Stories and Letters from the Trenches — John Shaqi
Stories and Letters from the TrenchesVarious
History
Stories and Letters from the Trenches
Various
World War, 1914-1918 -- Anecdotes
Interesting, too, is a letter written on Sept. 5 by Ernest II., Duke
of Saxe-Altenburg, who, besides being a Lieutenant of the Prussian
Guard and Chief of the Eighth Infantry Regiment of Thuringia,
is Duke of Saxe-Altenburg (since 1908), of Juliers, Cleves and
Berg, Engern, and Westphalia; Landgrave in Thuringia, Margrave of
Misnia, Count of Henneberg, Marche, Ravensberg, and Seigneur of
Ravenstein and Tonna. In 1898 the Duke married Princess Adelaide
of Schaumburg-Lippe, thus uniting two great German houses. His own
house was started in 1655 by Ernst, Duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen. His
letter follows:
We have lived through a great deal and done a great deal, marching,
marching, continually, without rest or respite. On Aug. 10 we
reached Willdorf, near Jülich, by train, and from the 12th of August
we marched without a single day of rest except Aug. 16, which we
spent in a Belgian village near Liége, until to-day, when we reached
----. These have been army marches such as history has never known.
The weather was fine, except that a broiling heat blazed down upon
us. The regiment can point back to several days' marches of fifty
kilometers ----. Everywhere our arrival created great amazement, in
Louvain as well as in Brussels, into which the entire ---- marched
at one time. At first we were taken for Englishmen in almost every
village, and we still are, because the inhabitants cannot realize
that we have arrived so early. The Belgians, moreover, in the last
few days almost invariably set fire to their own villages.
On Aug. 24 we first entered battle; I led a combined brigade
consisting of ----. The regiment fought splendidly, and in spite of
the gigantic strain put upon it, it is still in the best of spirits
and full of the joy of battle. On that day I was for a long time in
the sharpest rifle and artillery fire. Since that time there have
been almost daily skirmishes and continual long marches; the enemy
stalks ahead of us in seven-league boots.
On Aug. 26 we put behind us a march of exactly twenty-three hours,
from 6:30 o'clock in the morning until 5:30 the next morning. With
all that, I was supposed to lead my regiment across a bridge to take
a position guarding a new bridge in course of construction; but the
bridge, as we discovered in the nick of time, was mined; twenty
minutes later it flew into the air.
After resting for three hours in a field of stubble, and after we
had all eaten in common with the men in a field kitchen--as we
usually do--we continued marching till dark.
The spirit among our men is excellent. To-night I am to have a real
bed--the fourth, I believe, since the war began. To-day I undressed
for the first time in eight days.
* * * * *
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