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.