Letter Found on German Officer of Seventh Reserve Corps:
Cerny, South of Laon, Sept 14, 1914.
My Dear Parents: Our corps has the task of holding the heights south of Cerny in all circumstances until the Fourteenth Corps on our left flank can grip the enemy's flank. On our right are other corps. We are fighting with the English Guards, Highlanders, and Zouaves. The losses on both sides have been enormous. For the most part this is due to the too brilliant French artillery.
The English are marvelously trained in making use of ground. One never sees them, and one is constantly under fire. The French airmen perform wonderful feats. We cannot get rid of them. As soon as an airman has flown over us, ten minutes later we get their shrapnel fire in our positions. We have little artillery in our corps; without it we cannot get forward.
Three days ago our division took possession of these heights and dug itself in. Two days ago, early in the morning, we were attacked by an immensely superior English force, one brigade and two battalions, and were turned out of our positions. The fellows took five guns from us. It was a tremendous hand-to-hand fight.
How I escaped myself I am not clear. I then had to bring up supports on foot. My horse was wounded, and the others were too far in the rear. Then came up the Guards Jager Battalion, Fourth Jager, Sixth Regiment, Reserve Regiment Thirteen, and Landwehr Regiments Thirteen and Sixteen, and with the help of the artillery we drove the fellows out of the position again. Our machine guns did excellent work; the English fell in heaps.
In our battalion three Iron Crosses have been given, one to C.O., one to Capt. ——, and one to Surgeon ——. [Names probably deleted.] Let us hope that we shall be the lucky ones next time.
During the first two days of the battle I had only one piece of bread and no water. I spent the night in the rain without my overcoat. The rest of my kit was on the horses which had been left behind with the baggage and which cannot come up into the battle because as soon as you put your nose up from behind cover the bullets whistle.
War is terrible. We are all hoping that a decisive battle will end the war, as our troops already have got round Paris. If we beat the English the French resistance will soon be broken. Russia will be very quickly dealt with; of this there is no doubt.
We received splendid help from the Austrian heavy artillery at Maubeuge. They bombarded Fort Cerfontaine in such a way that there was not ten meters a parapet which did not show enormous craters made by the shells. The armored turrets were found upside down.
Yesterday evening, about 6, in the valley in which our reserves stood there was such a terrible cannonade that we saw nothing of the sky but a cloud of smoke. We had few casualties.
Recently a pilot and observer of the Royal Flying Corps were forced by a breakage in their aeroplane to descend in the enemy's lines. The pilot managed to pancake his machine down to earth, and the two escaped into some thick under-growth in the woods.
The enemy came up and seized and smashed the machine, but did not search for our men with much zeal. The latter lay hid till dark and then found their way to the Aisne, across which they swam, reaching camp in safety, but barefooted.
Numerous floating bridges have been thrown across the Aisne and some of the pontoon bridges have been repaired under fire. On the 20th, Lieut. [name deleted] of the Third Signal Corps, Royal Engineers, was unfortunately drowned while attempting to swim across the river with a cable in order to open up fresh telegraphic communication on the north side.
Espionage is still carried on by the enemy to a considerable extent. Recently the suspicions of some of the French troops were aroused by coming across a farm from which the horses had been removed. After some search they discovered a telephone which was connected by an underground cable with the German lines, and the owner of the farm paid the penalty in the usual way in war for his treachery.
After some cases of village fighting which occurred earlier in the war it was reported by some of our officers that the Germans had attempted to approach to close quarters by forcing prisoners to march in front of them. The Germans have recently repeated the same trick on a larger scale against the French, as is shown by the copy of an order printed below. It is therein referred to as a ruse, but, if that term can be accepted, a distinctly illegal ruse.
"During a recent night attack," the order reads, "the Germans drove a column of French prisoners in front of them. This action is to be brought to the notice of all our troops (1) in order to put them on their guard against such a dastardly ruse; (2) in order that every soldier may know how the Germans treat their prisoners. Our troops must not forget if they allow themselves to be taken prisoners the Germans will not fail to expose them to French bullets."
Further evidence has now been collected of the misuse of the white flag and other signs of surrender. During an action on the 17th, owing to this, one officer was shot. During recent fighting, also, some German ambulance wagons advanced in order to collect the wounded. An order to cease firing was consequently given to our guns, which were firing on this particular section of ground. The German battery commanders at once took advantage of the lull in the action to climb up their observation ladders and on to a haystack to locate our guns, which soon afterward came under a far more accurate fire than any to which they had been subjected up to that time.
A British officer, who was captured by the Germans and has since escaped, reports that while a prisoner he saw men who had been fighting subsequently put on Red Cross brassards.
That irregular use of the protection afforded by the Geneva Convention is not uncommon is confirmed by the fact that on one occasion men in the uniform of combatant units have been captured wearing a Red Cross brassard hastily slipped over the arm. The excuse given has been that they had been detailed after the fight to look after the wounded.