Ambush (February 1918)
Diary of a Stosstrupp Leader (Part 36)
This post continues the translation of the diary of a German soldier who fought in the First World War. Readers can find links to other posts in this series in the following guide
23/24 February 1918
(Continued)
We came to the end of the trench, where, on the other side a some barbed wire, we saw a well-worn path.
I reviewed our situation. We had been given the mission of bringing in prisoners, at the very least, one. Our location lay three-quarters of a kilometer or so away from our forward outpost, and, as far as I could tell, within the main French line of battle. And yet, in the course of our patrol, we had yet to encounter any Frenchmen. We could not return without fulfilling our mission. And so we pressed on.
I signal Private Horch, who is one of our best men, who lost two of the fingers of his left hand on an earlier raid, to come over to my position. I told him that we would not return until we had captured a Frenchman and that he was to cut a path through the few strands of barbed wire that had been strung in front of us.
The first cut that Horch made caused a tightly stretched piece of wire to snap, making a sound like the cracking of a whip. I saw the flash of two rifles fired in front of Horch, and, in the same moment, two men appear behind the uncut wire.
What happened next took less time than I need to describe it. A hellish roar erupted. My men immediately opened fire with their carbines.
A white flare rose into the sky behind us, allowing us to see our desperate situation.
On our right, many French soldiers emerge from the woods and press forward against us.
We now realize that we have been lured into a trap. On three sides, barbed wire entanglements fenced us in. On the fourth, a much larger force advanced against us.
Even Sergeant Anton, my faithful right-hand man, who had joined me on many patrols, gave up hope. ‘Lieutenant, Sir’, he told me. ‘We’re not getting out of here.’
I answered by yelling ‘Throw grenades’.
Everything happened so quickly that my memory could not make sense of it all. Thus, my account depends heavily upon things that my men told afterwards.
After I gave the order to throw grenades, I shot the nearest Frenchman with my pistol, put the pistol in one of my grenade bags, pulled out a grenade, and threw it at the French.
I then jumped out of the trench and onto its edge. My men followed me.
Had we not done this, the trench would have become our final resting place. (Here, Lieutenant Lydding makes a play on the words Grabe - meaning ‘trench’ - and Grab - meaning ‘grave’.)
The trench had hampered our movement. Worse, it provided a handy aiming-point for French soldiers throwing hand grenades. At one point, an enemy hand grenade fell into the trench where we were located. Luckily, a cool-headed Gefreiter picked it up and threw it back.
Separated from us by little more than the width of the trench, our enemy threw a long succession of grenades at us, each of which exploded with a great crash and a big flame. Whenever our men heard their own (much louder) grenades explode, they regained their composure and their old fearlessness.
To be continued …
Sources
The text comes from Alwin Lydding Meine Kriegstagbuch (My War Diary), an unpublished manuscript that I found at the Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive) (Folder N 382/1).
The still at the top of this page comes from the feature film Der Stosstrupp, a full copy of which can be found on both the Internet Archive and The Tactical Notebook channel on Bitchute.
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