Captain Lang’s book describes the 6th Bavarian Infantry Regiment’s war as it crossed the River Rhine in July 1914 and marched into France until by 1916 he and the regiment found themselves mired in the bitter conflict at Verdun in 1916. Neither were they spared the war of attrition that was taking place on the Somme that year. In 1918 they were preparing for the great offensive on which all German hopes of ending the war were pinned. Its failure meant that they became engaged in defensive battles as they withdrew from Flanders, before the remnants of the regiment left France in November 1918 to begin the melancholic march back home to bitterness, street fighting, and the birth pangs of the Weimar Republic and WW2.

Photo: King of Bavaria in Brest-Litovsk