Conférence : Un “véritable cauchemar”

The bombing of French towns far from the front during the Great War.
by David Hager, doctoral student at the Université de Picardie-Jules Verne.

During the Great War, bombardments claimed thousands of victims. They affected towns sometimes located
abbeville, reducing the barrier between combatants and non-combatants.
These bombardments varied in scale. In 1914, they tended to be daytime attacks by isolated aircraft dropping small numbers of light bombs. Techniques evolved, culminating in a series of nocturnal
by dozens of bombers capable of carrying hundreds of kilos of explosives. Gun performance also improved, so much so that by the end of the conflict, the range of cannon fire reached over 100 km. The destructive power of these weapons reached an unprecedented level.