Hirgen at 00:36, 2 September 2008

2008-09-02T00:36:41Z

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<center>II 

FIGHTING IN BELGIUM </center>

 ABOUT ten minutes we might have lain in the grass when we suddenly
heard rifle shots in front of us. Electrified, all of us jumped
up and hastened to our rifles. Then the firing of rifles that
was going on at a distance of about a mile or a mile and a half
began steadily to increase in volume. We set in motion immediately.

 The expression and the behavior of the soldiers betrayed that
something was agitating their mind, that an emotion had taken
possession of them which they could not master and had never experienced
before. On myself I could observe a great restlessness. Fear and
curiosity threw my thoughts into a wild jumble; my head was swimming,
and everything seemed to press upon my heart. But I wished to
conceal my fears from my comrades. I know I tried to with a will,
but whether I succeeded better than my comrades, whose uneasiness
I could read in their faces, I doubt very much.

 Though I was aware that we should be in the firing line within
half an hour, I endeavored to convince myself that our participation
in the fight would no longer be necessary. I clung obstinately,
nay, almost convulsively to every idea that could strengthen that
hope or give me consolation. That not every bullet finds its billet;
that, as we had been told, most wounds in modern wars were afflicted
by grazing shots which caused slight flesh-wounds; those were
some of the reiterated self-deceptions indulged in against my
better knowledge. And they proved effective. It was not only that
they made me in fact feel more easy; deeply engaged in those thoughts
I had scarcely observed that we were already quite near the firing
line.

 The bicycles at the side of the road revealed to us that the
cyclist corps were engaged by the enemy. We did not know, of course,
the strength of our opponents as we approached the firing line
in leaps. In leaping forward every one bent down instinctively,
whilst to our right and left and behind us the enemy's bullets
could be heard striking; yet we reached the firing line without
any casualties and were heartily welcomed by our hard pressed
friends. The cyclists, too, had not yet suffered any losses; some,
it is true, had already been slightly wounded, but they could
continue to participate in the fight.

 We were lying flat on the ground, and fired in the direction
indicated to us as fast as our rifles would allow. So far we had
not seen our opponents. That, it seemed, was too little interesting
to some of our soldiers; so they rose partly, and fired in a kneeling
position. Two men of my company had to pay their curiosity with
their lives. Almost at one and the same time they were shot through
the head. The first victim of our group fell down forward without
uttering a sound; the second threw up his arms and fell on his
back. Both of them were dead instantly.

 Who could describe the feelings that overcome a man in the
first real hail of bullets he is in? When we were leaping forward
to reach the firing line I felt no longer any fear and seemed
only to try to reach the line as quickly as possible. But when
looking at the first dead man I was seized by a terrible horror.
For minutes I was perfectly stupefied, had completely lost command
over myself and was absolutely incapable to think or act. I pressed
my face and hands firmly against the ground, and then suddenly
I was seized by an irrepressible excitement, took hold of my gun,
and began to fire away blindly. Little after little I quieted
down again somewhat, nay, I became almost quite confident as if
everything was normal. Suddenly I found myself content with myself
and my surroundings, and when a little later the whole line was
commanded, "Leap forward! March, march!" I ran forward
demented like the others, as if things could not be other than
what they were. The order, "Position!" followed, and
we flopped down like wet bags. Firing had begun again.

 Our firing became more lively from minute to minute, and grew
into a rolling deafening noise. If in such an infernal noise you
want to make yourself understood by your neighbor, you have to
shout at him so that it hurts your throat. The effect of our firing
caused our opponent to grow unsteady; his fire became weaker;
the line of the enemy began to waver. Being separated from the
enemy by only about 500 yards, we could observe exactly what was
happening there. We saw how about half of the men opposing us
were drawn back. The movement is executed by taking back every
second man whilst number one stays on until the retiring party
has halted. We took advantage of that movement to inflict the
severest losses possible on our retreating opponent. As far as
we could survey the country to our right and left we observed
that the Germans were pressing forward at several points. Our
company, too, received the order to advance when the enemy took
back all his forces.

 Our task was to cling obstinately to the heels of the retreating
enemy so as to leave him no time to collect his forces and occupy
new positions. We therefore followed him in leaps with short breathing
pauses so as to prevent him in the first place from establishing
himself in the village before him. We knew that otherwise we should
have to engage in costly street fighting. But the Belgians did
not attempt to establish themselves, but disengaged themselves
from us with astonishing skill.

 Meanwhile we had been reënforced. Our company had been
somewhat dispersed, and everybody marched with the troop be chanced
to find himself with. My troop had to stay in the village to search
every house systematically for soldiers that had been dispersed
or hidden. During that work we noticed that the Germans were marching
forward from all directions. Field artillery, machine-gun sections,
etc., arrived, and all of us wondered whence all of this came
so quickly.

 There was however no time for long reflections. With fixed
bayonets we went from house to house, from door to door, and though
the harvest was very meager, we were not turned away quite empty-handed,
as the inhabitants had to deliver up all privately owned fire-arms,
ammunition, etc. The chief functionary of the village who accompanied
us, had to explain to every citizen that the finding of arms after
the search would lead to punishment by court-martial. And court-martial
means---death.

 After another hour had passed we were alarmed again by rifle
and gun firing; a new battle had begun. Whether the artillery
was in action on both sides could not be determined from the village,
but the noise was loud enough, for the air was almost trembling
with the rumbling, rolling, and growling of the guns which steadily
increased in strength. The ambulance columns were bringing in
the first wounded; orderly officers whizzed past us. War had begun
with full intensity.

 Darkness was falling before we had finished searching all the
houses. We dragged mattresses, sacks of straw, feather beds, whatever
we could get hold of, to the public school and the church where
the wounded were to be accommodated. They were put to bed as well
as it could be done. Those first victims of the horrible massacre
of nations were treated with touching care. Later on, when we
had grown more accustomed to those horrible sights, less attention
was paid to the wounded.

 The first fugitives now arrived from the neighboring villages.
They had probably walked for many an hour, for they looked tired,
absolutely exhausted. There were women, old, white-haired men,
and children, all mixed together, who had not been able to save
anything but their poor lives. In a perambulator or a push-cart
those unfortunate beings carried away all that the brutal force
of war had left them. In marked contrast to the fugitives that
we had hitherto met, these people were filled with the utmost
fear, shivering with fright, terror-stricken in face of the hostile
world. As soon as they beheld one of us soldiers they were seized
with such a fear that they seemed to crumple up. How different
they were from the inhabitants of the village in which we were,
who showed themselves kind, friendly, and even obliging towards
us. We tried to find out the cause of that fear, and heard that
those fugitives had witnessed bitter street fighting in their
village. They had experienced war, had seen their houses burnt,
their simple belongings perish, and had not yet been able to forget
their streets filled with dead and wounded soldiers. It became
clear to us that it was not fear alone that made these people
look like the hunted quarry; it was hatred, hatred against us,
the invaders who, as they had to suppose, had fallen upon them
unawares, had driven them from their home. But their hatred was
not only directed against us, the German soldiers, nay, their
own, the Belgian soldiers, too, were not spared by it.

 We marched away that very evening and tried to reach our section.
When darkness fell the Belgians had concentrated still farther
to the rear; they were already quite near the fortress of Liège.
Many of the villages we passed were in flames; the inhabitants
who had been driven away passed us in crowds, there were women
whose husbands were perhaps also defending their "Fatherland,"
children, old men who were pushed hither and thither and seemed
to be always in the way. Without any aim, any plan, any place
in which they could rest, those processions of misery and unhappiness
crept past us---the best illustration of man-murdering, nation-destroying
war! Again we reached a village which to all appearances had once
been inhabited by a well-to-do people, by a contented little humanity.
There were nothing but ruins now, burnt, destroyed houses and
farm buildings, dead soldiers, German and Belgian, and among them
several civilians who had been shot by sentence of the court-martial.

 Towards midnight we reached the German line which was trying
to get possession of a village which was already within the fortifications
of Liège, and was obstinately defended by the Belgians.
Here we had to employ all our forces to wrench from our opponent
house after house, street after street. It was not yet completely
dark so that we had to go through that terrible struggle which
developed with all our senses awake and receptive. It was a hand
to hand fight; every kind of weapon had to be employed; the opponent
was attacked with the butt-end of the rifle, the knife, the fist,
and the teeth. One of my best friends fought with a gigantic Belgian;
both had lost their rifle. They were pummeling each other with
their fists. I had just finished with a Belgian who was about
twenty-two years of age, and was going to assist my friend, as
the Herculean Belgian was so much stronger than he. Suddenly my
friend succeeded with a lightning motion in biting the Belgian
in the chin. He bit so deeply that he tore away a piece of flesh
with his teeth. The pain the Belgian felt must have been immense,
for he let go his hold and ran off screaming with terrible pain.

 All that happened in seconds. The blood of the Belgian ran
out of my friend's mouth; he was seized by a horrible nausea,
an indescribable terror, the taste of the warm blood nearly drove
him insane. That young, gay, lively fellow of twenty-four had
been cheated out of his youth in that night. He used to be the
jolliest among us; after that we could never induce him even to
smile.

 Whilst fighting during the night I came for the first time
in touch with the butt-end of a Belgian rifle. I had a hand to
hand fight with a Belgian when another one from behind hit me
with his rifle on the head with such force that it drove my head
into the helmet up to my ears. I experienced a terrific pain all
over my head, doubled up, and lost consciousness. When I revived
I found myself with a bandaged head in a barn among other wounded.

 I had not been severely wounded, but I felt as if my head was
double its normal size, and there was a noise in my ears as of
the wheels of an express engine.

 The other wounded and the soldiers of the ambulance corps said
that the Belgians had been pushed back to the fortress; we heard,
however, that severe fighting was still going on. Wounded soldiers
were being brought in continuously, and they told us that the
Germans had already taken in the first assault several fortifications
like outer-forts, but that they had not been able to maintain
themselves because they had not been sufficiently provided with
artillery. The defended places and works inside the forts were
still practically completely intact, and so were their garrisons.
The forts were not yet ripe for assault, so that the Germans had
to retreat with downright enormous losses. The various reports
were contradictory, and it was impossible to get a clear idea
of what was happening.

 Meanwhile the artillery had begun to bombard the fortress,
and even the German soldiers were terror-stricken at that bombardment.
The heaviest artillery was brought into action against the modern
forts of concrete. Up to that time no soldier had been aware of
the existence of the 42-centimeter mortars. Even when Liège
had fallen into German hands we soldiers could not explain to
ourselves how it was possible that those enormous fortifications,
constructed partly of reinforced concrete of a thickness of one
to six meters, could be turned into a heap of rubbish after only
a few hours' bombardment. Having been wounded, I could of course
not take part in those operations, but my comrades told me later
on how the various forts were taken. Guns of all sizes were turned
on the forts, but it was the 21- and 42-centimeter mortars that
really did the work. From afar one could hear already the approach
of the 42-centimeter shell. The shell bored its way through the
air with an uncanny, rushing and hissing sound that was like a
long shrill whistling filling the whole atmosphere for seconds.
Where it struck everything was destroyed within a radius of several
hundred yards. Later I have often gazed in wonderment at those
hecatombs which the 42-centimeter mortar erected for itself on
all its journeys. The enormous air pressure caused by the bursting
of its shells made it even difficult for us Germans in the most
advanced positions to breathe for several seconds. To complete
the infernal row the Zeppelins appeared at night in order to take
part in the work of destruction. Suddenly the soldiers would hear
above their heads the whirring of the propellers and the noise
of the motors, well-known to most Germans. The Zeppelins came
nearer and nearer, but not until they were in the immediate neighborhood
of the forts were they discovered by our opponents, who immediately
brought all available searchlights into play in order to search
the sky for the dreaded flying enemies. The whirring of the propellers
of the airships which had been distributed for work on the various
forts suddenly ceased. Then, right up in the air, a blinding light
appeared, the searchlight of the Zeppelin, which lit up the country
beneath it for a short time. Just as suddenly it became dark and
quiet until a few minutes later, powerful detonations brought
the news that the Zeppelin had dropped its "ballast."
That continued for quite a while, explosion followed explosion,
interrupted only by small fiery clouds, shrapnel which the Belgian
artillery sent up to the airships, exploding in the air. Then
the whirring of the propellers began again, first loud and coming
from near, from right above our heads, then softer and softer
until the immense ship of the air had entirely disappeared from
our view and hearing.

 Thus the forts were made level with the ground; thousands of
Belgians were lying dead and buried behind and beneath the ramparts
and fortifications. General assault followed. Liège was
in the hands of the Germans.

 I was with the ambulance column until the 9th of August and
by that time had been restored sufficiently to rejoin my section
of the army. After searching for hours I found my company camping
in a field. I missed many a good friend; my section had lost sixty-five
men, dead and wounded, though it had not taken part in the pursuit
of the enemy.

 We had been attached to the newly-formed 18th Reserve Army
Corps (Hessians) and belonged to the Fourth Army which was under
the command of Duke Albrecht of Wurttemberg. Where that army,
which had not yet been formed, was to operate was quite unknown
to us private soldiers. We had but to follow to the place where
the herd was to be slaughtered; what did it matter where that
would be? On the 11th of August we began to march and covered
25-45 miles every day. We learned later on that we always kept
close to the Luxemburg frontier so as to cross it immediately
should necessity arise., Had it not been so oppressively hot we
should have been quite content, for we enjoyed several days of
rest which braced us up again.

 On the 21st of August we came in contact with the first German
troops belonging to the Fourth Army, about 15 miles to the east
of the Belgian town of Neufchâteau. The battle of Neufchâteau,
which lasted from the 22nd to the 24th of August, had already
begun. A French army here met with the Fourth German Army, and
a murderous slaughter began. As is always the case it commenced
with small skirmishes of advance guards and patrols; little after
little ever-growing masses of soldiers took part and when, in
the evening of the 22nd of August, we were led into the firing
line, the battle had already developed to one of the most murderous
of the world war. When we arrived the French were still in possession
of nearly three-quarters of the town. The artillery had set fire
to the greatest part of Neufchâteau, and only the splendid
villas in the western part of the town escaped destruction for
the time being. The street fighting lasted the whole night. It
was only towards noon of the 23rd of August, when the town was
in the hands of the Germans, that one could see the enormous losses
that both sides had suffered. The dwelling-places, the cellars,
the roads and side-walks were thickly covered with dead and horribly
wounded soldiers; the houses were ruins, gutted, empty shells
in which scarcely anything of real value had remained whole. Thousands
had been made beggars in a night full of horrors. Women and children,
soldiers and citizens were lying just where death had struck them
down, mixed together just as the merciless shrapnel and shells
had sent them out of life into the darkness beyond. There had
been real impartiality. There lay a German soldier next to a white-haired
French woman, a little Belgian stripling whom fear had driven
out of the house into the street, lay huddled up against the "enemy,"
a German soldier, who might have been protection and safety for
him.

 Had we not been shooting and stabbing, murdering and clubbing
as much and as vigorously as we could the whole night? And yet
there was scarcely one amongst us who did not shed tears of grief
and emotion at the spectacles presenting themselves. There was
for instance, a man whose age it was difficult to discover; he
was lying dead before a burning house. Both his legs had been
burnt up to the knees by the fire falling down upon him. The wife
and daughter of the dead man were clinging to him, and were sobbing
so piteously that one simply could not bear it. Many, many of
the dead had been burnt entirely or partly; the cattle were burning
in their stables, and the wild bellowing of those animals fighting
against death by fire, intermingled with the crying, the moaning,
the groaning and the shrieking of the wounded. But who had the
time now to bother about that? Everybody wanted help, everybody
wanted to help himself, everybody was only thinking of himself
and his little bit of life. "He who falls remains where he
lies; only he who stands can win victories." That one learns
from militarism and the average soldier acts upon that principle.
And yet most soldiers are forced by circumstances to play the
rôle of the good Samaritan. People who could formerly not
look upon blood or a dead person, were now bandaging their comrades'
arms and legs which had been amputated by shells. They did not
do it because they were impelled by the command of their heart,
but because they said to themselves that perhaps to-morrow already
their turn might come and that they, too, might want assistance.
It is a healthy egotism which makes men of mercy out of those
hardened people.

 The French had formed their lines again outside the town in
the open. At the moment when the enemy evacuated the town an error
was made by the Germans which cost many hundreds of German soldiers
their lives. The Germans had occupied the rest of the town with
such celerity that our artillery which was pounding that quarter
had not been informed of the changed situation, and was raining
shell upon shell into our own ranks. That failure of our intelligence
department caused the death of many of our comrades. Compelled
by the firing of the enemy and our own artillery we had finally
to give up part of our gains, which later on we recovered, again
with great sacrifice. Curiously enough, the residential quarter
with the villas I mentioned before had not suffered seriously;
the Red Cross flag was hoisted on the houses in which temporary
hospitals were established.

 It is here that the Belgian citizens are said to have mutilated
some German wounded soldiers. Whether it was true, whether it
was only rumored, as was asserted also many times by German soldiers
who had been in the hospitals, I do not know. But this I know,
that on the 24th of August when the French had executed a general
retreat, it was made known in an army order that German soldiers
had been murdered there and that the German army could not leave
the scenes of those shameful deeds without having first avenged
their poor comrades. The order was therefore given---by the leader
of the army---to raze the town without mercy. When later on (it
was in the evening and we were pursuing the enemy) we were resting
for a short time, clouds of smoke in the east showed that the
judgment had been fulfilled. A battery of artillery that had remained
behind had razed house after house. Revenge is sweet, also for
Christian army leaders.

 Outside the town the French had reformed their ranks, and were
offering the utmost resistance. But they were no match for the
German troops who consisted largely of young and active men. Frenchmen
taken prisoner explained that it was simply impossible to withstand
an assault of this war-machine, when the German columns attacked
with the bayonet and the cry of " Hurrah! hurrah!" which
penetrated to the very marrow. I can understand that, for we sometimes
appeared to ourselves to be a good imitation of American Indians
who, like us, rushed upon their enemies with shrill shouts. After
a fight lasting three hours many Frenchmen surrendered, asking
for quarter with raised hands. Whole battalions of the enemy were
thus captured by us. Finally, in the night from the 23rd to the
24th of August, the ranks of the enemy were thrown into confusion
and retreated, first slowly, then flying headlong. Our opponent
left whole batteries, munition columns, ambulance columns, etc.

 I found myself in the first pursuing section. The roads we
used were again literally covered with corpses; knapsacks, rifles,
dead horses and men were lying there in a wild jumble. The dead
had been partly crushed and pounded to a pulp by the horses and
vehicles, an indescribably terrible spectacle even for the most
hardened mass-murderer. Dead and wounded were lying to the right
and left of the road, in fields, in ditches; the red trousers
of the French stood out distinctly against the ground; the field-gray
trousers of the Germans were however scarcely to be noticed and
difficult to discover.

 The distance between ourselves and the fleeing Frenchmen became
greater and greater, and the spirit of our soldiers, in spite
of the hardships they had undergone, became better and gayer.
They joked and sang, forgot the corpses which were still filling
the roads and paths, and felt quite at ease. They had already
accustomed themselves to the horrible to such a degree that they
stepped over the corpses with unconcern, without even making the
smallest detour. The experience of those first few weeks of the
war had already brutalized us completely. What was to happen to
us if this should continue for months-----?

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	war had already brutalized us completely. What was to happen to		war had already brutalized us completely. What was to happen to
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		+	Go To [[III SHOOTING CIVILIANS IN BELGIUM \| '''Next Chapter''']]

II FIGHTING IN BELGIUM - Revision history

Bkimberl at 18:29, 13 July 2009

Hirgen at 05:47, 30 October 2008

Hirgen at 00:36, 2 September 2008