(4) The report, quoted above, of the Commission des Beaux Arts, refutes the German assertion about the seriousness of the damage caused up to the evening of the 21st September.
(5) Do not let us forget to recall the fact that, ten days before the bombardment, the German censorship permitted the Frankfurter Zeitung (of the 8th September) to recommend respect for French cathedrals, “especially that of Reims, which is one of the finest in the world, which, since the Middle Ages, has been especially dear to Germans, since the master of Bamberg was inspired by the statues on its portals to design several of his figures, and which, like the other magnificent churches of France, must be respected and treated with veneration by the Germans, as was the case with their fathers in 1870.” However, the censorship did not prevent the appearance of the sinister warning, three days previously, in the Berliner Tageblatt, in these words: “The western group of the Imperial Armies has already passed the second line of forts, except Reims, whose royal splendour, dating from the time of the white lily, will surely and soon crumble in the dust under the strokes of our 420 howitzers.”
The criminal responsibility of the commandant of the German forces has, therefore, been proved in this matter.
Public Opinion throughout the World roused to Indignation by the Bombardment of the Cathedral of Reims
It is difficult to describe the indignation roused throughout all countries of the civilised world by the bombardment of the cathedral of Reims. The newspapers of the whole planet were its living mouthpieces.
In Italy a number of learned institutions sent protests, either to the French Embassy at Rome or directly to the German authorities.
The Association of Artists, especially, held a reunion, at which the most distinguished critics and artists of Italy were present, and which passed unanimously a resolution of protest.
The Giornale d’Italia, echoing the indignation of its country, declared that “this act destroyed all the ingenious and fertile excuses for Germany’s methods of war,” and that “no act of reparation could wipe out this act of purposeless barbarism, a crazy exhibition of wounded vanity and ruffled pride.”
In Greece the newspapers were unanimous in stigmatising German vandalism. Nea Hellas wrote: “In the name of art, in the name of the Parthenon half destroyed by the fire of the Venetian Morosini, Greece, the mother of civilised nations, appeals to belligerents to respect treasures of art, and asks the Germans to cease to dishonour their country.”