On the 14th March there was a direct hit from a 15-centimetre shell in the sector on our right. It killed three men and severely wounded three more. One of them disappeared without leaving a trace. Another was burnt black. On the 18th the sentry in front of my dugout was hit by a shell splinter that tore off one cheek and the top of one ear.
On the 19th, Fusilier Schmidt II, on the left flank of my platoon, got a bad head wound. On the 23rd, Fusilier Lohmann was killed near my dugout by a shot in the head. On the same evening one of the posts reported that an enemy patrol was on our wire. I left the trench with a few men, but nothing came of it.
On the 7th of April, on the right flank of the platoon, Fusilier Kramer was wounded in the head by the splinter of a bullet. We had a great many casualties of this kind owing to the ease with which the English bullets flew into fragments at the least impact. At midday the neighbourhood of my dugout was plastered with heavies for hours together. My skylight was smashed for the umpteenth time, and at every detonation there was a hail of hard lumps of soil through the opening. We drank our coffee, however, unmoved.
Later we had a set duel with a harebrained Englishman who showed his head over the parapet of a trench 100 metres away at the utmost, and got a succession of bull’s-eyes on our loophole. I and several others answered his fire, when a perfect shot got the edge of our embrasure and filled our eyes with dust and gave me a very slight skin wound in the neck from a splinter. Nevertheless, we did not give in, but kept bobbing up and taking a short aim and disappearing again. A moment later a bullet struck Fusilier Storch’s rifle and burst, covering his face with blood from at least ten wounds. The next shot tore a piece from the edge of our embrasure. Another smashed the glass we used for observation. We had the satisfaction, however, after several shots had struck the parapet in front of his face, of seeing him disappear for the last time. Just after, I got the plate behind which this mad fellow had kept appearing time after time with three shots of K. ammunition, and sent it flying.
On the 9th of April two English fliers flew up and down just above our position. The entire trench strength rushed into the trench and opened a furious fire. I had just said to Lieutenant Sievers, who was standing beside me, “If only the flanking battery doesn’t look lively!” when the fragments of steel flew about our ears, and we jumped for the nearest dugout stairs. I advised him to come further in, when, smack! a splinter as broad as your hand fell, still smoking, at his feet. Just afterwards we had a few shrapnel shells as well that burst over our heads. A man was hit by a pin’s-head splinter on the shoulder, and small as it was the wound was painful. I replied with a few rifle-grenades, for it was an unwritten law of the infantry to confine themselves to the rifle. When it came to explosives, the retaliation was always at the least in the ratio of two to one. Unfortunately, the enemy was so plentifully supplied with munitions that at first it took our breath away.
After these excitements we drank a few bottles of red wine in Sievers’s dugout, and I became unawares so elated that, in spite of brilliant moonlight, I walked home over the top. Losing my direction, I soon found myself in an enormous mine-crater, and heard the English at work in their trenches close by. After I had made myself a nuisance by throwing them two bombs, I betook myself with all speed back to our trench, and on the way fell foul of one of our foot-angles consisting of four iron spikes. During this time a fairly lively activity prevailed in front of the wire, and sometimes it was not without a certain savage humour. One of our fellows on patrol was shot at because he stammered and could not get out the password quick enough. Another time one of the men, returning at midnight after a festive evening in the kitchen at Monchy, climbed out over the entanglements and opened fire on his own trench. When his ammunition was exhausted he was hauled in and soundly thrashed.
The Overture to the Somme Offensive
In mid April 1916 I was detailed to attend an officers’ training course at Croisilles, a little town behind the divisional front. The course was under the personal charge of the general of the division, Major-General Sontag. Theoretical and practical instruction was given in a whole series of military matters. The lessons in tactics on horseback with Major Jarotzky were particularly attractive. We made a number of expeditions to see the great organization that had been conjured up practically out of nothing in the back areas; and it gave us an idea, accustomed as we were to look down on all that went on behind the fighting line, of the immense amount of work that went on in rear of the fighting troops. We saw the slaughterhouses, the commissariat depot, and the equipment for the repair of guns at Boyelles, the sawmills and pioneer park in Bourlon wood, the dairy and the pig farm and plant for turning carcases to account at Inchy, the aviation park and the bakery at Quéant. On Sundays we motored to the neighbouring towns of Cambrai, Douai, and Valenciennes, “in order to see women for once.”
I had not
