mitrailleuse-fire

Updated: May 19, 2025

Let us think of our sons sleeping forever down there in the trenches of Haelen and Tirlemont and Aerschot; of those brave artillerymen who, for twenty days, have been waiting in the forts at Liege the help so many times promised from the allies; of our lancers charging into mitrailleuse-fire as if they were in a tournament; let us remember that our heroic little infantrymen, crouched behind a hedge or in a trench, keeping up their fire for ten hours running until their ammunition was exhausted, and forced at last to retire, wounded and worn out, without a chief to take orders from, have had no other thought than that of finding some burgomaster or commissioner of police, in order not to be taken for deserters.

Arthur Ruhl - Antwerp to Gallipoli: A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them