German Atrocities: An Official InvestigationMorgan, J. H. (John Hartman)
History
German Atrocities: An Official Investigation
Morgan, J. H. (John Hartman)
World War, 1914-1918 -- Atrocities
Private J. S----, Rifle Brigade, 1st Battalion:--On a Sunday at end
of October or beginning of November, just outside Bailleul, near
Nieppe, we rested for three hours, having just come out of billets. The
Germans had only just left--the chalk-marks of the different regiments
were still on the doors. There were a lot of refugees outside an
_estaminet_, among them a mother and two daughters. One daughter looked
scared to death, her eyes staring out of her head. She was a girl of
about twenty-three, who looked rather delicate. The girl said nothing,
stood there and stared like a lunatic. The mother told a group of us
in broken English and partly in French--I know some French. She said,
“Les Allemands couchent avec ma fille”--that the Germans--she made it
appear about eight--had outraged her daughter. We did not go into the
_estaminet_--it was forbidden.
(4)
Captain C---- W----, Bedfords, 2nd Battalion:--At Bailleul, I saw
a great deal of evidence of wanton destruction--mirrors broken and
furniture smashed. A German cavalry regiment had done it. I was in
three different billets there, and in all three the same thing had
happened.
(5)
Private S----, K. O. Scottish Borderers:--At Ypres, about a month ago,
I was in the trenches and one of our men went out of the trenches to
get a drink of water (from a spring about seven yards away). He was
wounded in the leg, and an officer (Lieutenant S----, of B Company)
sent over for the stretcher-bearers, who were at head-quarters about
300 yards from the support trenches. They were carrying this fellow
away when one of the stretcher-bearers was “sniped” from about 300
yards. There was no firing at the time. Another man came of B Company,
named G----, volunteered and took the wounded stretcher-bearer’s place,
and then he was wounded too. G---- was put on a stretcher and was again
wounded by a sniper. Cases of this kind were very common.
(6)
Private J. C----, Scottish Fusiliers, 1st Battalion:--At Locre, near
Bailleul, I was billeted in the church there at the beginning of
December. The church had not been shelled, but had been looted and the
crucifixes had been smashed, and all the images and things of value
appeared to have been torn away.
(7)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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