ARTICLE: A Frenchman on the Somme, 1916

The French receive little attention for their part in the fighting on the Somme in 1916. That’s not what this article is about, however. I’ve banged on about the French a lot lately so I wanted to give you some British action, but with a twist.

Paul Maze was 29 years-old when 1st July 1916 dawned. A painter from Le Havre, he was an absolute anglophile, and would be naturalised as a British citizen in 1920. On the outbreak of the war, he attempted to join the French Army, but was rejected; so he made his way back to his hometown and offered his services to the British, who had immediately established it as a base. First off, he was an interpreter with the Royal Scots Greys. After a brief (terrifying) spell in which he lost his unit and was sentenced to death having been caught as a spy (he was apparently being marched towards a firing squad when a RSG officer recognised him) Maze joined General Hubert Gough’s staff. Here, as well as interpreting he also acted as a draughtsmen, venturing out to forward positions on reconnaissance work. Wounded three times, he received the DCM, the Military Medal, the Croix de Guerre and was a member of the Légion d’honneur.

He came into contact with a number of notable people, and here is how Churchill (the other less famous one, not me) described him:

Sergeant Maze became in the words of Sir William Robertson "an institution." He was unique and indefinable; like Lord Godolphin he was "never in the way and never out of the way.” Of course he is an artist of distinction whose quick comprehension, keen eye and nimble pencil could record impressions with revealing fidelity. As a British private, who watched him one day sketching in a heavily bombarded trench said, "Your pictures are done in shorthand."

…His courage and self-devotion were tireless. Year after year, battle after battle, wherever the volcano erupted most fiercely, amid the smoke and poison fumes and frightful detonations, thither our author made his way, and thence his "seeing eye" and recording notebook brought back calm, trustworthy, lucid and increasingly experienced information. Acting largely on his own initiative, enjoying a most unusual freedom of movement, he set forth, he saw and he reported. The troops in the line and their officers knew that he told the truth about their ordeals and the two distinguished generals felt that they were getting something direct which they could measure and weigh.

We have the battle-scenes of Armageddon recorded by one who not only loved the fighting troops and shared their perils, but perceived the beauties of light and shade, of form and colour, of which even the horrors of war cannot rob the progress of the sun.

The Battle of the Somme

So how did this Frenchman, imbedded with the British, experience the beginning of this epoch-defining battle as fought by his soon-to-be adopted country?

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