French Poilu, Western Front, Europe WW1
The life of a World War I French infantryman at the Western Front, was a harsh and unforgiving one; constantly under threat of death – by their superior officers, or injury from enemy fire, while living in appalling conditions in the rat and lice-infested trenches. It was a difficult life, but also one of great resilience and ingenuity. The poilus or ‘Hairy One’ were able to find ways to survive in the most difficult of circumstances, at times managing to even find moments of cooperation with the enemy.
Conducting research for this World War 1 project, led me to the book ‘Poilu’ written by Louis Barthas, an enlisted man from southwestern France, who managed to reduce the conflict to human scale with a pen and 19 notebooks that he filled with observations and comments from his more than four years of service in the army, most of it spent in combat on the Western Front. Barthas’ book was praised for its richly detailed, unvarnished account of life in the trenches as experienced by an ordinary soldier — a barrel maker from the wine region of Minervois whose service in the trenches took him from Artois to the Argonne, a trail that included horrific stops at Verdun and the Somme.
Here are some excerpts of his observations and writings: “If we suffered so stoically, without raising useless complaints, don’t let anyone tell you that it was because of patriotism, or to defend the rights of peoples to live their own lives, or to end all wars, or other nonsense,” he writes in a characteristic entry. “It was simply by force, because, as victims of an implacable fate we had to undergo our destiny.” That destiny was a nightmare slog through endless miles of mud, with shoulders hunched against an unending rain of steel from German guns.
Most of his pages are filled with the mundane challenges of life on the front lines: marching from one bombed-out village to the next, searching for a safe place to sleep, repairing lice-infested trenches, participating in drills, and dodging artillery fire. The names of the villages may change, and the officers may come and go, but the experiences remain the same. Louis Barthas’s writings show that the poilus were also a resourceful and resilient bunch; finding ways to resist impossible orders from their superiors, and even managing to establish tacit truces with the enemy.
Through tacit collaboration, the men on the front lines subvert the military code. French and Germans work out unspoken truces so that both sides can carry out work details, rescue the wounded or, at forward observation posts, fraternize. At Verdun, Barthas describes how he and a German soldier worked together to rescue a wounded man from between the lines. He writes, “We both knew that if we were caught, we would both be shot, but we didn’t care. We just wanted to save the man’s life.”
One of the most striking things about Barthas’s writings is his keen interest in the power struggles between top officers and the lower echelons. He describes how enlisted men would often connive to thwart impossible commands, and how midlevel commanders would occasionally refuse to send their men into impossible situations. Barthas himself lost a stripe by refusing to obey a captain’s orders to have two men dig a trench within machine-gun range of the Germans. He writes, “I was outraged by this highly impolite way of stopping people, and I hoisted my Lebel rifle and replied to him, ‘You’ve got your revolver, I’ve got my rifle, so what do you want to do now?'” The lieutenant backed off.
The poilus were not simply passive pawns as these incidences show; for they were capable of resisting orders that they felt were unjust or dangerous. In addition to their resistance to authority, the poilus also found ways to cooperate with the enemy… putting aside their differences and work together with compassion and understanding or a common goal. Their story is a testament to the human spirit in the face of adversity.
Reference: William Grimes, The New York Times, 2014
The figure:
Refreshed Sideshow Toys French Poilu from their 1/6 scale Bayonet & Barbwire range; The original figure was replaced with a DID Advanced Slim figure with a DID headsculpt repainted in Vallejo acrylics and dressed with a mohair moustache. The original Sideshow uniform, helmet, water bottle, accoutrements and weapons, were weathered in various acrylic medium. Shelter-half and Lebel rifle leather strap was customised and weathered. The small size original brogans were replaced with a DID pair of boots. Cup and cooking pot are from Battlegear Toys.
