https://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php?title=XXII_SENT_ON_FURLOUGH&feed=atom&action=historyXXII SENT ON FURLOUGH - Revision history2024-03-29T10:08:56ZRevision history for this page on the wikiMediaWiki 1.39.4https://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php?title=XXII_SENT_ON_FURLOUGH&diff=8470&oldid=prevBkimberl at 18:53, 13 July 20092009-07-13T18:53:11Z<p></p>
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<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Go To </del>[[<del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">XXIII THE FLIGHT TO HOLLAND </del>| '''<del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Next Chapter</del>'''<del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">]]</del></div></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;"><p align="right"> </ins>[[<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Main_Page </ins>| <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">WWI Document Archive ]] > [[Diaries, Memorials, Personal Reminiscences]] > [[A German Deserter's War Experience]] > </ins>'''<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">XXII SENT ON FURLOUGH</ins>''' <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;"></p><hr></ins></div></td></tr>
</table>Bkimberlhttps://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php?title=XXII_SENT_ON_FURLOUGH&diff=5896&oldid=prevHirgen at 04:20, 7 November 20082008-11-07T04:20:23Z<p></p>
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</table>Hirgenhttps://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php?title=XXII_SENT_ON_FURLOUGH&diff=5584&oldid=prevHirgen at 05:16, 2 September 20082008-09-02T05:16:54Z<p></p>
<p><b>New page</b></p><div><CENTER><FONT SIZE="+3"></FONT><FONT SIZE="+3">XXII</FONT><FONT SIZE="+2"></FONT><br><br><br />
<br />
<FONT SIZE="+2">SENT ON FURLOUGH</FONT><br><br></center><br />
<br />
<br><br>FOR four days and nights, without food and sleep, we had been<br />
raging like barbarians, and had spent all our strength. We were<br />
soon relieved. To our astonishment we were relieved by cavalry.<br />
They were Saxon chasseurs on horseback who were to do duty as<br />
infantrymen. It had been found impossible to make good the enormous<br />
losses of the preceding days by sending up men of the depot. So<br />
they had called upon the cavalry who, by the way, were frequently<br />
employed during that time. The soldiers who had been in a life<br />
and death struggle for four days were demoralized to such an extent<br />
that they had no longer any fighting value. We were relieved very<br />
quietly, and could then return to our camp. We did not hear before<br />
the next day that during the period described our company had<br />
suffered a total loss of 49 men. The fate of most of them was<br />
unknown; one did not know whether they were dead or prisoners<br />
or whether they lay wounded in some ambulance station.<br />
<br />
<br><br>The village of Varennes was continually bombarded by French<br />
guns of large size. Several French families were still living<br />
in a part of the village that had not been so badly damaged. Every<br />
day several of the enemy's 28-cm. shells came down in that quarter.<br />
Though many inhabitants had been wounded by the shells the people<br />
could not be induced to leave their houses.<br />
<br />
<br><br>Our quarters were situated near a very steep slope and were<br />
thus protected against artillery fire. They consisted of wooden<br />
shanties built by ourselves. We had brought up furniture from<br />
everywhere and had made ourselves at home; for Varennes was, after<br />
all, nearly two miles behind the front. But all the shanties were<br />
not occupied, for the number of our men diminished from day to<br />
day. At last the longed-for men from the depot arrived. Many new<br />
sapper formations had to be got together for all parts of the<br />
front, and it was therefore impossible to supply the existing<br />
sapper detachments with their regular reserves. Joyfully we greeted<br />
the new arrivals. They were, as was always the case, men of very<br />
different ages; a young boyish volunteer of 17 years would march<br />
next to an old man of the landsturm who had likewise volunteered.<br />
All of them, without any exception, have bitterly repented of<br />
their &quot;free choice&quot; and made no secret of it. &quot;It's<br />
a shame,&quot; a comrade told me, &quot;that those seventeen-year-old<br />
children should be led to the slaughter, and that their young<br />
life is being poisoned, as it needs must be in these surroundings;<br />
scarcely out of boyhood, they are being shot down like mad dogs.&quot;<br />
<br />
<br><br>It took but a few days for the volunteers ---all of them without<br />
an exception---to repent bitterly of their resolve, and every<br />
soldier who had been in the war for any length of time would reproach<br />
them when they gave expression to their great disappointment.<br />
&quot;But you have come voluntarily,&quot; they were told; &quot;we<br />
had to go, else we should have been off long ago.&quot; . Yet<br />
we knew that all those young people had been under some influence<br />
and had been given a wrong picture of the war.<br />
<br />
<br><br>Those soldiers who had been in the war from the start who had<br />
not been wounded, but had gone through all the fighting, were<br />
gradually all sent home on furlough for ten days. Though our company<br />
contained but 14 unwounded soldiers it was very hard to obtain<br />
the furlough. We had lost several times the number of men on our<br />
muster-roll, but all our officers were still in good physical<br />
condition.<br />
<br />
<br><br>It was not until September that I managed to obtain furlough<br />
at the request of my relations, and I left for home with a resolve<br />
that at times seemed to me impossible to execute. All went well<br />
until I got to Diedenhofen.<br />
<br />
<br><br>As far as that station the railroads are operated by the army<br />
authorities. At Diedenhofen they are taken over by the Imperial<br />
Railroads of Alsace-Lorraine and the Prusso-Hessian State Railroads.<br />
So I had to change, and got on a train that went to Saarbruecken.<br />
I had scarcely taken a seat in a compartment in my dirty and ragged<br />
uniform when a conductor came along to inspect the tickets. Of<br />
course, I had no ticket; I had only a furlough certificate and<br />
a pass which had been handed to me at the field railroad depot<br />
of Chatel. The conductor looked at the papers and asked me again<br />
for my ticket. I drew his attention to my pass. &quot;That is<br />
only good for the territory of the war operations,&quot; he said;<br />
&quot;you are now traveling on a state railroad and have to buy<br />
a ticket.&quot;<br />
<br />
<br><br>I told him that I should not buy a ticket, and asked him to<br />
inform the station manager. &quot;You,&quot; I told him, &quot;only<br />
act according to instructions. I am not angry with you for asking<br />
of me what I shall do under no circumstances.&quot; He went off<br />
and came back with the manager. The latter also inspected my papers<br />
and told me I had to pay for the journey. &quot;I have no means<br />
for that purpose,&quot; I told him. For these last three years<br />
I have been in these clothes (I pointed to my uniform), &quot;and<br />
for three years I have therefore been without any income. Whence<br />
am I to get the money to pay for this journey?&quot; &quot;If<br />
you have no money for traveling you can't take furlough.&quot;<br />
I thought to myself that if they took me deep into France they<br />
were in conscience bound to take me back to where they had fetched<br />
me. Was I to be a soldier for three years and fight for the Fatherland<br />
for more than a year only to find that now they refused the free<br />
use of their railroads to a ragged soldier? I explained that I<br />
was not going to pay, that I could not save the fare from the<br />
few pfennigs' pay. I refused explicitly to pay a soldier's journey<br />
with my private money, even if---as was the case here---that soldier<br />
was myself. Finally I told him, &quot;I must request you to inform<br />
the military railroad commander; the depot command attends to<br />
soldiers, not you.&quot; He sent me a furious look through his<br />
horn spectacles and disappeared. Two civilians were sitting in<br />
the same compartment with me; they thought it an unheard-of thing<br />
that a soldier coming from the front should be asked for his fare.<br />
Presently the depot commander came up with a sergeant. He demanded<br />
to see my furlough certificate, pay books, and all my other papers.<br />
<br />
<br><br>&quot;Have you any money?&quot;<br />
<br />
<br><br>&quot;No.&quot;<br />
<br />
<br><br>&quot;Where do you come from?&quot;<br />
<br />
<br><br>&quot;From Chatel in the Argonnes.&quot;<br />
<br />
<br><br>&quot;How long were you at the front?<br />
<br />
<br><br>&quot;In the fourteenth month.&quot;<br />
<br />
<br><br>&quot;Been wounded?<br />
<br />
<br><br>&quot;No.&quot;<br />
<br />
<br><br>&quot;Have you no money at all? &quot;<br />
<br />
<br><br>&quot;No; you don't want money at the front.&quot;<br />
<br />
<br><br>&quot;The fare must be paid. If you can't, the company must<br />
pay. Please sign this paper.&quot;<br />
<br />
<br><br>I signed it without looking at it. It was all one to me what<br />
I signed, as long as they left me alone. Then the sergeant came<br />
back.<br />
<br />
<br><br>&quot;You can not travel in that compartment; you must also<br />
not converse with travelers. You have to take the first carriage<br />
marked 'Only for the military.' Get into that.&quot;<br />
<br />
<br><br>&quot;I see,&quot; I observed; &quot;in the dogs' compartment.&quot;<br />
<br />
<br><br>He turned round again and said, &quot; Cut out those remarks.&quot;<br />
<br />
<br><br>The train started, and I arrived safely home. After the first<br />
hours of meeting all at home again had passed I found myself provided<br />
with faultless underwear and had taken the urgently needed bath.<br />
Once more I could put on the civilian dress I had missed for so<br />
long a time. All of it appeared strange to me. I began to think.<br />
Under no conditions was I going to return to the front. But I<br />
did not know how I should succeed in getting across the frontier.<br />
I could choose between two countries only ---Switzerland and Holland.<br />
It was no use going to Switzerland, for that country was surrounded<br />
by belligerent states, and it needed only a little spark to bring<br />
Switzerland into the war, and then there would be no loophole<br />
for me. There was only the nearest country left for me to choose---Holland.<br />
But how was I to get there? There was the rub. I concocted a thousand<br />
plans and discarded them again. Nobody, not even my relatives,<br />
must know about it.</div>Hirgen