THE BOMBARDMENT OF REIMS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 73, 23 September 1914, Page 7

THE BOMBARDMENT OF REIMS

MANY CIVILIANS PERISH (Received September 23, 8.35 a.m.) o , , , LONDON, 22nd September. Scarcely a house round the Reims Cathedral remains undamaged The statue of Joan of Arc in front of the Cathedral was not damaged. r, lL W t he ? 6Ve Tx U - le Fl '? nch a^iHery became aggressive the Germans shelled the Cathedral. It is estimated that between three and five hundred civilians perished. SCENES IN' THE CHtRCH . . „ . LONDON, 22nd September. An eye-witness at Reims says shells killed several German wounded in the Cathedral. Four Sisters of Mercy lay dead on the floor. Notwithstanding the entry of shells, women knelt around in prayer, apparently beseeching tho intercession of Joan of Arc, whose statue within the Cathedral, like that outside,

was unharmed. A shell reduced a statue of the Blessed Virgin, "to dust. The clergy remained within the building, comforting the affrighted people untfl a fire started in the belfry, which fell with a tremendous crash, and presently the building resembled a gigantic set piece of fireworks. It is estimated that the German visitation caused four millions sterling damage. ' THE POPE EXPRESSES HIS HORROR (Received September 23, 8.45 a.m.) ROME. 22nd September. The Pope expressed honor at the destruction of the Cathedra-1 at Reims, and remarked : "It is scarcely credible that in the twentieth century wa should be plunged back to the days of Attila." INFANTRYMEN PREFERRED TO WORKS OF ART (Received September 23, 10 a.m.) PARIS, 22nd September.--* Maurice Barres, the well-known writer, and a member of the French Academy, commenting on the destruction of the Reims Cathedral, says: "It is satisfactory that the shells did not kill our battalions. At the present moment I prefer tho humblest French infantryman to the worthiest works of art. These we will recreate. The essential thing is that our 'nation remains. This is the only reply of our artists and patriots to this deed." FIRE IN THE CITY LONDON, 21st September. The Daily Mail's correspondent at Reims states the fire started on Saturday afternoon. At least five hundred shells fell between early morning and sunset. Part of the city, several hundred yards square, ignited, and street after street was made lurid by the blazing houses and shops. Meanwhile the battery on the lull at Kagent-L'Abbesse made the Cathedral its deliberate mark, and shell after shell smashed its way into the old masonry, and an avalanche of stonework thundered down into the streets. Subsequently tbe scaffolding at the eas,t end of the Cathedral ignited, and burning splinters fell on the roof ; and the whole of the old oak timbers caught fire, and soon the nave and transepts Were a roaring furnace. The flames leapt the towers at the western end, and blazing pieces of carved woodwork crashed to the floor, where the Germans had previously accumulated great piles of straw, intending to use the Cathedral as a hospital, and these ignited, devouring the panelling of all the altars and the confessional. The German .wounded would have been incinerated but for the French doctors. As the Germans were carried out the crowd howled with uncontrollable passion, amid shouts of " A mort !" Some soldiers among the crowd levelled their rifles, but the Abbe Andrieux sprang forward between the muzzles and the wounded, and said: "Don't fire! You will make yourselves as guilty as they." When day dawned the famous monument was only an empty shell.