Covered With Mud and Glory: A Machine Gun Company in Action ("Ma Mitrailleuse"). Georges Lafond

Sergeant-Major Georges Lafond, of the Territorial Hussars, the author of this book, was in South America at the time of mobilization. He returned to France as soon as possible and joined his corps, but asked to be assigned as intelligence officer to the machine-gun sections of the … first regiment of Colonial Infantry.

With this picked corps, which has been decimated several times, he took part in the engagements in Champagne, on the Somme, at Lihons, Dompierre, Herbécourt, and notably in the days from the first to the fifth of July, where the regiment earned its second citation and received the fourragère.

Lafond was discharged after the battles of Maisonnette, and wrote this book of recollections in the hospital at Abbeville, and afterwards at Montpellier, where he had to undergo a severe operation.

Sergeant-Major Lafond’s narrative makes no claim to literary pretension, but it is simply a collection of actual occurrences. It is a series of short narratives which give the life of a company of machine gunners from the day of its formation to the hour when it was so decimated that it had to be reorganized with men from other corps.

What pictures the following titles call to mind: “A Reconnaissance in the Fog,” “The Aeroplane,” “Our First Engagement,” “ ‘We Have Taken a Picket Post,’ ” “The Attack,” “The Echelon,” “A Water Patrol”! No man who has lived at the front and has taken part in an attack will fail to recognize the accuracy of these narratives and to experience, as well, emotion, enthusiasm, and pride in having been among “those who were there.”

This record of adventure was very successful when it appeared in the Petit Parisien, and I feel sure that it will be successful in book form. I beg Sergeant-Major Georges Lafond to accept my hearty congratulations on his fine talent and his bravery.

Maurice Barrès,

of the French Academy.

ILLUSTRATIONS

Table of Contents

	PAGE
“He’s Hit,” Sergeant Lace Cries Suddenly. And Indeed He is Hit	Frontispiece
Remains of Villages near the Lines	36
A Poilu	56
A Sinister Grumbling Seemed To Shatter The Fog	110
The Front Line Trench	154
A Commandant’s Post	166
The Least Dangerous Passage is the Unprotected Ground	186
The Attack	226

Note.—These photographs are all copyrighted by International Film Service, Inc.

COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY

Table of Contents

CHAPTER I
THE SEARCH FOR MY COMPANY

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