![]() Ordered into the hastily dug trenches on June 10, the officers tried to place their companies to minimize the effects of a direct hit. They were very exposed on high ground, well within sight of German artillery in the woods east of the Meuse River. The Frenchmen all knew what concentrated heavy guns could do to an entrenched position. They had reliable Lebel 8mm rifles tipped with 20-inch bayonets, and they knew how to use them. ![]() They would fight every German who showed his pointed helmet to the 137th Infantry. These were French soldiers, sworn to defend their sacred homeland to the death against the vile Boche. Yet there was no talk of retreat or surrender. Two battalions of the 137th had been ordered to hold their lines against the German Fifth Army.īut there was little doubt that the soldiers, clad in the characteristic horizon blue jackets and trousers, helmets, and leather belts with ammo pouches, had no illusions about their ability to hold off a determined German infantry assault, especially those that carried flamethrowers and grenades. Their trench, wreathed in barbed wire and surrounded by shell craters was in a salient a short distance from what had once been the most heavily fortified bastion in France, Fort Douaumont. The stink of expended cordite, scorched wood, and rotten corpses permeated the air around them. Instead, the soldiers of 3 Company of the French 137th Infantry Regiment smelled only death on the wind. The weather was warm with breezes coming down from the north, but they did not carry the scent of wildflowers or grapevines. ![]() ![]() The morning of June 23, 1916, dawned over the broad crenellated valley of the Meuse River in northeastern France. ![]()
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