History of the World War : $b An authentic narrative of the world's greatest warMarch, Francis A., Jr.
History
History of the World War : $b An authentic narrative of the world's greatest war
March, Francis A., Jr.
World War, 1914-1918
"At Bignicourt-sur-Saultz 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 Corfelix, M.
Jacqet, 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 cure, his maid-servant, and four other inhabitants who
were taken away on the same day as the hostages of Corfelix had not
returned at the time of our visit to the place.
"At the same place an old man of seventy, 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 champetre Brulefer of le Gault-la-Foret
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 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 nineteen, Mlle. Helene Proces, had
made complaint of 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 as he was leaving his house to escape the flames. Then they
dispersed among the houses in the streets, firing off their rifles on
every side. A young man, seventeen years, 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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