Horrors and Atrocities of the Great War: Including the Tragic Destruction of the LusitaniaMarshall, Logan
History
Horrors and Atrocities of the Great War: Including the Tragic Destruction of the Lusitania
Marshall, Logan
World War, 1914-1918 -- Atrocities
The statement, which extends over many pages and contains over 25,000
words, is a record of the most fiendish crimes imaginable. “On every
side our eyes rested on ruin. Whole villages have been destroyed by
bombardment or fire; towns formerly full of life are now nothing but
deserts full of ruins; and, in visiting the scenes of desolation where
the invader’s torch has done its work, one feels continually as though
one were walking among the remains of one of those cities of antiquity
which have been annihilated by the great cataclysms of nature.
“In truth it can be stated that never has a war carried on between
civilized nations assumed the savage and ferocious character of the one
which at this moment is being waged on our soil by an implacable
adversary. Pillage, rape, arson, and murder are the common practice of
our enemies; and the facts which have been revealed to us day by day at
once constitute definite crimes against common rights, punished by the
codes of every country with the most severe and the most dishonoring
penalties, and which prove an astonishing degeneration in German habits
of thought since 1870.
“Crimes against women and young girls have been of appalling frequency.
We have proved a great number of them, but they only represent an
infinitesimal proportion of those which we could have taken up. Owing to
a sense of decency, which is deserving of every respect, the victims of
these hateful acts usually refuse to disclose them. Doubtless fewer
would have been committed if the leaders of an army whose discipline is
most rigorous had taken any trouble to prevent them; yet, strictly
speaking, they can only be considered as the individual and spontaneous
acts of uncaged beasts. But with regard to arson, theft, and murder the
case is very different; the officers, even those of the highest station,
will bear before humanity the overwhelming responsibility for these
crimes.
“In the greater part of the places where we carried on our inquiry we
came to the conclusion that the German Army constantly professes the
most complete contempt for human life, that its soldiers, and even its
officers, do not hesitate to finish off the wounded, that they kill
without pity the inoffensive inhabitants of the territories which they
have invaded, and they do not spare in their murderous rage women, old
men, or children. The wholesale shootings at Lunéville, Gerbéviller,
Nomeny, and Senlis are terrible examples of this; and in the course of
this report you will read the story of scenes of carnage in which
officers themselves have not been ashamed to take part.”
HORRIBLE CASES OF RAPE
Of the criminal attempts on women cited in the report two of the most
horrible occurred in the Department of Seine-et-Marne.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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