Poles in Kaisers Army On the Front of the First World War. Ryszard Kaczmarek
trousers, black pre-war trousers, or grey field ones; all of them had one thing in common: they were raggedy.”140
Of course, each infantryman received a rifle. It was the famous Gewehr 98 (caliber 7.92 mm); a perfect rifle, produced until the very end of the war, loaded with stripper clips (with box magazines that held five cartridges). Gewehr 98 weighed 4.14 kilograms, barrel measured 740 mm. It was a precise and reliable weapon with the range of an effective gunshot that amounted to 1000 meters. A true novelty was the gun sight that allowed soldiers to conduct very precise fire.141 The second a soldier started to fight, he put a bayonet on the gun barrel; a bayonet with a flat edge (Seitengewehr 98/05) carried by the soldiers in a special etui on the belt (model 1898). During the war, the more popular bayonet was a similar one but with serrated edge, 50-centimeter-long (the serrated edge was 36.8 centimeters long). It was initially produced for sappers and soldiers of train subunits, mainly for wood cutting. However, it was ill-famed; it is easy to imagine how terrible wounds it could inflict by stabbing. The rumor had it that the French and the British lynched German soldiers who carried that particular type of bayonet. Therefore, its use gradually declined.142
An artilleryman’s hand weapon looked differently. Apart from the classic uniform, his equipment consisted of a helmet with different artillery tips and a short cavalry rifle with a cartridge belt for fifty sharp cartridges in place of a Gewehr.143
While filling the satchel with prescribed supplies was not difficult, it was almost impossible to carry more things during the long march or train journey, when one had to always hold a rifle, as Wallis writes: “When we depart, we will be able to take as few things as possible because it is horribly difficult to carry so much military stuff. I can only take smoked bacon that you sent me, a can ←54 | 55→of sugar, a jar of marmalade, powdered soup, and Formamint tablets [to heal inflammations of the oral cavity]. We will receive bread before departure.”144
It was a real challenge for quartermaster units to hand out all the equipment to dozens of thousands of soldiers. Before receiving a uniform, each soldier had to undergo examination. Next, he received soldier’s pay from the regimental paymaster. The paymaster also regulated the payments for confiscated horses. The authorities especially strictly supervised the handing out of identification badges with special lanyards. Furthermore, the officers could use the stand for sharpening sabers and sharp-edged side-weaponry. In the end, the individual gun squads and ammunition columns in artillery regiments collected live ammunition for the cannons.145
The barracks of the regiments, whose combat units immediately went to the front line, were quickly populated by the reserve soldiers. Garrison cities cheerfully greeted new arrivals at railway stations, as they immediately transferred to their old barracks, often accompanied by the reserve officers who greeted them. After collecting uniforms and equipment under the command of reserve officers – under whom they most often previously served during active duty – they soldiers sent to the company with which they participated in the annual exercises in the military training area.146 In the first stage of the supposedly fast mobilization, such a way of conscription resulted in situations, in which the soldiers and officers recruited at the beginning of the war mostly came from the garrison’s vicinity. For example, the Upper Silesian Infantry Regiment No. 62 partly comprised soldiers from Saxony and Silesia in active duty, but the reserve soldiers that quartered there on August 1 stemmed exclusively from Upper Silesia.147
Adhering to the instructions on posters and in press, young men came in the scheduled day and hour from garrison cities and surrounding villages. Special decrees determined how the conscripts had to look when arriving to the military unit. They had to arrive on time, sober, after thorough washing, and in clean clothes. The conscripts who did not report in the place of conscription, were late, or did not obey the instructions were subject to a significant penalty payment (up to thirty marks) or five-day arrest.148 Paweł Nowak recalls his conscription ←55 | 56→to Landwehr’s Silesian corpus in the following way: “After a short simple parting with wife and two kids, I left my home on August 2, 1914, at 5 am, and, according to the mobilization plan, I responded to my homeland’s summon in Bytom, at the scheduled place and time so as to be enlisted to feldgrau.”149
Before leaving the barracks, soldiers participated in a mandatory march through the city’s streets, which aimed at convincing non-believers that the German Army is strong and efficient. This is how the send-off of the Infantry Regiment No. 22 looked like: “Equipped with military tools, there stand the companies in perfect order, tightly together. These marvelous healthy men from Saxony and Silesia, but also the Upper Silesian reserve soldiers.”150 Similarly, the regiment in Śrem paraded among the crowds of city dwellers: “Stretched in long lines, companies occupied the market square in Śrem. Wagons on the sides. The commanders assume command over the companies. All city dwellers appear to accompany their relatives to the railway station. The heavy backpacks are set and filled with various treats. In groups to the right! And a long line of a marching column heads toward the railway station. Wives, children, fiancées, parents, siblings, and friends accompany both sides of the column. Last look at the town hall, the church’s tower, and the sky-blue ribbon of the Warta River. A steaming train is ready. The soldiers fill the cattle wagons with benches.”151
The process of the mobilization was not everywhere the same; sometimes there was embarrassment. For instance, the reserve soldiers of the Infantry Regiment No. 157 did not arrive as regularly as they were expected, and their physical condition did not meet officers’ requirements. After all, maneuver warfare required the infantry to march at a proper pace. On August 6, the regiment was ready to head off but only after it departed as a whole toward the military training area in Hajduki Nyskie, it turned out that the military competences and the synchronization of subunits were far from the requirements of German officers. Returning after the strenuous march on a scorching day, the reserve soldiers were so exhausted that their march through the city streets was called off due to their miserable appearance.152
The confiscation of horses, or strictly speaking, their adaptation to military duty, was an even bigger issue. Each horse underwent a veterinary examination ←56 | 57→and – while there was no question about the quality of carthorses – there were very few good saddle horses for officers. Fitting them with new harnesses and adapting to work in teams of sometimes even six horses required a lot of effort.153
Until August 6–7, quartermaster services in garrisons feverishly – but in an organized manner – raced against time to prepare hundreds of thousands of soldiers for transportation in trains. Meanwhile, some units on active duty (professional officers and conscripts) took part in the fights at the borders already in the first week of the war. The Poles in Kaiser’s army had to traditionally shield the Russian frontier, according to the mobilization plan, by virtue of their nineteenth-century experience. Some regiments had to support the protection of cities from possible sabotage, even if they stayed in garrisons and did not directly participate in action.
There were many reports of any possible dangers in the first weeks of the war. Particularly those concerning spies. The entire Prussia gossiped about a French car filled to the brim with money (or golden ingots) that purportedly headed to Russia.154