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In the attempt to capture Ypres, by this time an
obsession with him, the Kaiser had flung in crack regiments of Bavarians,
Saxons, Landwehr an Landsturm; sacrificing German soldiers at staggering rate,
he used and lost recruits with as little as two months service many of them
beardless youths, whose military service had so far consisted only of learning
to do the goose-step, and had not include more than rudimentary instruction in
musketry or trench warfare. The Prussian War Staff were notorious for their
disregard for human life, but they must later have regretted that so much of
the fine flower of German youth had been frittered away in those futile attacks
at Ypres
Uit: Wipers door Tim Carew (1974)
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