October 7, 1915.—Standing at dawn near my section’s post on the fire-step opposite our dugout when a rifle bullet tore one of the men’s caps from front to back without hurting him. Just at this time two pioneers were wounded on our wire. One shot through both legs. The other shot through the ear.
During the morning the left-flank post was shot through both cheekbones. The blood spurted in thick streams from the wound. To finish the bad luck, Lieutenant Ewald came to our sector today to photograph sap N, which is only 50 metres from the trench. As he turned to get down off the fire-step a shot shattered the back of his head. He died instantly. Besides this, one of the men had a slight shoulder wound.
October 19.—The sector of the middle platoon was shelled with 15-centimetre shells. One of the men was blown against the boarding of the trench. He suffered severe internal injury, and a splinter cut the artery of his arm. In the early morning mist, while repairing our wire in front of our right flank, we found a French corpse that must have been months old. In the night we had two casualties wire-carrying. Gutschmidt was shot through both hands and one thigh, Schäfer through the knee.
October 30.—Owing to heavy rain in the night the trench fell in in many places, and the soil mixing with the rain to a sticky soup turned the trench into an almost impassable swamp. The only comfort was that the English were no better off, for they could be seen busily scooping the water out of their trench. As we were on higher ground, they had the benefit of the superfluous water we pumped out as well. The collapse of the trench walls brought to light a number of those who fell in the last autumn’s fighting.
November.—I was standing next Landsturmsman Wiegman in front of the Altenburg Redoubt when a long shot pierced his bayonet, which was hanging from his shoulders, and wounded him severely in the pelvis. The English bullets with their aluminium tips are pure dumdums.
November 21.—I took an entrenching party from the Altenburg Redoubt to C sector. One of them, Landsturmsman Diener, climbed on to a ledge in the side of the trench to shovel earth over the top. He was scarce up when a shot fired from the sap got him in the skull and laid him dead on the floor of the trench. He was married and had four children. His comrades lay in wait a long while behind the parapet to take vengeance. They sobbed with rage. It is remarkable how little they grasp the war as an objective thing. They seem to regard the Englishman who fired the fatal shot as a personal enemy. I can understand it.
November 24.—A man of the machine-gun company got a bad head wound while in our sector. Half an hour later one of our company was hit in the cheek.
November 29.—Our battalion went back for fourteen days to the little town of Q⸺ that lay in the divisional area, and was destined later to get such a sanguinary name. We went for training and to enjoy the blessings of life behind the line. While there I got my commission as lieutenant and was posted to the 2nd Company, where I was to see many cheery times, and stiff ones too.
We were invited to many a heavy drink by the town-majors of Q⸺ and neighbouring places, and had a little glimpse into the almost boundless sway that these village potentates exercised over their subjects and the inhabitants. The King of Q⸺, as he called himself, a captain, was greeted on his appearance at table every evening with uplifted right hands and a thundering shout, “Long live the King!” He played the capricious monarch till dawn, and punished every breach of his etiquette and its very intricate formulations with drinks all round. We front-line fellows, in our innocence, came out of it very badly.
Next day he was to be seen after lunch, in thin disguise, proceeding through his domains in a dogcart to pay his visits on neighbouring Kings and do copious honour to Bacchus. Thus he made worthy preparations for the evening bout. He called it “making a raid.” Once he got into a dispute with the King of J⸺, and sent a mounted military policeman to declare war. After several engagements, in the course of which two detachments of officers’ grooms pelted each other with lumps of earth from small trenches furnished with wire entanglements, the King of J⸺ unwisely regaled himself with Bavarian beer in the Q⸺ canteen and was surprised and taken prisoner while visiting a secluded spot. He had to ransom himself with a large barrel of beer. Thus ended the battle of these mighty ones.
The inhabitants were under strict discipline. Trespasses and transgressions were speedily visited by the town-majors with fines or imprisonment. Much as I am the disciple of the logical gospel of force, I was disgusted by the painful exaggerations of it I witnessed in those days, such as the compulsion upon all inhabitants, women included, to salute officers. Such regulations are pointless, degrading, and injurious. Such was our method, however, all through the war. Punctilious over trifles, undecided in the face of the severest injuries from within.
On the 11th of December I went over the top to the front line to report to Lieutenant R. Wetje, commanding the 2nd Company, which was in C sector. It gave me a shock, as I jumped down into the trench, to see how it had altered during our fortnight’s absence. It had fallen in until it was nothing but a large trough filled with mud a yard deep, in which its occupants splashed sadly about in an amphibious existence. As I sank in to my hips my thoughts recurred with sorrow to the King of Q⸺ and his round table. We poor front-line swine! nearly
