It was, in the beginning, (said the old Frenchman) one of those valorous
and devoted regiments to which fall the hardest and most honorable
tasks. The men came, for the most part, from the Argonne; they were
rugged stock, men of the farms and of the hills. Simple, and direct....
Good soldiers.... And Frenchmen.
It chanced that when the war came, this regiment fought in its own
homeland. The men knew every foot of the hills they defended, the
ravines which they turned into death traps, the forests through which
they marched, the meadows where they skirmished. They knew this land,
and by the same token, they loved it. It was as though they had their
roots in the soil. They could not be torn from it. They waited for the
Germans at ten kilometres from the frontier--you remember, my friends,
how we waited for them there so that they might not say we had provoked
the conflict--and when the Germans came, this regiment stopped its
immediate foe and held the Germans in their tracks.
At this time, the French invasion toward Muelhausen was prospering; but
at the same time, the Germans were crushing Belgium, and pouring
through, so that they turned our flank and we were forced to go back.
That was unpleasant, and for a little time, at the very first, it was
dangerous. But in a few days we were safely disengaged, and the enemy
was exhausting himself to come up with us, and our counter stroke was
preparing.
But to give us time for this retreat and preparation, certain
organizations had to be sacrificed. This regiment was one. It was
ordered to stand firm, to hold.... It held. The enemy attacked on the
front and was repulsed; but on either side, our lines gave way, and the
second day saw the regiment attacked on the right flank, and the left.
It was well posted, upon a hill that dominated two good roads, and it
held....
But the Germans poured past them on either side; and in the press of
more important matters to the southward, the work of overwhelming this
regiment was delayed. A containing force was left to hold them, starve
them.... And the main battle swept away and left them stranded there.
The men had fought tirelessly; they were prepared to fight on, and to
die. But when it became apparent that the Germans did not propose to
push matters, and when it became clear that another day would see hunger
among them, the commander determined to strike. He had, at this time,
some three hundred fit men of the regiment remaining. They were no
longer of use where they stood. And the regiment was not accustomed to
be idle.
Therefore, that night, a little after mid-night, when it was very dark
and only the occasional flashes from the German positions illumined the
blackness, the regiment attacked. They went down in three lines, a
hundred men to a line, with their commander and their officers ahead,
gentlemen. And they flung themselves upon the Germans.
The Germans were surprised. They had expected another day or two of
waiting, and then an easy surrender. Instead, they found themselves
beset by swarming enemies, stout men with long bayonets who sweated and
swore and struck. The first charge of the French cut through the
encircling lines; the remnant of the regiment might have escaped even
then. But there had been no orders to escape, so they turned to right
and left along the German positions, and flung the huddled enemy back
and back and back.
The word was passed that their commander had fallen; and this man--he
was my very good friend and comrade, gentlemen--had been beloved by
them. Therefore they continued to fight with bitterness in their hearts
until the resistance melted before them. There may have been a thousand
Germans left to hold this battered remnant of a regiment; but those who
lived, out of that thousand, fled before the three hundred.
They fled, and were lost in the night; and the flame from a fired straw
stack nearby illumined the field, so that the Frenchmen could look into
each other’s eyes and consider what was to be done.
Their commissioned officers were dead, gentlemen; but there was an under
officer in that regiment named Jacques Fontaine. He was a big man, a
farmer; and he was a very serious and practical and thrifty man. Also,
he knew that country, and many of the men of the regiment were his
neighbors, and all of them knew him for what he was.
Therefore it seemed natural that he should take the command that night.
He called to a man named Lupec, and spoke with him. This Lupec was a
little, wry-necked man, as shrewd as a fox. And Lupec advised Jacques
Fontaine, and the big farmer shouted aloud to the panting men of the
regiment, where they stood about him in the red trousers and the blue
coats that had made our army so vulnerable in that first rush of war. He
looked about him, and he shouted to them....
He bade them strip cartridges and rifles from the dead; and he told them
to take what provisions they could find. And when this was done, they
were to scatter, and rendezvous the next night but one in a certain
ravine which all that country knew.
This ravine was in the heart of the forest. It was well hidden; it might
be defended. There was water in it; and there were farms upon the
borders of the forest where food might be had.
When, a little before dawn, a German force came back and descended upon
them, the men melted before it like the morning mists before the sun;
and the Germans did not know what to do, so they made camp, and cooked,
and ate, and slept. And the men of the regiment made their way, singly,
and by twos and threes, through the forest toward the ravine that was
the rendezvous.
This spot was called in your tongue, gentlemen, the Ravine of the Cold
Tooth.