Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-04-19
TEUJTON SHELLS
MAKE OF RHEIMS
SMOKING RUINS
Famous Cathedral Failing
Stone by Stone With Bombs
Bursting Around Building
AVIATORS SEE FLAMES
Paris Firemen Work Under
Fire of Enemy in an
Effort to Save
BY associated Press


has been on fire for a week, is now
nothing but great pile of smoking
ruins. During the past week the
Germans have fired more than 100,-
600 shells into the heart of the city,
Matin, and the flames from burning
buildings can be seen by aviators
sixty and seventy miles away.
There are no traces of streets and
thoroughfares which have disap-
peared from view under the accumu-
lation@ of debris. Ancient buildings
in the Place Royale and the market
place and the Musicians House,
which dates from the Sixteenth cen
tury. have been reduced to dust and
ashes.
The vaulting of the famous Rheims
Cathedral, the correspondent says, is
falling stone by stone and soon there
will be nothing left of the edifice
but the west front and the pillars.
Shells are still bursting all around
the building.
Withered by War
bardment forty Paris firemen are
still in the city working to save the
furniture and portable effects of the
inhabitants. Some of them have lost
their lives. With the Paris firemen
are some local firemen, one of whom,
Sergeant Eloi, has been on duty inI
Rheims since the outbreak of the
war and has been wounded fourteen
times.
Rheims, before the war. a city of
more than 100000 souls, has slowly
but none the less surely been falling
a victim to German hate and spite
fulness. In their first advance in the
fall of 1914, the Germans held
tie of the Marne stopped their ad-
vance and they fell back to a line a
few miles north and northeast of
the city.
Since then the big German guns
have been bombarding the city and
its famous cathedral. The popula-
tion of the city until q few months
ago was less than $4,000, but these
persons lived in dugouts or in cell
lars and the city virtually was dead.
Rose Window Gorgeous Art
The cathedral was one of the most
examples of early
Gothic architecture and was begun
in 1912. The west facade has three
portals which contain about $40
statues. Above the portals was the
gorgeous rose window. forty feet in
diameter and one of the finest speci-
mems of the art of stained glass
construction.
Up to November 1, 1916. the
Germans had fired thousands of
shells into the city. one thousand of
which had struck the cathedral !
Since then, whenever the German
troops met with reverses, the enemy
guns took up the bombardment !
anew. Until the latest bonn bardm ent |
the cathedral had suffered greatly |
The leaden roofs had been destroy |
ed and the rose window irtually |
so.
Pope Request Denied
In January, 1917, Emperor Will |
liam, in response to a request from |
Pope Benedict. said he would per-
NIT repairs to be made to the cathe- |
dral in his endeavor ito preserve
from the terrors of war venerable |
places of religious worship and |
of art which I consider |
as the common property of human
ity."
The German military authorities |
have attempted to excuse the bonn
bardment of the cathedral on the |
ground that it was being used for
purposes by the French. |
This claim has been denied repeat |
edly by Archbishop Lucon. who up
until a few weeks ago, made his |
home in his residence beside the |
unmindful of German |
hatred.