Chapter VIII: Book IV: The Last Week

I

THE BATTLE AT THE FORT

(JUNE 2)

Those who contrived to escape from the fort have related the whole drama. All the shifting scenes here delineated, whether outside or inside, are based on the accounts of those who have seen them and lived through them. The witnesses in this case are themselves the actors. Finally, the fort itself spoke. Up to the last moment, up to the death-agony, it communicated with the high command by means of its signals and its carrier-pigeons.

The day of June 1 is heavy with anguish. The storm slants off to the left, but the air remains sultry and oppressive. The Le Bazil ravine is lost, the dyke is crossed, the enemy break through into Fumin Wood. Of the three entrenchments that stake out the slopes between the pool and the fort, two are given up. R¹ still holds out, but will it be strong enough to prove an obstacle to the foe? Between R¹ and the fort, the La Courtine trench and that of Besançon, which ends in a winding at the double transverse gallery (north-eastern) that has been half-disembowelled, are manned by the 7th Company of the 101st Regiment. In front of the fort, the trench that protects it and, farther east, the Belfort trench are occupied by the 7th and 8th Companies of the 142nd Regiment, the 5th being on the plateau as a support. Will these troops suffice to check the onslaughts? Will they not be outflanked to the west by way of Fumin Wood, and to the east by Damloup and La Horgne bottom, against which the bombardment is raging?

During the night there is great liveliness. The air shivers with countless lightning-flashes from the batteries, and with rockets going up or coming down in showers of stars. Darker than the night are the columns of smoke that rise from the shell-bursts. From the observing-station one of the guard signals movements at the foot of the slopes. No one sleeps, except a few wounded whose strength has completely failed them. Major Raynal, leaning on his stick, takes a turn round the corridors. He does not speak much, he is preoccupied, but his energetic air is reassuring. “The officers,” remarks an eye-witness, “were constantly walking through our midst; they were as calm and collected as usual, but we felt that the hour was at hand, for they looked into every detail.”

At a quarter-past two, before sunrise, the enemy’s range lengthens, and the waves of the attack unroll themselves against our defenders in a semicircle. Our curtain fire came too late; the waves have been able to advance without being broken, and soon they are coming up to the trench of the fort opposite them, to the Besançon trench on the west, to the Belfort trench on the east.

Opposite, they dash against the 7th Company of the 142nd Regiment, which replies by throwing bombs. The first platoon is annihilated on the spot, after inflicting serious losses on its assailants. The second, which was acting as a support, hastens to the rescue, and now comes a formidable rush against more numerous forces, which it prevents from passing. Captain Tabourot is in command of this reinforcing platoon, aided by Cadet Buffet. One of the survivors has drawn the following portrait of him: “Captain Tabourot fought like a lion. He overtopped us all with his tall figure, he gave his orders in curt tones, he encouraged us and put us in our right places. Then he put his hand himself in the grenade sack, took out an armful, and, leaning backwards a little, threw them with perfect composure, taking careful aim every time. This roused us, and we gave a good account of ourselves. What a pity that it didn’t last!”

The heroic band is all of a sudden assailed in the rear, between the trench and the fort. As a matter of fact, to the east, the Besançon trench, after repelling a first onslaught, has given way. Its little garrison, now outflanked, has fallen back upon the double transverse gallery, where one of the two entrances to the fort is to be found. Already they have had to convey to the interior of the fort the dauntless Lieutenant Tournery, who, with his head pierced by a bullet--a mortal wound--will take three days to die without confessing the tortures that rack him. A force deprived of its leader seeks a shelter in order to re-form itself. This force, sadly thinned, re-enters the fort by the transverse gallery, the opening in which it defends. The enemy, however, has managed to worm his way as far as the counterscarp. The northern ditch is barred to him by a revolving gun placed in the double transverse gallery, but, passing along it, he has taken Captain Tabourot’s platoon in the rear.

The captain is struck from behind by a bomb, which breaks his back and slashes both his legs. “Mastering his pain,” says the eye-witness already quoted, “he did not let a single cry of complaint escape his lips, and I can still see him pass in front of us, supported by two of his sergeants. He was pale, but he pointed out the enemy to us.”

He is carried to the infirmary. The procession makes its way into the interior by the breach in the north-eastern single transverse gallery. Major Raynal at once comes to join him. The meeting between the two soldiers is brief: no word of consolation is spoken, no false hopes are held out. The one divines that all is over; the other has too high an opinion of him to take refuge in falsehood. A firm handshake, then the commandant of the fort merely says:

“Well done, my dear fellow!”

The captain’s thoughts are with his men:

“If the Boches get through, sir, it won’t be my company’s fault. It has done all that could be done to block their way.”

After this report he closes his eyes. The major returns to his post. The captain is left alone with a hospital orderly amid a wailing and groaning throng of wounded. A moment later he asks for Cadet Buffet. But Cadet Buffet is in the thick of the fray with the rest of his company.

“He must not be sent for, then,” says the dying man.

A little later Cadet Buffet comes in of his own accord to visit him. The platoon being in danger of having its flank turned, what was left of it had to cleave a passage for itself in order to re-enter the fort.

“Come near me, boy; you who are from Dijon, if you get back safe from the war, you will tell my wife how I died.”

The captain is at peace with his men and with his conscience as a leader, and his thoughts turn towards his home. These were his last words. From now onwards, until the death that comes a few hours later, he devotes all his strength to avoiding any outward sign of the ghastly wounds that he could not survive.

Already his name is rushing through the night, borne by a carrier-pigeon which flew off from the fort at three o’clock in the morning:

“The enemy is around us. I must honourably mention the gallant Captain Tabourot, of the 142nd, who has been very badly wounded; we are still holding out.”

A few hours later, a second pigeon announces his death:

“Captain Tabourot of the 142nd died a glorious death, his wound being received while he was defending the north-eastern breach. I recommend him for the Legion of Honour.”

This is only a part of the message; the rest refers to the operations.

Nevertheless, the Germans have reached the two open breaches, the one in the north-western double transverse gallery and the other in the north-eastern single transverse gallery. They try to force their way through it. At each entrance there is a hand-to-hand conflict. On the right they are at first pushed back. “Our bombs,” says one of those who took part in the combat, “made gaps in their ranks, but reinforcements were continually coming up. Their dead and wounded formed shifting heaps, and, to add to the horror of it, these were cut and torn by splinters from our projectiles.”

Fighting now proceeds in the passages which, from the transverse galleries, lead to the interior. Major Raynal has barricades put up consisting of sandbags got ready in anticipation.

Outside the battle is no less violent. Chevassu’s battalion, of the 142nd Regiment, seems likely to find itself in a hazardous situation. The enemy, if he is checked to the west of the fort by the entrenchment R¹, which he is unable to seize, has contrived to insinuate himself between the curtain and the fort. He reaches the southern side. On the other hand, Damloup was captured at six or seven o’clock in the morning, and, by way of La Horgne ravine, fresh forces ascend to the onset. Chevassu’s battalion, which has two companies in the fort (the 6th and the fragments of the 7th which Captain Tabourot was leading), is charged with the defence of the eastern side of the fort. It does indeed hold its ground at the Belfort and Montbéliard trenches, where the struggle becomes a hand-to-hand one. Second Lieutenant Huguenin, set upon by an enemy private, knocks him down, disarms him, and fights with his adversary’s rifle. The Germans recoil, but return to the onslaught, in the afternoon, with unfixed bayonets. The men of the 142nd, on being reinforced by a company of the 53rd, receive them with cries of “Long live France!”

For all that, the battalion is in danger of having its flank turned. Its machine-gun sections change places and are pointed in three directions--in front, towards Damloup to the east, and to the west against the enemy, who is debouching to the south of the fort. The section commanders calmly indicate the objectives. Sergeant Narcisse, while standing near his machine-gun, is killed by a bullet that hits him right in the forehead. He was a gallant soldier who had been granted the Military Medal in the Champagne battle. Corporal Reveille takes his place, and shouts to his men, “Don’t get flurried, I take it upon myself to clear away the Boches.”

The observers in balloons signal to the north of the fort the arrival of more and more numerous troops, who burrow themselves in our old trenches to evade our curtain fire and to gain ground during the intervals. At noon, some forty men are seen upon the fort, the majority hidden in holes. At 3 P.M. the fort itself issues a bulletin:

“The enemy has gained possession of the north-eastern and north-western transverse galleries. I am pursuing the struggle in the inner passages. A large number of wounded and fugitives. Officers and men are all doing their duty. We shall fight to the bitter end.”

At seven o’clock in the evening, the watchers on the posts of the Fleury redoubt signal that infantry details of several companies are at present marching up in file from the north to the south, at the north-western bend of Fort Vaux. They escalade the fort and vanish through the summit into the interior. While this is going on, other detachments glide along the trenches surrounding the fort.

And at two o’clock in the morning on June 3, Major Raynal sends this message by visual signalling:

“Situation unchanged. The enemy is pursuing his labours on top and round the earthworks. The fort is to be pounded by small ordnance. The enemy occupies our old first-line trenches in force and is strengthening them. He seems to have a trench armed with a machine-gun facing the south-west, not far from the ditch of the defile.”

This machine-gun is not in the ditch of the defile, but on the very superstructure of the fort, where the enemy has managed to convey it, and whence he sweeps the southern slopes. It is impossible to dislodge him from the terreplein; the cupola for 75’s is demolished, there is no cupola for machine-guns, and a fruitless attempt has been made to pass short rifles through the cracks in the observing stations; even these weapons were too long, and could not be used for slaughtering the German infantrymen, who were only a few yards distant.

The southern front of the fort has been saved by the 5th and 8th Companies and the machine-gun section of Chevassu’s battalion, reinforced on the morning of June 2 by the 11th Company of the 53rd Regiment, and in the evening by a battalion of the same regiment. This battalion was to counter-attack without delay, but when brought up close to its objective it has already been sorely tried by the curtain fire it has had to suffer on the way, and must limit itself to holding its ground, to reconstructing the demolished trenches, and to interposing itself among the reduced sections of the 142nd.

Accordingly, on the evening of the 2nd, the enemy is in the northern and western ditches. Partially held in check to the east and south, he is master of the two northern transverse galleries and tries to advance in the stairway. What is more, he has clambered on top, and, from there, searches the southern side with machine-gun fire. Any sortie becomes difficult, if not impossible. All the lines of communication are cut. Nothing is left but carrier-pigeons and signals. The garrison is huddled together in the barracks. It still has access to the observing stations and the single north-western transverse gallery, which has no opening towards the outside. Here they have succeeded in setting up a machine-gun to sweep the southern ditch.

“A large number of wounded and fugitives,” said Major Raynal in his signal message. There is almost as much danger here as outside. The sight of dying men, so continuous and so close at hand, is likely to shake the morale of the garrison. Orders are transmitted more slowly in the crowded and littered corridors. Finally, if there is enough tinned meat and biscuits for all, the supply of water will soon give out.

II

THE FORT APPEALS

“Roland says: ‘I will blow a blast on my horn, and Charles, who is passing through the gorges, will hear it. I avow to you that the Franks will turn back.’

“Roland has put the horn to his lips. He grasps it firmly and blows with might and main. The mountains are high, and the sound goes on in long-drawn-out echoes. Those echoes were heard at a distance of thirty leagues. It comes to the ears of Charles and all his men. The king says: ‘Our troops are fighting.’

“Count Roland, with great difficulty, great effort, and great sorrow, blows his horn. The bright blood gushes forth from his mouth. Near his forehead his temple is shattered. But the sound of his horn carries so far! Charles hears it as he passes through the gorges; Naimes hears it.... And the king says: ‘I hear Roland’s horn. He would not blow it if there were no fight going forward.’

“Count Roland’s mouth is bleeding. Near his forehead the temples are shattered. In pain and sorrow he blows the horn. Charles and his Frenchmen hear it. And Charles said: ‘That horn is long-winded.’ Duke Naimes answers: ‘It is Roland who is in pain.’”

* * * * *

Are the appeals of the horn that shook the Pyrenees more than ten centuries ago more moving than the silent appeals of Fort Vaux, which, above the enemy’s lines, communicates to the High Command the details of its death-agony and its resolve to hold out?

On the morning of June 3 a swift-flying pigeon reaches the dovecote.

“Messenger, what are your tidings? The fort, since it can send you, still lives. Tell us if it can endure a siege until the hour we had fixed for its deliverance.”

In vain does it look under its wing for the despatch that it should carry. Badly fastened, it has fallen off on the way. The bird has been let loose to no purpose. How many of its mates are there left in the fort?

On the 4th, about midday, the dovecote is visited by a poor wounded pigeon, which drags itself laboriously up to its resting-place. This one has not made a useless journey. Here is the message that it brings:

“We are still holding out, but are subjected to a very dangerous gas and smoke attack. It is urgent that we should be extricated; let us have immediate visual signalling communication by way of Souville, which does not answer our appeals. This is my last pigeon.”

The last pigeon! The telephone wires have long since been cut, and the signals are not working. The last pigeon: it is the final connecting link with the fort. The fort is now cut off from the outer world. No flapping of wings will ever again convey its messages. It will remain dumb if they do not contrive to restore the visual signalling connections. Nothing more will be known of its career. At the military dovecote a soldier has put the bird on his hand--the bird, which, like some scout, was wounded on active service.

The afternoon of June 4 passes, but the communications are not restored. It is impossible to obtain a signal from the fort. Probably there has been no means of registering the position of its sighting gear. On the 5th, however, at three o’clock in the morning, the headquarters of the division see two men arrive. They have issued from the fort--nothing more than that! They belong to the searchlight section. As there were no more pigeons and the signals were not working, they had to come to restore the communications. That is as plain as a pikestaff.

“So the fort is not encircled?”

“They are on top with a machine-gun, but there is no one at the southern exit.”

“That exit is stopped up.”

“You jump from a window into the ditch.”

Others have made the attempt, but have not succeeded in escaping. These two do not furnish many details. For the time being they are too much absorbed in other matters, for they are professionals. Will the fort hold out? Life is no laughing matter in the interior on account of liquid fire and thirst. Then, too, the place is overcrowded: more than 600 men. Yet the morale is good. Up there, they will try once more to interchange messages.

At half-past seven in the morning Fort Vaux is no longer isolated. It speaks and receives an answer....

“The mountains are lofty, massive, and dark, the valleys deep, the torrents swift. Behind and in front of the army the trumpets ring, and they all seem to reply to the horn....”

But when Charlemagne’s trumpets ring, Roland is already no more. Imagine him rising up in face of death to listen to those blasts!

Fort Vaux informs the High Command as to the position of the enemy. Its message rings with hope:

“The enemy is working at the western part of the fort to construct a mine-chamber and blow up the vault. Strike quickly with artillery.”

Ten minutes later it becomes insistent:

“Where are you?”

At eight o’clock, having had no reply, or having been unable to decipher it, it confesses the agony of its suspense:

“We do not hear your artillery. The enemy is plying us with gas and liquid fire attacks. Our situation is as bad as can be.”

At last, at nine o’clock, this signal is transmitted to it: “Don’t lose heart. We shall soon attack.”

Roland, as he was dying, heard Charlemagne’s trumpets. They are so distant, but their music is so sweet. He starts up, he listens, he motions to death to wait awhile. But the French must make haste! Already the shades are closing in around him and his speech grows thick.

All day the fort waits. When night falls, it shows signs of impatience. Will not this coming night be the last? will it not be wrapped in its lethal winding-sheet? The opening of the message that it sends is unintelligible, the rest already has the tone of a funeral oration--it speaks of its defenders in the past tense:

“... preceding day. It is essential that I should be delivered this evening and that a fresh supply of water should reach me at once; I am very near the end of my tether. In any case, the troops--officers, N.C.O.’s, and men alike--all did their duty up to the last.”

Is this not a final farewell? Is it not the death-rattle that precedes the end? And now, amid the formidable bombardment which from this side and that overwhelms the hill with iron and flame, one of our searchlight stations gets hold of these fragmentary signals:

“... 53 ... wounded ... aspires ... losses.... You will intervene before we are utterly exhausted. Long live France!”

Roland has raised himself up. He is calling. He stretches out his arms towards “sweet France.”

For the second time the echo of Charlemagne’s trumpets has been borne as far as the vale of Roncevaux.

For the second time the Souville headquarters reply to Fort Vaux: “Your message received. Don’t lose heart!”

* * * * *

Don’t lose heart! Will this wreck of a fort have any heart left after the three days it has just lived through? Not for a single moment has the storm ceased to shake the plateau. To the left, it wreaks its fury upon the entrenchment R¹, which has the audacity to resist; to the right, upon the Damloup battery, which holds the promontory and sweeps La Horgne bottom and the outlet from the village, and upon the immediate approaches, which are defended to the west by La Courtine and to the right by the Belfort and Montbéliard trenches. The enemy follows up the general attacks with local attacks, in order either to carry the whole position at a blow, or to make us waver at one point, against which he can then concentrate his onrush. He plunges into the abyss with three divisions, which he will even have to reinforce with a brigade of the Alpine corps. He lays siege to the fort from three sides--he is around it, above it, and inside it. Yet the fort doggedly refuses to give in. Cut off from the outer world for a whole day, it has no sense of being forsaken. Outside there, it feels certain, they are working on its behalf. Inside it sets up more and more barricades. Step by step it defends the stairways, and foot by foot the corridors. It faces heavy artillery, machine-guns, grenades, liquid fire, smoke-bombs, thirst, poisoning, intoxication, stench, putrefaction. It will go to the utmost limit of human endurance, the limit that is extended still further when one thinks that it has been reached, goes beyond all anticipation, and verges on the impossible. Among its cramped stones and under its echoing vaults the terrible sacrifice will be accomplished in full measure.

A second lieutenant of the 142nd, an officer in Chevassu’s battalion, fighting on the plateau outside the fort, described later to a comrade those days of horror: “Everywhere there was nothing but fire and dust, and in this pandemonium a few soldiers on the watch prevented the Boche hordes from passing. Their attacks were renewed every day, striking now at this point, now at that; never did we yield an inch of ground so long as there was a man to defend it. I will not speak to you of all that we went through. No water, no revictualling; those who went out to bring us supplies never got back. The only thing that we were not short of was munitions. We are terribly weakened, but happy to have done our duty, to have had our share in preventing the Boches from taking Verdun--Verdun, which their Emperor promised to them, and which they will never gain.... They would be compelled to pass over our bodies and over the corpses of all their comrades whom we have slain.... They attacked us from three sides at once, but they never got us in their claws....”

During the day of June 3 the enemy seeks to turn to account the capture of Damloup and make his way round the fort to the east. Details of the 142nd and 53rd Regiments hold him in check, and, assuming the offensive, even force him to draw back.

Whether for army, army corps, division, or brigade, the High Command supports the conflict that stretches from Fumin Wood to La Gayette bottom, pours fresh troops into the firing line, and prepares counter-attacks. There is a counter-attack on Damloup from the morning of June 2; at any rate this rescues the battery. There is a counter-attack on the fort from the evening of the 2nd, made by a battalion of the 53rd Regiment, which has to run the gauntlet of murderous curtain fires and can only reinforce the troops of the sector. There is a counter-attack on June 3 upon our left, to recapture the line of the entrenchments and come to the aid of R¹, which still holds out. And the balloon observers never cease from signalling the arrival of enemy columns, which are coming up the slopes to swell the number of the assailants.

Connection with the fort must be established, that is beyond all question. Comrades are there, waiting for the hour of their deliverance to strike: “In the fort we have French comrades,” the army telephones; “they must be released from their present plight. First and foremost, we must get into touch with them. This is the duty of all alike--a sacred duty.” General Tatin, who is in command of the sector, will personally direct the operation.

Yet the enemy does not leave off attacking, and he floods his objective with an endless deluge of projectiles. On the 4th, at two o’clock in the morning, an attack upon the fort is started from the north-east and the south-west. It begins by making progress, then it is checked by the machine-guns. At daybreak an aeroplane flies above the fort and comes down so low that it casts a shadow over all this chaos. Will the daring bird let itself be wounded, like the last pigeon? It darts through the midst of shells and bullets like a salamander in the fire, and behold, it is now rising again and going away! It has fulfilled its mission: on the superstructure of the fort it has registered the position of the machine-guns. A few minutes later our 75’s and our 155’s crush to pulp everything that the Germans had installed on the upper part of the earthwork. At ten o’clock in the morning, the weather being clear, our airmen report that the fort trenches have been entirely razed and that not a man is left upon the top of the fort.

On the following night the enemy once more begins to construct his works and his machine-gun shelters upon the superstructure. In this way he blocks up the southern exit. He tries to make it impossible to sally forth or to communicate with the outer world. Reconnoitring parties--as soon as they were suggested, the number of volunteers was so large that a selection had to be made--have tried to find a way of getting into the fort. None of them was successful. To compensate for this, some have managed to go out. Two signallers, we know already, crossed the lines on the early evening of June 4. Some hours later, during the night, Cadet Buffet, two N.C.O.’s, and three men of the 7th Company of the 142nd leave the fort in their turn. The problem is less baffling for those going out than for those coming in. The former merely have to elude the Boche machine-guns, whereas the latter have to elude ours as well. The fort, in order not to be invested, must keep the southern ditch and the approaches. Every shadow that draws near is suspect. The difficult thing is to convince the sentries that one is a friend.

“Don’t lose courage, we shall soon attack,” was the signal received, and the High Command speeds up the preparations for a fresh attack with more numerous effectives. It cannot be set going until June 6 at two o’clock in the morning.

* * * * *

We must now retrace our steps in order to know what has been going on in the interior of the fort.

From the morning of June 2 onwards the fort is swarming with Boches as the mane of a lion swarms with parasites. The Boche is in front, on the flanks, on top, and even inside, for he has rushed through the two gaps in the transverse gallery and is trying to bore his way through into the heart of the place. Major Raynal has introduced some order and system into the garrison, whose numbers have been unduly enlarged by the wounded and the overflow from neighbouring details. It ought not to consist of more than the 6th Company of the 142nd, the machine-gun company, and the fort engineers. The 7th and 8th Companies of the 142nd, which defended the right-hand transverse passages, have reinforced it with more than a hundred rifles; the 7th Company of the 101st, which defended the left-hand transverse passages, has brought some fifty. A machine-gun company of the 53rd has been left behind. With the wounded, this makes a total of over six hundred men. Six hundred soldiers who have to be supplied with water, when the cistern has run dry! Six hundred soldiers, among them wounded men, wasted with fever, who beg for a drop to drink! Nevertheless the garrison is divided up into reliefs, look-out men and rest units, and the distribution of boxes of tinned food, biscuits, chocolate, and even brandy is carried out with regularity. The water ration, which on May 31 was two pints, is reduced on June 2 to a pint and three-quarters. It will be cut down to a pint, then to barely half a pint--and under what conditions! From June 4 the commandant will be forced to take a decided step.

As we have seen, the enemy is at the transverse galleries on the morning of June 2. In spite of his losses, he manages to press the defenders hard, and they beat a retreat. The revolving gun of the double transverse gallery has been put out of action by a shell. The machine-gun that guards the entrance has been smashed by a bomb. The defence is driven back into the interior. A barricade is at once set up under the breach, but from the outside the Germans command it and overpower it with grenades. It has to be withdrawn to the foot of the stairway that leads up to the observing station. Another one is constructed at the top of the stairway. This latter one will hold out until the 4th. The same manœuvre takes place at the single transverse gallery at the north-eastern angle. The barricades keep the enemy back in front of the grating of the corridor, facing the lavatories, which can still be used.

“In the semi-darkness of the fort,” writes a survivor of the 142nd, “the struggle goes on. The enemy tried to exhaust us by depriving us of sleep and condemning us to thirst. The atmosphere was heavy and tainted. At every moment some part of the barricades blew up, and the grenade duel was resumed. We would not give in. But the air grew hot with all these explosives; the smoke and the stench made it almost impossible to breathe, yet the fighting went on all the time. We had installed machine-guns, which blocked up the gangways and did splendid work. It was then that the Germans, having contrived to blow up a barricade, attacked us with jets of flame and liquid fire. The heat, and the fact that we were taken unawares, caused us to waver for a moment. But Lieutenant Bazy, who was there with his machine-gun, darted forward, and so quick was he, that before we had recovered from our amazement he was standing upright in the middle of the gangways and fighting the Germans single-handed with bombs. The flames came up to his shoes, his left arm was bandaged, being already wounded, but little did he care. As he could not speak, on account of that black acrid smoke, he encouraged us by his example. Accordingly we shook off our stupor and went forward in rotation to stand by his side. At last the flame-throwers were quenched. He had succeeded in checking the attack and was beginning to go up again on to the barricade, when the Boches started sending us petards, which knocked us all down with the sandbags on top of us. I was quite convinced that my back was broken, and I only just had enough strength left to put my mask on, as I detected the whiff of poison gas. A private extricated me and carried me to the infirmary while the struggle recommenced. The Germans discharged gases whose heavy fumes hung about the gangways. Despite all their devilish contrivances, their flame-jets, their gases, and their petards, they made no advance. It was magnificent. They shouted to us in French: ‘Surrender, or you will all be killed,’ and we answered by slinging bombs full at their faces.”

“It was magnificent!” How comical is that outcry, in the thick of the fray!

It was on June 4, about midday, that this liquid fire attack took place. The Germans made it through the breach in the western passage. The fort was filled with a “black and acrid” smoke. In order to breathe, the garrison had to remove the armour-plating from the barrack windows. The flames came up to the corridor leading into the rooms. Some soldiers even jumped into the ditch in order to recover their breath. The machine-guns installed on the fort had been destroyed in the morning by our artillery. The curtain fire cut off the exits a little farther south. Without disorder, the troops retired into the interior, but the windows had to be closed again. The enemy swung up sacks of bombs with delay-action fuses, which he sent through the openings, and tried to blow up the armour-platings.

Nevertheless, he made progress in the north-eastern single transverse gallery. We had to retire some yards in the corridor, but not beyond the lavatories. The sick and the wounded had to be looked after on the spot. The stretcher-bearers took advantage of the destruction of the enemy machine-guns installed on the fort, and were thus able to carry corpses away in the western ditch and to cleanse the infirmary of all its filth. From the ensuing night onwards this task was beyond their powers. The dead had to remain with the living. An unspeakable horror stalked through these dim vaults, where, in a thick, pestilent atmosphere, a sleepless, nerve-racked, thirst-maddened garrison, crowded into a narrow space, refused to abandon the struggle.

It needed but one man to turn aside the flame attack: Lieutenant Bazy, straight and upright like a god, amid the smoke, in the middle of the corridor, his left arm in a sling, his right arm hurling bombs, barring the way to the foe. It needed but the commandant, a few officers and N.C.O.’s, a handful of picked men, to ensure, amid all these sufferings, the maintenance of a single idea, a single aim: to hold out.

The fort is cut off from the rest of the world, its last pigeon was sent off on the previous day, and its signals have not been transmitted. But when night has fallen, two signallers leap into the ditch: they are going to restore the communications.

Next day the fort’s appeal is heard.

III

THE SORTIE

On June 4 the water ration was half a pint. Half a pint for men who have fought and are fighting in the haze of bombs, of flame-throwers, of asphyxiating gases! Half a pint for fever patients, tossing uneasily at the overcrowded dressing-station, amid the dead and the dying! Piteous wails and entreaties are heard on all sides. Silence, however, is instantly restored when Major Raynal puts in an appearance. Half a pint, and no more. Who was it that asked for a larger ration? Why, as things are, half a pint is a great deal! Even the wounded resign themselves. Each man swallows his grief, having no saliva left.

The commandant has taken a census of the garrison. All who are not ordinary members of it will have to leave the fort. Under cover of night the sortie will be attempted, either by the southern ditch--the windows of the barracks will in that case be blown up--or by the south-western transverse gallery, which is not in the enemy’s hands.

The order is a formal one. Those who have to go, endeavour by the light of day to gauge the difficulties of the enterprise: are there machine-guns and look-out men on the fort? How far off are the German curtain fires, and at what points are they directed? The sortie is exceedingly risky, but the French cannot be very far away.

The first who jump into the ditch, at half-past ten at night, are volunteers: the two signallers of whom I have spoken, who are going to restore communications. With beating hearts their comrades listen: the noise of the fall, then silence, no rifle-shots, no rockets, merely the usual bombardment. Their range has not been found.

The detachments of the 101st and the 142nd, whose departure has been settled upon, now fall in.

“Go,” says Major Raynal to them, “and if you escape, tell our comrades how we stand and how we are resisting.”

The two groups salute. It is the moment for the sortie. It is half-past one in the morning, and it seems as if the shower of “heavies” were growing less violent. Cadet Buffet is in charge of the detachment from the 142nd. He makes use of an uncovered gap at the south-eastern corner, and is the first to descend, followed by a scout and the quartermaster’s corporal. The company proceeds behind them, leaving intervals so as not to attract attention. A pebble has rolled down, and the German look-out men, from the top of the fort, are at once on the alert, send up rockets and fire their rifles. Almost at the same moment their artillery opens an appalling curtain fire at the immediate approaches to the fort. The cadet has got through, with a small group at his heels. They reach the French lines, which are quite close at hand. The first is received by a rifle-shot, which misses him. He makes himself recognized, not without difficulty. Explanations follow, a warm welcome is given, while the bombardment rages at the rear of the little group. Others are on the way; our comrades must take care not to shoot at them. They are awaited, but after a long interval only two or three arrive. The rest have been unable to cross the zone of death.

A private of 142nd, wounded in the flame attack, gives the following account of the expedition:

“When the C.O. had finished speaking, I saluted and made my way to the dormer window, from which I had to jump a depth of three yards. I passed my hand over my stiffened limbs. Then, without further hesitation, I let myself go. I certainly felt acute pain. I heard rifle-shots aimed at me, and I flung myself down and shammed dead, for the Boches were still watching. I don’t know how long I stayed like this. At any rate, after a good minute, I began to crawl on my belly over a lot of corpses. Gently, gliding from one corpse to another, I managed to get over the ditch and cross the line. I could scarcely breathe under the endless bombardment, and at last I succeeded, I don’t know how, in reaching a dressing-station. I don’t remember the end of the adventure, but I woke up in hospital!”

The upshot of the sortie was not very fortunate. It had to be undertaken all over again. On June 5, at sunrise, there was another attempt and another set-back. The day slipped away, a day still more cruel than any that had preceded it. The struggle at the barricades began again, with grenades and flame-jets. Water was now distributed only drop by drop. The wounded implored their comrades to put them out of their misery. Quicklime had to be thrown upon the dead, who could not be carried away. The hardships were more severe than ever, but a gleam of hope had appeared. The fort was no longer isolated: the two signallers who went off the previous evening had succeeded in their task. When the fort spoke, it was heard, and the reply came: “Courage! we shall soon attack.” The defenders are not forgotten. Their deliverance is at hand. One day more, and relief will come. One day--how long it is, how hard to live through! Still, it will pass, like the others.

The numbers will have to be cut down. The contingents of the 101st and 142nd, whose presence is not indispensable, once more receive the order to depart. During the night, more than a hundred men succeed in getting away. Here is the story of one of them, since a selection must be made: one cannot recite the names and fortunes of the whole hundred. One shall be chosen, for there is no better way of making the reader realize such tragedies than to lay one’s hand on a human heart and feel its beats.

Stretcher-bearer Roger Vanier, of the 101st Regiment, received the Military Medal for his conduct at Sabot Wood on February 26, 27, and 28, 1915, the official report being as follows:

“Gave proof of heroic courage and self-sacrifice. Worked for three days and three nights without taking a rest. Went several times under enemy fire to look for wounded between the French and German trenches, and brought them in. At the same time identified several who were killed. Won universal admiration from the battalion to which he showed such whole-hearted devotion. Was registered for non-combatant service at the mobilization, but asked to be sent to the front.”

General Joffre decorated him personally on March 25, 1915, at Courtisols.

In the Champagne battle, on September 21, he is mentioned in army corps orders:

“Seeing some comrades hesitate to go out of the trench for the attack, he took off his Red Cross armlet, jumped up on the parapet and shouted ‘Forward!’ He was instantly hit in the leg by a bullet.

“He belongs to the 1916 class: of middle height, rather delicate in health, with a tanned complexion, a faint shadow of a moustache, his face frank, eager and all aglow, as it were, with the fire of his eyes. ‘When there is any danger,’ he says, ‘I no longer know myself; I have to go.’ And he goes. He comes of a humble family at Montfort L’Amaury. One of his brothers, a school teacher, a corporal-telephonist in the 146th Regiment, was killed on March 2 at Douaumont; his leg broken by a shell, he was carried to the Les Fontaines ravine, where he died shortly afterwards. His body remained on the spot. The stretcher-bearer of the 101st, coming in his turn to the Vaux district, might well have found himself face to face with the corpse when he went to look for water in the ravine. Before the war he had been a valet. But since he has served his country and lost his brother, his only desire, after the war, is to enter the service of God instead of the service of death.”

Who is it that moulded such hearts as these? Vanier always carries about with him a letter from his mother. The worthy dame of Montfort L’Amaury writes to him on February 29: her spirit is resolute, but her spelling is a trifle shaky:

“I know that your poor brother is at Verdun, that is to say at the post of honour, for it is a fine thing for the French Army to hold up that hord of savages there. How happy our Lou must be to see the war outside the trenches! Oh, how glorious it is. I haven’t heard from him yet, but I suppose he can’t find an oportunity of writing. I always feel firmly convinced that nothing will happen to him. And you, my darling boy, you must have a lot to do, be very careful, my precious, though, of course, be brave, more and more brave than ever. Save all those poor wounded lying there in the blood and snow. My blood boils at having to stay here while there is so much to do down there, picking up all those poor dears. Why don’t they want women in a place where they are so necessery? Ah, yes, it is the business of mothers to pick up all those poor children and speak soothing words to them. Well, my dear boy, you must take the place of a mother, and do everything, even imposible things, so as to be of some use to them, yes, of great use. I see you walking, running, crawling to look for all these wounded. I should like to slip in and come along with you, laddie, for I feel that I ought to be by your side. Cheer up, cheer up, I know that it is the beginning of the end, a glorious end for all who have fought in the cause of justice....”

These mothers of France--are they not all at the front with all their children, bleeding from all their wounds, but thrusting them forward, in the path of duty, for their country’s sake?

Stretcher-bearer Vanier has been at the fort since June 1, doing duty at the dressing-station with his comrades, under the command of the admirable doctors Gaillard, Conte, and Boisramé (I think there is one other whom I have forgotten). At all costs, then, the garrison must be delivered. The sortie of the evening of June 4 has proved a failure. The 5th is a gruelling day; at its close the defenders themselves are amazed at the fact that they are still withstanding the foe. What will befall on the morrow? It is better not to wait for it. What is left of the 101st and of the 7th and 8th Companies of the 142nd will try to get away.

Vanier attaches himself to the men of the 101st. They are thirty-four in number, and among them there are some wounded. The order is to leave the fort at no matter what cost; every man is to look after himself, not troubling about the others. During the day each of them has registered the direction he will take. Vanier, at half-past 10 P.M., is the first to jump into the ditch, accompanied by a comrade. Both crawl up the side of the ditch and, once on top, start running along at full speed.

“_Wer da?_” (Who goes there?) “_Halte-là!_” (Halt there!)

They stop and throw themselves into a shell-hole. Vanier thinks he has heard the German words “_Wer da?_” (Who goes there?). He loads his revolver and whispers to his companion:

“Don’t come with me, chum. I don’t want to be a prisoner; I’d sooner be killed.”

“But it’s a Frenchman,” answers the other.

They draw near and make themselves recognized. At barely 200 yards from the fort they have come upon a detachment of the 298th. They are taken to the rear, they are given wine to drink--wine, when they have drunk no water for thirty-six hours!--they are examined.

Out of thirty-five only five miss the roll-call. Vanier goes to rejoin his colonel at the rest billets, where he finds his regiment once more.

“I promote you to corporal,” said the colonel, embracing him.

That is how Stretcher-bearer Vanier won his stripes.

IV

SOME ONE RE-ENTERS THE FORT

Cadet Buffet, of the 141st Regiment, who assisted Captain Tabourot when the latter was dying, and who left the fort during the night of June 4-5 with a detachment of his company, also belongs to the 1916 class. He is the son of a working man. When quite a child he lost his mother, and was brought up at an orphanage. He proved an excellent pupil, gained his Bachelor’s degree in classics, and was being trained for the teaching profession when the war caught him in its grasp. The would-be schoolmaster is short and slim. He wears a small beard, and his face is scarred with the marks of bomb-splinters and flame-jets. When he arrives at divisional headquarters his eyes are almost haggard, and he seems to be in that state of agitation which precedes a nervous breakdown. Nevertheless, in dealing with the combats in the interior of the fort, with the German field-works, with the German positions, he furnishes such accurate reports and draws such shrewd conclusions that the Divisional Commander sends him to the headquarters of the sector.

Arrived there, he resumes his account and his explanations. The General listens to him, watches him, then orders him to take a rest. The young man, at the end of his tether, goes to bed. A few hours later, having washed, shaved, and had a meal, he already looks a different being.

Once more he goes before the General. Matters are urgent; a serious problem has to be solved. An attack has been arranged to relieve the fort. It will be started in a few hours. Major Raynal may contribute towards its success. Let him signal, if he can, the position of the enemy machine-guns on the fort, let him thus direct the artillery fire during the night; he will help in the operation. While the work is going on elsewhere, let him detain the enemy in the interior passages. But how is one to get into touch with him? Several times, reconnoitring and water fatigue parties have tried to do so. They have not been able to cross the gorge: they have been brought to a halt or mown down by the German curtain fires, or perhaps by the machine-gun which the commandant himself has had installed to guard the southern ditch. One who is thoroughly acquainted with the fort, who knows its ins and outs, might possibly carry out so hazardous a mission. Cadet Buffet is the only one who possesses these qualifications.

“I’ll go,” says the lad, without letting the General finish.

The General, whose only son has been killed, beams at him with a paternal look.

“This is not an order, my friend”--he must have been very nearly saying “my son”--“what I ask of you is something more than your duty. To get away from the fort was a fine performance. I don’t _order_ you to go back there.”

“I’ll go,” repeats Buffet stoutly.

“Of course you’ll be rewarded: the Legion of Honour or the Military Medal.”

“Oh no!” protests the cadet; “I’ll go for nothing.”

A staff officer asks for the privilege of accompanying him.

“I would rather go alone,” he says. “When we get there, things will be easier if I am alone. Besides, I want entire freedom of movement.”

The Chief of Staff hands him his orders. He reads them, rereads them, imprints them in his memory and returns the paper, for he must not carry anything away with him.

Night comes, and he is taken by motor-car as far as motor-cars dare go. He shakes hands with the officer who is with him, then lightly runs off into the darkness, where his outline is soon lost.

It has been arranged that, if he re-enters the fort, the searchlight will end up its next signals with “Long live France!”

At 11.20 P.M. the visual message transmitted from Fort Vaux, after an opening which the bombardment made it impossible to understand, contains this phrase: “You will intervene before we are utterly exhausted. Long live France!”

V

THE LAST WORDS

The effort to extricate Vaux has not been relaxed for a moment, but the German attacks and ours succeed each other, dash against each other, anticipate each other, cancel each other. Neither side contrives to forge ahead. On the right, the enemy is unable to debouch from Damloup, and spends his strength in vain against the battery. On the left, his way is blocked in Fumin Wood, and R¹ continues to withstand him. The battle drags along in the hard-pressed, flame-ravaged, starving fort, where the energy of a handful of men makes the resistance seem likely to last for ever. But we cannot retake the external earthworks, which bristle with machine-guns. The whole tableland and its slopes are swept to such an extent that the ground is like a mass of cinders.

In the course of the morning of June 6, we might have fancied for a moment that we once more held the whole fort and that the garrison was delivered. An attack had been prepared, and was to open at two o’clock. At four, a German pioneer of the 27th Regiment was brought into divisional headquarters, scared out of his wits, his uniform in rags. He was found in our lines, without weapons, wild-eyed, running breathlessly. On being examined, he stated that he had escaped from Fort Vaux when the French surrounded it.

The attack was to approach the fort by its three fronts: towards the western front, a company of the 238th; towards the gorge, another company of the same regiment and a section of engineers, commanded by Major Mathieu; finally, towards the eastern front, two companies of the 321st, commanded by Major Favre. The signal was to be given at two o’clock in the morning by a series of rockets.

On the right, the two companies of the 321st, vigorously inspired by their leader, reach the ditch of the counterscarp in two waves; they are received by a curtain fire of bombs and machine-guns. Their ranks thinned by the fire of these machine-guns, which crown the parapet of the escarp, the first bomb-throwers fall back. In their turn, the two waves unroll themselves successively. Their leaders, however, are almost all struck, and that almost at once: Major Favre, killed by a bullet in his head; Lieutenant Ray, Second Lieutenant Rives, seriously wounded; Lieutenant Bellot, wounded but revived; Second Lieutenant Morel, killed; Second Lieutenant Billaud, killed; Second Lieutenant Desfougères, wounded; Lieutenant Aymé, wounded. What a roll of honour, what a book of martyrs! Robbed of so many officers, the troops waver. Captain and Adjutant Baume takes over the command of the battalion, restores order in the ranks, appoints the subordinate commanders, and holds himself in readiness to thrust back a counter-assault which, in face of the attitude of his men, does not come off after all. The scouts keep the regiment and the brigade posted as to the situation. However violent the curtain fires may be, they scour the volcanic country, the survivors taking the place of the wounded or the dead.

Farther to the left, the attack of the 328th on the western front and the gorge has met with similar obstacles. For a few moments it has contrived to encircle the fort, but has not been able to hold its ground. It has even been impeded by the fire of our artillery upon the superstructure, to demolish the enemy machine-guns placed there. This attack, too, has had to fall back on the positions from which it set out.

With what throbbing hearts have the various phases of the struggle been followed from the interior of the fort! To feel that one’s comrades are approaching, that they are there, that they are bringing deliverance, and then that they are shipwrecked when almost in harbour--what thrills of hope, and what a disappointment! At twenty past six in the morning the following message, half of it undecipherable, is transmitted from the fort:

“... without having attained the objectives. Enemy machine-guns on top of the fort: these ought to have been shelled....”

Where are they, then, these mysterious machine-guns which our artillery cannot manage to demolish? In what hidden lurking-place, under what shelter?

This is an account of the battle so far as observation of it has been possible from the fort. A few minutes later the fort speaks again. This time its words ring with the grandeur of honourable achievement, and the sadness of grim resignation.

Reopen the _Song of Roland_, at the verses where Roland, victorious but grievously wounded, journeys through the vale of Roncevaux in search of the peers of France, brings back their bodies one by one, and lays them at the feet of Archbishop Turpin, who will give them the last blessing:

“Roland departs. Alone he scours the battlefield, goes up and down the valley, up and down the mountains. He finds Gérin and his comrade Gérier, he finds Bérenger and Otton, he finds Anséis and Samson, he finds old Gérard, Count of Roussillon. He carries the barons one by one, comes back with them to the archbishop, and lays them in a row at his feet....

“Roland returns and searches all over the plain. He has found his friend Olivier, he has pressed him tightly to his heart, and he returns as best he can to the archbishop....”

After the failure of the final attempt at deliverance, Fort Vaux does not know how many hours or minutes it still has to live. In a message resembling a last will and testament, the Commandant musters the names of his dauntless comrades-in-arms, pays a tribute to his men, and offers them to the high command. At half-past six his signals transmit the following message:

“I have no more water, in spite of the ration system of the last few days. It is essential that I should be extricated and that a fresh supply of water should reach me without delay. I think our resources have nearly touched rock-bottom. The troops--officers, N.C.O.’s and men,--in all circumstances, have done their duty to the bitter end.

“I mention: Lieutenants De Roquette and Girard of the 53rd, Bazy, Albagnac of the 142nd, all wounded; Alirol, Largnes, Cadet Tuzel, Sergeant-Major Brune of the 142nd, Lieutenants De Nizet and Rebattet, Artillery, Lieutenant Roy and Cadet Bérard of the 2nd Engineers, Corporal Bonnin of the 142nd.

“Losses: 7 killed, among them Captain Tabourot of the 142nd and Lieutenant Tournery of the 101st.

“Seventy-six wounded, among them 4 officers and the auxiliary doctors Conte and Gaillard.

“I hope that you will once more intervene with vigour before we are utterly exhausted.”

The chief’s duty is fulfilled. He has forgotten nothing but himself.

After this the fort maintains silence. For the whole day of June 6 the visual signalling posts, on the watch, will not register a single message. The fort retires within itself to face all the suffering piled on suffering: the barrages, the bombs, the flames and the gas and the suffocation, the horror of unspeakable sights and smells, and, above all, thirst, the thirst that makes men howl like wolves, and lacerates their tongues and their lips.

Is it dead, is it alive? Is it captured, is it still free? The outside world no longer knows. The longing to know keeps the whole army in suspense. This longing is contagious at a distance. Like the signals, it flashes to the end of the country, to the end of the world. In sober truth, the whole earth awaits with intense eagerness the upshot of the drama of Vaux. And it is the miracle of the defence, and that alone, that has aroused this great thrill of admiration and anxiety.

Yet the fort is not forsaken. The whole army is concerned with working its salvation. Without delay, a new offensive is planned. A regiment of Zouaves and a regiment of colonial infantry, formed into a composite brigade, are brought up into the neighbourhood. As soon as methodical preparations will allow of it, they will be drafted into the line.

The enemy is seized with no less determination. Amazed at the protracted nature of the struggle, he seeks to overpower the defence at any price. At any price? What an exorbitant price he has already paid for each square yard of the tableland slopes! Our observing-stations signal that the German infantrymen are coming up in column of companies to storm Fort Vaux. It is half-past 7 P.M. Once more the tornado is let loose. The artillery rages over the whole chaotic scene.

And the Commander-in-Chief’s headquarters, at half-past 8 P.M., sends to the army headquarters the following telegram, which is to be transmitted to the fort by visual signalling:

“The Commander-in-Chief wishes to express to the commandant of
Fort Vaux, and the commandant of the garrison, as well as to their
troops, his satisfaction at their superb resistance to the repeated
onslaughts of the foe.

JOFFRE.”

Amid the lightning flashes from batteries and rockets, amid the uproar of the storm that makes the hills tremble, the message is put through. The fort, however, does not reply. Red rockets in sheaves are descried above it. Is it dead or alive? Is it taken, or still free?

At 9 P.M. the voice of the Commander-in-Chief is heard once more, drowning the hurricane of fire and steel:

“Major Raynal is appointed Commander of the Legion of Honour.”

To transmit this order, the impossible has to be achieved. It is the express desire of the supreme commander. In vain is Vaux summoned by signals of all kinds--Vaux no longer replies. Suddenly, at daybreak on the 7th, at 3.50 A.M., Vaux awakes and issues an appeal. The signalling posts make out these three words: “Don’t leave us.” “Don’t leave us”--the cry of a dying man holding the hand of one he loves. After that, nothing more. Fort Vaux will not speak again.