Reply to the White Book," p. 500, the moving letter of
Cardinal Mercier to von Bissing: "My conscience forbids my divulging to
any tribunal the information, alas, only too well substantiated, which I
possess. Outrages on nuns have been committed ..."

KILLING THE WOUNDED

There are _great numbers_ of wounded who, on their solemn oath, have
related how, when lying on the field of battle, they saw their wounded
comrades "finished off" by rifle or revolver shots, or by blows from
butt-ends, or by bayonet stabs, or kicked to death by German soldiers,
non-commissioned officers, and even by officers.[13]

We cannot pause to analyse these innumerable depositions. There is other
evidence. How often, when a counter-attack has put us in possession of
ground lost the day before, have we found poor fellows "finished
off"--with their throats cuts, as in the case of the two sergeants of
the 31st Chasseurs at the Pass of Sainte-Marie, or "with their own
bayonets driven into their mouths," like the poor little fellow of the
17th. The enemy often runs amok like this:--"On August 23rd, the Cure of
Remereville tended Lieutenant Toussaint (who passed out first at the
Forestry School in July). When he fell in battle, this young officer was
bayoneted by all the Germans who passed near him, and his body was a
mass of wounds from head to feet." At Oudrigny "a German officer met a
French vehicle showing the Red Cross flag, and loaded with ten wounded.
He deployed his company, and fired two volleys at it." At Bonviller, an
officer murdered nine French wounded, stretched helpless in a barn, by
shooting them through the ear. On 23rd August at Montigny-le-Tilleul, M.
Vital was caught in the act of tending a French soldier, L. Sohier by
name, wounded in the head and side. Such a crime deserved punishment,
and the wretches first shot the orderly and then the patient.

At Ethe they set a shed on fire and roasted more than twenty wounded who
were lying there.

We all know the celebrated order of General Stenger in the region of
Thiaville (Meurthe-et-Moselle):--"No prisoners are to be taken. All
prisoners, whether wounded or not, must be slaughtered."

It was not only in Lorraine that such orders were given. Listen to the
depositions of a German soldier: "The same day we saw eighteen other
Frenchmen. Lieutenant N. told us to shoot them as he did not know what
else to do with them."

Read this letter found at L'Ecouvillon in a German trenc