Diaries from the Swedes – Part One
During the summer and autumn I will continue to transcribe diaries from Swedes who fought for different countries in the Great War.
In this serie of small articles I will tell you the information I have taken part of from diaries of Swedes, which I have received from archives and descendants to the soldiers. They belong to Swedes who fought for Germany, Canada and USA.
At this moment I already have the facts from the Swedes who fought from Germany and Canada, and later on this summer I will receive a real treasure, a soldier diary from a descendant in United States, which I have waited for a very long time, it will be very nice to finally open it up in my hands!
There will be analysis around the texts they have noted in their diaries and the results will be connected to the terrain through battlefield maps and other units diaries, whenever it is possible to find, to connect the stories and bring them to life.
In earlier articles I have described some information regarding the Swedes who fought for Canada and Germany, however, now I will dig a bit deeper to see what I can find.
In this small article I will describe some text connected to the actions that took part in the Houthulst Wood, north of the village of Langemarck, north of the town of Ypres, in the area of Flandern in Belgium. The text is from the collection of letters and notes about the Swede who fought for Germany, Lt Marcus Grundberg (Iron Cross 1st Class). Lt Grundberg fought in the Pomeranian Infantry Regiment No 54. (Infantry Regiment von der Goltz) In Sweden Lt Grundberg served at the Karlskrona Grenadier Regiment, before he voluntarily left Sweden for the war.
The date is February 27th, 1918. Below you will find the summary from a messages from the battlefield, through the German levels of Command.
The text translated to English:
The Pomeranians in the Houthulster Forest.
From the field comes the following report:
In the Houthulster Forest, combat activity has recently become more lively again. February 27, 1918, in particular, was a hot day for our troops. At 8:45 p.m., the English began to shell our posts and dugouts heavily. At 10:00 p.m., the barrage slowly advanced, and four ranks of English assault troops followed closely behind. Despite the most stubborn resistance, our posts could not withstand the superior force. In massive numbers, the English infantry surged towards our line. On the left flank, First Lieutenant Grundberg, a Swede who volunteered with great enthusiasm for the German cause, managed to position two machine guns and use them to suppress the enemy attack
For the actions in Houthulst Wood, Marcus received the Iron Cross, 1st Class. Described below.
The text translated to English:
Lieutenant Colonel Walter till Överste Meister.
8 April 1918.
Most Esteemed Colonel.
It is a great pleasure for me to inform Your Excellency that First Lieutenant Grundberg has been awarded the Iron Cross First Class for his exceptionally brave and prudent conduct. We are proud to have had him almost as one of our own and are very grateful to the Grenadier Regiment for this excellent officer.
With most sincere regards, Your Excellency’s most obedient Welter, Lieutenant Colonel and Commander of the Infantry Regiment von der Goltz
The other side
I decided to try to find which unit the 54th German infantry met in the heavy terrain, which once was a nice wooded area, but at the time in 1918, was a really hard terrain to fight in. Below some example how the wood looked like in October 1917.
(© & courtesy of Eddy Lambrecht)
As I understand they met the 5/6th Royal Scots. (The 5th and 6th Battalions of the Royal Scots merged to form the 5th/6th Battalion in 1916.)
When I searching for the diary of the diary from 5/6th Royal Scots, I found the the page about the day of February 27th, 1918, which is described below.
From the text I can find that Lieut. William Knight Good was killed in action. From other sources it is mentioned that Lieut. Good met the 12th Infantry Company from the 54th German Infantry Regiment, when charging against german trenches in the wood. As far as I understand, OLt (Oberleutnant) Grundberg belonged to 8th Infantry Company, but it is of course very hard to tell the exact locations and positions from the different units.
Lieut. Walker and Lieut. Westwater seems to have been wounded in the actions mentioned above.
When reading further down in the unit diary from 5/6th Royal Scots I find the Operation order 135, which is mentioned from the diary pages above, and can read more about the tasks for Walker and Westwater.
I haven’t yet been able to find a specific roster of the officers in the 5/6th battalions, but will try to find more information.
In the Operation Order 135 above the forming location can be found, and it is always interesting to understand where in the terrain they were fighting.
Further on in the diary the positions “Papegoed Post”, “Friant Post”, and “Houchard Post” can be found, and the road between Friant Post and Houchard Post is the Potte Dreef road, also mentioned in the order above. See the map below. The direction of the British attack was, as I understand, towards north-east.
Lt Grundberg received his Iron Cross First Class on or around April 4th, 1918. (according to his letter home to Sweden, to his friend Kirre). Only days later, on April 13th, he was killed in action in the area of Nieuwkerke, further down south of the town of Ypres, during the German Spring Offensive, which started on March 21st, 1918.
He is today buried at Menen German Cemetery, after have been initially buried just 3 km south-east of the village of Nieuwkerke in Belgium. I have visited him many times, also on my latest trip to Belgium.
It has been really interesting to connect the texts from Grundberg’s notes and letters, and connect the text to British War Diaries, and get a better understanding about the situation.
This was the first part in the upcoming serie about diaries and content from these, from Swedish soldiers in the Great War. Please follow me for more stories.