Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1918-10-08
IIIIIlIIIIIlGIIIIIILIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIlIlILIIIIIII
rangement With the George Matthew Adams Service


He said that when the Germans en-
tered the town of ST. Quentin, they
started firing into the windows as they
passed along. First, after they had oc-
cupied the town, they bayoneted every
workingman they could find. Then
they took about half of the children
that they could find, and killed them
with their musket butts. After this,
they marched the remainder of the chill
dren and the women to the square,
Where they had lined up a row of male
citizens against a wall. The women
ana children were told that if they
moved, they would all be shot. An
other file of men was brought up, and
made to kneel in front of the other
men against the wall.
The women and children began to
beg for the lives of the men, and many
of them were knocked in the head with
gun butts before they stopped.
Then the Germans fred at the double
rank of men. After three volleys, there
were eightyfour dead and twenty
wounded. Most of the wounded they
then killed with axes, but somehow,
three or four escaped by hiding under
the bodies of others and playing dead,
though the officers walked up and
down firing their revolvers into the
piles of bodies.
The next day the Germans went
through the wine cellars, and shot all
the inhabitants they found hiding
there. A lot of people, who had taken
refuge in a factory over night, decided
to come out with a white flag. They
were allowed to think that the white
flag would be respected, but no sooner
WERE they all out than they were seized
and the women publicly violated in the
square, after which the men were shot
A paralytic was shot as he sat in his
| armchair, and boy of fourteen was
taken by the legs and pulled apart.
AT one place, man was tied by the
arms to the ceiling of his room and set
| afire. His trunk was completely car
BOMBED, but his head and arms were
| unburned. At the same place, the
body of a fifteen-year-old boy was
bayonet thrusts. Other dead were
found with their hands still in the air,
| leaning up against walls.
At another place the Germans
shelled the town for a day, and then
entered and sacked it. The women
nn6 nhilHrnn I'm Inncn xri+h
out being allowed to take anything
with them, and forced to leave the
town. Nearly five hundred men were
| depOrted to Germany. Three, who
were almost exhausted by hunger, tried
to escape. They were bayOneted and
dubbed to death. Twelve men, who
had taken refuge in a farm, were tied
| together and shot in a mass. Another
group of six were tied together and
shot after the Germans had put out
their eyes and tortured them with
| bayonets. Three others were brought
before their wives and children and
| sabered.
The Belgian told me he was at Ma
muir when the Germans began Smelling
it. The bombardment lasted the whole
of August 81 and %, 1914. They CEN
tered their fire on the prison. the hos
pital, and the railway station. They
entered the town at four o'clock in the
afternoon of August %. During the
| first twenty-fOur hours, they behaved
| themselves, but on the oath they began
firing at anyone they pleased, and set
| fire to different houses on five of the
principal squares.
Then they ordered every one to leave
his house, and those who did not were
shot The others, about four hundred
in all. were drawn up in front of the
church, close to the river bank. The
Belgian said he could never forget how
they all looked
Il can remember Just how it was"
he said There were eight men, whom
l knew very WELL standing in a row
with several priests. Next came two
good friends Of mine named BaIbau
and Guillaume, with Balbau's seven
teen-year-old son; then two men who
had taken refuge in a barn and had
been discovered and blinded; then two
other men whom l had never seen be-
fore.
"It was awful to see the way the
women were crying-'Sboot me too.
shoot me with my husband"
1.-THE men were lined up on the edge
of the hollow, which, runs from the
high road to the bottom of the village.
One of them was leaning on the shout
ders of an old. priest, and he was cry
ing, 4 am too young can't face
death bravely.'
81 couldn't bear the sight any longer
| turned my back to the road and COW
cred my eyes. l heard the volley. and
the bodies falling. Then some one
cried, Look, they're all down But
few escaped"