STORY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF RHEIMS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15721, 23 September 1914, Page 7

STORY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF RHEIMS.

CATHEDRAL MADE A DELIBERATE MARX FOR SHELLS.

GERMAN WOUNDED CARRIED OUT BY FRENCH.

(Received September 23, 12.10 a.m.)

London*, September 21.

The Daily Mail's correspondent at Rbeims says that the bombardment started on Saturday afternoon. At least 500 shells fell between early morning and sunset. Part of the city several hundred yards square was ignited. Street after street was made lurid by blazing houses and shops.

Meanwhile a battery on the hill of Noageht la Blesse made the cathedral a deliberate mark. Shell after shell smashed its way through the old masonry. An avalanche of stonework thundered down into the streets. Subsequently the scaffolding at the east end of the cathedral became ignited, and burning splinters fell upon the roof. The whole of the old oak timbers caught fire, and soon the nave and transepts were a roaring furnace. The flames leapt up to the towers at the western end, and blazing pieces of carved woodwork crashed to the floor where the Germans had accumulated great piles of straw, intending to use the cathedral as a hospital. These became ignited, the flames devouring the panelling of the altars and confessional.

The German wounded would have been incinerated but for the French doctors. As the Germans were carried out the crowd howled in uncontrollable passion, and there were shouts of "A Mort" (kill them). Some soldiers among the crowd levelled their rifles, but Abbe Andrieux sprang forward between the muzzles and the wounded, and said: " Don't fire. You make yourselves as guilty as they are."

When day dawned the famous monument was only an empty shell,