Withdrawal (February 1918)
Diary of a Stosstrupp Leader (Part 37)
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)
The sounds made by other German hand grenades, thrown by the guards we left behind in various places, reinforced our feeling of self-confidence.
In the moment, I believed that a close fight against a much larger force could only result in our destruction. And so I gave the command: ‘Withdraw … slowly!’
The fact that this worked will always be a mystery to me.
Our success owed much to the willingness of each of us to take risks for the sake of comrades, and, in particular, to throw his hand grenades in ways that made it possible for others to move.
Those in front fought fearlessly. Those behind threw grenades as they withdrew.
It proved difficult to move through the barbed wire obstacles. Leaving men to guard the lanes we had cut turned out to have been a good idea. Indeed, as soon as the fight broke out, one (member of each pair of guards) began to widen the lanes that we had cut on the way in while his partner protected him with carbine fire and hand grenades.
It took us a long time to get through the barbed wire. Those who got there first, defended the lane, the only way for us to escape the deadly trap. As others arrived, they took up the job of defending the exit, thereby making it possible for others to escape.
Our hand grenades must have had a powerful effect upon the French, killing and wounding many of them, for they stopped pursuing us.
We finally made it through the obstacle and into the trench.
I counted my men. Praise God, all were there. Moving through the wire scratched and sliced all of us. Grenade fragments had wounded some, but none seriously. Unfortunately, one of our men appeared to have been severely hurt. So, we took good care of him.
After binding his wounds, and taking a breather, we started moving towards our own lines, which lay a kilometer or so away.
Apart from a few bursts of machine gun fire, nothing of note happened during that movement. Thus, at the break of day, we reached our forward positions.
The sentries had heard the sounds of our fight, and believed that we had been overwhelmed by the enemy. But a German soldier does not give up so easily!
We had failed to fulfill our mission of bringing in a prisoner. I was sure, however, that the 160 hand grenades we had thrown had killed and wounded a large number of Frenchmen.
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).
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