The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-03-26
FRENCH REFUGEES
DEAD BY SCORES
FROM EXPOSURE.
Women, Children, Aged Herded
Into Open at 8 Below.
Compelled to Stand There Six
Hours Awaiting Inspection.
ON Won HINDENBURG'S ORDER
Moving Vans Took Furniture;
Burn All They Left.
Worked Nights Planting Bombs
to Blow Up Towns.
ON Won HINDENBURG'S ORDER
Moving Vans Took Furniture;
Burn All They Left.
(BY HENRY woOD.)

With the French Armies in the
Pathway of the German Retreat.
March 26.-More than three hundred,
children and aged men are known to
have succumbed to the hardship, the
exposure, the brutality, the starvation
which the Germans imposed upon the
French civil population imm ediately
preceding and during the retreat.
In Chauny alone. l learned officially
today the victims number $50 They
were buried-coffinless a corner
of the village. Deaths are still oc-
curing daily among the refugees now
under French care.
Along the roads leading from Ham.
Guiscard, Chauny, Tergnier and La
Fere to Noyon, where on Tuesday
personally met only refugees fleeing
afoot from the German lombard
ment, l encountered today long auto
mobile conveys. After taking NUM-
tions and supplies to the front points
where fighting is going on, these auto
mobiles were returning laden with
refugees too sick or too exhausted to
proceed afoOt.
Barbarous System Fatal.
These were mostly the aged Many
were dying from hardship. exposure
and starvation-but as they declared
dying happily, knowing their villages
were redeemed and surviving loved
ones freed from German domination.
whom l talked declared the greatest
mortality resulted from a barbarous
system of inspection which the Ger
mans employed Immediately proceed
ing the retreat. The civil population
of the entire district to be evacuated
was concentrated in great camps. All
were ordered to present themselves
at a fixed date for a final census of
Identification.
Altho the temperature ranged from
zero 70 nine degrees below in the va
rious concentration centers, every one
was forced to gather in an open
square. The sick were carried on
stretchers, the exhausted and helpless
were borne by their less helpless
friends.
5000 Hcrded Together.
From o'clock in the morning
the hour set for the inspection
these il-clad. ill-nourished refugees
were forced to await in this freezing
cOld-without shelter, without food
for five to six hours before the Ger
man officers arrived.
At Chauny, where 5000, women and
children and aged men underwent
such an ordeal. three died in the open
street before the inspection was con-
Guided. Thirty died the following
night from pneumonia and lung con-
gestion.
on succeeding days the resulting
deaths reached $50. Others were still
dying To-Day from similar a11ectIOnS.
This was true not only of Chauny,
but of other concentration centers
as well-the number of deaths de-
pending on the degree of cold and the
length of exposure.
Work Destruction Three Weeks.
In the larger towns in the path of
the German retreat like Ham, Chauny
and Ternier. refugees said today the
destruction of houses and property
continued for three weeks before the
retreat was actually begun.
Regular crews of destroyers sys-
tematically burned and dynamite
houses in other parts of the city. Nov
ing vans carried off to Germany fur
niture and valuables
Some officers-from General Won
Fleck down-carried off Furniture
from rooms which they personally oc-
cupied, burning what remained.
The city of Ham was left so devoid
of all furniture, I was told by one
refugee, that at the moment of de-
parture, when General Won F'leck
wished to write a final order. he was
obliged to send officers and men
hunting for chair One was finally
found in the city hall after half an
hours search.
Some officers apologized to the