wounded. By the next day one would not have been able to tell
from the Paris streets that such a bombardment was going on at all. The
subway and surface cars were running, the streets were thronged and
traffic was going on as usual. About two dozen shells were thrown into
Paris every day, mainly in the Montmartre district, in a radius of about
a mile. This seemed to show that the gun was immovable.

On March 29th, however, a shell struck the church of St. Gervais during
the Good Friday service, killing seventy-five persons and wounding
ninety. Fifty-four of those killed were women. The church had been
struck at the moment of the Elevation of the Host. This outrage aroused
special indignation, and Pope Benedict sent a protest to Berlin.

An examination of exploded shells indicated that the new German gun was
less than nine inches in caliber, and that the projectiles, which
weighed about two hundred pounds, contained two charges, in two chambers
connected by a fuse which often exploded more than a minute apart. It
took three minutes for each shell to travel to Paris and it was
estimated that such a shell rose to a height of twenty miles from the
earth. Three of these guns were used. One of these guns exploded on
March 29th, killing a German lieutenant and nine men. The Kaiser was
present when the gun was first used. It was said by American scientists
that seismographs in the United States felt the shock of each discharge.
On April 9th French aviators discovered the location of the new guns,
and French artillery began to drop enormous shells weighing half a ton
each near the German monsters. A few days later a French shell fell on
the barrel of one of these guns and put it out of commission. Great
craters were made around the other, interfering with its use, and toward
the end of the period it was only occasionally that the remaining gun
was fired, and no great damage resulted.

Another feature of the great German drives was the tremendous
destruction that accompanied them. Not only were churches, public
buildings, and private houses throughout almost the whole district
turned into ruins, but the very ground itself was plowed up into craters
and shell holes, and the trees smashed into mere splinters. During the
whole campaign poison gas of various kinds was used in immense
quantities, and it was constantly necessary for the troops to wear gas
masks. Sometimes after a town had been evacuated by the enemy it was so
filled