THE VICTORY OF THE MARNE
September 28, 1914.
A batch of eighty-two convalescent wounded arrived at the fort on the stroke of five. We thought at first that they were ordinary prisoners sent here direct from the last battle. We were already running to meet them on the bridge, eager for trustworthy news, ready to throw a fire of questions at the unexpected messengers across the curtain of Bavarian bayonets. Then we noticed that several of them were limping, while others, though not limping, were leaning upon sticks after the manner of old men, and we perceived that they had all lost the bronzing of trench and camp life. We were disappointed. These white-faced men came from the hospitals of Ingolstadt, and such drafts, as a rule, bring but little news.
While the transfer was being effected, and while the two German non-commissioned officers, the one belonging to the fort and the one belonging to the town, paper and pencil in hand, ticked off their men as sheep are counted at a market, we studied our comrades’ appearance. They were not very ragged. They had almost completely repaired the terrible havoc of battle.
The havoc of battle! These words have no meaning to a fire-eater past the age for active service who fights his battles among women. He speaks of the beauty of the assault, of the heroism of a bayonet charge. All that his imagination conceives is the richly dressed shop-front of war. It would be different if he knew the reality that lies behind! One must have been over several battlefields immediately after the fighting in order to understand the meaning of the phrase, “the havoc of battle.”
“They throw away their shakos, their muskets, even their colours,” writes Victor Hugo. Alas, dropping with fatigue, some of them will even throw away their coats. You see them in shirtsleeves, running across the stubble. The firing gets hotter; suddenly a shell bursts, and a man is wounded in three places—hit in the back, scratched on the thigh, and deeply torn in the arm. He falls. To make matters worse it begins to rain. The ground soon becomes a slough. The battle passes off into the distance. Rain continues. Night comes. Our man, half drowned, and almost buried in a furrow, no longer hears a sound. He tries to rise, but finds it impossible. He strains his eyes to see something. The effort is useless. He is glued to the ground; he can see nothing beyond the tuft of grass where his head is resting, nothing unless it be, close at hand, the mist-wraiths which gradually surround him and hide him. In anguish he cries: “Maman, maman!” He believes himself lost. “Maman!” He screams this with all his might. It is an appeal, a complaint, a prayer. He is in pain. He is parched with thirst. “Maman, maman!”
The stretcher-bearers have heard the cry. “The ambulance!” they shout to reassure him, making a speaking-trumpet of their hands. Here they are with their red lamps knocking against their legs. A red cross man takes our soldier on his back. The wounded man groans. What can be done? They let him groan. On the road is waiting a forage cart with straw on the bottom. It creeks and jolts; it is a bed of torture. It is packed with wounded. The rain never ceases. Our man feels that he is dying of cold, but he has the good luck to faint. The cart reaches a dilapidated farm. Beside the entrance are two lanterns, one white and the other red; it is the field hospital.
As soon as its turn comes the blood-stained bundle is smartly brought in and placed upon a truss of fresh straw. Amid the horrible concert of lamentations the man gradually returns to consciousness. What pain! The chief hospital orderly comes by with his dark-lantern. He examines the newcomer. “Here’s another of them hit in the back,” he says with a growl. He summons assistance, and two or three men painfully turn the poor devil on to his face.
“Have you the scissors?”
“No, they are in use.”
“Have you a knife?”
“Here you are.”
Rip, rip. With two slashes the orderly removes the back of the shirt. Rip, rip. He does the same with the rest. But this is sticking to the wound. “Oh, oh,” groans the patient. It is finished. The skin is free.
“He has blood-stains on his trousers, too.” Rip, rip. “Hullo! what a nasty tear in his thigh.” Rip, rip. “Gently—how it sticks!” Half of the trousers, stiff and black with blood, is thrown into the alley way to join the other rags.
At last comes the turn of the shirtsleeve. This is an easier job. Rip, rip.
“Monsieur le Major.”
“Yes,” answers the medical officer, at work at the other end of the barn. “Have you exposed the wounds?”
“Yes, Monsieur le Major.”
Oh yes, they are fully exposed. So is the wounded man! He had nothing on when he was brought in beyond a shirt and trousers. Now his shirt lacks an arm and most of the back, while his trousers have but one leg! Poor devils, whom the panic of retreat and the orderly’s knife have reduced to this condition. Such men as these may well speak of “havoc.”
And if the field hospital is in the hands of the enemy, the patients in this condition will have to endure two or three days of railway travelling, slowly jolted along in the foreigner’s cattle trucks.
Just now I was talking about our new comrades. They had known the extremity of wretchedness. Two or three weeks had passed. There they were, behind the curtain of Bavarian bayonets, standing on their own feet, their clothing a little worn; but they were full of pluck, and, considering everything, almost gay. Doubtless a Frenchman might see reason for surprise at their equipment, for this was somewhat unusual. But no German could find anything to laugh at; he could not but feel that he was looking at true French soldiers. I was grateful to our comrades for the spirit and ingenuity which had enabled them, by the use of chance expedients, to assume a military, a French aspect, under the eyes of the enemy. In certain conditions, coquetry is heroic.
Dominating the troop was a gigantic chasseur d’Afrique whose appearance drew the most indolent in the fort to look at him. Seen close at hand, he was simply a foot soldier of the 146th, from Toul, who had cut himself a chéchia [elongated fez] out of a red trouser-leg. Beside him was a dragoon, sporting an extremely elegant police-cap manufactured from the same cloth. A chasseur alpin partially concealed beneath his ample cloak a perfectly new pair of greenish trousers, bought from a sutler through the hospital gate at Ingolstadt. A colonial infantryman of the 6th, from Tarare, who had received a horrible wound in the shoulder, had a linesman’s coat and an artilleryman’s trousers. It was only his red-anchored képi, saved from the general wreck, which revealed him to be a marine. I regret to say that some of our warriors wore peaceful-looking civilian caps of grey cloth which would have given an unsoldierly appearance to Ney himself.
Nevertheless, this debris of broken regiments, rigged out at haphazard as it arrived from the battlefield, soiled, torn, and deplorable odds and ends collected from the abandoned slaughter-houses and thrown pell-mell into transport wagons, had now an appearance that was far from being filthy or wretched. Besides, the men were smiling.
On the other hand, the soldiers who come here direct from the battlefield are far from smiling! Their brains are filled with terrible visions. They anticipate cunning tortures. They are astonished that their throats have not yet been cut. I was struck by their aspect as of hunted beasts when the gate of the fort was opened wide to admit them.
I call to mind one of my comrades, an officer in the medical service. His red cross armlet protected him. Upon the roof of the field hospital he had with his own hands conspicuously unfurled the great neutral flag. I remember the circumstances perfectly. The cannonade had ceased. Our ears, which for three successive hours had been deafened by an infernal noise, were astonished by this sudden, palpitating, and immense silence. The men of our regiment, sent forward on a bayonet charge across the open, had been mowed down in masses. The survivors retreated in headless, incoherent, almost indifferent groups. While this was in progress I saw some of the men pause, quietly strike the plum-trees with their rifles, fill their mouths and their pockets with the unripe fruit, and continue on their way with the same careless gait as if at manœuvres. But the Prussians were in hot pursuit. We saw them advancing in regular order, close at hand, at first in open formation, and subsequently by sections. They halted, fired, bounded forward, fired again. Repeatedly they fired upon our field hospital, where the flood of bleeding flesh overflowed into the little garden behind the house. Dzing, dzing. Their bullets cannoned among our utensils, broke off limbs from the little fruit trees shading our wounded, and sometimes covered the poor hungry fellows with plum branches.
The whole of our staff was at work, and the work was overwhelming, utterly disproportionate to the equipment and the personnel. Yet it was all the better, for excessive labour blinds us to danger. When the body is utterly exhausted, this reacts upon the mind, which becomes dull and insensible, so that imagination is paralysed. No doubt when, all of a sudden, quite close to your ears, a passing bullet utters its sharp but gentle flute-like note, the mind starts and rears like a frightened horse. It is invaded by a flow of precise and positive thoughts of self-preservation. But this is for a moment only. The act upon which you are engaged is mechanically finished, and there you are at your post, just as before. Heroism? The word is too lofty. It is better to say simply that action is a vice which holds the mind in its powerful grip and prevents reflection. In actual warfare, all ordinary men are worth pretty much the same; all are, as circumstances vary, equally cowardly or equally courageous. But the leaders are different. I am now of opinion that the true leaders, those to whose troops panic is unknown, are those who never abandon their men’s minds to themselves even for a moment, who keep these minds permanently occupied, concentrated upon the immediate vision of some simple and direct action which has to be performed.
“There’s no end to them,” said the hospital orderlies. And indeed there seemed no end to them. The wounded streamed in from all directions, in Indian file, in groups, or in pairs helping one another along. When the house was full we did not know where to put them. For the time being we packed them together outside, wherever there was a patch of shade. Poor lads! already exhausted with hunger, fatigue, and loss of blood, they had used up the last ounce of energy in making for our flag. “Orderly,” they would say when reaching the door, “do what you can for me!” Then, out of breath, they would slowly sink to the ground, with little cries like those of a sick child. More than one of us, at sight of this, had to wipe his eyes furtively.
The firing had ceased. All at once some one cried: “There they are!” A Prussian cyclist had in fact ridden by the gate, followed by the first patrol. They did no more than glance at the field hospital in passing. At this moment I was about to open the surgical instrument wagon to get something I needed. While we were all so busy, the officer of whom I have spoken above was standing two paces from me, his arms hanging by his sides. When he heard the words “There they are,” he was dumbfounded. The brown hairs of his thin beard were bristling on his pale skin. His cheeks were blanched; he stared at vacancy. He swayed upon his little legs. Having his back towards the gate he had seen nothing. But he had heard the words, “There they are.” He knew that he was about to be seized, and he thought that his last hour had come. He stood for two or three seconds, mute, pale, as if thunderstruck. Then, talking to himself, he said tonelessly, “They’ll slit all our throats!”
While the German Feldwebel, with Dutrex at his elbow, conducts the convalescents to their rooms, section by section, I return to the “salon,” and bury myself in my papers. All at once the door is noisily opened, and Dutrex, with his usual shortness of manner, insistently martial, in a state of cheerful exhilaration, ushers in a tiny man, corporal of the 146th of Toul. Shepherding, hustling, dominating with his great blustering voice, he pushes the stranger into my arms.
“Here’s a man for you!” I shake the little corporal’s hand. The first downy growth of beard is appearing on his face. The juventa intonsa of Euryalus. He has the callow air of a candidate for university honours. With thoughtful eyes, quietly obstinate behind glasses, he resembles my friend Bonifas.
Durupt arrives. Several others, attracted to the spot, form a circle round us. As one man, the cooks desert the “plutonic region”; Davit, the Hercules, and the painstaking Devèse seat themselves unceremoniously upon the ministerial table.
“Friend,” begins Dutrex, “we’ve brought you here before Riou because you look intelligent, restrained, judicious. Riou insists upon trustworthy news. Don’t exaggerate when you are talking to him. If you are a romancer, clear out!”
The little corporal smiles. I open the conversation with the usual commonplaces, asking him about his wound, where he was taken prisoner, his last battle, his impression of the Germans at the hospital, his name, what part of France he comes from. Then I put the great question:
“Have you any news of the war?”
His name is Lahire. He comes from Paris. He obviously has news of importance. In a quiet, rather husky voice, speaking jerkily with intervals of silence, he tells his tale simply.
“This morning,” he says, “at half-past seven, an artillery lieutenant with a wound in the leg arrived at the hospital. He still wore his sabre and his revolver, for he had been granted the honours of war. His coming made a great impression upon our little world of wounded, causing much more stir than the recent visit of the princess of Bavaria. In a trice every one knew of his advent, and he immediately secured an attentive audience.
“I must tell you that at the Ingolstadt hospital officers and men live in close association. The officers, who number about fifty, are all in the same ward; but the rest of the ward, which is just like the others, is occupied by the men.
“Thus, while the lieutenant was speaking to his brother officers, we of the small fry gathered round them in a second compact circle. He had opened one of the last numbers of the Bulletin des Armées de la République; he read out loud, and, above all, he made comments as he read. He was bubbling over with delight. His fort, a fort of the third class, which was expected to hold out for thirty-six hours, had held out for six days. Three thousand melinite shells had been fired into the place. They would have resisted much longer had not their guns been of such short range. The fact is that, after they had broken up a German division, they were forced to surrender, four hundred of them, including fifty killed and a great number of wounded. This happened on September 25th. Until the surrender the fort was in communication with Verdun. As you see, my news is recent.”
“But which fort was it?” I asked.
“The Camp des Romains to the south of St. Mihiel.”
“What! The Camp des Romains has fallen? But in that case the Germans must have forced the Spada gap. The Hauts-de-Meuse must have been taken!”
“Not a bit of it! The Camp des Romains was taken from the north-west, and its capture has been an empty glory for the Germans. It is the fort of Paroches which commands the bridges of the Meuse and the passage through Verdun, and they are not going to get this fort. Be easy in your minds, Spada and the Hauts-de-Meuse are all right. Better still, we have regained in the east, in Lorraine and in Upper Alsace, all the positions of the opening days of the campaign. We are at Château-Salins.”
“At Château-Salins? Are we then also at Dieuze? My corps entered the place on August 19th and had to vacate it the next day.”
“Yes, we are at Dieuze. In our batch there is a man who was wounded at Dieuze on September 13th—I think that was the date. This same day we took the town, lost it, and retook it.”
“Are we also back at Thann?”
“Yes, and at Gwebwiller too.”[13]
“What more did your lieutenant say?”
“He said that the disorder in France at the beginning of September was intense, and that Paris had almost abandoned hope at the news that the advance guard of the Boches had entered Compiègne. Then energetic measures were taken. A few days later, the Germans lost two great battles: one at Meaux, where we took 60,000 prisoners, barely half of whom were wounded; the other between Rheims and Craonne. Since then, for more than a fortnight, hand-to-hand fighting has been going on fiercely along the whole front. Their right wing has been cut off. We have occupied the line from St. Quentin through Charleroi to Namur. We have effected a junction with the Belgian army, and are closing in upon the Germans like a pair of scissors. We speak of it as ‘Japanese tactics,’ le coup de Moukden, and it seems that the coup has been successful. The two blades of the scissors draw nearer day by day. Everywhere the Boches are in retreat. Their front, which was at Rheims, has now been pushed back sixty kilometres from the town. We have entered Varennes. We have made quick work of it to spue them into Luxemburg and Prussia by way of the Moselle! Besides, our government is back in Paris, and Poincaré has been to London to visit George V.[14]
“Let me assure you that this lieutenant was in earnest. He was not orating to his inferiors in order to keep up their spirits. He was talking to officers, among whom were several captains and men of higher grade. He was absolutely confident of victory.”
Little Lahire was still talking in the quiet voice with which he had opened. But we felt that he was animated by a sombre and intense, though subdued fire. We listened, mute and solemn. There is a keen joy which, overflowing and submerging our individuality, suddenly surges out to the utmost limits of our highest affections—family, country, humanity, God. Freude, Freude, sings the sublime chorus of the 9th symphony. Joy, joy. But this joy is grave and heroic. A shiver goes through your being, you are transfigured. You suddenly feel your footing in the eternal, in the absolute. I said not a word. The little corporal of the 146th, his eyes remaining cool behind his glasses, continued his story. The circle of the audience pressed ever closer. Unable to restrain my tears, I took his hand, said “Thank you,” and hastened from the room.
Oh France, my France!