World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, German
Nothing was to be seen of the enemy's infantry. It seemed that our
opponent had sent only artillery and cavalry to face us. Meanwhile the
main portions of our army came up in vast columns. Cavalry divisions
with mounted artillery and machine-gun sections left all the other
troops behind them. The enemy had succeeded in disengaging himself
almost completely from us, wherefor our cavalry accelerated their
movements with the intention of getting close to the enemy and as
quickly as possible in order to prevent his demoralized troops from
resting at night. We, too, got ready to march, and were just going to
march off when we received orders to form camp. The camping ground was
exactly mapped out, as was always the case, by the superior command, so
that they would know where we were to be found in case of emergency. We
had scarcely reached our camping grounds when our field kitchen, which
we thought had lost us, appeared before our eyes as if risen from out of
the ground. The men of the field kitchen, who had no idea of the losses
we had suffered during the last days, had cooked for the old number of
heads. They were therefore not a little surprised when they found in the
place of a brave company of sturdy sappers only a crowd of ragged men,
the shadows of their former selves, broken and tired to their very
bones. We were given canned soup, bread, meat, coffee, and a cigarette
each. At last we were able to eat once again to our hearts' content. We
could drink as much coffee as we liked. And then that cigarette, which
appeared to most of us more important than eating and drinking!
All those fine things and the expectation of a few hours of rest in some
potato field aroused in us an almost childish joy. We were as merry as
boys and as noisy as street urchins. "Oh, what a joy to be a soldier
lad!"--that song rang out, subdued at first, then louder and louder. It
died away quickly enough as one after the other laid down his tired
head. We slept like the dead.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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