SRT: A season unending

Under a new machine

Training was a lot shorter than I would have liked for it to be. But when a nation has to hurry to the theatre of war, they can hardly spare a few months on the under-aged cannon fodder. Thus, my training consisted of three days. Each day spent on a different subject.

The first day, I was taught discipline. How to stand, how to create a formation. What 'about-face' and 'salute' commands encompassed. We were taught to follow these instructions to the letter. Our reward would be glory, our punishment would be a bullet from our officer. None heeded that last part very well. None of us considered we'd ever be afraid. How wrong we were.

The second day, I was taught of the rifle. How to hold it, how to load it, to fire it, and to affix a bayonet. And, as I would soon learn was really the most important part, how to clean it. I can not stress enough to you how important keeping a Mauser model 1898 - piece of shit that it is - clean when you're in a trench. Mud and dust and snow will get everywhere. With my history of cleaning factory machines, I grew adept at this art very quickly. I still thank that fact to this day, as I am sure I would have died a thousand times over if not for my ability to clean my rifle, and that of others, effectively.

On the third day, I was taught of manoeuvring. How to properly march, and dig. The presumption of our commander was that we would be marching to the battlefield quite like they did during the revolutionary wars. We would set up a firing line, fire a shot and then move up. We would be using our knowledge of digging to set up strategic defensible points. I wish they had taught us how to crawl, rather than how to march. After all, that seemed to be the only thing we did most of the time.

They called it a 'screening force'. We, the eight, were stationed to the east where the youngest and most foolish would be building a line of defence while the rest of our forces would make quick work of the western front. Word was that they would be coming to aid us in our fight against the Russians within a months time. The only real reinforcements we saw arrived half a year late. Until that time came, we were left together with the Austrians in East Prussia to fight the entirety of the Russian's armed response to the war, namely the Russian Second army.

Even though we had been stationed there for a month, it was only until the last week of August that the battle of Tannenberg started. A misnaming, really, as we were actually stationed at the burning remains of Allenstein. Our commander, a Field Marshal by the name of Paul von Hinderburg, instead decided it would be called the battle of Tennenburg because of some old battle that took place there some 500 years ago. From my understanding, that battle had been between the Teutonic knights and my own people. The winged hussars of Aria, who always had a way of surprising the enemy by not actually having wings (Which often prompted their enemies to use archers to which they were impervious) swiftly destroyed the Teutonic knights of Solaris there and ended their little order. It took them 550 years to recover.

Exactly why Field Marshal Hinderburg thought he had to avenge a battle that happened 500 years ago, I'll never understand. Such is the way of a devote of Solaris, I suppose.

The battle lasted less than a week. In fact, it only took four days. From the moment we disembarked our train until that first wave of Russians stormed over the horizon, we had spent marching and digging. In the meanwhile, trains really were everything. Going in and out day and night, transporting troops and resources that in the future would become interchangeable. The German plan was a sound one; Use the better railroads to move troops fast. Take the west swiftly, then reinforce the east before Russia's massive army would have the chance to counter-act. What they had failed to anticipate was how long the actual battles in the west would last.

During the first few weeks of this war, we did a lot of marching. By the end of the first month the soles of my boots had already given out.

Comically enough, my boots lasted longer than the entirety of the second Russian army.