Part Two:
    Fighting

    © Coll. Historial de la Grande Guerre – Péronne (Somme). Photo Yazid Medmoun – French uniforms, 1914 (Room 2 of the Historial of the Great War). Compared with the kit used by other armies, the equipment issued to French soldiers at the beginning of the war was exceedingly ill-suited to modern warfare. Above all, it demonstrated the extent to which the military command had under-estimated the consequences of new weaponry. The uniform had changed little since 1870, and indeed the red trousers had been army standard since 1829. The rest of the kit was introduced in the late 19th century. The need for camouflage was entirely overlooked, in spite of the introduction of new helmet and beret covers in 1902 (updated in 1913). At this time, infantry comprised two-thirds of the armed forces. Nevertheless, cavalrymen in breastplates were expected to lead the charge, to the sound of the bugle, while officers still wore swords and the importance attached to the aesthetic details of battledress are testament to the enduring myth of the heroic battle charge. This pride in martial “culture” was gradually abandoned in response to the sheer scale of losses in the early phases of the war, as well as the new realities of trench warfare.
    © Coll. Historial de la Grande Guerre – Péronne(Somme). Photo Yazid Medmoun – Equipment carried by a French soldier, 1915-1916 (Historial Room 2). The famous “sky blue” French uniform, complete with the Adrian helmet which became standard issue from 1915 on. Add in the soldier’s personal tableware, linen, spare socks, tools weapons and a few personal items, and it becomes clear that French infantrymen really did have to carry their lives on their backs. On long marches to reach the front line, this burden could be overwhelming.
    © Coll. Historial de la Grande Guerre – Péronne (Somme). Photo Yazid Medmoun – Uniform and equipment of a German soldier, 1915-1916 (Historial Room 2). Learning the lessons of recent conflicts, between 1907 and 1910 the German army phased out their traditional infantry uniform of navy blue with bright red collar and trim. In its place came a new lapelled coat in a colour known as feldgrau, or field grey (actually a greenish grey hue), although the coloured trim remained until 1915 when an entirely new model of uniform was introduced. This new uniform featured a jacket with hidden buttons, simply adorned with thin piping, paired with granite-grey trousers. The coat shown here belongs to this generation of German uniform. The soldiers wore boots, which were particularly ill-suited to the mud of the trenches. The infantryman’s cap, meanwhile, now came with a ribbon to conceal the red band. Around the waist, each soldier wore two cartridge belts made of natural leather: this three-pouch model, introduced in 1908, was large enough to carry the standard issue of 120 cartridges. One major change, informed by the experience of combat, concerned the pointed helmet. The model shown here (complete with detachable spike) is from 1915 and is made of a copper and zinc alloy, replacing the traditional boiled leather. From February 1916 onwards this model was phased out in favour of steel helmets, which helped to reduce the frequency and severity of head injuries. Infantrymen were usually armed with a five-round rifle, a Mauser Gewehr 98 (which did not feature a cartridge clip like the model shown here). The calfskin rucksack in use at the start of the war was subsequently replaced by a waterproofed canvas haversack capable of holding the soldier’s equipment, food and bivouac essentials, including the tent itself which was wrapped around the bag. On the front line, the haversack was often abandoned in favour of a more compact assault pack consisting of the mess tin wrapped up in the greatcoat and tent canvas. Grenades, several models of which are shown here (a stick hand grenade and an “egg” hand grenade), were generally transported in sandbags. Soldiers also carried with them the tools required for digging fortifications in the field: a shovel (with a sheath to prevent clicking), a folding saw and a pickaxe. The personal papers and melodeon included here serve as fragile reminders of the soldier’s civilian identity amidst the unrelenting violence of life on the front line.
    © N° inv. : 12 ART 13.1. Coll. Historial de la Grande Guerre – Péronne (Somme). Photo Yazid Medmoun – Anti-German effigy. A pig’s snout protrudes from beneath a miniature helmet, mounted on a French ‘Adrian’ helmet. The precise purpose of this item of trench craft, aside from mocking the enemy, is not known. Nonetheless, comparing the Germans to pigs was a common motif in France during the Great War: this bestialisation of the enemy is quite typical of French martial culture.
    © Oil on canvas. 270 mm x 318 mm. N° inv. : 14 FI 88. Coll. Historial de la Grande Guerre – Péronne (Somme). Photo Yazid Medmoun – The atrocities of the 1914 invasion. This oil painting, executed in a decidedly rudimentary fashion, is accompanied by an explanatory text. It states that, after capturing a trench and taking 200 prisoners, the victorious French troops discovered the corpse of a young farm girl “mutilated and shot by the barbarians for refusing to provide information.” The victim is wrapped in a shroud in the foreground, while in the background a motley crowd of soldiers appear to be petrified by this macabre discovery. This is an extremely rare artefact, obviously painted “in the heat of the moment” by a witness determined to leave a visual record of this blatant transgression of the rules of war. Recent research has established beyond any doubt that stories of “German atrocities” committed during the invasion were not simply a propaganda exercise: in Belgium and the north of France, such acts were widespread during the first weeks of the conflict.
    © N° inv. : 5 USC 63.1. Coll. Historial de la Grande Guerre – Péronne (Somme). Photo Yazid Medmoun – ‘Ya Bon’ box, 1914-1916. High hopes were pinned upon France’s colonial troops (the “Black Force” championed by General Mangin), before the war. Sizeable cohorts of men were indeed recruited in the French colonies (mostly in French West Africa, especially Senegal) and dispatched to the Western Front, where their deployment proved to be more problematic than anticipated. The weather conditions contributed to a very high death rate, which forced the French high command to move the colonial troops to bases in the south of France during the winter. This largely explains why their overall death rate was actually lower than that suffered by troops from mainland France. The fascination – a combination of subtle racism and paternalist attachment – which these soldiers of colour held for the French public, including stereotypical mimicry of their manner of talking (the exclamation of “Ya Bon” featured on this tub, whose purpose is unknown, is to be compared with the slogan “Ya bon banania,” which became popular in this period), was matched by the sheer revulsion they inspired in the Germans, who accused the Allies of lowering the standards of this war among Western powers, and thereby abandoning any claim to be on the side of civilisation.
    © N° inv. : 6 ARM 3.1. Coll. Historial de la Grande Guerre – Péronne(Somme). Photo Yazid Medmoun – Shell fragment. Shells were the primary cause of combat wounds in 1914-1918: they accounted for two-thirds of all such injuries, but the precise number of deaths they caused is unknown, and can only be estimated on the basis of battlefield archaeology. A shell could kill a man in any number of ways: a direct hit, particularly from a large-calibre shell, could literally obliterate bodies to the extent that almost no remains would be found. If soldiers were caught in a shelter that had not been dug deep enough, the walls could collapse and leave them buried alive (this could also occur when mines were detonated beneath enemy trenches). But, more often than not, it was shrapnel which brought injury and death. Shells were expressly designed to ensure that, when they exploded, the fragments would not lose their speed and momentum too quickly. These jagged projectiles caused the worst wounds of the entire war, and were capable of ripping off just about any part of a human body. The biggest fragments, like the one shown here, could take off a face, a head, an arm or a leg, slice open an abdomen or even cut a man clean in half. In fact it was not rare for pieces of exploded bodies to end up splattered across the clothes and faces of the soldiers in the victim’s vicinity. Not all shell fragments were as big as this one: often they would measure just a few square centimetres, but many victims were hit by a shower of shrapnel, included tiny little pieces that were fiendishly difficult to find and extract, especially from the skull. Many survivors of the war lived out the rest of their days with minuscule fragments of steel trapped somewhere beneath their skin.
    © Coll. Historial de la Grande Guerre – Péronne(Somme). Photo Yazid Medmoun – Field dressings. Soldiers in all of the armies were issued with individual field dressings, the design of which was perfected as the war progressed. If they were in a fit state to do so, wounded soldiers were to open their field dressing packs and apply a compress to their wounds; if not, it fell to their fellow soldiers or officers to perform this vital bit of first aid, intended to stem the bleeding and ensure that no mud got into the wound. It could take some time before the wounded could be treated by a member of the medical corps (stretcher-bearers, doctors in the field hospitals) too late, for many.
    © N° inv. : 1 UNF 9.2. Coll. Historial de la Grande Guerre – Péronne(Somme). Photo Yazid Medmoun – German steel helmet (1917 model with camouflage). The frequency and severity of head wounds obliged the German army to issue its troops with heavy metal helmets to replace the old pointed model made of boiled leather, which was expensive to produce and yet offered a wholly insufficient level of protection. Dr. Bier, a surgeon with the XVIIIth armed division, had demonstrated that 83% of cranial injuries were caused by shell fragments, often small in size. He joined forces with Professor Schwerd of the Technical University in Hanover, and together they developed a steel helmet which was used for the first time at Verdun in February 1916. Manufactured in five sizes, each Stahlhelm was formed from a single piece of stamped steel plate. The use of an alloy containing 1.5% nickel-chrome made it possible to reduce the weight of the helmet (1.2 to 1.4 kg). Stud bolts on either side could be used to attach a reinforced front panel (Stirnpanzer) which added 2 kg in weight but provided essential protection for sentinels and machine gunners. The 1916 model had internal rivets to which the chinstrap of the old-model helmet could be attached, whereas the 1917 model featured a new strap attached directly to the internal metal bar which ensured that the helmet was tight to the wearer’s head. In order to prevent light reflecting off the steel, a canvas helmet cover was issued. Some soldiers also got into the habit of coating their helmets in mud or wax. On 7 July 1918, the German high command replaced the old feldgrau paint with a new camouflage made up of geometric forms in alternating hues of green, ochre and rust, separated by black lines. 7.5 million of these helmets were manufactured, and the stahlhelm became one of the abiding visual symbols of the “men of steel” who fought in heavy artillery battles like Verdun and the Somme.
    © Mine de plomb et fusain sur canson. 547 mm x 407 mm. N° inv. : 9 FI 79. Coll. Historial de la Grande Guerre – Péronne(Somme). Photo Yazid Medmoun – ‘Zero hour on D day’ (drawing by Alexandre Zinoview). Born in Russia, Alexandre Zinoview moved to Paris to study art in 1908. In 1914 he signed up to the Foreign Legion, like so many artists resident in France or who had a deep attachment to the country. He spent the war fighting alongside the regular army. In this scene, the moment is nigh when the men must go over the top: the ladder (or “scaffold”) is leaning against the parapet, the bayonets are mounted. One soldier – an officer? – consults his watch ensconced in its protective leather case. Before the offensive, the leaders of each section and company would ensure that their watches were synchronised. Through meticulous attention to details such as this – as painstaking as it was futile – the senior officers attempted to compensate for the innumerable uncertainties which awaited any foray into no man’s land.
    © N° inv. : 20 FI 2. 1000 mm x 704 mm. Coll. Historial de la Grande Guerre – Péronne(Somme). Photo Yazid Medmoun – Memories of a gas attack, 1915. This large relief ‘painting’, on wood, plaster and metal, tells a terrible story: on 27 October 1915, at Bois Sabot (Champagne), the artist (Amiot) and his comrades in arms from the 13th Dragoons took over the watch from a company of infantry. At 4 o’clock that morning, with a northerly wind blowing, a gas attack caught them unawares and without their gas masks. All of the soldiers on the front line – Amiot included – were hit by the gas, and the survivors had to be evacuated in the pitch darkness. Many of them died in agony… It is important not to be fooled by the apparent truculence of the ending of this text, which attributes the artist’s survival to the contents of his wine flask. The care and attention to detail invested in the creation of this “artwork” hint at its cathartic purpose, as its creator recuperated from this traumatic experience. The prospect of a gas attack legitimately terrified the troops. “Death floats in on the northerly breeze…”
    © N° inv. : 1 APV 1.5. Coll. Historial de la Grande Guerre – Péronne(Somme). Photo Yazid Medmoun – Camera. This pocket Kodak camera, bought in Canada, belonged to two of France’s flying aces – the Navarre brothers – between 1914 and 1917. However, compact models such as this one were more likely to be found in the pockets of infantrymen: the war was abundantly photographed by those who fought it, in defiance of military regulations which forbade photography. llustrated newspapers, hungry for spectacular images of the conflict, organised photography contests and published many shots submitted by soldiers. Nonetheless, this was rarely the primary factor which motivated soldiers to photograph the war, their war: it was more a matter of immortalising the memory of their personal involvement in this historic conflict on an unprecedented scale.
    © N° inv. : 6 ART 7.1. Coll. Historial de la Grande Guerre – Péronne(Somme). Photo Yazid Medmoun – Trench cello. This trench-made French cello is a classic example of the light, hand-made, robust and easily-replaceable musical instruments produced by soldiers in the trenches. Which is not to say that the soldiers were not attached to these creations: the four “stripes” visible on this instrument are based on those worn by the soldiers themselves (one stripe for every six months at the front), indicating that this cello was, in the eyes of its owner, a person too. This instrument belonged to professional musician François Gervais, who served with the 313th Infantry and described the design and execution of this cello in detail in his notebooks. In addition to instruments made by the soldiers themselves, the trenches were full of industrially-manufactured instruments brought up from the rear (German harmonicas, for example). The British were also fond of gramophones, which provided some home comfort and entertainment, largely drawn from the music hall tradition, whose trademark comic pessimism was easily transposable to life at the front. Nonetheless, we have little real understanding of how these instruments were used. They were probably played in makeshift “shows,” as well as providing accompaniment for the songs sung by the troops. The existence of these shows and songs is well attested, but details are scarce. Still, the existence of musical instruments at the front, home-made or otherwise, is testament to the persistence of a lively “cultural life” on the front line, an important factor in maintaining morale and sociability.
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