Covered with mud and glory - 1

COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY

“He’s Hit,” Sergeant Lace Cries suddenly. And indeed He Is Hit. [See page 101]

COVERED WITH MUD
AND GLORY

A Machine Gun Company in Action

(“Ma Mitrailleuse”)

BY
GEORGES LAFOND

Sergeant-Major, Territorial Hussars, French Army; Intelligence
Officer, Machine Gun Sections, French Colonial Infantry

With a Preface by Maurice Barrès
of the French Academy

Translated by Edwin Gile Rich

INCLUDING
“A Tribute to the Soldiers of France”

BY
GEORGES CLEMENCEAU

BOSTON
SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.

To the Memory of

My Comrades of the second company of machine guns of the ... first Colonials

who fell at the battle of the Somme in July, 1916, and of the Aisne in April, 1917;

Lieutenants Maisonnave and Dupouy

in remembrance of the hours of fine, sincere comradeship we lived together;

Denys Maurin

the quartermaster-sergeant, wounded heroically before Soissons, in testimony of a sincere friendship which was born under shell-fire, which grew amid the horrors of grim madness, and which was firmly fixed through sharing common hopes and common joys;

I dedicate these simple pages
which are only a modest contribution to the monumental narrative which these anonymous epics of every day would make

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, slouched in all sorts of positions, having no suggestion of the rigid form of the manœuvre, are going from one battlefield to another without any other thought except that of just keeping on going.

In colorless and shapeless uniforms, indescribably rigged out, and in poses of the most pleasurable leisure, the soldiers of France picturesquely slip from glory to glory, less aware, it seems, of historic grandeur than of serene gladness in implacable duty. They are picturesque because nature will have it so, but without any romanticism or sense of posing—officers hardly to be distinguished from privates by vague, soiled stripes—all the men enveloped in a halo of splendor above anything known to ordinary humanity.

The pugnacious pipe or the sportive cigarette hinders their expression of any personal reflection. Only their eyes are animate, and these express things which cannot be told in words lest they be profaned. The line of their lip is youthful under a silky moustache or firm with age under gray brush. But the fire of their look, framed in their dark helmets, leaps out with quiet intensity to meet the tragic unknown that no longer can bring surprise. They are our soldiers of the year II who are following the Biblical column of fire. They see something. They go to it. Ashamed of my humility, I should like to find words to say to them. But, were I a poet, they would have no need of hearkening to me, since the greatest beauty of man lies in them, and since, unwitting of utterance, which at best seems inept, these men live on the summits of life.

And the “old classes” who prosaically break stone at the side of the road or work with the shovel, the pickaxe, the broom, making the toilette of the road of triumph, what an injustice if I did not mention them! How does it happen that the noblest soldier is always the one I chance upon? That is the miracle of these men; and when I tell you that on the battlefield of the Aisne the “old classes,” not granting that it was necessary to wait to the end of the battle before beginning to clear and rebuild, went off into the hottest of the action to fill up craters, to break stones, to place tree-trunks and beams during heavy fire, without vouchsafing the Boche a single hasty gesture, so that they might the more quickly open the way for revictualling and for the bringing up of artillery—when I tell you this, you will admit that they do not deserve a lesser greeting than their “young ones.”

And the infantryman—could I commit the supreme injustice of forgetting him? That is impossible when one has gone over the battleground where he has taken possession of the burrows of the Boches, among heaps of munition material, cases of supplies, an indescribable débris, abandoned with their dead and wounded in the haste of a desperate fight. What we cannot understand is that our little poilu can pass so quickly from the apathy of the trench to the extreme fury of the attack, and then from the violence of the offensive to the calm smile of a victory of which his modesty seems to say: “It was as easy as all that.”

I did not hear a single boast, or see a disagreeable act, or hear a word that sounded false. Like a good-hearted proprietor returning home, they took possession of the shelters of the Boche so hurriedly abandoned. Here can be found the comforts of war, if these two words can be spoken together. The men talk in groups at the openings of the underground passages, camouflaged by the enemy himself. The indifference of their attitudes, the ease of their familiar conversation, in which there mingle no bragging (though this is the place for it), are more characteristic of the situation of some simple bourgeois who have happened to meet on Sunday in the street. A major begs my pardon for wearing a collared shirt, which is not perfectly “regular” at an official review. Messengers pass, throwing out a word or making a simple sign. Officers step up for brief explanations. A half-salute, a nodding of the head—it is over. Not far away, on the road cut into the rock, where the stupid Boche, after our passings, sends his impotent shells, our always young “old classes” hang on to the slopes in order to see the projectile fall, and make uncomplimentary remarks about the gunner. Then work is resumed till the next warning whistles in the air.

It is after twelve and we have not yet dined. A big devil of a Moroccan colonel, with a Don Quixotic face under an extraordinary headpiece, invites us to his P. C. (post of command), where the Boche has left useful bits of installation. A black hole is two steps away from us. We go down into the ground, over abrupt descents, and there we are protected from the “marmites” in a dark corridor lit by candles stuck into the mouths of German gas masks. We sit down on anything handy (I even have the favor of a chair), before a board which also serves as the colonel’s bed, while arms whose body remains invisible serve us with dishes not to be disdained by a gourmand. How did they get there? I cannot undertake to explain that. The walk in the open air, the tragic nature of the place, the joy in land reconquered, no doubt all lend particular spice to the comradeship of these men who forget that they have done great deeds as soon as they have done them. Pictures and illustrated pages tremble in the fluttering candle-lights, among them a Victorious France, drawn by the pencil of the colonel. A telephonist measures out mouthfuls of conversation to a military post that sends in observations and receives ours. Long time or short time, for here hours and minutes are alike, here is a magic that ends too soon. We must go.

The colonel would have been perfect if he had not made it a point of honor to avoid all danger for his civilian visitor. In the morning he had tried to forbid me a flying visit to the marvellous castle of Pinion, but he finally understood that even a soldier has to be born a civilian and that he should not therefore scorn his own origin. The trip was accomplished without the shadow of an incident, but the colonel, who insists more than ever on the rights and privileges of the uniform, will not permit me to return until the Boche cannon favors us with a little respite. The Boche can hardly make up his mind to such a favor; hence, several false departures and changings of direction. Finally, the colonel lets us go under the guard of a robust sergeant-major, who even yesterday magnificently led his stretcher-bearers to the aid of the wounded under the hottest fire. Although he is not of the youngest class, he has refused to be retired from the front. He is spoken of only with respect, I might say admiration. “He goes everywhere.” He is fine, genial company. After many necessary little zigzags, a walk that is not very strenuous and very soon over, I left the brave sergeant, whom I shall always remember.

I cannot finish this inconsequent account without speaking of the touching ceremony which I witnessed at Soissons, the terribly bombarded. Since the victory of Malmaison the city has been out of range. But when you have seen the building of the sub-prefect tottering with shell-holes, a building that neither the sub-prefect nor his wife has left, the shortest walk will tell you a long tale.

The general, who is a good fellow—I take pleasure in saying that—had proposed to show me something, and so here I am in a public square having the imposing silhouette of the cathedral as a background. From the height of the great towers, with their wide wounds, history, attentive, looks down. Everywhere there is a formidable display of cannon taken from the enemy. There are piles of them, heaps of them. There are too many to count, together with a bewildering mass of trench instruments of all sorts. Can you believe it? They do not hold the eye. How is that possible? Because on the sidewalk opposite, in splendid alignment, is the gorgeous gathering of soldiers with medals and decorations who have captured these things. Ah! They hold the eye! There they are, with all sorts of faces and from all branches of the service, with the flag which they have followed into battle and which now must be present at their honor.

To be quite honest, the group is not so æsthetic as a picture of Versailles. These men are too great for much ceremony. With a jerky step the general advances; his brusque movements reveal the homage of his emotion before the bravest of the brave. Slowly he passes along the line, while the adjutant reads in a stirring voice the high deeds in the citations. And the military medal quivers on each noble breast at the recollection of the tremendous drama lived through. And the general utters a comrade’s congratulation, shakes a friendly hand, expresses a good wish. Then the flag salutes, while the drums rumble in these hearts drunk with love of country. At the greeting of the flag of the glorious Chasseurs, a rag torn by machine guns, something gets hold of our throats, which the trumpets hurt with their sublime peal. If there are more beautiful spectacles, I do not know them. One minute here is worth years.

And I have said nothing of the people about, silent, all in mourning, their souls full of tears, which finally brim over. Men, hats off, motionless as statues, proud of becoming great through their children. Mothers, with seared faces, superbly stoic under the eye of the greater maternity of the great country. The children in the ecstasy of feeling about them something greater than they can understand, but already certain that they will understand some day this immortal hour. And not a cry, not a word sounds in the air, nothing but the great silence of the courage of all of them. Then everyone goes away, firm and erect, to a glorious destiny. In every heart La France has passed.

Note.—A few days before M. Clemenceau, premier of France, was called to power, he returned from a visit to the Aisne front and published his impressions in his paper, L’Homme Enchainé, now L’Homme Libre. When he became premier, L’Illustration republished this “Tribute to the Soldiers of France,” and it has since been widely reproduced and admired throughout France. The present English translation by Harry Kurz was printed in the New York Tribune, to the editors of which grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint here.

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 days from the first to the fifth of July, where the regiment earned its second citation and received the fourragère.

Lafond was discharged after the battles of Maisonnette, and wrote this book of recollections in the hospital at Abbeville, and afterwards at Montpellier, where he had to undergo a severe operation.

Sergeant-Major Lafond’s narrative makes no claim to literary pretension, but it is simply a collection of actual occurrences. It is a series of short narratives which give the life of a company of machine gunners from the day of its formation to the hour when it was so decimated that it had to be reorganized with men from other corps.

What pictures the following titles call to mind: “A Reconnaissance in the Fog,” “The Aeroplane,” “Our First Engagement,” “‘We Have Taken a Picket Post,’” “The Attack,” “The Echelon,” “A Water Patrol”! No man who has lived at the front and has taken part in an attack will fail to recognize the accuracy of these narratives and to experience, as well, emotion, enthusiasm, and pride in having been among “those who were there.”

This record of adventure was very successful when it appeared in the Petit Parisien, and I feel sure that it will be successful in book form. I beg Sergeant-Major Georges Lafond to accept my hearty congratulations on his fine talent and his bravery.

Maurice Barrès,
of the French Academy.

Chapter		Page
I	The Search for My Company	[1]
II	The Quartermaster’s Billets	[11]
III	The Echelon	[21]
IV	The Song of the Machine Gun	[31]
V	A Reconnaissance in the Fog	[47]
VI	Our First Engagement	[58]
VII	Easter Eggs	[71]
VIII	The Aeroplane	[89]
IX	Days in Cantonment	[103]
X	An Ordinary Fatigue Party	[122]
XI	With Music	[135]
XII	“We Have Taken a Picket Post”	[148]
XIII	A Night Convoy	[164]
XIV	The Songs of the Homeland	[175]
XV	A Water Patrol	[188]
XVI	A Commander	[199]
XVII	The Attack	[217]
XVIII	With Orders	[232]
XIX	A Wreath	[250]
XX	Discharged	[261]

ILLUSTRATIONS

	PAGE
“He’s Hit,” Sergeant Lace Cries Suddenly. And Indeed He is Hit	[Frontispiece]
Remains of Villages near the Lines	[36]
A Poilu	[56]
A Sinister Grumbling Seemed To Shatter The Fog	[110]
The Front Line Trench	[154]
A Commandant’s Post	[166]
The Least Dangerous Passage is the Unprotected Ground	[186]
The Attack	[226]

Note.—These photographs are all copyrighted by International Film Service, Inc.

A TRIBUTE TO THE SOLDIERS OF FRANCE

PREFACE

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS