TERRIBLE SCENES IN REIMS

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2287, 22 October 1914, Page 6

TERRIBLE SCENES IN REIMS

ABBE SAVES GERMAN WOUNDED AN APPEAL FOR MERCY The correspondent of- the "Daily Mail" at Reims, under date of September 21, gives a story by tho Abbe Camu of the terrible scenes in. .tho Cathedral when it was set on fire. Tho dispatch was telegraphed to the New York "Post" from whidh we reprint it.' The Abbe said:— "It was all over in an hour.. There were two separate fires. We put tho first out with four buckets of water, all we had in tho place, but soon another ■ ehell struck the roof and the wind drove the flames along the rafters inside of the nave. Wo rushed up again, but it was flaming all along, and, as we .could do nothing, wo hurried down. "There are holes in the ceiling of the nave and sparks began to fall through them onto a great heap of straw, ton feet high and twenty yards long, tho Germans had' piled along the north aisle. We tried to catch the sparks in our hands as they fell, aud such of the Gorman wounded as were able to walk helped us. But the first spark that fell on the pile set it blazing. - ■ ' .!<■■■ Saving the Wounded. . , "There was time to think of nothing but getting out the wounded. They screamed horribly. Wo carried many of those that could not walk, while others dragged themselves painfully alonp to the sido door in the north aisle. Those who had only hand and arm wounds helped their comrades. We got out all except thirteen,, .whose,bodies lie here now. ' -..' /'•', ■~ ■■■■''■; "When at last I came out of the flaming building'l found the whole body of wounded huddled together around the doors. ' Opposite to them was a furiously hostile crowd of civilians of the town and a number of soldiers with their rifles already levelled. "I sprang forward. -'What are'you ■ doing," , I cried.- , --.. : ■ ' "'They shall all burn, , shouted the soldiers, in answer. 'They shall, go .back and burn .with the Cathedral, or we will shoot them, here.' " 'You arb mad,'; I exclaimed in reply. 'Think of what this means. . All the world will hear of the crime the Germane have committed here, and if you shoot these men the world will know that France has been as criminal 'in her turn. Anyhow,! J said, 'you shall ehoot me first, for I will not move.' Saved by the Abbe's Appeal. : > "Unwillingly the -soldiers lowered their rifles, and I turned to six German officers who; were among the wounded, and asked if; they would obey me and do everything I told them to. They said they would, and I asked them to tell their men to, do the same. Then I'made them up in a solid body, those who could walk unaided, carrying or helping those who could not. I put myself at the head, and wo set off to tho Hotel de Ville, which is only a few hundred yards away. ". "Well, then the.crowd,.who were ma<l with, grief and rage, sot on us. I cau't describe it. You have never seen anything- so dreadful as that scene. They beat .somo of the Germans and some of them 1 they got down. "Can't you help me?" I, called to a French officer I caught sight of. : " 'You will never get to the Hotel do Ville like this,' he replied, so I forced my wounded through the gateway of a private house, and we managed to; close the gates aftor us. ','They had been roughly- handled, some of them, and they stayed there a day and a night before we could'"move thorn again." -.:. . ..