Captain France: Albert Roche

Road Trip Stories And Deadwood

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Oh, hey there.

SPEAKER_03 0:17

Oh, hey there.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

How was your Western excursion, Kate?

SPEAKER_03 0:22

It was really good.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

We're the history buffoons. I meant to say that first.

SPEAKER_03 0:26

And I'm Kate.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

I know I said that. I'm Bradley.

SPEAKER_03 0:29

Yes, you are.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

How was your trip?

SPEAKER_03 0:31

It was really good. Um, it was a th 13-hour drive.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Which is long.

SPEAKER_03 0:36

One way.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Yeah, which is long.

SPEAKER_03 0:38

It is long. Um, and of course, I did okay with my whole motion sickness thing until like the very end. And of course, we're in the Black Hills, and everything is all twisty turny. And I did okay though. I did okay. But saw my brother's family, saw my sister's family, saw my parents. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Which is nice.

SPEAKER_03 0:57

Yeah, it was good.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

When did a couple things you said, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:01

Yeah, so I went to Deadwood, which was why I did a recent episode on it.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

And you were disappointed.

SPEAKER_03 1:08

I was a little disappointed, I'm not gonna lie.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

And what was the most thing you were disappointed in? It was just too casino-y.

SPEAKER_03 1:15

It was so casino-y, and hold on, I have a cough already. And like if you don't gamble, yeah, there's not much for you to do, which is super unfortunate.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:29

No, there's unless you go outside of Deadwood.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

There's a city, um when I go because I'm going out to Colorado. There's a city that was like that too, where we used to go there all the time when I was younger. My dad would take us there. And all it is excuse me. All it is now is just fucking casinos. Yeah. And it's like, well this is dumb.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Like, do I like doing that once in a great while? Maybe. I don't prefer to do it though. Yeah. However, um it's the same thing. It's just all sorry. Well, why don't we get into our beer so

South Dakota Beer Tasting

SPEAKER_00 2:05

you can take a sip of your beer? So you brought us back some South Dakota beer.

unknown 2:13

I'm dying.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

I might be a single-person show soon.

SPEAKER_03 2:19

So this is from Sawyer Brewing Company from Spearfish, South Dakota. And it's called Cadillac Couch. It is a lager brewed with lime.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

Oh my good golly, Miss Molly. Well, tell them the story about how you've already had it.

SPEAKER_03 2:38

Okay. Trying not to die here. So on the way to the campground, stopped at a liquor store first because priorities. Jesus. And I bought this. And then the next day we went to Deadwood and happened to have this without knowing that it was this one.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

It was on tap, right?

SPEAKER_03 3:01

It was on tap and it was delicious. And I got back to the cabin, I was like, oh thank God it's the same thing and I love it.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

Good.

SPEAKER_03 3:08

And then I also got you something.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Which is called Firehouse Lights, American Light Lager. I am not a big as big of a lager person as you are. And being a light lager, I'll be curious to see what I think of this. Because to me, it might not be it might be too light.

SPEAKER_03 3:28

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

But I don't know. We'll try it.

SPEAKER_03 3:29

You have a backup ear. Well, I do. I have this.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

I'm gonna start with the Cadillac couch. Cadillac couch. I do like lime.

SPEAKER_02 3:41

Cheers.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

Cheers.

SPEAKER_03 3:45

I like it.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

So not too shabby.

SPEAKER_03 3:50

So um there was a reenactment of Wild Bill Hick Hickok getting killed. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Shot in the back.

SPEAKER_03 4:00

Yeah. And there was an actor who who had the long gray hair and everything.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

He played the part, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:06

He really did.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

And he didn't you say he always stayed in character or whatever?

SPEAKER_03 4:10

Oh, yeah, he was in character the whole time.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

So how did he play it after getting shot? He just laid there?

SPEAKER_03 4:16

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

For the rest of the night?

unknown 4:19

No.

SPEAKER_03 4:20

No, he had a nice like 15-20-minute story ahead of time, which was really good. Yeah. Stuff I didn't know. And then they did the reenactment. And but uh that was the best part. There were a couple like shootouts in the middle of Main Street that were just really lackluster.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

They're just trying to put something on for the for the tourist people. Yeah, it was lackluster. You know, and it's funny because when I went there nine years ago, I don't remember. I don't know if we saw anything like that. But um I don't I don't feel I don't remember feeling disappointed like you did. I g maybe I just was more aware of what it was gonna be. Maybe. Maybe I I don't know, but I I don't remember being as disappointed as you felt when you went there.

SPEAKER_03 5:15

Well, like we went into the Bullock Hotel, yeah, and just casino machines everywhere. Yeah, and there might have been like a picture or so on the wall or a bust of Seth Bullock, and yeah, but it's just like okay, that was it.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

That's too bad.

SPEAKER_03 5:31

Just set out a machine, but hey, yeah, but that's all right.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

You went there.

SPEAKER_03 5:35

I'm glad I went.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

And and you did not go to the museum I told you to go to.

SPEAKER_03 5:40

No, I I ran out of time, unfortunately. But but it was still a good South Dakota trip, and I'm yeah, yeah. So

Meet Albert Roach

SPEAKER_03 5:49

good. Today we're gonna talk about Albert Roach.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

Albert Roach.

SPEAKER_03 5:54

Yes. So he is considered, quote, the first soldier of France.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

The first soldier of France?

SPEAKER_03 6:05

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Like the very first one.

SPEAKER_03 6:08

It was just a title. It wasn't actually he wasn't the actual first soldier. I know. But he it they were he called he was called that.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Viva la revolution.

France Chases A Soldier Image

SPEAKER_03 6:22

So I guess if you look at official photographs from like the opening months of the Great World War, which is what World War I was called at the time. Yes, the Great War War in 1914, you'll notice a very distinct aesthetic. What the French military in particular was obsessed with a certain image. They called it they called it Elon Vital. Elon Vital? The all-conquering spirit or life force.

unknown 6:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 6:55

So to the French High Command, warfare was an act of supreme, like masculine will. And that will was supposed to be packaged in a specific way. Tall, broad-shouldered young men with big mustaches, wearing bright blue tunics, which are like shirts, yes, and vibrant red trousers.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

Vibrant red trousers. I wish I had some vibrant red trousers.

SPEAKER_03 7:24

They looked less like modern soldiers and more like 19th century like oil paintings.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

Weird.

SPEAKER_03 7:31

Yeah. So history, though, don't care about that kind of shit. They don't care about aesthetics. Because while the French army was busy looking for giants to save the republic, the universe or the universe was busy preparing their greatest soldier. And he was currently standing in a pile of manure in the south of France. And his name was Albert Roach.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Albert Roach. So he was just a big old fucking dude. Did they use him as like propaganda to get people to join the army?

SPEAKER_03 8:04

The exact opposite.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

Oh, to not join the army. What was what's the exact opposite?

SPEAKER_03 8:12

He was a teeny tiny little man. Oh shit. So to understand Albert, you have to go, we have we have to go to um Roval, just his town, tiny sun-baked little commune. Um, this wasn't like Paris cafes and philosophy and art, and this was far. It was farmland, uh rocky soil, third generation farmers that would spend hours behind like a horse-drawn plow. Um, Albert's family were laborers, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:44

So this is in the south of France? Okay.

SPEAKER_03 8:48

So by the time that Albert turned 19 in 1914, he had developed a very specific physical constitution. He was built like a root vegetable.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

A root vegetable. So he was like a bulbous bottom and a narrow top. No, just like a bean sprout. So skinny?

SPEAKER_03 9:06

Skinny. He was five feet one inch tall.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

That is short.

SPEAKER_03 9:12

And he was so thin, his ribs would show like a freaking xylophone.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

Oh, could someone play it on them?

SPEAKER_03 9:20

He had attempted to grow a mustache to mark his like transition into manhood. Oh god. But it had come in patchy and sparse. Oh no. But beneath his scrawny figure, um was a ferocious countryman. He had the inability to accept the word no.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 9:45

Okay.

Rejected For Being Too Small

SPEAKER_03 9:46

So when the church bells across France began to ring erratically, not a rhythmic ding ding. It was more like ding-ding ding ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, you know, like a dinner bell or whatever. It that happened on call to arms.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 10:03

So that happened on August 1st, 1914. It was the traditional signal for national mobilization. Wow. So the young men of Roval um dropped their size and dropped their horse reins and they're like, let's go to war.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

So peace out, women, we gotta go.

SPEAKER_03 10:20

So they were raised on stories of the Franco-Prussian War. Sure. Okay. In 1870, France fought a war against German states led by Prussia.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:33

France lost, and the war resulted in the unification of Germany into a single empire.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

Oh.

SPEAKER_03 10:40

As part of the peace treaty, the newly formed German Empire forced France to cede Al my gosh, I thought I looked this up. I thought I looked up all the pronunciations. That's all right. Um C and a large portion of Lorraine. And the only reason why I know the ri Lorraine is because my mom was happy Lorraine. But these were two wealthy industrial border regions. Oh. Okay. So for the next 43 years, losing this territory was seen as a massive national humiliation in France. Okay. And Albert felt the exact same way. He felt a deep obligation to get to the front lines as quickly as possible. Let's get the ship back, boys. So a few days later, Albert marched into the local recruitment center. The room was hot and smelled of like 50 plus farm boys waiting to be weighed in. And at the far end of the room sat a medical examining board and a senior military doctor.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 11:44

Albert stripped down, stripped down to his undergarments, stepped up to the line and kind of puffed out his chest to make him appear bigger.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:51

And the medical examiner began the examination by using like a standard military measuring rod to check the height and chest expansion.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

Jeez.

SPEAKER_03 12:02

Upon reviewing the measurements, the physician noted that Roach stood just five feet one inch tall, a structure well below the preferred physical standard for frontline infantry.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

What do you think they would have preferred him to be? What would your guess be?

SPEAKER_03 12:17

Oh, probably at least 5'9, 5'10. How tall are you? I'm 5'10.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

Yeah, because I'm 6'3. Um, so we would have made the cut. I would have made the cut. But um back then you wouldn't have because you're female.

SPEAKER_03 12:32

Yeah. So the doctor evaluated um Roach's thin build and concluded that he completely lacked the physical stamina required to endure the grueling conditions of the upcoming campaign. Yeah. And this would demand carrying like a 60-pound field pack over long distances, right?

SPEAKER_00 12:51

Oh, for sure. They had to carry all their equipment with them.

SPEAKER_03 12:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

All their I mean, food, provisions, provisions, uh change of whatever, keep your socks clean, all that shit. Whatever. But yeah. Trench foot. Oh, get fucking gangriness. I mean, that was a major concern for them back then because of uh just the the conditions they were in.

SPEAKER_03 13:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Was just fucking gross.

SPEAKER_03 13:18

It was.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

So, anyways.

SPEAKER_03 13:19

So rather than approving his entry into like active combat unit, the medical officer officially dec declared Roach physically unfit for service.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

So he did he get like what was what did Steve Rogers get?

SPEAKER_03 13:35

And that's exactly who I pictured is Steve Rogers from Captain America 4F or F4 or something.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

Yeah, I don't know if they use that in the French, but obviously, but but that's what he got for but that's exactly who he looked like.

SPEAKER_03 13:49

Just this scrawny little farm boy, but just such pride.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

Well, and that's maybe this is what Captain America is based off of. Captain France.

SPEAKER_03 14:01

Captain France.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

That might be a good title.

SPEAKER_03 14:09

Uh so the rejection was finalized with the definitive stamp on his mobilization paperwork, making him look unfit, right? That's too bad. So the officer then dismissed him from the recruitment office instructing him to return to his family until he met the military physical requirements.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

So go back, call us a little bit. Call us when you're taller and bigger.

SPEAKER_03 14:38

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

I mean, what the fuck? How old was he at this time? He was 19. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 14:45

So for 99% of the population.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

That burp was terrible from that beer. Holy shit.

SPEAKER_03 14:53

For 99% of the population, this would have been good news. Yeah, because like, oh, thank god I don't have to go fight, but it was a legitimate, legally binding government sanctioned excuse to not to sit out the war.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

However, certain people, unlike our country today, who most people want to watch it burn and just fucking fall apart because they have no national pride whatsoever. Yeah, he did not, right? No. He's like, fuck that. I want to fight for my country. Yeah. I want to make a difference. And it's really sad that we don't have, I mean, I don't want world wars again, but we it's sad that like there's so many people that would rather just see America just fall to shit. Yeah. And then instead of actually having national pride and being a part of it and be like, let's build this up. No, we'd just rather let whatever happened to it. And yeah, I will just stop there so I don't get too political.

SPEAKER_03 15:48

But so instead, Albert walked out of the recruitment office and concluded that the French military structure was deeply flawed and he needed to fix that.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03 15:59

So to Albert, the doctor's rejection wasn't a law, it was just an opinion. Well, it was just an opinion.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

In a way, he's not wrong.

SPEAKER_03 16:07

And Albert didn't respect opinions that got in the way of his own plans. Of course not.

He Sneaks Into The Army

SPEAKER_03 16:13

Over the next few weeks, the French army suffered catastrophic losses during the Battle of the Frontiers.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:19

It was the very first major engagement of World War I on the Western Front, occurring just days after the war was declared.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:28

So the mobilization effort became increasingly frantic.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

Right.

SPEAKER_03 16:33

Uh troop trains were moving constantly out of the south and heading towards the north and the east. And in late August, a train pulled into the station near Albert's district.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

And they're like, we need all able-bodied young men.

SPEAKER_03 16:47

Well, they didn't see him as able-bodied.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

Well, no, that one guy didn't.

SPEAKER_03 16:52

So it was a chaotic scene, hundreds of young men shouting, families crying. Um, they were all dressed in ordinary farm clothes, and Albert slipped onto the platform, blending into the crowd.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Well, he's short. You could definitely get overlooked.

SPEAKER_03 17:08

So while a sergeant was distracted by a group of recruits who managed to smuggle in a barrel of cider, Albert dropped to his hands and knees, and he scurried between the iron wheels of the train, sliding beneath a heady, heavy wooden supply car.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 17:26

He found a small access door used for loading canvas tents and equipments.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 17:32

He jimmied it open and wiggled inside.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

Oh dear.

SPEAKER_03 17:35

For the next 14 hours, as the train made its way towards um a training depot in the north, Albert lay in complete darkness. He had officially broken into the army.

SPEAKER_00 17:47

That's I mean, again, good for him because uh he wanted to help his country. And the only way he saw doing it is unfortunately breaking rules. Yeah. Kind of.

SPEAKER_03 17:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

Which is funny because like you remember, you know, for World War II, how many of American young men lied about their age to get enrolled, yeah. To get enlisted. Yeah. So they could go fight. And, you know, now today nobody would fucking do that. Yeah. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:22

So when the train finally stopped at the depot, yeah, the doors flew open and the chaotic sounds of like the military camp flooded the car. Officers were screaming at the top of their lungs, demanding that the new recruits line up in rows of four. Albert waited for the right moment. And when a massive group of like confused recruits stumbled out of the neighboring car, Albert simply stepped out of the supply hold and slipped into the middle of the crowd.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

Good for him.

SPEAKER_03 18:50

He walked onto the muddy parade ground, looked around. He actually found a blue military cap just sitting on a crate. So he put it on his head and stood at attention like the rest of them. No, he's a thief. So for four days, Albert lived the life of a soldier. Oh. He ate their rations, slept in an empty cot at the back of the barracks room during the drilling exercises. And because the camp was processing thousands of men a day, nobody thought to check his ID.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

Well, yeah. Would he have really had an ID on him?

SPEAKER_03 19:22

No. That's the point. Yes. No.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

What the fuck are you saying?

SPEAKER_03 19:28

That is the point. He they were not checking IDs. He did not have one. He did not have the paperwork.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

Well, that's my point. Yeah. They can't check it if you don't have it.

SPEAKER_03 19:38

But they would ask for it.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

I guess what I was trying to say is it's not like he just has an ID like we have today. No, probably not. That's my point. No.

SPEAKER_03 19:51

So he marched when everybody else marched. He ran when everybody else ran. And in fact, because of his years of farm later late farm late farm labor, he easily outpaced the city boys who are collapsing under the weight of their their gear. So military bureaucracy is kind of slow, but it does catch up. Catch up. I feel like I have a sneeze coming on.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

Kazun tight.

SPEAKER_02 20:24

There it is.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 20:26

That's one.

SPEAKER_00 20:27

Usually there's two. It will come.

SPEAKER_03 20:30

It will not be so today. On the fifth morning, a sergeant named Duval was conducting a formal roll call. Oh. Albert was basic had basically put together a uniform from whatever random leftover gear he could find around the camp. Sure. So his whole outfit was so completely oversized for his tiny little frame. During the roll call, the sergeant noticed this kid, a man looked like a kid, who looked like he was wearing his dad's clothing, looked down at his his uh his uh I was gonna say keyboard, his clipboard, and noticed this doesn't add up. There's literally an extra guy standing here that I don't have any information on.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:17

So they hauled Albert in for questioning.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

Well, sure.

SPEAKER_03 21:20

And he completely owned up to it.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:23

He admitted he didn't have papers, he didn't have travel orders, medical clearance, and had actually snuck into the train and um forced his way in to the fight.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_03 21:36

So faced with a five-foot-tall teenager who had illegally boarded a secure military train, very secure, yeah, falsified his presence in a secure training depot. Yeah, and for spent four days demanding to be given a rifle so that he could run into machine gun fire. The camp commander came to Odd conclusion.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_03 22:03

He decided Albert Roach was a deserter. How? Because he just showed up out of nowhere. We have no information on you, so clearly you came from somewhere else. Well, I mean, you're supposed to be somewhere else. Yeah. So they claimed him as a deserter. So they assumed that he had abandoned a previous assignment somewhere else and had snuck into this specific camp to hide or confuse the system. Whatever. No. When Albert tried to explain that he didn't desert anything, that he had actually been rejected for being too small and just wanted to join the war.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:40

The commander just scoffed.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

See, fuck off, dude.

SPEAKER_03 22:45

So as a punishment for his deser uh desertion. Well, supposed. The army did exactly what Albert had been praying for. Right. They assigned him to an active frontline infantry unit.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

So they're like, hey man, you apparently deserted. We're just gonna put you on the front fucking line. I mean, again, luckily this kid fucking wanted that.

SPEAKER_03 23:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

But at the same time, that's rather fucking harsh.

SPEAKER_03 23:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

Without doing any fucking investigative work as to where this kid came from. No, we'll just put you on the front line, hope you die. Yeah. Whatever. What the fuck?

SPEAKER_03 23:22

So they put him in the 27th battalion of Sharsher Elpon. It's French.

SPEAKER_00 23:31

What is it again?

SPEAKER_03 23:33

Shasher Elpon.

SPEAKER_00 23:35

I I believe you.

SPEAKER_03 23:38

Um, it's an elite brutal mountain infantry known to the German army as Schwartz Tuffel. That's German.

SPEAKER_00 23:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 23:52

They called the Germans called the French the Black Devils.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 23:58

So on the side note, the Germans called the French the Black Devils because their uniforms looked so dark that thought that they were black, but they were actually deep blue. Oh yeah. So the French relabeled themselves as the Blue Devils.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

Is that how the Duke Blue Devils got their name? No wonder.

SPEAKER_03 24:21

I don't know who they are.

SPEAKER_00 24:23

They're uh they're they're a college team, like a basketball team, especially. Maybe it was started by some French people, and that's why they're called the Blue Devils. Maybe. I'll have to look into that.

SPEAKER_03 24:34

So uh these were the men trained to fight in the freezing vertical landscapes of the Vosuj the Vosges mountains. That was accurate.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

100%.

SPEAKER_03 24:48

Anyway, the weather up there killed more men than the bullets did.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

Oh, I bet.

SPEAKER_03 24:53

Yeah. So as Albert was marched out of the commander's office to receive real gear, the guards, guards, the guards noticed something strange about the prisoner. He wasn't upset, he wasn't crying, he was actually grinning from ear to ear. He had completely gaslit the French Republic and is sending him to war.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

So weird.

One-Man Trench Defense At Night

SPEAKER_03 25:17

So by the winter of 1915, um, conflict had been thoroughly buried in the frozen mud of the Western Front. The war had grown, um, sorry, the war had ground down into an industrial stalemate of trenches, right, barbed wire, yeah, artillery.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Just those big ass metal I don't want to say X's because they had like three pieces or whatever, just to stop movement of tanks and whatever, and so on.

SPEAKER_03 25:47

So Albert's regiment was stationed in the Vosh Mountains, the V Mountains. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 25:57

Um, this is where soldiers fought the enemy, yes, but also fought frostbite, sure, trench foot, and constant exposure to the elements.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

That could not have been fun.

SPEAKER_03 26:09

And when Albert first marched into the lines, the veteran soldiers of the battalion assumed the high command was playing a joke on them.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 26:18

He was a five-foot-one anomaly among men seasoned by the mountains already. He his standard-issued uniform was still comically oversized.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

They probably didn't have something that would fit him, right?

SPEAKER_03 26:31

No. To the rest of the squad, he looked more like a freaking mascot. Okay, so Albert ignored all the teasing. He was there for a reason, right? He simply cleaned his rifle, organized his kit, and adjusted to life in the trench trenches. Yeah. He possessed an unusual quiet focus that others initially mistook as fear.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

I could see how that could happen, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 26:58

But he was just determined. Sure. So his first major test arrived on a cold night during an intense German bombardment. Okay. The enemy artillery was systematic, turning the earth upside down and leveling the forward trenches. Yeah. Albert Squad was stationed in an isolation, excuse me, isolated observation post, which is a heavily sandbagged dugout positioned directly in no man's land. Right. Have you heard of No Man's Land?

SPEAKER_00 27:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 27:31

Basically, it describes the brutal barren area between the two opposing armies.

SPEAKER_00 27:37

The two opposing trenches. Trenches, yeah, yeah. Because anyone that would go in there would die.

SPEAKER_03 27:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

From the other side, obviously. You know, whatever.

SPEAKER_03 27:46

So a heavy explosive shell scored like a direct hit into his dugout. Oh. The impact was catastrophic, collapsing the timber framework, the bear, and burying the their position basically in the mountain of dirt and debris.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

Right.

SPEAKER_03 28:03

When the smoke started to clear, Albert managed to kind of claw his way out from beneath the shattered beam.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:11

He was bruised and dazed. He had ringing in his ears. I'm sure. And he looked around at the ruined trench and he saw that his commanding officer was dead. Oh dear. So the remaining members of his squad were either unconscious or severely wounded. He was entirely alone in the dark, and through the night he could hear the distinct, like rhythmic crunch of the German boots on frozen ground. Oh. A German assault was advancing across no man's land. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

Huh.

SPEAKER_03 28:49

So in that moment, standard military doctrine dictated two options retreat to the primary French line or lay down weapons and surrender.

SPEAKER_00 28:59

Right.

SPEAKER_03 28:59

Albert was like, nah, there's a third option.

SPEAKER_00 29:02

I kill them all.

SPEAKER_03 29:03

He scrambled to the squad's remaining machine gun, dragged it to the left flank of the parapet, which is the protective wall or barrier at the top of a trench that faces the enemy.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 29:17

And unleashed an assault into the darkness. Okay. Without waiting to see the result, he unmounted the heavy weapon, sprinted 20 yards through the mud to the right flank, mounted it again, and fired another burst. He then dropped the gun, grabbed a trait, a crate of standard issue grenades, and began throwing them in a wide and rapid arc across the front. Right. For the next several hours, Albert conducted a frantic one-man defense of the outposts.

SPEAKER_00 29:52

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 29:53

He ran back and forth along the line, shifting firing positions constantly, alternating between rifle fire, machine gun bursts, and grenade volleys. In the darkened chaos, the advancing German soldiers could not see that they were facing a single five-foot-tall farmer.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

Of course not. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:15

Based on the erratic overlapping gunfire and the explosions detonating from like multiple angles simultaneously, their officers concluded that they had stumbled into a heavily uh reinforced French platoon. So when the sun began to rise, a French relief party crept forward from the main line, full and expecting to recover like a trench full of casualties. Instead, they found Albert sitting calmly on an upturned ammunition box, nursing just a minor minor shrapnel wound and smoking a cigarette. Wow. Scattered across the perimeter were dozens of spent shell casings, empty grenade crates, and a small group of disarmed, confused German soldiers who had surrendered to what they believed was an entire squad.

SPEAKER_00 31:08

That's wild. Does it say how many Germans surrendered?

SPEAKER_03 31:12

Um, I think the I I'm not sure what this number is, but I have a total number later.

SPEAKER_00 31:18

Yeah, that's that's good.

SPEAKER_03 31:20

Okay. So from that moment onward, he was no longer a mascot.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

Of course not.

SPEAKER_03 31:26

His reputation had a massive shift.

SPEAKER_01 31:29

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 31:29

He became known as a sold soldier who completely dis disregarded the concept of odds, earning a reputation as like one of the most effective volunteers of nighttime trench raids. Right, yeah, yeah. So these raids were high stake stake operations that required crawling into no man's land under the cover of darkness, cutting through thick tangles of barbed wire, sleeping into enemy trenches to gather intelligence or equipment, and escaping before the alarm could be raised, right? Right. So Albert's small stature, once had caused his rejection, became his greatest asset. Sure. He could glide between shell craters and slip through wire entanglements that would trap his larger counterparts.

Captured Then Walks Out With Prisoners

SPEAKER_03 32:16

During a raid in late 1915, he um his luck kind of hit a snag.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 32:22

While navigating a deep shell crater, a German patrol caught him by surprise. Before he could raise his weapon, a heavy blow from like the rifle butt knocked him unconscious. Sure. When Albert came to, he was inside a reinforced German dugout deep behind their lines. Sure. His hands were tied with thick rope, his equipment was gone, and a large German guard was stationed near the exit with like a rifle resting across his knees.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:54

So for most soldiers, being captured and being held deep within enemy territory was like a physical breaking point, right? Physical, psychological, whatever. It's a breaking point.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

It's not good.

SPEAKER_03 33:05

Albert, however, was irritated. No, he was irritated that his routine had been disrupted. He stayed totally still. He played dead occasionally and watched the guard through squinted eyes.

SPEAKER_01 33:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 33:20

The hours dragged on. The dugout was stifling stiflingly warm. Yeah. Um, distant artilleries um acted as like white noise, and the German guard had been on duty for a very long shift.

SPEAKER_00 33:35

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 33:35

Slowly the guard's chin began to drop.

SPEAKER_00 33:38

Oh no, he's fallen asleep.

SPEAKER_03 33:40

His breathing grew heavy and rhythmic.

SPEAKER_00 33:42

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 33:43

And he fell asleep. Whoops. The medical board that had rejected Albert back in Rovel had failed to realize that farm labor creates incredibly strong, lean wrists.

SPEAKER_01 33:56

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 33:57

And a slight frame means remarkably small hands. Albert began to work his wrists against the tension of the knots, and within a few minutes, the rope slid off. That's funny. He did not sneak out of the bunker, however.

SPEAKER_00 34:13

What did he do?

SPEAKER_03 34:15

To retreat without an advantage was wasted effort to him.

SPEAKER_00 34:20

Well, yeah, he he was going to gather intelligence and blah blah blah blah, whatever. He's not just gonna be like, gotta go.

SPEAKER_03 34:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

You know, he's gonna do something since he's there. That totally makes sense for this person the way he is.

SPEAKER_03 34:36

So he crept silently across the dirt floor, reached down, and carefully slid the heavy pistol out of the sleeping guard's holster. Oh. He didn't shoot the guard. No, that's nice. He gently tapped him on the head with the iron barrel. The guard jolted awake, staring down at the barrel of his own weapon into the eyes of the tiny prisoner that he had been assigned to watch. Yep. Using the guard as a shield, Albert began navigating the labyrinth of the German trench system.

SPEAKER_00 35:07

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_03 35:08

In the confusion of the early morning trench lines, whenever they encountered another German soldier, Albert simply pressed his pistol into the hostage's back, forcing the guards to order the others to step aside or clear the path. Pardon me. Private Albert Roach, missing his helmet and covered in soot, was casually walking across no man's land, calmly marching his former guard and four other captured German soldiers ahead of him at gunpoint.

SPEAKER_00 35:51

How did he get four?

SPEAKER_03 35:53

He climbed back into his home trench, handed the cap the captured pistol to his sergeant and requested requested a fresh ration tin. I'm hungry, feed me.

SPEAKER_00 36:05

Wow. How did he get more than just the guard? That's fucking wild.

SPEAKER_03 36:12

Because every soldier that he encountered.

SPEAKER_00 36:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:15

Yeah.

The Grenade Bluff That Captures 86

SPEAKER_03 36:16

So that by the spring of 1917, the war had reached a state of like utter devastation. Okay, so this was the year of the Shaman de Deum.

SPEAKER_00 36:29

So what is that?

SPEAKER_03 36:31

It is an offensive. A massive, brutally contested operation that quickly turned into chaos.

SPEAKER_01 36:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 36:38

Albert's regiment found themselves holding a heavily battered sector of the line that was being um dismantled by concentrated enemy artillery. Okay. The bombardment had severed the subterranean telephone wires, effectively cutting off the frontline troops from the rear command. To make matters worse, a coordinated uh German counter-offensive had managed to push or push around their flanks, leaving Albert's unit trapped in a pocket, isolated and surrounded on three sides.

SPEAKER_00 37:16

Yeah, that's not good.

SPEAKER_03 37:18

So the situation inside the trench was desperate. The lieutenant lieutenant had been killed in the initial barrage, and the captain was severely wounded, slipping in and out of consciousness from a shrapnel injury. Oh boy. The remaining pocket was pinned down by heavy, interlocking machine gun fire that swept across the parapet the moment that someone showed a helmet. Right. So the temporary commander realized that without artillery support to break the German ring, the position would be completely overrun within hours. Yeah. They need someone to run back to the primary artillery lines to coordinate a counter barrage. So they sent Albert? It meant crossing a mile of open, completely explose plateau under full observation of enemy snipers and machine gun nests.

SPEAKER_01 38:10

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_03 38:11

The commander looked down the line of exhausted, shell-shocked men preparing to ask for a volunteer for what was essentially a suicide mission. Before he could even finish the sentence, Albert's like, I'll do it. Albert didn't wait for a formal order or a written dispatch. He tucked his head down and vaulted out of the trench. Wow. Now he didn't run in a conventional straight line. He knew, yeah, he knew that a predictable target was a dead target.

SPEAKER_01 38:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:41

So instead he ran ran like a panicked hare, zigzagged across, throwing himself into like waterlogged um shell craters, sure, sliding through slick mud, doing literal rolls across the open ground to disrupt the rhythm of the German snipers. Of course. Machine gun fire tracked his movement, turning up fountains of dirt just inches from his boots. Oh boy. Bullets tore completely through the loose fabric of his oversized uniform, but the the bullets missed his no, never never hit him.

SPEAKER_00 39:19

That is fucking insane. That's just crazy.

SPEAKER_03 39:22

So he covered a mile in a frame in in in adrenaline, basically, and tumbled into the secondary French lines and delivered the precise coordinates of the advancing German units.

SPEAKER_00 39:36

Right.

SPEAKER_03 39:38

So moments later, the heavy French artilleries opened up, sending a wall of defensive ammo crashing down onto the German uh positions surrounding the outpost. Yeah. But while any soldier would have taken their survival as a sign to stay put in the relative safeties of the rear lines, not Albert, Albert looked at the situation and decided his job was only half done. He knew his squad mates were still stuck in this trench, and he knew a German assault team had already begun infiltrating the connecting communication trenches near their position. Sure. So instead of reporting to a medical tent, Albert found a supply depot, grabbed a massive burlap sack, and stuffed it to the brim with every hand grenade he could possibly carry. There you go. He slung the heavy sack over his shoulder and ran right back into the open field, retracing his steps.

SPEAKER_00 40:30

Are these his I'm sure you don't know the answer to this. But are these these grenades that are like more like sticks? I don't know if they're do you know what I'm talking about, not like the traditional grenades we know today.

SPEAKER_03 40:41

Yeah, I don't know what kind they were.

SPEAKER_00 40:43

They were more like, I don't know, yay long or whatever, and looked like a stick that you would throw.

SPEAKER_03 40:47

Almost like TNT or something, more or less, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:50

But it wasn't that, but yeah, so that kind of overall look. Yeah, I don't know what kind they were because you see this fucking little little kid. Yeah. This is crazy. Anyways.

SPEAKER_03 41:03

Could you imagine?

SPEAKER_00 41:04

No.

SPEAKER_03 41:05

Who's the kid who plays Spider-Man in the Marvel movies?

SPEAKER_00 41:09

Uh Tom Holland.

SPEAKER_03 41:10

Can you imagine someone like Tom Holland doing this?

SPEAKER_00 41:13

Like that, he would make a great He's Spider-Man. He would make a great Albert Roach. Well, maybe we should write a screenplay. Okay, let's do it. Have Tom Holland play Albert Roach. Perfect.

SPEAKER_03 41:25

So Albert slipped back into the trench system near the forward outpost, navigating an abandoned parallel trench that sat directly above the communication sap that the German assault team was using to advance. A communication sap is a narrow, shallow trench dug outward towards the enemy, and it was used to move troops and supplies safely without being seen. Sure. Okay. Okay. So Albert really says he was outnumbered, dozens to one, but he also understood a fundamental rule of trench warfare. In the narrow, dark, and smoke-filled confines of a dirt trench, soldiers cannot see what is happening around them. Of course not. They rely entirely on their ears to judge the size of the force they are fighting. Right. Albert decided to exploit this vulnerability. He pulled the pen on a grenade, lofted it over the bank into a German lane, and screamed at the top of his lungs, First Regiment attack from the left, charge. And the and the grenade detonated.

SPEAKER_00 42:36

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 42:37

Before the smoke could clear, Albert sprinted 10 yards down the parallel line, tossed a second grenade, dropped his voice to a booming gr uh gravelly barrel.

SPEAKER_00 42:47

Sounded like a different guy. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 42:48

Second battalion, close the pocket, cut off their retreat. And he didn't stop moving. He ran back to the center of his position, hurled three grenades in rapid succession to simulate a coordinated mortar strike. Yeah. And blew a frantic, shrill blast on a regular infantry whistle, shouting imaginary orders to non-existent heavy machine gun crews.

SPEAKER_00 43:15

The kid is smart.

SPEAKER_03 43:17

So smart.

SPEAKER_00 43:18

Yeah, I mean, he's playing with what he's got, and it's fucking up the Germans pretty hard, it sounds like. So that's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 43:26

So to the German commander leading the assault party down inside the narrow trench, the world has suddenly turned into an ambush.

SPEAKER_01 43:34

Right.

SPEAKER_03 43:34

Surrounded by smoke and dirt and deafening, synchronized explosions, and hearing distinct commands coming from multiple directions at once, the officer came to a logical but false conclusion. He believed his advanced team had accidentally marched straight into the assembly area of a massive, fully reinforced French division. Christ. The psychological pressure of being cut off and surrounded by an overwhelming force broke the resolve. He surrendered. The German commander tied a white handkerchief to the end of a cleaning rod, hoisted it above the trench wall, and said, Stop firing, we surrender. Wow. Albert stopped throwing grenades. He stepped out of the smoke, completely covered in soot. His uniform is torn to shreds, holding nothing but a standard issue pistol. Right. The German commander climbed out of the trench, looked around for the first regiment, looked around for the 2nd Battalion. There was nothing. There was no division. It was just Albert. It was only Albert, a five-foot-one farmer standing alone in the mud. Wow. A total of 86 German soldiers surrendered to Albert. Laid down their rifles and put their hands in the air, realizing they had just surrendered their entire force to a man who didn't even meet the standard height requirement for the military. So funny. Albert quietly lined them up and marched all 86 of them back to the French lines by himself.

A Hero Charged With Desertion

SPEAKER_03 45:14

By the final month of 1918, Albert Roach's exploits had made him a near myth mythological figure among his frontline peers.

SPEAKER_00 45:23

No doubt, yeah. That's funny.

SPEAKER_03 45:26

During a fierce battle in the closing weeks of the war, Albert's captain was struck by heavy shrapnel during a tactical retreat, falling unconscious in an exposed crater deep within no man's land. Disregarding the retreat movement of his unit, Albert turned back into the fire. He curled through the mud, hoisted the larger commander onto his back, and began a grueling, agonizing trek back to safety. That's crazy. For over an hour, he dragged and carried his commander under targeted machine gun fire, finally reaching a secure French position. Wow. The rescue took every ounce of physical strength that Albert possessed.

SPEAKER_00 46:08

I have no doubt.

SPEAKER_03 46:10

Suffering from a severe exhaustion, smoke inhalation, and an acute shell shock, he crawled into a dark, abandoned dugout away from his primary unit, collapsed onto a pile of canvas, and fell into an unresponsive deep sleep. Oh boy. While he was asleep, a routine patrol from a completely different regiment swept through the sector. They didn't recognize his face, and Albert was too exhausted to respond to their commands. They saw a soldier asleep away from his assigned post, lacking proper identification papers during an active enemy engagement. Under the strict, unyielding laws of wartime martial governance, they came to a decision. When Albert finally opened his eyes, he wasn't being treated for exhaustion or praised for saving his captain. He was locked inside a provisional military prison cell, formally charged with desertion in the face of the enemy.

SPEAKER_00 47:15

Oh, for fuck's sake. He's been twice he's been given desertion. What the fuck?

SPEAKER_03 47:20

A panel of officers quickly found Albert guilty and sentenced him to death by firing squad. What the fuck? Locked in his cell with no options, Albert skipped all the appeals and he wrote a note directly to the Allied Supreme Commander, General Ferdinand Foch.

SPEAKER_01 47:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 47:41

Quote, General, they are going to shoot me for running away. I have never run away in my life. I was just tired from carrying my captain. Check the files, Albert. By sheer luck, the letter reached Foch.

SPEAKER_00 47:59

Prior to the firing's fire. What the fuck?

SPEAKER_03 48:04

Recognizing Albert's name, the general checked his actual service record, which included defending an outpost alone and capturing 86 prisoners.

SPEAKER_01 48:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:14

Realizing the massive error, Foch signed a pardon and sent a courier. The stay of execution arrived just as the firing squad was ordered to shoot, saving Albert's life.

SPEAKER_00 48:27

That's fucking wild that timing worked out that way because I also find it funny that those other people are like, well, we're gonna find you guilty because we don't know what the fuck we're doing, apparently.

SPEAKER_03 48:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:39

I just, wow, way to be quick to decisions there. Yeah. What the fuck?

SPEAKER_03 48:44

So on November 27th, 1918, 16 days after the armatus, Fosch presented Albert at a victory ceremony in Strasbourg. Standing before thousands of troops and top allied generals, Fosch called Albert forward and announced to the crowd, behold the first soldier of France.

SPEAKER_00 49:05

That's funny.

SPEAKER_03 49:06

Foch then pinned the Legion of Honor to Albert's chest.

SPEAKER_01 49:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 49:11

After his demobilization, Albert avoided the public eye, packed away his medals, returned to his hometown. He worked as a farmer. He rarely spoke of his exploit, and he lived a quiet life in the 1920s and 1930s. After surviving four years in World War I, being wounded nine times, pulling off multiple impossible solo missions, capturing a total of 1,180 enemy soldiers, and narrowly escaping his own firing squad, he was killed by a regular car accident on his way home from work.

SPEAKER_00 49:56

Oh man. Really?

SPEAKER_03 49:58

On April 14th, 1939, at the age of 44, Albert stepped off a commuter bus and was struck and killed by a speeding car.

SPEAKER_00 50:08

That is sad.

SPEAKER_03 50:09

That vehicle belonged to the daughter of a former French president.

SPEAKER_00 50:14

Oh.

SPEAKER_03 50:16

Just irony.

SPEAKER_00 50:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:18

Um, there was no prosecutions or anything, it was an accident. There was no records of anything happening with this person.

SPEAKER_00 50:25

What a what a what a way to go with everything he went through and did for his country in that war. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 50:34

So since Albert had returned to civilian life as a regular laborer and died in a standard traffic accident, not on active duty or in a military setting, he technically wasn't automatically entitled to a state funeral with full military honors.

SPEAKER_00 50:52

Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_03 50:53

Prime Minister Edward Daladair Daladier had to issue a special executive request to bypass Standard Protocol to ensure the nation properly honored him.

SPEAKER_00 51:07

That's cool.

SPEAKER_03 51:08

Today, a simple sturdy little stone monument stands in his hometown to honor his memory. Wow. That is the story of Fr Francis' first soldier.

SPEAKER_00 51:21

It's just it's great that he was so all about like helping his country. I mean uh I mean, obviously you could if you were German, be like, fuck that guy. But you know, he was French French and he helped France do what they needed to do kind of thing. So, I mean, again, you're not gonna find anybody like that today, which is sad. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to go to war either, but I I feel like people even younger than me are less likely to be like again, they would rather burn the country down now and we're not even at war.

SPEAKER_03 51:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:59

But um, that's pretty awesome. He did all that on his fucking own.

SPEAKER_03 52:03

Isn't that crazy?

Sources, Screenplay Talk, And Wrap

SPEAKER_03 52:04

There is no book that I could find on him. There is one French book, but I couldn't get it translated. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 52:13

So where did you get most of this from then?

SPEAKER_03 52:16

Oh, I got it from Chat GPT. I said, give me a a down and out hero. And they said, look into Albert Roach. And so I was looking at YouTube videos and I was reading um historical reports and Delita. So Chi Chippy gave me the name.

SPEAKER_00 52:34

And you went from there. That's that's great. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 52:37

I tried so hard to find a book, but there's nothing.

SPEAKER_00 52:40

That's wild that there's not.

SPEAKER_03 52:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:42

That's surprising.

SPEAKER_03 52:43

All this information came from like historical records.

SPEAKER_00 52:46

Historical documents?

SPEAKER_03 52:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 52:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:49

Um, that's just wild that there's not like even a book.

SPEAKER_03 52:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:53

All right. Well, there's a French book, but yeah, but let's read that.

SPEAKER_03 52:58

I can't pronounce it, can't read it.

SPEAKER_00 52:59

Let's write a screenplay. Tom Holland, we're we're gunned for you, buddy.

SPEAKER_03 53:03

Yeah, we are.

SPEAKER_00 53:04

You're gonna be our Albert Roach. Hope you're around 5'1. I don't think he is, but he's probably a little taller. We'll just make people that are next to him even taller.

SPEAKER_03 53:12

There you go.

SPEAKER_00 53:13

Welp.

SPEAKER_03 53:14

I suppose.

SPEAKER_00 53:16

All right, buffoons. That's it for today's episode.

SPEAKER_03 53:18

Buckle up because we've got another historical adventure waiting for you next time. Feeling hungry for more buffoonery? Or maybe you have a burning question or a wild historical theory for us to explore?

SPEAKER_00 53:30

Hit us up on social media. We're History Buffoons Podcasts on YouTube, X, Instagram, and Facebook. You can also email us at History Buffoons Podcast at gmail.com. We are Bradley and Kate, music by Corey Akers.

SPEAKER_03 53:44

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts and turn those notifications on to stay in the loop.

SPEAKER_00 53:49

Until next time, stay curious and don't forget to rate and review us.

SPEAKER_03 53:53

Remember, the buffoonery never stops.