Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1915-05-12

civilian was seen on his doorstep with
Ia bayonet wound in his stomach, and
by his side the dead body of a boy
of five or six with his hand nearly sew
cred.
Women Mutilated
1.-TWO young women were lying in
the backyard of a house. One had
her breasts cut off, the other had been
stabbed.
The report recites page after page
of similar horrors.
The committee says of one Ger
man diary: by this time killing not
in a fight would seem to have passed
into a habit
500 are Shot
The report adds that the most i'm
portant entry is contained in diary No.
10. h contains no names and ad-
dresses, but ame referred to in the
diary indicate that the entries were
made by an officer of the First Regi-
ment of Foot Guards. The entry made
at Fermeton on August "a says: I'VE
took about 1000 prisoners, at least
500 we're shot. The village was burnt
because inhabitants had also shot. Two
civilians were shot at once.
Conditions in France
Another division of the report is
on the killing of noncombatants in
| rance. lnlS Is uOI DIS u6Ldll6u as
the case of Belgium, as the commit
tee states that the French official re-
port gives the most complete account
as to the invaded districts in France.
1t adds:
THE evidence before us proves that,
in the parts of France referred to,
murder of unoffending civilians and
other acts of cruelty, including aggra-
waited cases of rape, carried out under
threat of death, and sometimes actual
ly followed by murder of the victim,
were committed by some of the Ger
man troops"
A special chapter is given to the
statement of women and children.
The latter. 1t is said, frequently re-
ceived milder treatment than the men.
But many instances are given of cal
culated cruelty, often going the length
of murder, towards the women and
children" At Aerschot, it says, wo-
men n children were herded into the
church which had recently been used
as a stable, detained for forty-eight
hours with nc food other than coarse
bread and denied the commo decen-
cies of life. I'm other cases women
and children were marched for long
distances, the laggards being pricked
by the attending Uhlans. A lady COM
plains of having been brutally kicked
by a private. Others were struck with
INV u CIV " nv - AhS6O my
and children were chased about the
streets by soldiers. A witness gives a
story, very circumstantial in its de-
tails, of how women were publicly at
tackled in the market place of the
city, five young German officers as
sisting." Another witness tells Of a
carousal of officers, at which h wo-
la of the house was shot dead. and
her husband then compelled to dig a
grave in the garden and there bury his
wife. The report goes on:
"In the evidence before us there are
cases tending to show that aggravated
crimes against women were sometimes
severely punished. One witness re-
ports that a young girl who was being
pursued by a drunken soldier at Lou
vain appealed to a German officer, and
that the offender was then and there
shot; another described how an of
flcer of the Thirty-second Regiment of
the line was led out to execution for
the violation of two young girls, but
reprieved at the request or with the
consent of the girls mothers. These
instances are sufficient to show that
the maltreatment of women was no
part of the military scheme of the in
vaders, however, much il may ppear
to have been the inevitable result of
the system of terror deliberately
adopted i'm certain regions.
"In this tale of horrors hideous
forms of mutilation occur with some
frequency in the dispositions, two of
which may be connected in some in
stances with a perverted form of sex
ual instinct.
I'VE find many well-established
cases of the slaughter (often accom-
panied by m~utilation) of whole fami-
lies, including not infrequently that of
quite small children. In two cases It
seems to be clear that preparations
were made to burn a family alive.
These crimes were committed oVe
a period of many weeks and stimuli
~taneously in many places, and the
authorities must have known or ought
to have known that cruelties of this
character were being perpetrated, nor
can any one doubt that they could
have been stopped by swift and decis-
i've action on the part of the heads of
the German army.
at is clearly shown that many of
fenses'were committed against infants
and quite young children. On one oc-
casion children were even roped to-
gether and used as a military screen
| against the enemy, on another three
soldiers went into action carrying
small children to protect themselves
from flank fire. A shocking case of
the murder of a baby by a drunken
soldier at Malines is reported by one
| eyewitness anu NOAiAii w III
other.
1--WE cannot tell whether these acts
of cruelty to children were part of a
scheme for inducing submission by in
spring terror. In Louvain, where the
system of terrorizing was carried to
the %furtherest limit, outrages on chill
dren were uncommon. The same,
however, cannot be said of some of
the smaller villages which were sub
iected to the system. In Hofstadt and
Sempst, in Haecht. Rotselaer and Wes-
pelaer, many children were murdered.
Nor can 1t be said of the village of
Tamines where three small children
(whose names are given by an eye
witness of the crime) were slaughter
ed on the green for nc apparent pur-
pose. 1t Is difficult to imagine the
motives which may have prompted
such acts. Whether oil not Belgian
civilians fired on German soldiers,
young children at any rate did not