Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1920-09-05
Doom! Crash!
Tf~


Times change.
Nobody ever saw the pictures or
the pageant.
American tourists Of the ami
versary we're to come and lay their
lives down.
Hautevilliers Abbey is an utter
ruin, past all restoration, a mere
mound of white dust and broken
stone. Behind it American soldiers
are buried. Here lie A. E. r. boys:
there, beyond. are aviators of the old
lafayette squadrilla. and. farther on,
tombs of their elder brothers. first
American volunteers OF the French
Foreign Legion. AS one Of them, our
immortal Alan Seeger, prophesied in
1915. here, there
And round the city whose cathedral towers
The enemies Of beauty dared profane.
That clothe the sunny chalk fields Of Cham
Under the little crosse. where they rise
The soldier rests. Now round him undis-
The cannon thunders. and At night he lies
At peace beneath the eternal fusi1lade.
There the grape piekers At their harvesting
Shall lightly tread and load their wicker
slss'1s is %e@S .., =: they TN and ding
X \ + =
Boom! Crash!
The Germans blew up Rheims, sys-
tematically, ward by ward, like an
engineering work. Standing in front
Of the cathedral and pointing the di-
rections. have just heard the ven
cradle CardinaI-Archbishop Lucon
tell how quarters were fred with
termite shells when the wind was
favorable; how swaths were cut, like
streets. to the great monuments. and
how they tried for the cathedral
towers as soon as they got a more
frontal position. for a short time,
You understand? Four years of al
most continual bombardments and
Internationally hammerine on
this one beautiful, rich and historical
city.
what Moscow was for Russia-ssthe
blessed city" Of the old kings crown
ings, synonymous with frances ma
tional existence from the days Of St.
Remi and Clovis. Jeanne d'Arc and
Charles VII: Every shell was calcu-
lated to strike at tho French heart,
Four years Of it, scientifically, each
explosion to make its effect on the
French morale!
In 1914 there were exactly 1896
houses in Rheims.
On armistice day exactly nineteen
were intact. untouched.
Blown up. completely burnt. or
totally destroyed by the two proc
esses. down to the cellars, S.625
houses. Damaged, uninhabitabie. or
demanding extremely important con-
solidations and repairs, 5,1S1 houses.
OF public buildings. thirty-nine were
totally destroyed, and 10S partially
destroyed.
OF industrial buildings factories.
etc., forty-six Of the greatest. some
of them covering acres. were wiped
out, RACED to the ground, where the
smashed girders. ana machinery rust
on smashed cement floors to this day,
and 1874 were more than damaged
they were half destroyed.
At 1915 values, it was estimated that
the loss of Rheims was 500, 900, 900
000,0 900 francs of criminal destruction,
without military utility, done Of liked
purpose by the Germans
Nobody can picture this destruction.
You have got to see It, Pumpeii il the
easiest comparison: but Pompeii Is
small, and Rheims Is great-great
city Of cellars filled and piled with
white dust, white building stones and
twisted, rusted structural iron.
The center Of the city is complete
ly burnt, two times, three times de-
stroyed. Along the streets, where once
where splendid shops and monu-
mental dwelling houses of carved
stone, the visitor sees dust-nlled cell
| lars, broken fronts through which the
| sky is visible. torn party walls, rag
ged masses, bits of staircases and
open-grate freplaces, open to the air.
| Other towns of the front show as
| lugubrious ruin: but at Rheims the
spectacle II uniQue--e grset rtcA. IN