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Saturday, November 2 W e had a more restful sleep last night and woke up in a better mood, thank God. This is the day Catholics honor their dead. We saw large numbers of soldiers fall in battle. My God! What has become of Christianity? We cannot calculate the losses on both sides. I cannot help but think that millions of mothers are on their knees at this moment imploring God for the dead and for us the living. We have been preparing today’s general offensive; we expect it to be our decisive blow against the enemy. The fighting is intense all along a front more than 150 miles long. We have been taking thousands of prisoners, including very young and very old soldiers. They are all thoroughly exhausted from the demands of the war and present a pathetic picture. They look awful, although they are also happy to have survived the fighting and entertain the sweet hope of seeing their loved ones. We have heard that we will no longer exchange prisoners. This will discourage taking more prisoners and help us avoid shedding more blood. The wireless brought us the good news that the kaiser has abdicated his imperial crown. His crown got so “hot” he could no longer keep it on his august head. The worst of it is that he will have to find refuge in a neutral country. This will be unfortunate because it keeps us from completing our mission. Someone will be denied the great reward for the kaiser’s head. Good pilots and captains go to the bottom with their ships, but the kaiser has been a bad leader who has merely tried to save his skin. What hope does he have while alive? To be the recipient of the civilized world’s loathing? Will he have the same fate as the sad and famous crown prince Franz Ferdinand? What Simón Gonzáles and Others 262 263 Simón González awaits the kaiser? Suicide, if he had any shame. The blood that was shed at Verdun clamors for justice against this bloody barbarian. The same wireless message informs us that the no less barbaric Turks have also surrendered unconditionally. The messages were received and decoded on the battlefield when the fighting was at its height, when death was waving its inexorable scythe over our heads, when life had become so difficult and uncertain that very little mattered. The news should have lifted our spirits, but it had little effect on us because of what we have seen and are seeing now. It is tempting to see the news as a strategic invention with military value. My friends had been so eager to hear this news, but they no longer get excited. I translated it into French and am the first among the troops to hear about it along the entire front. I pray to God the news is confirmed for the good of all mankind. Our 90th Division has suffered many losses while assuming the major responsibility in this sector. They calculate that we have registered a 40 percent loss of dead or wounded soldiers. The figures seem overstated but I keep seeing the battlefields littered with the unburied bodies and other soldiers who continue to fall. The brutal consolation is that the enemy has suffered more because they are seeing losses while fighting on the entire front against all the Allies. What a slaughter! How many men must have lost their lives just yesterday and today? Our line is advancing evenly. The Germans are not stopping us anywhere. This is horrible for a people who have invited the rage of God and man. The wireless also informs us the Germans are retreating so fast we cannot catch up with them. We are using planes that are continuously returning for more bombs to drop on the units of German soldiers that are scattering all around. Our pilots tell us that most of the “Boches” are not carrying their weapons and that they are running. They say the Germans are only resisting with truck-mounted artillery and that all they need are wings on their feet to make a flying retreat. It is one in the afternoon and we have been ordered to march and join the advancing line of fire ahead. Food rations and ammunition are already being handed out. The threat of rain might bring us bad weather. A large number of soldiers are resting on their backpacks and waiting...

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