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

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      However, the amount of German losses was very high. The Infantry Regiment No. 157 lost eighteen officers and 163 soldiers. Among the injured were twenty-one officers and 379 soldiers; there was no information about 159 soldiers, ←75 | 76→even though some of them later turned up. The general loss in the German Army amounted to 1700 fallen and heavily injured soldiers, which was horrifying in light of the fact that it was a battle for a small town.²⁰⁵

      But the amount of the French loss was even higher. The Third Colonial Division alone lost 1700 soldiers, according to the French reports. The overall French estimate of the loss suffered because of the situation amounted to 4000–5000 fallen and heavily injured. The French particularly suffered from artillery fire, but infantry actions were equally ruining.²⁰⁶

      The memories of the French and German soldiers were the same. They all remember the masses of killed people:

      On August 22…. What massacre! The busy road is full of broken carts, injured soldiers, dead horses, and fallen soldiers who lie in a bizarre tangle. Leaves and broken branches constantly fell and covered this maze. In a trench, I saw the commander of my artillery with pink foam coming from his mouth. The ambulance full of injured, shot by all kinds of bullets, yelling, groaning. A doctor major who sat at the wheel with a big red bloodstain on his chest seemed as if only waiting for his death.²⁰⁷

      An unexpected epilogue to the Rossignol battle happened on the following day. The soldiers of the Upper Silesian regiments finally felt like conquerors in a partly ruined town, still crowded with civilians who did not leave the village with the French troops. The Upper Silesians started first war looting. During the scouring of houses, they often decided to exchange their sweaty military vests and pants for confiscated underwear, even one that belonged to women.²⁰⁸ Moreover, they no longer had to obey the rule that only the quartermaster units provide the supply by buying food from the local farmers in Belgium and Luxembourg, a rule meticulously obeyed until very recently. When a provisioner of the Regiment No. 157 found a bullock in the forest, he no longer cared about finding its owner. He immediately killed the bullock, however, he did that “not strictly in compliance with the art of butchery [he shot the bullock].” After quartering, the bullock ended up in the kitchen’s kettle.²⁰⁹ Similarly, another subunit of the regiment, after cleaning up in a nearby stream during the bivouac, brought another trophy. They “caught” a “wandering” chicken and found additional food ←76 | 77→products and wine. The supply officer indeed wanted to give a Belgian woman of nearby household a worthless requisition bill, but she refused to take it and said with anxiety that the chicken is not hers. The bill ended up at the door because the owner was unknown.²¹⁰

      The following day, the situation in the village after the battle and robberies was very tense. At 8 am, when part of the Infantry Regiment No. 157 received the order to depart, some suddenly noticed shots coming from basements, windows, and attics. At that time, many French captives waited at the church square to be led to the front support area, as they found themselves in the middle of a chaotic firefight. Here and there, the Germans torched local houses in order to bring the situation under control (there were as many as 184 burned houses). Similarly, the 63rd Infantry Regiment found itself under fire during their bivouac. Armed infiltrators (Franktireurs) were burdened with the responsibility for the assault, because one could find civilian clothes in some satchels of captives. The commander of the Infantry Regiment No. 157 ordered his soldiers to meticulously search through the entire village. Two civilians with rifles were executed next to a burning church. The execution’s proceedings were dramatic. It happened in the middle of a burning village, next to the church that was its central point, from which – at the very moment of the death volley – “the cross fell [from its tower] to the ground on the bodies of the executed”.²¹¹ After the Upper Silesian division departed, 108 Rossignol inhabitants were arrested and accused of attacking German soldiers; ninety-one were executed.²¹²

      The German soldiers’ fear of the French partisans not always had a rational basis as it did in Rossignol. Sometimes, it was just an excuse for robberies, as mentions by one of the Greater Poland soldiers who fought in France along the Bavarians:

      We approach a village. Assault it and clear of Franktireurs. The Germans rule this place as if it was their own already on the first day. One house is still closed. They use gunstocks to open the door and windows. Our two Bavarians move inside fist. The kitchen, they again use stocks to open cabinets and drawers. A clatter of shattered pots and, in a flash, there is a big pile of shards in the middle of the kitchen. They use stocks to open the next door. Thebedroom. A pale young woman in bed. They remove the eiderdown that covers her, she sits upright on the bed and points out at the baby lying next to her that was born a couple of days ago. They hit her thigh with a stock. She jumps off the bed and folds her hands, begging them to save her and her baby. “Are you crazy! To treat a ←77 | 78→sick woman like that” – Zaklicki tells them, interceding for her. “Oh, you must be her friend! She may hide a Frankiteur under her bed” – two Bavarians answer him…. The woman lies in her underwear with the child on the floor next to the wall, she trembles, looks lurid, but cries and begs no more. They turn the bed upside down, threw everything out of the wardrobes in the niches, they even broke the paintings that hang on the wall and throw them at the middle of the room. Because a Franktireur could have also hidden behind a painting. The house is full of soldiers. They look everywhere. The same destruction in every room. All the things onto a single pile. Savage lust of destruction.²¹³

      Similar civilian tragedies occurred in the first months of the war in front of many Poles. Bogdan Hulewicz recalls two particularly dramatic situations. The first is the bombardment of the already-seized Belgian Louvain by the German artillery. All the inhabitants had to leave their houses for an attack on a German patrol. However, before that happened, the Germans attacked with incendiary ammunition, which caused a sudden fire that overtook the majority of houses and burned nearly 1000 houses; many Belgians remained at homes as they did not believe that the Germans would decide to bombard an unprotected town.²¹⁴

      A Polish officers candidate suffered even more during the execution of two innocent young Belgians who were thought to be spies:

      The boys came from a nearby village. They rode down the road on bikes and every one of them was thought to be a spy. There was an order to shoot down every cyclist close to the brigade (Alle belgische Radfahrer im Bereich der Brigade sind zu erschiessen). Bikes are good, they will be useful to the company. Boys received an order to dig ditches: they were executed on the spot. Until the very end, they did not understand what is going on. They rode this road every day; they were sixteen years old…. During the bivouac, the soldiers commented on the bombardment and burning of Louvain. No one mentioned the execution of “the cyclists-spies.” They knew that captain Rabius did not like it. They praised the bombardment of the city: “after all, they did not shoot at us when we were in transport. The Franktireurs are criminals, they deserve punishment, they shot at us.”²¹⁵

      There is quite a grotesque story about the use of this – popular during the war – word to describe French infiltrators. In 1914, at the very beginning of the war, the state prohibited the use of many popular French words in German language. The sole exception was the word “Franktireur” because, as it was explained, it signifies “the enemy’s СКАЧАТЬ