A Summer Night's Dream
Memories of Battle
This is the fifth post in a multi-part series. To find other installments, please consult the following guide.
Hallen now explained to me in detail his 'creed,' as he called it. I listened in silence. My thoughts carried me back to the old battlefields, and brought before me the contrast presented by the ideas of that time to those which Hallen was setting forth. I recalled my first battle in France. We did not arrive on the field till late in the day. We crossed it where the battle had been fiercest.
What a sight it was! I was already familiar with the sight of the dead and the mangled, and with the sound of the cries of the wounded, but not with what now met my eyes. The field was literally strewed with men who had left the ranks, and were doing nothing. Whole battalions could have been formed from them. From where we stood you could count hundreds. Some were lying down, their rifles pointing to the front, as if they were still in the firing line, and were expecting the enemy to attack them at any moment. These had evidently remained behind lying down, when the more courageous had advanced.
Others had squatted like hares in the furrows. Wherever a bush or ditch gave shelter, there were men to be seen, who in some cases had made themselves very comfortable. All these men gazed at us without showing the least interest. The fact that we belonged to another army corps seemed to be a sufficient excuse for treating us with blank indifference. I heard them say: 'These fellows, like the others, are going to let themselves be shot.'
The men nearest me bore on their shoulder straps the number of a famous regiment. I turned to look at my own men. They began to seem uneasy. Some were pale. I myself was conscious of the depressing effect produced on me by what I saw. If the fire of the breech loader, which we were now to face for the first time, while already its continuous roll sounded in our ears had so disorganized this regiment what would happen to me?
I presently met with an officer of the Reserve. I invited him to join my company. He followed without uttering a word. To my annoyance, my company had to make a short halt to allow the commander of the battalion to come up; we therefore gathered the stragglers about us, and formed a strong party of them under the command of this officer.
Two men, a lance-corporal and a private, came of their own accord and asked permission to join us; all the others were very halfhearted, and had to be brought in. Those who could do so sneaked away. The only effect of our collecting these stragglers was to produce a bad impression on my own men, for, as soon as we came under the enemy’s fire in some vineyards and extended, the reserve officer and his comrades disappeared for good. I reproached myself afterwards with not having asked his name.
Only the two men that had voluntarily joined us remained, and behaved gallantly to the end. When I dismissed them, they asked me for a few words on paper to show their captain where they had been. I willingly granted their request. I stated in my note how well they had behaved, and that even had they had not asked me to write, I should have done so.’
During our advance, before we came under any really serious fire, and while only the whistle of an occasional stray bullet could be heard, we saw six men, one behind the other in a long cue, cowering at the back of a tree. Afterwards I saw this sight so often that I became accustomed to it. Who did not? At the time it was new to me. The tree I speak of was not thick enough to give cover even to one man. In this instance the sixth was a sergeant. Near the tree there were little irregularities of ground which would have given good cover to all six.
'And this,' said I to myself as I now thought over the matter, 'was the result of three years’ careful education in the independent use of cover. Would not Frederick’s soldiers, who knew nothing about fighting independently, have been ashamed to present such a spectacle to passing troops?'
We were severely engaged on the following day. The attack had to be hurried on. I hastened forward, fearing to arrive too late, and was met by a counter attack of the enemy. The remainder of our battalion, mixed up with another regiment, was on our left. There the fight was at its fiercest, and the noise deafening.
My duty seemed clear; first to push aside the skirmishers opposed to me, and then to fall on the flank of the formed body of the enemy that was in front of our other companies. I threw out skirmishers, and opened a heavy fire at 300 yards. I then marched the support in company column, with drums beating to the attack.
As, however, the enemy suddenly appeared in strength behind his firing line, and looked as if he meant to attack my left, I, as soon as I had brought my support to the firing line, gave the command to fire a 'four deep volley’.
In consequence of the noise of the skirmishers’ fire, this utterly failed. The head of my small column began firing independently. Every one dropped on the knee. The losses were already considerable. 'There is nothing for it but to get on', said I to myself, and I actually succeeded after a few shots in making the company rush farther forward, cheering.
This was largely due to my brave drummer, Schult, for, without flinching from my side, he beat 'the charge' continuously with all his might. We saw the enemy stop his advance, but, on the other hand, his fire became severe. My forward rush had only lasted fifty paces, when my men threw themselves down in order to return the fire. Although the company was in disorder, there was still a group holding together. Even the skirmishers nearest this group were attracted unconsciously towards it.
I let the quick fire rattle for a short time, and then sprang to the front, shouting 'March, march; hurrah!' My brave lieutenant similarly urged forward the other flank of the column. Although our voices were stilled, still the example given by the captain and lieutenant was visible to all our men, and had the desired effect.
The fire of the closed groups was ceasing, and the greater part of the company was on its feet when a senior officer galloped up, shouting: 'Captain, extend your men, or you will all be killed.’
There was not necessity for me to repeat this order: the words had had a magical effect. In a second, the company had scattered in every direction except that of the enemy. I saw no more of most of my men during the fight, but they turned up all right at the bivouac in the evening. We lost about seventy men during the attack I have just described.
If the senior officer had not interposed, the further advance would no doubt have been very costly. But if we had driven off the enemy’s skirmishers, as I felt sure we should have done, we should have repaid our losses with interest on them and on the men beyond on whose flank we should then have struck. As things were, we had escaped the loss of any more men, but we had also lost the chance of success.
Whilst I was now, long after the event, thinking over the attack and my mistakes in it, and considering how far they were responsible for the unlucky interference of the senior officer, suddenly the picture of another battlefield presented itself to me. I was in a narrow forest path. The forest was large and so thick that it was difficult for even single men to move off the path.
In front, I heard a hot musketry fire. There were not troops in the path, only a few senior officers, who were searching for their men on either side of the path the wood was full of men, who were taking no part in the fight. The greater portion of a division had crumbled away in the forest. Instead of keeping the men together on the roads and paths, we had sent them into the forest in extended order. Now we were in despair. We wanted to get our men together again, but could not succeed in doing so.
I went to one of the men near me, who were among the trees doing nothing. 'What are you doing here?' I asked. 'I am Schutze [‘Rifleman’] of the 10th Company.' 'Where is your captain?' 'I don’t know.'
'Where is your platoon leader?' 'I don’t know that either.'
'Why are you not fighting?' 'There is no enemy here.'
'Why don’t you go forward, then, where the enemy is?' 'I have no order to do so.'
'If you don’t go forward and can’t shoot, why don’t you join yourself to the other people close to you?' They belong to another company. No orders to reform have been given.'
As I thought over this scene, I recalled Hallen’s words. 'If you find fault with such a man he will answer, if not exactly in these words, at least in their sense: ‘What do you want me to do? I am fighting in dispersed order.' It seems comical, but it is very true and sad.
I continued my musings. Hallen’s words recurred to me. 'When the leaders are gone, the example that will be followed by nearly all will be that of the weak, of the men who lose their heads, and of the cowards.'
I thought of the case of Lance-Corporal Arnold.
To be continued …
As soon as each installment of this series rolls of the press, a link to it will appear on the following guide.
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These sort of problems I think we have presently solved. Presently.