Chapter 37 II Departure from Montparnasse to the War (1) The Poet's Wound

War is the legitimate reenactment of savagery. Paul Leoto March 17, 1916.The 139th platoon of a certain unit. Guillaume Apollinaire is setting up a shelter for himself in the trenches in the forest of Bootes in the Berri-Aubac position.He put a tent cloth over the parapet, which was a temporary measure to prevent stray shell fragments from falling from the head.He put on his helmet and sat down on the mound.He returned to the army in January after taking leave to spend time with Madeleine and her mother in La Moore, Algeria.He then led his men through two months of intensive training. On March 14, they drove to the front again.On the day of his departure, he wrote to Madeleine, reiterating her as heir to all his property.He has written countless letters like this, and this is just one of them.

They correspond almost every day.He promised her to love her forever and vowed to start making the necessary preparations for marriage as soon as he had time.Each letter is tender, but less frenetic.Madeleine seemed a little worried about this new phenomenon. He repeatedly comforted her and reassured her. He implicitly said that the inspection of letters in the army is very strict, and that tender vows between men and women are forbidden, so as not to affect the army. will to fight.At times, he seemed impatient with her constant pursuit.He advised her to be "obedient" and asked her to read some literature books to improve her ideological realm.He also suggested that she strengthen her English study, stop eating fish, learn to have fun, and pay special attention to her sick feet: "Massage gently from toes to instep for two minutes every night..."

All of this makes sense.The impression of their interaction is that of a family who fulfills the formalities in accordance with the formal procedures: proposal to the fiancée mother, engagement, meticulous care and care... This is really Guillaume Apollinaire What do you want? He stopped writing to Louise, and their relationship ended completely.His last letter to her was sent in January, in which he asked her to send him a pawn in Nice where he wanted to redeem a watch he had previously pawned.However, he also wrote affectionate letters to Mary Laurence from time to time.He also had correspondence with his friends in Paris, especially to Picasso, and he also presented Picasso with a ring he made himself.

He insisted on writing poetry, and also sent pages to the French Courier magazine about war, futurism, Stendhal, or Joan of Arc.In any case, he kept a book in his pocket, and whenever there was a lull in the fighting on the front lines, he read a few pages. He never complained, but he was depressed and "very sad."It seemed not because of the distance from Madeleine, but because of the war itself.He was used to the wind and rain, the mud, life in the barracks, long marches, field operations and suffocating smells.But he couldn't bear the stupidity, arrogance and arbitrariness of the commanders anyway.He wrote a report explaining why the soldiers of other regiments in the vicinity wore caps, while the soldiers of his regiment wore helmets.Perhaps he was well aware of the fact that discipline in the army was too strict: many soldiers who self-harmed were sentenced to death; any soldier who had a hand wound and left black marks around the wound may be executed because these marks may be explosives, and the wound Proof that the wounded were so close to the explosives that it could not have been done by the enemy.Numerous soldiers were executed for having their hands wounded by shrapnel from enemy shells.

Disobedience to orders was also severely punished. In 1915, the Second Battalion of the 336th Infantry Regiment suddenly received an order to attack the enemy's trenches.The soldiers did not move and refused to execute.Because they attacked for a while and counterattacked for a while, they were exhausted. In addition, they had to cross an open field 150 meters wide, covered with barbed wire, and bombed to pieces by the Germans.To attack under such conditions is tantamount to committing suicide. Faced with such typical disorganized and undisciplined behavior, the commander of the infantry division planned to bombard the trenches of his own army with artillery. It was only after repeated pleadings for intervention by the artillery colonel that he changed his decision.He asked for six corporals and eighteen soldiers to be chosen from among the youngest.After the approval of the military council, these people were sentenced to death immediately.

Soldiers were sometimes executed for refusing to charge against heavy enemy fire, to march across a battlefield covered in the corpses of their own comrades, or to lie on top of their comrades from German shells.Those to be executed were not identified by the officers, but drawn by the soldiers themselves, and those who were drawn would act as scapegoats.The deputy battalion commander Apollinaire will naturally not be indifferent to all this, especially he did not remain silent about a 20-year-old machine gunner officer named Chaplann of the 98th Infantry Regiment. While in the Woods, he was attacked by the Germans.The Germans surrounded him, four soldiers and two machine guns, and he was wounded.The enemy captured them alive, and he was locked up in barbed wire for two days.When the stretcher-bearers brought him back, he was brought before the colonel.The colonel handed him over to the military council, why?Because he was once captured by the enemy.Shaplan lay on a stretcher to hear his final sentence: death sentence.It was no ordinary execution: he was strapped to a stretcher, which was then erected vertically, and a dozen bullets were shot at him.

These facts hit the soldiers too hard, the people were very discouraged, and the morale of the whole army was low.Like everyone else, Apollinaire was not indifferent to all of this, he saw it in his eyes and kept it in his heart.Derain wrote to Vlaminck: Tens of thousands of lives were sacrificed in vain, as if all this was nothing.So many orders were issued and so many plans were made, all in vain.There are those who have an infinite power to command and use others as indestructible and inexhaustible instruments, which call upon them endlessly for the most strenuous efforts.Those who give orders are truly frightening.

[Excerpt from a letter from André Derain to Vlaminck, March 1, 1917] Before entering the Berry-Obach positional battle, Apollinaire took two days off.When he returned to the army, he was very disappointed: Paris in wartime was so warm that people were reluctant to part with it!Max Jacob's sarcastic remarks chilled him even more: he said that it was estimated that the war would last thirty years.This is certainly an exaggeration, but Guillaume also does not think it will be able to end in late 1917-early 1918. The only good news—the best news in a long time—was an official letter he had received a few days ago.The letter with the large letters of the Civil Affairs Bureau of the Ministry of Justice on the letterhead granted French citizenship to Guillaume Kostowski, alias Guillaume Apollinaire.what!It's finally here!

Apollinaire treasured this letter in his pocket and put it together with an issue of the French Courier.He touched the magazine with his hand, took it out, opened it, and unfolded it in front of him.The magazine and the letter seemed to be his talisman.The bombing of the surrounding area is still going on, but there is nothing to do but to defend. March 17, 1916 at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. He read the magazine intently, turning a few pages.Suddenly, a thunderous explosion sounded forty meters away from him, and the helmet on his right temple was hit slightly by something.Apollinaire touched his head with his hand, there was a hole in the helmet, and a hot thing dripped down his cheek: it was blood.

He called for someone to come.He was evacuated to a first aid station with fragments of the bomb lodged in his right temple. Doctors from the 246 regiment bandaged his head.They brought his little suitcase and put him to sleep.At 2 a.m. the next morning, he was packed into an ambulance and taken to hospital.There, doctors removed several pieces of shrapnel from his right temple. On March 18, he said in a letter to Madeleine: My injury is not serious, I just feel very tired. On the 22nd, the doctor took a film for him.He was in excruciating pain.But this did not prevent him from recording the injury in his diary, nor did it delay him from writing letters to Madeleine, Eve Blanc and Max Jacob.

On the 25th, he had to retreat from the hospital, but his high fever persisted, and he was still unable to get out of bed until the 28th. On the 29th, he arrived at the Val de Grasse Hospital in Paris.His friends came to visit him, and he was fully conscious.Outwardly, his injuries did not appear to have deteriorated, and the wounds healed. However, Apollinaire kept complaining of headaches and dizziness.The doctors said he was overtired and needed plenty of rest.But his left arm was getting heavier. On April 9, Serge Ferrat, who was working as a nurse at the Italian embassy at the time, transferred him to the Italian government hospital in Guedalce on the banks of the Seine in Paris.Days passed, and Apollinaire's physical paralysis became more and more serious, and he often fell into a coma. On May 9, Apollinaire underwent a trepanation surgery at the Villa Molière to remove a brain tumor. On the 11th, he sent Madeleine a telegram telling her that the operation was going well. He often wrote short letters, keeping her informed of developments. When she expressed her wish to come and visit him in August, he begged her not to come.He asked her to write him pleasant things, but not more than once a week.He asked her to send him back his artillery journals, a book of poems called "The Gun Carts," two watercolors by Mary Laurence, and a ring he had entrusted her with in the past.He treated Madeleine the same as he treated Louise: taking back everything that was his and everything he had given away. Soon, Madeleine also left Apollinaire's life.Is it because another woman came to the Villa Molière to see Apollinaire and soon replaced Madeleine next to him, or did he admit it as he said in his last letter to Algeria Have you become "more prone to losing your temper"?All in all, since his return to civilian life, in his handsome uniform with the war medals he awarded in June, with the bandages that had been wrapped around his head for the first few weeks, and a leather boat cap, Guillaume Apollinaire Paul has changed, and he is no longer the original Guillaume Apollinaire.He surprised all his friends with a display of extreme patriotic fervor.But he was not happy, sullen all day long, disappointed by the individualism around him and by a life in Paris so far removed from the suffering of the front. However, he will return to his house on the rue Saint-Germain, will join this life, and will also participate in colorful activities and banquets.But it is a pity that he can only persist until the end of the war: a total of only 27 months to survive in the world!