"In most of the places in which we pursued our inquiries, we observed that the German army invariably expressed the greatest dis. regard for human life, that the soldiers and even officers did not hesitate to finish off the wounded, that they pitilessly slaughtered inoffensive inhabitants, and spared neither the women, the aged nor the young. Terrible examples of this were given at—Lunéville Gerbéviller, Nomény and Sen seems impossible to believe that all this shedding of blood should have been perpetrated without some reason, and yet this was the case. The Germans have always used the same pretext—that they were fired upon by civilians. We have had ample evidence that in many cases the Germans themselves began the firing which served them as an ex-cause for asserting that they had been attacked by innocent people whom they had resolved to ruin or slaughter, "Not only human life but individual liberty is an object of Serislon with the Germans. Tu of ly ages have been torn from every district French pearle
their homes and dragged away to Many died of were killed on the way. Arson is still more frequently employed than murder by the German army, either as a means of systematic devastation or of intimidation. The German army is specially equipped for this purpose with torches, grenades, sticks of inflammable material, petroleum pumps and bags of special capsules. Its incendiary fury is chiefly exerred against churches and other buildings having some artistic or historic interest, but thousands of private houses have been deliberately burned, without counting those set on fire as the direct outcome of hostilities."
Pillage.
"As regards looting, we have had evidence of this wherever we went land we do not hesitate to say that it is a regular practice for the German troops to indulge in systematically organized pillage, the presence of and frequently. with the participation of their officers. Cellars have been emptied to the last bottle, safes broken open and large sums of money stolen or extorted from inhabitants; A great quantity of silver, jewellery, pictures, furniture, works of art, linen, bicycles, women's attire sewing-machines and even children's toys have been loaded on carts and taken away to the frontier. Whenever any of the unfortunate owners objected the usual reply was "What do you expect? War is war."
Pethe difficulties in the path of the: commission are illustrated by the note appended to the case of two beet who were subjected to un-The commissioners "We are able indignities by soldiers.
not allowed to publish the names. of the unfortunate victims of this abominable scene, or even to mention the village in which it took place; but the facts were revealed to us under oath by witnesses worthy of confidence, and we take full responsibility for the truth of] the report.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.