E-text prepared by Irma Spehar, Emmy,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(/)
from images generously made available by
The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries
(http://www.archive.org/details/toronto)
| Note: | Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive: Canadian Libraries. See http://www.archive.org/details/whiteroadverdun00burkuoft |
THE WHITE ROAD
TO VERDUN
BY
KATHLEEN BURKE
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
MCMXVI
Dr. C.O. MAILLOUX
(NEW YORK)
Mr. and Mrs. L.B. FRANKLIN
AND
JEANNETTE FRANKLIN
AND TO MY
MOTHER
WHO BY THEIR AFFECTION AND PRACTICAL
SYMPATHY HELPED ME IN ALL THE
WORK I HAVE UNDERTAKEN.
We left Paris determined to undertake the journey to the front in thetrue spirit of the French poilu, and, no matter what happened, "de nepas s'en faire."
This famous "motto" of the French Army is probably derived from one oftwo slang sentences: "De ne pas se faire des cheveux" ("To keep one'shair on"), or "De ne pas se faire de la bile" (or, in other words, notto upset one's digestion by unnecessary worrying). The phrase is typicalof the mentality of the poilu, who accepts anything and everythingthat may happen, whether it be merely slight physical discomfort orintense suffering, as part of the willing sacrifice which he made on theday that, leaving his homestead and his daily [Pg 8]occupation, he took uparms "offering his body as a shield to defend the Heart of France."
Everything might be worse than it is, says the poilu, and so he hascomposed a litany. Every regiment has a different version, but alwayswith the same fundamental basis:
"Of two things one is certain: either you're mobilised or you're notmobilised. If you're not mobilised, there is no need to worry; if youare mobilised, of two things one is certain: either you're behind thelines or you're on the front. If you're behind the lines,