A UNIVERSITY OF THE TRENCHES
9
faced; at least one can tell, with reasonable certainty, where he was on any given
day of the war. While regimental histories (in the German case, often written by
former senior officers who seek to put their own achievements in the best
possible light) are never completely objective and naturally seek to glorify the
regiment’s achievement, the List Regiment history, published in 1932, is still one
of the better written and more comprehensive examples of its kind. It can not be
accused of pro-Hitler hagiography. The Nazi leader’s former presence in its ranks
is acknowledged on two pages only, the first acknowledging him as (in 1932) the
leader of one of Germany’s largest political parties, and the second for helping
save the life of a recklessly foolish regimental commander in 1914.
This particular act, for which Hitler and a fellow dispatch runner won the Iron
Cross Second Class (EK2), was not the last piece of command stupidity for which
the regiment was made to suffer. To a Briton, a Canadian or an Australian
(brought up in the belief that all the ‘donkeys’ were British and that the Germans,
by implication, were led by skilled professionals in an army that ran as a well-
organized model of Teutonic efficiency), the story of the List Regiment and its
suffering at the hands of bungling and even incompetent regimental, divisional
and corps commanders might almost come as a relief. In fact the List Regiment
was born in a muddle. Few in positions of authority believed that those untrained
volunteers who, like Hitler, sought to enlist in August 1914 would ever be needed
for a war that was expected to be over by Christmas. These volunteers were
treated accordingly, given a perfunctory ill-organized period of training and
equipped with obsolescent, barely functional and often incompatible technology.
Yet when the war turned against Germany in September 1914, these enthusiastic
amateurs were the only reserves available to help force a decision on the Western
Front. They were now thrown into battle in Flanders, as veritable cannon fodder
on a mission that in hindsight seems hopeless.
The List Regiment – officially the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment
(RIR) – was a Munich-based unit and one of four (later three) average regiments
in the second-class Sixth Bavarian Reserve Division or 6th BRD, a division
which, after 1915, was never used in a lead-assault role. Its recruits were hardly
the
crème de la crème
of German manhood, rather a motley assortment of callow
youths and not always young, or fit, men from a range of backgrounds. Few of
them – due to a curious and self-defeating German peacetime conscription
policy – had even seen the inside of a military barracks. In Germany in August
1914, there were some two million such men, eligible and fit for military service,
but completely untrained; enough men indeed, had they all volunteered and been
accepted at the outbreak of war, to fill at least 60 reserve divisions. Despite the
myth to the contrary (propagated in the press and ardently believed by Hitler),
there was no rush of men in August 1914 to enlist. Rather than two million (or
one million in less extravagant claims) enough young men turned up and were
accepted to form a baker’s dozen of divisions, including two from the Kingdom
of Bavaria. Among those who did volunteer were many, like Hitler, who
were idealistic true believers in the German cause. That the List Regiment