Louis Barthas was Frenchman who fought at the front lines for three years during the
First World War, miraculously surviving. He was a common man, yet unique, for Barthas
kept diaries of his experiences; a series of 19 notebooks that detail the horrors of
the war perhaps better than any of his contemporaries, and so Louis Barthas is the hero of today’s special.
I’m Indy Neidell, welcome to another episode of our Great War special bio series, “who
did what in World War 1?” Featuring Louis Barthas
Barthas was born July 14, 1879 in Homps, France. He came from a relatively poor background
and became a cooper as his father Jean was. His mother Louise worked as a seamstress.
Louis only attended a few years of primary school, but was a voracious reader in spite
of his lack of formal schooling, with a bookshelf full of Homer, Goethe, Victor Hugo, Dante,
and the like. He also regularly read the Socialist newspaper Le Midi Socialiste and was an active
member of the Socialist Party.
When the war broke out, Barthas was 35 years old, married, and with two sons aged six and
eight, but he was still called to service within the first few weeks of the war. Now,
men of Barthas age went in the reserves, whereas younger soldiers went directly to the front,
but since casualties were so heavy, Barthas joined the front line troops in Artois in
November 1914 and would see action throughout the winter. In May 1915 he was sent to Verdun
and over the next two years would fight at Verdun, Champagne, the battle of the Somme,
and in the Argonne. After the Battle of Chemin des Dames and the French army mutiny in 1917,
Barthas no longer served at the front and instead trained new recruits.
He finally returned home in 1919, working again as a cooper, and also producing wine.
On the final page of his diaries, Barthas says that his life post war was very peaceful,
however he found the outbreak of the Second World War heartbreaking. On May 4th, 1952
Louis Barthas died. Now, he had, over the years, found time to edit his notes and turn
his notebooks into a 500-page book, detailing the cruelties of war.
His book was never published during his lifetime; in fact, it was over a quarter of a century
after Barthas died that “Poilu, the World War One Notebooks of Louis Barthas, barrelmaker”
was published by historian Remy Cazals, a teacher at a school where one of Barthas’
grandsons worked. The title, which means literally “hairy one”, was the French equivalent
of grunt or dogface, the common soldier.
As a socialist and pacifist, Barthas had been a reluctant conscript, which really shows
in the acid tone of his writing, which challenges the official story of the war again and again.
Here’s a quote to that effect, “If we suffered stoically, without raising useless
complaints, don’t let anyone tell you it was because of patriotism, or to defend the
rights of peoples to live their own lives, or to end all wars, or other nonsense.
It was simply by force...”
Barthas’ writing is very direct, and conjures up the horrors of the trenches, the flame
throwers, and the months long battles, but it’s really his attention to detail that
brings the book to life, like a soldier crouching in a freezing swamp for hours suddenly finds
a fish in his pocket. There is no big historical account of troops movements, or clever strategy
here; instead, it’s the day to day life of the Poilu, marching from burned out village
to burned out village, repairing trenches, trying to find a safe place to sleep. He focuses
on the power struggles between the officers and the enlisted men, which were never ending.
The men would come up with complicated plans to avoid carrying out insane commands, and
Barthas himself lost a stripe for refusing to obey a captain’s order to dig a trench
within range of a German machine gun. Actually, once at Verdun, he was heading to the rear
when a lieutenant pulled a gun on him and ordered him to halt. Barthas raised his rifle
and pointed it at the lieutenant and said, “What do you want to do now?” The lieutenant backed down.
It wasn’t just the French; Barthas details unspoken truces between the enemies that violated
military code but were necessary, like a day in December 1915 when both German and French
trenches flooded and the men had to leave them or drown. The enemies just faced each
other, without shooting. Actually, any protest against authority was fine with Barthas, including,
late in the war, surrendering. He figured if everyone surrendered on both sides, then
the generals would have to come and fight each other. His diaries were his personal manifesto.
Some historians find his writing controversial, since it is so personal, anti-war, and anti-auth
ority that they find it less than true to fact, but Barthas’ recounting of the endless
exhaustion, the incompetence and tyranny of leaders, and above all, the deaths of his
comrades takes his readers into the heart of the Great War, and all of the tragedy it wrought.
So, what do you think? Did you read Bartha’s accounts and how do they compare to
say Ernst Jünger? Hash it out in the comments below.
Check out our bio of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk right here if you are interested in his endeavours during
World War 1. And if you like our show, please subscribe. See you next time.