Henry Bordeaux

“ The beauty of Verdun is more grim and austere. It is a struggle of patience and sacrifice, one in which the watchword is “Hold and keep.” The question here is not merely one of barring the road to a foe who may pierce our line, but also of pinning him down to the spot while the Allies draw up and carry out their plan of a general offensive. That is why the resistance of Fort Vaux serves a higher purpose than the defence of a mere scrap of territory. It is bound up with a victory, it forms part of a victory, if victory be measured by the thwarting of the enemy’s will and design. ”

“ The Germans are at Douaumont.
Vaux no longer dreams of talking lightly about the misfortunes of an old comrade. For years they had mounted guard together before Verdun. They lived the same life, a life that was rather sad and lonely. They saw each other at a distance, they signalled to each other. One relied on the other in battle as on a trench-mate. If one is dying, the other is in danger. And from the observing-station which is still intact the fort inspects the slopes of Hardaumont and La Caillette, the treacherous ravines and the bare plain of the Woevre. ”

“ Death does nothing more than open the fingers of Time, who bears in his hand our days that are to come. And our days, as they fall, trickle noiselessly like drops of water.
A dangerous detachment this, a lethargic calm against which we must be on our guard. Death should merely annihilate our will to live, not weaken it beforehand. This lesson was unconsciously taught us by one of our comrades, Captain D——, who was twice wounded and twice went back to the front, as he told us one evening at Verdun the story of his second wound. ”

“ The soldier who acts as our guide marches at a good rate. He gives the signal to stop when a shell falls too close to us, or when the cadence of the explosions points to a systematic curtain fire. He does not pick out the places for halting, and makes us come to a standstill suddenly with corpses under our very noses, lucky indeed if our faces are not splashed with fragments of flesh crushed once more by that ghastly pestle. ”

“ He is in command of the most exposed, the most frequently attacked, the most difficult sector of the whole front of the army which covers Verdun, and, at this moment, of the entire front of the French Army. It touches Fort Douaumont and guards Fort Vaux. He lives heart and soul with his men, who are down there in the whirlwind of steel, holding out against all odds. He shares the burden of their hardships and their exertions. He is consumed with anxiety to know. The desire to conquer is fretting his body. ”

“ The names of dead and wounded are mentioned, but there is no sadness, no lingering over them: it is a matter of Fate, who chooses those whom it pleases her to strike. The praises of the stretcher-bearers are sung: guided by cries or by instinct, they bring in the wounded, even that blind man who, erect between the lines, walked with his hands in front of him, without knowing where, haggard and howling. As for the dead, burying them was out of the question. Gratitude is expressed towards the cooks, who roll about their field-kitchens under shell-fire and carry rations to the troops. ”

“ Prepared to go upon the most perilous errands, they form a mobile guard round their chief; they are the projecting rays of his brain, which, through them, directs men’s wills from afar and draws up or corrects the plans of an operation. Those who have fallen there, or at any rate some of them, seem to have assumed in death the attitude of those antique youths who handed on to each other the sacred torch in the race. Is it the moon that helps me to see these broken statues? Shall I once more find such marble visions by daylight? The crude light of day does not do justice to the beauty of death. ”

“ For the moment they content themselves with saying that Verdun beats everything—the Argonne, Artois, Champagne, Ailly Wood, Le Prêtre Wood. These comparisons by men who know give a correct order of merit. They find no satisfaction in raking up what is past and done with, except to say that the Boches will not break through, in spite of their confounded heavy artillery. They revel in the joy of living quietly and without danger. They are almost inclined to pinch themselves so as to make sure that they are still alive. ”

“ The stretcher-bearers took advantage of the destruction of the enemy machine-guns installed on the fort, and were thus able to carry corpses away in the western ditch and to cleanse the infirmary of all its filth. From the ensuing night onwards this task was beyond their powers. The dead had to remain with the living. An unspeakable horror stalked through these dim vaults, where, in a thick, pestilent atmosphere, a sleepless, nerve-racked, thirst-maddened garrison, crowded into a narrow space, refused to abandon the struggle. ”

“ Darker than the night are the columns of smoke that rise from the shell-bursts. From the observing-station one of the guard signals movements at the foot of the slopes. No one sleeps, except a few wounded whose strength has completely failed them. Major Raynal, leaning on his stick, takes a turn round the corridors. He does not speak much, he is preoccupied, but his energetic air is reassuring. ”

“ It is there, towards the village, over against those hillsides, over against Damloup, that the enemy’s onslaught was shattered. And the fort, on its plateau, with its superstructure half crushed, with breaches in its double wall, seems like the formidable hulk of an ironclad which still floats upon the waters, not yet abandoned by its crew. ”

“ The fort retires within itself to face all the suffering piled on suffering: the barrages, the bombs, the flames and the gas and the suffocation, the horror of unspeakable sights and smells, and, above all, thirst, the thirst that makes men howl like wolves, and lacerates their tongues and their lips. ”

“ One does not come here to cut oneself off from one’s fellows and to dream. Nothing is done here save under the mantle of death.
But with the War, death has lost much of its importance. We have grown familiar with it. Under the form in which it appears as a rule, not glorious, not choosing its victims in the full glow of their martial ardour, but crafty and terrible, in the shape of a mass of iron hurled from some miles off, it inspires a deep disgust, it is true, but we submit to it as we submit to an old servant who rules the household. ”

“ It awakens the plains of the Woevre, lighting up the rivulets and pools. Here is Vaux village on the right, and Damloup village on the left. Farther on, that large cluster of ruined houses must be Étain. In the rising sun they form a white lace*-work of stone, recalling the cities of the East. And yonder are the frowning hillsides of Hardaumont. Douaumont towers above, Douaumont still swathed in darkness, like an evil spirit.
More efficiently than the enemy, the sunshine climbs the slopes of the fort. It is light and airy, like a bearer of good tidings. ”

“ The nearest source of water is in the Fontaines ravine, and that ravine is constantly peppered with shot. Yet men risk their skins to go and get a drink. Water creates such pitiful mirages. In the shapeless furrows which serve them as shelters, the troops, with parched lips, wait for water with feverish impatience; they are reduced sometimes to drinking the tainted water that stagnates in the shell-holes, and to other strange expedients. Who will ever tell of all the horrors endured for Verdun and for that France which is behind Verdun? ”

“ THE ENEMY’S EVIDENCE I have spoken, without hiding anything, of the hard life led by our soldiers in the region of Vaux, the terrific assaults and the appalling bombardment that they had to endure, the difficulty of obtaining rations and reliefs, the lack of shelter, the lack of water, the lack of sleep. But in war it is not enough to suffer, to resist, to hold out. One must strike the enemy and drive him back. The task of the army of Verdun is to wear out the German Army before Verdun. Does our artillery fire work serious havoc in his ranks? ”

“ Like the signals, it flashes to the end of the country, to the end of the world. In sober truth, the whole earth awaits with intense eagerness the upshot of the drama of Vaux. And it is the miracle of the defence, and that alone, that has aroused this great thrill of admiration and anxiety.
Yet the fort is not forsaken. The whole army is concerned with working its salvation. Without delay, a new offensive is planned. A regiment of Zouaves and a regiment of colonial infantry, formed into a composite brigade, are brought up into the neighbourhood. ”

“ The only means of transport here is the human back. Poor little men, whose heart is still the greatest of all military forces! “It is a scientific war,” people have declared. “Victory lies with munitions. It is the munitions that crush and destroy everything.” Well, when the artillery thinks to have destroyed everything, the human will still offers a wall of flesh as a resistance: men have endured38 everything—fire, hunger, cold, and thirst—and still they rise out of the shattered soil. No war will be found to have given such examples of the superiority of man to the machine. ”

“ Further letters would give us no more information as to the state of the German soldier before Fort Vaux. We could find enough and to spare of complaints about economic difficulties. That the German soldier who is fighting at Verdun should know so much of the material insecurity of those whom he has left behind him is a righteous punishment for the terrible scourge let loose by a whole nation drunk with the sense of power—the nation which sneered when Paris starved in 1870 and which has set out to organize a war of frightfulness. The fires of its hell burn hotter and hotter. ”

“ To defend oneself against them is a sign of war mania; to prevent them from robbing is to be oneself a robber.”
The German historians of a later day will find matter for indignation in the breakwater at Verdun, against which so many waves of their soldiery have dashed themselves in vain. Let us hope at least that our own historians, in recounting the superhuman efforts put forth in a carefully planned resistance—destined, by the way, to be changed into an offensive in the course of the Verdun battle—will enhance among future generations their pride in being sons of France. ”

“ The struggle at the barricades began again, with grenades and flame-jets. Water was now distributed only drop by drop. The wounded implored their comrades to put them out of their misery. Quicklime had to be thrown upon the dead, who could not be carried away. The hardships were more severe than ever, but a gleam of hope had appeared. The fort was no longer isolated: the two signallers who went off the previous evening had succeeded in their task. When the fort spoke, it was heard, and the reply came: “Courage! we shall soon attack.” The defenders are not forgotten. ”

“ Will this wreck of a fort have any heart left after the three days it has just lived through? Not for a single moment has the storm ceased to shake the plateau. To the left, it wreaks its fury upon the entrenchment R1, which has the audacity to resist; to the right, upon the Damloup battery, which holds the promontory and sweeps La Horgne bottom and the outlet from the village, and upon the immediate approaches, which are defended to the west by La Courtine and to the right by the Belfort and Montbéliard trenches. ”

“ On the fort the assault is delivered in successive waves, not in a cordon but in small columns, now directly in front of the parapets, now slantwise on our left, between the cemetery and the fort, where he finds a battalion of the 408th. In the barbed wire there are gaps that our men have been unable to repair, dating from previous bombardments. No doubt the enemy, from photographs by his airmen, imagines them to be more important than they really are. He is faced by our machine-guns and rifles along the whole line. ”

“ We now go down into a ravine by a path that winds like a mountain track. The gradient is steep, and it is best to go quickly; the enemy have obtained the range of the place, and it is shelled without respite. A corpse is there, and has to be strode over. Lower down, in front of headquarters, there is another that seems to sleep under its helmet. A pious hand has put the helmet back over the mangled face. ”

“ On the parapet, with straining eyes, our rifles in our hands, dumb with horror, we witness a mysterious duel, in which we hear the din without seeing the actors. Green rockets flare up from our trenches. ‘Lengthen the range!’ is the cry, while a Boche machine-gun emits its crisp, abrupt note. ”