Trechos de Out Of My Life (1920), de Paul von Hindenburg.
And now the war was upon us. [...]
At three o'clock in the afternoon of August 22 I received an inquiry from the Headquarters of His Majesty the Emperor as to whether I was prepared for immediate employment.
My answer ran: "I am ready."
- - -
In the pocket-book of a dead Russian officer a note had been found which revealed the intention of the enemy Command.
[...] The Russians were thus planning a concentric attack against the 8th Army, but Samsonoff's Army now already extended farther west than was originally intended.
- - -
These men of the 17th Corps and 1st Reserve Corps as well as the Landwehr and Landsturm also had behind them everything which made life worth living.
We had not merely to win a victory over Samsonoff. We had to annihilate him. Only thus could we get a free hand to deal with the second enemy, Rennenkampf, who was even then plundering and burning East Prussia. Only thus could we really and completely free our old Prussian land and be in a position to do something else which was expected of us - intervene in the mighty battle for a decision which was raging between Russia and our Austro-Hungarian Ally in Galicia and Poland. If this first blow were not final the danger for our Homeland would become like a lingering disease, the burnings and murders in East Prussia would remain unavenged, and our Allies in the south would wait for us in vain.
- - -
On our way from Marienburg to Tannenberg the impression of the miseries into which war had plunged the unhappy inhabitants were intensified. Masses of helpless refugees, carrying their belongings, pressed past me on the road and to a certain extent hindered the movements of our troops which were hastening to meet the foe.
- - -
It was only against the Cossacks that our men could not contain their rage. They were considered the authors of all the bestial brutalities under which the people and country of East Prussia had suffered so cruelly.
- - -
In our new Headquarters at Allenstein I entered the church, close by the old castle of the Teutonic Knights, while divine service was being held.
- - -
This first evacuation had left behind remarkable traces of Russian semi-civilisation. The heady odours of scent, leather and cigarettes were not able to cover the odour of other things.
- - -
There is a certain book, 'Vom Kriege,' which never grows old. Its author is Clausewitz. He knew war, and he knew men. We had to listen to him, and whenever we followed him it was to victory. To do otherwise meant disaster. He gave a warning about the encroachment of politics on the conduct of military operations.
- - -
The achievements of Germany and the German Army in the year 1914 will only be appreciated in all their heroic greatness when truth and justice have free play once more, when our enemies' attempt to mislead world opinion by propaganda is unmasked.
- - -
The numbers and resources of our other foes had in the meantime reached giant proportions, and in the circle of their armies Russia's place had been taken by America, with her youthful energies and mighty economic powers!
- - -
On our part of the Eastern Front fighting was resumed with the greatest violence. It had never completely died down. With us, however, it did not rage with quite the same fury as in the Carpathians, where the Austro-Hungarian armies in a desperate struggle had to protect the fields of Hungary from the Russian floods.
- - -
One thing we noticed was that before the surrender the Russians had shot their horses wholesale, obviously as a result of their conviction of the extraordinary importance which these animals had for our operations in the East.
- - -
The tide turned, and our cavalry division had to withdraw again. The railway into the heart of the country was open to the Russians once more. We had come too late and were now exhausted!
- - -
In April, 1916, I celebrated at Kovno the fiftieth anniversary of my entry into the Service.
- - -
There was something unsatisfactory about the final result of the operations and encounters of this year [1915]. The Russian bear had escaped our clutches, bleeding no doubt from more than one wound, but still not stricken to death.
- - -
Activity was uncommonly lively in the enemy's back areas. Deserters complained of the iron discipline to which the divisions drawn from the lines were subjected, for the troops were being drilled with drastic severity.
- - -
If our Medical Services had not remained at the level they actually reached we should not, on this account alone, have been able to carry on the war so long. Some day, when all the material available has been scientifically worked through, the achievements of our Medical Services will be revealed as a glorious testimony to German industry and devotion for a great purpose. Let us hope they will then be made available for common humanity.
- - -
"Verdun"! The name was continually on our lips in the East from the beginning of February in this year. [...] With Verdun in our hands our position on the Western Front would be materially strengthened.
- - -
The French and English, in very superior numbers, had hurled themselves at our relatively weak line on both sides of the Somme and pressed the defence back. Indeed, for a moment we were faced with the menace of a complete collapse!
- - -
I put down the receiver and thought of Verdun and Italy, Brussiloff and the Austrian Eastern Front; then of the news, "Rumania has declared war on us." Strong nerves would be required!
- - -
In view of the collapse on the Galician front, the Austro-Hungarian offensive in the southern Tyrol had had to be abandoned. The Italians, in reply, had themselves passed to the offensive on the Isonzo front. These battles made a very heavy drain on the Austro-Hungarian armies, which were fighting against great superiority.
- - -
Lastly, the position in the Balkans at this moment was of importance to the whole situation and the emergencies of the times. The offensive on which, at our suggestion, the Bulgarians had embarked against Sarrail in Macedonia had had to be broken off after gaining preliminary successes. The political objective which was associated with this offensive - to keep Rumania from entering the war - had not been reached.
- - -
A new army, composed of Bulgarian, Turkish and German units, was being concentrated on the Bulgarian side of the Dobrudja frontier and farther up the Danube. It had about seven divisions of very different strengths.
- - -
Further, the consumption of ammunition and material in the long and immense battles on all fronts had become so enormous that the danger that our operations might be paralysed from this cause alone was not excluded.
- - -
The domestic circumstances of Austria-Hungary had changed for the worse during the summer of 1916.
- - -
The Turkish Empire had entered the war without any ambitions for the extension of her political power. Her leading men, particularly Enver Pasha, had clearly recognised that there could be no neutrality for Turkey in the war which had broken out. It could not, in fact, be imagined that in the long run Russia and the Western Powers would continue to heed the moderating influences with regard to the use of the Straits. For Turkey her entry into the war was a question of to be or not to be, far more than for us others. Our enemies were obliging enough to proclaim this far and wide at the very start.
- - -
We sent material even to the Senussi on the north coast of Africa. These we supplied principally with rifles and small arm ammunition, with the help of our U-boats. Though these deliveries were but small, they had an extraordinarily rousing effect on the war spirit among the Mohammedan tribes. Hitherto we have not been able to appreciate the practical advantages of their operations to our cause.
- - -
It was while we were in residence at Pless that the Emperor Francis Joseph died. Both for the Danube Monarchy and ourselves his death was a loss, the full and impressive import of which was only to be appreciated later. There was no doubt that with his death the ideal bond of union between the various nationalities of the Dual Monarchy was lost. With the venerable white-haired Emperor a large part of the national conscience of the conglomerate Empire sank for ever into the grave.
- - -
Disaster now overtook Rumania because her army did not march, her military leaders had no understanding, and at long last we succeeded in concentrating sufficient forces in Transylvania before it was too late.
- - -
The situation in Irak at this time was better. For the moment the English had not yet made sufficient progress with their communications to be able to embark on an offensive to revenge Kut-el-Amara.
- - -
The third Asiatic theatre, Southern Palestine, gave cause for immediate anxiety. The second Turkish attempt on the Suez Canal had been defeated in August, 1916, in the heart of the northern part of the Sinai peninsula. Following on this occurrence, the Turkish troops had gradually been withdrawn from this region and were now in the neighbourhood of Gaza, on the southern frontier of Palestine.
- - -
There was a great deal of interest in many German circles in these regions. Without saying as much, the thoughts of these gentlemen were probably straying beyond Mesopotamia to Persia, Afghanistan and India, and beyond Syria to Egypt. With their fingers on the map men dreamed that by these routes we could reach the spinal cord of British world power, our greatest peril.
- - -
It was not until December that the actions at Verdun died down. From the end of August the Somme battle too had taken on the character of an extremely fierce and purely frontal contest of the forces on both sides. The task of Main Headquarters was essentially limited to feeding the armies with the reinforcements necessary to enable them to maintain their resistance. Among us battles of this kind were known as "battles of material." From the point of view of the attacker they might also be called "battering-ram tactics," for the commanders had no higher ideal. The mechanical, material elements of the battle were put in the foreground, while real generalship was far too much in the background.
- - -
If our western adversaries failed to obtain any decisive results in the battles from 1915 to 1917 it must mainly be ascribed to a certain unimaginativeness in their generalship. The necessary superiority in men, war material and ammunition was certainly not lacking, nor can it be suggested that the quality of the enemy troops would not have been high enough to satisfy the demands of a more vigorous and ingenious leadership. Moreover, in view of the highly-developed railway and road system, and the enormous amount of transport at their disposal, our enemies in the West had free scope for far greater strategic subtlety. However, the enemy commander did not make full use of these possibilities, and our long resistance was to be attributed, apart from other things, to a certain barrenness of the soil in which the enemy's plans took root. But notwithstanding all this, the demands which had to be made on our commanders and troops on this battlefield remained enormous.
- - -
In my view, war with America was inevitable at the end of January, 1917. At that time Wilson knew of our intention to start unrestricted U-boat warfare on February 1. There can be no doubt that, thanks to the English practice of intercepting and deciphering our telegrams on this subject to the German Ambassador in Washington, Wilson was as well informed about this matter as about the contents of all our other cables.
- - -
In 1914 the Belgian Army had escaped from Antwerp and was now facing us, though practically inactive, and thus imposing on us a certain wastage which was not unimportant. Our experiences with the Serbian Army in 1915 had been only superficially better for us. It had avoided our enveloping movements, though its condition was very pitiful. In the summer of 1916 it reappeared, once more in fighting trim, in the Macedonian theatre, and its units were being continually reinforced and increased from all kinds of countries, of late more particularly by Austro-Hungarian deserters of Slav nationality.
- - -
Think of seventy million human beings living in semi-starvation, thousands of them slowly succumbing to its effects! Think of all the babies in arms who perished because their mothers starved! Think of all the children who were left sick and weakly for life! And this was not in distant India or China, where a stony-hearted, pitiless Nature had refused her blessed rain, but here, in the very centre of Europe, the home of culture and humanity! A semi-starvation which was the work of the decrees and power of men who were wont to glory in their civilisation! Where is the civilisation in that? Do these men stand any higher than those others who shocked the whole civilised world by their savagery against non-combatants in the highlands of Armenia and there came to a miserable end in thousands as a punishment of Fate? No other voice than that of vengeance, certainly not that of pity, has ever spoken to the rough Anatolian peasant.
What was the object of these decrees of the champions of "civilisation"? Their plan was clear. They had seen that their military power would never enable them to realise their tyrannical ambitions, that their methods of warfare were useless against their adversary with his nerves of steel. They would therefore destroy those nerves. If it could not be done in battle, man to man, it might be done from behind, by finding a way through the Homeland. They would let the wives and children starve! "With God's help," that would have its effect on the husbands and fathers at the front, perhaps not at once, but certainly by degrees! Perhaps it would compel those husbands and fathers to throw down their arms, for otherwise the menace of death would hover over their wives and children; the death - of civilisation. There were men who reasoned thus, and indeed prayed thus.
Our enemies are hurling American shells at us. Why do we not sink the ships in which they come? Have we not the means to do so? A question of right? Where and when has our enemy ever thought about right?
- - -
The battles of Arras, Soissons and Rheims raged on for weeks. It revealed only one tactical variation from the conflict on the Somme in the previous year.
- - -
Russia in revolution! How often had men with a real or pretended knowledge of the country announced that this event was at hand? I had ceased to believe in it. Now that it had materialised, it aroused in me no feeling of political satisfaction, but rather a sense of military relief.
- - -
The English attack at Cambrai for the first time revealed the possibilities of a great surprise attack with tanks. We had had previous experience of this weapon in the spring offensive, when it had not made any particular impression. However, the fact that the tanks had now been raised to such a pitch of technical perfection that they could cross our undamaged trenches and obstacles did not fail to have a marked effect on our troops. The physical effects of fire from machine-guns and light ordnance with which the steel Colossus was provided were far less destructive than the moral effect of its comparative invulnerability. The infantryman felt that he could do practically nothing against its armoured sides. As soon as the machine broke through our trench-lines, the defender felt himself threatened in the rear and left his post.
I had no doubt that though our men had had to put up with quite enough already in the defence, they would get on level terms even with this new hostile weapon, and that our technical skill would soon provide the means of fighting tanks, and, moreover, in that mobile form which was so necessary.
- - -
With the appearance of the Americans on the battlefield the hopes which the French and English had so long cherished were at length fulfilled.
- - -
The homeland collapsed sooner than the Army. In these circumstances we were unable to offer any real resistance to the ever-increasing pressure of the President of the United States.
- - -
Stamboul was not destined to fall by some mighty deed of heroism or impressive manifestation of military power.
- - -
The political structure of Austria-Hungary went to pieces at the same time as her military organisation. She not only abandoned her own frontiers, but deserted ours as well.
- - -
The Revolution was now in full career, and it was purely by chance that the general escaped the clutches of the revolutionaries on his way back to Headquarters.
- - -
The visible sign of the victory of the new powers was the overthrow of the Throne. The German Imperial House also fell.
- - -
Like Siegfried, stricken down by the treacherous spear of savage Hagan, our weary front collapsed. It was in vain that it had tried to drink in new vitality from that fountain in our homeland which had run dry. It was now our task to save what was left of our army for the subsequent reconstruction of our Fatherland. The present was lost.
At three o'clock in the afternoon of August 22 I received an inquiry from the Headquarters of His Majesty the Emperor as to whether I was prepared for immediate employment.
My answer ran: "I am ready."
- - -
In the pocket-book of a dead Russian officer a note had been found which revealed the intention of the enemy Command.
[...] The Russians were thus planning a concentric attack against the 8th Army, but Samsonoff's Army now already extended farther west than was originally intended.
- - -
These men of the 17th Corps and 1st Reserve Corps as well as the Landwehr and Landsturm also had behind them everything which made life worth living.
We had not merely to win a victory over Samsonoff. We had to annihilate him. Only thus could we get a free hand to deal with the second enemy, Rennenkampf, who was even then plundering and burning East Prussia. Only thus could we really and completely free our old Prussian land and be in a position to do something else which was expected of us - intervene in the mighty battle for a decision which was raging between Russia and our Austro-Hungarian Ally in Galicia and Poland. If this first blow were not final the danger for our Homeland would become like a lingering disease, the burnings and murders in East Prussia would remain unavenged, and our Allies in the south would wait for us in vain.
- - -
On our way from Marienburg to Tannenberg the impression of the miseries into which war had plunged the unhappy inhabitants were intensified. Masses of helpless refugees, carrying their belongings, pressed past me on the road and to a certain extent hindered the movements of our troops which were hastening to meet the foe.
- - -
It was only against the Cossacks that our men could not contain their rage. They were considered the authors of all the bestial brutalities under which the people and country of East Prussia had suffered so cruelly.
- - -
In our new Headquarters at Allenstein I entered the church, close by the old castle of the Teutonic Knights, while divine service was being held.
- - -
This first evacuation had left behind remarkable traces of Russian semi-civilisation. The heady odours of scent, leather and cigarettes were not able to cover the odour of other things.
- - -
There is a certain book, 'Vom Kriege,' which never grows old. Its author is Clausewitz. He knew war, and he knew men. We had to listen to him, and whenever we followed him it was to victory. To do otherwise meant disaster. He gave a warning about the encroachment of politics on the conduct of military operations.
- - -
The achievements of Germany and the German Army in the year 1914 will only be appreciated in all their heroic greatness when truth and justice have free play once more, when our enemies' attempt to mislead world opinion by propaganda is unmasked.
- - -
The numbers and resources of our other foes had in the meantime reached giant proportions, and in the circle of their armies Russia's place had been taken by America, with her youthful energies and mighty economic powers!
- - -
On our part of the Eastern Front fighting was resumed with the greatest violence. It had never completely died down. With us, however, it did not rage with quite the same fury as in the Carpathians, where the Austro-Hungarian armies in a desperate struggle had to protect the fields of Hungary from the Russian floods.
- - -
One thing we noticed was that before the surrender the Russians had shot their horses wholesale, obviously as a result of their conviction of the extraordinary importance which these animals had for our operations in the East.
- - -
The tide turned, and our cavalry division had to withdraw again. The railway into the heart of the country was open to the Russians once more. We had come too late and were now exhausted!
- - -
In April, 1916, I celebrated at Kovno the fiftieth anniversary of my entry into the Service.
- - -
There was something unsatisfactory about the final result of the operations and encounters of this year [1915]. The Russian bear had escaped our clutches, bleeding no doubt from more than one wound, but still not stricken to death.
- - -
Activity was uncommonly lively in the enemy's back areas. Deserters complained of the iron discipline to which the divisions drawn from the lines were subjected, for the troops were being drilled with drastic severity.
- - -
If our Medical Services had not remained at the level they actually reached we should not, on this account alone, have been able to carry on the war so long. Some day, when all the material available has been scientifically worked through, the achievements of our Medical Services will be revealed as a glorious testimony to German industry and devotion for a great purpose. Let us hope they will then be made available for common humanity.
- - -
"Verdun"! The name was continually on our lips in the East from the beginning of February in this year. [...] With Verdun in our hands our position on the Western Front would be materially strengthened.
- - -
The French and English, in very superior numbers, had hurled themselves at our relatively weak line on both sides of the Somme and pressed the defence back. Indeed, for a moment we were faced with the menace of a complete collapse!
- - -
I put down the receiver and thought of Verdun and Italy, Brussiloff and the Austrian Eastern Front; then of the news, "Rumania has declared war on us." Strong nerves would be required!
- - -
In view of the collapse on the Galician front, the Austro-Hungarian offensive in the southern Tyrol had had to be abandoned. The Italians, in reply, had themselves passed to the offensive on the Isonzo front. These battles made a very heavy drain on the Austro-Hungarian armies, which were fighting against great superiority.
- - -
Lastly, the position in the Balkans at this moment was of importance to the whole situation and the emergencies of the times. The offensive on which, at our suggestion, the Bulgarians had embarked against Sarrail in Macedonia had had to be broken off after gaining preliminary successes. The political objective which was associated with this offensive - to keep Rumania from entering the war - had not been reached.
- - -
A new army, composed of Bulgarian, Turkish and German units, was being concentrated on the Bulgarian side of the Dobrudja frontier and farther up the Danube. It had about seven divisions of very different strengths.
- - -
Further, the consumption of ammunition and material in the long and immense battles on all fronts had become so enormous that the danger that our operations might be paralysed from this cause alone was not excluded.
- - -
The domestic circumstances of Austria-Hungary had changed for the worse during the summer of 1916.
- - -
The Turkish Empire had entered the war without any ambitions for the extension of her political power. Her leading men, particularly Enver Pasha, had clearly recognised that there could be no neutrality for Turkey in the war which had broken out. It could not, in fact, be imagined that in the long run Russia and the Western Powers would continue to heed the moderating influences with regard to the use of the Straits. For Turkey her entry into the war was a question of to be or not to be, far more than for us others. Our enemies were obliging enough to proclaim this far and wide at the very start.
- - -
We sent material even to the Senussi on the north coast of Africa. These we supplied principally with rifles and small arm ammunition, with the help of our U-boats. Though these deliveries were but small, they had an extraordinarily rousing effect on the war spirit among the Mohammedan tribes. Hitherto we have not been able to appreciate the practical advantages of their operations to our cause.
- - -
It was while we were in residence at Pless that the Emperor Francis Joseph died. Both for the Danube Monarchy and ourselves his death was a loss, the full and impressive import of which was only to be appreciated later. There was no doubt that with his death the ideal bond of union between the various nationalities of the Dual Monarchy was lost. With the venerable white-haired Emperor a large part of the national conscience of the conglomerate Empire sank for ever into the grave.
- - -
Disaster now overtook Rumania because her army did not march, her military leaders had no understanding, and at long last we succeeded in concentrating sufficient forces in Transylvania before it was too late.
- - -
The situation in Irak at this time was better. For the moment the English had not yet made sufficient progress with their communications to be able to embark on an offensive to revenge Kut-el-Amara.
- - -
The third Asiatic theatre, Southern Palestine, gave cause for immediate anxiety. The second Turkish attempt on the Suez Canal had been defeated in August, 1916, in the heart of the northern part of the Sinai peninsula. Following on this occurrence, the Turkish troops had gradually been withdrawn from this region and were now in the neighbourhood of Gaza, on the southern frontier of Palestine.
- - -
There was a great deal of interest in many German circles in these regions. Without saying as much, the thoughts of these gentlemen were probably straying beyond Mesopotamia to Persia, Afghanistan and India, and beyond Syria to Egypt. With their fingers on the map men dreamed that by these routes we could reach the spinal cord of British world power, our greatest peril.
- - -
It was not until December that the actions at Verdun died down. From the end of August the Somme battle too had taken on the character of an extremely fierce and purely frontal contest of the forces on both sides. The task of Main Headquarters was essentially limited to feeding the armies with the reinforcements necessary to enable them to maintain their resistance. Among us battles of this kind were known as "battles of material." From the point of view of the attacker they might also be called "battering-ram tactics," for the commanders had no higher ideal. The mechanical, material elements of the battle were put in the foreground, while real generalship was far too much in the background.
- - -
If our western adversaries failed to obtain any decisive results in the battles from 1915 to 1917 it must mainly be ascribed to a certain unimaginativeness in their generalship. The necessary superiority in men, war material and ammunition was certainly not lacking, nor can it be suggested that the quality of the enemy troops would not have been high enough to satisfy the demands of a more vigorous and ingenious leadership. Moreover, in view of the highly-developed railway and road system, and the enormous amount of transport at their disposal, our enemies in the West had free scope for far greater strategic subtlety. However, the enemy commander did not make full use of these possibilities, and our long resistance was to be attributed, apart from other things, to a certain barrenness of the soil in which the enemy's plans took root. But notwithstanding all this, the demands which had to be made on our commanders and troops on this battlefield remained enormous.
- - -
In my view, war with America was inevitable at the end of January, 1917. At that time Wilson knew of our intention to start unrestricted U-boat warfare on February 1. There can be no doubt that, thanks to the English practice of intercepting and deciphering our telegrams on this subject to the German Ambassador in Washington, Wilson was as well informed about this matter as about the contents of all our other cables.
- - -
In 1914 the Belgian Army had escaped from Antwerp and was now facing us, though practically inactive, and thus imposing on us a certain wastage which was not unimportant. Our experiences with the Serbian Army in 1915 had been only superficially better for us. It had avoided our enveloping movements, though its condition was very pitiful. In the summer of 1916 it reappeared, once more in fighting trim, in the Macedonian theatre, and its units were being continually reinforced and increased from all kinds of countries, of late more particularly by Austro-Hungarian deserters of Slav nationality.
- - -
Think of seventy million human beings living in semi-starvation, thousands of them slowly succumbing to its effects! Think of all the babies in arms who perished because their mothers starved! Think of all the children who were left sick and weakly for life! And this was not in distant India or China, where a stony-hearted, pitiless Nature had refused her blessed rain, but here, in the very centre of Europe, the home of culture and humanity! A semi-starvation which was the work of the decrees and power of men who were wont to glory in their civilisation! Where is the civilisation in that? Do these men stand any higher than those others who shocked the whole civilised world by their savagery against non-combatants in the highlands of Armenia and there came to a miserable end in thousands as a punishment of Fate? No other voice than that of vengeance, certainly not that of pity, has ever spoken to the rough Anatolian peasant.
What was the object of these decrees of the champions of "civilisation"? Their plan was clear. They had seen that their military power would never enable them to realise their tyrannical ambitions, that their methods of warfare were useless against their adversary with his nerves of steel. They would therefore destroy those nerves. If it could not be done in battle, man to man, it might be done from behind, by finding a way through the Homeland. They would let the wives and children starve! "With God's help," that would have its effect on the husbands and fathers at the front, perhaps not at once, but certainly by degrees! Perhaps it would compel those husbands and fathers to throw down their arms, for otherwise the menace of death would hover over their wives and children; the death - of civilisation. There were men who reasoned thus, and indeed prayed thus.
Our enemies are hurling American shells at us. Why do we not sink the ships in which they come? Have we not the means to do so? A question of right? Where and when has our enemy ever thought about right?
- - -
The battles of Arras, Soissons and Rheims raged on for weeks. It revealed only one tactical variation from the conflict on the Somme in the previous year.
- - -
Russia in revolution! How often had men with a real or pretended knowledge of the country announced that this event was at hand? I had ceased to believe in it. Now that it had materialised, it aroused in me no feeling of political satisfaction, but rather a sense of military relief.
- - -
The English attack at Cambrai for the first time revealed the possibilities of a great surprise attack with tanks. We had had previous experience of this weapon in the spring offensive, when it had not made any particular impression. However, the fact that the tanks had now been raised to such a pitch of technical perfection that they could cross our undamaged trenches and obstacles did not fail to have a marked effect on our troops. The physical effects of fire from machine-guns and light ordnance with which the steel Colossus was provided were far less destructive than the moral effect of its comparative invulnerability. The infantryman felt that he could do practically nothing against its armoured sides. As soon as the machine broke through our trench-lines, the defender felt himself threatened in the rear and left his post.
I had no doubt that though our men had had to put up with quite enough already in the defence, they would get on level terms even with this new hostile weapon, and that our technical skill would soon provide the means of fighting tanks, and, moreover, in that mobile form which was so necessary.
- - -
With the appearance of the Americans on the battlefield the hopes which the French and English had so long cherished were at length fulfilled.
- - -
The homeland collapsed sooner than the Army. In these circumstances we were unable to offer any real resistance to the ever-increasing pressure of the President of the United States.
- - -
Stamboul was not destined to fall by some mighty deed of heroism or impressive manifestation of military power.
- - -
The political structure of Austria-Hungary went to pieces at the same time as her military organisation. She not only abandoned her own frontiers, but deserted ours as well.
- - -
The Revolution was now in full career, and it was purely by chance that the general escaped the clutches of the revolutionaries on his way back to Headquarters.
- - -
The visible sign of the victory of the new powers was the overthrow of the Throne. The German Imperial House also fell.
- - -
Like Siegfried, stricken down by the treacherous spear of savage Hagan, our weary front collapsed. It was in vain that it had tried to drink in new vitality from that fountain in our homeland which had run dry. It was now our task to save what was left of our army for the subsequent reconstruction of our Fatherland. The present was lost.
