Paths of Glory: Impressions of War Written at and Near the FrontCobb, Irvin S. (Irvin Shrewsbury)
History
Paths of Glory: Impressions of War Written at and Near the Front
Cobb, Irvin S. (Irvin Shrewsbury)
World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- Western Front; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
"We have many buried over there," said an artillery captain, seeing that
I watched the grave diggers, "a general among them and other officers.
It is there we bury those who die in the Institute hospital. Every day
more die, and so each morning trenches are made ready for those who will
die during that day. A good friend of mine is over there; he was buried
day before yesterday. I sat up late last night writing to his wife--or
perhaps I should say his widow. They had been married only a few weeks
when the call came. It will be very hard on her."
He did not name the general who lay over yonder, nor did we ask him the
name. To ask would not have been etiquette, and for him to answer would
have been worse. Rarely in our wanderings did we find a German soldier
of whatsoever rank who referred to his superior officer by name. He
merely said "My captain" or "Our colonel." And this was of a piece with
the plan--not entirely confined to the Germans--of making a secret of
losses of commanders and movements of commands.
We went thence then, the distance being perhaps three miles by road and
not above eight minutes by automobile at the rate we traveled to an
aviation camp at the back side of the town. Here was very much to see,
including many aeroplanes of sorts domiciled under canvas hangars and a
cheerful, chatty, hospitable group of the most famous aviators in the
German army--lean, keen young men all of them--and a sample specimen of
the radish-shaped bomb which these gentlemen carry aloft with the intent
of dropping it upon their enemies when occasion shall offer. Each of us
in turn solemnly hefted the bomb to feel its weight. I should guess it
weighed thirty pounds--say, ten pounds for the case and twenty pounds
for its load of fearsome ingredients. Finally, yet foremost, we were
invited to inspect that thing which is the pride and the brag of this
particular arm of the German Army--a balloon-cannon, so called.
The balloon-gun of this size is--or was at the date when I saw it--an
exclusively German institution. I believe the Allies have balloon-guns
too, but theirs are smaller, according to what the Germans say. This
one was mounted on a squatty half-turret at the tail end of an armored-
steel truck. It had a mechanism as daintily adjusted as a lady's watch
and much more accurate, and when being towed by its attendant
automobile, which has harnessed within it the power of a hundred and odd
draft horses, it has been known to cover sixty English miles in an hour,
for all that its weight is that of very many loaded vans.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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