German soldiers ‘unloading and fixing bayonets’ for an attack??!!

[Lee Smart]

Currently reading Jack Sheldons book on the German Army at Ypres in 1914….many references to them ‘unloading their rifles and fixing bayonets for attack’.

I am confused; why are they unloading their rifles for an attack?… are they just ensuring there is no round in the chamber- and why? 

I would have thought they would have fixed bayonets and loaded a round into the chamber. It doesn’t make sense to m but it is repepeated many times in this book.

Any ideas?

[AOK4]

These were the tactics of the day (not just used by the Germans). In order to prevent soldiers from stopping during the storming of the enemy trenches to fire at the enemy, no bullets were allowed in the rifle. The German tactics also involved that before an infantry attack, one should have overpowered the enemy during the infantry fire phase (during which both sides fired at each other with rifles and machine guns).

It is rather logical when one looks at it from the general tactical ideas of the time.