Entrenched German soldiers behind sniper plates at Slota Gora, September 26, 1916. Slota (or Zlota) Gora was in Polish Russia, west of a line running from Warsaw to Cracow. An original watercolor (over pencil) by O. Oettel, 12th company of Landwehr, IR 32 in the field. A sketch in pencil and red crayon is on the reverse.

Slota Gora

26.9.16

O.Oettel 12L.32.

I. Felde



Zlota Gora

September 26, 1916

O. Oettel, 12th Landwehr 32nd Regiment

In the Field

Other views: Larger, Larger, Back

Thursday, August 2, 1917

"In the evening, we sat in front of the old tiled stove, sipping a stiff grog, and listening to the renewed thunder of the battle. A sentence caught my eye from a military communiqué in a newspaper: 'The enemy was held along the line of the Steenbach.'

It was an odd thing that our apparently confused actions in the depths of the night had had such pronounced and public consequences. We had done our part towards bringing the attack, which had begun with such mighty force, to a halt. However colossal the quantities of men and matériel, the work at decisive points had been done by no more than a few handfuls of men."

Quotation Context

German Lieutenant Ernst Jünger left Cambrai, France on June 25, 1917, for Flanders, where the British artillery bombardment in preparation for the Third Battle of Ypres was in progress. The Germans suffered as many as 30,000 casualties in the intense bombardment. When the British advanced on July 31, some of the German troops at the front fled before them. Jünger rallied his men and passing stragglers, some at the point of the gun, to defend the ruins of a building. After nearly being surrounded, they fell back to defend another improvised line. He and his men saw the British advancing as if there were no danger, and made it clear there was. They hindered the British through the day, subject at times to intense bombardment to drive them out. Gentle rain that began to fall around midnight was 'bucketing down' by dawn on August 1, further hindering the British offensive. Jünger was resting by the stove the evening of August 2.

Source

Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger, pp. 173–174, copyright © 1920, 1961, Translation © Michael Hoffman, 2003, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: 2003

Tags

1917-08-02, 1917, August, Flanders, German machine gun squad, Battle of Passchendaele, Passchendaele, Third Ypres, Third Battle of Ypres, Otto Oettel, sniper plate, sniper