Comrades in courage (Méditations dans la tranchée)

COMRADES
IN. COURAGE

ANTOINE REDIER

COMRADES IN COURAGE

COMRADES IN
COURAGE

/Meditations Dans\
\ La Tranche* )

BY

LIEUTENANT ANTOINE REDIER

TRANSLATED BY
MRS. PHILIP DUNCAN WILSON

GARDEN CITY NEW YORK

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE W COMPANY
1918

Copyright, 1918, by
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

All rights reserved, including that of

translation into foreign languages,

including the Scandinavian

TO

MY SONS

SO THAT WHEN THEY ARE GROWN
THEY MAY BE

HONOURABLE MEN
STRONG, FREE, AND BRAVE

A. R.

2132539

TABLE OF CHAPTERS

PAGE

I. DUTY 3

II. THE EXCAVATORS .... 28

III. LIBERTY 57

IV. COMRADES IN ARMS ... 67
V. GLORY 84

VI. LARKS, POPPIES, MICE . . 96

VII. STRENGTH 127

VIII. "THE GOD OF THE ARMIES" . 138

IX. BRAVERY 159

X. THE ENEMY 169

XI. INTELLIGENCE 198

XII. LETTERS 212

XIII. HONOUR 228

XIV. THE MOTHERLAND . . . 239

COMRADES IN COURAGE

COMRADES IN COURAGE

I

T)uty

NEVER in all my life have I heard
so many foolish words, nor myself
said so many useless things, as I
have since my sojourn in the trenches. The
great danger in which we live forces us to
seek distraction and we are always striving
for entertainment. At times my brain
reels from giddiness, I take my head be-
tween my hands and anxiously ask myself:
"What am I doing here for the profit of my
soul?"

I am serving my country, it is true. I
am occupying my appointed place. If I
should be killed I shall have done my whole
duty. But how if I survive ? Shall I have
passed through these solemn moments of
world history without improvement to
myself? We are the witnesses and the
actors in one of the great dramas of hu-

COMRADES IN COURAGE

manity. In later years many will envy us,
and perhaps our children will think of us
as Titans. Yet thoughtlessly we tramp
these fields of carnage which later will be-
come the goal of pious pilgrimages. We
are like our little neighbours, the larks,
that continue their joyous songs without
regard for the war. Our sole concession
to the moment is that occasionally we lower
our voices if the ene'my, who watches oppo-
site, be near enough to hear.

Some people will say that this light-
heartedness in the face of danger is a sign of
heroism. This is not true. We are able to
distract ourselves. We could not endure
our existence if we lacked this precious gift
of forgetting. But if we have learned to
shut our eyes at certain times, there are
other times when it is necessary to look
with all our power. When the war emerges
from its present stagnation of trench life,
we will joyfully look ahead of us. To-day
our bodies are fast stuck in the mud, and,
unless we take care, our souls will fall
asleep.

To-night I have tried to stimulate mine a
little by meditation. I meditated upon
death, and then upon duty. I could easily

DUTY

have considered glory, but in the face of
facts it would have seemed like seducing
myself with bright words. Out here we
are exposed every moment to the possi-
bility of a glorious death, but nevertheless
it is death; and if, after the war, there re-
mains an imprint upon my being, it will be
chiefly this tragic menace which will have
put it there.

What does it mean to die on the field of
honour? Yesterday a poor fellow whom I
myself had seen wounded, gave up his soul
at the field hospital. The day before, while
his wound was being dressed, he was asked
by the doctor how he felt. He replied,
with his Flemish accent: "Min vinte"
(mon ventre, my stomach), "my lieutenant."
"What's the matter with your stomach?"
" I have a pain in my stomach."
His plaintive voice, his childish accent
will dwell long in my memory. How sad
it was that he should die, a man of nearly
forty and the father of a family. His people
live in the invaded provinces and cannot
learn of their loss until we have the requi-
site means and time for communicating
with them. As he lay dying he did not
think of himself as a hero, but as a poor

devil. He did not go to war for the sake of
glory. He was merely a unit in the mass,
and had scarcely seen the enemy with his
own eyes, yet he lived for months pas-
sively awaiting an obscure end. His her-
oism consisted in accepting his destiny with
resignation.

We are all like this man. Death upon
the field of battle is always a horrible ad-
venture. Those of us who have been in
the campaign since the beginning have
seen it too often close at hand to seek it
carelessly with the joyful light-heartedness
of that first month of August. There are
too many bodies heaped on the ground be-
fore our trenches. We know of too many
wrecked and ruined homes. We have lost
too many good comrades who still lack a
grave — and always will.

We are told that the Japanese and Ser-
bians disdain death. I cannot understand
their mental processes. We are made in a
different manner, perhaps because our mode
of life is too easy. Personally, I am unable
to conceive that one goes to martyrdom
willingly. Indeed even the greatest mar-
tyrs have not succeeded in concealing their
suffering and were not ashamed to call

DUTY

heaven to help them in their weakness.
Yet no one doubts that the quality of their
hearts was superior to that of most of ours.
The radiant compensation which God offers
a believer is not the same that our country
holds forth to a soldier who makes the su-
preme sacrifice for her. The shirkers seek
employment at the rear or attempt to con-
ceal themselves in the military depots and
they are constantly haunted by the fear
of the pitiless death which awaits them on
the battlefield. On the other hand, those
who have gone to the front voluntarily,
or because it was their turn, cover their
eyes, and their flesh creeps when they re-
alize the cruel end before them, but like
heroes they go forward unfalteringly.

Is it glory that they seek? I do not be-
lieve so. Yet I am acquainted with one
exception. The other day I saw him when
he paid a visit to some comrades. We
were gathered in a little dug-out and were
delighted to see one another. After con-
versing and joking a bit we began to sing —
first some very French songs, and then
someone hummed "Die Wacht am Rhein."
We were startled. We hear them sing it
opposite in the German trenches every

COMRADES IN COURAGE

evening. Certainly the refrain is grave
and melodious, but how sad. How widely
our race — so alert and frank — is separated
from theirs, which dreams and laments.

Finally came the turn of my young friend
to sing. He hesitated, embarrassed, and
in spite of his splendid soldierly figure,
blushed through his tan. The grandson,
son, nephew, and god-son of celebrated
French soldiers and sailors, the declaration
of war had found him at Saint-Cyr. He
had chosen the cavalry as his branch, but,
after the first few battles, he saw that in this
war the cavalry would remain at the rear,
at least for some time. He therefore asked
and obtained consent to leave his chosen
branch, and joined the infantry. It is in this
miserable hole that he awaits the moment
of his sacrifice.

I do not know who is the author of the
following sonnet, but it is known with-
out exception to all the students of Saint-
Cyr. We were deeply moved by hear-
ing this handsome son of France sing it so
fervently. His eyes were dilated and he
did not appear the same warrior as the
others, but a young god transfigured by a
celestial vision.

DUTY

LA GLOIRE

Voulant voir si 1'ecole etait bien digne d'elle,

La Gloire, un jour, du ciel descendit a Saint-Cyr.
On 1'y connaissait bien ! Ce fut avec plaisir

Que les Saint-Cyriens recurent 1'Immortelle.

Elle les trouva forts. Us la trouverent belle.
Apres un jour de fete, avant de repartir,
La Gloire, a tous voulant laisser un souvenir,

Fixa sur leur schako des plumes de son aile.
Et Ton porta longtemps le plumet radieux.
Mais un soir de combat, pres de fermer les yeux,
Un Saint-Cyrien, mourant, le mit sur sa blessure

Pour lui donner aussi le bapteme du sang.
Et, depuis, nous portons — admirable parure —
Sur notre schako bleu, le plumet rouge et blanc.

Any man who can sing thus is not dis-
turbed by thoughts of death. He loves
glory for itself and he has deliberately
dedicated his life to it. It is of no impor-
tance to him that the sacrifice the Mother-
land demands of her sons is a merciless one.
He has reached the age when one begins to

COMRADES IN COURAGE

ponder on human destiny and meets it
in a defiant attitude, be it good or bad.
He is able to sacrifice his life freely because
he has not yet contracted life's responsi-
bilities.

The blood which I find on my hands
when I help raise the wounded, or aid the
dying, is to me cruel and ghastly. To him
it is the vermilion blood of heroes of which
the poets sing. He bathes a plume in it and
with exaltation wears it on his helmet as a
token. Unlike him I cannot love glory for
itself. My business here is the glory of
France. I work for it with all my strength
but I do not seek it for myself. My aim
in the war is to do my duty. Save for rare
exceptions we do not go valiantly to death
either because we disdain it, or for the laurels
that will be thrown on our tombs. We go
in the spirit of discipline, because it is our
duty. The first fruit of this slaughter has
been to give us the long-forgotten knowledge
of — and desire to do — our duty. The great
miracle has happened which we so anxiously
awaited during the uneasy years that pre-
ceded the war.

The other day as we lounged in our cave,
we were aroused by the brusque entrance

10

DUTY

of an adjudant* who pushed before him two
soldiers, one of whom was wiping his bleed-
ing face with a handkerchief.

"Wounded?"

"Nothing like it, Captain. They were
fighting and I brought them to the post to
explain."

The man with the bleeding face is what is
known as a village lawyer. It seems that
he had said that the " Boches" were as good
as the French — at which the other had at-
tacked him. The assailant stands motion-
less. He is penitent, but his fist was well
aimed and he is proud that the blow does
credit to his strength. He feels vaguely
that, in the war, strength is of great value.
He admits his crime and only says in excuse :

"He is always bothering us with his
theories. I wanted to give him a lesson
and didn't think that a single punch would
hurt him."

" Did you intend to give him several ? "
I only intended to make him shut up,

sir."

At this the other man takes a step for-
ward :

* The French "adjudant" corresponds to a first sergeant in the
American Army.

II

COMRADES IN COURAGE

"I'd like to see you make me shut up!"

He is a queer figure of a man. His face
is thin and already shows the traces of age.
His figure is frail and bowed, his manner
abject but cunning, and he talks in a preten-
tious tone with many gestures:

"A man ought to have rights, even here."

"You have the right to kill a Boche, old
grandmother!"

"Be silent; you struck him. Let him
speak."

"My Captain," begins the other, "if you
let these young fellows act like this, it means
a revolution in the trenches. At least, I can
understand that we ought not to quarrel
because, after all, we are here only to share
the same miserable fate."

"We are here for France," the adjudant
cries at him, rolling his eyes in a terrible

manner.
it

Come," says the Captain, wishing to
close the incident, "shake hands and go
back to your places."

As the men go out I turn curiously toward

the adjudant who will not permit anybody

to say that his lot here is a miserable one.

"You have been hard on the old man."

"It is his own fault if I have. I know

12

DUTY

these lawyers, they are always thinking of
their rights, never of their duties."

He goes on with his theme, enlarging the
scope of his discussion. He paints for us in
bold but truthful colours a picture of average
French society in the villages and country-
side before the war. Although, in peace
time, a man of humble situation, a modest
shopkeeper on the public square of a small
county-seat, his observation and judgment
are excellent. His type demonstrates how
well true wisdom will always be preserved
among the common people. After escaping
the snares of life, morality to them is repre-
sented by what they remember of their
early religious instruction.

He goes on to tell how these heroes, who
to-day are ready to die with a firm heart,
faced duty as civilians in time of peace.
His exact words are not necessary; his
meaning will suffice.

First he tells us the programme for an
honest man of the working class in the cities :
Know your craft well enough to do it with
pleasure; have simple tastes that you may
be able to satisfy them fully; raise good
children in the affection of whom you may
find a refuge in the great hours of life.

13

COMRADES IN COURAGE

Our citizens, however, have substituted
what they consider a better programme:
Work as little as possible because it is
fatiguing; on the other hand, demand as high
wages as possible because it is good to feel
the coins jingling in one's pocket. Spend
your money upon yourself alone and, for
that reason, have no children. Insist upon
your right to live your own life, to seek
pleasure always, to loaf and to spoil every-
thing, including your work, yourself, your
family, and your country. As for duty,
don't consider it !

Second, the country people: they are still
economical and hard working like their
fathers, but with a greed which in them takes
the place of every virtue. Unlike true sons
of the soil they are incapable of working
for the sake of posterity and, for example,
never plant trees because the profit to be
derived from them is too distant. On the
contrary, they cut down those planted by
their ancestors in order that their children
may have money to spend in the city. They
have neither religious faith nor respect
for womanhood. They never sit down for
a moment of quiet rest at home. They are
simply beasts of burden, and if you talk

DUTY

of duty, these born slaves who voluntarily
accept the vilest servitude, will laugh sar-
castically and tell you that they are free
men and do not want to be bound by moral
laws.

Of the upper classes, represented to him
by his officers, our critic says nothing, but
it is easy for me to continue his thought.
Aristocrats, bourgeois, people of position,
all those that we arbitrarily call the govern-
ing class, what is their real value? The
majority of the men are pleasure-seekers,
elbowing themselves forward in search of
some slight advantage, and the women
merely dolls. The former gain wealth, it
does not matter how, and their compan-
ions dissipate it in thin air. When it
becomes a question of public good, toward
which they should have the most sacred
ideas of duty since it concerns everybody,
one finds these people either utterly in-
different or calculating. It is proverbial
that the masses never elevate the wisest to
power. With us at times it seems as if they
actually chose the least worthy in order
to prevent domination. To be sure one
gets a servant of the people in this fashion,
but it is our country that pays.

COMRADES IN COURAGE

Come, join me in the trenches and then
look at these workmen, these country
people, these middle- and upper-class men.
There they stand in front of us, gun in
hand, half buried in the mud. This time
they are doing their duty, and all of them
at the same time. What are they thinking
about? The war has changed them pro-
foundly. It has made good soldiers of them
as well as good men. Will the miracle last
forever?

The adjudant says yes. I do not agree.
I do not think that we shall necessarily be
better when we return to our homes, but I
think we shall be in a condition to become
better, that is the important thing. Force
has restored to us the right notion of duty.
It has not yet definitely established us in the
habit of well doing, but it will make us apt
to follow if we are shown new ways. The
eternal truths will be explained by new
masters. Prophets will raise themselves
against the preachers of revolution and the
doctrines of the sovereign rights of the
individual, and this time their voices will
be heard. These intellectual leaders of a
wiser France exist at present, but they are
almost alone in the desert. The war will

16

DUTY

have increased the courage and power of
those who survive. My vision pierces the
walls of this trench shelter in which I sit,
and I perceive in the distance the era that is
coming, when they will find willing listeners,
not only among the intellectual elite — a
majority of whom has already been with
them for a long time — but even in the
hearts of our most distant villagers.

It is the same with people as with chil-
dren. It does not suffice to show them the
right path, it is necessary actually to lead
them by the hand. Precepts without the
proof of experience are vain. After the
harsh trials of this war the lessons of the
wise will be understood. We shall have
weighed in particular the worth of two
words, until now very unjustly valued.
Formerly we wrote the word "Duty" with
a capital, but contented ourselves with its
abstract contemplation. On the other hand,
we claimed an enormous number of rights.
The war has taught us to reverse these
words. I recognize in "Right" our safe-
guard against all, but I see before me each
day — each hour — an enormous number of
duties.

Right and duty, if we are able to neglect

17

COMRADES IN COURAGE

reality itself — that is to say human frailties
and weaknesses — would be deserving of
equal honour, for they correspond and
link together naturally. But in fact the
word "right" is a dangerous word, full of
temptation and injustice when put in the
mouths of the masses. Here among us it
has been put to flight by the whistle of the
shells.

Indeed there is no doctrine of social
revolution,no fomenter of disorder and trou-
ble, which does not find contradiction each
day in our trenches. For example : equality,
that renowned right of each to be equal to
everyone else, the attainment of which is
often accomplished only by envy, hatred,
and destruction of everything. Here in the
field, concerning equality we only know our
common wretchedness in meeting death,
which unceasingly strikes without regard to
rank or worth. If you are jealous of your
fellowmen, if you desire to be treated
equally with them, come up here to this
"fire-trench" where injustice is unknown,
where no one is too proud to seek protection
when he hears the whistle of an approaching
shell, where the most that anyone can offer
is a few inches of mortal flesh to the German

19

DUTY

lead. Equality under fire? Surely; but
for the rest, each man has a different rank,
according to his merit. It is necessary
to send out a party for patrol to-night.
Who will volunteer? Ten men step for-
ward. From that moment these men are
the acknowledged superiors of the others
in the ranks. Inequality, Respect; two
new ideas to our people, but we will accus-
tom ourselves to them.

In civil life one may obtain almost every
privilege by the power of money. Here
at the front money is of no value. The
prestige of glory has replaced that of gold.
Admiration of others, which elevates the
soul, has been substituted for envy which
degrades it. The divine joys and honours
to be gained from the war are proportionate
to the degree of individual valour, intelli-
gence, physical strength, devotion, and hero-
ism. According to your merit you will
win these rewards amidst the ungrudging
applause of your comrades. The same men
who, in the democracy of peace, were at one
another's throats, here become comrades
in the fray. Loyalty, good humour, and
confidence have been reestablished by the
brotherhood of arms. Laughter, that splen-

19

COMRADES IN COURAGE

did sign of physical and moral health, reigns
supreme amidst all the degrees of the regi-
mental hierarchy. Hatred subsides, and
even religion receives the homage that is its
due.

It is as if a magic wand had been used
to set everything right. Formerly we were
surfeited with sensations, and our chief
forces were expended in the pursuit of
pleasure. Now the best part of our time
is spent in digging ditches, no matter
whether it rain or shine, and the sole privi-
lege accorded us is that we may choose either
a pick which loosens the earth, or a shovel
which throws it aside. Previously we needed
a thousand comforts, yet now, for so many
months that we can hardly remember the
number, we have slept with the mice, either
upon bare ground or straw. Best of all,
we do it with a song upon our lips, and
when the hour comes for repose we enjoy
triumphant slumbers.

In reviving national hatred, the enemy
has united both our living and our dead.
Tradition, which formerly was ridiculed,
has taken for us a new grandeur and beauty.
Republican ministers, who formerly re-
membered the history of France no further

20

DUTY

back than 1793, since the war, have re-
peatedly and solemnly inspired their lis-
teners by calling upon such monarchical
names as Saint-Louis, Du Guesclin, and
Jeanne d'Arc. We used to mock at au-
thority, order and discipline, but since the
outbreak of the war we have seen that
Germany, with the aid of these same in-
struments, almost succeeded in defeating us.
Now we have the satisfaction that comes
from doing our duty. The duty is an evi-
dent one and we enjoy the sensation of see-
ing our way clearly. In fulfilling our
glorious mission we find such joys that we
wish to publish them to the winds.

What shall we say when we return to our
homes after the war? Some will be dis-
agreeable boasters. Others will be more
modest, but nevertheless will desire that
the trials they have borne so valiantly
be appreciated at their true value and that
no one dispute the character and the
beauty of their sacrifice. Inculcated with
the supreme value of devotion to their
country, they will insist that those about
them profess the same cult. They will
demand praise, not for themselves, but
for the virtues they have practised, and

21

COMRADES IN COURAGE

this will make two or three million in-
structors in duty in our towns and villages.

So all of us who daily look upon the face
of Death and school ourselves to regard its
redoubtable figure unwinkingly; all of us
who survive, will return from the field of
honour with the habitude and pride of
service.

Assuredly duties will not be so simple in
time of peace as in time of war. We shall
often find them even more difficult on ac-
count of their obscurity. We shall be assisted
at that time by the wonderful recollections
of our days of glory. One does not always
adopt heroism with good grace, for it implies
not only a passive readiness to accept death,
to remain day and night for months under
its constant menace, but also the active seek-
ing of it in moments of dreadful violence,
approaching it with a song on the lips, and
hailing its coming with exaltation — not for
the sake of glory but because it is what one
ought to do. After all, it does not matter
how much of resignation enters into the
spirit of willingness in which one makes the
sacrifice.

I remember in the month of September,
shortly after the Battle of the Marne, a

22

DUTY

general came to inspect the regimental
depot of the territorial army in the region
where I was stationed. His mission was
particularly to examine the officers and to
obtain an estimate of their spirit. He had
left the battlefield where he had just re-
ceived his promotion to his present rank
only a few hours earlier. The fumes of
powder still lingered about him. He
walked down the line of non-commissioned
officers on parade in the courtyard and to
each put this question:

" Do you request to be sent to the front ?"

" I am ready to go when my turn comes,
sir," these warriors invariably replied.

"Bah!" said the great chief, "you speak
like cowards."

This remark roused great feeling among
those poor devils. They had not compre-
hended the correct sense of duty in the
opportunity that was offered them of con-
tributing in a more active manner to the
national safety. The right to await their
turn, that was their idea. Little by little
these same men have left their "depot,"
are serving to-day in the trenches, and con-
ducting themselves well. Many times they
have gaily endured nameless suffering.

23

COMRADES IN COURAGE

They go where they are told, and reflect no
farther. It is not absolutely necessary that
the law be understood so long as it is recog-
nized and obeyed. They are the mass and
follow their leaders.

Among these leaders I find two types:
First, the fiery soldier who is actuated by
his love for France. He has an understand-
ing of the different degrees of obligation and,
no matter how tenderly he cherishes his
home, his country comes first. A certain
group of characteristics is common to each
member of this class. A man of this type
always serves the public interest before his
own, even when, unlike the present time, the
duty is not such an important one. With
such a mentality, a man is always a fer-
vent student of history and politics. He
knows the past of his country and reveres
all its glories. He seriously considers its
present destiny and the men who are its
guardians. When war comes it is a personal
affair. I love this type, which is common
enough, and it is toward it that by nature
I most readily incline. I do not feel that I
deserve great merit in doing my duty as a
soldier, but if it were not for that wonderful
vision of France which sustains and ani-

24

DUTY

mates me, I think I should be greatly de-
serving of it. When I hear people say that
our frontier will be extended to the Rhine,
I am filled with a profound joy as if those
lost provinces were to be returned to me in
person. Inspired by such thoughts it is not
difficult to give my soul to my country,
and when it shall be necessary I will also
give my body.

I do not know whether the second type
is more rare ; at any rate, I find it infinitely
attractive. Among my companions there
is one who personifies it in a charming
manner. You may see him sauntering
along the trench in his heavy boots, a tall
youth with his coat hanging open and an
old military cap perched upon a thick shock
of flaxen hair. With his abrupt gestures
and boisterous manner you would think him
too bad a character ever to have become
even a corporal. He meets some of the
men; I cant hear what he says to them,
but they leave him with a hearty burst of
laughter. One of them shouts :

"My Lieutenant, you always make us
laugh/'

Yes, he is a lieutenant, this soldier so
young, so thin, so merry. He has even

25

COMRADES IN COURAGE

commanded his company since that sad
day in September, 1914, when his captain
was killed. His face is pleasingly frank
and with a nose as big as was that of Henry
IV, and there is a fine down straggling upon
his lip. He blushes like a girl, in spite of a
fiery voice. His angers are short-lived;
he gesticulates, and his laugh is never-
ceasing. He is attending to his country's
business here with all his heart, but his
eyes are not dazzled like mine by the capti-
vating image of France. He sees another
more austere to whose cult he devotes his
fervour; that of duty. When he left his
mother in tears he did not argue about the
origin and the consequences of the war,
nor was he consoled by the thought of a
triumphant revenge; an honest man in all
the acts of his life, he was that day honest as
usual. The law commanded him to be a
soldier; he obeyed and went. The sacrifice
was hard, consequently of rare value.
Shame to the coward who would attempt
to depreciate it.

The men who have come among us, more
or less willingly, in the end become accus-
tomed to think like their chiefs. According
to his character, each man chooses one or

26

DUTY

the other type as his model. They are
benefited, so are we, and all is well.

Before the month of August 1914 I often
asked myself whether we should ever ex-
perience these noble joys which are so
necessary to stimulate mankind. The war
has brought them all to us.

Behold ! I am able to return to the ban-
alities of the present which, as I began this
train of thought, made me feel that I was
witness to a sacrilege. I can remain care-
free even while watching the enemy. I am
improving without knowing it and the
brave men around me are doing the
same. However, should Glory, of whom I
ask nothing personally, come some evening
of battle to crown one of us with her light, I
shall bless the beautiful visitor and ask
her to pardon me because to-night in my
trench I have preferred, to her radiant face,
one graver and less accustomed to the smiles
of men : that of duty.

27

COMRADES IN COURAGE

II

'The Cxcavators

COME, Monsieur le territorial, we
must hurry!"
It is night, the rain is falling.
The commandant brandishes his stick and
with it taps the shoulder of a large man who
hesitates in front of a ditch. At this stimu-
lus the soldier jumps across and tumbles
on the other side, face forward in the mud.
Awkwardly he picks up his shovel, his
woollen muffler, and his blanket. He strug-
gles to his feet, takes a step, and is at once
lost to sight in the darkness. Another fol-
lows and takes the same formidable jump.

For a lone time I have been watching
them from the bottom of the boyau which
they are crossing. They are a company
of territorials from the south of France,
the "Midi." To-night they are to make a
new system of fortifications in front of our

28

THE EXCAVATORS

trenches. Already the patrols are out in
front, well forward, to protect the work-
ing party. A section of engineers has come
to trace out and execute the more technical
part, the actual excavation will be done
by these old men who are slowly and awk-
wardly trying to jump the ditch under
the watchful eye of the commandant.

Commandant V is a gallant gentle-
man and I have no fear that his cane did
more than caress the shoulder of that citizen
from Beziers. But it is not a moment for
gentleness. It is all in the day's work,
and the Germans are only a few yards
away. It is annoying to have these old
men make so much trouble about such a
trifle as jumping from one bank of earth
to another! But the poor fellows can
do no better.

Theirs is a hard duty. What can they
do in this young men's war? Renew their
youth perhaps. I know some who, in spite
of their forty years, have the hearts of ado-
lescents. But others come, dragging limbs
which are heavy and numb, and with souls
that are fast asleep. Before the war they
were living among their vineyards in distant
sunlit provinces. Here is one, for example,

29

COMRADES IN COURAGE

who kept a shop and who was comfortably
growing prosperous. Here is another who
was a man of reputation in his village and
who won renown by his skilful play at
manille* Now they spend their nights
in the mud and their hours of repose on the
straw behind the lines. Their work, like that
of criminals, commences only when the night
has fallen and they never labour by light
of day. No more golden wine in tinkling
glasses; they now take their liquor at one
gulp, shudder, and talk of something else.
For tools they have their choice between
shovel and pick. To be sure, each one has
his gun, but for months it has been of use
only as an extra burden upon his back.

To-night I cannot help pitying them a
little. The rain is falling in torrents; one
can hardly see two paces ahead. I have
been able to see their attitudes — funny or
pitiful — only because from below the muggy
sky forms a background.

But the picture changes, the last terri-
torial has crossed the opening, and I see
above me two shadows of a different type.
They are the officers wrapped in their

*ManilIe is a game played with cards.
30

THE EXCA7ATORS

waterproofs. I recognize the Commandant
by his erect figure, his brusque utterance,
and his precise gestures. He is speaking
in a low tone, but his voice has lost none of
its warmth:

"Mon petit, do your work quickly, but
do it well; and don't forget that I shall be
interested in watching you."

I cannot recognize the other, but he seems
very young. Suddenly a German star shell
shoots up and bursts into light. Doubtless
the men exposed in the open have thrown
themselves flat on the ground for conceal-
ment, but these officers absorbed in their
conversation remain standing. I distin-
guish the features of the second man. His
face is thin and clean shaven. Glasses
surmount a small, straight nose with smiling
lips beneath. Frankness and intelligence
are written on his forehead and energy at
the point of his chin.

At the sight of this graceful figure I forget
for an instant the war and its miseries. I
can picture this youth at the annual ball
of the Poly technique, extending the courtesies
of the school to some pretty Parisienne
in exactly the same graceful manner as
that with which he now converses with his

COMRADES IN COURAGE

chief. As an officer of engineers it is his
duty to go out in the open in front of our
lines and at the risk of his life, to super-
vise this work. He is bearing two grave
responsibilities which disquiet him much
more than the thought of his personal
danger: first, the execution of his task and,
secondly, the safeguarding of the lives of
all those older men.

In speaking of this young officer of whose
fate I am ignorant I would like to mention
the admiration that we soldiers of the in-
fantry feel for our comrades of the engi-
neers. They form a magnificent branch of
the army service; their work is always for
others and is accomplished often at the cost
of suffering and terrific loss without the re-
deeming feature of the ability to fight back.
They die while bridging a stream that the
infantry may push forward in the direc-
tion of glory. We boast of being at the
front, but they carry the war even in ad-
vance of the front. It is useless to classify
merit for every man here is doing his best,
but these engineer-soldiers are wonderful
examples of fearlessness. Their entire army
of carpenters, locksmiths, mechanicians,
and wheelwrights exercises its various crafts

32

THE EXCAVATORS

under fire with admirable deliberation. I
would also like that a part of the nation's
gratitude should go to those good territorials
who, although the post was not one of
their seeking, have certainly become the
faithful auxiliaries of the engineers.

Trench warfare has condemned us all to
the work of digging. We are the foremen of
labour gangs and our soldiers merely labour-
ers. Still, we of the active branches of the
service have the joy of guarding our pits as
soldiers, once these pits are completed. On
the other hand, the territorials dig trenches
and go away. In the early days of the
war entire regiments of the territorial army
were employed in the burial of the dead —
men and horses. Now they dig ditches for
the living. Is it any more pleasant ?

To-night they are really having their
troubles. It is humiliating to be required to
run and jump, fall quickly on one's stomach,
and get up without showing one's stiffness
when a man is beginning to feel his advanc-
ing years. To dig a ditch is one thing, but to
get out of it with agility is another. The eyes
of these men are no longer like those of boys
of twenty, nor are their hearts like those of
the youngsters of the class of "15" who

33

COMRADES IN COURAGE

despise death. On such an inky night as
this they are uneasy. Where are the
Boches ? Are they not likely to shoot from
such close range? The more youthful
soldiers who are doing guard duty guess
at their anxieties and have a little sport at
their expense:

"You know, old man, this is a pretty
dangerous spot!"

"Are they near?"

"Who?"

"The Boches."

" Don't worry about the Boches, they are
at least thirty metres from here."

" Thirty metres! Impossible!"

The old man is horrified, but all the same
a secret pride takes possession of him.
When he goes back home he will be able
to say that he has worked within thirty
metres of the Germans. Half trembling
and half content, he resumes his digging
and wallowing in the mud.

As for my men and me, we certainly did
not come to fight with shovels, but we have
gaily accepted our unexpected destiny. We
are in love with duty; we welcome it, no
matter what form it takes.

One is surprised, however, to find how

34

THE EXCAVATORS

much joy one gets in digging a really good
trench. I will tell you about one, a master-
piece, of which we were truly proud. I will
try to be modest but without promising to
succeed.

We were ordered to trace in front of the
trench which my section occupied, a gallery
one hundred and fifty metres in length,
extending from our line straight toward the
Boches. What is it for? That was a mys-
tery. Two days later we were to learn that
it was the route for an attack. That evening
my mind was obsessed with one idea : to ad-
vance a trench one hundred and fifty metres
in a perfectly straight line. The words
"perfectly straight" amazed me. I ran
to the telephone:

"Hello! Commandant, must the line be
perfectly straight?"

"Yes, absolutely. Hurry, for you must
finish in two nights."

We had, at this point, a completed section
of trench forty metres long leading forward
to a listening post. After a consultation
with my officers we decided to utilize this
and extend it one hundred and ten metres
farther. We climbed out of the trench
and started off toward the German line,

35

COMRADES IN COURAGE

counting the paces. We experienced an
emotion different from those we usually feel
when out on skirmishing or patrol duty.
At such a time a man is waging war, he can
use prudence or aggression, can reconnoitre
and retreat. This night we were going
out into the unknown much as Christopher
Columbus went toward America. Only a
few days earlier our trenches had been
pushed forward and we did not as yet have
definite information as to the distance
separating us from the enemy. We had
the feeling that we might, at any moment,
run into his barbed-wire entanglements.

As we advanced, I posted my two com-
panions at different points to make my
return easier, and I counted off the last
forty paces alone. I had a curious feeling.
There was absolutely no noise, and the dark-
ness was so complete that I could not even
tell where to place my feet. Suppose the
Germans had heard us and prepared an
ambuscade! I might run against them or
actually tread upon their bodies! When
at last I had measured what seemed to me
to be the hundred and ten paces, I added
two more, either for the sake of my
conscience or purely in bravado — I do not

36

THE EXCAFATORS

know which — and stuck my cane into the
ground.

From that moment this was conquered
ground. To win it, it had been necessary
to master an emotion. All of us would now
be able to walk along this line without a
thought of danger. That danger still ex-
isted, still was great, but no longer would we
be conscious of it.

But how were we to make our line straight ?
You would doubtless say: Stretch a cord
and follow it. The problem, however, was
not so simple. Forty metres of our line
were already traced and dug. If my cord
commenced at the end of this completed
portion I would have two straight elements,
but they would almost certainly be angu-
lated at their junction. You would then
perhaps tell me to start my cord near the
beginning of the completed trench. Wise
words, but my cord was too short ! I had
never studied surveying but had often seen
the red-and-white stakes used in that work.
Surveyors place two stakes in the desired
direction and then project a third one by
sighting over the two already placed. A
long line may be made quite as straight in
this manner as with the best-stretched cord.

37

COMRADES IN COURAGE

*

I had no stakes, but I had men who might
be substituted for them. My eye could
not pierce 1 10 metres of the inky darkness,
but I was able to see two paces ahead. I
therefore posted some men two paces apart
and in a line which pointed in the right
direction. By lying down and looking up-
ward, with the sky as a background, I could
see a part of the line which their motionless
figures made. When this was absolutely
straight, two men ran along to the right and
left of the file and marked the two sides of
the trench. In this way the line was com-
pleted, and the work of excavation begun.

It is in times like these that one gets an
insight into the characters of the men. For
the most advanced positions we called for
volunteers. These were the best workers.
Farther back one found the slackers who
were continually resting with their arms
crossed on the handles of their spades. Those
who were afraid showed it by commencing to
dig furiously the moment they had reached
their assigned position in order to make a
hole to shelter themselves. Once protected,
their ardour slackened visibly, for they
knew that when they had finished their
portion they would be asked to recommence

38

THE EXCAVATORS

farther forward and thus expose their
precious skin anew. Finally there were
the talkative ones whom even proximity
to the Germans could not repress :

"My old woman would have a fright if
she could see me here!"

" Keep quiet."

"What's the matter? You don't think
I am afraid of the Boches, do you?"

"Shut up, I tell you."

"It would take more than them to scare
me."

It is no use trying to stop that good
fellow. He says something, spits on his
hands, says something more, and so on.
Little by little, while he chatters and works,
the trench takes shape, deepens, and is
finished. Let them send up as many illu-
minating rockets as they please, we no
longer have to bend forward to conceal
ourselves and the trick is won.

At 2 A. M. I sent my men off to lie down,
but I remained waiting for daybreak.
I wished to know whether my line was
straight. I found one of my sergeants
had also remained and was busily examining
the trench.

"Why did you stay?" I asked him.

39

COMRADES IN 'COURAGE

" For no special reason."

" Did you want to see whether the trench
was straight?"

"Perhaps, sir."

He was a big youth of the tenacious type.
He had been working on this trench in the
same way in which he makes aluminium
rings from the fuse caps of German shells.
He works at them with all his heart and
never lets up until they are finished and a
credit to him.

When at last the day came I tasted one
of the purest joys of my life. Each of us,
in turn, sighted from the entrance of the
boyau and found that we could see from
one extremity to the other without moving
and that a bullet fired from a rifle would go
through from end to end. Five minutes later
I was dreaming like a king upon my straw.

The war has given us simple tastes and
rendered our ambitions modest by bridging
over many centuries and taking us back
to the age of the cave-dwellers. With the
hardest of heart-breaking work we have
had to defend our trenches and shelters,
not only against the attacks of man, but
also against the violence of Nature. We
have borne it all without a thought of

40

THE EXCAVATORS

despair and almost without complaint.
We shall cease to endure only if, after the
war, pseudo philosophers again begin teach-
ing lazy people to regard pleasure and
luxury as their supreme goal. If we gave
the right to live and the right to happiness
to a new generation composed only of idlers,
we should be insulting our dead and our
own past sufferings.

In the middle of December, 1914, it was
not a question of our rights. Only a few
days earlier, after a severe bombardment,
the Germans had taken us by surprise and
destroyed a part of our trenches. We
promptly chased them out again and were
awaiting a second attack when a new
enemy appeared in the form of rain.

I remember the night-watch in the offi-
cers* post. The captain was sleeping on
the ground on a bundle of damp straw.
At his feet lay his orderly, Joseph. He was
a perfect type of faithful servant and
always slept thus with his head pillowed
on his master's legs. They were snoring
peacefully, a shapeless heap over which we
tried not to stumble. Reclining on some
empty sacks was the guard, telling stories
of his own part of the country to a scoffing

lad who was fastening some tent canvas to
the ceiling to prevent a leak. Another
lieutenant and I were seated upon the same
plank. The rain was beating down vio-
lently outside, while inside the cold water
was dripping treacherously down upon our
backs. Six men in all, we filled this
wretched hole so completely that a mouse
scarcely could have passed between us.

For two hours it had been raining. It
was my duty and that of my friend to
go alternately to the trench. In those days
we did not enjoy the luxury of waterproofs,
nor did we have pocket-lamps. We had
gone to war without thinking of such things.

When my turn came I went to chat a little
with the lookouts. I found them drenched
to the skin. Since that time we have
undergone both longer and stronger rains,
but never have we seen so much water.
From midnight to midnight, for twenty-four
whole hours, we had to watch the caving in
of the ground about us, and finally the
destruction of our trenches. In order to
escape, for a moment, from the mud — in
which we sank to our ankles and in certain
spots up to our knees — I climbed up onto
the field behind the line and tried to clean

42

THE EXCAVATORS

my clogged shoes in the damp grass. The
day before a large pit had been dug there,
in which we had intended to instal our
Headquarters staff. It had not been
covered and I wanted to see what remained
of it. I climbed down and found it full
of water save for an elevation in one corner
intended to serve as a bed.

I was sitting sadly upon an old box when,
suddenly, I felt a warm breath on my cheek.
A great black shape had emerged from the
shadows. It proved to be a large, silent
dog, soaked through and through, who
thrust his muzzle in my ear. He was very
unhappy, but no more than I. When I
petted him, it was like touching a wet
sponge in a bucket of tepid water. I moved
away; he followed me. Never have I been
more impressed than by the precautions
that animal took to keep from making
any noise. There are dogs who bay at
the moon and howl at death. The throat
of this one must have been choked by the
universal mourning. He went down with
me into the trench where I heard him
splashing in the water behind me and
panting mournfully. I managed to per-
suade him to curl up against Joseph, but in

43

COMRADES IN COURAGE

the morning I was told that he had disap-
peared like a ghost.

I heard of the fate of our shelter and of its
inhabitants the next day from someone else.
My friend and I, in the meantime, were busily
occupied with the men. We felt we could
set them a good example, even if we were
powerless to help in any other way. We
learned, however, that at four o'clock in the
morning the roof of our post had caved in
on top of the captain. The poor man, who
was already old, had managed after much
difficulty to reach the shelter of a non-
commissioned officer. He was sent to the
rear some days later. As for the faithful
Joseph, he had remained to watch the sup-
plies all that day and night resolving,
partly from devotion, partly from fear,
to die in that swamp rather than to cross
the surrounding quagmire which the evening
before we had so proudly called "le boyau de
commandement;" "le poste des agents de
liaisons;" "le poste telephonique" He
neither ate nor moved until the following
night when we were relieved, and then it was
necessary to assist him behind the lines.

Now commenced a series of trials in which
the men showed a truly heroic resignation.

44

THE EXCAVATORS

Their rifles had been left in various dugouts
and when the men went to hunt for them
there was so much mud, in what remained of
the trenches, that they had to take off their
shoes and roll up their trousers to their
thighs. That was a novelty and they
laughed. But when, after donning their
equipment preparatory to going to rest bil-
lets in the neighbouring village, the company
was unexpectedly ordered to remain in the
second line, the men felt more like weeping.
They were willing to spend fifty days in
the trenches if so ordered, but it was a sore
trial when, actually on the way back to
cantonment, they learned that there had
been a counter order and that they would
once again have to choose between remaining
outside in the drenching rain, or lying down,
soaked to the skin, in a freezing cave filled
with mud. The poor fellows spent their night
huddled against bare trees, which at this
stage of the war had not yet been levelled.

The next day some forty of them were
working on a neighbouring road using their
shovels to repair the damage done by the
flood, when there came the whistle of a shell
falling right in their midst. They all threw
themselves flat on the ground. I was fifteen

45

COMRADES IN COURAGE

metres away and when I got up again I saw
them all dispersing like a flock of fright-
ened sparrows. In a moment they had dis-
appeared into the trench, all save four who
were dragging themselves along the ground.
We ran to them and found them seriously
but not mortally wounded.

Yet that night, when marching back to the
rear, do you think the men spoke of the rain,
of the sufferings they had endured ? Of them
never a word; but someone remarked that
if a French 75-millimetre shell had fallen
in the same way as the enemy shell, it would
have killed at least forty men, and they made
fun of the Germans.

When we came back, four days later, we
found the trench entirely rebuilt. Our com-
rades had done their work well.

Such misfortunes would not happen to us
to-day. Now we have drains in the boyaux,
linings along the firing parapets, and solidly
built shelters. The labour necessary to
bring about these results was enormous.

At first we had only a firing trench and
along it each of us dug a hole for himself, as
best he could, in which he might try to sleep.
Later on another trench was built parallel to
the first and connected by a small boyau.

46

THE EXCAVATORS

To right and left, in this second trench
which resembled a street, were the caves in
which we installed ourselves. We gave all
sorts of names to these compartments —
"cagna" "gourbi," "guitoune" etc. Officially
they are known as abris (shelters).

Communication with this double line of
trenches was possible only at night. Next,
the great boyaux were invented which al-
lowed complete communication between the
first line and the rear in broad daylight.
To-day these are numerous and intersect
like the streets of a city. These streets
were given names such as " Boyau of the
Rats"; "Boyau of the Germans"; "Boyau
Castlenau" because otherwise it would be
hopeless to try and find one's way among
these paths which look exactly alike. If there
was an inn, a grocery store, or a pharmacy
at this or that corner, it would be simple.
But one still goes astray, although the names
are placarded everywhere.

I wonder whether it will ever be possible
to estimate the labour represented by such
works of excavation. If our men have
found security or repose in their subter-
ranean houses, they have fully earned the
right to enjoy them.

47

COMRADES IN COURAGE

To-day it is in the architecture of the
gourbis that we excel. There are two
schools: those who advocate the cave dug
in the side of the wall and those who pre-
fer the built-up shelter.

The dugouts had to be prohibited at one
time in a certain region, because they were
always caving in. Here where we are, on
the contrary they are recommended, but
must be very deep and timbered. We have
in our ranks miners from Pas-de-Calais who
construct them. ,

At first the shelters were badly covered.
An old door and a little earth sufficed; we
were not difficult to please. If a man had a
few branches and a tent canvas over his
head, he felt that he could play manille
in absolute security. If a shell burst, he
answered it by throwing down a trump.
Many were killed in this manner, in gourbis
covered only with canvas and wood. Little
by little the number of shell-proof shelters
increased and now our men spend the major
part of their time in bringing up from the
rear enormous wooden beams to be placed
in numerous and compact layers on the
roofs of our shelters.

All this does not resemble the stories
48

THE EXCAVATORS

which are written about this war. If you
prefer to hear about deeds of valour, let
others relate them. After peace is declared
we will feast on glory while reviving the
memories that we are now accumulating.
My present object is to pay tribute to the
intrepidity of the troops, even in the most
modest instances, and to analyze the lesson
that each of us will learn from our great hour
of trial. Whatever our rank, our education,
or our especial science, we have all become
excavators or burden-bearers. At the bar-
racks the men used to complain because
they were set to work peeling potatoes.
Here the potatoes are peeled by cooks, but
as soon as the men return from the observa-
tion post and unload their rifles, they must
lay aside their proud role of guardians of
France and march off with enormous tim-
bers upon their shoulders, their heads bowed
and their faces covered with perspiration,
more like convicts than like soldiers. Pride
must be strengthened with muscle. Night
and day we must resign ourselves to a kind
of labour which would be considered de-
grading in civil life. But it is our duty.
The humblest tasks are ennobled by virtue
of this magical word which we had for-

49

COMRADES IN COURAGE

gotten and which the war has taught us
once more.

Proof of this is found in the gladness of our
hearts. We find joy in the smallest things
and we laugh incessantly. I do not mean
to say there are no desirable joys in peace,
but we had become satiated with enjoyment
like rich children who have too many toys
within their grasp. This is a school of
suffering and we learn to content ourselves
with little. This corporal who has made an
excellent saw out of an old clock-spring
found in the ruins of a village, and who
uses it to make rings from the aluminium
shell-fuses, is happier now with his im-
provised tool than when he used his leisure
time in running from cabaret to cabaret.
This is a vital lesson, we must not let it
pass unnoticed.

It is good for all of us in every rank. The
men accomplish their hard tasks, but the
officers who command them are little more
than overseers assigned to a hard, inglorious
labour. They also bow to the inevitable.

I can remember Commandant V

supervising the distribution of picks and
shovels among the men of my company.
He is a distinguished officer and now pur-

50

THE EXCAFATORS

sues his career at the head of a splendid
regiment. I will always regret the departure
of this chief whose many accomplishments
and knowledge of science always made me
marvel. He was very strict in the service,
but above all strict with himself. He would
have a charming ease of manner after giving
his orders, which were always precise. He
received great parcels from home and he
loved to have us share his luxuries. At the
bottom of the short notes of instruction
which he wrote for us each day there always
were sentences like this: "For the officers:
an artichoke, a cake, three fresh eggs. " An-
other time it would be a small can of foie
gras, or sardines, or the first spring radishes.
But, on the other hand, if it was a question
of hastily constructing a boyau he would
insist that the tool count be exact, that
the distribution of work along the different
sectors be made in an orderly manner —
in silence and with the greatest possible
speed. Even if it rained in torrents he
would stand among the beet fields, straight
as an arrow, emphasizing his orders with a
wave of his stick.

In addition, it was always he himself who
traced out the work that had to be done.

Si

COMRADES IN COURAGE

Once I spent an entire night at his side
while the men were strengthening with tim-
bers a new line of communication which he
wished to establish between our first and
second lines. Twice I tried to tell him
that I would manage the affair without
him. He would not admit that a chief
should rest when his subordinates were
working.

My friends and I admired the importance
that this man attached to the smallest
duties. During the tragic hours of the
beginning of the campaign he had given
the highest proof of his worth and it was
a great inspiration to us.

As for the colonel, I shall always recollect
him and the robber-like cave in which he
lived at the beginning of the trench war-
fare. As there were no boyaux in those
days it was possible to visit him only after
.nightfall and in the dark one often wandered
interminably in the beet fields, guarding
the cows as the men call it, before finding
the beam of light emerging from the hole
in the ground which was his home. After
descending a few steps and pushing aside
a canvas curtain usually soaked from the
heavy rains, one entered a rectangular

52

THE EXCAVATORS

chamber always filled with tobacco smoke.
The walls were littered with objects either
hanging on hooks or reposing on crudely
constructed shelves — pieces of china, a
few books, several rifles, a German helmet,
maps in quantities, quite a few bottles, and
a telephone. The place was furnished with
a straw mattress, a stove, a chair, and a
table piled high with journals, notes, and
papers. Sitting behind the table would be
found a magnificent looking man clad in
a hunting vest and velvet trousers. One
would scarcely think him a soldier, but
rather a philosopher taking refuge from the
world in order to enjoy his favourite pleas-
ures— reading and meditation. However,
that powerful jaw denoted the man of
action, and did one ever encounter a hermit
with such gaiety of manner ?

The source of his contentment was no
secret. Having experienced every horror of
war and having prepared himself a hundred
times to make the sacrifice of his life, he
was no longer affected by the petty priva-
tions and miseries which ordinarily offend
humanity. On the contrary, the slightest
distraction in his den assumed the pro-
portions of a beautiful event from which he

53

COMRADES IN COURAGE

drew the greatest delectation. Personally, I
have never laughed so much or so whole-
heartedly as since the beginning of the war.
Do not say it is hysteria, it is the laughter
of cheerfulness.

One evening there were to be seen three
crazy people, singing as they ran arm in
arm along the road. Shall I confess that
I was one of them? It was midnight. My
two comrades and I had just come from the
boyaux. Our men were marching ahead of
us, delighted to be going back to the can-
tonment for rest. We, the officers, were
following the company at a distance, having
been delayed by the necessity of minutely
explaining the orders to those who were
relieving us.* Our hearts began to beat
more quickly when we mounted the earthen
steps which liberated us from the last
trench and we felt for the first time in
a fortnight the fresh air about us and a
good stone road under our feet. Our
emotion was scarcely due to relief at turn-
ing our backs to the enemy. We were only
leaving the zone of bullets for that of shells,
as the camp, which was the object of our
desire, was constantly under bombardment.
But we were escaping from out tombs

54

THE EXCAVATORS

I recall that the sky was gray and full of
dark, majestically-moving clouds which
seemed full of water. Through this humid
screen the moon shed enough light to
illuminate and magnify two or three solitary
trees on the plain. I found time in the
midst of my gaiety to think of Corot. He
would have loved to see the foliage melt
away and the limbs of the elms stretch out
their black lines in a ghostly night like this.
However, the firm white earth of a real
French road was more charming to us than
all the poetry of these tragic trees.

We pounded our heels upon the stones,
and certainly the heels of a soldier make
enough noise without that. We threw out
our chests and suddenly surprised one an-
other by saying almost together that we
were happy. The enemy's rockets danced
to right and left and behind, illuminating
the horizon as if for a feast. Guns roared in
the distance like lions in a menagerie.
Softly we hummed the old home songs and
they brought back all the vivid memories
of my youth.

A long time ago I gambolled with other
children of my age on the road which runs
along the beach of Middlekerque. I did not

55

COMRADES IN COURAGE

dream that one day Middlekerque would be
at the extreme right of the most terrible
army of invasion ever known in history,
and still less did I think that, if that event
occurred, I should find myself, as in those
fine autumnal mornings, singing " Frere
Jacques" with friends just as dear.

LIBERTY

III

J^iberty

THIS morning we had to punish two
men who were guilty of absence
from the camp at night. During
our march back to the trenches I watched
them in the ranks. They were not accept-
ing their misfortune cheerfully. Still full
of wine, with their heads heavy from the
fumes of the liquor, they were exchanging
their views on destiny, like the augurs of
old!

"I wish this war would end soon!"
"We shall be able to say what we think
then!"

"And we shall be free once more."
"We can tell them a few things when we
get our freedom back!"

It hurts me to hear them misconceive
liberty in this fashion for I, too, love it dearly
— but not as they do. They want the right

57

COMRADES IN COURAGE

to say everything, to do anything, to over-
turn everything. Personally, I want more
and less than that in order that my soul may
remain free.

Wise people have known for a long time,
and the mass have learned from the war, that
pure liberty — that is to say true freedom of
will — does not exist. What exists is servi-
tude ; all men, all beings, even the most pow-
erful have to submit to that law.

At the present time we have the choice
between French discipline and German
tyranny. The only liberty we can enjoy is
the preference of one to the other. Once
the decision is made, nobility consists in
trying to serve the good cause without abase-
ment. One can obey worthily or dishon-
ourably. Freedom exists only in degrees
of servitude. One finds both heroes and
cowards under the same yoke. To the
coward the hero seems a free man.

The important thing is to distinguish
between good and evil obedience and to
recognize among the primary laws those to
which, on account of his nature, man must
submit. There is merit and beauty in fol-
lowing by preference these inevitable laws.
One snows a weakness in submitting to the

58

LIBERTY

others without complaint ; the free man does
not always obey unquestioningly.

But which are these necessary laws?

In the material order of things we are
beginning to recognize them. The law of
falling bodies, for example, must be obeyed
whether you wish to obey it or n'ot. If
you rebel against it, you are not thought
free but insane! Mad people throw them-
selves out of windows ; people of intelligence
accept the necessity of descending to the
street by the stairs. They know that it is
not humiliating slavery to obey the law of
gravity which binds them to the ground. The
recognition of other necessary laws will help
us to conquer the air without violating those
rules which govern matter. Our fault consists
in not knowing these other laws or in know-
ing them imperfectly. Investigators and
scientists devote their attention to finding
them ; and when they have been formulated,
business people apply them. That is called
progress and proves that as regards matter
the last word of progress is not "liberty,"
but the intelligent obedience of mankind to
the laws of the universe.

It is just the same in the spiritual order
of things. True friends of liberty do not

59

COMRADES IN COURAGE

rebel against these laws but try to know
them in order to submit to them.

Thus more than one of the familiar no-
tions of our so-called "intellectuals" are
overturned. We like to establish liberty
in our institutions. Nothing is more fruit-
less. The thing to establish is not liberty
but order.

We are accustomed to speak of our rights
as free men. In regard to liberty we have
no rights but two duties: to obey the true
laws and to free ourselves from the others.

Let each of us exert his intelligence and
his heart to follow these principles and the
result will be wise men with high ideals.

The great present law is to save our
Motherland. At the time of the mobiliza-
tion we found ourselves face to face with
numerous obligations, of which only one
was valid. It was necessary to overcome
many obstacles, to free ourselves of many
duties, to obtain release from ties which
were regarded as sacred in times of peace,
and to offer ourselves to a new servitude
with hands free and souls which owed no
other allegiance. Only thus could the two
duties of independence and obedience be ob-
served at the same time.

60

LIBERTY

It is said that noble spirits love to free
themselves from the yoke. The French sol-
diers in violently breaking their other chains
to surrender to this, the most sacred law,
felt an unequalled joy in spite of their
tears. If you doubt it, compare the peace
reigning in their hearts with the pangs felt
by those who, under a thousand pretexts,
have remained behind the lines. One had
to devote himself to his children, another
to his business affairs, others to their usual
pursuits, to their vices, to their cowardice.
We always have ties. We must sever them
when our duty to liberty demands it. Let
all the French people free themselves in this
manner and the word "liberty," which was
formerly empty of meaning when applied to
our institutions, becomes a reality.

A citizen thinks himself free if he chooses
his sovereign. However, before voting he
tries to find out the opinions of the official
whom he distrusts and sums up the services
that the nominee can render him if elected.
The shopkeeper in addition considers the
opinion of his clients and his purveyors
before voting. He ought to obey the law
of the public good instead of the many un-
worthy ones which make him a slave.

61

COMRADES IN COURAGE

It is true that this man ought not to be
burdened with the responsibility of such a
choice. It is no easier to recognize the
public good than the great laws which rule
Nature. If we want the French people
to be free, that is to say, subject only to
reasonable laws, then let us leave the
care of establishing order to the people
who are capable of it and demand from them
guarantees of competence, continuity, and
responsibility. Expect from them not lib-
erty but prudent laws. Free citizens
should neither rebel against these laws
nor against the people who have the difficult
task of formulating them; but rather against
the low kinds of tyranny which weigh heav-
ily upon most men.

When after forty days in the trenches
one goes to the cantonment for a rest it is
difficult to be serious. It would seem so
easy to spend those five days only in follow-
ing one's fancy. Instead a march to the
nearest forest is usually ordered to occupy
the troops, amuse them, and exercise their
stiff limbs. They have all lost the habit of
keeping their places in the ranks. How-
ever, the officers must keep them well
grouped and aligned. We once met a troop

62

LIBERTY

of harassed territorials who were marching
along anyhow. The sight of them amused
our fellows very much and I listened to their
remarks.

"Do you see those fire-men ?"

"They are so old they no longer know
how to march."

" Do you call that a proper defile ? "

A little later we met a company of young
soldiers belonging to the "class 15" whom
we all love. Our men exchanged their
impressions like connoisseurs. They were
proud of their little comrades and admired
their easy gait and orderly ranks, but that
did not make them any more ready to
follow their example. However, the officers
were there to enforce discipline. It is
annoying to have to stay in the ranks ! If
a man stops to light his pipe or to speak to
a passerby he must run to catch up with
his comrades. It is hot, and his flask is
empty! If only he were free to stop at
the public house in the first village !

Even I felt tired toward the end of the
march that morning and there yet remained
two kilometres to go. On my left, only
two paces away, was an inviting green slope.
Free, I should have thrown myself down on

63

COMRADES IN COURAGE

it with delight. One of my men, nick-
named "Le Tunisien," was very thirsty,
but drinking was against the rule. During
the halt I had to take from his very lips the
large glass of white wine which a good
woman had brought him. It is sad to find
such obstacles in the way of our liberty, but
we must accustom ourselves to them. At
the end of the morning the men of them-
selves fell into the rhythmic march step and
when we returned all felt happy. If we
had straggled like a flock of sheep we would
have come back cross and worn out.

Must we then praise servitude and despise
all liberties? We must give authority and
hierarchy, in turn, our unfailing devotion
and accept with philosophy some hard con-
straints. But even under discipline one can
— and ought to — preserve the sense of free-
dom.

In the field we feel acutely the value of
obedience. We know that we shall liberate
France by our zeal in serving her. Never-
theless, I have never loved true liberty more
then here. It is because we have detached
ourselves from our accustomed ties. Not
only have we broken away from those we
hold most dear but, since the second of

64

LIBERTY

August, 1914, many of us have irretrievably
made the sacrifice of our lives. We can
not submit to questionable restraints after
having freed ourselves in this manner from
those which legitimately dominate the com-
munity of mankind.

Servility is rare now, although it used to
be common in peace time. Certain officers
were spoken of by their comrades as be-
ing frousse. That word defined a defect
of which I have found no trace here. It
consisted of betraying agitation in front
of one's chiefs and in fearing to assume
responsibilities. A soldier who degrades
himself in this manner is not worthy of his
uniform. He is afraid because he mistakes
the role and the power of those in authority
over him. He is thinking of his advance-
ment, of various advantages to be gained
from them. If instead he demands of them
information and direction for his service
he will be a man of worth and a good soldier.
In addition he will have the pride of owing
the success of his career to his own personal
merit. I do not obey my superior officers
in order to gain profits by my meek obedience
but because it is my law. It is quite natural
for a man whose life is at stake to serve well.

65

COMRADES IN COURAGE

This determines my actions; and, beyond
my obligations as a soldier and the respect
which I owe to those of superior rank, I do
not accept here the orders of any master.

After the war I think the French will
accustom themselves to this reasonable
conception of individual liberty. Nine of
our departements are paying now with
hardest slavery for the liberties which we
have been taking for the last forty years
with the power of our nation. Let us first
free our France from servitude to Germany;
we can then devote ourselves to our duties
toward France alone. Thus shall we become
free citizens without knowing it.

66

COMRADES IN ARMS

ir

Comrades in

A THE outset of the war I received
a charming letter from a friend who
had just been promoted to the rank
of sub-lieutenant. He wrote thus :

MY OLD FRIEND:

Here I am transformed into an officer. Since
this morning I have worn the cap, sword, and gloves
of a sub-lieutenant and one little stripe on each
sleeve. The troops salute me and the sentinels
present arms. You can conceive my emotion; not
to mention a little thrill of conceit. I am like other
men, a little foolish at times, and even at my age
one feels a childish joy in seeing that one's costume
is being admired. I blushed when, in the distance,
I saw the first soldier who was going to salute me.
I noticed that he threw away his cigarette and
straightened a button on his coat and I thought:
"He is going to salute me!" It happened as I
expected. He made a great bow, looking me straight
in the eyes, just as if I had always been an officer!
I answered him graciously; I was so pleased!

67

COMRADES IN COURAGE

After him many passed who were just as nice.
Nearly all of them put a fine conviction in their
gesture. Do the soldiers of other nations have an
appearance as frank when they salute? My heart
would not be in the right place if I did not love these
men. The salute is a sign of respect, a thing which
to-day exists almost nowhere but in the army.
Nothing elevates a man as much as the feeling that
he is respected. In the salutes of these soldiers I
also see a confidence which is touching. Naturally
I desire to justify this confidence and I want to be
worthy of commanding those who entrust themselves
to me in this manner.

Yes, the soldiers do trust themselves
to their chiefs. A week ago at the camp
the colonel suddenly called all the officers
together. There was great excitement : the
trenches were to be carried five hundred
metres forward. The two companies who
were at rest had to return to the front,
in an hour, to participate in the operation.
It was one which might cost us dear, and
the men, as soon as they were told of it,
equipped themselves silently. There was
the inevitable confusion of the first few
minutes. As we walked about the streets
the faces of the men were all turned toward
ours. From every side eyes were trying
to pierce the depths of our minds. They

68

COMRADES IN ARMS

wanted to know what the officers were
thinking, what they were hiding in their
souls. With anxious eyes they gave them-
selves into our keeping, but also seemed
to implore: "You are coming with us,
aren't you ? You are the leaders. You can
count on us, but we also count on you!"
Like my recently promoted comrade, who
so deeply appreciated the salutes to his new
rank, I looked affectionately at those im-
ploring eyes.

We do not know exactly the relations
between the men and the officers in the
German army. In France the finest fra-
ternity exists among all those who wear
the uniform. There has been some discus-
sion as to whether the officers were right
in using toward the men the familiar form
of speech — tu (thou) instead of vous (you).
As a matter of fact, it is an almost general
practice at present.

From the officer's standpoint I can see the
need of establishing that familiarity. At
the barracks, in peace time, the men always
use the tu among themselves. It seems
natural: they are of the same age and
all young. At the war it is more re-
markable that they do this because one

69

COMRADES IN COURAGE

finds a youngster of the class "17" in
the ranks beside an old, wrinkled, stooping
man of the class 1891. However, they live
together like brothers, and if one were
addressed as vous, he would not like it. We
are naturally tempted to use their own
language in speaking to these simple people
whose existence we share. One does not
use the familiar form of speech among the
officers, save among comrades of the active
army who have been promoted together.
To me it seems very simple. Among soldiers
one says tu; I am a soldier, therefore I use it ;
it comes easily.

But the men say vous to me and find it
natural to address me with respect. It only
remains to ask whether they mind my treat-
ing them familiarly? Most assuredly not.
Why? Because at the front the relations
between men have suddenly become natural
and simple. In peace time, a civilian chief
must observe all the formalities with his
touchy subordinates. He says vous to
these gentlemen who sometimes hate him.
Here everyone sees in the officer a master
in the full sense of the word — that is to say,
the man who commands and protects.
The military chief is the father: the men

70

accept his authority hand in hand with his
affection. The familiar form of speech
does not shock them, it comforts them.

If you want to know what conception
they have of their duty toward their officers,
hear this sentence pronounced one evening
by an intoxicated man, who thought he had
been badly used by his captain: "If he
falls in the beet fields I won't be the one to
go and get him/' The poor fellow was
very angry and had thought of the worst
punishment a soldier could inflict on his
captain — to leave him wounded on the
battlefield. It is certainly true that in the
fray each man considers himself the New-
foundland dog of his chief. The officer who
does his duty toward his soldiers knows
perfectly well that, should an injury befall
him, each one of them will be ready to
carry him on his shoulders or in his arms
at the peril of his life. Can there be any
objection to treating these children, who
are devoted even unto death, like our own
sons?

The other day my orderly was astonished
at a command I gave him. The good fellow
thought it was not serious and said with a
large smile: "My lieutenant is joking!"

COMRADES IN COURAGE

I found these words charming because
they implied so much. First there is the
sense of respect: I had never told him to
address me in the third person. It came
as naturally to him as using the familiar
form came to me. Nothing would induce
him to deviate from the custom. When
the orderlies are talking together one will
say:

"My lieutenant is calling you."
"Which one — yours or mine?"

"Not mine; it is my Lieutenant M "

That "my" is intangible and part of the
title. In my orderly's answer there were:
the third person, to indicate respect; the
possessive, to indicate affection; and the
word "joking," to indicate the joy of being
comrades in arms.

Brothers in arms! For many years
people have told us that all men were
brothers. It has even been engraved in
the motto: "Liberte, £galite, Fraternite"
on the walls of all our public buildings.
The Germans have shown us what it is
worth. Of the French fraternity, on the
other hand, before the war we knew but
little. I would like to make you understand
how great is the friendship we feel for these

72

COMRADES IN ARMS

soldiers amongst whom we live, sharing the
same emotions and the same dangers.

One night the cooks, who always know
everything, announced that a battery of
75-millimeter guns was coming up to our

lines to knock down the chimney of H

which was situated a few miles ahead of us.
It was a very tall factory chimney which
dominated the entire plain. We knew
that the Germans used it as an observation
post from which they could spy on our
slightest movements not only as far as our
third line but clear back to our positions of
retreat. They had installed in it good
optical instruments of which they were
very proud; in fact, they would expend
several shells on a single man taking exer-
cise at the rear; not for the profit they got
from it, but just to astonish us.

That night it was my turn on guard.
The next day at the early hour selected
by the artillery for the bombardment, I was
resting four metres below ground. I shall
always remember that horrible, propped-up
cave: at my feet was the lamentable com-
forter, formerly red, that for months we had
been dragging from trench to trench. At the
back on a table rudely made from the re-

73

COMRADES IN COURAGE

mains of a door stood our smoky lamp;
hanging to the wall our glasses, our revol-
vers, a package of grenade fuses, innumera-
ble cans, periscopes, masks against asphyx-
iating gas, and bulging knapsacks. Above
the table on a small plank stood our bread
loaves, bottles, and goblets. The lamp
flickered and gave an awful odour. My bed
was not too comfortable — very little straw on
the hard earth — my pillow, a bag filled with
sand. But I was sleeping soundly when a
shout suddenly awakened me.

"My Lieutenant, they are going to hit it
on the head."

"What is it?"

"The chimney."

"All right, let me sleep."

I was just dozing off again when a sharp
report shook my cave, the sound of a de-
parting "75" shell. Nothing for seven or
eight seconds, then a distant thunder and
almost at once a rapid crackling sound which
astonished me. I sat up! Was it a volley ?
Then the silence once more. I shall never
forget what I felt then. The outside noises
reached me muffled, and I marvelled at being
alone with my thoughts when the excitement
was so great only a few steps away. The

74

COMRADES IN ARMS

crackling sound which had alarmed me was
caused by the clapping of many hands, as
at a theatre. Later, I congratulated myself
at having stayed lazily in my hole, for I had
the best place from which to witness the
bombardment of the chimney. Even now
I can close my eyes and see it all clearly.
Anyone can imagine a chimney which is
beginning to totter. Shells explode around
it, then pierce it, raising a cloud of brick-
coloured dust. Suddenly it bends, breaks
in three pieces, and crumbles to the ground.
But imagine the soldiers clapping hands at
each successful shell. I could hear the
rattle of their applause and it stabbed my
heart. In the profound silence that fol-
lowed, I thought of all those Frenchmen,
crazy with joy, while we were destroying
one of our own factories. My orderly
remarked :

"I wonder whether the Boche stayed up
there."

An Alsatian prisoner asserted a few days
later that an observing officer had indeed
been surprised by the bombardment and
had come down with the chimney. In any
case, that remark of my orderly stirred my
imagination on the subject, and I pictured

75

COMRADES IN COURAGE

to myself the horrible agony of the German
at the top of his tower.

The reports of the guns continued one
after the other. The men now no longer
clapped. They probably were as anxiously
expectant as I. It seemed to me as if
a direct communication had been estab-
lished between their souls and mine, and it
was a real comfort for me to feel, even with
my eyes shut, the same impressions that
were moving them. Suddenly I heard a
shriek like that of a band of schoolboys
running put for the hour of recreation. All
those big children of mine were crying
victory! Ah, the dear fellows ! How clear,
how young, how charming their voices
sounded in that delirious moment. It was
better not to be too close. Near by I should
probably have heard some objectionable
remarks. They said:

' ' B ra vo ! H u r rah ! Five la France ! ' '
But they doubtless used many less heroic
words and applied to the Boches names
much more vulgar. What matter? The
important thing is to know how to extract
the most from certain moments. I real-
ized during that one that we were really
brothers. That is to say, the young and

76

COMRADES IN ARMS

care-free sons of a mother for the love of
whom this cry of triumph was uttered.
What, after all, are we in contrast to the
Motherland? The candid accents of their
acclamations put these men and myself in
our true place, a very humble one. Poor,
insignificant soldiers of an immortal France,
in going through this simple emotion to-
gether we learned how to unite our lowly
hearts and love one another.

Really, it is not difficult to fraternize
with a crowd of soldiers. As a class, the
common people are easy-going. When one
leaves them in their proper place and does
not ask them to think or feel beyond their
possibilities, they are naturally docile and
confident. The wonderful thing is the
harmony among the officers. Although of
extremely varied types they live in a very
close intimacy. So many things might
sever these ties: race, education, religion,
fortune, age, or character. Before the
enemy, the differences efface themselves.
There remain only honest people, clinging
to one another.

At camp one day the sudden arrival of a
new regiment was announced. We ran
to the doors to see them march by. I must

77

COMRADES IN COURAGE

own that at the front, where the distractions
are not numerous, one is prone to become a
spectator. When soldiers go by we stand
in a row, looking with staring eyes.

When these warriors had stacked arms
and broken ranks, two officers detached
themselves from the group and entered the
house whose doorway we filled. They in-
quired of our orderlies :

"Can we have dinner here?"
" But, sir, the place is already taken."
"All the more reason. We'll make ar-
rangements with our colleagues. We will
pay, you know."

I came forward. The officer who had
spoken planted himself in front of me.
He was a little man with a tanned face
worn by hard work. Poised on the side
of his head was a battered cap which he
shifted with each sentence, as if he were
trying to find the funniest way of crowning
his mischievous forehead. His short lees
were tucked into extraordinarily wide
breeches. He had straight blue eyes and
the truest accent of the Paris Faubourgs.
"Dear Monsieur, I introduce myself:

Lieutenant B . I am a reserve officer.-

I work in a grocery store. And you?"

78

COMRADES IN ARMS

"I am Lieutenant R ."

"Aren't we going to mess together?*'

My comrades had gathered around him
in a circle and we were beginning to enjoy
the situation immensely. We quickly came
to terms and the orderlies got ready to lay
the table.

"By the way," said I. "How many are
you? Two?"

" No, indeed, my friend ! Say eight, unless

that wretch G again plays us the trick

of not coming."

He then proceeded to explain that G

was the adjudant, a good soul, but mad
about the service, and who would much
rather give up his lunch than overlook the
smallest of his duties.

An adjudant! All right! We sat down.
The jovial grocer took the best place, tucked
at least half of his napkin in his collar, put
his two hands on his short hips, looked
at us with eyes full of fun, and lifting his
tiny cap, loudly proclaimed that he was
from Menilmontant.

At first this phenomenal creature had
frightened me, but he seemed so happy at
being an officer, privileged to fight bravely,
eat gluttonously, and drink good wine with

79

COMRADES IN COURAGE

comrades or colleagues, as he called them,
that his joy little by little won us over.
What ceased to be funny was the adjudant' s
empty place. I really feared his entrance,
even more so since his lieutenant constantly
repeated :

"Oh, what a character!"

My fears were increased by the fact that
the other lieutenant, whom I disliked, pro-
fessed great friendship for the absentee. He
had introduced himself rather ceremoniously.
Profession: schoolmaster in a village in the
Departement of La Loire, and secretary
to the Mayor. I know the community: it
is the most revolutionary one in the whole
region. Its mayor is a redoubtable radical
socialist, a terrible man, and in front of me
was seated his intimate collaborator. We
talked and I was surprised to find him an
amiable fellow, not lacking in poise, entirely
absorbed in the beautiful profession of
soldiering. But what would his friend, the
adjudant be like ?

"Here he is!"

The exclamation was uttered by the
grocer. The whole band got up to greet
him, waving their napkins. [Enter the
adjudant.]

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COMRADES IN ARMS

"Ladies and gentlemen."

"Well," whispered one of my comrades.
" Here is another one who takes life merrily."

His place was next to me. I looked at
him: closely cropped head, ordinary soldier's
appearance.

He sat down, laid his napkin on his lap,
began to eat slowly in silence.
A simpleton," I thought.

However, it is necessary to treat one's
guests with courtesy, so I emptied the rest
of the wine bottle in a glass, murmuring to
put myself on a level with them:

:< You will be married within the year."

"No, I won't, for the good reason that I
am an Abbe."

"The truth is out," said the man from
Menilmontant, at the other end of the
table.

Why, yes, the truth was out. I own that
I foresaw nothing of the sort.

My neighbour added, in a whisper:

"And you know of me, I am the Abbe
G . Vicar of N ."

He named one of the most intelligent and
active priests of our times, a sort of an
apostle, very young and already famous. I
then looked at him attentively and discov-

81

COMRADES IN COURAGE

ered a beautiful, strong-willed, clean-cut jaw;
a fine mouth, and piercing eyes, deep set
under a calm forehead.

The others, the Poilus, were delighted at
our surprise, and they asked the adjudant
to relate why he had been mentioned in
dispatches. They had to insist, but with
those rogues one had to give in or produce a
good reason for not doing so. He finally
explained that there had been no one willing
to go and bring in a man who had fallen
wounded in front of the enemy lines. He
himself crawled rapidly out toward him,
hoping to be able to give the poor fellow
the extreme unction, and ran right into
the midst of a German patrol. He was
alone, unarmed. The officer, a Bavarian,
held a revolver to his head. The Abbe
then looked him well in the face and said:

" You surely wouldn't think of killing me
lying down. Wait till I get up."

The other thought the Frenchman was
calling a troop to his rescue and, taken with
panic, ran away with his men.

What impressed me most during that
story was the sight of the joyful eyes and
visible admiration of the anti-clerical school-
master— I met the latter the next morning.

9*

COMRADES IN ARMS

We talked over his troublesome community,
his mayor, and his politics before the war.

"Pooh,'* said he; "we will look after
that when we come back. In the meantime,
I have had a beautiful sleep."

"Where?"

"Across the street. The sheets were clean,
the bed good but not very wide."

"What do you mean? I know that bed.
It is a double bed."

"That's just it, there are two of us."

"Whom did you sleep with?"

"With no other than the Abbe."

COMRADES IN COURAGE

glory

A QUEER silence reigns over the
fields where we are entrenched ! Cer-
tainly the guns are often noisy
and the whistle of the shells is in our ears,
but no bells sound from the neighbouring
churches; there are no more roosters crowing
in the farmyards, no more dogs to make the
echoes ring with their barking, no more whips
cracking gaily. I have often had here
the impression of being far out at sea.
Our dugout is narrow and low like a cabin.
The thunder of the artillery resembles the
sound of the waves in a storm. When a bomb
bursts in our sector the earthen vaults
vibrate like the hull of a ship. If we go out
at night to stand guard in the firing
trench or at the listening post, it seems as if
we were going on the captain's bridge
and like sailors we fix our eyes on the black

84

GLORY

horizon. This impression is chiefly caused
by the fact that the plain is dead like the
ocean. Hearing is perhaps the most acute
of our senses. All the familiar noises which
usually come through the air in the fields are
absent from here, and the earth seems to
me cold and hostile like a stretch of salt
water.

And yet our men are gay and dream
beautiful dreams in their gloomy holes.
Yesterday, when one of them was looking
depressed, an officer passed.

"What are you thinking of, old man?*'

"My home."

"You will see it again, sir, all right."

"Ah! I am not so sure, but when one
worries one reads the citations*: it cheers
you up!'*

Can that man who always seemed an
amateur soldier be interested in heroes and
would he really like to become one himself?
Is it possible? But better things still are
happening. We have in the company a
particularly uncouth individual. He always
has a dirty face and his clothes are never more
than half fastened. He is short legged like
a bull terrier and as ugly as sin. During the

*Mentions in Dispatches.

8S

COMRADES IN COURAGE

past month every day at twilight he would
stride over the trench and go, with his
hands in his pockets and a shovel under
his arm, toward the enemy 's lines. Many
German corpses were lying out there. At
each journey he would bury several and
come back swearing against these mis-
creants who leave their dead unburied in
the beet fields. We gave him a little
brandy as a reward. Perhaps you think
we were rid of him after that ? I thought so,
too. But yesterday, while we were talking
about a soldier who, for his gallantry, had
been mentioned in dispatches he passed by
grumbling and I heard him mumble:

"I guess it ought to be my turn to be
cited!"

The grave-digger, too, was working to
be admired and wanted to read his name
among those of the heroes !

That incident made me ponder, and at
night I meditated on glory, while, opposite,
the enemy was firing spasmodically.

What is glory? It is the more radiant
light of one being outshining that of others.
One can perform a noble action and keep
it secret, but it needs the help of the crowd
to make it a glorious one. A hero judges

86

GLORY

the degree of his glory by the number of
those who pay him tribute.

And that is why glory is at the same time
so beautiful and so fruitless.

There exists a popular proverb which
neglects glory: "Do right and never mind
what people say. " Which means that our
acts are of some value in themselves,
independent of the judgment of men.
It is a sage opinion, but a proud and
contemptuous one. Should I then be sole
judge of what is right or wrong? Haven't
the men who are made in God's image
souls as capable as mine of being moved by
beauty? For my part, I think a great deal
of my fellow creatures' opinions. I per-
ceive, however, that the stupidity of the
masses constitutes a peril which in its
turn may encourage men to play to the
gallery only. But honour to those who win
the love of simple hearts! Confronted by
eminent goodness or striking genius, all souls
become simple, and admiration is glory. I
pity the man who does not accept the hom-
age of a sincere crowd as a divine caress.

However, we must have other responsibili-
ties if we want the war in which we are en-
gaged to bear its fruit. First, we must go to

8?

COMRADES IN COURAGE

it gravely. The Saint-Cyriens who went to
the assault in their white gloves had the
enviable role of writing the most moving
and most noble page of the first part of
the epic. We must write the others with a
bold hand.

The other day at the camp our captain
told us to talk to the men on some moral
theme. We did it, on the duties of the
father of a family in the war. I explained
to the good fellows who sat around me that
the more children one had the more ardour
one ought to put in fighting. The loss of a
bachelor is more fatal to the motherland than
that of the head of a family because the first
dies altogether, whereas the latter leaves chil-
dren who carry on his work. Also a father
knows better than any other why he is fight-
ing. He defends his own home along with the
other homes of his country. Really among
the men around me, the best soldiers are
those who have left at home four or five
children whose pictures they show with emo-
tion to everyone.

Glory, in the eyes of these people, is a
fantasy. In mine it has a worse fault: it
tempts people, in a materialistic age, to
capitalize their virtues.

88

GLORY

Glory is fame with a hundred tongues,
the "fama" of ancient Rome. Before the
war one acquired fame by publicity instead
of heroism. Men were classed according to
their wealth and therefore everyone sought
riches. With that aim, one needed to be
popular and sought after. By certain means
it is possible to commercialize one's fame
and thus win fortune, but it involves
heavy payment. In the world of scientists,
artists, and writers, one also gains riches by
parading and advertising one's merits, by
blowing one's own trumpet. Advertisement
is the plague of the century. That which re-
quires great effort and preparation on the
part of a notoriety seeker can be won in
one day by a hero with a single fortunate
gesture. A good thrust of the sword is
therefore worth more than a hundred
thousand francs of newspaper advertis-
ing.

I would feel ashamed of having dared to
advance this comparison between glory and
advertisement, but after the war we will go
back to our cities with regenerated souls,
which we must try to keep from every stain.
Let us beware of ever making unworthy use
of our great experiences.

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COMRADES IN COURAGE

Glory is a precious but heavy burden.
When one has gained, by a heroic action or by
a great achievement, the regard and the love
of men, one belongs to the crowd — and the
crowd is exacting. It is never satiated with
glory and wants the hero to remain eternally
worthy of its homage. For most soldiers
this is easy. They die and their remem-
brance remains thenceforth unchangeable;
if they live they cease after the war to oc-
cupy the public mind.

But I am sorry for those who, having
once won renown, must devote themselves
unceasingly to its propagation. It does not
only require noble effort, it is not enough
to give people fresh cause for admiration:
one must guard oneself from the thousand
pitfalls of popularity, answer all the ac-
clamations with smiles, and evade a quan-
tity of stupid invitations. One becomes the
guardian of one's glory: one appraises it
sometimes stingily, sometimes more gen-
erously; one spends one's life in petty
bargaining. For my part I know few things
more disappointing than to see some of these
great men, hesitating between the fear of see-
ing their name unjustly forgotten, and their
disgust for the unworthy contrivances to

90

GLORY

which they must resort in order to maintain
it in its rightful place. If, as I believe, it is
only simplicity of heart which allows one
to taste true happiness, those upon whom
Glory has smiled run the risk of never
again being perfectly happy.

Must we then fear glory or disdain it ? I
think we must love it, not for the enjoyment
it brings us, but for the sake of mankind,
to whom noble examples and inspiring
spectacles are beneficial.

We have just had, here, an example of
this. One of our young comrades a few days
ago made a fortunate stroke. • The general
commanding the army had issued an order
to capture at any cost and send to him a
prisoner. Our friend was put in charge of
the little expedition. He left with a few
men and captured a German post, the chief
occupant of which he killed. He came back
after a short but very bloody struggle and
brought with him a good-looking lad with
great, startled blue eyes. There is not always
great merit in taking a prisoner, but when
one does it in this manner, by command,
and goes out to get him in the trench op-
posite, not at one's chosen hour, but at the
one arbitrarily fixed by the commandant,

COMRADES IN COURAGE

the operation deserves praise, and our friend
is to be cited among the brave.

The next day we were discussing, among
ourselves, with much vivacity, the way in
which he had conducted the operation.

Having found an unoccupied section of
German trench, he had placed there the
main part of his patrol, and had gone for-
ward himself toward the neighbouring
trench, accompanied by only one man. We
wanted to determine whether he had acted
wisely in exposing himself thus. Some
praised him for it, others thought that in
his boldness he had overstepped his duties
as chief and had thus endangered the safety
of his entire party.

We were getting somewhat excited when
one of us wisely interrupted :

"My friends, let us argue no more. We
are much excited, and there is but one con-
clusion from our useless discussion. If we
are excited it is because we all secretly envy
a happier comrade. Moreover, his action
was very creditable to him, as well as to us.
It proves that he has been a hero and that
we all ardently desire to find an occasion to
imitate him soon."

Nothing could have been truer. Our

92

GLORY

hearts were surging within us. Our jeal-
ousy was a wholesome incentive to heroism !
Envy is hateful; it is a base and shameful
sentiment. If there are men whose souls are
mean enough to witness with spite the hon-
our which a brave man has won we must
pity them. But one can be jealous of his
bravery — that is to say, have the acute desire
to equal him. Glory puts this ardour in the
soul and that is why it is often as bene-
ficial to those who seek it as it is fatal to
those who have won it.

In our trenches its power is considerable.
The Army Bulletin publishes information,
songs, anecdotes, and, at the end of each
number, the names of those cited in the
orders of the day. Its editors could omit
all the rest and leave only the citations. It
is in order to read them that we all want
the paper. I have seen some good fellows,
lying flat on the muddy straw of their
gourbis, slowly reading every citation, word
by word, following the lines with their
thick fingers.

Have they the ambition to be cited, too,
in their turn? There are some who would
be frightened by so much honour; they are
the modest ones. Others, fathers of fam-

93

COMRADES IN COURAGE

ilies, more soberly inclined, are only trying
to do their duty. Their ambition is not to
see their names in the papers, but to kiss
their wives and children as soon as peace is
signed.

But all, without exception, admire their
comrades who have been mentioned. They
admire; that is the chief thing. I love the
glory which shines out from everywhere
around us in this war, because of the great
service it will have rendered the French soul
in restoring the faculty of disinterested
admiration.

Thus the hearts of these men who tramp
along with me through the clay are becom-
ing purified. They not only learn to love

i • ir i r 11 • i

duty, itselt, the source or all joys, but in
serving only their country they exert them-
selves to free their souls from envy. They
had been told that in order to be happy
it was necessary to make use of all their
rights, and to search for the most di-
verse pleasures. It will be possible, after
the war, to explain to them, without being
scoffed at, that the best are those who love
to work and who, when the day is finished,
return to find their joys in a home, simply
furnished, but gay with laughter of many

94

flLORY

voices. They had been advised not to
tolerate superiority in others, that all
citizens were equal, and here, with admira-
tion, they acknowledge the superiority of
certain men to others.

What will remain then of the principles
on which rested the corrupt society in which
we lived? Will it be possible, hereafter, to
again mislead these people with malicious
doctrines and render them egotistical, dis-
orderly, and mean, in spite of the inherent
virtue of the French race ?

As for glory, let us love it if we have time.
And you, whose hearts are following us, do
not be shocked by the statement that we
are not fighting for the love of the game.
We are going to give the Germans a lesson,
and we want our France to come out of
the trial, not only safe, but exalted. The
rest is only secondary. That is the feeling
in our souls. Dream of the glory of those
you love, their hallowed swords and their
foreheads crowned with laurels; nothing
could be better for you. For us, however,
there is something more positive in this
war.

COMRADES IN COURAGE

VI

J^arks, Topples,

WHEN I was a child my parents
owned a bound collection of the
" L'Univers Illustre" dating from
the beginning of the Second Empire. I used
to look at the pictures and read the captions
underneath them. In this way all the peo-
ple of rank at the Imperial Court were
visualized for me. I remember that their
Majesties, the Emperor and Empress of
France, were always making innumerable
trips to inaugurate railways or to compli-
ment certain cities, large and small. I used
to study the sovereign's august beard,
represented by little undulated lines, each
of which seemed to me to be a true hair
drawn after nature. Nothing can ever pre-
vent me from coupling in my imagination
the forgotten art of wood engraving with
the period of the majestic and comical hoop

96

LARKS, POPPIES, MICE

skirt — a fashion which I hear is coming
back. After turning many pages I came
to the war of 1870, and then to the Com-
mune. I followed those two tragedies with
passionate interest. My eyes grew bigger
when I looked at the military barricades, and
I contemplated with terror the rough faces of
the confederate troops, the entreating or re-
signed glances of the hostages, the extraor-
dinary black blotches, representing flames
on the roofs of the Tuileries or of the Cour
des Comptes. At the time my mother was
playing Grieg's Spring Song on the piano.
Since then I have often heard it played at
private or public concerts. Every time my
heart jumps as if I were expecting to hear
the crackle of shots of the Civil War.

Like Grieg's notes, which always bring to
my ears the noise of firing, there is a small
number of people and objects that, in the
trenches, become associated with different
senses. Henceforth, we shall no longer be
able to see, hear, touch, or smell them with-
out thinking of the war, which, through
them, will haunt us until death.

I have said we can hear no sound in the
fields where we have dug our winter holes:
no bells, no dogs, no roosters. Spring and

97

COMRADES IN COURAGE

summer have come without bringing back
any of these sounds. There is a church bell
not far away, but it is shattered and on the
ground. The soldiers cut pieces from it and
convert them into rings, which are more
popular than those made of aluminium.
There is a dog quite near here. While I
am writing he keeps watch from the parapet
of a listening post, but he is not allowed
to bark. His assignment is to scent the
enemy, point him, and keep quiet. As for
the roosters, I admit that, a few days ago, I
thought they had come back. Some Hes-
sian guardsmen, opposite, were awakening
and imitating animal cries. The French
infantry answered with such enthusiasm
that on each side and from trench to trench
the cock's crow might have been heard, that
morning, to our left as far as the sea; to our
right as far as Belfort.

And yet, one day in February, there
arose a voice from the dead earth. It has
continued to sound ever since, at dawn, thus
enchanting our solitude. It is the voice of
the lark.

Once, at daybreak, while in one of those
first muddy shelters that we built so
crudely, I thought I heard the song of a

98

LARKS, POPPIES, MICE

bird. It might have been a man, whistling
in his cave, but the notes were too pure and
fresh, and followed one another too rapidly.
They grew in volume, and little by little,
spreading over the plain, filled our desolated
sky with such joy that I went out and
stayed a long time motionless, listening.

"It is pretty, my Lieutenant!"

Next to me I perceived the smiling face of
my orderly. Was it to hear or to see better
that the good fellow was showing his teeth
so? He seemed to be in ecstasy.

Since that day the larks have become
our friends. No person ever comes to see
us at the front. These little birds alone
link us to the rest of the world. How could
we help loving them? They are all we
have.

Was it the novelty of it which caused our
admiration the first time we heard the con-
cert ? It was a new pleasure, but our emo-
tion came from a more profound source.
Our souls are able to participate in great
events which they cannot see. Sometimes
we have a vision and suddenly the magni-
tude of the scene before us and the signifi-
cance of our acts appear to us. Outside of
these minutes, when we know how to live, we

99

COMRADES IN COURAGE

act with the simplicity of children. The
latter are wise without knowing it, for by
means of their little virtues they are prepar-
ing, that wonder of God, a beautiful life. We
are disciplined and attentive to our military
duties, but careless of the rest, and we are
scarcely conscious of the fact that we are
writing an epic.

It is better thus. But it is also a good
thing sometimes that a shock awakens our
slumbering spirits. Contrasts give us this
shock. When suddenly we perceive the me-
diocrity of a being or an object which we con-
sidered very important, our nerves contract
and we penetrate to the depths of human
misery. When a lark flies over a battle-
field it reveals the sweetness of life to people
who had become familiar with the neigh-
bourhood of death. They look and listen
enchanted and, if they cast their eyes down,
they realize in a minute all the horror of the
place where they are living, all the savage
beauty of the task they are accomplishing.
That is why the heart beats at such
moments and why this soldier who had
always seen so many larks before the war
without noticing them, here, in the trench,
remarks: "It is pretty, that song.'*

100

LARKS, POPPIES, MICE

Certain larks are closer to our hearts
than others; some, although less accessible,
are more touching. Our best companions
are those who dwell in the clover behind our
lines. They live near us on ground that
we have kept for them with the rampart of
our bodies. They are the first to benefit
from the protection we give to all that
France of which the valleys and plains
stretch from us to the ocean. They are the
outpost of the hard-working country that we
defend. Hard working themselves, atten-
tive to their daily needs, they are charming
housekeepers, who come and go, chattering as
they do their work. They do not make any
pretences, they do not flutter like those
crazy swallows, which we never see here
and which we will find only when we return
again to our homes, God knows when!
They are sweetness and grace itself, and
when they mount in the sky so high that
our eyes, although long accustomed to dis-
covering the aeroplanes, can no longer
follow them, we feel that they do not realize
the beauty of their flight, so simple and
naive is the note that falls from their
throats.

In front of our lines, between the Germans

101

COMRADES IN COURAGE

and us, live the tragic larks. How many
times have I not looked at those little
creatures who stay on in spite of the horror
about them, and who sing even above
death? They show us the vanity of human
quarrels. Some Germans and French are
fighting: what is that to them as long as the
sun rises and the earth, neglected though it
be by ungrateful and quarrelsome man,
provides the food for their little ones?
When from the parapet of the trench one
contemplates the mysterious plain where
the soldiers of the most formidable armies
of the world are hidden what a surprise it
is to see a cheerful little bird suddenly
emerge, hop about, turn somersaults, and
suddenly fly away, transporting us with it
toward the -sky. These French larks are
so alert and quick to conquer the skies,
right in front of the enemy, that with very
little imagination we make them the em-
blem of our race, impulsive but well poised,
ingenious and merry, singing and rising at
the same time, and like them we also shall
be victorious.

We love our larks as the messengers of
glory, prophets of all good news. It was
their note which warned us of the spring-

IO2

LARKS, POPPIES, MICE

time while we were still bending our backs
under the weight of winter, and I must tell
you of the signal they give us every morning.

Imagine a night in the trench and the
night guard, up listening. The fusillade
is almost continuous. It decreases some-
times and begins again, suddenly, no one
knows why. Our men respond but little.
What would be the use? Ceaselessly the
Germans send up illuminating rockets.
With great speed they rush upward, giving
a vivid light for fifty or sixty metres of their
course and then die down. The light given
by ours is not so penetrating but lasts
longer. They remain suspended from a
light parachute and during seconds which
seem interminable project on the grass a
pale light. The vegetation seems to be-
come animated and sinister shadows seem
to move in front of our lines. Our men
shoot at these phantoms and on the other
side the rifles go off, too, but toward the1
sky. The Germans, who never miss an
occasion to practise, are aiming at the fuses.
It makes one think of boys at a fair, trying
to shoot an egg dancing on a jet of water.

All that noise has nothing bellicose about
it. Sometimes the artillery thunders. If

103

COMRADES IN COURAGE

it is ours, we inevitably say: "They are
getting the worst of it."

If it is theirs, one doesn't laugh quite so
much, but one finds, even then, words of
consolation.

" I hear we need more aluminium for our
rings. We have ordered some from the
Boches; they are good business men and
they are filling the order immediately."

The hours are long. Cold, obscurity,
silence, immobility, and danger tire even
the most courageous. Formerly, in peace
time, when on guard, one could always
tell the time by the convent bells. Here
there is nothing of the sort, and nearly all
our watches are broken! When will the
day come ? With bent backs and our brown
rugs folded in two or four over our heads and
shoulders, we walk in Indian file, stamping
our feet, taking ten steps to the right, then
all together, after an "about face," ten
to the left. Suddenly we hear a muffled
roar. We stop and listen. It is a strong
cannonade over there toward the north.
After a few minutes of attention, a few com-
ments on the war, and always a few jokes,
too, we resume with a sigh the muddy prom-
enade, waiting for the divine morning hour.
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LARKS, POPPIES, MICE

Daylight means release. The cooks will
bring hot soup and coffee. Life will re-
sume its course. The trench, in a few
minutes, will be cleaned and swept like a
barrack corridor. The number of men on
guard duty will be reduced. We will
breathe once more.

And yet light is not coming. The sun
which ought to appear behind the German
lines remains hidden. It is two o'clock:
the corporal has said so. One leans against
the parapet, with eyes lost in the gray sky,
and a heavy soul.

Suddenly a chirp, then another, then
several. Thank the Lord the larks are
waking! Is it possible? The dawn has
not yet appeared, but happiness enters our
hearts, as when at school the pupils hear
the liberating bell. It is necessary to have
been on watch like this during long nights
in front of the enemy to know the intoxicat-
ing beauty of the sun's rising, accompanied
by the song of the lark, and to love forever
those charming birds, heralds of all glories:
the spring, the day, and — God permitting —
victory.

There are other creatures around us,
but silent and terrified ones. These are

105

COMRADES IN COURAGE

not sacred, and the soldier who has a rifle
and knows how to use it watches for them
and from his hole shoots them without a
permit. The listening posts, in front of
the lines, are wonderful for that. The art
consists in shooting the partridges through
the head. It is very easy for those who know
how. If one misses one's aim, one smiles
and hopes that the bullet was not entirely
wasted, and that perhaps over there some
German may have found himself in the
right place to receive it. It is nothing to
kill a partridge: but in order to eat it it is
necessary to go and bring it in from the grass,
straight in front of the enemy. Some of
the men, who would perhaps make a grimace
if they were told to crawl out to observe or
listen, jump on the parapet and on all
fours, madly imprudent, laughing at every-
thing— the Boches and themselves — run
toward the little prey, put it in their pocket,
and come back nearly as happy as if they
had won the croix de guerre.

One day a great big chap, a renowned
shot, noticed that the beet-stalks were
moving. He pushed his neighbour's elbow:

"A Boche, there, look!"

" A Boche ? You are crazy ! It is a hare. "
1 06

LARKS, POPPIES, MICE

"I believe it is a Boche and so" — boom!

I must tell you that, two days before, it
had been forbidden to shoot at game on
account of wasting ammunition. He shot
and killed a splendid hare, and, his hour
of watch over, brought it to us.

The funny part is that the next day the
Bulletin brought news of the punishment of
a man from another company who had done
exactly the same thing: "has wasted two
bullets on a hare in spite of strict orders
against shooting published in the order of
the day."

That same evening the Colonel, while
going through our trench, saw a beautiful
skin hanging by our door. He opened wide
his eyes and asked:

"What did you give the man who killed
that for you?"'

" Five sous, Colonel."

"It is not too much. As for the other
unlucky man who got punished, I'll have the
offence changed. I'll say: 'Has missed a
hare/ That's well worth four days' con-
finement."

"Quite so, Colonel."

Of what other birds, what other game
can I speak to you? There are no crows

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around here, only the empty nest of one.
The bird has not appeared since we came
here. Its nest is very important; it is a
strategical point. When we studied his-
tory, we imagined the great warriors of
olden days, pale from bending over maps,
their eyes fixed on fortified cities and
narrow passes. Here it is in front of a tiny
manure heap, which is flattening itself out
and disappearing as the months go by, and
a tree, at the top of which is a crow's nest,
that we are stopped. In all the military
conversations, whether one is speaking of
patrols, reconnoitring, attacks, or the regu-
lation of artillery fire, the "crow's nest"
and the little "manure heap" recur, con-
stantly, like a leit motiv. It makes us mod-
est and that is a good thing. I am always
so afraid that after the war those who will
have the joy of being still alive will think
themselves extraordinary men and become
insufferable. For my part, if people ask
me to tell about my great deeds of valour
and I am tempted to glorify myself, I will
at once think of the crow's nest, and if they
insist, of the manure heap.

If people remark later that the war was
ugly, those who took part in it will say that

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LARKS, POPPIES, MICE

at least the poppies in front of the trenches
were not ugly. The battlefield poppies will
remain in our eyes throughout our life as
the lark's song will remain in our ears !

Have you, Madame, received from your
son or husband; or you, Mademoiselle,
from your fiance — from the one for whom
your heart beats — a war poppy, spread out
on a white sheet of paper with a name and
a date? If so, guard that beautiful red
stain as piously as a relic.

I first saw the dazzling vision of the war
poppies about a hundred yards back of the
line, near a camp. We were going out from
a village, a comrade and I. Just as we
had passed the last house, a huge, bright
red field appeared in the valley near by.

" How dreadful !" exclaimed my compan-
ion.

I looked at him, then at the poppies.

"You are joking?"

"Not at all! Those are weeds! Hid-
eous!"

One becomes an officer in war time, but
one has a profession in civil life. My friend,
although a very good officer, always re-
mained the scientific farmer he had once

been.

i

109

COMRADES IN COURAGE

"Monsieur, the agriculturist," I replied:
"your words are undoubtedly true. That
beautiful thing is a field of desolation, but all
the same I find it wonderful. Look again ! "

I explained that it was beautiful in the
same way that a painting is beautiful. The
argument proved convincing and I felt
proud of having found it. Our eyes have
contracted a sense of colour that Nature
rarely offends. Beautiful and rich enough,
without resorting to the bizarre, she charms
us without effort and we sense all the beauti-
ful secrets that each season has brought
forth unchangingly since the beginning of
the world. The artist, less powerful and
less disinterested, in order to captivate our
interest, must resort to some artifice, which
is not always successful. The most com-
mon of these consists in throwing extraor-
dinary colour combinations before our
eyes. Thus each year, in the art exhibits,
one sees purple, yellow, and red tints, which
rarely exist under the true sun in the fields.
One of those red tints, unknown to us in
peace, because it was then intermingled
with the mellowness of the wheat, has now
rapidly extended into great blood-red car-
pets before our eyes. When a painter dares

no

LARKS, POPPIES, MICE

to do as much, one smiles. If it is Nature,
one admires!

When we went back to the first line at
the time of the great battles in Artois, I
was glad to see the poppies growing even
there, in front of the trenches. They en-
chanted our eyes, and it was through that in-
trinsically worthless but strikingly beautiful
vegetation that our soldiers, gay cavaliers,
went forward to the assault. Can one say
that those scarlet harvests were worthless?
Is it nothing to have cheered the last glance
of so many sons of France ? The neglected
earth, unable to produce wheat to nourish
our bodies, gave us rays of triumphal light
for the joy of our souls. During days of
mourning beautiful things are revolting.
But the war, through which we are living,
instead of weakening our souls, exalts
them. While we sadly draw black veils
over the remains of our brothers in arms,
God, who knows better than we how to
honour the dead, bestows upon them a pro-
fusion of war flowers, mingling their red col-
our with the blood of our martyrs.

A thousand other flowers spring up
around our trenches. One day a little girl,
eager to serve France in her own way, told

in

COMRADES IN COURAGE

her mother to ask me to send her the name
of a poor soldier to adopt as her godchild.
I got hold of a good fellow whose family
lives in a province occupied by the Germans,
and I started a correspondence between
my little French girl and this pleasing but
uncultivated godchild. The letters and
presents began pouring in! The soldier
was delighted. He said to me:

"She wants me to write her the names
of my children. I'll send them to her in
a letter." Then he added: "If you don't
object, my Lieutenant, I could perhaps
send her a flower?"

A week later the little godmother told
me that she was astonished at the pretty
thoughts the soldiers have, and that her
godchild had sent her a beautiful golden
flower.

The flower was one of those common wild
ones which are unknown to city people,
like me, by name, but which we love to
find growing in the fields in springtime.
The flower was enclosed with a long, poetic
letter from her godchild that the dear child
sent me.

I had seen my man that very morning,
leaning over a parapet, in one of the back

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LARKS, POPPIES, MICE

trenches, scribbling big, ill-shaped letters
on a white sheet of paper.

"It makes you sweat, old man."

" Rather, my Lieutenant."

"When you dig, you don't get so hot?"

"Well, no, sir.'?

Was this simple being, then, capable of
writing pretty things? I opened the pre-
cious paper, sent by the child, and saw
capital letters traced artistically. My eyes
fell on this sentence with dismay: "With
my hand on my heart, Mademoiselle, and
dear godmother, I place at your knees,
rather at your feet, this emblem of your
simple grace."

The monster of duplicity, aided by the
"writer" of the squad, had copied his letter
out of a manual for correspondence, called
" Le par/ait Secretaire" and had deceived
my honest little girl. I was tempted to be
severe with him, but, after all, in this case
the letter mattered so little! Upon think-
ing it over, this rough man's action seemed
to me full of grace. He knew the rules of
gallantry well enough to pluck a flower and
offer it to his lady.

There came a day when we must ruthlessly
cut the high grass and with it the flowers.

"3

COMRADES IN COURAGE

All that vegetation hid the enemy's posi-
tions and allowed him to crawl nearly up to
us without being discovered. One morning
we heard that the company was going to
be sent two scythes. These new weapons
were received in the commanding post with
much respect by a comrade and myself.
Neither of us had ever encountered such a
tool face to face! I won't say we felt
frightened: we were more like chickens
who had found a toothbrush. That same
evening we began to clear the ground in
front of the parapet. Of course, the scythes
were broken during the first night. Then
we were given sickles to use. They were
all right for the grass, but would not cut
the tough beet-stalks and the men had to
use their shovels. The real difficulty was
encountered when they came to the barbed-
wire entanglement.

You must imagine a moonless night in the
fields. No lamp posts here or lighted shop
windows. The star shells make a lot of
light but only for the benefit of our backs,
for when we hear the slight noise they make
in starting, we immediately throw our-
selves flat on the ground with our chins in
the mud. You will say: "Why don't you

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LARKS, POPPIES, MICE

work when the moon is up?" Unfor-
tunately the moon is thoughtless and sheds
her rays indiscriminately. When she is
there the Germans see our silhouettes as
plainly as we see theirs, and the only thing
we can all do is to go back and hide. It is
so dark sometimes that it is impossible to
see a yard in front of one : then it is useless
to try to put a hand through the barbed-wire
entanglement to cut the grass and flowers.

One morning at daybreak I came out of
my hole and could see nothing but fog.
From the firing trench one saw barely ten
yards across the plain. At that hour the
men are tired out, and they have every
right to be. Yet I was greatly tempted to
make use of this piece of luck and have the
men, under cover of the fog bank, go out
and remove the waving green screen grow-
ing in the defensive barriers. I got hold of
a shovel, jumped on the parapet, and said
to one or two of the men:

"Follow me."

A quarter of an hour later twenty men
had joined me and the work was quickly
done.

Opposite we could hear plainly the blows
of mallets. The Germans were putting

"5

COMRADES IN COURAGE

up stakes in front of their lines. Only the
night before a corporal had come and told
the commandant of our company:

"My Lieutenant, the plain is full of
Boches. We ought to ask for the artillery."

Our friend, being a practical man, had
answered :

"Leave the Boches alone. We also want
to be left alone when we work on the barbed
wire."

An hour later a volley came from a Ger-
man post, in the direction of our workmen.
It might have been a mistake, but more
probably the enemy pioneers had finished
their own work, and no longer needed pro-
tection for themselves.

That foggy morning seemed to me fav-
ourable for revenge. I got all my men
together and, to the great joy of those
bearded children, said that we were going
to administer punishment to the people
opposite. But an inspiration came to me
suddenly. What if by an unhappy chance
there were some of our men in the field
behind us ? They would receive the sharp
reply of the German rifles.

"Go and see," I said to a soldier. He
came running and shouted to me:

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LARKS, POPPIES, MICE

"Don't fire, sir, our whole company is
out!"

"Are you mad?"

"Not more than usual. They are search-
ing for shell fuses."

The fog then began to lift. For fifty
meters around we could see our men, bent
double, scrutinizing the ground. Here and
there groups of three or four were climbing
out of huge shell-holes. Others, stick in
hand, solemnly, like magicians, were push-
ing aside the grass as they walked. Usually
at that early hour, having just swallowed a
hot meal, they are sleeping soundly. But
that day it was a question of getting some
aluminium to make those little rings that
they send to their wives, sisters, mothers,
cousins, and fiancees. Soldiers are poets.

I had to order them in. To console them
I ordered the promised volley.

"It will make them jump, my Lieu-
tenant!"

I don't know if many Germans danced,
but I do know that they fired back at
us furiously for a time. One would have
believed it to be an attack, and my com-
rades, awakened abruptly, could have
strangled me for the false alarm, Thus

"7

COMRADES IN COURAGE

ends my little story of grass cutting and
fog: a few flowers less, a few rings more.

Is it necessary to tell you about the beet-
plants ? Ah ! They will leave recollections
in our senses: touch, vision, and smell.
During this war we have been saturated
with beet-roots. Even our feet know them,
those cursed things. I don't wish any
civilian ever to repeat our night walks
among these treacherous and slippery stalks.
The strongest among us broke their legs
at that work.

At night they were a perfect nightmare,
during the early days of the campaign.
Their dark foliage was continually mistaken
for German silhouettes. One of my young
friends, who really has never known fear,
said to me the other day:

"Only once have I ever made the com-
plete sacrifice of my life. I was in front of
my section, and suddenly about ten feet
away I saw a line of enemy riflemen. I
told my men to lie down, I looked closely,
and very clearly made out moving helmets.
I took the only possible course and tried
bluff. Alone, revolver in hand, I threw
myself forward, shouting in German with
all my strength: * Surrender! You are

118

LARKS, POPPIES, MICE

prisoners!' There were only beet-stalks,
their heads nodding in the wind."

There can be only one pleasant recollec-
tion of the beet-plant: its perfume.

One dreadfully hot June day I was
hastening through the boyaux to join the
officers of a neighbouring company, about
five hundred metres from my post. One's
chief wish for such paths in summer is that
they might be rendered odourless. Vain
wish when it is a much-frequented way.
There are always dead rats, or garbage,
insufficiently covered, rotting at the bottom.
Bags of lime and buckets of disinfectants
are emptied in the main and cross trenches
frequently to safeguard the men's health.
It is useless, however, to try to please their
nostrils. The vegetation of the field hung
down above my head and flimsy plants
caressed my face to the right and left.
Suddenly the air that I breathed seemed
charged with honey. Little by little the
sensation became so strong that I was al-
most intoxicated. I shut my eyes in order
to enjoy that wonderful feeling more freely.
Was I in Greece, inhaling the wonderful
odours of Mount Hymette? A shell came
and awoke me from my dream with its

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COMRADES IN COURAGE

unpleasant noise. I lifted myself up to
look at the fields. Beet-plants gone to
seed were the only visible objects. On their
high, bushy stems, millions of little green
bells, flowers or seeds — I hardly knew which
— were warming themselves in the midday
sun. They smelt wonderfully sweet.
Henceforth a thousand recollections of the
war will come to me whenever I smell a
cake made with honey.

Whenever my eyes shall rest on the nest
of a mouse the recollections will be less
cheerful, but the effect will be the same. I
write "mouse" as an euphemism. I mean
all those small, unclean animals which are
commonly called moles, field-mice, and rats
of various sizes. At first we knew little of
our companions of misfortune. The first
visitors in our caves were the earth worms.
I remember we were sitting in the dugout
one day, on rickety chairs, which once
belonged to the Boche and before that to
our civilian population. Our backs were
jammed against the wall, while in front we
were nearly cut in two by the edge of the
table. The opposite wall of damp earth was
scarcely more than two feet away. The
only light was from a candle of bad quality

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LARKS, POPPIES, MICE

planted in a niche of the wall. Our menu
contained cold fried potatoes (which is
sad) and cold mashed potatoes (which is
even sadder). All of a sudden a lump of
earth fell in my pewter plate. We lifted
our heads and there beheld, emerging from
the earth, a little, wriggling worm, hanging
like a pink tear.

"Quick, a match!"

An orderly scratched a match and ap-
proached the hanging shred. We laughed
like children. The creature was not accus-
tomed to fire and acted like a puppy. It
contracted and disappeared with such funny
quick movements that the effect on our
nerves was electrical. Entire matchboxes
have been consumed in this manner. Some-
times, when officers and orderlies were
heaped together in the same dugout, begin-
ning to get bored, one of the soldiers would
say: "Ah, now we are going to laugh."

He would take the candle and pass it
along the walls. As each worm hastily
withdrew, without waiting for farewells,
peals of laughter would arise and the time
would pass more quickly afterward.

Now the worms no longer come to our
beautiful, comfortable shelters. Instead

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COMRADES IN COURAGE

we have moles in our boyaux. Lying on
their backs, their little pink claws open,
these dead animals have a better appear-
ance than that of their cousins, the field-
mice. Their round bodies, short and fat
like frankfurt sausages, are entirely covered
with silky fur. They look as if they were
kittens. The mouth, a white spot about
the neck, is all that can be seen of their
funny little faces. Why all these little corp-
ses every morning in the boyaux? They fall
into these long corridors and are unable to
escape the brutal feet of the soldiers. I
should have thought them intelligent enough
to get away by digging if they could not
by running. Beside them lie quantities of
crushed and disembowelled field-mice. They
are no uglier to behold, ladies, than the
horses of the picadores in the Spanish bull
rings.

The military authority who watches
over the hygienic condition of the troops
appoints a soldier called the taupier
(mole killer), one for each boyau, whose busi-
ness it is to take away all the dead animals
and to bury them every morning. I know a
ladies' hair dresser who accomplishes, with
much distinction, this warlike function and

122

LARKS, POPPIES, MICE

who certainly won't reveal the fact to his
fair clients after the war.

Strange little animals! The war has
multiplied them. The bread, the remains
of meat and vegetables that the men throw
around the camps and trenches, have al-
ready stuffed several generations of rodents.
Finding life good they have reproduced
themselves rapidly. In the villages, rats
as large as cats prowl continually in the
barns where the soldiers are sleeping.

"They look like calves, Captain."

The person to whom this remark was
addressed smiled.

"You exaggerate, my boy."

" Not much, my Captain. But those mere
animals won't bother me after all that I
have seen."

In the little room where I go every now
and then to take my royal slumbers I
noticed that I disturb the mice quite a
little. I minded them at first, from force of
habit. Now I let them play around me.
Only once have I thought them too presum-
ing. One of them had just run across my
face, I still can feel the light touch of its
little feet against my cheek. Another one
was turning somersaults in my empty

123

COMRADES IN COURAGE

basin, out of which it was trying to climb;
the most practical one of the three was
devouring my new sponge. Do you think
that in time of peace and in civil life I
should have tolerated such manners ? The
war has made philosophers of us all.

The field mice are less fortunate. The
trenches attract them, but to their doom.
For them a trench is a formidable precipice.
They climb down the sloping side of a
ditch with difficulty, but the side of a boyau
is vertical, and the animals who are out
hunting at night have tragic falls when
they attempt its descent. On arriving at
the bottom a little stunned, they begin to
look for some exit. Gradually they lose
courage and putting their front paws on the
wall, their little pointed faces turned to-
ward the sky, frantically attempt to leap
out. Many times under the beam of my
electric lamp I have seen these terrified
little animals madly running back and
forth, throwing themselves at the side walls,
jumping to the right and left, and even
under my feet if I had not been careful to
avoid them. The soldiers do not take the
same trouble. It is simply: "Crunch!
Another one !"

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LARKS, POPPIES, MICE

At the war one does not wear thin shoes,
nor wipe one's feet on Persian rugs on the
way out of the boyaux.

The dead mice play such an important
part, even in the thoughts of the high
command, that one day the chief of
a neighbouring battalion sent by his aide-
de-camp to the captain of a company at
the front a note running thus: "Urgent!
There' is a dead rat in the boyaux. Please
explain!" It was necessary to take a sheet
of paper and make a formal reply. An
inquiry was made and it was discovered
that the rat was a field mouse, which had
fallen in the boyau after the prescribed hour.
The taupier passes, according to orders,
before eight in the morning. After that
hour there is not a dead animal about. We
had to own that that morning the com-
pany had been presented with an extra
field mouse and that we had not paid any
attention to the fact. Bad business !

All these little beasts that have been our
companions in misery will be remembered
with a mixture of repulsion and tenderness.
I was wandering last night in a section of
trench when close by my ear a tuft of
grass began to move. I turned quickly and

125

COMRADES IN COURAGE

found myself confronted by a funny little
mouse. It is impossible to imagine anything
more odd than our ceremonious interview.
I kept serious. She watched me intently
with her beady eyes, sitting on her haunches,
her ears erect, her nose moving. She was
trying to understand, and really so was I.
She seemed to say:

"What are we both doing here?"

"Well, mouse, I believe we are both wait-
ing for some violent death and that I am
as miserable as you. With all my pride and
this uniform, once handsome, but now
covered with dust and mud, I am of no
more worth on this earth than your little
gray, trembling body. Then don't be
frightened by my moustache or my big
shoes; let us be friends!"

" Let us be friends," she seemed to reply,
nodding her head.

"Good-night, little friend. If I come out
of this I promise that in my soldier's heart
you shall share a corner with the larks and
the poppies."

126

STRENGTH

VII

Strength

THIS war reminds us that physical
strength is a desirable quality.
For a long time we had been
taught the contrary. Under the social-
istic teachings of the Rights of Man one
had neither desire nor encouragement to
become strong. Beings, conscious of the
superiority of reason, saw no necessity for
a strong body and did not desire to see men
of that type around them. They took pride
in their physical weakness because it made
their intellectual power more striking.
Truth was ruler and Mars lay groaning
under her heel. Our wise men disdained
the argument of force and no doubt thought
themselves superior to that law.

There are natural laws, one of which
encourages the strong to crush the weak.
These laws are written in the book of

127

COMRADES IN COURAGE

Science. Assuredly these opponents of
Force know Science for they are always
speaking about it. Have they never learned
from it the action of Forces, and that in the
relations of these forces to each other the
most vigorous dominate and destroy the
others ? In the physiological order of things,
one gives to this same phenomenon the
name of the Survival of the Fittest. How
Nature makes use of force does not seem
to have arrested the attention of our
philosophers. Anxious to find only demon-
strable truths, they ignore one of the most
certain. They idolize progress and refuse
to see that its last word is the apotheosis
of the strong. The mildest thing one can
say is that they are inconsistent when they
profess both love of science and contempt
of strength at the same time.

They dislike force because it is a reality
which obstinately intrudes upon their
dreams. They have decreed fraternity be-
tween people and that the independence of
Nations is sacred. The war is their answer.

It is the same thing when it comes to

individual strength. They have instituted

equality. A man striving for equality does

not want to be outrun or to outrun anyone

128

STRENGTH

himself. He is free, but on condition that
he respect the jealously guarded liberty of
others. These are fine theories, but if one
solitary individual trains his muscles, he
can upset them all.

For that reason envy is always on guard
against strong people. Unhappily, those
who are really superior are always the first
suspects; while the field remains clear for
those desirous of usurping power. When
the war broke out we were living under the
rule of brigands, plutocrats, cynics, and
rhetoricians. They fell furiously upon the
beneficial forces, while the evil ones strength-
ened themselves.

The war will put everything back in its
place and the just will render to strength
the attention which it deserves.

There exists no essential opposition be-
tween right and force. A man who is right
is worthy of respect. If he prove himself
physically strong, he becomes splendid.
His arms serve his spirit and his physical
power enhances his moral power.

Muscular strength does not necessarily
involve intellectual debility nor does moral
strength gain by physical weakness. Ath-
letes are not necessarily imbeciles, nor are

129

COMRADES IN COURAGE

scientific people necessarily weaklings. One
sees men with low foreheads parading in
circuses, yet the most intelligent wrestlers
are, after all, the best, and the reasoning of
a man with a sound body inspires me with
as much confidence as that of a man with
a feeble one. The health of the body
and that of the mind are naturally linked
together. I love strength because I love
health.

What disgrace to our philosophers that
in the years just preceding the war the
best youths of our country disowned their
teachings and became, not only religious
and patriotic but reasonable and strong!
When that reawakening, increased tenfold
by the virtues learned from the battlefield,
shall have produced its far-reaching effects,
it will be interesting to search for its far-
removed causes. I am sure it will be
found that one of them is the taste the
children of this generation have acquired for
physical culture, beginning in their earliest
years.

Here at the front I most admire our

young soldiers. A considerable gathering
in the camp attracted my attention the
other day. Last winter I had seen the

130

STRENGTH

same number of men crowded into a smoky
and odorous inn. Through the windows I
had heard the nasal voice of some soldier
comedian singing an absurd refrain. This
time there was neither a word nor a
sound. The whole village square was
occupied by blue-gray soldiers standing in
a circle and watching intently.

" It's Courbier who is wrestling."

"Is he good?"

"Wonderful!"

"Let us pass."

They stepped aside and we pushed our
way through the dense crowd. Courbier
was an infantryman and the camp was full
of artillerymen who were looking on with
profound admiration — the first reason for
pride. He belonged to my regiment and
to my company ; supreme satisfaction ! How
handsome he was as he fought, stripped to
the waist — his limbs supple, his eyes bright!
I was, in particular, struck by the tran-
quillity of his face, which remained always
the same even when downing his breathless
opponent. Real strength gives one a seren-
ity which resembles that of happiness,
even during the greatest activity. One
after another the strong men presented

COMRADES IN COURAGE

themselves, removed their shirts, exhibited
their muscles, frowned, and were thrown by
this handsome lad. The audience ap-
plauded. The performance over, everyone
shouted praises of the victor and spoke of
his marvellous exploits. These French, who
are supposed to be envious, loved the
strength of their comrade.

Why haven't they developed their mus-
cles in the same manner? They did not
lack the desire: but their teachers had other
things in mind for them to do. For fifty
years sophisms and alcohol have been dis-
tributed everywhere. Our race would be a
fine one if it had not been spoiled in that way.
The more profound attributes are being
reborn in the war; the blood is regaining its
colour and its richness. Men of thirty-five,
old before their time, are being rejuvenated
little by little. The corporal whose duty
it is to parade the sick every morning
for medical inspection very often has nothing
to do. How easy it would be to set free
the strength now merely latent in these
men.

They delighted me especially one January
morning. The desolate little village which
was to be our home for three days was

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STRENGTH

covered with snow. Big shells, bursting here
and there, were making enormous spots on
the roads and in the gardens, like blots on a
white page. We went out during a quiet
spell and one of us hearing shrieks from a
farmyard, ran to investigate and came back
saying:

"Come quick, there is such a fight going
on!"

It was a fight truly. I found the men
of my section, old and young, "firing at
will" — using all their strength. Ammu-
nition was plentiful ; they only had to stoop
and fill their big hands with snow. The
balls thrown with a powerful sweep of the
arm were finding their target against the
backs or heads of comrades from another
section. A bearded corporal, usually silent
and sedate, was shouting and running about
more than any of the others.

"How is it," I said to him, "that you,
too, are fighting?"

"They are Boches, my Lieutenant."

"But you are tired out . . ."

"Never mind; it is war — and we'll get
them yet!"

I don't know which side "got" the other.
We stayed quite a long time, delighting in

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this extraordinary spectacle. Poilus are
usually represented as shapeless, muddy,
and heavy. They can be handsome, too,
these "types" — when they want to be.

I found beauty in the ugliest man of my
company one day. A reforme, with only
slight training for the military service, had
been sent to us in the spring. He bore on
his face and form the signs of alcoholic
heredity.

After a few weeks the commander of his
section declared that, although physically a
runt, he would become an attentive and cour-
ageous soldier. I questioned him several
times, but in vain. He answered like a
half-witted person and I wondered how
that creature, mentally and physically im-
perfect, could hold his place. But one day
I found him in a boyau with a shovel in his
hand. He had taken off his coat, his shirt
was open, his sleeves rolled up, his cap on
the back of his head. His hair was matted
on his forehead by perspiration. I was
struck by the easy movements with which
he took the heavy earth that his comrade
had dug, and threw it out on the top of the
bank with his shovel. It seemed as if he
were using his muscles with artistic pcr-

STRENGTH

faction for the joy of my eyes. There is
no dance as graceful as the gesture of the
blacksmith beating the anvil, or that of
the ploughman wrestling with the earth.
Without his strength this poor wretch
would be only a waif, unworthy of living.
He has not succumbed to his intellectual
misery and the apparent decrepitude of his
physique, because when very young he was
taught how to use a shovel. He will carry
the imprint of his father's faults and vices
to his grave but, because his muscles have
been cultivated, a little beauty will always
shine under the repellent mask which marks
his origin.

It is natural that we should love strength
here. Success on the battlefield goes to
the most daring, but only if his limbs
be trained to serve his courage. The
war is a school for the soul and for the
body. We are not good soldiers because
our cause is just, but because we have clear
minds backed by solid fists.

When I was twenty I prepared for my
degree at the " Faculte d' Aix." One even-
ing a friend and I were conversing under
the ancient trees of the Cours Mirabeau.
We were wishing for a war. We were talk-

COMRADES IN COURAGE

ing philosophy instead of politics. We felt
that life was too soft and were trying to
find a means of giving back courage to the
men of our time and to ourselves, who
were no better than the others. We came
to the conclusion that, at the bottom of
human cowardice, there lies an instinct
which God has put in our souls but which
we must not abuse : the instinct of self pres-
ervation. In order to remain alive and to
preserve our precious flesh from every
scratch we have made life comfortable.
The aim of our ambition has become ma-
terial well-being, and happiness means a
bed of cotton wool.

"To that, my friend, there is but one
remedy: let us charge the Prussian bayonets
with uncovered breasts."

"And be pierced by them?"

"Oh, no! We will bayonet them! But
when one has been ready to sacrifice one's
life, one no longer finds one's happiness
only in sleeping comfortably, but in living
bravely."

Thus the constant protection of his body
abases man. When his skin has met trial
by fire and weapon, he becomes once more
a noble creature.

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STRENGTH

Since that day I have conceived a great
respect for strength, without which courage
is useless. This youthful conversation has
left an imperishable trace on my soul. I
still remember the name of my friend but
I do not know how life has dealt with him.
If he is serving to-day, with what ardour
must he be fighting and offering his life !

The strength of a nation is made up of
the strength of its individuals. At this
solemn hour when it is a question of winning
from the German race — so numerous, so
methodically trained — our past faults hang
like weights on our arms. But we are a
strong people whom we have vainly tried
to degrade. We will dominate the enemy,
and when we have obtained peace, we
shall know how to prevent the misuse of our
power.

To our misfortune and that of Europe
we disdained strength. If we had called
columns of robust men to support immortal
France and if, with strong arms and sound
brain we had demonstrated our valour, it
is doubtful whether the nations would be
at war now.

Those among us who return will teach
their sons the value and beauty of strength.

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VIII

"The god of the Armies"

A"T OFFICER entered the cathedral
of A at six in the morning. At
eleven he would be in his trench at
the front. He must remain there fifteen
days — fifteen days without being able to
seek religious comfort save in the little church

of C where he was usually quartered.

His train was due to leave in forty minutes.
He had time only to pass rapidly through
the wonderful building, to say a short
prayer, and fly. But the grandeur of the
place arrested him. The day was barely
breaking and had not yet penetrated these
vaults. At the end of the immense nave the
flame of a candle flickered. By its light a
priest was officiating, alone and distant.
His face came out in black against the
brightly lighted page of the prayer book.
A soldier was moving near him, giving the

138

" THE GOD OF THE ARMIES"

responses. An old woman was dusting a
few chairs. It was the right time and the
right place to approach God for whom all
souls are longing during these tragic days.
The booted visitor postponed his exami-
nation of the cathedral until another time.
He had broken his fast, but the fasting law
had been abolished for those who are
fighting. He searched his conscience rather
rapidly, in a soldierly manner, and ap-
proached the old woman.

"A confessor please, Madame."

"At this hour? What are you thinking
about?"

"Why not at this hour?"

"There is only the vicar here now and
he is saying mass: surely you can wait?"

Charming creature! He looked at her
without exhibiting his distaste. There is
always an advantage in keeping calm in
adversity and his wisdom was at once
rewarded.

"There is a soldjer over there if you
insist. He is a priest." The officer was
for a moment a trifle upset, and stood con-
sidering.

"All right," he said, "ask him."

The old woman trotted off to get the poilu

COMRADES IN COURAGE

who, on his knees, was praying in the rear
of a column. After a few words with him
she signalled to the officer to go into the
vestry.

The latter found the soldier awaiting him,
standing at attention. He timidly lifted
his bearded face and saluted; then squarely
meeting the eyes of his superior, said :

"My Lieutenant, here it is."

He pointed to a devotional chair, and
the penitent having saluted in his turn
fell on his knees.

Never had the words of absolution seemed
more sacred. I do not wish to play upon
the emotion of the reader by speaking of
the tears of the officer as romantic writers
would do. The fact is, nevertheless, that
they were burning his eyelids when the
priest said softly:

"Go in peace, my son, and pray for me."

Immediately after these words the priest
stood up, and heels together, head erect,
saluted. The officer returned his salute
gravely.

A few moments later he had received
communion and we met at the station.

We boarded the same train. I had just
been enjoying two days leave of absence. I

140

"THE GOD OF THE 4RMIES"

had been home, kissed my children, and now
was on my way back to the firing line, like
a child returning to boarding school. But
one is reasonable at my age and instead of
moaning at the new separation, which
might prove a long, perhaps even an eternal
one, I was living over, in rapture, the
hours that I had just enjoyed. The train
stopped — necessarily so, as the next station
was in the hands of the Germans. We
started on foot toward the camp. Lost in
thought, we were walking at a good pace,
along a road bordered with hedges, when a
terrific noise suddenly startled us out of
our revery. Two hundred yards away a
io5-millimetre shell had just burst. Thus
the war tore us away from our pleasant
dreams and impressed its violence on our
senses and in our souls.

At the risk of astonishing you, I must
tell you how we felt, believe me who will.

We both saluted war as an old friend —
lost and found once more ! Our cheerfulness
was so great that I was at first ashamed of
it. Then I remembered how once, after a
long voyage during which I had run con-
siderable risk and experienced exceptional
emotions, my heart had sunk when the
141

COMRADES IN COURAGE

port of Dunkirk had appeared in the dis-
tance under a peaceful sky.

It was that same phenomenon, but this
time inverted: with the same cause, only
the taste for danger.

We all hate the whistle of the bullets,
and yet the daylight has barely left before
we climb out on the trench parapet. The
feeling experienced in facing peril; the
pride that one takes in holding oneself
erect, without bending an inch, in the fields
where the simplest prudence commands one
to lie flat on the ground, have nothing to
do with heroism. The chauffeur who risks
his life for the pleasure of speeding is not
called heroic. I recognize in my desire
for danger the liking for forbidden fruit,
and perhaps there is more vice than virtue
about it.

However, I am thankful to say that I
found something else, more noble in our joy
at again encountering war, that day.

The ordinary coat and bowler hat are
exceedingly ugly. When one has for many
months seen only soldiers in uniform,
civilian garb appears ridiculous. I well
remember the stupefaction with which I
gazed on the first civilian I encountered

142

" THE GOD OF THE ARMIES"

after long months at the front. With two
comrades from the engineering corps, I
had just arrived at A by motor-car.

"Gracious, how ugly!" said one.

"And to think that when peace comes we
will have to go back to that!" said the
other.

It is impossible to deny that, in some
ways, war is a more noble spectacle
than peace. It is beautiful in the same
way that a great fire may be beautiful.
Nature is beautiful in spite of her peace-
fulness, but a city in peace mars its beauty
with mediocrity and vice. If immodesty
in the dress of women, and hideousness in
that of men, are manifestations of Peace,
then war is preferable.

I came back to war as to the most thrilling
of spectacles. The whole world is eagerly
watching it. Those in the first row are the
only ones who really see it, and I am going
to resume my place there. The front is
the special gallery in which the privileged
ones are allowed to stand, while the crowd
is struggling to see from the rear. For two
days I had turned away from that choice
position and already my frivolous brain
had assumed other cares. The bursting

COMRADES IN COURAGE

of the shell was like the gavel of the stage
manager, and my soul became attentive
once more. However, it could remain pious,
too, because the war stimulates the soul
and helps it to ascend from the dust. Up-
ward, toward what? Happy those who
believe in God. I pity those who do not.
Some of them are the victims of despair ; while
some instead of putting their trust in the
Master, as we all ought to do, put it in
empty words in which they find no comfort.

Enemies of God do not exist at the front;
they are found only behind it. Anti-
clericalism begins timidly back toward the
kitchens. It is a little bolder around the
supply depots and I learn by letters from
the rear that it is loudest in the cafes in the
provinces. From the Lys to the Vosges it is
unknown.

It is undoubtedly the nearness of our
neighbour, Death, which has accomplished
this miracle. It may not seem a noble
thing or creditable to religion for one to
turn toward it only in times of fear or danger
of death. Sailors are supposed to be more
devout than other men because they are
exposed to more risks, yet I have known an
old sea captain who believed neither in

144

"THE GOD OF THE ARMIES"

God nor Devil. I was on board his ship
one day crossing the Raz-de-Sein. •* He, too,
loved danger and, although it was an im-
prudence, in order to gain a little time he
took the shortest route and risked the loss
of his ship. Never have I heard a man
swear as he did that day. I was young
and unable to understand how a man could
be blasphemous while facing death.

Take other examples which will bring
you back to the war. Do you consider all
the victorious armies which have made
history for France aggregations of saints?
Do you think that the grognards of Napoleon
painted by Raffet have devout faces? If
Virtue, caught in a trap, begged you to offer
her a refuge, would you dare take her to
a soldiers' camp?

No, it is not danger which lifts one toward
God, nor is it even the fear of death. Dur-
ing our entire life we are in danger, and
death spies upon us, beginning at the cradle.
We are aware of it, but few of us give it any
attention. The cabin-boys on ships cross
themselves on leaving the harbour and then
forget. Soldiers, when they hear the first
bullets, know what will happen if they are
hit: but habit influences them and frivolity

'45

COMRADES IN COURAGE

wins them back. Sailors, soldiers, civilians
at the rear, we are all, sometime or other,
condemned to die. The important thing
is to realize it.

The truth is that religion flourishes when-
ever men pause and begin to think. Be-
cause this war is being carried on by people
who are not professional soldiers, each one
has been uprooted from his normal place
and consequently from his routine. It has
put each one in such a novel position that
even those most limited mentally are anx-
ious to understand what it is that is happen-
ing to them. They are forced to think of
their destiny and, willingly or not, they
turn to the God whom they learned to know
and pray to at their mothers' knees.

Curious things happen every day. Once a
comrade received a large parcel from a pious
woman whom he knew only slightly. We
helped him to cut the string and open the
box. The arrival of the post is always the
most important happening of the day and,
invariably, everyone is there prying into
one another's boxes. He — or, more strictly
speaking, we — took out in turn: socks, soap,
pencils, patriotic post cards, a candle, a
pipe, a box of chocolates, cigarette paper,
146

"THE GOD OF THE ARMIES"

packages of tobacco, large plaid handker-
chiefs and woollen helmets. At the bottom
was a big envelope bearing these words:
"To a soldier of France." It contained
this classical letter from the unknown bene-
factress :

" Dear soldier, please accept these souve-
nirs. Take care of yourself and be brave.
We love you and are praying for you."

Pinned to the top of the letter was a
medal of the Holy Virgin, one of those
penny medals, rather ugly, but of large size
and very vivid.

All these things had to be divided among
the men. The next day, in the trench, my
friend selected a group of soldiers and went
toward them with extended hand. He had
in it the pipe, one package of tobacco, a
wonderful cake of soap, and the medal.

The eyes of the men brightened but they
hesitated. Among them was an extraor-
dinary character, a kind of gutter-snipe,
who came from the neighbourhood of Lille.
His face was that of a cut-throat with the
blackest, most piercing eyes imaginable.
Our Northern girls frequently have beauti-
ful dark eyes, a souvenir of the time of the
Spanish domination. The eyes of this boy

H7

COMRADES IN COURAGE

were, however, wicked and inquisitive. He
had a low forehead, ugly lips, and a Christ-
like beard. His most striking features were
his cheeks, which were always swollen
with a mouth full of tobacco. He loved
to chew tobacco. Every time he met one
of us he always asked:

"Et ch'toubaque?"

Which meant: "My Lieutenant, give
me a little tobacco." It was the only way
he could say it in his jargon. It was im-
possible to refuse him after looking at his
eyes. Usually they were cunning, but he
could make them so humble and funny!

"He will certainly snatch the toubaque,"
thought I.

I was not mistaken about the snatching.
He snatched something before any of the
others could have a chance, saying:

"Mz, fprinds V medal". (Me, I take the
medal !)

Quickly he dropped the Virgin into a
filthy purse.

This happened quite near the beginning of
the winter. I had not yet lived long enough
with all these men to understand them well.
I must own that my astonishment sur-
passed all limits.

148

"THE GOD OF THE ARMIES"

To-day I know that they all have medals;
some keep them in their pockets; some,
around their neck; others, pinned to their
shirt; a few, on their coat; many, on the
front of their caps. They also have flags
and enamelled badges of the Sacred Heart,
with blue borders, white background and, in
the middle, a red heart surmounted by a cross.

When I first came I was told that a cer-
tain corporal was an anarchist and to be-
ware of a certain soldier who was an anti-
militarist and a revolutionary. Both of
these men, like their comrades, have these
emblems pinned on their chests.

I know a sergeant, a great, big, warm-
blooded fellow, from the regular army.
He is always too hot, and, besides, his coat
gets in his way. He is always roaming
around the camp or in the trenches in his
sweater. On that sweater I have counted
eleven medals of all shapes and colours
hanging to two or three safety pins.

Probably their wives, mothers, and sis-
ters send them from the rear. But why
do they wear them so readily? And why
such ostentation when, in civil life, their
greatest care was to hide the little Chris-
tianity they possessed?
149

COMRADES IN COURAGE

At first I misjudged them. I remembered
how the Norman peasants tie medals around
the necks of their sick calves, hoping to cure
them in that way. I thought: 'They are
superstitious and think all that tin is of
great worth in God's eyes. They fear
death, and to preserve themselves they
cover their bodies with fetishes and amu-
lets."

This may be true, to a certain extent,
but it is not all the truth. There is a cer-
tain amount of real piety in all devotion
to medals. Many of these emblems are
revered in memory of the dear ones at home,
who said when their men went away on
that fateful second of August: "Take
that and keep it on you always." It is
the only reminder of home except for the
greasy photographs always carried in their
pockets.

That reminder is a religious image and
they are quite willing to cherish Our Lady,
or Saint Michael, or Joan of Arc, on account
of the old mother or the wife who is crying
at home and who writes such moving letters.

Do not let us abuse the rear. It is from
there that those letters which restore our
courage come. No later than this morning

150

"THE GOD OF THE 4RMIES"

a soldier showed me one he had just re-
ceived. It was from his wife telling him,
in words that he did not understand, of
some trouble she was in, in regard to her
allowance from the Government. I did not
exactly understand her difficulty, but I saw
that the poor woman was unhappy al-
though trying to be resigned. She is going
to have a baby and spoke of her sadness at
not being able to have her "man" with her
for the birth. She wrote: "Let us pray
God to make the child I bear a good
Christian." It is a beautiful sentence. I
wondered while I read it whether the poor
woman had not instinctively found the
most perfect way of serving God. Her
religion touched me as much as that of my
medal-bearers.

There are two elements in the devotion
we render God: the spirit and discipline.
A perfect Christian not only thinks ^ but
acts his religion. When he thinks: it is
spiritual. When he acts: he practises his
religion and obeys its commandments.
Most Christians are only men and, there-
fore, imperfect.

There are those who emphasize the spirit-
ual, and whose thoughts are continually

COMRADES IN COURAGE

dwelling at such lofty altitudes that they
neglect altogether the practical aspects of
religion. Such are the authors of neo-
christianity and new thought. They pur-
sue a nebulous God, in a nebulous sky, but
would disdain to seek him by kneeling in a
church.

But during the years just preceding the
war there has been a real reaction toward
practical Christianity with the emphasis
laid on discipline. Many young sons of
theorists or sceptics began to attend church
services, say their prayers, and go to com-
munion frequently. In their every-day life
they were gay, merry, and fond of out-of-
door sports. They enjoyed physical and
moral health and were not bothered by
hazy anxieties nor endless speculations.
They were Christians and followed their
religion; that was all.

This kind of religion is perfectly well
adapted to the life we are leading at present.
What would happen if we engaged in con-
tinual speculations regarding our military
duties? As soldiers our task is to use our
entire efforts in performing them. It is the
same with our Christian duties; this is not
the time for discussion but for prayer.

152

"THE GOD OF THE 4RMIES"

There are here two officers, far, far above
me in rank, who evidently have this same
idea. I occasionally find them at twilight
walking in a solitary boyau telling their
beads. They are very much embarrassed
when they see me and must respond to my
salute, and evidently regard me as an in-
truder. Yet sometimes I stop to talk be-
cause here, the least word exchanged brings
joy and pleasure. When I leave, they resume
their prayer although they do not know ex-
actly where they left off, and then they forget
their troubles, the war, and everything else,
in proclaiming to the Virgin, with the stars
to witness, that they bow to her and that her
Son is blessed.

I have never attended an open-air mass,
but it must be highly impressive. In the
war area I have seen nothing but low mass,
held in the little church, back near our rest
camp. The participants are usually two
or three small groups of soldiers, with per-
haps an officer or two sitting in the front
row and sometimes an old woman close to
the pulpit. A soldier officiates as priest
and, from beneath his surplice, protrude
his uniform and huge military boots. At
the end of the service each one receives

COMRADES IN COURAGE

communion. Although not numerous, the
prayers of these faithful people ought to
protect the others. I am sure that God
must regard with a kindly eye these camps
from which, each morning, ascend a few
devout prayers.

On the Sundays when we happen to be in
the rear of the lines, resting — which occurs
but rarely — the church is Full. On Easter

day we were in camp at M , where the

church has been damaged by shell fire.
The big nave is pierced and the main altar
open to the sky, while the choir is littered
with plaster, broken pieces of iron, and bits
from the fallen roof. The altar on the
right is broken. The one on the left has
not suffered, and toward it is turned the
attention of the crowd in uniform which
has gathered here to-day braying the
draughts, coughing loud and praying little.
However, they are an attentive audience,
submissive to the articles of the creed,
and obedient to the commandments of
the church. Can one ask more of people
whose heads have been crammed for so
many years with the materialistic the-
ories of the demagogues. We may blame
those who lead and guide public opinion

"THE GOD OF THE ARMIES"

but not those who follow. The latter have
been misguided by their very virtues:
willingness and simplicity of heart. When
they pin medals on their shirts they perform
a positive act beside which piles of books,
written by denying philosophers, are only
trash.

When a poor woman, on the verge of
becoming a mother, thinks of praying God
to make her child a good Christian it seems
like a miracle, for it is a long time since any-
one has spoken like that in France. She
does not ask for a saint, but for an honest
boy, and naturally the old words, used by
her grandmother, come back to her lips.
She says "good Christian" for "good son"
and renders thus to God and to religion
a homage compared with which the finest
monument is of little value.

What is the explanation of this new birth
of faith, this return to the ^ words and
practices of old ? It is the fruit of all our
past efforts and sufferings of the sacrifices
made during the difficult years France has
passed. I do not wish to criticize the
leaders of the Church, but it is the more
humble pastors who obtain their reward
to-day; those who have "held on" as we

JSS-

COMRADES IN COURAGE

say at the front; those who, in spite of
opposing wind and tide, have been good
pilots, in the words of our brothers the
sailors; those who have steadily opposed
the arguments of the sophists and, in spite
of all, maintained the simple traditions
of the Church and the precepts of Christi-
anity. They erected shrines at all the
cross-roads, and the crowd passed by
without respect. To-day, in the general
devastation of war, the only thing left
standing upright is the cross.

Come and see it with me. It is in the
centre of an immense plain, bordered on
the German side by a shallow valley. For
a distance of four kilometres one can see
nothing but landy-once cultivated, but now
desolate and wild. A thin curtain of
foliage opposite hides a village held by the
enemy. Far away to the right a row of
young trees indicates a road. It is only the
slimness of these trees which has saved
them. All the others Have been cut down
and used to line the dugouts or cover the
trench shelters. One never meets a living
soul, for those who go to or return from the
front pass by way of the boyaux which bur-
row in all directions through these fields.

156

"THE GOD OF THE ARMIES"

Come! You need not hesitate; at this
distance the bullets have spent their force.
If the Germans see us through their field
glasses jand send a few shells our way, there
will be time enough to throw ourselves in
this boyau, which, although unnoticeable,
runs along this road only four yards
away. Now look; above that rise of the
ground, which hid it until now, stands the
thin silhouette of a cross. It is of iron
and the Christ is dolorously bending his
head. About its base are four stumps cut
off almost level with the ground. They are
all that remains of the beautiful trees which
once sheltered this pastoral shrine. It
stands alone amongst a labyrinth of boyaux.
All around are shejl-holes filled with muddy
water after the rain.

From this place, at night, you can see
the illuminating shells of the Germans as-
cending not only from one but from three
sides. Our trenches, in this region, curve
forward in a salient. It is as if the enemy
had been obliged to draw a respectful half
circle round the image of Christ.

Let us go nearer. Resting on the pierced
feet is a bunch of withered flowers. How
came they there, and when? Perhaps the

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COMRADES IN COURAGE

soldier whose piety urged him to leave this
offering is now occupying one of the graves,
marked with small white crosses of wood,
which are lying all about; or, if he be
alive, he may be over there digging in some
boyau, or on guard duty in some trench,
watching, that all France may sleep behind
him. Whatever the case, some man has
lifted his eyes toward this image and one
day has even prayed there.

At the change of guard we pass beneath
the extended arms of this Christ, on the
way into the front line. I don't know
whether many of us say a prayer to Him
when we cross his gaunt shadow in the
moonlight, but God will remember the one,
be he ever so humble, who once put down
his flowers and called on Him there. He has
commanded that His image be not destroyed
and that it remain here on our horizon.
With head gently bowed and wide-open
arms, He watches over the dead of the plain
and blesses the living, devout or otherwise
who — covered with dust, their backs bent
under the weight of their knapsacks — go
in long, silent columns to take their fighting
post.

158

BRAVERY

IX
Bravery

WHY is it that the French show so
much bravery in war and so little
in peace?

Everyone here is courageous. There has
been great discussion as to which re-
quired the more courage — going forward to
the assault, or holding on under heavy
artillery fire. I don't hesitate to give my
own answer: the moral courage exhibited
by certain territorials in keeping cool under
the most pitiless trench bombardment is
even more admirable than the ardour of
their younger comrades while running for-
ward to a bayonet charge. This war has
required from an entire nation in arms
qualities which never before had been de-
manded even from regular armies.

Almost all regiments have adopted dogs
found in some abandoned village. Our

'59

COMRADES IN COURAGE

company has two or three, one of which
lives with the officers. He is a good-looking
animal, supple, playful, and a marvellous
rat hunter. He is amiable with men but
very quarrelsome with his brother dogs and
does not hesitate to attack even the biggest
and strongest. This beast, enthusiastic in
assault and a heroic fighter, would be a model
of warlike virtues if he weren't afraid of
the cannon. Poor dog! When a bomb
bursts he puts down his ears, his tail goes
between his legs, and he hides under our
legs, pressing against us, trembling and
timid. Nearly all dogs behave in this way.

It is the same with the black people,
they love to fight with the knife and are
not afraid of the most bloody struggle,
but under the shells they often lose courage.

One must have intelligence and reason-
ing power to resist the fire of concealed
artillery, whereas instinct is enough in open
fighting. I do not despise instinct. Natural
courage is a gift from God. It would be just
as foolish to despise it as to disdain in-
telligence. It is an enviable quality, but
unequally divided among men. Those who
possess it have an indisputable advantage
and they become leaders. But in measuring

160

BRA7ERY

relative courage in the mass of the French
people what I esteem most is hardly ac-
quired bravery. The strongest enemy is
not opposite, in the German trenches, but
inside each one of us. Man becomes noble
when he conquers his own cowardice.

And it is not a matter of conquering it
only once. Warriors of 1870 told me in
my boyhood that one "dodged" the first
bullets but that later one grew so ac-
customed to them that one stood straight
up when they whistled by. It is not
always true. I know some officers whose
courage, on the contrary, has been worn
out on the battlefield. It is necessary to
make renewed efforts at each succeeding
danger and I don't think that the baptism
of fire ever has the power to harden the
soul for all time. At present those who
have braved hardships and danger through
so many months have developed a great
love of life. It seems all the more precious
to them because they have escaped so
many perils. At first they shut their eyes
and offered themselves to destiny. Now
those who have survived think they are
chosen to participate in the wonderful joys
of the triumphal return. Thinking of that

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COMRADES IN COURAGE

blessed and longed-for day reminds me of a
sentence I have often heard, even from
the humblest soldiers: "The last man to be
killed is the one I pity."

One has repeated a thousand times that the
cry in this war is " Hold on." It is not easy
for each hour brings new temptations. On
the days of activity the soul is elevated
above all weakness by the intoxication of
fighting, but each day of passive trench
warfare only serves to renew one's misery.

Fearlessness before death is one virtue
which I would not include among those which
will remain when the war is finished. We
are like people who have become accustomed
to travelling on railways without apprehen-
sion of danger. Suddenly an accident
occurs. Once frightened, they are doomed
to travel for a long time with a feeling of
nervousness. Ordinarily, one does not mind
the first shells. That is the period of heed-
lessness of danger through which we nearly
all pass. One day the noise gets too loud for
one's nerves. One's teeth begin to chatter
and there is no remedy. As the war goes on
there are some whose physical uneasiness
grows instead of diminishes. Each time
that they overcome it their character grows

162

BRAFERY

and they show themselves more courageous.
But when peace comes they will have had
enough and the smell of powder will give
them no pleasure whatever.

Yet it will be no time to falter, for
when the day comes and we have escaped
the risks of death which assail us here, the
great thing will be to remain brave through
life. Shall we succeed? Is it possible
that the word "bravery," under different
conditions, can refer to two different kinds
of virtue ? It is curious that in time of war
self-interest may produce courage, while in
peace it causes only cowardice.

In a village, where I happened to be
before the war, an old woman was being
buried. She had deserved universal venera-
tion. All the men, dressed in their Sunday
black, came and awkwardly saluted the coffin.
The procession started and everyone bowed
as it passed. I could not but admire the
tribute paid to this old woman by the
entire community, rich and poor alike.
They came to the church. The little square
was full of sunlight. The priests in their
surplices, the assistants in white, disap-
peared beneath the portico. The singing
grew fainter and died away among the cool
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COMRADES IN COURAGE

arches. The coffin entered the holy place
followed first by the school children and
then by the women. When the turn of
the men came, I was surprised to see them
turn slightly to the left and gather a few
yards away under a tree, while the doors
of God's house were slowly closing.

Did these men know how dreadfully
they slighted the dead woman? Did they
realize that, because they were afraid of the
anti-clerical element then in power, they
were committing a displeasing, disloyal, and
cowardly action ?

This group of careful citizens did not
seem noble to me that day. Their courage
had left them because a delegate from the
sous-prefecture might have seen them and
if they had acquired a reputation as church-
goers it would have been the end of hopes
of advancement from the anti-clerical offi-
cials.

I remember that I regarded them as so
many waifs to be pitied and that I de-
spaired of ever elevating a people which was
only actuated by self-interest.

Here at the war that same self-interest
has proved a marvellous influence. One
must distinguish voluntary heroism from

164

BRAFERY

enforced heroism. The former is the better
quality. It consists of choosing, of one's
free will, the dangerous posts. Those who
have voluntarily enlisted, although not
compelled to serve, and those at the front
who, in spite of relatively safe duty, are
always seeking patrol duty in "no man's
land," or equally perilous missions, are
brave among the brave. But others who
may have hoped to escape the mobilization,
and who, in the dangerous hours, go to
the second line and try to make themselves
smaller in the hope of evading detection,
also become brave when they cannot do
otherwise. Let us not despise their courage
for it is the only kind possessed by the
innumerable people we call the crowd; when
one speaks of "the brave French" one speaks
of them. Despite the enthusiasm with
which they are made, our troops have not
requested the privilege of making those
attacks which the world admires and our
adversary dreads. It is because they have
been ordered to go, that everyone tries to
become a hero. The poor fellow who
began in fear ends in a wild intoxi-
cation of valour. He did not willingly
seek adventure but it is his because he

165

COMRADES IN COURAGE

cannot escape it. Self-interest demands
that he face the peril. Forward then! He
feels his neighbour's elbow against his, and
his comrades' eyes upon him. He dare
not advance less valiantly than they; his
pride goaded by his interest, he tries to
arrive before the others and show himself
the finest of all.

There are no more two kinds of bravery
— one for war and one for peace — than
there are two kinds of self-interest. The
apparent difference is the fault of the
leaders; it is they who play on the strings
of the human heart in order to make it
cowardly or valorous.

Leaders influence a man by appealing to
his own interest, but not always toward a
worthy end. In the war those who com-
mand have their minds fixed on the public
good. They show the right way to all
and thus create rivalry in performing duty.
In peace time the contrary occurs although
the public good should be equally im-
portant. Everyone then follows the fash-
ionable lead. Here and there a few bold
characters may defy it, but the crowd is
piteously enslaved. I no longer blame the
people now that I have seen now they will

166

BRAVERY

follow to the assault, but I bear a bitter
grudge against those who mislead and
guide them downward, when they could as
well guide them upward to almost any
height. The war shows us that men are
good or bad according to how they are
directed, and that good government can
make great people.

If after the victory we create a new con-
dition of affairs and the forces of the nation
are at last well organized and managed, the
heroism shown here will have schooled us
to display the same virtues in peace. Then
let the elite cultivate bravery on the battle-
field, not only bravery before death, but in
the face of all risks and all responsibilities.

Life will severely try the courage of the
boldest soldiers. When they come back
covered with honour, ribbons, and medals,
they must not at the first difficulty fall
back into the old weakness.

There used to be one form of cowardice
which in particular we must avoid. We
created childless homes, in spite of the
knowledge that everything commands us
to have children; the Motherland as well
as our instincts. Children are the chief
source of joy and strength, but we thought

167

COMRADES IN COURAGE

only of the trouble involved or the money
required. We were afraid. The women
also were afraid. They feared the suffering
or the responsibilities. Men and women
were equally weak in facing life. Instead of
painfully putting aside a small fortune for
an only son to squander they should have
used the same effort in raising a family of
many children and left them a heritage of
real value: strong arms and brave hearts.

France depopulated herself on account of
these brave men whom the whole world
now admires and who will be covered with
laurels on the blessed day of peace. To
make them retain their more noble in-
stincts, they must continue to strive in peace
as they did upon the field of battle.

168

THE ENEMY

'The £nemy

A~" FIRST it was William!
The train which took me to
Arras at the time of the mobiliza-
tion ran through rich fields which were
being harvested. Here and there a few
old men and children, almost prostrate
from the heat, were binding stacks of
wheat while numbers of ruddy-faced women
lined the fences enclosing the railroad and
shouted: "William's ears!"

More than one mobilized man at that
time thought that with a little luck, in some
fight, he might come near enough to the
Kaiser to amputate his ears and offer them
to these ladies!

The English, when their trains were being

cheered, never forgot to make two gestures :

they seized a pair of imaginary mustachios

with one hand and, with the edge of the

169

COMRADES IN COURAGE

other, pretended to cut their throats. The
German Emperor's throat was slashed in this
manner throughout the time of the mobiliza-
tion of the first British army.

It was necessary for the popular anger
to have an object. The day before peace
had been reigning. Not only did one not
expect war but one did not even want to
think it possible. It burst out suddenly.
Whose fault was it?

Not that of the Germans, assuredly. We
had forgotten there ever were such things
as Germans. To be sure years ago one
spoke of the Prussian menace, but that was
an old story. The Germans could not be
our foes. Our people were all too busy
quarrelling at home to make enemies
abroad. When the war broke out they
felt more hatred against their neighbours
than against a far-away and hypothetical
people like the Germans. Let the mili-
tarists write long articles about the com-
ing German invasion through Belgium and
beg that the town of Lille be fortified:
the cunning peasant was busy protecting
his farmyard against the intrusion of his
neighbour and cared little for anything
else.

170

THE ENEMY

Our people recognized only one German:
"William." Hence he must be the one to
blame. Besides, the loosing of such a calam-
ity could only be the work of a tyrant.
The ignorance of the crowd served only to
augment its prejudice. I joined in singing
the Marseillaise on the second of August
but with more ear for the tune than for the
words. Nevertheless, a few words, a few
phrases at the station brought tears to my
eyes.

" Le jour de gloire est arrive!
Aux armes citoyens!"

Other lines seemed to me less appropiate:

"Centre nous de la tyrannic
L'etendard sanglant est leve"

Many good people have been moved to
tears while repeating these words until lately
so long out of use. A despot being in the
business, there was only Kaiser William and
they thought that it was against him in
person that the whole of France was rushing
with a song.

Other people went further. They took
pity on the Germans who were being misled

171

COMRADES IN COURAGE

by a bad master and started a campaign to
free them from his despotism. The news-

Eapers hailed us as the champions of
iberty fighting to emancipate the German
slaves, whereas it was really French liberty
desperately trying to escape the German
yoke. With pride they looked forward to the
punishment of William and the establish-
ment of a German Republic. If we establish
a Republic over there — or several Republics,
as I would prefer — it is not the Emperor
whom I wish to see most punished but my
enemy, his people. The Kaiser is only an
object for ridicule.

One day a new word ran from mouth to
mouth. Our troops had encountered the
adversary, not in the guise of Caesar, but
in that of an innumerable horde. Whence
came THESE men, and who were they?
They were nicknamed "the Boches," and
in our cries, in the long nightmares of
feverish nights, "Boches'* replaced "Wil-
liam." We at last knew our enemy.

Why that nickname for the Germans?
Very few of my comrades knew it before the
month of August. I first heard of its exist-
ence toward the end of 1913. I had been
visiting at Saverne at the time of the deed of

172

THE ENEMY

the infamous Forstner. I realized how in-
evitable and near the war had become.

Passing through Nancy on my return, I
was exchanging impressions with some
young friends, when one of them said :

"As a matter of fact the 'Bodies' are
absolutely unbearable."

"The what? "said I

"The Alboches . . . ."

I am sure that all those who have tried
to find an ingenious explanation for this
new word in etymology have gone astray.
The French word for "German" is " Alle-
mand." This was changed to "Alboche" by
the men because it was a kind of play on
the word and the syllable "Boche" ex-
pressed derision because it rhymed with
such terms of contempt as: "cabocht, moche,
bidoche" and a crowd of others. Later the
first syllable was dropped to make the word
shorter and more adaptable to rapid speech
in the same way that a name is contracted
into a nickname; only the word Boche re-
mained. That it hits the nail on the head
is shown by the universal favour it has ob-
tained.

What are the sentiments of our men
toward this flesh-and-blood enemy they

COMRADES IN COURAGE

have found suddenly opposed to them?
They hate him; but I am uncertain whether
it is because he is German or because he is
on the other side of the line.

When two teams of players are opposed,
there immediately arises a feeling of hostil-
ity. What begins as friendly rivalry may
rapidly change to jealousy and terminate in
enmity. This occurs among all classes of
people and even in armies. An artillery-
man makes fun of an infantryman, and the
"poilu" who is stagnating in his trench
calls the gunner "slacker" because he is
concealed a little distance behind the front.
In a regiment different companies may
have quarrels. A captain one day sent a
note to one of a neighbouring sector asking
him to look after his men who were exceed-
ing their boundaries in looking for firewood.
He added that he would be "Unmerciful
to soldiers from a FOREIGN company if
found on our ground." It was necessary to
ask him whether his note was intended for
French trespassers or for those from the
line opposite.

In fact, the greater part of our men,
suddenly surprised by the war, are not
yet prepared to recognize the German as

THE ENEMY

a blood enemy; they only hate him because
he is their adversary, and that is not enough.
There is among us a good fellow with a
kind and calm appearance. At the outset
of the campaign his section was caught in
a tight situation at a very short distance
from a line of enemy sharpshooters. He
threw himself into a huge shell-hole from
where he could, without great danger, shoot
at the devils in helmets as they advanced.
The rest of the section — condemned to an
inglorious inactivity until the order came to
show themselves on the ridge — sought shel-
ter in a ditch a few yards to the right from
which they could watch their comrade.
He was shooting as if on the target range —
loading, aiming, and firing with exactly the
same precision. He said afterward that he
had made wonderful scores. But the re-
markable thing was the expression of greed
and pleasure he showed each time a man
fell. His mouth opened in a smile from
ear to ear and his eyes sparkled. He
looked like a little boy sitting down before
a mountain of cakes. That man, who in
civilian life perhaps never even wanted to
see death, was actually laughing while
killing Germans.

COMRADES IN COURAGE

One evening in camp I made the ac-
quaintance of a little sergeant who had
just returned to the front after being
wounded on the Meuse in the great re-
treat.

"May we not smoke one last cigarette
together?" he said, holding out a ciga-
rette.

It was a joke. He had thought so often
during the first weeks that his last day had
come, that now, whenever he smoked, his
comrades repeated gaily:

"Maybe it is the last!"

His thin face surmounted by blue clouds
of smoke, the young brigand told me hor-
rible stories of the war. I remember
chiefly the story of a great big Saxon
officer who had suddenly appeared, revolver
in hand, ten yards away from a French
column. "He was sheltering his fat body
behind a big tree," related his executioner;
"he protruded a grimacing face and aimed at
us. I was in front. I brought my gun to
my shoulder and fired. He fell with a
horrible cry. Then, mad with joy, I ran to
him and turned him over to see the wound
my bullet had made. I assure you it was
a large one, it had done its work well."

176

. THE ENEMY

I looked at him, his eyes were turned
toward the sky and he seemed to be expe-
riencing an almost supernatural joy.

"Do you work for a butcher in civilian
life, my friend?"

He answered that he was a student of
theology. Since that story, and that of the
vicar adjudant, I never feel assured when
I ask people their profession.

There is not a soldier at the front who
could not recount twenty similar anecdotes.
They prove only that we are fighting
mercilessly an enemy who has been pointed
out to us.

"My Lieutenant, could you loan me ten
francs on a Boche?"

The general commanding that army who
needed prisoners from whom to obtain
information had announced that any sol-
dier who brought back a German to our
lines would receive a premium of fifty
francs. A man with a reputation for
drunkenness decided to go and win the
reward in order to buy himself wine. He
kept his word, but before starting he was
anxious to get a little money in advance
to brace his nerves. He was very funny as
he stood with his hand extended and a
177

COMRADES IN COURAGE

cunning air. We decided, some friends and
I, to refuse him what he asked. A few days
later a patrol was ordered, and he asked to
take part in it. He brought back a remark-
able Boche as prisoner, a huge fair fellow,
apparently well educated, and who told us
that he had been a clerk in an important
Dresden bank. He showed us pictures of
his wife and three children; a good-looking
family. We examined with curiosity this
specimen of the innumerable Germans living
in the ground across from our lines, who are
at the same time so near and yet so distant !
Such a deep chasm separates us from these
people who, within sound of our voices, are
defiling and trampling our soil. Behind his
blue eyes there was concealed a violent
emotion. To get him alive it had been
necessary to kill two or three of his com-
rades. The only reason why the young
woman whose portrait he had shown us
was not a widow at that moment was
because with fifty francs a man can buy
wine enough to last a good many days.
"Hello! Tell us how you took him."
"I put my hand on him and held on tight.
He did not want to come, the miserable
specimen, but I got angry!"

178

THE ENEMY

He stopped and I thought he was again
going to throw himself on the prisoner.

"Steady," said the commandant. "Con-
tinue."

"I made him run in front of me and
kicked him whenever he wanted to stop.
You needn't be afraid, my Commandant,
he has had all that he wants "

There followed a queer exchange of looks
between the big dreamy-eyed German and
the little French gutter-snipe.

"All the same," the Frenchman added,
"fifty francs is not very generous for a man
of that weight."

And yet that man, in spite of his violent
words, is not a determined enemy of Ger-
many. Drunkard though he be, he makes
a satisfactory soldier and will fight, not
only anywhere, but against anybody.

There are times when one can look at
the enemy without hatred. I have seen a
crowd of soldiers go and visit a still-seeking
battlefield in the same way that other
people go to a fair. On the second of May
one of our lines had to bear the brunt of an
intense bombardment, followed by the as-
sault of a strong reconnoitring party. The
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COMRADES IN COURAGE

resistance of our comrades was strong and
successful. A German officer fell in the
trench itself and thirty-five dead bodies re-
mained just outside the parapet. The affair
had begun in the afternoon of Saturday. The
next day the weather was beautiful, and from
all the neighbouring sectors soldiers and offi-
cers came in Indian file to see the dead.

It is perhaps the only time that a Sunday
has seemed really a holiday. Sundays, at
the front, are days just like the others, only
much sadder for that very reason. This one
stood alone; it seemed as if everyone was
idling around, waiting for some band to
play. Yet at the same time the dead
officer, a Lieutenant of the Guards decorated
with the iron cross, was lying neglected in
a narrow passage — his uniform, where it
had not been torn by the barbed wire,
stained with mud and blood. We stepped
over the body and went our way. Our
conversation showed no trace of emotion.
We are here at the war to kill the Bodies;
so we kill them and that is the end of it.

However, if I ask the sergeant-major, he
will tell me that he felt very sad the day
that young officer from the Grand Duchy
of Baden was killed just in front of him.

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THE ENEMY

The latter was scarcely more than a child
and had shown courage and gallantry in
action. There was infinite pathos in watch-
ing his death struggle on the plain.

Now let us question that tall sergeant
who is standing on tiptoe to see better-
from his trench.

"What are you looking at?"

"There is a Boche parading over there.
I have a good mind to kill him/'

"Well, don't hesitate."

This man is a very good shot. He aims.
We all watch. The silhouette totters and
disappears. I leave the place shivering.

When will these warriors, so courageous
and ardent in the fight, find out why they
are here? How long will it be until they
learn that their mission is to teach a race
that it cannot prey on others ?

I see two ways of considering the Germans.

They have qualities which we lack: we
must study them in order to acquire their
virtues. They have faults which we hate:
we must make these public in order to
indicate the actual source of our enmity.

Of their good qualities our soldiers have
recognized the principal one; the only one
that matters.

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COMRADES IN COURAGE

The Germans are organized. The whole
of their big country is a beehive where
everyone, in his designated place, works for
the good of the Fatherland. The affairs of
the individual are secondary to those of the
State. However, if the State is well
governed and vigilant, all interests profit
in their turn, and the individual fortunes
benefit from those of the nation.

Our soldiers do not comprehend all that
clearly: they have scarcely known the
Germans long enough to think about them.
They do know, however, that they en-
countered a machine, so powerful and so
perfectly organized that at first they were
dazed. It is difficult to understand how
the moral courage of the French was able
to withstand the shock when they first en-
countered German method and German
foresight. Do not let us be stingy in our
praise; I will make^retractions enough pres-
ently. Germany, at the time of her march
on Paris, won for herself the unwilling
admiration of the world. Her immortal
failure on the Marne and the hatred which
she has aroused since have not yet effaced
the remembrance of those first days. Is
power of organization a German quality

182

THE ENEMY

or is it the result of their system of govern-
ment? The Germans, although laborious
and precise in their ways, are naturally in-
clined toward intellectual disorder. While
France — queen of nations when she is prop-
erly governed — was abandoning herself to
revolutionary dreams imported from the
other side of the Rhine, Germany was
benefiting from a monarchy frankly model-
led after ours. Anarchy is German. Order
is French. Temporary fashions have in-
verted the roles but other fashions will
restore them when we learn their relative
importance.

Our sky is at last beginning to clear. The
mass of the people still remains ignorant
and there are yet many dishonest leaders.
A great lesson was necessary to instruct the
former and unmask the latter. Our enemies
have brought it to us.

Have you travelled? Have you ever
entered a big European or American port
without a tightening of the heart? Our
merchant marine has been blotted out and
French people have lost all interest in it.
One doesn't bother about ships when one
stays at home, but when a patriotic French-
man finds himself some day in one of those

183

COMRADES IN COURAGE

immense harbours where the shipping of
the world comes and goes, and when he sees
fluttering in the wind the flags of all nations
save his own, he begins to think. He
comes home resolved to make this shame
public, to beg people to look about them
and come out of their torpor. He has to
fight against easy talkers who reason with-
out seeing and deny the facts when they
interfere with their beliefs. There is one
sure way to convert them: put them all
aboard big ships and make them travel
about the world. The spectacle of how
other nations are flourishing probably would
make them blush and cure them of their
folly.

The Germans, uninvited, have rendered
us this service. It is hard to see them on
our soil, but at least we have had the
opportunity to study them more closely.
We have been watching an armed nation
organized for invasion and for murder.

There is not a man in our trenches to-
day who does not deplore the slackness of
French institutions compared with the
powerful organization of such a neighbour
and who does not realize the necessity of
a step back toward order and toward

184

THE ENEMY

strength. This is what the sight of the
enemy has taught us; and it is much.

We have opposite us a regiment of the
Prussian Guard and are greatly honoured.
Although picked soldiers, not all of them
speak the French language. There are
some among us who know German. When
the exchange of words between trenches
begins in the latter tongue, one is more
quickly and better understood. The great
number of us, however, derive most joy
from conversations in French. It is neces-
sary to understand each other in order to
exchange tobacco and newspapers. But
who will go out of the lines? The Boches
invite a Frenchman to make the first step.

"Come on! Nous ne dirrerons bas."
(Nous ne tirrerons pas — We will not fire!)

They roll the "r" and accentuate the
"i" in pronouncing these words. They
lay emphasis on the "pas" ("not") in a dis-
dainful manner.

"No! You come, we have some cigars."

The affair is rarely settled because, on
the German side or on ours, an officer passes
and orders silence.

One day I asked a bold fellow, whom I
had caught flirting in this manner with a

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COMRADES IN COURAGE

distant Prussian, why he hesitated to go out
on the plain between the lines and chat a
little with his opponent. Another soldier
had tried it only a few days earlier. The
two men, the Frenchman and the German,
had gone out at noon under the watchful
glances of about a hundred of their com-
rades from both camps. Many fingers,
no doubt, rested on the rifle triggers, ready
to shoot if either one made a menacing
gesture. They had spoken of the war and
of the suffering of the soldiers; then they
had lighted cigars and returned.

"I don't trust them."

"And why?"

"They have too much method those
people "

He explained to me that the Boches
would be quite capable of throwing them-
selves suddenly on the ground to let their
friends shoot. One way the Germans have
of employing their machine guns has greatly
impressed our men. At first we used to
attack without much prudence. The Ger-
mans would retreat and seem to be fleeing
before our bayonets. We would follow
them until they had led us into a trap,
whereupon they would suddenly unmask

1 86

THE ENEMY

some machine guns and begin firing mer-
cilessly. Many boys fell in this way. The
very few who escaped felt anger mingled
with admiration.

"They have thought of everything, the
scoundrels!"

I say "scoundrel" because I want to be
polite. What they really say would
scarcely bear repeating. Our poor soldiers,
so brave, so frequently dismayed at the
way the Germans were allowed to organize
themselves, often express that sentiment.

" Look, my Lieutenant, that balloon over
there is Boche. It is only they who can
imagine such things."

It was at the outset of the war when, for
the first time, we saw one of their sausage
balloons. From a distance it was difficult
to determine whether it was above our lines
or theirs.

"It is Boche! It is surely Boche! In-
deed they have thought of everything.
And then it is so ugly: it must be theirs."

Ugly or not there is some good in the
"sausage" and now we have them, too.
But the soldiers would have liked it better
if we had not had to learn that lesson, along
with many others, from the Germans.

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COMRADES IN COURAGE

Please note, however, that we surpass them
when we imitate them. They had illumi-
nating rockets; ours now are better than
theirs. But early in the war they were the
only ones who could send up fireworks in
the night, much to the humiliation of our
own soldiers.

One of my comrades was wounded in
August, 1914, during the German march on
Paris. He received five bullets in his arms,
shoulder, and legs. The Germans cap-
tured the ground on which he lay and he
was first cared for in a German ambulance.
Then came the retreat after the Marne.
The invaders, in running away, left the
French wounded behind them. My friend,
after getting well, has consequently come
back to occupy his place among us. But
he has seen the famous Von Kliick army
close at hand and here are his two chief im-
pressions.

As he lay on the ground, he saw a line of
enemy sharpshooters coming toward him.
They were walking elbow to elbow, rifle
in hand. Would they respect a fallen
officer? His feet were toward them so
that he could see the entire manoeuvre.
As the line approached it divided, the ranks

1 88

THE ENEMY

opening to right and left, and passed by his
body without touching it. If they had
seen him they avoided him as they would a
bundle of dirty straw. Their eyes were
fixed, full of anxiety, and seemed lost in the
distance. Their hands trembled. Terror
was depicted on their pallid faces and they
were not attempting to conceal it. These
victorious warriors were wild with fright.
Our poor troops had been taken in an
ambuscade and were obliged to withdraw
while the enemy pursued with chattering
teeth and each man pressing against the
next for comfort. There are many cour-
ageous people among the Germans; we
have not got a monopoly on bravery, but
as a whole they are not courageous. One
of the wonders of German organization is
that it can have disciplined such people,
even unto death.

However, the infantry was still advancing
and, after it, came the artillery. A bat-
tery of 77-millime re guns unlimbered a
few yards away from the wounded man.
German officers came up and surrounded
him. He was questioned with quite a little
courtesy, while a lieutenant brought some
straw to protect him from the sun. The

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COMRADES IN COURAGE

guns opened fire on his comrades who were
retreating in the distance. What painful
moments were those to my friend! His
undressed wounds pained him much less than
the proximity of those energetic men intent
on killing French people. One of them seized
just that moment to come and talk to
him.

"France is lost, that is certain! We
are going to take Paris, my friend. I know
Paris as well as you. I have worked there,
my comrades also, for a long time. We
have prepared everything so that we will
be well received. You had not foreseen
anything; so much the worse for France!
You wear red trousers: a stupid fault which
the Germans would never have committed.
Nothing can resist an organization like ours
and I pity you to be fighting against such
a formidable civilization!"

He continued like that for a long time
until my friend finally fainted away partly
from suffering, partly from loss of blood.
However the words of this German were
full of truth.

Yes, their organization nearly proved too
much for us and it has been a good lesson.

Yes, their civilization is formidable, not

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THE ENEMY

only for the French but for the whole of
humanity.

The fault of this man, one common to all
his race, lies in not distinguishing the dif-
ference between the two words he has
uttered. He knows that one of the ele-
ments of civilization is order, consequently
organization. And as the only civilized
quality he possesses is that of application
to methodical work, he proclaims that
virtue sufficient for all. It is termed in
French " taking a part for the whole" ; and
in all languages "making a mistake."

A good man, in France, in the Seventeenth
Century was one who possessed a fine gen-
eral culture and polished manners, who
led a straight life, and was agreeable to
meet. He was a civilized man in the fullest
sense of the word and utilized these qual-
ities of heart and mind in increasing his own
happiness and that of others.

A man of that type is perfectly "organ-
ized." But our neighbours thought it
would be better to replace this internal
harmony of the individual, which is the
source of all civilization, with a happier
social organization. They therefore created
wonderful systems of law: but the only
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COMRADES IN COURAGE

people who could obey them were the
Germans.

The inhabitants of old Germany lack the
French qualities of clear intelligence, wit,
and good taste which, without effort, refine
and elevate men above their fellows. They
have other virtues but they do not com-
pensate for the precious ones they lack.
They realize this and are envious, like poor
relations.

Believing themselves to be despised by
others, they have cultivated love of self
to the extreme. They began to worship
their own methods and to proclaim them
supreme. Their great qualities of in-
dustry and obedience made them strong
and they deified that strength. To-day
they think they are the right arm of God.

In order to correct them we must know
them. Let us examine them at war since
it is in that line that they are now operat-
ing. They have wonderful tools — that we
acknowledge ; but what kind of intelligence
is there behind this imposing machinery?

Let us take Rheims as an example. It
has been said that if the roles were reversed
and we were besieging Kohn we would
destroy their cathedral there, just as they

192

THE ENEMY

have ours at Rheims. I am sure of the
contrary. German reasoning is well known :
all damage caused to the French contributes
to the final success; the more cruel the dam-
age the better it serves their purpose. This
method of calculating is apparently right.
It contains the logic of war; the harder you
strike, the earlier you will have peace. No
German therefore can hesitate in front of
Rheims. He sees at once that the cathed-
ral is a jewel and moreover a sacred place,
the temple of the holiest of French tra-
ditions. The enemy can be injured both
morally and materially by knocking down
those stones. The supreme aim of the
war can thus be pursued. It is an excellent
theory and he sets about placing his guns.

If the French were before Kohn they
would reason also, but in a different man-
ner: It is good to demoralize the enemy,
but it is possible to exceed the mark and,
by certain vexations, so to irritate him
that his morale is raised instead of lowered.
It is a simple problem but a German is
incapable of solving it. We will not de-
stroy Kohn, even as a reprisal. We will
preserve on the battlefield the faculty of
seeing beyond the war. The executioners

COMRADES IN COURAGE

of Rheims should be punished in Kohn,
but it is not necessary that the whole of
mankind be made to suffer for the fault of
only one people. Let us respect that which
is the universal patrimony of the world but
when the hour of settlement arrives, let
us wrench the town and its temple away
from the Germans as a ransom for the walls
where our kings were crowned and which
they have destroyed!

We have been given knives, great brigand's
knives. Many among us who were familiar
with the use of the rifle, revolver, bayonet,
or sword were at first surprised to find these
new weapons in their hands. They were
the weapons of murderers and it was neces-
sary to get accustomed to them. They
are useful for fighting in the boyaux, and
for that barbarous operation known as
"cleaning the trench." Oh it is not pretty!
We are soldiers, but we have never been
butchers. Yet the only thing to do is to
accustom ourselves to it: it is the German
law!

They claimed that in war might creates
right. It is our enemies who with a blind
stupidity have violated one by one all the
rules established by the loyalty of many

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THE ENEMY

generations to their ideals. When a unit
of troops, rapidly advancing, has taken a
first line of trenches and has to go on to the
next, there is not time enough to disarm and
render powerless the prisoners they are
going to leave behind. In the olden days
the rules of war would have forced these
defeated people to remain harmless. But to-
day one knows that, obedient to the laws of
German civilization, they will be treacherous.
It is therefore necessary to slaughter them.

In the French army there are probably
soldiers who will pillage if given the chance.
If we advance into Germany, acts of van-
dalism may be committed, here and there,
by our men. They will have a certain
excuse as being reprisals, but what matter?
A crime is never excusable. In that case
France will, like any other nation, deserve
criticism for not being able to stop certain
excesses. The Germans are the only people
who consider themselves above reproach in
that respect. Excesses, when it is their
army which commits them, change their
name and become simply methods of war-
fare. Doctors, learned in German "Kul-
tur," have already woven wreaths for those
who have committed them.

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COMRADES IN COURAGE

Our soldiers from their dugouts see all
this, but how much of it do they under-
stand? Nothing very positively. An in-
stinct moves them to hate these people who,
they feel, are brutal, coarse, and different
from themselves: a precious instinct but
that is not enough.

The war over, writers and speech makers
will begin to praise the Germans for their
efficiency and power of organization and
will tell us that after all the Boches were
only defending themselves and that we
cannot expect people to fight with flowers.
With clever leaders I can imagine a cam-
paign of German rehabilitation rallying
some partisans in France within a few
years. We must prevent that.

The crowd always sees facts but never
discerns their causes. It must be the un-
ceasing duty of the more enlightened to
point out the chief cause behind everything
that happens. We must systematically
work to learn thoroughly the German soul,
so that we may interpret the acts of the
German people. Honoured be those who,
since the war, in books or in newspapers,
have made their contribution to this new
fund of knowledge. But, in the meantime,

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THE ENEMY

aided only by our judgment, we can dis-
criminate between that which is an un-
avoidable act of war and that which consti-
tutes a German crime.

In the barracks we used to give moral
talks for the benefit of the men, which
were nothing but useless words then. We
have more useful lessons to spread abroad
to-day. Let us teach our soldiers to know
the enemy who lies buried in the ground
opposite our lines. Let them admire his
industry, discipline, foresight, and love of
order; they are confronted with the greatest
demonstration of these qualities ever before
made. If they feel hatred let us give them
the real reasons for their anger. Let us
arm them against the stupid argument:
"They are men like us." The German
people are not like us. There is in their
psychic processes a fault which, to French
people, will always make them odious
enemies in war and insupportable neigh-
bours in peace: they are not intelligent.

COMRADES IN COURAGE

XI
Intelligence

OUR men are intelligent. It is wrong
to call them "poilus." That coarse
name does not suit them and they
do not like it. It evokes images of hirsute
and savage faces. The French soldier,
even when bewhiskered, remains an alert
fellow, with a bright eye and a saucy
repartee. Only once have I met a captain
who spoke of his men as "poilus" and he
was not a real soldier. It is literature
which has made that name fashionable.
Here another is in vogue. We say "Our
types" or "What a type!"

Among one another they often speak of
themselves as bonhommes. But that is a
name for peace time. At the front the
rather thick crust of the bonhomme falls at
the first encounter and the type emerges.
By the word " type " one means : a queer

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INTELLIGENCE

fellow, a remarkable specimen, or an original
character. All of our soldiers have deter-
mined faces. They are full of character and
always interesting. There is one trait
common to all: intelligence. But what
varied forms of it they possess !

Sometimes I am angered by what seems
to be imbecile reasoning on their part but
in that case it is not the brain which is at
fault but the spirit which is weak. Some
talk nonsense because truth is compromising
or troublesome. With others, pride is
responsible; they wish to appear well in-
formed and begin talking of things of which
they are ignorant. Wit and good sense are
our great national riches. They should be
utilized toward the best end.

At the outset of the winter our company
was designated for a dress parade in a
neighbouring camp. We were delighted.
Only a week before we had caught a brief
glimpse of that very event in passing
through a village on our way home from a
march. The troops were drawn up in a
hollow square with the flag in the centre.
Facing the flag was a group of officers and, a
few yards away, the hero of the occasion— a
tall captain, dressed in a fine blue uniform,
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COMRADES IN COURAGE

his head proudly erect. He was waiting to
receive the war cross and the accolade from
his chief. The guns were booming all
around, but above their din could be heard
the shrill fanfare of the trumpets opening
the ceremony. We had to turn off at the
first cross-road and so lost the pleasure of
seeing the remainder of the spectacle. As
we marched away we all listened, trying to
make out, above the noise of our steps on
the road, the dying notes of the brass
instruments which were joyously publishing
the glory of a soldier. In our ranks there
was not a sound, only now and then the
quick jump one takes to get back into step.
We sought consolation in marching to the
rhythm of the far-away music.

So to-day there is to be dress parade
again and at last it is our turn to enjoy the
beautiful spectacle. We march off cheer-
fully only to learn on the village square
where our men have stopped with a happy
stamping of heels, that we are to be the sad
witnesses of a military degradation.

It is quickly over for it is a depressing
business. There are a few brief orders, the
companies line up around the square, facing
inward. A deathly silence reigns. It is cold.

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INTELLIGENCE

"Present arms!"

The men hold their faces rigidly for-
ward but their eyes shift curiously toward
the little street from which the condemned
man is going to emerge. He appears,
surrounded by six guards with fixed bayo-
nets. He has a low forehead, a flat nose,
and a brutal chin — a chin such as I have
never seen before — long, flat, shaped like a
spatula. Long legs, narrow shoulders, his
arms drooping as if from the weight of his
enormous hands, he looks around like a
caged animal. The clerk of the military
court reads in a loud voice, with much
rolling of the r's an interminable in-
dictment in which the name, Christian
name, age, domicile, and profession of the
wretched man recur frequently. We learn
the names of his father and mother, and
that he has three children. He has de-
serted the front to go and drink and make
merry at the rear, while his comrades were
fighting, suffering, and dying. He is there-
fore condemned to ten years of prison: he
well deserves it.

An officer approaches and says in a low
voice :

"Who is the senior first sergeant?"

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COMRADES IN COURAGE

"It is I."

"Come quickly."

The non-commissioned officer thus called
steps out of the ranks. He runs forward
and plants himself in the middle of the
square, his sword shining in the sunlight. I
look at him while the dull reading con-
tinues. His features have altered. His
face, which first was red, is now pale and
determined. His lips are grimly closed. It
is his mission to carry out the sentence of
degradation and it is evident that he is
deeply moved. Others might have a feeling
of disgust, but this reservist, whom we have
learned to love for his heart of gold, takes
his duty more seriously. He understands
that, for an instant, he is going to incarnate
France herself and that it is only as her
instrument that he is to punish one of her
unworthy sons. His comrades who witness
the act will find in it a lesson. He must
strangle all sensibility and perform the
sacred rite nobly and firmly.

The commandant turns toward the con-
demned man and cries in a loud voice:

"You are not worthy of remaining a
soldier. We degrade you."

Then quickly, nervously, the little ser-

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INTELLIGENCE

geant approaches the wretched man and
begins to tear off his buttons and insignia.
They come off with difficulty because, for
lack of time, it has not been possible to
loosen them beforehand as is usual. It is
war! The man sneers because in order
to make the task more difficult he has
attached two of the buttons with wire. But
the material finally gives and the sergeant,
having finished, steps back into the ranks.
Then with measured steps, surrounded by
his guards, the degraded soldier is paraded
before our ranks. In the emotion of the
moment the sergeant has forgotten to re-
move his cap. One of the soldiers in his
escort suddenly noticing it, knocks it off with
a brusque gesture. The lamentable proces-
sion has soon covered the ground. In front
of a wagon two gendarmes receive the man
whom the army thus casts out.

Just then a ray of sunshine breaks
through the clouds and falls on our faces
like a caress. We march off, our souls
heavy with thought. Suddenly a joyous
bugle call resounds. The notes — alert, gay,
and wild — make our hearts leap with their
dizzying echoes. We feel a common pride
in the fact that we are good soldiers. We
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COMRADES IN COURAGE

have rejected a wretch unworthy of us.
We have seen how one must pay for being
a traitor to one's duty. But just the same
life is beautiful. France is glorious, and
now we go proudly to our destiny, with our
heads erect and our lungs drinking in deep
breaths of the pure air.

A quarter of an hour later we had settled
down to our tireless "route step." I was
at the head of my company and so com-
pletely lost in thought that very soon I
found myself among the rear men of the
preceding company.

"Good morning, Lieutenant."

" Good morning. What company is this ?"

"The iron company, sir Captain N .

All brave men."

"Then you are getting on all right?"

"We are getting on the best we can, sir.
We laugh but we are quite unhappy just the
same."

"Of course; so is everybody."

"We are like that poor chap."

"Whom?"

"The one who went away with the
gendarmes. Ah! He is only a luckless
fellow, not different from us."

I thought I was dreaming.

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INTELLIGENCE

I had just profited from a great lesson
and I supposed that all these men had
taken it to heart the same as I. It had
been such a clear lesson: crime punished
and despised in the guise of torn clothing
and disgrace. Duty and discipline honoured
amidst the glorious tumult of the trumpets
and rows of gleaming bayonets reflecting
the rays of a friendly sun. I had marked
off two kinds of men: on one side, that
wretch, and on the other, the brave men
who performed their duty — ourselves.

My soldier also saw two classes, but they
were the strong and the wretched.

I studied him. He was handsome and
strong, with straightforward eyes. I ques-
tioned him to see what he was really worth.

"And from home, is there good news?'*

"My home?"

"Yes, your wife, your children?"

"They struggle on."

"How many children have you?"

"Three."

"You are like that man then."

"Oh! it isn't the same thing!"

"Beg pardon! You said you were all
luckless fellows."

"Yes, but we don't make them throw us

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COMRADES IN COURAGE

into prison. One grumbles but one does one's
work. You mustn't make that mistake."

"It is true he didn't look very honest,
the bonhomme."

"Honest! He was disgusting. People
like that ought to be shot."

"And don't people like you deserve to be
punished?"

"Why, sir?"

"To teach you how to talk. What were
you bragging about just now? You were
a ' luckless fellow' just like the other."

"Oh, that was talk. When one talks it is
well to appear wise. But all the same one
understands things and one is different from
the slackers."

You may say that that man was only
stupid. I regard the crowd to which he
belongs as imbecilic. In France you will
find most men intelligent, but submerged
by the collective stupidity. When a man
speaks he wishes to appear wise! Under
an orderly government, popular wisdom
would urge people to cultivate virtues. To-
day people think it clever to side with crim-
inals. They are still at the period of Victor
Hugo's " Les Miserables." They have been
told that they ought to pity and excuse the
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INTELLIGENCE

outlaws— they do it, although, privately,
each one knows the difference between right
and wrong. Assembled in herds the poor
"types" follow the bad shepherds. Intelli-
gence is not what they lack, but char-
acter.

"They don't realize a bit what is going
on!" a disillusioned comrade said to me
one day. "All the lessons of the war will
be lost."

They understand perfectly. Look at
them. At the beginning of the campaign
they showed a wonderful adaptability of
spirit in the open fighting. As clever at
unmasking and hunting out the Boches
as at dressing a chicken, they compre-
hended equally well the necessities and
the resources of their soldier's craft.
They utilized the ground just as if they
had spent their youth in manoeuvring on it.
They patrolled methodically, searching the
villages and the houses without a mistake
or an imprudence. They divined and com-
pleted the thoughts of their officers. The
only trouble with these lads is that they
may wander and become scattered and thus
be led into a blunder. But here each
one considers the war as his own business.
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COMRADES IN COURAGE

It is necessary to be sharp oneself to retain
the leadership in their midst.

At the outset of the trench warfare there
were no boyaux behind the lines, and in
order to communicate with the rear, it was
necessary to wait for evening and go back
over the exposed fields. During the blackest
nights, without a star to guide them, the
"types" would find their way to their
destination, almost all of them, by a direct
route. Instinct did not guide them. Who-
ever trusts to it ends by wandering around
and around in the beet fields, and after
having "kept the cows" for several hours,
arrives back at the place whence he started.
No, they walked according to guides which
have remained a mystery to me but which
their intelligence had recognized and
adopted. The fact remains that they arrived.

In front of the trench they have pierced
all the mysteries of the plain. They know
where all the little posts are situated which
one cannot see, the machine gun emplace-
ments which reveal no turrets. To-day our
trenches have been ravaged by torpedoes.
Question any man and he will point to
you the place from which they were sent
and he will give you his reasons for thinking

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INTELLIGENCE

so. They know where the German batteries
are hidden. When the shells whistle over
our heads, these men can determine, not
only their direction and the gun which has
fired them but also the objective and,
according to the noise they make, the
calibre of the projectiles. No, those men
are not stupid.

However, their intelligence is misdirected ;
is has never been guided. They would
understand everything if only their knowl-
edge matched their comprehension. That
they do not know more is due to the un-
worthy teachers who had enslaved them.
The great vivacity of their spirits has
helped to create this pitiful state of things.
Their brains have been filled with social-
istic theories at a time when they should
have been nourished with the knowledge
of sound moral principles. They have
been so confused by sopnistry that they no
longer even recognize truth. The inevitable
result has been that distrusting all move-
ments relating to the public welfare, they
withdrew into themselves and concentrated
only upon the cultivation of their own sel-
fish interests. Ignorance, slothfulness, and
malignity ruled the land. Now this great

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COMRADES IN COURAGE

people has been disillusioned. Of what
value was it to them to have been born
intelligent, to have been given that strength
of spirit which can and ought to master
everything, when unexpectedly called with-
out any preparation to face great organized
armies — provided with terrible weapons?
If there had not been so rude an awakening
many of our men would have found them-
selves humble and helpless face to face
with the tremendous German machinery.
Thus, in life, the boor who lacks everything
but the qualities of industry and obstinacy
may gain the advantage over a man of
stronger mind and impose upon him his
will. A fool who works can intimidate an
intelligent man who does nothing. Laziness
and ignorance create stupidity, and even
fine reasoning is of little avail against the
blow of a club.

We are dealing with an overrated people.
The German is a good scholar. In com-
petition with you French soldiers, he gets
the first prize, but it is only because of your
faults. Cease to play carelessly with your
intelligence; utilize it instead of wasting it
in conversation, and very soon you will be
receiving the respect, praise, and admiration

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INTELLIGENCE

of the entire world. While certain people
are still bowing before the Krupp factories,
and thus debasing themselves, you can
restore to France her glorious place of
Queen of Nations, vacant since she re-
linquished it. You alone have power to
bring back harmony in that European con-
cert, which to-day is so horribly discordant.
An apparently clever musical director re-
sided in Germany. He has shown his poor
talent; let us take up the conductor's
baton.

When shall we realize that through our
own folly we are wasting faculties which
no other people possess? We must re-
store intellectual order in France. Our
"types" are longing for truth, wisdom, and
light. We will lead them in the paths of
righteousness which they have forgotten.

In our country there exist brains of suf-
ficient intelligence to find, amidst the uni-
versal confusion, paths which will be solid
for the human feet. By them, if there but
be true chiefs to point the way, the eager
crowd can attain its full expansion and
development.

COMRADES IN COURAGE

XII

Jitters

NEVER have the French men and
women written as many letters as
now. In peace time, when our
men were dragging through their slow
years of military service sometimes two,
sometimes three, as the case might be —
they wrote to their parents but rarely, and
then without enthusiasm. Their letters,
written in big characters, consisted of two
or three classic sentences:

Dear Parents: I take my pen in hand to tell you
that I am in good health and I hope this letter will
find you the same. Will you be kind enough to send
me three francs or even five? I cannot find more
to say at present. I embrace you from this dis-
tance. As always, your son.

In the letters from men of the lower
classes one continually finds certain sen-

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LETTERS

tences which enjoy a great popularity. A
soldier, writing in 1913 to the Minister of
War, ended with these words: "Finding
no more to say, I shake hands with you."
They fail for want of vocabulary. As they
are not accustomed to writing they become
frightened when confronted by a sheet of
white paper. To the people one meets,
one says mechanically: "How are you?
Very well, thank you." One says that even
if one is quite ill. There is no link at all
between that which people ought to say
when they meet and the words which issue
mechanically from their lips. Do not judge
that which an uneducated man would like to
write by the words which he puts on his
paper. His ideas having fled he grasps
at ready-made sentences. But why al-
ways the same stereotyped phrases? All
the people of France, for many years at
least, have "taken the pen" have "hoped
that this letter would find their dear par-
ents the same"; and finally have found no
more to say and frankly admitted it.

From father to son they have copied each
other thus. Almost everyone copies some-
one when writing. One of our men — a
good old chap whom, on account of age,

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COMRADES IN COURAGE

we had placed in the officers' kitchen for the
sake of safety — left us recently. Under the
pretext of having only men of the same age
in a regiment, he was changed to a ter-
ritorial regiment. Once there he lost his
title as oldest man and became one of the
crowd. His first letter filled us with re-
gret. He wrote to an orderly:

My dear Paul, I have the honour to inform you
that I am busy digging in the boyaux. It is sad
when one has been in the kitchens. There is noth-
ing more to say to you for the moment. My com-
pliments to the officers. Ever your friend.

Poor fellow! Every day he had seen
military notes beginning with the obligatory
phrase: "I have the honour to inform
you." He thought that it was very good,
very dignified. He took pains in writing
his letter and wanted to say whatever was
correct.

But if you write to these people and give
them good models, they can also write
pretty letters.

The war has furnished the occasions. The
godmothers are benevolent correspondents.
Our men love these generous and kind-
hearted women who always take the trouble

214

LETTERS

to enclose well-written notes in the many
packages they send them. The men de-
cipher, very seriously, the letters from their
unknown benefactresses. All the words
they find there are weighed, differentiated,
and made much of. The sentiments of
that far-away woman, or of that young
girl whose writing is so refined, fall like a
caress upon the good man; the affection-
ate expressions shake his uncultured soul;
he is moved, astonished. Is that the way
one ought to write? Well, if it be pos-
sible to let one's heart do the speaking
and to put on the paper what one feels, it
will be possible to answer the lady. Every-
one tries his best and all the old awkward
phrases are discarded for new ones which
are used proudly, according to the example
of the good marraine,

Those unsophisticated writers are clumsy
only because they are inexperienced. When
you write to them, Dear Women, remember
that you are teaching them a new art. They
had never corresponded before — outside of
business — with those whose education is
finer. Now when they write, they talk,
they express human sentiments. Their
hearts open toward one another in a broth-
215

COMRADES IN COURAGE

erly manner, and an entirely unknown
vocabulary comes rushing to their lips and
permits their soul to blossom.

When you write to our soldiers, fill your
letters with this divine music. Have in
mind that they will try to learn its notes
faithfully, in order to charm their wives
or fiancees and the old mother who will
weep at hearing her boy speak to her so
softly. Do not send sermons or long
speeches; write simply. They will won-
der at the fact that the heart of a great lady
so nearly resembles that of a poor man,
but they will also learn that the poor man
can, in his turn, send his respects to the
beautiful lady and his love to his betrothed
in sentences almost alike.

The other day in the firing trench I met
a corporal whose talk usually amuses me.
I was about to ask him to relate some of his
stories when he gravely handed me a paper.

"I received this letter from my old
woman. Read it, sir." I noticed that his
eyes were red. He added in a low voice, try-
ing to conceal a sob.

"They have killed my two brothers."

" Killed your brothers ! Who ? "

"The Boches! Read."
216

LETTERS

I unfolded the paper. It was already
greasy and half torn at the folds from hav-
ing been passed around, for the last two
hours, among the members of the squad.
Here is what I read:

MY DEAR CHILD:

I am very unhappy. Both your brothers, Georges
and Auguste, have been executed. The Germans
took them from the station to the Saint-Louis church
with their hands tied behind their backs. My poor
children knew that their last hour had come. They
were forced to dig their own grave. Think, dear
son, how they suffered during those minutes. They
begged the Germans to free them but the brutes
would not listen to them. You can imagine, my
dear son, what a blow it has been for your mother
to hear that the blood of her two defenceless chil-
dren has been shed without their even having known
the joy of being soldiers.

I do not reproduce this document for the
facts which it relates. We have all read,
almost everywhere, such atrocious stories.
Nor do I quote it for the sentiments ex-
pressed. It matters little that she belongs
to the humblest class. As a French woman,
a mother, her feelings are the same as those
of any woman. The point I make is that
her pen found the right words to picture

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COMRADES IN COURAGE

what she felt, to express the horror and the
pity mingling in her soul.

To free the people from their habitual
grooves of thought it is necessary to give
them new models, but what is of chief im-
portance is to show them their inner selves.
Almost never do they pause to contemplate
themselves in life. Their sentiments, their
thoughts, their actions are ordered by
tradition, example, and habit. They de-
velop unconsciously with the passing days.
When it becomes necessary to speak or
write, having no knowledge of their own
resources, they are helpless and fall back
on stereotyped phrases.

They say to you: "Fine weather to-
day." They write: "I hope this letter
will find you the same." But teach them
other words and you will see that they
know how to use them, and if tragic events
happen which force them to introspection,
you will find that they are capable of
observing, of thinking, and of writing
letters which will bring the tears to your
eyes.

Since the second of August events after
events of tragic importance have repeated
themselves unceasingly. Millions of men

218

LETTERS

in all the dugouts at the front are scribbling
on sheets of paper: millions of women in
all the homes of France are filling page
after page. Each of them relates what he
sees, describes his thoughts, and lets his
heart overflow.

These letters from the multitude are
beautiful. I delight in them and I believe
that they are beneficial, which is even
better. They reveal both to those who
receive them and those who write them
things which are never expressed in con-
versation. The lips, which at all hours
of the day carelessly open to pour forth
jokes or slang, would tremble before certain
words which come from the bottom of the
soul. Our " types" would recount horrors
without wincing, but would blush to show the
concealed beauty of their spirit. The prud-
ishness of the soldier no more resembles
that of the young girl than night resembles
day; yet it exists and would conceal
treasures from us if it were not for the
letters. When our men write they feel as
if they were whispering and that gives
them courage.

Many women have discovered in this
manner since the war how much their old

219

COMRADES IN COURAGE

companions in misery still cherish them:
husbands have had the revelation of the
fervent and attentive love of their wives.
They lived side by side, without speaking the
words the heart needs : now they write them.

Couples, separated for many months,
are more united than ever. Not all of
them. For in the great crisis nothing
remains mediocre, neither vice nor virtue.
And, while the happy unions become closer,
the unhappy ones insensibly fall farther
apart. We are living in a period of low de-
bauchery on the one side and of high exal-
tation of the homely virtues on the other.

The women of France — like Roxane
in "Cyrano de Bergerac" — decipher with
surprise the wonderful notes which arrive
from the front. They think: "He has
never spoken to me like that before." It
is an enchantment. Those whom the wives
gravely address as "My dear husband" also
marvel. Their eyes are open to a new life,
soft and sentimental, whose existence they
had not previously suspected. As they have
leisure in the trench, they dream, after each
mail, of the great joy of being loved.

When the women of France think of their
absent ones they express themselves in

220

LETTERS

phrases which belong to eternity. One of
them learns that her husband has had to
leave the front for the hospital, with
bronchitis. A comrade of her "man" has
written her, taking pains to break the news
gently. She answers:

MONSIEUR:

I received your letter two days ago. It caused
me a very great emotion. My poor Charles is per-
haps very ill and he will not want to tell me. I
have not yet received word from him. He must stay
in the hospital for a good month; then he can go to
the depot and come and join me later, and I can
render him the gentle care which he will desire.
He must have grown much thinner, poor friend.
Let us hope that God will listen to my prayer.

I do not see anything more to add to-day. My
little girl joins with me in thanking you and in, say-
ing: good luck!

(Signed) Une dame fran^aise, who wishes you
much happiness and hopes to have the opportunity
some day of meeting her husband's good comrade.

She will render him the "gentle care which
he will desire." What a pretty sentence!
How could I have said that the simple
people repeat only ready-made phrases.
Here is a new one with a deep meaning.
One renders what one owes: one renders
devotion to God and honours to a sovereign

221

COMRADES IN COURAGE

and, this woman assures us, gentle care to
one's husband. Madame de Sevigne could
not have said it better.

She signs herself " a dame of France." We
usually smile when a person who wishes
to appear cultivated introduces his wife as
"dame" and his daughter as "demoiselle"
whereas we merely introduce them as
our wives and our daughters. I did not
smile this time. Here at the front we are
stopped at almost every cross-road by the
sharp challenge of the guard: "Qui vive?"
We like to answer in a clear voice : " France."
This woman does the same. I salute her
for having ended her letter with such a
serious note, ennobled by the naive way in
which she uses it.

Dear French women, write to us often!
Your letters bring your presence to us.
They say that the war has separated the
men and the women, and yet the union of
their hearts has never been closer. Our
mothers, our wives, our sisters people our
dreams, and this is the country of end-
less dreams. You reign over us in our
trenches and in our dugouts. You come
even into our quarrels and you stop them
with a pretty gesture.

222

LETTERS

We once played a low trick on one of our
first sergeants which he would never have
forgiven if it had not been for a woman's
letter. In October, 1914, a cow strayed into
the field separating the German line from
ours. It was coveted in both camps, both
for its milk and its meat. One fine morn-
ing there was no more cow. We thought
the Boches had succeeded in capturing it.
Six months later we advanced our lines.
In a ravine, just midway between the
enemy's trenches and our own, our men
discovered a black mass. The beet-stalks
were high and it was difficult to make it
out, but the wind turned and carried toward
us an awful odour. It was the dead cow,
and not more than fifty yards away from
the old German line. Our men swore
against those dirty people who hadn't the
courage to get rid of such a neighbour.
Two days later we received the order to
bury the animal, but during the intervening
forty-eight hours we had much merriment.

The sergeant-major shut himself up
during the morning of the first day. He
had a large wooden sign post, which the
company had received for the purpose of
marking the name of a boyau, and on it

COMRADES IN COURAGE

he was writing mysterious characters.
When we asked questions he rolled his
eyes like a conspirator and confided to us
with a finger on his lips:

"It is about the cow; you will see. Not
a word to Julien."

Here we designate our great friends by
their Christian names. Julien was the first
sergeant and a great comrade of the
sergeant-major.

After nightfall the latter disappeared
with the placard under his arm. He came
back without it, rubbing his hands together,
laughing from ear to ear. He said :

"The placard is on the cow, there will
be some fun to-morrow."

The next day, in fact, more than fulfilled
his expectations. The first sergeant came
running to our post, saluted the officer in
command of the company, and said :

"My Lieutenant, I must tell you myself
that the Boches came up as far as the cow
during the night, and planted a placard."

"A placard?"

"Yes, my Lieutenant, on the dead cow."

He seemed indignant. He offered to go
himself at night and take away the placard.
We protected with hypocritical gestures.

LETTERS

" It is dangerous, my friend."

"Dangerous as much as you like! We
must see what they have written and
answer them."

"Yes, but not you. Send a bonhomme.
It is not the duty of the chief sergeant.
That cow has a nasty smell."

" My Lieutenant, it stinks "

"Then leave it."

As he stood hesitating, I cunningly added :

" Besides, you might get killed."

He is brave; that made him sit up.

"I am not afraid."

Immediately his decision was made. At
dusk he went out to the listening post and
climbed up on the plain. He crawled under
the netting of barbed wire, which was
much less of an obstacle at that time
than now, and advanced toward the
animal.

Have I told you that Julien is a butcher
by trade? On the placard the sergeant-
major had written these cruel words.

MEAT MARKET

JULIEN S , Proprietor

FIRST QUALITY MEATS
3 francs the kilog.

22$

COMRADES IN COURAGE

I omit the surname here but it was
written to the last letter on the sign.
Arriving near the cow, the deluded fellow
pinched his nose, put out his hand, and
got hold of the placard. While the Boches
who had heard him were firing in all
directions, he came back toward us hugging
the board to his heart.

He became very angry when he found
that he had been made the subject of this
joke. We were much to be blamed for we
were the ones who had induced him to go
after the sign, but he turned his anger
against the sergeant-major.

He began to look for the latter, having
made up his mind, he told us, to give him
a lesson. He had a violent temper and
powerful fists, a combination which did not
make us at all happy.

But they were both married and re-
ceived letters from their wives every day
which they read side by side. In those
letters one sentence often recurred: "I am
glad you have such a good friend in the
trenches." That evening as the first ser-
geant entered the sergeant-major's dugout
to carry out his threat, the man on duty
handed them both their accustomed letters.

226

LETTERS

They forgot all the rest, sat down im-
mediately, and began to read. We arrived
full of anxiety as to a possible tragedy and
ready to interpose ourselves if necessary.
We found them reading, but amidst a
heavy silence which might be the fore-
runner of a storm. They had four long
pages each to read. The first sergeant
finally folded his letter and glanced sidewise
at the sergeant-major. The quartermaster
whispered in my ear:

"It is going to be terrible."

We held our breath. The sergeant-major
also finished and turned slowly toward his
friend. In an humble voice, full of affec-
tionate anxiety, he asked:

"Good news?"

"Yes," tersely replied the other.

"Just think," continued the sergeant
with emotion, "my wife has sent me my
little girl's last book of writing exercises."

At that the first sergeant changed colour,
looked at his adversary with envious eyes,
and hitting the table with his fist, exclaimed:

"That is perfectly wonderful ! Show it to
me."

227

XIII
Honour

I NEVER punish my men," said an officer.
"I am always severe with them," said
another, "the only way to control them
is to threaten them with prison."

They .are both wrong, but in particular
the second. At the front punishment must
be administered only with great care. We
live among the men and therefore possess
a thousand means of influencing them. A
chief who punishes too often thereby con-
fesses his own helplessness.

It is necessary to be severe sometimes;
it is not a matter of choice but of conscience.
One cannot say "I never punish"; but one
can say: "I would like never to punish."

A man, in my company, of rather gloomy
disposition had developed the habit of
always going off by himself on the last
day of each period of rest and drinking

228

HONOUR

heavily in some out-of-the-way inn. His
family of five children lived in the invaded
regions and he therefore could receive no
news from them. Whenever the time came
to go back to the trenches he would go off
and drown his sorrows in this manner.

One can afford a little leniency at times
with the men who get drunk in cantonment.
But one can never excuse their absence
from roll-call when the time has come to
return to the front and resume their fight-
ing places.

One evening this man, although missing
from the ranks, was, by some complicity on
the part of his comrades, reported as present.
The company departed for the trenches
without him and proceeded to relieve
the troops we found there. Almost at
once his squad was assigned, not for guard
duty, but to do some hard fatigue work.
Absent, he evaded it. His comrades knew
it, but not his chiefs.

It was very dark and I was walking
through the boyaux an hour later when
I met a man who apparently was coming
from the rear.

"Good evening, old man!"

"Good evening, sir."

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COMRADES IN COURAGE

Was it fate that made me turn and call
to this man after he had passed me ?

"Eh! Say over there!"

"Yes, sir."

"Who are you?"

"It is only me, my Lieutenant."

They always answer like that at night.
It is not very illuminating. I insisted.

"Tell me your name."

He gave me his name then, but his con-
science not being very clear he began to
make stumbling excuses.

" I am a little late but I did not know the
hour for assembly."

He had given himself away. His fault
was without excuse and I gave him four
days of prison.

You can readily conceive that here we
do not confine the men in cells. Punishment
consists first of humiliation. It is announced
to his comrades in the Bulletin; it is written
down in the man's military record; it will
remain always as an indelible stain. But
as some natures do not mind that kind of
punishment, the high command has also
ordered that the men serve their prison
sentence by staying in the trenches when
their comrades go back to the cantonment.

230

HONOUR

So when we went to rest six days later,
my man remained in the first line. He saw
us go with considerable sadness. I also felt
sorrow at leaving him there, but it was just.

The next day a grenade killed him.

Five orphans because I punished that
man! I shiver to think of the distress of
my soul if my conscience had not been so
clear and secure. I felt that my action
could withstand even my own criticism and
that I could pray above that grave without
remorse.

People came from right and left and said
needless words to comfort me.

"It was written," said one.

"You could not imagine that this would
happen," said another. These words shocked
me. I knew only too well that this tragedy
had been brought about by my action, but I
also felt that no one else had the right to de-
clare me innocent. It was my conscience
alone which could absolve me.

It had done so. Yet I could not help
thinking of the many acts we perform
here without consideration of the^ ulti-
mate consequences they may entail. If
we punish in a moment of anger, or for
revenge, or in order to shift a compromising

231

COMRADES IN COURAGE

responsibility from our own shoulders to
those of some poor man, we totally ignore
how far-reaching our fault may be. It
may even become a crime without our being
able to foresee it. At the war we are the
masters of nothing but our conscience.
Unhappy be they who do not guard theirs
severely. The soldier's virtue must be
above that of other men. It bears the
beautiful name of Honour !

Let us to-night meditate on honour. To
define the meaning of this great word let
us take a very simple example in the every-
day life of the armies at the front.

For some time, at stated intervals, we
have been given leave of absence of six
days to spend with our families. This
permission does not begin to count until the
arrival at the station at one's destination,
and is cancelled at the same place, exactly
the six days later. The time wasted in slow
trains or in round-about itineraries is not
included. The men on leave have to take
the military trains and are frequently gone
for more than two weeks before getting back
to the trenches. The officers are allowed
to travel separately on the express trains
and thus are able to return much sooner.

232

HONOUR

No one can keep track of the train schedules
or determine whether in a given case the
time limit has been exceeded.

There are three types of officers. The
cautious ones are those who stay only four
days with their family and arrive back at
the front on the sixth day. The sly ones
take nine days at home and when asked for
an explanation, invent long stories about
time tables and trains which confuse even
the most intelligent of colonels. The third
type is best represented by one of my friends.
He stays the full, six times twenty-four
hours, but travels both ways, going and
coming, by the fastest trains. He satisfies
in this manner, not only his sentimental
obligations to his mother and family, but
also his sacred duties toward his chief. I
admire him.

I know another who has a high concep-
tion of his duty. He voluntarily left his
wife and numerous small children to join
the army. Yet he does not hesitate to
cheat a little by overstaying his leave at
home, and to thank the time tables for their
vagueness. Although this little irregularity
does not prevent him from being brave and
anxious to serve well, the friend who is

233

COMRADES IN COURAGE

punctilious about his obligations is of
greater worth. He is a man of honour.

The difference between these two men
depends upon a difference in their impulses.
One responds only to the great duties, the
less-important ones he does not see. He is
impressed by the former in the same way
that an artist is impressed by the great
spectacles of Nature. He owes this liking
for great ennobling obligations, doubtless
as much to his education as to the primary
qualities of his soul. But he remains a
sinner destined for every weakness. He
follows the right things for the love of them,
and love is inconsistent.

The other perhaps less brilliant will never
fall. A man of honour is one who jeal-
ously verifies all his actions himself. He
knows only one judge and that is an im-
placable one: His conscience. It rules
him like a tyrant. He is, in his own fashion,
an individualist, a man who is controlled
by himself alone. We hear of conscien-
tious citizens: there is an example of what
they ought to be.

I think that we can offer this new
cult of honour to our own recently dis-
illusioned individualists who wished to free

234

HONOUR

the human soul but were betrayed by Lib-
erty, to their own undoing. They wanted
the free man to be the sovereign judge of
right and wrong and to make his own laws.
They erred because sovereignty is not the
property of the individual but of human
laws which are superior to us. They are
not an expression of our will nor even of the
general will; they spring from the nature of
things and beings in spite of us. We do
not dominate them; they dominate us.
My reason has the power to search out and
formulate these laws but not to make them.
It can make mistakes in this research, but
I do not call that a prerogative, it is an
infirmity.

Thus the wise man does not forge laws to
suit himself, he adheres to the true ones.
And when the devotion that he renders
them is so fervent that his soul becomes
jealous of his ability to recognize and obey
them, this jealousy is called Honour.

I am willing to become an individualist
of that kind myself. Each man can enter-
tain, at the bottom of his soul, a divine
flame which shines for him alone and whose
warmth he secretly enjoys. A virtuous
being is one whose actions are straight-

235

COMRADES IN COURAGE

forward. The man of honour cultivates
straight dealing, not only in his acts, but
even in his inmost thoughts and for his
own particular satisfaction. His virtue is
not higher but more certain. Proud and
egotistical, Honour looks for its reward and
finds it only in itself. In trying to exalt
the supremacy of the individual we only
succeeded in creating generations of destroy-
ers. Let us create men of honour, and the
individual, having become as noble as a
God, will then deserve his own admiration.

Military Honour consists in doing one's
soldierly duty even until death. In that
sense honour is a customary attribute of the
French people. I do not know one com-
rade, one man around me, who would not
be ready at any tragic hour to give his blood
immediately for the Motherland.

But all are not equally apt at the little
daily heroisms of which honour is woven.
The young officer who threw himself first
into the enemy's trench has fully merited
his cross. He is a brave man. And this
timid soldier whom I always meet in front
of the parapet merely watching the enemy
will not win a reward. It is logical that
human honours go to the one who has

236

HONOUR

rendered a signal service. The other one,
however, has his share of merit and it is not
the least.

He has the joy of his conscience : a pleas-
ure of rare quality. Or at least those who
know how to rejoice in it are rare. The man
I am thinking of has aroused my constant
admiration. Always at his post, willing,
obliging to his comrades, dignified before
his chiefs, without shame dropping his rifle
for the shovel, working well, fighting well,
eating and sleeping well: a perfect soldier.
He knows but one law — his duty; but one
judge — his conscience. He is an upright
man. We have spoken much of our demo-
cratic pride, so low, so shabby. It con-
sists in refusing to accept any order or any
restraint. The enemy of all superiority,
it detests all that is noble and delights in a
stupid equality. True pride resembles it
but little. It is the pride of the independ-
ent soul and the enemy of degrading yokes.
It undertakes with tenacity and pride all
duties, the obscure ones as well as the
brilliant ones.

After the war those who will have sur-
vived the wild struggles for which we have
been preparing ourselves during the last

23?

COMRADES IN COURAGE

year of war will become the apostles of
honour. Here we have seen too clearly the
superiority of those possessing severe and
jealous consciences not to have understood
that the greatness of man lies entirely in the
strength of his soul.

Doubtless the French will organize them-
selves as the Germans have done. But
they will never become vile slaves — for each
man, free, strong, and brave, will put his
pride in censuring himself. It is natural
that Honour should once more become a
national virtue in the country of so many
struggles for independent ideas.

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THE MOTHERLAND

XIV

The

HERE is a man on guard in the
trenches. He is watching vigi-
lantly and his expression is one of ha-
tred as he holds his eyes fixed on the enemy
line. I approach him and tap his shoulder.

"What are you doing there?"

" I am on watch, my Lieutenant."

"But what else?"

" I keep my eye on the Boches."

"And what is behind your back?"

"Our sleeping comrades."

"Yes, but behind them?"

"The beet fields."

"And farther behind?"

"Well, I don't know."

I looked into his eyes ; they are empty of
thought. The good man would very much
like to make a suitable reply, but where is he
to find it ? Let us help him.

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COMRADES IN COURAGE

"Why, thoughtless fellow, there is
France."

"It is true, I hadn't thought of that."

Why should he think of it? Ever since
childhood he has heard nothing but that all
men are brothers, that frontiers no longer
exist and that the idea of a Motherland is
a wicked invention of tyrants and capital-
ists. Patriotism survived only in the soil
and in tradition. The French are linked
together at present by virtue of the war;
the common trial. But to know and love
France, the Motherland, one must have
either lived close to her soil or studied her
history. This man works and lives in the
city; he has not had the opportunity to
develop a deep attachment for a field, or a
meadow, or an old familiar brook. The
books which have been given him to read
have only taught him errors.

If I put the same question to a peasant
he will be no whit more eloquent. The
little motherlands which each village used
to constitute have been at least spoiled, if
not entirely destroyed. The mere fact of
having spent one's days, happy or dreary
alike, on a certain patch of land is not alone
sufficient to make one recognize in it the

240

THE MOTHERLAND

Motherland. The ground must also have
been peopled with the images of the dead
ancestors who have formerly owned it one
after the other; who have done the same
things at the same seasons — sung and
danced on big feast days, prayed in the
same church still standing, and lived the
same simple life, rich in remembrances and
promise — as the present owner. The peas-
ant who keeps these traditions is bound to
be patriotic, if not to his thirty-nine millions
of living brothers, at least to his fathers.
He will love France, if not for its present
strength and size, at least for its past. Not
being educated, but knowing more the
history of his country that its geography,
he will be capable of dying on the battle-
field, and of telling you why he is willing to
make that sacrifice.

Formerly in the countryside there were
additional influences at work to broaden
the views of the agriculturists and to show
them the glory of their Motherland. The
grandmothers told stories of heroes; the
priest gathered his parishioners around him
to sing " Te Deums" in honour of the
king's victories; the lord of the Manor
and his followers, when they came back

241

COMRADES IN COURAGE

from national wars, brought the echoes
with them. Thus, Joan of Arc when but
a child, was able to conceive the idea of
France, the nation, although living in the
little out-of-the-way village of Domremy,
yet in those days, with no telegraph,
next to no post, no railways, and practically
no roads, France was a far more distant
empire to this peasant girl than the whole
universe to a man of the twentieth century.

To-day our natal soil has lost much of
its virtue. The songs of long ago are
forgotten and peasant and shepherdess re-
peat only the refrains of the music halls.
They no longer go to church. The old
women are silent and no longer recognize
in their city-bred children the reflection of
their own image. Instead of revering the
dead this new generation looks down on
them from a lofty height with pity for
their ignorance. The young men dance
nothing but the waltz, the cake-walk, and
the Argentine tango.

I am wrong. Four of our men from
the neighbourhood of Saint-Flour still know
the "bourree*. They often dance, or rather
"jump" it for our entertainment at the

*French peasant dance from the province of Auvergne.
242

THE MOTHERLAND

cantonment. We never tire of watching the
mincing manners of these bearded moun-
taineers. They pound their muddy feet on
the ground, bow to their partners, seize
them by the waist, back, and whirl, all
with the same happy smile and to the
plaintive music of an accordion. These four
men have brought the whole of their old Au-
vergne country among us with their dance.

Only a certain provincial patriotism has
survived among the people from the rural
districts. It is narrow and exclusive but,
nevertheless, it does not offend me. Since
the beginning of the war our soldiers have
wandered everywhere. Men mobilized from
the farming regions of the North, who were
sent through the "Vienne" valley, so
beautiful between Limoges and Angouleme,
could scarcely hide their contempt for
ground where only grass and trees are able
to grow.

"Don't they have any wheat around
here?" they asked.

The men from the centre of France,
accustomed to the fresh valleys, pretty
meadows, and groves of chestnut trees, were
amazed at seeing the rich but monotonous
plains of Picardy and Artois.

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COMRADES IN COURAGE

To fortify and strengthen the frail love that
each of these men bears to his own corner
of the earth it would have been enough to
teach them the grandeur of the common
Motherland.

The war is a splendid opportunity for
doing this very thing. Instead the news-
papers tell them that they are fighting for
the civilization and liberty of the world.
Nobody among the popular writers thinks
of singing the praises of our Motherland, or
claiming that it is for her sake that all
this fine blood is being shed.

They read, just as I do, sentences of this
kind in the morning newspapers: "We are
not fighting for ourselves, it is for the
world and the future. What are a few
months of war in comparison with the fifty
or a hundred years of prosperity and peace
which we are preparing? Let our arms
triumph and the whole earth will be at
rest."

Thus it is not for our own sakes that we
are fighting, and the blood which we have
shed, the ruined villages, the horrible suffer-
ing, the devastation, and the mourning in
France are for the happiness of the human
race! Some misguided French people dare
244

THE MOTHERLAND

to write, although they do not even know
how to think. They do not realize that
they have a Motherland. They see only
vague forms in the clouds, when right in
front of their eyes is living the most ani-
mated, saintly, and tragic of figures; this
France, the inheritance of a hundred gene-
rations of ancestors; where we have been
born, where we draw our breath and which
we will leave to our sons, as sweet as she was
when we first looked on her.

There are a few of us who do not wish
any one to alter our language, our old
customs, our cherished habits, our soil, our
houses. We havegood qualities and faults : let
us keep them ! The Germans may cultivate
their virtues and their vices at home but
they must not overflow on us. To each
man his Motherland. We are fighting for
ours.

No doubt this atrocious war will still be
long and always more cruel. What shall
we do when it is finished? The dreamers
say that peace will bring universal dis-
armament. I, who dream of my hearthside
and of my children, do not speak in this
manner. After the war I hope that we will
surround France with such safeguards as

COMRADES IN COURAGE

will protect her for all time. We will not
be the only ones to profit by the victory.
Both in a business sense and in self-
development, other nations, perhaps more
than ours, will find themselves the gainers
by the peace which they will have helped
to purchase so dearly. Owing to a fatal law,
strong peoples in both hemispheres may
become a menace to their less-vigorous
neighbours. God keep us then from being
among the worn-out nations !

The war over, we shall be condemned to
continue the cultivation of our muscles. We
are going to win in spite of our great weak-
ness which might have cost us defeat. May
the victory restore to us the liking for
physical strength. I am unable to think of
the whole of humanity, but of France alone,
while French blood is flowing. I am not
tempted to betray our dead, nor to ruin
the cause for which they are dying by
thousands. They fall to save the Mother-
land. If I survive the slaughter yet to
come, I will consecrate all the days that
God will give me to the safeguarding of
this sacred Motherland. After that is
done, if I have five minutes to spare, I will
busy myself with the human race.

246

THE MOTHERLAND

Our soldiers are wholeheartedly striving
to perform the new duty which has con-
fronted them. They hold their posts, some
of them without comprehending, the others
only half understanding. An interior force
upholds them, just as faith proves the ex-
istence of God. Their patriotic instinct
renders to the sovereignty of their race a
touching homage.

These simple men, who hardly know why
they are here, and those dupes who are
fighting only for empty words, give way to
the ascendency of a third class of French
people: those who know and love the
Motherland.

For there are some men who have neither
fallen into ignorance nor fatal errors.
While the demagogues preached the social
war they prepared their souls in silence
for the national war. The men in power
busied themselves with the happiness of
humanity: they were thinking of French
prosperity. The army was being disor-
ganized: they regarded it as a defense of
last resort. These men of deep wisdom
seldom appeared in public: they lived in
their homes. The family is the first Mother-
land. Who loves one serves the other.

247

COMRADES IN COURAGE

We have in France quantities of noble
families, poor and rich alike, who have

flven their best blood to the country,
rom them came the group of splendid
youths who, at the first call, hurried to form
the front line; thus the best went toward
death with exaltation to save the others.

Each time I search for a typical French
family, my thoughts obstinately revert to
certain homes at Lille where my childhood
days were spent. How many young men in
the spring of robust youth are gone, never
more to animate the streets and the houses
of my old city? Behind that curtain of
frail trees which shuts off our horizon in the
rear of the enemy's trenches lies a rich and
noble part of France, where crying widows
and mothers still wait for those who will
never come back.

It was there that I learned to know my
Motherland. I am not from Lille by birth,
but all the first years of my studies were
spent there and I have made precious
friendships in that city. My country is
not the French Flanders where I have lived,
nor the Ile-de-France where I was born.
I belong to the whole of France, but it was
at Lille that I first learned it. Because I

248

THE MOTHERLAND

grew up with all my comrades in the midst
of fervent national traditions, I have neither
difficulty nor merit in serving to-day. I
wish the same ardent devotion could be
put in every French soul. One does not
fight better, but with more love.

My love for the Motherland increased
the day I learned that the enemy had pro-
faned Lille with his presence. It horrifies
me to-day to think that the Prussians are
patrolling in the streets where I walked
when I was a child. They camp in the
Citadelle where I began my classes and won
my first military honours. Germans are
now sleeping in the barracks where I en-
joyed my wonderful youthful slumbers.
Will a rifle wake them up to-morrow?
What will the echoes of the Bois de la
Deule say— or those of the Bois de Bou-
logne? Let the booted Hessians strike
their heels on the hard pavements of Lille;
that land can never belong to them.

My watchman, the one who keeps his
eyes on the Bodies with an expression of
anger, does not think of so many things.
Yet he is brave and would make a good
patriot if he had only been taught how.
Some day I will go and sit with him in a

249

COMRADES IN COURAGE

corner of the trench and I will teach him
gently how to cherish France.

What models will I place before him ? I
will choose from among those whom the war
has already taken from us. The young
poet Gauthier Ferrieres died a few days ago
at the Dardanelles. Is it possible that the
image of a poet can influence this uncul-
tured man? Why not? It is a time for
war songs and for magnificent dreams. I
was greatly attached to Ferrieres,, who was
a delightful man and a fervent patriot.
On some things we thought and reasoned
differently, but as soon as it was a question
of France, we were agreed. He admired
all our great men with a very personal, a
very ardent, and a very jealous love. He
was at one time furiously angry with Jules
Lemaitre because he had criticized Cha-
teaubriand. He would not permit anyone
to speak of Racine except to glorify him.
He knew familiarly all the campaigns of the
Emperor and liked to talk about them. I
shall always remember the expression of his
face when, in my study, he would recite to
me the speeches of his hero. He spo"ke
with the same pride of the Roi Soleil
and knew the merits of the treaties of

250

THE MOTHERLAND

Westphalia as thoroughly as any of the
contemporary historians. Love gave to
this dreamer the foresight of a prophet as
soon as France was in question. Alas!
He was mistaken only in thinking that he
would be with us when we again entered
Alsace

Oui, quand s eteindront les fournaises,

Apres les glorieux combats.
C'est avec les couleurs francaises

Que nous retournerons la-bas.

Alors du Rhin jusqu' a la Meurthe

On pourra rire et rire encore*. . . , .

The bursting of a Turkish shell decreed
that this handsome son of France shall
never march on the road to Strassburg
and sing his joy in song. However, by
grace of Heaven, he died a hero, in an his-
toric land, on one of those Oriental shores
whose colours and antique glory always
enchanted his Muse.

*"When after glorious combats,
The fires are at last extinguished,

With the French colours flying
We will return to Alsace

"Then, from the Rhine to the Meurthe,
Smiles and laughter will reign"

251

COMRADES IN COURAGE

Let us fashion our souls after his. We
must be ourselves jealous lovers of the
Motherland, in order to instruct those
ignorant people who either have forgotten
the name of their country, or who render
their devotion only to high-sounding, hu-
manitarian words. We need not blush if our
passion is exclusively for her; we are in
good company. The enemy himself teaches
us that lesson.

To give material for our own meditations
and an object lesson for conversation with
the men, we have been handed the text of
a long letter found on a prisoner. I remem-
ber a striking passage from it. The Ger-
man was trying to prove to his correspon-
dent that his country, not being able to
do better, will at least arrive at an honour-
able peace — a white peace.

He goes on in substance:

On what do I found this conviction ? First of all,
on our patriotism, on our sense of discipline, on our
genius for organization and, above all, on the in-
capacity for organization of our adversaries.

Ah! If they could unite their resources with our
qualities of method and of initiative, we should
certainly be lost. I shiver at the thought of what
we would do in their place, of what would menace

252

THE MOTHERLAND

us if they knew how to utilize their power. Our
backs would be broken!

In order to break their backs, as he calls
it, it is only necessary to do certain things:
discipline our forces, but above all learn
to know our enemy. If we knew our
power we would not allow it to be wasted.

Let us terminate these pages by together
looking at our country with loving eyes:
it is a good pastime in the trenches.

It is five o'clock, my comrades are play-
ing bridge at the bottom of a cave, and I am
reading beside them. The line has been
calm this afternoon and there has been
neither bombardment nor shooting on
either side. Suddenly there comes a fusil-
lade which brings us out of our dugout.
The German bullets clip the parapet with a
wailing sound. Our rifles crackle in return.
What is going on? Some of the men lift
their heads and with a grimace look at the
sky. Up there an enemy airplane is flying
above our trenches. All eyes and weapons
are fixed on it. The watchmen opposite are
firing at our earthworks in order to divert
our attention and take our shots away from
their comrade. Much noise and stirring
about, all for a nasty bird of prey which

253

COMRADES IN COURAGE

one can scarcely distinguish in the sky and
whose buzz is so distant that it sounds like a
mosquito. Now the artillery begins to roar.

The shells ascend with a shrill whistle
and burst about the Taube in a number of
tiny white clouds like tampons of cotton
wool.

"Too short!"

"He can get past!"

"He won't get past!"

The German proceeds cautiously, the
centre of noise and shrapnel. An exciting
chase, but it is seldom that the object of
these menaces and imprecations is hit.
However, it is possible to bar his route with
more or less success and when he is turned
back a point is scored on our side.

These aerial dramas take place usually in
the early morning hours or just before our
evening meal. We have seen the Germans
waste more than two hundred shells in a
few minutes on some of our airplanes. 'Our
hearts beat fast when one of our daring pilots
goes straight for their lines and disappears
into the horizon. They storm at him with
their machine guns and heavy artillery and
we laugh with joy when we think of those
Frenchmen looking down at them and snap-

254

THE MOTHERLAND

ping their fingers while they empty their
munition box.

And it is an invention of ours, this
marvellous little thing at sight of which our
souls grow humble with admiration. It is
now nearly a year that we have been break-
ing our necks in trying to follow the course of
the same miracle through the air and yet we
have not grown weary. At first the enemy
airplanes provoked us. They seemed to
have usurped one of our own particular
glories in planing above our heads. We
know now that we are stilJ the masters of the
air. They have numerous and well-made
machines and a wonderful organization; as
they are always quick to adapt and perfect
the ideas of others. The genius remains
with us.

At Hebuterne a French pilot took part
in the attack on the enemy trenches. He
came down to within fifty yards of the
earth, spitting fire into the boyaux with his
machine gun, flew up and plunged once
more, sowing death among our enemy and
intoxicating our men with enthusiasm.
Patriotism has been lulled to sleep by the
words of the humanitarian philosophers.
That day I saw it suddenly flame in the eyes

255

COMRADES IN COURAGE

of the men just as the blood rises up under
the skin in moments of great emotion.
When, following one of these aerial battles,
our old soldiers, their muscles stiff but their
souls exalted, let their eyes fall to the sad
earth of the trenches, they regard each
other silently, but what a light glows from
behind their dusty lashes. It is the joy of
being French that shines in them; at that
instant it would be easy with a few well-
chosen words to move them to tears. They
go back to their shelters with their slow,
accustomed tread, but that night they
sleep with peace in their hearts and the kiss
of France upon their foreheads.

The Germans say they are masters in
the art of war. Yet they are, in reality, as
much our pupils in this domain as they are
in most others. Their chemists, whose
praises all are singing, have invented neither
the smokeless powder nor the melinite.
Those redoubtable rifles and high-velocity
projectiles which have revolutionized the
methods of fighting were possessed by us
before they were by them. Their Emperor
as he went to war said with pride:

" I shall be victorious because I have my
cannon."

256

THE MOTHERLAND

We also have ours, that wonderful 75
which has been the admiration of all the
soldiers of the world. This terrible weapon
can never be praised too much. The ene-
my's heavy artillery found us unprepared
at the beginning, but it was French fore-
sight, not French genius, which was then
at fault. It would be easy to point to the
victories of our great past in the same way
that the present Greeks content them-
selves with the ancient victories of Salamus
and Marathon. Thank goodness we have
more recent proofs of the strategic sound-
ness of French brains; the lieutenants of
William II found their master on the Marne
and on the Yser.

It is the same upon the sea, no matter
what one may think. If it be true that
the English, when they attack, massacre
the enemy and refuse him quarter, crying
"Lusitania! Lusitania!" I confess I find
no strength to blame them, for the Germans
are pirates. At one time the world had a
right to tremble before the prowess of the
German flotillas; we might fear that the
powerful fleets of England and her allies
would be forced to relinquish the mastery
of the seas to the small underwater boats.

257

COMRADES IN COURAGE

Experience has shown that in spite of the
sting of an insect which pricks here and
there and downs a few lions, the laws of
Nature do not change: the lion remains
king. Just the same we must admire those
wonderful instruments which French genius
has invented. If someone tells you to see
in them the evidence of German ingenuity,
then remember our Goubet, dying in pov-
erty after having invented the first sub-
marine, and our Gustave Zede, builder of
the first submersible.

"Then have we created for the benefit of
others?"

"Perhaps."

"And plucked the chestnuts out of the
fire?"

"Doubtless."

"It is a proof, one more proof, that we
are not well organized. Who denies it?"

But that also proves that we can love,
cherish, and venerate with pride and devo-
tion our Motherland as the most beautiful
sovereign. Let us love and serve her not
with words but with acts. We have talked
much during the last fifty years: the
reign of eloquence is over. A patient,
courageous, persevering effort will restore

258

THE MOTHERLAND

to us the place which we ought to occupy
at the head of the nations. Babblers,
dreamers — let us rather call them by their
true name, traitors to their country — had
promised to the people a lazy existence,
free from suffering, disappointment, and
conflicts. It is important for France to
understand at this time when all her sons
are facing death, once and for all, the
treachery of these promises. This nation
is now strong and wise enough to listen to
the truth.

Let us teach our children to taste the
life-giving flavour of accomplished duty.
Let us savour it ourselves. Let us under-
stand that peace will not be eternal. It is
possible that the various peoples of the
universe will extend to us their friendship
after the victory. Let us hope for it with-
out discounting it. It is not enough to be
loved for the arts in which we excel and
praised for our good name and the bravery
of our armies. When the larger task
is accomplished let us not hesitate before
the more humble, but equally beautiful,
effort of hard and monotonous daily labour.
French intelligence and French strength have
once more found proof of their existence

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COMRADES IN COURAGE

and of their worth. It had been denied
that we still remained what we once were.
We now know, in company with the entire
world, that the blood of our fathers, the
kings of Europe and of the world by
virtue of their manly qualities and genius,
still runs in our veins. We must not
content our pride with this alone, but let us
resolve to demonstrate the same valiantness
in peace as we have shown in war. On
that condition alone will we give back to
France and to ourselves that liberty so
madly invoked in the last century and yet
always betrayed.

Thus French glory can illuminate the
world if we only wish it. We must entertain
this thought in our hearts and proclaim it
all about us. It is our only true comfort at
such a time as this and, if we wish to avoid
falling back into our former errors after the
war, it must be our chief reliance.

Why are we righting? Solely to retain
mastery of our own genius, to draw from
it noble joys and just profits when we have
once more become wise.

December, 1914 — August, 1915

THE END

THE COtFNTBT LIFE FRE8S
GARDEN CITT, N. T.

!••••••••••

000130090 4

STRATFORD 8. GREEN