Арнольд Цвейг - Outside Verdun

The crown prince visualised the wrinkled face of the old Junker who spoke those words with such conviction, his small eyes and rasping voice, and smiled to himself. Others had contradicted him, for example von Lychow, who had been in command on the left bank of the Meuse for some time. But their arguments didn’t hold water. They were very sensible, but you didn’t get the stars down from the sky through good sense alone. He, the prince, had watched his father, the supreme warlord, while the generals were arguing. Ah yes, Papa understood how to give the right sort of appearance, how to play the royal chieftain of the council of war, imposing as an eagle. But he didn’t fool his son. His face sagged, his eyes were wreathed in wrinkles, and it was a struggle for him to maintain his confident imperial mien. His son knew what only sons can guess: that dear Papa had imagined the war would turn out quite differently when he unleashed it with such panache. More like his manoeuvres no doubt. But that wasn’t how the barrow was rolling, your majesty; it was rolling quite differently. At the beginning of the war, the old man had thought he’d be his own chief of staff; that had been a lovely dream in the idle hours of peacetime. Then he’d had to send brave old Moltke out into the desert, followed by the unctuous Falkenhayn, and summon two new gods whom he couldn’t stand. Half-measures, nothing but half-measures! The war would be over in six months if they would stop worrying about neutral countries and order the U-boats to sink whatever passed in front of them, knocking out Great Britain’s provisions and the American shells supplied to France. The American gentlemen and their Wilson could protest as much as they wanted. They could even send their miserable army over. They’d be very welcome. Fodder for the field howitzers, nothing more.

The car ran well. Perfect engine, springs made of outstanding German steel. When the Romanian business was sorted out, Papa wanted to risk a bid for peace in order to shut the pope up. It couldn’t hurt because Belgium would certainly stay in German hands, as would the Briey-Longwy iron ore basin. If you thought about it properly and took a look at the map, the whole Verdun offensive was really just about strategically safeguarding those conquests ahead of the coming peace agreement. Naturally, they didn’t say that to anyone, not even to their esteemed members of parliament, who liked to honour General Headquarters with their annexation memoranda. Military decisions, naturally, were taken for purely military reasons. That was why poor Falkenhayn had invented the famous ‘battle of attrition’ after the first strike on the fort failed and the Verdun adventure lost its shine. From a military point of view, Verdun was just another fort behind which the French, supported from Châlons, had prepared another line of defence. But politically speaking, Verdun was unique and irreplaceable for Germany’s future and for her industry. And for that reason, the old front line would have to remain, the heir to the throne saw with a sigh, and the men would have to get through the winter there.

It was now completely dark. The car’s wide headlamps swept the road as it sped towards the gleam of light on the horizon called Charleville, where well-heated, comfortable rooms and a decent dinner awaited. The prince’s musings had warmed him up; he felt cheerful now and was in a good mood. He turned to his adjutant, who had evidently been dozing: ‘We should have taken a detour, old chap, and had coffee with Sister Kläre at Dannevoux field hospital,’ he said jokingly. ‘That would’ve been an idea, eh?’

That would indeed have been much more pleasant than hurtling around in the wind and dark like some latter-day version of Goethe’s Erlking, agreed his companion, whose duty it was always to have an answer ready. ‘We could just as well have stayed at home, Imperial Highness. Retreat or not – what difference does it make? “It’s a long way to Tipperary,” as the Tommies sing – and our field greys sing: “For this campaign, Is no express train, Wipe your tears away, With sandpaper.” Nations have broad backs.’

What was to happen over the next four days had been settled long ago. Four French citizens, all experienced soldiers, had decided it between them. Up until the morning of 24 October, the French guns fired as usual. Then 600 guns unleashed a barrage of heavy fire. An annihilating wall of exploding steel hurtled towards the German line. Then suddenly the guns were silent, as though the infantry attack were at last about to begin, and 800 German guns, over 200 batteries, let rip in order to throttle that supposed attack. Which was what the French wanted. The German emplacements had long ago been marked on the French artillery maps. Now the French laid into them. Shells tore into the gun emplacements, demolishing the guns, ripping the gunners’ arms and heads off and exploding the shell stacks in volleys of wild crashing. The dugout ceilings fell in, and the dugouts themselves filled with thick smoke as their supports collapsed. Observers fell out of the treetops or were smeared against the walls of their hideouts. Death strangled the stranglers that day between Pepper ride and Damloup, and steel hatchets smashed the shell factories. When the real attack began at midday on the 24th, there were no more than 90 German batteries across the entire area to respond to the enemy bombardment.

The enemy bombardment. What the Germans had withstood up until then was unimaginable, those seven weakened divisions, some 7,000 men in total, scattered and lost across the ravaged terrain. They’d gone hungry, crouched in watery sludge up to their waists, dug themselves into the mud because it was their only cover, gone without sleep, fought fever with Aspirin and held on. Now they began to crack. The air turned to thunder, crashing down on them in the shape of steel cylinders filled with Ecrasite explosive. Impossible to leave the trenches, which now hardly were trenches. Impossible to stay in them, because they were moving, squirting, undulating, spurting up towards the sky and pouring themselves into the chasms that kept opening up all around. The dugouts in which the men sought refuge subsided. The occupants of the deep tunnels, which had been stopped up by the heaviest shells, were buried by them, gasping, shivering, mentally decimated, even if physically unhurt. Behind the trenches lay the spitting, knife-sharp steel barrier of the field guns. The fire of steel from the heavy calibre guns and trench mortars struck the trenches themselves. The machine guns were swept aside, the nice new mine throwers got covered in mud or broken to pieces, and even the rifles were damaged by the flood of clay and steel splinters. The Germans had created the battle of materials in February but had unfortunately neglected to patent it. The French had taken it over some time ago and now mastered it. Their artillery, tightly bound to the infantry, worked systematically, exactly according to the map and timetable, even when there was no visibility. It covered the advancing infantry with a double volley of fire, creating one death zone of shrapnel 160m in front of the infantry and another of shells 70-80m in front of it. The speed of the advance was stipulated exactly: 100m of impassible sludge to be crossed in four minutes.

At 11.40am the French front started to move, in thick fog. It hadn’t lifted that day and formed an impenetrable, milky white layer over the earth as it does high in the mountains or at sea. No need for thick smoke to wrap the battle zone in impenetrable mist. Visibility was less than 4m; no one saw the 24 October sun. The German dead lay staring upwards at the gods and their unfathomable decree with glazed and fractured eyes; the living, numb and too weak to resist, awaited their fate. Twenty-two German battalions were swept away before the attack had begun in earnest; the survivors screamed for barrage fire, a German barrage to stop the advancing troops and fend off their bayonets and hand grenades, so that it at least made a whisper of sense to fight back against the better-fed Frenchmen, who had enjoyed proper relief and were less worn out because their positions were more favourable. Trembling hands fired red rockets into the air. Barrage! But they disappeared in the white haze. The men who had fired them gazed after them into the milky blanket that lay over the whole area. Those artillerymen who were still alive, their officers, sergeants and gun pointers, waited by their guns, seeing nothing. The firing in front had stopped. Now the French would advance. Now was the moment to pepper their legs with contact shells, but where were they? No red light flashed in the fog, no telephone call came along the shot-up lines, no arrangements had been made for sound signals or direct contact with the infantry; only the group commands had the right to issue orders.