Another diary, after the sacking of a place, gives a detailed account of the distribution thus:—­

    “460 francs for the first lieutenant, 390 francs for the
    second lieutenant, etc....”

(3) Doctor thieves: At Choisy-au-Bac, two army doctors, wearing their brassards, personally sacked the house of a family named Binder.  At Chateau-Thierry some doctors were made prisoners:  their mess-tins were opened and found to be full of stolen articles.  After Morhange, a French doctor of the 20th Corps remained in the German lines to be near his wounded.  He was accosted by one of his German ’confreres.’[3] who with his own hands stole his watch and pocket-book.

At Raon-sur-Plaine, after the retreat of our troops, Dr. Schneider remained behind with thirty wounded.  Next day up came a German ambulance with Professor Vulpius, a well-known German scientist of Heidelberg University, who must have presided over many international medical congresses.  As soon as he was installed, “Herr Professor” intimated to his French fellow-doctors that he was “going to begin with a small customary formality.”  The formality was a simple one:  his colleagues were to hand over to him “all the money they had on them.”  “I strongly protested” (declared the French doctor, on oath), “but we were compelled to hand over our purses and all their contents.  Having relieved us in this way, he turned to our poor wounded, who were all searched and stripped of their money.  There was nothing to be done:  we were in the hands, not of a doctor, but of a regular brute....”

(4) Royal thieves:  After living about a week in a chateau near Liege, H.R.H.  Prince Eitel Fritz, the Duke of Brunswick, and another nobleman of less importance, had all the dresses that could be found in the wardrobes belonging to the lady of the house and her daughters packed up before their own eyes, and sent to Germany.

* * * * *

These thieves are often facetious:  they give as compensation a so-called receipt or bond (in German, of course), which in French means, “Good for a hundred lashes,” or “Good for two rabbits,” or “To be shot,” or “Payable in Paris"....  They are also disgusting.  In houses robbed by them they leave, by way of visiting cards, excrement in beds, on tables, and in cupboards.  They are sometimes unnaturally vicious.  In a village of Limbourg they burnt in a stable a stallion valued at 50,000 francs, and “forced the farmer, his wife and children to witness the crime on their knees with their arms raised.”  Amongst the crowd of unfortunate people brought from Louvain to Brussels were thirteen priests.  The soldiers at a German guard-house stopped the column, and ordered the priests to come out.  To shoot them?  No.  They forced them into a pigsty, from which they had driven out the only pig.  Forthwith they compelled most of them to strip off all their clothes, and robbed them of everything of value they possessed.