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Zweibund — the Dual Alliance — Germany and Austria-Hungary united, were the core of the Central Powers, and here join hands. The bars of Germany's flag border the top left, and those of the Habsburg Austrian Empire and ruling house the bottom right.
Text:
Schulter an Schulter
Untrennbar vereint
in Freud und in Leid!'

Shoulder to shoulder
Inseparably united 
in joy and in sorrow!

Zweibund — the Dual Alliance — Germany and Austria-Hungary united, were the core of the Central Powers, and here join hands. The bars of Germany's flag border the top left, and those of the Habsburg Austrian Empire and ruling house the bottom right.

Image text

Schulter an Schulter

Untrennbar vereint

in Freud und in Leid!'



Shoulder to shoulder

Inseparably united

in joy and in sorrow!

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Saturday, July 10, 1915

"On Friday I again took down a German wounded — this time a German of the Kaiser's or Crown Prince's Bodyguard (the German Crown Prince is against us here). He was dying. . . . I asked in German if he wanted anything. He just looked at me and then chokingly murmured, 'Catholic.' I asked a soldier to fetch the priest and then two brancardiers (stretcher-bearers) and the doctor — the priest and I knelt down as he was given extreme unction. That is a little picture I shall never forget — all race hatred was forgotten. Romanist and Anglican, we were in that hour just all Catholics and a French priest was officiating for a dying German . . ."

Quotation Context

Excerpt from a letter written July 11, 1915, by Leslie Buswell recounting events of the previous week, including this of a German soldier with holes in both lungs dying on Friday, July 9. Earlier in the week, on July 6, Buswell had been impressed that the French had sent a more-seriously wounded German in his truck rather than less-seriously wounded French soldiers. A German attack on Sunday, July 4, recaptured in a day French territory the French had spent the previous six months regaining. The French retook their lost ground on July 5, 6, and 7. Buswell, a driver with the American Ambulance Field Service, volunteers attached to the French Armies, was stationed at Pont-à-Mousson, France, north of Nancy. Each unit consisted of 20 to 30 ambulances capable of carrying three wounded lying down, and three seated. The Ford trucks could deliver men to a doctor in under an hour, greatly increasing their chances of survival.

Source

Ambulance No. 10; Personal Letters from the Front by Leslie Buswell, pp. 55, 56, copyright © 1915, and 1915, by Houghton Mifflin Company, publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company, publication date: 1916

Tags

1915-07-10, 1915, July, priest, death