III “La Terre a Vu Jadis Errer des Paladins....”19
At Verdun our aërial as well as our land forces underwent sudden and almost prodigious reverses. Within a few days the Storks Escadrille had been decimated: its chief, Captain Brocard, had been wounded in the face by a bullet and compelled to land; Lieutenant Perretti had been killed, Lieutenant Deullin wounded, Guynemer wounded and nearly all its best pilots put hors de combat. The lost air-mastery was only regained by the tenacity of Major de Rose, Chief of Aviation of the Second Army, and by a rapid reconcentration of forces.
Major de Rose ordered enemy-chasing, and electrified and inspired his escadrilles. The part he played during those terrible Verdun months can never be sufficiently praised. Guynemer’s comrades held the sky under fire, as their brothers, the infantrymen, held the shifting ground which protected the ancient citadel. Chaput brought down seven airplanes, Nungesser six, and a drachen, Navarre four, Lenoir four, Auger and Pelletier d’Oisy three, Puple, Chainat, and Lesort two. The observation airplanes rivaled the fighting machines, often defending themselves, and not infrequently forcing down their assailants in flames. Twice Sergeant Fedoroff rid himself in this manner of troublesome adversaries. But other pilots deserve to be mentioned, pilots such as Stribick and Houtt, Captain Vuillemin, Lieutenant de Laage, Sergeants de Ridder, Viallet and Buisse, and such observers as Lieutenant Liebmann, who was killed, and Mutel, Naudeau, Campion, Moulines, Dumas, Robbe, Travers, sous-lieutenant Boillot, Captain Verdurand—admirable squadron chief—and Major Roisin, expert in bombardments. The lists of names are always too short, but these, at least, should be loudly acclaimed.
Meanwhile the battle of Verdun shattered trees, knocked down walls, annihilated villages, hollowed out the earth, dug up the plains, distorted the hills, and renewed once more that chaos of the third day, according to Genesis, on which the Creator separated the waters from the earth. Almost the entire French army filed through this extraordinary epic battle, and Guynemer, wounded and weeping with rage, was not there.
But there was another period in the Great War in which the grouping of our fighting escadrilles and their employment in offensive movements gave us triumphant superiority in the aërial struggle, and this was the battle of the Somme, particularly during its first three months—a splendid and heroic time when our airmen sprang up in the sky, spreading panic and fear, like the knights-errant of La Légende des siècles. Victor Hugo’s verses seem to describe them and their vertiginous rounds rather than the too slow horsemen of old:
La terre a vu jadis errer des paladins;
Ils flamboyaient ainsi que des éclairs soudains,
Puis s’évanouissaient, laissant sur les visages
La crainte, et la lueur de leurs brusques passages...
Les noms de quelques-uns jusqu’à nous sont venus....
Ils surgissaient du Sud ou du Septentrion,
Portant sur leur écu l’hydre ou l’alérion,
Couverts des noirs oiseaux du taillis héraldique,
Marchant seuls au sentier que le devoir indique,
Ajoutant au bruit sourd de leur pas solennel
La vague obscurité d’un voyage éternel,
Ayant franchi les flots, les monts, les bois horribles,
Ils venaient de si loin qu’ils en étaient terribles,
Et ces grands chevaliers mêlaient à leurs blasons
Toute l’immensité des sombres horizons....
These new knights-errant who wandered above the desolate plains of the Somme, no longer on earth but in the sky, mounted on winged steeds, who started up with a “heavy sound” from south or north, will be immortal like those of the ancient epics. It will be said that it was Dorme or Heurtaux, or Nungesser, Deullin, Sauvage, Tarascon, Chainat, or it was Guynemer, who accomplished such and such an exploit. The Germans, without knowing their names, recognized them, not by their armor and their sword-thrust, but by their machines, their maneuvers and methods. Almost invariably their enemies desperately avoided a fight with them, retreating far within their own lines, where, even then, they were not sure of safety. Those who accepted their gage of battle seldom returned. The enemy aviation camps from Ham to Péronne watched anxiously for the return of their champions who dared to fight over the French lines. None of them cared to fly alone, and even in groups they appeared timid. In patrols of four, five, and six, sometimes more, they flew beyond their own lines with the utmost caution, fearful at the least alarm, and anxiously examining the wide and empty sky where these mysterious knights mounted guard and might at any moment let loose a storm. But in the course of these prodigious first three months of the battle of the Somme, our French chasing-patrols not infrequently flew to and fro for two hours over German aviation camps, forcing down all those who attempted to rise, and succeeding in spreading terror and consternation in the enemy’s lines.
The Franco-British offensive began on July 1, 1916, on the flat lands lying along both banks of the Somme River. The general plan of these operations had been agreed upon in the preceding December. The battle of Verdun had not prevented its execution which, on the contrary, was expected to relieve Verdun. The attack was made on a front of 40 kilometers between Gommécourt on the north and Vermandovillers on the south of the river. From the beginning the French penetrated the enemy’s first lines, the 20th Corps took the village of Curlu and held the Favière wood, while the 1st Colonial Corps and one division of the 35th Corps passed the Fay ravine and took possession of Bacquincourt, Dompierre and Bussus. On the third, this successful advance continued into the second lines. Within just a few days General Fayolle’s army had taken 10,000 prisoners, 75 cannon, and several hundred machine-guns. But the Germans, who were concentrated in the Péronne region, with strong positions like Maurepas, Combles, and Cléry, and, further in the rear, Bouchavesnes and Sailly-Saillisel on the right bank, and Estrées, Belloy-en-Santerre, Barleux, Albaincourt and Pressoire on the left bank, made such desperate resistance that the struggle was prolonged into mid-winter. The German retreat in March, 1917, to the famous Hindenburg line was the strategic result of this terrible battle, the tactics of which were continuously successful and the connection between the different arms brought to perfection, while the infantry made an unsurpassed record for suffering and endurance and will power in such combats as Maurepas (August 12), Cléry (September 3), Bouchavesnes (September 12)—where, when evening came, the enemy was definitely broken—and the taking of Berny-en-Santerre, of Deniécourt, of Vermandovillers (September 13) on the left bank, and on the right bank the entry into Combles (surrounded on September 26), the advance on Sailly-Saillisel and the stubborn defense of this ruined village whose château and central district had already been occupied on October 15, and in which a few houses resisted until November 12. Then, there was the fight for the Chaulnes wood, and La Maisonnette and Ablaincourt and Pressoire; and everywhere it was the same as at Verdun: the woods were razed to the ground, villages disappeared into the soil, and the earth was so plowed and crushed and martyred that it was nothing but one immense wound.
Now, the air forces had had their part in the victory. Obliged, as they were at Verdun, to resist the numerical superiority of the enemy, they had thrown off the tyranny of atmospheric conditions and accepted and fulfilled diverse missions in all kinds of weather. Verdun had hardened them, as it had “burned the blood” of the infantry who had never known a worse hell than that one. But as our operations now took the initiative, the aviation corps was able to prepare its material more effectively, to organize its aërodromes and concentrate its forces beforehand. Its advantage was evident from the first day of the Somme offensive, not only in mechanical power, but in a method which coördinated and increased its efforts under a single command. Though this arm of the service was in continuous evolution, more subject than any other to the modifications of the war, and the most susceptible of all to progress and improvement, it had nevertheless finished its trial stages and acquired full development as connecting agent for all the other arms, whom it supplied with information. Serving at first for strategic reconnaissance, and then almost exclusively for regulating artillery fire, the aërial forces now performed complex and efficient service for every branch of the army. By means of aërial photography they furnished exact knowledge of the ground and of the enemy’s defenses, thus preceding the execution of military operations. They regulated artillery fire, followed the program laid down for the destruction of the enemy, and supplied such information as was necessary to set the time for the attack. They then accompanied the infantry in the attack, observed its progress, located the conquered positions, revealed the situation of the enemy’s new lines, betrayed his defensive works, and announced his reinforcements and his counter-attacks. They were the conducting wire between the command, the artillery, and the troops, and everybody felt them to be sure and faithful allies, for they were able to see and know, to speak and warn. But the air forces, during all their useful missions, were themselves in need of protection, and there must be no enemy airplanes about if they were to make their observations in security. But how to rid them of these enemies, and render the latter incapable of harm? Here the air cavalry, the airplanes built for distant scouting and combats, intervened. The safety of observation machines could only be insured by long-distance protection, that is to say, by aërial patrols taking the offensive, not by a solitary guard, too often disappointing, and ineffective against a resolute adversary. Their safety near to the army could be guaranteed only by carrying the aërial struggle over into the enemy’s lines and preventing all raids upon our own. The groups belonging to our fighting escadrilles on both banks of the Somme achieved this result.
The one-seated Nieuport, rapid, easily managed, with high ascensional speed, and capable, by its solid construction and air-piercing power, of diving from a height upon an enemy and falling upon him like a bird of prey, was then the chasing airplane par excellence, and remained so until the appearance of the terrible Spad, which made its début in the course of the Somme campaign, Guynemer and Corporal Sauvage piloting the first two of these machines in early September, 1916. They were armed with machine-guns, firing forward, and invariably connected with the direction of the machine’s motion. The Spad is an extraordinary instrument of attack, but its defense lies only in its capacity for rapid displacement and the swiftness of its evolutions. Its rear is badly exposed: its field of visibility is very limited at the sides, and objects can be seen only above and below,—below, minus the dead angle of the motor and the cock-pit. The pilot can easily lose sight of the airplanes in his own group or that of the enemy, so that if he is alone, he is in danger of being surprised. On the other hand, one condition of his own victory is to surprise the enemy, especially if he attacks a two-seated machine whose range of fire is much broader, or if he does not hesitate to choose his victim from among a group. The Spad pilot makes use of the sun, of fog, of clouds. He flies high in order to hold the advantage of being able to pounce down upon his enemy while the enemy approaches prudently, timidly, suspecting no danger.
The battle of the Somme was the most favorable for solitary airplanes, or airplanes coupled like hunting-dogs. Since then methods have changed, and the future belongs to fighting escadrilles or groups of machines. But at that time the one-seated airplane was king of the air. One of them was enough to intimidate enemy airplanes engaged in regulating artillery fire and in short-distance scouting, making them hesitate to leave their lines, and to frighten barrier patrols of two or even four two-seated airplanes, in spite of their shooting superiority, into turning back and disbanding. The one-seated enemy machines never ventured out except in groups, and even with the advantage of two against one refused to fight. So the one-seated French machine was obliged to fly alone, for if it was accompanied by patrols, the enemy fled and there was no one to attack; whereas, when free to maneuver at will, the solitary pilot could plan ruses, hide himself in the light or in the clouds, take advantage of the enemy’s blind sides, and carry out sudden destructive attacks which are impossible for groups. Our airmen never speak of the Somme without a smile of satisfaction: they have retained heroic memories of that campaign. Afterwards, the Germans drilled their one-seated or two-seated patrols, trained them in resistance to isolated attacks, and taught them in turn how to attack the solitary machine which had ventured out beyond its own lines. We were obliged to alter our tactics and adopt group formation. But the strongest types of our enemy-chasing pilots were revealed or developed during the battle of the Somme.
Moreover, our aviators at that time were incomparable; and in citing the most illustrious among them one risks injustice to their companions whose opportunities were less fortunate and whose exploits were less brilliant but not less useful. The cavalry, artillery, and infantry were drawn upon for recruits for the aviation branch of the army, and it appeared a difficult undertaking to fuse such different elements; but as all shared the same life and the same dangers, had similar tastes, and a passion for attaining the same result, and as their officers were necessarily recruited from among themselves, and chosen for services rendered, an atmosphere of camaraderie and friendly rivalry was created. A great novelist said that the origin of our friendships dates “from those hours at the beginning of life when we dream of the future in company with some comrade with the same ideals as our own, a chosen brother.”20 What difference does it make, then, if they depart in company for glory or for death? These young men gave themselves with the same willingness to the same service, a service full of constant danger. They were not gathered together by chance, but by their vocation and by selection, and they spoke the same language. For them, friendship easily became rivalry in courage and energy, and a school of mutual esteem, in which each strove to outdo the other. Friendship kept them alert, drove away inertia and weakness, and they became confident and generous, so that each rejoiced in the success of the others. In the mountains, on the sea, in every place where men feel most acutely their own fragility, such friendship is not rare; but war brings it to perfection.
The patrols of the Storks Escadrille, in the beginning of the Somme campaign, consisted of a single airplane, or airplanes in couples. Guynemer, whom everybody called “the kid,” always took Heurtaux with him when he carried a passenger; for Heurtaux, as blond as Guynemer was brown, thin and slender, very delicate and young, seemed to give Guynemer the rights of an elder. Heurtaux was the Oliver of this Roland. In character and energy they were the same. Dorme used to take Deullin with him, or de la Tour. Or the choice was made alternately. This was the quartet of whom the enemy had cause to beware, and woe to the Boche who met any one of them! There was at that time at Bapaume a group of five one-seated German machines which never maneuvered singly. If they perceived a pair of Nieuports, they immediately tacked about and fled in haste. But if one of our chasers was cruising alone, the whole group attacked him. Heurtaux, attacked in this way, had been compelled to dive and land, and on his return had to submit to the jests of Guynemer, for at that age friendship is roughish. “Go there yourself,” advised Heurtaux, “and you will see.” Next day Guynemer went alone, but in his turn was forced down. After these two trials, which might have ended in disaster—but knights must amuse themselves—the five one-seated planes at Bapaume were methodically but promptly beaten down.
Friendship demands equality between souls. If one has to protect the other, if one is manifestly superior, it is no longer friendship. In the Storks Escadrille friendship reigned in peace in the midst of war, so surely did each take his turn in surpassing the others. Which one was, finally, to be the greatest, not because of the number of his mentions, nor his renown or public fame, but according to the testimony of his comrades—the surest and most clearsighted of testimony—for no one can deceive his peers? Would it be the cold and calm Dorme, who went to battle as a fisher goes to his nets, who never spoke of his exploits, and whose heart, under this modest, gentle, kind exterior, was filled with hatred for the invader who occupied his own countryside, Briey, and for six months had held in custody and ill-treated his parents? In the Somme battle alone his official victories numbered seventeen, but the enemy could recount many others, doubtless, for this silent, well-balanced young man possessed quite improbable audacity. He would fly more than fifteen or twenty kilometers above the German lines, perfectly tranquil under the showers of shells which rose from the earth. At such a distance within their lines the Boche airplanes thought themselves safe when, suddenly, du Sud ou du Septentrion, appeared this knightly hero. And he would return smilingly, as fresh as when he had started out. It was only with difficulty that a very brief statement could then be extracted from him. His machine would be inspected, and not a trace of any fragment found; he might have been a tourist returning from a promenade. In more than a hundred combats his airplane received only three very small wounds. His cleverness in handling his machine was incredible: his close veering, his twistings and turnings, made it impossible for the adversary to shoot. He also knew how to quit the combat in time, if his own maneuvers had not succeeded. He seemed invulnerable. But later, much later, while he was fighting on the Aisne in May, 1917, Dorme, who had penetrated far within the enemy’s lines, never came back.
Was Heurtaux the greatest, whose method was as delicate as himself—a virtuoso of the air, clever, supple and quickwitted, whose hand and eye equaled his thought in rapidity? Was it Deullin, skilled in approach, and prompt as the tempest? Or the long-enduring, robust, admirable sous-lieutenant Nungessor, or Sergeant Sauvage, or Adjutant Tarascon? Was it Captain Ménard, or Sangloer, or de la Tour? But the reader knows very well that it was Guynemer. Why was it Guynemer, according to the testimony of all his rivals? History and the epic have coupled many names of friends, like Achilles and Patroclus, Orestes and Pylades, Nisus and Euryalus, Roland and Oliver. In these friendships, one is always surpassed by the other, but not in intelligence, nor courage nor nobility of character. For generosity, or wisdom of council, one might even prefer a Patroclus to an Achilles, an Oliver to a Roland. In what, then, lies the superiority? That is the secret of temperament, the secret of genius, the interior flame which burns the brightest, and whose appearances cause astonishment and almost terror, as if some mystery were divulged.
It is certain that Georges Guynemer was a mechanician and a gunsmith. He knew his machine and his machine-gun, and how to make them do their utmost. But there were others who knew the same. Dorme and Heurtaux were perhaps more skillful in maneuvering than he. (It was interesting to watch Guynemer when he was preparing to mount his Nieuport. First the bird was brought out of the shed; then he minutely examined and fingered it. This tall thin young man, with his amber-colored skin, his long oval face and thin nose, his mouth with its corners falling slightly, a very slight moustache, and crow-black hair tossed backward, would have resembled a Moorish chief had he been more impassive. But his features constantly showed his changing thoughts, and this play of expression gave grace and freshness to his face. Sometimes it seemed strained and hardened, and a vertical wrinkle appeared on his forehead above the nose. His eyes—the unforgettable eyes of Guynemer—round like agates, black and burning with a brilliance impossible to endure, for which there is only one expression sufficiently strong, that of Saint-Simon concerning some personage of the court of Louis XIV: “The glances of his eyes were like blows”—pierced the sky like arrows, when his practiced ear had heard the harsh hum of an enemy motor. In advance he condemned the audacious adversary to death, seeming from a distance to draw him into the abyss, like a sorcerer.)
After examining his machine he put on his fur-lined combinaison over his black coat, and his head-covering, the passe-montagne, fitting tightly over his hair, and framing the oval of his face, and over this his leather helmet. Plutarch spoke of the terrible expression of Alexander when he went to battle. Guynemer’s face, when he rose for a flight, was appalling.
What did he do in the air? His flight journals and statements tell the story. On each page, a hundred times in succession, and several times on a page, his flight notebooks contain the short sentences which seem to bound from the paper, like a dog showing its teeth: “I attack... I attack... I attack....” At long intervals, as if ashamed, appears the phrase: “I am attacked.” On the Somme more than twenty victories were credited to him, and to these should be added, as in the case of Dorme, others taking place at too great distances to receive confirmation. In the first month of the Somme battle, on September 13, 1916, the Storks Escadrille, Captain Brocard, was mentioned before the army: “Has shown unequaled energy and devotion to duty in the operations of Verdun and the Somme, waging, from March 19 to August 19, 1916, 338 combats, bringing down 36 airplanes, 3 drachen, and compelling 36 other badly damaged airplanes to land.” Captain Brocard dedicated this mention to Lieutenant Guynemer, writing under it: “To Lieutenant Guynemer, my oldest pilot, and most brilliant Stork. Souvenir of gratitude and warmest friendship.” And all the pilots of the escadrille, in turn, came to sign it. His comrades had often seen what he did in the air.
When Guynemer came back and landed, what a spectacle! Although a victor, his face was not appeased. It was never to be appeased. He never was satisfied, never waged enough battles, never burned or destroyed enough enemies. When he landed he was still under the influence of nervous effort, and seemed as if electrified by the fluid still passing through his frame. However, his machine bore traces of the struggle: four bullets in the wing, the body, and the elevator. And he himself was grazed by the missiles, his combinaison scratched and the end of his glove torn. By what miracle had he escaped?—He had passed through encircling death as a man leaps through a hoop.
His method was one of the wildest temerity and impetuosity, and can be recommended to nobody. The number and strength of the enemy, so far from repelling, attracted him. He flew to vertiginous heights, and taking his place in the sunshine, watched and waited. In an attack he did not make use of the aërial acrobatic maneuvers with which, however, he was perfectly familiar. He struck without delay,—what is known in fencing as the cut direct. Without trying to maintain his machine within his adversary’s dead angles, he fell on him as a stone falls. He shot as near to the enemy as he could, at the risk of being shot first himself, and even of interlocking their machines, though in that respect the sureness of his maneuvering sufficed to disengage him. If he failed to take the enemy by surprise, he did not quit the combat as prudence exacted; but returned to the charge, refusing to unhook his clutch from the enemy airplane, and held him, and wanted him, and got him.
His passion for flying never diminished. On rainy days, when it was unreasonable and useless to attempt to fly, he wandered around the sheds where the winged horses took their repose. He could not resist it: he entered, and mounted his own machine, settling himself in his cock-pit and handling the controls, holding mysterious conferences with his faithful steed.
In the air, he had a higher power of resistance than the most robust men. This frail, sickly Guynemer, twice refused by the army because of feebleness of constitution, never gave up. In proportion as the requirements of aviation became more severe, as the higher altitudes reached made it more exhausting, Guynemer seemed to prolong his flights to the point where overwork and nervous depression compelled him to go away and take a little rest—which made him suffer still more. And suddenly, before he had taken the necessary repose, he threw it off like ballast, and returning to camp, reappeared in the air, like the falcon in the legend of Saint Julien the Hospitaller: “The bold bird rose straight in the air like an arrow, and there could be seen two spots of unequal size which turned and joined, and then disappeared in the heights of heaven. The falcon soon descended, tearing some bird to pieces, and returned to his perch on the gauntlet, with his wings quivering.”21 Thus the victorious Guynemer came back, quivering, to the aviation field. Truly, a god possessed him.
Apart from all that, he was just a boy, simple, gay, tender, and charming.
Notes
19 “Once knightly heroes wandered over earth....”
20 Paul Bourget, Une Idylle tragique.
21 Flaubert.