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Its aged priest and many other old men were carried away, and many were shot, and the town badiy damaged. We had intended to go through Vareddes to the heights beyond, where the heroes of the 133d, 246th, 289th, and of the regiment which began the battle at Villeroy the 276th are buried.
On September 1st, the post-mistress of Vareddes received orders to leave the village, after destroying the telephone and telegraphic connections. The news came late, but panic spread like wildfire. All the night, Vareddes was packing and going. Of 800 inhabitants only a hundred remained, thirty of them old men. One of the emigrants did not get far from home.
The stories of Senlis, of Vareddes, of Gerbéviller which I have specially chosen, as free from that element of sexual horror which repels many sensitive people from even trying to realise what has happened in this war, are evidences one must insist again of a national mind and quality, with which civilised Europe and civilised America can make no truce. And what folly lies behind the wickedness!
Last Wednesday we had a little excitement here, because sixteen German prisoners, who were working on a farm at Vareddes, escaped some of them disguised as women. I wasn't a bit alarmed, as it hardly seemed possible that they would venture near houses in this district, but Père was very nervous, and every time the dog barked he was out in the road to make sure that I was all right.
No. 8 Battle of the Ourcq Von Kluck's Mistake Anniversary of the Battle Wreckage of War A Burying Party A Funeral A Five Days' Battle Life-and-Death Fighting "Salut au Drapeau" Meaux Vareddes Murders at Vareddes Von Kluck's Approach The Turn of the Tide The Old Curé German Brutalities Torturers The Curé's Sufferings "He is a Spy" A Weary March Outrages Victims Reparation To Lorraine. No. 9
No doubt that had been the instinctive feeling among those who had remained to face the invasion. But the Germans were not content without wreaking the instinct which is the savage instinct to break and crush and ill-treat something which has thwarted you, on the women of Vareddes also.
It thrust back the German forces which were at first inferior in number, and it attained on the evening of the 5th the Pinchard-St. Soulplet-Ver front; but Von Kluck threw two army corps over the Marne and hurled himself on Manoury. He summoned from Compiègne all the reenforcements at his disposal, and he placed all his heavy artillery between Vareddes and May-en-Multien.
You can realize how near it is, and what an easy trip it will be in normal times, when I tell you that we left Esbly for Meaux at half past one only ten minutes by train and were back in the station at Meaux at quarter to four, and had visited Monthyon, Villeroy, Neufmontier, Penchard, Chauconin, Barcy, Chambry, and Vareddes. The authorities are not very anxious to have people go out there.
He was a man of seventy, Louis Denet by name. He left Vareddes with his wife, in a farm-cart, driving a cow with them. They went a day's journey, and put up for a few days at the farm of a friend named Roger. On Sunday the 6th, in the morning, four Germans arrived at the farm. They went away and came back again in the afternoon. They called all the inmates of the farm out into the yard.
Even on the road to Vareddes the thrifty French have already carried away and fagotted the wrecked trees, and already the huge, broken trunks are being uprooted, cut into proper length, and piled neatly by the roadside to be seasoned before being carted away. There was nothing raw about the scene anywhere. The villages were sad, because so silent and empty.
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