All night long of April 3, “they were burning the papers of the Second Auditor’s office in the streets”

This was a deliberate act, who would authorize the senseless destruction of documents of no military value? Why waste the time and energy on such low level documentation?

What a shame, as they truly provide a treasure-trove of information.

Just the day before, 8 trains had been provided for the transportation of the government archives, etc. [Jones, pp. 466/7]

I’m going to guess it was some low level civil servant misinterpreting instructions or losing his head. It is to be noted that evacuation of the city had been ordered the previous day and the government had departed by 8 P. M.

It had to be chaotic!