The herald., 1918-04-25
Confessions of a German Deserter
CONTINUED FROM PAGE y

left them. In contrast to the fugitives,
whom we had met before. these were
extremely frightened, appearing to be
in mortal terror of their enemy. When
ever they looked upon one of us Ger
man soldiers they cringel in terror.
How different these were from the
inhabitants of the village where we
had first stopped, who had met us in
a friendly, even polite manner. We
I tried to learn the cause of this fright
and discovered that the fugitiveS had
witnessed in their village bitter street
lighting. They had become acquainted
with war-had seen their houses
burning, had seen their little property
destroyed and could not forget the
sight Of their streets filed with corpses
and wounded.
1t dawned upon US that not merely
fear gave these people the appearance
Of hunted animals; there was also
hatred toward the invaders who had
fallen upon them and driven them
from their homes by night.
In the evening we departed and
tried to reach our own regiment. The
Belgians had concentrated somewhere
to the rear under cover of darkness.
We were quite near the neighbOrhood
of the fortified city of Liege. Many
settlements through which we passed
stood in flames; the inhabitants driven
out IN
children and old men were buffeted
about and seemed to be everywhere in
the way. Without aims or plans, with
out place on which to lay their heads
these poor people dragged themselves
by.
Again we reached village, which
to all appearances had been inhabited
by contented people. Now indeed
nothing but ruins could be seen.
Wrecked houses and farms, dead SOL
diers, German and Belgian, and among
them many civilians, who had been
shot by military order.
Toward midnight we reached the
German lines. The Germans had
tried to take village which lay with
In the fortified belt Of Liege and was
defended tenaciously by the Belgians.
Here all forces had to be used In or
der to drive the enemy out, house by
house and street by street. 1t was not
very dark yet, so that we had to wit
ness with all of our senses the terrible
fights which developed here. 1t was q
man-to-man fight. With the butts Of
our guns, knives, fists, teeth we went
against the enemy.
One Of my best friends fought with
giant Belgian. The guns of both had
fallen to the ground. They hammered
one another with fists. 1 had just
closed an account with a Twenty-Five
year-old Belgian and was going to as
sist my friend because his antagonist
was Of superior strength. My friend
succeeded suddenly in biting the Bel
gian on the chin so deeply that he tore
piece Of flesh out with his teeth. The
Belgian's pain must have been terri
BILE. He released my comrade and ran
away with an insane cry of pain.
Everything developed by seconds.
The blood of the Belgian ran out Of
my friends mouth; a terrible nausea
and indescribable loathing seized him.
The taste Of warm human blood
brought him almost to the verge of in
sanity. In the course Of this night
battle / came in contact for the first
frpnn witt hn htrfN 90 Dol
During a hand-to-hand fight with a
Belgian, q second enemy soldier
struck me on the back of the head
with the butt Of his gun so hard that
my helmet was forced down over my
ears. The pain was fearful and I
tainted.
When 1 revived, 1 was lying in q
barn, with my head bandaged. among
other wounded men. My wound was
not severe. 1 only had a feeling as If
my head was twice its normal size.
The other wounded soldiers and the
ambulance men said the Belgians had
been forced back within the forts and
that hard fighting was still in prog
ress.
Wounded men were brought in con-
tinuously and they told us that the
Germans had already stormed several
forts and had taken a number of main
and auxiliary defenses, but could not
hold them because they had not been
sufficiently supported by artillery. The
defenses inside the forts and their gar
risons were still intact. The situation
was not ripe for storming attack, so
the Germans had to retire with enor-
nous losses. The reports we received
were contradictory. 1t WIS impossible
to get clear picture. In the mean
time the artillery bombardment had
become so intense that 1t Mortified
even the German soldiers. The heavi-
est artillery was brought into action
against the steel and concrete de-
fenses.
No soldier so far knew anything of
the existence of the 42-centimeter NOR
tars. Long after Liege was In Ger
man hands these soldiers could not
understand how it was possible that
the defenses, which consisted of dOu-
BILE six-meter walls Of steel and con-
crete, were reduced after only a few
hours bOmbardment.