events which took place in different localities seem merged into one,
while in other instances recollection of the chronological order of
things is missing. This curious indifference of the memory to values
of time and space may be due to the extraordinary physical and
mental stress under which the impressions I am trying to chronicle
were received. The same state of mind I find is rather characteristic
of most people I have met who were in the war. It should not be
forgotten, too, that the gigantic upheaval which changed the
fundamental condition of life overnight and threatened the very
existence of nations naturally dwarfed the individual into
nothingness, and the existing interest in the common welfare left
practically no room for personal considerations. Then again, at the
front, the extreme uncertainty of the morrow tended to lessen the
interest in the details of to-day; consequently I may have missed a
great many interesting happenings alongside of me which I would
have wanted to note under other circumstances. One gets into a
strange psychological, almost hypnotic, state of mind while on the
firing line which probably prevents the mind's eye from observing
and noticing things in a normal way. This accounts, perhaps, for
some blank spaces in my memory. Besides, I went out completely
resigned to my fate, without much thought for the future. It never
occurred to me that I might ever want to write my experiences, and
consequently I failed to take notes or to establish certain
mnemo-technical landmarks by the aid of which I might now be able to
reconstruct all details. I am, therefore, reduced to present an
incoherent and rather piecemeal narrative of such episodes as
forcibly impressed themselves upon my mind and left an
ineradicable mark upon my memory.

The outbreak of the war found my wife and me in Switzerland,