Paris War Days: Diary of an AmericanBarnard, Charles Inman
History
Paris War Days: Diary of an American
Barnard, Charles Inman
Paris (France) -- History -- 1914-1918; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
In broad daylight, at 1.15 this afternoon, the Germans left their first
visiting-card in Paris. This came in the shape of three bombs dropped
from a German aeroplane, that made a curved flight over the city at an
altitude of two thousand meters. The first bomb fell at the corner of
the Rue des Vinaigriers and the Rue du Marais, another in the Rue des
Recollets, and a third near an asylum for aged workmen on the Quai
Valmy. The airman also let fall an oriflamme, two and a half meters
long, bearing the black and white Prussian colors, ballasted by sand in
an india-rubber football, attached to which was a letter, written in
German, which ran as follows: "The German Army is at the gates of Paris.
The only thing left for you to do is to surrender! (Signed) LIEUTENANT
VON HEIDSSEN."
The first bomb wounded two women, one of whom died of her injuries at
the hospital shortly afterwards. She was concierge of the house Number
39 Rue des Vinaigriers. No other damage was done. There were thousands
of Parisians promenading the streets at the time. The news spread like
wild-fire, but no panic, nor even undue excitement, ensued; the people
of Paris are totally different to-day from what they were in 1870. Of
course the intention of these aeroplane bomb-throwers, of whose exploits
we shall probably hear a great deal, was to create a panic and
demoralize the inhabitants, and especially to terrify women and
children. This utterly failed. After dropping the three bombs and his
_carte de visite_, the German aeroplane vanished towards the east.
It seems strange that the flotillas of air-craft at Buc were thus caught
napping and allowed the German air-lieutenant to escape.
I called in the afternoon upon Madame Waddington and her sister, Miss
King. Madame Waddington was anxious about her grandchildren, who are at
their country place not far from Laon, where the battle is now raging.
Madame Waddington says that Mr. Herrick, whom she saw this morning, told
her that if worse came to the worst, the seat of government would
probably be transferred to Bordeaux.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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