Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 August 1882 — Bombardments. [ARTICLE]

Bombardments.

The history of bombarding towns affords an instance of something like actual deterioration in the usages of modern warfare. f Regular or simple bombardment, that is, of a town indiscriminately, and not merely of ife fortresses, has now become th» established practice. Yet what did Vattcl say in the middle of the Inst century? "At•present we generally content ourselves with battering the rampaffcs and defenses of a place. To destroy a town with bombs and red hot bollg ir an to which we do not proceed without cogent reasons. ” What said Vanban Still earlier? "The fire muat be directed simply at the defenses and batteipieq of a place, * m * .* * and not against the bouses.” Then let us remember the English bombardment of Copenhagen in 5 1807, when the cathedral and •qhio«3Uo houses were destroyed : the German bombardment at Strasoburd in 1870, where rilled mortar ♦ werd*hsed f<#' tbe first time, and the 'famous, libratry and picture gallery destroyed ;, and the German bombardment of about which, strangely enough, evefti the finlifarf Conscience of the Germans *was struck, so that in the highest doubts about the propriety of .such a proceeding at oue time prevailed from a nfifr&l nd less than from a military potHtof view. With respect again to sacked or>publio buildings warfare becomes increasingly destructive.* It was the rule in Greek warfare to spare aocre l buildings; and the Romans frequently spared sacred ar.d ether buildings, as Marcel lus, for instance, at Syracuse. Yet when the French ravaged the Palatinate in 1089 they not only set tiro t.» the cathedrals, but sacked the tombs < f the auciotjt Empeois at Spiers. Fret - Crick IK destroyed the tiutst building t at Dresden and Prague, in 1811 tn > English forces destroyed the Capitol at Washington, tho President's house an 1 other public buildings ; and in 1815 the Prussian General, Blucln r, Was wit i difficulty restrained from blowing up the Bridge of Jena at Paris and tint P.llac pf Austerjitz. Thpre is always the excuse of reprisals or accident. Yet Vat,tel had sftid (> i language which but repeated the language of „ Polybius ivqd Cicero): "W » ought to spare those edifices which do honor to human society, and no n<<t cont* ,i ’“ute to 1 the enemy’s strengti , such as tenj.ples, tombs, .public buddings and all works of remarkably ty. "—@mtleman’9 Afagatine.