Senlis
The burning of Senlis is one of the most frightful cases of destruction by fire of which the Germans have been guilty. They had hardly entered it on the 2nd September when they began to loot houses, and afterwards threw into them special bombs which caused fires to break out. As M. Émile Henriot has shown, in L’Illustration, 26th September, 1914: “It was not the bombardment that started the fire. A callous and calculated purpose directed this work of destruction. There are witnesses who affirm it, and in some houses spared by the fire, these incendiary bombs, which did not fulfil the mission, were found afterwards. Private houses, hotels domiciles of rich and poor, modern villas or exquisite mansions of former days—nothing was spared. The beautiful home of the law courts and the sub-prefecture, which dated from the time of Gabriel and Louis is no more.” The cathedral, fortunately, was saved.
“Horror!” exclaimed M. Marcel Hutin of the Echo de Paris; “the whole Rue de la République, the principal street of Senlis, has been burnt down. Not a house has been spared. The hotels, private dwelling-houses, the castle, the town hall, the Houssaye Barracks—all, all in ruins.
“On the first day of their arrival, after the bombardment (I was told by the inhabitants, glad in the midst of the mental and material affliction to see a face from Paris) the Germans began to set fire to the houses in the Rue de la République. On what pretext? A tobacconist was alleged to have fired on them, and the unfortunate mayor (M. Odent) to have forgotten to cause all arms left in the possession of the citizens to be sent to the town hall.
“And such scenes! Some soldiers deposited incendiary bombs in the houses. Others, a few minutes afterwards, fired on the houses, which, being full of gases, immediately blew up. Nothing of them remains but the walls.
“Scenes of bestial savagery lifted these brutes to the highest pitch of joy: whilst the houses hard by were ablaze and the fire had just reached the topmost story of the Hôtel du Nord, in the basement a dozen Death’s-Head Hussars, tipsy, were playing infernal music on the piano, and singing with wild eyes. Outside some cavalry were forcing their horses to leap through these furnaces! It was frightful. All the night I had a horrible vision of Senlis burnt down.”