Nous Pauvre Couillons du Front

[theSilentKiller]

Thank you all for your comments and encouragement!

Chapter Nine: 19ième à 21ième Septembre

"It was the nineteenth of September when we left Thibie and as Chalons-en-Champagne receded into the distance behind us I started to miss this small quiet village for some reason but I can't exactly say why. Maybe it was the fact that it was sleepy and calm and even the presence of the military couldn't do much to break this, Thibie also did not have any electricity despite the fact that it was right next to a city which might sound like something negative but I somehow liked it.


Anyway, back to the way to Lorraine. We walked on the road to the south-east until we turned east on a crossing. Empty fields and small villages accompanied us on our way and the locals greeted us whenever we passed by. It was funny to see how always at least one of my comrades knew someone from the people who greeted us which told me, by the way, that I was in a battalion full of people from the Champagne region. Only Arthur and I were not from the east. Arthur was actually from Montpellier, something no one would have guessed as he did not have the famous southerner temperament maybe he had lost it during his time at the universities in Paris, in this case the others from my company were happy that he did not fully acquire the even-more-famous-than-the-southerners-temperament "arrogance parisien". Though as someone who was born and raised in a city he did comments ever single negative thing he saw in the country side. He kept saying things like:
"This roads are even more awful than the ones before."
"This smell, what is this smell?"
"Did this girl over there take a bath at least once in the last few weeks?"
And so on. I took it with a certain humour, I don't know why but his constant nagging made me, as a countryman myself, laugh. Especially the latter was something we could not blame others for. Even though we had water around Chalons-en-Champagne we did not take a bath as often as we should have and therefore left a "fragrance" of "eau du militaire", as someone from my company said once.


Another thing Arthur did to entertain himself and to my amusement while marching was taking the names of two places and trying to find some funny play of words. For example did he burst out in laughter when he took the names Saint-Germain-la-Ville and Francheville ... The point on this one still did not occur to me to this day.
Overall, to some he might have been an annoying person but I found his staggering humour and ability to rant about anything entertaining and shortened the two days it took us to reach Bar-le-Duc.


This historic town made me almost vertiginous for I had never seen a place like this before. Bar-le-Duc can't really be called big and lively like Charlons-en-Champagne, probably not even compared to Espernay but it was a fascinating town with old buildings around every corner. Arthur called it a "god damn pulchritudinous place", which confused me at first but then he described it's small, old alleys and historical stone buildings as explicitly as if they were features of his best friend- an hoary yet tremendously pulchritudinous friend, that is. Arthur kept telling more and more historical facts about this town even while we were parading over the Notre-Dame Bridge which was, by the way, the only connection between the two parts of the town which was split by a river. Captain Mallarmé almost imposed our whole company a night-long guard when he caught Arthur and me talking but another company was punished that way before us for open drunkenness - fortunately for us.


Well, that allowed us to sleep in the houses, or rather in the even older basements of the ancient houses, before we proceeded our way north-eastwards to Verdun. I even had to ride one of the horses pulling the artillery pieces that day which put me into an embarrassing position because I did never ride a horse before, therefore I made my comrades have a good laugh when they were watching me clumsily trying to mount the horse. I eventually found myself sitting on the top of it's back after falling three times. So, I started this day with an aching back and a dirty coat.
It was dawn when we stopped at Beausite, a small village halfway between Bar-le-Duc and Verdun, the military staff originally had planned to reach Souilly by that time but the poor streets slowed us down. While going to our billets the other artillerymen and I discussed how fitting the name Beausite was for this small place. From the top of a small hill were the empty fields, flat land and a village here and there clearly visible.


While trying to fall asleep Henri Martime, an eighteen years old boy from class 1914 who had the great fortune, as he put it, that the war started right after he finished school, asked my for my bayonet. Naturally I asked why he wanted it and he showed me his. The spine of the bayonet, had incorporated saw teeths and now he wanted to do the same to my bayonet. So I gave him mine since I actually didn't care much about my bayonet, I didn't expect to find great use for it as artilleryman and said, he could do as he liked as long as he didn't wake me up. I don't know how but he managed to not disturb my sleep with filing-noises. Well rested and a modified bayonet on my belt I mounted the horse, this time more swiftly than before, and followed the column of soldiers in front of me. It was only after a few hours when Arthur realised that we were going in the wrong direction and when he asked Mallarmé what this was about our captain said that the fourth army would attack at Doncourt-aux-Templiers south of Verdun. We arrived at noon in Dommartin-la-Montagne which was separated from Doncourt by only a forest and five
kilometre of empty fields. "This is why they are not attacking", remarked Arthur and when I asked what he was speaking about he explained to me, that the dense forest made it impossible to our field artillery to shell the German positions therefore even our artillery would be visible if they deployed behind the forest which was necessary due to the fact that attacking without artillery support was a suicide mission. Shells were falling down on us and uprooted and dilacerated whole trees wherever they landed while we were trying to get our cannons to the other side of the forest. Shell and wood splinters flew in every direction, cut through the bushes and slapped against our guns while we guided our horses through the forest and tried helping them pulling the cannons by pushing them. It was a miracle that not a single one of us got hit. The cannons were deployed when the forest finally cleared and we tried to use some trees as cover. Then the order to aim and shoot was given.

[Alwyn]

Arthur and Henri are intriguing characters, I hope that we will see more of them! The reactions of the soldiers to new experiences (such as Arthur's reactions to the sights and smells of the countryside and plays on words about the names of places) sound historically authentic. I hope that the members of this artillery unit will survive the battle - I like your characters and I know that armies tended to suffer huge losses in battle in this period.

[theSilentKiller]

Thank you Alwyn! Battles indeed were very lossy, hard to imagine today...

Chapter Ten: Bataille de Verdun [Secteur Doncourt-aux-Templiers]

"The German artillery and we were exchanging shells for hours while our infantry approached Doncourt-aux-Templiers the same way we did in Dommartin-Dampierre. They stopped at the height of a small farm where they started do dig ditches to wait until the order to assault is given. These ditches were hip-deep to enable shooting while kneeling at possibly attacking enemies also they were just outside the reach of the German rifles. More than a quarter million men were now awaiting the order to charge while we from the artillery tried our best to spot the enemy and weaken their lines. The biggest threat for us artillerymen were the 150mm shells of the German howitzer. These left enormous shell holes wherever they landed after flying shrieking through the air. Furthermore, what they lacked in firing rate was compensated by their range and angle of fire. We thought in the beginning that we had spotted them and shot industrious our 75mm at them until someone from the reconnaissance came and said that the enemy batteries were behind a hill outside of our range. So we could do nothing but shooting at the German lines and trying to ignore the heavy shells. This was, as you might think, not that easy. And the possibility that a shell landed next to us did exist.

Therefore we started, after receiving word that three of our guns had been destroyed by a shell, to dig ditches for us too and use earth to put up smaller defences around our cannons leaving gaps for the cannon tubes. This defended us at least against shrapnel shots but the 150mm were still a threat. Some even experimented a little bit and tried to increase their shooting angle by building a ramp on which the rolled the cannon, though captain Mallarmé didn't like this idea. Nothing else had happened by the evening of the 21nd except from the cannonades and smaller skirmishes, none of our skirmishing lines weren't allowed to advance until the cavalry which was supposed to attack the enemy right flank was in position but the cavalry officers wanted to wait until nightfall to deploy since the enemy's eyes were sharp during the day. The Germans had, further north, in Verdun, assaulted Fort Douaumant and Fort Vaux but without any great success - general Séré de Rivières did well in building the fortresses around the city.


The following night was ice cold, probably the coldest of the year, even more since we had nothing but the clothes we wore and the earth we lay on had the temperature of general Foch's heart; ice cold. Nonetheless, the night ensured us safety from the shells for the time being and we somehow managed to fall asleep even though the chattering of my freezing comrades gave me a hard time to do so. There was, however, suddenly a loud noise in the distant but after we jumped up with our rifles in our hands we realised that it was machine gun fire , it stopped after a few second. Nothing else happened the night, I think - at least not in the sector Doncourt-aux-Templiers. Well, we were more anxious to fall asleep.


We woke up aware that today that the real fighting was supposed to go down, for me the fact that I wouldn't anticipate in it made me feel anxious but I always kept my rifle close by, just in case. I can still remember the cannonades in the morning of that day, some shells hit close to our position and two of my comrades were wounded by splinters and one, Paul Pierre, a nineteen years old son of a winemaker, took one to his head and died on the way to the medical officer. I didn't know him that good but I think he had a fiancee back home.


Anyway, after shooting for a while I looked at the battle field just in time to see our cavalry charging at the enemy skirmishing line which had advanced towards our line. It was surely an impressive sight. Seeing the masses of men moving towards eat other while the sky above them was filled with small, white clouds left by shrapnel shells. Yet the charge was ... The charge did not have the intended effect I think, it seemed no one had learned something from the war of 1870. As one might expect when charging the enemy right flank while only the centre of them is fighting, meaning the right flank had time to look around ... The charge was a complete disaster. Some Germans saw the charge coming and fired two or three volleys within ten second it took the horses to cover the distance into the mass of riders which either fell dead or wounded from their horses and were stamped down or lost their horses to a bullet while galloping at full speed, I guess I don't have to mention that both cases had remotely the same ending. Nonetheless did the cavalry manage to reach the enemy firing line where they were greeted by the Germans and, well, their pointy bayonets. It was impressive to see with what ferocity the cavalry fought even though it had been halved by the three volleys they still managed to lutter à outrance [fr. fight to death ], so to say. Our left flank advanced in the meantime, something they should have done earlier but didn't for some reason. It was the officers of our left flank who couldn't follow the order to fire at the enemy right flank to give the cavalry the cover they needed. On the other hand, as Arthur later told me analytically, it was the incapability of the cavalry officer to adapt to a change of plans, the idea of direct command from the general to the officers was not realistic, at least not in 1914 nor in the later years. As a matter of fact, the French army never greatly changed it's doctrine of mission-type tactics sine 1815 which already proved fatal in the battle of the Marne despite the victory.

Painting of French cuirassiers


Painting of a French Hussar fighting a German infantry man

And the simple infantryman, or in this case the cavalry, got to feel that. They fought but it was a hopeless fight for them. Only a handful of cavalrymen and horses were alive by the time they fled or surrendered. Yet the cavalry allowed our infantry on the left to safely push forward and fire at the distracted Germans. From there on the battle turned into hours of simply shooting, same for the artillery and infantry. In the end, it was already late afternoon I think, broke our lines. A German machine had gun proned on the roof of a small farm between us and Doncourt-aux-Templies depleted our skirmishing line and our infantry fled under the pressure of the advancing German infantry. Now, without any riflemen to hold the enemy back came the Germans closer to us artillerymen. We hastily limber the guns up and tried to fall back but it wasn't that simple. First of all, the guns were heavy and it took us a long time to limber them up. The limbering-process was complex, along with. You had to get the horses to stand quietly in the right position, keep them calm while shells are falling around you and gunfire filled the air. Then you needed five or sic strong men to turn get the cannon in the right position and fixing the gun fast complicated and demanded a lot of prestidigitation. All of this was complicated without the time pressure but now now with the Germans getting closer...
Another problem was the forest - it had been hit hard by artillery shells and thus had many shellholes which we had to circumnavigate. We weren't even halfway through the forest when the first bullets whistled past our ears, so I decided to take some men and try to hold back the approaching enemy as well as in any way possible.

Photography of two Germans shoooting

There were sixty of us ready to sacrifice themselves for our comrades, one of them was Henri who didn't hesitate to "report for duty", as he put it. We used the shell holes to get cover and fired in the direction of the enemy. In order to trick the enemy that there were more of us we previously had asked our men who retreated with the guns to give us their rifles. Each of us lay two rifles next to each other on the ridge of a shell hole or on a branch and fired both. It was nearly impossible for us to actually aim that way but our intention was to hold the enemy back as long as possible. Another problem was the recoil. When I shot two rifles at the same time and tried to take the recoil with my left and right shoulder I almost was pushed back by the forces and my back hurt after three or four volleys, but it looked as if it actually worked because the Germans didn't seem quite inclined of advancing as fast as their should have and used the trees for cover instead. After hours of fire fighting, at least I perceived the thirty minutes it actually lasted as hours, so, after half an hour of fighting realised our opponents that there weren't quite as many of us as it seemed. So they charged forward with a loud "Hurra!" and we, I think there were only about twenty of us alive, fled. I saw Henri getting hit in the back while running. So I stopped and attempted to carry him but he said that I had to retreat. I, however, grabbed him and carried him shoulder high. He was surprisingly light and we got pretty far until a German, seemingly out of the nowhere, suddenly was behind us and thrust his bayonet in Henri's body. I fell to the ground and Henri fell ontop of me. I somehow managed to get him off me, jumped on my feet and whipped my bayonet out. I did no longer have a rifle to attack it to so I held it like a knife ready to take on the German in front of me. He had the clear advantage of reach and I knew that I couldn't afford to stay there in the forest any longer so leaped forward, dodged a thrust and rammed my bayonet into his right arm. His scream was maddening, clearly Germans and Frenchmen had different gorges.
Pulling it our was hard due to the modification Henri did two days before and a sort of struggle with the now screaming German threw me out of balance and when I finally managed to remove my bayonet from the German whole flaps of flesh got caught in the saw tenth and his blood was gushing out of the wound. Then I turned around and ran away neither interested in the flaps of flesh nor in the screaming German lying on the ground. This small fight made me completely forget about Henri who probably wasn't dead by that moment - leaving him for dead ... leaving this boy who just had finished school to die is something I regret to this day but back then in the moment I heard the Germans screaming "Hurra!" while combing through the forest made me feel more frightened than ever before and I simply stood up and ran away. I left the forest after a while and suddenly had to throw up - the picture of the screaming German and the thought that I left poor Henri to die was too much but I did know that I had to get away as fast as possible.

The retreat through the forest ... was a close call

Well, the rallying point was in Souilly but I somehow ended up in Beausite again where I met the 22nd infantry battalion -well, what was left of them- which was about to cover a retreat to Bar-le-Duc. The 22nd were punching holes into the people's houses for some sort of loopholes and digging ditches through on the streets and around the village. I also had to find out that the hill from which I had such a beautiful view over the surrounding area a few days ago had been riddled with shell holes and now was used as a position for a machine gun.
And just in the moment I was about to start out for Bar-le-Duc, I had a short break in Beausite, a German artillery shell exploded on the street right in front of me. I was thrown against a wall and lost my consciousness."

Notes:
Raimond Adolphe Séré de Rivières (1815 - 1898) was a French general. He was involved in building the fortresses around Verdun.

Battle of Verdun: Probably one of the most famous battles of WW1, as well as the longest. There are two common hypotheses why the battle was fought. One is, that Erich von Falkenhayn, the German Chief of Staff, wanted to attack where he knew that the French had to defend at all cost thus using up alle their soldiers, as he said. Another one, and I personally think this one is more likely, is that he only said this because his attack in Verdun failed and needed an excuse why that happened. Verdun itself has several strategically important hills. (two very contested ones were Côte [height] 304 and Côte Mort-Homme [Dead man]. The battle lasted roughly 300 days and during these 300 days 14,000,000 shells were shot (32 shells per hour), 310,000 men died (43 per hour) and in the end the front changed about 4 kilometers, so it basically ended where it started.
The actual battle happened in 1916 but in-game it accured that I had to fight on the map where Verdun lies... I will see if I can get a second battle there (there is a special Verdun map in the custom battle menu)

[Alwyn]

Nicely done! I like the line about general Foch's heart, the way that your artillerymen try to improvise when they discover the problem they face, the cavalry charge (showing how 1815 tactics no longer work, a century later) and the desperate retreat, with the volunteer rearguard of sixty men trying to slow the enemy down. The end of the chapter sounds ominous. I'm intrigued by your observations about the possible reasons why the Battle of Verdun was fought. You mention that there is a special Verdun map in the custom battle menu; you can, of course, use custom battles in an AAR which mainly follows a campaign. (Robin de Bodemloze's Shogun II epic Takeda, for example, followed the campaign for most of the AAR, but towards the end he used more and more custom battles, to tell the story he wanted to tell.)

[Caillagh de Bodemloze]

Ah... Alwyn, I'm beginning to think you should stop naming specific characters you like. It does seem that whenever you do that in one of theSilentKiller's AARs, that character dies in the next chapter...

This is all very dramatic, theSilentKiller. The sense of urgency is very compelling - as is the sense of desperation, and the horror at the number of deaths.

[theSilentKiller]

Thank you Alwyn and Caillagh!
@Caillagh I wonder if Alwyn can see into the future... or he hacked into my PC - you never know

Chapter Eleven: Blessé?

"So...", Jean tapped with his his pen against his note book while thinking concentrated, "... only to clarify: How far away was this shell when it exploded?"


Thomas closed his eyes and frowned which created even more deep wrinkles than he already had.


"This is hard to answer - you see, this shell was one of these silent shells, they were very short but fat, like a mirabelle. They flew comparatively slow through the air due to their diameter and therefore made almost no sound. The good thing about these kind of shells was that they were weak, they were old types which weren't used in the later years of the war. So, the shell could have been close... maybe five to ten meters away."


"And you instantly fell unconscious?"


"No. When my head hit the wall of a building. I could feel my body being violently thrown into one direction. Comparable to sitting in a fast train which suddenly stops but multiple times stronger."


"And where did you wake up? In hospital or in Beausite?"


"In a field hospital. At first I didn't know what happened nor where I was but my memory returned slowly and I could look around. I was in one of these white tents of the Red Cross with approximately twenty beds - these very small beds with a cheap iron framework and uncomfortably hard mattresses. Every bed was used by someone, nurses stood next to them and talked with the men in the beds. When one of the nurses saw that I was awake she walked up to me and asked me how I feel, if I remember something and other questions - the standard procedure. I had to interrupt her to actually be able to ask something, namely where I was. Apparently I was in a field hospital close to Herpont, that's halfway between Châlons-en-Champagne and Beausite. She left me after telling me that I shouldn't stand up, so I had to somehow find out myself if my body was unimpaired.
After moving around in the bed I knew that I could feel both of my hands and feet, I could sit straight up and everything else I tried. Only when I raised my arms I could feel a sharp pain in my left shoulder, painful enough to fall back into the bed unwillingly. I decided it might be better to wait for the doctor to tell me what my condition is.

While waiting I could observe the tent. Most of the men in the beds looked more or less sound, therefore I was in a station for the slightly wounded people. People who broken an arm, cerebral concussion and such. The man in the bed to my right for example had a broken nose and many tiny scars on his face. He told me laughingly, that he slipped while marching. To me he seemed more like a draft dodger who couldn't doge the draft and needed a reason to not fight. I instantly didn't like him even though he looked like a nice person, well, except the nose and scars. They did look scary. But I could get some information what happened after the battle from him. He knew only the things he heard from visitors. Apparently, Verdun had been encircled and besieged while the Germans advanced to Bar-le-Duc and Charleville-Mézières. General Joffre planned to attack them on the 26th -ah, I forgot to mention this; the day I woke up was the 24th-.
When the doctor came to me, I could see through the tiny rectangular opening in the wall of the tent the setting sun, he told me I would be able to return to duty one the 1st of October, as I received a deep cut from either a stone or shard of glass to my shoulder and a cerebral concussion. A whole week doing nothing seemed to be an unbearable drag - and it actually was, especially since no one came to visit me. The only thing I could do was reading the newspaper and walking around in Herpont, a village smaller than Beausite! Oh!, and I received a letter from my older brother who was fighting in Belgium. Unfortunately I lost it...
The letter said, that he did well only the continuous rainfall turned Flanders into one giant mud pit and he was about to feel sick.


Well, with not much to do the whole week went by painfully slow while waiting for news of the planned attack, which, as I later had to find out, was a failure, - I also talked a lot with the locals. There was a weird girl, about twenty-five or so who was born in the Bretagne and therefore had this funny and weird dialect and accent, -for example; she had a brother and when ever she said "mon breur" [my brother] instead of "mon frère" it always sounded like a languedocien [person from Languedoc], I met one while being in the artillery battalion, trying to say "chasseur" [hunter], as these people often pronounced the letter "a" like an "o" and she spoke fast and sometimes swallowed letters, for example the "b" in "breur". We had one whole conversation where I thought, that she had a dog called Chasseur who did lots of stupid things -her brother was a delinquent- and later, after she told me she meant her brother I thought he was a Chasseur in the military [light infantry].


I spent a lot of time with that girl and was almost sad to leave her when a military officer visited me on the 30th and said, I'd go back to the infantry, even my old company. The attack of the 26th cost many men their lives and more and more infantrymen were needed for another offensive. But I wasn't sent to the front line, no, my division was stationed in Soissons north of Paris and wouldn't even participate in said offensive. I took the train from Châlons-en-Champagne to Tergnier, at that time Tergnier still was an important rail connection between the east and north. And for me, it turned into a place of great misfortune."

[Alwyn]

Good chapter! I believe that soldiers became used to listening for the sounds of the different types of shell, so a shell which made almost no sound would have been especially frightening. I like the details of the soldier who seemed like a draft dodger and the 'weird girl' whose dialect and accent caused misunderstandings. Returning to the infantry sounds hazardous and I look forward to finding out the reason for the ominous last line about Tergnier. As Caillagh said, this is an urgent, compelling story. (Caillagh, I think you're right, I should stop naming characters which I like!)

The Writers' Study Yearly Awards 2016 are now open for nominations. Everyone is invited to submit nominations here.

[Caillagh de Bodemloze]

I like this last chapter! (No surprises there, really.)

I like the way you make Thomas check for himself whether or not he's lost a limb (or part of one) and whether he can still move. That seems like the sort of thing anyone would want to do!

[theSilentKiller]

Thank you a lot Caillagh!
@Alwyn Thank you too! Admit it, you hacked into my PC to read my "characters.txt" file!

Oh my, it has already been almost one and a half months since I last posted here. Sorry, real life has been stealing time like the Grey Gentlemen. But heres the next chapter. I don't know when the next one will be finished, probably not too soon...

Chapter Twelve: Beaucoup de malheur - ou pas autant?

"Misfortune? Misfortune can have broad meaning", remarked David distant while looking through several photographs.

"It indeed does have", answered Thomas smirking, "you see, Tergnier was not only an important place for transportation but also used by the British - namely Fieldmarshal Douglas Haig's I. Army Corps. As a result of that, I could not only see the hundreds of our soldiers changing trains, waiting at the train station and helping entraining but also men in khaki filing through the streets - this was a sight, indeed. The famous British Discipline! Their march in step was nearly perfect.

Anyway - I stood there in Tergnier right in front of the train station which I just had left, holding my rifle in one hand and papers which I was supposed to give Captain Lefevre as soon as I arrive in Soissons in the other. I normally would have instantly set out for Soissons because it still wasn't noon yet and I could have arrived shortly after lunch, but I didn't. Was it the presence of the British or the amount of expensive cars which parked in front of the train station, I decided to stay for the night in Tergnier, which was, apropos, a beautiful city where the architecture of the 18th century met the industrialization of the 19th - but I frankly didn't care back then about this. A shame, that is.

Back to me being in Tergnier, let me think: It still wasn't even noon, I think, and I decided to stroll around the city observing the British and their splendor. One than that caught my eye were their rifles. Compared to our long Lebel rifle seemed the short and clunky looking Lee Enfields weird and almost more alien to me than the British uniforms or the weird commands the officers shouted. But mind, I happened to hold one of the Lee Enfields around the end of 1915 and they actually were lighter than your Lebel rifles which honestly surprised me. I mean, the difference was not that much but surely perceivable after along time of carrying it around.
Another thing I found interesting -or rather funny; the first time I saw it, it fascinated and amused me equally- was the weird way soldiers had to report to their superior officers, even for minor reasons - at least I assume they were minor. For example: I saw a soldier in Tergnier who had to report to an officer, I don't know how big the difference in their rank was but I think it wasn't too big, anyway; this soldier almost marched as if there was a parade to the officer in the middle of the street, stopped in front of the officer by stomping once with one leg on the ground, stood there like a candle with a rifle and shouted something. The officer shouted back and the soldier turned around. But he didn't simply turn around. He made a quarter of a turn, stomped with each of his leg, repeated this a second time and marched away.
This procedure wasn't uncommon, so I think it was something they had to do every time their had to tell something a superior officer. But I didn't see this much later in the war so I can't tell for sure. I later asked a British about this and he didn't quite know what I meant. Maybe it was something they did to impress us French... I can't say for sure."

"And how did you have to do this, reporting to an officer I mean", asked Jean enthusiastically.

"Oh, that depended on the occasion. If I, let's say, wanted to ask a question to someone who was several ranks above me I would have had to stand formally in front of them and say 'Soldat' - or 'première classe' - ' Thomas Rampasse has a question for ' and so on, depending on who you talked to. Of course, we had to have a good reason to ask a question. Talking with someone who was very high in rank, everything above colonel if you were a simple soldier, was only allowed if he talked to you first or to greet them formally. But there was no weird walking involved in this."

Snapshot of two British officers on horseback. They are observing their troops.

Jean simply said "Oh", with a slight undertone of disappointment and wrote everything down in his note book.

"And what else did happen in Tergnier", asked David looking straight in the eyes of Thomas. It wasn't until this moment that he realised, that there was a thin yellow ring around the brown iris of the old man.

"Right! I wandered through the streets when suddenly someone tapped on my shoulder from behind. I turned around and in front of me stood a vicious looking officers. He looked at me as if I was an escaped criminal and said: "Oi, soldier! I've seen you wandering around for the past twenty minutes. Back in line, we've got captured Boches coming this way." I, still completely shocked to a extend that I suddenly started to sweat heavily despite the cold, didn't even try to object. If I told this officer that I should be on my way to Soissons I probably would have been court martialed on suspicion of desertion. After following him for a while I could see what he wanted me to do. There was a line of French soldiers which faced a line of British soldiers with only a street between them. It was outside of Tergnier. Hundreds of citizens stood behind the lines and shouted, there were so many people, that I couldn't even understand what they said. I was given a place in the French line of this lane and waited for something to happen. After a while rows of men walked sluggishly though our lane, German prisoners of war. It was the first time that I saw Germans clearly from this close, if you don't count the one from Doncourt-aux-Templiers. This time I could calmly observe them while they were passing by me only 10 feet away. Their faces were filled with disappointment and they looked as if they had lost all of their vigour and spirit to fight back. This sight was fascinating and scary at the same time but there was also a feeling of pride and maybe cockiness inside of me as if this was my merit and payment at the same time.

Anyway, the prisoners were accompanied by Hussars on horse back holding carbines. Out of the nowhere, tomatoes, rotten apples, peaches and other things of this kind flew over our heads and hit the Germans, staining their field grey and worn uniforms. Some of the ones who were hit looked around angrily but most of them endured it and kept on walking down the lane, as if enduring this preserved their last scintilla of pride. This whole procedure lasted only about ten minutes, until the last German passed by me. I turned around as quickly as I could after it was over and wanted to walk away but I suddenly slipped on a tomato which lay on the street. I landed on my back which already hurt a lot but I likewise hit my head on the ground. A feeling of dizziness took control over me and made me see sparks - I think hitting my head just after I left the hospital was not a good idea. I somehow managed to stand up just to find out, when I rubbed the back of my head, that my back was covered in dirt and old food. So I decided to go to the river which was right next to Tergnier. Apparently an officer took notice of me while I walked to the river and asked me who I was and which regiment I belonged to. As before, I didn't want to tell him that I should be on the way to Soissons and I didn't know what I was supposed to answer. While standing in front of this officer I suddenly had an idea. Earlier, while waiting for the prisoners to arrive, I overheard a conversation between two fellow French soldiers. I could tell by their patches that they were from 19th infantry regiment of the 21st infantry division. Another thing I remembered was that one of them had the name Robert Flaumage who, fortunately for me, had a cauchois dialect [East Normandy] like I have - or had, I don't think I have it anymore.

With this in mind I said confidently, that I was Soldat Robert Flaumage from the 19th infantry regiment. And do you know what the officer said", Thomas leaned forward and smiled, exposing yellow teeth and tooth spaces.

David and Jean leaned forward too and looked agog at the old man.

"He said: 'Oh, I heard about you from Fernièr! Go to Sailly and clean up the mess you did. Immediately!' The officer walked away and let me, who was completely baffled, alone. Before I even thought about moving, someone came to me and said, that lieutenant Charchosse ordered him to look after me. Now imagine how I felt; I didn't know who Fernièr was, could only assume that Charchosse was the officer from just before and furthermore I didn't know what Sailly is and what mess I was supposed to clean up. Asking the fellow soldier what I was supposed to do might have raised his suspicion, so I tried to ask him for the direction to where Sailly is in a manner that it sounded like I didn't know where I currently was but certainly did know what Sailly is. He asked me, if I was stupid and pointed at two smokestacks which protruded from the rest of the city's buildings. I still did not know who or what Sailly was and pondered about this the whole time it took us two to arrive at the building the smokestacks belonged to. I felt dumber than ever before, after seeing Sailly. In front of me stood a factory with a sign above the entrance saying "Sailly". Sailly was in fact the name of the factory! The soldier told me, that I should clean up and that he had to go. Yet again, I was alone not knowing what I was supposed to to. At this point I didn't even want to know, I wanted to get away from Tergnier, so simply walking away from the factory and trying to avoid every French soldier seemed like the best option to . I sneaked through backyards where I stepped into dog poo, ran though side alleys where I drenched my shoes and feet in a pool of dirty water - at least I assume it was water.

By the time I managed to leave Tergnier without being seen and started my way to Soissons my shoes were covered in what every things I stepped and my feet were wet. After about twenty minutes of walking through the country side I realised something while cleaning my still dirty back with wet leaves; I had no backbag! I was going for almost half an hour holding my rifle in the right hand but I didn't realize that I had no backbag. Turning around to go back to Tergnier and finding my backbag there was the only choice I had. It was quite obvious when I lost it; when we had to stand in line for the prisoners we had to leave our bags somewhere. It was already past noon, probably around one or two p.m., when I found my backbag lying on the wet ground. Well, you see, we didn't only have a leather backbag. We also had four smaller black leather cartridge pouches which we wore on a belt. They were used to store ammunition but many also used them for their tobacco. In addition, we also were issued with one small khaki-coloured bag with a strap to hang them around us. All of these six bags lay together with my blanket on the wet ground. I didn't want to spend another second in this town, so I quickly grabbed them, turned around and started my way to Soissons - for the second time of that day.

The sun was already past the zenith and my stomach hadn't received anything to digest since the early morning of that day and I could feel and especially hear this. So, a small village, about halfway between Tergnier and Soissons, was where I decided to stop to get something to eat. Another thing I finally wanted to finish was the cleaning of my clothes which were still dirty. I mean, I could get most of the earth and the juice of the fruits off but it was still clear that I slipped - especially the blue Capote [fr. Greatcoat]. The village had no restaurants or something similar to this, to my great shock that is, and after asking the locals I found out that the next market was in Folembray which was almost half an hour away from that village. I don't know if it was my disappointment or the fact that I was a soldier -probably the latter one, if you ask me- but the two men I asked invited my to their house to eat something with them. I, as ravenous as I was, accepted their invitation and followed them to their farm where a nice young madame served me something to eat. The two men, son and father, and the madame surely thought my stories to be a just payment because when I wanted to leave and give them money they told me that I don't have to pay anything. We people from the Normandy might not be known for having the most outstanding manners but not paying for food seemed unfit even to me. But the fact was: I had no choice but to accept this, as the guest has to do as the host says.
They even shouted "bon chance" and "vive la france" after me when I left their farm. Oh, I almost forgot to mention this; the madame even cleaned my clothes for me, now I finally again represented a proper soldier. In the end the, day was not as disastrous as it might seem. Nothing was missing and I arrived not too late in Soissons, I think the clock tower of Cathédrale Saint-Gervais-et-Saint-Protais de Soissons rang eight o'clock. Hah, the bell of this cathedral was interesting- well, actually, this doesn't matter.

Upon arriving in the town, I went to captain Lefevre that very night and gave him the documents I was given. Lefevre welcomed me in an almost cordial manner, he even hugged me and called me jokingly "the lost son". He told me where my accommodation was and to my surprise I met Foillan the Catalan, Michel who, not to my surprise, held his camera in his hands and the frail Louis who hadn't grown any stronger since the last time we saw each other. We had a hearty reunion, laughed lustily at the things that happened to me and we -I think this might not be stunner- drank a lot of wine. We spent the whole night talking, laughing and drinking without sleeping. Some comrades from the regiment who knew me even ran through the whole building shouting "Thomas back!", apparently I was some what prominent for the unusual case of being transferred to the artillery for clear disobedience. What surprised me the most today, was that no officer complained about the noise. Wait I think I have a picture Michel took that night - "

Thomas searched through the photographs in the box. He took one out and gave it to Jean and David.
"It is a bit blurry, Michel had maybe too many glasses of wine by that time..."
They could see on the photo five laughing men in front of a small table leaning against each other while holding empty glasses. One of them was almost two heads taller and had a messy full beard. Foillan, Jean assumed. The other four were hard to distinguish but one of them was exceptionally thin, almost as if he hadn't eaten for days. Another one, who seemed stronger than everybody else, grinned silly with closed eyes at the camera. This young man was, David thought, was the old man who sat in front of him with one side of his face sagging down slackened.

[Caillagh de Bodemloze]

A new chapter!

I like this very much. Your description of the British soldier reporting to a superior made me smile.

I particularly like the way this chapter leaves questions unanswered: what had Flaumage done? What was interesting about the cathedral bell? It makes the chapter much more like a real conversation, and it's very effective.

Also 'scintilla' is an excellent word, isn't it?

[Owlparrot3]

Excellent updates .The scene of the rotten tomatoes is so lively .The line that the retreat was a close call is great too .

Personally my aars have very few defeats because in game I only fight when I have more troops or a better advantage than the enemy .
But a defeat chapter in an area has a lot of potential too.

[Alwyn]

Thank you a lot Caillagh!
@Alwyn Thank you too! Admit it, you hacked into my PC to read my "characters.txt" file! .

How did you know about that * Coughs loudly * It wasn't me, it was my evil twin!

Seriously, this is an excellent chapter, I enjoyed the observations about the British soldiers reporting to their superiors as well as the officer's reaction when Thomas claimed to be Robert Flaumage from the 19th infantry regiment!

[theSilentKiller]

Thanky ou all for the encouraging comments!
@mad orc Loosing against the AI is actually pretty hard when you have balanced armies - at least in this mod. But since France was not really that successfull until the first battle of the marne I wanted to have a defeat (way to costly one, got me to sweat)

Chapter Thirteen: Farniente

The following days were monotonous, but calm. There was not much we could do except strolling around and proudly presenting our badges to the ladies of Soissons. I mean", Thomas smiled and licked his lips, "there was the daily... hmm - let's call it roll call. Every morning the companies had to muster at the town's square followed by a few exercises. This was more or less the only actually productive thing we did during our stay in this town. There were no problems with our billet this time, we slept in actual beds, and the Lorraine-Offensive which was going on in the meanwhile attracted our, the public's and the brass' attention so that we were almost forgotten by the higher ups. Our presence in Soissons soon became everyday life and we soldiers learned to blend in even with our flamboyant uniforms of that time. Furthermore, the first of October was ice cold, I think I had never experienced a colder day in any October before, and this cold set the whole city in some sort of drowsiness. The streets emptied and we wore our long, blue overcoats while patrolling through the city. We fought the cold by visiting the premises which stringed together along the side roads and drank wine, played cards, some tried to woo the women there with various degrees of success, my friend Sartre the cameraman even once earned a slap on the face for whatever he said. He was more of a visual artist, better with using his hands to make art than a cunning linguist. But one thing almost everyone did was swaggering about made-up stories.

One story I remember -because it is so absurd- was told by a soldier who was in his late thirties. He had this weird languedocien dialect… anyway, he said that he fought the Germans in the Battle of Verdun close to Dun-sur-Meuse and when the Germans started to overrun his position he hid in a small hole in the earth and waited until some Germans got closer. He then jumped up and scared them with making a face at them and the oh so scared Germans screamed, threw their rifles which already had their bayonets fixed to the ground and ran away. He took a rifle and threw them like a javelin at the running Germans. When more Germans came to stop him he threw rifles at them successfully routing them. The man claimed he single-handedly saved his entire battalion.

Another one told, he once split an incoming shell in half with his bayonet. Or there was one who claimed that he launched himself via cannon behind the enemy line and killed an entire platoon alone. There were even more absurd stories, the long stay in Soissons paired with the fact that there wasn't much to do didn't have a splendid effect on us”, the old man chuckled, “there are things I did and said which I won’t tell…

Well, there were three things about this boredom: First of all, it was welcomed. Some rest days raised the moral among the man. On the other hand, it was agonizing. After four or five days we felt completely useless and didn’t know what to do all day long. We weren’t allowed to visit nearby towns and we had no one in the battalion who was from Soissons. But this boredom was one thing definitely: unexpected. Even in hindsight I cannot explain why we weren’t ordered to fight or at least change position. The army was very strict about slacking off, especially during the first years – I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately and can’t explain it…

A group of French soldiers making a pause

Anyway, it was because of this boredom that our joy was so much more when the major told us, that the Germans had been pushed back until Bar-le-Duc and that is was now us who would fight them there to relieve Verdun. Verdun had been besieged since the lost battle there and was surrounded completely. Backpacks were prepared and carts loaded before we left the city on the 7th of October. The 116th, in which I was, arrived two days later in Rethel. Rethel was already occupied by divisions from the 6th and 8th army and problem concerning the billeting of troops arose – I for my part got a bed in the cellar of an old couple. I only had to buy them wine and do their purchases, the wife was half-lame and the husband had lost a leg in the war of 1870.
But soon more of our men, our army, the 4th I mean, would be billeted in Rethel. The 8th was aiming for Sedan where the Germans had formed a U-Shape to attack the infamous city from three sides. The relief-attack at Sedan was to be timed with an offensive in Wallonia and the Ardennes.
When the division from the 8th left Rethel on the 11th the streets were full of people -soldiers, children, men and women alike- cheering "Vengeance pour 1870" and things like that. I must admit, I stood there too and shouted a phrase I once read on a train from the train station in Barlin: “De Barlin à Berlin” [From Barlin to Berlin]
Someone among the crowd told me that day that one of old Mac-Mahon's - I mean Patrice Mac-Mahon -, that one of his sons lead the 18th infantry brigade to battle, wanting to undo his father's mistake. It surely was frisky in the streets that day, the people were clearly in high spirits despite the cold weather and previous losses.

Cuirassiers heading for Sedan

Our farewell on the 13th when we left Rethel to meet the Germans at the Meuse was not quite as joyful. I could clearly feel a certain tension in the air, women on the balconies were solemnly looking down at us as we marched in columns through the streets. Men were standing at the footway saluting and children, completely oblivious about the mood as children usually are, minced behind us, between our ranks without disturbing our lock-step that is and some even tried to imitate our cadence, holding wooden branches like rifles. This way, shrouded in deferential and humble reverence, we left Rethel for Verdun, little did I know what was going to await us there. Things had changed while my time of inaction - We were heading straight for trench warfare and the first real guerre de positions.


--

Notes:
"The war of 1870", the Franco-Prussian War (1870/71), was a conflict between the second French Empire and the German Confederation and South German states during which the Third French Republic and the German Empire were declared. French lost the war after a series of defeats (almost every battle) and lost Alcasse-Lorraine and a lot of money. It is also called the first modern war because it daw large scale mobilisation, strategical usage of trains, mass use of breech-loading rifles, modern artillery, etc. ...

Patrice de Mac-Mahon was a French general during the Franco-Prussian war and later a president of the Frech Thrid Republic. He failed to evade a German army and was forced to fight them at Sedan. He was wounded and remained in German captivity for the rest of the war.

Battle of Sedan was a battle during the Franco Prussian War. A French army (almost every professional soldier) was encircled in Sedan and was forced to capitulate after taking t0o heavy casualties during heavy shelling. Napoleon III., emperor of France at that time who was in Sedan, signed peace offer which the government in Paris did not accept. The government declared the French Third Republik ending the Napoleon-Monarchy and continued to fight, depsite having lost almost every soldier at Sedan being forced to rely on partisans and poorly trained militia. (Interesting to note: The French amry inflicted more casualties, almost twice as much, on the Germans during the first two months, than during the rest fo the war, after the main army was lost)

[Caillagh de Bodemloze]

I like the absurd stories told by the soldiers, and the way that the boredom is so unexpected (and therefore the prospect of action is so exciting, at least to begin with).

(Just out of interest, would you normally write 'Mac-Mahon' for a name beginning with 'Mac' or 'Mc'? I wouldn't use the hyphen, myself; I'd just write 'MacMahon'. I'm just wondering if that's because of a difference of native language and background. )

[theSilentKiller]

Thank you Caillagh!

I've always seen the name written as "Mac-Mahon". The 'prefix' Mac does not exist in German, so I can't imagine it being germanized. Mac in English, and especially Scottish means "son of...", as far as I know. But the Mac-Mahon family does not come from the British Isles, so I can't mean this, I assume. Mac in French means "pimp" or "mack" (maybe a conncetion between the French Mac and the American Mack?), but I don't think it means this - would be unfitting. In French wiriting I've seen both, Mac Mahon and Mac-Mahon. (although the latter one might have been written by German-French people or people from Alcasse-Lorraine) I think Mac-Mahon is probably used in German because we like to "tie" our words together. Patrice Mac Mahon could mean, that Mac is his middle name, but it actually is part of his surname. The English Wikipedia page says MacMahon, so I think all three spellings (Mac Mahon, Mac-Mahon MacMahon) are correct. For me it just feels wrong to not write it hyphenated (<- correct use of the word?) but maybe that's because of the difference in native language.

[Caillagh de Bodemloze]

Funnily enough, the English Wikipedia page is more or less what made me think about it - it suggests (in the 'Early life' section of the page) that although Patrice and his father were obviously not from any part of the British Isles, they had ancestors from Ireland. That seems to be where the name came from in this case.

I wouldn't write the Mac as a separate word unless I was writing the Irish version of the name (which Wikipedia tells me is Mac Mathúna). In (British) English we'd always just join the 'Mac' on to the rest of the surname - otherwise, you're right, it looks as if it might be a middle name.

I didn't mean to suggest you were wrong - sorry if it sounded that way - I just found it interesting. 'Mac-Mahon' does look distinctly not-British-English, if you know what I mean - but your narrator is French, so I wouldn't expect him to spell things the British-English way!

[theSilentKiller]

I didn't know that Ireland used "Mac" too. I always thought this is a scottish thing... (well... both are goidelic languages. Kinda abvious.) I read through the French Wikipedia page and it is a bit more detailed about this (it has a family category). One part of the family fled / moved to France after the Glorious Revolution. The one who stayed in Ireland was called Moriat MacMahon. <- Mac Mahon is therefore French. I assume Mac-Mahon is German. Interesting, if Mac Mathúna was the original Irish name, why is he called Moriat Mac Mahon and not Moriat Mac Mathúna? Mac Mahon family was, according to wikipedia, a member of a certain Irish tribe (the Dalcassians) and they are listed as Mac Mahon...

I should have read the French site from the start (or the English one more carefully. I did read a short biography of Partice Mac Mahon in a book about the France-Prussian war, but it didn't say anything about the Irish origin of the name. It was only a short paragraph. And I was more interested in his role druing the war and the Frenc Third Republic).

I don't really know that many noble British/english family names... Mahon did sound English enough to me But yeah, I admit, the Mac should have made me more suspicious.

[Caillagh de Bodemloze]

Interesting, if Mac Mathúna was the original Irish name, why is he called Moriat Mac Mahon and not Moriat Mac Mathúna?

Well, I'm no expert on this, but: Mac Mathúna isn't the 'original' Irish name, exactly. It's the modern Irish spelling of the name that (according to Wikipedia) used to be spelt Mac Mathghamhna. The English had a bit of a habit in times past of deciding that foreign names were too difficult for them and just writing them down the way they thought they sounded. Irish names tended to get this treatment. So families could easily end up with an Irish spelling of their name and also an English spelling of their name. And, historically, if you wanted to impress the English (or possibly anybody else who might think the Irish less important than the English at a given point in history) - or if you just wanted non-Irish people to be able to pronounce your name - you might use the English spelling of your name.

(Conversely, of course, if you wanted to show you were proud of your Irish heritage you might use the Irish spelling of your name. There were some historical periods when that would have been quite a dangerous thing to do, but people still did it.)

[theSilentKiller]

Trying to write down foreign words the way they sound (to the listener) is something many languages did and still do, I think. Japanese for example does this a lot with english words (car = sha, automobile = outomobiro, online = onrain, etc...). French whereas tries to use their own words, or create new one (online = en ligne, computer = ordinatuer, USB-Stick/Flash Drive = clé USB [even though clé means key]) and German simply adopts the foreign wods (sometimes new words are created, thank to the convenient rule of word composition )

Anyway, we had a nice lanuage excursus, we shouldn't drag this on for much longer

[Alwyn]

Great chapter, I also enjoyed the absurd stories told by the soldier in his late thirties. The combination of (welcome) boredom, relative comfort (sleeping in beds and getting good food), causing a mixture of relief and uselessness, is well done. Your use of historical images, characters and events adds to the powerful impact of your story.

I like the way that you describe the departure of the soldiers "shrouded in deferential and humble reverence". Your description of their departure, combined with the image of the curassiers being passed something (flowers?) by women, reminded my of the departure of Faramir with the heavy cavalry from Minas Tirith in the third Lord of the Rings movie, as they leave for their hopeless mission against the orcs holding Osgiliath. I wonder if the curassiers, knew the kind of battlefield which they were heading for and had similar feelings to Faramir and his men? (Looking at the image, I wonder if the film-makers were inspired by this historical image, when they filmed the departure of Faramir and his horsemen.)