The Battle of Cambrai

The delightful days at Tourcoing were soon over. For a short while longer we were at Villers-au-Tertre, where we were made up to strength by new drafts, and then we went by train on the 15th November to Lécluse, the rest-place of the battalion in reserve on the new front now assigned to us. Lécluse was a fairly large village of Artois, surrounded by lakes. The immense reedy marshes concealed ducks and waterfowl, and the water was alive with fish. Though fishing was strictly forbidden, mysterious sounds were often heard on the water at night. One day, too, I had presented to me by the town-major a few paybooks of men in my company who had been caught fishing with bombs. I wasted no words over that, however; for the good spirits of the men were very much more to me than the protection of French fishing-waters or the dinner-tables of the resident military magnates. After this a gigantic pike was laid on my table nearly every evening by an unknown hand, and on the next day I gave my two company officers a meal, at which the principal dish was “Pike à la Lohengrin.” (Ask me no more!)

On the 19th I inspected our position in the line with my platoon commanders, as we were going in in a day or two. It was in front of the village of Vis-en-Artois. We were not so soon in the line as we expected, as there was an alarm nearly every night, and on account of an English attack that was supposed to be coming off we were held in readiness by turns in the Wotan line, the reserve gun positions, or in Dury village. Those who had war experience could see that something unpleasant would come of it.

On the 29th November we were, in fact, told by our commanding officer, Captain von Brixen, that we were to take part in a highly-organized counterattack to straighten the bulge that the Cambrai tank-battle had made in our front. We were delighted, certainly, to change the part of the anvil for that of the hammer at last; but we had some reservations on account of the men, after their recent exhaustion in Flanders. Nevertheless, I had entire confidence in the spirit of my company and its iron backbone, in my experienced platoon commanders and excellent N.C.O.s.

On the night of November 30th-December 1st we were put on lorries. It was in the course of this that my company had its first casualties. One of the men let a bomb fall and for some mysterious reason it went off and severely wounded him and one other. Another man, in the hope of getting sent back, pretended to be mad. I did not know whether to laugh or to storm at him. Finally he recovered his reason at the suggestion of a N.C.O., who gave him a powerful dig in the ribs; and we were all able to get in. We were conveyed, tightly packed together, almost as far as Baralle, and there we waited hour after hour for orders in the ditch by the roadside. In spite of the cold I lay down in a grass field and slept till dawn. We were somewhat disappointed when we were told that the 225th Regiment were going over the top without our assistance. Pending developments we were to stand by in the park of the château of Baralle.

At nine o’clock our artillery broke into heavy bursts of fire, and increased between 11:45 and 11:50 to drumfire. Bourlon wood, which owing to the strength of its defences had been left out of the frontal attack, disappeared under yellowish-green clouds of gas. At 11:50 we saw the attacking waves through glasses, as they emerged upon the vacant expanse of shell-holes; while further back, batteries harnessed up and raced forward to new positions. A German scout shot down an English captive balloon in flames, and the observer jumped out with a parachute.

After enjoying this panorama of battle from the high ground of the park we emptied a dixie of dumplings, and in spite of the cold laid ourselves down on the ground for an afternoon sleep. At three, orders came through to go forward as far as regimental headquarters, which were concealed in the lock of a drained canal. We covered this distance in detachments under moderate and scattered shellfire.

From there the 7th and 8th Companies were sent forward to report to the officer commanding the troops in reserve, so as to relieve two companies of the 225th. The five hundred metres we had to go along the bed of the canal were covered by a band of fire. We ran in one mob and reached our goal without a casualty. There were numerous dead here to show that many a company had paid heavy toll. Reserves were crowded along the sides of the canal and were feverishly digging out holes in the retaining walls to serve as cover. As the whole space was occupied, and as the canal was a landmark that drew the enemy’s fire, I led the company off to the right among the shell-holes and gave orders for each man to see to himself. A splinter rang against my bayonet. Lieutenant Tebbe had followed my example with the 8th Company, and now we looked out a suitable shell-hole and covered it with a groundsheet. We then lit a candle, ate our supper, lit our pipes, and talked and shivered. At eleven o’clock I got orders to proceed to the former front line and to report to the C.O. of the battalion in the line, under whose orders the 7th Company was. I gave the order to fall in and led the company forward. There were only isolated shells, but very heavy ones. One of them that crashed in front of us was like a glimpse of hell, and filled the whole canal-bed with black vapour. The men were dumbfounded as though by a blow of an iron fist on the nape of the neck, and stumbled hurriedly on behind me over barbed wire and stone rubble.

A feeling of indescribable discomfort steals upon the nerves, even though the shellfire is not particularly heavy, when one is traversing an unfamiliar part of the line by night. The strangest illusions play upon the eye and ear, and the menacing walls of the trench inspire a sense of loneliness, like that of a child that has lost its way on a dark heath.

At last we found the narrow mouth of the first line in the wall of the canal, and went on through overcrowded trenches to battalion headquarters. I went in and found a mob of officers and orderlies in an atmosphere that could be cut with a knife. I was told that the attack on the front had not achieved much and that it was to be renewed the next morning. The feeling in the air was not very hopeful. Two commanding officers began a long discussion with their adjutants. Now and then from the height of their bunks, that were as crowded as hen-roosts, the specialist officers threw a few crumbs into the debate. The cigar fumes were suffocating. Batmen endeavoured to cut bread for their officers in the throng. A wounded officer who burst in aroused a passing alarm with the news of an enemy bombing attack.

Finally I was able to take down my orders for the attack. At six a.m. I and my company were to roll up Dragon Alley and as much of the Siegfried line as possible. The two battalions of the regiment in the line were to attack on our right at seven.

This difference of time aroused my immediate and resolute dislike. I raised a number of objections to splitting up the attack in this way, and gained my point. We, too, were to attack at seven. We found out the importance of this alteration the next morning. Fighting experience in an officer commanding troops can often, in cases like this, spare much unnecessary bloodshed.

A company detached from its own unit is not likely to be pampered under alien command. As I had only the haziest notion of the whereabouts of Dragon Alley, I asked, as I was going, for a map. Unfortunately, not a single one could be spared. I made a silent comment and went out.

After I and the men with their heavy packs had wandered up and down the trenches for a long while, one of the men discovered a board with the scarcely legible inscription, “Dragon Alley.” It was at the entrance of a narrow trench branching off to the front and blocked with knife-rests. After entering it, and before I had gone many paces, I heard voices in a foreign tongue. I was very much astonished to find the enemy so close, and indeed almost in our own lines, without having come upon any measures of defence; and I at once posted a section to block the trench.

Close to Dragon Alley there was an enormous pit, apparently a tank-trap. There I collected the whole company and explained the plan of attack and assigned their respective parts to each platoon. My remarks were interrupted several times by light shells. Once, even, a dud hurtled against the rear wall of our pit. Standing on the edge above, I saw a deep and regular inclination of the moonlit helmets at every hit.

I took the precaution of sending the first and second platoons back into the trench, in case of an unlucky direct hit, and remained with the third in the pit. Some men of a party which had come to grief in Dragon Alley the day before put the wind up my men by telling them that fifty metres along there was an English machine-gun that made further advance impossible. In view of this tale, I made it understood with the platoon commanders that at the first resistance we should jump out on both sides of the trench and make a concerted bombing attack. It is more than ever important to keep up a regiment’s fighting prestige when attached to another unit. I spent the endless hours squeezed up against Lieutenant Hopf in a small hole. I got up at six and made the final arrangements, in a mood peculiar to the last hour before an attack. There’s a lonely, sinking feeling in the stomach as one speaks to the section leaders, tries to make jokes, and keeps running to and fro as if before an inspection by the divisional commander. In short, one tries to be as occupied as possible in order to escape the thoughts that drill into the brain. One of the men offered me a cup of coffee heated in a trench cooker. Its warmth cheered me to the marrow.

At seven sharp we advanced in single file in the prearranged order. We found Dragon Alley unoccupied; a number of empty drums behind a block showed that the machine-gun must have been withdrawn. Our fighting spirit kindled at this. We went along a narrow sunken way, after passing on our right a well-built trench, where I left a few men posted. The sunken road became shallower and shallower till at last we found ourselves in the open, just as dawn broke. We then turned back and entered the trench on the right. It was full of arms and equipment and English dead. It was the Siegfried line, and suddenly Lieutenant Hoppenrath, the leader of the storming section, snatched a rifle from one of the men and fired. He had come on an English post, which, after a few bombs had been thrown, took to flight. We went on, and a moment later a fresh stand was encountered. Bombs flew on both sides and burst with resounding din. Now the technique of the storm-troop came into play. A chain of bombs went from hand to hand along the trench. Snipers took up positions behind traverses ready to draw a bead on the enemy bombers; the platoon commanders kept an eye out over the top to see a counterattack in the nick of time; and the light machine-gun section mounted their guns where there was a good field of fire.

After a short fight we heard agitated voices from the other side, and before we understood what was happening the first Englishmen came towards us with their hands up. One after another turned the corner of the traverse and unbuckled his belt while our rifles and revolvers were threateningly levelled. They were all young, well-set-up fellows in new uniforms. I let them pass with the command “Hands down!” and detailed a squad to take them to the rear. Most of them showed by their confiding smiles that they trusted in us as human beings. Others held out cigarettes and chocolates in order to conciliate us. My enthusiasm and delight when I saw what a bag we had made were unbounded. The procession had no end. We had counted 150 already, and still they came with their hands above their heads. I went up to an officer and asked him how far their position extended and how many men they had. He answered very politely, but impaired the good impression he made by being so very stiff about it. He then conducted me to the commander of the company, a captain, who was lying wounded in a deep dugout near by. He was about twenty-eight years old, with a clear-cut face. I found him leaning against the timbers at the foot of the shaft with a wound through the calf. I introduced myself, and he raised his hand to his cap, showing as he did so a gold chain. He told me his name and gave up his revolver. His first words showed that I had a man to deal with. “We were surrounded.” He could not rest till he had told his enemy why he had allowed his company to be taken prisoners so quickly.

We had a talk on various matters, in French. He told me there were a number of German wounded in a neighbouring dugout, whom his men had bound up and looked after. When I asked him how strongly held the Siegfried line was further on, he declined to reply. I promised to get him and the other casualties sent back, and we parted with a shake of the hand.

Outside, the men reported that we had taken 200 prisoners, a fine achievement for a company of eighty strong. I had guards mounted, and we then looked round the captured trench. It was bristling with arms and equipment. On the fire-steps were machine-guns, mortars, bombs, and rifle-grenades, water-bottles, sheepskin waistcoats, mackintosh capes, groundsheets, cases of bully beef, jam, tea, coffee, cocoa, and tobacco, bottles of rum, tools, revolvers, Verey-light pistols, clothing, gloves; in short, everything imaginable. Like an old soldier of fortune I allowed an interval for plunder, nor could I resist the temptation myself of having a small breakfast prepared for me by my batman in a dugout entrance and lighting a pipe of the “Navy Cut” I had so long been without, while I scribbled a report to the commanding officer of the troops in the line. Like a wise man, I sent a duplicate to our own C.O.

After half an hour we proceeded, in an exalted mood, to which the English rum may have contributed, and stalked from traverse to traverse along the Siegfried line.

We were fired on from a pillbox built into the trench, and got on to the next fire-step to study the lie of the land. While we were exchanging a shot or two with the inmates, a man was struck to the ground as though by an invisible hand. A shot had pierced the crown of his helmet and torn a long groove in his skull. His brain could be seen throbbing with each beat of his heart, and yet he was able to make his way back alone.

I called for volunteers to carry the place by assault over the top. The men looked at each other in hesitation. Only an ungainly Pole, whom I had always thought weak in the head, clambered out of the trench and stumped off heavily to assault the pillbox alone. But now Fähnrich Neupert sprang over the top with his section, while we at the same time advanced along the trench. The English fired a few shots and ran for it, abandoning the pillbox to us. One of the Fähnrich’s men was shot dead halfway over, and lay with his face to the earth a few steps from the goal.

Going further we met with a resolute resistance from some unseen bomb-throwers, and after considerable butchery we were driven back to the pillbox. There we made a block. We, as well as the English, left a number of dead in the disputed length of trench. Among them, unhappily, was the N.C.O. Mevius, whom, in the night of Regniéville, I had learned to value as a daring fighter. He lay with his face in a pool of blood. When I turned him over I saw a big hole in his forehead and knew that nothing could help him.

After the enemy also had retired a little, an obstinate shooting match began. In the course of it a Lewis gun, posted fifty metres from us, forced us to duck our heads. A light machine-gun on our side took the duel on. For half a minute the two murderous weapons rattled on at each other, with the bullets spurting round them. Then our gunner, the volunteer Motullo, was killed by a shot through the head. Though his brain fell over his face to his chin, his mind was still clear when we took him to the nearest dugout. By degrees things calmed down, as the English too were busy making a block.

At twelve, Captain von Brixen, Tebbe, and Vogt appeared and congratulated me on the company’s success. We sat down in the pillbox and lunched off the English provisions and discussed the situation. Meanwhile I held a conversation in shouts with about twenty-five English, whose heads emerged out of the trench about a hundred metres in front of us, and who apparently wished to give themselves up. As soon as I showed myself, however, I was shot at from further behind them.

Suddenly there was a commotion at the barricade. Bombs flew, rifles pinged, and machine-guns rattled. “They’re coming. They’re coming.” We jumped to our sandbags and fired away. One of my men, the volunteer Kimpenhaus, jumped on to the top of the block in the heat of the battle and fired into the trench till he fell severely wounded in both arms. I made a note of this hero of the hour, and had the pleasure, fourteen days later, of congratulating him on the Iron Cross of the 1st class.

We had scarcely gone back to lunch after this little interlude when a fresh heathenish alarm broke upon us. There followed one of those extraordinary episodes in which, great and small, the history of the war is so rich. A subaltern of the regiment on our left who had come to get into touch with us became inspired by a boundless pugnacity. It seemed that drink had inflamed his inborn courage to madness. “Where’s the Tommy? At the dogs! Who’s coming?” In his rage he pulled down our fine block and plunged on, clearing a road for himself with a roar of bombs. In front of him, through the trench, flitted his orderly, and finished off with his rifle those whom the bombs had spared.

When a man makes himself the stake with crazy daring his example is always infectious. We were all wrought up and, snatching up bombs, ran to take part in the improvised assault. I was soon up with the fellow, nor did the other officers, followed by most of the company, hang back. The C.O. himself, Captain von Brixen, was among the foremost. He had picked up a rifle, and he shot down several enemy bombers over our heads.

The English resisted valiantly. Every traverse was contested. Mills bombs and stick-bombs crossed and recrossed. Behind each we found dead or still quivering bodies. We killed each other out of sight; and there were losses on our side too. A bomb fell close to the orderly and burst before he could get clear. He fell with a dozen wounds, from which his blood trickled into the soil.

We sprang on over his body. Thunderous reports gave us our direction. Hundreds of eyes lay in wait in the desolation behind rifles and machine-guns. We were a long way in front of our own lines. Bullets whistled from all sides round our heads or landed with a hard smack on the edge of the trench. One had to have courage here, and everyone had; otherwise he would not have ventured on it. Each time that one of the egg-shaped bombs appeared the eye seized it with a precision only possible to a man whose life hangs on the issue. Then one threw a bomb oneself and jumped forward. Scarce a glance fell on the huddled body of the enemy. He was done for, and now a fresh duel began.

A trench branching off to the right was cleared by some men of the 225th Regiment who were following us. Caught between two fires, the English tried to escape across the open and were shot down like game at a “battue.”

Then came the climax. The enemy, hard pressed, and with us always on his heels, made ready to retire by a communication trench that turned away to the right. I jumped on to a fire-step and saw that this trench for a good stretch ran parallel to ours at a distance of only twenty metres. So the enemy had to pass by us once more. We could look right down on the helmets of the English, who stumbled over each other in their haste and excitement. I lobbed a bomb at the feet of the foremost. They started back and crowded on those behind. Now began an indescribable carnage. Bombs flew through the air like snowballs till the whole scene was veiled in white smoke. Two men handed me bombs ready to throw without a moment’s pause. Bombs flashed and exploded among the mob of English, throwing them aloft in fragments with their helmets. Cries of rage and terror were mingled. With the fire in our eyes we sprang with a shout over the top.

In the midst of this tumult I was struck to the earth by a terrific blow. Sobered, I tore off my helmet, and saw with horror two large holes in it. The N.C.O. Mohrmann, who sprang to my help, comforted me by the assurance that nothing was to be seen on the back of my head but a scratch. The shot of a far-distant rifle had pierced my helmet and grazed the skull. I was half-dazed and was forced to give way. With my head bound up I made my way out of the thick of the fight. I had scarcely passed the next traverse when a man ran up behind me and gasped out that Tebbe had been killed by a shot in the head at the very same spot.

This news finished me. I could scarcely realize that a friend with whom for years I had shared joy and sorrow and danger, and who had sung out a jest to me a few minutes before, had met his end from a senseless piece of lead. Unhappily it was too true.

All the leading N.C.O.s and a third of the company had fallen too in this murderous piece of trench; Lieutenant Hopf, also, an elderly man and a teacher by profession, a German “Ideal-Schulmeister” in the best sense of the word. My two Fähnrichs and many more were wounded. In spite of this the 7th Company held the trench they had gloriously won, and remained there under the command of Lieutenant Hoppenrath, the only officer left, until the relief of the battalion.

Even modern battle has its great moments. One hears it said very often and very mistakenly that the infantry battle has degenerated to an uninteresting butchery. On the contrary, today more than ever it is the individual that counts. Everyone knows that who has seen them in their own realm, these princes of the trenches, with their hard, set faces, brave to madness, tough and agile to leap forward or back, with keen bloodthirsty nerves, whom no despatch ever mentions. Trench warfare is the bloodiest, wildest, and most brutal of all warfare, yet it too has had its men, men whom the call of the hour has raised up, unknown foolhardy fighters. Of all the nerve-racking moments of war none is so formidable as the meeting of two storm-troop leaders between the narrow walls of the trench. There is no retreat and no mercy then. Blood sounds in the shrill cry that is wrung like a nightmare from the breast.

On my way back I stopped beside Captain von Brixen, who, with a few of the men, was engaged in a duel with a row of heads sticking up out of a trench running parallel and not far away. I stood between him and another and marked where the bullets struck.

Of a sudden I was again flung down into the trench by a blow on the forehead and my eyes were blinded with blood. The man beside me fell at the same moment and began to cry out. He was shot in the temple through his helmet. Captain von Brixen was afraid he had lost a second company commander in one day. However, there was nothing to be found, on a closer inspection, except two flesh wounds on the edge of my hair, caused, presumably, by the bursting bullet or by a splinter from the wounded man’s helmet.

The fresh loss of blood weakened me; so I agreed to return with Captain von Brixen to his headquarters. We passed the edge of Mœuvres village at the double on account of the heavy shelling, and arrived safely at the dugout in the bed of the canal. There I was dressed and injected against tetanus.

In the afternoon I got on to a lorry and went to Lécluse, and there dined with Colonel von Oppen, who received my report with enthusiasm. After I had emptied my bottle of wine, in excellent spirits though half asleep, I took my leave. My trusty Vinke, whose face beamed with joy, had a bed ready for me, and I flung myself into it with a holiday feeling after this tremendous day. On the next day but one the battalion was taken out and came to Lécluse. On the 4th December the divisional commander, Major-General von Busse, addressed the battalions concerned, and mentioned with particular emphasis the services performed by the 7th Company.

I had reason to be proud of my men. A bare eighty of them had taken a long stretch of trench, besides a large quantity of machine-guns, mortars, and war material, and 200 prisoners. Unhappily we, too, had a casualty list of fifty percent, in which was a large proportion of officers and N.C.O.s I had the pleasure of announcing a large number of promotions and decorations. Lieutenant Hoppenrath, leader of the storm troops, Fähnrich Neupert, the stormer of the pillbox, and also the courageous defender of the block, Kimpenhaus, were given the Iron Cross of the 1st class for their distinguished conduct in the field. As a plaster for my fifth wound I was given fourteen days’ Christmas leave, and in the course of it the Knight’s Cross of the House of Hohenzollern with swords was sent to me at home. The war ended by giving me peculiar views as to orders and decorations, and yet I confess I was proud to pin the enamel cross with the gold rim to my breast. This cross, my perforated helmet, and a silver cup inscribed “To the victor of Mœvres,” presented to me by the three other company commanders of the battalion, are my souvenirs of the battle of Cambrai.