BOMBARDMENT OF RHEIMS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 13493, 23 September 1914, Page 3

BOMBARDMENT OF RHEIMS.

LOUVAIN CRIME OUTDONE.

DF^TRUCTJJON OF THE FAMOUS CATHEDRAL. ■ LONDON, Sept. 21. The " Daily Miaii's corespondent at Rheims says the fire started <on Saturday afternoon. At least 500 shells fell between early morning and sunset m a part of the city several hundred yards square, and ignited street after street of blazing houses and shops^ ; Meanwhile /a battery on the hill of Noagent l'Abesse made the (kth^edral a deliberate mark,, and shell after shell smashed away the old masonry, while , ." a avalanche of stonework thundered j down into the streets.

Subsequently some scaffolding on the can J»*-d of the Cathedral was ignited and splinters fell on the -roof , and the whole of the old oak timbers caught, ami soon the nave and transepts were a roaring furnace. The flames leapt up the towers at. the eastern end, and a blazing piece of carved woodwork crashed to the floor, where the Germans had accumulated great piles of straw, intending to use the Oath- j edral as a hospital. These piles ignited, devouring the panelling of the altars and confessional. The German wounded m the Cathedral would have been incinerated but for the French doctors. I As the Germans were carried out the crowd howled with uncontrollable passion> and there were shouts of "A mort!" ;' I Some soldiers among the crowd level- j led their rifles, 'but the Abbe Andrieuxi sprang forward between: the muzzles and the wounded Germans and said. "Do not shoot; you will make yourselves as guilty as they T When day dawned the famous monument was only an empty shell.

The bombardment of Rheims was continued on Monday, and only a few walls of the cathedral are now standing, while the Hotel de Ville, the museum, and other official buildings are almost completely destroyed. The Germans -intentionally directed their artillery at the principal buildings. Several inhabitants were killed during the bombardment of the cathedral, and the Germans killed a number of their own wounded, who were being tended with the French wounded m the hope that the flying of t»he Red Cross would save the cathedral. The Times, m a leader on tlie destruction of Rheims Cathedral, says "the „ Kaiser has outdone his imperious crime at Lotnvain."

ROME, Sept. 21. The bombardment of Rheims Cathedral caused a thrill throughout -Italy. The Journal dTtalia describes it as a useless act of .barbarism, and a lunatic outburst of wounded vanity and cursed pride.