Four Weeks in the Trenches

Four Weeks in the Trenches

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Title: Four Weeks in the Trenches The War Story of a Violinist
Author: Fritz Kreisler
Release Date: February 6, 2004 [EBook #10967]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FOUR
WEEKS IN THE TRENCHES ***

FOUR WEEKS IN THE TRENCHES
by Fritz Kreisler

To My Dear Wife Harriet
The Best Friend Add Stanchest Comrade In All Circumstances Of Life
I Dedicate This Little Book
In Humble Token Of Everlasting Gratitude And Devotion

Preface
This brief record of the fighting on the Eastern front in the great war is
the outcome of a fortunate meeting.
The writer chanced to be dining with Mr. Kreisler soon after his arrival

in this country, after his dismissal from the hospital where he recovered
from his wound. For nearly two hours he listened, thrilled and moved,
to the great violinist's modest, vivid narrative of his experiences and
adventures. It seemed in the highest degree desirable that the American
public should have an opportunity of reading this narrative from the
pen of one in whose art so many of us take a profound interest. It also
was apparent that since so little of an authentic nature had been heard
from the Russo-Austrian field of warfare, this story would prove an
important contribution to the contemporary history of the war.
After much persuasion, Mr. Kreisler reluctantly acceded to the
suggestion that he write out his personal memories of the war for
publication. He has completed his narrative in the midst of grave
difficulties, writing it piecemeal in hotels and railway trains in the
course of a concert tour through the country. It is offered by the
publishers to the public with confidence that it will be found one of the
most absorbing and informing narratives of the war that has yet
appeared.
F. G.

Four Weeks In The Trenches

I

In trying to recall my impressions during my short war duty as an
officer in the Austrian Army, I find that my recollections of this period
are very uneven and confused. Some of the experiences stand out with
absolute clearness; others, however, are blurred. Two or three events
which took place in different localities seem merged into one, while in
other instances recollection of the chronological order of things is
missing. This curious indifference of the memory to values of time and
space may be due to the extraordinary physical and mental stress under
which the impressions I am trying to chronicle were received. The
same state of mind I find is rather characteristic of most people I have
met who were in the war. It should not be forgotten, too, that the
gigantic upheaval which changed the fundamental condition of life
overnight and threatened the very existence of nations naturally
dwarfed the individual into nothingness, and the existing interest in the

common welfare left practically no room for personal considerations.
Then again, at the front, the extreme uncertainty of the morrow tended
to lessen the interest in the details of to-day; consequently I may have
missed a great many interesting happenings alongside of me which I
would have wanted to note under other circumstances. One gets into a
strange psychological, almost hypnotic, state of mind while on the
firing line which probably prevents the mind's eye from observing and
noticing things in a normal way. This accounts, perhaps, for some
blank spaces in my memory. Besides, I went out completely resigned to
my fate, without much thought for the future. It never occurred to me
that I might ever want to write my experiences, and consequently I
failed to take notes or to establish certain mnemo-technical landmarks
by the aid of which I might now be able to reconstruct all details. I am,
therefore, reduced to present an incoherent and rather piecemeal
narrative of such episodes as forcibly impressed themselves upon my
mind and left an ineradicable mark upon my memory.
The outbreak of the war found my wife and me in Switzerland, where
we were taking a cure. On the 31st of July, on opening the paper, I read
that the Third Army Corps, to which my regiment (which is stationed
in Graz) belonged, had received an order for mobilization.
Although I had resigned my commission as an officer two years before,
I immediately left Switzerland, accompanied by my wife, in order to
report for duty. As it happened, a wire reached