The first American permitted to witness actual battles near the eastern frontier of Germany was Karl H. von Wiegand, who wrote as follows from the firing line near East Wirballen, Russian Poland, October 9: 

“The German artillery today beat back, in a bloody, ghastly smear of men, the Russian advance.

“Yesterday I saw an infantry engagement.  Today it was mostly an artillery encounter.  The infantry attack is the more ghastly, but the artillery the more awe-inspiring.  This was the fifth day of constant fighting and still the German trenches hold.

“Today’s battle opened at dawn.  With two staff officers assigned as my chaperons, I had been attached overnight to the field headquarters.  I slept well, exhausted by the excitement of my first sight of modern war, but when dawn once again revealed the two long lines of the Russian and German positions the Russian guns began to hurl their loads of shrapnel at the German trenches.

“We had breakfast calmly enough despite the din of guns.  Then we went to one of the German batteries on the left center.  They were already in action, though it was only 6 o’clock.  The men got the range from observers a little in advance, cunningly masked, and slowly, methodically, and enthusiastically fed the guns with their loads of death.

“The Russians didn’t have our range.  All of their shells flew screaming 1,000 yards to our left.  Through my glasses I watched them strike.  The effect on the hillock was exactly as though a geyser had suddenly spurted up.  A vast cloud of dirt and stones and grass spouted up, and when the debris cleared away a great hole showed.

RUSSIANS TRY NEW RANGE

“While we watched the Russians seemed to tire of shooting holes in an inoffensive hill.  They began to try chance shots to the right and to the left.  It wasn’t many minutes before I realized that, standing near a battery, the execution of which must have been noted on the Russian side, I had a fine chance of experiencing shrapnel bursting overhead.  It was a queer sensation to peer through field glasses and see the Russian shells veer a few hundred feet to the right.  I saw one strike a windmill, shattering the long arms and crumpling it over in a slow burning heap.  Then we beat a retreat, further toward the center.

“We had been standing behind a slight declivity.  I hadn’t caught a glimpse of the enemy.  Shells were the only things that apprised us of the Russian nearness.  But as we passed out on an open field, considerably out of range of the field guns, I could see occasional flashes that bespoke field pieces, a mile or so away.

RUSSIAN INFANTRY CHARGES

“Back behind us, on the extreme left, I was told the Russians were attacking the German trenches by an infantry charge, the German field telephone service having apprised the commanders along the front.  With glasses we could see a faint line of what must have been the Russian infantry rushing across the open fields.