Battle of Langemarck

Three months later conflict in the West has become static warfare from the English Channel to the Vosges Mountains. On 14 November 1914, near the small town of Langemarck, ca. 2,000 young, for the most part insufficiently trained, recruits attempt to capture a ridge. They run into concentrated machine gun fire and are literally „mowed down“. On the next day the official army report stresses that the soldiers – mostly school pupils – met a „hero’s death“ in the attack singing the German anthem.

Source: balsi.de The battle of Langemarck - map showing the sequence of events

Thus the „myth of Langemarck“ is born. A few decades later it is offered up by National Socialist rulers as a justification for requiring selfless devotion to nation and fatherland.