II
THE STRANGLEHOLD TIGHTENS IN
THE WEST
(June 1)
From May 31 the bombardment of our first lines of La Caillette and of the Le Bazil ravine, the Vaux-Chapître Wood, the fort and the whole district of Vaux, Damloup, and La Laufée, outdoes the usual battering to such an extent that one expects an offensive. At what point will it be aimed? At the whole front or at a small section? Faithful to his old tactics of advancing one shoulder and then another, the enemy attacks only the west of the fort. He will confine his objective to the Hardaumont salient, which we still hold, the border of La Caillette Wood, the Le Bazil ravine where the railway passes, the pool and the dyke, and finally the Fumin Wood, a part of the Vaux-Chapître Wood lying to the east of Les Fontaines. If he reaches Fumin Wood, he will easily carry the series of entrenchments R³, R², and R¹, which defend the slopes above the pool of Vaux up to a point near the fort. If he gains the entrenchments, the fort will be outflanked and will fall in its turn. Perhaps a single day will suffice for him to achieve that turning movement which will win him the famous “armoured fort” whose pretended capture had sent a thrill of pride through Germany on March 9. In three months this ill-starred fort has been reduced to powder. No matter: it bears a sonorous name, and there should be no difficulty in taking it; what troops would ensconce themselves in such a shelter? In order to settle the matter once for all, the enemy launches the 1st Division (minus the 3rd Grenadiers) between La Caillette Wood and the fort, the 50th Division between the fort and the Damloup, and between the fort and Damloup a division comprising the 3rd Grenadiers of the 1st Division and the 126th and 105th Regiments of the 15th Corps. The vast number of effectives employed—destined even to be reinforced on June 5 by the 2nd Brigade of the Alpine Corps—shows the value that he attaches to this already sore-stricken prey.
Our defence outside the fort is disposed as follows: at the Hardaumont salient (La Caillette Wood) a battalion of the 24th Regiment; from the dyke to the entrenchment R¹ the 1st Battalion (under Major Fralon) of the 101st Regiment (one company at the dyke, one, the 3rd, under Lieutenant Gontal, at R³ and R², a platoon at each redoubt); from R¹ to the west of the fort the 8th Company, under Captain Delvert, at R¹ the 7th in a defensive hook-shaped arrangement in front and to the left of the fort.
The chain is carried on by the 142nd Regiment (under Colonel Tahon), who provided the fort with its garrison, and who occupies, in front and to the east, the trench of Belfort with his 2nd Battalion (under Major Chevassu); the 7th and 8th Companies in the Belfort trench, the two others acting as a support to the south-east. The 1st Battalion (under Major Mouly) occupies the village of Damloup with three companies, the 4th holding in the rear the battery of Damloup and the trenches of Saales which, from the battery, rejoins the village. Finally, farther to the east the 3rd Battalion, under Major Bouin, is put in charge of the Dicourt sector and the La Laufée earthwork. The defence will be completed by relief drafts or reinforcements.
On June 1, at eight o’clock, the enemy, after a strenuous artillery preparation, attacks that Hardaumont salient which we still hold to the north of the Le Bazil ravine, where the railway and the road from Fleury to Vaux pass by. At the redoubt R¹, where the ground slopes down from the plateau on which Fort Vaux stands, Captain Delvert is in the front row of the stalls to watch the performance going on before him on the other side of the ravine. He sees the German infantrymen come out like ants from an anthill that some foot has kicked. Here they are making their way down towards our trench in the salient. They leap into it. The white smoke that emerges shows that a hand-grenade duel is in progress. Farther up, swarms of light-blue greatcoats try to scramble up the slopes of La Caillette Wood, already bathed in sunshine; they fall back in disorder towards La Fausse-Côte and descend once more in the direction of the pool. The shells burst in their midst, but scarcely a man is hit. Then the Germans, in single file, creep alongside the railway! There can be no doubt on the point; the salient is lost and they hold the ravine.
They continue to defile up to the embankment slope of the railway. In ever-increasing numbers they arrive at the dyke, and cross it. Now they are approaching Fumin Wood and the entrenchments. These entrenchments are little more than shell-holes joined together, except R¹, which still retains a fortified aspect with its walls in reinforced cement and its lofty embankment. At noon, the assault is aimed at R² and R³; their resistance at last stops the enemy, whose on-coming masses are mown down by machine-guns and rifles. Every “grey ghost that crawls along the slopes of Fumin” is at once registered and fired at. For all that, the enemy has come very close; we have been able to capture from him, on the spot, a lieutenant, a cadet, and four soldiers of the 41st Infantry Regiment.
He will not halt when so near the goal, in spite of this sanguinary set-back. A battalion takes the place of the one that has been cut down. At two o’clock in the afternoon comes a fresh onset, which becomes a long-drawn-out contest, swaying backwards and forwards. The struggle is a fierce one in the communication passages and half-filled trenches, an affair of bombs, of bayonets, of hand-to-hand fighting. At three o’clock, however, the two entrenchments are lost. Not a man has come back to tell what has happened at the dyke. As to what took place at R² and R³, occupied by the two platoons, a postcard from their commander, Lieutenant Gontal, written from a prisoners’ camp to Colonel Lanusse, commanding the 101st Regiment, brought the news a month later.
I met Colonel Lanusse when he had just arrived at a rest billet, in a pleasant little village amid the wild dales of the Argonne. He had had a spell in the trenches; he had left off his jersey on account of the heat, and was tuning a piano which he had discovered at the house of one of the villagers. Such a stroke of luck is rare for a music-lover. A flute and a violin, placed on the table, and also the score of a classical trio, were awaiting the performers.
“You see,” he said to me, “musica me juvat.”
“Or delectat,” I countered, in pious recollection of my Latin grammar.
With the same simplicity he drew me a picture of the terrible week in which his regiment distinguished itself. Lieutenant Gontal’s card cheered him like a march tune, but did not surprise him in the least. He was sure that things must have turned out in this way. And whenever he laid stress on the part played by any one of his officers, he hastened to do justice to the others. With the exception of himself, he gave some account of the whole cadre. Here, then, is the testimony of Lieutenant Gontal, which, in a few laconic words, sums up the defence of R² and R³:
“Wounded on June 1. Was picked up by the Germans and brought here. We carried out to the letter the order given: not to draw back an inch on any pretext. Thus it was that we were cut off, outflanked on all sides, and overwhelmed by weight of numbers. I was one of the last to fall, hit right in the stomach by a bullet fired at ten yards’ distance. Lieutenant Huret had his right arm fractured. Second Lieutenant Pasquier was wounded. Sergeant-Major Farjon had his right hand crushed and his left thigh pierced by a bullet. Cadet Tocabens had five shell splinters in his body. Sergeant Lecocq was killed by a bullet in his forehead. The rest of the company suffered losses in proportion. This summary will tell you more than any lengthy comment of the way in which we understood our duty and satisfied the claims of honour.
“I would draw special attention to the bravery shown by Lieutenant Huret, Cadet Tocabens, and above all, Sergeant-Major Farjon, who richly deserves the Military Medal.”
After each onset there is the same moving refrain, the same list of officers and N.C.O.’s dead or wounded.
The first postcard written by Lieutenant Gontal on June 5 from the hospital is addressed to his Colonel. The second is for his wife at Toulouse. “After fighting near Verdun for twenty days,” he tells her, “I was wounded by a bullet in the stomach. I was picked up on the battlefield by Germans and taken prisoner. The doctor thinks he will pull me through. Cheer up! I fell as a soldier should; honour is not lost. But I was broken-hearted, for henceforth the War Cross is out of the question.”
A month later, on July 13, he gives fuller details, but the same idea haunts him. “The brave fellows,” he says of his company, “nearly all got killed or wounded on the spot, and not one officer came out of the battle unscathed.” Then he adds: “How is it that my wound was not mortal? Once more Providence has intervened. Well, it will be the proudest boast of my life not to have yielded one inch of ground and to have fallen at the post that my country had entrusted to me. All this, you know, makes me forget my pain and throws a halo round the memory of all the gallant lads of my company who were killed there.”
Finally, in August, he seems to have recovered from his wound and to be quite hopeful again. He asks his people in a graceful bit of writing for some ten-centime cigars—“those good cigars of our sweet France, from which there rises, subtle and sly, the blue smoke that is like a corner of heaven mirrored in our lovely clear waters, the smoke in which you can see our hills, our great forests, our dear land with its twenty centuries of glory, honour, and faith—in short, that France for which I and so many others have so gladly given up the best part of our lives.” To make his exile bearable, he will no doubt write verses. Is it not fitting to quote these letters from a prisoner before reverting to that day of June 1?
In the course of this great day, the scouts, who had almost all volunteered, ensured the connections with unflagging devotion. One of them arrived at the Commander’s headquarters in Fumin Wood, crossing—by what a marvellous stroke of luck!—a very heavy curtain fire.
“You might have waited a few moments,” says the Colonel to him in a fatherly tone.
The man points to the envelope.
“Yes, sir, but he has written ‘urgent.’”
Two others are sent from the regiment to brigade headquarters. On the way, one of them is killed by a 105, and the despatch that he was carrying is lost. His comrade goes back to the Colonel’s headquarters, asks for a copy of the despatch, and starts off again to carry out his mission.
The Germans, now in possession of the two entrenchments, make an advance in Fumin Wood. The task that lies before them is to storm R¹, the redoubt nearest the fort, and then they will approach the fort by the west and even the south. Our surprise and their daring will perhaps enable them to take it without striking a blow.
Nevertheless the Colonel of the 101st makes his arrangements for the battle in the manner of an eminent orchestra conductor. He stations his reserves as a barrier in the wood, seeks and finds his connections in the Fontaines ravine, and has the ground dug into in order to gain a better grip on it. All the ensuing night he will make his men work without a break, profiting by the uncertainty as to the time that paralyses the enemy’s artillery, in order to find cover and to organize his front between R¹ and the ravine.
The redoubt R¹ is besieged from the evening of June 1. Two machine-guns, sweeping the hillsides, damp the enemy’s ardour: in front of their range of fire, one sees clumps of grey bodies stretched out on the ground. In our trenches the scene is already a tragic one: “Everywhere the stones have been splashed with red drops. In places, great pools of violet-coloured, viscous blood have been formed, and cease to spread. Half-way along the communication trench, in the bright sunshine, corpses are lying, stiff and stark under their blood-stained canvas. Everywhere there are piles of débris of all kinds: empty tins of canned food, disembowelled knapsacks, helmets riddled with holes, rifles shattered and splashed with blood. In the midst of these ghastly heaps a white shirt flutters, hideous with red clots. An intolerable stench poisons the air. To crown it all, the Boches send us some tear-shells, which make the air impossible to breathe. And the heavy hammer-blows of the shells never cease from echoing all around us.”
This is the picture of that June evening drawn by Captain Delvert, who is in command of the defence of R¹. R¹ will hold out until the 8th, and will not be taken until the night of June 8–9. Just as an artist makes a rough cast before carving the statue in marble, so the defence of the redoubt is a sketch, in miniature, of the defence of the fort. As regards this episode of the fort, it is best not to interrupt the story, but to follow it to the end, looking ahead for a while. In any case, R¹ fights a lonely battle, unconscious of what is going on at its right or its left, not knowing whether the fort is alive or dead, imagining that it is still guarding one of the fort’s flanks, when the enemy has already succeeded in passing between the entrenchment and the counterscarp. He who led the resistance has a peculiar right to act as its historian. Here, then, is a portion of Captain Delvert’s admirable notes, from June 2 up to the evening of the 5th, when he was relieved:
Captain Delvert’s Diary, June 2–5
“Friday, June 2.—A night of agony, broken by continual alarms. Yesterday we were not replenished. Thirst is what troubles us more than anything. Biscuits are being looked for.... A shell has just made my pen slip. It fell not very far off. It landed in headquarters by the door, and pulverized my quartermaster-sergeant, poor little C——. Everything suffered from the concussion. I was covered with earth, but was quite unhurt—not a scratch!
* * * * *“8 o’clock P.M.—The Boches opposite us are emerging from their trench. Here, every one is at the loophole. I have had grenades handed out to the whole company, for at the distance where we are the rifle is useless.
“Here they come!
“‘Forward, boys! Stick to it!’
“S—— cuts the wire and we fling our bombs.
“The Boches reply to us with rifle-grenades, but their range is too long. Those who came out of the trench, taken aback by our reception of them, turn tail and make with all speed for Sarajevo—except those who here and there, sometimes in groups, are left stretched out upon the plain.
“From Sarajevo (the Sarajevo trench, occupied by the enemy, is scarcely 50 or 60 yards from the redoubt) shadows can be seen flitting out hastily and betaking themselves to the rear: doubtless this is the second wave that is ebbing back.
“‘To your rifles, lads! We must follow them up!’
“Ch—— sends up a red rocket. If we could use 75’s now, the conditions would be ideal.
“All of a sudden there is a spurt of flame behind us, with torrents of black and white smoke. It is as though fiery fountains were playing. There can be no doubt about it! They have forced a passage on the right and are directing a liquid fire attack at us.
“But now, from the conflagration, red and green flames are rising. What can it be? Ah, it’s my store of rockets that is ablaze. At such a moment! Luckily the Boches have been well looked after. Some poor devils rush down on the right, with loud shrieks. A few of the men near me take alarm and leave the loophole.
“‘Back to your places! Good heavens, what do you think you are doing? And you, you pack of fools, bolting away because a couple of rockets catch fire!’
“In less than two minutes order is restored.
“The flames rise and bubble incessantly, in the blackness of the night, amid the shower of shells. Every moment a fresh rocket gushes out into flame.
“The blaze reaches headquarters, and two tongues of fire soon dart out from there. First of all we must save the grenades, which are quite close to us. A sack of cartridges has been caught in the furnace, for we can hear the crackling. The worst of it is that the walls are made of sandbags and also help to feed the flames. Then there are the shells, and the bullets that never stop whistling.
“At last! All the cases of grenades have been cleared away. Shovelfuls of earth are thrown on to the fire, which is now beginning to grow less violent.
“Fortunately, our bombs have had a sobering effect upon the Boches.
“True, we must go and look for more grenades if we wish to hold out against a fresh onset. Nearly twenty cases of them have been emptied.
“10 o’clock P.M.—A man comes from the Colonel’s headquarters with five water-bottles—one of them empty—for the whole company. The bottles hold four pints each. This makes not quite eighteen pints for 60 corporals and privates, 8 sergeants and 3 officers.
“The sergeant-major, in my presence, distributes this water with scrupulous fairness. It has a taint of corpses.
“Saturday, June 3.—I have not slept for nearly sixty-two hours.
“2.30 P.M.—The Boches are making a fresh onslaught.
“‘Keep cool, my lads! Let them get well out! We have to husband our ammunition. At twenty-five paces! Let them have it hot and strong when I give the word of command!
“‘Jump to it!’
“Crack! go the rifles, all together. A smart piece of work. Well done! Black smoke rises. We see batches of Boches spin round and fall. One or two get up on their knees and manage to crawl away. Another lets himself roll down into the trench, so great is his haste. Some, however, advance towards us, while their comrades who remain in the trench riddle us with bullets.
“One of them even comes right up to the wire entanglement, three yards from the parapet. D—— lays him out with a bomb flung fair and square at his head.
“At three-thirty they have had enough, and withdraw into their lair. The sun is shining brightly. A song rises to my lips.
“‘You are in good spirits, sir!’
“‘Obviously. After all, when the die is cast——’
“At six o’clock the German stretcher-bearers come out to pick up their wounded. I forbid my men to fire upon them.
* * * * *“The Germans pass the dyke without a stop. They occupy R¹. We are hard pressed on all sides. The situation is highly critical. The horror of it grips our very heart-strings.
* * * * *“This evening, the Boches clear the way with heavy artillery fire. We shall certainly have to face a fresh attack.
“I order my men to reconstruct the machine-gun emplacement, which has been destroyed during the day, and to take up a position with the one of the two guns which they have succeeded in repairing.
“For drinking-water, as it is raining, the men have put their mugs outside, and have laid down canvas.
“At 8.30 P.M. the gentlemen over the way emerge from Sarajevo.
“The poilus rejoice at this. At 15 yards they send them such a violent barrage of bombs, supported by machine-guns, that the Germans are not inclined to press the point. The attack is brought to a dead stop.
“At 10 P.M. an officer appears in my quarters.
“This is to announce reinforcements, some details of the 124th and 298th Regiments which have come to help in the defence. The sorely-tried little garrison of R¹ is already greatly thinned in numbers.
“The shells begin to fall again.
“It is impossible to light a candle in the C.O.’s headquarters. If the least bit of light is seen from outside, the Jack Johnsons land on the spot.
“In order to make out my report for the past twenty-four hours, I have to crouch down in a corner, under a blanket, and write on the ground.
“As for taking a moment’s rest, that is not to be thought of. The bombardment does not break off for a single minute, and, what is more, we are so much pestered with fleas that we scratch ourselves as if we had the itch.
“Sunday, June 4.—‘They’re not up to taking R¹, those Boches,’ cries one of my poilus to me as he passes.
“I was at the redoubt, organizing the connections with my left.
“‘Well, about twenty-four hours ago you had a pretty gruelling time of it here,’ remarks X—— to me.
“‘Yes, you saw those grenades being handed out.’
“At the same moment comes a significant crackle. A duel of grenades is in progress.
“I hastily scramble up the narrow path which leads me into the trench and reach my post in the fray.
“The weather is superb. The bombs are roaring on all sides. A grenade duel is a fine sight: the bomb-thrower, firmly ensconced behind the parapet, hurls his bomb with the graceful swing of an athlete.
“S——, crouching down near the grenade cases, calmly cuts the wires and passes them to us without a word. A dense black smoke rises heavenwards, in front of the trench.
“At four o’clock all is over, but for a few rifle-volleys. These are like the final sobs of a long spell of weeping.
“The sunshine is glorious, and makes one realize all the more keenly the utter desolation of this ravine.
“Some wounded come down, streaming with blood.
“The dead are brought in, among others poor D——, who rose up in the trench in order to smite down a Boche officer, and had his skull pierced.
“At the end of the trench occupied by bomb-throwers of the 5th, and ten men of the 124th, two Boches entered and were blown to atoms.
“A prisoner comes down. His face is beardless, his eyes are sunken. He lifts his bleeding hands and shouts ‘Kamerad!’ Our fellows take hold of him and hurry him off to the dressing-station. I go to visit that dressing-station. It is a gloomy place. In a dark room, with only one candle for a light, the patients are laid out, and one hears a constant groaning. They recognize me and call out to me. One of them has been asking for me long before I came in; he wants me to give him news of his brother. Another requests me to write to his parents.
“Poor Corporal O——, whose face already has death written all over it, bids me a farewell that draws tears from my eyes. All are in dreadful agony, for they are parched with fever and haven’t a drop of water to drink.
“In the curtain of the fort, another German prisoner, one of the 1916 class: a savage-looking brute. Next to him is an N.C.O., short, spare, light-haired, aged about twenty-four, clearly a man of good breeding; he is an architect from the outskirts of Cologne.
* * * * *“6 o’clock P.M.—The bombardment opens again.
“A stretcher-bearer, gasping for breath, comes to lean for a few moments against the wall of my headquarters. His plucky, honest, good-natured face is now worn and hollow; his eyes, with blue circles round them, seem to start out of his head.
“‘Sorry, sir, but I am simply done up. There are only three of us stretcher-bearers left; the others have been killed or wounded. For three days I haven’t had a bite of food or drunk a drop of water.’
“One feels that his frail body only lasts out through a miracle of energy and will-power. They are always talking of heroes nowadays; here is a hero, a more genuine one than many who are so acclaimed.
“The appalling cannonade goes on all the time.
“There are no green rockets.
“D——, R——, and I, under a low shed built of planks covered over with a few sandbags, wait for the shell which will blow us to pieces. We all look glum. The horror of the situation is clutching at our very vitals.
“8 P.M.—We are relieved!
* * * * *“11 P.M.—A note from the colonel: In view of circumstances which have arisen, the 101st cannot be relieved.
“What a disappointment for my poor lads!
“Lieutenant X—— is astounded at them, and with good reason. But I have only thirty-nine left!
“Monday, June 5.—I should like to take a rest, but the fleas seem to have an objection.
“Since the relief has been countermanded, the company won’t have any water to-day. As soon as I received the order I sent out a fatigue party for water. It did not come back. It must have been overtaken by daylight. Probably it is held up at Tavannes or in the tunnel.
“Luckily it is raining. The men go to spread out canvas so as to catch the water.
“One’s throat is parched with a terrible thirst. I am hungry. To eat bully beef with biscuit will make my thirst still worse.
“‘Coffee, sir!’
“H—— is in front of me, with a smoking mess-tin in his hands. Yes, it really is coffee! I can hardly believe my eyes.
“‘I found some coffee tablets, sir, so I said to myself, “This is where I come in! I’ll make coffee.” Would you care to accept the first mug, sir?’
“What good fellows they are! I am so deeply moved that I don’t know what to say.
“‘But what about you, old chap? And your mates?’
“‘We have some for ourselves.’
“‘Well, I can’t accept a whole mug! Just a mouthful, that’s all.’
“‘No, no, sir; it’s for you. Come on, V——, pass along some mugs; I shall need the mess-tin.’
“I give in without further resistance. I carefully put the mug aside. It will enable me to eat a biscuit.
“What good fellows! What good fellows!
“5 P.M.—The order for the relief has come. If only it isn’t countermanded!
“We shall leave our dead in the trenches as a souvenir. Their comrades have piously laid them out of the way. I recognize them. Here is C——, with his velvet breeches; A——, poor youngster, of the 1916 class; and D——, stretching out his waxen hand, the hand that once flung bombs so valiantly; and P——, and G——, and L——, and so many others!
“Alas! how many ghastly sentinels we leave behind! There they are, lying in a row on the breastwork, stiff and stark in their blood-stained, blood-dripping canvas,—grim and solemn guards of this nook of French soil where it seems that, even in death, they would fain bar the way to the enemy.
“9 o’clock P.M.—The relief.”
The uninterrupted bombardment, the fire in the neighbourhood of the grenade store, the daily onslaughts, the lack of provisions, the lack of water, the lack of sleep, the smell of the corpses and the asphyxiating shells, the mind preyed upon by the sense of death as the body is preyed upon by vermin,—these men have endured all. And because the sun is shining, the captain finds a song rising to his lips.
“You are in good spirits, sir.”
“Obviously. After all, when the die is cast——”
The whole attitude of our soldiers is summed up in that phrase. A private as he passes exclaims with a laugh:
“They’re not up to taking R¹, those Boches.”
Yes, the whole attitude is summed up in this: to stick to one’s post and to think nothing of self.
The 6th Company of the 101st is relieved on June 5, in the evening, by a company of the 298th, which will hold out for three days longer, under more and more critical conditions, but will be outflanked in the night of June 8–9. The enemy has managed to make progress on the right. The fall of the fort, in the early morning of June 7, has given him a tactical point.
R¹, however, throughout the whole siege of the fort, from June 2 to 7, has floated, like a fishing-boat that has mastered the waves, in the wake of the great vessel.