54 - Prellbock, 16 June 1915

Prellbock, 16 June 1915

[Wednesday]

Dear family,

Yesterday I received mother’s letter of the 10^th. Then some 6 parcels arrived, I don’t know the numbers anymore. We suddenly had to go to the reserve-trenches here last night, and I was glad that I could fit everything into my backpack, I couldn’t check the numbers anymore. The parcels contained preserves, mints, cigarettes, blackcurrantjuice, Kölnisch Wasser [Eau de Cologne], milk etc. Many thanks for everything. A parcel from Aunt Jüchen also arrived (please thank her!).

I don’t have any use for the Kölnisch Wasser. I gave it to one of the paramedics for the wounded.

You don’t feel much of the heat, which is pretty substantial here too. It’s always reasonably cool in the dugouts, deep underground, and outside on your post you don’t have to move around that much. So that is all okay. The most unpleasant thing about this heat is the nasty smell, against which cigarettes are the best defence. [*1] I don’t have headaches anymore.

It’s good to hear the ice-customers are returning this year. I don’t make much of the good offer from the Barmer Export Gesellschaft. Surely it can’t change that much in so short a time.

We of course receive our post and parcels on a daily basis here in the trenches too.

The anisol is as ineffective against lice as the fenneloil is. They’re back before you know it. Best thing is to check your clothes every day and nip any you can find.

I received the marmelade. You can get “Kronprinz Wilhelm” cigarettes at Krüger und Oberbeck on the Rathausbrücke. You only have to send me 1 or 2 boxes. They’re too expensive for daily use. [*2]

By the way: please don’t send the butter in those good aluminium boxes anymore. Surely the aluminium can be put to a better use in Germany? The butter will also arrive in good nick if you send it in tin boxes.

I’m sure you’ve read in the papers about the fighting going on here. Something was going on here indeed. We also suffered some casualties. Yesterday and the day before we received pretty heavy artillery-fire.[*3] They’ve destroyed the whole frontlinepositions here. We’re gonna have our work cut out for us the next few days. No other damage was done. Actually I was glad to be in the reserve-trenches.

At the 56’ers to our right, where now the 134’ers from Sachsen are stationed, the English attacked again, but as always they suffered heavily. Word has it they lost 3 batallions. [*4]

We will probably relieved from these positions in a few days time, and then go on rest for a few weeks.

We’re the only regiment in our division which is still here. All others have been taken off the frontline already. On the one side great news, on the other not so great. You don’t know where you’ll end up, and what the state of the new positions is, and we’ve got such a beautiful one here now. Ah well, we’ll wait and see.

But enough for today. We‘ve got to work hard tonight, and I want to get some sleep before.

With many warm greetings

Your Fritz

[*1] the wardiary of 1^st King’s Royal Rifles also mentions the hot weather:

June 15th 1915:  Very hot day

[*2]

 

(*3]

Großes Hauptquartier, 13. Juni.
Westlicher Kriegsschauplatz:
Bei Nieuport, Dixmuiden, nördlich Arras und bei Hebuterne fanden Artilleriekämpfe statt. Schwächliche Angriffsversuche des Gegners in den Dünen wurden abgewiesen. Südöstlich Hebuterne sind Infanteriegefechte im Gange.
Die militärischen Anlagen von Lunéville wurden mit Bomben belegt.

The war-diary of 1st Goucester Regiment  (billeted at Béthune at that time) reported heavy fire coming from the direction of Givenchy and Festubert:

[*4] It was in fact the Canadians who attacked IR134: 

Read more about The Action at Givenchy 15 June 1915,

On http://www.canadiansoldiers.com/history/battlehonours/westernfront/festubert.htm

The original letter: 

53 - Trenches, 12 June 1915

Uhrgraben, 12 June 1915

[Saturday]

Dear family,

The other day I received Mother’s letter of the 6^th, and yesterday parcel nr 156, and one with hardfuel, 1 with peanutbutter, 1 with butter and cigarettes, and another 2 with butter. I bgelieve I already confirmed receipt of those parcels to you. I can’t recall the numbers. Many thanks for everything.

Everything you send me is of course very welcome, and is sufficient. What I do miss now, as I already wrote you, is Marmelade and cigarettes. Especially cigarettes, I smoke a lot these days. But it doesn’t do any harm as I’m always outside. I don’t really smoke for the smoking itself, but rather to keep myself awake when I’m on watchduty at night, and you can’t keep your eyes open because of the sleep.

Furthermore they’re very good to keep the flies away, of which there are millions here, and against the ghastly smell of corpses [“schauderhaften Leichengeruch”] which is very prominent now in this warm weather.

In the last 12 days in the trenches I smoked no less than 310 cigarettes. I didn’t feel any adverse effects. But of course I also gave many away. All of us smoke a lot. With this mass consumption you shouldn’t send me expensive brands of course. If you can send me “Kleine Zubau” of 2,5 pfg each [*1], and now and again a tin of a better quality, that will be great.

Then I’d like you to enclose in a letter at least 5 Mark. In about 8 days we are at rest again, and if I have received it by then I can at least buy myself something nice.

It gives me great joy to hear everything in the garden is flowering so beautifully. The first iris to be flower should be the one first from the right, in the flowerbed at the end of the garden. The yellow flowers in the garden are lilies. Has the light-red papaver, with the white and black spots, flowered yet? Hope it did.

We have had rain for the first time in a long while.

By the way we had a dreadful night recently. In the pouring rain it was so dark you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. The English didn’t shoot at all, and that was definitely not their style. The whole night no shooting, and not one flare. 

We all thought ofcourse they were up to something, and would come and visit us in this dark weather. You can imagine how we watched and listened intensely and also how knackered you become. You couldn’t see a thing, we could only hear something at our barbed wire defences.

We shot off a flare, and it turned out to be a big rat rummaging around.

And on it went throughout the night, it was excruciatingly scary. We were all glad when it got light again.

Especially at the Prellbock you have to take care, as there is an old English trench, which is still connected to their trenches, although most sections have caved in. But still they could send some men, not many of course, to us to knock us out with handgrenades. [*2] I always fix my rifle, when it’s still light, pointing into that trench. Then at night I send a bullet down it every few minutes.[*3]

At the moment we’re again in the reserve-trenches, and get some rest. Here you can at least sleep again, maybe not at night but at least in the morning. And sleep is what everyone needs the most.

Enough for today, I’ll write again soon, as I will have plenty of time for that in the next 4 days.

With many warm greetings    your Fritz. 

[*1] 

[*2] Trenchmap possibly showing the disused, formerly British, trench in front of the Prellbock 

[*3]  Capt. T W Sheppard describes something similar in his diary, in the section where he leads the reader around the Cuinchy sector [= opposite the Prellbock]  (From "The History of the Kings Regiment Liverpool - volume 1")

"There was another curious local effect, both by day and night. The

Germans have batteries of rifles fixed on rests and trained on various likely

spots. They are known as 'fixed rifles.' A man gets up at stated intervals and

pulls a trigger. There were two of them, the flight of whose bullets was inter-

cepted by the walls in our neighbourhood. One came over the canal and the

railway and had worn a hole in the wall just behind our garden. The other

kept hitting the top of the next roof outside our cellar window. This monotonous

'crack,' 'crack,' went on all the week I was there, both by day and night.

"Our casualties varied. Some days as many as a dozen, but mostly one or

two were hit every day."