What the Men in the Trenches Write Home

Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.

“What the Men in the Trenches Write Home” from Thrilling Stories of the Great War by Logan Marshall, Gilbert Parker, Vance Thompson and Philip Gibbs, 1915.

Life at the front is not all marching and fighting by any means: there are long days and nights of waiting in which though it be

"Theirs not to reason why"

the soldiers have abundant time to reflect upon the grim fatality of war and the hideousness of the carnage. They are continually facing death, and though many of them, perhaps most of them, become inured to the sights of human slaughter, others cannot fail to be impressed by the stark, white faces of the fallen—friends and foes alike. Sights more horrible than perhaps they could have imagined are burned into their minds, never to be effaced.

Naturally some of their reflections find expression in the letters home, when the soldier is more or less off guard. There we get an "inside view" of the war which does much to offset the ruthlessness of rulers and restore one's faith in the essential humanity of men.

"War is Terrible"

The following letter, which refers to the fighting along the Aisne, was found on a German officer of the Seventh Reserve Corp:

"Cerny, South of Laon, Sept. 14, 1914.

"My dear Parents: Our corps has the task of holding the heights south of Cerny in all circumstances until the fourteenth corps on our left flank can grip the enemy's flank. On our right are other corps. We are fighting with the English Guards, Highlanders, and Zouaves. The losses on both sides have been enormous. For the most part this is due to the too brilliant French artillery.

"The English are marvelously trained in making use of ground. One never sees them, and one is constantly under fire. The French airmen perform wonderful feats. We cannot get rid of them. As soon as an airman has flown over us, ten minutes later we get their shrapnel fire in our positions. We have little artillery in our corps; without it we cannot get forward.

"Three days ago our division took possession of these heights and dug itself in. Two days ago, early in the morning, we were attacked by an immensely superior English force, one brigade and two battalions, and were turned out of our positions. The fellows took five guns from us. It was a tremendous hand-to-hand fight.

"How I escaped myself I am not clear. I then had to bring up supports on foot. My horse was wounded, and the others were too far in the rear. Then came up the guards jager battalion, fourth jager, sixth regiment, reserve regiment thirteen, and landwehr regiments thirteen and sixteen, and with the help of the artillery we drove the fellows out of the position again. Our machine guns did excellent work; the English fell in heaps.

"In our battalion three Iron Crosses have been given, one to C. O., one to Captain —, and one to Surgeon —. [Names probably deleted.] Let us hope that we shall be the lucky ones next time.

"During the first two days of the battle I had only one piece of bread and no water. I spent the night in the rain without my overcoat. The rest of my kit was on the horses which had been left behind with the baggage and which cannot come up into the battle because as soon as you put your nose up from behind cover the bullets whistle.

"War is terrible. We are all hoping that a decisive battle will end the war, as our troops already have got round Paris. If we beat the English the French resistance will soon be broken. Russia will be very quickly dealt with; of this there is no doubt.

"Yesterday evening, about six, in the valley in which our reserves stood there was such a terrible cannonade that we saw nothing of the sky but a cloud of smoke. We had few casualties."

The Common Enemy, Death

How foe helps foe when the last grim hour comes is revealed in the letter which a French cavalry officer sent to his fiancee in Paris:

"There are two other men lying near me, and I do not think there is much hope for them either. One is an officer of a Scottish regiment and the other a private in the Uhlans. They were struck down after me, and when I came to myself, I found them bending over me, rendering first aid.

"The Britisher was pouring water down my throat from his flask, while the German was endeavoring to stanch my wound with an antiseptic preparation served out to them by their medical corps. The Highlander had one of his legs shattered, and the German had several pieces of shrapnel buried in his side.

"In spite of their own sufferings they were trying to help me, and when I was fully conscious again the German gave us a morphia injection and took one himself. His medical corps had also provided him with the injection and the needle, together with printed instructions for its use.

"After the injection, feeling wonderfully at ease, we spoke of the lives we had lived before the war. We all spoke English, and we talked of the women we had left at home. Both the German and the Britisher had only been married a year...

"I wonder, and I supposed the others did, why we had fought each other at all. I looked at the Highlander, who was falling to sleep, exhausted, and in spite of his drawn face and mud-stained uniform, he looked the embodiment of freedom. Then I thought of the Tri-color of France, and all that France had done for liberty. Then I watched the German, who had ceased to speak. He had taken a prayer book from his knapsack and was trying to read a service for soldiers wounded in battle."

"Same Pair of Blue Eyes"

Sergeant Gabriel David, of the French infantry, who saw seven months of continuous service in the trenches of the Argonne Forest, described the odd effect of peeping over the top of a trench for weeks into the same pair of German blue eyes.

"I don't know who this man was or what he might have been," he said, "but wherever I go I can yet see those sad-looking eyes. He and I gazed at each other for three weeks in one stretch; his watch seemed to always be the same as mine. We came to respect each other. I am sure that I would always know those blue eyes, and I would like to meet that man when the war has ended."

Fighting Without Hate

There is yet to appear an authentic letter from a private or officer on either side that contains a tithe of the virulence and bitterness shown in the statements and writings of many non-combatants.

"One wonders," runs a letter of a British officer, "when one sees a German face to face, is this really one of those devils who wrought such devastation—for devastation they have surely wrought. You can hardly believe it, for he seems much the same as other soldiers. I can assure you that out here there is none of that insensate hatred that one hears about.

"Just to give you some idea of what I mean, the other night four German snipers were shot on our wire. The next night our men went out and brought one in who was near and get-at-able and buried him. They did it with just the same reverence and sadness as they do to our own dear fellows. I went to look at the grave the next morning, and one of the most uncouth-looking men in my company had placed a cross at the head of the grave, and had written on it:

" 'Here lies a German.

We don't know his name.

For he died bravely fighting

For his Fatherland.'

"And under that, 'got mitt uns' (sic), that being the highest effort of all the men at German. Not bad for a bloodthirsty Briton, eh? Really that shows the spirit."

Marshall, Logan, et al. Thrilling Stories of the Great War: on Land and Sea, in the Air, under the Water. L. T. Myers, 1915.

Logan Marshall, Gilbert Parker, Vance Thompson and Philip Gibbs

World Martial Arts

A place to explore and discuss the various martial arts of the world and their practice both on and off the battlefield. Articles related to both martial sports and actual warfare are welcome here.

View Group