War, First Degree

PATHS OF GLORY--Humphrey Cobb--Viking ($2.50).

War, which is sometimes spoken of as murder, is more often thought of as manslaughter in self-defense than as murder in the first degree. But in peacetime, when thoughts of the last war can be retroactively sober, it is possible to analyze the impersonal hecatombs of battle into individual instances of coldblooded killing. Since the World War, writers who are also veterans have been resurrecting many an unknown soldier. Their grisly finds make a pile of evidence more terribly impressive (though more ephemeral) than any neat, white, euphemistic cenotaph to the glorious dead. Austria's Andreas Latzko (Men in War), France's Henri Barbusse (Le Feu), England's C. E. Montague (Disenchantment), Siegfried Sassoon (Memoirs of an Infantry Officer), Robert Graves (Goodbye to All That), Germany's Fritz von Unruh (Way of Sacrifice), Erich Remarque (All Quiet on the Western Front), Arnold Zweig (The Case of Sergeant Grischa), Franz Werfel (The Forty Days of Musa Dagh), America's John Dos Passes (Three Soldiers) have all added to the slowly mounting testimony as to what degree of murder war actually is. Last week another U. S. author added his docket to the record.

Paths of Glory is not based on any one actual occurrence of the World War, even its title is fictitious; but that "such things happened" Author Cobb vouches, lists half-a-dozen sources.

Langlois, Ferol and Didier were privates in the same French regiment, but in different companies. They were not pals; until their fate brought them together they had never even spoken to each other. Langlois was an educated man, Didier was lower caste, Ferol was the scum of the earth. Langlois rejoined the regiment, after a leave spent with his young wife, just as its battered remnants had come out of the front line for a well-earned rest. But their luck was out: because the high command wanted a hitherto impregnable sector of the German line taken within 48 hours, because their general had the reputation of a fire-eater and because the regiment was his tested mouthpiece, the exhausted men were routed out of a five-hour sleep and hurried back into the front line. The optimistic general came up to the front himself, to plan and oversee the attack. He figured the probable casualties as "five per cent killed by their own barrage. . . . Ten percent lost in crossing no-man's-land, and 20 per cent more in getting through the wire." The regimental adjutant, more realistic, made out his next day's rations requisition by cutting the previous day's in half.

The wire-cutting barrage started on schedule, so did the infantry attack, only to be swept back into its trenches by the murderous German fire. The furious general, seeing his boasted success vanishing, telephoned back to a supporting battery to shell the French trenches, drive the men forward. But the artillery officer refused, unless the general would put the order in writing--which he was not insane enough to do. In 35 minutes the hopeless attack was over. The regiment was ordered out of the line the same day, was put under arrest as soon as it was safely in the rear. For the regiment's alleged cowardice, the general ordered one man from each company shot.

The colonel passed the buck to his captains. One of them refused to produce anybody, and went riding until the affair should be over. Langlois was chosen by lot. Didier's commander hated and feared him, seized this opportunity of putting him out of his way. Ferol's captain chose him because he was obviously a bad citizen, though just as obviously a fine soldier. The mock trial of the summary court martial over, the three prisoners were taken out to face the firing squad. Didier, full of morphine, had to be carried; he was unconscious. Langlois' nerve almost left him at the end. Ferol died the most bravely. He was drunk.

The Author, child of Bostonians, was born in Sienna, Italy (1899), lived abroad until he was 13, went to school in England. When his parents went back to the U.S., Humphrey Cobb ended his final three years of formal education by being expelled (insubordination). Looking for a path to glory he went to Montreal, enlisted in the Canadian army. In France he was twice slightly gassed, several times hit but not wounded by pieces of flying metal. After several unliked and unsuccessful post-War jobs, trips to England and France, the writing of a War book--still in manuscript--Author Cobb last year found himself wishing he could escape from his desk in an advertising agency, decided to try another book. Paths of Glory, his first published novel, is the June choice of the Book-of-the-Month Club.

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