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012 - French Scenes · Canadas Hundred Days The Battle of Amiens

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  Speaker 1: Part one, Chapter twelve of Canada's Hundred Days with Canadian
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  Speaker 1: Corps from Amiens to mont August eighth, November eleventh, nineteen eighteen.
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  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
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  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Canada's Hundred Days by John Livesey,
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  Speaker 1: Part one, Chapter twelve, French scenes. On the morning of
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  Speaker 1: August eighth, the first echalon of Canadian Corps headquarters moved
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  Speaker 1: to Gentil, but already this was too far behind the lines,
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  Speaker 1: and almost at once another move was made. Des Moun
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  Speaker 1: on the loose. In a ravine about a thousand yards
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  Speaker 1: south of the village, as had been plotted out by
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  Speaker 1: our intelligence long before the battle opened, was an enemy
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  Speaker 1: regimental headquarters, and here the Corps stayed a full week.
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  Speaker 1: As usual, There were some elaborate dugouts, but not enough
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  Speaker 1: to accommodate all the staff, most of whom slept under canvas.
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  Speaker 1: This ravine wines among the folds of chalk hills, trending
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  Speaker 1: south to the roy Road. A little further on lies
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  Speaker 1: a broken tank hit by an enemy gun that still
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  Speaker 1: stands A couple of hundred yards away. The tank had
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  Speaker 1: been working its way along the ravine when its career
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  Speaker 1: was stopped. Beside it are three graves. Artificers are busy
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  Speaker 1: repairing its shattered treads, and in an incredibly brief time
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  Speaker 1: it will trundle on its way again. From the upland
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  Speaker 1: is a wonderful sunset painting the heavens the color of
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  Speaker 1: blood upon the crest of the western slope. Black against
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  Speaker 1: the glow is the scarred outline of ham and wood,
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  Speaker 1: where a few days before our third division had a
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  Speaker 1: tough fight. Once it was gay with flowers, but there
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  Speaker 1: lie now in the stained pools of shell holes only
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  Speaker 1: corpses rotting in their field. Gray. Our burial parties are overtaxed.
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  Speaker 1: Descending the hill, we come upon a lonely pit where
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  Speaker 1: a gunner stands silent beside his archy. For these moonlight nights,
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  Speaker 1: Heinee has a regular schedule of bombing visitations. He is
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  Speaker 1: glad to talk and confesses himself something of a poet.
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  Speaker 1: He produces a copy of verses scribbled on the back
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  Speaker 1: of an envelope. Happy soldier spinning rhymes beneath the stars themselves.
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  Speaker 1: His theme and love of country and hate of the destroyer.
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  Speaker 1: We are dozing off in our tents, sunk three feet
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  Speaker 1: beneath the ground, for safety from the flying shrapnel of
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  Speaker 1: these bombing raids. When on the silence a bugle rings
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  Speaker 1: out a note weird as that of the coyote under
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  Speaker 1: a prairie. Moon lights out, lights out, passes the word
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  Speaker 1: heine's coming. Sure enough he is, But before we hear
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  Speaker 1: his angry insect Tom Miles, it seems above us. There
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  Speaker 1: comes the quick rattle of the archies the anti aircraft
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  Speaker 1: guns as heads poke out. Shafts of light. Long beans
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  Speaker 1: of whitest light shoot up from a dozen unexpected quarters.
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  Speaker 1: Searching the sky methodically for the bold intruder, they sweep
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  Speaker 1: the sky into Fatagably, some one with night glasses cries,
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  Speaker 1: they are below him. Now they are nearer, They've gone.
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  Speaker 1: They focus on one spot, and he stands out clear enough,
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  Speaker 1: a flitting, iridescent glow worm. The Archies redouble their fire.
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  Speaker 1: We see the flashes bursting round him. His machine gun
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  Speaker 1: rattles back down the avenues of white light. They lose
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  Speaker 1: him and catch him again. Suddenly, a series of dull
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  Speaker 1: explosions crump crump, crump. As quick as you can count.
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  Speaker 1: He is getting rid of his bombs. It is too
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  Speaker 1: hot for him. Soon his drone dies away in the east,
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  Speaker 1: but not before there have been more dull thudding reports,
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  Speaker 1: distinguishable from all kinds of shell fire. It is seldom
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  Speaker 1: they get him in the air. The vertical plane is
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  Speaker 1: added to the gunner's problem, whereas on the surface his
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  Speaker 1: equations are confined to the lateral and horizontal. But the defense,
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  Speaker 1: especially the searchlights captured by us from the bush, keep
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  Speaker 1: him high up, whereas bombing becomes a thing of chance,
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  Speaker 1: hit or miss. But on another occasion he gets a
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  Speaker 1: bunch of our horses picketed round the corner. He is
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  Speaker 1: going back to his base to tell his story of
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  Speaker 1: destruction on a bare hill side, and in a couple
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  Speaker 1: of hours he'll be back reloaded. But the air is
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  Speaker 1: chill and blankets warm. Not content with their brilliant capture
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  Speaker 1: of z Wood recorded above, the French First Army are
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  Speaker 1: pushing on south of us, now well up to our
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  Speaker 1: right flank. They are putting on a little show of
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  Speaker 1: their own this afternoon in front of Roy. They have
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  Speaker 1: taken Caesar's camp west of the town and now seek
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  Speaker 1: to exploit their success from the south. Armed with a
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  Speaker 1: pass from General Demetz, commander of their fifty sixth Division,
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  Speaker 1: one has the privilege of seeing something of it under
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  Speaker 1: guidance of a charming French officer of intelligence. Roy lies
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  Speaker 1: low down in the valley, and from the plateau on
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  Speaker 1: which we stand, nothing can be seen but the smoke
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  Speaker 1: of bursting shells in its northern quarter, where already the
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  Speaker 1: French have established themselves in the railway station. The battle
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  Speaker 1: itself is in progress at our feet in the marshy,
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  Speaker 1: tree studded valley of the are being directed against the
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  Speaker 1: strongly fortified of Saint mar Le Trio. We can see
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  Speaker 1: nothing of it, save for an occasional rocket marking the
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  Speaker 1: progress of the infantry, signal for the barrage to lift,
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  Speaker 1: and for the angry explosions of enemy shells along the
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  Speaker 1: trench lines in the opposing plateau, where presumably are masked
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  Speaker 1: the French reserves. It does not matter in these bright
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  Speaker 1: weeks villages such as this, so recently impregnable strongholds are
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  Speaker 1: stormed every day. Of greater interest is the spirit of
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  Speaker 1: the French soldier, the poilu from whose soul speaks the
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  Speaker 1: ardent voice of France. Our guide is explaining the difficulties
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  Speaker 1: of the attack up the valley, past concrete machine gun
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  Speaker 1: and placements hidden in the marshes. We hardly hope to
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  Speaker 1: succeed here, he says, But it is a demonstration in
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  Speaker 1: aid of our advance further south. He is wrong. Soon
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  Speaker 1: a rocket goes up from the village itself. Yes, they
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  Speaker 1: have given us a tight corner, but what would you do.
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  Speaker 1: Some one has to have it. We have called him captain. No,
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  Speaker 1: he is own lieutenant, a simple soldier monsieur, who at
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  Speaker 1: the outbreak of war was a wine merchant in Burgundy.
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  Speaker 1: I had served my three years of course and joined
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  Speaker 1: as a sergeant. Now I have charge of the intelligence
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  Speaker 1: of the regiment. You have very gallant men, he goes on.
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  Speaker 1: You are fresh and full of goat. We have been
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  Speaker 1: at it so long. We are tired, our hearts are sad.
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  Speaker 1: But now before us is the end, and we will
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  Speaker 1: see it through. Alas for the poor people of this country.
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  Speaker 1: In March, I was in Montdidier, and the women of
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  Speaker 1: the town crowded round us. Are the busche coming? They ask?
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  Speaker 1: We do not know, but it is better you should
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  Speaker 1: move out. Then comes the question what shall we take?
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  Speaker 1: What can they take? Their men and their horses are
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  Speaker 1: all in the army. There remains only the push cart
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  Speaker 1: and the wheelbarrow. They take next to nothing, And in
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  Speaker 1: a few days the bouche have destroyed everything, everything wantonly
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  Speaker 1: where their shelling has not completed the ruin. On your
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  Speaker 1: way back, go and see the ribs of Montreux. We
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  Speaker 1: are standing on top of an oak pip observation post
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  Speaker 1: built up by the Germans. Amid the trees on the
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  Speaker 1: valley slope Below lies a shattered village and ruined church
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  Speaker 1: sent our in. It is horrible to see all this,
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  Speaker 1: one says, And to think that we in Canada have
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  Speaker 1: escaped scot free only the lies of our men. Ah,
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  Speaker 1: he says. But is not sorrow or strength to the
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  Speaker 1: character a completion of experience? Shall we not emerge a
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  Speaker 1: stronger people for it all? We are in a trench
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  Speaker 1: examining a bayonet, a beautiful rapier like piece of polished seal.
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  Speaker 1: How you bring your sense of art and beauty into everything?
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  Speaker 1: One cannot help remarking, look at your camouflage, what art
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  Speaker 1: it is? Suiting itself perfectly to the changing aspects of
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  Speaker 1: soil and landscape, while ours, too often is a matter
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  Speaker 1: of rule of thumb. That may be so, he replies,
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  Speaker 1: but you have your admirable perseverance to each nation its
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  Speaker 1: own qualities, to the hun that of the beast of
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  Speaker 1: a saddened countenance is a French soldier. The tragedy of
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  Speaker 1: war has transmuted the once merry fellow. They lack too
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  Speaker 1: the outward smartness of our infantry, but the spirit is there.
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  Speaker 1: On to the rhine, we cry to one of them.
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  Speaker 1: He lights up at once. That is the perfect word, monsieur,
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  Speaker 1: he says, with a grin. One takes away a sense
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  Speaker 1: of what the French army has suffered and endured compared
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  Speaker 1: with ourselves. They lacked deplorably all manner of material and equipment,
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  Speaker 1: their guns worn out, ammunition depleted, their horses emaciated, and
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  Speaker 1: with few lorries for transport. The poiliu himself a pack
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  Speaker 1: mule on the march. But after all these long years,
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  Speaker 1: when they have borne the Brunt in defeat and in victory,
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  Speaker 1: their men are incomparable, their spirit unquenched. It is August nineteenth,
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  Speaker 1: and we are back again in dury, just twelve days
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  Speaker 1: since we left this sad and dreary village. Nothing but
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  Speaker 1: dust and troops and lorries. Occasionally, through a tall gateway
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  Speaker 1: is the glimpse of an old woman doubled under a
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  Speaker 1: load of straw. Much more rarely a child. One little
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  Speaker 1: estimanute is open, where they sell red and white wine
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  Speaker 1: of the sourest vintage. All the villages of this part
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  Speaker 1: of France are ugly built. Right out to the street
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  Speaker 1: are the stables and outhouses, blank walls pierced by inhospitable
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  Speaker 1: double gates. You enter your billet through what is essentially
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  Speaker 1: the back yard, a manure pile in its center, and
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  Speaker 1: cart shed on either end. Back is the decent little house,
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  Speaker 1: two storied, very old, weather stained, sadly lacking a coat
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  Speaker 1: of paint, in a rambler rose. You walk across through
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  Speaker 1: the inevitable tiled floor to the back. Hey, presto, what
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  Speaker 1: a change is here a charming garden stocked with good
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  Speaker 1: things to eat, fruit, trees and flowers, and behind a
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  Speaker 1: hedge and a field rolling down into a green valley. Nevertheless,
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  Speaker 1: the cobbled streets are ugly. Beyond compare high gray blank walls,
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  Speaker 1: shuttered windows, smokeless chimneys and clouds of dust shrouding the
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  Speaker 1: passing transport. Beyond the village, the landscape is bare, for
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  Speaker 1: not here are the castling, red roofed farmhouses of old England.
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  Speaker 1: It is a communal life, dear to the French peasant heart.
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  Speaker 1: Madame may chat over the wall to her neighbor, knitting
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  Speaker 1: the while and keeping an eye on the simmering pot.
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  Speaker 1: The French peasant likes company, and he sits of an
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  Speaker 1: evening in the village park, sipping his glass and swapping
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  Speaker 1: news with his cronies. Thus is explained the utter ruin
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  Speaker 1: the invader has rigged upon the country side. His target
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  Speaker 1: is not isolated farms, but densely populated villages, containing within
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  Speaker 1: their scant area all the rural population. Better for the
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  Speaker 1: French peasants if they had lived in scattered homesteads. We
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  Speaker 1: have been away a bare fortnight. When we return all
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  Speaker 1: is changed. Gossips and laughing children enlive in the street.
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  Speaker 1: Durry has little to show of scars here and there.
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  Speaker 1: The bouche has left his mark, screaming bombs from out
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  Speaker 1: the night, or the devastation of a long distance gun.
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  Speaker 1: But it has suffered in foreboding. Last spring, the tide
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  Speaker 1: of battle lapped very close to its thresholds. At any
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  Speaker 1: hour the enemy might select its humble area for bombardment.
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  Speaker 1: All the bigger houses the chateau are long closed their
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  Speaker 1: owners in happier climes. Only the village folk have clung
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  Speaker 1: to their village. They had nowhere else to go to,
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  Speaker 1: their village and their poor chattels, their cow, and their
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  Speaker 1: waddling geese. The good cure remains to watch over his
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  Speaker 1: flock and deplore the ruined tower of his gray old church.
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  Speaker 1: But now the foe is many miles away, and the
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  Speaker 1: village saved, saved with the wrecked city of Amiens. In
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  Speaker 1: those days we saw many villages in far worse plight.
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  Speaker 1: There was do Mart, a ruin swaddled in dust. Dust,
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  Speaker 1: dust everywhere, red dust from the brick of broken homes,
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  Speaker 1: bathing the passing lorries. Along the roy road. There was
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  Speaker 1: marcel Cove, a cemetery of houses. Only the skeletons, instead
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  Speaker 1: of decent burial loom white and gaunt against the sky,
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  Speaker 1: Constructed of century old timber framing. These still stand after
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  Speaker 1: the tiles plaster have melted into dust. Such stricken villages
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  Speaker 1: do not present the munificent ruin of e priests, et cetera.
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  Speaker 1: Nor are they a flat and disregarded desert like Nuvilla
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  Speaker 1: Saint Vast at foot of Vimy Ridge. But they are
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  Speaker 1: very horrible. There is something indecent about their stark ribs.
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  Speaker 1: At midnight of August twenty one to twenty second comes
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  Speaker 1: the moving order Secret and confidential lorry number so and
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  Speaker 1: so will be at the door of your billet at
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  Speaker 1: five forty five. No breakfast served in messes after six
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  Speaker 1: a m. Destination unstated. On such occasion the camp commandant
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  Speaker 1: is the best hated man in the corps, for there
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  Speaker 1: seems a certain malignity in these midnight alluums. At last
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  Speaker 1: one was going to put in a good night's sleep
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  Speaker 1: to catch up needed arrears, but know there will be
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  Speaker 1: little sleep this night. With the problem of squeezing a
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  Speaker 1: gallon of gear into a court pot, treasured souvenirs must
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  Speaker 1: go into the discard once again. On the move, we
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  Speaker 1: discover we have a full day for the relatively short
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  Speaker 1: jaunt to Haute Cloak, south of Saint Paul, and can
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  Speaker 1: spend some hours in Amienses. A year ago, the joyous
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  Speaker 1: congregation of young officers on leave, but now deserted, empty streets,
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  Speaker 1: echoing to the passing hoofbeat. A truly pious nation, the French,
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  Speaker 1: a people of reverence for the fine things of life.
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  Speaker 1: Their piety to day takes other direction than that of yesterday.
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  Speaker 1: It kneels at the shrine of an idea of France.
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  Speaker 1: In all their churches is to be seen the shining
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  Speaker 1: figure of Jean d'Arques, their national heroine, broods over them,
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  Speaker 1: an idea that has triumphed in this war, over material fact,
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  Speaker 1: over four hundred and fifty centimeter guns. Every cross road
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  Speaker 1: has its shrine, and in every little hamlet the village
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  Speaker 1: church stands a monument of ancient art and piety, the
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  Speaker 1: treasured storehouse of the community from generation to generation, enriched
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  Speaker 1: by free fancy. However dull the village street there lifts
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  Speaker 1: out of its foliage a slender, fretted spire, or maybe
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  Speaker 1: a hoary tower, signed manual of the spiritual life below.
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  Speaker 1: War has quickened that life, not in vain, calls the
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  Speaker 1: church bell to matins and vespers. In no land is
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  Speaker 1: the beauty of sacrifices well understood, as in France, thousands
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  Speaker 1: of these humble altars lie in ruin, more ruinous than
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  Speaker 1: the ruined villages singled out malignantly. It was not by
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  Speaker 1: his design that the Great Cathedral of Amien escaped almost unscathed.
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  Speaker 1: Its topmost pinnacles are far below the level of the
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  Speaker 1: immediate hills, and yet for four months it has been
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  Speaker 1: the target of long range guns and bombing plains draw
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  Speaker 1: a circle of a hundred yards around it, and everywhere
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  Speaker 1: is destruction. The glorious Gothic west front, still sand bag
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  Speaker 1: many feet up, is pitted with shrapnel. Good saints in
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  Speaker 1: their niches have lost arms and legs. It is a
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  Speaker 1: miracle that it has so escaped to be for generations
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  Speaker 1: to come, as shrine for pious pilgrims, who may see
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  Speaker 1: in its scarred but stately lines, the symbol of the
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  Speaker 1: indominable nation that kept alight through storm and ravage and woe,
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  Speaker 1: the torch of civilization. Only an ecclesiastical architect can write
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  Speaker 1: of such things. At every turn, the layman exposes himself.
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  Speaker 1: But it is impossible to pass by Amiend Cathedral without
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  Speaker 1: catching something of its spirit and its meaning. The popular
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  Speaker 1: the picture postcard view is the west Front with its
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  Speaker 1: irregular twin towers, its great rose window, and all the
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  Speaker 1: lavish ornament of decorated Gothic. It is a fine example
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  Speaker 1: of that kind of thing. Such an impression is here
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  Speaker 1: deliberately cultivated, as might be that of a woman attired
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  Speaker 1: for the chief event in her life. But this ornate
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  Speaker 1: richness and luxury of treatment is not what appeals in
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  Speaker 1: the particular connection. Curiously enough, it is restricted entirely to
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  Speaker 1: the west facade. For the rest is art reduced to
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  Speaker 1: the finest simplicity of free springing perpendicular columns and arches,
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  Speaker 1: delicate tracery, flying buttresses, and high shouldering roots. Here and
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  Speaker 1: there this a offense, steer and chaste expression breaks out
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  Speaker 1: into rebellious fantasies of gargoyle and quaint grotesque, roughly carved
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  Speaker 1: from the solid block. The aspect one loves is the
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  Speaker 1: intimate view of the basilica from the foot of Rue
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  Speaker 1: Victor Hugo, a vista of gray stone and purple slate,
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  Speaker 1: an impression of devout, aspiring feeling that deliberately carries the eye,
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  Speaker 1: unchecked and unencumbered by superfluous ornament, up and up and
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  Speaker 1: up to the pinnacle of wonderful little Gothic spire superimposed
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  Speaker 1: upon the cross of the building, that from any other
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  Speaker 1: view it is not visible. From the west front seems
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  Speaker 1: unmeaning and even absurd. From earth to the high elysium
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  Speaker 1: is its message. And to pass thence into the square
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  Speaker 1: and thus confront the florid elegance of the west facade
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  Speaker 1: is to fall from heaven to earth again. The same
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  Speaker 1: pure and simple beauty is to be found within. Most
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  Speaker 1: of the old glass has been removed, and gone too
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  Speaker 1: is much of the gilt and tinsel that too often
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  Speaker 1: obscure and distract the noble lines of these buildings. The
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  Speaker 1: interior is reduced to its simplest values, without ornament, such
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  Speaker 1: as it was conceived and executed by its monk builders.
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  Speaker 1: It is a house cleansed by war, like unto the
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  Speaker 1: people of France, there is little but the bare beauty
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  Speaker 1: of form and light, but the impression is of an immensity.
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  Speaker 1: The nave is subdivided by lofty shafts and bold arches,
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  Speaker 1: simple variations of the trefoil prevailing. Its surpassing beauty is
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  Speaker 1: due to these gracious lines and their high uplift, to
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  Speaker 1: the vaulting of the ceiling wide, untrammeled spaces, and the
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  Speaker 1: clear sunlight streaming through the tracery of great unglazed windows
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  Speaker 1: give the impression of open skies and the wind upon
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  Speaker 1: the heath. Not here the mystery of stained glass, dim
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  Speaker 1: perspectives and glorious shrines, but the flinging wide of doors,
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  Speaker 1: the sweeping down of cobwebs, back of the high altar
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  Speaker 1: and facing the rich frescoes of the Lady Chapel. Is
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  Speaker 1: a simple relief dated sixteen twenty eight to the worthy
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  Speaker 1: memory of Johannes de la Grange, one time episcopal ambassador
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  Speaker 1: and cardinal. He lies there in stone effigy, and his
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  Speaker 1: cardinal's hat at his feet. Another slab perpetuates the charity
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  Speaker 1: he established for the poor children of the diocese. A
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  Speaker 1: worthy man, this Archbishop of Amienne, and a proud without doubt.
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  Speaker 1: In and about this great temple, Canadian and Australian soldiers
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  Speaker 1: reverently wander. They see in it something mystic, the pledge
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  Speaker 1: of their victory, its vast echoing spaces, peopled by their
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  Speaker 1: comrades who have laid down their lives against this pile
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: of gray stone, wherein lies enshrined the feeling of all
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: the ages, the hun hurled his implacable hate. In its
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: drive of August eighth and ninth, the Canadian Corps captured
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: half a dozen five point nine inch naval guns with
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: a range of twenty five thousand yards. And there is
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: reason to suspect some of these were the very long
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: distance rifles that sought to destroy the Cathedral of Amienne.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Of direct hits, possible to identify two at least are
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: of this caliber. One destroyed the northeast chapel of the
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: ambulatory another the organ platform under the rose window. But
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: the organ, a famous piece, had been removed to the crypt.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: Amien Cathedral is now safe. Yet another bond was thus
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: knit between the peoples of France and of Canada. Over
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: the great altar hang the flags of French regiments, and
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: among them the stars and stripes. The ends and of
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: Canada might here well find a worthy resting place. End
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: of Part one, Chapter twelve. End of Part one Amien