Tribute to the army (1914-1918)

Neither the destructive power of projectiles, nor the range of cannons, nor new combat devices as unexpected as they are terrifying in their effects, are the sole and essential architects of victory. The sovereign arbiter of battle is the value of souls.

More than any other weapon, the infantry is the expression of this "soul value", because it is the people, the mass, because more than any other it bears the overwhelming weight of the struggle.

Walking, walking some more, walking all the same, half-dead from fatigue, soaked to the skin, freezing, or exhausted from heat and thirst in the blazing air of a torrid day, in an atmosphere darkened and thickened by the acrid cloud of dust raised by the continuous pounding of the "Piétaille". Climbing the slopes under the heavy burden of a pack, loading bayonets and cannon amid the whistle of bullets, the crackle of machine guns and the roar of shells. Fighting by day, fighting by night, always keeping watch: dying obscurely in the furrow of a plough, in the excavation dug by projectiles or in the mystery of a thick copse.

To live underground, a few meters from the enemy, in slimy or liquid mud - under icy gusts of snow driven by the bitter north wind, - in the atrocious vision of horribly shredded comrades - in contact with grumbling dying and decomposing bodies. - Enduring long hours of day and night, a terrifying storm of iron and fire, an avalanche of shells and torpedoes threatening to crush, level and bury everything. Waiting with bated breath for the imminent attack to be repulsed in ferocious hand-to-hand combat, crossing the parapet to run headlong into the enemy's path through blinding, terrifying barrage fire; leaping from shell hole to shell hole and spending days and nights isolated in the precarious shelter of a funnel half-filled with stinking, slimy water!

The French infantry has triumphed over this infernal outburst of fury and horror, which surpassed anything the human imagination could ever conceive; it has generously endured without weakness this unheard-of outpouring of long, hard misery; it has endured without ceasing to "have a smile on its face". She is more than ever the great "QUEEN OF BATTLES".

O all you who meet her on your way, stop and bow. It is the SOUL OF FRANCE that passes through her noble and heroic Royalty...

General de Castelnau