The German novelist, Paul Oskar Höcker is a Captain of the
Landwehr.
I wanted to write to you from the village of D., which we captured by
storm. Hundreds of Frenchmen, upon the retreat of their troops,
preferred to flee to the cellars, where they promptly transformed
themselves into civilians. Our battalion had orders to conduct
investigations, arrest those apparently liable to military service,
and to take possession of all arms. Unexpectedly large stores of
ammunition thus fell into our hands. Among these seizures were many
chests containing dumdum bullets and bearing the stamp of the
ammunition factory where they were made. The cartridges were intended
for use in carabines. Accordingly, it would seem to be chiefly a
question of the unlawful use of these missiles, repulsive to the laws
of nations, by bicycle and scout corps.
These bullets lay also in a factory package in a writing desk next to
a draft of the last will and testament which Monsieur le Capitaine
wrote out on the first day of mobilization: He bequeathed his cash
fortune of 110,000 francs, as well as his household furniture and his
two hunting dogs, to Mme. Isabelle H. The forsaken Mme. Isabelle, who
sought distant and clearer skies two days before our entry into the
village, does not, however, seem to have been very fond of animals;
for out of the forsaken house there rose piteously the whimpering and
whining of the half-starved setters.
But what are the thousand bright recollections of the captured town,
what are all the experiences of this campaign, compared to the heavy,
heavy days of fighting which our battalion had to battle through near
L.!
On Sunday, Oct. 4 the detachment marched from D. in the direction of
L. It had been known for some time that the enemy was attempting a
movement around our extreme right flank. Continual detrainments of
French troops were taking place at L. A further advance was to be
permitted to them under no conditions. The march toward L. took place
on various roads. A cavalry division cleared the territory north of
the city, and dispatched, simultaneously with our own advance, a
company of Jaegers and a company of bicycle men against L.
At 1 o'clock we received fire. The point of our column returns it. As
ever in small towns and suburbs the skill of the French is great in
street fighting, turning to best advantage every protruding corner and
extension of a building, and utilizing every alley of trees for firing
attacks. Then the Frenchman clears these spaces quickly and hurries
for protection to the next block of houses, till he has lured the foe
far enough forward to surprise him with a carefully prepared fire from
the side.
By leaps and bounds we advance along the broad road to the heights of
the two suburbs F. and R. Here for the first time there is a matching
of fighting forces. Undoubtedly the foe is far superior to us
numerically; and he seems firmly determined not to allow himself to be
crowded out of his excellent sheltered positions.
Our battery rolls up, and lets her brazen tongue speak. The infantry
fight ceases, until the foremost buildings are set aflame on all three
sides. Troop at a time, the French now take to flight, most of them
abandoning their cartridges, as is evidenced by the rattle of
exploding ammunition on every floor of the buildings.
But R. holds out, while F., at the right of the roadway, and the
houses afire on the road toward Lille itself are quickly cleared of
the enemy. The bicycle patrol, which has undertaken a determined
advance to F., meets no further foe.
But upon the two companies engaged on my right there is poured a
murderous fire that presently exacts heavy toll; and in the rough
country hereabout it is impossible to discover the masked positions of
the sharpshooters and machine guns. The Frenchman is an expert in the
location of excellent hiding places, wire entanglements, and the like.
He even puts forth infinite efforts to make his fortified positions
extremely comfortable nests from which he can enjoy a view of all the
points at which, in the irregular lay of the land, the enemy must
necessarily halt; and thereupon the Frenchman meets the hesitating
column of attack with his concentrated fire.
Four guns are nibbling at the edge of the village with their shells.
Perhaps the machine guns, whose monotonous rattle lashes our nerves to
the snapping point, may be hidden there in the church tower. But the
battery commander hesitates to damage the house of God. So he leaves a
gap there, and sweeps the smaller houses. Suddenly one of the machine
guns ceases--it must have been concealed in the hedge close to the
church; the gun squad serving it must have been found by the fire of
our gunners; for presently there is noticeable in that quarter a foot
race of red-trousered infantrymen. In the moaning of the shells there
mingles the rattling of shrapnel. A whole group tumbles pell-mell;
yonder one of them dashes madly this way and that, until a new load
strikes him--they move like dolls in a miniature theatre; it is hard
to realize at this distance that human lives are being crushed out
here.
But an hour later we entered R. Night has fallen. Through the mighty
gaps in the gabled roofs of the houses of the narrow street on which
we enter shines the moon. Four men of the bicycle corps stand silent
at the entrance to the village; the prisoners in their midst,
infantrymen in uniform or in rapidly donned civil garb--the tell-tale
red of the trousers shows under the short vest of one of them. In the
streets lie curious bundles, the corpses of those who have fallen
here. A wounded soldier drags wearily up to the subaltern officer's
post, with hands raised above his head; it is a Frenchman who has
thrown away his blue coat, but still wears his cap. The steps of the
incoming battalion ring out on the village pavement. Otherwise an icy
silence, night, and the smell of blood and burning.
And now horror creeps over us. We greet Death. He greets us.
In R. scarcely a single house is still inhabited. All have fled to L.
In the street that has been assigned to my company, I must have almost
every house opened by force, in order that the men, worn out with
marching and fighting, may rest. Here and there, in answer to
prolonged knocking, one of the inhabitants comes to the door. When the
shell fire began they took refuge in their cellars.
In the brightly tiled hall of a pretty house that has escaped damage I
sit with the gentlemen for several hours over glasses of mulled wine.
We are waiting for orders for the next day. The orders reach us at 1
o'clock that night; the detachment is to take its stand at 7 o'clock
beside the church at R., in order to continue the advance toward L.
But during the hours of the night many changes have taken place. The
troops driven out of R. have sent their patrols, the black scouts, to
the very edge of the suburb again, under cover of darkness; and
reports of our cavalry and bicycle men tell that during the night
heavy detachments of troops sent from the north have reached L. They
talk of 40,000 to 50,000 men, chiefly newly enlisted forces and
territorials; but Englishmen, too, are said to be among them. Our
assigned task does not include fighting a destructive battle. We are
simply to compel the enemy to unfold his forces, for certain strategic
reasons the nature of which, of course, we do not know. Accordingly,
our small detachment must risk everything in order to lure upon itself
as many as possible of the enemy's troops. That, too, is just what
happened.
We take our former positions. The cavalry division has departed, with
its artillery, its bicycle corps, its Jaegers, and its machine guns.
New problems are in store on the right wing for the brave division
which has already distinguished itself throughout the entire campaign.
We remain alone with our battery--the third battalion of the active
regiment and our provincial Landwehr battalion.
It is going to be a heavy, heavy, heavy day of fighting.
Patrols establish the fact that F. is free of the enemy's forces. But
as we enter the road toward L. the French machine guns at once
announce themselves. They sing and whistle and whirr above our heads.
After yesterday's losses (half a column of the Fifth Company is still
busy burying our dead, laying our wounded in automobiles and wagons to
be sent to the hospitals) our artillery will first shoot breaches in
the enemy's lines before we advance.
But at midday the field artillery of the Frenchmen already replies to
ours. They must have transshipped, at night, from their positions on
the canal to L., in the belief that mighty forces were being assembled
here for a further tremendous blow. The object of our assignment would
in that case already have been for the most part accomplished. But all
of us subordinate officers--who neither possess nor should possess an
insight into the strategic movement--we have but a single desire:
Forward!
For a few minutes, after the first thundering crash of the French
artillery, there is deep silence. It seems as if nature itself were
holding its breath. The crash had fallen in the alley of poplars along
the road. The roadway is strewn with branches and twigs. Just beside
the northern column of our battery the monstrous shell has buried
itself in the clay soil. A hail of earth-crumbs has rained upon us. We
cannot note any other damage. But all the companies that are still in
closed formation spread out in order to offer no compact target.
For hours, now, there continues this terrible cannonading backward and
forward, this dreadful argument of batteries. Horrible as is the
devastation which such an instrument of murder can wreak, you
gradually grow accustomed to the roaring storm. And you almost smile
because you still lower your head each time. Until you remember: We
greet Death, and he greets us.
"Near the church tower southeast of L. where the railway bridge can be
seen, are hostile riflemen, strength several companies."
Our cavalry patrol disappears again--a French machine gun fires at it
without hitting--and the battalion commander calls to me:
"Company left across the road, right and left of the farmhouse,
developing a column on each side, with wide intervals between!"
Quickly the right wing column darts across. My Turkish professor, the
Chief Lieutenant, manages it beautifully. One sharpshooter always
darts ahead, throws himself on his belly, creeps on; a second follows.
At one, two kilometers, scarcely a headpiece is visible. The left
column is less successful. Over the heads of the sharpshooters there
at once whistle shells. They feel the air pressure; the tremendous
noise grips them.
"Dodge! Lie down! Forward only one at a time, with long pauses! You'll
betray our positions, fellows!"
And at this moment there is a clattering sound in the air above. A
French airman!
"An airman, Captain!"
"Yes, yes, I've heard him."
The only thing that can help us is to keep from looking up. Only the
rows of flesh-colored oval faces, that immediately turn up to greet
each flight of an airman, permit the strength of forces to be
estimated at such great distances.
Beyond any doubt the foe has overestimated our strength tenfold.
Otherwise he would not have put forth these tremendous efforts. His
strength, in such fortified positions, would have sufficed to hold an
entire army corps in check. And our poor weak brigade?
I lie on my belly, creeping forward. To remain standing would be
suicide.
Sst-sst-teewheet--boom-buzz--tsha! Tacktack-tacktack-tack!
It's a bad music. We are being rained upon with iron. We hear it
whistle past our ears, we feel it whizz over our helmets. Our
artillery covers us in front, so that we cannot fire at the single
bodies of advance riflemen. They are drawing to the left toward the
entrance to F. Soon the infantry bullets are striking close among us.
Nothing to be seen! Nothing to be seen!
"We must advance further!" I shout into the line of sharpshooters. The
battalion commander shouts it at the same time. He wouldn't let any
one rob him of the honor of advancing in the foremost row of riflemen.
We crawl forward on all fours. After thirty meters, halt. Still
nothing to be seen. The land rises in front of us. Fifty meters
further; eighty; a hundred. At last we have a clear view ahead. Rifles
are advanced.
"Half way to the left, at the entrance to F., sharpshooters, stand!"
A few shots from our ranks. The blue figures falter, fall. But at the
same time we have betrayed our position. And now the hail begins anew.
"They all shoot too high! Aim well, men! Every shot a bullseye!"
My voice reaches only the rows of riflemen nearest to me. The clatter
and crashing is tremendous, but even more horrible is this singing and
whizzing past of shells, especially when the enemy's machine guns
sweep us.
"Are those some of our men?" my bugler beside me asks. "They're
already standing half way down the road back of us!"
A shiver of horror creeps over us. Yes, they have enticed and held us
fast in the midst of their artillery--and on the left their infantry,
well protected, has advanced under cover to our flank. And now the
French machine gun patters on our right, in monotonous rhythm, in this
concert of hell.
Behind us there is no longer a sign of life. Our battery is gone; it
must have shot away its ammunition.
"Order of the Brigade Commander: Company retire slowly!" A man at the
end of our serried line near the roadside has called the order to me.
The order travels by word of mouth along our line. It is a long time
before it reaches the riflemen furthest left. And as soon as the
slightest movement is noticeable in the beet fields, the deadly hail
rattles down upon us again.
My eyeglass is covered with sweat and dirt. I tear it away. Now, as
the shells strike, clouds of dirt fly into my eyes. I close them. At
my left, a rifleman crawling along, nudges me:
"The dogs!" he mutters: "Now they've got us in a hell of a pinch!"
I can speak no more. We go crawling along another 500 meters. My
revolver bangs along on the ground at my left; my fieldglass at my
right. For a moment I think of the droll problem given to the officer
at the military examination: "What would you do if you saw artillery
unfold before you, infantry on your left, and artillery against your
flank on the right?" Answer: "I'd order: Take off helmets and pray!"
Take off helmets and pray! Yes, there is now no help for it. Now it's
a case of dying decently like gentlemen.
"No running away, men! We're no Frenchmen!"
A minute's stop to take breath, at yon hay-rick on the left. So, there
they're advancing, in a gay company, the blue-frocks!
"Left, riflemen, along the church yard wall, stand! Rifle fire!"
And two groups are daring enough to stand upright and fire, although
the machine gun fire is sweeping us again. The man next to me is
loading his gun; suddenly he throws up an arm:
"Hell! That's pretty warm!" A bullet has passed midway through the
cover of his rifle barrel.
"Go on! Slowly! One at a time! Don't crowd!"
On the road we find a man of the second column, pressed against a
tree.
"Where is the battalion?"
He points in the direction of R.
"There they are, still fighting, Captain."
Yes, there still stand some riflemen in a rifle fight. An officer with
them.
"Forward!" and I point in their direction.
But over there the witches' caldron is boiling more fiercely. The
machine guns are nearer there. After a short consultation with the
leader of the division I order: "Retire. Singly."
The narrow road through which we retire is swept continually with
fire. I climb up to the ridge. Now nothing further matters. Only not
to fall alive in the hands of those over there! To die! I stumble over
a ridge in the field. A few moments of unconsciousness. Then again the
tacktack-tacktack of the machine guns. God, our Lord, Thou art our
refuge forever and aye! I pray Thee, I pray Thee, let me die an honest
soldier's death. And not suffer long. Now, dear Lord, please; now! If
only my fellows don't begin to run!
"Slowly, men; slowly. Halt at the brown stretch of field."