Author:  Kathleen Burke

Release Date:  October 25, 2005 [eBook #16945]

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ISO-646-us (us-ASCII)

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etails/whiteroadverdun00burkuoft

THE WHITE ROAD TO VERDUN

by

KATHLEEN BURKE

[Illustration:  Frontispiece.]

Hodder and Stoughton
London New York Toronto
Printed in Great Britain by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and
Aylesbury

MCMXVI

TO

DR. C.O.  MAILLOUX

(New York)

MR. AND MRS. L.B.  FRANKLIN

AND

JEANNETTE FRANKLIN

AND TO MY

MOTHER

WHO BY THEIR AFFECTION AND PRACTICAL

SYMPATHY HELPED ME IN ALL THE

Work I have undertaken.

10th August, 1916.

We left Paris determined to undertake the journey to the front in the true spirit of the French poilu, and, no matter what happened, “de ne pas s’en faire.”

This famous “motto” of the French Army is probably derived from one of two slang sentences:  “De ne pas se faire des cheveux” ("To keep one’s hair on"), or “De ne pas se faire de la bile” (or, in other words, not to upset one’s digestion by unnecessary worrying).  The phrase is typical of the mentality of the poilu, who accepts anything and everything that may happen, whether it be merely slight physical discomfort or intense suffering, as part of the willing sacrifice which he made on the day that, leaving his homestead and his daily occupation, he took up arms “offering his body as a shield to defend the Heart of France.”