A Tale of Two Fronts

“A major discovery, Schiller’s engaging and vivid memoir is historically important for three reasons: first, it provides a rare, first-person glimpse of German army life on the Eastern Front during the Great War; second, it offers an insider’s account of the 1918 attack on the Chemin des Dames, Germany’s last and best hope for victory in the west; and, third, it captures the chaos and brutality of the European ‘long war,’ fueled by revolution and ethnic hatred, that extended beyond the armistice of November 11, 1918, and well into the early 1920s. The section on Schiller’s service in the Freikorps, which involved little-known operations against Russian Bolsheviks and Poles, is exceptionally valuable.”—Steven Trout, author of The Vietnam Veterans Memorial at Angel Fire: War, Remembrance, and an American Tragedy

“Schiller’s memoir takes the reader from the heady days of the outbreak of war, to the last desperate attack on the Chemin des Dammes, to the chaotic situation in the east in the aftermath of the war. A veteran of both the eastern and western fronts, Schiller gives us an expansive look at the war as fought by a German artillerist. Although horrified by gruesomeness of modern warfare, he remains committed to the German cause, while retaining a sense of humanity. Schiller is something of a cross between Erich Maria Remarque and Ernst Junger.”—Richard DiNardo, author of Imperial Germany and War, 1871–1918

“Schiller’s First World War memoir reveals a youth growing up amid total war, and with cool candor offers rich details of the less familiar Eastern front (ceaseless marches and artillery barrages of the early war; landscapes of Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia; a wintertime wolf attack; and starving cities), the more familiar Western front (the exhausting last battles as Germany neared collapse), and post-war border conflicts in the Baltic region and the new border with Poland. This vivid testimony by turns confirms and challenges commonplaces in the evolving historiography on the experience of the First World War.”—Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius, author of War Land on the Eastern Front: Culture, National Identity, and German Occupation in World War I