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<FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE="+2">GERMAN DESERTER'S WAR EXPERIENCE<BR>
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE="+1">NEW YORK: HUEBSCH, 1917</FONT><br><br>

<CENTER><FONT SIZE="+3"></FONT><FONT SIZE="+3">XVIII</FONT><FONT SIZE="+2"></FONT><br><br>

<FONT SIZE="+2">FIGHTING IN THE ARGONNES</FONT><br><br></center>

<br><br>FINALLY, after two days, we landed at Apremont-en-Argonne.
For the time being we were quartered in a large farm to the northeast
of Apremont. We found ourselves quite close to the Argonnes. All
the soldiers whom we met and who had been there for some time
told us of uninterrupted daily fighting in those woods.

<br><br>Our first task was to construct underground shelters that should
serve as living rooms. We commenced work at about a mile and three
quarters behind the front, but had to move on after some shells
had destroyed our work again. We then constructed, about a mile
and a quarter behind the front, a camp consisting of thirty-five
underground shelters.

<br><br>A hole is dug, some five yards square and two yards deep. Short
tree trunks are laid across it, and about two yards of earth piled
upon them. We had no straw, so we had to sleep on the bare ground
for a while. Rifle bullets coming from the direction of the front
kept flying above our heads and struck the trees. We were attached
to the various companies of infantry; I myself was with the tenth
company of the infantry regiment No. 67.

<br><br>The soil had been completely ploughed up by continued use,
and the paths and roads had been covered with sticks and tree
trunks so that they could be used by men and wagons. After an
arduous march we reached the foremost position. It was no easy
task to find one's way in that maze of trenches. The water was
more than a foot deep in those trenches. At last we arrived at
the most advanced position and reported to the captain of the
tenth company of the 67th regiment of infantry. Of course, the
conditions obtaining there were quite unknown to us, but the men
of the infantry soon explained things to us as far as they could.
After two or three days we were already quite familiar with our
surroundings, and our many-sided duty began.

<br><br>The French lay only some ten yards away from us. The second
day we were engaged in a fight with hand grenades. In that fight
Sapper Beschtel from Saarbrucken was killed. He was our first
casualty in the Argonnes, but many were to follow him in the time
that followed. In the rear trenches we had established an engineering
depot. There 25 men made nothing but hand grenades. Thus we soon
had made ourselves at home, and were ready for all emergencies.

<br><br>At the camp we were divided in various sections. That division
in various sections gave us an idea of the endless ways and means
employed in our new position. There were mining, sapping, hand
grenade sections, sections for mine throwing and illuminating
pistols. Others again constructed wire entanglements, chevaux-de-frise,
or projectiles for the primitive mine throwers. At one time one
worked in one section then again in another. The forest country
was very difficult. The thick, tangled underwood formed by itself
an almost insuperable obstacle. All the trees were shot down up
to the firing level. Cut off clean by the machine-guns they lay
in all directions on the ground, forming a natural barricade.

<br><br>The infantrymen had told us about the difficulties under which
fighting was carried on uninterruptedly. Not a day passed without
casualties. Firing went on without a pause. The men had never
experienced an interval in the firing. We soon were to get an
idea of that mass murder, that systematic slaughter. The largest
part of our company was turned into a mine laying section, and
we began to mine our most advanced trench. For a distance of some
500 yards, a yard apart, we dug in boxes of dynamite, each weighing
50 pounds. Each of those mines was provided with a fuse and all
were connected so that all the mines could be exploded at the
same instant. The mines were then covered with soil again and
the connecting wires taken some hundred yards to the rear.

<br><br>At that time the French were making attacks every few days.
We were told to abandon the foremost trench should an attack be
made. The mines had been laid two days when the expected attack
occurred, and without offering any great resistance we retreated
to the second trench. The French occupied the captured trench
without knowing that several thousands of pounds of explosives
lay buried under their feet. So as to cause our opponents to bring
as many troops as possible into the occupied trench we pretended
to make counter attacks. As a matter of fact the French trench
was soon closely manned by French soldiers who tried to retain
it.

<br><br>But that very moment our mines were exploded. There was a mighty
bang, and several hundreds of Frenchmen were literally torn to
pieces and blown up into the air. It all happened in a moment.
Parts of human bodies spread over a large stretch of ground, and
the arms, legs, and rags of uniforms hanging in the trees, were
the only signs of a well planned mass murder. In view of that
catastrophe all we had experienced before seemed to us to be child's
play. That &quot;heroic deed&quot; was celebrated by a lusty hurrah.

<br><br>For some days one had gained a little advantage, only to lose
it again soon. In order to make advances the most diverse methods
were used, as was said before. The mining section would cut a
subterranean passage up to the enemy's position. The passage would
branch out to the right and left a yard or so before the position
of our opponent, and run parallel with it. The work takes of course
weeks to accomplish, for the whole of the loosened soil must be
taken to the rear on small mining wagons. Naturally, the soil
taken out must not be heaped in one place, for if that were done
the enemy would get wind of our intentions and would spoil everything
by countermining. As soon as work is advanced far enough the whole
passage running parallel with the enemy's trench is provided with
explosives and dammed up. When the mine is exploded the whole
of the enemy's trench is covered by the soil that is thrown up,
burying many soldiers alive. Usually such an explosion is followed
by an assault. The sapping section, on the other hand, have to
dig open trenches running towards the enemy's position. These
are connected by transversal trenches, the purpose being to get
one's own position always closer to the enemy's. As soon as one's
position has approached near enough to make it possible to throw
hand grenades into the enemy's position the hand grenade sections
have to take up their places and bombard the enemy's trenches
continually with hand grenades, day and night.

<br><br>Some few hundred yards to the rear are the heavy modern mine
throwers firing a projectile weighing 140 pounds. Those projectiles,
which look like sugar loaves, fly cumbrously over to the enemy
where they do great damage. The trade of war must not stop at
night; so the darkness is made bright by means of illuminating
rockets. The illuminating cartridge is fired from a pistol, and
for a second all is bright as day. As all that kind of work was
done by sappers the French hated the sappers especially, and French
prisoners often told us that German prisoners with white buttons
and black ribbons on their caps (sappers) would be treated without
any mercy. Warned by the statements of those prisoners nearly
all provided themselves with infantry uniforms. We knew that we
had gradually become some specialty in the trenches.

<br><br>If the infantry were molested somewhere by the enemy's hand
grenades they used to come running up to us and begged us to go
and meet the attack. Each of us received a cigar to light the
hand grenades, and then we were off. Ten or twenty of us rained
hand grenades on the enemy's trench for hours until one's arm
got too stiff with throwing.

<br><br>Thus the slaughter continued, day after day, night after night.
We had 48 hours in the trenches and 12 hours' sleep. It was found
impossible to divide the time differently, for we were too few.
The whole of the forest had been shot and torn to tatters. The
artillery was everywhere and kept the villages behind the enemy's
position under fire. Once one of the many batteries which we always
passed on our way from camp to the front was just firing when
we came by. I interrogated one of the sighting gunners what their
target might be. &quot;Some village or other,&quot; the gunner
replied. The representative of the leader of the battery, a lieutenant-colonel,
was present. One of my mates inquired whether women and children
might not be in the villages.

<br><br>&quot;That's neither here nor there,&quot; said the lieutenant-colonel,
&quot;the women and children are French, too, so what's the harm
done? Even their litter must be annihilated so as to knock out
of that nation for a hundred years any idea of war.&quot;

<br><br>If that &quot;gentleman&quot; thought to win applause he was
mistaken. We went our way, leaving him to his &quot;enjoyment.&quot;

<br><br>On that day an assault on the enemy's position had been ordered,
and we had to be in our places at seven o'clock in the morning.
The 67th regiment was to attack punctually at half past eight,
the sappers taking the lead. The latter had been provided with
hand grenades for that purpose. We were only some twenty yards
away from the enemy. Those attacks, which were repeated every
week, were prepared by artillery fire half an hour before the
assault began. The artillery had to calculate their fire very
carefully, because the distance between the trench and that of
the enemy was very small. That distance varied from three to a
hundred yards, it was nowhere more than that. At our place it
was twenty yards. Punctually at eight o'clock the artillery began
to thunder forth. The first three shots struck our own trench,
but those following squarely hit the mark, i.e., the French trench.
The artillery had got the exact range and then the volleys of
whole batteries began to scream above our heads. Every time the
enemy's trench or the roads leading to it were hit with wonderful
accuracy. One could hear the wounded cry, a sign that many a one
had already been crippled. An artillery officer made observations
in the first trench and directed the fire by telephone.

<br><br>The artillery became silent exactly at half past eight, and
we passed to the assault. But the 11th company of regiment No.
67, of which I spoke before, found itself in a such a violent
machine-gun fire that eighteen men had been killed a few paces
from our trench. The dead and wounded had got entangled in the
wild jumble of the trees and branches encumbering the ground.
Whoever could run tried to reach the enemy's trench as quickly
as possible. Some of the enemy defended themselves desperately
in their trench, which was filled with mud and water, and violent
hand to hand fighting ensued. We stood in the water up to our
knees, killing the rest of our opponents. Seriously wounded men
were lying flat in the mud with only their mouths and noses showing
above the water. But what did we care! They were stamped deeper
in the mud, for we could not see where we were stepping; and so
we rolled up the whole trench. Thereupon the conquered position
was fortified as well as it could be done in all haste. Again
we had won a few yards of the Argonnes at the price of many lives.
That trench had changed its owners innumerable times before, a
matter of course in the Argonnes, and we awaited the usual counter
attack.

<br><br>Presently the &quot;mules&quot; began to get active. &quot;Mules&quot;
are the guns of the French mountain artillery. As those guns are
drawn by mules, the soldier in the Argonnes calls them &quot;mules&quot;
for short. They are very light guns with a flat trajectory, and
are fired from a distance of only 50-100 yards behind the French
front. The shells of those guns whistled above our heads. Cutting
their way through the branches they fly along with lightning rapidity
to explode in or above some trench. In consequence of the rapid
flight and the short distance the noise of the firing and the
explosion almost unite in a single bang. Those &quot;mules&quot;
are much feared by the German soldiers, because those guns are
active day and night. Thus day by day we lived through the same
misery.
<hr>

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