The hero of our story is Ihsan Hasan Turjman (1893-1917), an ordinary recruit in the Ottoman military headquarters in Jerusalem. His life was short and uneventful, having served as a clerk in the Logistics Department (manzil), and briefly as a foot soldier in Nablus and Hebron. Still, Ihsan's observations on the impact of successive military events on his relationship to his city and his nation are without parallel. The power of these diaries lie in their exposure of the texture of daily life, long-buried within the political rhetoric of nationalist discourse, and in their restoration of a world that was subsequently hidden by denigration of the Ottoman past: the life of communitarian alleys, of obliterated neighbourhoods, of heated political debates projecting possibilities that no longer exist, and the voices of soldiers, peddlers, prostitutes, and vagabonds silenced by elite memoirs. By the third year of the war, the diaries project a desperate search for normalcy in daily life - a normalcy experienced in pre-war Ottoman Palestine, but which eluded its citizens for the following hundred years.
The Great War brought about a radical break with the Ottoman past in the whole Arab East, not only in the established constitutional regime, but also in the system of governance, local administration, and identity politics. 1915 was the Year of the Locust ('am al-Jarad) in the popular memory of peasants and city folk alike. The locust invasion continues to evoke, four generations later, the combined memory of natural disasters and the man-made devastation of war. The consequence was the erasure of four centuries of a rich and complex Ottoman patrimony in which popular narratives of war and nationalist ideology colluded.
- - -
The war also contributed to redefining the nature of the state and its relationship to its subjects. In the case of Palestine, the war was a watershed, separating the country from Syrian expanses and bringing British colonial rule, thereby creating new borders, new citizenship, and new forms of national consciousness.
- - -
In Palestine (which was the southern part of the Ottoman Shami provinces), the war transformed the country into one major construction site. The equivalent Syrian and Palestinian Work Battalions (tawabeer al-amale in Arabic, or amele taburlar? in Turkish) were mobilized by the Ottoman Corps of Army Engineers to substantially modernize the communication and transportation system. Many features of Palestine's modernity attributed to the British colonial administration seem to have been initiated by the Ottomans in this period. In the first work on modern history of Palestine in the new century (published in 1920), Khalil Totah and Omar Salih al-Barghouti discussed the major changes brought about by the technological exigencies of war. Water wells were drilled all over the country and linked through pipes to the major urban centres. Railroads linked the north of the country to the southern front; a network of telephones and telegraph lines connected the country to the outside world. Post offices, which originated in consular European services, were now unified and replaced by the Ottoman postal services; roads were expanded to allow the operation of military traffic and mechanized cars (automobiles and buses). Public hospitals, clinics and pharmacies were introduced in all provinces to combat the malaria, cholera and typhus epidemics that sprung up during the war. In those construction projects, the conscript battalions were crucial instruments. They were recruited from among released prisoners, villages chosen by lottery, and the ranks of the urban poor (in other words, minority groups who were deemed by the Ottomans as unreliable for the front). In this regard it is important to distinguish between the organization and functions of the 'volunteer' conscripts (Labour Battalions) and the conscript army (nizamiyyah) who undertook most of the fighting on the front.
Nevertheless, the emancipatory features of war affected both categories of soldiers, the regulars and the 'volunteers'. They both experienced army discipline in military camps, both were uprooted from their traditional communities and travelled throughout the empire for the first time, and both came in contact with 'ethnic others' in the imperial army: Turks, Kurds, Syrians, Albanians and Bulgarians - as well as Austrian and German officers from the ranks of the European Allies.
- - -
In Jerusalem and Jaffa (as in Beirut, Aleppo and Damascus) nightclubs and bordellos became available to members of the armed forces under the legal regulation of the state.
- - -
On the Turkish side, there is also a re-examination of the issue of an Arab 'betrayal' of the Ottomans during the Arab Revolt of 1916-1917. Historian Gurcel Goncu noted recently that Arab recruits constituted about 300,000 soldiers, a third of the total Ottoman forces in 1914 - far more than the total number of soldiers who followed the banner of the Arab Revolt. In the 2004 ceremonies marking the 88th anniversary of the Ottoman victory at Gallipoli, the participation of individual soldiers from various countries, such as New Zealand, Australia, and other Western nations was duly noted, but not the impressive absence of soldiers from the Arab provinces, all of whom were subsumed under the Ottoman banner.
- - -
[...] victories are portrayed today as Turkish, not Ottoman, victories. This pattern is equally true for the battles of al-Arish, Suez, Gaza, Megiddo and Kut al-Amara, where native soldiers (i.e. Iraqi, Hijazi, Palestinian and Syrian recruits) constituted a large component of the Ottoman troops. In the diaries of the two soldiers - Mehmet (Muhammad) al-Fasih of Mersin and Ihsan al-Turjman of Jerusalem - this silencing of the ethnically-mixed army comes to light, but only as various nationalities' loyalty to the idea of Ottomanism begins to crack under the strain of the war.
Second Lieutenant Muhammad al-Fasih of Mersin and Private Ihsan al-Turjman from the old city of Jerusalem came from distant sides of the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire to join as soldiers in the Sultan's army, thereby encapsulating the manner in which the Great War transformed the lives of its citizens in two different directions - immersion into Republican Turkish nationalism for one, and Arab separatism for the other.
What was common to al-Fasih and Turjman was that they both kept a daily record of their war experiences, and in so doing preserved for posterity a vivid narrative of the great divide that separated the communitarian, multi-ethnic, imperial domain of the end of the nineteenth century from the nationalist era of the post WWI period. Both soldiers were born around 1893, and both were conscripted in July 1914 after the declaration of seferberlik, the general mobilization that brought Turkey into the war alongside Germany and the Central Alliance against Western Allies. Both came from middle or mercantile classes. Fasih's father was a customs clerk, while the elder Turjman was an old city merchant from a landed family that had lost the bulk of its wealth.
Two ordinary soldiers serving in the same imperial army and writing a daily diary is a unique phenomenon for this period of mass illiteracy. For these diaries to have survived and come to light almost a century after the event is quite exceptional, for even among the elite literati very few ventured to record their observations, and even fewer of those records became available to the public. The narratives of al-Fasih and Turjman are particularly valuable in that they recorded the impact of the war on their society, on their own psychological transformations, and the trauma it produced among their officers and comrades.
Unlike Turjman, who reveals that he spent the war years 'playing with my moustache' and using all his skills and family connections to evade being sent to the southern front in Suez, Muhammad al-Fasih was a decorated soldier who fought courageously in Gallipoli - and later in Gaza and Beersheba.
- - -
[...] one episode of his diaries when he wanted to cheer his comrades trapped in the trenches of Gallipoli, he sings Damascene songs in Arabic together with his fellow Mersini soldier Agati.
- - -
Martyrdom was the last item on Ihsan's mind. His main objective was to survive the war in order to marry his sweetheart, Suraya. Turjman was easygoing, nonchalant, and served in the army out of compulsion. He continuously questioned the political objectives of the war, and celebrated the defeat of his own leadership and their German allies. Nevertheless, both soldiers found solace in the camaraderie of the army.
- - -
Reflective intrusions are the exception in Fasih's writing. The thrust of his diary was to keep a record of military operations and his role in them. He is precise, matter of fact, and telegraphic in style. Turjman, by contrast, is mainly reflective, discursive, and meandering. His aim ostensibly is to find in his diary an intimate outlet for forbidden private thoughts, political and personal.
- - -
When the general mobilization was announced by Ottoman authorities in November 1914, Ihsan was conscripted and sent to central Palestine. He was on the verge of being sent to the Suez front in Sinai when he was transferred to serve in Jerusalem's military headquarters under the commander Ali Roshen Bey.
- - -
Ihsan served as a petty clerk at Roshen's headquarters. His main job was to review petitions for exemption from service, and file paper work within the Ottoman military bureaucracy. In that capacity, he was privy to political discussions that took place among Turkish, Albanian and Syrian officers in Palestine - as well as the occasional German visiting officers - and was able to observe the deteriorating mood of the rank and file. The significance of his diary, written daily by candlelight during the early war years, is that it reflects the cosmology of a 'middling' citizen of the city at the critical period of Palestine's history that ushered in the demise of four centuries of Ottoman rule and made possible an unknown future, as the British army advanced on Gaza and Beersheba from the South, and bombarded Jaffa and Haifa from the sea.
- - -
The Turjman diary opens with self-interrogation about the destiny of the Holy Land after the war. "I know that the days of this [Ottoman] state are numbered. There is no doubt that it is heading for dissolution sooner or later. But what will be the fate of Palestine after the war?" he wrote on 28 March, 1915.
- - -
It was the failure of the Suez campaign - in large part due to bad Turkish intelligence about the strength of pro-Ottoman forces in Egypt, as well as underestimation of the fighting capacities of Indian troops under British command and weak performance by Arab troops in Sinai - that unleashed Jamal Pasha's campaign of repression against the Arab nationalist movement in the spring of 1915.
- - -
In one episode Ihsan describes Jamal Pasha's wedding to a 'Jewish prostitute' from Jerusalem as an example of his favouritism. The reference here is to the commander's concubine Lea Tannenbaum whose family was active in the pro-Ottoman Red Crescent Society.
- - -
The pilgrims in Jerusalem are no happier than the pilgrims at Medina. The people of Jesus are as hungry as the people of Muhammad and are equally doomed to live in misery. The only difference is the majestic décor of the beggar in Jerusalem. Medina was an Asiatic bazaar which has turned religion into trade goods. Jerusalem is a Western theatre which has turned religion into a play... I thought the priests of the Holy Sepulcher were wearing false beards. When they bend down, one can see the bulge of their pistol-holsters beneath their robes.
- - -
Monday 10 July, 1916. No more crops in the city. Jerusalem has not seen more difficult days. Bread and wheat are not available anymore. The municipality until recently used to distribute free bread to the poor after nine o'clock, but not anymore. I remember going home from military headquarters at eleven o'clock [and] seeing a long line of women coming from the bakeries grabbing pieces of black bread the likes of which I have never seen. They used to fight over this bread and wait for it until midnight.
- - -
The record contains a wealth of observations about daily life in Jerusalem in 1915-1916; the reaction of the urban poor and artisans to deprivation; and the disasters that accompanied the locust attacks and the army's confiscation of property, means of transport and work animals. But the diary is also full of intimate social details about the soldier's private life: his love affair with a neighbouring woman; his daily visits to his teacher and mentor; his disgust at the debaucheries of his commanding officers; his constant (and failed) attempts to evade army service; the role of rumours in the life of the city; his detective work to uncover the identity of the thief that robbed his house, and his shame at discovering it was his cousins; his rift with his father and family on this subject; and the devastation caused by cholera, famine, locust attack, and the wholesale forced movement of population. Ihsan survives all of these disasters only to be shot fatally by an officer of the withdrawing Ottoman army in 1917. He does not live to see his 25th birthday.
Ihsan's world is permeated by war, and by impending catastrophe: his disrupted studies, scenes of disease and hunger in the streets; the absence of tobacco from stores; and his declining prospects for marriage to his beloved as his and his family's fortunes begins to dissipate. Ihsan's despair seems to echo William Pfaff's belief that "the moral function of war (has been) to recall humans to the reality at the core of existence: the violence that is part of our nature and is responsible for the fact that human history is a chronicle of tragedies".
Fonte:
http://www.palestine-studies.org/sites/default/files/jq-articles/30_tamari_1.pdf
Trechos de Saber Militar E Marxismo (1922), de Leon Trotsky (Lev Davidovich Bronstein).
Um dos oradores protestou contra a designação de arte conferida à atividade militar, baseando-se - vejam bem! - no fato de que a atividade militar não se submetia aos cânones da beleza. Trata-se do mais puro mal-entendido. O comércio, sobretudo na rua Soukharevska, não se submete certamente a critérios estéticos e, contudo, a arte do comércio existe. O comércio tem os seus próprios métodos complexos.
- - -
Não é possível, a partir da teoria de Darwin ou da lei da seleção natural, deduzir métodos de guerra, mas um responsável militar que estudou Darwin será, além de outras qualidades, mais instruído: será mais largo o seu horizonte, terá um maior espírito de oportunidade, observará aspectos da natureza e do homem que antes não via.
- - -
A história dos termos, das hipóteses e das teorias não substitui a própria ciência. A física é a física e a atividade militar é a atividade militar.
- - -
Li recentemente que, no tempo de Napoleão, o xadrez se baseava nas manobras - e assim continuou até meados do século XIX, para assim permanecer na época da paz armada - desde a guerra franco-prussiana até à última guerra imperialista - estritamente um jogo "de posição", ao passo que hoje parece ter-se tornado mais flexível e prestar-se às manobras. É pelo menos o que afirma um jogador americano.
- - -
A guerra é uma certa forma de relações entre as pessoas. Por conseguinte, os métodos e processos da guerra dependem das qualidades anatômicas e físicas do indivíduo, da forma de organização do homem coletivo, da sua técnica, da sua situação física, cultural e histórica, etc. Assim, os métodos e processos da guerra são definidos por condições mutáveis e é por isso que em caso nenhum podem ser eternos.
No entanto, é absolutamente evidente que há, nesses métodos e processos, elementos de maior ou menor estabilidade. Por exemplo, nos métodos da cavalaria, reencontraremos os elementos comuns à época de Aníbal, ou mesmo de uma época anterior. É evidente que os métodos de aviação são de origem mais recente. Nos métodos de infantaria, podemos reencontrar elementos comuns às ações das hordas e das tribos mais primitivas que se guerreavam antes mesmo de terem domesticado o cavalo. Enfim, nas operações militares em geral, podemos igualmente encontrar os processos mais elementares que são comuns aos homens e aos animais que se batem. Escusado será dizer que, nestes casos, também estamos perante "verdades eternas", isto é, de generalizações científicas decorrentes das propriedades da matéria, mas muito simplesmente de processos mais ou menos estáveis dum artesanato ou duma arte.
O conjunto dos "princípios militares" não forma uma ciência militar, pois esta última não existe - do mesmo modo que não há uma ciência de serralharia. Há toda uma série de ciências que o comandante militar deve conhecer, para se sentir absolutamente à vontade na sua arte. Mas a ciência militar não existe. Há, sim, um artesanato militar, que pode elevar-se até ao nível da arte militar.
- - -
Que gênero de verdades pode a história fornecer-nos? O papel e a importância do crescimento das cidades na Idade Média para o desenvolvimento da atividade militar, a invenção da arma de fogo, a queda do regime feudal e a importância dessa revolução para o exército, etc.
- - -
Os exércitos da infantaria alemã do século XV, os exércitos permanentes dos séculos XVII e XVIII e o exército nacional saído da Revolução Francesa correspondem a uma época determinada da evolução econômica e política e baseiam-se numa certa técnica, da qual dependem as estruturas e os métodos de ação. A história militar pode e deve determinar a interdependência social entre o exército e os métodos que ele utiliza. E que faz a filosofia militar? Regra geral, estuda os métodos e os processos utilizados no decurso do período anterior, que considera verdades eternas finalmente descobertas pela humanidade e que devem conservar a sua importância por todos os tempos e por todos os povos. Depois, apercebemo-nos de que esses métodos ou princípios foram já utilizados numa menor escala por Aníbal e César nas suas operações.
- - -
A ação do princípio "eterno" da livre concorrência levou, como é sabido, ao monopólio, à criação de poderosos trustes nacionais e mesmo internacionais. As pessoas que os dirigem têm perante si um campo de manobras estratégicas tal, que pode comparar-se ao teatro das operações militares da última Grande Guerra. É evidente que Rockefeller dispõe de uma extensão muito mais vasta para manifestar a sua "livre vontade" no domínio da construção econômica do que qualquer industrial ou comerciante de há 50 ou 100 anos. Mas Rockefeller não é uma violação arbitrária das leis de Manchester; é, sim, o seu produto histórico e, ao mesmo tempo, a sua viva negação.
Do personagem de barbicha de Gogol até ao bem barbeado Rockefeller, cada industrial ou comerciante possui as suas verdadezinhas eternas para as operações comerciais: "Não se vende sem enganar", etc. - até aos cálculos mais complicados do truste do petróleo.
- - -
Cientificamente concebida, a história militar estuda as características típicas da organização do exército e da guerra, numa época determinada, em interdependência com o regime social - mas de modo nenhum ensina, nem pode ensinar, como edificar a artilharia e como garantir a vitória.
A arte militar do nosso tempo está resumida nos regulamentos. Estes exprimem a essência da experiência passada, transformada em moeda utilizável para amanhã. É um conjunto de processos artesanais ou artísticos. E, do mesmo modo que o conjunto dos manuais de organização das empresas industriais, de cálculo, de contabilidade e de correspondência comercial não forma uma ciência do regime capitalista, o conjunto das instruções, das ordens e dos regulamentos militares, não pode também formar uma ciência militar.
Para nos convencermos de quão grandes são a confusão e a contradição, no plano dos chamados princípios eternos da atividade militar (que são também as leis da ciência militar), consideremos o livro do maior chefe militar vitorioso da nossa época, o marechal [Ferdinand] Foch - 'Os Princípios da Guerra'.
Na sua introdução de 1905, apoiando-se nas primeiras informações sobre a guerra russo-japonesa, Foch escreve: "A ofensiva manobrista vence, finalmente, todas as resistências." Foch considerava esta ideia uma das verdades eternas da arte militar, opondo-se - diga-se de passagem - a alguns dos nossos inovadores, que veem na estratégia ofensiva de manobra características próprias da guerra revolucionária. Veremos mais tarde que ambos os pontos de vista são falsos: enganam-se, tanto Foch, que considera a ofensiva manobrista um princípio eterno, como os camaradas que nela descobrem um princípio específico do Exército Vermelho.
- - -
É evidente que, nestes planos [leis anatômicas ou psicológicas], a mudança não é tão radical. Um grego ou um troiano de coração trespassado morria como morrem os nossos soldados. A base fundamental psicofisiológica e anatômica do ser humano não mudou lá muito. Inútil dizer que as leis da natureza são as mesmas. Mas mudou radicalmente a interdependência do ser humano e da natureza. O meio artificial que o homem coletivo estabeleceu entre ele e a natureza - instrumentos, máquinas - desenvolveu-se tanto e tão bem que transformou completamente os processos de trabalho, e sua organização, bem como as relações sociais. Sem dúvida nenhuma, desde a época de Troia, os grupos humanos (nações e classes) conservaram sempre esta aspiração a aniquilar-se, a vencerem-se e a conquistarem-se uns aos outros. O meio artificial ou a técnica humana - no sentido mais lato da palavra - transformaram a guerra, bem como todas as outras relações humanas. É verdade que, já na época do cerco de Troia, não se atingia essa finalidade apenas com unhas e dentes, mas também graças a instrumentos artificiais que o homem colocava entre ele e o adversário. Esta base mais vasta permanece imutável. Por outras palavras - a guerra é um afrontamento hostil entre grupos humanos, armados de instrumentos de morte e de extermínio, que tem por finalidade conseguir, graças à força física, a dominação do grupo inimigo.
- - -
Não se pode, evidentemente, falar-se de guerra, porque o afrontamento, na floresta, de dois dos nossos remotos antepassados, quando se atiravam um contra o outro por causa de uma fêmea, nada pode ter de comum com a arte militar, no sentido indicado pelos "princípios eternos". Assim, é preciso logo de início reduzir a eternidade da arte militar, abrindo-lhe uma conta corrente a partir do momento em que o homem se ergueu solidamente sobre as suas patas traseiras, se armou de um pau e começou a agir coletivamente, tanto no combate como na economia, em destacamentos de estruturas ainda não solidamente estabelecidas.
Von der Golz, e Foch depois dele, reconhecem que os fatores estudados pela arte militar mudam (pau, espingarda, espingarda automática, pistola, metralhadora, etc.), mas os princípios da arte permanecem - se não eternos, pelo menos invariáveis desde que a guerra existe.
- - -
Foch prediz que "no decurso da próxima guerra, as primeiras operações militares serão decisivas" (pág. 10). De acordo com esta opinião, Foch conclui "que ela (a próxima guerra) não poderá durar muito tempo e que será necessário fazê-la com uma rude energia, para atingir rapidamente a sua finalidade, sem o que ela não terá nenhum resultado" (pág. 38).
Basta, de fato, citar estas conclusões para que os princípios eternos de Foch pareçam bastante lastimáveis a nossos olhos, à luz dos acontecimentos ulteriores.
Durante a última guerra, depois das tentativas ofensivas, que muito caro lhe custaram, o exército francês passa à defesa posicional.
- os insucessos iniciais não determinaram o resultado da guerra, contrariamente às previsões de Foch;
- a guerra durou quatro anos;
- no seu conjunto, a guerra conservou sempre um caráter posicional que se estendeu às trincheiras;
- o primeiro período de campanha de manobra provou, simplesmente, a necessidade de se entranhar na terra;
- o último período de campanha não fez mais do que confirmar o que as trincheiras já tinham provado: o esgotamento das forças de resistência da Alemanha.
- - -
Como pudemos ver, não foi feliz a tentativa de eternizar os princípios napoleônicos. Provou-o a guerra imperialista. Não poderia ser de outra maneira.
- - -
Durante a última guerra imperialista, nenhuma das duas partes era portadora dum novo princípio, encarnado por uma nova classe revolucionária. A guerra tinha, de ambos os lados, um caráter imperialista. Mas ao mesmo tempo, ameaçava em igual medida a existência das duas partes, nomeadamente da França e da Alemanha. O golpe fulminante que teria provocado a imediata desmoralização e baixa do moral no outro campo não foi nem poderia ser bem sucedido, devido à grande força material e humana dos dois campos que gradualmente punham em jogo todas as suas forças e todos os seus meios. Por isso é que, contrariamente às previsões de Foch, as primeiras operações em nada determinaram o resultado da guerra. Por isso, cada ofensiva se quebrava contra outra ofensiva e os exércitos, sustentados pelas retaguardas, se enterravam. Foi também por isso que a guerra durou tanto tempo - até ao esgotamento dos recursos materiais e morais de uma das partes. Assim, a guerra imperialista travou-se, do início ao fim, em contradição com o princípio "eterno" da manobra ofensiva, decretado por Foch. Esta circunstância é ainda sublinhada pelo fato de que Foch venceu contra os seus próprios princípios. Para o explicar, é preciso lembrar que, se os princípios de Foch jogavam contra ele, ele tinha, aliás, a seu favor os soldados ingleses e americanos e principalmente as munições, os tanques e os aviões anglo-americanos.
Fonte:
http://www.marxists.org/portugues/trotsky/1922/05/08.htm
Mais:
http://docs.google.com/file/d/1QiCzgtSzLUg-mg_dDXlNyQjivCpyjgr8
http://archive.org/details/RedTerrorInRussia1918-1923
A finales de 1917 el Imperio Alemán había perdido la guerra submarina, la gran esperanza del Alto Mando para triunfar antes de la llegada de Estados Unidos. Por suerte para ellos, Rusia estaba casi fuera de juego, ofreciendo un relativo descanso en el frente oriental. Los Aliados no iban a mover ficha hasta que llegaran los soldados estadounidenses (a partir de primavera), una situación propicia para que Alemania preparara una ofensiva total, un último cartucho del que dependía su futuro, de fallar, Alemania estaría perdida.
En el frente interno alemán las cosas no pintaban bien, aunque las presiones reformistas estaban ligeramente controladas, sin una victoria que mejorase la perspectiva o acabara con la guerra en 1918, las cosas se les iban a complicar. Una propuesta de paz con concesiones (liberando Bélgica) no era discutible, porque la posición alemana se estropearía demasiado de cara a los ciudadanos y al resto de estados, mostrando debilidad. La única forma que el militarismo veía de asegurar el futuro alemán pasaba por demostrar fuerza. Esta demostración debía ejecutarse con rapidez, no sólo para aprovechar el parón de los Aliados, el clamor por las reformas se extendía poco a poco, las revueltas por la escasez de alimentos se hacían habituales y la economía empezaba a ir cada vez peor (si no fuese por la declinación de Rusia, seguramente se habrían quedado sin materiales de guerra para todos los frentes).
El mal momento ruso liberó a muchas divisiones para ser enviadas al frente occidental (hasta marzo se pensaba que Rusia podría volver a la guerra, o al menos intentarlo). Volvieran los rusos o no a mandar a sus ejércitos, las extensas conquistas alemanas en el este no se mantendrían solas, fue necesaria una fuerte presencia militar en la franja conquistada de Lituania al sur de Polonia, que los alemanes pretendían usar como cinturón de seguridad ante el bolchevismo. De todos modos, Ludendorff pudo desviar las suficientes tropas como para tener 191 divisiones en el frente occidental contra las 178 de los aliados. Por primera vez desde 1914 los alemanes tuvieron superioridad numérica en el oeste, aunque no la suficiente como para comenzar un ataque total en toda la línea de trincheras.
LA KAISERSCHLACHT
El ataque del Alto Mando alemán, llamado Kaiserschlacht (batalla del Káiser), tenía previsto asestar una cadena de golpes contundentes en zonas críticas, con la esperanza de doblegar la voluntad de los gobiernos Aliados. La ofensiva iba a durar mucho tiempo en esa cadena de fuertes ataques, pero Ludendorff esperaba que fuese suficiente para salir con ventaja de 1918 y poder conseguir una paz sin concesiones en 1919.
- - -
Las técnicas que vamos a explicar ahora no eran nuevas, partían de ensayos realizados el año anterior tanto en Cambrai como en Caporetto. En estas ofensivas, ambos bandos usaron nuevas técnicas con las que conseguían un avance más rápido utilizando todo el potencial de artillería de una forma mucho más estudiada, tratando no sólo de conquistar más territorio en menos tiempo, sino de gestionar mejor los recursos. Bruchmüller, comandante de artillería en el frente oriental, perfeccionó estos métodos durante la toma de Riga en septiembre de 1917. Tanto entusiasmo generó Bruchmüller en Ludendorff y Hindenburg, que fue nombrado comandante de artillería del sector norte del frente occidental, y se pasaron directrices teóricas basadas en su método al resto de artilleros.
Las cortinas de fuego de artillería eran más breves e intensas y mucho mejor preparadas para descargar toda la potencia por sorpresa (gracias a la mejora del reconocimiento con aviones y del estudio de la trayectoria de los proyectiles con viento). Pero lo más importante de estas cortinas es que se hacían en profundidad con la idea de paralizar una gran parte de las líneas enemigas más que destruirlas, atacando puestos de mando y comunicación, zonas de artillería y nidos de ametralladora para causar el caos organizativo.
Cuando la cortina acababa un gran segmento del frente enemigo era incapaz de reorganizarse, sin comunicaciones, con parte de la artillería inutilizada y sin la capacidad de enviar refuerzos a la primera línea. Este tipo de bombardeo ahorraba proyectiles de gran calibre ya que se usaba mucho gas sobre la artillería (se la inutilizaba sin visibilidad) y la infantería, y dejaba el terreno menos dañado, con lo que el avance era mucho más fácil para las tropas. Aunque mejor gestionado y con menos uso de proyectiles de gran calibre, el ataque era más terrorífico. Se usaba primero un gas para causar asfixia, y después un gas lacrimógeno diseñado para irritar hasta el punto de que los soldados se quitaban las máscaras de gas desesperados.
Una vez terminado el fuego de artillería, avanzaban las tropas de asalto con una nueva técnica perfeccionada desde 1916, especialmente en le frente oriental. Las tropas avanzaban protegidas por una cobertura de artillería móvil. Primero iban tropas especiales de asalto, cargando en trineos ametralladoras, morteros portátiles y lanzallamas. Esta infantería debía aislar los puntos fuertes de la línea enemiga para luego destruirlos, despejando el camino para las oleadas de la infantería regular. Entre ambos tipos de tropas debían llegar lo más lejos y lo más rápido que pudiesen.
EL PRIMER ATAQUE
La primera parte del plan de Ludendorff se ejecutó cerca de San Quintín, una zona próxima al punto donde se unían las líneas británicas y francesas. El plan era hacer recular a los británicos, separarlos de los franceses y acorralarlos en los puertos del Canal de la Mancha. Con esto podrían enviar a Gran Bretaña de vuelta a sus islas, evitar la llegada de estadounidenses y dejar a los franceses defendiendo París completamente solos (como ocurrió 22 años después). Era un plan factible porque las defensas de británicos y franceses estaban mal coordinadas y vivían con el temor de ser derrotados antes de que llegaran los norteamericanos (que ya estaban llegando pero no estaban preparados), el problema es que tras San Quintín estaba el Somme, un vasto territorio por el que era muy complicado avanzar.
El sector británico estaba de hecho peor defendido que el francés, gracias a la gestión interaliada y la británica. Los franceses defendían un mayor tramo de territorio, en el pasado habían sufrido Verdún en solitario y con todo tuvieron que contribuir en la ofensiva del Somme. Llegados a 1918 pensaron que esta situación era injusta, así que decidieron, en el consejo interaliado que se había creado el año anterior, aumentar el tramo que los británicos tenían que defender, aunque estos tuvieran menos hombres. Al gobierno británico le pareció bien, de este modo Haig no lanzaría contraofensivas peligrosas, asegurando una participación británica en el conflicto a largo plazo. Con esta papeleta, Douglas Haig pidió con desesperación nuevos efectivos que apenas llegaron, su petición era lógica porque tenía más territorio que defender, contaba con menos hombres que el año anterior y el estado de las trincheras francesas que ahora tenía que ocupar era lamentable, pero su gobierno le quería dar los hombres justos para defender.
Ludendorff tuvo muy claro por dónde comenzar el ataque del mismo modo en que supo ocultarlo. Haig sabía que los alemanes preparaban una ofensiva desde enero, pero Ludendorff ordenó un bombardeo ligero y sistemático a lo largo de todo el frente para no dar pistas, mientras, las tropas y la artillería marchaban de noche para ocultar el rastro de sus grandes movimientos. Ya en marzo la aviación de reconocimiento británica dio el aviso de que los alemanes tramaban algo cerca de San Quintín, pero el Alto Mando británico pensaba que se trataría de un ataque de desgaste, no imaginaban el horror que se les venía encima.
El 21 de marzo comenzó la ofensiva, y en tan solo 4 días los alemanes recortaron una cuña de 65 kilómetros a las defensas británicas, que no estaban preparadas para el mayor ataque desde 1914. La cortina de fuego de artillería cogió tan de sorpresa a los británicos que nos han llegado testimonios de la singular violencia del ataque.
"Pareció como si las tripas de la tierra hubieran estallado, mientras que al otro lado de la colina se veía un destello amarillo largo y continuo. Fue el carácter repentino lo que más chocó, al no haber un lanzamiento preliminar de bombas, sino solo un enorme tumulto instantáneo."
Fueron unos días de angustia entre los Aliados. Las trincheras británicas quedaron separadas porque el V ejército británico se retiró a toda prisa al otro lado del Somme mientras que el III, a la izquierda del V, pudo resistir con unas defensas mejores. El resultado fue que el V ejército creó un corredor de unos 70 kilómetros de anchura, separando virtualmente el sector francés del británico. Del 21 de marzo al 3 de abril los Aliados se temieron lo peor, aunque al final tomaron las decisiones necesarias para que los ejércitos no separaran. Haig estaba dispuesto a retirarse a los puertos del Canal, y Pétain pensó por encima de todo en defender París, retrasando todo lo posible los refuerzos (acordados) a los británicos en caso de que los alemanes les atacaran.
Entre todo este desacuerdo finalmente ninguno fue presa del pánico, y el 25 de marzo en Doullens, cerca de la batalla, Foch se convirtió en el Comandante General de ambos ejércitos, aunque no tenía Estado Mayor y tanto Pétain como Haig podían recurrir ante sus gobiernos si la petición de Foch no era satisfactoria.
- - -
Curiosamente, mientras los Aliados trataban de reencontrarse con el entusiasmo, los alemanes perdieron fuelle. Necesitaban una movilidad mucho mayor de la que disponían para avanzar rápidamente hasta poner en jaque a los Aliados. Tras la primera y efectiva embestida alemana, lo que las tropas se encontraron fueron las tierras del Somme, por las que avanzar era un calvario tras 2 años de bombardeos. Para superar este terreno tenían caballos y 23.000 camiones (y ferrocarriles construidos sobre la marcha) frente a los 100.000 vehículos de los Aliados. Se demostró insuficiente para que la artillería siguiera el ritmo de la infantería, que se encontró a veces sola contra un enemigo mucho mejor defendido. Las nuevas técnicas de infiltración no se siguieron siempre al pie de la letra y el cansancio llevó a muchos soldados al hacinamiento en los depósitos de alimentos enemigos.
Ludendorff conocía de sobra la situación en la que se encontraba su ataque. La franja por la que sus tropas penetraron no era la que más le interesaba para virar hacia los puertos del canal, y a pesar de todo lo intentó. Quizás no con buen criterio, cambió de idea demasiadas veces, su evidente nerviosismo fue fatal para sus subordinados y sus tropas, pero justificable, se jugaba ganar o perder. Al final consiguió una conquista territorial que no suponía gran cosa a pesar de lo aparatoso del avance, ni siquiera podía amenazar Amiens desde allí y el 5 de abril canceló la ofensiva para llevarse todo su potencial al norte, donde una delgada línea de infantería británica, sin asistencia de los franceses, separaba a los alemanes de los puertos del canal.
EL SEGUNDO ATAQUE
Haig esperó que el Jefe del Estado Mayor alemán intentara un ataque más al norte, insistiendo en desplegar todo su potencial en la zona que creía más débil para empujar a los británicos a replegarse hacia sus costas. El ataque se fijó el 9 de abril en el valle de Lys, al sur de Ypres, ante una delgadísima línea británica cuyas mejores divisiones habían sido enviadas al Somme para defender el anterior ataque. Ludendorff atacó de nuevo el sector peor protegido, cuando Haig lo esperaba un poco más al norte. Los alemanes reconquistaron todo el territorio que a los británicos les costó 3 largos meses conseguir el año anterior.
Las divisiones británicas no habían aguantado del todo mal, pero un trecho de la línea estaba defendida por unidades portuguesas que no aguantaron tan bien el tipo, y los británicos se vieron de nuevo en un aprieto. El 19 de abril llegaron refuerzos británicos y franceses, que lograron repeler entre todos el feroz envite alemán, hasta que el 29 de abril Ludendorff dio por finalizado el segundo ataque. Entre ambas operaciones había causado 358.000 bajas a los aliados, capturado cañones y hecho prisioneros, mientras que los los alemanes habían perdido a 348.000 entre heridos y muertos. Es cierto que en cuestión de semanas había recortado una cantidad de territorio insultante para lo que había sido la guerra hasta entonces, pero los objetivos primordiales de sus ataques no se habían cumplido en ningún caso. Entretanto, los soldados estadounidenses ya entraban al ritmo de más de 200.000 efectivos al mes en las costas francesas (la mayoría con necesidad de un adiestramiento intensivo), junto a a los valiosos suministros. Al mismo tiempo, en Berlín y en las trincheras alemanas, la comida era cada día más escasa.
- - -
EL TERCER ATAQUE
Aunque la Kaiserschlacht mostraba ya evidencias de fracaso (los dos primeros golpes fallaron en lo más importante y el tercero se retrasó un mes), el Alto Mando alemán continuó mientras pudo con la ofensiva.
- - -
Las cosas en el frente alemán no estaban demasiado bien. A estas alturas muchas tropas estaban desmoralizadas, habían entendido que tanto esfuerzo y territorio conquistado no había servido para nada, la alimentación cada vez era peor (aunque no dejaban de llegar municiones) y las deserciones empezaban a ser habituales. El último cartucho alemán estaba casi consumido, sin embargo, la última parte de la ofensiva fue la que más cerca estuvo de tener éxito.
Ludendorff decidió intentar una ofensiva más al sur, cerca del Aisne, si le salía bien podría apostar sus cañones de largo alcance y bombardear París, ciudad que estaba mal defendida. Los dirigentes franceses no hicieron caso a los evidentes preparativos del ataque, pensando que era una maniobra de distracción. El 27 de mayo los alemanes dispararon en una cortina de fuego de artillería 2 millones de proyectiles durante 4 horas. En una mañana desintegraron la línea Aliada y avanzaron 20 kilómetros. En junio los alemanes habían vuelto al Marne 4 años después, con París a 90 kilómetros por carretera, apostaron los cañones en Soissons y comenzaron el bombardeo de la capital francesa.
Una vez más, cuanto más éxito estaba teniendo la ofensiva alemana, más fuelle perdía. Cuando los alemanes tomaron posiciones en el Marne, los refuerzos de Foch llegaron para mantener la línea ya con la inestimable ayuda de los estadounidenses (dos de sus divisiones combatían junto a los franceses para hacerse a las formas de guerra, mientras al resto los instruían los británicos). Con el Marne seguro, Pétain organizó una contraofensiva aprovechando los salientes del terreno, en los que pudo crear un anillo protector en el que acumular tropas hasta lanzar la contraofensiva y frenar definitivamente el avance. El 2 de junio frenaron la ofensiva alemana y los estadounidenses se probaron como bravos combatientes, lo que tuvo un impacto psicológico significativo.
EL CUARTO ATAQUE
Los siguientes días de junio fueron muy duros para Ludendorff. Los Aliados habían frenado sus anteriores ataques en los que, además de no conseguir ningún objetivo principal, había perdido una cantidad inestimable de vidas. Necesitaba actuar antes de que los norteamericanos tuvieran a todos sus efectivos listos para el combate, de lo contrario, con sus tropas reducidas en número y exhaustas, la guerra estaba perdida.
El nuevo ataque se programó para el 9 de junio y su objetivo era acercarse más a París, creando una desbandada del calibre de las anteriores. Pero la gripe española se extendió en el frente, y el ejército alemán la sufrió más al estar peor alimentado. Tampoco hicieron mucho por ocultar su ataque y los desertores no tuvieron reparos en dar todos los detalles que conocían de la operación.
El 9 de junio, los Aliados habían tomado buena nota de los errores de las semanas anteriores. La defensa dispuesta en profundidad estaba preparada para el ataque estilo Bruchmüller, e incluso realizaron un contrabombardeo cuando las tropas de asalto alemanas atacaron. Embotellaron a los alemanes en la primera línea que habían asaltado y los contraatacaron por tres lados diferentes. El 11 de junio Ludendorff suspendió de nuevo el ataque. Durante estos meses, el Imperio Alemán había perdido casi un millón de hombres, el mismo número que los estadounidenses habían desembarcado. Seguían cerca de París, pero las tornas habían cambiado por completo.
Fonte:
http://reasilvia.com/2015/07/fin-primera-guerra-mundial-ofensiva-alemana
Mais:
http://docs.google.com/file/d/170XwXLyug5KH0w48mqAjSnY56PJN96MP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpWd7F3twZA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Gun
STORIAMESTRE
06/09/2014
Dal "Diario di un Imboscato" di Attilio Frescura
Riceviamo e pubblichiamo una nuova lettura sulla Prima Guerra Mondiale del nostro amico Davide Zotto.
(Davide Zotto)
Il revival del centenario della Prima Guerra Mondiale mi ha dato finalmente lo spunto per comprare e leggere un libro che avevo visto citato in varie occasioni e che mi aveva colpito per il titolo particolare. È un famoso libro di memorie della grande guerra: il Diario di un Imboscato di Attilio Frescura (1881-1943). Durante la guerra Frescura fu tenente ufficiale di comando, un ruolo che gli permise di trascorrere il periodo bellico nelle seconde linee. Non visse sulla propria pelle la trincea, ma vide - e nel diario raccontò - i feriti che tornavano dalla trincea e dagli "osservatòri" poté esaminare gli effetti devastanti del fuoco di interdizione. Un giorno un generale, saputo del suo incarico presso il comando, lo definì un "imboscato", da cui il titolo del diario. Nella prefazione alla prima edizione, uscita nel 1919, stampata dalla tipografia Galla di Vicenza, Frescura sottolinea come "Il combattente abbia sempre qualcuno che è 'imboscato' rispetto a sé." E per mantenere questa posizione di privilegio un "imboscato" deve eseguire le direttive superiori: il giudice deve comminare la fucilazione e il censore non può esimersi dal denunciare.
Quando uscì, il libro suscitò forti polemiche e le 2500 copie furono presto esaurite. Le due successive edizioni del 1920 e 1921 (pubblicate da altri editori) vennero purgate della vis polemica dell'autore, in particolare quella contro i giornalisti e la loro retorica militaresca. Solo nel 1930 venne edita (dall'editore Cappelli di Bologna) una nuova edizione, integrale a detta dell'autore, a "uso dei bibliofili", ma poi ristampata ancora nel 1934. Fu questa l'edizione che Ugo Mursia ripubblicò nel 1981, su suggerimento di Mario Rigoni Stern, che firmò l'introduzione. Rigoni Stern caldeggiò la pubblicazione perché aveva letto il Diario di un Imboscato da ragazzo, nonostante la proibizione paterna, e ne era rimasto colpito. Nella sua introduzione sottolinea come il testo fosse citato dagli storici, ma ormai sconosciuto al lettore comune. Per sottolineare il valore della testimonianza di Frescura, Rigoni Stern riprendeva il giudizio espresso da Mario Isnenghi nel suo I Vinti di Caporetto, uscito nel 1967: "[Frescura] Ha parlato a favore della guerra ma il suo Diario di un Imboscato è uno dei più puntigliosi nel documentare gli elementi di dissenso ed estraneità, che fanno dei soldati, rispetto a chi comanda e vuole la guerra, quasi gli abitanti di un altro pianeta."
La ricerca della battuta e dell'ironia è costante nella scrittura del diario. Nonostante sia stato all'origine un interventista, Frescura non affronta la guerra con spirito eroico, è conscio della propria paura di morire: è proprio per salvare la pelle - dice - che ha imparato anche "le pratiche d'ufficio".
La "pelle" è maestra d'ogni mestiere, di Attilio Frescura
- - -
1 marzo [1916]
È arrivata una brigata che ha in distribuzione una sola coperta. Qui fa un freddo cane e la coperta non basta.
Si sono chieste coperte all'ufficio di sanità, che ne ha in dotazione seimila; ma l'ufficio di sanità le ha negate: "Debbono servire per gli eventuali malati."
Ed ha ragione. È scritto.
I soldati prendano il freddo e una brava polmonite. Si ammalino, insomma. Allora l'ufficio di sanità darà le coperte ai malati.
E poi dicono che la burocrazia non è logica!
Ci può essere, è vero, un piccolo dubbio: le coperte sono fatte per i malati o si debbono fare i malati per le coperte?
- - -
1 maggio [1916]
È arrivato il generale Cadorna, che ha visitato il nostro fronte. A tavola, in risposta al brindisi del nostro generale, S. E. il generale Cadorna ha detto che il nostro fronte è, qui, il meno profondo e che l'offensiva austriaca è un "bluff". "Comunque - egli ha concluso - bevo alla salute della bella divisione che saprà morire tutta, sino all'ultimo uomo, piuttosto che cedere un solo palmo di terreno..."
Come Sua Eccellenza concilii la nostra salute con la morte non sono riuscito a capire...
Il generalissimo ha quello speciale sorriso buono che hanno sempre, come una maschera, gli uomini severi.
A tavola egli era sereno, tranquillo; parlava con brio, come un buon camerata.
Egli ha capelli bianchissimi, il viso rosso, in cui il naso si accampa fortemente, segnato da una cicatrice. Un colpo di sciabola, dicono.
Ho notato che ha dei denti lunghissimi, da avvocato.
- - -
8 agosto [1916]
Il comando [ad Aiello del Friuli] è ospite di un signore di qui, in una magnifica villa di puro stile secentesco. Stonano, con lo stile, il "tennis" nel parco e, nel salone, certe armature di cavalieri medioevali, false come un nazionalista.
- - -
11 settembre [1916]
Dove sono alloggiato una vecchia e due cognate attendono il loro uomini, che sono dall'altra parte.
Mi ha detto una di costoro, che ha imparato il frasario dei soldati, fra cui vive da tanto tempo:
"Manco mal che mio marito xe imboscà!"
"Imboscato? e come?"
"Eh, sì... el sona la tromba al campo de aviazion..."
"Suonava, prima?"
La donna ha avuto un lampo di malizia negli occhi nerissimi. E ha risposto, equivocando ad arte:
"Nol sonava, no, tanto..."
Poi ha ripreso:
"Cosa vuol che el suonassi, che el xe stonà come una campana! Mi non so come el gabi fato a imparar la tromba..."
"E voi suonate le vostre trombe, ché noi suoneremo le nostre campane!"
"Cosa el disi?"
"Che la 'pelle', buona donna, è maestra egregia di ogni mestiere! Figuratevi che io ho imparato le 'pratiche d'ufficio'..."
- - -
12 novembre [1916] (Frescura si trova a Torino e passeggiando incontra un mutilato civile che chiede l'elemosina.)
L'amputato mi ha detto:
"Le confesso, signore, che le cose vanno meglio per noi, da che c'è la guerra. Oh, non già che la gente mi scambi per un mutilato di guerra! La gente sa che i mutilati, i deformati, gli sfigurati, le maschere orribili e i pietosi moncherini di uomini che la guerra produce ogni giorno, sono tenuti lontano, per ora. Non circolano. Appariranno dopo. Essi sarebbero, ora, una terribile propaganda contro la guerra. Forse, se apparissero nelle città non ancora abituate alla guerra, una terribile reazione avverrebbe nella folla che urlerebbe: basta! Ma la folla, quella impellicciata che si seccava di sbottonarsi per darci un soldo, o di aprire la borsetta, o aveva un certo pudore di fare la carità in pubblico, quella ha tutta, ora, un figlio, un fratello, un marito alla guerra. Non c'è che il dolore, la superstizione, la contabilità religiosa del 'dare' e “avere” con Dio, che rendano pietosi o, almeno, caritatevoli. Tutta questa folla oggi ha nel mio moncherino un ammonimento e un presagio. E come lei, signore, ha compiuto un rapido gesto di scongiuro, essi compiono quello di lasciar cadere nel mio cappello una moneta, che è spesso d'argento."
- - -
22 novembre [1916]
Una intercettazione telefonica ci porta la notizia che è morto l'Imperatore d'Austria Francesco Giuseppe.
Me ne infischio. Perché la guerra non cesserà, né io gli succederò.
- - -
26 gennaio [1917]
Passando per Saciletto, nell'alba chiara, una scarica di fucileria mi ha fatto sobbalzare nel veicolo in cui si intirizziva la mia dormiveglia.
Ho chiesto:
"Dove siamo?"
"A Saciletto. C'è il tribunale di guerra, qui. Hanno fucilato qualcuno. Succede sempre... Il paese, ormai, si chiama 'Fuciletto'..."
- - -
29 marzo [1917]
C'è una curiosa colonia in questo camposanto di San Pietro d'Isonzo. Ci vivono allegramente alcuni soldati, stuccatori, marmisti, scultori incaricati di sistemare degnamente qualche tomba. Da non si sa quanto tempo essi sistemano tombe, per tutti quei morti di cui qualcuno si occupa. Si sono resi indispensabili «e il lavoro non manca» mi ha detto uno di costoro, un fiorentino che fabbrica dei fieri angeli di cemento.
Di qui, costruendo monumenti carichi di simboli e pesanti di cemento e incidendovi della retorica eroica, questi «imboscati» della morte vedono passare i battaglioni che vanno a preparare il materiale per il loro lavoro.
- - -
8 aprile [1917]
Pasqua.
Al vicino paese di Turriaco i bersaglieri l'hanno festeggiata con la risurrezione del postribolo, a cui facevano ressa e che era stato chiuso perché la gazzarra era indegna. Allora gli uomini, abituati all'assalto, hanno travolto i carabinieri, hanno abbattuto le porte, sono entrati. Qualcuna della vestali è svenuta; una di esse è stata portata fuori in trionfo, nuda e sbigottita, "accompagnata da grida sediziose contro le istituzioni, e inneggianti alla fine della guerra".
Qualcuno, stasera, commentava con parole roventi il contegno bestiale di quegli uomini.
I quali hanno il torto di non aver appreso dalla guerra la compostezza squisita e le norme del perfetto gentiluomo che, fra un inchino corretto e un baciamano sapiente, consuma il suo fosforo nel salotto dell'ospite che gli versa il the, a cui ripete delle squisite velate porcherie, o bela tutta la retorica dell'Arcadia sui dividendi insanguinati delle industrie di guerra, o leggiucchia, fra un rutto e l'altro, la prosa sull'economia dei consumi e il "vincere bisogna" dei nazionalisti italiani.
- - -
14 novembre [1918]
Pare che andremo ad Adelsberg, il quale in italiano è stato ribattezzato Postumia, per via di un certo lontano console romano Avio Postumio, che è passato di qui. Sarà buffo però:
"Scusi, è questa la strada per Postumia?"
"Questa ze strada per Adelsberg. Postumia mai sentío nominar!"
Fonte:
http://storiamestre.it/2014/09/diario-di-un-imboscato
Mais:
http://www.altritaliani.net/spip.php?article2163
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrWPsj6fVbeXHV2jCsCunz_uOMELdVScY
Trechos de Through The Wheat (1923), de Thomas Boyd.
For nine interminable months William Hicks had been in France, shunted from one place to another, acting out the odious office of the military police, working as a stevedore beside evil-odored blacks, helping to build cantonments and reservoirs for new soldiers ever arriving from the United States.
And he was supposed to be a soldier. He had enlisted with at least the tacit understanding that he was some day to fight. At the recruiting office in Cincinnati the bespangled sergeant had told him: "Join the marines and see some real action." And the heart of William Hicks had fled to the rich brogue and campaign ribbons that the sergeant professionally wore.
But was this action? Was this war? Was this for what William Hicks had come to France? Well, he told himself, it was not. Soldiering with a shovel. A hell of a way to treat a white man.
- - -
In this sense of reconciliation John Pugh, the Mississippi gambler, forgot his everlasting dice-throwing, which every pay-day that the platoon had thus far known had won for him more money than his company commander received from the United States Government.
- - -
Sergeant Kerfoot Harriman, bearing with proud satisfaction the learning and culture he had acquired in the course of three years at a small Middle-Western university, walked down the Rue de Dieu in a manner which carried the suggestion that he had forgotten the belt of his breeches.
- - -
Stupid-looking old Frenchmen, a few thick-waisted women, and a scattering of ragged children dully watched the company march down the street.
- - -
Dawn broke upon a desolate field where rusty barbed wire clung awkwardly to the posts on which it had been strung. There were a few gnarled and stunted trees, the wreck of what once had been a French farmhouse, and that was all. Hicks peered over the parapet, wondering how near he was to the enemy. He stepped upon the firing step of firm clay. A few yards away were the torn and rusted tracks of the Paris-Metz railway. Beyond that was just an uncared-for field, which, in the distance, lost itself in the gray of the horizon.
[...] In the early springtime this particular sector looked very much like one of the calm farms which Hicks was accustomed to see in many parts of Ohio. The birds sang as lightheartedly, the sun was as bright, the grass was as green and fragrant over the slightly rolling field. All was quite as it should be. Only Hicks was out of the picture.
- - -
Then he became aware of himself. In place of the straw sailor there lay very heavily on his head a steel helmet that, though he had thought it chic for a while, was now no more distinguished-looking than the aluminum dish in which his food was rationed to him. He had worn his drab shirt for two weeks, and there were black rings around the collar and wrists. His gas-mask, girded over his chest, looked foul and unclean; he had used it for a pillow, for a dining-table, and often, he realized, it had been thrown in some muddy place when he had sickened of having it about him like an ever-present albatross. The knees of his breeches were as soiled and as uncomfortable as his shirt, and his puttees and shoes were crusted thickly with dried mud.
- - -
The shell hole was half filled with water and it was cold. After three or four hours the hip rubber boots made Hicks think that his feet were a pair of dead fish in a refrigerator.
- - -
Major Adams limped as he walked, from an unhealed gunshot wound received in the Philippines. Campaign ribbons were strung across his breast. With him authority was as impersonal as the fourth dimension.
- - -
Once or twice men were killed when the shells struck, and their bodies were hurried away to the dressing station; one morning the body of a red-haired German, an immense fellow with a broad forehead, large wide eyes, and a huge mouth, was found fastened to the strands of barbed wire in front of Hicks's post. There was a hole in his side made by the explosion of a small hand-bomb. Besides that, there was nothing of interest.
- - -
Wasn't there a general order recently made to the effect that no one in the American Expeditionary Forces could be executed without permission of President Wilson? Sure there was. Good of the old horse-face to think of that.
- - -
Puffing away at his cigarette, one of the men began: "If I ever get out of this man's war they'll have to hunt me with cannons to get me in another."
"You tell 'em. They sure will. When I git out of this outfit I'm goin' up into Montana and buy a ranch, and I'm goin' to dig trenches and put up barbed wire and git me some guns and spit at the whole bunch of 'em."
[...] "Well, there won't be any more wars after this one, anyway. This is the war to end war. After we lick these Boches everything will be all right."
- - -
From their sleepless nights on sentry duty, their lack of food, and the long, punishing march from the trenches, they were thoroughly exhausted. Many of the men were in such a state of fatigue that they dropped on the straw beds which had been provided for the French army in 1914, without stopping to take off their muddy shoes. And they slept dreamlessly, sodden beings with senses so dulled they could not think of food.
- - -
Sergeant Harriman rose grandly to the occasion. "Shut up, you bunch of agitators. I'll drill you till your shoes fall off."
"You wouldn't have to drill me much. Mine already have holes in them," some one remarked.
"Who said that?" Sergeant Harriman was furious.
- - -
The conversation turned upon decent prostitutes and honest gamblers, a discussion over which Paul Kruger alone had taken the affirmative every time.
- - -
No one seemed to have the least notion of the direction in which the camions were moving. Though some of the men who had been reading a recent copy of the Paris edition of the Chicago Tribune believed them to be headed for the Somme, where, it was said, there was heavy fighting; others believed that they were on their way to relieve the First American Division, which a few days earlier had attacked at Cantigny.
- - -
"All right. Form in a column of twos and follow me." Sergeant Harriman started off, and the men, who had risen, fell in behind him.
Until this time all had been quiet, but now the machine-guns, unmistakably Maxims, began an intermittent fire. It seemed to be a signal for the rifles, for now and again one of them would crack pungently somewhere in the dark.
- - -
Overhead the wings of an airplane whirred. Under its wings were painted large black crosses. It fired a signal, rose again in the air, wheeled, and flew back.
- - -
For perhaps a mile they had marched, and the platoon, like a sensitive instrument, was beginning to have an unaccountable perception of danger, when shoes were heard swishing through the heavy wheat.
- - -
Rat-t-t-t-tat.
A Maxim, but from an oblique direction, was firing, and Kahl sprawled on his face, his right arm falling over the shiny barrel of his rifle. Then other machine-guns rained their bullets into the clearing, and the men clawed at the ground in an effort to lower their bodies beneath the sweep of the lead.
- - -
Nine Germans stood together with their hands raised high above their heads. Their knees were shaking badly and they looked first to one side and then to the other. Docile sheep, he led them back to the village where he turned them over to a reserve regiment.
- - -
Then, for some reason, a salvo of shells were fired which struck with the wild shriek of some lost soul.
- - -
Occasionally, as the day advanced, a man would labor over the opening of a can of Argentina beef with the point of his bayonet. And then the contents would be exposed, green and sepulchrally white, the odor mingling and not quite immersed in the odor of decaying human flesh.
- - -
The morning sun sent wavering rays through the boughs of the trees, and exposed the white stumps whose tops had been blown to the earth by exploding shells. Tree limbs, with ghastly butts, lay dead-still on the thick, calm grass. Steel helmets, spattered with blood, were now and then encountered on the ground. On the space where the captain had been lying there was a blood-soaked shoe and a helmet, turned bottom up, and neatly holding a mess of brains. Near by lay a gas-mask which would never again be used. And near it the sleeve of a coat.
- - -
Had he possessed a widowed mother, or a wife and child, he would as gladly have fought the Hun from an office desk in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
- - -
Wherever the gas had touched the skin of the men, dark, flaming blisters appeared. Like acid, the yellow gas ate into the flesh and blinded the eyes.
- - -
Where yesterday's crosses had been erected, a shell had churned a body out of its shallow grave, separating from the torso the limbs. The crosses themselves had been blown flat, as if by a terrific wind.
- - -
"Smells like good old Kentucky fried chicken to me."
"Chicken, hell," said Hartman, the professional pessimist. "It's probably fried Canned Bill."
"Oh, you make me sick," Cole answered. "Can't you let a man dream?"
- - -
[The drivers of the camions were Japanese, which, as purveyors of information, made them as useful as do many "professional" silent men of the President's cabinet.]
Snorting gray camions drew up along the road by the path where the men were lying. At the driving-wheels the small Japanese, with their long, tired mustaches covered with fine dust, looked like pieces of graveyard sculpture. The dust was over their faces, over their light-blue uniforms. They sat immovable.
- - -
The platoon stopped for a moment as if stunned. Then they advanced without increasing their pace. In their faces a machine-gun spat angrily, the bullets flying past like peevish wasps. Automatic rifles were manipulated in the middles of the automatic rifle squad, and the loaders took their places at the sides of the men who were firing, jamming in one clip of cartridges after another. Rifle bullets fled past the advancing men with an infuriating zing.
- - -
The platoon had reached the first machine-gun nest, almost without knowing it. There were three Germans, their heavy helmets sunk over their heads, each performing a definite part in the firing. They, too, were surprised. Pugh, a little in the lead, drew a hand-grenade from his pocket, pulled out the pin, and threw it in their faces. It burst loudly and distinctly. One German fell flat, another grasped at his arm, his face taking on a blank expression as he did so, while the last man threw his hands above his head. Inattentive to his gesture of surrender, the line pushed on.
The fighting grew more furious. Germans, surprised, were hiding behind trees and firing their slow-working rifles. When the advancing line would reach them they would receive a charge of shot in their bodies, sometimes before they had fired at the swiftly moving line. Some member of the platoon offered his version of an Indian war whoop. It was successful in hastening the attack. Exhilarated, but sheerly impotent, one man ran forward blubbering, "You God-damn Germans," and pointing an empty rifle at the trees. Other men calmly and methodically worked the bolts of their rifles back and forth, refilling the chambers as they were emptied of each clip of five shots. From time to time a man dropped, thinning the ranks and spreading them out to such an extent that contact on the right side of the moving line was lost.
- - -
The bombardment of the night before had taken its toll of Germans. Bodies lay gawkily about on the grass. One body, headless, clutched a clay pipe between its fingers. Another lay flat on its back, a hole in its stomach as big as a hat.
- - -
In this multicolored canyon no words were exchanged. The Colonials looked sullen, the French beaten and spiritless, the Americans dogged and conscientious, the English expressionless; the Germans seemed the most human of them all. For them the fighting was finished.
- - -
From the road a small tank labored up the hill, puffing and creaking in every joint. Another tank, a miniature of the tanks pictured in the recruiting posters, wheezed along on its caterpillar tread. More tanks came. They were all small, ineffectual-looking little monsters, wearing a look of stubborn, gigantic babies. The arrival of the tanks was greeted by the firing of a salvo of shells from the German lines.
- - -
He remembered that the American army little knew the value of coffee to the man who is cold and tired and awake in the early dawn. But there would be, no doubt, French galleys, with black kettles in which they brewed strong black chicory.
- - -
Hanging in cowboy fashion, a forty-five calibre Colt flapped against his right hip. From his left side was a Luger pistol that he had taken from a dead German officer.
- - -
Possibly for an hour during his whole life he had hated the German army. Now he only disliked them. And for one reason: because they marched in a goose-step. He felt that for any people to march in that manner was embarrassing to the rest of humanity. Somehow it severed them from the rest of their kind.
- - -
Below, four waves of men with their bayoneted rifles held at high port, advanced along the flat field toward the hill. Hicks felt weak, as if he wanted to crumple up. Machine bullets clicked like keys on the typewriter of the devil's stenographer. Rifled bullets announced their swift, fatal flights by little "pings" that sounded like air escaping from a rubber tire. They seemed to follow each other closely enough to make a solid sheet of metal.
[...] To lie down in the face of the firing was more unendurable than moving toward it.
- - -
"This is an awful way to win a war. Are they tryin' to get us all killed?"
"Oh, one of these German spies is in command, that's all."
- - -
"Come back here, you damned fool. Do you want to get killed by your own barrage?"
The barrage was falling short of its mark. Shells struck the fringe of the woods toward which the men already had closely advanced.
- - -
He liked the feel of the pistol against his thigh. It made him feel equal to any danger. He was a Buffalo Bill, a Kit Carson, a d'Artagnan.
- - -
Bullets flew in every direction. Men toppled down from the windows of houses. Others raced up the steps of the dwellings. Men ran through the streets, wild and tumultuous.
- - -
"Let's sit here a while. That damned flare didn't seem to be more than a hundred yards from here."
"Yeah, le's. I don't want to git my head shot off this late in the game."
Mais:
Irving Berlin
John Philip Sousa
Vi-o em carne e osso (Fon-Fon, 25.7.1914)
Vi-o com a cartola no alto da cabeça, o infallivel frack preto e a calça de riscos, tal qual todo o Rio o conhece nas fitas do Pathé.
Não advinharam quem era? Não? O Max Linder.
Elle, em carne e osso, mais em osso do que em carne.
Eu entrava n'uma barbearia do boulevard Montmartre e elle sahia. Esbarramo-nos ligeiramente. Houve uma troca de pardon, monsieur.
Notei que o famoso Rei do Riso, como o chamam nos cartazes, tinha um ar carrancudo, uma cara de poucos amigos.
Virei-me para vel-o descer a escada, suppondo ingenuamente que elle ia dar aquelles saltinhos que tanto divertem os espectadores de cinemas. Desceu pausadamente, quasi que gravemente, como alguém que vai cogitando de cousas serias.
Contando mais tarde o meu encontro a um parisiense das minhas relações, rapaz meio jornalista, meio homme d'affaires, este me declarou que o rei do Riso não é nada alegre na intimidade e (será verdade?) tem um ciume terrível das mulheres bonitas que trabalham com elle nos films do Pathé.
Bem entendido; ciume da attenção que a mulher bonita possa merecer dos frequentadores de cinemas.
Alegre ou não, invejoso ou não, o caso é que o Max Linder, com as suas gatimonhas ganha um dinheirão e d'aqui a alguns annos poderá descançar das formidáveis cabriolas e piruetas que lhe valeram a sua universal reputação.
- - -
Des Kinokönigs erstes und letztes Interview (Hamburgischer Correspondent, 27.9.1914)
Max Linder, sicherlich der berühmteste Kinoschauspieler der Welt, dem man daher den Namen des "Kinokönigs" beigelegt hatte, ist nach den Berichten der Blätter als französischer Soldat bei den Kämpfen in Belgien gefallen. Vorher hatte er zum ersten Male das "goldene Schweigen", das ihm in seiner Kunst so viel Ruhm und Geld eingetragen hat, gebrochen und einem Mitarbeiter des World Magazine eine Unterredung gewährt, in der er von seiner Laufbahn, von seinen Einkünften sprach und auch schon seinen Wunsch, an dem großen Kriege teilzunehmen, durchblicken ließ. Der Besucher fand ihn in seiner entzückenden Villa an den Ufern der Marne in dem malerisch gelegenen Dorf Varennes, wo damals alles grünte und blühte und wo jetzt die Riesenschlacht tobt. Der 29jährige Schauspieler, dessen Mienenspiel durch Jahre das Publikum der ganzen Welt zum Lachen gebracht hat, ist Junggeselle. Er widmete sich ganz seiner Arbeit, die ihm viel einbrachte, aber ihn auch völlig in Anspruch nahm.
"Als kleiner Junge sah ich ein Kasperletheater," erzählte er, "ich war damals 4 Jahre alt, und von da an stammt meine Sehnsucht nach der Bühne. Ich dachte und träumte nichts anderes mehr, als Schauspieler zu werden. Als Schulknabe in Bordeaux war ich im Deklamieren der beste, während ich in anderen Fächern weniger Glück hatte, und einige Jahre später ging ich zu Charles Le Bargy, dem damaligen Sekretär der Comédie Française, und setzte es durch, daß ich an diesem altehrwürdigen Theater meine Anfangsstudien machen konnte. Aber auf die Dauer war dort nicht mein Platz, und so ging ich denn an das Théâtre des Variétés, wo ich in stummen Rollen mitlaufen durfte. Eines Abends platzte ich fast vor Neid, denn der Tenor der Truppe zeigte einen Brief herum, in dem er von den Gebrüdern Pathé aufgefordert wurde, für 100.000 Frs. Lieder in das Grammophon zu singen. Ich habe damals aufgeschrien vor Wut! Aber wer zuletzt lacht, lacht am besten. Eines Tages bekam auch ich einen Brief, unter dem der Zaubername "Gebrüder Pathé" stand: "Mein Herr," lautete das Schreiben, "wir haben Sie gestern unter den Statisten gesehen. Sie haben in dem Zwinkern Ihrer Augen 100.000 Frs. Wir bieten Ihnen das Doppelte dieser Summe, wenn Sie sich uns ausschließlich für unsere Films zur Verfügung stellen."
Ich will jetzt von der geschäftlichen Seite meines Berufs sprechen, denn alles, was bisher darüber veröffentlicht worden, ist nicht richtig. Mein Kontrakt mit Pathé sieht ein jährliches festes Gehalt von 350.000 Frs. vor; diesen Kontrakt aber habe ich nur 3 Monate gehabt, denn ich kann viel mehr verdienen. Auf meiner letzten Tournee in Rußland betrug meine Gage 3000 Frs. den Tag für drei Monate. Meine nächste Tournee bringt mir 120.000 Frs. in einem Monat. Dies alles verdiene ich nebenbei, indem ich auf der Bühne auftrete, und dazu kommen noch meine Filmhonorare. Ich erfinde nicht nur alle meine Films selbst, sondern studiere sie auch mit meiner Truppe ein und bin so Direktor, Impresario und Schauspieler in einer Person. Dabei habe ich kein leichtes Leben. Im Gegenteil. Ich muß von hohen Brücken in den Fluß springen, habe in zwei Tagen gelernt, auf einem Wasserflugzeug zu fliegen, habe mich, ohne reiten zu können, auf die wildesten Pferde gewagt, und in Madrid sogar beim Stierkampf einen Stier getötet. Hier sehen Sie noch den heftigen Biß am Schenkel, den ich kürzlich durch einen Polizeihund erhalten. Aber ich liebe diese Abenteuer. Ich halte mein Leben fest in meinen Händen bei jedem gefährlichen Experiment. Ich bin Fatalist und weiß, daß das geht, was man will. Ich kenne keine Furcht."
- - -
Max Linder died in the war (translation of: 'Max Linder muore alla guerra', La Tribuna, 1. Oct. 1914)
It is not the title of his new film to be projected tonight. It is the tragic and heroic epilogue of his short joyous day.
[...] The irresistible humour of his "movies" was popular, waited for, sought everywhere. Even very serious people, very serious and very decent who do not attend cinemas, went there one evening when the thin "silhouette" of Max Linder loomed on the poster. He had to provide two "films" per month and his comic fantasy was never tired. He reached in a certain classical perfection in a classic simplicity. He knew to make something from nothing. He knew with a turn of the eye to be understood better than a hundred words. He knew asking for and giving to the cinema, nothing more, nothing less, all that the cinema can give and get.
And he went, like any good French to war, desperate and heroic war of his great country. And they certainly must have gone smiling like the "répétition" of a new film, with its eternal "tight", with his hair in eternal bushel, with his eternal smile. And today a brief news from Berlin announces that Max Linder died on the battlefield. [...] reported from Berlin there is no difference: destroy the Cathedral of Reims or kill Max Linder are similar actions of which the Berlin news shall boast about: Cathedral or comedian, it does not matter: the essential thing is always to take away something from France, something that the others don't have: either one of its great beauties or one of its little smiles.
- - -
(The Bioscope, Oct. 1st 1914)
With reference to the sensational rumour regarding Mr. Max Linder, as we go to press we are advised that Mr. Linder was not in the firing line, and, moreover, according to Messrs. Pathé's latest advices, he was exempt from duties at the front.
- - -
Eine Unterredung mit Max Linder (Prager Tagblatt, 22.10.1914)
Der bekannte französische Filmschauspieler Max Linder, der sich zu Beginn des Feldzuges nach berühmtem Muster totmelden ließ, ist - wie wir den einstigen Bewunderern seiner Komik versichern können - gesund und guter Dinge. Einem Vertreter der römischen "Tribuna" gelang es, in die elegant eingerichtete Behausung Linder's, die in der Nähe des Eiffelturms gelegen ist, einzudringen und Linder selbst zu sprechen. "Ich bin nur leicht verwundet worden", erwiderte Linder auf die besorgte Frage des Eindringlings. "Der Soldat, der mich getroffen hat, muß mich sehr gut vom Kino aus gekannt haben. Sobald ich mich wieder erholt habe, kehre ich zur Front zurück. Dann, nach Schluß des Krieges, werde ich einen besonderen Film für Deutschland stellen, ungefähr in dieser Pose!" Dabei legt er den Daumen an die Nasenspitze und bewegte die übrigen Finger lebhaft. Komiker und Journalist lachten über diesen "geistreichen Scherz", und der Besucher zog mit der beruhigten Gewißheit ab, daß Linder bis auf weiteres der Mitwelt und der Kinokunst erhalten bleibt.
- - -
Hablando con Max Linder (El Heraldo de Madrid, 17.6.1915)
"Cuando la Prensa de todo el mundo dio la noticia de mi muerte yo no había sido herido. Un artista cuyo nombre se parecía al mío murió en las trincheras, y al comunicarse la noticia el telégrafo quizás confundió el nombre por primera vez y fué aquella equivocación lo suficiente para que se propagase a todo el mundo la noticia de mi muerte ...; pero ni ha sido «recláme», como se ha dicho, ni yo he tenido nada que ver con ese equivoco que por poco cuesta la vida a mi madre..."
"Sí, señor... mi pobrecita madre, a quien tanto quiero y a quien ustedes los periodistas están matando a disgustos, dando noticias sobre mi salud..."
"Yo estave cuatro meses en el frente, alimentándome sólo de conservas... Aquella alimentación y las fatigas de la campaña me enfermaron gravemente... creian todos que moria..."
"No; yo, no... Yo nunca he creído que moría... Como en mi vida he escapado de la muerte tantas veces, viéndola tan cerca... Una de las veces que me operaron de apeendicitis me dijo el médico que no había operado en su vida un caso tan grave como el mío... Luego, en mi profesión, he visto la muerte muy de cerca muchas veces... Total: que yo cuando fui a la guerra llevé la convicción de que no esa moría allá..."
"Estaba destinado al servicio de unión entre París y el frente... En mi automóvil hacía el servicio que se me mandaba... Yo tenía que cubrir los huecos que hacía, la Muerte entre los oficiales... ¡Dios mío, los oficiales que yo he conducido heridos, agonizantes y muertos!..."
Max se cubrio los ojos con las manos, como para alejarse una visión.
"Muchas veces me vi en peligro... Había que pasar bajo el fuego de los alemanes... Mi automóvil se agujeró en muchas ocasíones...; pero, ¡esta visto!, no se muere hasta que se debe morir... Una vez creemos que era la ultíma; llevaba yo un capitán que debia «a toda costa» incorporarse en las primeras trincheras... Los alemanes, cerca de Soissons, disparaban... «a dar...», y el capitán ordenó: «¡Adelante!». Yo cerré los ojos, porque oía silbar las balas tan cerca y se veian cruzar por delante de nosotros... Pues como en los «films»! Un aeroplano nuestro que apareció sobre nosotros atrajo la punteria de todos los que iban a tirar sobre el automóvil, y... ¡nos salvamos!..."
"No; yo no he sido herido... Solamente la pulmonía grave que he sufrido... El estado de debilidad... el..."
En aquel momento Max se quitaba le camiseta, y sobre el pecho vi una cicatriz.
"Si, en efecto... Esta es una herida grave; pero, como usted ve, ya está curada... Solamente que yo no se lo digo a nadie porque no quiero que mi pobre madre se a entere, porque sufriria mucho..."
"No, ahora no puedo hablar más... Cuando acabe la guerra, y mis palabras so puedan ser indiscretas, contaré algunos servicios que hice muy curiosos... He trabajado en el frente... He trabajado! Y lo que siento es no tener salud para seguir allá, al lado de mis compatriotas..."
- - -
Max Linder en Nueva York (Cine-Mundial, Dec. 1916)
En la mañana del 7 de Noviembre llegó Max Linder a esta metrópoli acompañado de 46 baúles llenos de ropa. Esperaban al cómico en los muelles de la Trasatlántica Francesa Mr. George K. Spoor, gerente de la Empresa Essanay, y los representantes de la prensa. Mientras el "Espagne" atracaba preguntamos a Mr. Spoor qué tiempo permanecería en la ciudad la última adquisición de la Essanay. El fabricante contestó que se proponía encaminar toda la comitiva hacia Chicago aquella misma tarde.
Max Linder embarcó en Cherburgo el 8 de Octubre con rumbo a Liverpool. Estuvo varios días en Londres conferenciando con el representante en Europa de la compañía y el 31 del mismo mes salió para Nueva York, pensando de seguro en las tretas de que se valdría para hacer reir al público yanqui y en los submarinos de Von Tirpitz.
El arribo del "Espagne," con cerca de tres días de retraso, fué el acontecimiento sensacional del mes en Nueva York que siguió en importancia a la elección. [...]
Linder, en su trato, mantiene la seriedad proverbial del actor cómico fuera de las tablas. Quizás esto obedezca a la transformación que se ha registrado en el carácter francés a causa de la guerra. Hace dos años que el mímico favorito, en el cénit entonces de su carrera artística, ofreció al gobierno su persona y cuantos bienes tenía. Fué explorador en los cuerpos aéreo y de automóviles, suministrando siempre sus propias máquinas. Ingresó más tarde en la artillería, pero una herida de gravedad en el hombro izquierdo, que hizo necesario tres operaciones seguidas, puso pronto fin a sus hazañas bélicas. A los tres meses de hospital fué dado de alta y pasó a Italia, donde con sus discursos en pro de los aliados rindió inestimables servicios. Su labor en este sentido le valió la entusiasta aprobación del Ministro Salandra. Estuvo luego en Suiza recobrando la salud y allí produjo varias cintas muy chistosas.
Mientras se hallaba en Contrexville, aun convaleciente, la Essanay le propuso un contrato muy satisfactorio para inducirlo a venir a los Estados Unidos. Aunque en un principio Linder se negó a dejar las filas del ejército, luego pudo convencerse de que Francia estaba más necesitada de sus recursos financieros que de su persona - y aquí conviene indicar que una gran parte del salario del actor está comprometida con la causa.
"Quiero que mis amigos de Norte-América sepan, sin embargo," declaró en Liverpool antes de partir, "que no tengo animosidad hacia nación alguna. Siento en el alma, como todo el mundo en Europa, que se haya declarado esta guerra estupenda. Pero soy francés y amo a mi patria. Aunque Alemania es nuestro enemigo, respeto al alemán que lucha por su país."
[...] Max Linder ha firmado contrato por un año, aunque retiene el derecho a renovarlo por el mismo tiempo a su terminación. Cada semana el ex-soldado percibirá una suma mayor que el General Joffre durante todo el año.
Fonte:
http://www.maxlinder.de/bibliografisches.htm#1914
Mais:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWdpAo3dWmM
Trechos do prefácio de War Memoirs (1933), de David Lloyd George.
With this volume I finish my recollections of the War. They have taken the best part of my time for five years. The writing of books is a new business for me. When a man starts a new craft in his seventieth year he does not expect to gain that proficiency in the art which would enable him to become anything better than an amateur. It is as such I shall be ranked - it is as such I crave to be judged. I have sought to narrate facts as I remember them. I have given my impressions of events and personalities exactly as I found them at the time.
- - -
The only merit I claim for these volumes is that apart from the Official Histories of the War, they are the most carefully and richly documented account of the great Armageddon. Official Histories deal in great detail with the battles fought; I have only undertaken to give an account of the struggle as I saw it from the standpoint of a Minister of the Crown. I was the only Minister in any country who had some share throughout the whole of the War in its direction. During the last two years I had much the largest share in the Ministerial direction of the resources of the British Empire. No other Minister in any of the belligerent countries held an official position from the 1st of August, 1914, to the 11th of November, 1918. King Albert, King George, the Kaiser and Poincare were the only rulers who saw it through from the beginning to the end. Of these Poincare alone has given us an elaborate and detailed account of his contact with events during the War. For that reason his Diaries contain material of great value for the historian of the future.
- - -
The mass of papers accumulated by my secretaries during the period of the War and the subsequent peace negotiations filled me with dismay when I first entertained the thought of writing my War Memoirs. When I was engaged in an active political career as leader of a party I had neither the spare time nor the spare energy to undertake the gigantic toil of rummaging through this mountain of printed, typewritten or written memoranda, minutes, notes or letters - selecting those that mattered and choosing the passages that could be compressed and summarised and those that had to be given textually.
A serious illness, which disabled me for months in 1931, happily gave me the opportunity I had many times sought in vain to retire from the front line in politics.
- - -
The first [criticism] is based on the allegation that the War Cabinet could have achieved an honourable peace in 1917. This allegation has been completely exposed by a wealth of documentary proof which shows that at no stage of the War before their defeat in the autumn of 1918 were the Germans prepared to concede terms which would not have actually rewarded them for plunging the world into this horrible war. Any fair-minded perusal of the documents - German as well as British - which I have published, would have induced a change of opinion on the part of honest critics. Herein I have been disappointed. Men whose political bias is entrenched in misconception only dig deeper when their parapets are demolished.
- - -
Without the help such men rendered, victory would have been unattainable. The war was won by the incredible valour and endurance of the men who braved - actually and physically - death in every element for the honour of their native land. But they would not have been given a chance to win had it not been for the skill of men who worked behind and outside the region of horror where the soldier, the sailor (of all services) and the aviator discharged their perilous duties.
- - -
The first is my amazement that there should be millions of men who could go through such horrifying experiences without a complete shattering of nerves and brain. Multitudes of young men in many lands endured it for years and have survived without any obvious impairment of either. I constantly meet survivors of the War who for years endured the terrifying sensations of modern warfare, haunted day by day and night by night by the menace of death in its ghastliest and most agonising aspect. Psychologically and spiritually it must have had repercussions which are not easy to trace. But physiologically they seem to be as calm, as steady of nerve and as full of the joy of life as the men who never passed through those scorching fires. This courage possessed by so many ordinary men has always been to me incomprehensible. It is immeasurably great. In training, in discipline, in equipment and efficiency there were marked distinctions between one belligerent nation and another. There was no difference in the high courage of the common man whatever his country of origin. What makes war so terrifying is that it is waged by men. No human effort brings forth so clearly and impressively the strongest qualities of mankind as a whole. But war is a prodigal and stupid waste of these virile attributes. Evoked, stimulated and organised by and for some beneficent movement which is productive not of ruin and death but of something which gives life and gives it abundantly to the children of men, it would transfigure the world.
And that brings me to another impression engraven on my mind by the events of the War. As a tribunal for ascertaining the rights and the wrongs of a dispute, war is crude, uncertain and costly. It is true that the World War ended, as I still believe, in a victory for Right. But it was won not on the merits of the case, but on a balance of resources and of blunders. The reserves of man power, of material and of money at the command of the victorious Powers were overwhelmingly greater than those possessed by the vanquished. They were thus better able to maintain a prolonged struggle. Both sides blundered badly, but the mistakes committed by the Central Powers were more fatal, inasmuch as they did not possess the necessary resources to recover from the effects of their errors of judgment.
As I have pointed out in the text of this book, in 1915 the Allies committed the grave strategical error of concentrating their strength on a tremendous offensive against the German ramparts in France, and thus allowed the Central Powers with a few divisions to conquer the Balkans. But this mistake was more than counterbalanced by the incredible blunder committed by the German Staff in the spring and summer of 1916, when they hurled their best legions against Verdun in a vain effort to capture it. The Allied mistake prolonged the War. The German mistake lost them the War.
In the spring of 1916, if Falkenhayn, instead of wasting irrecoverable opportunity and time over Verdun, had taken Conrad's advice and attacked Italy and had adopted Hoffmann's proposal to finish off Russia, the issue of the war would have been different. Caporetto and Brest-Litovsk in 1916, instead of 1917 and 1918, when our army was not fully trained, with no America in the War and no starvation in Germany or Austria, would have forced the Western Powers to accept an unfavourable peace. The great offensive of March, 1918, came too late to save the Central Powers. By November, 1917, France and Britain were strong enough to rescue Italy from the consequences of her crushing defeat. And by the late spring of 1918 American reinforcements were pouring in to strengthen the Allied front just as the reserves of the Central Powers were exhausted. Judgment which is dependent on such contingencies is too precarious. Chance is the supreme judge in war and not Right. There are other judges on the bench, but Chance presides.
If Germany had been led by Bismarck and Moltke instead of by von Bethmann-Hollweg and Falkenhayn, the event of the great struggle between a military autocracy and democracy would in all human probability have been different. The blunders of Germany saved us from the consequences of our own. But let all who trust justice to the arbitrament of war bear in mind that the issue may depend less on the righteousness of the cause than on the cunning and craft of the contestants. It is the teaching of history, and this war enforces the lesson. And the cost is prohibitive. It cripples all the litigants. The death of ten millions and the mutilation of another twenty millions amongst the best young men of a generation is a terrible bill of costs to pay in a suit for determining the responsibility and penalty for the murder of two persons, however exalted their rank. When you add to that £50,000,000,000 expended in slaughter and devastation, the complete dislocation of the international trade of the world, unemployment on a scale unparalleled in history, the overthrow of free institutions over the greater part of Europe, and the exasperation and perpetuation of international feuds which threaten to plunge the world into an even greater catastrophe, one must come to the conclusion that war is much too costly and barbarous a method of settling quarrels amongst the nations of the earth.
Mais:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovTer2sFmEo
http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Germany/LloydGeorge.htm
