But unfortunately, it occupied one of the central points of the fighting in the campaign of Lorraine, after the defeat of General Castelnau’s Army at Morhange on August 20th, 1914.  The exultant and victorious Germans pushed on rapidly after that action.  Luneville was occupied, and the fighting spread to the districts south and west of that town.  The campaign, however, lasted only three weeks, and was determined by the decisive French victory of September 8th on the Grand Couronne.  By September 12th Nancy was safe; Luneville and Gerbeviller had been retaken; and the German line had been driven back to where we saw it from the hill of Leomont.  But in that three weeks a hell of cruelty, in addition to all the normal sufferings of war, had been let loose on the villages of Lorraine; on Nomeny to the north of Nancy, on Badonviller, Baccarat, and Gerbeviller to the south.  The Bavarian troops, whose record is among the worst in the war, got terribly out of hand, especially when the tide turned against them; and if there is one criminal who, if he is still living, will deserve and, I hope, get an impartial trial some day before an international tribunal, it will be the Bavarian General, General Clauss.

Here is the first-hand testimony of M. Mirman, the Prefet of the Department.  At Gerbeviller, he writes, the ruin and slaughter of the town and its inhabitants had nothing to do with legitimate war: 

“We are here in presence of an inexpiable crime.  The crime was signed.  Such signatures are soon rubbed out.  I saw that of the murderer—­and I bear my testimony.

“The bandits who were at work here were assassins:  I have seen the bodies of their victims, and taken the evidence on the spot.  They shot down the inhabitants like rabbits, killing them haphazard in the streets, on their doorsteps, almost at arm’s length.  Of these victims it is still difficult to ascertain the exact number; it will be more than fifty.  Most of the victims had been buried when I first entered the town; here and there, however, in a garden, at the entrance to a cellar the corpses of women still awaited burial.  In a field just outside the town, I saw on the ground, their hands tied, some with their eyes bandaged—­fifteen old men—­murdered.  They were in three groups of five.  The men of each group had evidently clung to each other before death.  The clenched hand of one of them still held an old pipe.  They were all old men—­with white hair.  Some days had elapsed since their murder; but their aspect in death was still venerable; their quiet closed eyes seemed to appeal to heaven.  A staff officer of the Second Army who was with me photographed the scene; with other pieces de conviction; the photograph is in the hands of the Governmental Commission charged with investigating the crimes of the Germans during this war.”