Other Results of the Second Bombardment of Reims (18th to 20th September)
The cathedral was not the only objective of the second bombardment. Not only were several houses also destroyed and several people killed, amongst others Dr. Jacquin, who lived next door to the mayor, but the Spanish consulate was bombarded, with the result that several neutral subjects met their death, a fact which was noted in a preceding chapter. The town hall, the musée, the sub-prefecture (historic monuments all of them) were almost wholly demolished. An auxiliary hospital of the Société des Sœurs de l’Enfant-Jesus was also cannonaded, and five Red Cross nurses were killed and two others wounded at the bedside of the wounded whom they had under their care.
Fresh Bombardments of the Cathedral of Reims (20th to 27th November)
After the 20th September, and in spite of the universal indignation aroused by the outrage which they had committed, the Germans continued the bombardment of Reims without intermission. But it was not until the last days of the month of November that the cathedral suffered fresh damage.
On the 23rd November a shell struck and went right through a bell-turret in the south tower at the top; on the 27th another shell, falling between the south buttresses, burst on the vault of the aisle. A third shell which fell on the vaults above the south apse, brought down a great deal of plaster in the church. A huge shell, which fell to the right of the cathedral, a little in front of the façade, damaged three statues over the small entrance to the right which until then had escaped. It was but one of many other calamities and one which completed the ruin of an historic monument. After the 20th November other shells destroyed a pinnacle, a part of the upper gallery in the apse and a part of this gallery beside the Salle des Rois.
Of the archbishop’s palace and the musées there remain, in a word, only the walls.
As for the statues in the cathedral which appear unharmed, they are burnt right through and crumble away at the touch. The crime of the barbarians is complete.
The Bombardment of the Cathedral of Reims is Inexcusable
In the words of M. Delcassé, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, in the protest addressed by him to the governments of neutral states on the morning after the first bombardment, the Germans committed this crime “without being able to appeal even to the appearance of military necessity and for the mere lust of destruction.”