Time only strengthens my conviction that it was a good and strenuous life, and that the war, for all its destructiveness, was an incomparable schooling of the heart. The front-line soldier whose foot came down on the earth so grimly and harshly may claim this at least, that it came down cleanly. Warlike achievements are enhanced by the inherent worth of the enemy. Of all the troops who were opposed to the Germans on the great battlefields the English were not only the most formidable but the manliest and the most chivalrous. I rejoice, therefore, to have an opportunity of expressing in time of peace the sincere admiration which I never failed to make clear during the war whenever I came across a wounded man or a prisoner belonging to the British forces.
The Storm of Steel
From the Diary of a German Storm-Troop Officer on the Western Front
Orainville
The train stopped at Bazancourt, a small town in Champagne, and there we got out. With unbelievable awe we listened to the slow pulsation of the machinery of the front, a tune to which long years were to accustom us. Far away the white ball of a shrapnel shell melted into the grey December sky. The breath of the war passed by us with its peculiar horror. Did we imagine that nearly every one of us would be swallowed up in the days when that dull muttering over there broke out into unceasing thunder … one earlier, another later?
We had left lecture-room, classroom, and bench behind us. We had been welded by a few weeks’ training into the corporate mass inspired by the enthusiasm of one thought … to carry forward the German ideals of ’70. We had grown up in a material age, and in each one of us there was the yearning for great experience, such as we had never known. The war had entered into us like wine. We had set out in a rain of flowers to seek the death of heroes. The war was our dream of greatness, power, and glory. It was a man’s work, a duel on fields whose flowers would be stained with blood. There is no lovelier death in the world … anything rather than stay at home, anything to make one with the rest. …
Our fevered thoughts cooled down as we marched through the heavy chalk loam of Champagne. Pack and ammunition and rifle weighed on us like lead.
At last we reached the village of Orainville, the rest-place of the 73rd Fusiliers, a little spot typical of that neighbourhood, consisting of fifty cottages built of brick or flint round a park-enclosed château.
The traffic in the village street was strange to eyes accustomed to peace conditions. There were only a few uneasy and unkempt civilians to be seen. Everywhere there were soldiers in worn and torn coats, with tanned faces and thick beards, who went to and fro with long swinging strides, or lounging in small groups at the cottage doors assailed us newcomers with chaff. At one place there was a cooker smelling of bean soup and surrounded by a ration-party clattering dixies. The Wallenstein-like romance was heightened by the incipient dilapidation of the village.
After spending our first night in a huge barn, we were paraded before the adjutant, Lieutenant (as he then was) von Brixen, in the courtyard of the château, and told off to our companies; mine being the 9th.
Our first day of the war was destined to make a very distinct impression on us. We were sitting in the schoolhouse, where we were quartered, having breakfast. Suddenly there was a series of heavy explosions close by and soldiers rushed from every house and crowded to the entrance of the village. We followed their example without knowing why. Again there was the peculiar whisper and fluster overhead that we had never before heard, drowned in a terrific crash. I was surprised to see the men round me crouching as if bent under terrific pressure.
Immediately after, black groups appeared in the empty village street, bearing black bundles on stretchers or on joined hands. A feeling of unreality oppressed me as I stared at a figure streaming with blood whose limbs hung loose and who unceasingly gave a hoarse cry for help, as though death had him already by the throat. He was carried into a cottage with the Red Cross flag over the door. What was all this, then? The war had shown its claws and torn off its pleasant mask. It was so mysterious, so impersonal. One had scarcely given a thought to the enemy carrying on his secret and malignant existence somewhere behind. The impression of something arising entirely from beyond the pale of experience was so strange that it was difficult to see the connection of things. It was like a ghost at noon.
A shell had hit the entrance of the château and had struck a mass of stones and masonry into the doorway just as the inmates, terrified by the previous shell-burst, were flocking out. There were thirteen casualties—among them the bandmaster, Gebhard, whom I knew well by sight from the Promenade Concerts at Hanover. A horse standing tied up at the steps realized the danger before the human beings, and breaking loose galloped unhurt into the courtyard.
I could tell from talking to my companions that this episode had somewhat damped their martial ardour. It had affected me too. I seldom heard the rumble of a passing lorry without mistaking it for the sound of that deadly shell.
In any case, however, it was our fate all through the war to start at any sudden and unexpected sound. Whether a train clattered by, or a book fell on the floor, or a cry rang out at night, the heart always stood still for
