Source
“Men, shout hurrah as loud as you can, then the French will run away without battle,” the officers encouraged the soldiers. And they shouted as the hordes of Hermann the Cheruscan might have shouted, as true Teutons. The enemy, meanwhile, behaved completely calmly and some of our fellow soldiers might really have believed that shouting was indeed the best assault weapon. […]
As close as 50 meters the cunning Frenchmen let the misguided troops approach. Then, however, a fire of cannon muzzles and rifle barrels rained down on the brave ones, so that one might believe that the end of the world had come. A dense hail of bullets pelted the dense ranks of the Germans. A confusion arose that blew apart the entire advancing regiments in an instant. Everyone ran around all over the place, officers started to retreat with 8, 10, or 12 men as the sad remains of their company. They fled far behind the frontlines. It’s all over now, I heard a lieutenant say. […]
Source of original German text: H. Otto and K. Schmiedel, eds. Der erste Weltkrieg. Dokumente. East Berlin, 1983, pp.95–6. Excerpted/reprinted in Bernd Ulrich and Benjamin Ziemann, Frontalltag im Ersten Weltkrieg. Wahn und Wirklichkeit. Berlin, 1995, pp. 86–7.