The retreat of the German Army to the Siegfried Line in March 1917, and the massive destruction inflicted upon the evacuated region under the cover name Alberich has been rather marginalized by Great War historians. The pulling back of the Army has disappeared from the historical consciousness behind the politically hotly disputed, and militarily fatal option of unrestricted U-boat warfare which led to the United States entering the war. Both events were closely related. The withdrawal on the Western Front and the stepping-up of the U-boat War resulted from the crisis in German war policy following the great battles at Verdun and on the Somme in 1916. The effects of both decisions extended far beyond the Great War. With Siegfried and Alberich, the war with and against civilians was carried out knowingly and systematically by a modern Army and as a military necessity legitimized by defence.
The Siegfried movement was effected over the three days and nights between 16 and 19 March 1917. The disengagement from the enemy had begun towards the end of February in critical sectors such as the bend in the front line between Arras and Bapaume, in which attacks were expected or were imminent. The retreat itself was performed in a single large movement. It involved the southern wing of 6.Army at Arras, then 1. and 2.Armies on the Somme and the greater part of 7.Army north of Laon – in all no less than twenty-nine divisions together with all formations such as heavy artillery which had been present throughout the fighting on the Somme.
Whilst French units to the south were quick to advance, British troops in the northern area were more hesitant. The retreat was not disturbed, not even partially, anywhere however, nor were the destructive measures undertaken, only in the last phase of the withdrawal to preserve secrecy. The ‘whole movement’, as Ludendorff described it in his memoirs, was ‘a brilliant achievement of the military leaders and men, and bore witness to the careful, forward-looking work of the German General Staff.’1
The Army Group Kronprinz von Bayern responsible for the planning and execution was no less eulogized.2 The commander of Army Group Kronprinz Rupprecht, formed in the autumn of 1916 and coordinating the four armies, praised the military leaders and men not only for the ‘smooth’ transfer, the skilful and timely removal, and the deception of the enemy, but also for the ‘fresh spirit of aggression’ which the security units had shown during the retreat. He also drew attention to the major advantages of the new line – leaving behind the ‘mud-filled craters’ between Arras, Bapaume and Péronne and the crater landscape of the Somme, and emphasized the sparing of the German forces.
The Siegfried movement was actually extraordinarily successful. It improved substantially the German situation on the Western Front. The retreat therefore appeared in retrospect as a good chess move which deceived the Allies, even duped them, and left them in the dark. It demonstrated a masterly control of the battlefield, from great operational decisions to fighting a rearguard action, and proved the superiority of the German infantry in the movement. The Siegfried Line itself became the personification of a planned and skilfully erected defensive wall against which the enemy would hurl himself in vain. The subjective impression to be fully and completely master of the situation and to dictate the enemy’s plans oneself, by a defensive sleight of hand, was still being savoured well into the post-war period. Siegfried Movement and Siegfried Line became the manifestation of the German ability to hold out in that time of crisis which developed in the train of the costly great battles before Verdun and on the Somme in 1916.
This positive experience of retreat was, however, neither expected nor prepared for. Most surprised of all was the military command at the Western Front, principally the OHL (Army Supreme Command) which had rather anticipated, as had the Army Group and the armies, the opposite impression.3 What in retrospect was seen as the triumph of planned German General Staff work crystallized in reality into a tough struggle for the operational decision-making, which ultimately had to be extorted from OHL little by little.
In view of the critical military situation in the autumn of 1916, OHL lengthened the war to a certain extent both for German civilian society, and also in the social systems of the opposing Powers. What in 1916 was first seen as improvisation was actually a real reorientation and reorganization. The German military leadership was in deep crisis at the end of the two great battles of 1916, whose immediate consequence on the Western Front resulted in a turning back to defence. This operational defence had an offensive dimension in that it involved civilians both German and enemy. Less obvious is the circumstance that with the return to defence, the strategy at the front changed completely.
The officer corps with its ‘cult of the offensive’ and the military institutions, principally the General Staff, did not wish themselves to be remodelled without further consideration. Furthermore the thinking was offensive even though the situation was outright defensive: a state of affairs which for its fulfilment required the military planners to leap over their own shadows as it were. Thus ‘strategic’ decisions were easier to plan than the ‘operational’ measures were to implement. Major offensives in the East and South-East of Europe were cancelled, the well-advanced negotiation for an Austro-German offensive to relieve pressure on the (Italian) Isonzo Front abruptly terminated. In the West, however, ideas of attack were not rejected. Immediately after the first conference at Cambrai, Ludendorff had ordered the reconnaissance for, and at the end of September, the expansion of, rearwards trenches, but insisted that under no circumstances would this involve a retreat. On 29 January he wired the Army Group: ‘A voluntary movement back to the Siegfried Line is not possible for political and military reasons.’4 Retreat was the admission of a defeat and would undoubtedly give rise to a crisis of morale in the Army and Homeland – that was the general opinion.5 To strike out from defence was necessary objectively, but this strategy was seen by front officers subjectively as absurd.
When Ludendorff finally changed his mind and took Hindenburg along with him, this had been brought about by the obstinacy of Army Group Rupprecht, responsible for the decisive sector of the Somme front, and so its role will not come as a surprise in the decision-making process. The hesitancy with which the Army group argued for the defensive is noteworthy, however. Kronprinz Rupprecht himself favoured recapturing the entire front facing his Army group from Armentières in the North to Laon/Soissons in the South,6 but his proposal was not carried. In this case Corps Group North/1.Army7, competent for coordination, protested that they saw no possibility of building a line of trenches in the forward Ancre corner south of Arras, which meant that the front sector was not capable of being defended,8 while precisely here in the sector south of Arras a British major offensive was considered possible. In order to spare men and materials therefore, the only decision open was for ‘an overall decision’ – the retreat to the Siegfried Line. The Army Group had set down this interpretation in memoranda of 15 and 28 January respectively,9 and its Chief of General Staff, Hermann von Kuhl, urged a decision in the matter in dramatic telephone conversations with Ludendorff, resulting finally in the order to retreat on 4 February. Two days later the Army Group issued the necessary orders.10
That did not conclude the debate. 1.Army, under General von Below objected, being unwilling to move under any circumstances from its territory of swamps.11 7.Army was planning a large offensive out of the retreat, while even the Army group was considering such plans.12 Finally, Oberst Graf von der Schulenburg, Chief of the General Staff, Army Group Deutscher Krronprinz, swept the idea emphatically from the table: ‘We lack the means for a decisive offensive.’ Schulenburg required the released divisions as a reserve for the impending defensive fighting.13 It was practically not until the last minute that the way was finally clear for a major orderly retreat, whose success was then naturally attributed to the perspicacious forward planning of OHL. The operation itself began on 9 February 1917 with the plan for evacuation and destruction (Alberich) which had been worked on down to the smallest detail for five weeks. Individual formations such as the previously mentioned Corps Staff North/1.Army drew back to the intermediate line from mid-February.
The tension was enormous. Nobody knew if the enemy was fooled and how he would react if he realized the German intention. All possible scenarios were examined, then rejected, but nothing happened, or at least nothing which compromised the retreat of the four armies. The respite was of short duration, for in the Battle of Arras (April-May 1917) British forces were prompt to attack the open right flank of the Siegfried Line which had not been fortified. A little later Canadian troops overran the German trenches at Vimy Ridge, where an archaic system of galleries similar to those at Verdun made the response from defence difficult. The retreat itself succeeded, and after the great tension of the previous year, resulted in a state of relieved euphoria. Nobody could quite believe how easily it had gone off.
The operational decision in favour of a coordinated orderly retreat succeeded against all expectations. The sensational gap between the (lower) German and (higher) Allied casualties in 1917 is explained by the reverse situation in which the Germans benefited from their failure at Verdun and the bloody stand-off on the Somme, while the French, in the Battle of Chemin des Dames, and the British in Flanders ate the bitter fruits of their victory and pushed their armies to the verge of collapse. The retreat successfully halted the beginning of the end for the German Army. In this reversal of the situation one finds also the beginning of that politically successful codification of war according to which the German military leadership, and later German society, accepted the proposition that warfare from the backfoot of defence, if only it could be prosecuted radically enough, might have made Germany invincible. The Siegfried Line was at the same time a complex operational measure, the experience of a moment of invincibility and might over destiny.
The Siegfried Line was probably the greatest construction project of the Great War. Between October 1916 and March 1917, no less than 510,000 tonnes of ballast, gravel and stones, 110,000 tonnes of cement, 20,000 tonnes of iron ingots, 8,200 tonnes of T-joints, boarding, wood panels, square timbers, round timbers, black plate, corrugated iron sheeting, cement pipes, ventilation tubes and so forth were worked with. Material to make obstructions such as three million iron and 1.5 million wooden stakes, 12,500 tonnes of barbed wire, smooth wire, wire mesh, mobile obstacles, mantraps, wire clamps and so forth found their applicaion. Additionally entrenching and other tools were needed such as spades, shovels, pickaxes, wire-cutters, cement mixers, welding apparatus, manual iron turning and cutting machines and so forth.14
Added to the building materials and equipment was naturally the total expense for rail installations and road-rail loading bays, field railway stations, engineer parks, warehouses, barracks – an expense which competed with trench construction itself. Only where the overall project was completed did the various departments involved obtain an impression of the unbelievable amounts of material that a modern military defensive system demanded – and despite the fact that ‘only’ a 150 kilometre long stretch was being built. The work itself was mainly carried out by PoWs and forced labour. The OHL made 65,000 men available altogether for the Siegfried work.15 This number was reached in mid-November when the removal of soil began for the first trenches, and then fell back slightly over succeeding months. Of these 65,000 men – almost 70,000 with guards and support units – only 7,300 were drawn from the Army itself, and the majority of these came from the PoW Worker Battalions with the individual armies, so that initially the number of ‘proper’ soldiers was extremely small. It changed nothing that OHL sent an additional 13,300 Landwehr and pioneers (including 126 officers). The ratio only changed in February and March 1917 when the line had to be readied, and 1.Army detached another 60,000 soldiers to join the 15,000 – 18,000 workers.16
The principal labour force for the Siegfried Line was about 26,000 PoWs guarded by 3,800 Landsturm II soldiers and 9,000 forced labourers from Belgium and France also with their Landsturm II guards. Finally there were 6,000 ‘free’ workers, initially mainly from Germany but towards the end increasingly from the occupied zone of France and from Belgium, recruited by civilian building firms.17 For railway construction to the rear there were another 20,000 men, principally from the civilian-worker battalions and regular railway companies.18 It should be added however that the construction of the connections to the rear could not have been guaranteed without forced labour.
In a building section of eighteen to twenty kilometres about 10,000 workers were used, all of whom had to be housed and fed. Up to seventy per cent of them were forced labourers needing to be brought every day from their quarters in guarded columns to the place of work. This kind of procedure was not unusual, for in the Etappe large numbers of PoWs had been employed previously in this way, although their numbers had built up gradually through 1915 and 1916. Nevertheless the large-scale use of PoWs and forced labour required forward planning.19 Whereas the latter had been lodged previously in whatever was available, purpose-built camps were now created for them and new arrangements introduced and costed for their upkeep. Camps of barrack huts were laid out. Whole villages, factory complexes, hamlets – so-called ‘Siegfried villages’ – were evacuated by their inhabitants to be replaced by PoWs and forced labourers20 identified in specific groups by an armband.21
In the framework of the erection of the Siegfried Line, within a short time there came into being a system of massed forced labour linked to work camps which were quickly perfected. Forced labour involved a totalization of the guard system and extensive restrictions on the freedom of movement. Nothing here was fundamentally new but a variety of individual measures, issued by subsidiary control offices, together with the regulations issued by the control and guard authorities in the rearward area contributed to a comprehensive regime of control and reinforcement.22
The Somme region overall was transformed into a giant camp which wriggled all the way from Arras to Laon. That it would extend beyond the Line itself was shown by the typical tensions within the forced system. The mixing together of PoWs, forced labourers and volunteer workers led to distrust and even strikes, despite the extensive militarization of the work. Civilian workers from Germany complained bitterly about the restrictions on their freedom of movement.23 Belgian and French civilian workers were labelled traitors by the forced labourers, which resulted in the ‘free’ workers and PoWs performing the heavy manual labour while the forced labour battalions were ordered to work on individual tasks and in depots to the rear or on railway building.
The soldiers as a whole, but especially the fighting troops, looked down on this heterogenous collection of workers and considered the entire force as inferior and their work predominantly worthless.24 Each group stood for itself and in the case of doubt competed against all others for small advantages and to maintain their liberties. The work was extraordinarily heavy and the guards, in general older men, tended towards brutality.25 The main problem was inadequate clothing, lack of medical care and poor quality food – typical symptoms of work camps, especially these, which had suddenly taken root and were at the end of the supply chain.26 The situation deteriorated in the cold winter months, and the numbers of sick, unfit for labour, and mortality rose drastically.27 Those, such as German workers, able to give notice, left as soon as possible. By March 1917 very few German workers were still employed on building the Siegfried Line.
Although the practice was brutal and in many camps intolerable, one cannot say that it amounted to a concentration camp system, for irrespective of the purpose and practice no inhuman will was present, rather the contrary. Complaine was requested. ‘Mean heartedness, indifference, ill treatment and excessive demands impair the building project.’28 Here then was the typical paradox of all forced labour. Towards the predominantly ‘good-willed and efficient’ Russian PoWs, a kind of paternalism developed, though only after ‘unruly elements’ had been weeded out.29 Although this paternalism still included the brutality, it allowed a certain relaxation in the work conditions. 30
The relationship with the civilian forced labourers on the other hand was always tense because they remained uncooperative. It was believed generally that they would only work properly if enough supervisors and guards were on hand, but there was also a shortage of these. Excesses and rebellions were therefore common.31 A situation arose with the arrival of two squads of Rumanian PoWs who were unfit for heavy work and the climate. After their physical collapse on a large scale they were ‘removed on account of physial and mental inferiority as unemployable’ which in this case meant that the survivors were returned to the PoW holding camp.32 The high losses were due to physical weakness and debilitation of the PoWs, the cause of which was unknown. In any case the weaknesses were taken as an affront by officers and men alike who remained perplexed as to how such people should be handled. The idea that those unfit for work should be returned was on the borderline of tolerance. It was clear that this was not a matter of racial prejudice when another group of workers showed similar fatigue.
None of the fighting force had a good word for the German ‘volunteer’ workers and condemned them as ‘workshy, weak, sickly, obstinate, immoral and undisciplined.’33 It was noteworthy that rebellious French and Belgians were closely watched, rebellious Russians and unfit Rumanians were ‘sent back’ and work camps were wanted for German workers.34 Thus the language of the concentration camp was present, but the practice of enforcement itself was in the hands of petit-bourgeois reserve officers with their own concept of work and order.
Precisely because the path to the future extermination camps was paved with the good intentions of ordinary people, the construction of the Siegfried Line provided an unplanned picture of what was looming. What developed in 1917 were doubtless elements of a totalitarian syndrome.
The original intention was that the entire system of fortification was to be performed by private German building firms using labour recruited from the occupied territories, or by forced labour in case of necessity.35 Ultimately only 1,400 volunteers and four civilian worker battalions, with about 12,000 men, could be found to build the Siegfried Line. What remained was the conviction shared by all military centres that civilian firms and volunteer labour was not suitable for the front. Forced labour, on the other hand, worked, and even if it did not match up to the trenching achievements of the fighting troops it was far preferable to the private market. Therefore, so reasoned Ludendorff later, if only the right effort afforded by forced labour had been applied in the occupied territories in 1916, then there would have been not only a unified fortification system but also the lines to the rearward missing in 1918.36
The main lesson taken by OHL was that forced labour on a massive scale was an indispensable precondition for successful modern military planning. That these workers would come from the occupied territories went without saying because the German Reich was unable to call upon a colonial workforce. Ludendorff’s logic was not abstruse, but it was already totalitarian.
Alberich was the cover name for all preparations for the retreat in the framework of the Siegfried Movement – tactical clearance, destruction, inundation, deportation. The Alberich period was the five weeks in which the measures set down as an agenda were to be made ready and then executed between 9 February and 15 March 1917. It was no small matter to pull back no less than two armies (1. and 2.) and sections of two others (6. and 7.) with all weapons, equipment, installations and machinery, and destroy all weapons, trenches and whatever else remained. Yet Alberich has gone down in history for its scheduled evacuation of all civilian installations, all removable property and all inhabitants, and the systematic destruction of the evacuated region, its structures, farms and orchards together with the entire infrastructure.
Alberich produced éspaces désertiques, as a French contemporary aptly put it.37 Clearance and destruction were almost perfectly completed when the Siegfried Movement concluded on 19 March. What had been done in the winter months was the planning and execution, therefore in the truest sense of the word the discovery, of the ‘Scorched Earth Policy’, a war of total destruction in at least a central aspect.
The starting point had been the instruction of the Chief of the Army General Staff to Army Group on 2 October 1916 in which Ludendorff ordered: ‘The enemy must come across a land completely uprooted in which his freedom of movement has been made difficult to the greatest extreme.’ Listed for ‘complete destruction’ were: ‘roads, bridges, artificial waterways, locks, villages and all supplies and installations which we cannot remove but which might be of some use to the enemy.’ The Army group interpreted the word ‘clearance’ to mean amongst other things the removal of the civilian population, and ‘destruction’ to include ‘flooding, the burning of ground cover, destruction of permanent (electrical) cables (insofar as these cannot be removed).’ Furthermore Army Group ordered that in the immediate ten to fifteen kilometres before the Siegfried Line destruction was ‘to be carried out especially’ and included ‘accommodation in safe cellars, favourable observation spots, decorative structures’ while in further-flung villages ‘preparation for burning down and the destruction of plumbing installations (water pipes etc)’ would suffice.38
The purpose of Alberich was summed up by 1.Army, which stated in its planning: ‘Once the retreat is complete, the enemy will arrive to find a desert.’39 Serious objections were articulated only by Kronprinz Rupprecht, C-in-C of the Army Group, but only in his private memoirs. It was not the first time that the Bavarian Kronprinz and OHL had differed on the treatment of the civilian population. In the spring of 1916 he had been beside himself with indignation when the (at that time 2nd) OHL was considering deporting the entire populations of occupied Belgium and France through the front line because of a threatened food shortage.40 In October he reacted with consternation and declared: ‘This instruction reminds me of the one that Louvois once issued to turn the Pfalz into a desert . . . it seems to me uncommonly harsh.’ He did not wish to have his name associated with the measure. After a wild first year of warfare Rupprecht had gained some of his consciousness of responsibility as a noble, but even so he committed the error of consoling himself ‘that the instruction will prove impracticable on technical grounds.’41
Kronprinz Rupprecht’s words of self-comfort were misplaced. 3.OHL did not countermand the instruction and built up the organization for the job, and in setting up a special, or Sonder-Organisation the way was found to do things which had hitherto lain beyond the wildest imaginings. The construction of the Siegfried Line and the destruction wrought in the framework of Alberich were so successful because for its planning and execution this S-Organisation was prepared by the General Staff, where all measures were coordinated and innovations created and then filtered down to individual company commanders. 42 When clearance and destruction was qualified and scheduled, the possible separated from the impossible and priorities set, the programme was feasible.
The systematic planning and work, and also the motivation to do everything militarily necessary, had its tradition in the Prussian General Staff, but the result was something new: an improvised framework to perfect the technique – the creation of a desert – which in its perfection exceeded itself.43 In this way the instructions for the clearance and destruction were reworded into a document ‘Memorandum for Alberich Demolitions’ issued by 1.Army on 1 March 1917. In this edict the competent officers and pioneer commanders were obliged to supervise the fulfilment of the task ‘in person’, and ‘to become involved on their own account and ensure that no effort be spared to complete the work of demolition most thoroughly and completely.’ The pioneer units, security squads and the rearguard were reminded of the need to destroy all material, German and otherwise, which was to be left or could not be brought out: ‘Nothing must be allowed to fall into the hands of the enemy which might be useful to him.’44
‘Destruction’ became a progressively larger catalogue of measures as the preliminary work proceeded. Objects for destruction had to be listed and reported, trial demolitions made, estimates as to material requirements submitted, the labour force and demolition squads distributed, underground galleries, chambers and stores destroyed, trees hacked down. The coordinating ‘N-Group’ earmarked to work in residential areas was advised: ‘All villages must be burnt down, the remains of walls overturned, all underground places of safety, cellars, catacombs, all springs and water piping, streets and railways, all useful observation positions such as church towers, chimneys, high buildings and windmills must be destroyed, long rows of trees and park installations felled.’45 How houses were to be satisfactorily flattened so as to offer no cover required special study.46 Springs and sewage installations won special attention once it was realized (in the framework of the prioritization process) that large troop assemblies were impossible if there was no sewage and water. 1.Army came up with the idea of poisoning natural water sources, but this was eventually ruled out in favour of making reservoirs and stagnant waters ‘unusable (do not poison!)’ by chemicals.47
Blowing up springs caused a more persistent problem and in this case was probably more to the liking of the military mind. Precisely because the destruction was on the grand scale but planned down to the smallest detail and improved through constant reporting back was it so total. Towns and villages could be destroyed swiftly once the most efficient method was found: ‘Thus the town of Bapaume was demolished in forty-five minutes (five simultaneous explosions in the centre, then the others, a few minutes later the town was burning in 400 places)’ while the villages were much easier to wipe out and many ‘disappeared completely.’48 Seen as a whole the effort put into it – at every locality, every crossroads, every orchard of the entire gigantic region – was immense, but the destruction was so perfectly successful because the preparatory work had been so detailed and thorough. ‘The pioneer service,’ a pioneer officer summed up, ‘is basically attention to detail (and) in the long run attention to detail can be decisive for success.’49
A major effort was also dedicated to destroying the transport infrastructure. This included the destruction of locks and damming waterways as part of the process to swamp areas along the front particularly in the sectors of 2. and 7.Armies with the aim of making whole regions impassable. Taking out electrical systems was found especially difficult and time-consuming but was eventually achieved by brute force. The systematic ‘dismounting’ of the remaining railway installations and sleeper beds required enormous application of labour.50 Although it was generally held that the destruction of the highway network had been less successful, nevertheless judicious crater-making made roads at least temporarily unusable. What remained was, as N-Group noted in a memorandum attached to the 1.Army instruction, ‘a complete desert.’
Before the final destruction all moveable property and possessions were cleared and the inhabitants moved out. The scale of this clearance is evident from the railway records alone: 11,711 waggon-loads were needed to ship out all the railway material: 7,522 vegetable waggon loads to remove the population to the rearward area,: 17,940 waggon-loads of moveable items.51 A good proportion of the military equipment including Army and welfare installations was shifted by the Army itself. All cattle, provisions, feed and seed were moved out. All metals gathered up, all stores of clothing, furniture, house building and household equipment seized and shipped out.52 The list of ‘Supplies from the Land and Objects of All Kinds Useful for the Army’ grew ever longer despite the shortage of transport.53 Money was collected and exchanged, banks cleared, evacuated dwellings guarded. The land was literally denuded and nothing recognized as useful left behind.
‘Useless objects’ included almost 15,000 civilians unable to work – the elderly, the sick, mentally handicapped and children – who were transported to the clearance zone area under the control of 2.Army – to Noyon, Ham-Guisard and Nesle.54 This group formed a small part of a mass re-settlement of 140,000 people of the native population able to work. If one includes the gradual transfer of the population from localities behind the front organized earlier by each district kommandant, who were then released for employment digging the Siegfried Line and in Army installations to the rear, then the number rises to about 150,000 displaced persons. These were all expelled in barely three weeks of Alberich, either on foot or in ‘vegetable-waggons’, as the railway adminstration described them, within the northern French Etappe zone behind the Siegfried Line or to occupied Belgium.55
The ‘removal of the inhabitants’ according to the internal report, ‘was the most difficult clearance measure.’56 The problems began when the proposed action was postponed to January.57 Since no reason can be found for this, one assumes that the delay stemmed from an humanitarian impulse of Kronprinz Rupprecht, particularly since OHL had pushed ahead with the idea of deporting the population to the rear on foot because the railways lacked the capacity to transport all the passengers and material.58 1.Army refused on military grounds, 2.Army on humanitarian, and the Army Group added a rider to its retrospective memorandum to the effect that the transportation of inhabitants was in any case ‘not feasible’ without the railway ‘within the parameters of the S-Organization.’59 In practice this meant that the removal of the inhabitants had not been planned for even at the end.
The humanitarian strain evident in the thinking of 2.Army makes it all the more obvious how inhumane the act itself appeared. Thus 2.Army took great pains to ensure that especially the sick and elderly were conveyed in cars and ambulances with attendants on hand.60 This does not alter the fact that the deportations were forced through abruptly, not least to prevent valuable materials which could have been confiscated by the Germans from being hidden or destroyed. Although villagers from individual localities were held in groups and great importance attached to not splitting families, nevertheless the elderly and the sick, the weak and children were (however one might like to explain it away) separated from the members of their families able to work. The 40,000 inhabitants of Saint Quentin were spirited away in a surprise raid because 2.Army considered their transportation to the rear as ‘representing a danger to the secrecy of Alberich.’ The deportation was admitted to be a ‘harsh measure’ but the practice was harsher than expected.61
It is clear from the foregoing that the deportations overstepped a critical mark. In itself this changed nothing, but hardly any German soldier felt comfortable about it. For this reason the argument of military necessity was finally hammered home with great frequency, but therein lay the rub, for if it had really been a military necessity it could only mean that the practices of war had been stood on their head. With the depopulation of the clearance region, from now on civilians on the Western Front had become the pawns of military planning.
What officers and men developed a talent for doing through Alberich was find a new way to get at the enemy in a critical war situation. Alberich was an enormous, creative act of destruction which, in that small area of the world forward of the Siegfried Line between Arras and Laon, completely expunged civilian presence and reduced an historical landscape to a wasteland.
DIARY
9 February 1917 (Péronne)
1530 we left in the ambulance . . . via Cartigny, Doingt to Péronne. Cloudless, bright day. Journey took about an hour. From Cartigny the usual picture of destruction. Doingt looks ravaged, houses all shelled to rubble, earth deeply churned. The torn-off branches and bark show traces of fire. A short distance from the highway the frozen Somme and swamp. From Péronne one sees at first large, shell-damaged walls, remains of former fort, with trenches and moat. Then one drives into the town centre down a fine, wide avenue. Houses both sides all holed, great heaps of dirt and rubble in front. At the town hall we got out, dressing station is in the cellar.
10 February 1917 (Péronne)
A cellar the size of a very large sitting room serves as the surgery. The walls are covered by fabric. Inside are two good beds, a piano, magnificent sofa with red velvet upholstery, on which in earlier times the gentlemen of the council would have disported themselves. Main decoration is two very large paintings in broad gold frames: La Misère by (Louis) Debras and Daphne et Chloë by Bonné. The first especially is captivatingly beautiful: a young mother, baby at the breast, tired from wandering, is seated on a rock. The pained expression in the fine, pale face, the beautiful wet eyes: the noble shape of the bare shoulders, the delicate hand, are masterly. Another corridor connects the surgery to the operating theatre and room for the wounded, two cellar rooms, whose equipment leaves something to be desired.
The weather has changed and the bitter cold has gone. One enters the trenches by way of a wooden bridge over the very swampy Somme region here. At the moment it is frozen over. The bridge is good but one has to move smartly from one section to the next because it can be seen by the enemy. We were late leaving the line and had to take the detour back through the ‘Paris suburb’, a sorry-looking outlying district with very shell-damaged houses. The way over the bridge stages is very attractive, reed beds either side, between long stretches of open water. There are huge numbers of wild duck, which the men shoot at. With their service rifles! This shooting can be quite dangerous, for the bullets fly far in open country, and on some bridge crossings one takes his life in his hands. Then the kommandant introduced severe arrest penalties which resulted in the following. Two days ago I visited a private soldier under arrest who had just been sentenced to five days’ harsher arrest. Today at midday the local kommandant sent for a doctor because the arrestee had gone wild. I went. The arrest cell was in a former prison. I was told: The arrestee had received good rations today. In the morning he had been given wood and an axe to chop firewood for himself. Then he went crazy, chopping up his cell and setting fire to the dry wood. As soon as anybody approached he attacked with an axe. Thick smoke was pouring from the cell. When I opened the small window and called to him, he raised the axe and went for me, then he threw small chips of wood through the doorway, screaming unintelligibly. As it was feared he would wreck the door and window and create more damage with the axe, there followed a conference on how to handle the situation. I advised we should wait. After two hours more we went back. There was smoke everywhere because he had started a fresh fire. To attempt to overpower him might have resulted in serious injury. I advised caution until he was overcome by the smoke. This took another hour, and then he was brought out. He kept shouting but finally explained: ‘My poor parents. I have been in the Army five years, and all I ever got out of it was punishments. I wish I had fallen in battle.’ I calmed him down, as did his sergeant.
20 February 1917 (Péronne)
From the street, apart from a large shell-hole in the wall, the decorated columns of the Town Hall façade do not suggest the terrible destruction within. The entire roof of the annexe on the corner of the market place has been destroyed, the dome with its pointed tower is a formless confusion of twisted metal framework towering above the roof. The house wall itself is protected by a porch supported by columns. Huge piles of wall rubble and all kinds of equipment are strewn in the street. The windows have no glass. If one crosses the market place over the rubble into the interior of the Town Hall,62 one enters first into a large hall whose walls carry copies of Egyptian and Assyrian tapestries. Amongst the debris are painted fragments of a replica Egyptian altar. The wall paintings show Egyptian priestesses and artesans. These were copied from finds in Egypt. Adjacent is a small room with many glass showcases. There is said to have been a valuable coin collection here previously.63
Mixed in with the vast amounts of dirt and garbage covering the floor are fragments of plaster replicas, skeleton parts and all kinds of museum exhibits, e.g. old Roman handmills etc. Through a corridor one reaches the former council chamber. This looks particularly ruinous. In order to better protect the cellar honeycomb below against shelling, a layer of rubble one and a half metres thick has been spread over the floor. All kinds of old rubbish have been added, old bedframes etc. The junk contrasts strangely with the huge painted columns and the panelled ceiling. The building material used everywhere here is limestone. One proceeds to the first floor ascending a broad stairway maintained in excellent condition. Here used to be the library, now a picture of devastation. Books and files appear to have been deliberately strewn across the floor to provide protection against incoming shells. The books are badly damaged and lie in piles up to a metre high. The ceiling has been penetrated by shell hits in various places, allowing rain to enter. Amongst the books I found many old medical works of great antique value: Galon, etc.
In the next room are huge quantities of manuscripts, certainly also of high value. Here too are many volumes of official reports, and masses of official material. All for destruction. The stairway leads to the storeroom, totally destroyed, only the roof frames remain. Directly behind the steps from the street into the Town Hall is a room which served previously as an office. Also here metre-high rubble. So as not to spend all my life in the cellar I have arranged this room for myself. As it was impossible to remove the rubble, we levelled it and placed doors on the top to form a new floor. The actual door was useless because of the rubble and so we cut off the top part at the height of the rubble and placed some entry steps outside. It was difficult to get window panes and so I removed the glass front from a bookcase and nailed that in place. The remainder was covered by window remains from the neighbourhood. It was several days until my day room was ready, then I was able to spend a couple of hours each morning working there. At the moment I am working on an excerpt from Bandelier and Röpke’s Tuberculosis Clinic.
25 February 1917 (Péronne)
Today I returned to Bernes for a conference with the divisional surgeon. On the way we passed through burning Cartigny. The inhabitants are long gone. At the moment they have started pulling down the usable houses, blowing up the water sources etc. We understand that a thirty kilometre wide strip of the entire Somme region is to be evacuated and everything in the strip razed to the ground. This includes Péronne. It has been ordered that all usable furniture is to be salvaged. The new trenches of the Siegfried and Wotan Lines mark the eastern edge of the evacuated region. Three Ottomans and a very fine sofa are being salvaged from our cellar furniture. Also the two great paintings (Daphne et Chloë and Le Misère) have been removed from their frames, rolled up and taken away. They will be returned to the town later.
26 February 1917 (Péronne)
Since 24th bad bronchitis with pain left side. This afternoon Oberstleutnant Fabarius invited me for a walk. I met him in a room of the Regimental Staff which has a really well protected home for itself in a small house along the old city wall. It has a deep gallery. The entire district from there to the Somme has suffered enormous destruction. Everywhere great heaps of rubble block the streets. We went over the Bertha wooden bridge which passes for 500 metres through the rushes of the Somme. Wonderful clear day. The town of Péronne rose beautifully behind the Somme beaches, very picturesque. We discussed how Péronne had once been a rich town, garrison of a cavalry regiment, early in the war it was considered a rich military locality. Then we talked of home. Fairly heavy artillery fire which did not worry me, but very much the Oberstleutnant. Since we were coming towards the other end of the bridge near where the batteries were, which were attracting enemy fire, we turned back.
3 March 1917 (Péronne)
Bronchitis lasted three days, pain left side, especially when I move. Did not go to bed until after midnight. The many colds probably a consquence of lack of fresh air, particularly spending so much time in the warm cellar, where one sleeps clothed. After 0830 went to medical centre, which I have set up in basement of the school. There is not much light in the cellar rooms, and so I have made up three examination rooms in the utter ruin which is the basement. It required a lot of work before the centre had its beds etc. There are altogether seventy-two beds available, also tables and chairs. Lighting through enlarged cellar ports protected by glass from picture frames after the paintings had been removed. From there I crossed the Bertha bridge to look at the ice in the Somme. This evening it froze again hard. The water of the Somme is clear and green, and one can see that it is deep in places. Great areas are blocked off by iron railings, apparently there used to be a rich fishery here. Then I went along the bank for a short cut to the Town Hall. I arrived just in time to witness an explosion. They had drilled into the great wall of the Gendarmerie Nationale at six places and filled each with over forty-six kilos of explosive. A simple detonator fuse wire was used to set it off. The result was unsatisfactory. Great blocks of stone flew everywhere but it simply made the holes bigger: the building survived.
5 March 1917 (Péronne)
Early this morning all white: thick snow. Systematic destruction in process for last two days. The remaining houses in reasonable condition are being pulled down or blown up. A couple of hand grenades primed against the door jamb and then house collapses. Yesterday some splinters from the houses opposite came through my lovely crystal panes. Opposite the town hall, the façades of the houses have been torn down exposing the wreckage inside. The roofs have either caved in or hang over the walls. There is rubble in the middle of the road. It is risky to pass by the houses as masonry and beams fall without warning.
11 March 1917 (Péronne)
Many places in town have been blown up. Several houses burn out. The fires have not been fully extinguished. This morning I walked over the Bertha wooden bridge again. A British aircraft flew very low overhead so close that we could see his black goggles, despite fierce MG fire from our infantry. In the afternoon it was not pleasant in the day room as in the last few days there has been a lot of shelling in the vicinity. Also today we had to shelter in the cellar because of sudden salvoes. For the first time clouds of shrapnel directly over the streets of the town. This afternoon I sketched with painter Weber.
12 March 1917 (Péronne)
This evening several places still ablaze. Spent a long time in front of the Town Hall watching the flames. Spellbinding, such great fires. The next morning they were still smoking well. Nearby an attempt had been made to destroy a house by explosives. Early today I noticed that the walls still stood, the floor was broken in. The cellar looked like the abyss to a ravine. The preparations for the retreat have been completed. We will have the first dressing station at Doingt. All preparations extremely secret. All orders regarding the retreat speak of it as Day X. The preceding days are known correspondingly as X – 1, X – 2. Today is X – 1. With Feldunterarzt Graeff, I went to Doingt early in order to see the medical post. First through a suburb, then a long broad avenue, past trees felled by artillery, craters old and new, then into the ruins of Doingt. Our line runs upwards in front of the village. An old medical post is specified for it. Artillery emplacement to be used as battalion command post. The trenches have no accommodations since the line will only be held for one day. Our principal protection is the many swamps of the Somme. We returned through the ruins of Flamicourt.
In the afternoon I went to regiment on account of the regulations for the medical service. The first companies have already left to occupy the reserve trenches. An extraordinary quiet reigns. No shelling for hours. Will there be an artillery barrage tomorrow morning? Tomorrow is Day X. The evening I spent alone. Despite the quiet everybody is very tense. Outside various places are burning. I sat before an oil lamp. The faithful Ofenloch has ‘found’ spirit lamps and covers.
13 March 1917 (Péronne)
Had a very bad night, woke at 0500. Felt a lot of heaviness when exhaling. The quietness is striking. Early this morning I took my usual walk over the Bertha bridge. Saw a few small cats in the meadows. No shelling anywhere. A ‘breather in war.’ I enjoyed the fine view towards the old fortress walls over the great swamps. The grey-green haulms of the reeds stand higher than a man. Went along the river bank, past the damaged Gendarmerie Nationale. Frightful street scenes. Many houses completely burnt out inside. Of others only a few low walls remain. The bricks and rubble block whole streets, an awful confusion of bits of beam, masonry, household articles, wires. The telephone people are just now taking out the last lines. It is a wonderful Sunday. The bright yellow-brown sandstone gleams happily so that even the ruins look pleasant. Especially fine is Brittany Gate (painter Weber did it for me as a water colour). Tonight the big retreat begins. This afternoon it was noticeably more empty in the depopulated town, over which a thick cloud of smoke hovers. Soon after lunch the ambulances set off, leaving me completely alone. I ordered a medical officer to the citadel to go back with the men. Myself I shall occupy the dressing station at Hancourt. To my delight another ambulance arrived with Chefarzt Kottenhahn. We returned in this together. In Hancourt I was given quarters in the same room I occupied upon my earlier arrival here with the Battalion Staff. The evening was quiet.
14 March 1917 (Hancourt)
Quiet night. Battalion Staff has arrived. We disengaged from the enemy without a casualty. This morning what a benefit – daylight through the window and fresh air after weeks of breathing cellar air. Outside rain and gloom. The weather is ideal for our retreat. The barrage balloons have no field of view and the aircraft cannot get up.
15 March 1917 (Hancourt)
Still at Hancourt. I. Battalion moved out smoothly. III.Battalion still in the line at Doingt. Two companies of II.Battalion remain at Péronne. Moreover from I.Battalion, from each company one officer with 1 – 2 squads and MGs to be set up at all places where the enemy could penetrate. In the trenches traps have been set to injure invading troops. So, for example, hand grenades have been fixed to doors and will explode when the door is opened. Landmines have been placed all along the wooden bridge and will explode when trodden. I was told a lot about this kind of thing but I do not have much confidence in its success since the British are bound to exercise some caution upon entering a German trench. In the afternoon I walked with Hauptmann Lüters through the fields to Vraignes where there are more than 1,000 evacuees. On the way we met women collecting dandelions for a salad. The village has little damage. Unfortunately, as in the entire evacuation region, all fruit trees have been cut down. Even in the cemetery all trees have been felled.
17 March 1917 (Vendelles)
Still at Hancourt. Early today our forward patrols returned. So far the British appear unaware of the retreat. In any case they rained down shells on the trenches. Fine warm day. 2030 we left for Vendelles. In the afternoon various barrack huts were set afire. By evening the whole village was ablaze, an appalling sight the equal of which I have only seen once before, in Belgium in the opening days of the war. Huge flames licked out from every house, above them giant clouds of smoke, especially black from the uralite of the roofs. Meanwhile explosions and the chatter of forgotten infantry ammunition, hand grenades, bursting bricks. The horses were so restless at the sight of the flames that they were difficult to control. Then we returned to Vendelles via Bernes. To all sides and behind us the flames of burning villages. At night we reached Vendelles. House No.8 was earmarked as the dressing station and spared. We have impeccable rooms, yet we slept poorly because of the constant explosions. The roads to the rear, which had been mined intensively in the past, were blown up by the pioneers. The small house trembled under the fury of the detonations. The window panes rattled endlessly and kept us all awake with fear.
18 March 1917 (Vendelles)
In the morning the same picture here as at Hancourt. The few remaining houses were destroyed by explosives until everything was a desolate heap of rubble. I.Battalion had the b-line, that is, the rearguard. The a-line was at Doingt, occupied by III.Battalion. The troops positioned at Péronne from I. and II. Battalions returned yesterday. Early morning today I and II Batallions are to march through here while we remain until evening awaiting relief by III.Div. The Division has already occupied the Siegfried Line, and our line is the fighting front. We left for the trench with Hauptmann Lüters. It is a simple trench of medium height. Despite the cold the men were all in good spirits. Marched off 2330, at first a stretch on foot. To the left and right of the street fire and smoke. Only a few houses are to be left standing, apart from these the village is a smoking ruin. The entire evacuation district looks the same: all fruit trees felled, together with all other large trees, all river crossings, railway lines, highways blown up, all houses destroyed. It is said that 500 villages have been obliterated. A massive measure: throughout the ravaged region the enemy will penetrate only slowly, finding no auxiliary assistance, and first of all has to lay streets and water supply. For example the water system has been systematically destroyed and polluted with faecal matter. The enemy’s planned offensive has been rendered pointless by our retreat and the financial demands on enemy national reserves is enormous. Our troops until now in the occupied area have been released to other duties. The enemy has only been probing our patrols until this point. There are three squadrons of cavalry with MGs in the evacuated sector to cover our retreat and unsettle the enemy. The night march was exhausting: thirty-one kilometres to Bohain – am very tired. About 0200 rations were given out. We sat by a roadside ditch: how good the thick noodle soup tasted. A cigar along the way helped. The road led from Vendelles to Bellenglise, Sequehart, Fresnoy-le-Grand, Bohain.
19 March 1917 (Bohain)
Arrived in Bohain 1000 hrs. Very tired, short of breath.
20 March 1917 (Wassigny)
Midday we marched twelve kms to Wassigny. Much swampy territory. Fairly long stop as lorry broke down. The road had to be cleared first by MG Company. Could not go round it as swamp and dense vegetation. The village is overcrowded. We stayed in a nice little house. I had a bed but no stove in the room.
21 March 1917 (Petit Fayt)
Sat together long while last evening as Feldwebel-Leutnant Lüthje was invited to dinner. Early this morning marched via Oisy to Le Petit Fayt. Very cold. Almost continuous snowfall, so that one was glad to dismount from the horse for stretches, hands and feet freezing. The road passed through hilly country. Clean, apparently well-to-do villages. Everywhere large orchards and pasture enclosed by thorn bushes. A joy for the eye to see a little green in the fields after so many ruins and piles of rubble. Clear skies in the evening.
22 March 1917 (Maubeuge)
In the evening another visit. A lieutenant from Inf.Regt.38 who was given quarters here. Was invited by Hauptmann Lüters in his hospitable way. Spoke about the coming offensive at Laon. Ourselves bound for Maubeuge. Where would we go after that? Early today everything blanketed by snow. Because of cold lots of socks. Fine hilly area. Very fine high up cathedral of St. Pierre (Dompierre). Many fine views from above down into valley. Large fine village so far untouched by horrors of war, people at the door. The women and our men shout to each other and make jokes just like on manoeuvres. Route today was twenty-five kms. I rode on horseback the last half. Bitterly cold, as a sharp, biting easterly wind. Finally we went along the Maubeuge-Paris highway, one of the many roads built by Napoleon (cuts across country straight as a ruler, almost no bends) for strategic considerations (make fast troop movements). The last eight kms almost incessant heavy snow so that we look like snowmen. Good quarters on the outskirts of Maubeuge.
23 March 1917 (Maubeuge)
We ate in Maubeuge yesterday evening. Scheuerpflug came back today, told me about my dear wife and the two babes, that my dear little wife had a cold, that dear little Walter had bawled when he thought he had lost his little sweets. Was extraordinarily happy to receive this account. Lt Rönneberg also came by when the beer was served. He came from Péronne. Full of pride recounted the (to me very tasteless) surprise which they have left behind for the British. From the old command post they set up a table on the street with two plates of cooked rat and herrings, a glass of champagne and a note: ‘Dear Tommy, enjoy your meal! Don’t be annoyed, just admire!’ There was additionally a pile of hand grenades, one primed in such a way as to explode if lifted.
In Civilian Life a Businessman at Reupelsdorf
DIARY (Source BfZ N04.3)
13 February 1917 (Berthenicourt)
Everything here is gradually being dismantled and carted off. Our Swiss barracks is broken up.
16 February 1917 (Berthenicourt)
The civilians have to leave little by little. The whole region from the front to St Quentin and further still is so to speak being prepared for dismantling. The streets are being mined, the springs of water filled in, the railway installations transported out. Arson squads are being formed who, at the appropriate time, will raze to the ground all villages and individual houses. A great retreat is under way on our front. A host of other measures are in hand of which we have no knowledge. It is even being talked of that we will relinquish St Quentin, because the main defence installations begin behind it in front of Neuville and to the side before Mézières. We heard firing all day, far and near, artillery getting the range.
20 February 1917 (Berthenicourt)
Yesterday in the house and porch, pioneers put something down in the cellar. Soon it will get serious. Explosive charge.
23 February 1917 (Berthenicourt)
0500 today all civilians deported. Yesterday there was the opportunity to buy beans.
24 February 1917 (Berthenicourt)
I sent one large and one small parcel home. Visited Fritz at St Quentin. All villages deserted except for soldiers.
26 February 1917 (Berthenicourt)
We had to form a tree-felling squad. All fruit, nut and decorative trees, and also all bushes are being cut down. The idea is to make the whole region so bare that the enemy can find no cover and our aircraft have a better of view of them.
27 February 1917 (Berthenicourt)
Today we left for Vermand. We took over a collection station for the wounded. I was detailed to transport on the rail line. Today the village of Maissdemy was blown up It was quite near and was very loud. The beams sprayed in the air. Everybody who could do so ran to the hill to watch. We unhitched from Berthenicourt at 1000 for Pontru, then left to Vandancourt, Bithécourt, Vermand. Our soldiers were at work in many places setting fire to houses and barns. Maissemy was burning.
28 February 1917 (Vermand)
Today the branch line was torn up as far as our transport section and taken off. At midday we put all the patients in the hospital train. Now it is abandoned here. Fresh casualties arriving.
2 March 1917 (Vermand)
Today we sent off more by hospital train. In the evening, fires in Vermand. The wind is set fair for departure.
7 March 1917 (Vermand)
Today the bath was taken out. I made a basket of potatoes rending for sending home. The explosive charges were laid today below the street behind our house. In the evening fires, but in Quentin.
15 March 1917 (Vermand)
We emptied the sacks of straw. The railway line on the bridge was blown up today. Today sections of the remaining tracks are being blown up. I mailed the second parcel of stuff. At midday our hospital has to be evacuated with the exception of the kitchen. It is to be blown up.
16 March 1917 (Vermand)
Today the railway line was blown up at various locations. In the evening we were ready to leave. The Chief was up in arms at the number of packs the inspector was sending ( . . . )
17 March 1917 (Bohain)
We marched out at 0400. Awful roads. We gave the main front line a miss, both there and at Bellenglise. It runs through various villages. We are now seeing some civilians again. Quarters in Bohain. We have to stow all carts in the hotel coach house. Twenty-seven kms.
DIARY (continued)
18 February 1917 (Metz-en-Couture)
What has long been discussed, the pulling back of the front to the Siegfried Line, is in preparation. Today all inhabitants of the village of Metz are to be evacuated. A desolate sight, these roughly 500 people, women, children and old folk with few bits of possessions (only twenty-five kilos per person may be taken with them), gathered together on the market square on a rainy Sunday morning, stowing their few things on waggons, handcarts and children’s perambulators. The young and fit have to walk to Gouzeaucourt, the others ride on a vehicle. How miserable it must be to leave house and property to head for an uncertain future! Nearly all are completely resigned to it though some of the young are optimistic, perhaps they are hoping to get to the Golden Freedom of France. I only hope they will not be disappointed! We made a wide detour to avoid the market square.
19 February 1917 (Metz-en-Couture)
We have retaken Beuffen (a trench near Lechelle). Everything was well prepared, relatively light but sad losses. The three officers who led the assault were either killed or seriously wounded. In these events the officers have to throw themselves into the fray if the thing is to succeed. The British prisoners relate horrific tales about the flame-throwers. It is an appalling weapon. What next will they dream up to cause death and destruction?
20 February 1917 (Metz-en-Couture)
Our most recent success has given the line its old stability, but Bernhard’s grave is now out of reach. We would very much have liked to re-bury him in the local cemetery, which unfortunately is getting ever bigger. Under my direction it was gradually developing from a modest installation of improvised military cemeteries into a pleasant place of burial. The venerable trees of the neglected old part of the civilian cemetery provide a good background.
22 February 1917 (Metz-en-Couture)
The abandoned houses have a desolate look about them. Passing by, one misses the blond head of a child at play, the loud shouting of wild kids of the backstreets, the everyday silhouette of women and girls, who despite war and few chances of elegance seize them (carrying indispensable water). From the roofs the straw soon disappears, here and there a window frame or beam is missing, used to feed the stove. Soon there will be nothing left but rubble. Our soldiers are fabulous at demolition. Explosive charges have been set in all the cellars of the houses we occupy. ‘Achtung! Charges ready!’ is the sad warning posted outside many houses. All the same we sleep deeply and well on the powder keg. Every day explosions as water mains and military accommodations are destroyed. The church bells have been taken down, even the bell from the roof of the ‘Cock’, later to be used as a trophy to adorn the pioneer’s barracks at Ulm. The British will find some pretty bare little quarters!
26 – 27 February 1917 (Metz-en-Couture)
Since the dressing station at Le Transloy, handed over by our Division to its neighbour, is to be reoccupied by the front medical officer of Inf.Regt.121, we are alternating for two days in the dressing tunnel at Rocquigny. What a difference to the summer of 1916! When one leaves the tunnel at night and hears the firing, one hears a symphony of overpowering anger: a continual roll of thunder in which shells of all calibres erupt near and far, and are combined with the hammer blows of our own artillery, a strong mix of heavy instruments, while MGs tack-tack and the less symmetrical, less regular chatter of rifle fire takes on the role of the lighter instruments in the orchestral presentation.
In silent complaint, walls and the skeletal structure of ruined houses point fantastically to the skies and build the foreground to the scene, sharp silhouettes against the unquiet, terrible yellow-red light inflaming the horizon. In between rear up dull red fires of bursting shells, ghostly sudden bursts of white light from rocket flares and, as if mocking the devil’s work, red and green pyrotechnic columns from the signal lamps.
The stage is deserted despite the thousands and thousands who lie between in suffering and death.With a cold shudder, the spectator senses the grim reaper’s smile above the destruction and misery ( . . . )
6 March 1917 (Metz-en-Couture)
At the main dressing station we still have a number of seriously wounded of whom some are recovering, we kept them back to spare them onward transport so that the necessary operations will be possible for those who by quick intervention can still be saved. The majority of cases we have here are stomach wounds and we operate if the circumstances allow (Stabsarzt Dr Weil) as we have long been convinced that the self-healing of stomach wounds earlier than thought possible scarcely ever occurs.
Thanks to the comfortable transport conditions for the trenches we have tolerable conditions for our wounded, good feather beds and mattresses, white jackets etc. – for a medical company a previously undreamed of luxury. Also more is being done now for science. ( . . . ) Recently I had to set up a legal section after a British prisoner stabbed to death an infantryman who was escorting him. The two had set out in high spirits and had been drinking schnapps. The Englishman was a publican from a London suburb, the German was of good reputation and had never been known to be drunk before. During the course of the drinking session the stabbing occurred. The accused defended himself skilfully at his military trial but was convicted on the basis of the medical evidence (the manner in which the wounds were inflicted indicated the intention to kill), sentenced to death and shot.
The dismantling and transport out of valuable materials is proceeding at a fast rate. The retreat has begun from the Ancre – apparently all went off smoothly and cost the surprised British great losses. Here we will also spoil their designs.
15 March 1917 (Metz-en-Couture)
Yesterday I was at Rocquigny: not without a feeling of slight regret one reflects on how all this hotly fought-for territory, littered with the bones of so many brave fighters, will be yielded to the enemy – voluntarily certainly, we do not turn back as the defeated, but to prepare for the British a warmer reception from a better situated spot. And they will have to overcome a lot to get there. The many strong trenches which lie between the Siegfried Line and the present front will demand a lot of them.
We are moving out tomorrow night: all the details have been worked out. The foremost line will remain occupied at first by officer patrol, who will deceive the enemy into believing the trench fully occupied. They will not leave until 17/18th when fresh troops will move into the vanguard trenches on the Villers-Trecout Height etc.
Our Division is to march through the Siegfried Line on the night of 17 March to rest: at that point the rearguard will hold R – 3 trenches east of Bus behind the advanced patrols. It is hoped that if all goes to plan the British will be taken by surprise. At Metz-en-Couture meanwhile the work of destruction had proceeded: my little room was almost blown up by an explosive charge on the water main, and only the alertness of my valet, who quickly opened the windows, left the panes intact and so ensured our little room remains warm at night.
All the time in the neighbourhood we hear houses dynamited and collapsing, and close by the occupied houses a friendly departing neighbour, who set fire to his barn as a token of farewell, amused the men during their work of tearing and burning down. There is still a lot of the robber and savage in people. Such a retreat carried out with such ferocious energy does not elevate the spirit of Man. The British will now certainly accuse us in all the world’s languages of barbarity, and they will not lack for evidence when they take over this tract of earth: there is no water spring which has not been blown up and made unserviceable by artifical contamination, no cellar and no house left standing by the demolition squads. All crossroads have been caved in and mined. At important places the trees along the main highways have been three-quarters felled and require only two blows from an axe to pitch them across the road. It will be almost impossible in the foreseeable future to get this territory fit to house attack troops. In these days of destruction, dark humour makes itself valid. Our poet Stabsarzt Fritz has written the British a friendly note of welcome on a toilet cubicle door:
‘You cry Poor little Belgium
Poor Ireland you don’t care
Protecting Culture, God and Law
You brought the niggers there.
I know you’re always hypocrites
Now hear, what I you tell,
Our Germany will go ahead
But you, will go to hell!
With every good wish for a Happy Xmas
And bright New Year at Metz-en-Couture.
Yours truly,
Hermann’
Tomorrow we are moving to Gouzeaucourt to set up an unprotected main dressing station again. I was notified on 17th that I should report for a medical course at Charleville in Nouzon.
16 March 1917 (Gouzeaucourt)
At Gouzeaucourt it is the same as at Metz-en-Couture: burning and dynamited houses, soldiers going about the work as if on a morning stroll. The railway track to Cambrai has been dismantled, we are receiving almost no wounded. Apparently the British are not taking us on.
17 March 1917
In the automobile in order to reach the railway at Caudry, I drove through the interesting trench systems of the Siegfried Line with their broad wire entanglements at Le Pavé. Long stay at Busigny, where an old mansion is being furbished for the General Command with the furniture and artwork from another mansion further forward. First day of spring!
DIARY (continued)
19 February – 17 March 1917 (Hervilly)
As it happens the accommodations were all very fine, both for the service post as for private quarters. This time I have a very nice room with Eichelbaum such as we have seldom seen before. A few times we took an evening stroll to Roisel two and a half kms away where a start has been made to blow up or burn down, as the case may be, the houses, because the German Line is being pulled back to the Siegfried Line and the vacated territory subjected to the ‘Scorched Earth’ policy to deprive the enemy of any accommodation. The houses are also being brought down in Hervilly: even in our own quarters the explosive charges are in place, on the day we left – 17 March – only three houses were still standing including our post office. These will be destroyed by the rearguard. At 0530 on 17 March we moved out, on foot, destination St Souplet (near Le Cateau).
Erich Ludendorff: Meine Kriegserinnerungen 1914 – 1918, Berlin 1919, p.323.
Der Weltkrieg 1914 – 1918 (hereinafter ‘WKW’), Vol 12, Berlin 1939, p.145
WKW, Vol 12, p.61. See also AOK 1, 1a Nr.1858, 7 December 1916, also of the other armies: Bayrisches Hauptstaatsarchiv (BayHSTA)/Abt.IV, Army Group Rupprecht, 107.
Telegram Ia2079, 29 January 1917: BayHSTA/Abt IV, Army Group Rupprecht 108.
See also 6th AOK 1a Nr.430 dated 10 December 1916 expected ‘major disadvantages of political nature and morale in the armies as in the Homeland would be difficult to bear’: BayHSTA/ Abt.IV.Army Group Rupprecht, 107.
See the unpublished diary entries of 15 and 26 September 1916, BayHSTA/Abt.III, N1 Kronprinz Rupprecht, 704.
Group N was formed at the end of 1916 from the Genkdo. XIV Reserve-Korps and formed the right flank of 1.Army.
WKW, Vol 11, p.510f.
Army Group Kronprinz von Bayern, Obkdo 1a Nr 2026, 15 January 1917, ‘Suggestion for Operations in the French Theatre in the Spring of 1917’: Army Group Kronprinz von Bayern, Oberkdo, 1ad, Nr 2104, 28 January 1917, BayHSTA/Abt.III N1 Kronprinz Rupprecht, 586.
Army Group Kronprinz von Bayern, Ia Nr 2177, Army Order 4 December 1916: BayHSTA/Abt.III N1 Kronprinz Rupprecht 586. Army Group Kronprinz von Bayern, I ad, Nr 2200, 6 December 1916, BayHSTA/Abt IV, Army Group Rupprecht 106.
AOK 1, Ia Nr 1858, 7 December 1916, BayHSTA/Abt.III N1 Kronprinz Rupprecht 107: Nr 2150 dated 1 February 1917, Kronprinz Rupprecht 108.
Army Group Kronprinz von Rupprecht, Oberkdo Ia Nr 2344, 21 February 1917, ‘Outlook for Attack Operations at Alberich-Siegfried’, BayHSTA/Abt.III N1 Kronprinz Rupprecht 586.
WKW, Vol 12, p.72.
Army Group Kronzprinz Ruuprecht, Id Nr. 2271 geh., April 1917, Siegfried-Alberich Memorandum, Part 1: Development of Siegfried Line, here Appendix 5; BayHSTA/Abt.III, NI Kronprinz Rupprecht, 564.
See additionally the files under Siegfried-Allgemein III; BayHSTA/ Abt.III, NI Kronprinz Rupprecht 564.
Army Group Kronprinz von Bayern, Id Nr 4023, 16 November 1916, BayHSTA/Abt.III, NI Kronprinz Rupprecht, 585.
Ibid.
Chef des Feldeisenbahnwesens, IVa Nr.4435g/5732 geh., Memorandum ‘The Siegfried-Alberich Railways’, War Diary, Annexe 15h; BayHSTA/Abt.IV, Rekodeis, Vol 6.
On the question of this employment see the lively exchange of telegrams between the Army Group and OHL at the beginning of October; BayHSTA/Abt.IV, Army Group Rupprecht, 106.
Siegfried-Alberich Memorandum, Part p.22f.
GQM, IIc Nr 33866, 2 November 1916 and Nr 40462, 2 January 1917, BayHSTA/Abt.IV., Hgr. Rupprecht 106.
Hgr. Kronpr. Rupprecht, Id Nr 643 geh. (N.O. Nr 97), 29 September 1916: BayHSTA/Abt.IV, Hgr. Rupprecht 107.
Siegfried-Alberich Memorandum, Part 1, p. 40 – 42.
Additionally: Bauleitung 69 Abt I (tech.) Nr. 449, 24 March 1917: BayHSTA/Abt.IV, Hgr.Rupprecht, 108.
See war diary entries 1 July 1916 – 12 December 1916 for Württembergisch Guard Company, PoW Work Battalion 88: HSTA Stuttgart M 420, batch 37.
Also see the files re the care of PoWs, the civilian workers’ battalions and the free workers in the records of 27.Württembergisch Inf.Div: HSTA Stuttgart, M 39, Vol 30. GQM IIc re Accommodation and Employment of the civilian workers’ battalions: BayHSTA/Abt.IV Hgr.Rupprecht, 106.
7.Armee, AOK Id 138 Siegfried, 9 December 1916: Bay HSTA/ Abt.IV, Hgr.Rupprecht 106. See also the scattered lists on arrivals and departures in the civilian workers’ battalions towards the end of the volume.
Siegfried-Alberich Memorandum, Part I, p.42.
See telex, Hgr. Rupprecht to OHL, 1 October 1916 regarding a group of 600 Russian PoWs from the Beverloo camp who initially refused work building trenches: BayHSTA/Abt.IV, Hgr.Rupprecht 106.
Report on the Construction of the Siegfried Line by Hauptmann Schinnerer: Bay HSTA/Abt.V, HS 2695.
Siegfried-Alberich Memorandum, Part 1, p.41. AOK 7, Id 488, geh., 24 March 1917: ‘Free Belgians in general good: less so the non-volunteers’: BayHSTA/Abt.IV, Hgr.Rupprecht, 108.
Siegfried-Alberich Memorandum, Part 1, p.41.
AOK 7.Armee, Iva N. 23290/3536, 25 December 1916: ‘Sickliness, moral inferiority, political unreliability’: BayHSTA/Abt.IV, Hgr. Rupprecht 106.
AOK7, Id 488 geh., 24 March 1917: ‘If necessary it must be possible to coerce German civilian workers and apply military discipline. Resignations and strikes must be outlawed.’ BayHSTA/ Abt.IV. Hgr.Rupprecht, 108.
Pioneer-Regt.30B, Nr.70/16, 4 October 1916, Nr.138/16, 11 October 1916, re-volunteer applications in Belgium: Hgr. Kronpr. von Bayern Oberkmmdo Id/Pi R30 N. 1103 geh. 20 October 1916, BayHSTA/Abt IV, Hgr. Rupprecht, 106/107.
Ludendorff: Kriegserinnerungen, p.324.
Les espaces désertiques: impressions d’un combattante: in ‘L’Information’, 26 November 1917.
Chief of Army General Staff Ia Nr. 281 geh.op: BayHSTA/Abt IV, Hgr.Rupprecht 107.
AOK1, Ia Nr.1304/Appdx.A: BayHSTA/Abt.IV, Hgr.Rupprecht 107.
Report by Krafft von Delmensingen to the Bavarian President, 2 February 1916: ‘HRH gave vent to his indignation in the strongest terms at the cruelty of the planned measures and declared that he would have no part in it’: BayHSTA, MA 944.
Diary entry 1 Ocotber 1916: Bay HSTA/Abt.III, N1 Kronpr. Rupprecht, 705.
Ibid.
For perfection in practice see Memorandum ‘Erfahrungen über Zerstörung im Vorgelände’ (Experiences regarding Destruction in Forward Territory) (June 1917): Bay HSTA/Abt.IV, Hgr Rupprecht, 106.
Gruppe N/Ia/Bod. General Staff Officer Nr. 723, geh., 1 March 1917, HSTA Stuttgart, M 200, bundle 43.
ibid.
AOK2, Ia/Is 173/apr/560 geh., 11 April 1917, Annexe 2, ‘Destruction of Buildings’: BayHSTA/Abt.IV, Hgr.Rupprecht 108.
Siegfried-Alberich Memorandum, Part 2, p.81. Hgr.Kronpr. von Bayern, Oberkommando Id Nr. 1496 geh., 2 November 1916, BayHSTA/Abt.IV, Hgr.Rupprecht 107.
ibid.
Submissions to the Siegfried-Alberich Memorandum, 25 March 1917, BayHSTA/Avt.IV, Hgr.Rupprecht 108.
Bavarian Regimental Commander of Railway Troops (special purposes) (Rekodeis) Nr. 1, Appendix 15g: Alberich Memorandum, April 1917: Bay HSTA/Abt.IV, Rekodeis 1, Vol.6.
Memorandum: Die Eisenbahnen bei Siegfried-Alberich, p.29f( ‘The Railways in Siegfried-Alberich’).
GQM IIb Nr. 2068 geh., 5 January 1917 on the question whether households were to be cleared in addition to warehouses and businesses, in this case in Saint Quentin. The answer was negative, but the practice looked otherwise. BayHSTA/Abt.IV, Hgr.Rupprecht, 106.
AOK 2, Is Nr. 523 geh., 18 October 1916 (Appendix 1 to Alberich Memorandum): ibid.
Additionally Hgr. Kronpr. von Bayern Oberkommando Id. Nr 1454 geh., 7 November 1916 and Id 30 November 1916: BayHSTA/Abt III, Nl Kronpr. Rupprecht 586. See also the OHL instruction, Id. Nr 1695, 30 November 1916 which excludes the inhabitants of Saint Quentin, including those incapable of work: Bay HSTA/Abt.IV, Hgr.Rupprecht 107.
The true figures differ from those compiled from the lists of names. In their turn these do not coincide with the published figures. The Railway Administration reckoned on 149,000 persons in 5,688 coaches, but transported eventually 135, 530 in 341 trains with 7,522 coaches. 1.Armee had many more (32,000), 2.Armee somewhat less (14,100 backwards, 19,150 forwards , 36,180 from Saint Quentin) and 7.Armee very many less persons (23,700 instead of 49,000) than reckoned. Plenipotentiary General Staff Officer, Field-Railway at Oberkommando, Hgr. Kronpr. Rupprecht, Memorandum, 9.April 1917: BayHSTA/Abt IV., Hgr. Rupprecht 108: Memorandum ‘Die Eisenbahnen bei Siegfreid-Alberich. ’
Siegfried-Alberich Memorandum, Part II, p.89.
The question of removing the inhabitants was not resolved until the GQM ordered it on 21 January 1917. Hgr. Kronpr. von Bayern Oberkmmdo. Id Nr.1469 geh., 2 November 1916: ‘Abschub der Zivilbevölkerung unterbleibt’ (‘Removal of Civilian Population Remains to be Done’): BayHSTA/Abt.IV, Hgr. Rupprecht, 107.
At the end of January 1917 AOK2 was still not in agreement with a deportation on foot because the distance was over 80 kilometres: AOK2, Is Nr 357 geh., 30 January 1917: BNay HSTA/Abt.IV, Hgr Rupprecht, 107.
Siegfried-Alberich Memorandum, Part 2, p.89.
AOK 2, Ia/Is Nr 173/apr/560, geh. 11 April 1917; BayHSTA/ Abt.IV, Army Group Rupprecht 108.
AOK 2, Is Nr. 117 geh., 3 December 1916, pressure for an early evacuation of the town. AOK 2 Is Nr. 472, 12 February 1917; BayHSTA/Abt. IV, Army Group Rupprecht 107: Siegfried-Alberich Memorandum, Part 2, p.91.
The Art and Antiques Collection Musée Alfred Danicourt was housed in the Péronne council offices.
See additional report by Gustav Krauss, 15 July 1916.