View from the trenches

Autumn is approaching. What did it feel like in France one hundred years ago? At the end of September 1916, the German assault on Verdun was stayed, though by no means defeated. The attack in the Somme - which might be regarded as a counter-attack - had chewed off some ground; not much considering the human cost. In a previous blog, I claimed that the Germans learned fast. Tactics which might be successful in terms of trenches overrun and prisoners taken one day ceased to work on the next. The French were also learning. The year before, they might have sent waves of their best troops over open ground to be scythed by enemy fire. (Losses in the Vosges in 1915 hd been truly sickening.) This year, their losses were less and their territory gained was greater compared with the British.

Ruins of Dompierre, just south of the Somme canal, close to Froissy. French soldiers carrying posts and barbed wire to set up new defenses in territory they have gained. From 'Illustration' courtesy M.D. Wright

Slightly earlier, Rudyard Kipling toured the French  Western Front. This is what he heard when he arrived.
'Something bellowed across the folds of the wooded hills; something grunted in reply. Something passed over head, querulously but not without dignity. Two clear fresh barks joined the chorus, and a man moved lazily in the direction of the guns.
"Well, suppose we come and take a look at things a little" said the commmanding officer.
There was a specimen tree. A ladder ran up it to a platform. What little wind there was swayed the tall top, and the ladder creaked like a ship's gangway. A telephone bell tinkled fifty feet (16m) overhead. Two invisible guns spoke fervently for half a minute and broke off like terriers choked on a leash. We climbed till the topmost platform swayed sicklily beneath us. Here one found a rustic shelter, almost of the tea party pattern, a table, a map and a little window wreathed with living branches that gave one a view of the Devil and all his works. It was a stretch of open country, with a few sticks like old tooth-brushes which had once been tree round a farm. The rest was yellow grass, barren to all appearance as the veldt.

Barren grass with a few sticks like old toothbrushes. French soldiers advancing, Somme sector. From 'Illustration' magazine courtesy M.D. Wright

"The grass is yellow because they have used gas here" said the officer. "Their trenches (he meant the Germans') - you can see for yourself"

German 105 howitzer which had originally been concealed in a house. Of prewar design, these were relatively easily transported. They fired a 105mm shell, a nasty response to the French standard 75mm gun. It had an angle of fire of up to 45 degrees; I suspect that improvised positioning has increased this angle! From 'Illustration' Courtesy M.D. Wright

The guns in the wood began again. They seemed to have no relation to the regularly spaced burst of smoke along a little smear in the desert earth two thousand yards away (just under 2000m) - no connection at all to the strong voices overhead coming and going. It was as impersonal as the drive of the sea along a breakwater. Suddenly a seventh wave broke and spread the shape of its foam like a plume overtopping all the others.
"That's one of our torpilleurs - what you call trench-sweepers" said the observer among the whispering leaves.
A little sunshine flooded the stricken landscape and made its chemincal yellow look more foul. A detachment of men moved out on the road which ran towards the French trenches and tehn vanished at the foot of a little rise. Other men appeared, moving towards us with that concentration of purpose and bearing shown in both Armies when - dinner is at hand! They looked as though they had been digging hard'

At the farm of Bois l'Abbe, Somme sector, French troops are digging in. At a rakish angle in the foreground lies a section of prefabricated railway track. The beautiful pressed steel edges of the sleepersproclaim this to be Pachot-designed track. From Illustration magazine courtesy M.D. Wright

Kipling was describing the Verdun sector but there is much that could apply to the Somme as well, the noise, threat of gas and the very present killer explosions and shrapnel. There was relentless digging in and shoring-up of defences by day and long watches of the night, all relieved only by refreshments and humour.
The monotony of killing was deadly. On his tour of the Western Front, Kipling quoted a French officer. "It's the eating-up of a people" He looked at the German lines. "They come and fill the trenches and they die and they die and they send more and those die." He added "We do the same of course."
Yet change was on the way. You, gentle reader, will have noticed all the gunfire in these descriptions. Each French 75mm shell-burst meant two thirds of kilo of high explosive in a metal shell. Each 105mm howitzer had a kilo, also wrapped in a metal envelope ... and these were just the basic guns. Larger ones had shells the size of a person. Proper trench warfare required thousands of tonnes of ammo daily. Thousands of tonnes of ammunition could be dragged in by thousands of pack-animals or worse still humans acting as pack animals. The alternative, given the technology of the time, were trench railways, as originally devised by Colonel Péchot, then seized upon and improved by foe and friend alike. This history is more fully described in 'Colonel Péchot: Tracks to the trenches'
From the top down, Germans learned most quickly. Their trench railways were improving. Petrol-powered locotractors were used at the Front, and a new, sophisticated generation of steam locomotives were on the drawing board. The French, too were learning. To take one example, the supply  of beleagered Verdun was assured not just by the lorries of the Voie Sacrée connecting Bar-le-Duc with Verdun, but by the trains of the narrow-gauge Meusien railway. Quadruple tracks were required for all the traffic. Likewise, bitter experience was raising their game in the trenches.
Meanwhile, the British were just beginning to learn, though we believe the process too far too long.

Somme 1916 a compliment to the Germans

In my last blog, commemorating the incredible spirit shown by both Allied soldiers and their opposition on the Somme, I called the German resistance a Hydra. This was meant as the highest compliment. Yes, I know that the Hydra which faced the Greek hero Heracles in the marshes of Lerne has not had a good press. 

Our brave French boys, snatching their breath during the Somme offensive. THere is something of the Heracles about them. Photo courtesy MD Wright from Illustration

We all love Heracles. He was strong and handsome. He took the side of the poor. He was a good friend. He didn't have things all his own way. He appreciated the charms of the ladies. The Hydra, on the other hand, was not very attractive. It lived in the wilds and its diet was creratures it had poisoned with its venomous teeth. Once Heracles attacked it, it became even less attractive, sprouting new heads whenever one was cut off. It was the stuff of nightmares.

German prisoners taken in th efirst few days of fighting Photo courtesy MD Wright from Illustration

But let me say a few things in the favour of the Hydra. Heracles attacked it, not the other way around. It couldn't help being ugly. Let Nassim Nicholas Taleb, one of our most interesting politico-economico-philosophers defend it. It may seem to 'wake up, overreact and overcompensate to stressors and damage.... the sucker game is to try to repress (it)'... As 'the Irish revolutionary song' goes:
'The higher you build your barricades, the stronger we become'
For the Hydra actually become stronger with opposition, unless, like Heracles, more astute ruses are found by its assailant.
The Allied attack on the Somme was something like a dim Heracles. Against them, the Germans had relatively few troops - activity was at Verdun in the West and Russia in the East. In the Peronne sector, there was a total 15.6 kilometres of Feldbahn, even in August, well after the Somme offensive had started. (My source 'Heeresfeldbahnen' by Alfred Gottwadlt p 111) This supply system was vital for provisions, ammunition and reinforcements. Territory was taken and prisoners in the first bloody days. Reinforcements were slow to come - the High Command had to ease off pressure in the Verdun sector to free up troops and equipment. For a while, the Germans were thrown on their own resources. Their orders from above were not to cede territory. They learned new tricks of camouflage. For example, they had always concealed their observers in high towers. These were an obvious target for enemy artillery, so they took to the woods.

The remains of the sucrerie/sugar refinery at Dompierre above Froissy in early July 1916 The French have just taken it. The building has been completely destroyed, mainly to evict enemy observers and snipers. Painting Francois Flameng Courtesy MD Wright

The British volunteer army had been drilled to advance in formation, bayonets fixed, and so the woods proved excellent strong points for German resistance. Shellfire damaged trees, giving the defenders yet more cover. The Germans had not been specifically trained for this sort of war, but they were willing to learn. The British continued to follow the original strategy and so their attacks were unbelievably sanguine affairs. This was not the fault of the ordinary soldier, but the Heracles rather than Hydra attitude instilled by their training.
When their trenches and artillery were targeted by Allied guns, assisted by 'spotter' aeroplanes, the Germans learned to move out. If a shellhole was the best protection, they went there. If camouflage was needed, they improvised it. A ground sheet rubbed with mud would do.

This German mortar was originally concealed in a house. Its cover has been literally 'blown away' The Germans responded by new strategies of concealment. Courtesy MD Wright 'Illustration'

Guns were moved into farm buildings if necessary. Photographs from the period show the ferocity of the war, how advacing soldiers struggled over broken terrain, how any high building was destroyed, how every building and every path was wrecked in the end.
In due course, the Germans changed strategy again and traded terrain for lives, but that was later.