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From the Boston Globe 9/7/14France hails taxi drivers in WWI commemoration
Paris City Hall, the Defense Ministry, and Alpha taxis have planned parades Sunday that will have 10 taxis from the era.
PARIS — Weeks after World War I erupted, with the capital under threat from German invaders, French military chiefs devised a novel way for soldiers to travel to the front lines: by taxi.
To that end, they requisitioned hundreds of cabs, and their drivers were charged with the risky mission of getting thousands of troops to the battlefield.
This weekend, France honors the centennial of the ‘‘Taxis of the Marne,’’ which have become the stuff of legend for millions of French schoolchildren present and past. Paris City Hall, the Defense Ministry, and private company Alpha taxis plan commemoration parades Sunday that will include 10 taxis from the era.
Germany opened the Western Front on Aug. 4, 1914, sweeping into Belgium and hoping to overwhelm France before Russia had a chance to fully mobilize to the east.
The lightning-fast Schlieffen plan aimed to bring German forces into Paris within weeks. After the guns of August blared, the French army looked as though it was on the way to defeat.
On Sept. 6, 1914, Kaiser Wilhelm’s troops were just a few dozen miles northeast of Paris. The French army requisitioned the taxis over two days to carry bedraggled troops returning from the collapsed front back to new battle lines.
The call-up was part of a rising, nationwide war effort that also commandeered horses and called up more than three million French peasants to drop plowshares for guns.
General Joseph Gallieni, the military governor of Paris who concocted the plan, ordered the taxis to gather on a grassy esplanade in front of the gold-domed Invalides military museum, which honors war victims and is the burial site of Napoleon Bonaparte.
The commute to battle through the Paris environs must have been quite a sight: a rumbling caravan of red cars with bright yellow spokes, mostly Renault AG1s, that packed a half-dozen soldiers behind primly dressed drivers.
In that day, a motorcade was as much a technological innovation as unmanned drones might be considered in conflicts today.
For a bloody four-year war in which millions on both sides were mobilized, a few thousand troops didn’t matter much at first sight. But the psychological effect on a nation used to ‘‘Belle Epoque’’ Paris comforts was critical.
The French were beginning to seriously heed President Raymond Poincare’s call for a ‘‘sacred union’’ of civilians and soldiers in the war effort.
‘‘Taxi drivers were generally from modest backgrounds, so they represented the soul of Paris to some extent,’’ said Laurent Lasne, author of a French book published last month on the taxis. The soldiers, he said, ‘‘they were tired. . . . The taxis were a rather nice surprise.’’
Lasne said about 700 cabs were involved. Historians seem to agree that a total of about 5,000 soldiers took part.
With British expeditionary troops at their side, the French scored their first victory of the war at Marne in September 1914, providing a moment of French euphoria and setting the stage for four years of devastating trench warfare.
Paris City Hall, the Defense Ministry, and Alpha taxis have planned parades Sunday that will have 10 taxis from the era.
PARIS — Weeks after World War I erupted, with the capital under threat from German invaders, French military chiefs devised a novel way for soldiers to travel to the front lines: by taxi.
To that end, they requisitioned hundreds of cabs, and their drivers were charged with the risky mission of getting thousands of troops to the battlefield.
This weekend, France honors the centennial of the ‘‘Taxis of the Marne,’’ which have become the stuff of legend for millions of French schoolchildren present and past. Paris City Hall, the Defense Ministry, and private company Alpha taxis plan commemoration parades Sunday that will include 10 taxis from the era.
Germany opened the Western Front on Aug. 4, 1914, sweeping into Belgium and hoping to overwhelm France before Russia had a chance to fully mobilize to the east.
The lightning-fast Schlieffen plan aimed to bring German forces into Paris within weeks. After the guns of August blared, the French army looked as though it was on the way to defeat.
On Sept. 6, 1914, Kaiser Wilhelm’s troops were just a few dozen miles northeast of Paris. The French army requisitioned the taxis over two days to carry bedraggled troops returning from the collapsed front back to new battle lines.
The call-up was part of a rising, nationwide war effort that also commandeered horses and called up more than three million French peasants to drop plowshares for guns.
General Joseph Gallieni, the military governor of Paris who concocted the plan, ordered the taxis to gather on a grassy esplanade in front of the gold-domed Invalides military museum, which honors war victims and is the burial site of Napoleon Bonaparte.
The commute to battle through the Paris environs must have been quite a sight: a rumbling caravan of red cars with bright yellow spokes, mostly Renault AG1s, that packed a half-dozen soldiers behind primly dressed drivers.
In that day, a motorcade was as much a technological innovation as unmanned drones might be considered in conflicts today.
For a bloody four-year war in which millions on both sides were mobilized, a few thousand troops didn’t matter much at first sight. But the psychological effect on a nation used to ‘‘Belle Epoque’’ Paris comforts was critical.
The French were beginning to seriously heed President Raymond Poincare’s call for a ‘‘sacred union’’ of civilians and soldiers in the war effort.
‘‘Taxi drivers were generally from modest backgrounds, so they represented the soul of Paris to some extent,’’ said Laurent Lasne, author of a French book published last month on the taxis. The soldiers, he said, ‘‘they were tired. . . . The taxis were a rather nice surprise.’’
Lasne said about 700 cabs were involved. Historians seem to agree that a total of about 5,000 soldiers took part.
With British expeditionary troops at their side, the French scored their first victory of the war at Marne in September 1914, providing a moment of French euphoria and setting the stage for four years of devastating trench warfare.
