e
city. This gave rise to stories of "furious bombardment of Rheims," but
also caused the withdrawal of the "Long Toms" to spare the city.

A General whose name is familiar to every reader of THE NEW YORK TIMES
said:

"I could take Rheims with my corps in twenty-four hours."

But there was no present advantage in storming it at this time, and
certain disadvantages, for in addition to certain strategic reasons, it
was explained, the Germans would be saddled with the burden of having to
administer and feed the large city.

The "battle of Rheims" looked to me very much like a put-up job, a game
of trying to silence one another's batteries and nothing more. A heavy
artillery duel is essentially a contest between trained observers trying
to get a line on the whereabouts of the enemy's guns, and looking down
on Rheims from the German hills, even a lay correspondent could sense
the military necessity which would drive the French to make use of the
only high spots in town from which you could see anything for
observation purposes, and the equally grim necessity for the Germans to
dislodge them. I came away with the impression that the world owes a
real debt of gratitude to "the friend of the Rheims Cathedral."

Richard Harding Davis's Comment

_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 r