Category: History - Modern (1750+)
The following work has been scrutinized by the French Military Authorities, and the word (Censored) will be found in the text to indicate the eliminations they have deemed it expedient to make.
I take cover behind a tree, sitting down and leaning against it. Some of the men rush towards me--I recognize them all. One of them, Delval, wants to carry me in his arms, but I...
14. Part 14I have never before, however, encountered any trench quite as bad as this one. The time draws on; I woo sleep and call myself a fool for my pains. Still, of many evils choose th...
5. Part 5Hallo! The German guns are speaking early this morning! Before us shrapnel is bursting noisily and spitefully. Over the plain they have thrown a barrage. Nevertheless we have to...
3. Part 3Is it true? We have seen the wounded coming down ... (Censored) ... A corporal of the 27th, stained and perspiring, his face expressive of his agitation, calls out to inform me...
15. Part 15To Mouilly, all alone, hands in my pockets. I have been ordered to supervise the clearing up of the village, have all the rubbish buried, and hunt looters and deserters out of t...
13. Part 13From the earth rises a groan; a formless mass of straw moves and rises; the head of the Adjutant appears, his hair dishevelled and full of pieces of straw, his eyes weary from l...
12. Part 12We wait an hour, two hours, our stomachs protesting, never moving our eyes from the ravine where the rest of the battalion is resting beside the fires. Down there is our portion...
8. Part 8Before leaving, I pick up a fragment of shell over which I stumbled. It is fifty centimetres long by fifteen wide, with jagged edges like the teeth of a saw. I contemplate this...
6. Part 6He stares at me long and fixedly, as if engaged in weighing my invisible merit in the scales, and then explains clearly and rapidly exactly what he expects of me.
7. Part 7But the rain exacts its revenge in the course of the day. For duty compels us once more to climb up to the plateau to complete the trenches commenced the day before. We find tha...
2. Part 2Through the night rolls on the convoy. Our old Captain of the 27th draws off his iron-plated boots and displays his socks, brilliantly yellow and quite new. We stretch ourselves...
10. Part 10In going towards Mouilly, we repass the big grey motor-car at the side of the road. A little further on, the ranks open a little without command, in order not to disturb a wound...
9. Part 9We returned into reserve, carrying one of my corporals who was wounded in the groin by a bullet that had passed right through it. That was a difficult journey over the muddy roa...
4. Part 4Eleven o'clock and our turn is come. The men deploy instantly. There is no time for reflection on my part; I feel nothing, unless it be that the fevered fatigue of the past hour...
1. Part 1The following work has been scrutinized by the French Military Authorities, and the word (Censored) will be found in the text to indicate the eliminations they have deemed it ex...
16. Part 16A glimpse of light, quickly extinguished, passes from one end of the French trenches to the other. A crisp outbreak rends the darkness; branches, bullet-shattered, fall to the e...