French infantry charging 'à la baionnette'. The soldiers were sometimes ordered to remove their ammunition to ensure they fought and killed with the bayonet.
Guerre 1914 - 1915 Infanterie française 'Charge a la baionnette'.A 'Charge à la baïonnette' of the French infantery. - LL.
". . . former Minister of War . . . has taken a special interest in the consumptive soldier, but cannot manage to get him out of the army, where the poor fellow does nothing but spit up his lungs.— It appears that three months are necessary to restore the morale of the troops and to reorganise the formations for a fresh attack.— Shootings are frequent. Have I remarked that they had to set up a kind of appeal board, including a doctor, to check the extreme facility with which the courts martial were handing out death sentences?"
Extract from the entry for October 15, 1915 from the diary of Michel Corday, a senior civil servant in the French government. French Commander Joffre's great offensive in Champagne and Artois for autumn 1915, had come to a halt with heavy losses. Among other reasons, soldiers were executed for refusing to fight and for self-mutilation. After the initial assault, some units refused to leave their trenches; some officers refused to order continued attacks.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, page 113, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
1915, 1915-10-15, October, Corday, execution
