Energy books

. . Let's all go home!"
In Russia they did so, but the Germans did not go home, too. As an
army and a nation they went on to the Peace of Brest-Litovsk and their
doom. But many German soldiers were converted to that gospel of "We're
all fools!" and would not fight again with any spirit, as we found at
times, after August 8th, in the last year of war.


III

The men remained in the trenches, and suffered horribly. I have told
about lice and rats and mine-shafts there. Another misery came to
torture soldiers in the line, and it was called "trench-foot." Many
men standing in slime for days and nights in field boots or puttees
lost all sense of feeling in their feet. These feet of theirs, so cold
and wet, began to swell, and then to go "dead," and then suddenly to
burn as though touched by red-hot pokers. When the "reliefs" went up
scores of men could not walk back from the trenches, but had to crawl,
or be carried pick-a-back by their comrades, to the field dressing
stations.


Pages:
357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381