The following is excerpts of 22-year-old Danish-German soldier Kristian Tastesen's account of an attack on Russian positions on September 10, 1915 - today 108 years ago - on the Eastern Front near the town of Neugut (Biržai) in modern-day Lithuania. Translated by myself:
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"At 10 AM on the morning of the 10th we received the order to attack. It was down a hillside, and the machine-guns made sure there was a whistling surrounding us at all times. Many fell on the hillside, but I made it down to a field further ahead.
Here the gun-fire was so intense that it was impossible to stay there any longer. A salvo of machine-gun bullets pummeled the earth a few meters from us, and I knew if we were to stay lying there, it would've been the certain death.
I leaped up, my comrades shouted at me, but still I ran towards some woods on the other side of the field. The bullets sang, sounding like a swarm of birds whistling. I reached the woods in one piece, where I threw myself down into a ditch.
Now some of my comrades followed, but many fell before they reached the woods. Here we lay for 3 hours, as it was impossible to imagine getting out. The Russians could see us, but we couldn't see them.
By 4 PM, our artillery had bombarded the Russians so heavily that their positions were demolished and most of the woods, where they lay, was blown apart. We thus attacked again, but by then, all the Russians had either been killed or had run away. The few that had stayed were taken prisoner."

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