Dixmude: The epic of the French marines (October 17-November 10, 1914)Le Goffic, Charles
History
Dixmude: The epic of the French marines (October 17-November 10, 1914)
Le Goffic, Charles
France. Marine. Brigade des fusiliers marins; World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- Belgium; Yser, Battle of the, Belgium, 1914
[51] "Blood ran in the streets like water," said Jean Claudius still
more emphatically, according to a witness. This was probably the origin
of the fantastic accounts which appeared in the press at this period,
most of them purely imaginary.
[52] We must quote this short passage from the eloquent speech made at
the funeral of this brave officer at Lannion by Second-Lieutenant de
Cuverville, representing Admiral Berryer: "The order to mobilise found
Ernest Eno at Brest, engaged in training those very battalions he was
later to lead against the enemy; and no one could have been better
qualified than he to give our young recruits not only professional
instruction, but those lessons of manliness and patriotism which go to
the heart, and make men strong and courageous. For he was himself a
hero. A self-made man, he had raised himself step by step on the steep
ladder of his calling. He was a true sailor. He went off with the 1st
Regiment of Marines on August 13.... He fell at the head of his men
under intense fire round the cemetery of Dixmude, his thigh fractured by
a fragment of shell. He was not fated to recover from his terrible
wound. He died, uniting in his last prayers to God his dear ones and his
beloved Brittany, which he was to see no more." An operation had been
performed on Eno on the battlefield by his fellow-citizen and friend Dr.
Taburet, one of the doctors of the brigade, who showed the most supreme
contempt of danger under fire in attendance on our wounded.
[53] Dr. Caradec, _op. cit._
[54] In less critical circumstances the same accident had happened to
Second-Lieutenant Gautier, and was the occasion of an amusing little
scene, which might have been taken from Léonec and Gervèze's sketches of
Marines: "Yesterday I was going at the Germans with machine-guns at
1,200 metres on a road from which I finally cut them off. All of a
sudden the guns jammed. I yelled from my blockhouse: 'What's the
matter?' 'Guns jammed.' 'Tell the gunner from me that he's an ass.' The
communicator, a worthy Breton fisherman, repeated gravely: 'The
Lieutenant says that the gunner is an ass.' The gunner was one Primat. A
few days later, on November 10, in submerged Dixmude, this same Primat
(the orderly of the Second-Lieutenant), who had survived his officer,
used his machine-guns with such skill and coolness against a German
column that he stopped it dead, mowing down three sections."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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