Enduring a Cannonade, May 1915

From The Other Trench: The WW1 Diary and Photos of a German Officer, by Alexander Pfeifer and Philipp Cross (True Perspective Press, 2024), Kindle pp. 70-71:

Suddenly, at 6 o’clock sharp, a great cannonade starts to our right — the guns boom continuously — the individual explosions can no longer be distinguished. The main shooting is far away from us in the north, but the 16th is also being lit up badly. It looks wonderful how it tremors over there by the heap of bricks. There are round clouds of shrapnel hanging everywhere, and thick black and yellow-green clouds rise from the shells down on the ground. Rifles and machine guns fire at the same time — three aircraft buzz in the air. It was a hell of a racket. But things were about to get better because suddenly we too were under fire. One by one, the shells crash into our trench which is soon filled in in many places. Quantities of sharp shell fragments lie around everywhere. I have everyone but the most essential guards crawl into the shelters, and like so, we endure the bombardment for three hours. To set an example, I am now and then forced to walk along the entire trench with a calm step and an outwardly indifferent expression, whistling a song, so that people cannot say that the officers had slipped away. We remarkably didn’t have one wounded person although at least 100 shells fell into my company section alone. On the contrary, the neighbouring company is said to have three dead and several wounded.

It is now half past 3 and we are not being shot at anymore, but it is still continuing uninterrupted in the north. We are informed that the English attacked again at Neuve Chapelle with great superior numbers, but were repelled. We were probably only lit up like this so that we would believe that we too were being attacked and, in this way, to prevent us from moving our reserves north. I have got a real headache from the hours of banging and roaring. Hopefully, this shooting doesn’t put a damper on our plans, as we actually have to be relieved this evening.