The intimate and undoubted facts of this break in
the morale of the enemy's troops during this period reveal a pitiful
picture of human agony.
"We are now fighting on the Somme with the English," wrote a man of
the 17th Bavarian Regiment. "You can no longer call it war. It is mere
murder. We are at the focal-point of the present battle in Foureaux
Wood (near Guillemont). All my previous experiences in this war--the
slaughter at Ypres and the battle in the gravel-pit at Hulluch--are
the purest child's play compared with this massacre, and that is much
too mild a description. I hardly think they will bring us into the
fight again, for we are in a very bad way."
"From September 12th to 27th we were on the Somme," wrote a man of the
l0th Bavarians, "and my regiment had fifteen hundred casualties."
A detailed picture of the German losses under our bombardment was
given in the diary of an officer captured in a trench near Flers, and
dated September 22d.
"The four days ending September 4th, spent in the trenches, were
characterized by a continual enemy bombardment that did not abate for
a single instant.
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