It is the title of an article of two hundred lines, sent from the front by a soldier of the regiment. Non-commissioned-officer Klemt. 1. Komp. Infanterie Regt 154.
Klemt tells how on the 24th of September his regiment which had left Hannonville in the morning and supported on the march by Austrian batteries was suddenly received by a double fire from artillery and infantry. The losses were enormous. And yet the enemy was invisible. At last, however, it was seen that the firing came from above, from trees where French soldiers were posted. From now on I shall no longer summarise, but quote. (Plate 16).
We brought them down like squirrels, and gave them a warm reception, with blows of the butt and the bayonet: they no longer need doctors; we are no longer fighting loyal enemies, but treacherous brigands.[28]
Plate 14.
“By leaps and bounds we got across the clearing. They were here, there, and everywhere hidden in the thicket. Now it is down with the enemy! And we will give them no quarter. Every one shoots standing, a few, a very few fire kneeling. No one tries to take shelter. We reach a little depression in the ground: here the red trousers dead or wounded lie on a heap ground. We knock ‘down’ or bayonet the wounded, for we know that those scoundrels fire at our backs when we have gone by. There was a Frenchman there stretched out, full length, face down, pretending to be dead. A kick from a strong fusilier soon taught him that we were there. Turning round, he asked for quarter, but we answered: “Is that the way your tools work, you,—” and he was nailed to the ground. Close to me I heard odd cracking sounds. They were blows from a gun on the bald head of a Frenchman which a private of the 154th was dealing out vigorously; he was wisely using a French gun so as not to break his own. Tenderhearted souls are so kind to the French wounded that they finish them with a bullet, but others give them as many thrusts and blows as they can.
Plate 15.
“Our adversaries had fought bravely, we had to contend with picked men; they let us get within thirty, even ten metres of them—too near. Sacks and arms thrown away in quantities showed that they had try to run, but at the sight of the “grey phantoms” fear paralyzed them, and on the narrow path they had to take, German bullets brought them the word of command, Halt. At the entry into the screen of branches, there they lay groaning and crying for quarter. But whether wounded slightly or severely, the brave fusiliers spare their country the cost of caring for many enemies.”
The narrative goes on, full of literary ornaments. The writer reports that H. R. H. Prince Oscar of Prussia who had been told of these brave deeds (perhaps too of others) of the 154th regiment, and of the regiment of grenadiers who were brigaded with the 154th declared that they were both worthy of the name of Königsbrigade, and ends up with this sentence “When evening came, after a prayer of thanksgiving we fell asleep in the expectation of the morrow”. Then the author having added as a postscript a few more touches in verse takes his composition to his lieutenant, who affixes his seal thereupon.
Certified to be exact
De Niem, Leutnant und Kompagnie-Führer.
Then he addresses his article to the town of Jauer, where he is sure that an editor will accept it, compositors will print it, and an entire population will delight in it.