Mathieu, Bertrand Sur les traces du capitaine Cam

Méhariste de l'entre-deux-guerres

Camille Mathieu joined the army at the start of the First World War. He was 20 years old. He had actually wanted to become a teacher, but during the first battles, amid the roar of bombs and grenades, he realised his military calling. Among other things, he took part in the Second Battle of the Marne on 25 September 1915. He was wounded twice. Exhausted by the strain, he was admitted to hospital several times. As he was no longer fit for combat, he was transferred to the AFN as an officer for indigenous affairs. For almost twenty years, he served at the foot of the Grand Erg Oriental in his sun- and heat-scorched Bordj of Bir-Kecira in the Goum Saharien of Tunisia, where he became commander, and devoted himself entirely to sovereign tasks, from pursuing Rezzous to monitoring Habib Bourguiba, the future president of Tunisia. In the first weeks of the Second World War, after returning to France two and a half years earlier and being promoted to battalion commander, he was sent to the Battle of Lille in May 1940 with the 14th Zouave Regiment. After resisting the enemy's attacks until his last bullet, he was forced to lay down his arms. Commander Mathieu was taken to an officers' prisoner-of-war camp in northern Germany and was killed in a bombing raid in 1945.