A 1916 watercolor by Fernand Rigouts of a despairing French WWI soldier clutching a letter in his hand. Before a blood red sea and sun, a crushed French soldier, supporting his head with one hand, holds the edge of a letter in the other. He has dropped the envelope to his feet. Addressed to Mademouselle Henriette Dangon of Colombes (Seine), France. Original, watercolor on deckle-edge watercolor paper by Fernand Rigouts.
signed Fernand RigoutsAddressed to Mademouselle Henriette Dangon of Colombes (Seine), France.
"The march back from the front line goes remarkably quickly. It is as if their weariness has been washed away. Nobody wants to take a long rest break, preferring to get as far as possible from the firing before the sun rises. The route back passes Fort de Froidterre and they stop in its shelter long enough to meet a troop coming from the other direction and going up into battle. It is a mirror image of themselves ten days earlier: ' their coats are bright blue, their tanned leather equipment still yellow, their cooking pots still gleaming silver.' Arnaud is wearing a coat covered in mud, binoculars round his neck, crumpled puttees, ten days' stubble and a damaged helmet—the crest was shot away during fighting at close quarters on 8 June. Most of his soldiers have neither rucksacks nor belts. Some of them no longer even have a rifle. . . .The estimate Arnaud heard on their way to Verdun has proved right, almost exactly: of the hundred men he led to the front only thirty are returning."
René Arnaud and his men returned from their ten-day deployment on the killing fields of the Battle of Verdun on June 10, 1916, leaving before sunrise after burying those of their men who died during their time on Hill 321.
The Beauty and the Sorrow: An Intimate History of the First World War by Peter Englund, pp. 264, 265, copyright © 2009 by Peter England, publisher: Vintage Books, publication date: 2012
1916-06-10, 1916, June, Verdun, Battle of Verdun
