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Outbreak of war

Der rote Kampfflieger von Rittmeister Manfred Freiherrn von Richthofen, 1917, 351.000 - 400.000, Verlag Ullstein & Co, Berlin-Wien p. 19??

1 August 1914
Kriegsausbruch
Zehn kilometer von der Grenze entfernt
Ostrow
Ostrovo

‘There was nothing in all the newspapers but thick novels about the war. But we’d been used to the howls of war for a few months now. We had already packed our service cases so often that people were bored and no longer believed in war. But least of all did we believe in war, as we were the first on the frontier, the ‘eye of the army’, as my commanding officer had called us cavalry patrols at the time. On the eve of the increased readiness for war, we sat with the detached squadron, ten kilometres from the border, in our mess, ate oysters, drank champagne and played a little. We were very amused. As I said, nobody was thinking about war. Wedel’s mother had already made us a little suspicious a few days earlier; she had come from Pomerania to see her son again before the war. As she found us in a very pleasant mood and realised that we weren’t thinking about war, she couldn’t help but invite us to a decent breakfast. We were just enjoying ourselves when suddenly the door opened and Count Kospoth, the District Administrator of Öls, stood on the threshold. The count made an astonished face. We greeted the old acquaintance with a hello and he explained the purpose of his journey, namely that he wanted to see for himself at the border what was true about the rumours of the approaching world war. He quite rightly assumed that those on the border should know best. Now he was quite astonished at the picture of peace. Through him we learnt that all the bridges in Silesia were guarded and that they were already thinking of fortifying individual places. We quickly convinced him that war had been ruled out and continued our celebrations. The next day we moved into the field.’

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