In the third line, too, there were still
reserves. We knew that the wear and tear of the enemy's forces was
high. But we also knew that the enemy was extraordinarily strong and,
what was equally important, possessed extraordinary will-power."
That was the impression of the cold brain directing the machinery of
war from German headquarters. More human and more tragic is a letter
of an unknown German officer which we found among hundreds of others,
telling the same tale, in the mud of the battlefield:
"If it were not for the men who have been spared me on this fierce day
and are lying around me, and looking timidly at me, I should shed hot
and bitter tears over the terrors that have menaced me during these
hours. On the morning of September 18th my dugout containing seventeen
men was shot to pieces over our heads. I am the only one who withstood
the maddening bombardment of three days and still survives. You cannot
imagine the frightful mental torments I have undergone in those few
hours.
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