where two officers and two German soldiers entered the basement, broke open the safes with the aid of a blowpipe, and carried away the valuables. Finally, on March 16, having mined a number of residences and public buildings, the Germans blew up twenty or more of them.

Brutal Acts at Sampigny

The villages in the neighborhood of Noyon fared no better. At Sampigny the pillage was conducted with unusual savagery. In all the houses there is manure to a depth of twelve inches. A porcelain merchant was treated with special brutality. On the eve of departure the Germans drove him out into the street, and, while he stood there looking on, smashed all the porcelains in his house with hammers. A business man at Sampigny, M. Cabrol, had left his safe open in order to show that it was empty, and thus save it from destruction: the Germans nevertheless blew it up.

At Guiscard the soldiers were preparing to burn the whole village when the French arrived; there was no time to put their plans into execution, but they had already carried off everything of value-furniture, linen, cooking stovesand had broken the mirrors. The soldiers had stolen mattresses under the eyes of their officers.

We entered what had been a pharmacy; we found, amid débris of every sort, family portraits slashed with a knife. Ordure was everywhere. They had taken all the waterpipes from the houses, the bells from the church, and even the works of the clock.

At Ham there is general chaos at the canal entrance. Pillage and willful destruction are in evidence on all sides. Two of the most beautiful residences in the city were used by the enemy; one as the officers' casino, the other as the abode of General von Fleck. Here again the Germans carried away everything of value and smashed the rest. They even went to the length of sawing through the doorframes, destroying the windows with hammer blows, pulling out the chandeliers and trampling on them. To complete the work, they deposited filth in the pianos.

In the region between Ham and the canal they destroyed everything by fire. This is true of Esmery-Hamel, where they burned the bell tower of the church; likewise of Eppeville and Verlaine. Everything is destroyed at Erchen and Solente. At Champien, amid the ruins one finds a German cemetery, in the heart of which rises an allegorical monument representing peace! The barbarians did not hesitate to write on this monument the following formula: "To the memory of friend and enemy comrades united in death." What hypocrisy! An officer has informed us that in the same community a coffin was exhumed and the remains of the dead replaced by vile ordure.

Used Battering Rams

The destruction is general and methodical at Roiglise, at Avricourt, at Amy, at Margny-aux-Cerises, where we found one of the battering rams with which the barbarians batter down houses. It is the old Roman battering ram adapted to this base use. A particularly odious regiment of Saxons committed these acts in the region of Margny. In this town the Germans violated graves in the cemetery in order to bury their dead there. The rest they blew up.

At Plessis-Cacheleux the destruction was equally systematic. From Plessis to Roye the country is a desert. Magnificent farms, such as the Bourresse farm, are nothing but pitiful ruins. At Roye there was organized pillage of all the houses. The home of the notary, especially, was sacked of everything. The bell tower was wantonly pulled down; the bell is still in it. From Roye to Nesle all the villages, such as Carrépuis, Ballâtre, Marché, Rethonviller, Billancourt, were systematically destroyed.

At Nesle the Germans committed the worst violences from the first day of the city's occupation. They laid hands upon every movable object in the houses, from cellar to garret, especially upon wines; they carried away all articles of taste: pictures, mirrors, clocks, candelabra, and objects of art. When the furnishings of a house were of considerable value they arrested the owner for espionage and

robbed him during his absence. Some days before their departure they pretended that by order of their Emperor they had to pillage, sack, and destroy everything. This order was punctually executed by the Twentieth Regiment of Heavy Artillery, the Thirty-eighth Infantry, and the Sixth Foot Chasseurs, on orders from General Hahn, commanding the Thirty-fifth Division.

The officer just named, setting the example, had the men carry away everything movable from a room which he had occupied for four months. The bells were thrown from the steeples and the fragments were shipped to Germany. Finally, in the last week-that is to say, from March 10 to 17-the invaders gave themselves up to an orgy of unqualifiable acts-incendiarisms, total destruction of many houses, the poisoning of wells, springs, and fountains.

From Nesle to Péronne they left a desert; Herly was systematically sacked, the houses reduced to ruins, the château burned. At Manicourt and Curchy everything is destroyed and burned, and it is the same at Arrancourt-le-Petit, Puzeaux, Homiécourt, Marchelepot, Barleux, Flaucourt. We will not describe the scene at Villers-Carbonnel and Péronne, now heap of tragic and grandiose ruins; nor at Lassigny, where, indeed, the destruction was caused by the battle.

Chauny a Mass of Ruins

a

The same aspects of destruction were encountered by our colleagues, especially at Chauny and to the northeast of Soissons. At Chauny, after having taken the measurement of all the cellars and houses for two months, and calculated the amount of explosives necessary to blow up each building; after giving themselves up to unbridled plunder, carrying away furniture, smashing safes, robbing churches, they devoted two weeks to destroying the whole city by flame and mine with an inflexible and pitiless method. Nothing remains of the city except one suburb where they had massed the inhabitants-and then bombarded them. They directed their shells particularly at the Institution St. Charles, a refuge for old men, where they had

City of Chauny, which had counted more than 10,000 inhabitants, is now only a mass of ruins.

The inhabitants driven from the villages near St. Quentin testify to the same acts of vandalism. All their furniture was stolen or broken. Houses were destroyed by explosion or fire. At VauxRoupy the Germans blew up the chapel of the château and the tombs. At Seracourt-le-Grand they learned of the existence of a mortuary chapel belonging to the family of one of our most venerated colleagues. Wishing to add to the sufferings of their glorious hostage, they blew up that chapel and the tombs. Eyewitnesses told us that to accomplish this sorry business the Germans had to retrace their steps three times.

Massacre of Fruit Trees

By the side of this first series of facts there is another. If they destroyed and pillaged private property and public edifices, mark how they behaved in regard to those farming enterprises of which The Hague Convention said that the enemy in an invaded country should consider himself the administrator, entitled only to the usufruct.

Here they committed an act more vile, more wicked, more odious than all the others. They sawed down all the fruit trees! And when they had no time to saw them down they tore off the bark to kill them.

No words can describe the pitiful scene in what were formerly the orchards of that rich farming region, where apple trees, pear trees, cherry trees, sawed off two feet from the ground, lie as so many fragments of a property deliberately destroyed. Along the roads is a veritable cemetery of trees, trees cut down by thousands. What strategic use can be assigned to such vandalism? They went so far as to blow up some trees with dynamite. It was destruction for destruction's sake, or, rather, it was the impotent rage of a people jealous of France, a people which, not having been able to win by courage, attempted on retiring to annihilate all the sources of wealth.

In certain localities, such as Ham, the farm laborers themselves were compelled to saw down the trees to which they had given years of care. The effect of this abominable destruction upon the minds of the inhabitants should also be noted. Members of the old reserve regiments, mostly farmers, who are repairing the roads with marvelous rapidity, were particularly exasperated by the massacre of trees. They gave vent to deep curses against the perpetrators, longing to inflict upon them the punishment merited by such a crime.

That is how the Germans have respected The Hague conventions in regard to private property, public monuments, and farming interests in the occupied territory. Let us see now what they have done regarding the honor, liberty, and life of the inhabitants.

Crimes Against Noncombatants

We will not dwell upon the thousand vexations which our heroic people had to endure at the hands of their oppressors for nearly three years quarrels over food, threats to the inhabitants if they did not give the soldiers a part of the American supplies, the seizure of the most necessary tools and possessions.

At Rove they took away by degrees all the bedding of an honored woman at the head of a boarding school which dates from 1870. Under the pretense of installing her in a neighboring house they pillaged her home and took away even her mattress and pillow. At Margnyaux-Cerises a German soldier threatened to strike a young girl who was nobly caring for her paralyzed mother, her sick grandmother, and a blind neighbor whom she had added to her burdens out of the largeness of her heart if she did not give up the bread and potatoes in her possession. At the peril of her life this brave little French girl defended the food of the three invalids for whom she was acting as guardian angel.

The inhabitants of the evacuated villages say that nothing was left them to eat; that they had to hide potatoes; that requisitions were made upon them at any moment; that fines and imprisonments rained upon them. A cultivator at At

tilly told us that one day about noon-at the time of their departure-German soldiers arrived and said: "We are going to blow up your house at 1 o'clock." And they kept their word. At Guiscard we were told that in the middle of Winter they compelled young girls to work outdoors at the heaviest tasks-for example, at sewer cleaning-without any regard for their physical strength. The only alternative was prison.

When they were about to blow up the citadel at Ham they warned the inhabitants by fixing the hour when the operation was to take place. A bugle call was to be the signal. The population was to assemble in the church, with two days' provisions. Then, suddenly moving the hour forward--and that at 2 o'clock in the morning-when the inhabitants were still in bed they touched off the explosion without warning anybody. It made victims.

On account of the sufferings of the people there have been many deaths of children in all the occupied communities.

At Noyon, upon their arrival, Aug. 30, 1914, the German officers sought out the members of the Municipal Government, at the head of which was our heroic colleague, Noël, who recently received the cross of the Legion of Honor. They compelled these men to go at the head of the column which was about to occupy the city. They made them walk beside the commandant's horse, and, as they could not keep up, they were brutally treated. The Deputy Mayor, M. Jouve, having fallen, was beaten with lance butts. A citizen, M. Devaux, who had been seized as a hostage, was shot without cause behind the Mayor's house. An officer fired his revolver in cold blood at the doorkeeper of the City Hall; he missed him, but the unfortunate man died shortly afterward as a result of the nervous shock.

A baker, M. Richard, who was simply looking out of his door at French prisoners passing along the street, was killed by a rifle bullet in the abdomen. Mme. Delbecq, a woman who refused a drink to a drunken German soldier, was killed by a rifle shot.

Captives From Noyon

On Feb. 18, after having compelled all the inhabitants of 15 to 60 years to pass the night in the college, they took them away into captivity. More than eighty innocent young girls were thus torn away from their families, in spite of tears and sobs.

Sister Saint Romuald, lady superior, made some particularly moving statements. She said that when the Germans began their operations for retreat they evacuated 250 to 500 sick cases from the region of St. Quentin into the civil hospital at Noyon. These arrived in such frightful condition that seven or eight of them died every day. They were people who had been torn from their beds without time to take anything with them; paralytics, dying men, nonagenarians; there was even a woman of 102 years. Many of those who died had to be buried without any means of verifying their identity.

The poor

Mme. Deprez, owner of the Gibercourt Château, was suffering from serious heart trouble, which compelled her to keep her bed. A German officer arrived and ordered her to get up. woman said she would obey in spite of her sufferings, and begged the officer to withdraw while she dressed. He refused and compelled her to dress before him. Mme. Begue of Flavy-le-Martel also had heart disease. They removed her. Her children of 10 and 7 years wished to follow, but the German officer refused. The little ones clung to the wheels of the carriage begging not to be separated from their mamma. Without regard for their tears and cries the officer brutally thrust them aside and left them in the road.

Everywhere they carried into captivity the inhabitants of 15 to 60 years, even the young girls, except women who had very small children. A woman in Holnor told us that they had taken away her little boy of 14 years. A high officer in the French Army reported to us, on the word of eyewitnesses, a significant remark of the German commandant at Ham. Having pointed out a young girl of 16 years he said: "That one is for me."

A woman from Ham related that on Feb. 10 she learned that 600 inhabitants were about to be taken away. Distracted -for she had three daughters-she ran to the Kommandantur and found that the rumor was true. The victims were ordered to meet in the court of the château with not more than sixty pounds of baggage apiece. At the same time all the people were ordered to bring their valuables, but this they did not do. The three daughters of the witness, aged 18, 20, and 26 years, went to the appointed place. From 10 o'clock in the morning till 3 in the afternoon the captives waited in the glacial cold. Parents rushed to them to say good-bye, and there were heart-breaking scenes. They were driven away with rifle butts, and at 3 o'clock the captives were forced to go to the railway station. The Germans had the cruelty to set up a camera to preserve a picture of this sad procession. A week or two afterward the mother of whom I have spoken learned that her daughters were not working, but were quartered in empty houses. Since then she has heard nothing from them.

A person driven from Seraucourt-leGrand told us that on June 29, 1916, at the moment of a French offensive, the Germans gathered the men of 17 to 55 years in the public square to take them into captivity. When relatives approached to say farewell they were stopped by bars and machine guns. One woman had to brave the guns to go to the aid of her sick husband.

Life Under German Rule

The martyrdom of the inhabitants of Chauny was particularly terrible. For nearly thirty months they lived under the most intolerable and humiliating régime. Obliged not to leave their homes before 8 o'clock in the morning, to return by 7 in the evening, to live without lights at night, they had to salute the German officers, hat in hand, under pain of imprisonment. On Feb. 18 the Germans began sending northward all the inhabitants of 15 to 60 years. On the 23d they ordered the rest of the population—about 2,000 persons-to assemble in the square before the City Hall. They herded these with 3,000 inhabitants of neighboring vil

lages in a suburb called Brouage. On March 3 there was a new gathering of these unfortunates, including the ill and infirm. They were compelled to pass six hours in review, enduring such sufferings from the cold that twenty-seven persons died the next day and others in the succeeding days. Then the unfortunates were packed into cellars, where for the next two weeks they heard the explosions in their houses, which were blown up over their heads!

Sufferings of Refugees

The evacuation of certain villages was carried out with equal cruelty. A woman from Gricourt, whom we met at Noyon, told us that her sick husband was driven out of his home without regard for his condition. He died, and she is left with seven children. Other inhabitants of that and neighboring villages told us that they had been driven out of their homes in the night. They had been compelled to travel a part of the way in wagons half full of manure. Then, from Babeuf to Noyon, they went on foot in the mud, with their little children suffering from cold and hunger. Some of these unfortunates died of exhaustion after reaching our lines. Everywhere the inhabitants were evacuated in this way, without enough to eat, and without regard to the weakness of children and invalids. Seventeen old men coming from Roisel arrived in such a state of exhaustion that they died within a few days.

These are atrocious facts, but however agonizing the story, however frightful the sight of heaped up ruins, we nevertheless brought back from our visit a profound impression of comfort; for, after having verified and denounced the cowardly acts of the German executioners, we have had to bow our heads before the nobility of the victims. Not for an instant during their long captivity did our compatriots despair of France. Not for an instant did they doubt our ultimate victory. They said so, they proclaimed it before our enemies, upon whom they imposed silence by their dignity, their pride, and their courage.

It is also my duty-I will speak with discretion, for it is not well to give up to

an excessive optimism-to report another matter which all these people have declared. After having seen the German Army arrive in August, 1914, so strong, so well equipped, so admirably victualed, that they wept with rage, they saw that, little by little, annoyance crept into the ranks of our enemies. The refugees declare that during the later months the Germans suffered from increasing lack of food. On this point they are unanimous. The bread given to the German soldiers was almost uneatable. Sometimes they threw it away, and not even the dogs would eat it. Nettle soup, turnip-cabbage, and the black broth which they call glue, constituted their main diet. Their coffee was made of parched barley. They tried constantly to get food from the inhabitants when these received relief supplies. Meagre as was their own fare, they sent a part of it to their families in Germany, who, they said, were in absolute want.

We do not mean to draw any excessive conclusions from these facts. It would be puerile to deny that our enemies can still oppose a great resistance to us-let us not deceive ourselves-but we place the truth on record when we state, on the testimony of our compatriots from the invaded districts, that a great physical and moral weakening is noticeable in all the German soldiers.

Condign Punishment

As for their own sufferings, so great that in many places our army surgeons found a dangerous condition of exhaustion, our heroic compatriots applied to it this admirable formula: "We forgot everything when we saw French soldiers again." They were filled with joy at finding France again, that sweet France which is more beloved the more it suffers. They brought out the tricolor flag, carefully hidden for thirty months, and hoisted it immediately on the ruins of the Mayoralty or church. The children waved little flags. At the gates of Roye a triumphal arch was raised for the entrance of the French Army.

Our duty is to avenge the wrongs of which our compatriots have been the victims. There would no longer be justice in the world if such crimes, sys