All our youth

By Mathieu Legendre

The epic story of stretcher bearer Tabouret. Follow Camille Tabouret from 1914 to 1919 and discover the main theatres of operation on the French front. Mathieu Legendre has adapted the war diary of Camille Tabouret to create a modern and dynamic narrative that provides readers with a unique perspective of the war to end all wars. Accompany Camille on his duty to recover the wounded and dead right up to enemy lines, in the hell of the trenches, and on the exhausting movements of his regiment. Having survived the First World War, Camille left behind an incredible account of his experiences, now available for all to read.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BadPress
• Release date: May 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9781667400266

Book preview

A story by Mathieu Legendre

Based on the war diary

of Camille Tabouret

2nd edition - 2020

For Camille,

His son Maurice,

His daughter-in-law Yvette,

And his grandson Patrice.

Contents:

Preface

Introduction

Chapter I - Brittany and Vienne-le-Château in Argonne

Chapter II - The front at Mesnil-lès-Hurlus and Main de Massiges

Chapter III - Verdun, Les Eparges and the ravine of death

Chapter IV - The start of a long year in Argonne

Chapter V - 1916, still in Argonne

Chapter VI - Beside the English on the Somme

Chapter VII - Departure for the colonies

Chapter VIII - On the way to Chemin des Dames

Chapter IX - 1918 began with gas in Champagne

Chapter X - Return to the Oise and the Somme

Chapter XI - The Battle of the Forest of Retz

Chapter XII - The war in the countryside

Chapter XIII - The calm of Vosges

Chapter XIV - End of the war in Argonne

Chapter XV - After the war

Addendum

Glossary

Photographs of Camille and his parents

Preface

This second edition of ‘All our youth’ contains two new features.

The first is the addition of historical reference sections at the beginning of each chapter. These additions aim to give readers an overview of the Great War. However, they also make it easier to follow Camille’s movements, both in terms of place and time. Readers will therefore rediscover the key places and moments of the First World War.

The second new addition to the book is this very preface, which is a little more personal.

Many readers have asked for information about Camille, his family and how I’m related to him. Some have even told me that I look like him, but I’ll let you be the judge of that.

Camille was of the same generation as my great-grandfather (the father of my paternal grandmother). After the war, he returned to his father’s butcher’s shop and married one of my great-grandfather’s sisters. He was therefore my grandmother’s uncle in more simple terms. My grandmother is still alive in 2020 aged 97.

Camille and my great-great-aunt, Marie Talbot, had a son named Maurice. Marie sadly died while Maurice was just a child. Then a widower, Camille needed help raising Maurice and so Louise Talbot, another of my great-grandfather’s sisters, joined him to raise Maurice. Louise, who was Maurice’s aunt, became his new mother and later Camille’s second wife.

Maurice and my grandmother, cousins twice over, grew up together and remained close throughout their lives.

When I arrived in 1982, Camille was no longer with us, but Maurice and his wife Yvette remained close with both my grandparents and my parents. They were very much like grandparents to us and often joined us on holiday.

I was fortunate enough to spend time with them in Normandy, in the town of Neufchâtel-en-Bray where they lived.

Their son, Patrice, who is a little younger than my parents, also came to live with us for a while at the start of the 90s.

As retired shopkeepers, Maurice and Yvette loved their caravan and would set it up in the garden of the family holiday home. Maurice came with us on most of our summer adventures.

Indeed, it was Maurice who introduced me to war novels when he lent me his copy of The narrative of Captain Coignet, a soldier of Napoleon's Old Guard. But he never read his father’s papers to me because he rightly thought I was too young at the time and wouldn't be able to stomach it.

As I spent less time with my family while studying at university and over my holidays, Maurice continued to pay visits to my father in the Paris area, especially when Maurice and Yvette were heading south to visit Patrice. A stop-off in Seine-et-Marne was always welcomed.

It was during one of these drop-ins at the end of January 2005, on a road in Saint-Soupplets, across the plains to the north of Meaux — one of the plains that would have seen the German halt in 1914 during the Battle of the Marne — that Maurice was involved in a car accident.

He was taken to the Bicêtre Hospital in the south of Paris and placed in intensive care.

I went to see him with my cousin Antoine the very same Friday evening. We were the last two people to see him ‘alive’. Maurice died in the early hours of Saturday morning on the 29th of January 2005.

Yvette moved south to spend the rest of her life with Patrice.

After my father rescued Camille’s war diary, I spent 2 years rewriting it from 2016 to 2018. The first edition was finished in January 2019.

Ultimately, I’m only indirectly related to Camille. Yet in spending so much time with him, reading his diary, I now feel that I know him well and that I’m part of his family.

I hope that you also feel the same after reading this book, in tribute to Camille and his family, and enjoy this second edition.

Introduction

The history is well known.

In 1870, France lay defeated.

The Germans left Versailles with Alsace-Lorraine* and an empire.

In August 1914, a new conflict erupted between the European powers.

For France, the time for revenge had come, 44 years on from defeat at Sedan.

But first, we must return to 1890.

More precisely, the 23rd of June 1890, the day on which I was born to Marie and Camille Tabouret, who gave me both his name and forename.

My father is the butcher in Formerie, a small village in the Oise* on the border with Normandy, known rightly for its pig market.

After I finished school, I joined my father in the family business before leaving aged 21 to complete my two years of military service.

As I was born in 1890, I was part of the class of 1910 which served between October 1911 and October 1913. I was assigned to the 72nd Infantry Regiment of Amiens and joined the regimental band.

I returned to Formerie after two years of military service. Nine months later, on the 1st of August 1914, the German Empire declared war on the Russian Empire, an ally of France.

Chapter I - Brittany and Vienne-le-Château in Argonne

August 1914 - January 1915

Historical reference:

At the start of August 1914, Germany invaded Belgium. The Belgian army could do nothing but retreat and fall back to its forts. French and English troops failed to hold back the German army, which won the Battle of the Frontiers and entered French territory. Allied troops gradually retreated to the Marne river, northeast of Paris.

To the east, the Germans were in exactly the opposite situation. Under the command of Ludendorff and Hindenburg, they succumbed to the Russian offensive but managed to stop the advance of the Tsar's army at Tannenberg by the end of the month.

In early September, the allies had halted the German progression on the French-Belgian front and were counterattacking. The German armies were stopped at the First Battle of the Marne and forced to retreat to rear positions but remained on French territory.

This is when the ‘race to the sea’ began. In September and October, the armies of both sides attempted to outmanoeuvre each other by advancing towards the north coast of France.

Bitter fighting erupted in the west of Belgium in what was the First Battle of Ypres. Nevertheless, the German troops were contained, and the front settled down. The armies dug in, creating trenches that stretched across the northeast of France, from the Swiss border to the North Sea.

In December 1914, allied troops launched the Champagne Offensive to the east of Paris. Fighting raged, particularly in Argonne to the west of Verdun. Ever-increasing numbers of offensives and counter-offensives from both sides failed to yield a decisive victory. It was the beginning of trench warfare, in which thousands of men were killed attempting to take a single trench or advance a few dozen metres.

Camille:

2nd of August 1914. Mobilisation was decreed while I had diphtheria. I was sick when the war began, I simply couldn't get out of bed. I rejoined my regiment twenty days later.

The 72nd were still in Amiens when I arrived but the Germans were just outside the city and you could hear the rumble of their guns.

My first days of war have been spent evacuating the regiment, men and equipment by train towards Brittany.

Our convoy left Amiens and passed through Formerie, which I hadn’t expected to see again so soon. The train chugged along slowly as the lines were so congested and it was several days before we got to Morlaix, our destination.

While France is fighting, we’ve come to seaside barracks to undergo new training and fatigues. A school for soldiers that we’ve joined without any great enthusiasm.

While we’ve been here, the German army has been pushed right back on one front and the north-east of the country has been cut in two.

It’s the 9th of October and we’re finally leaving Morlaix. Singing and with flowers on the barrels of our guns, imbued with a sense of patriotism. We’re ready to defend France.

It was a long journey, three hours by train passing through Saint-Brieuc, Rennes, Laval, Le Mans, Angers, Saumur, Tours, Orléans, Troyes and Saint-Dizier, before marching on to Sainte-Menehould and Moiremont.

The 72nd has been sent to the front near Vienne-le-Château in the north of Argonne*, to the west of Verdun.

As soon as I arrived, I was confronted with the awful reality of war.

The surrounding villages have been practically razed to the ground.

Everything is already in ruins just three months after fighting began.

We were sent to dig out a support trench, which would undoubtedly soon become the front-line trench. When the Germans take the front line, our troops retreat to the support trench before the soldiers then begin their own offensive to retake the front-line trench. All of this is done with bayonets as they’re more effective in hand-to-hand combat.

We’ve been at the front for a few days now. A stretcher bearer has fallen sick and been evacuated. As I was previously in the regimental band, it has been decided that I should take his place.

Although far from delighted, I am not unhappy to swap the wood of a gun for that of a stretcher.

The first lot of casualties came quickly and I had to evacuate a lieutenant who had been shot in the neck during an attack. He was in terrible pain, hardly breathing and losing a lot of blood. We carried him on the stretcher, he would survive. So many others are already dead.

We’re doing everything we can to reach the wounded in no man’s land* whilst German and French bullets whistle through the air around us. We had to take cover several times by throwing ourselves into the mud at the bottom of shell holes.

Living conditions are extremely difficult. In spite of how cold it is this autumn, we’re forbidden from lighting fires as it would give our position away to the enemy.

Our camp for the casualties is nothing more than a makeshift dug-out* made of wooden logs and earth.

We cut extra logs to lay on the ground of our dug-out when it rains so that we don’t have to sleep in the mud. At night, we take it in turns to empty the water that collects around us.

The trenches are not faring any better and the soldiers are up to their knees in water.

How can we sleep in these conditions?

The German bombardments on Vienne-le-Château have been getting heavier, yet there are still civilians in the town. They haven’t been evacuated despite how close it is to the front.

Staff gave them an hour to leave the town. The decision had been taken so belatedly and what followed was a sad and disorderly procession of people walking with prams and carts, hurriedly filled with their most precious belongings.

Death is becoming increasingly more commonplace with each passing day and our company lost nearly 90 soldiers in a single day. There are just as many casualties and we have to carry them behind the lines where the shelling is slaughtering everyone in sight.

It has become extremely difficult to get around as so many of the roads have been shelled. Secondary roads made of logs have been created to alleviate the problem but walking on them is painfully slow and trying.

It takes us more than five hours to get back to the dressing station* with our casualties, all the time hoping they’ll survive until we can get there.

Five shells landed on our company while everyone was at rest and we lost 17 soldiers in one go. More and more of our regiment are being killed or