THE ATTACK AT LOOS

9th May, 1915

On April the 29th, ten days before the attack, we were taking our last great rest at Noyelette in a setting which resembled a scene from a comic opera. The apple trees were in full bloom and the blossom fell like snow. In the radiant peace of early spring we lay on the scented grass, listening to the ripples on the little stream. For many of us it was destined to be a last pleasure and a last caress which Nature was pleased to lavish on those of her children who were about to die.

Though wounded at the beginning of the attack, and sole survivor of all the officers of the company and of a neighbouring company of the 114th regiment of the line, I was, nevertheless, still able to carry on till 8 o’clock at night.

At 9 o’clock A.M. I precipitated the ammoniacal solution and all the men soaked their pads in it. Everyone had his bomb. While I was finishing these last preparations shells and bombs seemed to crush the enemy’s lines. The noise was deafening and the smoke suffocating and blinding. I should like to shut my eyes and pass in review each scene which followed, forgetting none. In a few moments I consider that I lived the sum total of a lifetime.

At a quarter to ten all were lined up, pack on back. The section of Engineers stuck to the communicating trench so as not to hinder our movements. I placed myself in the centre and took out my watch; still ten minutes to go! I called in a loud voice, “Five minutes,” “Two minutes.” I had a stealthy look at the men and I saw on their faces so tense an expression, something so fixed, that they seemed to be in a trance.

As I cried, “Only half a minute more!” I saw the left of the company starting off; they had some mÈtres start of me. At all costs we must keep touch, so I shouted, “Forward,” and ran straight at the German line, without seeing or hearing anything. I had a vague consciousness that the “75” guns had not yet increased their range, but we were no longer our own masters. Thousands of men, their minds fixed on the same purpose, rushed forward blindly.

As I arrived at the first German entanglement I turned round. Everyone had followed; the men were at my heels. A second later we were leaping over the parapet of the enemy’s first line. I yelled, “Don’t get into the communicating trench; the trench is empty, except for a few stragglers; get on and seize the second line.”

The blue cloaks bounded forward together and the bayonets shone under a burning sun, for there was not a cloud in the sky.

Now, with our heads down, we entered the zone of Hell.

There is no word, sound or colour that can give an idea of it. To prevent our advance the Germans had made a barrier of fire, and we had to go through a sort of suffocating vapour. We went through sheaves of fire, from which burst forth percussion and time shells at such short intervals that the soil opened every moment under our feet. I saw, as in a dream, tiny silhouettes, drunk with battle, charging through the smoke.

The terrified Germans, caught between their own artillery fire and our bayonets, sprang up from everywhere; some cried for mercy; others turned round like madmen, whilst others again threw themselves upon us to drive us back.

Shells had made ravages in the ranks. I saw groups of five or six crushed and mown down. I caught a momentary glimpse of Petit, the corporal, at the head of a group of men, and I forgot everything else and shouted to him, “Go it: bravo, Petit!” His Herculean figure, moulded in a woollen jersey, was standing on a hillock, wielding his rifle like a windmill. Careless of shot and shell, his terrible bayonet running with blood, he seemed the very incarnation of the war. All my life I shall see him, bareheaded, covered with blood and sweat, leading the others on to carnage; and the blue sky behind.

My section and I kept pressing on, and we were now within a few mÈtres of the last of the German lines. At every step grey uniforms now surged. I discharged my revolver to right and left. Cries and moans rose and fell in the infernal din of that struggle.

In a second we should be occupying the enemy’s last positions. What remained of my section followed me blindly. I put my foot on the parapet and cried, “Forward, lads, here we are!” then I felt as though someone had suddenly given me a brutal blow in the back with the butt-end of a rifle. I let go my revolver and the chedite bomb, which I had in my left hand, and I rolled to the bottom of a shell hole.

I was hit!

In a flash I remembered a phrase of my orderly’s, overheard by chance yesterday, “If anything happens to the little lieutenant he won’t be left behind,” and a moment later this brave fellow, himself wounded in the arm, was at my side, and with two or three others, carried me to the trench. In front of us nothing was left, not a defence, not a wire entanglement. We had carried the German lines to their uttermost limits.

We at once set to work to dig ourselves in, whilst the men who were not digging kept a look-out. We asked ourselves from what direction the Germans would try to outflank us, for we knew nothing about the trenches that had been carried. All at once I saw two of them coming out of a little communicating trench with their bayonets at the charge. I blew out the brains of the first; the second, a veritable lad of about sixteen, had a terrified expression which I shall never forget. He yelled, and his strident cries made me shudder; but my pistol went off, and he fell on the ground on his face.

During the whole of the attack I had not for an instant seen my company commander, and I wondered where he was. My colour-sergeant told me that the Major and he had been killed, that Lieutenant Desessart was badly wounded and that Lieutenant RÈgues and I were the only officers left in the company. RÈgues took command, and, seated on the parapet, superintended the preparations for defence. The guns were silent.... Alone the whistle of bullets was heard, and warning cries were raised: “Look out on the left; look out on the right; they are coming from such and such a trench.”

Then a bullet struck RÈgues fair on the head. He rolled over at my feet, and the sole command devolved on me. I myself was wounded; the blood was running from my back, and my movements were paralysed. My men wanted me to go back, but I stiffened myself up with the energy of despair. Someone passed me a flask of ether and I propped myself against the parapet. I was alone in command; I had all my faculties about me, and I determined to stay there whatever happened.

Up till two o’clock nothing did happen. We feverishly dug shelters to fire from, and made traverses to protect the trench which was in part open to enfilade. As far as the road everything had gone well, but, from that point on, connection was broken. The rest of the 90th were behind and parallel with me, some mÈtres off; the Germans there had retained their positions. Though we could not see them, they were there quite near, concealed, gone to earth but ready to spring on us.

Lying almost helpless at the foot of the trench I gave my orders, which the men, one and all, carried out with remarkable presence of mind. Enervating hours slowly slipped by. The sun scorched the trench; some of the bodies took on a deep yellow colour, and their wounds were horrible.

To stop our reinforcements the Germans pitched shells behind the first lines. In the communicating trenches, where the Engineers, the 125th and the 68th, were massed, they must, I felt, be having a hot time. Even in the trench shells fell both before and behind. I had three men killed. Grossain had his head carried away.

With midday came some relaxation. Work eased off a little; the men rummaged in their haversacks; Pillard brought me some cigars, Henry Clays, and some Egyptian cigarettes. Mayet dressed my wound in a summary fashion, passing his hand through the rent in my cloak. The opening was as big as my fist. I suffered horrible pain.

The sergeant and I, nevertheless, explored the captured sector. The trenches have been knocked in by shell. In certain places it was open ground for 25 mÈtres; in other parts corpses obstructed the way. As we went by, some Germans, lying on their backs right in the sun, opened their eyes and said, “Ich durste.” We had no time to stop, the guns might open fire again at any moment, and it was essential to find some means of communicating with the Colonel.

When I got back to my men I found nothing changed. Mayet, fine fellow that he is, was keeping a good look-out. The trench which barred the road was consolidated, and we placed a machine-gun in it. I took under my command a company on my left, as it had no officer left.

At half-past one a kind of agitation, a tremor, ran from man to man, as if the whole company had received an electric shock; yet there was no cry, no shot fired. Yet everyone realised that the counter-attack was about to be launched.

I was amazed at the gaiety and good humour which prevailed. I wanted to say a few words regarding their conduct, but there was little need to sustain their morale. They shut me up by shouting, “Long live the Lieutenant.” I was too overcome with emotion to reply.

All of a sudden there came a burst of musketry. It was sharp and brutal, and there was no hesitation about it. One felt that it was not the sort of musketry fire that one might expect from dispirited men, firing without taking the trouble to aim; on the contrary, each shot had its target. I looked through my field-glasses in its direction; it was on my left, about three hundred mÈtres off.

The Germans, who were masters of a communication trench in front of us, debouched from it and tried to rush us in column of fours. They did not gain an inch of ground. Each section of fours was shot down.

One cannot but render homage to such soldiers. A whole company was wiped out, not a man rose again after he fell, not a man retreated. The second counter-attack took shape on the right under the same conditions. The Germans were massed in a communication trench parallel to the road. A little later, again on the left, the enemy profited by a small wood to concentrate his men and to attempt a sortie, and this again was stopped short.

They seemed to have resigned themselves to doing what we were doing. By the aid of a periscope we could see them as far as their waist-belts. They were smoking and waiting. To put one’s head up was to court death. Maugenot was lying just beyond the parapet on the grass with his face to the ground. Already he was the colour of wax. I determined to have him picked up at night.

The Colonel, at three o’clock, sent me the 7th company, under Captain Dupont, as a reinforcement. I told him that I wanted to stay where I was. That it was I and my men who had taken this ground, and therefore that it was ours by right; so the Captain settled down on the right, and at least I was no longer alone.

I could gain no clue as to the real state of affairs from the complete silence of the German artillery. There was a noise of waggons coming and going on the higher ground, and this seemed to me to mean a fresh supply of munitions. It was unfortunately impossible to communicate with our own artillery.

Seated at the bottom of the trench, I began to feel my senses deserting me. When I was asked for orders I racked my brains in vain. I could not find the right thing to say. I tried to joke with the men, but profound melancholy possessed me, for I began to realise that I was no longer good for anything.

At 7 o’clock at night came the order for the attack which was preparing. “The 3rd battalion will carry out the attack on the village of Loos, taking the steeple as directing point, and joining up on the left with the 114th. The first line units—the 3rd, 7th, 4th and 8th companies—will be pushed forward by the attacking battalion. Preparations for this movement must be made as soon as possible, but no move forward is to be made till further orders.—Signed Alquier.”

Night fell rapidly. I was anxious to speak to the Colonel before the new attack if I could get to him, and so I handed over command to Mayet. My wound hurt me horribly. It felt as if my left shoulder were being torn from my body, as though indeed I were being quartered. I had doubts as to whether I could get to where I should find him, but I knew what could be done if the will to do were strong. Alas! I was not to see the company again, nor was I to succeed in finding the Colonel.

On the way I walked like a drunken man, staggering from one wall of the trench to the other. Sometimes I had to climb over pyramids of bodies, sometimes I had to go right outside the trench, amidst the whistling of bullets and the noise of shells, which burst on all sides. I reflected sadly on how stupid it would be to be killed there, all alone, after having so miraculously escaped during the fight. I met some men of the Engineers, some prisoners and some messengers. Everyone was in a hurry, and I automatically repeated the same phrase to each, “Look out, I am a wounded officer, don’t hustle me.” I asked myself if it was possible to suffer more than I did. A sort of continuous groaning sound escaped me, my sight became blurred and I walked as if in delirium.

I went round the same sector several times, asking everyone where the Colonel was.

And they would ask me, “What Colonel?”

I had forgotten, and then everything became vague. I met two men with fixed bayonets in charge of three prisoners. They gave me some red wine and took me along with them. We passed a factory whose broken machinery I saw profiled against the night sky. Then some stretcher-bearers picked me up and carried me to the neighbouring aid post. From there I was sent by ambulance to the divisional dressing station at Mazingarbe, where I passed the night.

The building was plunged into complete darkness for fear of being marked down. Our big guns—the 120 long—were firing quite near, and at every round the walls trembled and the window-panes rattled. One could well picture oneself still in the thick of the fight. The noise of musketry seemed to come from the garden, and I still remember clearly the sinister sights that I saw there. Dimly made out in the shadow, the wounded were lying on straw in rows on the ground. One only saw their silhouettes. There were infantrymen, artillerymen and Algerian Light Infantry on whom the white dressings stood out sharply. Amidst the roar of the guns one would hear a long-drawn moan and some groans, cut short at times by incoherent phrases. All of them raved. Officers and men lived through the morning’s battle once again, and brief commands were uttered, infinitely painful to listen to, “March in open order, by the right; stand by the machine-gun,” and so on. As I stretched myself on some straw in the least encumbered corner, I shivered with fever. The next morning we were all sent on to Noeux-les-Mines, and from there we left by train for we knew not where.