Ogden Daily Standard | 1914-11-17 | Page 2 | Careful Count of War Damages

CAREFUL COUNT OF WAR DAMAGES French Government Is Tabulating Tabu-lating German Destruction of Property and Infractions Infrac-tions of Rules of War. St Die Department of Vosges. Prance, NOV 17. via Paris, 11 a. m The French government is taking careful count of the damage done by the German Invaders to French property prop-erty and of alleged offenses on the part of the enemy deemed to be in contravention of The Hague treaty defining tho rules of war. Various members of the cabinet, including in-cluding Premier Vivian), Minister of Justice Briand, Minister of War Mil; lerand. and .Minister or Finance Ri-bot, Ri-bot, have visited towns and villages in the territories evacuated by tho Germans and have made first hand inquiries in-quiries along these lines. President Gabriel Hanotaux, a former cabinet officer, and Deputy Maurice Barros, have done the same thing and they are all convinced that ail enormous amount of property has been destroyed de-stroyed the obliteration of which served no military purpose Foreign Office Taking Testimony. Armand Mollard, of the French foreign office, is chairman of a commission now taking testimony In the St Die region as to certain alleged al-leged offenses on the part of the invaders, as well as the Identity of the individuals concerned The property losses undoubtedly will run into hundreds of millions of franca. The town of St. Die is an example. The German occupation occupa-tion lasted fifteen days. During this j timo forty houses valued at more than 600.000 francs ($120,000) were burned and there are many instances of pillage on record. The commission commis-sion under M. Mollard distinguishes between damage resulting from bombardment bom-bardment and destruction without military object St. Die has been subjected to intermittent bombardment bombard-ment for more than forty days. nri