August 19, 2025 • 17 mins
Discover the compelling insights of Pierre Loti [Julien Viaud] (1850-1923), a French naval officer and novelist, in War. This captivating work of non-fiction features a selection of letters and diary entries that reveal his thoughts and experiences during the tumultuous times of war. Loti not only reflects on his involvement in World War I but also shares his perspectives on the preparations leading up to the Turkish Revolution of 1923, a significant event that inspired the naming of a famous hill and a beloved café in Istanbul after him. Join us as we explore the mind of a man who witnessed history firsthand. (Summary by Carolin)
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Chapter eighteen of War. This is a libre box recording.
All librabox recordings are in the public domain. For more
information or to volunteer, please visit libravox dot org. Reading
done by Jules Harlick of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. War by
(00:23):
Pierre Loti, translated by Marjorie Lowry, Chapter eighteen at Reems,
August nineteen fifteen. On a beautiful August evening, I am
hastening in a motor car towards Reems, one of our
markered towns, where I am hoping to find shelter for
(00:46):
the night before continuing my journey to the general headquarters
of another army. In order to avoid military formalities. I
wish to enter the town before the sun sets, and
it is all already too low for my liking. The
evening is typical of one of our splendid French summers.
(01:07):
The air is exquisitely clear of a delightful, wholesome warmth,
tempered with a light, refreshing breeze. On the hillsides of Champagna,
the beautiful vines on which the grapes are ripening spread
a uniform expanse of green carpet, and there are so
many trees, so many flowers everywhere, gardens in all the villages,
(01:31):
and roses climbing up all the walls. Today the cannon
is heard no more, and one would be tempted to
forget that the barbarians are there close at hand, if
there were not so many improvised cemeteries. All along the road.
Everywhere there are these little graves of soldiers all alike,
(01:52):
which are now to be found from end to end
of our beloved France, all along the battle front. They're
simple crosses of wood, are ranged in straight lines, as
if for a parade, topped, some of them with a wreath, others,
still more pathetically, with a simple service cap red or blue,
(02:13):
falling to rags. We salute them as we pass among
these glorious dead. There are some whose kindred will seek
them out and bring them back to the province of
their birth later when the barbarians have gone away, while others,
less favored, will remain there forever until the great final
(02:34):
day of oblivion. But what masses of flowers people have
already been at paines to plant there for them. All
around their resting place. There is a brave show of
all shades of brilliant color Dahlias, canis China, asters Roses,
who has undertaken this labor of love, girls from the
(02:58):
nearest villages, or perhaps even their own brothers in arms,
who dwell on the outskirts everywhere like invisible subterranean tribes
in their casemates, trench shelters, dugouts of every shape, covered
over with green branches. This region, you must know, is
not very safe. And when we arrived a section of
(03:21):
the road which is too much exposed, a sentinel, especially
posted there to give warning, instructs us to leave the
high road for a moment where we should run the
risk of being seen and shelled, and to take some
shelter traverse behind the curtains of poplars. One of my
soldier chauffeurs suddenly turns round to say to me, oh, look, sir,
(03:46):
there is an Arab cemetery. They have put on each
grave their little crescents instead of the cross. Here, to
be sure, the humble stille of white wood, all all
topped with a crescent of Islam. And this is something
of a shock to us in the very heart of France.
Poor fellows who died for our righteous cause so far
(04:09):
from their mosques and their whereabouts they sleep, and alas
without facing Mecca, because they who had laid them piously
to rest did not know that this was to them
a reck visite of peaceful slumber. But the same profusion
of flowers had been brought to them as to our
(04:29):
own countrymen. And I need not say that we salute
them likewise a little late, perhaps, for we passed them
so rapidly. We reach Dreams just before sunset, and here
a sudden sadness chills us. All is silent, and the
streets almost deserted. The shops are closed, and some of
(04:51):
the houses seemed to gape at us with enormous holes
in their walls. One of the infrequent wayfarers tells us
that at the hotel Golden Line Cathedral Square, we may
still be able to find someone to take us in.
And soon we are at the very foot of the
Noble Ruin, which is still enthroned as majestically as ever,
(05:16):
in the midst of the martyred town, dominating everything with
its two towers of open stone work. I stop my car.
The sound of who's rolling in such a place seems profanation.
The sadness of ruins is intensified here into veritable anguish,
(05:36):
and the silence is such that instinctively we begin to
talk softly, as if we had already entered the great
church that has perished the golden line. But its panes
of glass are broken, the doors stand open, the courtyard
is deserted. I send one of my soldiers there, bidding
(05:57):
him call, but not too loudly. In the midst of
all this mournful meditation, he returns. He has received no reply,
and has seen holes in the walls. The house is deserted.
We must seek elsewhere. It is twilight, a golden afterglow
still lingers around the magnificent summits of the towers, while
(06:21):
the base is wrapped in shadow. Oh, the cathedral, the
marvelous cathedral. What a work of destruction the barbarians have
continued to accomplish here since my pilgrimage of last November.
It had never been a lacework of stone, and now
it is nothing but a lace work, torn in tatters,
(06:44):
pierced with a thousand holes. But what miracle does it
still hold together? It seems as if today the least shock,
a breath of wind, perhaps would suffice to cause it
to crumble away, to resolve itself as it were, into
scattered atoms. How could it ever be repaired? What scaffold?
(07:07):
And could one dare to lean against those unstable ruins
in an attempt to afford it yet a little protection.
Sandbags have been piled up mountain high against the pillars
of the porticos, the same precaution that has been taken
in the case of Saint Mark's in Venice of Milan,
(07:30):
of all those inemitable masterpieces of past ages which are
menaced by the refined culture of Germany. Here the precautions
are vain. It is too late. The cathedral is lost,
and our hearts are wrung with sorrow and indignation as
we look this evening upon this sacred relic of our past,
(07:53):
our art and our faith, in its death throes and
its abandonment. Ah, what savages, and to feel that they
are still there, close at hand, capable of giving it
at any hour its coup de gross. To bid it farewell,
perhaps alast farewell, We will walk around it slowly with
(08:16):
solemn tread, in the midst of this deathlike silence, which
seems to grow more intense as the light fails But suddenly,
just as we are passing the ruins of the Episcopal Palace,
we hear a prelude of sound, a tremendous, hollow uproar,
(08:36):
something like the rumbling of a terrible thunderstorm near at
hand and unceasing. And yet the evening sky is so clear. Ah, Yes,
we were warned, we know whence it comes. It is
the bombardment of our heavy artillery, which was expected half
an hour after sunset, directed at the barbarian's trenches. This
(09:01):
is a change for us from the silence, this cataclysmal music,
and it contributes to our walk a different kind of sadness,
another form of horror. And we continue to gaze at
the wonderful stone carving overhanging us, the bold little arches,
(09:22):
the immense pointed arches, so frail and so exquisite. Indeed,
how does it all still hold together? Up above there
are little columns which have lost their base and remain,
as it were, suspended in the air by their capitals.
The windows are no more, the lovely rose windows have
(09:45):
been destroyed. The nave has huge feizures from top to bottom.
In the twilight, the whole cathedral assumes more and more
its phantom like aspect, and that noise which causes everything
to vibrate, is still increasing. It is a question whether
so many vibrations will not bring about the final downfall
(10:09):
of those two fragile carvings, which hitherto have held on
so persistently at such great heights above our heads. Here
comes the first wayfarer in that solitude, a well dressed person.
He is hurrying, actually running. Do not stand there, he
shouts to us. Do you not see that they are
(10:31):
going to bombard? But it is we, the French, who
are firing. It is our own artillery. Come, do not
run so fast. I know very well that it is we.
But each time the enemy revenges themselves on the cathedral,
I tell you that there will be a rain of
shells here. Immediately look out for yourselves. He goes on,
(10:56):
so much the better. It was kind of him to
war harness, But his jacket and his billy cock jarred.
Upon the melancholy grandeur of the scene. Where a street
opens into the square, two girls now appear. They stop
and hesitate. Evidently they are aware, these two, that the
(11:16):
barbarians have a habit of taking a noble revenge upon
the cathedral, and that shells are about to fall. But
doubtless they have to cross this square in order to
reach their home, to get down into their cellar. Well,
they have time. They are graceful and pretty fair, bare headed,
(11:38):
with their hair arranged in simple bands. They gaze into
the air with their eyes raised well up towards the heavens,
perhaps to see if death is beginning to pass that way,
but more likely to send up thither a prayer. I
know not what last brightness of the twilight, in spite
(11:58):
of the encroaching gloom, illumines so delightfully their two upturned faces,
and they look like saints in stained glass windows. Both
make the sign of the cross, and then they make
up their minds, and hand in hand they run across
the square with their religious gestures, their faces expressing anxiety,
(12:22):
yet courage too, and defiance. They suddenly seem to me
charming symbols of the girlhood of France. They run away, indeed,
but it is clear that they would remain without fear
if there were some wounded men to carry away, some
duty to perform, And their flight seems very airy in
(12:43):
the midst of this tremendous uproar like the end of
the world. We are going away too, for it is
wiser in the streets. There are very few wayfarers who
are running to take shelter, running with their backs hunched up,
although nothing is falling yet, like people without umbrella is
surprised by a shower. One of them, who nevertheless does
(13:06):
not mind stopping, points out to us the last hotel
still remaining open, a perfectly safe hotel, he says, over there,
in a quarter of the town where no shell has
ever fallen. God forbid that I should dream of laughing
at them, or fail to admire, as much as it deserves,
(13:27):
their persistent and calm heroism in remaining here in defiance
of everything in their beloved town, which is suffering more
and more mutilations. But who would not be amused at
that instinct which causes the majority of mankind to hunch
their backs against hail of whatever description. And then is
(13:51):
it because the air is fresh and soft and it
is good to be alive, that, after the unspeakable heartache
at the sight of the cathedral and the passion verging
on tears, a calm reaction sets in, and in that
moment everything amuses me. At the end of the quiet street,
(14:11):
where the noise of the cannonade is muffled. In the distance.
We find the hotel which was recommended to us rooms,
says the host, very pleasantly, standing on his doorstep. Oh,
as many as you like, the whole hotel, if you
wish for, you will understand that in times such as these, travelers,
(14:34):
and yet as far as shells go, you have nothing
to fear. Here, and appalling Din interrupts his sentence. All
the windows in the front of the house are shivered
to fragments, together with tiles, plaster, branches of trees. In
his haste to run away and hide, he misses the
(14:55):
step on the threshold and falls down flat on his face.
A dog who was coming along jumps upon him, full
of importance, recalling him to order with a fierce spark.
A cat, sprung from I know not where, flies through
the space like an aerolith, uses my shoulder for a
(15:15):
jumping off place, and is swallowed up by the mouth
of a cellar. But words are too tedious for this
series of catastrophes, which last scarcely as long as two
lightning flashes, and they continue to bombard us with admirable regularity,
as if timing themselves with a metronome. The wall of
(15:37):
the house is already riddled with scars. It is very wrong,
I admit to take these things as a jest, And
indeed with me that impression is only superficial physical I
might say that which endures in the depths of my
soul is indignation, anguish, pity. But at this entry which
(15:58):
the Germans made in to our hotel, that peaceful spot,
with flourish of their great orchestra, in the presence of
so many surprises, how retain one's dignity? There's a fair
number of little shells, it seems, but no heavy shells.
They travel with their long whistling sound, and burst with
(16:20):
a harsh din into the cellar. Gentlemen, cries the innkeeper,
who has picked himself up unhurt. Apparently there is nothing
else to be done. I should have come to that
conclusion myself. So I turned round to order in my
three soldiers too, who had remained outside, to look at
a hole made by a shrapnel in the body of
(16:42):
the car. But upon my word, I believe they are laughing,
the heartless wretches. And then I can restrain myself no longer,
I burst out laughing too. Yes, it is very wrong
of us, for presently there will be bloodshed, And but
how resists the humor of it all? The good man
(17:04):
fallen flat on his face, the self importance of the dog,
who thought he must put a stop to the situation,
and especially the cat. The cat swallowed up by an
arrowle after showing us a supreme exhibition of flight, its
little hindquarters with its tail in the air. End of
(17:27):
Chapter eighteen.
Chapter eighteen of War. This is a libre box recording.
All librabox recordings are in the public domain. For more
information or to volunteer, please visit libravox dot org. Reading
done by Jules Harlick of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. War by
(00:23):
Pierre Loti, translated by Marjorie Lowry, Chapter eighteen at Reems,
August nineteen fifteen. On a beautiful August evening, I am
hastening in a motor car towards Reems, one of our
markered towns, where I am hoping to find shelter for
(00:46):
the night before continuing my journey to the general headquarters
of another army. In order to avoid military formalities. I
wish to enter the town before the sun sets, and
it is all already too low for my liking. The
evening is typical of one of our splendid French summers.
(01:07):
The air is exquisitely clear of a delightful, wholesome warmth,
tempered with a light, refreshing breeze. On the hillsides of Champagna,
the beautiful vines on which the grapes are ripening spread
a uniform expanse of green carpet, and there are so
many trees, so many flowers everywhere, gardens in all the villages,
(01:31):
and roses climbing up all the walls. Today the cannon
is heard no more, and one would be tempted to
forget that the barbarians are there close at hand, if
there were not so many improvised cemeteries. All along the road.
Everywhere there are these little graves of soldiers all alike,
(01:52):
which are now to be found from end to end
of our beloved France, all along the battle front. They're
simple crosses of wood, are ranged in straight lines, as
if for a parade, topped, some of them with a wreath, others,
still more pathetically, with a simple service cap red or blue,
(02:13):
falling to rags. We salute them as we pass among
these glorious dead. There are some whose kindred will seek
them out and bring them back to the province of
their birth later when the barbarians have gone away, while others,
less favored, will remain there forever until the great final
(02:34):
day of oblivion. But what masses of flowers people have
already been at paines to plant there for them. All
around their resting place. There is a brave show of
all shades of brilliant color Dahlias, canis China, asters Roses,
who has undertaken this labor of love, girls from the
(02:58):
nearest villages, or perhaps even their own brothers in arms,
who dwell on the outskirts everywhere like invisible subterranean tribes
in their casemates, trench shelters, dugouts of every shape, covered
over with green branches. This region, you must know, is
not very safe. And when we arrived a section of
(03:21):
the road which is too much exposed, a sentinel, especially
posted there to give warning, instructs us to leave the
high road for a moment where we should run the
risk of being seen and shelled, and to take some
shelter traverse behind the curtains of poplars. One of my
soldier chauffeurs suddenly turns round to say to me, oh, look, sir,
(03:46):
there is an Arab cemetery. They have put on each
grave their little crescents instead of the cross. Here, to
be sure, the humble stille of white wood, all all
topped with a crescent of Islam. And this is something
of a shock to us in the very heart of France.
Poor fellows who died for our righteous cause so far
(04:09):
from their mosques and their whereabouts they sleep, and alas
without facing Mecca, because they who had laid them piously
to rest did not know that this was to them
a reck visite of peaceful slumber. But the same profusion
of flowers had been brought to them as to our
(04:29):
own countrymen. And I need not say that we salute
them likewise a little late, perhaps, for we passed them
so rapidly. We reach Dreams just before sunset, and here
a sudden sadness chills us. All is silent, and the
streets almost deserted. The shops are closed, and some of
(04:51):
the houses seemed to gape at us with enormous holes
in their walls. One of the infrequent wayfarers tells us
that at the hotel Golden Line Cathedral Square, we may
still be able to find someone to take us in.
And soon we are at the very foot of the
Noble Ruin, which is still enthroned as majestically as ever,
(05:16):
in the midst of the martyred town, dominating everything with
its two towers of open stone work. I stop my car.
The sound of who's rolling in such a place seems profanation.
The sadness of ruins is intensified here into veritable anguish,
(05:36):
and the silence is such that instinctively we begin to
talk softly, as if we had already entered the great
church that has perished the golden line. But its panes
of glass are broken, the doors stand open, the courtyard
is deserted. I send one of my soldiers there, bidding
(05:57):
him call, but not too loudly. In the midst of
all this mournful meditation, he returns. He has received no reply,
and has seen holes in the walls. The house is deserted.
We must seek elsewhere. It is twilight, a golden afterglow
still lingers around the magnificent summits of the towers, while
(06:21):
the base is wrapped in shadow. Oh, the cathedral, the
marvelous cathedral. What a work of destruction the barbarians have
continued to accomplish here since my pilgrimage of last November.
It had never been a lacework of stone, and now
it is nothing but a lace work, torn in tatters,
(06:44):
pierced with a thousand holes. But what miracle does it
still hold together? It seems as if today the least shock,
a breath of wind, perhaps would suffice to cause it
to crumble away, to resolve itself as it were, into
scattered atoms. How could it ever be repaired? What scaffold?
(07:07):
And could one dare to lean against those unstable ruins
in an attempt to afford it yet a little protection.
Sandbags have been piled up mountain high against the pillars
of the porticos, the same precaution that has been taken
in the case of Saint Mark's in Venice of Milan,
(07:30):
of all those inemitable masterpieces of past ages which are
menaced by the refined culture of Germany. Here the precautions
are vain. It is too late. The cathedral is lost,
and our hearts are wrung with sorrow and indignation as
we look this evening upon this sacred relic of our past,
(07:53):
our art and our faith, in its death throes and
its abandonment. Ah, what savages, and to feel that they
are still there, close at hand, capable of giving it
at any hour its coup de gross. To bid it farewell,
perhaps alast farewell, We will walk around it slowly with
(08:16):
solemn tread, in the midst of this deathlike silence, which
seems to grow more intense as the light fails But suddenly,
just as we are passing the ruins of the Episcopal Palace,
we hear a prelude of sound, a tremendous, hollow uproar,
(08:36):
something like the rumbling of a terrible thunderstorm near at
hand and unceasing. And yet the evening sky is so clear. Ah, Yes,
we were warned, we know whence it comes. It is
the bombardment of our heavy artillery, which was expected half
an hour after sunset, directed at the barbarian's trenches. This
(09:01):
is a change for us from the silence, this cataclysmal music,
and it contributes to our walk a different kind of sadness,
another form of horror. And we continue to gaze at
the wonderful stone carving overhanging us, the bold little arches,
(09:22):
the immense pointed arches, so frail and so exquisite. Indeed,
how does it all still hold together? Up above there
are little columns which have lost their base and remain,
as it were, suspended in the air by their capitals.
The windows are no more, the lovely rose windows have
(09:45):
been destroyed. The nave has huge feizures from top to bottom.
In the twilight, the whole cathedral assumes more and more
its phantom like aspect, and that noise which causes everything
to vibrate, is still increasing. It is a question whether
so many vibrations will not bring about the final downfall
(10:09):
of those two fragile carvings, which hitherto have held on
so persistently at such great heights above our heads. Here
comes the first wayfarer in that solitude, a well dressed person.
He is hurrying, actually running. Do not stand there, he
shouts to us. Do you not see that they are
(10:31):
going to bombard? But it is we, the French, who
are firing. It is our own artillery. Come, do not
run so fast. I know very well that it is we.
But each time the enemy revenges themselves on the cathedral,
I tell you that there will be a rain of
shells here. Immediately look out for yourselves. He goes on,
(10:56):
so much the better. It was kind of him to
war harness, But his jacket and his billy cock jarred.
Upon the melancholy grandeur of the scene. Where a street
opens into the square, two girls now appear. They stop
and hesitate. Evidently they are aware, these two, that the
(11:16):
barbarians have a habit of taking a noble revenge upon
the cathedral, and that shells are about to fall. But
doubtless they have to cross this square in order to
reach their home, to get down into their cellar. Well,
they have time. They are graceful and pretty fair, bare headed,
(11:38):
with their hair arranged in simple bands. They gaze into
the air with their eyes raised well up towards the heavens,
perhaps to see if death is beginning to pass that way,
but more likely to send up thither a prayer. I
know not what last brightness of the twilight, in spite
(11:58):
of the encroaching gloom, illumines so delightfully their two upturned faces,
and they look like saints in stained glass windows. Both
make the sign of the cross, and then they make
up their minds, and hand in hand they run across
the square with their religious gestures, their faces expressing anxiety,
(12:22):
yet courage too, and defiance. They suddenly seem to me
charming symbols of the girlhood of France. They run away, indeed,
but it is clear that they would remain without fear
if there were some wounded men to carry away, some
duty to perform, And their flight seems very airy in
(12:43):
the midst of this tremendous uproar like the end of
the world. We are going away too, for it is
wiser in the streets. There are very few wayfarers who
are running to take shelter, running with their backs hunched up,
although nothing is falling yet, like people without umbrella is
surprised by a shower. One of them, who nevertheless does
(13:06):
not mind stopping, points out to us the last hotel
still remaining open, a perfectly safe hotel, he says, over there,
in a quarter of the town where no shell has
ever fallen. God forbid that I should dream of laughing
at them, or fail to admire, as much as it deserves,
(13:27):
their persistent and calm heroism in remaining here in defiance
of everything in their beloved town, which is suffering more
and more mutilations. But who would not be amused at
that instinct which causes the majority of mankind to hunch
their backs against hail of whatever description. And then is
(13:51):
it because the air is fresh and soft and it
is good to be alive, that, after the unspeakable heartache
at the sight of the cathedral and the passion verging
on tears, a calm reaction sets in, and in that
moment everything amuses me. At the end of the quiet street,
(14:11):
where the noise of the cannonade is muffled. In the distance.
We find the hotel which was recommended to us rooms,
says the host, very pleasantly, standing on his doorstep. Oh,
as many as you like, the whole hotel, if you
wish for, you will understand that in times such as these, travelers,
(14:34):
and yet as far as shells go, you have nothing
to fear. Here, and appalling Din interrupts his sentence. All
the windows in the front of the house are shivered
to fragments, together with tiles, plaster, branches of trees. In
his haste to run away and hide, he misses the
(14:55):
step on the threshold and falls down flat on his face.
A dog who was coming along jumps upon him, full
of importance, recalling him to order with a fierce spark.
A cat, sprung from I know not where, flies through
the space like an aerolith, uses my shoulder for a
(15:15):
jumping off place, and is swallowed up by the mouth
of a cellar. But words are too tedious for this
series of catastrophes, which last scarcely as long as two
lightning flashes, and they continue to bombard us with admirable regularity,
as if timing themselves with a metronome. The wall of
(15:37):
the house is already riddled with scars. It is very wrong,
I admit to take these things as a jest, And
indeed with me that impression is only superficial physical I
might say that which endures in the depths of my
soul is indignation, anguish, pity. But at this entry which
(15:58):
the Germans made in to our hotel, that peaceful spot,
with flourish of their great orchestra, in the presence of
so many surprises, how retain one's dignity? There's a fair
number of little shells, it seems, but no heavy shells.
They travel with their long whistling sound, and burst with
(16:20):
a harsh din into the cellar. Gentlemen, cries the innkeeper,
who has picked himself up unhurt. Apparently there is nothing
else to be done. I should have come to that
conclusion myself. So I turned round to order in my
three soldiers too, who had remained outside, to look at
a hole made by a shrapnel in the body of
(16:42):
the car. But upon my word, I believe they are laughing,
the heartless wretches. And then I can restrain myself no longer,
I burst out laughing too. Yes, it is very wrong
of us, for presently there will be bloodshed, And but
how resists the humor of it all? The good man
(17:04):
fallen flat on his face, the self importance of the dog,
who thought he must put a stop to the situation,
and especially the cat. The cat swallowed up by an
arrowle after showing us a supreme exhibition of flight, its
little hindquarters with its tail in the air. End of
(17:27):
Chapter eighteen.
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