A few days only after that letter was written, the
Germans started shelling the city from the northern heights. The Cathedral was struck and one of the side chapels lost its roof ; damage was also done to Giotto's tower, the Strozzi Palace and the Loggia dei Lanz. The only conceivable purpose of such wanton damage was to embitter the relations between the Florentines and the Allied armies ; its sole effect was to create against the Germans feelings of loathing which will never die. Our own Tommies, under the arcades of the Uffizi, pumped the water of the Arno into huge green canvas reservoirs to sterilising plant while the citizens of Florence queued„ up with large brown water-jars upon their shoulders. " Liberation assuredly is not always a comfortable process ; it does not always bring repose and it is bound to bring dissension ; and in the depths of human nature it stirs up the worst as well as the best.
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