A German soldier, while being nursed in a hospital at Nancy, confided to Dr. Roemer that the wound in his stomach “had been inflicted on him by a German N.C.O. because he refused to finish off a wounded Frenchman.”

Wounded were not only massacred on the field of battle, but field hospitals were also the scene of atrocities.  At Gomery, in a casualty clearing station, under Dr. Sedillot, there were numerous wounded remaining in the German lines.  A German officer with twenty-five men visited the place and inspected it and retired, saying that all was in order.  But a N.C.O. and a party of soldiers remained in the street outside.  They were excited and kept shouting, “It is war to the death,” and making signs of cutting throats.  They rushed in and with their revolvers shot down Dr. Sedillot (who happily survived, with others, to give evidence), and set fire to the place.  Maddened by the flames, the wounded (many of whom had had amputations performed on them that very morning) leapt from the windows on the first floor and fell into the garden, where the executioners picked them up, gathering them in a bunch, and shot them.  In this way Lieutenant Jeannin and Dr. Charette were murdered, and from one hundred to one hundred and twenty officers and soldiers—­whose wounds should have made them sacred—­perished from shot or fire after terrible sufferings.

When all is said, however, it is better to kill wounded soldiers by fire or sword than by starvation, as the following incident shows:  One hundred wounded Frenchmen, together with Dr. Bender, were brought to the Stenay barracks, and one hundred and eighty more came in shortly afterwards; the latter, having been left out unattended on the battle-field for five days, were in a terrible condition.  Dr. Bender in vain begged the Germans for help in getting the wounded men out of the ambulances into the hospital.  The Boches refused, and simply went on sucking their pipes.  Though wounded himself, the doctor, with the aid of two male nurses (Frenchmen both), had to do the whole thing himself.  For several days the Boches gave them no food at all.  “Our poor fellows screamed with hunger,"[14] says the doctor, on oath, and adds, “I had sixty badly wounded with me, and begged the German army doctor to operate, but he said he had no time.  I then asked his leave to operate myself, but his reply was, “You are in the German lines, and must conform to our rules.”  The doctor ends his pathetic evidence with the words, “Nearly all these unhappy men died of neglect.”

We have seen doctors, like Professor Vulpius, actually steal money; but of all the types of Boche doctors, the most hideous is the hero of the following tale, taken from the deposition of Dr. Bender.  “A French soldier, at Stenay, was under my treatment.  He had a wound in his foot—­not very severe, which did not need an operation at all.  What was my astonishment to find that a German army surgeon had amputated his thigh?  I could not help expressing my indignation, and the surgeon’s only reply was, “He will be a man the less against us in the next war."[15] They will deny these crimes to-morrow, but in 1914 they gloried in them.