German trench

“ It added: "It is not really a trench, but a little ditch, shattered with shells—not the slightest cover and no protection. We have lost 50 men in two days, and life is unendurable." White puffs of shrapnel from field guns were lathering the place persistently, so that when the German trenches were broken down it was difficult to repair them or move in them. ”

“ A German firing trench is less various. In it you seem to see the minds of a few large and able contractors; in ours the minds of thousands of good campers-out. To put it in another way, the German trench has, in some measure, the quality of a long street built, well enough, to a single design; ours possesses the charm of a92 strip of coast or a long country lane, where nature or man has made every indentation and turn a surprise, and each farmer has made gates and hedges to his own mind. ”

“ Behind a small hill within the German fortifications a group of officers stood in the moonlight, examining what looked superficially like the hangar of a small dirigible. Nestling behind the hill it cast a black rectangular shadow upon the trampled sand of the redoubt. A score of artisans were busy filling a deep trench through which a huge pipe led off somewhere—a sort of deadly plumbing, for the house sheltered a monster cannon reënforced by jackets of lead and steel, the whole encased in a cooling apparatus of intricate manufacture. ”

“ In the light of their flares they had seen numbers of "Englishmen" advancing over the shoulder of the hill. When the rush came, one German officer told me, he, in his short sector of the line alone, had three machine-guns all hard at work. The attack reached the remnants of the German wire. Some brave men picked a path through the tangle, and, in spite of the cross-fire, managed to reach the German trench. They were very few. We have since discovered men in the craters even beyond the front German trench. ”

“ It is not generally a wise plan to occupy the old German trench, as he has the range of it very accurately, and anyway it is in most cases so badly battered about after our artillery has done with it as not to be at all superior as a residence to the shell-holes in front of it, and it is mostly full of dead Germans which are unearthed by the shells as often as we bury them. God knows the smell of a live German is not a pleasant thing to live near, but as for dead ones! ”

“ A gray wave poured over the parapet of the German first line trench, rolled through the prepared openings in their own barbed-wire entanglements, and advanced, alternately running and creeping, toward the Allied line. But when the Germans were once in the open a terrible thing happened to them. The machine guns from all along the British trenches met them with a rain of bullets that mowed them down as grain falls to the blades of the farmer's reaper. The rifles of the men in khaki, resting on the benches of the parapet, spit constant and deadly fire at them. ”

“ Then he comes back and tries to shoot the machine-gun officer. He has not succeeded yet, but he sticks to his task with gentle persistence. He is evidently of a persevering rather than vindictive disposition.
Then there is Unter den Linden. This celebrated thoroughfare is an old communication-trench. It runs, half-ruined, from the old German trench in our rear, right through our own front line, to the present German trenches. It constitutes such a bogey as the Channel Tunnel scheme once was: each side sits jealously at its own end, anticipating hostile enterprises from the other. ”

“ If we were discovered, we were like rats in a trap. Our way was cut off unless we ran along the wire to the narrow lane we had cut through. With our hearts in our mouths we waited for the three-tap signal to rush the German trench. Three taps had gotten about halfway down the line when suddenly about ten to twenty German star shells were fired all along the trench and landed in the barbed wire in rear of us, turning night into day and silhouetting us against the wall of light made by the flares. ”

“ Theoretically, this O.C. Company may be himself as much in need of sleep as anyone in the trench. Actually, however, apart from his needs, he is personally responsible for whatever may happen in quite a long stretch of dark, mysterious trench: of trench which in one moment may be converted by the ingenious Boche into a raging hell of paralysing gas and smoke, of lurid flame and rending explosion. German officers seated in artillery dug-outs a mile or so away across the far side of No Man's Land may bring about that transformation in one moment. ”

“ Any real picture of what a trench is like cannot be drawn or imagined by a sensitive people. It is, of course, a graveyard—of Germans and British and French. Miners and other workers in the soil (p. 114) drive their tunnel or trench into inconceivable strata. They come upon populous German dugouts, corked by some explosion perhaps a year ago. They are stopped far below ground by a layer of barbed wire, proved by its superior thickness to be German. Every yard they penetrate is what gardeners call "moved soil." ”

“ On an offensive sector it has none of the architectural interest of first line trenches at such places as Soissons or Arras. It was made a week or so ago by joining up shell craters, and if all goes well we move into the German trench along by the line of scraggy trees, at which we peep discreetly, to-morrow night. We can peep discreetly because just at present our guns are putting shrapnel over the enemy at the rate of about three shells a minute, the puffs follow each other up and down the line, and no Germans are staring out to see us. ”

“ If one in three went within three yards of the trench, if one in six fell in the trench, it was, according to the lieutenant, a high average, and as much as any man had a right to expect. But at the end of the hour, the Asterisks, who had been hugely enjoying the performance, and particularly the cessation of German bombs, were horrified to hear a double report from the German trench, and to see two dark blobs fall twinkling from the sky.
The following hour was a nightmare. Their trench-mortar was completely out-shot. ”

“ Periodically German crumps sail overhead with a droning noise, woolly bears burst on one’s flank, and then a salvo coming unpleasantly near makes one remember that the skyline is not recommended by the best people as a place to stand on, and, getting into the trench, you retire again to the dug-out, to wait for the night to cloak your doings.
In the line of trench are men—men not there to fight, not even in support. They are there to clear up the battlefield; for only a few days ago the trench in which you are sitting was the German front line. ”

“ Then we were in a German trench which the French had taken and transformed into one of their own trenches by turning its face. It had a more massive air than the average French trench, and its cellarage, if I may use this civilian word, was deeper than that of any French trench. The officers said that often a German trench was taken before the men resting in those profound sleeping-holes could get to the surface, and that therefore they only emerged in order to be killed or captured. ”

“ It seemed as if the Germans could easily rush these trenches before the men could be called out to meet them, but along the sides of every trench ran one or two telephone wires. Apparently one quick order would have these front trenches lined with men. We came to one of the points nearest the German lines, from where the German trenches seemed a mere stone's-throw. From there French soldiers used to crawl out and fraternize with the Germans, between the lines, but that is now forbidden. ”

“ In that country it is often difficult, with the best will in the world, to tell a trench when you come to it. One of the problems of the modern battle is that, when men are given a trench to take, it is sometimes impossible to recognise that trench when they arrive at it. The stretch in front of the lines is a sea of red earth, in which you may notice, here or there, the protruding timber of some old German gun position with its wickerwork shell-covers around [Pg 142] it—the whole looking like a broken fish basket awash in a muddy estuary. ”

“ There were some shell holes also and at one spot a partly wrecked bomb canister of heavy sheet iron within which a man might crouch unseen by the enemy beyond.
All of these places offered a fair view of the zigzag German trenches for a distance of more than five hundred yards where the trench dipped behind a wooded rise of ground. Beyond this the enemy had their hands full opposing the extension of the American trench which wound about from near the gun pit to and also beyond the wooded slope. ”

“ All the day and night before there had been a succession of sallies from the French trenches. They were really only reconnoitering expeditions, but the Germans had come to think each the precursor of an attack in force, and every time there was the least sign of activity in the French lines the German artillery burst into furious action, shelling the French trenches to prevent a sortie. We arrive as one of these rafales began, and we were halted to seek shelter.
The best trench is not proof against a real bombardment of heavy shells. Parapets crumble in like walls of sand. ”

“ Listening posts and covering parties were sent out, and by morning we were occupying a ditch about three feet deep with a fairly good parapet in front. No fires were permitted, as we were hidden by grass from the enemy and the trench was not yet in shape to stand any bombardment.
The next night we were fortunate in obtaining more sandbags and some timber from a German trench we had passed on the way up. Some mail and parcels of food came up, and we managed to clear out our wounded. Most welcome was ammunition for the flare pistols the officers carried. ”

“ Soldiers who have been fighting near Roye say that the hostile trenches there are only fifteen yards apart at some points, so that the enemies can hear each other talking. Last week a company of sappers were misled by the darkness right into a German trench, where a squad of Teuton sappers were at work. The men fought in the dark with picks and shovels until rifles also began to crack, whereupon each side drew back.
French cemeteries, with their strong stone tombs, sometimes play an important part in the hostilities. ”

“ Each tiny20 scrawl on the surface of such a map represents the labours of hundreds of men, extended over many nights. Second and third lines grew apace, so that a sudden attack of the enemy would still leave trenches to be held and would reduce the German bite to mere nibbles at the forward trench. The communication trenches are driven true and straight from well in the rear, and up these the ration parties toil in safety night after night under their burdens of food, water, ammunition, and R.E. material to feed the front line. ”

“ Work was good for German soldiers, who were kept digging and building for four years in perfecting the security of these intricate human warrens.
Any trench system, after allowing for an enemy's success in clearing the hurdle of the wire and in penetrating the trench system, and even for his successful occupation of considerable stretches of the front line, relied upon "strong points" and second lines in the maze of fortifications to make the gains futile, or only the prelude to a more costly repulse than if the attack had failed in its first stage. ”

“ It is important to note the powerful organizations of the enemy, facing the “Death Trench”, notably the enormous concrete of German sap-heads on the leftbank of the Yser, 42with their iron-plated loopholes and firing ranges, overlooking all the surrounding districts.
The Rider is a work of the greatest interest. It may be considered as a small museum concerning the trench warfare. In the minimum space it utilized in a most judicious way all defensive and offensive implement such as accessory defences and all kinds of liaison systems, which were coordinated to bring the highest efficiency. ”

“ A move by the enemy calls for a counter-move on our part. A new trench dug by him may be found to enfilade our trenches from a certain angle, and while by the construction of new traverses or the heightening of parapet and parados the trench may be rendered immune from sniping, a fresh trench will be dug at a new angle or a machine gun brought up to make life sour for the occupants of the new German position, and force them in their turn to counter-measures. ”

“ Except for occasional Boche shrapnel shells aimed principally at the communication trenches, all remained serene.
A communication trench is not easy to hit, as it makes use of everything available for cover. It is cut through the ruins of barns or houses and seeks in every possible way to conceal itself from enemy observation. As it must run indirectly at right angles to the fire trench and thus toward the German, its zig-zag, tortuous windings are necessary to keep it from being enfiladed by the enemy guns. ”

“ They are keeping a particular sector of German trench under constant observation for the benefit of their own particular battalion.
Taking a pair of binoculars, I look and see the three British barricades of sandbags, for the ground here is too wet to permit of the digging of trenches. ”

“ Once behind the German front trench, the work is easy, for they never look behind or imagine that any of their enemies could be in their rear, and there is no observation from the second or third line trenches. On other occasions we do without the help of the artillery, bombing a gap for ourselves. We arrange to have rifle-grenades fired along three hundred yards of trench except for fifty yards where is our gateway. ”