II
THE FINAL EFFORT
“The mountains are lofty, dark, and huge, the valleys deep, the torrents swift. Behind and in front of the army, the trumpets ring, and all seem to answer the horn. The Emperor rides in anger, and the French, wrathful and gloomy, ride with him. There is not one who does not weep and wail, not one who does not pray to God to guard Roland until they arrive together at the battlefield and smite valiantly in his company. But what good is it? All this is useless: they have tarried too long to arrive in time.”
Charlemagne’s trumpets will not have power to wake Roland at Roncevaux.
On June 7, the fort no longer answers the appeals by visual signalling. The German communiqué has announced its capture; but had they not already announced it on March 9? The high command will not surrender except to evidence. It needs certainty before it will give up the idea of delivering the garrison. True, the mangled fort is merely a point in the front, and has no longer any value in itself. But perhaps it still shelters Frenchmen under its unyielding vaults.
On the 7th, General Nivelle, commanding the Second Army, addresses the following order to the contingent entrusted with the operations in the Vaux area:
“The composite brigade placed at the disposal of Colonel Savy, consisting of the 2nd Regiment of Zouaves and the colonial regiment of Morocco, has been entrusted with the noblest mission that a French force can wish for, that of going to the aid of its comrades-in-arms, who are valiantly doing their duty under tragic circumstances.
“Chosen out from the heroic army of Verdun among those most worthy of so glorious an enterprise, the 2nd Regiment of Zouaves and the colonial regiment of Morocco, supported by a powerful artillery, inspired by the unconquerable will to pursue their task to the end, will approach the enemy with their usual magnificent dash, and will add fresh laurels to those that already cover their flag.
“The nation will know how to show them its gratitude.
“Good luck, comrades, and long live France!
“R. Nivelle.”
The day of June 7 is devoted to the final preparations. The battalions possess bombs, rockets, Bengal fire signals, as well as a second water-bottle of four pints per man. The distribution of cartridges is completed. Each man must carry provisions for four days, for one cannot reckon on the possibility of revictualling. Finally, the orders are read out to each company, so that no man may fail to be alive to the importance of the task in hand: their comrades are waiting for them to come to their rescue.
The approach march is made under the worst possible conditions; it is raining, the ground is soaked, and the night is pitch dark, so that the guides go astray and the entry of the three companies into line is delayed. The attack is to be launched at ten past 4 A.M. One hour previously, the enemy himself starts a bomb attack, and returns to the charge a second time against Doualin’s battalion at the Belfort trench. He is driven back, but not until he has caused some confusion in our ranks.
Nevertheless, at daybreak, the Zouaves and the colonial infantry close with the enemy “with their usual magnificent dash.” Doubtless, the hope of bringing succour to the defenders of Vaux is a very slender one. All the signs, in fact, go to prove that it is too late. If the German wireless message which announced the capitulation must be received with caution, the observing-stations have noticed changes in the aspect of the vaults: in front of rooms 7 and 8, the bomb-proof shelter of sandbags or stones is almost entirely destroyed.
Under the tornado of fire—for the enemy knows how to keep what he has won—our infantrymen advance. They want to go on until they get into touch with their comrades. They will go on.
A shell penetrates into the C.O.’s headquarters. The telephone apparatus remains intact, but the operator has both hands cut off by a splinter. He holds out the stumps to his chief and apologises:
“I can no longer telephone.”
Like the attack of June 6, that of the composite brigade succeeds in encircling the fort. The enemy, however, occupies the superstructure, and his machine-guns work great havoc in our ranks. His reinforcements are constantly coming up. The battalion on the right can only just hang on to the terrain, after very slow progress. In the centre, the advance continues up to the ditches of the fort. It is at this moment that the German machine-guns do us the most serious damage. The leaders of the expedition fall one after the other, among them Major Gilbert and Major Jérôme de Mouy. The latter was a cavalry officer who had passed the staff college; he had returned from Morocco and been awarded a staff appointment, but asked for the command of a battalion of Zouaves.
The two battalions, deprived of their officers, are compelled to give up the scheme of recapturing the fort and to entrench themselves in the parallel lines from which they started.
Suddenly an explosion occurs in the fort, and a dense black smoke issues from casemate 5.
There is no human being left alive in this last stronghold.
At eight o’clock in the morning the battalion of the colonial regiment which acts as a support still has no precise information about the operation that has been embarked upon, save that the two attacking battalions have not returned. Hence they have had to advance, and they need munitions to ward off the imminent counter-attacks. A fatigue party of eighty men is told off, under the command of a lieutenant and of Cadet Jacques Bégouen. They carry grenades, rockets, and Bengal fire to stake out our lines. Their progress can be followed in detail, thanks to Cadet Bégouen’s notes, from which I will quote a passage. He too, later on, will be among the chroniclers of the war. A son of Count Bégouen, whose historical learning is well known, he has two brothers serving with the colours—one of them, like himself, belongs to that heroic colonial regiment of Morocco which distinguished itself at Dixmude in December 1914, and which, in the battle of Verdun, added new lustre to its crown of glory.
From Cadet Bégouen’s Notebook
“June 8.
“So we have started in miscellaneous contingents to fulfil one of the most perilous missions, one where there is need of mutual knowledge among the men concerned and of good officers and N.C.O.’s who have confidence in you.
“The guide marches slowly at our head. The men know their orders—all must follow. We go through a copse of dense undergrowth, where a deep communication trench is hidden, a place that cannot be taken under the enemy’s fire. We sink in the watery mud up to our calves. All is going well.
“We have marched up the counter-slope, and are once more facing the German sausages.
“At this point begins the zone of curtain fire and of mathematical pounding which stops only at the French first lines.
“Having come to the end of the road, we climb the steep slope leading to the ridge. Already the trees and shrubs have been blasted by the firing.... The battering process begins. But the German sausages have not yet seen us, and we endure the usual punishment; barely fifty or sixty shells fall to the right and to the left of the little communication trench.
“Before crossing the ridge, we take a brief rest. The first contingent, in front, continues its journey little by little.
“Suddenly the guide says to me, ‘Where am I to lead you?’ ‘To the first line, I am told.’ ‘But I’ve got to stop at the Colonel’s headquarters.’ He does not know the way to the first line. We advance all the same. Here we are on the plateau where so much blood has been spilt: the communication trenches have become mere tracks, the forest a few sparse trunks stripped of their branches, the soil is made up of scraps of all kinds, and the corpses, lying in batches just as they fell, are in every conceivable attitude....
“I bid my men follow me, jumping across the shell-holes, and we begin marching for two hundred yards.
“At this moment the guide stops us: ‘Here on the right is the communication trench leading to the Colonel’s place.’ I still insist, ‘But I have to go to the first line.’ ‘I don’t know the way: I am going to the Colonel’s quarters,’ and in less time than it takes to tell he hurries away in that direction. What can we do? The men are restless, and won’t march without a guide.... We all rush in the direction of the Colonel’s quarters. In places, the communication trench cannot be traced, for it is chock-full of corpses. All classes of troops are there: engineers, foot-sloggers, colonials.... In this blend of mud and dead bodies we mark time, and all that amid an acrid smell of blood and putrefying flesh.... Our nerves are on edge; we begin to become the supermen that we shall be when the gunpowder has scorched us....
“We come to a relief post for scouts. Our guide is here. I am on the point of scolding him severely and asking for an explanation, when a substitute comes to lead us, this time to the first line. This fellow actually does know the way. We about turn to go back again upon the road towards Fort Vaux. The men are tired out. We break off for a rest.
“Urged by the guide, who maintains that the faster we go the better it will be for us, we resume our march. Once again we are on a good road. The first fatigue party, led on the direct route by its guide, is far on ahead. It has passed the plateau and is now descending the slope of the Ravine of Death. At this moment the Boches begin to aim at them and start curtain fires; a rain of steel, projectiles of all calibres, proceeds to fall ... everywhere one sees things flying in the air....
“Forward! It is a terrible dance of death. The men begin to spread out; if I stop, they will not start off again....
“The whole countryside is ablaze with sunlight.... An unrivalled opportunity for taking a splendid photograph: in the background, on the left, Fort Vaux; on the right, the Woevre plains; on the left, the few tree-stumps that mark what was once La Caillette Wood, blackened with 210 rounds of gunfire. In the foreground, the stricken field where the shell-holes adjoin each other, full to the brim with dead. And everywhere great geysers, as it were, of earth and war-material leap into the air under the impact of the shells.... It was a unique scene, and so easy to photograph, since it was a part of my duties to do so.... But my camera was at Fort Tavannes....”
When the onslaughts upon the entrenchments that he was guarding were at their height, Captain Delvert admired the pose of a bomb-thrower in action. A soldier of the 142nd who managed to get away from Fort Vaux, in describing the attack by flames, gas, and explosive petards, and the giving way of the door, and the men flying in the air, and the Boches rushing in, and Lieutenant Bazy barring the corridor to them, cannot help giving vent to the exclamation, “It was superb!” Cadet Bégouen, leading his fatigue party under the geysers caused by the shells, feels sorry that he has not his camera with him. Such are the undying characteristics of our race, ever in love with beauty, ever desirous, under the most adverse conditions, of seeing life and realizing it to the full.