1914
1914
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“Mobilization is not war. Under the present circumstances, it appears on the
contrary to be the best means of assuring peace with honor.”
Raymond Poincaré, President of the Republic, August 2, 1914
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Crows pick at the dying men in the golden wheat fields. There we were, under the scorching sun, Frances’ little soldiers. We trampled through fields of wheat while fields of glory danced in our minds, a knot of fear in our guts and a load of shit in our pants.
The moment we had left Paris we had taken Berlin in our heads. This was our shot at getting even for 1870, now that those Huns were at it again. This time though, we were ready. We were gonna cram their boiled leather helmets down their throats, spikes and all.
The kids loved to see us heroes march on by, especially with the marching band out upfront. It was a poor example to be setting, they had been so brainwashed at school that they would have followed us to the slaughter if we had let them.
The experts in the General Staff had assured us: Germany would respect Belgium’s neutrality. Then the Germans invaded brave, neutral Belgium. We marched past the civilians fleeing the war, and like the children, I would have cheerfully joined them.
Naturally, the Prussians were staying in the abandoned homes, eating their food and drinking from their wells, and as the locals streamed out, we streamed in. Like we were drawn to the trouble.
We waited at the bank of a river, the bridge had been blown with a train still on it. It lay half-submerged in the water. Men in rowboats tried to salvage what they could. There was no way to cross.
We waited under shade trees for orders. It really was a sight. All the expensive equipment that was demolished, considering I knew people who didn’t have a pot to cook in.
Once across the river and in the town, I saw my first Germans, being led out of the destroyed village in a forced march. They didn’t look like bad guys. In fact, they looked mostly like us. We stayed in the village overnight, the next day we marched on.
We left before sunrise. As dawn broke we came across some Dragoons who were observing the German advances. With them they had a vegetable cart, outfitted with a lethal automatic for stopping the Krauts in their tracks, there was no doubt in our minds that they would succeed.
Looking back, people should have considered the inevitable hardships ahead of time. I mean, I had thought of them, and I’m no smarter than anyone else. But what could I have done? Would anyone hardly listen to a lathe operator from Rue des Panoyaux?
This was when the 20th century really began, in all its viciousness and blood. I had an imagination in spades though. I saw myself as a corpse, swept into a stream of fools against my will, along with thousands, perhaps millions of other corpses, and I didn’t like it one bit.
The other guys, still waiting on the platform at Gare de L’Est, already saw themselves throwing back a well-earned beer on the Alexanderplatz. Only the mothers really knew. They knew that their babies in their arms were tomorrow’s war orphans. And the cattle cars were nothing but rail-mounted coffins joined end to end and headed straight to military cemeteries.
The Germans had a similar send-off, parades, and all that. According to the Kaiser, the Germans were “Missionaries of human progress, chosen by God to civilize the world.” But they couldn’t see past their own sights either.
These early days of August saw Europe rush headlong into war. It was a game of alliances, and It was running like well-tuned machinery. Sons of good families, aristocrats and poets, all had their sabers ready to avenge the Archduke’s assassination. The kindly Berlin baker, while loading up onto the train, was seeing himself on the Champs-Élysées, dunking a pastry into a Café au lait and admiring Paris’ ladies, talk about imagination!
So much human meat was needed to satisfy the insatiable appetite of Europe’s masters. And so much animal meat was needed to feed the men who would soon die, their guts still stuffed with the warm flesh of those beasts, the need was endless since we’ve all been marked for the slaughter.
We didn’t need a map or a compass to know we were headed in the wrong direction. “It’s 1870 all over again,” said the old-timers I happened to meet while we pulled back.
I felt very alone. I should’ve strayed this far from the pack, but that’s how I was. I wasn’t keen on a synchronized slaughter. The burnt shell holes stood out in the yellow wheat, and the blue uniforms and dark blood of France’s finest did as well.
It’s no fun being made to move around without any cover. A single bullet from the muzzle of a Mauser from some fastidious little Kraut could leave you in the hay for good. One second you’re shaking like a leaf, the next you’re a corpse. In this sun-drenched slaughter-house, the idea of going home was looking better by the minute.
I walked back onto the field, my rifle at my side. Past the bodies and dead horses. When I got back to the road I saw some children that looked as lost as I was. I thought about defecting. I would make a perfect fatality if I just vanished in the confusion. An anonymous heap of flesh, a missing person. No one would worry about a lathe worker in the Biscorne Factory, living on Rue des Panoyaux in the 20th arrondissement of Paris.
The day was hot and deadly, and then if that wasn’t enough, we were advised that Prussian soldiers were in the thicket below our pasture. We could barely make them out, their position was a lot better than ours. They loaded their rifles, and slid their bayonets into place, their machine-gun team was ready to go. There was no way to stop what would happen, Someone Should’ve said, “this is going to end badly!” But there was no time for a chat. It was too late. The machine gun chattered away, the rifles were sighted. We crouched in the field, and took aim, the Lieutenant stood behind us with his saber, giving orders. We looked like a walking flea market, with all our mess tins and crap we had to lug around. Add to that the clatter of our pots, pans, and shovels, you might say we didn’t exactly blend into the landscape, especially in our circus outfits. We were ideal targets.
Our lieutenant wasn’t real smart, he stuck us in the middle of the fucking meadow, our gear poked above the alfalfa, nothing but dandelion stems to shield us from the bullets the Boche were about to lodge in our guts. He told us to fix bayonets, and we charged. No one yelled or shouted, “For France!” or anything like that. We all felt like shit. We tucked our heads between our shoulders and rifles over our bellies. Soon men started to fall and scream. The lieutenant didn’t last long, screwing around in the front row like that. I really don’t think we should have followed him at all. More men are falling down in front of me. They throw their arms up or drop to the floor. Some just come to a smooth stop and sit down.
Positioned at the back end of their magnificent little 75s, the artillery was busy killing, drunk with the smell of gunpowder and the song of their guns. Maybe they got their peace of mind from the few miles that separate them from the killing caused by their shells. Who knows?
Suddenly it was quiet again. The screams of the dying drifted through the silence. During the attack, under a hail of shells and bullets, I ducked behind in the forest to play dead. My adrenaline was still running, I was still shaking when I noticed the Boche sleeping on my shoulder. Had he pulled the same stunt as me? Did he also want to avoid the pointless slaughter that befell him? These thoughts made me think he might be a decent guy, but it’s hard to tell.
A spiked helmet stumbled by, through the underbrush, didn’t even see us. I didn’t have to wait long to know what he was up to. He had come to take a shit on the sacred soil of France, the “Eldest Daughter of The Church.” A pair of dragoons tramp by and spot the German, he looks up, startled and frightened. He never got around to wiping. The dragoon’s stone faces didn’t flinch as they ran him right through. Goodbye war, goodbye to the country holiday, goodbye the outings on the banks of the Marne, goodbye open-air cafes.
That’s the last I saw of Spikey’s pink hindquarters, I left my sleeping Boche to his dreams of conquest and got the hell out.
The Dragoons, with their horses and heavy whips, caught up with some comrades. Their exhausted steeds already smelled like carrion. I ducked to the ground when I saw them, a group of German Lancers. They met eyes with the Dragoons and charged, hell-bent on squaring them. I’ve always been terrified of horses, give me a bike any day.
Right as they met, shells started to rain down. I couldn’t tell if it was German Krupp or French Schnieder shells heaving the ground. Either way, it didn’t matter, they were doing a bang-up job. The horses tumbled and their riders fell to the ground with them, broken and battered.
So much for the heroic charge! Hardly a horse or man came home happy from that pastoral outing. The wounded horses were shot, and the wounded men were carried on the backs of the surviving steeds.
I started to walk again, past a horse standing over its rider, who had died and fell off its back. On reflection, maybe horses are partly to blame for this mess. After all, they had agreed to carry these lethal creatures on their backs. Or maybe I’m starting to lose it.
Walking for a while, I came across, walking on the road, were the Zouaves. The “indigenous” soldiers we didn’t yet have the balls to call Moroccans. One of them pointed me in the way of my regiment. After finding them, I slipped back in unnoticed. It looked like the Germans were retreating. So we had to hurry up on their heels.
In the field, there were amateurs like us, and then there were pros, like the Limeys, who laughed at our ancient gear and outdated, bright red pants. Our sideshow outfits did stand out and were great for target practice.
The Belgians were floundering. They’d opened the sluice gates to flood the invaders. Now the “Jass” and their king were ankle-deep in water as they clung to the last shred of Belgian territory. The Boche goose-stepped across Brussels main square.
Fall came and the cannons grew quieter. Munitions and supplies ran low on both sides. We built funeral pyres for the unidentified bodies. They went up in smoke as we scouted for new positions. The Germans had fallen back, but only to dig in more deeply. They would be coming back to teach us how to make sauerkraut.
I had just taken part in the Battle of the Marne. Although I didn’t really understand what was going on, nothing had ever been explained to me, I had entered the history books as a hero of France.
I had helped dig the first trenches. Now gone were the days of little toy soldiers in rows of four, eight, or sixteen. We had turned into ditch diggers, digging our own mass graves.
Once we had climbed into our tombs, we understood we would be there for a while. The Germans weren’t planning on going home any time soon, and Belgium was still far off.
During Christmas, a truce gave way to fraternization, mostly between the Brits and the Krauts. Goodwill was in the air, and we spent a couple of hours trading cigarettes and candy, then we went back to our respective dugouts to start the killing up again.
We were settling in for a long war.
