In Europe

here.’ Newspapers were fired back and forth in the same fashion.
    Barthas spent some time in a sector where the Germans and the French fired only six mortar rounds a day, ‘out of courtesy’. That was all. The makeshift bridges across a nearby river were held under fire by enemy machine-gunners. Shots were rarely ever fired though, except when Barthas ventured out onto one of the bridges carrying a cane and a pair of binoculars, and the Germans mistook him for an officer. Then the bullets flew past his ears.
    This incident is indicative of the increasing social tension on both sides of the front. Almost everyone had abandoned the socialist class struggle back in 1914, but the frustration at the front gradually revived it with a vengeance. The British referred to their commander-in-chief, Haig, as ‘the Butcher of the Somme’. The pacifist movement was growing. Lieutenant Siegfried Sassoon publicly announced that he no longer wished to serve in the army: ‘I have seen and endured the suffering of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust.’ German graffiti on trains going to the front read: ‘Wilhelm and Sons, Cannon Fodder’. In his diaries, Barthas reported an increasing number of incidents: German and French soldiers singing the ‘Internationale’ together from their respective trenches, orders being ignored, mutinous units which were then pounded to a pulp by their own artillery. Sometimes the men bleated like sheep as they marched to the slaughterhouse of the front lines.
    For French soldiers at the front, Verdun was an emotional turning point. On a village square in May 1916, Barthas heard a soldier bark at a major: ‘I'm telling you that we didn't see any of you on Hill 304 [during the battle]. There will be no more saluting here.’ Shortly before this, medals had been passed out to the ‘heroes of the fatherland’, complete with a ‘patriotic kiss’ from the general. The poilus rolled on the ground in laughter. They had no more respect for anyone or anything.
    One year later, within the space of several months in spring 1917, more than 100,000 soldiers were senselessly killed on the Chemin des Dames, but still the French generals wanted to push on. Furloughs promised were postponed again and again. During those same months, more andmore rumours began filtering in about Russian mutinies. In late May 1917, Barthas was at a meeting of hundreds of soldiers in the courtyard of an inn. The soldiers were in their cups, and a corporal began singing a protest song about the dismal life in the trenches. The entire crowd joined in on the refrain, ‘and when it was finished they applauded wildly, shouting slogans such as “Peace or Revolution!”, “Down with the war!” and “Furlough, furlough!”’ The next evening, ‘the “Internationale” rose up like a hurricane’.
    On the following Sunday, the soldiers decided to seize control of the regiment and set up a ‘soviet’. Barthas was chosen to be its chairman. ‘I refused of course, for I had no desire to become acquainted with the firing squad simply for the sake of some childish imitation of the Russians.’ He agreed, however, to write a manifesto concerning the postponed leaves of absence. It never went any further than that.
    In other regiments, however, the soldiers went much further than that. They stopped fighting, set up soldiers’ councils, raised the red flag and even hijacked trains. Officers were intimidated, and when orders were disobeyed they looked the other way. At its peak the French mutiny involved 30–40,000 soldiers. The army was in a state of disorder for months, the British had to take over parts of the French front, and the French never completely recovered. The commanders no longer dared to issue orders for major attacks.
    Barthas’ regiment was placed under strict disciplinary constraint, but also received a breather. Some 350 mutineers were exiled to Devil's Island and 550 were condemned to death, of whom 49 were actually executed by order of the newly appointed commander-in-chief Philippe Pétain. On several occasions soldiers refused to take part in firing squads. In protest, they merely fired their shots over the condemned men's heads, leaving the commanding officer to perform the execution himself.
    The French command did have one bit of good luck, though: the Germans never found out how extensive the mutiny really was. The French