Letter of Charles de Gaulle to his Mother
December 23rd, 1915
My very dear mother,
I have received your rubber, your boots, your vest, and your lamp. The whole of it is welcome and very useful.
We are living in the water like frogs, and to get out of it, we must lay in our shelters on hanging beds. Other than that, there is nothing to do because this water comes from the flooding of the Aisne and its affluents, and for nothing in the world would we abandon the terrain that we are holding here. We are waiting for it to get lower with a stoicism that comes easily to people who have only undergone seventeen months of campaign.
The Parliament is becoming more and more odious and stupid. The ministers literally have all their days taken by sessions in the Chamber, the Senate, or their commissions, to the preparation of answers they will have to give, to the reading of requests or the most absurd injunctions from the first wine merchant that politics has turned into a deputy. They could absolutely not, even if they wanted to, find the time to administrate their department, or the needed authority to galvanize their subordinates.
We will be victorious when we will have swept away this scum and there is not a Frenchman who would not scream out in joy, the soldiers in particular. Other than that, the idea is in motion and I would be very surprised if this regime survived the war.
I embrace you a hundred times, my very dear Mother. A thousand affections for Dad and for Pierre. Many sentiments for my cousins.
Do you know among our relatives or our relations a half dozen of ladies, or young ladies who would want to have a war godson1. Real godsons, actual fighters, really worthy of being helped, infantrymen of the 10th Company of the 33rd to lay it out?
Your very affectionate and respectful son.
Charles de Gaulle.
“Filleul de guerre”, young or older women would write and send packages to young men enlisted in the front. It was mostly a way for these men to get some letters, or items. Many young ladies found husbands this way after the war.