Is this a part from a 99 year old Jig-Saw ?

[Martin Feledziak]

I am new to this forum and have only recently found an interest in the Great War.

I have just finished two read's of Ernst Jungers book, Storm of Steel.

Yesterday, I was perusing a web page looking for pictures relating to my own family history search when I came across this article.

Who was Louis ? – Child POW, Marne / Champagne 1917

I am fairly sure these are the boys referred to in the below passage from the book.

Junger describes the scene in the occupied French Village of Douchy in the year 1915.

“The French population was quartered at the edge of the village, towards Monchy.
Children played on the steps of dilapidated houses, and old people made hunched
figures, slinking timidly through the new bustle that had remorselessly evicted them
from the places where they had spent entire lifetimes. The young people had to
stand-to every morning, and were detailed to work the land by the village commandant,
First Lieutenant Oberlander. The only time we came into contact with the locals was
when we brought them our clothes to be washed, or went to buy butter and eggs.
One of the more remarkable features of this army town was the way a couple of young
orphaned French boys followed the troops around. The two boys, of whom one was
eight or so, the other twelve, went around clad entirely in field grey, and both spoke
fluent German. They referred to their compatriots as the soldiers did, as ‘Schangels’.

Their keenest desire was to go with ‘their’ company up the line. They drilled faultlessly,
saluted their superior officers, formed up on the left flank for roll-call, and put in for
leave when it was time to accompany the kitchen-helpers on shopping expeditions to
Cambrai.When the 2nd Battalion went to Queant for a couple of weeks of instruction,
one of the two, Louis, was ordered by Colonel von Oppen to remain behind in Douchy;
no one spotted him anywhere on the way, but when the battalion arrived, there he was
leaping happily out of the baggage cart where he had been hiding. The elder of the two,
I was told, was later sent to petty-officer school in Germany”.

I am not sure that any one has made this possible connection before.

Douchy Place mark.kmz

(Opens with Google Earth Only )