a bald eminence and is invisible a hundred paces away, a parley is
necessary. The _Gefreiter_ hands the officer of the guard of A3 the
permit issued by the commandant of Fort Orff. The sentry opens the gate.
We pass in. Lining the walls, the red-trousers form an inquisitive
and saluting hedge. Cambessédès runs up quite out of breath. Through
long, dark, and narrow passages he conducts us to the medical officers’
quarters.
These are screened off by wooden partitions from the remainder of
a gloomy casemate. Two beds, two wooden chairs, a table; no vacant
space. It suggests a midshipman’s cabin on a man-of-war. The air is
raw. Illustrations cut from the _Woche_ are pinned to the wall. Upon
a little shelf above my friend’s bed I see his wife’s photograph. A
whiff of French perfume is wafted to my senses. I think of Paris, home,
the fireside, work, peace! I say little during the visit. We sit down
haphazard on the beds, the chairs, the table. A little soldier from
Châlons, very quick and lively in his movements, comes in with a jug of
coffee and an odd assortment of half-pint mugs. The company talks of the
Geneva Convention and of medical and technical matters. Those from Orff
get the others to tell of the recent happenings at Fort 8.
I pay scant attention to these petty details, swallowing my coffee
mechanically amid the clash of voices and laughter. All my thoughts are
in Paris. How strange seems this society of Frenchmen in the remote
Bavarian redoubt. It is borne in on me of a sudden that madness rules the
world.
Cambessédès and Valois, as hosts, now show us round. A crowd of soldiers
follows us. Some of the adjutants post us concerning the life of the
prisoners. Poor fellows, they have no von Stengel! In A3 it is impossible
to procure any kind of supplement to the official rations. It is
impossible to get a jug of good beer from time to time to keep up one’s
spirits.
From the platform there is a fine view over the village of Wegstetten
and the wood-crowned hills. M. Langlois, at least, thinks so. He looks
with all his eyes. He is in ecstasy—when the sentry, a stumpy Swabian
in a black greatcoat which is threadbare, weatherworn, and turning
rusty-green, pounces upon him, charges bayonet, and touches the major’s
tunic with the point of the steel. Our surgeon-in-chief protests: he
has made no attempt to climb up the turf-covered breastwork; he has not
trespassed into a forbidden region; he has merely been admiring the view.
“Quite so,” barks the obstinate little bulldog, snorting angrily; “to
look outside is forbidden.”
Unquestionably A3 is very different from Fort Orff! Whatever you do,
baron-gaoler, do not ask for leave until we are set at liberty. Do not
hand us over to a Ploss!
But even Ploss has his good hours. French lightness of heart is able
from time to time to exert its charm over this hard Franconian noddle.
His surly air passes off. With a brisk gesture he pushes his greasy
_Mütze_ back over the nape of his neck. His brown tuft of hair makes
its appearance, giving him an engaging and almost sportive air. During
these calms, Davit, the Hercules cook, can with impunity seize the
quartermaster, wrestle with him, and make as if to throw him head-first
into a boiling cauldron. The paunchy cook of No. 42, when the herrings
are being distributed, can then, under Ploss’ very eyes, sneak a
good-sized “Bismarck” and stuff it into the pocket of his smock, with the
tail sticking out. But beware! The quartermaster’s ordinary temper will
suddenly return, and the prisoner with whom he has just been laughing
will find himself sentenced to three days’ cells simply for having kept
up the game for a second after the eclipse. Ploss is then capable of
making allegations likely to bring a man before a firing squad. He will
say, for example, “Prisoner X attempted to kill me by striking me on the
head with a ladle.”
* * * * *
What a wonderful thing is this French light-heartedness! Heavy-witted
northerners term it levity when they should speak of it as vitality.
These little Frenchmen! To-day you see them sad at heart. The weather is
grey; a languorous humidity prevails which seems to reduce the scale of
the landscape and to make the noises draw nearer. We hear the roar of
the trains in the plain, trains moving westwards, towards France. Those
afoot walk as in a dream; many never leave their palliasses. The men from
Provence are thinking of the sunshine; the Parisians recall the joyous
meetings of Saturday evening when work is done; the Bretons listen in
imagination to the heavy, rhythmical sound of the great surges breaking
at the foot of the native cliff. Every one has “the hump.”
Suddenly comes the sound of singing from the corridors. “They are
singing! Have the letters come?” One and all rush to be first at the
main gate, close to the _Kommandantur_, beneath the gloomy arch. There
is coming and going and much talk. “Is it true that there are lots of
letters?”—“Two or three hundred, so d’Arnoult says!”—“What luck! When
shall we get them?”—“Oh, the sorting will take some time.” The procession
to the kitchens is animated. The hope of being about to receive a letter
has eased the nervous tension.
But what, among eleven hundred men, is the handful of letters reaching
the fort from time to time? For one who is made happy, there are
thirty disappointed. My friend Foch, the awe-inspiring sergeant of the
“vitriers” [infantry chasseurs], the most martial man in the fort, a
hero, has not yet received a single line from Colroy-la-Grande, in the
Vosges, near the Lubine pass. Since August the French have been fighting
on this crest, advancing and retreating alternately. In the frontier
villages the skirmishing never ceases. What has become of his brave wife,
who, scorning bullets, leading her seven-year-old twins by the hand,
used to bring dinner to her husband in the firing-line? Is she dead? Has
she been interned? And his house, the little house known so well to the
men of the 10th Chasseurs, where they had often received food and drink,
is it still standing? Poor Foch! His energetic countenance, with its
flashing eyes, is clouded; his tongue, formerly so glib at a story, is
stilled. Nor is he the only one who continues to await the first letter
from home. I am among those specially favoured, and of ten letters sent
to me, but one comes to hand, taking three and often four weeks on the
journey.
Fortunately, money orders and parcels, exempt from the delays of the
censorship, arrive regularly. Received as if they had been Father
Christmas himself, with transports of delight which well-nigh make
us jump for joy like children, these are the great dissipators of
depression. They have completely modified our life, bringing into
the fort a sort of plenty. Jerseys, woollen helmets, Russian caps,
comforters, thick hand-knitted socks; every one is now wadded against the
cold. Muffled in wool, men toboggan merrily down the slopes. Sometimes
we have little dinner-parties. On the rickety tables knocked together by
our amateur carpenters there are cups of tea and chocolate, pieces of
gingerbread, sponge-cakes, jams, long twists of French tobacco. These
love-feasts are not very grand, but to us they are delightful. We nibble
our piece of cake, we sip from our steaming mug, noiselessly, slowly, our
hearts filled with tender thoughts. We think of the hands which have made
the tart, of the eyes which have watched the seething of this jam. If one
of the guests should make a joke, he is wasting his wit. The laugh dies
on our lips. Every one is full of memories. Our picnics are communions.
After the horror of the first two months of imprisonment, when many
of us knew no other feeling than that of hunger—hunger by day and by
night, the hunger that keeps a man awake and gnaws like an ulcer—now
that winter has come we are having a fairly agreeable time. Our bodies
have become accustomed to the regimen. The monotony of life is broken by
happy events, by the arrival of parcels, money orders, and letters. The
work we have had to do at Ingolstadt, Hepperg, and Wegstetten has widened
the bounds of our prison. Every one has made a circle of friends. Some
of the casemates, with their tables for bridge or poker, have now the
aspect of clubs. We have learned how to circumvent German discipline.
Our service for the supply of smuggled victuals works smoothly, so that
we are at least able to provide ourselves with chocolate and tobacco.
Some have purchased books; numerous French works belonging to the Fayard,
Nelson, and Flammarion libraries have made their way through the gates,
across the ditches, and over the walls; they pass from hand to hand
until they fall to pieces. Some of the prisoners are learning German.
My big dictionary is, as it were, an ever open mill, where all can
make themselves at home. Every room has its writers of topical songs.
Stretched on their palliasses, paper and pencil in hand, they cudgel
their brains for rhymes. I cannot say that the outcome is sublime, but
the verses, caustic without ill-nature, peppered with puns, and stuffed
with allusions to the point of unintelligibility, amuse us all. The
following stanzas dealing with the “ministerial council,” written by
Cormarie and sung by Saint-Lanne of Agen at the Saturday concerts in No.
7, go to the air of the _Paimpolaise_:
Nos deux majors veulent extraire
Du beau riz si blanc et si sain
Une huile pure limpide et claire
Qu’ils appel’ront l’huil’ de riz-sain
Pour avoir le _Ri_
_Où_ s’adresseront-ils?
Chambre 17 ou aux cuisines!
Il écrit toute la journée!
A chaque repas, drôl’ de combine!
On lui sert des figaro-thés.
Il porte pour la circonstance
L’habit vert d’Académicien;
Les palmes en sont restées en France
Pour les canards de son quotidien;
Car je les ai vu
Et même à _fon lupt_.
Je dis: ne crois pas ces canards sauvages
Car ils s’ébattent soir et matin
Avant d’être envoyés aux sages
Dans une mar’ d’eau de _Laubin_.
But France is a nation of prose writers; at the fort there are many more
authors of memoirs than of songs. Memoirs abound.[28] Why is it that
men who have never before tried to record their experiences in writing
should feel impelled to recount the happenings of their campaign, and to
describe their feelings of discouragement during a lengthy imprisonment?
Do they do it to relieve tedium? Have they an obscure need of confession?
Or do they consider the circumstances of their life in war-time so
exceptional as to deserve the honour, in their view an extraordinary one,
of written record? In my opinion this last motive predominates. Rightly
or wrongly, the “little soldiers of the republic” regard the present
conflict in an epic light, and at bottom, notwithstanding their ingrained
tendency to grumble, are not a little flattered at being among the heroes
of this affair. They know that as long as men exist people will continue
to talk about the great war, and that in the schools children will learn
the names of the battles in which their fathers have fought and suffered.
They want to be able to astonish their little ones, to be able to say:
“I was there; I fought in this battle; read my account of the matter and
you will see how everything happened, what my leaders did, and when I
received my wound.” Men, Frenchmen above all, whatever their station,
have such a hunger for fame.
Yesterday I came across Maze on the slopes, wearing his great red
chéchia, which accentuates his stature, already considerable. His shirt
was drying in the wind, tied to the lightning-conductor, and flapping
like a flag. He was sitting behind the parapet, sheltered from the wind,
and was reading. “What may you be reading?”—“My battle.”—“Can I look at
it?”—“Here you are.”
In his note-book, worn and dog’s-eared, the following account was
pencilled on the pages he showed me. I reproduce it verbatim, with its
mistakes in spelling:
It was on August 19th that our company set out from the village
of Couture. We crossed the fields to rejoin the Metz road.
After we had marched two kilometres along this road, we took
shelter in a wood in order to avoid being seen by a German
areoplane. After a short hault here, we started off once more
towards Fresne-en-Saulnois. We left this village on our left
to march upon Auron and Vivier. We found trenches made by the
enemy and some dead horses. In the evening we were before Duron
and Vivier, the Germans having left these two villages a couple
of hours earlier. We, the company “146,” occupied all the exits
from the villages. At about half past eight in the evening the
company shoulders knapsacks and we go to the outposts before
Frémery. We passed a fairly quiet night, a few shots were fired
towards midnight, and we thought there was a night attack, but
it was only a skirmish between patrols. Next day, August 20th,
at three in the morning the captain commands us to extend in
skirmishing order, for we had been warned that the enemy is
in front of us. In two or three leaps we reach the crest of a
little hill in front of us. At this moment we receive a few
bullets which oblige us to assume the ofensive. The lieutenant
orders us to fire at five hundred yards upon the enemy
advancing towards the crest. At this moment our comrade Arnold,
the cook, comes from the village of Frémery, the bombardment of
which has just begun, he held in his hands two pales of coffee
which he brings to his section, although the captain told him
to go back. But, he listening only to the commands of his own
courage and coolness, succeeds in joining his section which
was then engaged with the enemy. On reaching the line he began
to distribute the coffee, but hardly had he begun when he was
hit near the left eye not seriously, which stopped him for a
moment. But this did not hinder him from continuing his round,
stopping from time to time to fire his rifle. It was when he
had nearly reached the end of the line of skirmishers that he
was hit on the right rist. At this moment he was close to the
sergeant-major, who was lying at full length in a furrow and
who with the aid of his soup spoon was digging a hole for his
head; at this moment we had no orders, for most of the non-coms
and privates had been killed or wounded.—The sub-lieutenant
gives the order to retire to those who are able, but the
sergeant-major stoped where he was saying to a man who was near
him and who was wounded. “No slackers here” giving him a blow
with the flat of his sword.—At this moment, the Germans make
their charge and come close up to us, the sergeant-major lifted
his arms into the air, crying, “quarter! my wife my child.”—A
little while after we were under the guard of some German
soldiers, who conducted us as best they could to the hospital
at Lucy. On the way the sergeant-major said to us that but for
his spoon he would perhaps be a dead man?
I was touched by this little story. Maze thinks only of praising
Arnold’s heroism. He says not a word about his own wound, although this
was severe. He was struck in the neck, and the bullet is still beneath
the shoulder-blade. One day he stripped in my presence and I felt the
projectile. At the same time I had a good view of the sun, the stars, and
the nymphs wherewith his chest is decorated, framing the great portrait
of Carpentier which Maze had had tattooed while in Paris.
Speaking generally, the memoirs I have read have lacked interest. The
hero speaks of the beer he has drunk, of the naps he has been able to
snatch between the attacks, gives the names of his sergeant, of his
comrades. We get absolutely no idea of the battle he was in. I reproduce,
however, the story of Marius-Eugène G⸺, who was made prisoner on August
27th at Moyen-Moutier. It is the best I have discovered in the fort:
_ACCOUNT OF WAR AND IMPRISONMENT
by
Marius-Eugène G⸺_
_Moyen-Moutier, August 27, 1914._
Am alone, have lost my regiment, my company, am at
Moyen-Moutier. Endeavour to join up with the 52nd or the 75th,
can’t do it, stop and think, the firing begins again. The
Germans are bombarding the town. What on earth shall I do? I
lose my head, I am alone, I have no friend, no one to advise
me. I run like a madman; I stop when I hear the whistling of
the German projectiles I stretch myself at full length on
the ground they fall two hundred yards from me and then come
nearer. At length I give myself up for lost, I loose my head
more and more however I think much of Rive-de-Gier of my dear
employers of my dear love also of my brother and sister-in-law
and of my dear little niece in fact of every one dear to me
and it is with sorrow that I see the shells raning round me I
ast myself if I shall ever see again this dear family, this
idol which I carry in my heart. Having received a slight
wound in the arm I went to the red cross and I have made the
acquaintance of a dear friend of the 75th where we always
remain brothers in misfortune since the hour when we were
made prisoner, Thursday August 27 1914 at five o’clock in the
evening; from there they sent us to sleep in a school, without
a straw, still get through the night somehow and early next
morning they make a list of the prisoners and send us to Saale
which is on the frontier twenty kilometres from Moyen-Moutier,
on the way the German soldiers make a long stop and gives us
a bit of food a meal which I and my compatriots much enjoyed
for we were getting very hungry at length we reach Saale it is
about five in the evening, they make us sleep hard just like
last night only instead of a school it is a church which has
been transformed into a dormitory no great catch, the night
is rather cold but we get through it somehow. Saturday August
29 we entrain at Saale station at nine o’clock in the morning
without knowing where we are going it was a day of anguish
for me and also for all my friends in the same situation as
myself, we remain all day in the train all night and all Sunday
August 30 when we arrive at our destination Ingolstadt at eight
o’clock in the evening, they tells us that there is still 2
hours march to reach Fort Orff where I am still in prison after
4 weeks.
September 24. The weather to-day is rather grey and cold we
stay in the rooms, tell what has hapened to us during the
campane and the poor fellows serving with the colours when the
war broke out said that this was the day of their discharge
however we did all that we could to enliven the dull life we
have had since our imprisonment.
Being quite without money to provide for my little wants, I am
sorry to say that I have had to sell the ring that belonged to
my dear mother the one she gave me the year before she died
I was forced to sell it to buy food for they do not give us
enough to eat and it is with regret that I sacrificed it in
order to avoid coming to a bad end, all this is due to this
cursed war from which I have been suffering for 2 months now,
I hope it will soon be over and that I shall be able to resume
the life of peace and happiness I led in the barracks where I
had a happy time during the week and on Sunday was happy to be
able to get leave to go to Rive-de-Gier where I passed such a
pleasant day with my dear employers and my dear girl and that
dear family of which I often think, at every moment of the day
my thoughts turn to them.
Now at length the day is finished and the moment has come to
go and fetch the wretched pittance which they give us as food
then to have some talk with my friend, companion in misfortune,
bedfellow for we sleep together on one heap of straw and with
one blanket, all this because of this cursed war, still never
mind the suffering, it is for France.
September 25. Glorious weather, one can feel the warmth of the
sun, I take advantage of it to get up quickly, to have a wash,
then I go to fetch the trickle of hot water they give us for
coffee, I profit by the opening of this fine autumn day to take
a turn or two about the fort to take my thoughts off and to
proffit by this fine sunshine which has been very rare since my
imprisonment in Bavaria.
Then, I do like many of the comrades my fellow-prisoners, try
to do some work upon Bavarian stone, to make a souvenir of the
fort, but I have no patience and chuck the thing away, for it
does not take my thoughts off?
Good biz! a friend in the room has a pack of cards and we begin
to play game after game of manilla, this turns our thoughts a
bit but its not as good as the old games we used to play in
the taverns of the old Couzonnais quarter. In spite of all I
think of everyone I left behind me in that old town, of my dear
employers, of their old parents who was so good to me and also
of the dear parents of my dear girl who is never out of my
thoughts and who I hope she thinks much of me.
Thursday, October 1st. Having been one day without writing I
hasten to quickly write these two words, these moments are so
sweet for me besides to write one is obliged to be alone and
that is why to-day finding myself at the top of the fort where
I look over all the plane and at the end of it the fine town
of Ingolstadt I see many factory chimnies which are smoking
also the fields where some Bavarian peasants is working in
this place one would never think, seeing the sight which is
spread beneath my eyes, one would never think that canon are
thundering a few(?) kilometres away. All that I have written on
this page makes me feel sick at heart for outside this cursed
fort there would be liberty and peace for always. For such a
life as we have been living, everyone of us here, is not to be
envied. After a war like that we are going through, just as
much for the german people as for the French, there is ruin for
the 2 countries where are killed or wounded numerous fathers
of families who leaves a wife without support with one or more
children! I have not yet the rite to be mourned like these
fathers of families, but in spite of everything I think much of
my life in the future when I hope to be able to make the girl I
love happy and whom I hope will not desert me even though she
gets no news of me. Here then is the month of October begining
very sadly I live in hope that the end will be a little better.
There, it is not very grand, but it is so sincere, and in any case
this work of the pen makes the time pass less heavily. Poetizing,
music, memoirs, tobogganing, little dinners, German, cards, whittling,
stone-carving—some of the prisoners find the days too short. What an odd
creature is man!
Tesson came to see me just now, bringing his last piece of work, a great
slab of stone depicting the entrance to Fort Orff. The whole kitchen
staff formed up in circle round the masterpiece. “Well I’m blowed!” said
Devèse. “That’s not been done with the point of a pickaxe,” remarked
Deschênes by way of praise. I also expressed my admiration. Then the
master drew from his pocket a book with clasps, cut in limestone. He
had carved on it the title: _Les Mémoires de Victor Tesson, prisonnier
de guerre, à sa méchante Louise Huber.—Dolomieu, Isère._ While I was
praising the dedication, he showed me his tools, saying: “Here are my
cold chisel and my piercer. I made them out of my bicycle pliers. Here’s
my ruler; I ‘forged’ it out of the tyre of a wheelbarrow.”—“Is that
all?”—“That’s all. I have no dividers; I measure with a straw.”
Unquestionably the Frenchman is a very live animal. When I hear my
fellow-prisoners applauding the artistes of No. 7, Lannessan, Grignon,
Saint-Lanne, Bouquet, or the “artistes socialistes” of No. 38, the
members of the audience splitting their sides with laughter at the
satirical allusions and joining lustily in the choruses; when I go to
No. 13 to visit Le Second, who receives me with the affected airs of a
dandy as he ushers me into his domain of five feet square, incredibly
elegant and quaint, fitted up à la Martine; when I contemplate the
roguish gaiety of all these “Gavroches,” their indefatigable activity,
the effervescence of their wit—I think of a Swiss friend of mine who is
always saying, “These devils of Frenchmen!” I can even understand the
stupefaction of that great barrel of a Max! One will never get the better
of these fellows. One will never bend such bodies beneath the yoke of
servitude. Without violence, by the simple play of their natural life,
they would tame the most mulish of masters. The substance of which they
are composed, ever radiating energy, is irreducible. It is evident that,
by special privilege, they are born “free men.” Sovereign people!