Louis Barthas

"Along with millions of other Frenchmen, Louis Barthas, a thirty-five-year-old barrelmaker from a small wine-growing town, was conscripted to fight the Germans in the opening days of World War I. Corporal Barthas spent the next four years in near-ceaseless combat, wherever the French army fought its fiercest battles: Artois, Flanders, Champagne, Verdun, the Somme, the Argonne. Barthas' riveting wartime narrative, first published in France in 1978, presents the vivid, immediate experiences of a frontline soldier. This excellent new translation brings Barthas' wartime writings to English-language readers for the first time. His notebooks and letters represent the quintessential memoir of a "poilu," or "hairy one," as the untidy, unshaven French infantryman of the fighting trenches was familiarly known. Upon Barthas' return home in 1919, he painstakingly transcribed his day-to-day writings into nineteen notebooks, preserving not only his own story but also the larger story of the unnumbered soldiers who never returned. Recounting bloody battles and endless exhaustion, the deaths of comrades, the infuriating incompetence and tyranny of his own officers, Barthas also describes spontaneous acts of camaraderie between French poilus and their German foes in trenches just a few paces apart. An eloquent witness and keen observer, Barthas takes his readers directly into the heart of the Great War"--

Contains primary source documents.

the World War I notebooks of Louis Barthas, barrelmaker, 1914-1918

Poilu

En 1914, Louis Barthas a trente-cinq ans. Tonnelier dans son village de l'Aube - Peyriac-Minervois -, il est mobilisé au 280e d'infanterie basé à Narbonne. Il fera toute la guerre comme caporal. Il connaîtra le secteur sinistre de Lorette, Verdun, la Somme, l'offensive du Chemin des Dames ; la boue, les rats et les poux ; les attaques au devant des mitrailleuses et les bombardements écrasants ; les absurdités du commandement, les mutineries de 1917, les tentatives de fraternisation. Au front, Barthas note tout ce qu'il voit, tout ce qu'il ressent. De retour chez lui, survivant, il va rédiger au propre son journal de guerre, à l'encre violette, sur dix-neuf cahiers d'écolier. Sens de l'observation précise, lucidité, émotion et humour mêlés, révèlent chez le caporal tonnelier un talent d'écrivain qui n'est gâté par aucune recherche d'effets littéraires. Louis Barthas participa à la création du syndicat des ouvriers agricoles et fut membre du parti socialiste. Le livre, présenté par Rémy Cazals, est devenu un classique depuis sa première édition en 1978, réalisée avec l'aide des petits-enfants de Louis Barthas et de la Fédération audoise des œuvres laïques.

Les carnets de guerre de Louis Barthas, tonnelier, 1914-1918

“An exceptionally vivid memoir of a French soldier’s experience of the First World War.”—Max Hastings, New York Times bestselling author Along with millions of other Frenchmen, Louis Barthas, a thirty-five-year-old barrelmaker from a small wine-growing town, was conscripted to fight the Germans in the opening days of World War I. Corporal Barthas spent the next four years in near-ceaseless combat, wherever the French army fought its fiercest battles: Artois, Flanders, Champagne, Verdun, the Somme, the Argonne. First published in France in 1978, this excellent new translation brings Barthas’ wartime writings to English-language readers for the first time. His notebooks and letters represent the quintessential memoir of a “poilu,” or “hairy one,” as the untidy, unshaven French infantryman of the fighting trenches was familiarly known. Upon Barthas’ return home in 1919, he painstakingly transcribed his day-to-day writings into nineteen notebooks, preserving not only his own story but also the larger story of the unnumbered soldiers who never returned. Recounting bloody battles and endless exhaustion, the deaths of comrades, the infuriating incompetence and tyranny of his own officers, Barthas also describes spontaneous acts of camaraderie between French poilus and their German foes in trenches just a few paces apart. An eloquent witness and keen observer, Barthas takes his readers directly into the heart of the Great War. “This is clearly one of the most readable and indispensable accounts of the death of the glory of war.”—The Daily Beast (“Hot Reads”)

Louis Barthas

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