16 - The Beginning of Trench Warfare. A German Deserter's War Experience by Anonymous.

16 - The Beginning of Trench Warfare. A German Deserter's War Experience by Anonymous.  
The author of this 1917 narrative, who escaped from Germany and military service after 14 months of fighting in France, did not wish to have his name made public, fearing reprisals against his relatives. The vivid description of the life of a common German soldier during “The Great War” aroused much interest when it was published in the United States in serial form. Here was a warrior against his will, a hater of militarism for whom there was no romance in war, but only butchery and brutality, grime and vermin, inhuman toil and degradation. His story also contains the first German description of the retreat of the Teutonic armies after the battle of the Marne.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter sixteen of a German Deserter's War Experience by anonymous
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter sixteen,
the beginning of trench warfare. On the next morning, at daybreak,
we quitted the trench again in order to rest for
two days. We went across the fields and took up
quarters at chernay End's Mois. We lodged in one of

(00:24):
the abandoned houses in the center of the village. Our
field kitchen had not yet arrived, so we were obliged
to find our own food. Members of the feathered tribe
were no longer to be discovered, but if by any
chance a chicken showed its head, it was immediately chased
by a score of men. No meat being found, we
resolved to be vegetarians for the time being and roamed

(00:47):
through the gardens in search of potatoes and vegetables. On
that expedition we discovered an officer's horse tied to a fence.
We knew by experience that the saddle bags of officers
horses always concealed something that could be eaten. We were
hungry enough and quickly resolved to lead the horse away.
We searched him thoroughly under cover, and found in the

(01:09):
saddle bags quite a larder of fine foodstuffs, butter and
lard among them. Then we turned the horse loose and
used the captured treasure to prepare a meal the like
of which we had not tasted for a long time.
It tasted fine, in spite of our guilty conscience. One
man made the fire, another peeled the potatoes, et cetera.

(01:30):
Pots and a stove we found in one of the
kitchens of the houses in the neighborhood. Towards evening, long
trains with provisions and endless rows of fresh troops arrived
in long columns. They marched to the front and relieved
the exhausted men. Soon the whole place was crowded with soldiers.
After a two days rest, we had to take up

(01:50):
again the regular night duties of the sapper. Every night
we had to visit the position to construct wire entanglements.
The noise caused by the ramming in of the posts
mostly drew the attention of the French upon us, and
thus we suffered losses almost every night. But our arrest
during the daytime was soon to be put an end

(02:11):
to for the enemy's artillery began to shell the place regularly.
Curiously enough, the shelling took place always at definite hours. Thus,
at the beginning every noon, from twelve to two o'clock,
from fifty to eighty shells used to fall in the place.
At times the missiles were shrapnel from the field artillery.

(02:32):
One got accustomed to it, though soldiers of other arms
were killed or wounded daily. Once we were lying at
noon in our lodgings when a shrapnel shell exploded in
our room, happily without doing any damage. The whole room
was filled with dust and smoke, but not one trouble
to leave his place. That sort of shooting was repeated

(02:52):
almost daily, with increasing violence. The remaining inhabitants of the village,
mostly old people, were all lodged in a barn for
fear of espionage. There they were guarded by soldiers. As
the village was being bombarded, always at certain hours. The
officer in command of the place believed that somebody in
the village communicated with the enemy with a hidden telephone.

(03:15):
They even went so far as to remove the hands
of the church clock, because somebody had seen quite distinctly
that the hands of the clock, which was not going
had moved and were pointing to six, and immediately afterwards
to five. Of course, the spy that had signaled to
the enemy by means of the church clock could be
discovered as little as the man with the concealed telephone,

(03:38):
but in order to be quite sure to catch the
real culprit, all the civilians were interned in the barn.
Those civilian prisoners were provided with food and drink like
the soldiers, but like the soldiers, they were also exposed
to the daily bombardment, which gradually devastated the whole village.
Two women and a child had already been killed in consequence,

(04:00):
and yet the people were not removed. Almost daily a
house burned down at some spot or other in the village,
and the shells now began falling at eight o'clock in
the evening. The shells were of a large size. We
knew exactly that the first shell arrived punctually at eight o'clock,
and we left the place. Every night the whole village

(04:20):
became empty, and exactly at eight o'clock the first shell
came buzzing heavily over to our side. At short intervals
fourteen or sixteen at the most, but never more followed it.
Those sixteen we nicknamed the Iron Portion. Our opinion was
that the gun was sent forward by the French when
it became dark, that it fired a few shots and

(04:42):
was then taken to the rear again. When we returned
from our walk, as we called that nightly excursion, we
had to go to our positions. There we had to
perform all imaginable kinds of work. One evening, we had
to fortify a small farm we had taken from the
French the day before. We were to construct machine gun
and placements. The moon was shining fairly brightly. In an

(05:06):
adjoining garden. There were some fruit trees and apple tree among them,
with some apples still attached to it. A frenchman had
hanged himself on that tree. Though the body must have
hung for some days, for it smelt considerably. Some of
our sappers were eager to get the apples. The soldiers
took the apples without troubling in the least about the
dead man. Near that farm we used mine throwers for

(05:29):
the first time. The instruments we used there were of
a very primitive kind. They consisted of a pipe made
of strong steel plate and resting on an iron stand.
An unexploded shell or shrapnel was filled with dynamite, provided
with a fuse and cap, and placed in the tube
of the mine thrower. Behind it was placed a driving

(05:51):
charge of black powder of a size corresponding with the
distance of the target and the weight of the projectile.
The driving charge, too, was provided with a few use
that was of such a length that the explosion was
only produced after the man lighting the fuse had had
time to return to a place of safety. The fuze
of the mine was lit at the same time as

(06:11):
the former, but was of a length commensurate with the
time of flight of the mine, so as to explode
the latter when the mine struck the target, or after
a calculated period should the mark be missed. The driving
charge must be of such strength that it throws the
projectile no farther than is intended. The mine thrower is
not fired horizontally, but at a steep angle. The tube

(06:34):
from which the mine is fired is, for instance, placed
at an angle of forty five degrees and receives a
charge of fifteen grams of black powder. When the distance
is four hundred yards. It happens that the driving charge
does not explode and the projectile remains in the tube,
The fuze of the mine continues burning, and the mine
explodes in the tube and demolishes the stand and everything

(06:56):
in its neighborhood. When we used those mine throwers here
for the first time, an accident of the kind described happened.
Two volunteers and a sapper, who were in charge of
the mine thrower in question, thought the explosion took too
long a time. They believed it was a miss. When
they had approached to the distance of some five paces,

(07:17):
the mine exploded and all three of them were wounded
very severely. We had too little experience in the management
of mine throwers. They had been forgotten, had long ago
been thrown on the junk keep, giving way to more
modern technical appliances of war. Thus, when they suddenly cropped
up again during the War of Position, we had to
learn their management from the beginning. The officers, who understood

(07:40):
those implements, still less than we ourselves did, could not
give us any hints. So it was no wonder that
accidents like the foregoing happened frequently. Those mine throwers cannot
be employed for long distances. At six hundred yards they
reached the utmost limit of their effectiveness. Besides handling the
mine throw we had to furnish secret patrols every night.

(08:03):
The chief purpose of those excursions was the destruction of
the enemy's defenses, or to harry the enemy's sentries so
as to deprive them of sleep. We carried hand grenades
for attack and defense. When starting on such an excursion,
we were always instructed to find out, especially the number
of the army section that an opponent we might kill

(08:24):
belonged to. The French generally have their regimental number on
the collars of their coat or on their cap, So
whenever we spiflicated one and succeeded in getting near him,
we would cut that number out of his coat with
a knife or take away his coat or cap. In
that way, the German army command identified the opposing army corps.

(08:45):
They thus got to know exactly the force our opponent
was employing and whether his best troops were in front
of us. All of us greatly feared those night patrols,
for the hundreds of men killed months ago were still
lying between the lines. Those corpses were decomposed to a pulp.
So when a man went on nocturnal patrol duty, and

(09:05):
when he had to crawl in the utter darkness on
hands and knees over all those bodies he would now
and then land in the decomposed faces of the dead.
If then a man happened to have a tiny wound
in his hands, his life was greatly endangered by the
septic virus. As a matter of fact, three sappers and
two infantrymen of the l'anvaire Regiment number seventeen died in

(09:28):
consequence of poisoning by septic virus. Later on, that kind
of patrolling was given up or only resorted to in
urgent cases, and only such men were employed who were
free of wounds. That led to nearly all of us
inflicting skin wounds to ourselves to escape patrol duty. Our
camping place, Cherney en des Mois, was still being bombarded

(09:50):
violently by the enemy every day. The firing became so
heavy at last that we could no longer sleep during
the day. The large shells penetrated the houses and reached
the cellars. The civilian prisoners were sent away after some
had been killed by shells. We ourselves, however, remained in
the place, very much against our inclination. In spite of

(10:11):
the continuous bombardment. Part of our company lived in a
large farmhouse where recently arrived reserves were also lodged. One day,
at noon, the village was suddenly overwhelmed by a hail
of shells of a large size. Five of them struck
the farmhouse mentioned almost at the same time all the
men were resting in the spacious rooms. The whole building

(10:33):
was demolished, and our loss consisted of seventeen dead and
twenty eight wounded men. The field kitchen in the yard
was also completely destroyed. Without waiting for orders, we all
cleared out of the village and collected again outside, But
the captain ordered us to return to the place, because,
so he said, he had not yet received orders from

(10:54):
the divisional commander to evacuate the village. Thereupon we went
back to our old quarters and embarked again on a
miserable existence. After living in the trenches during the night
in continual danger of life, we arrived in the morning
after those hours of trial, with shattered nerves. At our lodgings,
we could not hope to get any rest and sleep,

(11:16):
for the shells kept falling everywhere in the village. In time, however,
one becomes accustomed to everything. When a shell came shrieking along,
we knew exactly whereabout it would strike. By the sound
it made. We knew whether it was of large or
small size, and whether the shell, having come down, would
burst or not. Similarly, the soldiers formed a reliable judgment

(11:39):
in regard to the nationality of an aeroplane. When an
aeroplane was seen at a great distance near the horizon,
the soldiers could mostly say exactly whether it was a
German or a French flying machine. It is hard to
say by what we recognized the machines. One seems to
feel whether it is a friend or a foe that
is coming. Of course, a soldier also remembers the characteristic

(12:01):
noise of the motor and the construction of the aeroplane.
When a French flyer passed over our camp, the streets
would quickly empty themselves. The reason was not that we
were afraid of the flying man. We disappeared because we
knew that a bombardment would follow after he had landed
and reported. We left the streets so as to convey
the impression that the place was denuded of troops. But

(12:24):
the trick was not of much use. Every day, houses
were set alight, and the church, which had been furnished
as a hospital, was also struck. Several times. Up to
that time, it had been comparatively quiet at the front.
We had protected our position with wide wire entanglements. Quite
a maze of trenches, a thing that defies description had

(12:45):
been constructed. One must have seen it in order to
comprehend what immense masses of soil had been dug up.
Our principal position consisted of from six to eight trenches,
one behind the other, and each provided with strong paras
and barbed wire entanglements. Each trench had been separately fortified.
The distance between the various trenches was sometimes twenty yards,

(13:09):
sometimes one hundred or more, all according to the requirements
of the terrain. All those positions were joined by lines
of approach. Those connecting roads are not wide, are only
used by the relieving troops and for transporting purposes, and
are constructed in a way that prevents the enemy from
enfilating them. They run in a zigzag course. To the

(13:31):
rear of the communication trenches are the shelters of the
resting troops. The reserves. Two companies of infantry, for instance,
will have to defend in the first trench a section
of the front measuring some two hundred yards. One company
is always on duty while the other is resting in
the rear. However, the company at rest must ever be

(13:51):
ready for the firing line, and is likely to be
alarmed at any minute for service at a moment's notice
should the enemy attack. The company is in telephonic communication
with the one doing trench duty. Wherever the country, as
on swampy ground, does not permit the construction of several
trenches and the housing of the reserves, the latter are

(14:12):
stationed far in the rear, often in the nearest village.
In such places, relieving operations, though carried out only at night,
are very difficult and almost always accompanied by casualties. Relief
is not brought up at fixed hours, for the enemy
must be deceived, but the enemy will be informed of
local conditions by his flyers, patrols, or the statements of prisoners,

(14:35):
and will keep the country under a continual heavy curtain fire,
so that the relieving troops coming up across the open
field almost always suffer losses. Food and ammunition are also
forwarded at night. The following incident will illustrate the difficulty
even one man by himself experiences in approaching such positions. Myself,

(14:57):
a sergeant, and three others had been ordered on secret
betray duty. One night, towards ten o'clock, we came upon
the line of the curtain fire. We were lying flat
on the ground waiting for a favorable opportunity to cross. However,
one shell after the other exploded in front of us,
and it would have been madness to attempt to pass
at that point. Next to me lay a sapper of

(15:18):
my own annual military class. Nothing could be seen of
the sergeant and the two other privates. On a slight
elevation in front of us, we saw in the moonlight
the shadowy forms of some persons who were lying flat
on the ground like ourselves. We thought it impossible to
pass here. My mate, pointing to the shapes before us,
said there's Sergeant Merton's and the others. I think I'll

(15:41):
go up to them and tell him that we had
better wait awhile until it gets more quiet. Yes, do so,
I replied. He crawled to the place on his hands
and knees, and I observed him lying near the others.
He returned immediately. The shapes turned out to be four
dead frenchmen of the colonial army who had been Therefore,
he had only seen who they were when he received

(16:03):
no answer to his report. The dead thus lay scattered
over the whole country. Nothing could be seen of the
sergeant and the other men, so we seized a favorable
opportunity to slip through. Surrounded by exploding shells, we could
find out nothing about our companions. Our search in the
trench was likewise unsuccessful. Nobody could give us the slightest information,

(16:26):
though sappers were well known among the infantry, because we
had to work at all the points of the front.
An hour later the relieving infantry arrived. They had lost
five men in breaking through the barrier fire. Our sergeant
was among the wounded they brought in. Not a trace
was ever found of the two other soldiers. Nobody knew
what had become of them. Under such and similar conditions,

(16:50):
we spent every night outside. We also suffered losses in
our camp almost every day. Though reserves from our garrison
town had arrived twice already, our company had a fighting
strength of only seventy five men. But at last we
cleared out of the village and were stationed at the
village of Boucouville, about a mile and a half to

(17:10):
the northeast of Chernay Entombois. Cherney en Do'smois was gradually
sheld to pieces, and when at night we had to
go to the trench, we described a wide circle around
that formerly flourishing village. At Boucouville we received the first
letters from home by the field post. They had been
on their journey for a long long time and arrived

(17:32):
irregularly and in cheves, but many were returned marked ADDRESSY killed,
ADDRESSY missing wounded. However, many had to be marked ADDRESSY
no longer with the army detachment. They could not quite
make out the disappearance of many addresses, but many of
us had just suspicions about them, and we wished good

(17:53):
luck to those missing men in crossing some neutral frontier.
The letters we received were we did the first days
of August, had wandered everywhere for the stamps of various
field post offices, and in contrast with the ones we
received later on, were still full of enthusiasm. Mothers were
not yet begging their sons not to risk their lives

(18:15):
in order to gain the iron cross that imploring prayer
should arrive later on again and again. It was also
at that place that we received the first of those
small field post parcels containing cigars and chocolate. After staying
some ten weeks in that part of the country, we
were directed to another part of the front. Nobody knew, however,

(18:36):
whither we were going to be sent. It was all
the same to us. The chance of getting out of
the firing line for a few days had such a
charm for us that our destination did not concern us
in the least. It gave us a wonderful feeling of relief.
When we left the firing zone on our march to
the railroad station at Chlerent, for the first time in

(18:57):
a long period, we found ourselves in a state of
existence where our lives were not immediately endangered. Even the
most far reaching guns could no longer harm us. A
man must have lived through such moments in order to
appreciate justly the importance of such a feeling. However much
one has got accustomed to being in constant danger of
one's life, that danger never ceases to oppress one, to

(19:20):
weigh one down. At the station, we got into a
train made up of second and third class coaches. The
train moved slowly through the beautiful autumnal landscape, and for
the first time we got an insight into the life
behind the front. All the depots, the railroad crossings and
bridges were held by the military. There. All the men

(19:42):
of the longstroom were apparently leading quite an easy life
and had made themselves comfortable in the depots and shanties
of the road men. They all looked well nourished and
were well clad. Whenever the train stopped, those older men
treated us liberally to coffee, bread and fruit. They could
see by our looks that we had not had the
same good time that they were having. They asked us

(20:05):
whence we came behind the front. Things were very lively everywhere.
At all the larger places we could see long railway
trains laden with agricultural machinery of every description. The crew
of our train were men of the prusso Hessian State Railroads.
They had come through those parts many times before, and
told us that the agricultural machines were being removed from

(20:28):
the whole of the occupied territory and sent to East
Prussia in order to replace what the Russians had destroyed there.
The same was being done with all industrial machinery that
could be spared. Again and again, one could observe the
finest machines on their way to Germany. Toward midnight we
passed Sudon. There we were fed by the Red Cross.

(20:50):
The Red Cross had erected feeding stations for passing troops
in long wooden sheds. Early next morning we found ourselves
at Mont medi We had to leave the train and
were allowed to visit the town for a few hours.
End of Chapter sixteen.