Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 12, 2025
I was an easy victim, after all, and scarcely worth the powder and shot of an experienced franc-tireur; but Madame de Marignan, according to her own confession, had a taste for civilizing "handsome boys," and as I may, perhaps, have come under that category a good many years ago, the little victory amused her!
One by one he looked them over, sorted out two, stuffed the rest into the breast of his sheepskin coat, and stood up. "There are two letters for you, Monsieur Marche, that were going to be read by the Prussian police officials," he said, holding the letters out. "What do you think of our new system of mail delivery? German delivery, franc-tireur facteur, eh, Monsieur Marche?"
Rickerl burst out violently. "There can be no compromise no adjustment. Is it Lieutenant von Steyr who seeks it? Then I tell him he is a hangman and a coward! He hangs a franc-tireur who fires on us with explosive bullets, but he himself does not hesitate to disgrace his uniform and regiment by firing explosive bullets at an escaping wretch in a balloon!"
From the last sentence it is evident that the Belgian authorities did not incite the civilian population to resistance. Other German war-writers state that the Belgian and French Governments had organized a franc-tireur warfare long before, and this accusation is one of the pillars of Germany's defence for the destruction of Louvain.
I used the bayonet only," said the franc-tireur, looking moodily at the dried blood on his hairy fists. "I got a Bavarian sentry, too; there's the proof." Jack looked at the helmet. Tricasse ripped up the mail-sack with his long clasp-knife. "They stole our mail; they will not steal it again," observed Tricasse, sorting the letters and shuffling them like cards.
"War is war... One cannot make war with rosewater... The franc-tireur has to be shot at sight. A civil population using arms against an invading army must be taught a bloody lesson. If ever we get into Germany we may have to face the same trouble, so it is no use shouting words of horror." War is war, and hell is hell.
An army which is continually sniped and harassed becomes embittered, and a General feels called upon to take those harsher measures which precedent and experience suggest. That such measures have not been pushed to an extreme by the British authorities is shown by the fact that the captured guerilla has been made a prisoner of war unlike his prototype, the franc-tireur.
And, as Rickerl hesitated, with a scowl of hate at the franc-tireurs now swarming over the wall, Jack seized the sabre and jerked it violently from his hand. "You're crazy!" he muttered. "Run for the batteries! here, this way!" A franc-tireur fired at them point-blank, and the bullet whistled between them. "Leave me. Give me my sabre," said Rickerl, in a low voice. "Then we'll both stay."
"Give me the letters," said Jack, quietly. He sat down and read them both, again and again. Tricasse turned his back, and stirred the Bavarian helmet with his boot-toe; the franc-tireur gathered up his spoils, and, at a gesture from Tricasse, carried them down the slope towards the hidden camp. "Put out the fire, too," called Tricasse, softly. "I begin to smell it."
Captain Fryatt attempted to ram the nearest vessel and escape, but the effort failed and he was arrested and charged with piracy. Germany had announced early in the war that she would consider any merchant captain who made a hostile move, even in defense of his vessel, as a franc-tireur.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking