_To the Editor of The New York Times_:
I have just seen a letter in THE TIMES from a correspondent in the
German trenches outside of Rheims. He reports a statement made to him by
Lieut. Wengler of the Heavy Artillery, who claims he is the officer who
shelled the cathedral, at which he fired two shots, and "only two."
Wengler says, "The French observer on the cathedral was first noticed on
Sept. 13 ... the fellow continued 'on the job' quite shamelessly until
the 18th, when I aimed two shots at the cathedral and only two. No more
were needed to dislodge him. One from a 15-centimeter howitzer struck
the top of the 'observation tower,' the other, from a 21-centimeter
mortar, hit the roof and set it on fire. I wanted to dislodge the
observer with the least possible damage to the fine old cathedral ...
the French also had a battery placed about 100 yards from the
cathedral."
Editorially THE TIMES says such a statement may prove of "value as
evidence." May I also, as evidence, tell what I saw? I arrived at the
cathedral at 3 o'clock in the afternoon of the day Lieut. Wengler says
he fired two shells, one of which hit the observation tower and one of
which set fire to the roof. Up to the hour of 3, howitzer shells had
passed through the southern wall of the cathedral, killing two of the
German wounded inside, had wrecked the Grand Hotel opposite the
cathedral, knocked down four houses immediately facing it, and in a
dozen places torn up immense holes in the cathedral square. Twenty-four
hours after Lieut. Wengler claims he ceased firing shells set fire to
the roof and utterly wrecked the chapel of the cathedral and the
Archbishop's palace, which is joined to the cathedral by a yard no wider
than Fifth Avenue, and in the direction of the German guns the two
shells fired by Lieut. Wengler had already wrecked all that part of the
city surrounding the cathedral for a quarter of a mile.
To get an idea of the destruction, suppose St. Patrick's Cathedral, on
Fifth Avenue, to be the Rheims Cathedral, the Union Club, and the
Vanderbilt houses, the chapel and Archbishop's palace, and all the
buildings running north from St. Patrick's Cathedral to Central Park and
east and west to Madison Avenue and Sixth Avenue, that part of Rheims
that was utterly wrecked. That gives you some idea of the effectiveness
of Lieut. Wengler's fire.
"Father," he says, "I cannot tell a lie. I did it with only two shells!"
The statement of Lieut. Wengler that the French placed a battery a
hundred yards from the cathedral also is interesting. The cathedral
stands in a maze of twisting narrow lanes. From no spot within a quarter
of a mile of it could you drive a golf ball without smashing a window a
hundred feet distant. To place a battery of artillery a hundred yards
from the Rheims Cathedral with the intent of firing upon the German
position would be like placing a battery in Wall Street with the idea of
shelling Germans in the Bronx. Before your shells reached the Bronx you
first would have to destroy all of Northern New York.
Wengler says the only shells aimed at the cathedral were fired by him on
the 18th, and that after that date neither he nor any other officer
fired a shot. On the 22d I was in the cathedral. It was then being
shelled. I was with the Abbé Chinot, Gerald Morgan of this city, Capt.
Granville Fortescue of Washington, and on the steps of the cathedral was
Robert Bacon, our ex-Ambassador to France.
The "evidence" of Lieut. Wengler is a question of veracity. It lies
between him and these gentlemen. I am content to let it go at that.