PLUNGED suddenly from the commonplaces of peace into the seething cauldron of war, France has had to adjust herself. Every one without exception has lost many who were dear to him and much that he had considered essential. The homes and hopes of thousands have been blasted. Destruction, following in the wake of the invaders, has laid waste much of the land, in many cases irreparably.
Entering the war a man is possessed of the greatest seriousness. He thinks of its causes, the results both immediate and future, and of the effect of each on him. He is stunned by what he believes himself to be bearing up under. Then, as he moves up into the zone, into service and action, and sees how others are affected, how much suffering and misfortune come to them, he merges his troubles with theirs, realizing the pettiness and insignificance of his own in the tout ensemble. He laughs, and from this laugh springs the philosophy,—“C’est la guerre.”
If a fly falls in his soup, if his best friend is blown to bits before him, if his home and village are destroyed, he calmly shrugs his shoulders, and remarks, “C’est la guerre.”
THE roads at the front are cared for by a class of unsung heroes, the roadbuilders. Back of the lines German prisoners are often used for this work, but it is a rule of warfare that prisoners must not be worked under fire, and the Allies observe this as the other rules of civilized warfare. The roads are the arteries of the front, and during an attack the enemy does his best to cripple them. If he succeeds, the troops in the trenches, cut off from food, ammunition, and other supplies, are at his mercy. During one attack through which I worked, the Boche, whose hobby is getting ranges down to the inch and applying them as all other things in a definite system, put a 150 every ten yards down the more important roads.
NORMAL TRAFFIC AT THE FRONT
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All work in the zone is done by three classes of workers, excluding the necessary military operations carried on by the troops in action. First, there are the German prisoners who do every kind of work out of the zone of fire. Then there are the French prisoners in the army, who have committed some military crime, from sneezing in ranks to shooting a colonel. Instead of serving time in a guardhouse, these are put in the front-line trenches and kept there unarmed to build up the parapet, attend to the drains, stop Boche bullets, and perform other functions. If, for instance, a French soldier sends a letter through the civil instead of the military mails, where the censorship is more strict, he receives a thirty days’ sentence. If these prisoners make a suspicious move they are shot by their own men. Second timers are rare, but many serve life sentences.
Then there is the third class, a regular branch of the army, a subdivision of the engineers, termed pionniers. The engineers do the nastiest work in the army, and the pionniers do the nastiest work in the engineers. It is their duty to see that the wire is properly cut before a charge, that the parapet is in repair and does not lack sandbags,—and it is in this class that the roadbuilders come.
All along the roads lie piles of broken stone, which are continually replaced by loads from the rear. At intervals are placed abris filled with roadbuilders who watch until a shell hits the road in their sector. Then, almost before the dirt settles, they rush out armed with shovels, and pile this rough stone into the hole and rush back again to shelter, to wait for the next shell, which is not long in coming. This rough patching is consolidated later when the sector quiets down, but does admirably for the time-being, as the mud and traffic push it rapidly into shape.