His comment on his men’s demeanour when they realised they were much outnumbered, was, ‘Naturally, no one thought of anything but attacking. It is in the blood of every German to rush out to meet the enemy, especially enemy cavalry’. He was to learn that this was not unique to his countrymen; in the air as well as on a charger.
Reluctance to kill civilians did not trouble him for long. After some more hard fighting against an outnumbering French force, he and a Leutnant Loen were sent out with a patrol hut did not find the enemy until the evening. They decided to spend the night in a nearby monastery, where for the first time in three days their horses could be unsaddled.
‘The monks were very friendly and gave us as much to eat and drink as we wanted. It should be noted that three days later we hanged several of our hosts from lampposts because they could not resist the urge to take part in the war.’
The Gestapo or SS could not have been more brutal twenty-five years later.
It is anomalous that the young man who had threatened to hang a Russian village priest and now carried out this barbaric act in Belgium — an outrage against hospitality, too — could also be troubled by nightmares about men whom he was to kill in air combat in the near future. The explanation is presumably that he despised civilians but respected all military men and had a fraternal feeling for pilots and air crew of any nationality. Snobbery also came into it, one suspects: enemy airmen were mostly officers and therefore accepted as gentlemen, even if only temporary ones; whereas most clergy were of humble origin. It is doubtful that he would have executed a bishop or cardinal, whose prospects of high rank depended largely on superior education, which meant enough money to pay for it and in turn suggested the upper class.
On 24 September he wrote home to announce that he had been awarded the Iron Cross, Second Class. Referring to a letter he had received from his mother, he conveys the hardships and dangers of campaigning. She expressed surprise that he was saving ‘so much money’ — it cannot have amounted to a great sum in eight weeks. He explained that after the war he would have to re-equip himself completely. He told her that all the gear he took with him — which must have been an exaggeration — had been lost, burned or torn; even his saddle and the rest of his tack. So what was he wearing and was he riding bare-back, hanging on to his horse’s mane?
On the same day, his father, who had applied to return to the Active List, was appointed administrator of the Silesian Reserve Hospital in Kattowitz.
*
Manfred’s expectation in any war in which he might fight had been of exciting cavalry charges that would be as enjoyable as riding in cross-country events; and, of course, swiftly over with his regiment victorious. The squalid and muddled reality of scruffy billets in a primitive village, no sight of the enemy for several days and then a hasty withdrawal under cover of darkness at the threat of a losing fight against a greatly superior force, held no glamour and gave no satisfaction. Next, tedious patrols and the disastrous encounter in a Belgian forest against heavy odds that again ended in a retreat, were another disillusion even though he earned a medal. Soon came further frustration. To understand why he found himself immobilised, unhorsed and so miserable that his thoughts turned away from cavalry engagements to air battles, German offensive strategy and France’s defence must be examined. How did he find himself in what he describes in a letter home as ‘a bomb-proof, heated dugout, for weeks on end’?
The reason lies in the nature of France’s 150-mile frontier, whose south-east end abuts on Switzerland. A stretch of flat country, the Belfort Gap, runs seventy miles along the Vosges Mountains. Behind and prolonging this natural rampart ran an almost continuous fortress system based on Epinal, Toul and Verdun. Twenty miles beyond Verdun lie the Luxembourg and Belgian frontiers and the difficult Ardennes country. The only feasible gap in the barrier was the Trouée de Chambres between Epinal and Tout. This was left open originally as a strategic trap in which an invader could be caught and defeated by a counterattack. The other possible line of approach was by Belfort and Verdun. As has been related, the Germans went round these formidable obstacles, through Luxembourg and Belgium, then were stopped at Verdun, the ancient gate of the West through which Attila had led the Hun hordes when they tried to conquer Gaul in the Fifth Century. The Order of the Day was On ne passe pas, ‘They shall not pass’; and they never did. In 1916 a battle that lasted from 21 February to 15 December would be fought and end when the Germans abandoned their efforts to overcome this massive fortification. Meanwhile, in September 1914, the stalemate had begun.
There was no use for the cavalry in this siege, apart from an occasional reconnaissance, so we find Manfred glumly writing to his mother, ‘My activity before Verdun was boring. At first I was in the trenches at a place where nothing happened’. Then he became an assistant adjutant and expected to be actively involved in the fighting again, but instead was demoted and spent his days beside a telephone in the deep dugout. He was allowed no nearer to the front line than 1,500 metres.
He alleviated his dull existence in the way that most appealed to him. Riding in the forest of La Chaussée, he saw wild pig and at once began to make a plan for shooting them at night. ‘Beautiful snowy moonlight came to my aid. With the help of my orderly I built a shelter seat and waited. I spent many nights in trees, feeling as cold as an icicle’. Eventually he was rewarded. ‘One sow swam across the lake every night, broke into a potato field at a certain place, then swam back.’ He waited at the lakeside and shot her while she swam. ‘She would have drowned if I had not at the last moment seized her by the leg’. Another day, when riding with his orderly along a narrow path, several wild pigs crossed in front of them. ‘I jumped down from my horse, grabbed my orderly’s carbine and ran several hundred paces ahead’. A boar emerged from the trees. ‘I had never seen a boar before and was amazed at how gigantic this fellow looked. Now he hangs as a trophy here in my room: he is a beautiful memory’.
On a day in October when he led one of the infrequent cavalry patrols, he might have preferred to stay in shelter, however tedious and demeaning to his pride. He had just halted his men and dismounted when ‘a grenade exploded on the saddle of my horse’, and killed it and three others. The enemy was unpleasantly close at hand. ‘My saddle and the contents of the saddlebag were ripped to pieces.’ Evidently he had already replaced the tack that he had reported as having been destroyed some weeks previously. ‘A fragment ripped through my cloak but did not touch me’. It seems he had new clothes, too. Apparent inconsistencies and contradictions in his letters and his book make his memory suspect: total recall, he manifestly did not have.
He was billeted with another officer in a village where most of the houses had been burned down, and spent alternate days in the trenches, ‘like the infantry’. His only remaining horse was sick, so he had little chance to ride. In a letter on 2 November, he complains that for weeks there has been no more than 50 metres advance at Verdun. ‘I would like very much to have won the Iron Cross, First Class, but there is no opportunity.’ He adds, with wry levity, ‘I must go to Verdun dressed in French uniform and blow up a gun emplacement’.
In mid-January 1915 his spirits rose and he wrote to his mother, ‘I have already let you know I am Assistant Adjutant of the 18th Infantry Brigade’. This offered more activity than with his regiment. ‘I am quite satisfied with my post’. One night, ‘we of Grenadier Regiment 7 took a trench from the French’. Two nights later the enemy tried to recapture it but ‘were splendidly crushed’.
He was devoted to his family and his thoughts were constantly with them. He wrote frequently to his mother, and to his father about his boar hunting. In his letters he often mentioned Lothar and sent love to 11-year-old Bolko, who was at the Wahlstatt Cadet Academy. In March he informed both parents that he had been host at a shoot with five other officers and thirty beaters, who drove eight pigs out of cover, ‘but we all missed. The hunt lasted from eight in the morning until seven in the evening. In three days we will have
another try, and in ten days, with a full moon, I am expecting confidently to bag a wild boar’.
His tally of pigs killed still stood at three when, for him, the crunch came. He had been home for three weeks’ leave and, on his return, was expecting to take part in a minor offensive, but instead was given more office work.
Bitterly frustrated and aching to go into action again, he applied for a transfer to the Aviation Service, which was approved in May. An unexpressed desire to fly had been growing for a long time; so now, ‘My greatest wish was fulfilled.’
CHAPTER 5 - THE RECONNAISSANCE OBSERVER AND PILOT
At the outbreak of war, none of the officers and men in the armies involved knew much about their flying services, or about aeroplanes at all. Few recognised military aircraft markings, which were, anyway, difficult to see from the ground. The British and French had roundels — known also as cockades, an Anglicisation of the French cocarde — on wings and fuselage: concentric circles with a ‘bullseye’ centre. The British bullseye was red, with a white ring round it and a dark blue outer ring. The tail fin bore vertical stripes of red, white and blue. The French wore a lighter blue bullseye with concentric white and red circles. On the tail fin were blue, white and red vertical stripes in reverse order to the British. The Germans had a Maltese Cross in black on a square white background, on wings, fuselage and tail fin. In 1916, the white square was replaced by a white edge around the cross.
All air forces were at first regarded as an extension of the cavalry and were therefore used only for reconnaissance, on which they often flew low enough to come under rifle fire. They were frequently the targets of their own ground troops; many were hit and some airmen were wounded.
Manfred confessed, ‘I had not the slightest idea what our flyers did. I considered every flyer a deceiver, for I could not tell whether he were friend or foe. I had no idea that German machines bore crosses and the enemy’s had cockades.’
To fly was the obvious choice for a cavalryman now that his arm was becoming obsolete and must soon be completely so, in a war that he and his comrades had taken for granted would be over in a couple of months. To transfer to the infantry would be beneath his dignity, as well as abhorrent on account of the sordid living conditions in the front line. To join the artillery would entail months of study and he had no taste for scholarship. Nor would he be content to shoot at targets miles away where he could not witness the havoc his shells were wreaking. The air offered the same sense of liberty, individual initiative and expertise that cavalry officers enjoyed and called for the same dashing spirit. He would also be able to watch the effect of his action.
He had no thought of being a pilot. Not only because being an observer would put him in command of the aircraft but also because he was in a hurry to return to action and the course lasted only three weeks, whereas pilot training took at least three months.
‘I was anxious to get into the air at the front as soon as possible and began to fear that I might be too late and the war would be over before I could get going.’
On 31 May, thirty observer candidates assembled at No. 7 Aircrew Replacement Unit in Cologne, Manfred among them. On the night before his first flight he went to bed early ‘to be fresh for the great moment next morning’. At 7 am he was at the airfield. The trainer aeroplane was a tractor type, so, sitting in the front cockpit, he felt the full force of the propeller wash when the engine started.
‘The blast of wind from the propeller disturbed me greatly. It was impossible to make myself heard by the pilot. When I took out a piece of paper [to write a message to him], it disappeared. My flying helmet slipped off, my muffler unloosened and my tunic was not securely buttoned. I was miserable. Before I knew what was happening, the pilot opened the engine up to full speed and we began to roll faster and faster. I hung on, then the shaking stopped and we were in the air, the ground slipping away beneath us.’
He had been given the course to fly, but after his pilot had turned a few times, ‘I had no idea where I was.’ Cautiously, he peered over the side. ‘The people looked tiny and the houses like children’s toys. It was a glorious feeling to sail over everything.’ He felt reluctant to return to the ground.
On 10 June he moved on to No. 6 Aircrew Replacement Unit at Grossenhain. Eleven days later, the first of his batch to pass the course, he was posted to No. 69 Field Reconnaissance Unit, on the Eastern Front. They lived in tents near a village where most of the houses had been burned down and, Manfred told his mother in a letter, those still standing were verminous.
It is difficult to understand how his pilot, Leutnant Georg Zeumer, had been passed fit for any form of military service, since he was dying from tuberculosis. Knowing that he had not long to live, he flew recklessly, which Manfred admired and enjoyed.
Their aircraft was the Albatros BII, designed by Ernst Heinkel, whose name was to become loathsomely familiar to the inhabitants of bombed British towns in the next World War. It had a water-cooled, in-line 100 hp Mercedes engine. The radiator was mounted above the cylinder block with the exhaust manifold on top and the exhaust pipe rose over the upper wing. The BII was a fraction over 25 ft long, had a maximum speed of 65 mph, a service ceiling of 9,840 ft and four hours’ endurance. No fixed defensive armament was carried, but during the early months of the war the observer, in the front cockpit, usually armed himself with a carbine or rifle.
Five weeks after he began his operational tour, Manfred wrote, ‘I fly over the enemy almost daily and bring back reports. I reported the retreat of the Russians three days ago. It is more fun than being an Assistant Adjutant’.
Zeumer had been returned to the Western Front and Manfred began flying with a recently qualified pilot who was very much a man after his own heart: titled, a cavalryman (dragoons) and a keen sportsman. Rittmeister Erich Graf (Count) von Holck was also impatient and a trifle eccentric — he always took his small dog up with him; it lay on a fur rug on the floor of his cockpit. He had made a long rail journey to join his new unit. When the train stopped some fifty kilometres from his destination and the delay dragged on, Holck left his orderly to look after the luggage and the dog while he walked ahead, intending to board the train again when it overtook him. It never did: he arrived at the airfield twenty-four hours before it. Manfred’s comment was that he was so fit that the long tramp had little effect on him. He also rated him highly as a pilot, praised his determination and said that not only did he have rare talent, but also he himself never had a greater feeling of security with so young a pilot.
Their last flight together nearly ended in disaster and was a valuable lesson for both of them in thermo-physics and aerodynamics. They had not been briefed to reconnoitre any particular area, and such liberty to use one’s initiative was, Manfred thought, ‘one of the nicest things about the air service’.
The Russians were retreating fast, leaving burning fields, woods, homesteads and villages behind them, with the Germans in pursuit. The most useful information Manfred could gather was the size of the beaten force and the axis of its march to the rear. Holck was flying him back to base at 1,500 metres altitude; ahead lay Wicznice, on fire, with dense smoke rising to an estimated 2,000 metres. Manfred, in the front cockpit, signed to the pilot to go round it, which would have added only five minutes to their flight time, but the impatient Graf had other ideas. Perhaps fortified by the knowledge that his blood was even bluer than his aircraft captain’s (he was equivalent to a British earl), and certainly motivated by his delight in taking risks, Holck disobeyed. Reminiscing two years later, Manfred wrote, ‘The greater the danger, the more it attracted him. It was fun to be with such a daring fellow.’
They flew straight into the choking, blinding smoke, ignorant of the effect that the super-heated air would have on the surrounding atmosphere and the engine. The Albatros stalled, spun and lost 1,000 metres before it emerged from the maelstrom and its pilot managed to regain straight and level flight. The engine began to falter, machine-guns on the ground opened fire on the
m, then the engine stopped. If they fell into Russian hands they would meet a savage death. The machine crashed near an artillery position from which the enemy had been driven the previous evening. Baron and count sprinted towards a nearby forest. Soldiers, whom they thought were the enemy, came running towards them from that direction; and turned out to be members of a Guards regiment commanded by royalty: the Kaiser’s second son, Prince Eitel, who provided them with horses on which to ride back to base, leaving their written-off aeroplane as a memorial to crass stupidity and indiscipline. The only casualty was Holck’s dog — missing, believed deserted. He had lifted it out of the wreckage, unhurt but no doubt confused, and had to presume that it had run off with the soldiers.
Activity in this area was slackening and Holck was transferred to the Western Front. Manfred followed, to a different unit, on 21 August. On the way, his parents met him at Schweidnitz and took him and his orderly home for the night.
He described the enjoyment he derived from harassing the Russians, whom he despised. ‘It was particularly amusing to pepper the gentlemen down below with a machine-gun. Half-savage tribes from Asia are much more startled when fired at from above than educated Englishmen. It is particularly interesting and amusing to fire at hostile cavalry: they rush in all directions’.
He does not seem to have felt any pity for the horses he professed to be so fond of but apparently killed and maimed without regret.
Von Richthofen: The Legend Evaluated Page 4