On the third of August, I addressed a petition to His Majesty King Ludwig III to be allowed to serve in a Bavarian regiment. The Cabinet Office during those days certainly had its hands pretty full, and my joy was all the greater when my petition was granted the same day.
Now began for me, as for every German, the greatest and most unforgettable period of my life on earth. Compared with the events of that mighty struggle, all the past fell into empty oblivion. I think with pride and sorrow of those days, and back to the weeks of the beginning of our nation’s heroic fight, in which kind fortune allowed me to take part.
Thus it went on from year to year ; horror had taken the place of the romance of fighting. Enthus¬ iasm gradually cooled off, and the glorious exuberance was drowned in the agony of death. A time came when each man had to struggle between the urge of self-preservation and the call of duty. By the winter of 1915-16 this struggle was over in myself. My will was at last victorious. In