Desgrange and War
Desgrange created a committee for physical education at the start of the first world war and trained several thousand soldiers to prepare them for the Front. Despite his age - he was already more than 50 - Desgrange then enrolled as a soldier himself. He presented himself at an assembly centre at Autan, distinctive for his grey hair and the Légion d'honneur pinned to his chest, and went to war as a poilu, an ordinary soldier. He won the Croix de guerre in combat and continued to write for L'Auto but under the name "Desgrenier". Desgrenier is a play on words. Desgrange translates loosely as Barnes in English; the slight change turned his name into Lofts.
Desgrange was made an officer in May 1919 and that summer returned to L'Auto to edit the paper and to restore the Tour de France in a nation of death, ruin and shortage.
Read more about this topic: Henri Desgrange
Famous quotes containing the word war:
“[W]e must remember that so long as war exists on earth there will be some danger that even the Nation that most ardently desires peace may be drawn into war.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)