In 1917, during World War One, a French soldier was found sleeping on the battlefield by a few patrols and was sentenced to execution by firing squad. Despite desperate protests from this man that he was completely innocent and that they were making a huge mistake, he was accused of deserting his post by the French higher ups, which is considered an extremely grave offense.

And within 24 hours, the soldier suddenly found himself standing in front of a firing squad about to lose his life. But little did any of the soldiers and officers at his execution know. This man had actually been telling the truth. He truly was innocent. And not only that, they were about to execute one of the greatest French soldiers the world had ever seen.

Welcome back, guys. My name is Andy Jiang, and this is it. In stores in 1913 and 18, a boy named Albert Ross decided that he wanted to try and enlist in the French army to fight as a soldier. Although he had been born into a simple family of hardworking farmers in the small community of Rossville, France. Oh, Ben didn't really want to work on a farm his entire life.

Like many other young, ambitious men at the time, the romanticized dream of living a glorious, brief life as a soldier really appealed to him. He longed for action, adventure, and even a little bit of danger. And old beer knew deep in his heart that his destiny was to serve as some farmhand. It was to fight on the battlefield.

But when all better showed up to enlist, the French army's assessment board immediately rejected him without a second thought. Since a bear was only five foot two inches tall and fairly scrawny. The French officers were convinced that he wouldn't even make it through training, much less contribute anything in a real battle. He was just too puny. He would simply be a liability for the other soldiers.

The officers figured, and they weren't afraid to tell a bear this to his face either. But although Bear returned home, crushed, his dad was absolutely delighted. He had never understood why his son had wanted to do something so stupid as to go risk his life as a soldier when they needed more hands to run the family's farm. And he was looking forward to working closely with his son in the future to train him as a farmhand.

Extremely reluctantly, Albert agreed to this. But when World War One suddenly ignited in 1914, in an instant, everything changed, with the French army's new, highly urgent need for as many soldiers as they could possibly get. They suddenly became a whole lot less strict about the requirements, meaning that basically anyone, even people like Albert, could now become soldiers. Of course, Albert immediately left at this lucky opportunity, even though his dad was furious with his decision and told Ed that he simply wasn't allowed to enlist.

Albert refused to let his dream get away from him once again. Late one night while everyone was sleeping, he packed his bags, snuck out of the house and ran away from home. Soon after, finally enlisting and being successfully admitted into the French army. Soon later, he was assigned to the third battalion of SAS. At first album was ecstatic.

To him, being a soldier was his calling and he was incredibly excited to finally get the chance to go on to the battlefield and begin serving his country. Unfortunately for him, though, this excitement didn't last for very long at all. Almost immediately after military training had just begun for the 30th Battalion, Albert started constantly getting picked on by both his superior officers overseeing the training, as well as his fellow comrades.

They were constantly making fun of how short he was. His unintimidating, stature, his skinny arms. It immediately became clear to Albert that pretty much no one respected him even the slightest bit just because of his physical characteristics. And it drove him crazy, since he had always been a highly reactive, hot tempered kind of guy. He began to get into these physical fights every single day with the other soldiers and began always talking back to and arguing with his superiors.

And one day, after a particularly bad day of training, Albert decided that he had simply had enough of everything. He felt that training camp, with all of its marching up and down, was boring and completely useless when it came to actual combat. As a result, without telling anyone, he packed up his stuff and left the camp, intending on making his way to the front lines himself to finally do what he had come to do in the first place, actually fight in the war.

But very shortly after Albert had left the French military police were able to track him down and arrest him. At first, they were planning on charging him with desertion, which called for a very serious punishment. One op ed explained that it's technically wasn't desertion since he was literally just going to fight in the war like he was supposed to do as a soldier.

The French military command surprisingly actually agreed with him. They told Albert that if you wanted to see combat that bad, he would be allowed to do so. Soon afterwards, they transferred Albert from the 30th Battalion of Joshua to the 27th Battalion. Offshore SEAL Alpine, basically in a lead version of the rhythm section full of highly trained and experienced soldiers, the way the French military command saw it, being assigned to this new, bitterly and without bears punishments.

As such, a small, frail soldier with absolutely zero combat experience. The officers figured that he would be killed in no time participating in such an elite squad. This assault upon known as the Blue Devils for their distinct blue uniforms and deadly nature were always engaging in extremely dangerous missions. But despite how confident these officers were, Alberta saw things quite differently.

To him, this was an incredible opportunity to finally prove himself and to fulfill his destiny. And as it turns out, Alberta's performance in this new elite squad was unlike anything anyone could have ever imagined. Now, before I continue with the story, this show is sponsored by Betterhelp. For as long as I can remember, I've been a chronic overthinker just always pacing my room, stressing over the most absurd and irrational worries and worst case scenarios that my mind can possibly conjure up.

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That's better help each CLP dcoms. That's hidden stories. Now let's get back to today's story. In July of 1915, Alberta arrived to the front lines and took a position with his new battalion at the End River. Now, at the time, the RN Front was an enormous pain in the side for the French High Committe, since the entire area was covered by a dense forest of trees and bushes.

It was proving to be extremely hard to dislodge the German forces that had positioned themselves. There. They not only had the high ground, they could also easily hide themselves in the thick shrubbery, whereas the French soldiers who approached them had very little cover. In addition, the German soldiers had dug an extremely sophisticated network of trenches there and had also built several block houses were reinforced concrete shelters manned with machine guns that had allowed them to successfully hold off all incoming attacks.

So far this block houses were especially frustrating to deal with since there was had been specifically built to be bullet resistant, making it ridiculously hard to get to the German soldiers inside. However, in December of that year, Alberta, still barely even a rookie with the social ALPA, willingly volunteered to go on a solo mission to try and destroy one of those block houses.

Although it must have seemed like this guy was completely out of his mind, his comrades agreed to let him go and see what he could do. As a result, on a particularly cold and dark night, Alberta snuck out into no man's land and began slowly making his way over to the closest German blockhouse, crawling extremely slowly and utilizing the cover of darkness.

He was actually able to infiltrate the German lines undiscovered. Taking a quick peek inside the blockhouse, a bed of saw that most of the German soldiers inside were sitting very close to the stove for heat. So he simply dropped a few grenades down the chimney, sending them straight into the soldiers laps. The explosions immediately killed several of them.

The rest of them, confused and so shocked, rushed out of the blockhouse right into the open. Apparently, they had thought that they had been hit by a full raid, so they all immediately threw down their weapons and surrendered on the spot. Little did they know it was not a full squad of soldiers, but just a single five foot two outfit standing in front of them.

And before long, Albert had arrived back to his comrades with several new German prisoners and a whole bunch of German machine guns. Over the next few months, Albert and the rest of his battalion rotated between the front and the front and also us there. They hoped to help liberate the French regions of Alsace and noted, however, that German forces weren't just going to give up their territory that easily and the fighting was getting more and more brutal by the day.

One day, Albert's unit was hit by a massive German artillery strike. Since they were in the mountains at the time and they had no way of digging deep trenches for protection like they normally would. These artillery shells were absolutely devastating when the smoke had finally cleared. Albert was shocked to realize that out of everyone in his squad, he was the only one still alive.

And since the German soldiers would launch that artillery strike were quickly closing in. It was looking like it could finally be the end for himself as well. With no time to call for assistance or even run away. Albert began grabbing the rifles of his fallen comrades, firing each of them for a few seconds before dropping it and moving on to the next one by rapidly firing between each rifle at the specific positions that each soldier had.

One position that Albert was desperately trying to maintain the illusion that there were still quite a few French soldiers alive, not just himself. Minute after minute, he frantically just from one gun to the next as fast as he could, sprinkling in a few grenades here and there as well. And incredibly, the incoming German force was so overwhelmed by Albert's one man Army that they genuinely believed that there was still a strong squad of French soldiers remaining.

So they quickly aborted the attack and retreated. By the time 1916 rolled around, Albert had built up a reputation among the others, also up for having a sort of indestructible bravery. He was always volunteering for the most dangerous missions and even more impressively, he was succeeding in accomplishing them as well. But given just how unstable and unpredictable these missions were, his luck was bound to run out eventually.

One day, Albin was out in no man's land with a team on a reconnaissance when they were suddenly ambushed by a squad of German soldiers. Only Albert and his lieutenants ended up surviving with his lieutenant, being severely wounded. They were captured and taken prisoner by the Germans and dragged into one of their bunkers to be interrogated for intel, which likely meant that they would be subjected to brutal torture methods.

However, the Germans had no idea who they were messing with. Although the exact details of what happened in that German bunker are still unknown since Albert never actually talked about it afterwards. Sometime later, French soldiers back at their home base. So Albert returning from yet another successful mission. He wasn't alone, though, holding a German pistol in his hand and carrying his wounded lieutenant on his back.

Albert returned to the French lines with 42 German prisoners. Somehow, some in Spain way. This man had managed to get the upper hand on the German soldiers who had been watching over him and managed to steal their weapons and then had managed to convince every single soldier in that bunker to surrender to him so that he could take them captive.

He had literally gotten himself and his lieutenants out of an impossible situation. As the war continued to progress, Albert also developed a reputation for being someone who wasn't afraid to risk his own life to save others. In 1917, France and Britain began the evilly offensive an operation designed to launch a massive assault to kick the Germans out of their high ground positions once and for all.

Unfortunately, however, this operation ended up being a colossal failure, cost the lives of over 120,000 French soldiers alone. During one of the battles, Albert suddenly saw a cell go off right next to his captain. When the smoke in the mud had dissipated. It seemed like the man was still alive, but just barely. He was clearly severely wounded, and it didn't seem like he could get up and move all on his own.

Although this had all taken place for out in the distance, nowhere near where Albert was at the time. He refused to just leave his captain there in no man's land to die. As a result, he got on his stomach and began slowly crawling one tiny inch at a time at towards his captain. Since he was moving deeper and deeper into enemy lines, Alberta was constantly pausing, watching and waiting.

Extremely worried about suddenly being rushed by a group of German soldiers or, worse, being spotted by a sniper that he would never be able to see. But despite just how much danger he was putting himself in, Albert knew that he had to save his captain. He just had to. For six entire hours. Albert. Slowly, painfully and painstakingly fought.

Fought until he finally reached the men. Although he was conscious, he couldn't move on his own, just like Albert had suspected. As a result, Albert had no choice but to slowly, carefully and painstakingly crawl all the way back to friendly territory once again. But this time with a grown man in tow by some incredible miracle and an unseen hand, the amount of determination and grit, though Albert administered successfully, bring them both back to safety and just another 4 hours.

The moment he dropped his captain off with the medics, though, his body just immediately gave up on him and he collapsed to the ground. By that point, it was almost an automatic reaction. Albert was so utterly exhausted that he just couldn't even think straight, and he fell asleep almost instantly. However, he didn't get to rest for too long before he was suddenly sold to the weak by a hard kick.

When he finally came to his senses and looked up. He was surprised to see a group of friends patrol standing over him with their rifles raised and pointed at it. They accused him of sleeping on duty and deserting his post, which was grounds for immediate execution within 24 hours by firing squad. Although they had tried frantically explaining his situation, there were no witnesses to confirm his story since the only person who had been there, his captain, was unconscious and receiving medical treatment as a result.

Despite his protests, Albert was thrown into the detention barracks and given an execution date for the very next day. One hour before he was scheduled to be shot, Oprah was allowed to send a short goodbye letter back home to his family. He addressed his letter specifically to his father, wanting to set the story straight, telling him, quote, In an hour I shall be sacked, but I assure you that I am innocent.

Then Albert was walked out of the barracks and lined up in front of a firing squad. This is it. He probably thought after everything I've been through, this is really how it's going to end. But incredibly, just a few mere moments before the execution would have taken place. A messenger suddenly came running from the distance, yelling for them to stop.

As it turns out, Alberto's captain had finally regained consciousness and had verified his story and his execution had been called off at the very last moment. After that, extremely close call, I'll bet it went right back to the front lines and to serving his country. He fought against the Germans until the very day the armistice was signed and World War One finally came to an end in credibly, despite all of his insanely impressive feeds and accomplishments during the war.

By the end of it, Albert had earned no rank and was still just a second class soldier. It wasn't until the Supreme Allied Commander, General Ferdinand Foss, came across Alberto's file and realized that on record Albert had captured an astonishing 1180 German prisoners, most of them single handedly, and that he had been injured nine times in combat. That Albert finally received the attention that he deserved.

He went on to receive several of the French Army's highest combat awards. Then General Foss presented opera to the people of Alsace, calling him their liberator and dubbing him the first Soldier of France. After that, how bad it was personally chosen to represent the French army at the British chief of staff's funeral was invited to have dinner with King George the Fifth.

And then what was probably the greatest honor was chosen to carry the coffin of the unknown soldier to his final resting place. After the war, Albert returned home to a small farming community married and had a child. Tragically, on April 14, 1939, when Albert, who was just 44 years old, he was getting off a bus on his way home after work when he was suddenly hit by a speeding car and killed.

The story in Pure McKell probably described it best. This man had gone through four years of war, given wounded nine times, given close to death a thousand times, almost unjustly sought as a mutineer. He had escaped all dangers, all accidents, all of this to be killed 20 years later, on his way home on the scent of a bus, mail, bed, rest in peace, and may his story always continue to live on.

Take care, guys, and I'll see you all next week.