German Atrocities from German EvidenceBédier, Joseph
History
German Atrocities from German Evidence
Bédier, Joseph
World War, 1914-1918 -- Atrocities
"By leaps and bounds we got across the clearing. They were here,
there, and everywhere hidden in the thicket. Now it is down with
the enemy! And we will give them no quarter. Every one shoots
standing, a few, a very few fire kneeling. No one tries to take
shelter. We reach a little depression in the ground: here the red
trousers dead or wounded lie on a heap ground. We knock 'down' or
bayonet the wounded, for we know that those scoundrels fire at our
backs when we have gone by. There was a Frenchman there stretched
out, full length, face down, pretending to be dead. A kick from a
strong fusilier soon taught him that we were there. Turning round,
he asked for quarter, but we answered: "Is that the way your tools
work, you,--" and he was nailed to the ground. Close to me I heard
odd cracking sounds. They were blows from a gun on the bald head
of a Frenchman which a private of the 154^{th} was dealing out
vigorously; he was wisely using a French gun so as not to break his
own. Tenderhearted souls are so kind to the French wounded that they
finish them with a bullet, but others give them as many thrusts and
blows as they can.
"Our adversaries had fought bravely, we had to contend with picked
men; they let us get within thirty, even ten metres of them--too
near. Sacks and arms thrown away in quantities showed that they had
try to run, but at the sight of the "grey phantoms" fear paralyzed
them, and on the narrow path they had to take, German bullets brought
them the word of command, _Halt_. At the entry into the screen of
branches, there they lay groaning and crying for quarter. But whether
wounded slightly or severely, the brave fusiliers spare their country
the cost of caring for many enemies."
[Illustration: _Plate 15._]
The narrative goes on, full of literary ornaments. The writer reports
that H. R. H. Prince Oscar of Prussia who had been told of these brave
deeds (perhaps too of others) of the 154^{th} regiment, and of the
regiment of grenadiers who were brigaded with the 154^{th} declared
that they were both worthy of the name of _Königsbrigade_, and ends up
with this sentence "When evening came, after a prayer of thanksgiving
we fell asleep in the expectation of the morrow". Then the author
having added as a postscript a few more touches in verse takes his
composition to his lieutenant, who affixes his seal thereupon.
Certified to be exact
De Niem, Leutnant und Kompagnie-Führer.
Then he addresses his article to the town of Jauer, where he is sure
that an editor will accept it, compositors will print it, and an entire
population will delight in it.
[Illustration: _Plate 16._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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