We might write a long and heartbreaking chapter on this pitiful subject, but let the following suffice. The Report of the French Commission of Enquiry concludes with these words, "Outrages upon women and young girls have been common to an unheard-of extent." No doubt the bulk of these crimes will never come to light, for it needs a concatenation of special circumstances for such acts to be committed in public. Unfortunately and only too often these circumstances have existed, e.g., at Beton-Bazoches and Sancy-les-Provins, a young girl, and at St. Denis-les-Rebaix, a mother-in-law and a little boy of eight years old, and at Coulommiers a husband and two children, were witnesses to outrages committed on the mother of the family. Sometimes the attacks were individual and sometimes committed by bodies of men, e.g., at Melen-Labouxhe, Margaret W. was violated by twenty German soldiers, and then shot by the side of her father and mother. They did not even respect nuns.[12]

They did not even spare grandmothers (Louppy-le-ChÂteau,
Vitry-en-Perthois …).

Nor did they respect children…. At Cirey, a witness (a University professor), whose statements one of us took down a few days after the tragedy, cried to a Bavarian officer, "Have you no children in Germany?" All the officer said in reply was, "My mother never bore swine like you."

Now and then they let themselves loose on a whole family; at Louppy, the mother and her two young girls aged thirteen and eight, respectively, were simultaneous victims of their savagery.

The outrages sometimes lasted till death. At Nimy, the martyrdom of little Irma G. lasted six hours till death delivered her from her sufferings. When her father tried to rescue her he was shot, and her mother was seriously wounded. Indeed, it was certain destruction to any frenzied parent who tried to defend his child. A clergyman of Dixmude says, "The burgomaster of Handzaeme was shot for trying to protect his daughter." And how many other cases have occurred! We have not the heart to continue the list.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] See the report of the French Commission (vol. i., page 35). See also, in the "Reply to the White Book," p. 500, the moving letter of Cardinal Mercier to von Bissing: "My conscience forbids my divulging to any tribunal the information, alas, only too well substantiated, which I possess. Outrages on nuns have been committed …"