The grapes of wrath
Bill Bingham believes in putting labels aside
The Bavarian regiment in which Adolf Hitler served in world war one was first engaged by the Black Watch near the village of Langemark on the road to Ypres. The Black Watch were regular troops of the British army and could fire their Lee Enfield rifles at the rate of twenty-five to thirty rounds per minute. The professional Scottish soldiers held their lines, although outnumbered ten to one by the advancing Germans. The members of the Sixteenth Bavarian Reserve Regiment were conscripts and could only manage to fire ten rounds per minute. At one stage there were ten rows of young German soldiers lying dead on the battlefield.
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