We detrained and began a march in pursuit of our regiment, which lasted three weeks. The Russians were in retreat, the regiment pushed forward, and we had to follow after as best we could. Our way took us to Cholm, across the Bug at Wlodawa, then to Kobrin, and thence southwards among the marshes, where we struck the regiment at last. It was a jolly time. We had perfect weather, sunshine all day, but the air was bracing and fresh; it seemed impossible to get tired in that climate. We marched from eight to twelve, halted for the day, cooked our meals, bathed or walked about, and went to bed at nine. It reminded me very much of the continually recurring sentence in Xenophon: “We marched X parasangs and had breakfast.” We tried to do twenty kilometres (about fourteen miles) a day, and every four or five days we had one day’s complete rest. Wherever possible, we put up for the night at the country houses of the Polish nobles, because they had orchards that gave us apples and kitchen gardens that gave us potatoes. The houses were completely gutted, not a stick of furniture was left, and they were often defiled in the most disgusting manner. When we had no meat, we took from the peasants what we wanted. We paid by giving them a sham “bon,” with the reverse (eagle) side of a ten-pfennig piece rubbed in. They saw the eagle and thought it something wonderful, although it was quite valueless. Sometimes a cow would be shot and its flesh immediately cut up, and, still warm and trembling, be distributed among us to make soup of. All our peasants and labourers could cook, and they despised the educated men because they did not know what to do with the meat they received. I was three hours frying my first steak; nothing I could think of made any impression on it, and it remained obstinately leathery. The next time a “Kamerad” showed me how to beat it tender with the blade of my bayonet, and, lo! the steak was fried in ten minutes.
IN POLAND
We had an interesting three days’ stay at Cholm. There was a cholera camp here, at which it was said seventeen German soldiers died a day. The whole country from the San to the Bug was devastated with cholera. Cholm also had a dysentery hospital where the patients were so numerous that they had to lie about on the ground for days before they could be attended to. German order ruled in the town. Notices were posted up that only certain wells could be used, and bakers were especially warned about the water they took for baking. The attitude of the population was instructive. The Russians hated us, the Poles were afraid of us, the Jews received us with open arms. The German Government had already begun an extensive propaganda. Local newspapers had been founded which should bring the people round to Germany’s side. They certainly made some impression on the Jews, if on no one else. At Cholm the only good restaurant was strictly reserved for the use of officers. For us there remained a few dirty Jewish eating-houses. Y.M.C.A. huts or clubs would have been very welcome because we had nothing to do all day, and time hung very heavy on our hands. I consider it one of the greatest successes in the war that this side of a soldier’s life was so well looked after by the English and the French.
When we were not in the towns, we used to spend the time very happily. All the golden afternoons we used to bathe in the rivers or lakes and then run up and down in the bright sunshine to get dry. At times the whole village—men, women, girls, and children—would turn out to watch us. We were more puzzled than embarrassed at these attentions. There was something about them we could not account for. At last we heard that their popes had told them that every German soldier was a veritable devil with horns, hoofs, and tail complete, and they had come out to see with their own eyes whether it was so or not.
Almost every day we saw the site of some skirmish, and near by would be a little group of graves with wooden crosses bearing the names of the fallen. We would thus keep the track of our regiment, and often would find the names of those we knew among the dead. At last we reached the front. In the three weeks march, of three hundred who left Cassel, one hundred had already dropped out through sickness. All the Jews and all the Alsatians, with one exception, had drunk themselves into dysentery. If in a cholera country you go on drinking well water unboiled, you are sure to get dysentery sooner or later. When we arrived at the headquarters of the regiment, we had to undergo three formal receptions. The major commanding the regiment, the captain commanding the battalion, the lieutenant commanding the company, each delivered a speech, but the only thing that did us any good was the quiet little heart-to-heart talk the company sergeant-major had with us that evening before going to bed. Apparently the last set of recruits had proved unsatisfactory. They had even taken to stealing things out of their comrades’ knapsacks. The law in our company was that you might take anything that was not in a knapsack. It was the man’s own fault, if he lost it, for leaving it lying about. On the other hand, to steal out of a knapsack was the unpardonable sin and was severely punished. I do not know anything about the code of morals in other armies, but I do know this, the German working man will pilfer whenever he can, and no feeling of shame or good comradeship will restrain him. And the Socialism with which he becomes indoctrinated in the army makes it appear almost a virtue to steal from the rich.
ON THE MARCH
We belonged to a flying division, the function of which was to pop in wherever things were going badly. Our march was steadily southward and we were destined, I believe, for Serbia. Usually we fought all day and marched all night and slept when we could. We were a crack regiment and the utmost was expected of us. There was scarcely any one in the company who had started out with the regiment in 1914; half of us were raw recruits, and even then we did not number more than one hundred and twenty. Much is said about the sternness of German discipline, but there was little of it to be seen here. There was rather a spirit of good understanding between officers and men. The officers knew that they could rely on their men, and the men trusted their officers. The weak spot was the young lieutenant commanding the company. He was nervous, excitable, and wild in his plans, but it was acknowledged that he looked after us very well and took great pains to see that we were comfortable. The strong point was the company sergeant-major, who was said on countless occasions to have rescued the company out of awkward positions into which the impetuousness of the lieutenant had led us. But perhaps that is said in all regiments. In any case the sergeant-major gave himself no trouble to conceal his opinion of the lieutenant. I remember when we were in a forest one dark night, the lieutenant ordered patrols to be sent out in order to get into touch with another battalion. Now, the forest was so dense that we had lost ourselves in it by day; it was perfect folly to dream of finding anybody in it at night. The sergeant-major told us of the lieutenant’s order with a flick of contempt in his voice, adding that he was not going to send any of us out on that wildgoose-chase. It seemed to me that he nursed a grievance, because no commission had been given him. He was the oldest officer in the regiment, and as competent and clear-headed as any one there, but he had not passed the requisite examination at school. In any case, to be ordered about by a mere chit of a boy went very much against the grain. Cases of this sort may explain the dramatic suddenness of the revolution in the German Army. If the higher N.C.O.s become infected by the prevailing discontents, then farewell discipline and order.
PLUNDERING
I have often been asked if I witnessed any atrocities at the front. I saw nothing to speak of, but then I was there only a very short time. Whatever stores of food the inhabitants had were ruthlessly plundered. But there again a soldier is allowed by the traditions of war to take whatever he wants to eat wherever he finds it—in a conquered country, at any rate. The plundering was unnecessary in the majority of cases, we were well enough fed, and the men simply took because it was there to take. Often it meant black ingratitude. A peasant and his wife would receive us kindly in their house, make a fire for us, and help us to cook. Then some one would begin to search the house, and whatever could be carried off, would be taken. One incident I shall never forget. We had arrived at a village which was still full of poultry. The men dispersed, taking what they could. In one farmyard I saw a girl, just in time, whip the two fattest hens under her shawl. The men came up, demanding to know where the poultry was. She stood there, pressing the hidden birds to her bosom, mocking defiance in her eyes, the picture of saucy courage. Then, with a gesture of contempt, she indicated some geese in the distance. The men, deeply grateful to her, went off in pursuit. A tame goose-chase does not sound very exciting, but is rather good sport. You make a ring round the bird, and just when you think you have got it, it rises in the air and escapes you. The scene was suggestive—the clumsy soldiers in their heavy boots perseveringly stalking a goose, that every time eluded them with ease—surely an apt emblem of much in German life—and the girl, their muse and inspirer, watching them with a contempt that deepened till she seemed Disdain personified.
I did not see any instances of violation of the rules of war in battle. The Austrians were often to blame for the use of dum-dum bullets. They had soft-nosed tracer bullets for finding the range, but the common soldiers, as might have been expected, did not restrict themselves to using them for this purpose only. Once they shot away whole cases full of this ammunition. The Russians captured a battalion of Austrian infantry next day, shot them all except one, and sent him back to say what they had done and why.