“Forward-March!” – (PIP #47)

By Louise Peloquin

     L’Etoile’s premises at 24-26 Prince Street in Little Canada were simple, space-effective and ecological. No interior decorator fitted Louis-A. Biron’s office with designer furniture, elegant window dressings and artsy wall hangings. The photos in PIP #5 illustrate the fact that space was for printing rather than for catering to human comfort.

https://richardhowe.com/2023/10/16/every-day-a-star-is-born/

Rustic boards welcomed books, pamphlets and documents of all kinds.

On this Armistice Day 2024, it is appropriate to open two of L’Etoile’s precious volumes: “Forward-March!” presented to Biron in 1934.

     Here are excerpts of the Introduction written by Volney B. Mooney Jr., National         Commander of the Disabled American Veterans of the World War.

“We shall fight for the things we have always carried nearest our hearts – for democracy….”

     These immortal words spoken by Woodrow Wilson on April 2, 1917, sent us into war….

     Four million men offered their bodies. Other millions offered their time, their energies, and their fortunes….

     The passing years have blurred the outline of memory… To all such, “Forward-March!” will be a welcome memento…. 

     This photographic record will bring a clear perception, an undistorted understanding of the World War….

     If it be true that “one picture is worth a hundred printed pages,” this work will fill a long felt need in the field of historical information….

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In memory of the multitude of heroes who sacrificed their lives, their physical integrity, their comfort and their well-being in order to preserve our freedom, we present a selection of photos from the 493-page, 2-volume collective masterpiece “Forward-March!” We have opted against choosing what Commander Mooney called “gruesome pictures.” Here are 5 peeks into “ The Great War” period. (1)

KNEE DEEP – Serg’t Wm. Thorpe photographing in front line trenches. Photo Det. 26th Division. Beaumont, May 4, 1918.

Night attack with phosphorus bombs against the 28th Division. Fismette, August 26, 1918.

THE SON OF AN AMERICAN PRESIDENT. Grave of Lieutenant Quentin Roosevelt, who died “in aerial combat, July 14, 1918, for Right and Liberty.” The Sixth French Army, aeronautical section, paid a grateful tribute to the memory of the American aviator by erecting this cross headboard and fence on his grave, near Chamery.

COMRADES – “Fifty-fifty” was the motto adopted by doughboys in France – that is, in their relations with the civil population. The Yank and the French boy are pals, sharing food and playing together and each a teacher of languages.

LUCKY TO BE CAPTURED BY AMERICANS – It is generally recognized that the personal hatred which the Allied soldiers had for the German was not shared by the American soldier, despite the fact that the instructors sent to the U.S. training camps by the foreign governments constantly worked to install such hatred.

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     To close this Veterans Day 2024 memorial piece, an editorial by Louis-A. Biron.

L’Etoile, November 1, 1924

All Saints Day

     All living things must die! All lives are but the prelude of the final void! To be born is the first step towards Death!

     On this All Saints Day, gloomy thoughts attack everyone who thinks!

     By what bizarre mystery, clothed in irony and fatality, does this essentially natural phenomenon of death provoke such an instinctive and irresistible repulsion within all conscious and animated beings? A hundredfold wise is the one who can say.

     But how small one is in front of Death! Instinctively, he is little in the universal plan! 

     And yet, when, at times, one tames one’s emotional self, a suddenly-more-lucid reasoning opens a luminous avenue by which one light-heartedly flees the draining fatalism which seems to strike all that touches or approaches Death. Unburdened from the mournful weight which keeps him prostrated in the dust, man, creation’s masterpiece, then lifts his eyes towards the sky, in a quest for the ideal. A little interior voice, discreet yet pressing, defines this Ideal for him in the language of the soul: it is God.

     The Supreme Being wanted all things to be born, to die and to recommence in an evolution without end. Man, perishable being, is but a milestone in the infinite road linking the Past to the Future. But his sublime intelligence, a beam from the Divinity, grants him the certitude that he will not have existed in vain. In the universal harmony instituted by God, man obscurely feels the role incumbent on him to fulfil, and to this obligation of divine origin, he has given a name: Duty.

     And it is guided by the divine will, sometimes weakening, yet quickly recovering, that man awaits Death, perpetuating the inspiring past generations and transmitting to future generations a sacred heritage of faith in God and devotion to Duty. (2)

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1)   PIP #8, “They trained, they served, they sacrificed,” posted on November 14, 2023, also deals with World War I. See link:

 https://richardhowe.com/2023/11/14/they-trained-they-served-they-sacrificed/

2) Translation by Louise Peloquin.