"Look here, how do you think things are going ... all right?"
"What!"
My question astounded them. On looking back it seems to me obvious that an insane optimism held sway. What could the Central Powers do against this gigantic coalition. The Kaiser had lost his head! Driven by the "junker" party, he was risking his all in a fit of despair.
How long would it go on for? The figure quoted was three months.
Three months, I said to myself: three months!
Fate might decide that our army corps, our regiment, was not to be engaged more than once or twice.... There would be some rough knocks to put up with! But what of that? Lots would come through! For those who did it would be curiously interesting to look on at the reconstruction of the world which would follow.... Would life be any the better for it? Yes. In what way? I did not know. But I was firmly convinced of it.
In Guillaumin I had a surprising source of high spirits and enthusiasm. He lived in a state of exaltation. He was the only one to read between the lines, in the daily reports, endless sensational pieces of news, extraordinarily favourable to us, withheld, he said, through an excess of modesty.
"They're afraid the public might lose their heads."
If I pretended to be alarmed:
"What's become of the concentration? Look at all the regulars that are about still!"