Onto a comparatively small area the French on one day threw a hundred
thousand shells! We found a French document in which the commanding
officer calculated that eighteen bombs must be the allowance per
metre of German trench, these eighteen bombs to be used not in a day,
but within one or two hours! The rapidity of the artillery fire was
therefore as great as that of an ordinary machine gun, but the shells
hurled against us were not infantry shells, but grenades of every
calibre. "Drum-fire" is the name for this sort of artillery fire, and
its effects were simply dreadful--unspeakable. The barbed wire was
completely annihilated, was clean wiped out of existence; the trenches
were flattened into mounds, their foundations crumbled away. No known
sort of earthworks were able to withstand such fire for even a short
time. But German discipline, loyalty and heroism held out.
When such "drum-fire" began, a huge wall of smoke and chalk particles
rose over our trenches, cutting off the men from the rest of the world.
The horror of the scene was augmented by the ceaseless rumbling,
thundering and crashing which filled the air, and which, even miles
away, sounded like a heavy thunderstorm. It seemed impossible that
any living creature should survive such a hellish turmoil. When the
firing ceased abruptly, or when its direction was changed to give
the French infantry a chance to attack us, then our brave fusiliers,
musketeers, grenadiers crawled out of the funnels and pockets into
which the enemy's grenades had ploughed the earth, made their way from
among broken foundations, crumbling cement, trickling sand bags, and,
grabbing their guns and wiping the dirt from their eyes, they repulsed
the French attack.
And this was done not once, but dozens of times.
Occasionally our men were ordered to abandon a trench which was
suffering particularly from "drum-fire" in order to avoid unnecessary
loss of life, and the crew from such an abandoned trench was then
placed in our second line of intrenchments. It sometimes happened that
French infantrymen, under protection of their artillery fire, reached
and took such an empty trench, succeeding the more readily because
they encountered no obstacles. Our soldiers then sprang forth from
their cover and attacked the French with hand grenades and bayonets.
Invariably we were successful in repulsing the enemy, causing them
heavy loss of life.
If for some reason or other this counter-attack was not made at once,
but was postponed for an hour or two, we were not so sure of success,
and it was then never secured by us without heavy casualties, for
the few hours that had elapsed had amply sufficed the French, who
are exceedingly clever at every sort of intrenchment work, to change
and remodel the trench for their purposes, to install machine guns,
to place sandbag barriers along both sides and to make sundry other
changes. This done, the "Frenchmen's nest" was complete.
The difficult task of ousting the French from their "nest" then
devolved upon our regiments, and in some instances many weeks of hard,
cruel fighting were required to accomplish this end. For this work we
employed underground mines, artillery, bombs and hand grenades. When
the time was ripe for attack, columns of volunteers were formed, which
were led by officers, who, in turn, were preceded by groups of pioneers
with hand grenades and intrenchment tools, to be used in demolishing
the sandbag barriers. The assault was begun simultaneously from both
sides. These attacks were usually conducted at night, and it will
readily be seen what cool, unshakable courage was required for work of
this kind. Immediately after the hand grenades were exploded our men
advanced and a furious hand-to-hand fight ensued, in which not only
bayonet and pick-axe, but shovel and booted foot were used to expel the
enemy, to kill him or force him to surrender.