"Debris--
Debris remaining from the crown
With no state, no throne around
There is no country left to govern--
All is damned!
And we're--
Chased to holes like hunted game,
Caught like thieves to face the blame,
There's only blood and shame,
To withstand!
For us,
It's impossible to find,
With whom to split, with whom to bind,
Who's with us and whom to mind,
Where to go, where to unwind -- we can't tell.
Where's spirit?
Where's honor?
Where's guilt?
Where are friends and where are strangers,
How did we neglect this danger,
Do we wish to cast this land to hell?
And shame--
On all of those who value rest
On those, whose conscience is a pest,
Who cannot choose in all this mess
To kill.
A call!...
And like a bull during a fray,
Like a hawk -- after a prey,
Calling ravens all to stay
For the feast.
Hey you!
Where's the strength that lit your face?
Where's the pride with which we've gazed?
To rest today -- it's a disgrace!
Grip the pistol in your hand and go!
An end!
To all
An end!
All is broken, all seems brittle
We are left with just a little, --
Aiming at the temple or the foe."
- a Hellfish (how many still remember that term here, btw?) of the worst kind, I didn't even translate this one. But I like the song and it fits the theme...
---
In the end, all efforts came to nothing. The patriotic upsurge, and the elan vitale, and the great victory on the Marne, and the impregnable fortifications, and the sacrifices of a million lifes, all that was to be crossed out in the last few days of July 1916 with a cross of blood and iron, as under the blazing of the incendiary shells flying through the blood-red sky, the gray-uniformed hordes, sparse, exhausted and bloodied, but still triumphant, charged into the burning, ruined, corpse-filled fort of Verdun, and the Reichskriegflagge replaced the torn and worn Tricolour.
When Private Martin Dorcel gave Verdun one last look and noticed that the Tricolour was no longer there, he genuinely cried and knew that it was the end. It really was the end.
Nothing is as terrible as a retreating army beaten in a bloody battle. The remnants of the 2nd Division were only kept together by the herd instinct and the will to survive, and the knowledge that if they do not stick together they will all die alone. During that difficult, costly, undescribably bitter retreat from Verdun, the soldiers didn't slaughter their officers, and the wounded were still being cared for, out of habit rather than out of disciplinne. The division that held and held Verdun and finally gave up was a sorry sight, what remained of it was a mere battalion in fact, though it really was a mix of all battalions cobbled together by the commanders who tried to save what they could - again, out of habit. Not out of hope that there might be victory now, now that they saw the Tricolour descend.
How great then was the surprise when the malnutritioned, hospitalized Martin Dorcel (and his comrades, who were mostly not better off) had heard that Clemanceau still called for a war to the bitter end, that the generals still made plans for a victory, and finally, that after a few months rest the 2nd Division was reassembled, staffed with new recruits (also cobbled up from all over France and at times from its colonies - though ofcourse the "colonials" were also French ones, the various North African units being kept separate from the others) and sent to the front. It was then in fact that Martin Dorcel begun to go mad. His madness grew and grew as he read patriotic newspapers and declarations of the parlement pledging to fight to the triumphant (sic!) end. He could understand it - how could they speak of victory when the war is already over, when they had already lost... and yet continued to rebuilt their forces and to throw them to the front.
His madness reached its zenith when, on April 16th, reports came of a new offensive against Laon, and orders came for the 2nd Division to join the offensive, despite the fact that near Laon, as was already widely known, severe German artillery barrage had just torn into shreds the initial attackers. On that occasion, he and several other madmen, including many officers, got very drunk, and acted the insane drunken part when they were formed up for review before the new offensive. Outraged, Robert Nivelle shouted at them, declared that they were a disgrace to the whole French nation, that they were scum, that they were going to face the military tribunal... Martin Dorcel laughed outloud and shot Robert Nivelle. He didn't kill him ofcourse, as he was drunk, and only wounded Nivelle. But the general, already overstressed and now taken by surprise, fainted. Or it seemed that he had fainted to some. In truth, ofcourse, he had a fatal heart attack.
Thankfully, Martin Dorcel and a few of his drunken comrades ran away and hid into the countryside, as the army and the nation all fell apart - indeed, Verdun was the end, and no rhetoric could glue a broken nation together so quickly. As it turned out, it was to heal - at first, by itself, and later, with the help of a few good men...
To be continued.
