Fear (26 page)

It’s not so cold now. The sun is getting its strength back. The snow melts, the forest turns a darker green; we splash about in the mud. Contingents of birds set up camp in the pine branches, green shoots pierce the soil. The coming of spring cheers us up and also secretly worries us. Springtime brings the start of fresh battles; it is the harbinger of new hecatombs. We hardly believe in decisive victories any more and we know that offensives are usually more costly for the attackers than the defenders. The chances of getting killed remain our overwhelming concern.

Nonetheless, on the front line where I sometimes go to note down some organisational detail, the lookouts are happier because they’re not suffering so much. They stand around outside their little huts, chatting and joking, living in the present for fear of imagining the future. They play games for pennies with cards or counters. They smoke a lot and always keep their friend, their wine flask, close at hand.

3. THE CHEMIN DES DAMES

‘Man in battle . . . is a being in whom the instinct of self-preservation dominates, at certain moments, all other sentiments. Discipline has for its aim the domination of that instinct by a greater terror.

Man taxes his ingenuity to be able to kill without running the risk of being killed. His bravery is born of his strength and it is not absolute. Before a stronger, he flees without shame.’

Lieutenant-Colonel Ardant du Picq,
Etudes sur le combat
(1880), trans. Col. John N. Greely and Major Robert C. Cotton (1921)

WE ARE IN THE TOWN OF
Fismes, an accursed place, with the sad, forbidding aspect of any large industrial centre. This one is a centre of the war industry, surrounded by railway tracks, bays and platforms for loading and unloading, encampments of Moroccan soldiers, and aerodromes; a centre which is a convergence point for endless columns of lorries, artillery, ambulances, etc. Long processions of men remind you of shifts leaving factories, and through them weave the motorcars of the generals, the ironmasters. Their foundries glow before us, up on the ridges, and the noise of their huge anvils fills the sky as their heavy hammers pulverise human flesh.

Our billets are disgustingly dirty but they are only there to provide a day or two’s shelter for men passing through, human sacrifices whom there’s no need to bother about. Mere cattle pens. We are in Fismes, gateway to death.

We are also in Fismes, the town of total debauchery. All along the streets there is nothing but grocery shops spilling out on to the pavement. We’ve never seen such great pyramids of mouth-watering charcuterie, of tins with gold labels, such a choice of wines, spirits, fruit. Not many objects, though, for this is not the place to buy things which last. Just food and drink, everywhere. The sharks who run these shops treat us like scum and announce their prices defiantly. We’ve never paid such prices and the soldiers complain. The salesmen reply with a cold, implacable look that says: what use is your money if you’re not coming back? A good point! A particularly large explosion in the distance decides matters for even the most economical; they fill their arms and offer their money.

Let’s eat and drink ourselves to death . . .

Since die we must!

In the street I stop an artillery NCO whom I knew in civilian life. He’s a tall, calm lad, a little older than me, with the direct gaze of a child. In the past, I’d never seen him angry, or even irritated. He doesn’t seem to have changed. We find a table in a café and I question him. He tells me he’s acting as a detached observer, alongside the infantry, living in the trenches with the men. I ask him:

‘Do you know the sector?’

‘Only too well! I took part in the attacks of 16 April.’[
30
]

‘Where was that?’

‘Outside Troyon. I set off with the African troops, Mangin’s famous army.’

‘Is it true that they were massacred?’

‘You know how it is. No one sees any more than their own patch. But in mine it was slaughter. I can tell you about it, I was part of the waves of assault under Colonel J—. In the battalion we marched with, only about twenty men came back.’[
31
]

‘Why did it fail?’

‘Simple enough: the Boche were waiting for us. Our attack had been planned for months, and everyone knew about it.’

‘Yes, I’d heard that. In the Vosges they announced that we were planning something very big in the Aisne, that Nivelle had decided to blast through German lines with his artillery. In short, all-out attack, without any attempt at hiding.’

‘Imagine it! The Boche also had artillery, and several divisions of troops. They brought them up. While we were making roads and paths and setting up munitions depots, they were installing armoured turrets for their machine gunners, they were constructing entrenchments, tunnels, and concrete bunkers, they were putting up new lines of barbed wire. They had all the time in the world to prepare their trap. The day of our assault, they just fired at will. In two hours our offensive had stopped dead. In two hours fifty to a hundred thousand of our men were out of action. We’ll never know the exact number.’

‘And what happened to you in all this?’

‘By the day of the attack I’d been waiting in the line for more than a week. The caves and countryside all round, the “Creutes marocaines,”[
32
] Paissy, Pargnan, etc., were all bursting with troops. Shiny new heavy artillery had been put in position in the ravine, three hundred metres from the trenches. Men and wagons and artillery everywhere: it was a fairground. The Boches did nothing, but their aeroplanes flew over very low and calmly noted all this movement, all our guns, our stores, our assembly points . . . At seven in the morning on 16 April we went over the top. At first we were unopposed, and their forward trenches were empty. We moved across the rest of the plateau and went down into the German ravine. The Boches had evacuated and then dug in at their undamaged second lines on the ridges on the other side. They let us rush down the slope and get to the bottom. And then they unleashed their barrages of artillery and machine-gun fire. Nivelle’s great offensive was broken there, less than a kilometre from its start, without having engaged the enemy at all.’

‘How did you get out of there?’

‘In the night.’

‘You were stuck in there all day long?’

‘There was no way of doing anything else. Those who hadn’t been cut down had dug themselves into shell holes to escape the bullets. We couldn’t move. We had literally buried ourselves right in the middle of a shooting range.’

‘What was Colonel J. saying?’

‘He was in a tight spot! He’d sent black soldiers to the rear to ask for reinforcements several times but never saw any of them again. Then we heard the sound of grenades which meant the Germans must be counter-attacking nearby. “Do you know this sector?” the colonel asked me. “Not well, sir.” “Too bad! You’re going to take this note to the general.” He gave me a big black soldier to accompany me. But we had to get through this wall of fire. We crawled from hole to hole, clambering over the corpses . . .’

‘A lot of corpses?’

‘Lines of them, piles of them! There is only one way to describe it: we were walking through meat . . . At last I managed to reach the plateau with no other damage than having my kit bag smashed by a bullet; I lost my revolver, my gas mask, my field glasses . . . Once on the plateau we hurried along the trenches to the divisional command post, in a cave in the Troyon ravine. The cave was full of officers, all shouting at each other because they were so afraid. Quite a comedy! I show them my note and they start to shout at me, too: “First of all, where have you come from?” “Where were you?” “With Colonel J., sir.” “That’s a lie, Colonel J. was taken prisoner at nine this morning . . . ” These chaps were completely crazy! “No, sir, I have just left the colonel, who is afraid of being surrounded and sent me to ask you for reinforcements.” “What reinforcements? I have no men left . . . ” “There are still a few territorials,” said another. “We’ll have to see . . . ” I wait for maybe an hour . . . Finally a captain comes up to me, looking suspicious: “Are you sure you can find Colonel J. again?” “I think so, sir.” “In that case, you will take the detachment that is waiting outside.” Outside, I find about forty territorials, led by an adjutant, their faces drawn in terror, carrying boxes of grenades. And all these poor buggers start to curse me: “Shitty little artilleryman, fucking bastard! Why couldn’t you keep your mouth shut? What do you think we’re going to do down there? That’s not where we should be, at our age . . . ” What a bloody mess! I tell them: “Look, if you don’t want to come, stay here. But I’ve got to go back.” Their adjutant decided: “Go in front. I’ll follow at the back to make them march.” I set off once more through the bombardment, at the head of forty old codgers, more dead than alive, moaning and wailing and stopping every twenty metres to make up their minds. We arrived in the night, just in time to join the retreat.’

‘You left your dead on the field?’

‘Of course we did. There were a few hundred of us survivors and there were thousands of dead and wounded.’

‘And then?’

‘Nothing, all over! The Boche took back their old positions with no opposition from us. If in turn they’d attacked seriously they would have driven us right off the Chemin des Dames, no doubt about it. But they were happy enough just to shell us heavily.’

‘A real disaster?’

‘You could say so. A shameful business, enough to ruin the French army.’

‘Did this disaster provoke the mutinies, do you think?’[
33
]

‘For sure. You know how passive the men are. They’ve all been sick of the war for a very long time, but they still follow orders. For the troops to actually revolt, they had to have been pushed to the absolute limit.’

‘Wasn’t there talk of traitors?’

‘I can’t comment on that, I can only tell you what I saw. As always a host of contradictory rumours were going round. It seems to me it can all be explained quite simply. When they wanted to make them attack again, the
poilus
felt they were lost, thrown into the slaughterhouse by pig-headed incompetents. The cannon fodder rebelled, because they had waded through too many pools of blood and they couldn’t see any other way of saving themselves. It was their leaders, some of their leaders, who provoked them. Just think how they sent poor chaps to the firing squad, men who had already endured years of suffering, but not one single general was condemned. The revolt was a consequence of the massacre and you have to seek those responsible for it among the General Staff.’

‘I’ve heard vague claims that it was the politicians who hindered the military action and without this we’d have been successful.’

‘No, absolutely not! People can argue the toss as much as they like but one fact remains: the sixteenth of April cost the lives of 80,000 men in the French army. After such a bloodbath, there could be no question of going any further. I’ve seen what happens when you are led by raving lunatics only too closely!’

‘None of this is exactly cheering news!’

‘You don’t still believe that intelligence plays any great part in war, do you? You would be the only one . . .’

‘Sure. It’s just that we are heading for the Chemin des Dames . . .’

‘Don’t panic. Look at me, I came back OK. Have another drink!’

Back at camp, I am discussing how long we’ll be on the front line with a couple of runners. A cyclist turns up bearing new information, gathered here and there. He says:

‘It isn’t a question of time, nor of whether an attack succeeds. To be relieved, units must have suffered at least fifty per cent losses.’

This news hits us hard. Losses of half our men! I think about this: there are four of us here, none older than twenty-five. Two must die. Which two? Despite myself, I look at the others for fatal signs, something which might mark out people chosen for a tragic destiny. I’m picturing their waxy, lifeless faces, I’m choosing two comrades in our group to become corpses . . .

Of course this logic can be wrong, and it could be that all four of us come back. But if you stick to the figures, it’s accurate.

Since this conversation I’m unable to be with a man from our unit without asking the question: him or me? If I want to live I have to condemn him resolutely, mentally kill my brother in arms . . .

This is what they call the
war of attrition
.

We’re on our way.

The regiment goes through Fismes one last time, at a quick march with a band in front. A macabre parade before civilians who’ve seen plenty of them already and are only staying here to make money.

And suddenly: ‘Present . . . arms! Eyes right!’ On a little mound stands a general with shiny boots on his legs, a fearless expression on his face, and his hand on his képi. Something strikes me about that hand: his thumb is turned down, like the sign made by the emperor in ancient arenas . . .

‘
Ave
, old man!
Morituri te salutant
.’

We’re approaching the explosions. At the entrance to the village of Euilly we have to go over a canal on a wooden bridge surrounded by debris from shelling. Crossing the Styx.

Leaving the village, the road is full of craters, the newest distinguished by the colour of the earth. At any second a shell could come down on us. There’s nothing to do but advance as fast as we can. Model T Ford ambulances driven by Americans pass us by, creaking and clattering and looking as if they’re about to topple over. We can hear the groans from inside. As they jolt across the bumps their canvas covers flap up, affording us a glimpse of the ashen-faced wounded, and their bloodstained bandages.

A lull allows us to reach unharmed the foot of a steep escarpment below a spur of the Chemin des Dames ridge. Our commandant halts the battalion to get his bearings. But others passing shout to us that we should not stay there. So we rush up the slope, bent over with our heavy loads, using our hands to get a grip where the ground is slippery.

Twenty metres from the top we find the entrance to a vast cave system, big enough to shelter several battalions. As the last men get inside, a furious bombardment comes down above and below us. We were just in time.