The Great War in Greyscale - The French 'Poilu', 1914

'Poilu'.

Translated, it literally means 'hairy one'.

'Poilu' is one of those wonderful French words, like jolie-laide ('ugly-beautiful'), that is nuanced, encompassing several meanings, some divergent, but on the whole somehow 'right'. It was a common nickname given to the French infantrymen of the Great War, simultaneously describing a sense of affection, derision and fierce pride for those rustic, bearded, and fatalistically stoic soldiers of France.


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We anglophones usually only know about the early war battles in which the British were involved.  The engagements at Mons and Le Cateau resonate deeply in the English literature of the war - possessing almost mythic status in our memory.  While these actions certainly contributed to what became the 'Miracle of the Marne' - the blunting of the German advance on Paris - they were, in reality, ancillary engagements in comparison to the titanic army-level clashes fought by the French and Germans at Lorraine, in the Ardennes and around Charlelois.  In what collectively became known as 'The Battle of the Frontiers' it was the battered poilu who took the brunt of the German attacks and furiously gave back as good as they got. 

These 28mm figures from Great War Miniatures depict French infantry at the war's beginning in 1914. The early poilu went to war in uniforms not unlike those worn over 40 years earlier during the Franco-Prussian War: romantic, colourful and completely unsuitable to industrialized combat. While their blue greatcoats were similar in design as those worn by other combatants it was their bright red trousers and kepis which made them as glaring on the battlefield as they were dashing on the parade ground. (Prior to the war many committees were formed to attempt to modernize the uniform but any changes were abandoned with many excuses given; the most dominant being the belief that to replace the red garments would damage the elan of the men and be an affront to French pride.)

Like the Belgians and Germans that I have already worked on I wanted to make the French uniform as distinct as possible, all the while knowing I had to work within a relatively limited greyscale range. With this in mind I purposefully amplified the grey tones of the ranker's kepi and trousers in order to reflect their vibrant colour. I did the same with the actual red elements of the officer's and NCO's uniforms, over-saturating the colour in order to give a 'chirascuro' effect similar to the young girl in 'Schindler's List' or the femme fatale in 'Sin City'. 

For the higher ranking officers I've done their trousers in red. 

In 1914 some young officers, like these two advancing at the charge, wore white gloves into combat as it was considered the height of military fashion.

Also included in this group is a French HMG crew serving the ill-starred St. Etienne heavy machine gun.

The St. Etienne came into service in 1908 and had a miserable reputation for being heavy, having a poor rate-of-fire and being prone to stoppages.

Soon after hostilities began the French realized the limitations of the St. Etienne and began to replace it in 1917 with the Hotchkiss machine gun, which was much more reliable, easier to maintain and simpler to manufacture (having nearly half the components of the St. Etienne).

I also managed to get a few facades done for my upcoming village. As reviewed before, these are from Kobblestone Miniatures. I like that you can mix-and-match the facades and use them as simple backgrounds for games or vignettes. I'll probably go back over these and add some smoke damage, but otherwise they're pretty much done.

General Joffre, the overall commander of the Entente forces in 1914, disallowed casualty reports and forbid press or politicians to go near the fighting, thereby insulating the home front from the staggering losses being experienced along the frontier. So though the French suffered 260,000 casualties during first month of the war alone they managed to rally, reform and concentrate west to face the Germans at the decisive battle of the Marne - that they could recover and remain operational after such a battering could certainly be seen as a miracle, but I think it is more a testament to the resilience and determination of the humble French infantryman: the poilu.

By the end of the Great War France had endured a staggering 1,397,800 military deaths. To place this in a wider context the French death toll from WWI alone exceeds the U.S. mortality figures from all its conflicts combined - from 1775 to 2012. So the next time you hear someone prattling on about those 'cheese eating surrender monkeys' or how clever it was to rebrand french fries as 'Freedom Fries' ask them if they have ever visited the battlefields of the Ardenne, St. Quentin or the Ossuary at Verdun. Then politely tell them to shut their piehole.

French Reserviste by Hebert Ward, 1915