Soldiers' passion

Chapter 1

The ability of Man to build weapons and gather armies to fight a common cause is impressive, even if this could cause a mass annihilation of our species, the idea of self-government, of having glory and triumphs in such a way that they mark names, faces and generations in the pages of history books remains tempting, as much for me as for any other man who has the least bit of ambition.

The year, my dear reader, is 1912, the Austrian province of Bohemia has risen in a separatist revolt, civilians have taken up arms and formed an army, and some have formed a terrorist group. self-styled Black Hand, but that is not the point in this narrative, at least not about the terrorists, but about the civil war.

Despite being endowed with the most rational knowledge that a man can have and giving up the virility that anyone has, I became a soldier of the Bohemia cause, I left my books and papers from my office in my apartment in Karlstadt an der Aache and went to the barracks from the infantry to enlist in the newly formed Bohemian army.

I remember very well the euphoria that infected the young volunteers, eager to go to the battlefield and show the Austrians who the Bohemian people really were, unfortunately few knew what al battlefield really was.

We left the barracks at the end of the afternoon, in total we passed more than three hundred men, armed with rifles and carrying canteens and ammunition. I, in addition to the standard equipment, carried with me a pocket watch, a gift from my grandfather, a useful object, small, portable and, in gold letters, carried my name, Wilhelm Lehrer Soldat.

Our force was made up mostly of infantry, the cargo was carried by wagons and a few trucks, those without horses went on foot, but that didn't seem to put off the enthusiastic young soldiers singing patriotic and local songs.

Our uniforms were as new as their wearers, our weapons were as strong as those who would wear them but war was as old as time, only the fact that our path into battle was the same as that of the soldiers in the war of 1880 shows that this war was also fought by other generations of our people against Austrian tyranny and neglect, and we were ready to stain our uniforms with blood.

We walked for a whole day until we set up camp. The camp was set up in a large clearing of a forest a few meters from the edge of the forest with a plain cut by a river and which separated our forest from another, most likely where the Austrian troops were. The camp. was defended by a trench armed with machine guns and barbed wire, it was theoretically impenetrable, but we didn't expect an attack because we would be the ones to advance against enemy terrain, the attack would take place two days after we broke camp.

The two days leading up to the engagement were slow to pass so that I thought the advance had been postponed, but that was a mere impression, the battle came exactly two days after we broke camp. The soldiers in their blue uniforms were drawn into position, armed with their rifles and armed with anxiety and the eagerness for battle. When the hands of the clock struck noon, the order to march was given, it took a few minutes for us to reach the plain and see for the first time the enemy in their white uniforms and armed with the most modern weapons and using the river as a natural trench.

We had gone a few meters when the first bullets started flying over our heads or towards our heads, so that some of our boys were hit so that the bullet either went through their skulls or embedded itself in their young brains. The clarin played the order: Charge: the bayonets turned towards the enemy and we increased speed until we were running towards the river and the enemy.

The clash was brutal, men fell in the first clash between armies and the symphony that started with bugle calls and cries of bravery evolved into sounds of gunfire, screams of pain and bayonet blows against flesh and muscle, the change in tone of the symphony became it became palpable when the crystal clear water of the river turned red and bodies piled up on the banks, but with each blow and shot against the enemy we advanced towards another forest crossing the river and the plain.

From noon when we entered the battlefield until the battle entered the opposite forest, it was three hours of a bloody battle, every meter it advanced it left a trail of corpses and pools of blood and I, my dear reader, I was alive, having made some victims of my heroic patriotism, but still alive, miracle or not.

At this point in the battle I took the liberty of narrating it in more detail, after all it was this part of the battle that changed the course of this story.

The Austrian troops, despite being retreating, continued to fight valiantly inflicting heavy casualties on the Bohemian army. The fight was now between the trees of the forest, the lack of light thanks to the low treetops made. everything a little more difficult and the lack of space all the more brutal. I was tired, my muscles were asking for mercy but I couldn't stop when the enemy kept. trying to stick a bayonet in my chest; at this moment I entered into a fierce body fight with an enemy soldier, the fight took on more aggressive proportions in a way that threw us to the ground and before he could take advantage of the fall I grabbed my rifle with its bayonet and crossed the enemy body, in this moment I allowed myself to look into the eyes of the newest corpse on the battlefield, he had a handsome face, blue eyes and a blond mustache as well as his hair, in peacetime I would hesitate to want to see this great example of human beauty dead I guess that this last statement was the result of the influence of my demons, but let's forget about that for now. But before I could get up, I was hit on the back of the head and I fell to the ground unconscious, I would be dead, no, at least not so early.