Engineer Corps could have blown up the iron bridge at Creil; the
civilians had no hand in it. As an excuse for these massacres, when any
excuse is offered, the notebooks usually note that "civilians" or
"francs-tireurs" had fired on the troops. But the "scrap of paper" which
Germany subscribed--the Convention of 1907--provides in its first
article "the laws, the rights, and the duties are not applicable solely
to the army, but also to militia and bodies of volunteers" under certain
conditions, of which the main one is that they shall "openly bear arms;"
while Article 2 stipulates that "the population of an unoccupied
territory, which on the approach of the enemy spontaneously takes up
arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to organize
as provided in Article I, shall be considered as a belligerent, if they
bear arms openly and observe the laws and customs of war."

[Illustration: Figure 3.]

In the light of this text, the bearing of the barbarous recitals which
follow may be properly estimated:

(a) Notebook of Private Hassemer, (Eighth Corps, Sept. 3,
1914, at Sommepy, Marne.)--Dreadful butchery. Village burned
to the ground; the French thrown into the burning houses,
civilians and all burned together.

(b) Notebook of Lieut. Kietzmann, (Second Company, First
Battalion, Forty-ninth Infantry,) under date of Aug. 18, 1914,
(Fig. 3.)--A short distance above Diest is the village of
Schaffen. About fifty civilians were concealed in the church
tower, and from there fired on our troops with a
_mitrailleuse_. All the civilians were shot.