[3] In speaking of the death of Comte Henry Dadvisard.
"A GERMAN DESERTER'S WAR EXPERIENCE"--HIS ESCAPE
"_The Inside Story of the German Army_"
_Told by--(His Name Must Be Witheld To Save the Lives of His Relatives
and Himself)_
This narrative is without doubt the greatest story yet told by a
German soldier. It is a startling confession of the inward feelings
of a young German miner in the Kaiser's ranks. Escaping to America
after serving fourteen months, he first told his story to the _New
Yorker Volkszeitung_, the principal organ of the German socialists in
the United States. Believing that all the American people should know
the truth, his experiences have been translated by J. Koettgen and
published in book form by _B. W. Huebsch_, of New York. His stories
are of historical value because he tells how he marched into Belgium
with the first German army of invasion; the crossing of the Meuse;
the Battle of the Marne. He also tells the first German story of
the rout and flight of the Teutonic forces from the Marne--and his
desertion from the "hell" within the German army. In these pages we
can give but ten selected glimpses of the several hundred stories and
scenes which he so graphically describes.
[4] I--STORY OF THE MARCH INTO BELGIUM
At the end of July, 1914, our garrison at Koblenz was feverishly
agitated. Part of our men were seized by an indescribable enthusiasm,
others became subject to a feeling of great depression. The declaration
of war was in the air. I belonged to those who were depressed. For
I was doing my second year of military service and was to leave the
barracks in six weeks' time. Instead of the long wished-for return home
war was facing me....
Our sapper battalion, No. 30, had been in feverish activity five
days before the mobilization; work was being pushed on day and
night.... Moreover, there was the suspicious amiability of the
officers and sergeants, which excluded any doubt that any one might
still have had. Officers who had never before replied to the salute
of a private soldier now did so with the utmost attention. Cigars
and beer were distributed in those days by the officers with great,
uncommon liberality, so that it was not surprising that many soldiers
were scarcely ever sober and did not realize the seriousness of the
situation. But there were also others. There were soldiers who also
in those times of good-humour and the grinning comradeship of officer
and soldier could not forget that in military service they had often
been degraded to the level of brutes, and who now thought with bitter
feelings that an opportunity might perhaps be offered in order to
settle accounts.
The order of mobilization became known on the 1st of August, and the
following day was decided upon as the real day of mobilization. But
without awaiting the arrival of the reserves we left our garrison town
on August 1st. Who was to be our "enemy" we did not know; Russia was
for the present the only country against which war had been declared.
We marched through the streets of the town to the station between
crowds of people numbering many thousands. Flowers were thrown at us
from every window; everybody wanted to shake hands with the departing
soldiers. All the people, even soldiers, were weeping. Many marched
arm in arm with their wife or sweetheart. The music played songs of
leave-taking. People cried and sang at the same time. Entire strangers,
men and women, embraced and kissed each other; men embraced men and
kissed each other. It was a real witches' sabbath of emotion; like a
wild torrent, that emotion carried away the whole assembled humanity.
Nobody, not even the strongest and most determined spirit, could resist
that ebullition of feeling.
But all that was surpassed by the taking leave at the station, which we
reached after a short march. Here final adieus had to be said, here the
separation had to take place. I shall never forget that leave-taking,
however old I may grow to be. Desperately many women clung to their
men; some had to be removed by force. Just as if they had suddenly had
a vision of the fate of their beloved ones, as if they were beholding
the silent graves in foreign lands in which those poor nameless ones
were to be buried, they sought to cling fast to their possession, to
retain what already no longer belonged to them.
Finally that, too, was over. We had entered a train that had been
kept ready, and had made ourselves comfortable in our cattle-trucks.
Darkness had come, and we had no light in our comfortable sixth-class
carriages.
The train moved slowly down the Rhine, it went along without any great
shaking, and some of us were seized by a worn-out feeling after those
days of great excitement. Most of the soldiers lay with their heads on
their knapsacks and slept. Others again tried to pierce the darkness
as if attempting to look into the future; still others drew stealthily
a photo out of their breast-pocket, and only a very small number of us
spent the time by debating our point of destination. Where are we going
to? Well, where? Nobody knew it. At last, after long, infinitely long
hours the train came to a stop. After a night of quiet, slow riding we
were at--Aix-la-Chapelle! At Aix-la-Chapelle! What were we doing at
Aix-la-Chapelle? We did not know, and the officers only shrugged their
shoulders when we asked them.
After a short interval the journey proceeded, and on the evening of the
2nd of August we reached a farm in the neighbourhood of the German and
Belgian frontier, near Herbesthal. Here our company was quartered in
a barn. Nobody knew what our business was at the Belgian frontier. In
the afternoon of the 3rd of August reservists arrived, and our company
was brought to its war strength. We had still no idea concerning the
purpose of our being sent to the Belgian frontier, and that evening
we lay down on our bed of straw with a forced tranquillity of mind.
Something was sure to happen soon, to deliver us from that oppressive
uncertainty. How few of us thought that for many it would be the last
night to spend on German soil!...