The Downfall (La Débâcle): A Story of the Horrors of War

by Émile Zola

All at once the trumpets sounded: 'To horse!' And almost immediately afterwards another command rang out: 'Draw swords!'

The colonel of each regiment had already galloped forward, taking up his regulation position—at seven-and-twenty yards in advance of the front. The captains were at their places at the head of their men. Then the spell of waiting began again, amid death-like silence. No longer a sound, not even the faintest breath was heard under the fierce sun. The men's hearts alone were beating. But another command, the last, and then this motionless mass would spring forward, and rush onward with the speed of a tempest.

At that moment, however, a mounted officer, wounded and supported by two men, appeared upon the hill-crest. At first he was not recognised; then a roar resounded, swelling into a furious clamour. It was General Margueritte, whose cheeks had been transpierced by a bullet, and who was destined to die of his wound. He was unable to speak, but he waved his arm towards the enemy.

The clamour was still increasing: 'Our general! Vengeance! vengeance!'

Thereupon the colonel of the first regiment raised his sabre in the air, and cried in a voice like thunder: 'Charge!'

The trumpets sounded and the mass started off, first of all at a trot. Prosper was in the front rank, but almost at the end of the right wing. The greatest danger is in the centre, upon which the enemy instinctively directs his more violent fire. When they had reached the crest of the Calvary and were beginning to descend the other slope, in the direction of the broad plain, Prosper could distinctly see, a thousand yards ahead of him, the Prussian squares against which they were being hurled. He trotted along, however, as though he were in a dream, swaying like a man asleep, feeling light and buoyant, and with his brain so empty that he had no idea of anything. He had become a mere machine worked by an irresistible power. Orders were repeated for the men to keep as close together as possible, knee to knee, so that they might acquire the resistive strength of granite. And as the trot became swifter and changed into a desperate gallop, the Chasseurs d'Afrique in Arab fashion began raising savage yells which maddened their horses. It soon became a diabolical race, at hellish speed, and as an accompaniment to the furious gallop and the ferocious howls there resounded the crackling of the fusillade, the bullets striking the cans and pans of the advancing squadrons, the brass on the uniforms of the men and on the harness of the horses, with the loud pit-a-pat of hail. And through this hail swept the shells—the hurricane of wind and thunder which shook the ground and impregnated the sunlight with a stench akin to that of burning wool and sweating beasts.

At five hundred yards from the foe a furious eddy, sweeping everything away, threw Prosper from his horse. He caught Zephyr by the mane, however, and managed to get into the saddle again. Riddled and broken by the fusillade, the centre had just given way, and the two wings were whirling round, falling back to re-form and rush forward once more. This was the fatal, foreseen annihilation of the first squadron. The fallen horses barred the ground; some had been struck dead on the spot; others were struggling in violent throes; and dismounted soldiers could be seen running hither and thither at the full speed of their little legs in search of other horses. The dead were already strewing the plain, and many riderless chargers continued galloping, coming back to the ranks of their own accord so that they might return at a mad pace to the fight, as though the powder fascinated them. The charge was resumed; the second squadron swept on with growing fury, the men bending low over their horses' necks, with their sabres on a level with the knee, ready to strike. Another couple of hundred yards were covered amid a deafening, tempestuous clamour. Yet again did the bullets make a gap in the centre, men and horses fell, arresting the onslaught with the inextricable obstruction of their corpses. And thus, in its turn, was the second squadron mowed down, annihilated, leaving the front place to those that followed behind it.

When, with heroic obstinacy, the third charge was made, Prosper found himself mixed up with some Hussars and Chasseurs de France. The regiments were mingling; there was now only a huge wave of horsemen which incessantly broke and re-formed, carrying whatever it met along with it. Prosper no longer had any idea of anything; he had surrendered himself to his horse, brave Zephyr, whom he was so fond of, and who seemed maddened by a wound in the ear. At present he was in the centre; other horses reared and fell around him; some men were thrown to the ground as by a hurricane, whilst others, though shot dead, remained in the saddle, and continued charging, showing but the whites of their eyes. And, this time, again, another two hundred yards having been covered, the stubble in the rear of the squadrons was littered with dead and dying. There were some whose heads had sunk deep into the soil. Others, who had fallen on their backs, gazed at the great round sun with terrified eyes starting from their sockets. Then there was a big black horse, an officer's charger, whose belly had been ripped open, and who vainly strove to rise with the hoofs of both forelegs caught in his entrails. Whilst the foe redoubled his fire, the wings whirled once again, and fell back, to return, however, to the charge with desperate fury.

It was, indeed, only the fourth squadron, at the fourth onslaught, that reached the Prussian lines. Prosper, with his sabre uplifted, smote the helmets and the dark uniforms that he saw through the smoky mist. Blood flowed, and on noticing that Zephyr's mouth was ensanguined, he imagined that it was through having bitten the foe. So frightful was the clamour becoming, that he could no longer hear himself shout, and yet his throat was being almost torn away by the yells that issued from it. Behind the first Prussian line, however, there was yet another one, then another, and then another. Heroism remained of no avail; those deep masses of men were like lofty herbage amid which horses and horsemen disappeared. Mow them down as you might, there were always thousands left standing. The firing continued with such intensity, the muzzles of the needle guns were so close, that uniforms were set on fire. All foundered, sank down among the bayonets; chests were transpierced, and skulls were split. Two-thirds of those regiments of horsemen were to remain on the field, and of that famous charge there would abide but the memory of the glorious madness of having attempted it. And, all at once, Zephyr, in his turn, was struck by a bullet full in the chest, and fell to the ground, crushing under him Prosper's right thigh, the pain of which was so acute that the Chasseur fainted.