The Bombardment of Reims. Ferree Barr
even the newspapers gave up attempts at numbering them, and it is probable the actual totals will never be known. The number of persons killed and wounded help also to show the severity of the bombardments, and have no other purpose in this survey. I can scarcely hope that my records of these items approach completeness, and they have been omitted from April, May and June, 1917. The number of persons killed or wounded are, for the most part, those of the civilian population of Reims.
In addition to bombardment from guns Reims has suffered from the German aviators. I have designated these birds of prey as "Taube", as an economical form of expression. Every considerable bombardment was preceded by these visitors. Nearly every day one or more of them appeared above Reims, and they seem to have been looked upon as so much matter of course that I suspect their presence was often unnoted in the reports. Whenever possible they were eagerly welcomed by the guns of Reims, and hence it followed that, not only was the city subject to the bombardment of the enemy, but on several occasions injury was done in it by antiaerial shells falling back.
A mere glance at the daily records shows that, until March, 1917, no definite purpose was behind this bombardment. It was continued for two years and a half for no other purpose than to annoy the French. Else why these daily bombardments of a few shells only, these days of calm or of little doing, these spurts of agony, bringing sudden death or useless destruction, only to be followed by lapses into silence? Had the destruction of Reims been seriously undertaken it might, I suppose, have been accomplished long since. But it pleased the enemy to irritate rather than to destroy; a little harm day by day, a little annoyance, more or less, spread over a considerable period of time, with occasional outbursts of great violence, this was the programme. Or, more dreadful still, when the German forces met with defeat, the guns were opened afresh on the helpless cathedral, that it might be wounded again for disasters it had in no sense been party to. While doubtless all this has been thoroughly understood by the French military authorities, little was known of it to the outside world, for little that went on at Reims was known anywhere. There were many other and more important things in the Great War that affected the future of France and of the world. Humanity held its breath while the heroic battle of Verdun was in progress, because it was a military event of the first magnitude. But so little has been heard of Reims that a revelation of its daily martyrdom must come as a shock to those who have closely followed the war.
The story presented from the month of March, 1917, is quite different from anything that preceded. Very obviously the foolish game of play-war was abandoned, and a real effort made to accomplish the destruction of the city. The mind pales before the needless horrors of these months, so inefficiently indicated by a record of continuous and continued bombardment. So full of horror has been this time that the local papers speak of a daily fall of 600 shells, or even 1000 shells, as a welcome relief from days just passed!
And the cathedral. That, of course, is the one central overpowering thing that excites the interest of the world in the bombardment of Reims. This is not so with the unfortunate people of Reims, who have seen their loved ones killed, their houses ruined, their occupations gone, and who have suffered daily privation and martyrdom. Reims is not alone among the cities and districts of France in such horrors, but its cathedral is one of the treasures of the world, and in this war of great crimes no greater crime has been attempted than the destruction of this splendid church.
Three years ago its vast bulk and massive towers rose grandly above its surrounding buildings in all the pride of lasting permanency. For seven hundred years these stones had cried aloud to the glory of God and the supreme genius of its French builders and decorators. France – that treasure-house of architectural masterpieces – had no more noble building than this, so dear to the French people by reason of the supremacy of its art and as the coronation church of their kings, and once the emblem and the expression of their nationality.
In its present dismantled, battered, more than half-ruined state, the cathedral of Reims is of all the unnecessary sacrifices in the War the most unnecessary. It has been too great and too good a thing to disappear from the world without leaving an empty place that cannot be filled. Once, in far back September, 1914, the merciless barbarian encamped before its holy portals. There he stayed for nine days, and, leaving in haste, presently bombarded it, so that his own wounded, temporarily placed within it for safety, were burned alive under the protecting flag of the Red Cross. A pitiable comment on his regard for great churches and the well-being of the wounded.
Since then – September 12, 1914, to be exact – no good news has come out of Reims. Yet of this we may be certain: devoted as the French are to their great national church, they will gladly sacrifice it utterly if that sacrifice be required to thrust out the barbaric invading hordes that know only hate of the good, the true, the beautiful.
The catastrophe of Reims supplies a very sure index as to what passes as the quality of the German mind. Although of all churches the most French, the cathedral of Reims belongs to the whole world, a rare, beautiful and precious structure, hallowed with great memories and endowed with exquisite art. The question is thus very simple: is the world better with the cathedral of Reims or without it? The Germans seem unquestionably to have decreed its destruction. Of this the record of the bombardment offers ample proof. But as yet the cathedral-destroyers have offered no word, no hint, no suggestion, as to how or why the world will be bettered by the wilful destruction of this matchless church.
1914
2 French army evacuated Reims in the night.
3 Taube dropped 2 bombs 9:15 A. M.; Dr. Langlet, Mayor of Reims, issued proclamation announcing the approach of the Germans and urging calm. German officers enter Reims 8:30 P. M.
4 First bombardment 9:22 A. M., 176 shells, many killed and wounded; minor injuries to the cathedral, glass broken; St. Remi and St. André injured; German troops enter in afternoon; anniversary of the German occupation of 1870.
5 German occupation.
6 German occupation.
7 German occupation.
8 German occupation.
9 German occupation.
10 German occupation.
11 German occupation.
12 German troops evacuate Reims in afternoon; French officers appear 6:30 P. M.
13 French troops re-enter Reims 6 A. M.; Taube 5 P. M.; last vespers in the cathedral (in chapel of the Cardinal): Te Deum for Benedict XV.
14 Cannonade from 5 A. M.; bombardment 9:45 A. M. to 12:15 P. M.; renewed 1 to 3:30 P. M.; 59 killed, many wounded; cannonade all night.
15 Taubes 5 A. M.; bombardment 9:30 to 11 A. M.; renewed 4 P. M., 13 killed.
16 Bombardment 3:30 A. M. to 6:30 P. M., 30 killed.
17 Bombardment from 9 A. M.; renewed 2:30 to 4 P. M., 3 shells on cathedral.
18 Cannonade from 2 A. M.; bombardment from 8:15 A. M., 13 shells on cathedral, 37 killed; Sous-Préfecture burned.
19 Bombardment 7:45 A. M. to 4 P. M., 16 shells on cathedral; cathedral took fire from incendiary bomb 2:30 P. M.; cathedral and Archiepiscopal Palace burned; 32 killed; artillery all night.
20 Bombardment 9:30 to 11 A. M.; renewed 3:30 to 4:30 P. M.
21 Calm; artillery at night.
22 Bombardment 12 to 3:30 P. M., 7 killed, Cardinal Luçon returned to Reims from Conclave at Rome.
23 Taube 6 A. M.; bombardment 3 to 5 P. M.
24 Taube 6 A. M.; bombardment 9:30 to 11 A. M.; renewed 3 to 5 P. M.; bomb struck cathedral and Civil Hospital; 10 killed; cannonade all night.
25 Trenches bombarded in morning; Reims bombarded 3 to 5 P. M.; bomb struck St. Remi, 1 killed; cannonade all night.
26 Bombardment 11:45 A. M. to 12:15 P. M., 13 killed; renewed 3:30 to 4:30 P. M., 17 killed.
27 Bombardment 3:30 P. M.; cannonade at night.
28 Bombardment 2:30 P. M.; cannonade at night.
29 Bombardment 9:30 to 10:30 A. M.; renewed 4 to 6 P. M.; again 9 P. M. to 6 A. M., 3 killed, many wounded.
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