My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleydone in foggy conditions, which were frequent at that time of year, as our trench wasnot much more than fifty yards from the enemy and in his full view. Life wasdepressing enough in these conditions in the fog without scrambling out to do a lot ofgymnastics. Such was the view of the troops most forcibly expressed, and it took allthe admirable tact of the officers who understood them well and were on the best ofterms with them to turn the whole thing into a bit of a joke and thus to secure thefulfilment of the orders without much ill humour.At first life was reasonably quiet on the enemy side, but suddenly everything came tolife and day and night was one long strafe, as it was called. Old hands knew at oncefrom experience what had occurred: the Prussian Guard had arrived. Being at closequarters with these remarkable troops, we responded to their continual mortar andgrenade fire with rifle grenades. I took this habit with me to my troop in the regimentwhen we were next in the trenches, and it was good, except that these early grenadeswere liable on occasion to explode before they left the rifle.The other grenades of the period were thrown by hand, and they were also a littletricky. They were called Mills bombs and operated by a spring once the safety-pinwas withdrawn, which had to be held in place by the fingers until the bomb wasthrown; the explosion followed five seconds after the spring was released. Wiseacreswho did not mind the risk would release the spring and still hold the bomb for two orthree seconds before throwing. This had two advantages, that it could thus be made toexplode in the air above the enemy with more lethal effect, and would not be caughtby some wide-awake athlete and thrown back before explosion. But it had thedisadvantage that some Mills bombs exploded less than five seconds after the springwas released, with unpleasant results if still held. We were just too far to throw theseweapons from our trench into a German trench, so they could only be used bycrawling around no-man's-land at night. The rifle grenades on the other hand had areasonable range and we could lob them over easily while comfortably ensconced inour own trench.Life was always merry in the current fashion when confronted by the Prussian Guard,who believed in the principle of the perpetual initiative, which in this context meantcontinual fire varied with trench raids. Years later, after the Second World War, Idiscussed this idea with one of the best political intelligences Germany has produced.He said that the principle of the perpetual initiative was excellent in war and almostinvariably paid off, but that in politics it could be a great mistake, as in this sphere itwas sometimes better for a period just to sit tight.Before this liveliness had continued very long, the Colonel came along the line to tellus that the arrival of the Prussian Guard usually meant something serious was afoot,and that he now had information from the Staff that they were likely to attack thefollowing morning. He added for our encouragement that in this event he wouldrecommend for the Military Cross any officer left alive and in the same position thefollowing evening. I was left reflecting on the strange chances of these occasions;what option had I really got in this event, except to be killed or to win the MilitaryCross? It was life simplified. Clearly, if any of us had said: 'I think I prefer goinghome this evening to the winning of glory', it would not have been at all well received.In fact it would have had consequences - in the rough conditions of that war wherepsychology was not so deeply studied and political considerations were not so keenly59 of 424