TRAINING
We used to get up every morning at five or six o’clock. Then there would be a march to the drill-ground, some four miles away, and we would do our exercises and be home by eleven or twelve. We never practised any attacks in massed formation, we were always sent forward in open lines. One of our officers had captured a Russian position by making the men crawl towards the enemy one at a time. He had taken the position with the loss of only eight wounded. We used to curse this officer from the bottom of our hearts. Crawling is terribly hard work, especially when you are in full kit, and still more so when you have to go through whatever mud, dirt, or puddles lie in your way. So many lives had been lost at the front by people being afraid to dirty their uniforms, that we were told to get ours very dirty. And to have a foul-mouthed peasant of a corporal shouting insults at you while you are wriggling in the mud, makes you feel a very worm.
From eleven to two we were free. From two to three we had “instruktion,” that is to say, some portion of the Infantryman’s Manual was explained to us. Four times out of five the subject was the duty of patrols. We were supposed to know all this off by heart. Patrols were considered so important that everything else was subordinated to them in “instruktion.” Generally the instructor was so tired of the subject that he used to amuse us by stories of the war, or of the pranks he used to play when he was a young recruit twenty years before. If everything else failed, the half-witted Alsatian was dragged out and tortured to make a German holiday. After “instruktion” came two hours more. These were employed either in the drawing-room games I have already mentioned, or in gymnastics, or in sighting-exercises; that is to say, for two hours on end we had to practise sighting our rifles in the three positions—standing, kneeling, lying. I have seen the way the Russian soldier was taught these things, and I should say the Russian was beyond comparison better trained than the German. The Russian targets were much better, much more like the real thing, and much more care was taken. Sometimes the route-march and the exercises took place at night, in which case we had a slack morning. All our marching was made to assimilate as near as possible to war conditions. Our knapsacks were filled with sand, and the weight of our equipment was about what we had to bear in the field (75 lbs.). Our great lack was in service rifles. Most of us had rifles captured from the Russians, and great big heavy things they are, too. For some time, indeed, I had a rifle which bore the date 1820, and had probably been made in England. The strain of these exercises was severe, and I must confess that I was never so tired at the front as I was sometimes at home.
In one respect they had the advantage of probably any army in the world—in the songs they sang. Not only was the whole wealth of the German “Volkslied” open to us, but the special soldiers’ songs, “O Strassburg,” or “Ich hatt’ ein’ kameraden,” are all of good quality, while one (“Die drei Lilien”) is superb. These songs provided me with unforgettable experiences. I have already mentioned how the Alsatians used to sing “O Strassburg.” It seemed as if they could express themselves in no other way but by singing that. Although I had lived in Germany for many years, I never understood what a “Volkslied” was till I heard the soldiers sing. They were all peasants, and the impulse which created the ballad never seems to have died out in their class. They sang “Die drei Lilien,” a ballad of high imaginative power, with the most intimate understanding. Indeed, every time they sang one of the old songs it seemed like a fresh creation. And all the while new songs are being composed, and the various joys and woes of a soldier’s life are receiving an expression that is nearly always striking and effective. The stuff composed during the war itself, however, was beginning to show the influence of the music-hall and was getting to be desperately vulgar.
SERGEANT-MAJOR
I think we should all have been a very happy family if it had not been for the company sergeant-major. This personage is the greatest power in the company. He may be rude to the captain, but the captain dare not be rude to him; for if he is, things begin to go wrong in the company, headquarters get to know of it, and the reprimand falls, not on the company sergeant-major, but on the captain. Our man took a special pleasure in making us feel his power. His great sport was to get men sent to the front. He would make the lives of the other N.C.O.s such a hell to them that in wild desperation they would volunteer for active service long before their time. His favourite trick with the rank and file was to spoil their Sundays. The captain would sign our leave-tickets for Sunday, but as soon as his back was turned, the sergeant-major would take them all and throw them into the waste-paper basket. If the captain was away, he would fix a parade for 2.30 on Sunday afternoon. Punctually to time he would send some one to see if we were all there; but the great man himself would not appear till an hour or two later. Then we might be sent home, but far too late for the married men to collect their wives and children and get to their favourite coffee-garden in the suburbs. And all this was done with such an [insolent expression of mocking pity] on his face, that I sometimes wondered that we did not club him with our rifles. If he ever went to the front at last, I am certain he was shot in the back by his own men before he had been there long.
My experiences allowed me to test the real estimation in which a soldier is held. On duty we all had to wear the same sort of uniform. When we were off duty we could wear a better sort, if we chose, made for us by our own tailor. Going home through the streets in my dirty service uniform taught me a good deal. All well-dressed people gave me a very wide berth. I got home, bathed and changed into my private uniform. It would be ungallant to say what a difference it made. But in time of war I would allow no flapper on the streets of a garrison town except in a strait waistcoat and a muzzle.
CHAPTER V
THE GERMAN ARMY IN THE FIELD
I intend in this chapter to relate what I heard about the course of the war from the soldiers themselves. I came to know much that was interesting, and I think that most of what I have to say will be new to English readers.