. . It appears that we are in for another turn--at least
the 5th Bavarian Division. Everybody has been talking about it for a
long time. To the devil with it! Every Bavarian regiment is being sent
into it, and it's a swindle."
It was in no cheerful mood that men went away to the Somme
battlefields. Those battalions of gray-clad men entrained without any
of the old enthusiasm with which they had gone to earlier battles.
Their gloom was noticed by the officers.
"Sing, you sheeps' heads, sing!" they shouted.
They were compelled to sing, by order.
"In the afternoon," wrote a man of the 18th Reserve Division, "we had
to go out again; we were to learn to sing. The greater part did not
join in, and the song went feebly. Then we had to march round in a
circle and sing, and that went no better. After that we had an hour
off, and on the way back to billets we were to sing 'Deutschland uber
Alles,' but this broke down completely. One never hears songs of the
Fatherland any more.
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