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s is the case particularly at Revigny, Sommeilles, Triaucourt, Bulainville, Clermont-en-Argonne, and Villers-aux-Vents. The Germans having completely sacked the houses of Revigny and carried off their booty on vehicles, burned two-thirds of the town during three consecutive days from the 6th to the 9th of September, sprinkling the walls with petrol by means of hand pumps, and throwing into the houses little bags full of compressed powder in tablets. We have been furnished with specimens of these little bags and these tablets, as well as with fuse sticks of inflammable matter which had been left by the incendiaries. The church, which was classed as a historical monument, and the Mairie with all its archives, have been destroyed. Many inhabitants, among whom were children, have been taken away as hostages. They were, however, set at liberty next day, with the exception of M. Wladimir Thomas. Few localities in the Department of the Meuse have suffered as much as the Commune of Sommeilles. It is nothing but a heap of ruins, having been completely burned on the 6th of September by a regiment of German infantry bearing the number fifty-one. The place was set on fire with help of machinelike bicycle pumps with which many of the soldiers were furnished. This unhappy village was the scene of a terrible drama. At the commencement of the fire Mme. X., whose husband is with the colors, took refuge in the cellar of M. et Mme. Adnot, together with these latter and their four children, aged respectively 11, 5, 4, and 1-1/2 years. A few days afterward the bodies of all these unfortunate people were discovered in the middle of a pool of blood. Adnot had been shot, Mme. X. had her breast and right arm cut off; the little girl of 11 had a foot severed, the little boy of 5 had his throat cut. The woman X. and the little girl appeared to have been raped. At Villers-aux-Vents, on the 8th of September, German officers invited the inhabitants who had not yet fled to leave their dwellings, warning them that the village was about to be burned, because, they alleged, three French soldiers had dressed themselves in civilian clothes; others gave the pretext that an installation of wireless telegraphy had been found in a house. The threat was carried out so rigorously that one house alone remains standing. At Vaubecourt, where six dwelling houses were burned by the Wuerttemburgers, fire was set to a barn with straw piled up by the s
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