We are the Kaiser’s Men – The 6th Bavarian Infantry Regiment

“Pöll wakes me up with the words: How on earth can you sleep just before your death!”

From battleground to battleground, the Bavarians are thrust in wherever the fighting is fiercest, spared neither the horrors of the Somme, the Vimy Ridge, gas attacks, nor Verdun and the infamous Fosse Ravine where their losses rise pitilessly. 

“No one has ever come back”, is the laconic remark by one officer when the 6th move into Fort Douaumont, and the devastation and death all around them confirms that life here is easily snuffed out by the French artillery. An order is an order, however, and, resigned to their fate, they descend into the muck of the shell craters; there are no trenches, the French have flattened them. Every man who tries to leave is shot dead by a French sniper. The author is buried by a shell burst. This, then is the hell of the Battle of Verdun as witnessed by an officer who tries to record his experiences without allowing his writing to fall victim to his emotions. An almost impossible task. 

Now available in English for the first time in over 100 years, this is a warning from history to a contemporary society that will pay a great price for ignoring the lessons to be learned.