violently by the enemy every day. The firing became so heavy at last
that we could no longer sleep during the day. The large shells
penetrated the houses and reached the cellars. The civilian prisoners
were sent away after some had been killed by shells. We ourselves,
however, remained in the place very much against our inclination in
spite of the continuous bombardment. Part of our company lived in a
large farmhouse, where recently arrived reserves were also lodged. One
day, at noon, the village was suddenly overwhelmed by a hail of shells
of a large size. Five of them struck the farmhouse mentioned, almost at
the same time. All the men were resting in the spacious rooms. The whole
building was demolished, and our loss consisted of 17 dead and 28
wounded men. The field kitchen in the yard was also completely
destroyed. Without waiting for orders we all cleared out of the village
and collected again outside. But the captain ordered us to return to
the place because, so he said, he had not yet received orders from the
divisional commander to evacuate the village. Thereupon we went back to
our old quarters and embarked again on a miserable existence. After
living in the trenches during the night, in continual danger of life, we
arrived in the morning, after those hours of trial, with shattered
nerves, at our lodgings. We could not hope to get any rest and sleep,
for the shells kept falling everywhere in the village. In time, however,
one becomes accustomed to everything. When a shell came shrieking along
we knew exactly whereabout it would strike. By the sound it made we knew
whether it was of large or small size and whether the shell, having come
down, would burst or not. Similarly the soldiers formed a reliable
judgment in regard to the nationality of an aeroplane. When an aeroplane
was seen at a great distance near the horizon the soldiers could mostly
say exactly whether it was a German or a French flying machine. It is
hard to say by what we recognized the machines. One seems to feel
whether it is a friend or a foe that is coming. Of course, a soldier
also remembers the characteristic noise of the motor and the
construction of the aeroplane.
When a French flier passed over our camp the streets would quickly empty
themselves. The reason was not that we were afraid of the flying man; we
disappeared because we knew that a bombardment would follow after he had
landed and reported. We left the streets so as to convey the impression
that the place was denuded of troops. But the trick was not of much use.
Every day houses were set alight, and the church, which had been
furnished as a hospital, was also struck several times.
Up to that time it had been comparatively quiet at the front. We had
protected our position with wide wire entanglements. Quite a maze of
trenches, a thing that defies description, had been constructed. One
must have seen it in order to comprehend what immense masses of soil had
been dug up.
Our principal position consisted of from 6 to 8 trenches, one behind the
other and each provided with strong parapets and barbed wire
entanglements; each trench had been separately fortified. The distance
between the various trenches was sometimes 20 yards, sometimes a hundred
and more, all according to the requirements of the terrain. All those
positions were joined by lines of approach. Those connecting roads are
not wide, are only used by the relieving troops and for transporting
purposes, and are constructed in a way that prevents the enemy from
enfilading them; they run in a zigzag course. To the rear of the
communication trenches are the shelters of the resting troops
(reserves). Two companies of infantry, for instance, will have to defend
in the first trench a section of the front measuring some two hundred
yards. One company is always on duty, whilst the other is resting in the
rear. However, the company at rest must ever be ready for the firing
line and is likely to be alarmed at any minute for service at a moment's
notice should the enemy attack. The company is in telephonic
communication with the one doing trench duty. Wherever the country (as
on swampy ground) does not permit the construction of several trenches
and the housing of the reserves the latter are stationed far in the
rear, often in the nearest village. In such places, relieving
operations, though carried out only at night are very difficult and
almost always accompanied by casualties. Relief is not brought up at
fixed hours, for the enemy must be deceived. But the enemy will be
informed of local conditions by his fliers, patrols or the statements of
prisoners, and will keep the country under a continual heavy curtain
fire, so that the relieving troops coming up across the open field
almost always suffer losses. Food and ammunition are also forwarded at
night. The following incident will illustrate the difficulty even one
man by himself experiences in approaching such positions.
Myself, a sergeant, and three others had been ordered on secret patrol
duty one night. Towards ten o'clock we came upon the line of the curtain
fire. We were lying flat on the ground, waiting for a favorable
opportunity to cross. However, one shell after the other exploded in
front of us, and it would have been madness to attempt to pass at that
point. Next to me lay a sapper of my own annual military class; nothing
could be seen of the sergeant and the two other privates. On a slight
elevation in front of us we saw in the moonlight the shadowy forms of
some persons who were lying flat on the ground like ourselves. We
thought it impossible to pass here. My mate, pointing to the shapes
before us said, "There's Sergeant Mertens and the others; I think I'll
go up to them and tell him that we had better wait a while until it gets
more quiet." "Yes; do so," I replied. He crawled to the place on his
hands and knees, and I observed him lying near the others. He returned
immediately. The shapes turned out to be four dead Frenchmen of the
colonial army, who had been there for weeks. He had only seen who they
were when he received no answer to his report. The dead thus lay
scattered over the whole country. Nothing could be seen of the sergeant
and the other men. So we seized a favorable opportunity to slip
through, surrounded by exploding shells. We could find out nothing about
our companions. Our search in the trench was likewise unsuccessful;
nobody could give us the slightest information though sappers were well
known among the infantry, because we had to work at all the points of
the front. An hour later the relieving infantry arrived. They had lost
five men in breaking through the barrier fire. Our sergeant was among
the wounded they brought in. Not a trace was ever found of the two other
soldiers. Nobody knew what had become of them.
Under such and similar conditions we spent every night outside. We also
suffered losses in our camp almost every day. Though reserves from our
garrison town had arrived twice already our company had a fighting
strength of only 75 men. But at last we cleared out of the village, and
were stationed at the village of Boucoville, about a mile and a half to
the northeast of Cerney-en-Dormois. Cerney-en-Dormois was gradually
shelled to pieces, and when at night we had to go to the trench we
described a wide circle around that formerly flourishing village.
At Boucoville we received the first letters from home by the field post.
They had been on their journey for a long, long time, and arrived
irregularly and in sheaves. But many were returned, marked, "Addressee
killed," "Addressee missing," "Wounded." However, many had to be marked,
"Addressee no longer with the army detachment." They could not quite
make out the disappearance of many "addressees," but many of us had just
suspicions about them, and we wished good luck to those "missing men" in
crossing some neutral frontier.
The letters we received were dated the first days of August, had
wandered everywhere, bore the stamps of various field post-offices and,
in contrast with the ones we received later on, were still full of
enthusiasm. Mothers were not yet begging their sons not to risk their
lives in order to gain the iron cross; that imploring prayer should
arrive later on again and again. It was also at that place that we
received the first of those small field post-parcels containing cigars
and chocolate.
After staying some ten weeks in that part of the country we were
directed to another part of the front. Nobody knew, however, whither we
were going to be sent. It was all the same to us. The chance of getting
out of the firing line for a few days had such a charm for us that our
destination did not concern us in the least. It gave us a wonderful
feeling of relief, when we left the firing zone on our march to the
railroad station at Challerange. For the first time in a long period we
found ourselves in a state of existence where our lives were not
immediately endangered; even the most far-reaching guns could no longer
harm us. A man must have lived through such moments in order to
appreciate justly the importance of such a feeling. However much one has
got accustomed to being in constant danger of one's life, that danger
never ceases to oppress one, to weigh one down.
At the station we got into a train made up of second and third-class
coaches. The train moved slowly through the beautiful autumnal
landscape, and for the first time we got an insight into the life behind
the front. All the depots, the railroad crossings and bridges were held
by the military. There all the men of the landsturm were apparently
leading quite an easy life, and had made themselves comfortable in the
depots and shanties of the road-men. They all looked well nourished and
were well clad. Whenever the train stopped those older men treated us
liberally to coffee, bread, and fruit. They could see by our looks that
we had not had the same good time that they were having. They asked us
whence we came. Behind the front things were very lively everywhere. At
all the larger places we could see long railway trains laden with
agricultural machinery of every description. The crew of our train were
men of the Prusso-Hessian state railroads. They had come through those
parts many times before, and told us that the agricultural machines were
being removed from the whole of the occupied territory and sent to East
Prussia in order to replace what the Russians had destroyed there. The
same was being done with all industrial machinery that could be spared.
Again and again one could observe the finest machines on their way to
Germany.
Towards midnight we passed Sédan. There we were fed by the Red Cross.
The Red Cross had erected feeding stations for passing troops in long
wooden sheds. Early next morning we found ourselves at Montmédy. There
we had to leave the train, and were allowed to visit the town for a few
hours.
XVII
FRIENDLY RELATIONS WITH THE ENEMY
There was no lack of food at Montmédy. The canteens were provided with
everything; prices were high, however. Montmédy is a third-class French
fortress and is situated like Ehrenbreitstein on a height which is very
steep on one side; the town is situated at the foot of the hill. The
fortress was taken by the Germans without a struggle. The garrison who
had prepared for defense before the fortress, had their retreat cut off.
A railroad tunnel passes through the hill under the fortress, but that
had been blown up by the French. The Germans laid the rails round the
hill through the town so as to establish railroad communications with
their front. It looked almost comical to watch the transport trains come
rolling on through the main street and across the market place.
Everywhere along the Meuse the destroyed bridges had been replaced by
wooden ones. Montmédy was the chief base of the Fifth Army (that of the
Crown Prince), and contained immense stores of war material. Besides
that it harbored the field post-office, the headquarters for army
provisions, a railroad management, and a great number of hospitals. The
largest of them used to be called the "theater hospital," on account of
its being installed in the municipal theater and the adjoining houses,
and always contained from 500 to 600 wounded.
Things were very lively at Montmédy. One chiefly observed convalescent
soldiers walking through the streets and a remarkable number of
officers, all of whom had been attached to the various departments. They
loitered about in their faultless uniforms, or rode along whip in hand.
Moreover, they had not yet the slightest idea of what war was like, and
when we met them they expected us to salute them in the prescribed
manner. Many of them accosted us and asked us rudely why we did not
salute. After a few hours we got sick of life twenty miles behind the
Verdun front.
At Montmédy we were about twenty miles behind Verdun and some sixty
miles away from our former position. When towards one o'clock P. M. we
began to move on we guessed that we were to be dragged to the country
round Verdun. After a march of nine miles we reached the village of
Fametz. There we were lodged in various barns. Nearly all of the
inhabitants had stayed on; they seemed to be on quite friendly terms
with the soldiers. Time had brought them closer to each other, and we,
too, got an entirely different idea of our "hereditary enemy" on closer
acquaintance. When walking through the place we were offered all kinds
of things by the inhabitants, were treated to coffee, meat, and milk,
exactly as is done by German patriots during maneuvers and we were even
treated better than at home. To reward them for these marks of attention
we murdered the sons of those people who desired nothing better than
living in peace.
Early next morning we moved on, and when we arrived at Damvillers in the
evening we heard that we were some three miles behind the firing line.
That very night we marched to the small village of Warville. That was
our destination, and there we took up our quarters in a house that had
been abandoned by its inhabitants. We were attached to the ninth
reserve division, and the following day already we had to take up our
positions. Fifteen of us were attached to a company of infantry. No
rifle firing was to be heard along the line, only the artillery of the
two sides maintained a weak fire. We were not accustomed to such
quietness in the trenches, but the men who had been here for a long time
told us that sometimes not a shot was fired for days and that there was
not the slightest activity on either side. It seemed to us that we were
going to have a nice quiet time.
The trench in that section crossed the main road leading from Damvillers
to Verdun (a distance of some fifteen miles). The enemy's position was
about 800 yards in front of us. German and French troops were always
patroling the road from six o'clock at night till the morning. At night
time those troops were always standing together. Germans and Frenchmen
met, and the German soldiers had a liking for that duty. Neither side
thought for a moment to shoot at the other one; everybody had just to be
at his post. In time both sides had cast away suspicions; every night
the "hereditary enemies" shook hands with each other; and on the
following morning the relieved sentries related to us with pleasure how
liberally the Frenchmen had shared everything with them. They always
exchanged newspapers with them, and so it came about that we got French
papers every day, the contents of which were translated to us by a
soldier who spoke the French language.
By day we were able to leave the trench, and we would be relieved across
the open field without running any danger. The French had no ideas of
shooting at us; neither did we think of shooting at the French. When we
were relieved we saluted our enemies by waving our helmets, and
immediately the others replied by waving their caps. When we wanted
water we had to go to a farm situated between the lines. The French too,
fetched their water from there. It would have been easy for each side to
prevent the other from using that well, but we used to go up to it quite
unconcerned, watched by the French. The latter used to wait till we
trotted off again with our cooking pots filled, and then they would come
up and provide themselves with water. At night it often happened that we
and the Frenchmen arrived at the well at the same time. In such a case
one of the parties would wait politely until the other had done. Thus it
happened that three of us were at the well without any arms when a score
of Frenchmen arrived with cooking pots. Though the Frenchmen were seven
times as numerous as ourselves the thought never struck them that they
might fall upon us. The twenty men just waited quietly till we had done;
we then saluted them and went off.
One night a French sergeant came to our trench. He spoke German very
well, said he was a deserter, and begged us to regard him as our
prisoner. But the infantrymen became angry and told him to get back to
the French as quickly as possible. Meanwhile a second Frenchman had come
up and asked excitedly whether a man of theirs had not deserted to us a
short while ago. Then our section leader, a young lieutenant, arrived
upon the scene, and the Frenchman who had come last begged him to send
the deserter back. "For," so he remarked, "if our officers get to know
that one of our men has voluntarily given himself up we shall have to
say good-by to the good time we are having, and the shooting will begin
again."
We, too, appreciated the argument that such incidents would only make
our position worse. The lieutenant vanished; he did not want to have a
finger in that pie; very likely he also desired that things remain as
they were. We quickly surrendered the deserter; each one of the two
Frenchmen was presented with a cigarette, and then they scurried away
full steam ahead.
We felt quite happy under those circumstances and did not wish for
anything better. On our daily return journeys we observed that an
immense force of artillery was being gathered and were placed in
position further back. New guns arrived every day, but were not fired.
The same lively activity could be observed in regard to the
transportation of ammunition and material. At that time we did not yet
suspect that these were the first preparations for a strong offensive.
After staying in that part of the country some four weeks we were again
ordered to some other part of the front. As usual we had no idea of our
new destination. Various rumors were in circulation. Some thought it
would be Flanders, others thought it would be Russia; but none guessed
right.
We marched off and reached Dun-sur-Meuse in the afternoon. We had
scarcely got to the town when the German Crown Prince, accompanied by
some officers and a great number of hounds, rode past us. "Good day,
sappers!" he called to us, looking at us closely. He spoke to our
captain, and an officer of his staff took us to an establishment of the
Red Cross where we received good food and wine. The headquarters of the
Hohenzollern scion was here at Dun-sur-Meuse. The ladies of the Red
Cross treated us very well. We asked them whether all the troops passing
through the place were cared for as well as that. "O yes," a young lady
replied; "only few pass through here, but the Crown Prince has a special
liking for sappers."
We lodged there for the night, and the soldiers told us that
Dun-sur-Meuse was the headquarters of the Fifth Army, that life was
often very jolly there, and every day there was an open air concert. We
heard that the officers often received ladies from Germany, but, of
course, the ladies only came to distribute gifts among the soldiers.
Richly provided with food we continued our march the next morning, and
kept along the side of the Meuse. In the evening we were lodged at
Stenay.
XVIII
FIGHTING IN THE ARGONNES
Finally, after two days, we landed at Apremont-en-Argonne. For the time
being we were quartered in a large farm to the northeast of Apremont. We
found ourselves quite close to the Argonnes. All the soldiers whom we
met and who had been there for some time told us of uninterrupted daily
fighting in those woods.
Our first task was to construct underground shelters that should serve
as living rooms. We commenced work at about a mile and three quarters
behind the front, but had to move on after some shells had destroyed our
work again. We then constructed, about a mile and a quarter behind the
front, a camp consisting of thirty-five underground shelters.
A hole is dug, some five yards square and two yards deep. Short tree
trunks are laid across it, and about two yards of earth piled upon them.
We had no straw, so we had to sleep on the bare ground for a while.
Rifle bullets coming from the direction of the front kept flying above
our heads and struck the trees. We were attached to the various
companies of infantry; I myself was with the tenth company of the
infantry regiment No. 67.
The soil had been completely ploughed up by continued use, and the paths
and roads had been covered with sticks and tree trunks so that they
could be used by men and wagons. After an arduous march we reached the
foremost position. It was no easy task to find one's way in that maze of
trenches. The water was more than a foot deep in those trenches. At last
we arrived at the most advanced position and reported to the captain of
the tenth company of the 67th regiment of infantry. Of course, the
conditions obtaining there were quite unknown to us, but the men of the
infantry soon explained things to us as far as they could. After two or
three days we were already quite familiar with our surroundings, and our
many-sided duty began.
The French lay only some ten yards away from us. The second day we were
engaged in a fight with hand grenades. In that fight Sapper Beschtel
from Saarbrucken was killed. He was our first casualty in the Argonnes,
but many were to follow him in the time that followed. In the rear
trenches we had established an engineering depot. There 25 men made
nothing but hand grenades. Thus we soon had made ourselves at home, and
were ready for all emergencies.
At the camp we were divided in various sections. That division in
various sections gave us an idea of the endless ways and means employed
in our new position. There were mining, sapping, hand grenade sections,
sections for mine throwing and illuminating pistols. Others again
constructed wire entanglements, chevaux-de-frise, or projectiles for the
primitive mine throwers. At one time one worked in one section then
again in another. The forest country was very difficult. The thick,
tangled underwood formed by itself an almost insuperable obstacle. All
the trees were shot down up to the firing level. Cut off clean by the
machine-guns they lay in all directions on the ground, forming a natural
barricade.
The infantrymen had told us about the difficulties under which fighting
was carried on uninterruptedly. Not a day passed without casualties.
Firing went on without a pause. The men had never experienced an
interval in the firing. We soon were to get an idea of that mass murder,
that systematic slaughter. The largest part of our company was turned
into a mine laying section, and we began to mine our most advanced
trench. For a distance of some 500 yards, a yard apart, we dug in boxes
of dynamite, each weighing 50 pounds. Each of those mines was provided
with a fuse and all were connected so that all the mines could be
exploded at the same instant. The mines were then covered with soil
again and the connecting wires taken some hundred yards to the rear.
At that time the French were making attacks every few days. We were told
to abandon the foremost trench should an attack be made. The mines had
been laid two days when the expected attack occurred, and without
offering any great resistance we retreated to the second trench. The
French occupied the captured trench without knowing that several
thousands of pounds of explosives lay buried under their feet. So as to
cause our opponents to bring as many troops as possible into the
occupied trench we pretended to make counter attacks. As a matter of
fact the French trench was soon closely manned by French soldiers who
tried to retain it.
But that very moment our mines were exploded. There was a mighty bang,
and several hundreds of Frenchmen were literally torn to pieces and
blown up into the air. It all happened in a moment. Parts of human
bodies spread over a large stretch of ground, and the arms, legs, and
rags of uniforms hanging in the trees, were the only signs of a well
planned mass murder. In view of that catastrophe all we had experienced
before seemed to us to be child's play. That "heroic deed" was
celebrated by a lusty hurrah.