At Nestle, they carried away 164 women. The official German explanation was that they should work in Germany, while the cynical officers said they would use them as orderlies. On August 29, 1914, when the Germans entered the city, a mother of seven children was violated by three soldiers. Later, she was knocked down and again assaulted, by an officer. Five inhabitants were lined up against a wall to be shot, when a French counter-attack liberated them.
In the spring of 1917, at Vraignes, in the invaded district, the Germans told the people they were to be evacuated. After the inhabitants had gathered their personal belongings, they were driven into the courtyard, stripped and robbed of their possessions. Twenty-four young women were carried away from this town of 253 population.
At Le Bouage, a suburb of Chauny, before the Germans retreated, the French refugees were lined up a distance of two kilometers on the Chauny-Noyon road and kept there, in a pouring rain, four hours. Even the invalids were carried out on stretchers. German officers passed along the line and picked out thirty-one young girls and women, one an invalid girl, thirteen years of age, and carried them away with the retreating army. Of the remainder within two weeks after fifty persons succumbed from the exposure.
On February 18th, at Noyon, when the Germans were compelled to retreat, in addition to burning, wrecking and looting, they carried away by force fifty young girls between fourteen and twenty-one years of age. They looted the American Relief store, dynamited the building, then turned the canal water into the basement.
From Roubaix, Turcoing and Lille 25,000 civilians were deported.
“These slave raids commenced, April 22, 1916, at 3 o’clock in the morning. Troops, with fixed bayonets, barred the streets, machine guns commanded the roads, against unarmed people. Soldiers made their way into the houses, officers pointed out the people who were to go. Half an hour later, everybody was driven, pell-mell, into an adjacent factory, from then to the station, whence they departed.” Taken from the Yellow Book, published by the Minister of War, dated June 30, 1916.
At Warsage, August 4, 1914, the day Belgium was violated, three civilians were shot, six hanged, nine murdered.