Part 1

MY ·75

MY ·75

_REMINISCENCES OF A GUNNER OF A ·75m/m BATTERY IN 1914_

FROM THE FRENCH OF

PAUL LINTIER

WITH A PREFACE BY

FRANCES WILSON HUARD

NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

PREFACE

BY FRANCES WILSON HUARD

_Author of "My Home in the Field of Honour"_

All during the three weary years of this great war _real_ pleasures have been few for those of us whom Fate has destined to be more or less closely associated with the daily tide of events.

As I look back at present I feel that one of my first treats was when I came upon Paul Lintier's newly published volume called "Ma Piece." I read it, reread it and recommended it to those of my American friends who, able to read French, clamoured for some real human document; the war as seen by an actual participant.

Aside from the clear, concise style, devoid of any pretentious literary flourishes, the incidents were what gripped me. They were the direct answer to those thousand and one questions that we, the civilians shut up in the army zone, tortured by fear and anguish, asked ourselves and asked each other a hundred times a day.

Soldiers and diplomats, critics and littérateurs, wives and sweethearts all over the fair land of France devoured and discussed the book. And little did I dream that it would one day be my privilege to write a preface introducing to my compatriots this _chef d'oeuvre_ already recognised by the French Academy, the winner of the Prix Montyon. This I may truly say is the greatest pleasure yet fallen to my lot. Pleasure, alas! not unmixed with pain, for were it not a nobler task to extol the virtues of the living than sing the praises of those gone before?

It was not my fortune to have known Paul Lintier. He fell in the very flower of his manhood, unmindful of the sacrifice for country, ignoring his glorious contribution for the safety of future generations. But with his passing on the Field of Honour, something besides a son, a soldier, and a poet was lost to France--lost to us all. It is such spirits as his that make a country great, make the world worth while. It is for such reasons that we should treasure all the more carefully his only contributions to posterity.

His name, yesterday unknown, now justly stands graven on the records of all time. This humble artilleryman lost in the masses of the combatants, jotted down on his knees a work that shall stand as one of the most immutable witnesses of the conflict; a book that long after we have gone will remain; an incomparable document, a magnificent offering to those who later on shall study the souls and gestures of a generation of heroes by whom France was saved.

Some one has said, and wisely, that what most pleases us when perusing a book is to find the author corroborating our own thoughts,--giving voice to our unborn sentiments--providing us with material for comparison. If this be true, then there is no reason why "My ·75" should not live on forever.

Further than a really great literary talent, this book reveals the profound and generous soul of the entire "Jeunesse Française" ready to sacrifice itself without counting, for the highest ideal that ever inflamed a people.

The admirable patience, the great good humour, the intelligent cleverness and heroic devotion together with the plain, simple courage, all the deep-rooted, undreamed of qualities of the French Race, are to be found within its covers, making it a monument to stoic virtue.

How we love them, all the "Camarades"--Hutin, Deprès, Bréjard, Lieutenant Hély d'Oissel--and the others--the four million others who on August second, nineteen hundred and fourteen, stood willing, ready, to perish for their ideal, glad to offer their lives with a smile.

The dedication to "Captain Bernard de Brissoult, whose glorious death facing the enemy, drew from eyes burned by powder and long vigils, the terrible tears of soldiers," is one of the most touching things I know, and I should like to feel that all those of my compatriots who close the book have shed a tear of admiration and regret for Paul Lintier, who died for France, March sixteenth, nineteen sixteen, in the twenty-third year of his age.

New York,

July, Nineteen hundred and seventeen.

I. MOBILIZATION

War! Every one knows it, every one says so. It would be madness not to believe it. And yet, in spite of all, we hardly feel excited; we don't believe it! War, the Great European War--no, it can't be true!

But why shouldn't it be true?

Blood, money, and more and more blood! And then we have so often heard people say: "Now there'll be war," and nevertheless we remained at peace. And it will be so this time. Europe is not going to become a shambles because an Austrian Archduke happens to have been murdered.

And yet, what are we hourly expecting as we sit here in nervous idleness in the barracks, unless it is the order for general mobilization? Sergeants of all ages arrived yesterday at Le Mans, and every train to-day has brought others. Since réveillé a man dressed in coarse corduroy has stood at the window watching the artillerymen and horses coming and going in the square. Every now and then he takes a brandy-flask from his pocket and has a pull at it.

I was lying on my bed. Hutin, the chief layer of the first gun, was spread-eagled on his, smoking, his knees in the air and his heels drawn up under him. Noticing that my pack was crooked, I got up, mechanically, and put it straight.

"Hutin!"

"Yes?"

"Come and have a drink!"

"All right!"

The barrack square was less noisy than usual. There were no drivers just returned from the polygon unharnessing their teams in front of the stables. No word of command was heard from officers directing firing practice underneath the plane-trees. In a corner one of the guards of the artillery park was oiling his guns. A cavalryman, both hands in his pockets and the reins slung over one arm, was leading his horse to the trough or the forge. Over by the wall of the remount stables, in the full glare of the sun, a few orderlies were grooming their horses in a listless fashion. A continuous stream of men on their way to and from the canteen--like a black line of insects crossing a white gravel path--marked out one of the diagonals of the square. In front of the canteen there was a scramble for drinks. It was hot.

* * * * *

Midday, and we are still waiting for news. Suppose all this should only turn out to be another false alarm!

White-clad gunners, with nothing to do as there is no firing practice, are strolling about the courtyard in search of news. In the Place de la Mission inquisitive onlookers press close up to the railings; it is difficult to say why. The majority of them are women. In front of them a few gunners pass with a smile and a swagger, already assuming the air of brave defenders.

Near the guard-house which serves as a visitors' room, but where no visitors are allowed to enter on account of the fleas which infest it at this time of year, wives, mothers, sisters, and friends have come to see their soldiers. All make a brave attempt to hide their feelings. But their expression betrays their anxiety, which has lined their foreheads and sharpened their features. There are dark rings round their eyes, and the eyes themselves are restless and sunken. They continually avert their gaze, lest the fears and forebodings which no one can banish should be read in their faces. When they go away, through the little door under the chestnut-trees, after having watched the soldiers disappear down the passage at the end of the barracks, their feelings suddenly find vent in a sob, at which they are themselves surprised. Rapidly, and almost shamefacedly, pressing a rolled-up handkerchief to their lips, they turn aside into the Rue Chanzy, as if all the men there did not understand their trouble....

* * * * *

At four o'clock I went out with Sergeant Le Mée by special permission of the Captain. We went to my room in the Rue Mangeard to leave Le Mée's outdoor uniform there, together with a bag and some papers.

We were about to have dinner. I had just uncorked a bottle of old claret, when Le Mée caught hold of my arm.

"What's that?"

Up from the street a loud murmur came through the open window. At the same moment something magnetic, indefinable and yet definite, shot through both of us. We looked at each other, I with the bottle held to the brim of the glass.

"At last!"

Le Mée nodded assent, and we hurried to the window. In the street below, near the artillery barracks, surged a dense crowd. All faces reflected the same expression of stupor, anxiety, and bewilderment. In the eyes of all shone the same strange gleam. Women's voices were heard--voices that quavered and broke....

"Well, Le Mée, here's to your health and let's hope that in a few months we shall have another drink together!"

"Here's luck to us both!"

Grasping our swords we ran back to the barracks. That night we once again slept in our beds.

_Sunday, August 2_

My kit was ready. I had rolled up some handkerchiefs in my cloak.

A sergeant came in:

"Now then, all of you go to the office!"

The sergeant began distributing the record books and identity discs.

On one side of mine was inscribed: "Paul Lintier," and, underneath, "E.V. (engagé volontaire) Cl. 1913"; on the other: "Mayenne 1179."

A fly was buzzing about in the office. For one moment there rose up before me a vision of a battlefield--with dead men lying stretched out on the edge of a pit, and a non-commissioned officer hastily identifying them before burial.

The "Great Event" had at last come to break the monotony of our barrack life, and no one thought of anything else. It was almost as if a sort of blindness prevented us from looking ahead and confined each man's attention to the preparations for departure. This indifference astonished me, and yet I myself shared it.

Was it decision or courage? To a certain extent, perhaps.... Did we really believe there was going to be war? I am not too sure of it. It was impossible to realize what war would be--to gauge the whole horror of it. And so we were not afraid.

From one of the barrack windows I saw the following scene:

A young man, promptly called up by the general mobilization, had just come out of a house opposite. He was walking backwards, shading his eyes from the sun in order to see the face of some one dear to him who stood at one of the second-floor windows. A fair-haired woman, very young and extremely pale, watched him with longing eyes from behind the muslin curtains, doubtless afraid to let him see her distraught face and tear-stained cheeks. She was standing close behind the curtains, her hand on her breast, with the fingers spasmodically stretched out in an attitude eloquent of grief. As he was about to disappear from view in a bend of the road, she suddenly opened the window wide, and showed herself for an instant. The man could not see her. She took two unsteady steps backwards, and sank into an arm-chair, where she sat huddled up, her face in her hands, and her shoulders shaken with sobs. Then, in the semi-darkness of the room, I caught sight of a servant with a Breton cap carrying a baby to her....

* * * * *

At noon we left the barracks in order to take up the quarters which had been assigned to us a little way down the Avenue de Pontlieue.

The 10th and 12th Batteries of the 44th Regiment of Field Artillery were to assemble upon a war footing in the cider-brewery known as Toublanc.

We had nothing to do except shake down straw bedding. A gas-engine was throbbing with an incessant double beat which got on one's nerves after a while. On the doors of the available buildings were crudely chalked the numbers of the regiments to which they were allotted.

The stables were installed in a shed open on one side, at one end of which casks containing harness were piled up. These stables would have been quite comfortable if they had not smelt so horribly owing to the dirty lavatories adjoining them.

The men's quarters had been arranged in a kitchen garden full of black currant-bushes and peach-trees, and consisted of an old, tumble-down outhouse, which seemed to have escaped complete destruction solely owing to the vines and virginia creepers growing over it, which, in a clinging embrace of closely woven branches and tendrils, held its crumbling walls together. The grapes were already large and fat, promising a fine harvest. I wondered where we should be when the time came for them to be gathered.

* * * * *

No one troubled to ascertain whether war had been declared. After all, the declaration only meant a few words already spoken, or about to be spoken, by diplomatists. The war was already a reality. We felt it. The only question which occupied our minds was when we were to start, and this nobody could answer.

The men were cheerful, unconcerned, and much less nervous than yesterday. Personally, I did not feel weighed down under the intolerable burden of anxiety which I had expected to crush me at such a time. I wanted to ask all my comrades whether they really believed that in a few days we should be under fire. And if they had answered "Yes," I should have admired them, for, if I remained cool and collected before the yawning chasm opening out before us, it was merely because I had not yet realized its depths.

I kept repeating to myself: "It is war--ghastly, bloody war ... and perhaps you will soon be dead." But nevertheless I did not feel in the least afraid; I did not believe that I should be killed. I realize now that it is true that, in the presence of a dead person one has loved, one does not at first believe that he (or she) is dead.

* * * * *

I have written these notes sitting on a packing-case, using the bottom of an upturned barrel as a table. A stable-guard, after eyeing me a moment or two, came and looked over my shoulder.

"Lord!" said he, "you've got it badly!"

_Monday, August 3_

We don't yet know whether war has been declared, but Metz is reported to be in flames and some even say taken. Some French aeroplanes and dirigibles are said to have blown up the powder magazines there. There is also a rumour that Garros has destroyed a Zeppelin manned by twenty officers, and that on the frontier our airmen have been tossing up as to who shall first try to ram an enemy airship. The Germans are said to have crossed our frontier yesterday in three places. But yesterday we heard that our soldiers, in spite of their officers, had broken through on to German soil. The rumours going about are numberless, and the most likely and unlikely things are said in the same breath.

What are we to believe? Nothing, of course. That is best.

But we thirst for news, and yet, when any is brought in, we shrug our shoulders incredulously. Nevertheless, when a success is reported we are so anxious to believe it that the majority of sceptics only require a sufficiently vigorous affirmation in order to accept it as true.

I intend to note down every day both fables and facts. But at present I am not in a position to distinguish between what is true and what is false.

I am only endeavouring, in these hurriedly scribbled pages, to give some idea of the different elements which go to form the state of mind of an individual soldier lost among a crowd of others. In this sense fact and fable are the same thing; but later on, if this notebook is not buried with me in some nameless grave out yonder, these notes may perhaps serve to form a history of legend. A history of legend--that is as much as I dare hope to achieve!

* * * * *

I have an hour or two free for writing, and am using a bench as a desk. Behind me the horses keep stamping intermittently on the cement floor of the shed. It would not be so bad if these lavatories did not smell so abominably.

We have been informed that we are to start on Friday. To Berlin! To Berlin!

Berlin! That's the objective. It was in everybody's mouth! But did we not mark time to the same refrain in 1870, almost at this time of year? And what happened afterwards? The recollection made me shiver. Superstition!

Is England going to come into line with us against Germany? England is the great unknown quantity at the present moment. Nevertheless, she is hardly mentioned here.

To Berlin! To Berlin!

The cry echoes on all sides.

* * * * *

Although I had begun to convince myself of the reality of events, the excitement of departure and the irritation caused by knowing nothing definite had set my nerves jangling and prevented me from realizing to the full the approaching horror.

We had harnessed our horses and formed the gun-teams.

A gun in a 75 mm. battery is composed of the gun itself and ammunition wagon, each with its limber, and each drawn by six horses harnessed in pairs. The detachment consists of six drivers, six gunners, a corporal, and a sergeant, who is the gun-commander. But my gun, the first of the 2nd battery, is also accompanied by the section-commander, the battery-leader, a trumpeter, and the Captain's orderly with his two horses. In all, eighteen men and nineteen horses. Of the eighteen men, seventeen are serving their time. For nearly a year now they have led the same life; each day they have executed the same manoeuvres together. One detachment, therefore, is a real entity, and forms a little society by itself, with its habits, likes and dislikes.

Bréjard, the section-commander, really commands it himself, as he did before the general mobilization. So nothing seems changed. Hubert, the new gun-commander, a reservist, has his thoughts centred on his young wife, whom, after only a few months of married life, he has had to leave at his farm, where the corn is still standing.

Bréjard, who must be about twenty-four, is tall and spare, with unfathomable grey eyes, an obstinate chin, and rather strong features. He enlisted when very young, and, by dint of hard and methodical work, passed into Fontainebleau high up in the list.

Corporal Jean Déprez affords a contrast to Bréjard. Dreamy and imaginative, bored by regimental life, and far from reconciled to the prospect of many months of war, Déprez, as far as the Service is concerned, is a weakling to whom any exercise of his authority, small though it is, goes against the grain. He has momentary flashes of wit, and, although as a rule very unenthusiastic and rather moody, he is nevertheless an amusing conversationalist at times, and is a staunch friend. The lack of work in the barracks has for some part thrown us together, and both were pleased to find ourselves side by side when the moment came to take the field.

With Corporal Déprez on one hand, and Gun-layer Hutin on the other, I had not the least feeling of loneliness in the tremendous excitement of mobilization, and the hourly expectation of the breaking of the storm.

Hutin is a little fellow with a thick crop of black hair and a moustache. His regular features are lit up by a pair of attractive dark brown eyes of rather roguish expression. Energetic, quick-tempered, fairly ambitious, intolerant, quick to make up his mind, and extremely intelligent, capable of real friendship and even devotedness, I have grown fond of his spontaneous and varied character.

* * * * *

In the Avenue de Pontlieue the commandeered horses were standing in line. There were hundreds of them, heavy, pot-bellied, docile animals, with splendid manes and shaggy fetlocks. They were held by men in smocks, standing motionless on the curb, chafing at the delay and longing for their dinner. Near-by, along the wall of the artillery barracks, was collected a heterogeneous medley of carts and lorries, also requisitioned.

A motley crowd was thronging the avenue--women in light-coloured summer dresses and soldiers in uniform and canvas clothing presenting an incongruous appearance. Reservists were arriving in groups. Almost all looked quiet and undisturbed, and some even wore a cheerful air. One or two were obviously drunk, and others looked as though they were. I only saw one who was crying. He was sitting on a heap of straw, engaged in fixing a brand-new yellow strap to his revolver-holster, and tears were falling on his clumsy fingers as he fumbled with the stiff leather. I put a hand on his shoulder, whereupon he half turned round and said, with a jerk of his head:

"Oh, my God! My wife died in childbed last week.... There's the baby-girl--only eight days old--left all alone with nobody to look after her!"

"What have you done with her?"

"Well, the only thing I could ... took her to the Infants' Home."

* * * * *

It is when the post comes in that the men look saddest.

* * * * *

We are confined to quarters, but the non-commissioned officers are allowed to take the men, two or three at a time, to the _abreuvoir_ as the café opposite is called.

_Tuesday, August 4_

Yesterday evening at nine o'clock, by way of a purely theoretical roll-call, the Lieutenant opened the door of our den.

"Every one all right in there?"

"Yes, sir, thank you! Warm as pies!"

"Nothing you want?"

"Yes, sir, we'd like to start!"

"Oh! to start, would you?"

This morning Pelletier, the trumpeter, a Parisian who seems able to turn his hands to almost anything, began sharpening our swords. Standing in front of a bench in his shirt-sleeves, he worked an enormous file with a horrible screeching noise which sent cold shudders down one's spine and set one's teeth on edge. From time to time he paused in his work, and, with furious thrusts and slashes, tried the points and edges by cutting up some old deal cases lying in a corner.

From the depths of our quarters, where we live in an atmosphere alive with the most ridiculous rumours, waiting for orders to entrain, the tumult of the general mobilization in the streets and on the neighbouring Paris-Brest railway line sounds like incessantly reverberating thunder in an atmosphere charged with electricity.

One of my fellow-countrymen, Gaget, who is clerk to the Artillery Staff, told me that war has not yet been declared. He is in a position to know. His mother has written to him from Mayenne saying that my family believe me to be already at Verdun. I wonder if my letters are not being delivered....

* * * * *

This afternoon Déprez went to the laundry to get his washing. In the shop a young woman, the wife of a corporal of artillery who joined the colours this morning, threw her arms round his neck and began to cry.

He came back much upset.

* * * * *

Some of the men have gone with their horses to bring back our war material from the station. The park is arranged on the wide footpath of the Avenue de Pontlieue, where the plane-trees shelter our 75 mm. guns and ammunition wagons. Women stop to look at them, and some shake their heads despondently.

It appears that we are to entrain to-morrow evening. We are beginning to get thoroughly bored here, and do not know how to fill in our time. I am going to get some sleep in our den at the farther end of the kitchen garden, where it is cool and shady. The sun, through the open door, only lights up a large rectangle of straw, covered with haversacks and gleaming weapons. The weather has been splendid to-day, fine and clear, and, now that twilight is near, the air is beginning to hum with those midges which fly round and round in circles and are supposed to herald fine weather.

I was able to get out for a moment. Some women, their eyes swollen with crying, looked at us with pity, and spoke to us--the first young men to go--in voices full of sympathy:

"When do you start?"

"To-morrow--perhaps the day after."

"Where are you going?"

"We're not sure--either Verdun or Maubeuge."

"Well, the best of luck!"