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 Luneville, Gerbeviller, 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. The mind refuses to believe that all these butcheries should have taken place without justification. Still, it is so! It is true that the Germans have always advanced the same pretext for them, alleging that civilians had begun by firing upon them. This allegation is a lie, and those who advance it have been unable to give it any probability, even by firing rifle shots in the neighborhood of houses, as they are accustomed to do in order to be able to state that they have been attacked by an innocent population on whose ruin or massacre they have resolved. We have many times ascertained the truth of this; here is one among others: One evening the Abbe Colin, Cure of Croismare, was standing near an officer when the report of a gun rang out. The latter cried, "Monsieur le Cure, that is enough to cause you to be shot as well as the Burgomaster, and for a farm to be burned; look, there is one on fire." "Sir," replied the priest, "you are too intelligent not to recognize the sharp sound of your German rifle. For my part, I recognize it." The German did not press the point. Personal liberty, like human life, is the object of complete scorn on the part of the German military authorities. Almost everywhere citizens of every age have been dragged from their homes and led into captivity, many have died or been killed on the way.