice forbidding pillage on the entrance door of the house of M. Lebondidier, had a great part of the furniture of this house carried away on a carriage, intending it, as he boasted without any shame, for the adornment of his own villa.

At the time when this happened the town of Clermont-en-Argonne was occupied by the Thirteenth Württemburg Corps, under the command of Gen. von Durach, and by a troop of Uhlans, commanded by Prince von Wittenstein.

On the 7th of September half a score of German cavalrymen entered the farm of Lamermont in the Commune of Lisle-en-Barrois, and, after having milk given to them, went away apparently satisfied. After their departure rifle shots were heard in the distance. A little later a second troop, composed of about thirty men, presented themselves in their turn, and accused the farm people of having killed a German soldier. Immediately the farmer, Elly, and one of his guests, M. Javelot, were seized and taken to a place near, where, in spite of their protestations of innocence, they were mercilessly shot.

At Louppy-le-Château the Germans gave themselves over to immorality and disgusting brutality during the night of the 8th and 9th in a cellar where several women had taken refuge from the bombardment. All these unhappy women were vilely ill-treated. Mlle. X., aged 71; Mme. Y., aged 44, and her two daughters, one aged 13 and the other 8, and Mme. Z. were violated.

Hostages have been taken away from many communes. At the beginning of September, at Laimont, eight persons were obliged to follow the German troops, and on the 27th of October none of them had returned. The curé of Nubécourt, who was carried off on the 5th of September, has not yet reappeared in his parish.

At Saint-André, M. Havette, who was among the number of persons arrested, obtained from an officer permission to watch over the body of his wife, who had been killed on the previous day by a fragment of a shell. In the evening the inhabitants were ordered to collect together in a barn. Havette believed that he was exempt from this order by reason of the authority he had received, and remained at his house until 11 in the evening. When he left his house he was struck down by a rifle bullet.

Of the other villages besides those whose burning we have related, Vassincourt and Brabant-le-Roi were more or less completely burned. Up to now it has not been possible for us to ascertain completely the circumstances of their destruction. Our inquiry so far as it concerns them will be further pursued.

It has been brought to our knowledge that in the Department of the Meuse the enemy has committed acts of cruelty toward the French soldiers who were wounded and prisoners. We will set out the facts of this at the end of the present report.

We arrived in the Department of Meurthe-et-Moselle on the 26th of October, and visited a great number of communes in the arrondissements of Nancy and Lunéville.

Nancy, an open town into which the German Army has not been able to enter, was bombarded without formal warning during the night of the 9th and 10th of September. About sixty shells fell into the middle of the town and in the southern cemetery—that is, in places where there is no military establishment. Three women, a young girl, and a little girl were killed; thirteen people were wounded; the material damage done was considerable.

The enemy's aviators have flown over the town twice. On the 4th of September one of them dropped two bombs, by one of which a man and a little girl were killed and six people wounded, in the Place de la Cathédrale. On the 13th of October three bombs were thrown on the goods station. Four persons employed by the Eastern Railway Company were wounded.

When we reached Pont-à-Mousson, on the morning of the 10th of November, seven shells had just been fired by the German batteries a few hours before. It was the 24th day of the bombardment, which began on the 11th of August. The evening before a young girl of 19 and a child of 4 had been killed in their beds by fragments of shells. On the 14th of August the Germans took as their special objective the hospital, from whose towers floated Red Cross flags, visible from a great distance. No less than seventy shells fell on to this building, and we have witnessed the damage they have caused.

About eighty houses were damaged by the different bombardments, all of which took place without any warning. Fourteen civilians, mainly women and children, were killed. There were about the same number of wounded. Pont-à-Mousson is not fortified. Only the bridge over the Moselle had been put in a state of defense, on the outbreak of hostilities, by the Twenty-sixth Battalion of Chasseurs, who were then quartered in the town.

We experienced real horror when we found ourselves before the lamentable ruins of Nomeny. With the exception of some few houses which still stood near the railway station in a spot separated by the Seille from the principal group of buildings, there remains of this little town only a succession of broken and blackened walls in the midst of ruins, in which may be seen here and there the bones of a few animals partially charred and the carbonized remains of human bodies. The rage of a maddened soldiery has been unloosed there without pity.

Nomeny, on account of its proximity to the frontier, received from the beginning of the war the visits of German troopers from time to time. Skirmishes took place in its neighborhood, and on Aug. 14, in the courtyard of the farm de la Borde, which is a little distance off, a German soldier, without any motive, killed by a rifle shot the young farm servant, Nicholas Michel, aged 17.

On Aug. 20, when the inhabitants sought refuge in the cellars from the bombardment, the Germans came up after having fired upon each other by mistake and entered the town toward midday.

According to the account given by one of the inhabitants, the German officers asserted that the French were torturing the wounded by cutting off their limbs and plucking out their eyes. They were then in a state of terrible excitement. That day and part of the next the German soldiers gave themselves over to the most abominable excesses, sacking, burning and massacring as they went. After they had carried off from the houses everything which seemed worth taking away, and after they had dispatched to Metz the product of their rifling, they set fire to the houses with torches, pastilles of compressed powder and petrol which they carried in receptacles placed on little carts. Rifle shots were fired on every side; the unhappy inhabitants, who had been driven from the cellars before the firing, were shot down like game—some in their dwellings and others in the public streets.

MM. Sanson, Pierson, Lallemand, Adam Jeanpierre, Meunier, Schneider, Raymond, Duponcel, and Hazotte, father and son, were killed by rifle shots in the streets. M. Killian, seeing himself threatened by a sabre stroke, protected his neck with his hand. He had three fingers cut off and his throat gashed. An old man aged 86, M. Petitjean, who was seated in his armchair, had his skull smashed by a German shot. A soldier showed the corpse to Mme. Bertrand, saying: "Do you see that pig there?" M. Chardin, Town Councilor, who was Acting Mayor, was required to furnish a horse and carriage. He had promised to do all he could to obey, when he was killed by a rifle shot. M. Prevot, seeing the Bavarians breaking into a chemist's shop of which he was caretaker, told them that he was the chemist, and that he would give them anything they wanted, but three rifle shots rang out and he fell, heaving a deep sigh. Two women who were with him ran away and were pursued to the neighborhood of the railway station, beaten all the way with the butts of rifles, and they saw many bodies heaped together in the station garden and on the road.

Between 3 and 4 o'clock in the afternoon the Germans entered the butcher shop of Mme. François. She was then coming out of her cellar with her boy Stub, and an employee named Contal. As soon as Stub reached the threshold of the entrance to the door he fell severely wounded by a rifle shot. Then Contal, who rushed into the street, was immediately murdered. Five minutes afterward, as Stub was still groaning, a soldier leaned over him and finished him off with a blow of a hatchet on the back.

The most tragic incident in this horrible scene occurred in the house of M. Vassé, who had collected a number of people in his cellar in the Faubourg de Nancy. Toward 4 o'clock about fifty soldiers rushed into the house, beat in the door and windows, and set it on fire. The refugees then made an effort to flee, but they were struck down one after the other as they came out. M. Mentré was murdered first; then his son Léon fell with his little sister, aged 8, in his arms. As he was not killed outright, the end of a rifle barrel was placed on his head and his brains blown out. Then it was the turn of the Kieffer family. The mother was wounded in the arm and shoulder. The father and little boy aged 10 and little girl aged 3 were shot. The murderers went on firing on them after they had fallen. Kieffer, stretched on the ground, received another bullet in the forehead, and his son had the top of his head blown off by a shot. Last of all M. Strieffert and one of the sons of Vassé were murdered, while Mme. Mentré received three bullets, one in the left leg, another in the arm on the same side, and one on her forehead, which was only grazed. M. Guillaume was dragged into the street and there found dead. Simonin, a young girl of 17, came out last from the cellar, with her sister Jeanne, aged 3. The latter had her elbow almost carried away by a bullet. The elder girl flung herself on the ground and pretended to be dead, remaining for five minutes in terrible anguish. A soldier gave her a kick, crying "Capout."

An officer arrived at the end of this butchery, and ordered the women who were still alive to get up, and shouted to them: "Go to France!"

While all these people were being massacred, others, according to an expression used by an eyewitness, were driven like sheep into the fields under the threat of immediate execution. The curé, in particular, owed his escape from being shot to extraordinary circumstances.

According to the depositions which we have received, all these abominations were committed chiefly by the Second and Fourth Regiments of Bavarian infantry. To explain them, the officers have alleged that civilians had fired on their troops. As our inquiry has established formally, this allegation is a lie, for at the moment when the enemy arrived all arms had been deposited at the Mairie, and the part of the population which had not quitted the country had hidden itself in the cellars, a prey to the greatest terror. Besides, the reason alleged, even were it true, would assuredly be insufficient to excuse the destruction of a whole city, the murder of women, and the massacre of children.

A list of persons who were killed in the course of the burning and the shootings has been drawn up by M. Biévelot, Conseiller d'Arrondissement. The list includes no less than 50 names. We have not quoted all of them. For one thing, among the people whose death has been proved, some died under conditions which are not stated with sufficient precision; on the other hand, the dispersal of the inhabitants of the town which has now been destroyed made our inquiry very difficult. Our efforts will be continued. In any case, what we have already been able to establish beyond dispute is enough to give an idea of what was, on the day of Aug. 20, the martyrdom of Nomeny.

Lunéville was occupied by the Germans from Aug. 27 to Sept. 11. During the first few days they were content to rob the inhabitants without molesting them in any other way. Thus, in particular on Aug. 24, the house of Mme. Jeaumont was plundered. The objects stolen were loaded on to a large vehicle in which were three women, one of them dressed in black and the two others wearing military costumes and appearing, as we were told, to be canteen women.

On Aug. 25 the attitude of the invaders suddenly changed. M. Keller, the Mayor, went to the hospital about 3:30 o'clock in the afternoon and saw soldiers firing in the direction of the attic of a neighboring house, and heard the whistling of the bullets, which appeared to him to come from behind. The Germans declared to him that the inhabitants had fired on them. He protested, and offered to go around the town with them in order to prove the absurdity of this allegation. His proposal was accepted, and as at the beginning of the circuit they came across in the street the body of M. Crombez, the officer commanding the escort said to M. Keller, "You see this body. It is that of a civilian who has been killed by another civilian who was firing on us from a house near the synagogue. Thus, in accordance with our law, we have burned the house and executed the inhabitants." He was speaking of the murder of a man whose timid character was known to all, the Jewish officiating minister, Weill, who had just been killed in his house, together with his 16-year-old daughter. The same officer added, "In the same way we have burned the house at the corner of the Rue Castara and the Rue Girardet, because civilians fired shots from there." It is from this dwelling that the Germans alleged shots had been fired on to the courtyard of the hospital, but the position of the building makes it impossible for such a statement to be true.

While the Mayor and the soldiers who accompanied him were pursuing their investigation the fire broke out on different sides; the Hôtel de Ville was burned as well as the synagogue, and a number of houses in the Rue Castara, and the Faubourg d'Einville was in flames. The massacres, which were continued until the next day, began at the same time. Without counting M. Crombez, the officiating minister, Weill, and his daughter, whose deaths we have already mentioned, the victims were MM. Hamman, Binder, Balastre, (father and son,) Vernier, Dujon, M. Kahn and his mother, M. Steiner and his wife, M. Wingerstmann and his grandson, and, finally, MM. Sibille, Monteils, and Colin.

The murders were committed in the following circumstances:—

On Aug. 25, after having fired two shots into the Worms Tannery to create the belief that they were being attacked from there, the Germans entered a workshop in this factory, in which the workman, Goeury, was working, in company with M. Balastre, father and son. Goeury was dragged into the street, robbed there and brutally ill-treated, while his two companions, who were found trying to hide themselves in a lavatory, were killed by rifle shots.

On the same day soldiers came to summon M. Steiner, who had hidden in his cellar. His wife, fearing some misfortune, tried to keep him back. As she held him in her arms she received a bullet in the neck. A few moments after, Steiner, having obeyed the order which had been given to him, fell mortally wounded in his garden. M. Kahn was also murdered in his garden. His mother, aged 98, whose body was burned in the fire, had first been killed in her bed by a bayonet thrust, according to the account of an individual who acted as interpreter to the enemy. M. Binder, who was coming out to escape the flames, was also struck down. The German by whom he was killed realized that he had shot him without any motive, at the moment when the unfortunate man was standing quietly before a door. M. Vernier suffered the same fate as Binder.

Toward 3 o'clock the Germans broke into a house in which were Mme. Dujon, her daughter aged 3, her two sons, and M. Gaumier, by breaking the windows and firing shots. The little girl was nearly killed; her face was burned by a shot. At this moment, Mme. Dujon, seeing her youngest son, Lucien, 14 years old, stretched on the ground, asked him to get up and escape with her. She then saw that his intestines were protruding from a wound, and that he was holding them in. The house was on fire; the poor boy was burned, as well as M. Gaumier, who had not been able to escape.

M. Wingerstmann and his grandson, aged 12, who had gone to pull potatoes a little way from Lunéville, at the place called Les Mossus, in the District of Chanteheux, were unfortunate enough to meet Germans. The latter placed them both against a wall and shot them.

Finally, toward 5 o'clock in the evening, soldiers entered the house of the woman Sibille, in the same place, and without any reason took possession of her son, led him 200 meters from the house and murdered him there, together with M. Vallon, to whose body they had fastened him. A witness, who had seen the murderers at the moment when they were dragging their victim along, saw them return without him and noticed that their saw bayonets were covered with blood and bits of flesh.

On the same day a hospital attendant named Monteils, who was looking after a wounded enemy officer at the hospital of Lunéville, was struck down by a bullet in the forehead while he was looking through a window at a German soldier who was firing.

The next day, the 26th, M. Hamman and his son, aged 21, were arrested in their own house and dragged out by a band of soldiers who had entered by breaking down the door. The father was beaten unmercifully; as for the young man, as he tried to struggle, a non-commissioned officer blew out his brains with a revolver shot.

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