A Volunteer Poilu

by Henry Beston

The election of Poincaré, a man of genuine distinction, was a sign of better times. Millerand became Minister of War, and began the reorganization of the army, thus making possible the victory of the Marne. But a petty intrigue led by a group of radicals caused the resignation of this minister at a time when the First Balkan War threatened to engulf Europe. The maneuver was inexcusable. Messimy, an attaché of the group who had led the attack, took Millerand's place. When the war broke out, Messimy was invited to make himself scarce, and Millerand returned to his post. Thanks to him, the army was as ready as an army in a democratic country can be.

The France of 1915-16 is a new France. The nation has learned that if it is to live it must cease tearing itself to pieces, and all parties are united in a "Holy Union" (l'Union Sacrée). Truce in the face of a common danger or a real union? Will it last? Alarmists whisper that when the war is over, the army will settle its score with the politicians. Others predict a great victory for the radicals, because the industrial classes are safe at home making shells while the conservative peasants are being killed off in the trenches. Everybody in France is saying, "What will happen when the army comes home?" There is to-day only one man in France completely trusted by all classes—General Joffre, and if by any chance there should be political troubles after the war, the army and the nation will look to him.

The French fully realize what the English alliance has meant to them, and are grateful for Engish aid. As the titanic character of England's mighty effort becomes clearer, the sympathy with England will increase. Of course one cannot expect the French to understand the state of mind which insists upon a volunteer system in the face of the deadliest and most terrible foe. The attitude of the English to sport has rather perplexed them, and they did not like the action of some English officers in bringing a pack of hounds to the Flanders front. It was thought that officers should be soldiers first and sportsmen afterward, and the knowledge that dilettante English officers were riding to hounds while the English nation was resisting conscription and Jean, Jacques, and Pierre were doing the fighting and dying in the trenches, provoked a secret and bitter disdain.

But since the British have got into the war as a nation, this secret disdain has been forgotten, and the poilu has taken "le Tommie" to his heart.

I heard only the friendliest criticism of the Russians.

It is a rather delicate task to say what the French think of the Americans, for the real truth is that they think of us but rarely. Our quarrel with Germany over the submarines interested them somewhat, but this interest rapidly died away when it became evident that we were not going to do anything about it. They see our flag over countless charity dépôts, hospitals, and benevolent institutions, and are grateful. The poilu would be glad to see us in the fray simply because of the aid we should bring, but he is reasonable enough to know that the United States can keep out of the mêlée without losing any moral prestige. The only hostile criticism of America that I heard came from doctrinaires who saw the war as a conflict between autocracy and democracy, and if you grant that this point of view is the right one, these thinkers have a right to despise us. But the Frenchman knows that the Allies represent something more than "virtue-on-a-rampage."

In Lyons I saw a sight at once ludicrous and pathetic. Two little dragoons of the class of 1917, stripling boys of eighteen or nineteen at the most, walked across the public square; their uniforms were too large for them, the skirts of their great blue mantles barely hung above the dust of the street, and their enormous warlike helmets and flowing horse-tails were ill-suited to their boyish heads. As I looked at them, I thought of the blue bundles I had seen drying upon the barbed wire, and felt sick at the brutality of the whole awful business. The sun was shining over the bluish mists of Lyons, and the bell of old Saint-Jean was ringing. Two Zouaves, stone blind, went by guided by a little, fat infirmier. At the frontier, the General Staff was preparing the defense of Verdun.

One great nation, for the sake of a city valueless from a military point of view, was preparing to kill several hundred thousand of its citizens, and another great nation, anxious to retain the city, was preparing calmly for a parallel hecatomb. There is something awful and dreadful about the orderliness of a great offensive, for while one's imagination is grasped by the grandeur and the organization of the thing, all one's faculties of intellect are revolted by the stark brutality of death en masse.

Early in February we were called to Bar-le-Duc, a pleasant old city some distance behind Verdun. Several hundred thousand men were soon going to be killed and wounded, and the city was in a feverish haste of preparation. So many thousand cans of ether, so many thousand pounds of lint, so many million shells, so many ambulances, so many hundred thousand litres of gasoline. Nobody knew when the Germans were going to strike.

During the winter great activity in the German trenches near Verdun had led the French to expect an attack, but it was not till the end of January that aeroplane reconnoitering made certain the imminence of an offensive. As a first step in countering it, the French authorities prepared in the villages surrounding Bar-le-Duc a number of dépôts for troops, army supplies, and ammunition. Of this organization, Bar-le-Duc was the key. The preparations for the counter-attack were there centralized. Day after day convoys of motor-lorries carrying troops ground into town and disappeared to the eastward; big mortars mounted on trucks came rattling over the pavements to go no one knew where; and khaki-clad troops, troupes d'attaque, tanned Marocains and chunky, bull-necked Zouaves, crossed the bridge over the Ornain and marched away. At the turn in the road a new transparency had been erected, with VERDUN printed on it in huge letters. Now and then a soldier, catching sight of it, would nudge his comrade.