The Kaiser's reluctant conscript

[Chris_Baker]

The Kaiser's reluctant conscript

by Dominik Richert, translated by David Carrick Sutherland

published by Pen & Sword Military, 2012

ISBN 978 1 78159 033 1

cover price - £19.99

Hardback, 270pp plus appendices. Illustrated

This is an unusual, educational and absorbing memoir of an infantryman’s Great War and I recommend it. Translated from German, the writing is at times a little brusque and staccato in style but my goodness what an interesting tale. The writer Dominik Richert came from Alsace, that hotly contested region that between 1871 and 1918 was held by Germany. He spoke German and was conscripted for service in the Kaiser’s army in 1913, but once war came found himself unable to return home. In 1918, exhausted by his experiences and increasingly disillusioned by the war he deserted to the French forces and found himself welcomed.

Richert served in some of the most important engagements of the war: the “Battle of the Frontiers” in Lorraine in autumn 1914 (in which he witnessed a German General ordering his men not to take French soldiers as prisoners but to kill them); in costly attacks against the British at Violaines in the Battle of La Bassee in October 1914; being raided by Indian troops in the trenches near Festubert; cold, hunger and madness as German troops are flung into suicidal frontal attacks against the Russians on the Eastern Front; the innovative and successful attack at Riga in September 1917; chaos in the Baltic states as Russia collapses after Lenin’s revolution, and finally back to France where he witnesses at first hand terrific British superiority in material and firepower at Villers-Bretonneux in April 1918. He was back in Lorraine when he decided with others from Alsace to get out of the war and go across to the French, an act for which he was condemned to death by Germany. Richert describes these affairs at ground level: the weariness, hunger and loss of friends. He makes few comments about tactics or the higher conduct of the war but comes to a clear belief that it is not being conducted in the interests of the ordinary soldier or people at home. We come to see him as a serious but likeable fellow, with a great love of family and his Alsace home but no great allegiance to Germany or the army in which he is fighting.

For the technically minded, Richert served with the 112, 260 and 332 Regiments of Infantry, as a machine gunner with the latter. He mentions many comrades by name including a number who were killed in action and, no doubt, whose graves could be traced.

The book would have benefitted from the addition of an index and a few maps (particularly for British and Commonwealth readers, of the Lorraine and Eastern Front actions simply as they are less familiar) but for all that it is a most valuable addition to our understanding of the war.

Richert and his wife were deported to do forced labour in Germany in 1943.

The review first appeared on The Long, Long Trail website.

[Guest]

hello,

I have just bought this book and it will be next on my list to read. I am reading a book at present which states that in the German army most desertions were from " minority" groups, those from Alsace , Poles from Poznan and West Prussia and from the part of Denmark annexed, Schleswig, these groups were not well treated within the military structure.

[Marilyne]

That one is definitly going on my "want to read" list!!

thanks for the tip.

MM.

[squirrel]

Excellent book as Chris says. readable and absorbing - well worth buying IMHO.

[archangel9]

Thanks for the review Chris. Book ordered!

[Old Tom]

Horses for courses! I have read half of it, or thereabouts, before becoming weary of its repetitive nature. A tale of a soldier from day to day from a soldiers point of view with little operational or organisational context. Not my cup of tea.

Old Tom

[bob lembke]

When was it written? There is a book out there, in English, supposedly a translation of a book in Danish, by an ethnic Dane in the German Army, describing horrific experiences and discipline, but I researched it carefully and the book seems to be a complete war-time fabrication, the Danish "original" does not exist, nor does the author, as far as I can tell. But if you read that book and are knowledgeable about the German Army you can tell that it is a fiction. Please do not, for a second, think that the above comments imply that the book that Chris has reviewed is not "legit", but it is just a cautionary. There was a tremendous production of spun books during and after the war. Bob

[cdr]

The text was only discovered in the 1980's by two Germans and first published in 1987 with the following title Beste Gelegenheit zum Sterben. Meine Erlebnisse im Kriege 1914-1918 by Bernd Ulrich und Angelika Tramitz

So I think this is pretty 'legit'

Carl

[bob lembke]

Carl;

Thank you. During the war itself the UK commissioned over 1000 books written to order for various propaganda purposes, and then when written up were offered to well-known publishing houses with the deal that the government would pay every type of cost, paper, printing, binding, transportation, distribution, etc., so that every cent in sales went to the publisher's bottom line. (There actually is an official list of these books, and a book of interest to me was # 994 on that list, so there must have been over 1000 of them.) In this way and for reasons of patriotism well-respected publishing houses lent their names to publishing works that they otherwise probably would not have touched. I know of a library that actually has the document listing these works, but I am not revealing where it is.

This worked out well in promoting the war effort, but unfortunately poisoned the well of history.

Any country at war will tend to publish works that support their war effort, but I do not know of any other effort as well organized and large in scope as this, certainly for WW I. I recently counted, and I have read and/or translated material in my WW I studies in 11 languages (In the last 18 months I think I have only read one WW I book in English, and that was by a professor in Flanders, I believe at the university in Liege.), published by about 15 countries, and I have not seen another comparable effort. Another different but related topic is the cooperation between the British and US governments in publishing and distributing such material, odd things like a book written and printed in England, and then published simultaneously by three major US publishers, supposedly in competition with each other.

I have collected a fair amount of information on this, but I doubt that I will ever get to writing and publishing something on the topic.

[David Filsell]

Bob,Oh how you love to tease. I am Intrigued to know why you should dangle the tale of the book list and add but I am not revealing where it is. Seems to me not quite in the spirit of the Forum particularly if "I doubt that I will ever get to writing and publishing something on the topic".

[joerookery]

By the same token, desertion was very rare within the Imperial German forces with a rate of only one per 10,000 soldiers. Compare this to July 1917, when the desertion rate for soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine was 80 per 10,000.

[Vista52]

Thank you Chris for bringing this to my attention. I just received my copy yesterday from a bookseller in Portland, Oregon. Only $22.00 and no sales tax!!!

[IanA]

I know of a library that actually has the document listing these works, but I am not revealing where it is.

And I know of a library which has a document proving that the document in your library is a bogus document but I'm not telling you where it is.