A Visit to Three Fronts, June 1916 - Arthur Conan Doyle (best novels in english .TXT) 📗

danger in days

of war.

 

*

 

But this is digression. I had set out to say something of a day’s

experience of the French front, though I shall write with a fuller pen

when I return from the Argonne. It was for Soissons that we made,

passing on the way a part of the scene of our own early operations,

including the battlefield of Villers Cotteret—just such a wood as I

had imagined. My companion’s nephew was one of those Guards’ officers

whose bodies rest now in the village cemetery, with a little British

Jack still flying above them. They lie together, and their grave is

tended with pious care. Among the trees beside the road were other

graves of soldiers, buried where they had fallen. ‘So look around—and

choose your ground—and take your rest.’

 

Soissons is a considerable wreck, though it is very far from being an

Ypres. But the cathedral would, and will, make many a patriotic

Frenchman weep. These savages cannot keep their hands off a beautiful

church. Here, absolutely unchanged through the ages, was the spot where

St. Louis had dedicated himself to the Crusade. Every stone of it was

holy. And now the lovely old stained glass strews the floor, and the

roof lies in a huge heap across the central aisle. A dog was climbing

over it as we entered. No wonder the French fight well. Such sights

would drive the mildest man to desperation. The abb�, a good priest,

with a large humorous face, took us over his shattered domain. He was

full of reminiscences of the German occupation of the place. One of his

personal anecdotes was indeed marvellous. It was that a lady in the

local ambulance had vowed to kiss the first French soldier who

re-entered the town. She did so, and it proved to be her husband. The

abb� is a good, kind, truthful man—but he has a humorous face.

 

A walk down a ruined street brings one to the opening of the trenches.

There are marks upon the walls of the German occupation.

‘Berlin—Paris,’ with an arrow of direction, adorns one corner. At

another the 76th Regiment have commemorated the fact that they were

there in 1870 and again in 1914. If the Soissons folk are wise they

will keep these inscriptions as a reminder to the rising generation. I

can imagine, however, that their inclination will be to whitewash,

fumigate, and forget.

 

A sudden turn among some broken walls takes one into the communication

trench. Our guide is a Commandant of the Staff, a tall, thin man with

hard, grey eyes and a severe face. It is the more severe towards us as

I gather that he has been deluded into the belief that about one out of

six of our soldiers goes to the trenches. For the moment he is not

friends with the English. As we go along, however, we gradually get

upon better terms, we discover a twinkle in the hard, grey eyes, and

the day ends with an exchange of walking-sticks and a renewal of the

Entente. May my cane grow into a marshal’s baton.

 

*

 

A charming young artillery subaltern is our guide in that maze of

trenches, and we walk and walk and walk, with a brisk exchange of

compliments between the ‘75’s’ of the French and the ‘77’s’ of the

Germans going on high over our heads. The trenches are boarded at the

sides, and have a more permanent look than those of Flanders. Presently

we meet a fine, brown-faced, upstanding boy, as keen as a razor, who

commands this particular section. A little further on a helmeted

captain of infantry, who is an expert sniper, joins our little party.

Now we are at the very front trench. I had expected to see primeval

men, bearded and shaggy. But the ‘Poilus’ have disappeared. The men

around me were clean and dapper to a remarkable degree. I gathered,

however, that they had their internal difficulties. On one board I read

an old inscription, ‘He is a Boche, but he is the inseparable companion

of a French soldier.’ Above was a rude drawing of a louse.

 

I am led to a cunning loop-hole, and have a glimpse through it of a

little framed picture of French countryside. There are fields, a road,

a sloping hill beyond with trees. Quite close, about thirty or forty

yards away, was a low, red-tiled house. ‘They are there,’ said our

guide. ‘That is their outpost. We can hear them cough.’ Only the guns

were coughing that morning, so we heard nothing, but it was certainly

wonderful to be so near to the enemy and yet in such peace. I suppose

wondering visitors from Berlin are brought up also to hear the French

cough. Modern warfare has certainly some extraordinary sides.

 

Now we are shown all the devices which a year of experience has

suggested to the quick brains of our Allies. It is ground upon which

one cannot talk with freedom. Every form of bomb, catapult, and trench

mortar was ready to hand. Every method of cross-fire had been thought

out to an exact degree. There was something, however, about their

disposition of a machine gun which disturbed the Commandant. He called

for the officer of the gun. His thin lips got thinner and his grey eyes

more austere as we waited. Presently there emerged an extraordinarily

handsome youth, dark as a Spaniard, from some rabbit hole. He faced the

Commandant bravely, and answered back with respect but firmness.

‘Pourquoi?’ asked the Commandant, and yet again ‘Pourquoi?’ Adonis had

an answer for everything. Both sides appealed to the big Captain of

Snipers, who was clearly embarrassed. He stood on one leg and scratched

his chin. Finally the Commandant turned away angrily in the midst of

one of Adonis’ voluble sentences. His face showed that the matter was

not ended. War is taken very seriously in the French army, and any sort

of professional mistake is very quickly punished. I have been told how

many officers of high rank have been broken by the French during the

war. The figure was a very high one. There is no more forgiveness for

the beaten General than there was in the days of the Republic when the

delegate of the National Convention, with a patent portable guillotine,

used to drop in at headquarters to support a more vigorous offensive.

 

*

 

As I write these lines there is a burst of bugles in the street, and I

go to my open window to see the 41st of the line march down into what

may develop into a considerable battle. How I wish they could march

down the Strand even as they are. How London would rise to them! Laden

like donkeys, with a pile upon their backs and very often both hands

full as well, they still get a swing into their march which it is good

to see. They march in column of platoons, and the procession is a long

one, for a French regiment is, of course, equal to three battalions.

The men are shortish, very thick, burned brown in the sun, with never a

smile among them—have I not said that they are going down to a grim

sector?—but with faces of granite. There was a time when we talked of

stiffening the French army. I am prepared to believe that our first

expeditionary force was capable of stiffening any conscript army, for I

do not think that a finer force ever went down to battle. But to talk

about stiffening these people now would be ludicrous. You might as well

stiffen the old Guard. There may be weak regiments somewhere, but I

have never seen them.

 

I think that an injustice has been done to the French army by the

insistence of artists and cinema operators upon the picturesque

Colonial corps. One gets an idea that Arabs and negroes are pulling

France out of the fire. It is absolutely false. Her own brave sons are

doing the work. The Colonial element is really a very small one—so

small that I have not seen a single unit during all my French

wanderings. The Colonials are good men, but like our splendid

Highlanders they catch the eye in a way which is sometimes a little

hard upon their neighbours. When there is hard work to be done it is

the good little French piou-piou who usually has to do it. There is no

better man in Europe. If we are as good—and I believe we are—it is

something to be proud of.

 

*

 

But I have wandered far from the trenches of Soissons. It had come on

to rain heavily, and we were forced to take refuge in the dugout of the

sniper. Eight of us sat in the deep gloom huddled closely together. The

Commandant was still harping upon that ill-placed machine gun. He could

not get over it. My imperfect ear for French could not follow all his

complaints, but some defence of the offender brought forth a ‘Jamais!

Jamais! Jamais!’ which was rapped out as if it came from the gun

itself. There were eight of us in an underground burrow, and some were

smoking. Better a deluge than such an atmosphere as that. But if there

is a thing upon earth which the French officer shies at it is rain and

mud. The reason is that he is extraordinarily natty in his person. His

charming blue uniform, his facings, his brown gaiters, boots and belts

are always just as smart as paint. He is the Dandy of the European war.

I noticed officers in the trenches with their trousers carefully

pressed. It is all to the good, I think. Wellington said that the

dandies made his best officers. It is difficult for the men to get

rattled or despondent when they see the debonair appearance of their

leaders.

 

Among the many neat little marks upon the French uniforms which

indicate with precision but without obtrusion the rank and arm of the

wearer, there was one which puzzled me. It was to be found on the left

sleeve of men of all ranks, from generals to privates, and it consisted

of small gold chevrons, one, two, or more. No rule seemed to regulate

them, for the general might have none, and I have heard of the private

who wore ten. Then I solved the mystery. They are the record of wounds

received. What an admirable idea! Surely we should hasten to introduce

it among our own soldiers. It costs little and it means much. If you

can allay the smart of a wound by the knowledge that it brings lasting

honour to the man among his fellows, then surely it should be done.

Medals, too, are more freely distributed and with more public parade

than in our service. I am convinced that the effect is good.

 

*

 

The rain has now stopped, and we climb from our burrow. Again we are

led down that endless line of communication trench, again we stumble

through the ruins, again we emerge into the street where our cars are

awaiting us. Above our heads the sharp artillery duel is going merrily

forward. The French are firing three or four to one, which has been my

experience at every point I have touched upon the Allied front. Thanks

to the extraordinary zeal of the French workers, especially of the

French women, and to the clever adaptation of machinery by their

engineers, their supplies are abundant. Even now they turn out more

shells a day than we do. That, however, excludes our supply for the

Fleet. But it is one of the miracles of