View source for XXII SENT ON FURLOUGH

<p align="right"> [[Main_Page | WWI Document Archive ]] > [[Diaries, Memorials, Personal Reminiscences]] > [[A German Deserter's War Experience]] > '''XXII SENT ON FURLOUGH''' </p><hr>


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

<FONT SIZE="+2">SENT ON FURLOUGH</FONT><br><br></center>

<br><br>FOR four days and nights, without food and sleep, we had been
raging like barbarians, and had spent all our strength. We were
soon relieved. To our astonishment we were relieved by cavalry.
They were Saxon chasseurs on horseback who were to do duty as
infantrymen. It had been found impossible to make good the enormous
losses of the preceding days by sending up men of the depot. So
they had called upon the cavalry who, by the way, were frequently
employed during that time. The soldiers who had been in a life
and death struggle for four days were demoralized to such an extent
that they had no longer any fighting value. We were relieved very
quietly, and could then return to our camp. We did not hear before
the next day that during the period described our company had
suffered a total loss of 49 men. The fate of most of them was
unknown; one did not know whether they were dead or prisoners
or whether they lay wounded in some ambulance station.

<br><br>The village of Varennes was continually bombarded by French
guns of large size. Several French families were still living
in a part of the village that had not been so badly damaged. Every
day several of the enemy's 28-cm. shells came down in that quarter.
Though many inhabitants had been wounded by the shells the people
could not be induced to leave their houses.

<br><br>Our quarters were situated near a very steep slope and were
thus protected against artillery fire. They consisted of wooden
shanties built by ourselves. We had brought up furniture from
everywhere and had made ourselves at home; for Varennes was, after
all, nearly two miles behind the front. But all the shanties were
not occupied, for the number of our men diminished from day to
day. At last the longed-for men from the depot arrived. Many new
sapper formations had to be got together for all parts of the
front, and it was therefore impossible to supply the existing
sapper detachments with their regular reserves. Joyfully we greeted
the new arrivals. They were, as was always the case, men of very
different ages; a young boyish volunteer of 17 years would march
next to an old man of the landsturm who had likewise volunteered.
All of them, without any exception, have bitterly repented of
their &quot;free choice&quot; and made no secret of it. &quot;It's
a shame,&quot; a comrade told me, &quot;that those seventeen-year-old
children should be led to the slaughter, and that their young
life is being poisoned, as it needs must be in these surroundings;
scarcely out of boyhood, they are being shot down like mad dogs.&quot;

<br><br>It took but a few days for the volunteers ---all of them without
an exception---to repent bitterly of their resolve, and every
soldier who had been in the war for any length of time would reproach
them when they gave expression to their great disappointment.
&quot;But you have come voluntarily,&quot; they were told; &quot;we
had to go, else we should have been off long ago.&quot; . Yet
we knew that all those young people had been under some influence
and had been given a wrong picture of the war.

<br><br>Those soldiers who had been in the war from the start who had
not been wounded, but had gone through all the fighting, were
gradually all sent home on furlough for ten days. Though our company
contained but 14 unwounded soldiers it was very hard to obtain
the furlough. We had lost several times the number of men on our
muster-roll, but all our officers were still in good physical
condition.

<br><br>It was not until September that I managed to obtain furlough
at the request of my relations, and I left for home with a resolve
that at times seemed to me impossible to execute. All went well
until I got to Diedenhofen.

<br><br>As far as that station the railroads are operated by the army
authorities. At Diedenhofen they are taken over by the Imperial
Railroads of Alsace-Lorraine and the Prusso-Hessian State Railroads.
So I had to change, and got on a train that went to Saarbruecken.
I had scarcely taken a seat in a compartment in my dirty and ragged
uniform when a conductor came along to inspect the tickets. Of
course, I had no ticket; I had only a furlough certificate and
a pass which had been handed to me at the field railroad depot
of Chatel. The conductor looked at the papers and asked me again
for my ticket. I drew his attention to my pass. &quot;That is
only good for the territory of the war operations,&quot; he said;
&quot;you are now traveling on a state railroad and have to buy
a ticket.&quot;

<br><br>I told him that I should not buy a ticket, and asked him to
inform the station manager. &quot;You,&quot; I told him, &quot;only
act according to instructions. I am not angry with you for asking
of me what I shall do under no circumstances.&quot; He went off
and came back with the manager. The latter also inspected my papers
and told me I had to pay for the journey. &quot;I have no means
for that purpose,&quot; I told him. For these last three years
I have been in these clothes (I pointed to my uniform), &quot;and
for three years I have therefore been without any income. Whence
am I to get the money to pay for this journey?&quot; &quot;If
you have no money for traveling you can't take furlough.&quot;
I thought to myself that if they took me deep into France they
were in conscience bound to take me back to where they had fetched
me. Was I to be a soldier for three years and fight for the Fatherland
for more than a year only to find that now they refused the free
use of their railroads to a ragged soldier? I explained that I
was not going to pay, that I could not save the fare from the
few pfennigs' pay. I refused explicitly to pay a soldier's journey
with my private money, even if---as was the case here---that soldier
was myself. Finally I told him, &quot;I must request you to inform
the military railroad commander; the depot command attends to
soldiers, not you.&quot; He sent me a furious look through his
horn spectacles and disappeared. Two civilians were sitting in
the same compartment with me; they thought it an unheard-of thing
that a soldier coming from the front should be asked for his fare.
Presently the depot commander came up with a sergeant. He demanded
to see my furlough certificate, pay books, and all my other papers.

<br><br>&quot;Have you any money?&quot;

<br><br>&quot;No.&quot;

<br><br>&quot;Where do you come from?&quot;

<br><br>&quot;From Chatel in the Argonnes.&quot;

<br><br>&quot;How long were you at the front?

<br><br>&quot;In the fourteenth month.&quot;

<br><br>&quot;Been wounded?

<br><br>&quot;No.&quot;

<br><br>&quot;Have you no money at all? &quot;

<br><br>&quot;No; you don't want money at the front.&quot;

<br><br>&quot;The fare must be paid. If you can't, the company must
pay. Please sign this paper.&quot;

<br><br>I signed it without looking at it. It was all one to me what
I signed, as long as they left me alone. Then the sergeant came
back.

<br><br>&quot;You can not travel in that compartment; you must also
not converse with travelers. You have to take the first carriage
marked 'Only for the military.' Get into that.&quot;

<br><br>&quot;I see,&quot; I observed; &quot;in the dogs' compartment.&quot;

<br><br>He turned round again and said, &quot; Cut out those remarks.&quot;

<br><br>The train started, and I arrived safely home. After the first
hours of meeting all at home again had passed I found myself provided
with faultless underwear and had taken the urgently needed bath.
Once more I could put on the civilian dress I had missed for so
long a time. All of it appeared strange to me. I began to think.
Under no conditions was I going to return to the front. But I
did not know how I should succeed in getting across the frontier.
I could choose between two countries only ---Switzerland and Holland.
It was no use going to Switzerland, for that country was surrounded
by belligerent states, and it needed only a little spark to bring
Switzerland into the war, and then there would be no loophole
for me. There was only the nearest country left for me to choose---Holland.
But how was I to get there? There was the rub. I concocted a thousand
plans and discarded them again. Nobody, not even my relatives,
must know about it.
<hr>

<p align="right"> [[Main_Page | WWI Document Archive ]] > [[Diaries, Memorials, Personal Reminiscences]] > [[A German Deserter's War Experience]] > '''XXII SENT ON FURLOUGH''' </p><hr>