Correspondence from a World War I soldier
Correspondence from a World War I soldier
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Memories of a soldier in the trenches during World War I, in Verdun, France.
- 39 letters and drawings from French army captain Léon Rohlfs De Sussex detailing his daily life as a soldier in the trenches during World War I, in northeastern France, near Verdun.
- 1914-1915.
- Excellent condition.
- Unique set.
The recipient is his sister, Marie. The overall condition of the documents is good, only some letters are undated or difficult to decipher as the soldier wrote in very small handwriting.
The lot also includes Léon's birth announcement written by his parents in 1875, and two letters he wrote as a student at the prestigious Saint Cyr military school. In French. Good condition. Unique set.
Translated excerpts
1895 - Léon explains the discipline imposed by the military school: "I have been in this new kind of boarding school for fifteen days (...). We must make the bed very well, to give it the shape of a rectangular cuboid, then polish our boots, clean the top of our locker, arrange it well so that we do not see any creases in the clothes (...). Then, we go to train or to classes (topography, fortifications, literature, law) depending on the week."
09/02/1914 - Léon thinks victory will not take long: "The Bavarians have been decimated."
09/21/1914 - Léon ponders: "I am fine, but my battalion suffered considerable losses."
11/16/1914 - Léon describes the routine and the fighting: "Our men are in the trenches up to their necks during the day and work at night, digging, to advance. It is trench warfare; we bomb the German camps and they retaliate. Yesterday afternoon, their first bombs knocked down the bell tower of the northernmost village (Malancourt) and killed 3 men from the 173rd battalion."
11/21/1914, night - Léon suffers from the cold: "My dear Marie, thank you very much for the balaclava you sent me. (...) But it's my feet that I can't warm up, until someone invents heated shoes. I freeze when I do nothing, despite dressing like an Eskimo. You must have seen in the newspapers that the Germans blew up the barracks of St Michel and killed 1683 men."
11/25/1914 - Léon explains, with a drawing, a mission he undertook: "Yesterday I went with General Berg to the trenches of Béthancourt that had been attacked during the night. Dead Germans were still on the ground."
12/26/1914 - For his birthday, Léon thanks Marie for the congratulatory letter and writes that he is very busy: "My job is to fire 6 weapons at once, by a single man, at certain points, crossroads, water points, etc... This is called piles of weapons and it attracts criticism to me and little consideration: the world is no better in war than in peace."
01/13/1915 - Léon's morale is low: "The environment in which I live is not friendly, with a few exceptions. I am physically well, my mood is not (...). The war is now uninteresting, things are stagnant and we are disheartened. There is a lot of friction between us, conversations are stupid or ill-intentioned; there are few calamities like this."
02/13/1915 - Léon's morale does not improve: "The general discouragement affects me more than the fights, I am depressed."
05/25/1915 - Wounded, Léon writes a last letter: "I have suffered too much since you saw me; this is beyond anything I could imagine. The doctors say my leg is fine, but I still have a fever. The continuous pain I feel in my wound makes me scream in front of anyone."
World War I (1914 - 1918) is the most important tragic moment in European history. Its outcome - the humiliation of Germany - partly motivated World War II and, finally, the construction of the European Union to put a definitive end to the Franco-German rivalry. The Battle of Verdun is particularly emblematic of this horrible war that killed, on both sides, millions of terrified soldiers and innocent civilians.
The famous Brazilian philosopher Antonio Candido was a student in 1929 of Marie Rohlfs De Sussex, sister and main recipient of the soldier's letters. I then contacted one of the scholar's daughters, Marina, a professor at USP, who replied to me:
Hello Mathias, I just called my father and he was stunned! He said that Madame de Sussex was very important in his life, a person for whom he has veneration. She was his teacher in 1929 and had a brother, a lawyer, who was a severely wounded veteran, as they were called then. He doesn't remember clearly, but he believes he was missing an arm or a leg. What a coincidence! Hugs, Marina.
This exchange of letters between Léon, the captain, and Marie, his sister, is moving and educational. Many human feelings are expressed by the hand of this soldier: fear, pride, anger, sadness, love, longing, friendship, contempt, optimism, pessimism, loneliness, solidarity, suffering, compassion, etc. Reading these lines from Léon in the trenches, we try to imagine the hell this young, brilliant man lived. One feels a man totally powerless before the climate, history, and human nature.
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