We must make it absolutely impossible for the wild beast to break out again. Our living ought to know the crimes committed in the name of Kultur, in order to take the necessary precautions against their recurrence. To our martyred dead, we have a sacred duty, that of Remembrance.

A little book was published at Nancy under the patronage of the Prefect of Meurthe, G. Simon, Mayor of Nancy, and G. Keller of Luneville, aided by the Mayors of the following towns, located at or near the battle front: Belfort, Epinal, Nancy, Bar-le-Duc, Chalons, Chateau-Thierry, Nelien, Beauvais, Baccarat, Luneville, Gerbiveller, Momemy, Pont-a-Mousson, Verdun, Clermont, Semaise, Rheims, Senlis, Albert.

It is a record of robbery, rape, repression and murder that will taint the German blood for generations, from Prince Eitel Fritz, the son of the Kaiser, who looted the Chateau Brierry Avocourt, down to the under officers, who searched private residences, which, open to the captors, it was forbidden to lock. It is a record of shame and dishonor, of brutal force, without a saving element of mercy. They struck their helpless victims singly, in groups, in hecatombs.

Individually, they followed the systematic teaching of organized butchery. The world knows about the murder of Miss Cavell, the Red Cross nurse; of Eugene Jacquet, the Freemason; of Captain Fryatt, the civilian sea-captain. This little book records the death of many others, innocent martyrs to the same glorious cause.

At Foret the public school teacher refused to tread the French flag underfoot and was shot.

At Schaffen, A Willem was burned alive, two others were interred alive. Madame Luykx and daughter, twelve years of age, refuging together in a cave, were shot. J. Reynolds and his nephew of ten years were shot, out in the street.

At Sompius, an old man, Jacquimin, 70 years of age, was tied to his bed by an officer and left there three days. He died shortly after his deliverance.

At Monceau-Sur-Sambre they shut up the two brothers S. in a shed and burned them alive.

At Momemy, M. Adam was thrown alive into the fire, then shot at with rifles and Mme. Cousine, after being shot, was thrown into the fire and roasted.

At Maixe, M. Demange, wounded in both knees, fell helpless in his house, and they set fire to it.

At Triancourt, Mme. Maupoix, 75 years old, was kicked to death because not enough loot was found in her closet.

At Conis, Madame Dalissier, 73 years, who declared she had no money, was shot through the body fifteen times.

At Rouyes, a farmer refused to tell where he got some French military clothes. An officer shot him twice.

At Crezancy, M. Le Saint, 18 years of age, was killed by an officer because some day he would be a soldier.

At Embermenil, Mme. Masson was shot because her servant, an idiot, gave a wrong direction. The madame, pregnant, was made to sit on a chair while they executed her.

At Ethe one hundred and ninety-seven were executed, among them two priests, who were shot because they were accused of hiding arms.

At Marqueglise, a superior officer stopped four young boys, and, saying that the Belgians were dirty people, he shot each one in succession. One was killed outright.

At Pin, the Uhlans met two young boys, whom they tied to their horses, then urged them to a gallop. Some kilometers away, the bodies were found, the skin worn away from the knees, one with throat cut, both with many bullet holes through the head.

At Sermaize, the farmer Brocard and his son were arrested. His wife and daughter-in-law were thrown into a near-by river. Four hours later, the men were set at liberty and found the two bodies of the women in the water, with several bullet holes in their heads.

At Aerschot, the priest had hung a cross in front of the church. He was tied, hands and feet, the inhabitants ordered to march past and urinate on him. They then shot him and threw the body into the canal. A group of seventy-eight men, tied three together, were taken into the country, assaulted en route, and shot at and killed the following morning.

At Monchy-Humieres, an officer heard the word “Prussians” spoken. He ordered three dragoons to fire into the group, one was killed, two wounded, one of them was a little girl of four years.

At Hermeuil, while looting the town, the inhabitants were confined in a church. Mme. Winger and her three servants, arriving late, the captain, monocle in his eye, ordered the soldiers to fire. The four were killed.

At Sommeilles, while the town was being burned, the Dame X. with her four children, sought refuge in a cave with her neighbor, Adnot, and his wife. Some days later, the French troops, recapturing the town, found the seven bodies, horribly mutilated, lying in a sea of blood. The Dame had her right arm severed from the body, a young girl, eleven years of age, had one foot cut off, the little boy, five years old, had his throat cut.

At Louveigne, a number of civilians took refuge in a blacksmith shop. In the afternoon the Germans opened the door, chased out the victims, and as they ran out shot them down like so many rabbits. Seventeen bodies were left lying on the plain.

At Senlis the mayor of the town and six of the city council were shot to death.

At Coalommiers a husband and two children testified to the rape of the mother of the family.

At Melen-Labouche, Marguerite Weras was outraged by twenty German soldiers before she was shot, in sight of her father and mother.

At Louppy le Chateau, it is the grandmother who is violated, and, in the same town, a mother and two daughters, thirteen and eight years old, were also victims of German savagery.

At Nimy, little Irma G., in six hours, was done to death. Her father, going to her aid, was shot, her mother, seriously wounded.

At Handzaerne, the mayor, going to the aid of his daughter, was shot.

At St. Mary’s Pass, two sergeants of the 31st Alpines were found with their throats cut. Their bayonets were thrust into their mouths.

At Remereville, Lieutenant Toussant, lying wounded on the battlefield, was jabbed with bayonets by all the Germans who passed him. The body was punctured with wounds from the feet to the head.

At Audrigny, a German lieutenant met a Red Cross ambulance, carrying ten wounded men. He deployed his men and fired two rounds into the vehicle.

At Bonville, in a barn, a German officer shot in the eye nine wounded French soldiers, who, lying stretched out, were unable to move.

At Montigny le Titcul, the Germans discovered M. Vidal dressing the wounds of a French soldier, L. Sohier, who was shot in the head. M. Vidal was shot at sight, then the wounded man was killed.

At Nary, they compelled twenty-five women to march parallel with them as a shield against the French fire.

At Malinas, six German soldiers, who had captured five young girls, placed the girls in a circle about them when attacked.

At Hongaerdi they killed the priest.

At Erpe, the Germans forced thirty civilians, one only thirteen years old, to march ahead, while, hidden among the crowd were German soldiers and a machine gun.

At Ouen-Sur-Morin, on Sept. 7, 1914, the Death’s Head Huzzars, the Crown Prince’s favorite regiment, drove all the civilians into the Chateau, then, sheltered by those innocents, they told the English, “Shoot away.”

At Parchim, where 2,000 civilians, French prisoners, were interned, two prisoners, hungry, demanding food, were clubbed to death with the butt end of rifles, while the young daughter of one of them was immediately given eight days “mis au poteau.”

At Gerberviller, at the home of Lingenheld, they searched for his son, a stretcher bearer of the Red Cross, tied his hands, led him into the street and shot him down. Then they poured oil on the body and roasted it. Then the father, of 70 years, was executed, along with fourteen other old men. More than fifty were martyred in this commune alone.

Sister Julia, Superior of the Hospital Gerberviller, reports: “To break into the tabernacle of the Church of Gerberviller the enemy fired many shots around the lock, the interior of the ciborium was also perforated.”

Statement of Mlle. ——, tried and acquitted for the murder of her infant, in Paris.

“At Gerberviller, I worked in the hospital. Going to the church one night, three German hospital stewards caught and assaulted me. I did not understand their language. I thought they were men. I did not know they were brutes.

“Yes, I killed the child; I could not bear to feel myself responsible for bringing anything into the world made by the workings of a German.”

In Belgium alone, more than 20,000 homes have been pillaged and burned. More than 5,000 civilians, mostly old men, women and children, with fifty priests and one hundred and eighty-seven doctors, have been murdered.

At Timines, 400 civilians were murdered.

At Dinant, more than 600 were martyred, among them seventy-one women, 34 old men, more than 70 years of age, six children of from five to six years of age, eleven children less than five years. The victims were placed in two ranks, the first kneeling, the second standing, then shot.

The foregoing statements, vouched for by the most responsible representative men in and near the invaded district, are some of the cases continually being brought to public attention.

This evidence is accumulative, convincing, damning proof, it is furnished by the bodies of the victims, by neighbor eye witnesses, by devastated, homes, and by mutilated wrecks, who survived—some being recaptured by French troops, others, repatriated as useless, sent back to France via Switzerland.

These, and other crimes, are corroborated in the four reports of the French Inquiry, in “Violations of International Law,” published, by order of the French Foreign Minister, by the twenty-two reports of the Belgian Commission, the reports of a German book published May 15, 1915, diaries and note books found on bodies of dead German soldiers, wounded men and prisoners. They are books of horror, but, books of truth, glaring evidence of murdered men, misused women, ruined homes. Much of them is actually furnished by perpetrators of the deeds. Comments are unnecessary, words inadequate, cold print fails.

“The natives fled from the village. It was horrible. There was clotted blood on the beards, and the faces we saw were terrible to behold. The dead—about sixty—were at once buried; among them were many old women, some old men and a half-delivered woman, awful to see. Three children had clasped each other and died thus. The altar and vault of the church were shattered. They had a telephone there to communicate with the enemy. This morning, Sept. 2, all the survivors were expelled, and I saw four little boys carrying a cradle with a baby five or six months old in it, on two sticks—all this was terrible to behold. Shot after shot, salvo after salvo—chickens, etc. all killed. I saw a mother with her two children, one had a great wound in the head and had lost an eye.”