IV
THE FIRST FIGHTS ROUND VAUX
(March 9, 10, 11)
From the road, I see soldiers stretched out on the grass, basking in the spring sun, fishing in the river, or playing ball like schoolboys. Motor-omnibuses picked them up suddenly, not far from the Verdun battlefield, to carry them to this abode of rustic peace. They do not even hear the guns any longer. It is strange to contrast this bucolic scene with the fiery furnace of Vaux.
Among the valleys of the Meuse region, which are generally rather grim and gloomy, the valley of La Saulx is the most smiling, the richest in flowers, the most attractive. A crystal-clear brook waters its meadows and seems, with all its meanderings, to run an endless course. Here is Montiers-sur-Saulx, where the 303rd Brigade is billeted for a few days. The Sire de Joinville lived there; in the archives of the town hall one may read the charter by which he allowed the villagers the use of a part of his forest. Jeanne d’Arc went through it, dreaming of her mission. The troops in blue-grey caps who stroll round the central square where the military band plays are not so very different, in their bright uniforms, from the men-at-arms of bygone days.
In little groups the men walk about, light their pipes, and chat with the natives. The whole scene looks like a day of peace-time manœuvres, and the very gait of the men is so brisk that one might fancy them to be fresh troops recently detrained here and ready to proceed again to the front.
Yet the sentry who is mounting guard at the town hall wears a cap that has been pierced by a bullet. Other caps are indented or knocked out of shape. More than one of these peaceful ramblers has his head bandaged or shows some scar on his face. The colonel in command of the brigade has on his cheek a sabre-cut on which the blood has just dried—a trifling wound which has not been deemed worthy of dressing.
These are the men who broke the back of the German assaults on the village and fort of Vaux on March 8, 9, and 10. They can scarcely remember that they forced the enemy to retreat; they are too much occupied with forgetting their miseries—the cold, the snow, the lack of sleep, the long hours they spent crouching down in rifle-pits, their lost comrades, the continual presence of death during the bombardment which shatters men’s nerves and stuns their brains.
None of them of his own accord makes any allusion to his recent experiences: merely a word or two here and there, which cannot be understood save by those who have been through the mill. Later on, at home, or in some other theatre of war, when the events are really buried in the past, they will tell the story after their own fashion. Nor will they hesitate to weave into the tale other episodes drawn from earlier or later combats. 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 nightmare visions that haunt them yet might leave them in doubt on the point. One must associate for a long time with officers and men in order to unravel the truth little by little and reconstruct the earlier Vaux engagements.
Properly speaking, there were no earlier Vaux engagements. The series of operations forms an unbroken chain. Masters of Douaumont on February 25, the Germans at once tried to profit by their success. Douaumont could not be of any real use to them unless they succeeded in debouching from it to march on the line formed before Verdun by the hill of Froideterre, the village of Fleury on the other side of the ridge, Fort Souville, and Fort Tavannes. With this aim in view they will try to make progress to the east, in Nawé Wood, which is intersected by a series of ravines favourable to an offensive, going down from the slopes of Douaumont towards the Meuse (the ravines of Helly, La Couleuvre, and La Dame) to reach the earthwork of Thiaumont, and from there that of Froideterre. Their manœuvres will be the same to the east, in the wood of La Caillette and that of Gardaumont, which are also split up by ravines (those of La Caillette and La Fausse Côte) to descend into the ravine of Le Bazil and to climb up again by Vaux-Chapître Wood in the direction of Souville. On both sides they will find the road blocked, and they will fall tooth and nail upon the village and fort of Vaux, to the east, positions whose capture is equally essential to the realization of their scheme. Driven back from La Caillette Wood, they will approach, by way of Hardaumont Wood, the village which gives the key to the ravines of Le Bazil and Les Fontaines. They will make a frontal attack on the fort by its north-eastern slopes, aided by the formation of the ground which, once the foot of the slopes is occupied, enables them to advance, out of sight and out of artillery range, on account of the angle of descent, to within three or four hundred yards of the counterscarp wall.
Our 303rd Brigade (408th and 409th Regiments) occupies, during the night of March 1 and 2, the section from La Caillette to Damloup; a battalion of the 408th holds the slopes of the fort, and two battalions of the 409th hold the cemetery and the village. The fort itself has for a garrison two companies of the 71st Territorial Regiment, composed of worthy natives of Anjou, level-headed and hard-working. But let not the reader imagine a line of continuous, fully-equipped trenches, with communication passages, dug-outs, store depots, and so forth! The violence of the German attack launched on February 21 against Verdun has for the time being substituted field fighting for siege warfare. The lines of defence have been carried back to the rear, and the artillery has swept the terrain to such an extent that it has destroyed all the existing defences. Nothing is left but shell-holes and rubbish heaps. It was imperative to hold fast to this devastated soil, to hang on it, to break it up with the pickaxe and, failing pickaxes, with the bayonet, with finger-nails, to live on top when one could not get below ground, to keep awake and watchful, to shoot, to kill, to die without accepting defeat.
During the early days of its occupation of the sector the brigade makes a little progress in Hardaumont Wood. A company seizes the southern earthwork and entrenches itself there. But on March 5, 6, and 7, the bombardment is so violent that it is impossible to consolidate the position. Replenishing is done with difficulty. An attack is imminent. It takes place on the 8th about eleven o’clock in the morning, towards the village. It is led by the famous Guretsky-Cornitz Brigade (6th and 19th Regiments), which was destined next day to be immortalized in the German wireless. It debouches partly from Hardaumont Wood, where our earthwork is lost, partly from the railway embankment which skirts it and has served as a screen. The waves of enemy infantry succeed in outflanking our first line and swamping an entire battalion. Our machine-guns bring them to a halt at the entrance to the village, which they have succeeded in reaching; they even occupy a few houses. Before our fire the breakers recoil, but with the prisoners taken from our outflanked first line.
A little later, when a fresh assault is launched farther to the east, between the cemetery and the slopes of the fort, the enemy grenadiers who precede it are clothed in uniforms and caps taken from the prisoners, and they shout in French, with a heavy Teutonic accent: “Don’t shoot!” adding even the number of the regiment (409th) whose facings they are wearing, although the numerals have been torn off. Already, in the morning, in order to approach the ravine, the enemy has made use of another ruse which he has employed more than once. Stretcher-bearers, ostentatiously displaying their Red Cross armlets, seem to be carrying a stretcher or digging a grave: the stretcher contains a machine-gun, the grave is an embryo trench.
For all that, this series of assaults has brought the enemy up to the approaches to the village and cemetery of Vaux. Through what defect in co-ordination does he fancy it to be already within his grasp? Has his half-success of the previous day turned his head? On the morning of March 9 he sends two or three companies of the 19th Regiment to occupy his vaunted gain. The companies quietly enter Vaux, in columns, without previous reconnaissances. Now a battalion of ours has just come up to reinforce us, during the night of 8th-9th, under the command of Major Delattre. It celebrates its arrival by a furious fire, at once counter-attacks with the bayonet and throws the enemy back to the ravine of Hardaumont. Major Delattre, rifle in hand, goes at the head of his men. He is past fifty; his age and the hardships of the campaign have earned him retirement, but he has refused it—a son and a brother of his have fallen in the war, and he is thus tied to his post by sacred bonds. He knows, by the way, what will befall him. The evening before he confided his presentiments, in quite a cheerful spirit, to a comrade:
“There are families marked out for the salvation of the country. It is an honour. I shall follow in the footsteps of my son and my brother.”
And so it turned out; he was killed on the ground that had been regained.
On the 9th, during the day, the enemy renews his onslaught and manages to establish himself in the eastern portion of Vaux village and in the cemetery. He tries to reach the fort by its northern side, but cannot get near; our fire brings him to a halt at the trench dug behind the barbed wire, two or three hundred yards from the earthwork.
The day of the 10th will be still more of an ordeal. The Germans have to justify the lying communiqué which told the world of the capture of Fort Vaux. Throughout the night of March 9–10 and the day of the 10th, the artillery, in clearing the way, overwhelms the fort with projectiles of every calibre, and tries to isolate it by a curtain fire which makes a special mark of the lower end of La Horgne on the Damloup side, the ravine of Les Fontaines in Vaux-Chapître Wood, and the advanced works of Souville. Accordingly the fort and that part of the village which remains in our hands form an islet swept from end to end by gunfire, where the infantry, when it marches, thinks that it will find nothing but débris of war-stores and a garrison either wiped out or so much reduced and dispirited that it will be incapable of defence.
But the reinforcements have come in spite of all. The 3rd Battalion of light infantry is in reserve, ready to lend its aid to the brigade which is fighting. The Territorials of the 71st are still sending out fatigue parties for water, food, and munitions. The scouts have not abandoned their duties. This is the continual miracle of Verdun. Under an unprecedented bombardment everything is done as before—reliefs, replenishing, the linking up of connections. A sense of order directs the whole, and the work gets done.
Major Belleculet is in command at the fort. Besides the two companies of Territorials, he has at his disposal a battalion of Regulars. He has organized his defence in front of the fort, on the slopes already approached the previous evening, protected by two rows of barbed wire. The enemy pays less attention to these slopes than to the fort itself, either because he believes his own lines to be nearer, or because, in order to bring his troops close to their objective, he wishes to profit by the more rapid descent from the tableland on to the plains of the Woevre after the two or three hundred yards of gentle incline in front of the counterscarp.
From eight o’clock in the morning, on the observing station which remains intact, the commandant sees small groups of men go down the slopes of Hardaumont and mass themselves to the left of the railway. He calculates the forces whose range he has got to be three battalions. No doubt the reserves, out of sight, are more numerous.
At noon the bombardment increases in force. At six o’clock in the evening it breaks off abruptly. The village and fort are both attacked at once. This is the sudden frontal attack, daring, almost foolhardy, which the enemy pursued with success at the outset of the Verdun battle, relying on his artillery superiority and on surprise or loss of nerve in the ranks of his opponents. He is not master of La Caillette Wood or of Damloup, he has no grip either on our right or on our left. He confines operations to a stubborn obstacle whose possession would ensure him a salient in our lines, and he dashes against it as hard as he can, like a battering-ram against a door.
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. From six to eight in the evening he returns to the charge with a tenacity and vigour which it is only fair to acknowledge. He wants to break through at all costs. All his efforts are in vain. Our gallant lads’ rifles grow so hot that they have to be relieved. The Territorials ask, as a favour, to be allowed to undertake this shift. They acquit themselves even better than their young comrades. They remember their lying in wait for game and their fine marksmanship, on Sundays, on the borders of the forests of Anjou. To be a good shot, one needs a steady nerve and one must never be in a hurry.
Inside the fort the soldiers of the Regular battalion have finished cleaning and greasing their rifles. They feel comparatively comfortable. One of them, however, makes a suggestion:
“The old ’uns are still down there. Are they to be left there, they in front and we behind?”
No one looks reluctant. The officers have no need to insist. But the “old ’uns” will not hear of giving up the position, which they consider a good one, since the field of fire is perfect but for that confounded drop in the ground where the Boches vanish as if through a trap-door.
The 75-gun plays its part in the affray. Its curtain fire, at the foot of Hardaumont, works wonders. From the parapets one sees legs and arms flying in the air. The reinforcements will not come. They are urgently needed.
Night has fallen. A second lieutenant attached to the Brigade Staff and dispatched to this part of the battlefield comes down from the fort at a run. In spite of the cold, he is perspiring when he reaches headquarters.
“A drink!” he shouts, like Gargantua at his birth. He is surrounded, importuned, plied with eager questions; every one wants to know. The main part of the village has held out, but the fort? The assault must have been terrific. Who holds the fort?
“It’s all over,” answers the officer laconically, snatching up a water-bottle.
“What do you mean—it’s all over? The fort has been captured?”
“No, the Boche is beaten.”
And he finishes his drink in peace.