WEST FLANDERS 1914
64
counted in hours. The state of List Regiment reflected that of the 6th BRD –
which it had by now rejoined – as a whole. While the Listers had bled and
marched across the west Flanders landscape, their Bavarian brothers had been
bogged down near Wytschaete in a savage attritional fight against both French
and British troops. The division was, by now, reduced almost to the strength of
a regiment and those young reservists still capable of bearing arms not only
looked older but different. ‘We didn’t wear our militia caps, with which we’d
gone in battle, any more’, one
Infanterist
wrote. ‘There were enough
Pickelhauben
lying around on the battlefield of Ypres.’ These moulded leather and steel-strapped
helmets were probably more ceremonial than protective (it would be 18 months
before the all-steel
Stahlhelm
was available), but at least those wearing
Pickelhauben
were recognizable as
German
troops.
38
The remnants of the regiment were finally pulled out of the line on 1 November
and a ‘shattering reunion’ took place at Werwick on 2 November – ‘an anxious
question about this or that comrade, a silent inner welling of tears at the answer
“Fallen”. Yet, everyone carried in his breast a proud feeling, the consciousness
of having shared in the laurels of the regiment’s first success[!]’ Roll call on
4 November revealed a regimental strength of ‘no more than 725 non-commissioned
officers and men’. During its five days of action, more than two-thirds of its
battle strength had been lost for gains measurable in yards. This is the distressing
result described as ‘a success’ by Rubenhauer. In the two weeks between
Gheluvelt and Bayernwald, the regiment spent ‘six days of rest’ in the reserve
trenches behind the Lys Canal on the western outskirts of Comines, which they
entered, despite their condition, with a ‘rousing march [their] parade-step sounding
firm, their eyes shining brightly, the troops had inwardly won their test against
the powerful shocks and impressions of the past fighting days’. There was no
real ‘rest’, for the infantrymen who had to repair damaged trenches and, where
possible, improve their position while constantly exposed to the fire of British
field guns. Shells regularly found their mark, wrecking the restored breastworks
and taking lives. Hitler was already displaying a true believer’s naiveté towards
the aims and conduct of the war that irritated many a comrade; ‘never complaining
about the length, the hardships and the general nonsense of the war . . . never
grumbling or getting bored’. Mend tells of an argument with a soldier who
complained of the ‘great danger to which they were constantly exposed’, to
which Hitler snapped: ‘If all the other orderlies were as cowardly as you, the
colonel could deliver his own dispatches. I believe you have a battle psychosis.’
Even so, the dispatch runners had few dispatches to deliver and no labouring
duties to perform, so Hitler was able to catch up on his newspapers and begin
writing the first of that handful of letters and postcards he sent to acquaintances
in Munich.
39
On 8 November, the regiment took over a line of trenches before Messines.
They were pulled out as night fell, and as they marched to their new position, the
men found their way blocked by mysterious moving shapes, lit spasmodically by
flares or flickering battlefield lights. They took cover and opened fire, which was