Outside Verdun

by Zweig, Arnold; Rintoul, Fiona;

  The four men were tired and hungry. They wished they had something to smoke and longed to remove their wet things by a warm stove. It was between 4pm and 5pm, and the damp air made the early dusk even darker. It happened not to be raining at that moment, but just wait until evening.

  At the end of the road, along which those French prisoners had once marched, a car appeared. It approached quickly with its lights off as regulations required. Karl Lebehde studied the approaching vehicle, his hand under the peak of his cap. ‘Blimey,’ he said to Przygulla the farm labourer, ‘take a look at that. Looks like that chap’s hung a cloth over his headlights.’

  Meanwhile, the ‘chap’ had drawn considerably closer, and the cloth was revealed to be a square black and white pennant with a red border. The large dun-coloured saloon with two officers in the back was hurtling towards them. ‘Lads,’ shouted Przygulla the farm labourer. ‘Line up! The crown prince!’

  The regulation salute for members of the imperial family was for the men to stand stock still at the side of the road and follow the passing vehicle with their eyes. The four weary men now did this. They stood in the clabber, pressed their hands to their sides and awaited the inevitable muddy spray from the vehicle. The driver, who was probably a common soldier like them, would not be allowed to slow down just to save four ASC privates in grey oil-cloth caps an hour cleaning their uniforms. Splat! The vehicle sped past. But then something remarkable happened. As a slim man with his chin wrapped in a fur collar lifted his glove in the direction of his cap, the other man in the back of the car lent out of the window and threw something. It landed some way back due to the speed at which the vehicle was travelling. The speeding car disappeared into the distance, and it was all over.

  Well, not quite all. Some small, square packages lay on the muddy road – four paper packets, undoubtedly cigarettes, which the lofty gentleman must have brought to distribute to the men and which his adjutant had thrown at these ones. The four men stood on the road digesting what had just happened, still taken aback, looking after the car then at the surprising gift. What was the crown prince doing here? What business had he at the front? People said he looked after his troops. But the army just shrugged its shoulders over him, because people knew only too well how little the fact of the battle of Verdun had disturbed his princely way of life. While the German tribes had been spilling their blood for him at the front for seven months, he’d been playing around with his greyhounds, with pretty French girls, nurses and tennis partners. But now he’d been here bestowing cigarettes, and if they didn’t pick them up soon they’d be soaked and spoilt. Otto Reinhold was already bending over, grunting happily, prepared to get his fingers dirty for all of them.

  Someone grabbed his wrist. ‘Leave them,’ Lebehde the inn-keeper commanded in an undertone. ‘There’s nowt for us there. Anyone wants to give us a present, they can give it to us properly.’

  Reinhold, shocked and ashamed, looked into Karl Lebehde’s fleshy, freckled inn-keeper’s face, at his compressed lips and angry eyes. Lebehde ground the nearest packet of cigarettes to a pulp with his boot, then he carried on up the stairs that led past the water troughs to the barracks. Bertin and Przygulla the farm labourer followed him wordlessly, and so, with a murmur of regret, did good-natured little Otto Reinhold. Three pale, abandoned packets were left shining on the muddy road: 30 cigarettes.

  Bloody hell, thought Bertin, that was something else. That Lebehde can handle himself. No one complained; we all obeyed. Maybe Przygulla the farm labourer or Reinhold the master plumber would creep back out of the barracks quickly later – but that would be it. As they climbed the steps, Bertin caught himself wondering what he would have done if Karl Lebehde hadn’t been there. He’d laughed in a superior, philosophical way when the gifts came flying out of the car. And besides he wasn’t bothered about cigarettes. But he was honest enough to admit to himself that he would definitely have picked them up so as not to waste them. The crown prince had driven past – a strange experience. He’d probably been distributing a load of Iron Crosses and was now hurrying back to Charleville, little suspecting that Lebehde the inn-keeper had condemned his behaviour.

  The crown prince travelled through the dusk, his lips pinched. He was deeply dissatisfied with circumstances, which were stronger than him, and with himself, who was weaker than circumstances. He had not in fact been distributing decorations. He had travelled to the front to ascertain that he had once again been right, though he had not prevailed, that he had been overruled and had once again not had the guts to stand up to the All Highest, stop the truck and get out. It was a seductively commodious truck, splendidly upholstered with every comfort. But what good did that do him if incorrect military decisions were being taken in his name that would ultimately be attributed to him by history? Two days previously in Pierrepont, on the railway line from Longuyon to Metz, the Kaiser had chaired a meeting of the generals together with representatives of the Supreme Army Command, which had inveigled its way into the whole business since the end of August. The alarming situation outside Verdun and what to do about it was the topic. The day was marked by a refreshing openness, and he, Friedrich Wilhelm, crown prince of Germany and Supreme General of the Prussian army, heard his most secret convictions vindicated – all his complaints and grievances. First, the attack was on too narrow a front, and secondly, reinforcements had been promised but not sent when the first thrust proved inadequate. Many a mother’s son had died a hero’s death for nothing because the attack had not from the beginning been launched on both banks of the Meuse simultaneously with double the troops. The strength of the French resistance had also been underestimated. The French did yield but they always fought back again, so that the exhausted Reserves could advance no further than Douaumont. Then, all of a sudden, enough troops were deployed to conquer tiny strips of land at a terrible cost of lives – advances that did nothing to prevent the French from preparing and launching their attack on the Somme. And so now a decision had to be faced: admit bankruptcy outside Verdun and preserve the lives and health of tens of thousands of young German men, or maintain the façade, keep up appearances, prolong their suffering and fill the hospitals with casualties.

  The prince lent back and closed his eyes. In his mind, the grizzled heads of the generals from the day before yesterday and the young faces of the infantrymen from earlier were strangely intermingled. First one group then the other pushed forward in time with his heartbeat. It had only been raining for a month, but the casualty figures for the rifles had already reached 30 per cent, sometimes more. Men caught cold, were feverish and had to be sent to the rear for treatment. It was because of the position of the front line. The front line had resulted from the furious fighting in July. It had not been selected or prepared for winter conditions. It was no use either as a base for future attacks or as a defensive position should the French ever decide to attack between Tavanne and Pepper ridge, since it was overlooked, badly damaged and drowned in mud. The artillery was in a hopeless situation except where it was served by the narrow-gauge railways. That was the only way of bringing materials and ammunition up to the front line. He had agreed wholeheartedly when a couple of officers said that the line should be moved further back, relinquishing the gains of recent months, that positions should be prepared on the hills of Hardaumont, Fort Douaumont and Pepper ridge, and that the front should be ‘shortened’ one night and the whole quagmire chucked back to the French, and good luck to them.

  The prince shivered. He pulled his fur rug tighter round his legs and rubbed his shoulders inside his fur jacket nervously against the upholstery. The twin lines that ran from his nostrils to the corners of his mouth gave him, in profile, a certain resemblance to his ancestor, Old Fritz. Unfortunately, such half measures wouldn’t fix the problem. The East Meuse Group Command had sent in its most capable officers, and they had established that moving the line would do nothing to alleviate the main problems of long approach routes, lack of accommodation for reserves, and inadequat
e supplies and ammunition. Neither would it be possible to use the position on the hills for further sorties, as the French were much too clever to allow themselves to be lured into the sludge. It was tough, but what was required was to evacuate the ground so arduously conquered and pull back roughly to where they’d been before the February attack. That would mean moving to near the railway line to Azannes; they couldn’t even hold Hill 344 and Fosses wood. It was very sensible – and completely impossible. Given how the year 1916 had turned out, the House of Hohenzollern’s reputation could not tolerate such a retreat. The battle of the Somme had turned out badly, and the eastern front, thanks to the Brusilov offensive, very badly. The Austrians were taking a pasting as usual. They were stuck in the Adige valley, and entire regiments had deserted in Bukovina – the Czechs had simply had enough of the Habsburgs. And you only had to think back to the year 1908 and the annexation of Bosnia by Aerenthal to realise that the entire war had started with Habsburgian home affairs. Now the Romanians were intervening with 15 army corps, which was hardly small beer. It looked bad for Germany. And added to that, a retreat on the western front? Impossible! The German soldiers would start to have doubts, and the officer class, which they still trusted blindly, would be seen in an unfavourable light, with potentially unpredictable consequences within Germany. Germany was facing its hardest winter yet. It had been necessary to reduce the bread ration to half a pound, and even the soldiers faced months of hardship. It was morale alone that kept the people going, belief in the imperial house, the unvanquished army and the certainty of eventual victory. To admit that the battle of Verdun was hopelessly lost was to elevate Karl Liebknecht to the status of prophet, invite attack from the parliamentary majority in the Reichstag, and make the imperial house and army command look like fools, which would lead to demands that all the ‘senselessly spilt blood’ be accounted for. Should that be allowed to happen? It should not. Was it avoidable? It was avoidable if they did nothing, left everything as it was and, with a heavy heart, burdened the German soldiers with yet more sacrifices. The German soldiers would bear it. They’d be glad to die for the glory of the Fatherland, would stand all winter uncomplaining in the sludge, keeping guard against the ancestral enemy. Signs of weakness and false humanity must be avoided at all costs. The Germans liked to be led, loved a strong hand. Then they’d fetch the stars down from the sky.

  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 pour
ing 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.