A GERMAN BATTALION THAT PERISHED IN THE SNOW
Told by a Russian Officer
This is a tragic story of a night fight in snow-buried barbed wire entanglements where a whole German battalion perished. It comes from Petrograd to Montgomery Schuyler in the form of a letter from a Russian officer.
I—TRAGIC STORY OF A NIGHT FIGHT
"We were creeping across the snow, when we hear a frightened 'Wer kommt da?'
"'Hold on, Germans! Where the devil do they come from?' ask our men in surprise. 'Are they numerous?'
"'Wer ist da?' we hear again.
"Our only reply is to fire by the squad, and then again. The Germans are a little surprised, but pull themselves together and return the fire. It is dark and neither side can see the other. In groping about, we finally meet, and it is give and take with the bayonet. We strike in silence, but bullets are falling about us like rain. Nobody knows who is firing and every one is crying in his own language, 'Don't fire! Stop!' From the side where the firing comes from, beyond and to the right, they are yelling at us, both in German and Russian, 'What's the matter? Where are you?'
"Our men cry to the Germans, 'Surrender!'
"They answer: 'Throw down your arms. We have surrounded you and you are all prisoners.'
"Wild with rage, we throw ourselves forward with the bayonet, pushing the enemy back along the trenches. In their holes the Germans cry, peering into the impenetrable darkness, 'Help! Don't fire! Bayonet them!' Hundreds of shouts answer them, like a wave rolling in on us from every hand.
"'Oh, little brothers, their force is numberless. We are surrounded on three sides. Would it not be better to surrender?' cries some one with a sob.
"'Crack him over the head! Pull out his tongue! Drive him to the Germans with the bayonet!' are the growling comments this evokes.
"A command rings out, vibrating like a cord: 'Rear ranks, wheel, fire, fire!'
"The crowd before us yells, moves, and seems to stop. But behind them new ranks groan and approach. Anew the command is given, 'Fire, fire!'
"Cries and groans answer the fusillade and a hand-to-hand struggle along the trenches ensues.
"German shouts are heard: 'Help! Here, this way! Fall on their backs!'
"But it is we who fall on their backs. We pry them out and clear the trenches.
"In front of us all is quiet. On the right we hear the Germans struggling, growling, repeating the commands of the officers: 'Vorwärts! Vorwärts!' But nobody fires and nobody attacks our trenches. We fire in the general direction of the German voices, infrequent shots far apart answer us. The commands of 'Vorwärts' have stopped. They are at the foot of the trenches, but they do not storm them. 'After them with the bayonet,' our men cry, 'Finish them as we finished the others.'
"'Halt, boys,' calls the sharp, vibrating voice of our commander. 'This may be only another German trick. They don't come on; we are firing and they do not answer. Shoot further and lower. Fire!'"
II—"SO PERISHED A WHOLE BATTALION"
"New cries and groans come from the Germans, followed by some isolated shots, which fly high above us. After five or six rounds silence settles upon the trenches and continues unbroken. 'What can this mean?' wonder our men. 'Have we exterminated them all?'
"'Excellency, permit me to go and feel around,' offers S., chief scout, already decorated with the Cross of St. George.
"'Wait, I am going to look into it myself.'
"The officer lights a little electric lamp, and prudently sticks his arm above the rampart. The light does not draw a single shot. We peer cautiously over and see, almost within reach of our hands, the Germans lying in ranks, piled on top of one another.
"'Excellency,' the soldiers marvel, 'they are all dead. They don't move, or are they pretending?'
"The officer raises himself and directs the rays from his lamp on the heaps. We see that they are buried in the snow up to the waist, or to the neck, but none of them moves. The officer throws the light right and left, and shows us hundreds of Germans extended, their fallen rifles sticking up in the snow like planted things.
"'I don't understand,' he mutters.
"'Excellency, I am going to see,' says the chief scout.
"'Go on,' the officer consents, 'and you, boys, have your rifles ready and fire at anything suspicious without waiting for orders from me.'
"S. gets out of the trench and immediately disappears, swallowed by the soft snow up to the neck. He tries to get one leg out, but without success. He tries to lean on one hand, pushes it down into the snow, then pulls hard and swears. His hands are frightfully scratched; the blood tinges the snow with dark blotches.
"'It's the barbed wire defenses,' he cries. 'Help me, little brothers. Alone I can do nothing.'
"We catch him by the collar of his tunic, and with difficulty pull him out. His coat, trousers, boots are in shreds.
"'Thousand devils,' he swears. 'I have no legs left. They're scratched to pieces.'
"The officer understands: the trenches are defended by intrenchments of barbed wire. The snow had covered and piled high above them. The whole battalion we had seen had rushed forward to the help of those who had called and had got mixed up in the wires. The first over had sunk into the snow and disappeared. Those coming after had stepped on them, passed on, become entangled wires, and had fallen in turn under our hail of lead. Rank on rank, ignorant of what had happened and rushing on like wild animals, had shared the fate of their comrades. So perished a whole battalion."