War notebook 14-18 by Constant VINCENT

1914 - 2

The offensive of the Marne

(September 6 - September 13, 1914)

On September 6, the day seemed to get hot early. The cannon is heard. Early in the morning we prepare to march forward but we are in reserve. Around two o'clock in the afternoon we left because the enemy retreat had begun.

The cannon and the firing rage but we advance. walking continues for several days. It's raining. We have bread nothing else, also we eat apples and pears because on our way it is not what who is missing. On the 10th we approach the enemy. It's raining heavily. We have no more bread, only coffee. It is two o'clock in the morning when we stop. The rain continues to fall. By chance in the country where we are there is a baker. We were each able to touch three bites of bread. Don't think I'm exaggerating it's the truth.

As the water has passed through our belongings, we light big fires to dry ourselves and we cook potatoes. Today is September 11 around 6 a.m. The weather's nice. We are ready to go. We are given meat but no time to fry it. Gather and we rush off. We are a vanguard company so we see patrols leaving from all sides. Nothing abnormal, we continue. Around eight o'clock we are joined by the dragoons. So we're back on the road. Around nine o'clock we arrive in a small country where there is a battalion of the 123rd (Château-Thierry). They had chased the Boche out of there during the night, so there was plenty of bread and preserves and we were given as much as we wanted. We are happy and we eat K.K bread with great teeth. The march continues. We find some civilians who inform us of the presence of the enemy at a short distance but who are retreating.

We finally arrive at Pontavert in the Aisne. There we do prisoners. We stop in front of a wine merchant who, to delay our walk gave us something to drink. He's a spy. He was shot 2 days later. He was caught phoning the Boches. From Pontavert we continue (the 13th). The 24th Artillery is with us. We arrive in the plain in front of Corbeny which the same evening was taken without loss by the 57th at nine o'clock.

During our march forward, I remember passing Château-Thierry where a fight took place in the very streets where the 123rd and the 6th were. There the Boches had acted by trickery. In the main street where they were massed, they had hidden machine guns behind them, and saying they were surrendering, ours were approaching. Arrived very close to them the bandits opened the ranks and fired at close range.

Our arrival in Corbeny was very well received by the civilians, most of whom were happy to be freed. Around midnight the outposts were taken by the 5th and 6th Companies. So the 7th we confined very quietly, after having eaten. The night seems calm. A few shots of cannons and rifles, and that's it.

The retreat 24/08-5/09/1914 then the Battle of the Marne: 400 km on foot in 21 days (Source: Sergeant Dartigues' logbooks)

1914 - Surroundings of Reims - Infantry platoon in the vineyards

Reconstruction of troop movements during the attack on Corbeny, which for many was Lobbes' revenge.

The 57th RI is shown in black, Constant was in the 2nd Battalion, 7th Company.

The location of the battlefield today : Pontavert, Corbeny, La Ville-aux-Bois and Craonne.

Links on this episode : story in text and in photos from Bernard Labarbe's blog.

JMO of the 70th Brigade, 57e RI, and Service Santé du 57e RI.

Article of the association Les Amis du Bois des Buttes.

Fighting north of Reims, fixing the front line

(September 14 - November 10, 1914)

On September 14, it was barely daylight when we left. There is an attack from the Boches. We try to resist but our artillery fires too short, so we are forced to step back. There are many killed and injured. The Boches take Corbeny back from us. Our stretcher bearers and nurses are taken prisoner. Our major, Commander Soriet, is one of them. He was repatriated soon after. Finally on the evening of the 14th we set up in front of Ville-aux-Bois. We are calm. In the night we receive ammunition not without needs because we had almost shot everything before leaving Corbeny. We are also given bread that we had not touched for four days. We had had K.K. bread but once our hunger was sated, we couldn't eat it anymore. (Map of movements of 09/14/1914)

On September 15 at daybreak, we were seen by the enemy pointing their artillery at us. Also we leave the position in speed and we reach the woods where there is a bit of a rout. Also the battalion is going to close up a little in the rear when an order is given to us by a captain of the 24th Artillery going up to attack. We immediately return to the edge of the woods where we fall into an ambush. By the time we were about to load with the bayonet, Warrant Officer Georges whom we had as platoon leader was killed with Captain Adjutant Major Triat (Triaud) who the same day had been appointed commander and had commanded the 2nd Battalion for a few days. They both fell at my feet. Also we can guess what impression. (Death of Captain Triaud in the JMO).

We come back a bit to the back where we make a trench. The Boches have wanted to continue their advance. They were unsuccessful and suffered considerable losses. We saw them advancing in a column of fours and mowed down by our machine guns and our 75s. In the evening we returned to Pontavert.

On the 16th we returned to the attack but we did not succeed. Despite this we are masters of the country. Trenches are being made in haste. We fight day and night several days. Ville-aux-Bois was taken, lost and retaken for three days. All in line we fight with bayonets. We lose almost all our officers and a large part of the men. We remain few in number but we must hold on at all costs while waiting for the arrival of reinforcements. The Canon raged on Pontavert and mainly on the Aisne bridge, prohibiting thus the passage of the reinforcements which despite everything arrived on the 20th (18) in the night.

The Regiment's JMO and the Health Service JMO report the loss of 1,014 men (out of 3,400) in 3 days, without medical service (prisoner in Corbeny).

Excerpt from Ct Couraud on the fighting at La Ville-aux-Bois (pdf format).

09/14/1914

09/15/1914

09/16/1914

09/16/1914 18th IR

09/17/1914

On these plans were present these 4 men who wrote war diaries: Constant Vincent and Maurice Dartigues in the 2nd battalion of the 57th IR (7th and 5th companies), Charles De Menditte in the 1st battalion of the 144th IR (4th company), and Maurice Vincent to the 3rd battalion of the 123rd IR (9th company). It also indicates the wound of Captain Pierre Emile Canet of the 57th IR: seriously wounded south of Corbeny on the 14th, left for dead by the Germans, he took 1 day and 2 nights to return by his own means to the ferme du Temple. Excerpt from JMO Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur. The 2 photos were taken by the Germans on September 15.

I have not shown the map of 09/18 because the 57th RI remained static consolidating the trenches under the bombardment until its relief at 6 p.m. by the 8th RI. The Germans kept La-Ville-aux-Bois.

It's the 3rd Corps. We leave and very happy in the morning, at daybreak, we arrive at Ecurie les Chatardes (Cuiry-lès-Chaudardes). We stay there one day. There we were able to eat because when we were in front of Pontavert for the last 5 days we had per day and at three a quarter of bread ball and a tin can in other words a monkey can.

From Cuiry-lès-Chaudardes we went to take for 24 hours the outposts at a mill to the right of the Château du Blanc Sablon. From there we back to Cuiry-lès-Chaudardes. The first day we have rest. The 2nd day we reviewed by Brigadier General Pierron in front of whom we parade. The next three or four days we went to do trenches. Every evening we sleep in Cuiry-lès-Chaudardes where we are quiet. From there we go up to the Château du Blanc Sablon where the boss of the castle was shot speak French. He was a spy.

We stay for a few days in front of the castle. During the day we are in the woods, at night we will either work or reinforce the front line. I vaguely have news of my family because correspondence does not go quickly and we don't even have paper to write on, so the days are long. As food we are not bad and we have all the time possible to prepare what we touch. Finally around October 10 we got up. We return to Cuiry-les-Chaudardes. There is the bomb, we kill the little pigs. Our captain finds nothing too good to give us. He recognizes that we have done our best and seeks to reward us. His name is Courreau (Couraud).

On the night of October 11 we went back up. The 12 at the tip of the day we attack the mill of Vauclerc (highest point of the plateau already used by Napoleon 1st, location today). The 1st Battalion is in the lead. Around 6 a.m. he retreated and suffered huge losses. The 2nd Battalion continues the attack with the 7th company in the lead. We try to get out of the trenches but unfortunately those who left most did not return. That day Seguin Abel from the Tournerie de Gémozac was killed two meters from me. Finally comes the evening and since we can't do anything, we withdraw a little. On the 13th all day we were in a trench where at every moment there were dead and wounded, so the time was long. In the evening we are brought to eat so we only expect one thing: to go back on the attack.

Finally the 14th arrives. In the morning the weather is foggy. Around eight o'clock we receive the order to go to the rear. We are happy but we are not going away (Oulches/Beaurieu road junction, south-west of Craonnelle, on a slope). The weather is very nice. At ten o'clock they bring us food. Nothing we lack. If we have suffered a little, we are rewarded. We have more than half a liter of wine each and almost as much brandy, of which a good part has been preserved because we expect something else. In fact, we have hardly finished eating when we receives the order to bring up the bags and we go on the attack. The first battalion is in the lead. We return to the trench where we were in the morning but after a moment the place is not tenable. Finally we continue the approach by the casings. At night we are back where we were on the 12th. The genius begins to cut wires. A reconnaissance is made by the 5th company and according to the information impossible to go further. The losses are high also we are few. The situation is not cheerful. We don't know anything of what is happening. Midnight is coming. We are lying in the middle of the plain among the dead. To make matters worse, the rain is falling and given the circumstances, we wonder what that we will become. I still have a little brandy, so I drink it in company of comrade Barthélémy who at the time was a sergeant. He was killed in 1915 in the Aisne.

Lucien Eugène Barthélémy (Source : chemindesdames.fr)

Annotated plan of the trenches on 10/18/1914 (Source: JMO). Location of the 7th Company at midnight with Constant and Lucien Barthélémy

Same location in red on a 2020 aerial view. To the north, the disappeared Moulin de Vauclerc has been replaced by the Napoleon Monument.

Point de vue aujourd'hui from the French trenches towards the mill. Turning to the right, you can see the plain below and in the distance: Craonnelle, Bois de Beau Marais, La Ville-aux-Bois, Pontavert.

Extract from Ct Couraud on the Vauclerc plateau

The 15th in the morning. It is day. We receive the order to return to the rear. Everything is going for the best.

plan of the first battles of the Chemin des Dames, to the northwest of Reims. From right to left: Corbeny, Ville-aux-Bois, Pontavert, Cuiry-lès-Chaudardes, Blanc-Sablon, the forest of Vauclerc, Beaulne, Moussy, Pont Arcy

The gathering takes place at the Château de Blanc Sablon where we spend all day. Never for a long time had a day seemed so long and so sad. We have everything to be able to eat and drink, but we cannot forget the absence of comrades who will never be seen again. In the afternoon, around one o'clock, there is a gathering at the cemetery to bid farewell to a twenty comrades who were brought back where even they died following of their injuries. Among them is one from Gémozac.

Finally the evening arrives. We prepare our bags because we have to leave. Around midnight we set off. We go up to the lines. We are put in shelters in reserve, ready for any event. Arrives on the 16th, still nothing. However in the evening around nine o'clock we leave. We went to stay in Cuiry-lès-Chaudardes. As there is no place, we sleep in the church and for light we have the candle. It has to be war.

Cuiry-lès-Chaudardes - Ruins of the main street and the church (where Constant slept). The church today

On the 17th we leave at dawn. In the evening we went to stay in Pont-Arcy. We are not well housed but we have enough to eat. We spend several days there. On the 21st I was made a corporal. The same evening we leave to pick up the 123rd which is ahead of Moussy (Moussy-sur-Aisne) and which a few days earlier had relieved the English. We stay there for four days. We are bad but finally we get out of it. We return to Vieil-Arcy for four days. The country is bombed. Almost every day there are injuries. We go back online. This time we are in reserve at Moussy itself but every night we go to first line spend the night. Moussy is heavily bombarded. You can't get out of the cellars. On October 30 we take a spy there who has a telephone at home and corresponds with the Boches.

2 November, the Boches attack, surprise the hunters who are on our left and the 249th, which allows them to advance. So we also have to step back. We have dead and prisoners. The night is coming. We are still in Moussy. The company goes up in line with the exception of the 3rd section and of which I am a part. The 123rd which is at rest is mounted strengthen us. Also on November 3 before daybreak, successful counter-attack. The first line is restored to where it was. To our left is always finds the 249th and the Zouaves. Around eight o'clock on the 3rd they had no more cartridges, so we were going to bring them some. Very painful chore because the shells fall on our passage and the bullets too. Finally we succeed. The day continued still very hot. Moussy is nothing more than a heap of debris. There are absent but the Boches have not passed. In the evening we will reinforce the 5th company. In the night the Boches want to attack but the shooting stop them. The same night I saw the Villaurois son again, who at the time was a stretcher-bearer in the 123rd. On the 4th we return to Moussy and during the night we will relieve the 123rd which is in the front line. Until 10 everything is going well. On the 9th we received reinforcements where I saw again Tielle de Mortagne who had been wounded in the retreat from the Marne. Millet my peacetime corporal who at that time was a sergeant and had been wounded at Ville-au-Bois. He was killed some time later. He lived in Bordeaux. He was a good comrade. We've been online for six days and still no news. We're pretty quiet.

Sector of the 57th RI at Verneuil from October 1914 to April 1916 and location of the 7th Company in front of the Moulin brûlé, where Constant received his first wound (source: JMO and book by Ct Couraud). Location today

Excerpt from Ct Couraud in Moussy

First injury and recovery

(November 11, 1914 - April 25, 1915)

On November 11 in the morning there is a thick mist but we can see that the weather will be fine. Around eight o'clock a liaison officer comes to tell us that we will be relieved during the night, so the cheerfulness returns to the faces. Around noon the weather is very nice so we clean our rifles because we say to ourselves that when we are at rest we will have other occupations. Finally around one o'clock I get ready to have a snack in the company of two comrades when several bullets have just hit the parapet. As the trench is deep, we say nothing to fear. The paraph is not over when a bullet went through my right thigh. I am hurt and happy.

(On reading the JMO of the 57th RI Constant was probably injured in reality on November 12)

They give me a bandage and I wait for the evening to leave. Immediately there I go to the captain's shelter. We talk for a while and around nine o'clock I leave accompanied by the men who have brought the soup. I go to Moussy where my bandage is redone. I leave at midnight to reach Verneuil where the post of the Chief Medical Officer is, the command posts of the regiment and of the Brigade. We are there about twenty wounded in the night we are taken by cars which take us to Longueval. The dressing is redone and at daybreak cars take us to Fismes. It's starting to look good.

We were evacuated to Château-Thierry, where we arrived on the 12th at night. Many go down there but I continue. On the 13th at daybreak we arrived in Juvisy, very close to Paris. We are very well cared for there. We stay there for thirty-six hours. Finally we leave and on the 15th at 9 o'clock in the evening we are hospitalized in Moissac in the Tarn-et-Garonne. I am very well cared for but we had no freedom. On December 15, I leave the hospital. I'm going to spend two days in Montauban where I get eight days' leave. I arrived home at night, giving my parents a pleasant surprise. I passed a very good permission. During my eight days, I went for a walk with my family and several friends. On December 25, I leave home. I go back to the Libourne depot. I'm assigned to the 28th Company. I find myself in the company of several former comrades of the 7th Company. We are pretty well fed. As work we only have to go for walks, but we sleep on the straw.

1915

1914-1

1917-1918