Posted on 09/02/2023 7:46:19 PM PDT by CheshireTheCat
On the second of September in 1914, the mayor of Senlis, France, was shot by the occupying Germans in the opening weeks of World War I.
The beautiful ancient town, where the Carolingian dynasty met its end (King Louis V was killed in a hunting accident there in 987, enabling Hugh Capet to take the throne), unhappily found right in the path of the German army smashing its way towards Paris as France and her allies gave way.
German troops reached Senlis by the first of September, and overwhelmed the city in a minor battle.
On guard from the experience of being picked off by franc-tireur snipers during the Franco-Prussian War many years before, the Germans entered this urban skirmish with far more concern for the safety of their troops than for that of noncombatants. A number of civilians were seized for use as human shields by the Germans as they moved through the streets, and some others reportedly executed summarily. Numerous buildings were torched....
(Excerpt) Read more at executedtoday.com ...
> A number of civilians were seized for use as human shields by the Germans as they moved through the streets, and some others reportedly executed summarily. <
The Germans did the same thing when they swept through Belgium in WW I.
Kinda looks like the WW I Germans weren’t a whole lot better than the WW II Germans.
https://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/civilian-atrocities-german-1914
I have a five page letter an ancestor of mine wrote from Ghent during WWI. Describes the atrocities the Germans committed and conditions in general there. Horrifying.
All sides committed atrocities in WWI, the Germans were singled out.
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