Bombardment of Albert
The bombardment of Albert took place on the 30th August. We may judge how violent it was from a photograph of the ruins which appeared in L’Illustration for the 10th October. Whole streets disappeared, and the whole Place d’Armes was demolished: the Germans made a target of Notre Dame de Brébières, the basilica which the inhabitants call the Lourdes of the North, and to which so many pilgrimages make their way each year. This church was completely ruined by the sacrilegious fire expressly aimed at it, and the Statue of the Miraculous Virgin which crowned it is to-day thrown down and lies upon the ground. All around there is nothing but building material that has fallen in, half-burnt beams, charred walls, houses without roofs, broken tiles, doors broken in, cut up by grapeshot.