German soldiers on the San River in Russia on July 17, 1916. The river flows beyond the trees in the distance.
A short translated part of the writing on the front side:'From the trenches Jul 17 1916 — a small view from our trenches. Above the dam behind the forest there is the San river. Beside there are many fishermen and smokehouses. It's said that there have been made 50 tons of smoked fish each year.'Translation courtesy of Thomas Faust, eBay's Urfaust.
"There was another whistle high up in the air. Everyone had the choking feeling: this one's headed our way! Then there was a huge, stunning explosion — the shell had hit in our midst.Half stunned I stood up. From the big crater, burning machine-gun belts spilled a coarse pinkish light. It lit the smouldering smoke of the explosion, where a pile of charred bodies were writhing, and the shadows of those still living were fleeing in all directions. Simultaneously, a grisly chorus of pain and cries for help went up. The rolling motion of the dark mass in the bottom of the smoking and glowing cauldron, like a hellish vision, for an instant tore open the extreme abysm of terror."
German Lieutenant Ernst Jünger was leading his company forward to a reserve position on the night of March 19, 1918 when they were hit by a shell. Like the other survivors, Jünger fled before falling into a shell-hole and recollecting his men, whom he returned to organize. He gathered his company to continue deploying for what he elsewhere refers to as German commander Erich Ludendorff's, and Germany's, 'mighty do-or-die offensive', Operation Michael, launched on March 21, 1918. Before the shell struck, Jünger had 150 men. The next day he was able to collect 63.
Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger, page 225, copyright © 1920, 1961, Translation © Michael Hoffman, 2003, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: 2003
1918-03-19, 1918, March, artillery shell, death, shelled, Operation Michael, German dead, San River soldiers