A boy saves his choice seat in a tree, anticipating the great victory parade on Bastille Day, 1916. Illustration by Abel Faivre.

14 Juillet 1916

Qu'est-ce que tu fais la-haut.

Je retiens ma place pour la revue après la grande victoire.



What are you doing [up] there?

Keeping my place for the review [parade] after the great victory!



Reverse:

Publicité Wall - Paris.

Dèposit. Gènèr., Boice, 43, Chausée d'Antin.

Other views: Larger

Friday, July 14, 1916

"I'll pass over without comment, July 14 [Bastille Day, the French national holiday]. Only a supplemental ration of pinard and a slightly better bill of fare, which was more than made up for in the following week, barely distinguished this day from any other.

We didn't even get any extra rest. In fact, our training course, which could hardly be postponed, began that very day.

They introduced us to this new homicidal engine. . . ."

Quotation Context

Excerpt from the notebooks of French Infantry Corporal Louis Barthas, July 14, 1916. Barthas' reserve regiment had served at Verdun in May, where it had suffered heavy casualties. With replacements, including boys from reform school, it was made an active regiment, the 296th, and served in Champagne. The 'new homicidal engine' Barthas was introduced to was a 37mm cannon intended for use against targets such as machine-gun nests. The trainees regard it, and its shell, 'barely bigger than a hen's egg,' with some disdain.

Source

Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914-1918 by Louis Barthas, page 230, copyright © 2014 by Yale University, publisher: Yale University Press, publication date: 2014

Tags

1916-07-14, 1916, July, Bastille Day, training, 37mm, cannon