History’s Final Word

The true sense of war is death; this is its substance, its form and its content, its unique specialty, its final product, its trademark. And man’s reason is in no way, alas, contrary to this way of living. It was in Auxey that Lieutenant Schreiber understood the truth that is usually concealed beneath the vibrato of grand patriotic diatribes. It is a truth that is bothersome to the arrogance of our intelligence.

Could the human world, then, be hopeless? Could hatred be innate and consubstantial with existence? Or would it be enough, perhaps, if one soldier, driven wild by years of battles and suffering, heard the voice of the one opposite him? Or even—at least after the war—if he remembered this voice and not simply the joy of having won the battle where that voice was killed?

After Auxey, these questions would become the markers, here and there, on Lieutenant Schreiber’s path as a soldier. The battle of Alsace, the taking of Mulhouse, the liberation of Colmar, the murderous fighting in the forest of the Hardt, and the crossing of the Rhine, where every pontoon ramp and both sides of the riverbank were awash with the blood of units who had made it across under the enemy’s machine gun fire and fused shells. Then, the undertaking in the Black Forest that cost so many human lives.

As if the war has saved what is cruelest for the end, scenes arise that even his eyes, which were no longer quite as sensitive, can hardly bear. The column of enemy soldiers preparing to give themselves up to the Allies. Rather strange men, reinforcements who had been recruited by the Nazis from among the prisoners on the Eastern Front and who have just jumped ship. They walk in rows, followed by a cart filled with human heads, those of their officers: a bargaining chip in exchange for their surrender.

Then there is the bizarre SS detachment whose soldiers are speaking French! But of course; naturally, it is against his compatriots that Lieutenant Schreiber is forced to fight …

There is also the tank pierced by shells, one of the five in his platoon. Two members of the crew, Étienne Leper and his driver, Catherineau, manage to extricate themselves, in the snow, amid the shooting and geysers of mud raised by the shells. They crawl toward their lieutenant’s tank. Risking his own life, he successfully gets them to safety and then hoists them into a half-track that evacuates them toward the rear. Leper has an arm torn off. Catherineau’s body is ripped to shreds.

Sometimes, Jean-Claude interrupts his story with brief rhetorical observations: “Oh, you know, so much has been written about these events,” or even, “What I’m telling you is nothing new.”

For him, it is not about pretending to be humble, about minimizing the magnitude of the battles in which he took part, or about making less of his comrades’ courage. From this point on, this “après-Auxey” soldier understands that the horrors of war, the large movements of troops, the suffering and the heroism of men—yes, that rapid fusion of history with individual destinies—possess a hidden sense, a new meaning that is beginning to reveal its mystery, one battle at a time, and that the old storyteller of today is trying to express.