We have been as near to getting enthusiastically excited as we have
since the war began.
Just when everyone had a mind made up that the Allies could not be
ready to make their first offensive movement until next spring--
resigned to know that it would not be until after a year and a half, and
more, of war that we could see our armies in a position to do more
than continue to repel the attacks of the enemy--we all waked up on
September 27 to the unexpected news that an offensive movement
of the French in Champagne had actually begun on the 25th, and
was successful.
For three or four days the suspense and the hope alternated. Every
day there was an advance, an advance that seemed to be supported
by the English about Loos, and all the time we heard at intervals the
far-off pounding of the artillery.
For several days our hearts were high. Then there began to creep
into the papers hints that it had been a gallant advance, but not a
great victory, and far too costly, and that there had been blunders,
and we all settled back with the usual philosophy, studied the map of
our first-line trenches on September 25, when the attack began,--
running through Souain and Perthes, Mesnil, Massiges, and Ville sur
Tourbe. We compared it with the line on the night of September 29,
when the battle practically ended, running from the outskirts of
Auderive in the west to behind Cernay in the east, and took what
comfort we could in the 25 kilometres of advance, and three hilltops
gained. It looked but a few steps on the map, but it was a few steps
nearer the frontier.
Long before you get this, you will have read, in the American papers,
details hidden from us, though we know more about this event than
about most battles.
You remember the tea-party I had for the boys in our ambulance in
June? Well, among the soldiers here that day was a chap named
Litigue. He was wounded--his second time--on September 25, the
first day of the battle. He was nursed in our ambulance the first time
by Mlle. Henriette, and yesterday she had a letter from him, which she
lets me translate for you, because it will give you some idea of the
battle, of the spirit of the poilus, and also because it contains a bit of
news and answers a question you asked me several weeks ago,
after the first use of gas attacks in the north.
A l'hôpital St. André de Luhzac,
September 30, 1915 Mademoiselle,
I am writing you tonight a little more at length than I was able to do
this morning--then I had not the time, as my nurse was waiting beside
my bed to take the card to the post. I wrote it the moment I was able,
at the same time that I wrote to my family. I hope it reached you.
I am going to tell you in as few words as possible, how the day
passed. The attack began the 25th, at exactly quarter past nine in the
morning. The preparatory bombardment had been going on since the
22d. All the regiments had been assembled the night before in their
shelters, ready to leap forward.
At daybreak the bombardment recommenced--a terrible storm of
shells of every calibre--bombs, torpedoes--flew overhead to salute
the Boches, and to complete the destruction which had been going
on for three days.
Without paying attention to the few obus which the Boches sent over
in reply to our storm, we all mounted the parapets to get a view of the
scene. All along our front, in both directions, all we could see was a
thick cloud of dust and smoke. For four hours we stood there, without
saying a word, waiting the order to advance; officers, common
soldiers, young and old, had but one thought,--to get into it and be
done with it as quickly as possible. It was just nine o'clock when the
officers ordered us into line, ready to advance,--sac au dos, bayonets
fixed, musettes full of grenades and asphyxiating bombs. Everyone of
us knew that he was facing death out there, but I saw nowhere the
smallest sign of shrinking, and at quarter past nine, when we got the
signal to start, one cry: "En avant, et vive la France!" burst from
thousands and thousands of throats, as we leaped out of the
trenches, and it seemed to me that it was but one bound before we
were on them.
Once there I seem to remember nothing in detail. It was as if, by
enchantment, that I found myself in the midst of the struggle, in heaps
of dead and dying. When I fell, and found myself useless in the fight, I
dragged myself, on my stomach, towards our trenches. I met
stretcher-bearers who were willing to carry me, but I was able to
crawl, and so many of my comrades were worse off, that I refused. I
crept two kilometres like that until I found a dressing-station. I was
suffering terribly with the bullet in my ankle. They extracted it there
and dressed the ankle, but I remained, stretched on the ground, two
days before I was removed, and I had nothing to eat until I reached
here yesterday--four days after I fell. But that could not be helped.
There were so many to attend to.
I will let you know how I get on, and I hope for news from you. In the
meantime I send you my kindest regards, and my deep gratitude.
Your big friend,
LlTIGUE, A.
I thought you might be interested to see what sort of a letter a real
poilu writes, and Litigue is just a big workman, young and energetic.
You remember you asked me if the Allies would ever bring
themselves to replying in sort to the gas attacks. You see what Litigue
says so simply. They did have asphyxiating bombs. Naturally the
most honorable army in the world cannot neglect to reply in sort to a
weapon like that. When the Boches have taken some of their own
medicine the weapon will be less freely used. Besides, today our men
are all protected against gas.
I had hardly settled down to the feeling that the offensive was over
and that there was another long winter of inaction--a winter of the
same physical and material discomforts as the first--lack of fuel,
suspense,--when the news came which makes my feeling very
personal. The British offensive in the north has cost me a dear friend.
You remember the young English officer who had marched around
me in September of last year, during the days preceding the battle of
the Marne? He was killed in Belgium on the morning of September
26--the second day of the offensive. He was in command of an anti-
aeroplane battery advanced in the night to what was considered a
well-concealed position. The German guns, however, got the range.
Shrapnel nearly wiped out the command, and the Captain was
wounded in the head. He died at the hospital at Etaples half an hour
after he arrived, and lies buried in the English cemetery on the dunes,
with his face towards the country for which he gave his young life.
I know one must not today regret such sacrifices. Death is--and no
one can die better than actively for a great cause. But, when a loved
one goes out in youth; when a career of achievement before which a
really brilliant future opened, is snapped, one can still be proud, but it
is through a veil of tears.
I remember so well that Sunday morning, the 26th of September. It
was a beautiful day. The air was clear. The sun shone. I sat all the
morning on the lawn watching the clouds, so small and fleecy, and
listening to the far-off cannon, not knowing then that it meant the "big
offensive." Oddly enough we spoke of him, for Amélie was examining
the cherry tree, which she imagined had some sort of malady, and
she said: "Do you remember when Captain Noel was here last year
how he climbed the tree to pick the cherries?" And I replied that the
tree hardly looked solid enough now to bear his weight. I sat thinking
of him, and his life of movement and activity under so many climes,
and wondered where he was, little thinking that already, that very
morning, the sun of his dear life was told, and that we should never,
as I had dreamed, talk over his adventures in France as we had so
often talked over those in India, in China, and in Africa.
It is odd, but when a friend so dear as he was, yet whom one only
saw rarely, in the étapes of his active career, goes out across the
great bourne, into the silence and the invisible, it takes time to realize
it. It is only after a long waiting, when not even a message comes
back, that one comprehends that there are to be no more meetings
at the cross-roads. I moved one more portrait into the line under the
flags tied with black--that was all.
You hardly knew him, I know, but no one ever saw his upright figure,
his thin, clear-cut features, bronzed by tropic suns, and his direct
gaze, and forgot him.