My two prisoners worked hard at digging trenches. At midday I got the order to rejoin at village with my prisoners. I was very glad, as I had been ordered to shoot them both as soon as the French attacked. Thank God it was not necessary.... OUTRAGES UPON WOMEN. When life is held so cheap, it is not surprising that honour and property are not held more dear. Outrages upon the honour of women by German soldiers have been so frequent that it is impossible to escape the conviction that they have been condoned and indeed encouraged by German officers. As regards this matter I have made a most minute study of the German occupation of Bailleul. This place was occupied by a regiment of German Hussars in October for a period of eight days. During the whole of that period the town was delivered over to the excesses of a licentious soldiery and was left in a state of indescribable filth. There were at least thirty cases of outrages on girls and young married women, authenticated by sworn statements of witnesses and generally by medical certificates of injury. It is extremely probable that, owing to the natural reluctance of women to give evidence in cases of this kind, the actual number of outrages largely exceeds this. Indeed, the leading physician of the town, Dr. Bels, puts the number as high as sixty. At least five officers were guilty of such offences, and where the officers set the example the men followed. The circumstances were often of a peculiarly revolting character; daughters were outraged in the presence of their mothers, and mothers in the presence or the hearing of their little children. In one case, the facts of which are proved by evidence which would satisfy any court of law, a young girl of nineteen was violated by one officer while the other held her mother by the throat and pointed a revolver, after which the two officers exchanged their respective rôles. After the outrage they dragged the girl outside and asked if she knew of any other young girls ("jeunes filles") in the neighbourhood, adding that they wanted to do to them what they had done to her.