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Cheese and eggs

Event ID: 528

01 May 1915

49.20920148045407, 5.736823108435212
Verdun

Source ID: 43

The Red Knight of Germany, the story of Baron von Richthofen, Floyd Gibbons, 1927, 1959 Bantam Books

So it was that toward the 1st of May, he received instructions to prepare himself for another duty in the service of supply, still farther back from the front lines. Strong as army discipline was in him, he exploded, and the day after that the Commanding General of his Division received one of the shocks of his life when he read the following unmilitary communication from the restless Uhlan: “My Dear Excellency, I have not gone to war in order to collect cheese and eggs, but for another purpose.”

The rest of the letter was an official application for his transfer to the Flying Service. Richthofen’s constructive work in either the infantry, the signal service, or the supply department seems to have been on par with his failure as a cavalryman, and it is not recorded that his departure from the old services was accompanied by any great regret on the part of his superiors. His uncivil letter gained his end and his wish. At the end of May, 1915, he was transferred to the flying service and sent to Cologne for training.

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