On May 27 at least 1,200 explosive and incendiary shells were fired
into the place. The hospitals, including a special hospital for poison
gas cases, were hurriedly evacuated, American ambulance cars doing good
service in carrying away the wounded.
On Tuesday, the 28th, the bombardment continued, its purpose being, no
doubt, to put out of service the most important bridgehead of the Aisne
Valley and one of the most important lines of communication between the
regions to the south and north, the town being a railway centre of some
local consequence. That afternoon a good many houses were in flames,
and during the night a large part of the town was involved in fire.
The enemy had now shouldered his way on the north of the Aisne westward
from Pinon, Laffaux, and Vregny, and had reached the highroad running
from Coucy-le-Château to Soissons. Yesterday he pressed still further
west, and the road being thus covered, as well as the roads from
Laffaux and Vailly, made a powerful direct attack upon the town.
It looked at first like being an easy success. The French, wearied with
thirty hours of unceasing combat and impossibly outnumbered, fell back,
and the Germans reached the centre of the town. In the narrow streets,
however, the effect of superior numbers largely disappeared. The
French fought fiercely from corner to corner, and at last, gathering
themselves together, swept the enemy back to the northern and eastern
suburbs. In the afternoon new German contingents were brought up and in
a few hours gained complete possession of the place.
Soissons was, of course, in no sense fortified, and, the northern and
eastern roads having been lost, it had no military value. The highway
down the valley to Compiègne is bordered by the old French trench and
wire systems and dominated by hills on either side of the river. The
range on the south bank is covered for miles by the great forests of
Villers-Cotterets and Compiègne.
[Another correspondent stated that 1,200 shells fell in Soissons on May
27. The Bishop of Soissons stated in Paris on June 7 that 100 churches
had been razed to the ground by the Germans, and that at least 100
others had been pillaged and partially demolished. The famous cathedral
in Soissons suffered severely. The Bishop added that the Germans
knew neither faith nor law. They knew nothing but war and pillage.
The Germans, he said, were stripping and carrying everything away
methodically.
The Bishop also asserted that women, children, and old men had been
brutally murdered by German aviators, who flew over and fired with
their machine guns upon long lines of refugees on country roads.]