German Second Division to intensify its offensive. It was the 63rd Infantry Regiment that was to perform the assault from the west. Similarly, this direction required the soldiers to push through a dense forest, not to mention they had to follow a scheduled azimuth and not along the road. Dense underwood made it difficult for the soldiers to move capably. On the other hand, the French knew these positions well, so they assaulted from hiding and immediately retreated whenever the companies of the 63rd Regiment were about to concentrate. Even the cavalry subunits that moved along forest clearings participated in those counterattacks. The “tree shooters” also participated in this action. When the frontline regimental units finally reached the edge of the forest, before a small hamlet of Termes, they found themselves in front of the fields between the two villages. The terrain was flat and bare for about two kilometers. It was under fire from Termes, conducted by perfectly hidden shooters able to precisely observe the German offensive. The commander of the Infantry Regiment No. 157 abandoned his plan of the frontal attack on Rossignol due to the lack of support from the West and, instead, decided to head toward the French units in Termes that attacked him from the flank. From now on, they could rely on artillery support on open ground so, with the help of the battery from the 57th Field Artillery Regiment and a machine guns company, they managed to drive the French out of Termes.191
Thanks to that, they could use the artillery to cannonade Rossignol, which allowed the infantry to exit the forest under covering fire and gradually approach the town. The war diary of the 57th Field Artillery Regiment describes this crucial part of the battle as follows:
To our joy, at four in the afternoon we finally received the order to prepare the battery for the attack. The Second Unit was the first to exit the forest [from the direction of Termes]. It moved west from the road. The Fifth Battery under the command of captain Ulrici moved from our side, the first to exit the forest [north of Rossignol]. Its commander quickly found good ground and fired from a howitzer at the church tower. His shot was spot-on as we could immediately see fire and the machine gun’s cannonade ceased. Happy with the success, the entire battery then bombarded the village with enemy troops, which started fires everywhere. The artillery men could see it clearly because there appeared white smoke from every window and rooftops under fire. However, the ←71 | 72→French also shot precisely, using both their artillery located on the hill behind the village and their shooters. Those were the well-trained and experienced colonial units.192
Despite artillery support, the infantry assault on the village unexpectedly claimed many lives. It was the Infantry Regiment No. 157 that incurred particularly large losses:
The enemy still stood fast; our units were completely pulverized; many commanders died or were injured. The non-commissioned officers took over their tasks; Seidel, Lauterbach, Michalski, Pownug, the battalion drummer Heinze, and others who managed to regather the units and platoons and continue attacking. As the only one with relatively small losses, the Twelve Company finally showed up on the road that led to the village; however, its soldiers were so scattered [after the fights in the forest] that it forced captain Troschke to form them into a company from scratch. He did it so loud that the battalion commander beside him exclaimed: “Troschke, if you keep on yelling, the French will begin to flee.” There was a large oat field to the south of the forest, but the oat was reaped, and oat ricks lay all around the field. The French shooters of the colonial units craftily hid behind or even inside them. In order to check the ricks, the soldiers had to pierce each with a bayonet, which gave much joy to our soldiers, who mostly came from villages. Musketeer Gukatsch, who skillfully and jocularly performed his task, called his neighbor: “Darn it [pieronie], Józek, do the French pay you for helping them with the harvest?”193
German propaganda tried to paint the soldiers of colonial units in a bad light by stereotypizing certain groups. Due to the fact that all of the Allies – the French, the English, and the Belgians – had colonial troops, the propaganda started to depict the war as a racial conflict, contrasting German culture (Kulturvolk) with uncivilized people of color. Playing cards for the soldiers turned out to be a good medium to spread this idea since the Old Maid was usually presented as a naked Zulu warrior, a Morrocan in jellabiya, or an Indian in a turban.194 Over time, this primitive propaganda proved successful. The fear of a sudden attack of the Senegalese or the Morrocan, creeping like a shadow, also greatly afflicted the Poles in Kaiser’s army, particularly during trench warfare, where there frequently were patrols that aimed at capturing enemies. A Kashubian in the German Army complains about that in his memoirs:
Neither the English nor the French scare me, only the blacks; I would rather not meet them. Why? – I asked. Because they are masters in crawling on the ground. You stand ←72 | 73→listening at the front of the trenches in the middle of the night and the wind rustles, so you cannot hear this black devil sweep along the ground until you have a knife in your stomach. It is too late then. Eh – said Herman – you would have to be asleep, otherwise you would hear someone approach. – Believe me, you cannot hear this Morrocan devil approach, it is so shrewd. There were already cases of people found dead on their duty with bayonets in their chests on the hill 304 [near Verdun].195
The above banter about the Polish Upper Silesians fighting against the French hidden in haystacks evidences that the language barrier was still an issue in the German regiments. An officer of the 21st Field Artillery Regiment that took part in the battle frankly admits that the liaison officers who arrived with dispatch spoke German badly and the stress made him corrupt the language even more. In bad German and with some Silesian vernacular, the dialogue developed in the following manner:
“Sir Major allows himself to say, should shoot 500 meters to the right” (Der Herr Major läßt sagen, 500 m nach recht soll geschossen werden). He sat on a bike and rode down the road. After about half an hour, he returned: “Sir Major allows himself to say, the fire is good but 300 metres further” (Der Herr Major läßt sagen, das feuer ist gut, aber 300 m weiter). He sat on the bike and rode down the road towards Les Bulles. Fearless and solitary.196
Equally humorous is a press coverage during the first months of the war that also emphasizes the clear distinction between the German regiments and those dominated by Poles. It was published as a war correspondent’s material in many Upper Silesian journals. It is hard to determine whether it was authentic, or was it written only for propaganda purposes. Entitled “Colonial Troops,” the text precisely illustrates the ethnic structure of the Upper Silesian regiments, known to the German commanders. According to this correspondent, the French doctor in captivity was to tell the following story in the field hospital:
The Bavarians are unbeatable when it comes to melee combat. But – the French doctor added – there are other troops in the German Army that cause panic among the French ranks. Those people are unstoppable and indestructible. They speak a strange language that is not German, and they must belong to colonial troops. Every time, when it comes to fight with bayonets, they yell: “Hoppla pieronie nabok zpyskiem!” [Oy, rasacal, move your gob aside!]. They annihilate everyone who resist them. No one can stop their offensive and the hits of their rifles.197
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This grotesque depiction of the Upper Silesians purportedly aims at balancing the cruelty of the French colonial troops, who also fought against the Upper Silesian regiments in the beginning of the war.
In reality, after the end of the fights on August 23, the scenery of the battlefield at Rossignol was bleak and did not correspond with the humorous press coverage. The trenches, that separated the fields, were full of fallen soldiers. Mixed German and French corpses lied behind hedges, on the grass, on the meadows, and in the fields.198 The fights continued long after breaking into the town. After the battle, the morale was far from being euphoric. Despite the exhaustion, many of them could not fall asleep. The awareness that almost