August 14, 2025 • 12 mins
18 - Fighting in the Argonnes. 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.
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.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter eighteen of a German Deserter's War Experience by anonymous.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter eighteen,
Fighting in the Argonne. Finally, after two days we landed
at Apremont on Argonne. For the time being we were
quartered in a large farm to the northeast of Arpremont.
(00:22):
We found ourselves quite close to the Argonne. All the
soldiers whom we met and who had been there for
some time, told us of uninterrupted daily fighting in those woods.
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
(00:43):
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.
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 filed upon them. We had
(01:04):
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 number sixty seven. The soil had been completely plowed
(01:25):
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
(01:47):
reported to the captain of the tenth Company of the
sixty seventh Regiment of Infantry. Of course, the conditions obtained
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.
(02:08):
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 Bechtel from Sabrukan was killed.
He was our first casualty in the Argonne, but many
were to follow him. In the time that followed. In
the rear trenches we had established an engineering depot. There
(02:30):
twenty five men made nothing but hand grenades. Thus we
soon had made ourselves at home and were ready for
all emergencies. 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
(02:53):
throwing and illuminating pistols. Others again constructed wire entanglements cheveaux
de friese, 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
(03:17):
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. 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
(03:39):
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 five hundred yards. A yard apart,
we dug in boxes of dynamite, each weighing fifty pounds.
(04:02):
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. 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
(04:24):
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
(04:46):
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. 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.
(05:07):
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
heroic deed was celebrated by a lusty hurrah. For some
(05:29):
days one 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,
(05:52):
weeks to accomplish. For the whole of the loosened soil
must be taken to the rear on small mining wagons.
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 has advanced far enough, the whole passage
(06:13):
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
(06:34):
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
(06:56):
hand grenades day and night. Some few hundred yard guards
to the rear are the heavy modern mine throwers, firing
a projectile weighing one hundred forty 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
(07:18):
by means of illuminating rockets. The illuminating cartridge is fired
from a pistol, and for a second all as 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
(07:38):
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. 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
(08:00):
received a cigar to light the hand grenades, and then
we were off. Ten or twenty of us reigned hand
grenades on the enemy's trench for hours until one's arm
got too stiff with throwing. Thus the slaughter continued day
after day, night after night. We had forty eight hours
in the trenches and twelve hours sleep. It was found
(08:20):
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.
(08:41):
I interrogated one of the sighting gunners what their target
might be, some village or other. 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. That's neither here
nor there, said the lieuten and colonel. The women and
(09:01):
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.
If that gentleman thought to win applause, he was mistaken.
We went our way, leaving him to his enjoyment. On
that day, an assault on the enemy's position had been ordered,
(09:23):
and we had to be in our places at seven
o'clock in the morning. The sixty seventh 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
(09:44):
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 one hundred yards.
It was nowhere more than that. At our place it
was twenty yards. Punctually, at eight o'clock the artillery began
(10:05):
to thunder forth. The first three shots struck our own trench,
but those following squarely hit the mark, that is 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
(10:27):
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. The
artillery became silent exactly at half past eight, and we
passed to the assault. But the eleventh company of Regiment
number sixty seven, of which I spoke before, found itself
(10:49):
in 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, and come bring the ground.
Whoever could run try 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,
(11:11):
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
(11:34):
conquered position was fortified as well as it could be
done in all haste. Again, we had won a few
yards of the Argonne at the price of many lives.
That trench had changed its owners innumerable times before. A
matter of course, in the Argonne, and we awaited the
usual counter attack. Presently the mules began to get active.
Mules are the guns of the French mountain artillery. As
(11:57):
those guns are drawn by mules, the soldiers and they
are gone called them mules for short. They are very
light guns with a flat trajectory, and are fired from
a distance of only fifty to one hundred 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.
(12:20):
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 mules 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. End
of Chapter eighteen
Chapter eighteen of a German Deserter's War Experience by anonymous.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter eighteen,
Fighting in the Argonne. Finally, after two days we landed
at Apremont on Argonne. For the time being we were
quartered in a large farm to the northeast of Arpremont.
(00:22):
We found ourselves quite close to the Argonne. All the
soldiers whom we met and who had been there for
some time, told us of uninterrupted daily fighting in those woods.
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
(00:43):
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.
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 filed upon them. We had
(01:04):
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 number sixty seven. The soil had been completely plowed
(01:25):
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
(01:47):
reported to the captain of the tenth Company of the
sixty seventh Regiment of Infantry. Of course, the conditions obtained
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.
(02:08):
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 Bechtel from Sabrukan was killed.
He was our first casualty in the Argonne, but many
were to follow him. In the time that followed. In
the rear trenches we had established an engineering depot. There
(02:30):
twenty five men made nothing but hand grenades. Thus we
soon had made ourselves at home and were ready for
all emergencies. 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
(02:53):
throwing and illuminating pistols. Others again constructed wire entanglements cheveaux
de friese, 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
(03:17):
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. 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
(03:39):
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 five hundred yards. A yard apart,
we dug in boxes of dynamite, each weighing fifty pounds.
(04:02):
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. 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
(04:24):
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
(04:46):
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. 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.
(05:07):
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
heroic deed was celebrated by a lusty hurrah. For some
(05:29):
days one 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,
(05:52):
weeks to accomplish. For the whole of the loosened soil
must be taken to the rear on small mining wagons.
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 has advanced far enough, the whole passage
(06:13):
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
(06:34):
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
(06:56):
hand grenades day and night. Some few hundred yard guards
to the rear are the heavy modern mine throwers, firing
a projectile weighing one hundred forty 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
(07:18):
by means of illuminating rockets. The illuminating cartridge is fired
from a pistol, and for a second all as 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
(07:38):
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. 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
(08:00):
received a cigar to light the hand grenades, and then
we were off. Ten or twenty of us reigned hand
grenades on the enemy's trench for hours until one's arm
got too stiff with throwing. Thus the slaughter continued day
after day, night after night. We had forty eight hours
in the trenches and twelve hours sleep. It was found
(08:20):
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.
(08:41):
I interrogated one of the sighting gunners what their target
might be, some village or other. 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. That's neither here
nor there, said the lieuten and colonel. The women and
(09:01):
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.
If that gentleman thought to win applause, he was mistaken.
We went our way, leaving him to his enjoyment. On
that day, an assault on the enemy's position had been ordered,
(09:23):
and we had to be in our places at seven
o'clock in the morning. The sixty seventh 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
(09:44):
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 one hundred yards.
It was nowhere more than that. At our place it
was twenty yards. Punctually, at eight o'clock the artillery began
(10:05):
to thunder forth. The first three shots struck our own trench,
but those following squarely hit the mark, that is 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
(10:27):
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. The
artillery became silent exactly at half past eight, and we
passed to the assault. But the eleventh company of Regiment
number sixty seven, of which I spoke before, found itself
(10:49):
in 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, and come bring the ground.
Whoever could run try 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,
(11:11):
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
(11:34):
conquered position was fortified as well as it could be
done in all haste. Again, we had won a few
yards of the Argonne at the price of many lives.
That trench had changed its owners innumerable times before. A
matter of course, in the Argonne, and we awaited the
usual counter attack. Presently the mules began to get active.
Mules are the guns of the French mountain artillery. As
(11:57):
those guns are drawn by mules, the soldiers and they
are gone called them mules for short. They are very
light guns with a flat trajectory, and are fired from
a distance of only fifty to one hundred 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.
(12:20):
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 mules 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. End
of Chapter eighteen
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