First-Hand Accounts of the 151e R.I.
2nd Lieutenant Roger Campana
Roger Campana (class of 1913) was a 21-year-old graduate of the elite military school, Saint-Cyr. Made a second lieutenant he served with the "15-1" in the hellish battles of Argonne forest, the slaughter of the Second Champagne Offensive and nightmare of Verdun. I will be placing his account up in segments, as I begin the slow process of translating and transcribing his memoirs.
Original map from 151 R.I. campaign journal showing jump-off positions of the various companies. The blue line represents the German first-line trenches. The 'V's represent the various attack wave zones.
Abstract of the Second Champagne Offensive:
After surviving fierce fighting in the Argonne forest, Campana is evacuated from the front on May 24, 1915 when he suffers from an appendicitis attack requiring immediate operation. Following his operation in June and a subsequent period of recovery and then training, Campana chooses to ignore the Medical Commission’s decision that he not yet return to front line service and puts in a request with the major of the 1st Battalion (151 R.I.) to overrule it. The major consents and Campana rejoins the regiment on October 3, at Mourmelon-le-Grand (Champagne) where he is assigned to the 1st Company and given command of a section.
From Mourmelon-le-Grand the regiment moves up to the line on the night of October 5-6 in preparation for an attack to be launched the following day (Oct. 6). The "15-1" returns to the Aubérive-sur-Suippes sector, where it had fought during its first engagement in the offensive from September 25-30. The men fully anticipate that it will be a “hot” affair, as the German positions they are charged with taking are defended by a veritable sea of barbed wire. They fear a repeat of the tragic fate which befell the regiment on September 25, the opening day of the offensive. On that day, after advancing only 100 meters, the regiment was stopped in its tracks when it encountered a completely intact belt of German wire entanglements. Concealed by a hollow, it had been left untouched by the prepartory bombardment; entire companies were wiped out in place by machine-gun fire as they struggled vainly to cut through. No gains were made. Since that date, the French offensive on a whole had ground to a halt.
The specific subsector they were assigned to was the area just east of Aubérive and due north of St. Hilare-le-Grand. In the night of October 5-6, the regiment is sent to work transforming the first line trench into a departure trench for the coming attack, constructing numerous departure step ways to expedite the exiting of troops. Their objective for the next day is to take the fortin ‘414’ (“small fort” 414).
On the morning of October 6, French artillery opens up a rolling fire on the German trenches, but the men sense that the fire is not having the desired effect. They look out with unease on the enemy wire entanglements that still remain intact. The French artillery fire becomes more violent as the time for the attack nears; zero-hour is set for 1100hrs. At 1050hrs, the heavy 210s begin to smash down on the cupola of the fort. But after each massive explosion, the German machine-guns -- concealed under concrete shelters -- fire a burst for several seconds to taunt their attackers.
“The moment has come: a signal from the Captain, a whistle-blow:‘Forward!’
A bound of 10 meters is made in a disturbing silence, then suddenly a frightful fire of musketry, thousands of bullets whistle by and drill into bodies, shouts of rage, groans, entire lines of blue greatcoats mowed down in place like wooden soldiers and a sudden stop in front of an impenetrable entanglement of barbed wire.
‘Lie down!’
We let the bursts of gunfire pass over head. Our artillery starts up again with a more violent fire and the enemy machine-guns stop firing. I look around me; hundreds of men were lying down in skirmish lines in the plain. The Captain gets up:
‘Stand up and about face!’ he cries. Only about 50 men rise, the others remain laying face down in the grass, they were dead.
I shuddered at the sight of all these dead bodies in light-colored greatcoats who would never make another assault. We went back to our departure trench. The Lieutenant was among the dead. A half-hour later we renew our attack, but still without success. Our Colonel, the bravest of the brave, Father Victory as the men affectionately called him, came up to ask us to make a third bound. He looked above the parapet and immediately received a bullet in his head; the morale of the soldiers was very affected, but three more times we threw ourselves into the attack again only to break upon the cursed entanglements each time!
In the fifth assault, the Captain was struck down by a shell fragment and I took command of what remained of the Company. Major Brugère reassembled the Battalion in the departure trench. The terrorized survivors didn’t want to leave the trench anymore and began to murmur amongst themselves. Their commander exhorted them in vain:
‘Are you ready to make another go?’
‘It’s a slaughter!’
‘We’re going to get killed for nothing!’
‘For nothing? No, for France! Come on, one last time!’
‘All right, you go first!’
‘First? Yes, certainly!’The Major takes his pipe, packs it deliberately and lights it. He takes ahold of his cane with his hand and dashes forward crying:
‘Forward, children! This is for France!’
All the survivors dashed forward behind him; he went a dozen meters and collapsed while the bullets rained down like hail, felling a number of soldiers. And for the sixth time I ordered in my turn what remained of the company back to the departure parallel. An adjudant went up to the body of the Major, leaned down towards him to see if he was dead or simply wounded, but then collapsed on top of his body. A corporal who crawled up to make the same attempt suffered the same fate.
Captain Le Boulanger took command of the Battalion. We were the only officers remaining.
‘Such dishonorable and stupid carnage, I tell you. How do they expect us to take this fort still defended by an entanglement 50 meters deep that hasn’t even the smallest breach and is protected by multiple machine-guns. If we are ordered to attack a seventh time, the men will no longer follow us. It will only serve to get us killed like the Major.’
The order to stop the operation arrives several moments later. Another regiment comes to fill our gaps and the departure parallel is transformed back into a first line trench. But all afternoon the fusillade carried on. The enemy had a disgraceful conduct: he amused himself for several hours turning our wounded and dead into paste. We listened to the German bullets ricochet off the ground, pierce into helmets or drill into the bodies with a dull thud. At 1400hrs, we perceived over the detonations the wailing, the cries of agony, the groans of our wounded. At 1700hrs, only the creeping of Mausers broke the silence. Between our lines, there were only the dead.
We imagine the anguish of our poor soldiers pinned down to the earth suffering as they wait from one moment to the next for the bullet that will give them another wound or finish them off . . . The attack was a complete failure.”
Abstract of Verdun:
After serving a 20-day spell in March 1916 at Fort Douaumont, the regiment was sent over to le Mort-Homme on the Right Bank of the Meuse. His memoirs provide a glimpse into the unique formlessness of the fighting at Verdun.
Battle of Verdun 1916
On April 6, Campana's company (1st Company) is sent to Point 265 (the lower of the two summits that make up le Mort-Homme) and the northerly slopes of the hill. Fortunately, they had entered at a period relative calm. This would last for two more days, during which time, Campana (a mathematician before the war) continued his studies in a dugout by candle-light. While on patrol the night of April 7-8, the "Lieutenant Mathematician" captured two German deserters. The prisoners warned them of a coming attack. The following morning, was a warm sunny day. Campana was amazed to hear larks singing on the summit of le Mort-Homme. Suddenly, the morning calm was broken as a single shell landed and was immediately followed by a hurricane of others.
By 1100 hrs, the bombardment had intensified to a dramatic level. In a trench to his rear that he had ordered abandoned the night before, eight shells burst almost simultaneously. At noon, the Germans sent the first waves of their assault troops over the top with fixed bayonets.
"They ran forward a few meters, then under the tac-tac of our machine gun, collapsed. . . . not a single German got back to his trench."
Some surviving German soldiers attempted at first to play dead, "like rabbits," Campana noted. But sooner or later they lost their nerve and jumped up to make a rush for their own lines, only to be picked off by Campana and his men who noted that the spectacle was a real diversion. The shelling then resumed and this time their machine-gun was hit, blown away by a heavy shell. Once again the German assault waves went over the top.
"In a few minutes the slopes of Hill 265 were covered with enemy advancing on us. This time we only had our rifles to stop them, and that was not sufficient."
German soldiers made it into the first-line French trenches below Campana and savage hand-to-hand fighting ensued. Desperately, he fired a red flare to signal the artillery for fire-support and, for once, the 75s replied. Salvoes of shells came screaming down right in the middle of the advancing German waves. Yet still the enemy advanced. When they were only thirty yards away, Campana gave his men the command "baïonette au canon!" ["fix bayonets"]. At that very moment the withering rifle fire of their rifles was coupled by salvoes of short-falling 75 shells. Panic erupted in the enemy ranks and, like rats in a burning barn, "they ran frantically to the right and left."
A counter-attack to take back the lost trenches was immediately ordered, which Campana watched through his binoculars. The counter-attack force was lead by a young lieutenant wearing white gloves who had been a fellow classmate at Staint-Cyr. Soon after, Campana spotted the lieutenant sprawled out dead on the ground, with his conspicuous gloved-hands lying on his chest. Night brought a respite in the fighting, as a large, sinister red moon illuminated the butchery on the slopes of le Mort-Homme. Campana counted over 180 German corpses in front of his section alone. He remained in position on the summit for another week before being relieved. Later, pride filled the "Lieutenant Mathematician" as he gazed at the ragged and greatly reduced ranks of the 151e during the decoration ceremony which followed.
In fact, Campana is one of those soldiers who seemed to somehow prosper in the environment of war. Desensitization, to one's fellow man and to the brutality of war itself, is a common phenomena in all wars. At the end of his third tour at Verdun, he recounted how he morbidly photographed the body of one of his men killed by a shell that hit his own dugout. He even sent a copy of the photo to a friend to prove what a lucky escape he had had. The body had been "laid open from the shoulders to the haunches like a quartered carcass of meat in a butcher's shop window."
