The 1st Assault of the war.

It was the 13. Dragoner Division had the dubious honor of being thrown straight into the fire at the beginning of the war. Now, whilst Magdeburg would end in a victory for the Holy Roman Army (HRA), it would break the 13. Dragoner Divison to the point that it was no longer considered combat-ready for about a year. The capture of the regimental armory at the beginning of the battle made sure that the fight would bog down into a slog of small arms, with little to no support from the LIA (Light Infantry Artillery). The Armoury was a perfect position to fortify and establish a frontline slicing the industrial south of the city to the mainly rural and agricultural north, which was one of the main sources of food for the revolutionaries.

Now it is worth noting that while we were stuck in Magdeburg the HRA and the German Revolutionary Army were racing each other to attempt to encircle the enemy half of the city. This resulted in a line of defenses, mainly trenches and hastily constructed forts made out of repurposed farmhouses that passed the south of Berlin and terminated on the western edge of the Dabie lake (west of Szczecin) on the eastern front (everywhere east of Magdeburg), and stretched all the way to Rotterdam in the west (this formed the western front) with a bulge going south of Cologne. However, this futile race to outflank each other would go on for about a year and a half, with Rotterdam being cut in half with the frontline remaining on each side of the Rhine. Again, GRA in the north, and the HRA in the south. However we were oblivious to this, it came down to my regiment to retake the Armoury in Magdeburg, and attempt to recover and repair as much equipment as possible.

This was no easy task, however, as the Armoury was designed to be easily fortified in a pinch. The building itself was made out of 50cm thick concrete with steel reinforcements. There were windows with steel shutters facing the south and the north. The only entrances were via a tunnel heading north, and the southward facing the main entrance, which leads into a short corridor which had a porthole at the inner end of it which the enemy used to install a Machine Gun. The standard MG used by the HRA at the time was the MG 97, a licensed design of the Winchester arms Machine Rifle 95, and it was more than capable of tearing apart any poor soul to attempt to breach the main hall. The 2. Companie Learned this the hard way after the first assault on the building, which ended in the destruction of 2. Zug and heavy casualties from the rest of the formation. We had no artillery, little ammo, no support as the rest of the HRA was tied up attempting to encircle the city, and it looked like we were going to have to besiege the building... after we dug in, the morale destroying malaise of siege mentality told us the here was our home for the foreseeable future.

I only remember a few certain points clearly, these memories of mine penetrate the mind-numbing boredom of the siege’s merging days. However, these few key events do require explanation. The first of these is the aforementioned domed first assault. Now, I apologize in advance for the sudden change of perspective, but I’m a soldier... not a writer.

I was on the 5th floor of ‘The Grand’, which was one of the major hotels, usually giving sanctuary to the aristocracy during trips or meetings. But now, since it overlooked the park outside the Armoury from about 2 kilometers away, it was the perfect temporary Regimental HQ. I was working with my Kapitän and Oberst, I forget their names (which I will explain as to why soon), and we were mulling over the situation. We didn’t know the strength of the enemy, nor how much ammo and food they had, or even we were besieging alone position or just a stronghold that was a part of a major frontline. All of our comms were either outdated telegraph systems, and we had yet to find the location of the Brigade HQ, Let alone the Divisional one considering that they were supposed to be where we knew the enemy had overrun. So to be frank, we didn’t know anything about the enemy, or really even anything that was directly under the command of 4. Regiment.

So, considering that we initially thought that this was an isolated revolt and that we’d have major support soon enough we decided that a quick assault to prevent enemy entrenchment was the way to go. So, I was assigned to lead 3. Zug of 3. Companie. 1. Companie would keep to the left flank and guard the approach to the HQ, while 3. Companie would do the same for the right flank. It was the job of 2. Companie, who got extra reinforcements, to breach the armory through the main entrance. We had a basic inventory of what was in the armory at the time, including a bunch of rifles, several MG 97′s about 2 broken Gewehr 10′s. (Semi-automatic squad firepower weapons. They had a 2 man crew, 1 loader, and 1 gunner) Luckily we had the other 7, so we could use the high power support. (For reference the StandardGewehr 1900 used an 8mm bullet with about 1400m range, half of that is the most accurate range. The Gewehr used a 1.1cm bullet with 1500m of accurate fire range, and a max of 3000m) We assigned 1 Gewehr 10 each for 1. and 3. Companie, and we gave grenades to 2. Companie. So this added up to about 400 men assaulting 1 building... easy right?

The downfall of the assault came down to the old HRE tradition of officers “honorably leading from the front”! So, the Oberst and the Kapitän took their positions with 2. Companie just before the attack (They weren’t at the direct front, it was officerly enough to just be in the first 100 or so men). Our staging areas were just behind the buildings south of the plaza, the plaza itself was more of a field with a couple of trees and some water features, not much cover. This was before the siege really took effect and the plaza became a maze of rubble and trenches. So, at 1800, just as the sun had disappeared behind the skyline of the buildings, bayonets were affixed, fire support in place, and the whistle blew.

for the first 100m or so there was no enemy fire until we closed within about 200m of the armory itself. Then all hell broke loose. Several MG 97′s tore through the ranks of 2. Companie, 1.1cm bullets destroying men and material alike. The NCOs (Non-Commissioned Officers) had it the worst. they were trained to boost morale and to get the men charging onwards... standing strong in the face of fire with God as their only protection. Until they were blown apart by several bullets. However we pushed on bravely, I led my men around the inner side of the right flank and managed to get my Gewehr 10′s to suppress some of the fire coming from the second floor of the building. at approx 1810hrs we started to take some fire coming from some of the buildings from our right flank. A lot of the men from 2. Zug (3. Companie) didn’t have any cover from that direction, and in a panic they jumped their cover to take shelter from the fire coming from their right, only to get obliterated from the MG’s coming from the Armoury. So, with Bayonets affixed and my pistol drawn I lead my men into the buildings to clear them out. The Fighting was hand to hand, room to room, I was the second entering the foyer of the closest building with a definite enemy presence. As I leaped into the foyer the man in front of me, Gefreiter Werner his name was (I remember his name because he was top of the marksmanship, initiative, and voted “The best Looking of the Regiment”) took around to the knee and had his leg fold in the wrong direction. The man who’d fired the round was (luckily for me) using an old Gewehr 71, a single shot bolt action rifle. So as he was reloading I fired two rounds from my Revolver into his chest and right shoulder. He slumped to the floor smearing the blood on the wall behind him. Me and the rest of squad 1, (squad 2. and 3. were clearing the other buildings and/or laying down covering fire), started to clear the building room by room. This was the first time I’d ever been in hand to hand combat before, and I owe my life to the men who fought alongside me. One particular time I was separated in a long corridor, I was assaulted by an enemy with a war-pick. He got me a good one in the ribs before I could get a shot off, and we tumbled to the floor in a mess of flailing limbs. He managed to get on top of me and disarmed me of my knife, trying to stab me in my neck. We struggled for what seemed like hours until his head exploded covering me in this sticky grey matter, (which I later defined as his brains), and blood. The Gefreiter at the end of the corridor gave me a hand up, and we met the rest of the squad on the mezzanine floor, the only casualties we’d taken in the struggle to secure the building was Werner, who later bled to death through the various dressings and bandages we applied, and 3 others who’d caught a grenade. A Stabsgefreiter and I decided to take a look from the windows to see how the assault had gone. The man with me (Stabsgefreiter Gottingen) later describes the scene in his diary, which I read after his death later in the war. It read:

“The carnage my superior and I viewed was a sight sickening and demoralizing even to the hardiest of warriors. The once green field now ran with streams of blood making this sticky mud that wounded men slipped around in as they tries to duck for cover. The cries of men, barely audible over the deafening thunder of the MG 97′s and other weapons, as men disemboweled, with limbs almost fully amputated desperately made bids for cover. Some simply trying to get themselves fatally shot to end their pain. Their once-proud white, yellow, and grey uniforms are now eternally stained with blood-soaked mud. Once any man had reached the objective, the main entrance, rushed in simply to have parts of themselves spat back out in a mist of blood and a shower of gore.”

It was after viewing this I ordered my squad to run to the other platoons or squads, to order a withdraw. I could see that we were going to get nowhere with this, and continuing to charge would only end in more lives lost. I took it upon myself to notify the 2. Companie and try to find the Oberst. Once I’d reloaded my pistol I rushed for about 10 meters, only to be forced to dive to a prone position to take cover from the hail of lead. It was just as I caught sight of the Käpitan, who was attempting to review the situation from behind a small brick wall that was about waist high. I yelled out to him several times before he caught my eye. I signaled to him that we were retreating but he couldn’t understand me, so I made yet another mad dash to his cover. I managed to not get hit (somehow) and I explained the situation to him. He seemed to agree with my plan and ordered his runner to notify everyone he could. the Käpitan and I thought it was best to get back to our lines as quickly as possible so as to make sure that we could reorganize the units that would have successfully withdrawn. We gave ourselves a count of three to rush back to the next piece of cover. As soon as I raised myself to a crouching position, I sprinted back, and vaulted over the cover to safety, although I hadn’t noticed that I was coated in the Käpitans viscera. He must’ve taken a bullet on the way. Well, now that I was acting under the now-deceased Käpitans orders, and the Oberst was nowhere to be found, I was in command. At this point, I could see the withdrawal order was starting to take an effect. Men still feel though, all around the place. The fleeing survivors covered in blood.

Funnily enough, the engineers, who weren’t a part of the assault, and had nothing to do did what they do best... and dug trenches. Each street leading to the armory from the south (which was where we controlled) had a trench and some rudimentary sandbag bunkers. Upon being asked how they dug trenches through a cobbled road, Oberstabsgefreiter Wilhelm simply answered with, “with our entrenching tools sir”, ( I later learned that the cobbles were relatively easy to shift by levering them up with the tool, but that took me about a week of befuddlement to find it out). I also feel it pertinent to add that the only ones of our unit to survive the entire war, start to finish was me, who ended the war as an Oberst, Wilhelm, who ended the war as an Oberstabsfeldwebel, and about 7 others out of the 3000 that were in Magdeburg at the time of the revolution.

So... here we were, about 800m from our objective, with approximately 300 or so bodies lying, spattered and scattered in the field before us, in these small trenches, about 1.8m deep, we had no idea where anyone was, and when we were going to get reinforced. It was then I realized that I was stuck here for a while.