Part II

(Delayed in Transmission and Mutilated by the Censor.)

“General Headquarters of the Attacking Troops North-east of Vaux, June 7.

“For five days and five nights the terrific combat has been raging without respite in the interior of Fort Vaux, up to the moment when the remnant of the intrepid garrison, deprived of their last means of resistance, surrendered to the victors.

“I have described at length the engagements of June 2 and 3; the fighting was continued on the following days with unparalleled stubbornness and ferocity. The situation was such that within the fort there had been formed, so to speak, a second fort, which the French, utterly reckless of their own lives, defended to the very last gasp.

“After blowing up the heavy door opening on to the corridor which led to the western observing-station at the barracks of the Gorge, the Germans advanced step by step in the corridor. It was very dark, only 90 centimetres wide and a metre and a half high; the French had raised a barricade of sandbags two yards deep, and had set up a machine-gun behind it. It was now essential to blow up the barricade, in order to fall upon another a few yards farther on. Thus the French were pushed back step by step over a distance of twenty-five yards.

“Near the gorge, the courtyard of the barracks had previously formed a concrete platform about five yards thick above the underground corridors and magazines; but it was now only a huge ploughed-up crater. The heavy shells, even in this crater, had hollowed out a sort of funnel, at the bottom of which a narrow opening, pierced through the last vault, seemed as if it might give access to the interior of the structure. The French, till then completely screened from above and entirely shut in, were suddenly in great danger of being smoked out through this opening. The bombardment that overwhelmed the fort, however, made observation almost impossible for us. The French were the first to notice, from the interior, that the bombardment had almost entirely staved in a ceiling; they at once occupied the edge of the funnel, stopped up the hole with sandbags, and installed a machine-gun. Thus they commanded a portion of that broken country, which now constituted the top of the fort; In consequence, the German communications with this top part, which had before this been unhampered, were now somewhat restricted; nor could they manage to come close enough to overwhelm the new pivot point with bombs.

“Among the French the signs of hunger and thirst became more and more marked. Some succeeded in escaping, by the ditch of the gorge (this was still in their hands), towards the Montagne Wood, in front of Fort Souville. In this direction lay the first line of French infantry. By this route, too, the commandant of the fort, when he had no more carrier-pigeons, sent liaison officers. The underground telephone communications had been destroyed by heavy shells.

“On June 5 and 6, the position of the French garrison grew steadily worse; the number of dead and especially of wounded increased with rapid strides; at last there were no more than a hundred pints of water left, even for the wounded. Those who had not been wounded had not a drop, and had eaten scarcely anything since the 4th. Yet the French continued to fire from the direction of the gorge, through the embrasures in the barracks and those in the ditch, at every target that offered itself. In this way the German garrison of Fort Vaux suffered losses. Other losses, by no means negligible, were inflicted upon it by the continual flanking fire directed against the fort from the infantry tactical point, situated quite close at hand, to the west; it was provided with a field gun. Similarly, the high-perched battery of Damloup, on the south, opened a very troublesome bombardment.

“On the afternoon of June 6 the position of the Germans became extremely hazardous. The casemates which they occupied were assiduously peppered, at first with gas projectiles, somewhat later by heavy shells. The two bombardments were clearly the forerunners of an infantry counter-attack aiming at the recapture of the earthwork from the south-west. This attack, however, was brought to nought by the overpowering effects of the German curtain fire, which opened as soon as the attack was started.

“To-day, at dawn, the French garrison surrendered through the medium of its commandant. The prisoners who are beginning to come in are the living image of misery.

“Kurt von Reden.”

The text, which has been suitably edited, calls for some brief comments.

The engagement before the fort on June 2 is pictured as quite separate from the fighting of the previous day round the Hardaumont salient, Fumin Wood, and the line of entrenchments, and, on the same day, at Damloup and by the Damloup battery. As a matter of fact, it forms an integral part of all this fighting. It was the retreat of the details, placed west and east of the fort and overwhelmed by numbers, that allowed the enemy to approach the transverse passages.

The number of cannon and machine-guns allotted to the defence of these transverse passages is doubled in the German version.

The northern ditch, not having been swept by fire, became for the enemy a sort of stronghold.

The anomalous situation of a commandant of the fort on top and another inside, the one French, the other German, was not new. It had arisen, though vice versa, on May 22, 23, and 24 at Fort Douaumont, where General Mangin’s troops occupied the superstructure and a portion of the casemates.

It was on June 4, towards noon, that the Germans, above the barricade of sandbags, were able to hurl liquid fire and asphyxiating gases.

The German account informs us of a remarkable episode in the resistance, or rather completes the reports of an artillery observer who signalled on June 6 that the armoured turret of the fort would be gutted. Not only were the besieged shut in and suffocated with smoke, but the ceiling gave way and fell upon them. An opening was made in the vault which protected them. They were the first to notice it, and partly stopped up the fissure with sandbags, but succeeded in installing a machine-gun, which battered down a part of the superstructure and seriously interfered with the enemy’s progress. This machine-gun was so skilfully worked that it did not allow the assailants to approach and cripple its fire with bombs. This incident may be assigned to June 5 or 6, for Cadet Buffet’s report, which summarizes the life of the fort up to the night of the 4th-5th, makes no mention of it. Thus, up to the last moment, the energy and ingenuity of the defenders did not cease to be exerted to the full.

There was no plan for a counter-offensive on our part on the afternoon of June 6. Our attack of the 6th, at two in the morning, had just, and only just, failed. That of the composite brigade could not take place until the morning of the 8th. On the evening of June 6 it was, on the contrary, a furious enemy attack in the neighbourhood of Vaux that was shattered under our fire.

Finally, is it possible reasonably to compare with the defence kept up for six days under the frightful conditions already described, the feat—admirable, no doubt, but far easier to explain—of the attacking troops, who were relieved, revictualled, supplied with water (even if only by rain-water—for there were several showers), and breathed an air which was not tainted and foul?

The true victor in the contest should be mentioned, and the German account as good as names him when it says: “Those who were not wounded had not had a drop of water for two days.” Not a drop of water, in the corridors poisonous with the smoke from bombs and the asphyxiating gases!

The true victor in the contest was Thirst.