September 19, 1914: Reims Cathedral is Bombed

On September 4, 1914, one month after the start of the Great War, the Germans entered without a fight the Fort de la Pompelle, built on the outskirts of Reims in the 1880s and... disarmed in 1913. From this position, the cannons bombarded the city.

On September 19, 1914, Notre-Dame Cathedral itself was hit. Its framework caught fire and the lead of the roof melted. The building almost disappeared.

The Marne counteroffensive allowed the French to retake the fort on September 24, 1914, but until the end of the war, four years later, the city and its cathedral would continue to be hit by shells.

Thanks to a donation from John Rockefeller, the cathedral was rebuilt in the 1920s by the architect Henri Deneux, who designed an ingenious “reinforced cement” framework for the occasion.