Group+1+Soldier

**The diary of a German soldier during world war one**

Dear diary, August 31, 1914 Today is the day after our battle with the Russians at Tannenburg, the battle lasted 6 days, the Russians started with 150,000 men and left only about 10,000 Russians escape. We had captured about 92,000 Russians. We beat the Russians so bad that their own general had committed suicide because of the embarrassment.

Dear diary, November 20, 1914

Today the trenches were finally completed; the trenches are about 400 miles from Nieuport. We had made four different types of trenches. First in the line of fire are the front line trenches, the firing-and-attack trench, about one mile away from the Germans front line. The next trench we made was the support trench, which is about 200 yards from the front line trenches. In this trench we are holding men and supplies that could immediately help the front line if under attack. In the very back we made the reserve trenches holding more soldiers and supplies for the case if the front line was over run. Dear diary, September 15, 1916 We are now well into the battle of Somme against Britain and France. Today the British deployed 15 divisions of men. This was the first time the use of tanks came into play. Even though they had the use of tanks we held them to under a kilometer of land gained.

Dear diary, November 18, 1916

Today we were said to have lost to the British and France in the battle of Somme. Even though Britain and France lost a combined total of 620,000 men, we have lost 500,000 alone. I consider myself to be lucky to have gotten out alive. Our battle lasted 6 months from the first of July to the eighteenth of November. Britain was led under the command of their new commander sir Douglas Haig, we were led by the commander Von Falkenhayn. We had thought the great idea of making an underground telephone system to help let each trench line that foreign troops were coming.

"The Trenches: Symbol of the Stalemate."__THE GREAT WAR And the Shaping of the 20th Century.__ December 11 2009.
 * Bibliography

"The First Battle of TANNENBERG (1914) and the Battle of the SOMME (1916) Were Two Major Battles in WW1." __Answers.com.__ December 14 2009.

"Battles- battle of Somme, 1916." __Firstworldwar.com.__ January 5 2010. **