I MARCHING INTO BELGIUM
GERMAN DESERTER'S WAR EXPERIENCE
NEW YORK: HUEBSCH, 1917
MARCHING INTO BELGIUM
AT the end of July our garrison at Koblenz was feverishly agitated.
Part of our men were seized by an indescribable enthusiasm, others
became subject to a feeling of great depression. The declaration
of war was in the air. I belonged to those who were depressed.
For I was doing my second year of military service and was to
leave the barracks in six weeks' time. Instead of the long wished-for
return home, war was facing me.
Also during my military service I had remained the anti-militarist
I had been before. I could not imagine what interest I could have
in the mass murder, and I also pointed out to my comrades that
under all circumstances war was the greatest misfortune that could
happen to humanity.
Our sapper battalion, No. 30, had been in feverish activity
five days before the mobilization; work was being pushed on day
and night so that we were fully prepared for war already on the
23rd of July, and on the 30th of July there was no person in our
barracks who doubted that war would break out. Moreover, there
was the suspicious amiability of the officers and sergeants, which
excluded any doubt that any one might still have had. Officers
who had never before replied to the salute of a private soldier
now did so with the utmost attention. Cigars and beer were distributed
in those days by the officers with great, uncommon liberality,
so that it was not surprising that many soldiers were scarcely
ever sober and did not realize the seriousness of the situation.
But there were also others. There were soldiers who also in those
times of good-humor and the grinning comradeship of officer and
soldier could not forget that in military service they had often
been degraded to the level of brutes, and who now thought with
bitter feelings that an opportunity might perhaps be offered in
order to settle accounts.
The order of mobilization became known on the 1st of August,
and the following day was decided upon as the real day of mobilization.
But without awaiting the arrival of the reserves we left our garrison
town on August 1st. Who was to be our "enemy" we did
not know; Russia was for the present the only country against
which war had been declared.
We marched through the streets of the town to the station between
crowds of people numbering many thousands. Flowers were thrown
at us from every window; everybody wanted to shake hands with
the departing soldiers. All the people, even soldiers, were weeping.
Many marched arm in arm with their wife or sweetheart. The music
played songs of leave-taking. People cried and sang at the same
time. Entire strangers, men and women, embraced and kissed each
other; men embraced men and kissed each other. It was a real witches'
sabbath of emotion; like a wild torrent, that emotion carried
away the whole assembled humanity. Nobody, not even the strongest
and most determined spirit, could resist that ebullition of feeling.
But all that was surpassed by the taking leave at the station,
which we reached after a short march. Here final adieus had to
be said, here the separation had to take place. I shall never
forget that leave-taking, however old I may grow to be. Desperately
many women clung to their men, some had to be removed by force.
Just as if they had suddenly had a vision of the fate of their
beloved ones, as if they were beholding the silent graves in foreign
lands in which those poor nameless ones were to be buried, they
sought to cling fast to their possession, to retain what already
no longer belonged to them.
Finally that, too, was over. We had entered a train that had
been kept ready, and had made ourselves comfortable in our cattle-trucks.
Darkness had come, and we had no light in our comfortable sixth-class
carriages.
The train moved slowly down the Rhine, it went along without
any great shaking, and some of us were seized by a worn-out feeling
after those days of great excitement. Most of the soldiers lay
with their heads on their knapsacks and slept. Others again tried
to pierce the darkness as if attempting to look into the future;
still others drew stealthily a photo out of their breastpocket,
and only a very. small number of us spent the time by debating
our point of destination. Where are we going to? Well, where?
Nobody knew it. At last, after long, infinitely long hours the
train came to a stop. After a night of quiet, slow riding we were
at---Aix-la-Chapelle! At Aix-la-Chapelle! What were we doing at
Aix-la-Chapelle? We did not know, and the officers only shrugged
their shoulders when we asked them.
After a short interval the journey proceeded, and on the evening
of the 2nd of August we reached a farm in the neighborhood of
the German and Belgian frontier, near Herbesthal. Here our company
was quartered in a barn. Nobody knew what our business was at
the Belgian frontier. In the afternoon of the 3rd of August reservists
arrived, and our company was brought to its war strength . We
had still no idea concerning the purpose of our being sent to
the Belgian frontier, and that evening we lay down on our bed
of straw with a forced tranquillity of mind. Something was sure
to happen soon, to deliver us from that oppressive uncertainty.
How few of us thought that for many it would be the last night
to spend on German soil!
A subdued signal of alarm fetched us out of our "beds"
at 3 o'clock in the morning. The company assembled, and the captain
explained to us the war situation. He informed us that we had
to keep ready to march, that he himself was not yet informed about
the direction. Scarcely half an hour later fifty large traction
motors arrived and stopped in the road before our quarters. But
the drivers of these wagons, too, knew no particulars and had
to wait for orders. The debate about our nearest goal was resumed.
The orderlies, who had snapped up many remarks of the officers,
ventured the opinion that we would march into Belgium the very
same day; others contradicted them. None of us could know anything
for certain. But the order to march did not arrive, and in the
evening all of us could lie down again on our straw. But it was
a short rest. At 1 o'clock in the morning an alarm aroused us
again, and the captain honored us with an address. He told us
we were at war with Belgium, that we should acquit ourselves as
brave soldiers, earn iron crosses, and do honor to our German
name. Then he continued somewhat as follows: "We are making
war only against the armed forces, that is the Belgium army. The
lives and property of civilians are under the protection of international
treaties, international law, but you soldiers must not forget
that it is your duty to defend your lives as long as possible
for the protection of your Fatherland, and to sell them as dearly
as possible. We want to prevent useless shedding of blood as far
as the civilians are concerned, but I want to remind you that
a too great considerateness borders on cowardice, and cowardice
in face of the enemy is punished very severely."
After that "humane" speech by our captain we were
"laden" into the automobiles, and crossed the Belgian
frontier on the morning of August 5th. In order to give special
solemnity to that "historical" moment we had to give
three cheers.
At no other moments the fruits of military education have presented
themselves more clearly before my mind. The soldier is told, "The
Belgian is your enemy," and he has to believe it. The soldier,
the workman in uniform, had not known till then who was his enemy.
If they had told us, "The Hollander is your enemy,"
we would have believed that, too; we would have been compelled
to believe it, and would have shot him by order. We, the "German
citizens in uniform," must not have an opinion of our own,
must have no thoughts of our own, for they give us our enemy and
our friend according to requirements, according to the requirements
of' their own interests. The Frenchman, the Belgian, the Italian,
is your enemy. Never mind, shoot as we order, and do not bother
your head about it. You have duties to perform, perform them,
and for the rest, cut it out!
Those were the thoughts that tormented my brain when crossing
the Belgian frontier. And to console myself, and so as to justify
before my own conscience the murderous trade that had been thrust
upon me, I tried to persuade myself that though I had no Fatherland
to defend, I had to defend a home and protect it from devastation.
But it was a weak consolation, and did not even outlast the first
few days.
Traveling in the fairly quick motor-cars we reached, towards
8 o'clock in the morning, our preliminary destination, a small
but pretty village. The inhabitants of the villages which we had
passed stared at us in speechless astonishment, so that we all
had the impression that those peasants for the most part did not
know why we had come to Belgium. They had been roused from their
sleep and, half-dressed, they gazed from their windows after our
automobiles. After we had stopped and alighted, the peasants of
that village came up to us without any reluctance, offered us
food, and brought us coffee, bread, meat, etc. As the field-kitchen
had not arrived we were glad to receive those kindly gifts of
the "enemy," the more so because those fine fellows
absolutely refused any payment. They told us the Belgian soldiers
had left, for where they did not know.
After a short rest we continued our march and the motor-cars
went back. We had scarcely marched for an hour when cavalry, dragoons
and huzzars, overtook us and informed us that the Germans were
marching forward in the whole neighborhood, and that cyclist companies
were close on our heels. That was comforting news, for we no longer
felt lonely and isolated in this strange country. Soon after the
troop of cyclists really came along. It passed us quickly and
left us by ourselves again. Words of anger were to be heard now;
all the others were able to ride, but we had to walk. What we
always had considered as a matter of course was now suddenly felt
by us to be a great injustice. And though our scolding and anger
did not help us in the least, it turned our thoughts from the
heaviness of the "monkey" (knapsack) which rested like
a leaden weight on our backs.
The heat was oppressive, the perspiration issued from every
pore; the new and hard leather straps, the new stiff uniforms
rubbed against many parts of the body and made them sore, especially
round the waist. With great joy we therefore hailed the order
that came at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, to halt before an isolated
farm and rest in the grass.
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