It was from these people that I learned
a good deal about the psychology of German soldiers during the battles
of the Somme. They told me of the terror of these men at the
increasing fury of our gun-fire, of their desertion and revolt to
escape the slaughter, and of their rage against the "Great People" who
used them for gun-fodder. Habitually many of them talked of the war as
the "Great Swindle." These French civilians hated the Germans in the
mass with a cold, deadly hatred. They spoke with shrill passion at the
thought of German discipline, fines, punishments, requisitions, which
they had suffered in these years. The hope of vengeance was like water
to parched throats. Yet I noticed that nearly every one of these
people had something good to say about some German soldier who had
been billeted with them. "He was a good-natured fellow. He chopped
wood for me and gave the children his own bread. He wept when he told
me that the village was to be destroyed." Even some of the German
officers had deplored this destruction.
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