France`s Worst Day

[Gibbo]

I've now managed to look at the 2 books by Henry (spelt with a y) Contamine, La Revanche 1871-1914 and La Victoire de la Marne, 9 septembre 1914, that Hew Strachan gave as sources at the end of a paragraph on pp. 230-1 of The First World War: Vol I: To Arms, in which he said that 40,000 Frenchmen were killed between 20-23 August 1914, 27,000 of them on 22 August. On p. 120 of La Victoire de la Marne Contamine says that:

20 a 23 août 1914 : en quatre jours, quelque 40 000 Français ont été mortellement frappes. Parmi eux, 27 000 peuvent être attribues au samedi 22, le jour le plus sanglant de notre histoire, alors que le chiffre quotidien des morts naturelles était d'environ 2 000. C'est l’apogée des horreurs de 1914. Mais il y aura des hécatombes du même ordre le 9 mai 1915 près d'Arras, en Champagne-Artois le 25 septembre suivant, au Chemin des Dames le 16 avril 1917 — les batailles de durée, Verdun et la Somme, s'insérant d'une manière différente dans ce funèbre bilan.

I've tried to translation this as below but it's very rough as I've not studied French for 30 years. The final part is obviously clumsy. I may have misunderstood 'alors que le chiffre quotidien des morts naturelles était d'environ 2 000' as meaning the normal number of daily deaths by natural causes in France at that time was 2,000 per day but this would be 730,000 p.a., which with a population of 45m implies a life expectancy of about 62.

20 to 23 August 1914 : in four days, some 40 000 Frenchmen were mortally wounded. Of these 27 000 can be attributed to Saturday 22nd, the bloodiest day of our history, at a time when the average number of daily deaths from natural causes was in the region of 2 000. It was the peak of the horrors of 1914. But there were also slaughters of the same order on 9 May 1915 near Arras, in Champagne-Artois on the following 25 September, at the Chemin des Dames on 16 April 1917 — at the long battles, Verdun and the Somme, the balance sheet of funerals came about in a different manner.

The book doesn't give references but has a fairly long bibliography. including the French Army archives. Contamine's other book, La Revanche, seems to be the source for other comments by Strachan, including one that French casualties by 29 August totalled 290,000 including 75,000 dead

[Robert Dunlop]

It's far from objective and really dense but there has been much detailed research for which he's to be commended.

Very good summary, Paul. I am on my third read of Zuber's book. It is the only way to absorb the breadth of what happened.

Robert

[truthergw]

QUOTE (Phil_B @ Nov 4 2008, 10:55 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Unfortunately, my schoolboy French would make a French text rather hardgoing .................

I think you would be pleasantly surprised, Phil. Invest in a half decent dictionary and have a go. That's what I did and it's amazing how much comes back and of course a lot is new, military terms which you din't get at school but look half familiar anyway. When I decided to try, I got French versions and English versions of a couple of classics, very cheap and used the English as a crib. Le Feu and the French version of All Quiet. I did the same with German and found that harder, but still a great help. I ended up with French, German and English versions of Storm of Steel and AQOTWF. A great pastime for the winter months. Once you have worked your way through a couple of the little paperbacks, you will be well away.

[PhilB]

Probably right - it`s surprising what you can do with schoolboy French. Even if it`s from the era of la plume de ma tante. My grandson has A level French but didn`t know what poilu meant! Shame.