Editing Paul Éluard (section)

===First World War===
In April 1914, Éluard and Gala were both declared healthy again and sent home, to Paris and [[Moscow]] respectively. The separation was brutal; soon Europe was on the brink of war and Éluard was mobilised. He passed his physical and was assigned to the auxiliary services because of his poor health. He suffered from migraine, [[bronchitis]], cerebral [[anemia|anaemia]], and chronic [[appendicitis]] and spent most of 1915 under treatment in a military hospital not far from home. Éluard's mother came to visit him and he talked for hours about his beloved, opening his heart to her and slowly rallying her to his cause. Her initial hostility towards Gala slowly faded away, and she started calling her "the little Russian". However, Éluard's father, who had also been mobilized, remained adamant that she could not come to Paris.

In Moscow, Gala listened to no one. Her love for Éluard gave her an unshakable faith that they would be reunited again. She wrote to his mother to befriend her and finally convinced her stepfather to let her go to Paris to study French at the [[University of Paris|Sorbonne]]. She took a boat to [[Helsinki]], then reached [[Stockholm]] before embarking for England. Once in London, she took a train to [[Southampton]] before taking a boat to [[Dieppe]], and finally took a train to Paris.

In June 1916, Éluard was sent to [[Hargicourt, Somme|Hargicourt]] to work in one of the military evacuation hospitals, 10 kilometers from the front line. The 'poet' was given a chair, a desk, and a pen to painfully write to the families of the dead and the wounded. He wrote more than 150 letters a day. At night, he dug graves to bury the dead. For the first time since Clavadel, shaken by the horrors of the war, he started writing verses again. Gala wrote to him: "I promise you our life will be glorious and magnificent."

On 14 December 1916, Éluard turned 21 and wrote to his mother: "I can assure you, that your approval will be infinitely precious to me. However, for all our sake, nothing will change my mind." He married Gala on 20 February 1917. However, he announced to his parents and newlywed wife that when he returned to the front line, he would voluntarily join the "real soldiers" in the trenches. Gala protested and threatened to return to Russia to become a nurse on the [[Eastern Front (World War I)|Russian front]]. But nothing would do, and for the first time, Éluard resisted her. "Let me live a tougher life," he wrote her, "less like a servant, less like a domestic." Two days after getting married, Éluard left for the front line.

There, living conditions were severe. Éluard wrote to his parents, "Even the strongest are falling. We advanced 50 kilometres, three days without bread or wine." His health suffered. On 20 March 1917, he was sent to a military hospital with incipient [[pleurisy]].

On 11 May 1918, Gala gave birth to a baby girl who was eventually named Cécile (died 10 August 2016).