Poles in Kaisers Army On the Front of the First World War. Ryszard Kaczmarek

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СКАЧАТЬ difficult, everything comes with joy, singing, and cheerfulness, and it will come easily. One has to always try to do his best and the stay at the army will be alright.⁹⁸

      They were getting accustomed to have the day filled with any possible activities so that there was no time left for leisure:

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In the morning, duty begins at seven in the morning with theory until eight, we march out around eight to practice until noon. Dinner is at noon. Until 1.30 pm we have to clean our shoes and uniforms, which often are more grey than blue, after many hours in the mud. We exercise again from 1.45 till 4.30 pm. We clean our rifles from 4.30 pm to 5.30 pm, clean the uniforms from 5.30 pm till 7 pm, etc. And then the Gewehrgriffe [weapon drill] exercises. After that, we have a lesson of singing and passwords. At 7.30 pm, there is supper. Then, we sweep the floors and get ready to sleep. At nine in the evening, we turn off the lights and no one dares to move.⁹⁹

The food was very modest, unvaried, and rarely sufficient to feed soldiers after increased physical strain so that they would not feel hungry. For breakfast, everyone received flat black coffee without sugar and one kilogram of bread with an increasing amount of rye and potato flour, later also bran (Kommissbrot). It was collected in advance for four days. Sometimes, there also was a bonus like fat, cured meat, and marmalade. Lunches were usually filling. Suppers were just like breakfasts, although usually with something warm like groats, cooked vegetables, or cured meat.¹⁰⁰ Therefore, the correspondence in the first months in training mostly unsurprisingly concentrated on food, the senders requested provisions from home, properly packed so that they will reach them edible. Even when Wallis was well adapted in Ścinawa, he still complained:

We receive the amount of bread that is barely enough. But there also are those who eat their bread quickly and then have to go on without bread for the next two days; sometimes they have money so they buy something to eat or receive some from others; otherwise they must starve. Thank God, I have not suffered hunger yet.¹⁰¹

But Wallis constantly misses diversity in food, so as he may avoid eating only bread all mornings and evenings: “Send me just a box of butter, three-quarters of lard can is too big to carry in the backpack;”¹⁰² “Don’t send me sausages, I still have fat and honey, and that’s enough for me.”¹⁰³ Sometimes, he sent an entire list:

Send me lard, but wrap it in parchment, because I already found a suitable box, and there is not enough space for the second can; also one notebook, one pair of footwraps, writing paper (a few copies may be with the header of The Catholic), a tiny bottle of cherry juice, salt in paper, one pair of thick stockings with for change, ten Patenknöpfe [press studs], a few (5) newspapers because paper is useful, a little bread, not much, because I can’t find white bread anywhere without money, don’t send me sugar nor ←41 | 42→Eucaleptuz [eucalyptus sweets] because I still have some. Include a little bit of rubber plaster (Kautschukpflaster).¹⁰⁴

In this first period of duty, free time was an exceptional luxury for soldiers. Wallis mainly spent his free time writing letters and organizing his wardrobe. Exceptions were Sundays and holidays, if he was not on guard duty, when he could use his time on his own. These days the main attraction were more abundant and more varied meals. In the morning, the conscripts went for mass to a nearby church, divided by the confession Catholic and Evangelical confession.¹⁰⁵ After returning to the barracks, all had time off. Since the soldiers initially could go to the city, Wallis spent his free time on what he liked the most, namely reading. Everyone waited for the festive dinner: “For dinner was goulash, dried fruits, and unpeeled potatoes. It tasted great,”¹⁰⁶ he wrote on a Sunday in January. There was an exceptionally attractive meal on the occassion the Emperor’s birthday: “For dinner 3 noodles with sauce, pork, and apricots compote. It all tasted great. After dinner, each of us received a small bottle of beer…. We had sausage and coffee with bread for the supper.”¹⁰⁷

      Karol Małłek, who resided in Ostróda, was much more critical when it came to the relationships in the training units. The Mazurs who trained there suddenly found themselves at the very center of the centuries-old Prussian drill, in which non-commissioned officers and officers treated them as second-class people, while the training almost resembled the eighteenth-century Frederician system. It only lacked corporal punishments, abolished long ago. Małłek describes his first day of duty in the field artillery regiment as follows:

A wake-up call at 5.45 am…. Punctually, we heard the sound of trumpet. There was murmur and rumble in the barracks. We ran toward the stable…. The first stable initiation happened there, allegedly because we were late, even though it was five to six. Lance Corporal Hesse beat those unlucky, and he soon was to concentrate on our group. Hesse was a forty-year-old Alsatian of outstanding merit, because he wore the Iron Cross of the second class…. Our Lance Corporal was called Bäckle…. He arranged us in line according to height and began to tell us about our duties. “Everything here must be in order, understood?”, he started, “The guy, who arrives at the stable after me, will be beaten,” he threatened. Bäckle assigned horses to us…. Then Hesse gave each of us a currycomb and a brush and yelled: “Putz! Putz!” We started to clean the horses as good as we could. Farmers knew how, so they began from the horse’s head to the hind ←42 | 43→legs. Moreover, they used the cloth. They put the horse’s dirt through the brushes to the currycomb and with the currycomb to the porch. But those with no rural background were in a bad position! They brushed the horses here and there without any order. The two Lance Corporals strolled around the stable in a porch and closely watched their subordinates. Suddenly, they started whipping the our backs: “You wayward lices!” … After such a morning “warm-up,” we quickly washed manure off of our hands and sweat of our foreheads with stable tap water, then we ran to the barracks to wash ourselves more thoroughly, put on clean uniforms and long shoes, and breakfast…. At eight…. we started to trained the drill and listened to commands “Attention!” and “At ease!” The Corporal first showed us the basic movements and then told us to repeat them. We did everything excellently. He particularly liked my movements. I learned them already from Wendt during gymnastics classes at the Brody school. After two hours of exercises, we mastered this introductory lesson. It was time for break. We ran to the stable…. Everyone stood by their “assigned” horse, facing the porch. “The horses and harnesses that hang on the poles belong to you. All this must be kept clean and tidy! Understood?” shouted groom Breisack. Then, Breisack gathered us by my Quatern and described this horse, the saddle, and the individual parts of the harness. Next, he showed us how to fold and unfold the felt, put it on the horse’s back, and how to fit the girth, tie and untie it, and bridle the horse…. Finally, the sergeant began to teach us how to get on the horse and ride bareback…. Finally, after an hour of that torture, we heard the command yelled by the two Lance Corporals, “Go to the stable! Putz! Putz!” … It was only after feeding and watering the horses that we washed our hands and ran to eat lunch. It was already half past noon. They cheated half an hour from us again. For dinner we had pea soup with potatoes and some canned food. We ate it all and went home. Almost an hour. We went to beds and immediately started snoring. In half an hour, we heard: “Aufstehen!” Oh, how unwilling we were to get up! Some of us cried that we had to go to the square again and be ready for further activities. We marched off to the lecture hall to listen to the sergeant who told us about field artillery and batteries. We listened to him without any СКАЧАТЬ