“Unfortunately, I am forced to make note of a fact which should not have occurred, but there are to be found, even in our own army, creatures who are no longer men, but hogs, to whom nothing is sacred. One of these broke into a sacristy; it was locked, and there the Blessed Sacrament was kept. A Protestant, out of respect, had refused to sleep there. This man used it as a deposit for his excrements. How is it possible there should be such creatures? Last night one of the men of the landwehr, more than thirty-five years of age, married, tried to rape the daughter of the inhabitant where he had taken up his quarters--a mere girl--and when the father intervened he pressed his bayonet against his breast.” “Langeviller, Aug. 22.--Village destroyed by the eleventh battalion of Pioneers. Three women hanged to trees; the first dead I have seen.” HIDEOUS FACES OF THE DEAD “The inhabitants fled through the village. It was horrible. The walls of houses are bespattered with blood and the faces of the dead are hideous to look upon. They were buried at once, some sixty of them. Among them many old women, old men, and one woman pregnant--the whole a dreadful sight. Three children huddled together--all dead. Altar and arches of the church shattered. Telephone communication with the enemy was found there. This morning, Sept. 2, all the survivors were driven out; I saw four little boys carrying on two poles a cradle with a child some five or six months old. The whole makes a fearful sight. Blow upon blow! Thunderbolt on thunderbolt! Everything given over to plunder. I saw a mother with her two little ones--one of them had a great wound in the head and an eye put out.” “At the entrance to the village lay the bodies of some fifty citizens, shot for having fired upon our troops from ambush. In the course of the night many others were shot down in like manner, so that we counted more than two hundred. Women and children, holding their lamps, were compelled to assist at this horrible spectacle. We then sat down midst the corpses to eat our rice, as we had eaten nothing since morning.” WOMEN FORCED TO DIG GRAVES “Aug. 25 (in Belgium).--We shot 300 of the inhabitants of the town. Those that survived the salvo were requisitioned as grave-diggers. You should have seen the women at that time! But it was impossible to do otherwise. In our march upon Wilot things went better; the inhabitants who wished to leave were allowed to do so. But whoever fired was shot. Upon our leaving Owele the rifles rang out, and with that, flames, women and all the rest.” GETTING HARDENED