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

the war that the French, with

their coal and iron in the hands of the enemy, have been able to equal

the production of our great industrial centres. The steel, of course,

is supplied by us. To that extent we can claim credit for the result.

 

And so, after the ceremony of the walking-sticks, we bid adieu to the

lines of Soissons. To-morrow we start for a longer tour to the more

formidable district of the Argonne, the neighbour of Verdun, and itself

the scene of so much that is glorious and tragic.

 

II.

 

There is a couplet of Stevenson’s which haunts me, ‘There fell a war in

a woody place—in a land beyond the sea.’ I have just come back from

spending three wonderful dream days in that woody place. It lies with

the open, bosky country of Verdun on its immediate right, and the chalk

downs of Champagne upon its left. If one could imagine the lines being

taken right through our New Forest or the American Adirondacks it would

give some idea of the terrain, save that it is a very undulating

country of abrupt hills and dales. It is this peculiarity which has

made the war on this front different to any other, more picturesque and

more secret. In front the fighting lines are half in the clay soil,

half behind the shelter of fallen trunks. Between the two the main bulk

of the soldiers live like animals of the woodlands, burrowing on the

hillsides and among the roots of the trees. It is a war by itself, and

a very wonderful one to see. At three different points I have visited

the front in this broad region, wandering from the lines of one army

corps to that of another. In all three I found the same conditions, and

in all three I found also the same pleasing fact which I had discovered

at Soissons, that the fire of the French was at least five, and very

often ten shots to one of the Boche. It used not to be so. The Germans

used to scrupulously return shot for shot. But whether they have moved

their guns to the neighbouring Verdun, or whether, as is more likely,

all the munitions are going there, it is certain that they were very

outclassed upon the three days (June 10, 11, 12) which I allude to.

There were signs that for some reason their spirits were at a low ebb.

On the evening before our arrival the French had massed all their bands

at the front, and, in honour of the Russian victory, had played the

Marseillaise and the Russian National hymn, winding up with general

shoutings and objurgations calculated to annoy. Failing to stir up the

Boche, they had ended by a salute from a hundred shotted guns. After

trailing their coats up and down the line they had finally to give up

the attempt to draw the enemy. Want of food may possibly have caused a

decline in the German spirit. There is some reason to believe that they

feed up their fighting men at the places like Verdun or Hooge, where

they need all their energy, at the expense of the men who are on the

defensive. If so, we may find it out when we attack. The French

officers assured me that the prisoners and deserters made bitter

complaints of their scale of rations. And yet it is hard to believe

that the fine efforts of our enemy at Verdun are the work of

half-starved men.

 

*

 

To return to my personal impressions, it was at Chalons that we left

the Paris train—a town which was just touched by the most forward

ripple of the first great German floodtide. A drive of some twenty

miles took us to St. Menehould, and another ten brought us to the front

in the sector of Divisional-General H. A fine soldier this, and heaven

help Germany if he and his division get within its borders, for he is,

as one can see at a glance, a man of iron who has been goaded to

fierceness by all that his beloved country has endured. He is a man of

middle size, swarthy, hawk-like, very abrupt in his movements, with two

steel grey eyes, which are the most searching that mine have ever met.

His hospitality and courtesy to us were beyond all bounds, but there is

another side to him, and it is one which it is wiser not to provoke. In

person he took us to his lines, passing through the usual shot-torn

villages behind them. Where the road dips down into the great forest

there is one particular spot which is visible to the German artillery

observers. The General mentioned it at the time, but his remark seemed

to have no personal interest. We understood it better on our return in

the evening.

 

Now we found ourselves in the depths of the woods, primeval woods of

oak and beech in the deep clay soil that the great oak loves. There had

been rain and the forest paths were ankle deep in mire. Everywhere, to

right and left, soldiers’ faces, hard and rough from a year of open

air, gazed up at us from their burrows in the ground. Presently an

alert, blue-clad figure stood in the path to greet us. It was the

Colonel of the sector. He was ridiculously like Cyrano de Bergerac as

depicted by the late M. Coquelin, save that his nose was of more

moderate proportion. The ruddy colouring, the bristling feline

full-ended moustache, the solidity of pose, the backward tilt of the head,

the general suggestion of the bantam cock, were all there facing us as

he stood amid the leaves in the sunlight. Gauntlets and a long

rapier—nothing else was wanting. Something had amused Cyrano. His

moustache quivered with suppressed mirth, and his blue eyes were

demurely gleaming. Then the joke came out. He had spotted a German

working party, his guns had concentrated on it, and afterwards he had

seen the stretchers go forward. A grim joke, it may seem. But the

French see this war from a different angle to us. If we had the Boche

sitting on our heads for two years, and were not yet quite sure whether

we could ever get him off again, we should get Cyrano’s point of view.

Those of us who have had our folk murdered by Zeppelins or tortured in

German prisons have probably got it already.

 

*

 

We passed in a little procession among the French soldiers, and viewed

their multifarious arrangements. For them we were a little break in a

monotonous life, and they formed up in lines as we passed. My own

British uniform and the civilian dresses of my two companions

interested them. As the General passed these groups, who formed

themselves up in perhaps a more familiar manner than would have been

usual in the British service, he glanced kindly at them with those

singular eyes of his, and once or twice addressed them as ‘Mes

enfants.’ One might conceive that all was ‘go as you please’ among the

French. So it is as long as you go in the right way. When you stray

from it you know it. As we passed a group of men standing on a low

ridge which overlooked us there was a sudden stop. I gazed round. The

General’s face was steel and cement. The eyes were cold and yet fiery,

sunlight upon icicles. Something had happened. Cyrano had sprung to his

side. His reddish moustache had shot forward beyond his nose, and it

bristled out like that of an angry cat. Both were looking up at the

group above us. One wretched man detached himself from his comrades and

sidled down the slope. No skipper and mate of a Yankee blood boat could

have looked more ferociously at a mutineer. And yet it was all over

some minor breach of discipline which was summarily disposed of by two

days of confinement. Then in an instant the faces relaxed, there was a

general buzz of relief and we were back at ‘Mes enfants’ again. But

don’t make any mistake as to discipline in the French army.

 

Trenches are trenches, and the main specialty of these in the Argonne

is that they are nearer to the enemy. In fact there are places where

they interlock, and where the advanced posts lie cheek by jowl with a

good steel plate to cover both cheek and jowl. We were brought to a

sap-head where the Germans were at the other side of a narrow forest

road. Had I leaned forward with extended hand and a Boche done the same

we could have touched. I looked across, but saw only a tangle of wire

and sticks. Even whispering was not permitted in these forward posts.

 

*

 

When we emerged from these hushed places of danger Cyrano took us all

to his dug-out, which was a tasty little cottage carved from the side

of a hill and faced with logs. He did the honours of the humble cabin

with the air of a seigneur in his ch�teau. There was little furniture,

but from some broken mansion he had extracted an iron fire-back, which

adorned his grate. It was a fine, mediaeval bit of work, with Venus, in

her traditional costume, in the centre of it. It seemed the last touch

in the picture of the gallant, virile Cyrano. I only met him this once,

nor shall I ever see him again, yet he stands a thing complete within

my memory. Even now as I write these lines he walks the leafy paths of

the Argonne, his fierce eyes ever searching for the Boche workers, his

red moustache bristling over their annihilation. He seems a figure out

of the past of France.

 

That night we dined with yet another type of the French soldier,

General A., who commands the corps of which my friend has one division.

Each of these French generals has a striking individuality of his own

which I wish I could fix upon paper. Their only common point is that

each seems to be a rare good soldier. The corps general is Athos with a

touch of d’Artagnan. He is well over six feet high, bluff, jovial, with

huge, up-curling moustache, and a voice that would rally a regiment. It

is a grand figure which should have been done by Van Dyck with lace

collar, hand on sword, and arm akimbo. Jovial and laughing was he, but

a stern and hard soldier was lurking behind the smiles. His name may

appear in history, and so may Humbert’s, who rules all the army of

which the other’s corps is a unit. Humbert is a Lord Robert’s figure,

small, wiry, quick-stepping, all steel and elastic, with a short,

sharp upturned moustache, which one could imagine as crackling with

electricity in moments of excitement like a cat’s fur. What he does or

says is quick, abrupt, and to the point. He fires his remarks like

pistol shots at this man or that. Once to my horror he fixed me with

his hard little eyes and demanded ‘Sherlock Holmes, est ce qu’il est un

soldat dans l’arm�e Anglaise?’ The whole table waited in an awful hush.

‘Mais, mon general,’ I stammered, ‘il est trop vieux pour service.’

There was general laughter, and I felt that I had scrambled out of an

awkward place.

 

And talking of awkward places, I had forgotten about that spot upon the

road whence the Boche observer could see our motorcars. He had

actually laid a gun upon it, the rascal, and waited all the long day

for our return. No sooner did we appear upon the slope than a shrapnel

shell burst