XI MARCHING TO THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE---INTO THE TRAP
MARCHING TO THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE
---INTO THE TRAP
A LARGE proportion of the "gentlemen," our officers,
regarded war as a pleasant change to their enchanting social life
in the garrison towns, and knew exactly (at least as far as the
officers of my company were concerned) how to preserve their lives
as long as possible "in the interest of the Fatherland."
When I buried the hatchet, fourteen months after, our company
had lost three times its original strength, but no fresh supply
of officers had as yet become necessary; we had not lost a single
officer. In Holland I got to know, some months later, that after
having taken my "leave" they were still very well preserved.
One day at Rotterdam, I saw a photo in the magazine, Die Woche,
showing "Six members of the 1st. Company of the Sapper
Regiment No. 30 with the Iron Cross of the 1st. Class." The
picture had been taken at the front, and showed the five officers
and Corporal Bock with the Iron Cross of the 1st. Class. Unfortunately
Scherl [Note: A proprietor of many German sensational newspapers.]
did not betray whether those gentlemen had got the distinction
for having preserved their lives for further service.
We spent the following night at the place, and then had to
camp again in the open, "because the place swarmed with franctireurs."
In reality no franctireurs could be observed, so that it was quite
clear to us that it was merely an attempt to arouse again our
resentment against the enemy which was dying down. They knew very
well that a soldier is far more tractable and pliant when animated
by hatred against the "enemy."
The next day Châlons-sur-Marne was indicated as the next
goal of our march. That day was one of the most fatiguing we experienced.
Early in the morning already, when we started, the sun was sending
down its fiery shafts. Suippes is about 21 miles distant. from
Châlons-sur-Marne. The distance would not have been the
worst thing, in spite of the heat. We had marched longer distances
before. But that splendid road from Suippes to Châlons does
not deviate an inch to the right or left, so that the straight,
almost endless seeming road lies before one like an immense white
snake. However far we marched that white ribbon showed no ending,
and when one looked round, the view was exactly the same. During
the whole march we only passed one little village; otherwise all
was bare and uncultivated.
Many of us fainted or got a heat-stroke and had to be taken
along by the following transport column. We could see by the many
dead soldiers, French and German, whose corpses were lying about
all along the road, that the troops who had passed here before
us had met with a still worse fate.
We had finished half of our march without being allowed to
take a rest. I suppose the "old man" was afraid the
machine could not be set going again if once our section had got
a chance to rest their tired limbs on the ground, and thus we
crawled along dispirited like a lot of snails, carrying the leaden
weight of the "monkey" in the place of a house. The
monotony of the march was only somewhat relieved when we reached
the immense camp of Châlons. It is one of the greatest military
camps in France. Towards three o'clock in the afternoon we beheld
Châlons in the distance, and when we halted towards four
o'clock in an orchard outside the town, all of us, without an
exception, fell down exhausted.
The field kitchen, too, arrived, but nobody stirred for a time
to fetch food. We ate later on, and then desired to go to the
town to buy several things, chiefly, I daresay, tobacco which
we missed terribly. Nobody was allowed however, to leave camp.
We were told that it was strictly forbidden to enter the town.
Châlons, so the tale went, had paid a war contribution,
and nobody could enter the town. With money you can do everything,
even in war. Mammon had saved Châlons from pillage.
Far away could be heard the muffled roar of the guns. We had
the presentiment that our rest would not he of long duration.
The rolling of the gun firing became louder and louder, but we
did not know yet that a battle had started here that should turn
out a very unfortunate one for the Germans---the five days' battle
of the Marne.
At midnight we were aroused by an alarm, and half an hour later
we were on the move already. The cool air of the night refreshed
us, and we got along fairly rapidly in spite of our exhaustion.
At about four o'clock in the morning we reached the village of
Chepy. ,At that place friend Mammon had evidently not been so
merciful as at Châlons, for Chepy had been thoroughly sacked.
We rested for a short time, and noticed with a rapid glance that
preparations were just being made to shoot two franctireurs. They
were little peasants who were alleged to have hidden from the
Germans a French machine-gun and its crew. The sentence was carried
out. One was never at a loss in finding reasons for a verdict.
And the population had been shown who their "master"
was.
The little village of Pogny half-way between Châlons-sur-Marne
and Vitry-le-François, had fared no better than Chepy,
as we observed when we entered it at nine o'clock in the morning.
We had now got considerably nearer to the roaring guns. The slightly
wounded who were coming back and the men of the ammunition columns
told us that a terrible battle was raging to the west of Vitry-le-François.
At four o'clock in the afternoon we reached Vitry-le-François,
after a veritable forced march. The whole town was crowded with
wounded; every building, church, and school was full of wounded
soldiers. The town itself was not damaged.
Here things must have looked very bad for the Germans for,
without allowing us a respite, we were ordered to enter the battle
to the west of Vitry-le-François. We had approached the
firing line a little more than two miles when we got within reach
of the enemy's curtain of fire. A terrific hail of shells was
ploughing up every foot of ground. Thousands of corpses of German
soldiers were witnesses of the immense losses the Germans had
suffered in bringing up all available reserves. The French tried
their utmost to prevent the Germans from bringing in their reserves,
and increased their artillery fire to an unheard-of violence.
It seemed impossible for us to break through that barricade
of fire. Hundreds of shells were bursting very minute. We were
ordered to pass that hell singly and at a running pace. We were
lying on the ground and observed how the first of our men tried
to get through. Some ran forward like mad, not heeding the shells
that were bursting around them, and got through. Others were entirely
buried by the dirt dug up by the shells or were torn to pieces
by shell splinters. Two men had scarcely reached the line when
they were struck by a bull's-eye, i. e., the heavy shell exploded
at their feet leaving nothing of them.
Who can imagine what we were feeling during those harrowing
minutes as we lay crouching on the ground not quite a hundred
feet away, seeing everything, and only waiting for our turn to
come? One had entangled oneself in a maze of thoughts. Suddenly
one of the officers would cry, "The next one!" That
was I! Just as if roused out of a bad dream, I jump up and race
away like mad, holding the rifle in my right hand and the bayonet
in my left. I jumped aside a few steps in front of two bursting
shells and run into two others which are bursting at the same
time. I leap back several times, run forward again, race about
wildly to find a gap through which to escape. But---fire and iron
everywhere. Like a hunted beast one seeks some opening to save
oneself. Hell is in front of me and behind me the officer's revolver,
kept ready to shoot. The lumps of steel fall down like a heavy
shower from high above. Hell and damnation! I blindly run and
run and run, until somebody gets me by my coat. "We're there!"
somebody roars into my ear. "Stop! Are you wounded? Have
a look; perhaps you are and don't know it?" Here I am trembling
all over. "Sit down; you will feel better; we trembled too."
Slowly I became more quiet. One after the other arrived; many
were wounded. We were about forty when the sergeants took over
the command. Nothing was again to be seen of the officers.
We proceeded and passed several German batteries. Many had
suffered great losses. The crews were lying dead or wounded around
their demolished guns. Others again could not fire as they had
no more ammunition. We rested. Some men of the artillery who had
" nothing to do" for lack of ammunition came up to us.
A sergeant asked why they did not fire. "Because we have
used up all our ammunition," a gunner replied. "0 yes,
it would be quite impossible to bring up ammunition through that
curtain of fire." "It's not that," announced the
gunner; "it's because there isn't any more that they can't
bring it up! " And then he went on: "We started at Neufchâteau
to drive the French before us like hunted beasts; we rushed headlong
after them like savages. Men and beasts were used up in the heat;
all the destroyed railroads and means of transportation could
not be repaired in those few days; everything was left in the
condition we found it; and in a wild intoxication of victory we
ventured to penetrate into the heart of France. We rushed on without
thinking or caring, all the lines of communication in our rear
were interrupted---we confidently marched into the traps the French
set for us. Before the first ammunition and the other accessories,
which had all to be transported by wagon, have reached us we shall
be all done for."
Up to that time we had had blind confidence in the invincible
strategy of our "Great General Staff," and now they
told us this. We simply did not believe it. And yet it struck
us that the French (as was made clear by everything around us)
were in their own country, in the closest proximity of their largest
depot, Paris, and were in possession of excellent railroad communications.
The French were, besides, maintaining a terrible artillery fire
with guns of such a large size as had never yet been used by them.
All that led to the conclusion that they had taken up positions
prepared long before, and that the French guns had been placed
in such a manner that we could not reach them.
In spite of all we continued to believe that the gunner had
seen things in too dark a light. We were soon to be taught better.
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