What is the condition of that luckless fort of Vaux, which for a hundred days, since February 21, has received its daily ration of shells: ten thousand on an average for the district, and of all calibre, but chiefly of the heaviest, the 210 mm., the 305 mm., and even the 380 mm.? It must have been hammered, pounded, bruised, crushed, scoured, pulverized: unusable and uninhabitable, can it be anything but an indiscriminate heap of stone and earth, of rubbish of all kinds transformed into dust or ashes? Where the Emperor William’s artillery has done its work thoroughly, we are assured that nothing is left. Attila boasted that no grass grew where his horses’ hoofs had trod.
And indeed the outward aspect of the fort is deplorable. The superstructures are entirely destroyed, and the top is now nothing but chaos.
The southern entrance has given way, and for a long time has been unfit for use. In order to make one’s way into the interior one passes either by the double transverse gallery to the north-west, or by the single transverse gallery to the north-east.
The double transverse gallery has been staved in, but an exit has been fitted up, an exit for the use of the troops who succeed each other in the western sector of the fort (curtain, Besançon trench). The passage connecting it with the main pile has crevices in it near the descent into the ditch and has been smashed in near the barracks.
In the same way, the single north-eastern transverse gallery has been pierced near the exterior of the fort, and provides a passage for the details that hold the eastern and northern trenches (Fort and Belfort trenches).
These two entrances, which are on the side of the trapezoid nearest the enemy, will be to the advantage of the assailant. It is here if anywhere that he will penetrate. But can he expect a resistance in such a ruin? The 75 turret has been seriously damaged; it can no longer communicate with the barracks. The whole place is of little use for defensive purposes. The two armoured observing stations have escaped destruction, but machine-guns cannot be set up in them. The single transverse gallery to the south-west is in fairly good condition; its line of communication, which had been blocked up, has been re-established; it has no external opening. Finally, the barracks have cracks in them, but are still serviceable. A garrison can take shelter there.
The double barbed-wire entanglement which surrounded the fort is now in fragments, or buried in the shell-holes. The resisting power of the counterscarp, the escarp, and the ditch that lies between them cannot be reckoned upon; the walls have several breaches and have sunk down, and the ditch, now half filled with earth, is no longer an obstacle.
Such is this remnant of a fort, such are these inadequate defences which the enemy is approaching. On March 9, when he laid siege to it, he was still confronted with barbed wire, ramparts, parapets, covers for machine-guns. Now, if he succeeds in reaching it—and he is nearly touching it, he is less than two hundred yards from it—he can find his way into it without any marvellous acrobatic feats, and, in order to make an entry, he will find the two exits from the northern transverse galleries gaping wide before him. There is now no longer anything, apart from the demolished trenches in front and on his flanks, to oppose his inroad. Nothing but men who await the storm, like sailors determined not to forsake their disabled ship.
The commander of the garrison is Major Raynal of the 96th Infantry Regiment. Though wounded, he refused to wait until he was cured before returning to duty. Born at Bordeaux, where his father was a bootmaker, on March 7, 1867, of a family that originally came from Montauban, the future defender of Vaux was educated at the Angoulême lycée, then enlisted in the 123rd Regiment on March 15, 1885. Five years later he entered the military school of St. Maixent, and left it as a second lieutenant on April 1901, having gained the first place out of 328 candidates. A Captain at the outbreak of the war, he was appointed Battalion Commander on August 24, 1914. How he led his battalion may be shown by a quotation from an Army order: “Commanding the advanced guard of his regiment on September 14, 1914, and getting into touch with the strongly entrenched enemy at a brief distance from early in the morning onwards, he at once took up his position on the tactical points, and by strenuous efforts kept his battalion there under fire from German rifles, machine-guns, and heavy artillery. Seriously wounded in the afternoon, he retained command of his battalion, staying in the first line in order personally to direct the fighting, in close and difficult country, until his loss of blood became so great that he was compelled to retire.” At Crouy, on September 14, a bullet from a machine-gun ripped up his chest on the left side. He had been a Knight of the Legion of Honour since July 11, 1900, and was promoted Officer3 on January 11, 1916, with the following description:
3 There are five grades of the Légion d’honneur: (1) Chevalier, (2) Officer, (3) Commandeur, (4) Grand-Officer, (5) Grand-Croix.—Translator’s Note.
“An admirable officer of high character and military abilities. Badly wounded on September 14, 1914, he returned to the front, where he has continued to render signal service: was very badly wounded once more on October 3, 1915, when he was coolly and methodically proceeding to a reconnaissance of the sector in which his battalion was posted.”
His second wound was received at Tahure, in Champagne; a splinter from a shell in his abdomen broke the top of his hip-bone before passing out through his back.
Not being sufficiently recovered to take up an active command with any confidence, he asked for a post where there would be little moving about and plenty of danger. “You will be given command of a Verdun fort.” The Major pulls a wry face: he would prefer open country. “Then let it be the most exposed fort.” “Which one?” “Vaux, obviously.” “Very well, then, go to Vaux.”
So off he goes. Such is the man to whom the destinies of the fort are entrusted. His force consists of a company of the 142nd Regiment, the 6th, under the command of Lieutenant Alirol (120 rifles), a company of the machine-gun section of the 142nd (under Lieutenant Bazy), some thirty artillerymen, ten engineers, twenty hospital orderlies, stretcher-bearers and telephone operators, and twenty Territorials for fatigues. In all, from 250 to 300 men. But this is the normal regulation number of the garrison. All of a sudden it will be increased by some fifty machine-gunners of the 53rd Regiment, then by wounded who will be conveyed to the dressing-station, then by details of the 101st and 142nd Regiments. The last-named, screening the fort in front and on the flanks, will be pushed back into the interior under the pressure of the enemy’s advance, by way of the openings in the transverse galleries. As early as June 2 the numbers begin to swell, and from 250 they will soon rise to more than 600. This will add to the already serious difficulties of the defence. In fact, whereas the replenishments of munitions and the engineering and medical services are on the whole adequate, the food supply has been calculated to last out a fortnight, and that for a garrison of 250 men only. The cisterns have indeed been filled, but the troops of the centre have always looked upon the fort as a place to get water supplied by a merciful Providence to save them from the thirst that is so terribly hard to bear on those arid, fire-swept hillsides. The commandants of the fort have constantly had to struggle against this tendency: nevertheless, during May, they have succeeded in creating a reserve supply of water. This reserve supply has been brought in by fatigue parties, carrying water-bottles that hold three and a half pints each: heroic fatigue parties these, liable at times to tragic interruptions. On May 29 the reserve supply reached barely 3500 or 5000 pints. A garrison of the normal size, put on rations from the beginning, would have found in this amount resources for a period of ten to twelve days, and even more. The new arrivals will make it run out on the very first day. It will not be long before there is a shortage of water, and thirst will be the most cruel hardship of the Vaux garrison.
Yet the defenders are ready, and Major Raynal is waiting.