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Updated: June 21, 2025
It was provoked by organized resistance on the part of Belgian franc-tireurs, and by shooting from behind shutters, etc., and other attacks by citizens of the invaded country. The Germans, though truthful in the statement of the causes, inflicted punishment out of all proportion to the crime. The reports of unprovoked personal atrocities, it is nevertheless true, have been hideously exaggerated.
As a rule the Franc-tireurs des Écoles went out on the southern or western sides of Paris, but one morning they marched out to St. Denis. "There has been some pretty hot skirmishing on that side," the colonel said to his officers before starting, "and I have been asked to march you out in that direction, and to take up the outpost duties on a portion of the line there.
Companies of franc-tireurs, heroically named "Avengers of the Defeat," "Citizens of the Tomb," "Companies in Death," passed in their turn, looking like a horde of bandits.
The officer in command of the force holding the town came, just before we started, to warn us to beware of bicyclists who might be encountered near Tirlemont. "They are all franc-tireurs those Belgians on wheels," he said. "Some of them are straggling soldiers, wearing uniforms under their other clothes. They will shoot at you and trust to their bicycles to get away.
Paul did not relish the change from the free and easy life of the Franc-tireurs to the strict discipline of the regular army. The company to which he was joined had two "Gatling guns" or "Mitrailleuses" as the French called them.
The Uhlans scoured the country as clean as possible, but the franc-tireurs roamed from forest to forest, sometimes gallantly facing martyrdom, sometimes looting, burning, pillaging, and murdering. If Germans maintain that the only good franc-tireur is a dead franc-tireur, they are not always justified. Let them sit first in judgment on Andreas Hofer.
As yet they had not been seen by the Germans, and these were but fifty yards away in a thick line of skirmishers, when Des Valles gave the word, and the Franc-tireurs, rising on one knee and resting their muskets on the wall, opened a steady fire upon them. Many fell, and taken by surprise the rest ran back to a wall some thirty yards in rear and thence opened a heavy fire.
They must be franc-tireurs of Christ's Army; like the Jesuits, but without their fatal reputation, which, again, was no fault of their own. ... But there must be a Founder Who, in God's Name? a Founder nudus sequens Christum nudum.... Yes Franc-tireurs priests, bishops, laymen and women with the three vows of course, and a special clause forbidding utterly and for ever their ownership of corporate wealth.
It is a great advantage that we are Franc-tireurs and therefore free, to a great extent, to follow our own devices. I heard the colonel say that when he had applied for orders he was told that none would be given to detached corps like his, but that now, as at other times, they must make themselves useful when they saw an opportunity.
The company was about sixty strong, all picked men and Paul was the only foreigner in the lot. It was known as la Deuxieme Compagnie Franc-tireurs du Havre. The only visible difference between the regular and the irregular army was the lack of regulation buttons on the latter, and that they had no commissary department and had to provision themselves as they went.
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