through the death of a poilu, history of the sacrifices of the First World War

FRANCE 2 – SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 10 AT 1:15 PM – DOCUMENTARY SERIES

Augustin Trébuchon was the last French soldier to die during the First World War. Or it wasn’t. The debate is still alive among specialists who, with supporting documents and a pocket watch in hand, discuss and sometimes argue about who was the final victim on the battlefield, a few minutes before the Armistice came into force on November 11, 1918 at 11 am. A debate as fascinating as it is vain, like knowing who the Unknown Soldier is, under the Arc de Triomphe, in Paris. In both cases, it is just a consequence of chance. Then bet on Trébuchon!

This observation is the starting and ending point of a four-episode documentary. Removing this one from anonymity more than another, telling the story of the war through him, basically, is not putting him on a pedestal. It is a tribute to all the deaths from 14-18, to the approximately (sad and enlightening approximation) 1.5 million furry people who left their skin.

Interesting us in a pioupiou who, after four years of war, broke his pipe at the age of 40, when the Armistice was already signed but had not yet come into force, highlighting a transmission agent who undoubtedly led his officer to announcing the imminent end of the war also shows the absurdity of this conflict and the insensitivity of a general staff that launched a final offensive, which turned out to be suicidal while victory was almost confirmed. Furthermore, the cruelty of dying on the last day, close, so close to peace, pushed the authorities to modestly go back one day, to November 10, the death of Augustin Trébuchon and his comrades sacrificed during the battle of Vrigne-Meuse, in the Ardennes.

Four years in hell

Augustin Trébuchon is a shepherd from Lozère, orphaned, without wife or children. He left no written trace of his four years in hell. Only one face remains of him, a blond man with a thin mustache and some dusty lines in the departmental archives, which dryly cover his military career, his wounds and his medals. Alexandre Duyck had decided to fill the biographical gaps with his imagination in a beautiful novel written in the first person (AugustineJC Lattès, 2018). In 2014, in The anonymous soldierdirector Jérémie Malavoy chose the animation mode to restore flesh and spirit to this soldier.

Romain Potocki and Manoé David opted for another narrative mode. They found the regiments and the places where Agustín had passed; They unearthed letters or notebooks that their comrades-in-arms had left behind. Their descendants are filmed in the places they describe, telling the life of their ancestors and therefore a little of Trébuchon at their side. Artists use gouache to bring the protagonists to life. They express their thoughts at the same time that the brush runs across the paper.

Romain Potocki took what he had experienced in 2018 further in a first documentary, On behalf of the parents (on demand on France.tv), already dedicated to this morning of November 11 in Vrigne-Meuse. In his new film, the director states that “The question of der des de does not make sense”. But his determination to plow this character proves quite the opposite. We can’t blame him.