Poles in Kaisers Army On the Front of the First World War. Ryszard Kaczmarek

All the time, one could hear the cries of the injured in the village abandoned by the French that gave the made other soldiers restless. “The premonition of imminent death, so imminent that it completely preoccupied their minds”¹⁹⁹ exaggerated the already depressive mood. These scenes also miserably affected the soldiers of regiments who did not participate in the battle but only observed. Although they were part of other regiments, the view of the fallen and injured soldiers deprived the members of the 21st Infantry Regiment of any satisfaction after the successful battle (only one member of this regiment died, while three others were injured): “We were not happy. We were glad because we managed to seize Rossignol, but we also witnessed those horrifying bloody losses.”²⁰⁰

      All the soldiers who participated in the fights for the first time felt the same. The image of corpses disheartened soldiers, particularly at the very beginning of the war, when their senses were not yet blunted, which was to happen after the experience of the never-ending trench warfare. A soldier from the Poznań regiment describes the moment when he saw the battlefield covered with corpses:

      We slowly and carefully press forward. We move again, once in columns, once in an extended line, and bury all the bodies we encounter. Most of the corpses are blackened. We have the impression that they are niggers. Puffed lips, eyes shine with whites, turgid bodies, bulging stomachs. Swarms of flies and worms all around the place. We do not have to look for them because the putrid smell can be sensed from afar. We usually bury them immediately on site. Two trowels deep – covered with ground, anonymous – only a clod of earth is a sign that there lies a soldier. We only take off his identity badge.²⁰¹

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      Also, it was quite a disappointment that the famous, supposedly perfectly prepared German war machine did not prove itself in logistics during the first battle. The care for the injured left much to be desired. There was a shortage of corpsmen and stretcher-bearers. Regimental musicians had to help with removing the injured from the battlefield. Initially, the entire medical staff observed the battle from a distance, in the style of nineteenth-century battles. Overloaded sanitary wagons could not transport the constantly rising number of injured from first-aid stations to the field hospital; they proved especially useless in places without roads. The injured had to be transported through forests on one’s shoulders or on stretchers. Due to the lack of direct contact with the troops, it was hard to properly locate first-aid stations to gather the injured. A desperate medic of the 63rd Regiment tried to reach the first line himself at the edge of the forest before Termes in order to assess the situation. All those faults were later amended, and the troops received an order to regularly inform the dressing stations about their location. Due to the fact that the sanitary wagons were too heavy for rural roads, they were deprived of excessive load, while the number of stretcher-bearers was increased to the decline in regimental orchestra posts.²⁰²

      The view of the injured made a strong impression on the soldiers who approached the first line of the front. The artillerymen were astonished and scared when they saw the first lightly injured infantrymen headed toward the rear on their own: “One of them sustained his arm with a bloodshot band, another one had his head muffled, some soldiers in pairs or trios walked without legs, sustaining each other. They called to us “Forward! Forward!” or “These bloody asses shoot from the trees.””²⁰³

      The medical care at the field hospital was better. Here, the long-time preparation and conclusions derived from previous wars in the second half of the nineteenth century proved especially useful: the requirement to select the injured and deliver medical care in a fixed order according to the level of injury. A doctor of the Regiment No. 157 reported after the battle that his staff managed to block the bleeding and avoid infection in most cases of the injured who managed to arrive at the field hospital.²⁰⁴

      However, the amount of German losses was very high. The Infantry Regiment No. 157 lost eighteen officers and 163 soldiers. Among the injured were twenty-one officers and 379 soldiers; there was no information about 159 soldiers, ←75 | 76→even though some of them later turned up. The general loss in the German Army amounted to 1700 fallen and heavily injured soldiers, which was horrifying in light of the fact that it was a battle for a small town.²⁰⁵

      But the amount of the French loss was even higher. The Third Colonial Division alone lost 1700 soldiers, according to the French reports. The overall French estimate of the loss suffered because of the situation amounted to 4000–5000 fallen and heavily injured. The French particularly suffered from artillery fire, but infantry actions were equally ruining.²⁰⁶

      The memories of the French and German soldiers were the same. They all remember the masses of killed people:

      On August 22…. What massacre! The busy road is full of broken carts, injured soldiers, dead horses, and fallen soldiers who lie in a bizarre tangle. Leaves and broken branches constantly fell and covered this maze. In a trench, I saw the commander of my artillery with pink foam coming from his mouth. The ambulance full of injured, shot by all kinds of bullets, yelling, groaning. A doctor major who sat at the wheel with a big red bloodstain on his chest seemed as if only waiting for his death.²⁰⁷

      An unexpected epilogue to the Rossignol battle happened on the following day. The soldiers of the Upper Silesian regiments finally felt like conquerors in a partly ruined town, still crowded with civilians who did not leave the village with the French troops. The Upper Silesians started first war looting. During the scouring of houses, they often decided to exchange their sweaty military vests and pants for confiscated underwear, even one that belonged to women.²⁰⁸ Moreover, they no longer had to obey the rule that only the quartermaster units provide the supply by buying food from the local farmers in Belgium and Luxembourg, a rule meticulously obeyed until very recently. When a provisioner of the Regiment No. 157 found a bullock in the forest, he no longer cared about finding its owner. He immediately killed the bullock, however, he did that “not strictly in compliance with the art of butchery [he shot the bullock].” After quartering, the bullock ended up in the kitchen’s kettle.²⁰⁹ Similarly, another subunit of the regiment, after cleaning up in a nearby stream during the bivouac, brought another trophy. They “caught” a “wandering” chicken and found additional food ←76 | 77→products and wine. The supply officer indeed wanted to give a Belgian woman of nearby household a worthless requisition bill, but she refused to take it and said with anxiety that the chicken is not hers. The bill ended up at the door because the owner was unknown.²¹⁰

      The following day, the situation in the village after the battle and robberies was very tense. At 8 am, when part of the Infantry Regiment No. 157 received the order to depart, some suddenly noticed shots coming from basements, windows, and attics. At that time, many French captives waited at the church square to be led to the front support area, as they found themselves in the middle of a chaotic firefight. Here and there, the Germans torched local houses in order to bring the situation under control (there were as many as 184 burned houses). Similarly, the 63rd Infantry Regiment found itself under fire during their bivouac. Armed infiltrators (Franktireurs) were burdened with the responsibility for the assault, because one could find civilian clothes in some satchels of captives. The commander of the Infantry Regiment No. 157 ordered his soldiers to meticulously search through the entire village. Two civilians with rifles were executed next to a burning church. The execution’s proceedings were dramatic. It happened in the middle of a burning village, next to the church that was its central point, from which – at the very moment of the death volley – “the cross fell [from its tower] to the ground on the bodies of the executed”.²¹¹