we had captured that day. Ten of us were lying in a shelter, all
provided with blankets. Everybody wanted to get the "itch," however
strange that may sound. We undressed and rolled ourselves in those
blankets. Twenty-four hours later little red pimples showed themselves
all over the body, and twelve men reported sick. The blankets were used
in the whole company, but all of them had not the desired effect. The
doctor sent nine of us to the hospital at Montmédy, and that very
evening we left the camp in high glee. The railroad depot at Apremont
had been badly shelled; the next station was Chatel. Both places are a
little more than three miles behind the front. At Apremont the prisoners
were divided into sections. Some of the prisoners had their homes at
Apremont. Their families were still occupying their houses, and the
prisoners asked to be allowed to pay them a visit. I chanced to observe
one of those meetings at Apremont. Two men of the landstrum led one of
the prisoners to the house which he pointed out to them as his own. The
young wife of the prisoner was sitting in the kitchen with her three
children. We followed the men into the house. The woman became as white
as a sheet when she beheld her husband suddenly. They rushed to meet
each other and fell into each other's arms. We went out, for we felt
that we were not wanted. The wife had not been able to get the slightest
signs from her husband for the last five months, for the German forces
had been between her and him. He, on the other hand, had been in the
trench for months knowing that his wife and children must be there, on
the other side, very near, yet not to be reached. He did not know
whether they were alive or dead. He heard the French shells scream above
his head. Would they hit Apremont? He wondered whether it was his own
house that had been set alight by a shell and was reddening the sky at
night. He did not know. The uncertainty tortured him, and life became
hell. Now he was at home, though only for a few hours. He had to leave
again a prisoner; but now he could send a letter to his wife by the
field post. He had to take leave. She had nothing she could give him--no
underwear, no food, absolutely nothing. She had lost all and had to rely
on the charity of the soldiers. She handed him her last money, but he
returned it. We could not understand what they told each other. She took
the money back; it was German money, five and ten pfennig pieces and
some coppers--her whole belongings. We could no longer contain
ourselves and made a collection among ourselves. We got more than ten
marks together which we gave to the young woman. At first she refused to
take it and looked at her husband. Then she took it and wanted to kiss
our hands. We warded her off, and she ran to the nearest canteen and
bought things. Returning with cigars, tobacco, matches, and sausage, she
handed all over to her husband with a radiant face. She laughed, once
again perhaps in a long time, and sent us grateful looks. The children
clung round their father and kissed him again and again. She accompanied
her husband, who carried two of the kiddies, one on each arm, while his
wife carried the third child. Beaming with happiness the family marched
along between the two landsturm men who had their bayonets fixed. When
they had to take leave, all of them, parents and children began to weep.
She knew that her husband was no longer in constant danger, and she was
happy, for though she had lost much, she still had her most precious
possessions.
Thousands of poor men and women have met such a fate near their homes.
Regular trains left Chatel. We quitted the place at 11 o'clock at night,
heartily glad to leave the Argonnes behind us. We had to change trains
at Vouzières, and took the train to Diedenhofen. There we saw twelve
soldiers with fixed bayonets take along three Frenchmen. They were
elderly men in civilian dress. We had no idea what it signified, so we
entered into a conversation with one of our fellow travelers. He was a
merchant, a Frenchman living at Vouzières, and spoke German fluently.
The merchant was on a business trip to Sédan, and told us that the three
civilian prisoners were citizens of his town. He said: "We obtain our
means of life from the German military authorities, but mostly we do not
receive enough to live, and the people have nothing left of their own;
all the cattle and food have been commandeered. Those three men refused
to keep on working for the military authorities, because they could not
live on the things they were given. They were arrested and are now being
transported to Germany. Of course, we don't know what will happen to
them."
The man also told us that all the young men had been taken away by the
Germans; all of them had been interned in Germany.
At Sédan we had to wait for five hours; for hospital trains were
constantly arriving. It was 2 o'clock in the afternoon of the following
day when we reached Montmédy, where we went to the hospital. There all
our clothes were disinfected in the "unlousing establishment," and we
could take a proper bath. We were lodged in the large barracks. There
one met people from all parts of the front, and all of them had only
known the same misery; there was not one among them who did not curse
this war. All of them were glad to be in safety, and all of them tried
their best to be "sick" as long as possible. Each day we were twice
treated with ointment; otherwise we were at liberty to walk about the
place.
One day we paid a visit to the fortress of Montmédy high up on a hill.
Several hundreds of prisoners were just being fed there. They were
standing about in the yard of the fortress and were eating their soup.
One of the prisoners came straight up to me. I had not noticed him
particularly, and recognized him only when he stood before me. He was
the man I had struggled with on January 5th, and we greeted each other
cordially. He had brought along a prisoner who spoke German well and who
interpreted for us all we had to say to each other. He had seen me
standing about and had recognized me at once. Again and again he told me
how glad he was to be a prisoner. Like myself he was a soldier because
he had to be, and not from choice. At that time we had fought with each
other in blind rage; for a moment we had been deadly enemies. I felt
happy at having stayed my fury at that time, and again I became aware of
the utter idiocy of that barbarous slaughter. We separated with a firm
handshake.
A fortnight I remained at the hospital; then I had to return to the
front. We had been treated well at the hospital, so we started on our
return journey with mixed feelings. As soon as we arrived at Chatel, the
terminus, we heard the incessant gun fire. It was no use kicking, we had
to go into the forest again. When we reached our old camp, we found that
different troops were occupying it. Our company had left, nobody knew
for what destination. Wherever we asked, nobody could give us any
information. So we had to go back to the command of our corps, the
headquarters of which were at Corney at that time. We left Chatel again
by a hospital train, and reached Corney after half an hour's journey.
Corney harbored the General Staff of the 16th Army Corps, and we thought
they surely ought to know where our company was. General von Mudra and
his officers had taken up their quarters in a large villa. The house was
guarded by three double sentries. We showed our pay books and hospital
certificates, and an orderly led us to a spacious room. It was the
telephone room. There the wires from all the divisional fronts ran
together, and the apparatus were in constant use. A sergeant-major
looked into the lists and upon the maps. In two minutes he had found our
company. He showed us on the map where it was fighting and where its
camp was. "The camp is at the northern end of Verennes," he said, "and
the company belongs to the 34th division; formerly it was part of the
33rd. The position it is in is in the villages of Vauquois and
Boureuilles." Then he explained to us on the map the direction we were
to take, and we could trot off. We returned by rail to Chatel, and went
on foot from there to Apremont. We spent the night in the half destroyed
depot of Apremont. In order to get to Varennes we had to march to the
south. On our way we saw French prisoners mending the roads. Most of
them were black colonial troops in picturesque uniforms. On that road
Austrian motor batteries were posted. Three of those 30.5-cm. howitzers
were standing behind a rocky slope, but did not fire. When at noon we
reached the height of Varennes we saw the whole wide plan in front of
us. Varennes itself was immediately in front of us in the valley. A
little farther up on the heights was Vauquois. No houses were to be
seen; one could only notice a heap of rubbish through the field glasses.
Shells kept exploding in that rubbish heap continually, and we felt a
cold sweat run down our backs at the thought that the place up there was
our destination. We had scarcely passed the ridge when some shells
exploded behind us. At that place the French were shooting with
artillery at individuals. As long as Vauquois had been in their power
they had been able to survey the whole country, and we comprehended why
that heap of rubbish was so bitterly fought for. We ran down the slope
and found ourselves in Varennes. The southern portion of the village had
been shelled to pieces and gutted. Only most of the chimneys which were
built apart from the bottom upward, had remained standing, thin
blackened forms rising out of the ruins into the air. Everywhere we saw
groups of soldiers collecting the remaining more expensive metals which
were sent to Germany. Among other things church-bells melted into
shapeless lumps were also loaded on wagons and taken away. All the
copper, brass, tin, and lead that could be got was collected.
XXI
IN THE HELL OF VAUQUOIS
We soon found our company, and our comrades told us what hell they had
gotten into. The next morning our turn came, too. We had to reach the
position before day-break, for as soon as it got light the French kept
all approaches under constant fire. There was no trace of trenches at
Vauquois. All that could be seen were pieces of stones. Not a stone had
literally remained on the other at Vauquois. That heap of ruins, once a
village, had changed hands no less than fifteen times. When we arrived
half of the place was in the possession of the Germans. But the French
dominated the highest point, whence they could survey the whole country
for many miles around. In the absence of a trench we sought cover behind
stones, for it was absolutely impossible to construct trenches; the
artillery was shooting everything to pieces.
Thus the soldiers squatted behind piles of stones and fired as fast as
their rifles would allow. Guns of all sizes were bombarding the village
incessantly. There was an army of corpses, Frenchmen and Germans, all
lying about pell-mell. At first we thought that that terrible state of
things was only temporary, but after a few days we recognized that a
slaughter worse than madness was a continuous state of things at that
place. Day and night, ever the same. With Verdun as a base of operations
the French continually brought up fresh masses of troops. They had
carried along a field railroad the heavy pieces of the neighboring forts
of Verdun, and in the spring of 1915 an offensive of a local, but
murderous kind was begun. The artillery of both sides bombarded the
place to such an extent that not a foot of ground could be found that
was not torn up by shells. Thousands upon thousands of shells of all
sizes were employed. The bombardment from both sides lasted three days
and three nights, until at last not a soldier, neither French nor
German, was left in the village. Both sides had been obliged to retreat
before the infernal fire of the opponent, for not a man would have
escaped alive out of that inferno. The whole slope and height were
veiled in an impenetrable smoke. In the evening of the third day the
enemy's bombardment died down a little, and we were ordered to go
forward again into the shell torn ruins. It was not yet quite dark when
the French advanced in close order.
We were in possession of almost the whole of the village, and had placed
one machine-gun next to the other. We could see the projectiles of the
artillery burst in great numbers among the reserves of the attackers.
Our machine-guns literally mowed down the first ranks. Five times the
French renewed their attack during that night, their artillery meanwhile
making great gaps in our ranks. We soldiers calculated that the two
sides had together some three or four thousand men killed in that one
night. Next morning the French eased their attacks, and their guns
treated us again to the accustomed drum fire. We stood it until 10
o'clock in the morning; then we retreated again without awaiting orders,
leaving innumerable dead men behind. Again the French advanced in the
face of a violent German artillery fire, and effected a lodgment at the
northern edge of the village of Vauquois that used to be. A few piles of
stones was all that still belonged to us. We managed to put a few stones
before us as a protection. The guns of neither side could hurt us or
them, for they, the enemy, were but ten paces away. But the country
behind us was plowed by projectiles. In face of the machine gun fire it
was found impossible to bring up ammunition.
The sappers undid the coils of rope worn round their bodies, and three
men or more crept back with them. One of them was killed; the others
arrived safely and attached the packets of cartridges to the rope. Thus
we brought up the ammunition by means of a rope running in a circle,
until we had enough or till the rope was shot through. At three o'clock
in the afternoon we attacked again, but found it impossible to rise from
the ground on account of the hail of bullets. Everybody was shouting,
"Sappers to the front with hand grenades!" Not a sapper stirred. We are
only human, after all.
A sergeant-major of the infantry came creeping up. He looked as if
demented, his eyes were bloodshot. "You're a sapper?" "Yes," "Advance!"
"Alone?" "We're coming along!" We had to roar at each other in order to
make ourselves understood in the deafening, confounded row. Another
sapper lay beside me. When the sergeant-major saw that he could do
nothing with me he turned to the other fellow. That man motioned to him
to desist, but the sergeant-major got ever more insistent, until the
sapper showed him his dagger, and then our superior slung his hook. Some
twenty hand grenades were lying in front of us. Ten of them I had
attached to my belt for all emergencies. I said to myself that if all
of them exploded there would not be much left of me. I had a lighted
cigar in my mouth. I lit one bomb after the other and threw them over to
some Frenchmen who were working a machine-gun in front of me, behind a
heap of stones. All around me the bullets of the machine-guns were
splitting the stones. I had already thrown four grenades, but all of
them had overshot the mark. I took some stones and threw them to find
out how far I would have to throw in order to hit the fire spitting
machine in front. My aim got more accurate each time until I hit the
barrel of the gun. "If it had only been a hand grenade," I thought. An
infantryman close to me was shot through the shell of one ear, half of
which was cut in pieces; the blood was streaming down his neck. I had no
more material for bandaging except some wadding, which I attached to his
wound. In my pocket I had a roll of insulating ribbon, rubber used to
insulate wires; with that I bandaged him. He pointed to the machine-gun.
Thereupon I gave him my cigar, telling him to keep it well alight so as
to make the fuse which I desired to light by it burn well. In quick
succession I threw six hand grenades. I don't know how many of them took
effect, but the rags of uniforms flying about and a demolished
machine-gun said enough. When we advanced later on I observed three dead
men lying round the machine-gun.
That was only one example of the usual, daily occurrences that happen
day and night, again and again and everywhere, and the immense number of
such actions of individual soldiers makes the enormous loss of human
life comprehensible.
We were still lying there without proceeding to the attack. Again
ammunition was brought up by ropes from the rear. A hand grenade duel
ensued; hundreds of hand grenades were thrown by both sides. Things
could not go on long like that; we felt that something was bound to
happen. Without receiving an order and yet as if by command we all
jumped up and advanced with the dagger in our hands right through the
murderous fire, and engaged in the maddest hand to hand fighting. The
daggers, sharp as razors, were plunged into head after head, chest after
chest. One stood on corpses in order to make other men corpses. New
enemies came running up. One had scarcely finished with one when three
more appeared on the scene.
We, too, got reinforcements. One continued to murder and expected to be
struck down oneself the next moment. One did not care a cent for one's
life, but fought like an animal. I stumbled and fell on the stones. At
that very moment I caught sight of a gigantic Frenchman before me who
was on the point of bringing his sapper's spade down on me. I moved
aside with lightning speed, and the blow fell upon the stone. In a
moment my dagger was in his stomach more than up to the hilt. He went
down with a horrible cry, rolling in his blood in maddening pain. I put
the bloody dagger back in my boot and took hold of the spade. All around
me I beheld new enemies. The spade I found to be a handy weapon. I hit
one opponent between head and shoulder. The sharp spade half went
through the body; I heard the cracking of the bones that were struck.
Another enemy was close to me. I dropped the spade and took hold of my
dagger again. All happened as in a flash. My opponent struck me in the
face, and the blood came pouring out of my mouth and nose. We began to
wrestle with each other. I had the dagger in my right hand. We had
taken hold of each other round the chest. He was no stronger than
myself, but he held me as firmly as I held him. We tried to fight each
other with our teeth. I had the dagger in my hand, but could not strike.
Who was it to be? He or I? One of us two was sure to go down. I got the
dagger in such a position that its point rested on his back. Then I
pressed his trembling body still more firmly to myself. He fastened his
teeth in my shaggy beard, and I felt a terrible pain. I pressed him
still more firmly so that his ribs almost began to crack and, summoning
all my strength, I pushed the dagger into the right side of his back,
just below the shoulderblade. In frightful pain he turned himself round
several times, fell on his face, and lay groaning on the ground. I
withdrew my dagger; he bled to death like many thousands.
We had pushed back the French for some yards when we received strong
assistance. After a short fight the enemy turned and fled, and we
followed him as far as the southern edge of the village. There the
French made a counterattack with fresh bodies of men and threw us back
again for some 50 yards. Then the attack was halted, and we found
ourselves again where we had been at the beginning of that four days'
slaughter. Thousands of corpses were covering the ruins of Vauquois, all
sacrificed in vain.
XXII
SENT ON FURLOUGH
For four days and nights, without food and sleep, we had been raging
like barbarians, and had spent all our strength. We were soon relieved.
To our astonishment we were relieved by cavalry. They were Saxon
chasseurs on horseback who were to do duty as infantrymen. It had been
found impossible to make good the enormous losses of the preceding days
by sending up men of the depot. So they had called upon the cavalry who,
by the way, were frequently employed during that time. The soldiers who
had been in a life and death struggle for four days were demoralized to
such an extent that they had no longer any fighting value. We were
relieved very quietly, and could then return to our camp. We did not
hear before the next day that during the period described our company
had suffered a total loss of 49 men. The fate of most of them was
unknown; one did not know whether they were dead or prisoners or whether
they lay wounded in some ambulance station.
The village of Varennes was continually bombarded by French guns of
large size. Several French families were still living in a part of the
village that had not been so badly damaged. Every day several of the
enemy's 28-cm. shells came down in that quarter. Though many inhabitants
had been wounded by the shells the people could not be induced to leave
their houses.
Our quarters were situated near a very steep slope and were thus
protected against artillery fire. They consisted of wooden shanties
built by ourselves. We had brought up furniture from everywhere and had
made ourselves at home; for Varennes was, after all, nearly two miles
behind the front. But all the shanties were not occupied, for the number
of our men diminished from day to day. At last the longed-for men from
the depot arrived. Many new sapper formations had to be got together for
all parts of the front, and it was therefore impossible to supply the
existing sapper detachments with their regular reserves. Joyfully we
greeted the new arrivals. They were, as was always the case, men of very
different ages; a young boyish volunteer of 17 years would march next to
an old man of the landsturm who had likewise volunteered. All of them,
without any exception, have bitterly repented of their "free choice" and
made no secret of it. "It's a shame," a comrade told me, "that those
seventeen-year-old children should be led to the slaughter, and that
their young life is being poisoned, as it needs must be in these
surroundings; scarcely out of boyhood, they are being shot down like mad
dogs."
It took but a few days for the volunteers--all of them without an
exception--to repent bitterly of their resolve, and every soldier who
had been in the war for any length of time would reproach them when they
gave expression to their great disappointment. "But you have come
voluntarily," they were told; "we had to go, else we should have been
off long ago." Yet we knew that all those young people had been under
some influence and had been given a wrong picture of the war.
Those soldiers who had been in the war from the start who had not been
wounded, but had gone through all the fighting, were gradually all sent
home on furlough for ten days. Though our company contained but 14
unwounded soldiers it was very hard to obtain the furlough. We had lost
several times the number of men on our muster-roll, but all our officers
were still in good physical condition.
It was not until September that I managed to obtain furlough at the
request of my relations, and I left for home with a resolve that at
times seemed to me impossible to execute. All went well until I got to
Diedenhofen.
As far as that station the railroads are operated by the army
authorities. At Diedenhofen they are taken over by the Imperial
Railroads of Alsace-Lorraine and the Prusso-Hessian State Railroads. So
I had to change, and got on a train that went to Saarbruecken. I had
scarcely taken a seat in a compartment in my dirty and ragged uniform
when a conductor came along to inspect the tickets. Of course, I had no
ticket; I had only a furlough certificate and a pass which had been
handed to me at the field railroad depot of Chatel. The conductor looked
at the papers and asked me again for my ticket. I drew his attention to
my pass. "That is only good for the territory of the war operations," he
said; "you are now traveling on a state railroad and have to buy a
ticket."
I told him that I should not buy a ticket, and asked him to inform the
station manager. "You," I told him, "only act according to instructions.
I am not angry with you for asking of me what I shall do under no
circumstances." He went off and came back with the manager. The latter
also inspected my papers and told me I had to pay for the journey. "I
have no means for that purpose," I told him. "For these last three
years I have been in these clothes" (I pointed to my uniform), "and for
three years I have therefore been without any income. Whence am I to get
the money to pay for this journey?" "If you have no money for traveling
you can't take furlough." I thought to myself that if they took me deep
into France they were in conscience bound to take me back to where they
had fetched me. Was I to be a soldier for three years and fight for the
Fatherland for more than a year only to find that now they refused the
free use of their railroads to a ragged soldier? I explained that I was
not going to pay, that I could not save the fare from the few pfennigs'
pay. I refused explicitly to pay a soldier's journey with my private
money, even if--as was the case here--that soldier was myself. Finally I
told him, "I must request you to inform the military railroad commander;
the depot command attends to soldiers, not you." He sent me a furious
look through his horn spectacles and disappeared. Two civilians were
sitting in the same compartment with me; they thought it an unheard-of
thing that a soldier coming from the front should be asked for his fare.
Presently the depot commander came up with a sergeant. He demanded to
see my furlough certificate, pay books, and all my other papers.
"Have you any money?"
"No."
"Where do you come from?"
"From Chatel in the Argonnes."
"How long were you at the front?"
"In the fourteenth month."
"Been wounded?"
"No."
"Have you no money at all?"
"No; you don't want money at the front."
"The fare must be paid. If you can't, the company must pay. Please sign
this paper."
I signed it without looking at it. It was all one to me what I signed,
as long as they left me alone. Then the sergeant came back.
"You can not travel in that compartment; you must also not converse with
travelers. You have to take the first carriage marked 'Only for the
military.' Get into that."
"I see," I observed; "in the dogs' compartment."
He turned round again and said, "Cut out those remarks."
The train started, and I arrived safely home. After the first hours of
meeting all at home again had passed I found myself provided with
faultless underwear and had taken the urgently needed bath. Once more I
could put on the civilian dress I had missed for so long a time. All of
it appeared strange to me. I began to think. Under no conditions was I
going to return to the front. But I did not know how I should succeed in
getting across the frontier. I could choose between two countries
only--Switzerland and Holland. It was no use going to Switzerland, for
that country was surrounded by belligerent states, and it needed only a
little spark to bring Switzerland into the war, and then there would be
no loophole for me. There was only the nearest country left for me to
choose--Holland. But how was I to get there? There was the rub. I
concocted a thousand plans and discarded them again. Nobody, not even my
relatives, must know about it.
XXIII
THE FLIGHT TO HOLLAND
My furlough soon neared its end; there were only four days left. I
remembered a good old friend in a Rhenish town. My plan was made.
Without my family noticing it I packed a suit, boots, and all
necessities, and told them at home that I was going to visit my friend.
To him I revealed my intentions, and he was ready to help me in every
possible manner.