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A TRIBUTE TO THE SOLDIERS OF FRANCE
A TRIBUTE TO THE SOLDIERS OF FRANCE
By Georges Clemenceau I watch our blue-uniformed men at war, as they pass with a friendly and serious look, generously covered with mud. This is the artillery—slow marching—which is moving its cannon under a fantastic camouflage, a mockery of reality. A glistening slope of soaked earth is set in a frame of shattered trees, twisted into indescribable convulsions of anguish with the gaping wounds inflicted by the storm of iron. On their horses, already covered with winter shag, the poilus, slouche
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PREFACE
PREFACE
Sergeant-Major Georges Lafond, of the Territorial Hussars, the author of this book, was in South America at the time of mobilization. He returned to France as soon as possible and joined his corps, but asked to be assigned as intelligence officer to the machine-gun sections of the ... first regiment of Colonial Infantry. With this picked corps, which has been decimated several times, he took part in the engagements in Champagne, on the Somme, at Lihons, Dompierre, Herbécourt, and notably in the
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CHAPTER I THE SEARCH FOR MY COMPANY
CHAPTER I THE SEARCH FOR MY COMPANY
I remember the exact date and I have reason to, for on that Monday, February fifteenth, I joined the second company of machine guns of the ... first Colonials at the front. It was snowing and the fields of Picardy were one vast white carpet on which the auto-trucks traced a multitude of black lines to the accompaniment of pyrotechnics of mud. Two days before I had left my depot in a small garrison town in the center of Provence, which lay smiling in the sun and already bedecked with the first fl
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CHAPTER II THE QUARTERMASTER’S BILLETS
CHAPTER II THE QUARTERMASTER’S BILLETS
I was seated under a shed of loose boards in the courtyard of Cantonment No. 77, and just tasting some excellent macaroni which the cook had warmed up for me, when Dedouche, the orderly, came to find me. “Say, Sergeant,” he asked, “are you the intelligence officer?” The title of “sergeant” sounds strange in the ears of a cavalryman, and I felt a little hurt in my esprit de corps ; but I at once answered Dedouche’s summons, for the orderly, in spite of being at the beck and call of everyone, enjo
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CHAPTER III THE ECHELON
CHAPTER III THE ECHELON
From Proyart to Morcourt is five miles by a crossroad which in its many curves and windings cuts across trenches, communication trenches and barbed wire. The snow had stopped, but it still covered the ground, the trees and the farms with its regular white covering. The communication trenches showed black on this vast screen. The crows circled in innumerable flights and sought in vain for the carrion which had been so abundant for months and which, to-day, was buried. We went along, boot to boot,
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CHAPTER IV THE SONG OF THE MACHINE GUN
CHAPTER IV THE SONG OF THE MACHINE GUN
Dedouche brings me a note to sign for on the report book. It reads: “The non-commissioned officers will assemble their sections in the courtyard of Cantonment No. 77 at 2.30. Each gun captain will present his gun. Service marching order, with masks and arms.” I sign mechanically to please Dedouche, who thinks he is showing me a special favor by offering me the first reading of all orders and reports. But this one interests me but little, for I have neither arms nor guns to present. So it is as a
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CHAPTER V A RECONNAISSANCE IN THE FOG
CHAPTER V A RECONNAISSANCE IN THE FOG
One evening the lieutenant said to me a little after dinner: “To-morrow, at four o’clock, we’re going to the first line trenches to find positions for the machine guns. The section leaders are coming, and if you want to come, you’ll find it interesting.” The selection of a machine gun emplacement is essentially a delicate task. The Germans are past masters in this art. So, in the days of attack when our artillery had made a thorough preparation and they were convinced that there was nothing left
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CHAPTER VI OUR FIRST ENGAGEMENT
CHAPTER VI OUR FIRST ENGAGEMENT
Yesterday evening at five o’clock we received an order to take our positions in the front line to support the attack which the second battalion would make at nine-thirty. It was raining. It has rained all the time for some months, and we have become accustomed to the mud and dampness. We left the cantonment at Morcourt at nightfall. We went along the towpath of the canal, across the bridge at Froissy, through the ruins of Éclusier and entered the communication trench which we knew as the “120 lo
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CHAPTER VII EASTER EGGS
CHAPTER VII EASTER EGGS
Easter—it fell on April twenty-third that year—dawned splendidly, a real day of gladsome spring. The company was off duty. We had worked for a month on the fortifications in the front-line trenches and we deserved this fine day. In addition the sector was quiet. There hadn’t been an engagement or a skirmish since February. This large village—more than a village, a town almost—scarcely five miles from the Boche lines, absolutely unprotected, not concealed in the slightest by a bend in the terrain
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CHAPTER VIII THE AEROPLANE
CHAPTER VIII THE AEROPLANE
Dawn had just broken. Some of the boldest of the men in the echelon were already up, rubbing down their horses and adjusting the breast collars. At daylight we had to go a long way to exchange the pack-saddles for munition-wagons. This has been the way from the start. The companies of machine guns, probably even more than the other branches of service, although I don’t know, are experiment stations on which they try one sort of gear one day and another the next. First it is a round shield, then
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CHAPTER IX DAYS IN CANTONMENT
CHAPTER IX DAYS IN CANTONMENT
The regiment is holding the first line trenches in front of the La Vache woods. When the company is in the lines, the echelons, the war train, and the clerks remain behind in the cantonment at Morcourt. Morcourt is a delightful little village hidden in the green meadows under the poplars on the banks of the canal of the Somme. Morcourt was once a hamlet of one hundred and fifty houses and their flower gardens, but to-day it is a real village where there are crowded together a population of more
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CHAPTER X AN ORDINARY FATIGUE PARTY
CHAPTER X AN ORDINARY FATIGUE PARTY
This evening the first section has to go on the works. The men have eaten earlier than usual, and they are on the road before nightfall. The column remains in good order to the end of the cantonment, but once across the passage by the knotty elm at Harbonnières, it breaks ranks. Each one goes along as he likes, talking or alone. There is madness in the air. We prefer another order of things than to spend one evening out of two in the first line digging in the mud. “Rather the trenches where we c
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CHAPTER XI WITH MUSIC
CHAPTER XI WITH MUSIC
We are in reserve cantonments at Chuignolles, and we all lodge together at the end of the village, near the church, in a large house, which isn’t injured much and which once served the servants of the presbytery. We were shaken up in our last action, and they give us comparatively generous liberty, no manœuvres, no reviews, and no drills. The section leaders have seen to the arms and ammunition and have secured an entirely new equipment from the ordnance officer. The infantry have turned gunners
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CHAPTER XII “WE HAVE TAKEN A PICKET POST”
CHAPTER XII “WE HAVE TAKEN A PICKET POST”
(“Communique du”) The asphyxiating shells which have been falling around us for forty-eight hours without a let-up have ceased. This morning the first rays of the sun filtered through the layers of gas and seemed to evaporate them. This lull was opportune. Our masks have long since been glued to our faces, and loosened by our heavy breathing they no longer adhere hermetically and begin to let in the toxins. At last we are able to breathe at will and swallow our share of pure air. Our sap opens o
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CHAPTER XIII A NIGHT CONVOY
CHAPTER XIII A NIGHT CONVOY
The colonel just telephoned the following order: “The echelons of the companies of machine guns will bring, to-night, thirty thousand cartridges to the P. C. [1] of the regiment. This order must be executed before daylight.” We spent the afternoon in verifying the belts and making up the war train. Towards seven o’clock we went slowly towards the bridge at Froissy, where we made a long halt until night fell. The sentry refused to let us take the towpath which would save us some eight miles. Thes
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CHAPTER XIV THE SONGS OF THE HOMELAND
CHAPTER XIV THE SONGS OF THE HOMELAND
Fontaine-les-Cappy is some hundred yards from the lines. It is a reserve position to which the company was sent the day before in expectation of an attack which may come at any moment. It is raining as it hasn’t stopped raining for weeks. We had floundered in the mud for five hours and were splashed by an endless string of convoys to get here from Villers where the regiment had scarcely begun a few short days of rest. The men were tired out and threw themselves on the filthy straw. They have sle
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CHAPTER XV A WATER PATROL
CHAPTER XV A WATER PATROL
For several days the Germans had been at work making changes opposite our salient on the banks of the Somme. Probably it was a machine-gun emplacement to prevent any attempt at attack from that side. But as there must be no obstacle in the way of our next advance, the major, after talking with the colonel, sent for Lieutenant Delpos, who was in charge of the section in that sector and asked him what he thought of the work. “It’s hard to say,” he answered. “If they’ve brought two or three machine
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CHAPTER XVI A COMMANDER
CHAPTER XVI A COMMANDER
At the beginning of June, the colonel’s report informed us that the major of Battalion C ... had been assigned to the ... first Colonials. The battalion commandant’s post was next to ours on the ridge of the quarry. Since the departure of Major L ... the captain adjutant-major, who was assuming the command in the interim, was quartered there. He was devoting himself to his ablutions in the open place in front of his dugout and at the same time telling Lieutenants C ... and D ..., his neighbors,
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CHAPTER XVII THE ATTACK
CHAPTER XVII THE ATTACK
We had been talking about it for months. The hour of the great attack has finally come. They have been preparing for it ever since we were transformed into diggers and sappers who dug trenches, parallels, communication trenches, and saps, day and night. It’s going to succeed at last. This time the artillery preparation won’t be insufficient. We have guns, little and big, of every kind, of every caliber, from the little howitzers set low on their plates with their large muzzles like those we used
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CHAPTER XVIII WITH ORDERS
CHAPTER XVIII WITH ORDERS
“There he is, Captain,” shouted a non-commissioned intelligence officer. “It is necessary,” said the captain, “to take this order to the lieutenant commanding your company at once. You’ll find that it’s only a promenade. Go ahead.” A promenade! From the Château de Cappy where the headquarters of our brigade were all one could see that morning on the horizon was smoke and flame. The earth trembles as though there were some sort of a fanciful, continuous earthquake. Since the attack began and our
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CHAPTER XIX A WREATH
CHAPTER XIX A WREATH
We fell back in good order—in as good order as our wounds and the enemy’s artillery fire permitted. There is a roll call of the company, now reduced in numbers by half, in the ruins of Dompierre, now cleared out, conquered and organized. None of the two sections surprised in the explosion of the mine came back. There are great gaps in the ranks of the other two, especially among the non-commissioned officers. One sergeant out of four and two or three corporals are seriously wounded. As names are
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CHAPTER XX DISCHARGED
CHAPTER XX DISCHARGED
“Come, mon vieux , swallow this; it will set you up.” A sergeant of the 88th Territorials is speaking. I see his white number as he bends over me. I swallow the contents of the cup at one draught. Ouf! it’s strong; it burns, but I feel my strength coming back. Where am I? I am behind a bank in a dugout cut in the side of the trench. How I got there I don’t know. I have lost all idea of things. I am anxious about Morin. They don’t know, but they say that they saw stretcher-bearers pick him up. I
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