What respect for the Hague Convention! How touching the solicitude displayed toward monuments of art and religion! Only in the very last extremity do the Germans resolve to smash them to bits; still protesting, of course, against the violence done to their æsthetic feelings! Still more touching is their sincerity. On the 10th November they announce that the Vicar-General of Reims has admitted that the towers have been used for military operations, and that the Chancellor has communicated this avowal to the Vatican (Le Réveil, 11th November, 1914); on the 17th they are forced to note the Vicar-General's denial, but they maintain their accusations.
To estimate at their true value the German declarations concerning Reims Cathedral, it is enough to compare one of the three placards of the 23rd September with the "official communiqué" which they forced upon L'Ami de l'Ordre. Here are these two documents:
News published by the German General Government.
Berlin, 23rd September (official telegram, yesterday evening).—In spite of these facts we have been able to verify the presence on the tower of a post of observation, which explains the excellent effect of the fire of the enemy's infantry opposing our infantry....
The German Military Government.
Military Operations in France.
(Official Communiqué.)Antwerp, 27th September (communicated by the French Legation).—The French Minister has received from M. Delcassé the following telegrams....
II. The German Government having officially declared to various Governments that the bombardment of the Cathedral of Reims was undertaken only because of the establishment of a post of observation on the basilica, General Joffre asserts, in a telegram communicated by the Ministry of War, that no French observation-post was placed on this building.
P.S.—The German Government did not invoke the presence of an observation-post on the cathedral, but the presence of pieces of artillery behind this church, so that it was impossible to reach these guns without firing in the direction of the cathedral and hitting the latter.
This was necessary to dislodge the French artillery.
(L'Ami de l'Ordre, 29th September, 1914.)
On the 23rd September they pretended that there was an observation-post on the tower. On the 27th they declared that they had never made any such statement. German sincerity!
On the 7th July they placarded Brussels with a document in which they made a display of their artistic feeling. We asked ourselves what fresh crime they were about to commit. Next day our curiosity was satisfied; the newspapers informed us that the German army had set fire to the cathedral at Arras.
Bombardment of the Cathedral at Malines.
Let us now consider how they behaved in Belgium. The commander of the army besieging Antwerp three times bombarded Malines without any strategical excuse, for the town was absolutely empty of Belgian troops. He had informed the Belgian authorities that his troops would not fire upon monuments so long as these latter were not serving any military purpose (N.R.C. 13th September, 1914, evening edition). Better still, he published, in the German newspapers, a statement that he could not bombard Malines for fear of touching the Cathedral of Saint-Rombaut, but that the Belgians had not the same scruples. What truth was there in the last assertion? None, of course; if the Belgians dropped shells on the outskirts of the town it was while the German troops were there, a fact which our enemies themselves recognized. For the rest, it is easy to discover whether the damage done to the cathedral was the work of Germans or Belgians. The Belgians were to the north and west of the town; the Germans to the south and east. Now all the damage done to the cathedral is without exception on the south and east faces. The reader may draw his own conclusion. Here we have a reappearance of the usual German system, which consists in blaming others for their own misdeeds. At Dinant, too, they pretended that the collegiate church was destroyed not by them but by the French.
The Pretended Observation-post on Notre-Dame of Antwerp.