Letters from a Soldier of France, 1914–1915

Daniil Alexandrovich Granin

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781473823310
• eBook ISBN: 9781473851108
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

In March 1915, a young French artist-turned soldier went missing in action. He left behind a remarkable series of letters which, due to wartime security, had to be edited and published anonymously under the title Letters of a Soldier 1914-1915. This powerful volume was for many years out of print, but this new edition corrects that unhappy situation and provides an English speaking readership with a rare and much needed insight into what it meant to experience the Great War from the sharp end during the desperate struggles of the French Army fighting for its survival in 1914 and 1915.Originally published by Constable & Co., London in 1917 with a preface by Andr Chevrillon, this evocative and moving primary source volume is essential reading for anyone who seeks to understand the role of the French army in the opening battles of the Great War.

LETTERS OF A SOLDIER

August 6, 1914.

MY VERY DEAR MOTHER, - These are my first days of life at war, full of change, but the fatigue I actually feel is very different from what I foresaw.

I am in a state of great nervous tension because of the want of sleep and exercise. I lead the life of a government clerk. I belong to what is called the depot, I am one of those doing sedentary work, and destined eventually to fill up the gaps in the fighting line.

What we miss is news; there are no longer any papers to be had in this town.

August 13.

We are without news, and so it will be for several days, the censorship being of the most rigorous kind.

Here life is calm. The weather is magnificent, and all breathes quiet and confidence. We think of those who are fighting in the heat, and this thought makes our own situation seem even too good. The spirit among the reservists is excellent.

Sunday, August 16.

To-day a walk along the Marne. Charming weather after a little rain.

A welcome interlude in these troubled times. We are still without news, like you, but we have happily a large stock of patience. I have had some pleasure in the landscape, notwithstanding the invasion of red and blue. These fine men in red and blue have given the best impression of their moral. Great levies will be made upon our dépôts, to be endured with fortitude.

August 16 (from a note-book).

The monotony of military life benumbs me, but I don’t complain. After nine years these types are to be rediscovered, a little less marked, improved, levelled down. Just now every one is full of grave thoughts because of the news from the East.

The ordinary good-fellowship of the mess has been replaced by a finer solidarity and a praiseworthy attempt at adaptation. One of the advantages of our situation is that we can, as it were, play at being soldiers with the certainty of not wasting our time. All these childish and easy occupations, which are of immediate result and usefulness, bring back calm to the mind and soothe the nerves. Then the great stay which supports the men is a profound, vague feeling of brotherhood which turns all hearts towards those who are fighting. Each one feels that the slight discomfort which he endures is only a feeble tribute to the frightful expense of all energy and all devotedness at the front.

August 25.

This letter will barely precede our own departure. The terrible conflict calls for our presence close to those who are already in the midst of the struggle. I leave you, grandmother and you, with the hope of seeing you again, and the certainty that you will approve of my doing all that seems to me my duty.

Nothing is hopeless, and, above all, nothing has changed our idea of the part we have to play.

Tell all those who love me a little that I think of them. I have no time to write to any one. My health is of the best.

… After such an upheaval we may say that our former life is dead. Dear mother, let us, you and I, with all our courage adapt ourselves to an existence entirely different, however long it may last.

Be very sure that I won’t go out of my way to do anything that endangers our happiness, but that I’ll try to satisfy my conscience, and yours. Up till now I am without cause for self-reproach, and so I hope to remain.

August 25

(2nd letter).

A second letter to tell you that, instead of our regiment, it was Pierre’s that went. I had the joy of seeing him pass in front of me when I was on guard in the town. I accompanied him for a hundred yards, then we said good-bye. I had a feeling that we should meet again.

It is the gravest of hours; the country will not die, but her deliverance will be snatched only at the price of frightful efforts.

Pierre’s regiment went covered with flowers, and singing. It was a deep consolation to be together till the end.

It is fine of André¹ to have saved his drowning comrade. We don’t realise the reserve of heroism there is in France, and among the young intellectual Parisians.

In regard to our losses, I may tell you that whole divisions have been wiped out. Certain regiments have not an officer left.

As for my state of mind, my first letter will perhaps tell you better what I believe to be my duty. Know that it would be shameful to think for one instant of holding back when the race demands the sacrifice. My only part is to carry an undefiled conscience as far as my feet may lead.

August 26.

MY VERY DEAR MOTHER, - I was made happy by Maurice Barrés’s fine article, ‘l’Aigle et le Rossignol,’ which corresponds in every detail with what I feel.

The dépôts contain some failures, but also men of fine energy, among whom I dare not yet count myself, but with whom I hope to set out. The major had dispensed me from carrying a knapsack, but I carry it for practice and manage quite well.

The only assurance which I can give you concerns my own moral and physical state, which is excellent. The true death would be to live in a conquered country, above all for me, whose art would perish.

I isolate myself as much as I can, and I am really unaffected, from the intellectual point of view. Besides, the atmosphere of the mess is well above that of normal times: the trouble is that the constant moving and changing drags us about from place to place, and growing confidence falters before the perpetually recurring unknown.

August 30.

… My little mother, it is certain that though we did not leave yesterday, it is yet only a question of hours. I won’t say to you anything that I have already said, content only that I have from you the approval of which I was certain.

… In the very hard march yesterday only one man fell out, really ill. France will come out of this bad pass.

I can only repeat to you how well I am prepared for all eventualities, and that nothing can undo our twenty-seven years of happiness. I am resolved not to consider myself foredoomed, and I fancy the joy of returning, but I am ready to go to the end of my strength. If you knew the shame I should endure to think that I might have done something more!

In the midst of all this sadness we live through magnificent hours, when the things that used to be most strange take on an august significance.

September 4, 6 o’clock

(on the way, in the train).

We have had forty hours of a journey in which the picturesque outdoes even the extreme discomfort. The great problem is sleep, and the solution is not easy when there are forty in a cattle-truck.

The train stops every instant, and we encounter the unhappy refugees. Then the wounded: fine spectacle of patriotism. The English army. The artillery.

We no longer know anything, having no more papers, and we can’t trust the rumours which fly among the distraught population.

Splendid weather.

Saturday, September 5

(at the end of 60 hours in a cattle-truck: 40 men to a truck).

On the same day we skirted the Seine opposite the forest of Fontainebleau and the banks of the Loire. Saw the château de Blois and the château d’Amboise. Unhappily the darkness prevented us from seeing more. How can I tell you what tender emotions I felt by these magnificent banks of the Loire!

Are you bombarded by the frightful aeroplanes? I think of you in such conditions and above all of poor Grandmother, who indeed had little need to see all this! However, we must hope.

We learn from wounded refugees that in the first days of August mistakes were made in the high command which had terrible consequences. It falls to us now to repair those mistakes.

Masses of English troops arrive. We have crossed numbers of crowded trains.

Well, this war will not have been the mere march-past which many thought, but which I never thought, it would be; but it will have stirred the good in all humanity. I do not speak of the magnificent things which have no immediate connection with the war, - but nothing will be lost.

September 5, 1914

(1st halting-place, 66 hours in the cage without being able to stretch).

Still the same jolting and vibration, but three times after the horrible night there has come the glory of the morning, and all fatigue has disappeared.

We have crossed the French country in several directions, from the rather harsh serenity, full of suggestiveness, of Champagne, to the rich robust placidity of Brittany. On the way we followed the full and noble banks of the Loire, and now…

O my beautiful country, the heart of the world, where lies all that is divine upon earth, what monster sets upon you - a country whose offence is her beauty!

I used to love France with sincere love, which was more than a little dilettante; I loved her as an artist, proud to live in the most beautiful of lands; in fact, I loved her rather as a picture might love its frame. It needed this horror to make me know how filial and profound are the ties which bind me to my country…

September 7

(from a note-book).

… We are embarked on the adventure, without any dominant feeling except perhaps a sufficiently calm acceptance of this fatality. But sensibility is kept awake by the sight of the victims, particularly the refugees. Poor people, truly uprooted, or rather, dead leaves in the storm, little souls in great circumstances.

Whole trains of cattle-trucks, which can hardly be said to have changed their use! Trains in which is heaped up the desolation of these people torn from their homes, and how quickly become as beasts! Misery has stripped them of all their human attributes. We take them food and drink, and that is how they become exposed: the man drinks without remembering his wife and children. The woman thinks of her child. But other women take their time, unable to share in the general haste. Among these waifs there is one who assails my heart, - a grandmother of eighty-seven, shaken, tossed about by all these blows, being by turns hoisted into and let down from the rolling cages. So trembling and disabled, so lost…

September 10

(from a note-book).

We arrive in a new part of the country on the track of good news: the strong impression is that France’s future is henceforth assured. Everything corroborates this feeling, from the official report which formally announces a complete success down to the most fantastic rumours.

September 13

(from a note-book).

This is war; here are we approaching the place of horror. We have left behind the French villages where peace was still sleeping. Now there is nothing but tumult. And here are direct victims of the war.

The soldiers: blood, mud and dirt. The wounded. Those whom we pass at first are the least suffering - wounds in arms, in hands. In most of them can clearly be seen, in the midst of their fatigue and distress, great relief at having been let off comparatively easily.

Farther on, towards the ambulances, the burying of the dead: there are six, stretched on two waggons. Smoothed out, and covered with rags, they are taken to an open pit at the foot of a Calvary. Some priests conduct, rather than celebrate, the service, military as they have become. A little straw and some holy water over all, and so we pass on. After all, these dead are happy: they are cared-for dead. What can be said of those who lie farther on and who have passed away after nights of the throes of death and abandonment.

… From this agony there will remain to us an immense yearning for pity and brotherhood and goodness.

Wednesday, September 16, 1914.

In the horror-zone.

The rainy twilight shadows the road, and suddenly, in a ditch - the dead! They have dragged themselves here from the battlefield - they are all corrupt now. The coming of darkness makes it difficult to distinguish their nationality, but the same great pity envelops them all. Only one word for them: poor boy! The night for these ignominies - and then again the morning. The day rises upon the swollen bodies of dead horses. In the corner of a wood, carnage, long cold.

One sees only open sacks, ripped nose-bags. Nothing that looks like life remains.

Among them some civilians, whose presence is due to the German proceeding of making French hostages march under our fire.

If these notes should reach any one, may they give rise in an honest heart to horror of the foul crime of those responsible for this war. There will never be enough glory to cover all the blood and all the mud.

September 21, 1914.

War in rain.

It is suffering beyond what can be imagined. Three days and three nights without being able to do anything but tremble and moan, and yet, in spite of all, perfect service must be rendered.

To sleep in a ditch full of water has no equivalent in Dante, but what can be said of the awakening, when one must watch for the moment to kill or to be killed!

Above, the roar of the shells drowns the whistling of the wind. Every instant, firing. Then one crouches in the mud, and despair takes possession of one’s soul.

When this torment came to an end I had such a nervous collapse that I wept without knowing why - late, useless tears.

September 25.

Hell in so calm and pastoral a place. The autumnal country pitted and torn by cannon!

September 27.

If, apart from the greater lessons of the war, there are small immediate benefits to be had, the one that means most to me is the contemplation ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedication
• Introduction
• Preface
• Letters of a Soldier