Postcard of a German soldier guarding French POWs, most of them colonial troops, the colorful uniforms of a Zouave, Spahi, Senegalese, and metropolitan French soldier contrasting with the field gray German uniform. A 1915 postcard by Emil Huber.
Emil Huber 1915Reverse:Unsere FeldgrauenSerie II? preussischer Infanterie-SoldatPrussian Infantry SoldierLogo: K.E.B.
"'Why are you so skinny?''Commandant, when you don't miss a hitch in the trenches for thirty-six months, you can hardly get fat.'The commandant's voice softened. He turned to our Lieutenant Lorius and said, 'All your men look good. But you have this corporal who's worn out. Take care of him.'. . . This was the first kind-hearted word that a superior officer had said to me since I'd been at the front. That's why I've made note of it."
Excerpt from the notebooks of French Infantry Corporal Louis Barthas of the 296th Regiment. Barthas was writing in late November, 1917, immediately after his regiment had been dissolved and its men assigned to other units. The regiment had been implicated in the army mutinies of the spring and early summer: On May 30, Barthas was asked to take the lead role in forming soviet that would assume command of his company. He declined, but did write a manifesto on behalf of the company protesting the delay in leaves after the Second Battle of the Aisne. On the 31st, the battalions of his regiment were separated, and his demonstrated against a return to the front line trenches. The regiment was sent to the Argonne, then a quiet sector on the Western Front. When Georges Clemenceau came to power in November 20, he quickly went after any who opposed waging the war to victory. Clemenceau and the Regiment had crossed swords in 1907 during a wine-growers protest. Clemenceau then was in power, and the 296th had mutinied. The commandant's kind words for Barthas are more a direct result of Henri Pétain's command that officers care for their men.
Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914-1918 by Louis Barthas, page 342, copyright © 2014 by Yale University, publisher: Yale University Press, publication date: 2014
1917-11-28, 1917, November, French soldier
