“What is to become of us?  It seems impossible to suffer more.  I saw my husband bound to a lamppost.  He was gagged and being tortured by bayonets.  When I tried to intercede in his behalf, I was knocked senseless with a rifle.  I never saw him again.’”

BURIED ON THE FIELD

The bodies of the dead in this war were not, with occasional exceptions, returned to their relatives, but were buried on the field and where numbers required it, in common graves.  Valuables, papers and mementoes were taken from the bodies and made up in little packets to be sent to the relatives, and the dead soldiers, each wrapped in his canvas shelter tent, as shroud, were laid, friend and foe, side by side in long trenches in the ground for which they had contested.

GERMAN LISTS OF THE DEAD

In the German official Gazette daily lists of the dead, wounded and missing were published.  The names marched by in long columns of the Gazette, arrayed with military precision by regiments and companies, batteries or squadrons—­first the infantry and then cavalry, artillery and train.

The company lists were headed usually by the names of the officers, killed or wounded; then came the casualties from the enlisted strength—­first the dead, then the wounded and the missing.  A feature of the early lists was the large proportion of this last class, reports from some units running monotonously, name after name, “missing” or “wounded and missing”—­in mute testimony of scouting patrols which did not return, or of regiments compelled to retire and leave behind them dead, wounded and prisoners, or sometimes of men wandering so far from their comrades in the confusion of battle that they could not find and rejoin their companies for days.

THE LANCE AS A WEAPON

An attempt was made in lists of the German wounded to give the nature and location of the wound.  These were principally from rifle or shrapnel fire.  A scanty few in the cavalry were labeled “lance thrust,” indicating that the favorite weapon of the European cavalry has not done the damage expected of it, although the lance came more into play in the later engagements between the Russian and German cavalry divisions.

“FATHERLAND OR DEATH!”

Writing from Aix-la-Chapelle, Germany, on August 29th, Karl H. von Wiegand, who is considered by the Allies a German mouthpiece, said: 

“America has not the faintest realization of the terrible carnage going on in Europe.  She cannot realize the determination of Germany, all Germany—­men, women and children—­in this war.  The German Empire is like one man.  And that man’s motto is ‘Vaterland oder Tod!’ (Fatherland or Death!)

“English news sources are reported here as telling of the masterly retreat of the allies.  Here in the German field headquarters, where every move on the great chess-board of Belgium and France is analyzed, the war to date is referred to as the greatest offensive movement in the history of modern warfare.”