Okla-homey
3/23/2006, 07:24 AM
March 23, 1918 Paris hit by shells from new German gun
Eighty-eight years ago today at precisely 7:20 in the morning an explosion in the Place de la Republique in Paris announces the first operational use of a massive new German gun.
http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/7488/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz22.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
A Pariskanone
The Pariskanone, or Paris gun, as it came to be known, was manufactured by Krupps (yes, they make coffee makers now); it was 210mm, with a 118-foot-long barrel, which could fire a shell the impressive distance of some 130,000 feet, or 25 miles, into the air. Three of them fired on Paris that day from a gun site at Crépy-en-Laonnaise, 74 miles away.
http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/2441/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzbigber.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Pariskanone impact crater.
http://img71.imageshack.us/img71/9853/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz14.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Place de la Republique in Paris as it appears today.
The gun sent Paris, a city that had withstood all earlier attempts at its destruction, including scattered bombings, reeling. At first, the Paris Defense Service assumed the city was being bombed, but soon they determined that it was actually being hit by artillery fire, a heretofore unimagined situation.
http://img106.imageshack.us/img106/8339/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz15.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
By the end of this day, the shelling had killed 16 people and wounded 29 more. It would continue throughout the German offensive of that year in four separate phases between March 23 and August 9, 1918, inflicting a total of somewhere under 260 Parisian casualties.
This low total was due to the fact that the residents of Paris learned to avoid gathering in large groups during shellings, limiting the number of those killed and wounded by the shells and diminishing the initially terrifying impact of the weapon.
What follows is an account from an English lady who lived in Paris at the time:
I was in Paris during the first days of the bombardment, and I know something about the morale of the city under circumstances of acute unpleasantness. Air raids are horrible enough but they have their time limit. There is no "all clear" in an attack by the mystery gun.
I remember that on Good Friday it began early in the morning, and the explosions continued throughout the day, occurring precisely at every quarter of an hour. That is a form of irritation which the Huns thought would empty Paris in a week. Some people left the city as some people have left London to escape the raid. But the greater number of Parisians went quietly about their work and did not even leave the business at hand to seek shelter from the approach of the next expected attack.
Paris is so close to the war and has lived for so long beneath its shadow that it would take more than a long range-gun to disturb the normal course of its way of living. -- Marie Harrison (1918)
http://img106.imageshack.us/img106/1357/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzb.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
The Germans loved big artillery. This is a "Big Bertha," not as big as a "Pariskanon" but a gun so massive it was moved and fired from railways. This one is seen after the war when it was put on display in Paris for the French folks' viewing pleasure.
Almost all information about the Pariskanone, one of the most sophisticated weapons to emerge out of World War I, disappeared after the war ended. Later, the Nazis tried without success to reproduce the gun from the few pictures and diagrams that remained. Copies were deployed in 1940 against Britain across the English Channel, but failed to cause any significant damage.
http://img106.imageshack.us/img106/8254/insane7zo3nb.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Eighty-eight years ago today at precisely 7:20 in the morning an explosion in the Place de la Republique in Paris announces the first operational use of a massive new German gun.
http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/7488/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz22.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
A Pariskanone
The Pariskanone, or Paris gun, as it came to be known, was manufactured by Krupps (yes, they make coffee makers now); it was 210mm, with a 118-foot-long barrel, which could fire a shell the impressive distance of some 130,000 feet, or 25 miles, into the air. Three of them fired on Paris that day from a gun site at Crépy-en-Laonnaise, 74 miles away.
http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/2441/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzbigber.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Pariskanone impact crater.
http://img71.imageshack.us/img71/9853/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz14.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Place de la Republique in Paris as it appears today.
The gun sent Paris, a city that had withstood all earlier attempts at its destruction, including scattered bombings, reeling. At first, the Paris Defense Service assumed the city was being bombed, but soon they determined that it was actually being hit by artillery fire, a heretofore unimagined situation.
http://img106.imageshack.us/img106/8339/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz15.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
By the end of this day, the shelling had killed 16 people and wounded 29 more. It would continue throughout the German offensive of that year in four separate phases between March 23 and August 9, 1918, inflicting a total of somewhere under 260 Parisian casualties.
This low total was due to the fact that the residents of Paris learned to avoid gathering in large groups during shellings, limiting the number of those killed and wounded by the shells and diminishing the initially terrifying impact of the weapon.
What follows is an account from an English lady who lived in Paris at the time:
I was in Paris during the first days of the bombardment, and I know something about the morale of the city under circumstances of acute unpleasantness. Air raids are horrible enough but they have their time limit. There is no "all clear" in an attack by the mystery gun.
I remember that on Good Friday it began early in the morning, and the explosions continued throughout the day, occurring precisely at every quarter of an hour. That is a form of irritation which the Huns thought would empty Paris in a week. Some people left the city as some people have left London to escape the raid. But the greater number of Parisians went quietly about their work and did not even leave the business at hand to seek shelter from the approach of the next expected attack.
Paris is so close to the war and has lived for so long beneath its shadow that it would take more than a long range-gun to disturb the normal course of its way of living. -- Marie Harrison (1918)
http://img106.imageshack.us/img106/1357/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzb.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
The Germans loved big artillery. This is a "Big Bertha," not as big as a "Pariskanon" but a gun so massive it was moved and fired from railways. This one is seen after the war when it was put on display in Paris for the French folks' viewing pleasure.
Almost all information about the Pariskanone, one of the most sophisticated weapons to emerge out of World War I, disappeared after the war ended. Later, the Nazis tried without success to reproduce the gun from the few pictures and diagrams that remained. Copies were deployed in 1940 against Britain across the English Channel, but failed to cause any significant damage.
http://img106.imageshack.us/img106/8254/insane7zo3nb.jpg (http://imageshack.us)