Chapter 498: Réveil de France
The year was 1920, and banners burned, bearing the colors of France on both sides. But each distinctive in the center and the symbols displayed there. Surrounding them was a sea of corpses. Some were wearing old uniforms from the Great War, barely cleaned in the four years since.
And others were new, tidy, or were prior to the stains of blood and mud that freshly coated their olive green hue. A great battle was waged here. The bodies were legion. Uncountable even. Yet, this was not a conflict waged between two foreign nations and cultures.
Rather between brothers, cousins, and neighbors. For what? Only they knew what was worth killing each other over. Standing over the corpses of the soldiers which bore the armbands of the Gallian Militia, Pétain, his uniform as clear, and pristine as ever, applied fresh wax to his mustache, as the rain tried its best to be away the human stain that slicked the earth below.
Despite the lives lost in his name, and the youth of many of those lying hewn across the streets of Paris. The aging general did not seem the slightest bit remorseful for what he and his rival had done.
No, he was not lamenting the price paid in the name of ideology and governance. Rather, he was gloating at his victory, hard earned across four years of struggle. His voice was almost too gleeful as he shouted towards a nearby soldier who was having his head patched up from some shrapnel which tore through his Adrian style helmet. The steel cap barely saving his life.
"You there? Where is he? Where is De Gaulle?"
The soldier appeared to be suffering from either a traumatic brain injury or shell shock. Either way, his response was slow and haggard as it wheezed through his lungs with the broken stare of a man who had lost his life already.
"Gone...."
Pétain had little patience for such imprecise language and was quick to become flustered as he demanded a better response from the clearly wounded teenage boy who had taken up arms in his name.
"Gone? What do you mean Gone? Gone as in dead? Or Gone as in fled? Gone how? Well? You have your wits about you? Speak, boy!"