THE LAST DAYS OF
FORT VAUX

THE LAST DAYS OF
FORT VAUX
MARCH 9–JUNE 7, 1916

BY
HENRY BORDEAUX

AUTHOR OF ‘LA CROISÉE DES CHEMINS,’
‘LES ROQUEVILLARD,’ ETC.

TRANSLATED BY PAUL V. COHN, B.A.

THOMAS NELSON AND SONS, Ltd.
London, Edinburgh, and New York

AUX
SOLDATS
DE
VERDUN

The Author of “The Last Days of Fort Vaux,” M. Henry Bordeaux, is a native of Savoy who has distinguished himself in more than one department of letters before performing his duty manfully in the field, and then as official historian of the Great War. Apart from his reputation in France, M. Bordeaux has probably more readers in this country than any other French novelist of the day. Born in 1870 at Thonon-les-Bains, in Haute-Savoie, he began his career, like so many literary men, by reading law at Paris. He was called to the bar, and duly performed his military service. Then he attracted attention by a series of admirable critical essays, speedily republished in a book, and by an historical romance. He did not, however, forsake law altogether on this first success; but, after the death of his father in 1896, took his place for four years as a practising barrister in his native town, where he also held various municipal posts. Then he could no longer resist the call of art, and from the publication of his novel, Le Pays Natal, in 1900 to the outbreak of war, he has divided his life between Paris and Savoy, devoting himself entirely to writing. Besides novels such as La Peur de vivre, Les Roquevillard, La Robe de laine, La Neige sur les pas, which bid fair to attain classic rank, M. Bordeaux has worked as a dramatic critic and one of the most sensitive and discerning judges of literature in the leading French reviews.

M. Bordeaux is one of those who keep evergreen by a life of physical as well as mental activity. He is a cyclist and a motorist; one of his favourite sports is fencing; and he is a devotee of that special recreation of the intellectual, Alpine climbing.

Being an impassioned lover of his own beautiful country of Savoy, he is one of the many modern novelists who have identified themselves with a particular region, and invested their books with local colour. At the same time he is a brilliant chronicler of Parisian life. Above all, M. Bordeaux belongs to the school of writers who have raised the tone of French fiction, and freed it from the old reproach of cynicism, frivolity, and immorality. A keen analyst of the modern spirit, he represents all the sterling qualities that have placed France in the front rank among civilized nations. Says one of his countrymen, “Henry Bordeaux has the soul of a poet, a thinker, and a soldier, a soul ardently in love with beautiful rhythms and with noble efforts, a soul firm as a rock and luxuriant as the valleys of its birthplace.” His writings are of peculiar interest at the present moment, when France, in her glorious struggle against a brutal invader, is showing the world how sorely her enemies, and even some of her friends, had misjudged her, when they thought she was a prey to decadence. He typifies the reaction from the morbid introspection and ferocious egotism that have marred the work of so many poets and dramatists. A passage in Les Roquevillard strikes the keynote of his philosophy. “There is no fine individual destiny. There is no greatness but in service. We serve our family, our country, science, an ideal, God. Shame to those who only serve