World War, 1914-1918 -- Atrocities; World War, 1914-1918 -- Hospitals; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
In the morning four or five officers arrived to hear testimony from
some of the men. It was Leonard, the grocer, who told me that four
persons were questioned.
"Stand there," They said to them.
"Which is the one who lives next door to the hospital?" an officer
asked.
Leonard stepped forward.
"Is it not true that the Lady Superior of the Hospital organized her
people for the purpose of firing on our wounded with rifles?"
Leonard replied:
"I am sure that it is not so. And even if she were to order it, they
would not obey."
"Do you know what you are in danger of in telling lies? We have
seen the bullets come from the hospital. We are sure. Go write your
deposition."
"I can't do it," answered Leonard.
He was forced to write his deposition. When he had finished it, he
presented it to the chief.
"Sign it, and follow me. I am sure that I saw bullets come from that
part of the street. Certainly men were there who fired on our chiefs."
They also said to him that our chasseurs had fired on them from the
chateau of Madame de Lambertye, and they themselves went to get a
statement at the spot to see if it was possible to hit a man from the
chateau and kill him.
I had seen the turrets of the chateau of Lambertye burning about
half-past nine in the morning and all the upper part. That was by
incendiary bombs. The day after the fires we saw empty cans, about
sixty of them, the kind used for motor-car gasoline, lying about in the
garden of the chateau.
Besides all that, there are still the bodily indignities which must
not be passed over in silence. The twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth,
"they" used fire and blood. The following days "they" amused themselves
by teasing everybody. The poor Monsieur Jacob, who makes lemonade,
was struck and thrown to the ground. Then they spit in his face, and
threatened to shoot him, without any reason.
They were drunk with the wine of Gerbéviller, if one is to judge from
their helmets, which had lost their lightning conductors.
The sacred images of the church were not respected. It was the evening
of the twenty-ninth. A soldier-priest, Monsieur the Abbé Bernard, went
to see a tiny bit of what was taking place.
"Do you know, my sister, what has been done to the ciborium (sacred
vessel for the sacrament)?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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