[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] conscription age

Günther Böhm GHBoehm at ish.de
Mon Jun 25 01:42:30 PDT 2007


Ray Bloch schrieb:

>The stories I hear are from my Onkel Waldemar who is the defacto family 
>historian.  He told me that he was told by his father that during the early 
>stages of WWI, the opposing troops would cease fire on their own and then 
>meet in the middle of the lines.  There the Germans would bring sausages and 
>bread and the Russians would bring schnapps.  Sounds stereotypical but he 
>swears it's true.
>
Hello Ray,
didn't that more likely happen at the end of WWI ? In the first two 
years the battles were very fierce (think of the battle of Tannenberg in 
East Prussia, 26th to 30th August 1914 and the huge battle of 
Gorlice-Tarnów in early May, 1915 where some of my relatives died). 
Fraternization happened in a greater amount after the February 
Revolution of 1917 when Russian soldiers were influenced by the 
Bolsheviks and Social Revolutionaries and became unwilling to continue 
the hopeless war.

Günther




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