Fear (3 page)

And millions of men, because they believed what they were taught by emperors, legislators and bishops in their legal codes, their manuals of instruction and their catechisms, by historians in their history books, by ministers on their platforms, teachers in their colleges, and decent, ordinary people in their living rooms, these millions of men form countless flocks that shepherds with officers’ braids lead to the slaughterhouses, to the sound of music.

In a few short days, civilisation was wiped out. In a few short days, all our leaders became abject failures. For their role, their only role that mattered, was precisely to prevent all this.

If we did not know where we were going, they, at the very least, should have known where they were leading their nations. A man has the right to be stupid on his own account, but not on behalf of others.

On the afternoon of 3 August, I take a walk through the city with Fontan, a friend the same age as me.

Outside a café in the centre, an orchestra is blasting out the
Marseillaise
. Everyone removes their hats and stands up to listen. Everyone, that is, except for one frail, humbly dressed little man with a sad face crowned by a straw hat, who sits alone in a corner. One of the bystanders spots him, rushes up and, with a flick of his hand, knocks his hat flying. The man goes pale, shrugs his shoulders and says ‘Bravo! Brave citizen!’ The other man orders him to stand up. He refuses. Other people come over, surrounding him. The aggressor continues: ‘You are insulting the nation, I will not put up with it!’ The little man, by now very pale but stubborn, replies: ‘And you, in my opinion, are insulting reason but I’ll say nothing. I am a free man and I won’t celebrate war.’ Someone shouts: ‘Give the coward a damn good hiding!’ People run up from behind him, walking sticks are raised, tables overturned, glasses broken. In no time at all, a mob has formed. Those at the back, who haven’t seen anything, tell newcomers what is happening. ‘He’s a spy. He shouted “Long live Germany!”’ Indignation grips the mob, drives them on. There is the sound of blows striking home, cries of hatred and of pain. Eventually the café manager scurries over, a napkin still draped over his arm, and pulls them off. The little man, knocked off his chair, lies on the floor among the spit and cigarette ends. His badly bruised face is unrecognisable, with one eye closed and blackened; blood trickles from his forehead and his open, swollen mouth; he is breathing with difficulty and cannot get up. The manager calls two waiters: ‘Get him out of here!’ They drag him on to the pavement and leave him there. But then one of the waiters goes back, leans over and shakes him threateningly: ‘And what about your bill?’ As the unfortunate man doesn’t answer, the waiter rifles through his pockets and pulls a fistful of coins from his waistcoat, taking what he considers the right amount with the mob as his witness. ‘The bastard would have gone off without paying!’ General approval – ‘These people are capable of anything! Lucky he was disarmed! He had a gun? He threatened people with a revolver. We’re always too nice in France! The socialists are playing Germany’s game, no mercy for those wretches. We’re not having a repeat of 1870 this time round.’

To mark this great victory, people demand an encore of the
Marseillaise
. They stand and listen, looking down at the little man who is bleeding and whimpering quietly. Beside me I notice a beautiful, pale woman who murmurs to her companion: ‘What a dreadful sight. That poor man had the courage . . .’ ‘. . . of an idiot,’ he interrupts. ‘It is folly to go against public opinion.’

‘There we see the war’s first casualty,’ I say to Fontan.

‘Indeed,’ he says, absently, ‘there’s a great deal of enthusiasm.’

I am the silent witness of this great frenzy.

From one day to the next, civilians dwindle away, transforming themselves into hastily dressed soldiers who run around town to make the most of their last hours and get themselves admired, and no longer button up their army tunics because this is war. In the evenings, those who have drunk too much insult passers-by, whom they take for Germans. The passers-by see this as a good sign and applaud them.

Wherever you go you hear martial music. Old gentlemen wish they were young, children bitterly wish they were not, and women bemoan the fact that they are only women.

I lose myself in the crowds which fill the approaches to the barracks, these sordid barracks that have become the storage batteries of national energy. I watch the regiments leave for the front. The crowd surrounds them, hugs them, showers them with flowers, and gets them drunk. Every line of soldiers is accompanied by clusters of delirious, dishevelled women, who are crying and laughing, offering their waists and their breasts to these heroes as if to the nation; who kiss the sweating faces of the rough, honest warriors and scream their hatred for the enemy, which makes them look ugly.

I watch the cavalry trot by, the army’s aristocracy. The heavy cuirassiers, their breastplates blinding in the sunshine, an unstoppable force in a headlong charge. The dragoons, like medieval jousters preparing for a tournament with their plumed helmets, lances and pennants. The mounted chasseurs of the light cavalry, capering and prancing in their pale blue uniforms, chasseurs of the forward posts, who surge out of a fold in the landscape to cut down an enemy detachment with their sabres, or capture a village in a surprise attack. The artillery makes the houses shake; they say that the 75s fire twenty-five rounds a minute and always hit the target by the third shell. People gaze with respect at the silent muzzles of these little monsters that in a few days’ time will be tearing whole divisions to shreds.

The Zouaves and the colonials are especially popular: bronzed, tattooed and fierce, straight-backed despite their huge packs, with wide, godless grins. People think they are bandits who will give no quarter; this is reassuring. And here come the blacks, whom we can spot from a distance by the white teeth shining in their dark faces, these childlike and cruel blacks who decapitate their enemies and cut off their ears to make amulets. A charming little detail. Good old blacks! People offer them alcohol and affection, relish the strong scent, that exotic scent they associate with the Colonial Exhibition, that lingers in the air as they pass. The blacks are happy, happy suddenly to merit the friendship of white men, and because they think the war will be like one of those wild dances they have in their own countries.

Railway stations are now closed to the public. Their surroundings look like military encampments, with stacks of rifles everywhere, and crowds of troops waiting their turn to be swallowed up by the trains alongside the platforms. The stations are the hearts through which the nation’s blood is flowing, pumped out along the arteries, the tracks, to the North and the East, where men in their madder-dyed breeches multiply like red corpuscles. ‘Destination Berlin’ is chalked on the carriages. The trains set off for adventure, filling the countryside with a clamour that is more joyful than bellicose. At every level-crossing, people shout back to them, handkerchiefs waving. With all these overexcited, empty-headed passengers, you would think these were holiday trains.

All across Europe, right up to the borders of Asia, armies are on the move, impatient to take on the enemy, certain of the justice of their cause and confident of victory.

Who is afraid? No one! No one yet . . .

Twenty million men, whom fifty million women have covered in flowers and kisses, hasten towards glory, bellowing out their national anthems.

The people are fired up and raring to go. The war is coming along very nicely. The statesmen of Europe can be proud!

2. TRAINING

IT WAS RAINING
on the morning I set off for the army medical board which had been set up in the town hall of my
arrondissement
. Guessing that the cloakroom would be inadequate, I had put on my oldest clothes, the dirtiest ones I had left. I anticipated the examination with some irritation; I was annoyed at the idea of having a fully clothed man assess me at his leisure when I was completely naked, and pass judgement on my anatomy, taking advantage of the subordinate position in which I was placed. How unfair it seemed that in such circumstances someone could demand so much from my body, a body that society usually insisted I keep hidden, and that no intellectual guile on my part would be of any help in the affair. Making judgements on such a basis was already quite enough to condemn the military system, in my opinion. And, though I most certainly have no deformity, I was not quite sure that my body was perfectly proportioned (having never had it judged before except, rarely, by women, who usually don’t know much about such things), and I would have been offended if anyone had looked askance at it.

I had always hoped that I could avoid military service and its insulting rules and regulations by some last-minute ruse, but on this December day, on the contrary, my only worry was that I might be turned down. The war was already a few months old and I was beginning to fear that it might end before I got there. I saw war neither as a career nor an ideal, but as a show – in the same category as a motor race, an air display or a sports match. I was full of natural curiosity and, since this war would be the most remarkable spectacle of the age – I would not want to miss it.

The ceremony was quickly concluded, and the medical officers handled it with inattentive discretion. Their patriotism consisted of accepting every kind of body, puny or not, to feed the front. The only way to get a proper examination would be to announce your physical defects without embarrassment, and that would arouse suspicion.

We had to undress in a cramped antechamber, bumping into each other’s naked bodies, and it soon resembled a steam bath. Then, rather awkwardly, we entered the gloomy room, its walls lined with shelves packed with box files, where the medical officers waited, surrounded by their assistants, the town hall clerks. My only wish was to get this cursory examination over with as fast as possible. When my name was called I went under the height gauge and then quickly got on the scales.

An army doctor read my form:

‘Dartemont, Jean, one metre seventy-two, sixty-seven kilos. Is that you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Fit for service. Next . . .’

I had to rummage through a heap of shoes and socks and shirts to find my clothes. Once dressed, I hurried out into the city, happy and if truth be told rather proud to be suitable material for a soldier, not to belong to that category of despised citizens in the prime of life who have stayed at home. Unwittingly, I was rather a victim of the general mood. Moreover, physical health had always seemed to me to be greatly desirable, and my own had just been confirmed by the medical officer’s decision.

I told my family the news, which they immediately and proudly circulated, thus gaining public esteem. I also told a young woman with whom I was sharing vain dreams of a future, but I discouraged her a little too tenderly.

On a cold evening in December 1914, the conscript train deposited its cargo of young men at the garrison. We set off in a crowd for the barracks. But the sentry would not let us in and summoned the NCOs. A sergeant, and then an adjutant, alarmed by our numbers, ran off to alert a commandant,[
10
] who soon appeared, not happy at the disturbance.

‘What’s going on here?’ he inquired.

‘Class 15 has disembarked, sir.’

‘What on earth am I supposed to do about it at six in the evening?’ he said, cursing.

‘We can always go away again . . .’ suggested a voice at the back.

‘Silence!’ barked the sergeant.

Hastily summoned, the barracks chief and the quartermaster declared that nothing was ready since they had not been told of our arrival. There was no food, no mattresses, and no blankets. The major paused for thought, then resolved the situation without further ado.

‘I don’t give a damn!’ he told the quartermasters. ‘I want these men fed and bedded down within two hours. Jump to it!’

And off he went. We exchanged comments.

‘Seems an awfully charming bloke, that commandant!’

‘Efficiently run here, don’t you think?’

Most of us decided to remain civilians for one more night and come back the next day. We set off to explore the town.

The chaos that reigned in barracks at this time made our lives tolerable. We naturally exploited the disorder and soon picked up the tricks of the trade of soldiering: how to fake passes, fake sickness, and fake being present at roll-call. There were not enough NCOs to supervise us, and, faced with war in the very near future, we had decided to enjoy ourselves in base camp and not let anyone treat us as ordinary conscripts. In the absence of veterans, the usual barracks traditions had been forgotten, and this also encouraged our insubordination since we did not have to endure the cruel initiation rituals of peacetime.

The first month of military service was like a fancy dress ball. Since the stores lacked uniforms all we were given were army trousers and collarless army shirts, which stuck out below our civilian jackets. Forage caps and képis were also missing, so many people had kept their own headwear. Soldiers could be seen walking around in bowler hats; one joker gained fame by bowing and doffing his hat with an exaggerated sweep of the arm as officers passed by. It was in these outfits that we were taught the external marks of respect and the basic rudiments of the discipline which is the main strength of armies, a discipline which we cheerfully resisted. For our strange disguises stopped us taking anything very seriously and, as a reminder of the exceptional circumstances, tempered any anger from our superiors. Most of our instructors, in any case, were corporals from the previous class, with only three months’ training, who were not entirely convinced of the military effectiveness of the exercises we were carrying out.

To us this training seemed a pointless sham, which could not have anything in common with the adventures in store for us – adventures whose prospect didn’t bother us but which we used as an excuse for our disobedience.