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Updated: May 25, 2025
It is worth while to try and realise the scene the terror-stricken old men dragged away by their murderers the wives left behind, no doubt under a guard the sound of the distant shots the broken hearts of the widow and the orphan. But that was a mere prelude. On Friday, September 4th, a large detachment of Von Kluck's army invaded Vareddes, coming from Barcy, which lies to the west.
From here we turned east again towards Vareddes, along a fine road lined with enormous old trees, one of the handsomest roads of the department. Many of these huge trees have been snapped off by shells as neatly as if they were mere twigs. Along the road, here and there, were isolated graves. Vareddes had a tragic experience. The population was shockingly abused by the Germans.
All the same, let us insist again that no Army of the Allies, or of America, or of any British Dominion, would have been capable of the treatment given by the soldiers of Germany to the hostages of Vareddes.
Here again, as at Vareddes, the hideous deeds done were largely owing to the rage of defeat. The Germans, mainly Bavarians, on the frontier, had set their hearts on Nancy, as the troops of Von Kluck had set their hearts on Paris; and General Castelnau, commanding the Second Army, denied them Nancy, as Maunoury's Sixth Army denied Paris to Von Kluck. But more of this presently.
Soupplêts Marcilly Barcy Etrépilly Acy-en-Multien; villages from which one by one, by keen, hard fighting, the French attack, coming eastwards from Dammartin to Paris, dislodged the troops of Von Kluck; while to our right lay Trocy, and Vareddes, a village on the Ourcq, between which points ran the strongest artillery positions of the enemy.
Meanwhile the French Sixth Army was pressing on from the west, and from the 6th to the 9th there was fierce fighting in and round Vareddes. There were German batteries behind the Presbytère, and the church had become a hospital. The old Curé, the Abbé Fossin, at the age of seventy-eight, spent himself in devoted service to the wounded Germans who filled it.
Then, a few minutes in the lovely cathedral its beauty was a great surprise to me! a greeting to the tomb of Bossuet ah! what a Discours he would have written on the Battle of the Marne! and a rapid journey of some twenty-five miles back to Paris. But there is still a story left to tell the story of Vareddes. "Vareddes" says a local historian of the battle "is now a very quiet place.
The German troops in Vareddes, foreseeing immediate withdrawal, and surrounded by their own dead and dying, must somehow avenge themselves, on some one. "Hostages! The village has played us false! The Curé has been signalling from the church. We are in a nest of spies!"
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