Reconstitution (September 1917)
Diary of a Stosstrupp Leader (Part 25)
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.
20 August 1917
I returned to my company, in Section B I a.
Everyone greeted me with great joy.
24 August 1917
We received orders to leave the trenches and become part of the general reserve.
We spent a day in the old prisoner of war camp in Radcyn.
Finally, we were out of the trenches, and in open ground! We lay in the sun, bathing in the light, feeling wonderful. Then we did a twenty-two kilometer (thirteen-mile) night march to Horrow.
We arrived on 26 August 1917 and remained until 30 September 1917.
Each morning, we spent four hours at drilling, practicing field craft, shooting, or in class. In the last week, I managed an officers’ club. It was a fine time.
Horrow occupied a splendid location. There were no civilians there, but many Austrian soldiers and bakery columns. We hunted rabbits and ducks.
I bunked with Pluns, Drape, Knech, and Hinnenthal in a house with a straw roof.
Pluns and I went rowing on the pond.
Lieutenant Schütze, of the Landwehr, took command of the company from Lieutenant Röser, who had fallen ill. Once Röser had recovered, Schütze was transferred to the Western Front.
At the end of our period of reconstitution, we held a marksmanship competition for the officers.
30 September 1917
After a long march, our unit reached the oak forest near Radcyn.
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The text comes from Alwin Lydding Meine Kriegstagbuch (My War Diary), an unpublished manuscript that I found at the Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive) (Folder N 382/1).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 map comes from a 100,000 map published by the Prussian Geographic Service in 1915 (P39 Gorochów), which I found on Polona, the digital repository of Biblioteka Naradowa, the People’s Library of Poland.
Related Reading
“I returned to my company, in Section B I a.
Everyone greeted me with great joy.”
That is a much better reaction than “Oh God, he’s back!” (not that I would personally know anything about that kind of reaction 😉)
More seriously, the use of the term Section B I a. Gives some indication of just how organized their defensive lines were and the static nature of their area at that time.