WHAT THE KAISER'S SON SAW ON THE BATTLEFIELD
Personal Experiences of a German Prince
Told by Prince Oscar of Prussia, Fifth Son of Emperor William
His Royal Highness Prince Oscar of Prussia, fifth of Kaiser Wilhelm's six sons, has written a little book called "The Winter Battle," a translation of which is printed herewith. In this he describes the terrific fighting of the Third German Army, which formed an important part of the battle front in Champagne and had to meet a particularly desperate attack by the French. The Prince was an officer on the staff of the commanding General. As a result of his experiences he was laid up with an attack of heart failure. It is interesting to note that "Hill 196," which is one of the places particularly mentioned in the Prince's narrative as being defended by the Germans last Winter, was captured by the French on October 25, 1915, and became once more the centre of prolonged fighting. The Prince is twenty-seven years old, and was married morganatically on the day war was declared to Countess Ina von Bassewitz Levetzow, a young noblewoman not of royal birth. The proceeds of the sale of his book are given to the widows and orphans of German soldiers who fell in the Champagne. Translation for the New York American.
I—PRINCE OSCAR TELLS ABOUT BATTLE OF CHAMPAGNE
The great Winter battle in the Champagne in 1915 resulted in a brilliant victory, which I witnessed with my own eyes.
The past has already begun busily to weave her heavy veil, and side by side with the past walks her sister—oblivion! But we—we must not, we dare not forget. Not only because the war in the Champagne was the greatest and longest defensive battle in the history of the world and resulted in a magnificent victory for ourselves; not only out of gratitude for our heroic leaders and soldiers who accomplished the superhuman, endured the unspeakable, and yet, undaunted, fought on to victory; there is another deeper, more salient reason why we must not forget. I refer to our hero dead, who, with incomparable self-abnegation, gave their lives for king and country, for Emperor and empire, for home and nation.
As a child which one of us has not stood at the grave of some unknown hero of forgotten days, thrilling with rapturous, fearsome awe? On the heights north of le Mesnil in the Champagne there is now a grave of this sort which should be dear to every German heart, but it is not the grave of an unknown hero of bygone days. Many brave men of our own glorious army, much noble blood of our beloved German nation have found their last resting place there on French soil. Our own brothers, sons and husbands are interred there. Many thousands of heroes, who have entered the last long silence, slumbering there under the very sod which they themselves, dauntless, fearless, reckless of danger, defended to the last breath, cry to us from beyond the grave, "Do not forget the cause for which we died, for which we gladly and willingly gave our lives."
We, the living, who know what these dead heroes accomplished and how they furthered our cause, lower the sword in memory of them, and, in spirit, lay a laurel wreath upon that hill, vowing that we will go and do likewise.
In order to comprehend thoroughly the significance of the war in the Champagne and to appreciate the magnitude of the achievements of our troops we must briefly summarize the circumstances which made the campaign imperative, the end which it was intended the titanic struggle should compass, and the conditions which made this victory such an important one to us. A few sentences will suffice to make all this clear. It was necessary to crush the first large aggressive movement on the part of the French, who, by hurling their finest army corps and an enormous artillery force against us in the Champagne, tried for weeks and months, at whatever cost, to force a wedge into our lines in order to break one link in the steel chain with which the German army had encircled their land.
If, as intended, they had succeeded in breaking through our lines with a strong contingent, it can readily be seen how disastrous this would have been for us. As regards consequences, our success in the Champagne was at least of as great importance as the victories of Tannenberg, the Masurian Lakes, near Augustow and on the San; but when we take into consideration the demands which were made upon individual endurance and courage in the face of the most harrowing conditions imaginable, it is doubtful whether the work done in the Champagne by our troops has ever been equalled.
II—THE PRINCE PRAISES HIS TROOPS
In order thoroughly to appreciate the heroic steadfastness and the patient endurance shown by our troops, which transcended all praise, and to appraise properly the difficulties which beset leaders and men alike during the long, bitter weeks of the battle, we must remember certain facts.
When the French offensive was begun on a large scale on February 16, our troops had already seen months of the hardest sort of service in repulsing the French First and Seventeenth Army Corps, with only a few very short intervals of rest—our Eighth Army Corps having been engaged in this region since December 8, and the Eighth Reserve Corps since December 19, 1914.
Our regiments, therefore, were far from unfatigued at a moment when they were called upon to enter the severest phase of a struggle into which our foes hurled the flower of their troops. Moreover, the French had at their command an almost inexhaustible supply of ammunition, and were able, therefore, in a steadily ascending scale, gradually to reach the full amplitude of their fighting capacity in their efforts to break through our lines. If we fully visualize this fact then we must realize that an almost incredible glory accrues to the work done by our troops. Only an iron will, a discipline which had become second nature and utter forgetfulness of self could lead to victory in the face of such odds. That these qualities did ultimately assure us the victory will redound to the undying glory of all the troops which did active service in this great engagement.
The prodigious masses of iron and humanity which our foes hurled against us day and night, their marvellous ingenuity in making attacks, their doggedness in defense, all this was admirably calculated to crush larger numbers than those of our Third Army. It was a struggle between iron and steel. It is true that a heavy mass of iron can through sheer weight bend and indent a narrow band of steel, but it cannot break the steel. Thus, through continually renewing their attacks and by training upon us an artillery fire the violence of which beggars all description, the French succeeded in bending back our lines here and there. Sometimes at one part, sometimes at another they took several hundred mètres of intrenchments; but they paid a horrible, a ghastly price in blood for these minor and valueless successes, which profited them nothing save that they taught them the bitter lesson that German will power and German discipline can be broken by nothing. The French had scornfully proclaimed that they had broken the backbone of our resistance, but we broke their attack and imposed upon them our own. In the end the French attempt to break through our lines was utterly foiled, and the Third Army was victorious.
During this time the French attacks were directed principally against the left, i. e., the eastern half of the Third Army, so that the Eighth Army Corps and the Eighth Reserve Corps bore the brunt of the attacks, most of which took place along the line between the position of Perthes and Beausejour.
This is a rolling, open country, in which narrow fields alternate with small patches of woodland, covered with pine trees. The country is not dissimilar in character to the country near Jueterberg and Doeberitz, in Germany, and instead of soil or sand the surface of the earth is covered with white chalk. It is a desolate, barren country. The French themselves call it the "louse Champagne" country, and never was a name more aptly given. It boasted of only a few settlements, and these have now been destroyed by the artillery fire.
During the entire time that the battle lasted the weather was vile. For weeks it rained day and night, so that the chalky soil was transformed into a grayish, soapy, slimy mire. In consequence the by-roads became almost impassable for vehicles and the main roads, connecting our trenches and camps, owing to the continuous use to which they were put by marching troops and rolling provision wagons, were soon in a condition which was almost as bad. The work of our munition and commissary columns, upon which this battle, which lasted for months, entailed particularly difficult service, was thereby rendered exasperatingly hard. The horses also suffered severely through the long enforced marches, the dreadful roads, the general wetness and the insufficient food.
III—"HOW WE FOUGHT THE BATTLE—A LIVING HELL"
It is, however, the duty of the good soldier to derive some advantage from even the most unpromising conditions, and we were able to turn the frightful condition of the roads to good account in the following way. The roads which the French commanded were less numerous and in even worse condition than our own. As they expended a tremendous amount of ammunition every day in "drum-fire," as continuous systematic artillery fire is called in the army, they were forced to bring up large supplies every night, which was not the case with us. As has been said before, only the main roads could be traversed by the ammunition wagons, because the other roads had turned into a sort of morass, and we therefore trained our long-range guns upon their main roads at night, knowing that we must be doing damage to them. This circumstance probably accounted for the unusually long pauses which they allowed to occur in their "drum-fire" on the ensuing days.
In this way we gained brief periods of respite for our infantry, which was thus enabled to patch up the badly damaged intrenchments, so that the French, when they had been supplied with new ammunition, had to begin all over again.
The continuous rainfall created cruel conditions for the housing of our troops. As has been said, the few sparse settlements had been literally shot to pieces, and our troops were therefore forced to construct their own huts and cave shelters. That such poor quarters, during an incessant downpour of rain, were bound to have an injurious effect upon the strength of the troops, is abundantly plain. Nevertheless, our men never complained. With admirable patience, even good humour, they endured the greatest privations and hardships which were the result of the inclement weather and the inadequate quarters, and how great these privations and hardships were can only be understood by some one who himself has lived through a rainy Winter in the "louse Champagne" country. Nevertheless, miraculously, the health of the troops remained remarkably good.
Originally only the First and the Seventeenth French Army Corps had been intrenched opposite to our Eighth Army Corps and our Eighth Reserve Corps. Both of the French army corps had suffered severely during their continuous attacks around Christmas, in January and the beginning of February. But they had been reinforced continually. Before beginning their great drive against our lines the French had gathered together materially larger forces. To cope with our two army corps gradually, in addition to the First and the Seventeenth Corps, two colonial divisions and half a territorial division—all in all almost seven and a half army corps were massed in a comparatively small territory.
Furthermore, they had greatly strengthened their artillery. On the other hand, our two army corps had been strengthened solely by the addition of individual battalions of the Fifth and Seventh Armies, as well as by the Sixth Army Corps and the Twelfth Reserve Corps (which at this time belonged to the Third Army). The Eighth Army Corps comprised the Bavarian "Landwehr" Brigade and the Hessian "Landwehr" as well. Then, finally, there was the First Guard Infantry Division, destined to play a prominent part in this battle.
In this terrific battle sons from every principality and kingdom of the Fatherland fought shoulder to shoulder, and vied with each other in the display of courage and endurance. Prussians and Bavarians, Saxons and Hessians, men from the North and the South, from East and West, stood side by side, cheek by jowl, forming an impregnable wall against which the furious, despairing, fanatic attacks of the French were doomed to futilely spend themselves.
The French fought with marvellous valour, with reckless courage and nerve, climbing up and on over the bodies of their fallen comrades. They were excellent fighters, were these Frenchmen. But our men were better fighters, as the outcome of the battle taught us.
It was, however, not the attacks of their infantry which made this battle so hideous for us, nor was it the hand-to-hand struggle in the trenches, man against man, where the German, possessing greater physical strength, was easily the match of the individual Frenchman. What made the battle a living hell was the work of the French artillery, enormous in strength, with huge supplies of ammunition which was spent lavishly. Life in the trenches became a perpetual nightmare and stamped as unforgettable heroes the men who went through with it without flinching.
IV—"IT SEEMED IMPOSSIBLE ANY LIVING CREATURE COULD SURVIVE"
Onto a comparatively small area the French on one day threw a hundred thousand shells! We found a French document in which the commanding officer calculated that eighteen bombs must be the allowance per metre of German trench, these eighteen bombs to be used not in a day, but within one or two hours! The rapidity of the artillery fire was therefore as great as that of an ordinary machine gun, but the shells hurled against us were not infantry shells, but grenades of every calibre. "Drum-fire" is the name for this sort of artillery fire, and its effects were simply dreadful—unspeakable. The barbed wire was completely annihilated, was clean wiped out of existence; the trenches were flattened into mounds, their foundations crumbled away. No known sort of earthworks were able to withstand such fire for even a short time. But German discipline, loyalty and heroism held out.
When such "drum-fire" began, a huge wall of smoke and chalk particles rose over our trenches, cutting off the men from the rest of the world. The horror of the scene was augmented by the ceaseless rumbling, thundering and crashing which filled the air, and which, even miles away, sounded like a heavy thunderstorm. It seemed impossible that any living creature should survive such a hellish turmoil. When the firing ceased abruptly, or when its direction was changed to give the French infantry a chance to attack us, then our brave fusiliers, musketeers, grenadiers crawled out of the funnels and pockets into which the enemy's grenades had ploughed the earth, made their way from among broken foundations, crumbling cement, trickling sand bags, and, grabbing their guns and wiping the dirt from their eyes, they repulsed the French attack.
And this was done not once, but dozens of times.
Occasionally our men were ordered to abandon a trench which was suffering particularly from "drum-fire" in order to avoid unnecessary loss of life, and the crew from such an abandoned trench was then placed in our second line of intrenchments. It sometimes happened that French infantrymen, under protection of their artillery fire, reached and took such an empty trench, succeeding the more readily because they encountered no obstacles. Our soldiers then sprang forth from their cover and attacked the French with hand grenades and bayonets. Invariably we were successful in repulsing the enemy, causing them heavy loss of life.
If for some reason or other this counter-attack was not made at once, but was postponed for an hour or two, we were not so sure of success, and it was then never secured by us without heavy casualties, for the few hours that had elapsed had amply sufficed the French, who are exceedingly clever at every sort of intrenchment work, to change and remodel the trench for their purposes, to install machine guns, to place sandbag barriers along both sides and to make sundry other changes. This done, the "Frenchmen's nest" was complete.
The difficult task of ousting the French from their "nest" then devolved upon our regiments, and in some instances many weeks of hard, cruel fighting were required to accomplish this end. For this work we employed underground mines, artillery, bombs and hand grenades. When the time was ripe for attack, columns of volunteers were formed, which were led by officers, who, in turn, were preceded by groups of pioneers with hand grenades and intrenchment tools, to be used in demolishing the sandbag barriers. The assault was begun simultaneously from both sides. These attacks were usually conducted at night, and it will readily be seen what cool, unshakable courage was required for work of this kind. Immediately after the hand grenades were exploded our men advanced and a furious hand-to-hand fight ensued, in which not only bayonet and pick-axe, but shovel and booted foot were used to expel the enemy, to kill him or force him to surrender.
V—BRAVERY OF THE GRENADIERS
As an example of the tremendous fury with which such a hand-to-hand fight raged I will cite one instance. A grenadier of one of our Rhenish regiments, who carried a pick-axe, had the thumb of his right hand, which carried the weapon, bitten right off by a Frenchman. The German soldier, writhing with pain, contrived to change the pick-axe to his left hand, killed both the Frenchman who had maimed him and his comrade.
In another regiment three men had discovered that in making these nocturnal attacks they could work together to splendid advantage. The strongest man of the three took the centre. In his left hand he carried two steel shields from machine guns lashed together. In his right hand he held his weapon, bayonet or pick-axe. His two companions kept to either side of him, as closely as possible. One carried as many hand grenades as he could manage, the other was equipped with a bayonet. Thus accoutred, this strange trio proceeded, striking, thrusting and throwing grenades, and literally hacking its way through the ranks of the enemy and striking terror to the hearts of the foe.
Excellent service these three men rendered. Evening after evening the man who carried the steel shields volunteered for the difficult and hazardous task. He was asked if he did not feel the necessity for resting up, or if he did not prefer to serve the hand grenades or to wield the bayonet for a change. He replied that less powerful men than he could not as easily carry the steel shields and the pick-axe as well, while the bayonet work and the throwing of hand grenades could be done readily by the others.
The sharpshooters of the Imperial Guard had formed an entire company of volunteers, who, led by officers, were always sent to perform particularly dangerous and difficult tasks. They performed deeds of incredible valour, and the "Tschakos," as Germans call this picked corps, will not soon be forgotten by the French.
The men of the Saxon Reserve Infantry Regiment No. 107 were adepts in taking French prisoners. They had a system of their own and found it infallible.
Thus, at night, our brave fellows had to engage in hand-to-hand encounters, at day had to endure the frightful fire of the French artillery, and when the firing ceased there was still not a moment's rest for them, for they then had to repulse the onslaughts of the French infantrymen.
Nor was that all. The positions which had been shot to pieces by the enemy by day in the field, had to be rebuilt, as far as was possible, at night. The reserves were requisitioned to assist in this work, although they had really been sent back of the firing line to rest up. The Reserves were also frequently called upon at night to help defend with the bayonet any menaced point. Thus their supposed "resting-up" in the protected zone was somewhat problematical in nature, not alone because they were frequently called upon to help out, but because the French had a pretty trick of training their heavy artillery fire, night and day, upon these outlying points, positions and roads. Unbelievable as it seems, the men in the trenches actually suffered less from the artillery fire at night than did the men in the rear.
Alternately fighting and working by day and by night, our brave men performed the work of supermen. Each man was actuated by one thought only—to defend his position to the last, to overcome the enemy, to endure through it all, no matter what happened. Each leader, each division, conceived it to be a task of honour to hold the position, or, if it had been lost, to regain it.
VI—THE PRINCE GIVES HIS OPINION OF HIS ADVERSARY
Let us now consider the method which our foe employed in preparing the attacks.
The French attacks must be classified as partial attacks and as attacks en masse. The former invariably preceded the latter. The numerical strength of the troops thus employed varied from a company to a division. They were never an end in themselves, but a mere link in the chain of a general, comprehensive plan. A destructive "drum-fire" was followed up by an attack upon a particular trench. Having secured the trench, they did one of two things. Either they used every effort to secure a second trench, several hundred meters further along the line, so that, working and fighting toward each other, they might reasonably expect to unite the two trenches; or, using the captured trench as a base for an attack en masse, they sought to indent our line and to break it, a thing which was never attempted when a partial attack was made.
In conducting these attacks en masse, the French always adhered to their well-known scheme. A compact line of sharpshooters at the front was followed at a distance of one hundred meters by densely packed masses of company and battalion columns.
This method, of attack, from which they never swerved, occasioned them a shocking loss of life. The losses sustained by a French regiment in storming a position may be estimated conservatively at forty to fifty per cent. French prisoners confirmed this estimate. To this wholesale slaughter to which they condemn their men the fact is probably due that the French rarely use the same regiment twice for purposes of attack. Surely they must reckon with the demoralizing effect sustained by men who have been forced to climb over hillocks of their own dead in order to reach the enemy!
A French officer, whom we took prisoner, told us that the havoc wrought by the German artillery fire upon the closed columns of the French had been frightful. He added:
"These attacks constitute an insane slaughter; strictly speaking, they are not attacks, but a mad dancing in shambles, through a charnel-house, upon a cemetery. And yet we will be forced to continue this way until the French Government sees fit to recognize the futility of our method, or until we contrive to break through."
Not enough can be said in praise of our artillery. Heavy and light artillery as well performed wonders. Their co-operation with our infantry was wonderful—could not have been improved upon. Often, our well-directed artillery fire nipped in the bud French efforts at attack. Truly, the artillery which took part in the battle of the Champagne has every reason to be proud of its record.
At the beginning of the period of which I am writing, the French attacks were directed principally against our positions near Perthes (the centre and left wing of the Eighth Army Corps). Then the French concentrated their attacks upon the outer left wing of the Eighth Army Corps and the right wing of the Eighth Reserve Corps (16th Reserve-Division). Finally the French offensive degenerated into a desperate, mad, wild struggle for the now famous Hill 196 (two kilometers north of le Mesnil-les-Hurlus). At first they were probably obsessed by the idea that the hill was valuable because of the outlook which it afforded. Later, the government, or the War Ministry, seems to have issued an order that the hill must be taken at whatever cost. They paid the cost—paid horribly, suffered overwhelming losses, offered hecatombs of victims, and still did not gain the Hill—thanks to the heroism of the defending regiments.
This—Hill 196—was the most seriously menaced point, and accordingly the Guard was installed there, which, together with the Rhenish, Silesian and Saxon regiments, performed deeds of great valour. True to the traditions of their race, they withstood the terrific onslaughts made by the French hordes, onslaughts for the making of which the French continually sent out fresh regiments. Attack after attack failed. Those who escaped the fire of the artillery and the machine guns fell under the butts and blades of the German bayonets.
Just as the interest and action of a drama continues to ascend until the end of the last act, so the Battle of Champagne reached its culmination and conclusion in the mad struggle that raged around Hill 196.
VII—"MAD STRUGGLE AT HILL 196"
In the last days of the frantic struggle, we had perceived that the French were gathering in largely increased numbers in their trenches. Then to our surprise the attack which we expected to follow did not occur. We therefore deemed it reasonable to conclude from this that the enemy no longer considered it expedient to push on, and that the fire of our artillery was holding them to their trenches. Therefore, on March 18, we were not expecting that any serious attack would be attempted. But the French apparently were not willing to admit defeat without one final, desperate effort.
Suddenly, on the afternoon of March 18, the attack was begun by densely massed troops, their objective being Hill 196 and the position directly east of the hill. The position of the Guards Reserve Infantry Regiment No. 133 and other troops, who received the main shock of the impact, was not to be shaken, however. The Fourth Turcos Regiment and others of the French army attacked in five lines, advancing one by one, with some of their officers on horseback. We received them with a shower of hand grenades, which tore hundreds of them limb from limb and blew to atoms the first two lines.
Succeeding lines fared no better. Those who miraculously escaped the hand grenades were felled by our furious men with blows of pick-axe and bayonet. In spite of their dauntless courage, their reckless contempt of death, their marvellous persistence, the French were forced back. Front and flank of this writhing maelstrom of densely packed humanity rolling along in a disorderly retreat was swept by our heavy artillery fire from 21-centimetre mortars, heavy field howitzers, 10-centimetre cannon. The losses which the French sustained were inhuman and sickening.
With this last valiant attempt to take the Hill 196 ended the Winter battle of the Champagne. After months of frantic fighting, after paying a frightful toll in blood, the French were forced to abandon their effort to break through our lines. Their finest troops, the very flower of their army, who had fought persistently with all the dare-devil gallantry for which the French are famous, had, in the end, not only failed to win a victory, but had sustained a crushing defeat. For the fact must not be overlooked that their failure to force their way through our lines was tantamount to a very serious defeat.
VIII—WHAT THE GERMAN PRINCE CLAIMS FOR HIS ARMY
The battle of the Champagne is over. The unexampled heroism, the superhuman endurance of our troops have already become things of the past. But we, the great German nation, will do well to heed the warning that was sounded in the bitter days when the frenzied battle raged in the Champagne.
What lesson shall we extract from this titanic struggle? What moral is pointed by Hill 196, whose every inch of ground was ploughed by bullets and soaked with our dearest blood? What were the underlying causes that contributed to our victory? What was it that made every beardless boy a hero, made the oldest man in the "Landwehr" forget his age and the privations he was enduring?
Let us briefly review the principal factors that made for success.
The value of iron discipline was overwhelmingly demonstrated. It is safe to assert that the most highly disciplined regiment will be the most successful in action. Youthful enthusiasm may be undermined, patriotism may be forced into temporary abeyance by hours of continual, cruel shelling; worse than that, the very power to think becomes inhibited in the witches' cauldron of "drum-fire." It is then that discipline asserts itself. Nothing else gives the same moral stamina, and in difficult positions discipline is bound to be the determining factor.
Before the war began the voices of many people were raised who, from false sentimentality, from undue softness, from ill-will or from sheer stupidity, were eager to have an end put for all time to the unconditional obedience and rigid drill of our army; in brief, to our entire military training, the value of which has been tested and proven throughout centuries. Many of our so-called comic papers made it their chief business to ridicule military training and discipline, to spatter with mud the very foundation and bulwark of our military efficiency. I think the battle of the Champagne must have taught them to amend their way of thinking.
"The iron rock upon which Germany rests more securely than the earth upon the shoulders of Atlas is our glorious army." That this army has reached this glorious summit is due primarily to its splendid training, and the fundamentals of this training are to be found in the latterly much-laughed-at and sneered-at detail work done in years of peace. The standing-at-attention, the the clock-like precision, the manual of arms, the goose-step—to all of these we owe the efficiency displayed by our troops in resisting French "drum-fire," in repulsing French drives, in withstanding with iron might French alertness, in circumventing French enthusiasm and gallantry.
For instance, our Guard went through the attacks at Ypres. During the bitter month of February this same First Guard Infantry Brigade rendered futile and vain all the science and gallantry manifested by the French troops at Perthes, and won new laurels in the frantic struggle for Hill 196. Yet this crack regiment did not disdain, when ordered to the rear for a brief, much-needed rest, to continue its exercises and drills from the very first day of its holiday. In battle, even, when under cover, this regiment went through the manual of arms, practised positions and stood at attention.
One thing more. Let us educate our young men to be strong and hard. Let us guard against influences that tend to soften or make for effeminacy, so that, when future need arises, the coming generation may be able successfully to cope with conditions similar to those which confronted our troops in the Champagne. Let us weed out the poison which is eating into the marrow of our national life—the cry for pleasure or youthful liberties.
Then, too, let us instil in the youth of our nation simple faith, a firm belief in the Lord God, whose will directs the destinies of mankind. Those who went through the battle of the Champagne agree in saying that without a firm belief in God they never would have been able to live through those harrowing days, and to the handful, who lacked faith, faith came amid shower of shells, during attacks of bayonets.