"carbon monoxide poisoning' .... dead from smoke inhalation "
I thought the first was the way you died from smoke inhalation. I surely did not mean to differentiate them. I was merely noting that nothing in the eye-witness account required that a French atrocity have occurred. However, the later writers seem to have asserted such an atrocity most aggressively.

"the French attack on the village was responsible for the tragedy"
I didn't read about a French attack in the eye-witness account. Did I miss it ? I had the impression that the village was occupied for some time by the French and they were then retreating under pressure form the British.

If the French army is conducting operations in a location, let us say against the British army, and civilians there meet some catastrophic death, but not at the hands of the French, do we say the French are "responsible" ? Locally, one might think that all combatants are equally "responsible", absent some specific act that harmed the civilians.

Or do we say that the French are responsible because "they started the war", because they "invaded" Iberia, because French policies implemented through military action are "bad" and their opponents' military resistance is "good" ?