“One of the greatest battles recorded in history has been raging for more than two months round Verdun. Thanks to all, officers and men, thanks to the devotion and self-denial shown by the various branches of the service, a notable blow has been struck at the military power of Germany.”
During the month of May a definite goal is aimed at, a task likely to provide us with many thrills—the recapture of Fort Douaumont. What a slap in the face this would be for German pride! Douaumont, which has made the Teuton blow a loud trumpet-blast of victory; Douaumont, a conquest won by surreptitious means and emblazoned with the glory of a fictitious assault; Douaumont lost again would mean an outcry of astonishment and wrath over the whole Empire. And on May 22 our gallant lads re-enter Fort Douaumont. Soldiers of Mangin’s Division, battalions of the 36th, 129th, 74th, and 54th Regiments, you will remember that hour and that date when you matched the most daring conquerors!
Fort Vaux followed them from its observing stations and saw them break through by the southern breach. It aided them with its guns in the direction of Hardaumont and La Caillette. And its walls, which resounded under the enemy’s bombardment, seemed to tremble with joy, even as the hills of Israel leapt, at the deliverance of its old comrade.
From the fort of Vaux to the pool the defences staked out on the slopes of the hill are connected by three redoubts or entrenchments more or less knocked to pieces, R¹, R², and R³ in the abbreviated style of the reports. Captain Delvert, who from May 17 to 24 has occupied R¹ with the 8th Company of the 101st Regiment, and who will occupy it again from May 31 to June 5, during the critical period, is one of those officers whom the war has revealed to themselves by abruptly withdrawing them from the civilian careers in which they had earned distinction. A student and a thinker, with a fellowship in history, he is the contemporary and was the close friend of Emile Clermont, the tender, subtle, and pathetic novelist of Laure and Amour Promis, who before he was killed in a trench was able to draw lessons favourable to his inner development from the scenes of bloodshed which he held in instinctive horror.
His generation was at that meeting-place of all the roads of the new age which has been marked by a certain indecision in all, or nearly all, of us in our turn: the war, making him a leader of men, will have prepared him for leadership in the intellectual world. He wears the Legion of Honour and the War Cross. Of middle height, with a sunburnt complexion, his eyes full of glittering fire behind his pince-nez, his voice low and his gestures eloquent, he has acquired the habit of looking at himself from outside recommended by Stendhal and his followers. He analyzes himself while he acts. He sees himself in action without being inconvenienced by the presence of this clear-sighted eye-witness. Accordingly he has a precise notion of all that is happening, and realizes the full significance of each event. The background of the canvas does not escape him; he can easily reproduce the stage-setting of the episodes, which he paints like an artist, with rapid, sweeping strokes and warm colours. Men of this type will later on make admirable chroniclers. At the most tragic moments he notices the statuesque pose of a bomb-thrower, or is capable of feeling the warm caress of a sunbeam. More than once I shall have recourse to the notes which he has allowed me to consult: the concise yet passionate style of his personal comments must be left to the imagination.
During the night of May 17–18, Captain Delvert, with his company, reaches the entrenchment R¹ by way of the ravine of Les Fontaines. On the way, the commander of the battalion which he is relieving receives him in his quarters and conveys his instructions to him. “He is a tall man,” writes Captain Delvert, “slim, about fifty years of age, his face clean-shaven. This face is lighted up by a pair of fine, intelligent eyes, and his lips pucker up into an ironical smile.”
There is a portrait in a few lines.
“He receives us,” continues the Captain, “in a charming manner. A conversation is struck up with our battalion commander.
“‘We are going to the dyke. Has it been much shelled with heavies?’
“‘Well, well,’ answers the major, very coolly, ‘one of my officers counted in his sector an average of four shells a minute in a whole day.’