Patrol ride with Loen

    Event ID: 97

    Categories: 

    Relocation & trips
    Deutsch
    Der rote Kampfflieger von Rittmeister Manfred Freiherrn von Richthofen, 1917, 351.000 - 400.000, Verlag Ullstein & Co, Berlin-Wien

    22 August 1914

    Die Schlacht von Virton war im Gange
    49.59503862784759, 5.5081329682448485
    Near Robelmont
    Robelmont

    Source ID: 4

    Der rote Kampfflieger von Rittmeister Manfred Freiherrn von Richthofen, 1917, 351.000 - 400.000, Verlag Ullstein & Co, Berlin-Wien p.  37 

    ‘The battle of Virton was underway. My comrade Loen and I once again had to patrol to find out where the enemy had gone. We rode after the enemy all day, finally reached him and were able to write a decent report. In the evening, the big question was: should we ride through the night to get back to our troops, or should we conserve our strength and rest up for the next day? That’s the beauty of leaving the cavalry patrol completely free to act. So we decided to stay with the enemy for the night and ride on the next morning. According to our strategic view, the enemy was on the march back, and we pressed on after him. As a result, we were able to spend the night in relative peace. Not far from the enemy was a marvellous monastery with large stables, so that we were able to quarter both Loen and my patrol. However, the enemy was still sitting so close by towards evening, as we were sheltering there, that he could have shot us through the windows with rifle bullets. [The monks were extremely kind. They gave us as much food and drink as we wanted, and we enjoyed it very much. The horses were unsaddled and were quite happy to get their eighty kilos of dead weight off their backs for the first time in three days and three nights. In other words, we settled in as if we were on manoeuvres and having dinner with a dear friend. Incidentally, three days later several of the hosts were hanging from the lamppost, as they had not been able to resist taking part in the war. But that evening they were really very kind. We crawled into our beds in our nightgowns, put up a post and let the good Lord be a good man. At night, someone suddenly opened the door and the guard’s voice rang out: ‘Lieutenant, the French are here.’ I was too sleepy to even answer. Loen felt the same way and only asked the witty question: ‘How many are there?’ The post’s reply, very excited: ‘We’ve already shot two dead; we can’t say how many because it’s pitch dark.’ I hear Loen reply sleepily: ‘So if more come, you’ll wake me up.’ Half a minute later, we continued snoring. [39]The next morning, the sun was already quite high when we woke up from our sound sleep. After a hearty breakfast, we set off again. In fact, the French had marched past our castle during the night, and our guards had made a fire attack on them during this time. But as it was pitch dark, no major battle had resulted. We soon continued along a lively valley. We rode over the old battlefield of our division and were astonished to see only French medics instead of our men. French soldiers could still be seen from time to time. But they made just as stupid faces as we did. Nobody had thought about shooting. We then made ourselves thin as quickly as possible, because we were so slow that instead of going forwards, we had concentrated a little backwards. Luckily the enemy had run off to the other side, otherwise I’d be a prisoner somewhere. We passed through the village of Robelmont, where we had last seen our infantry in position the day before. There we met a local resident and asked him about the whereabouts of our soldiers. He was very happy and assured me that the Germans were ‘partis’. [40]We turned a corner and witnessed the following strange sight. In front of us there was a swarm of red trousers – I estimated about fifty to a hundred – eagerly endeavouring to smash their rifles on a cornerstone. Next to them were six grenadiers who, as it turned out, had captured the brothers. We helped them to remove the Frenchmen and learnt from the six grenadiers that we had started a rearward movement during the night. I reached my regiment late in the afternoon and was quite satisfied with the last twenty-four hours.’

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