Inventions of the Great War

The War in and Under the Ground

For years the Germans had been preparing for war. The whole world knew this, but it had no idea how elaborate were their preparations, and how these were carried out to the very minutest detail. When the call to arms was sounded, it was a matter of only a few hours before a vast army had been assembled-fully armed, completely equipped, ready to swarm over the frontiers into Belgium and thence into France. It took much longer for the French to raise their armies of defense, and still longer for the British to furnish France with any adequate help. Despite the heroic resistance of Belgium, the Entente Allies were unprepared to stem the tide of German soldiers who poured into the northern part of France.

So easy did the march to Paris seem, that the Germans grew careless in their advance and then suddenly they met with a reverse that sent them back in full retreat. However, the military authorities of Germany had studied not only how to attack but also how to retreat and how to stand on the defensive. In this, as in every other phase of the conflict, they were far in advance of the rest of the world, and after their defeat in the First Battle of the Marne, they retired to a strong position and hastily prepared to stand on the defensive. When the Allies tried to drive them farther back, they found that the German army had simply sunk into the ground. The war of man?uver had given way to trench warfare, which lasted through long, tedious months nearly to the end of the great conflict.

The Germans found it necessary to make the stand because the Russians were putting up such a strong fight on Germany's eastern frontier. Men had to be withdrawn from the western front to stem the Russian tide, which meant that the western armies of the kaiser had to cease their offensive activities for the time being. The delay was fatal to the Germans, for they had opposed to them not only brave men but intelligent men who were quick to learn. And when the Germans were ready to resume operations in the West, they found that the Allies also had sunk into the ground and had learned all their tricks of trench warfare, adding a number of new ones of their own.

The whole character of the war was changed. The opposing forces were dead-locked and neither could break through the other's lines. The idea of digging into the ground did not originate with this war, but never before had it been carried out on so extensive a scale. The inventive faculties of both sides were vainly exercised to find some way of breaking the dead-lock. Hundreds of new inventions were developed. The history of war from the days of the ancient Romans up to the present time was searched for some means of breaking down the opposing lines. However, the dead-lock was not broken until a special machine had been invented, a traveling fort. But the story of that machine is told in another chapter.

At the outset the Allies dug very shallow ditches, such as had been used in previous wars. When it was found that these burrows would have to be occupied for weeks and months, the French and British imitated the Germans and dug their trenches so deep that men could walk through them freely, without danger of exposing their heads above ground; and as the ditches grew deeper, they had to be provided with a firing-step on which the riflemen could stand to fire over the top of the trenches. The trenches were zig-zagged so that they could not be flanked, otherwise they would have made dangerous traps for the defenders; for had the enemy gained one end of the trench, he could have fired down the full length of it, killing or wounding every man it contained. But zig-zagging made it necessary to capture each turn separately. There were lines upon lines of these trenches. Ordinarily there were but three lines, several hundred feet apart, with communicating trenches connecting them, and then several kilometers1 farther back were reserve trenches, also connected by communicating trenches with the front lines.

1 A kilometer is, roughly, six tenths of a mile; or six miles would equal ten kilometers.

Men did not dare to show themselves out in the open near the battle-front for a mile or more behind the front-line trenches, for the enemy's sharp-shooters were always on the watch for a target. The men had to stay in the trenches day and night for two or more weeks at a time, and sleeping-accommodations of a very rough sort were provided for them in dugouts which opened into the trenches. The dugouts of the Allies were comparatively crude affairs, but the Germans spent a great deal of time upon their burrows.

UNDERGROUND VILLAGES

When the French first swept the Germans back out of their trenches along the Aisne, they were astonished to find how elaborate were these underground dwellings. They found that the ground was literally honeycombed with rooms and passageways. Often the dugouts were two stories in depth and extended as much as sixty feet below the level of the ground. In fact, all along this part of the front, the Germans had a continuous underground village in which thousands of men were maintained. The officers' quarters were particularly well fitted up, and every attention was given to the comfort of their occupants. There were steel door-mats at the entrances of the quarters. The walls were boarded and even papered. The bedrooms were fitted with spring beds, chiffoniers, and wash-stands, and all the rooms were lighted with electric lamps. There were spacious quarters for the men, with regular underground mess halls and elaborate kitchens. There were power-plants to furnish steam for the operation of pumps and for the lighting-plants and for other purposes.

(C) Underwood & Underwood

Lines of Zig-Zag Trenches as viewed from an Airplane

There was a chalk formation here in which were many large natural caves. One enormous cave was said to have held thirty thousand soldiers, and in this section the Germans kept large reserve forces. By digging far into the ground, the German troops secured protection from shell-fire; in fact, the horrible noise of battle was heard only as a murmur, down in these depths. With characteristic thoroughness, the Germans built their trench system for a long stay; while the Allies, on the other hand, looked upon their trenches as merely temporary quarters, which would hold the enemy at bay until they could build up armies large enough to drive the invaders out of the country. The construction of the trenches along some parts of the battle-line was particularly difficult, because of the problem of drainage. This was especially true in Flanders, where the trenches in many cases were below water-level, and elaborate pumping-systems had to be installed to keep them dry. Some of them were concrete-lined to make them waterproof. In the early stages of the war, before the trenches were drained, the men had to stand in water for a good part of the time, and the only way they could get about at all in the miry trenches was by having "duck-boards" in them. Duck-boards are sections of wooden sidewalk such as we find in small villages in this country, consisting of a couple of rails on which crosspieces of wood are nailed. These duck-boards fairly floated in the mud.

Courtesy of "Scientific American"

French Sappers using Stethoscopes to detect the Mining Operations of the Enemy

Some of the trenches were provided with barbed wire barriers or gates calculated to halt a raiding-party if it succeeded in getting into the trench. These gates were swung up out of the way, but when lowered they were kept closed with a rather complicated system of bolts which the enemy would be unable to unfasten without some delay; and while he was struggling to get through the gate, he would be a target for the bullets of the defenders.

HIDING RAILROADS IN DITCHES

Because of the elaborate system of trenches, and the distance from the front line to that part of the country where it was safe to operate in the open, it was necessary to build railways which would travel through tunnels and communicating trenches to the front lines. These were narrow-gage railroads and a special standard form of track section was designed, which was entirely of metal, something like the track sections of toy railroads. The tracks were very quickly laid and taken up at need. The locomotives had to be silent and smokeless and so a special form of gasolene locomotive was invented to haul the little cars along these miniature railroads to the front lines. Usually the trench railroads did not come to the very front of the battle-line, but their principal use was to carry shell to the guns which were located in concealed positions. Railroad or tramway trenches could not be sharply zig-zagged but had to have easy curves, which were apt to be recognized by enemy airplanes, and so they were often concealed under a covering of wire strewn with leaves.

PERISCOPES AND "SNIPERSCOPES"

But while the armies were buried underground, it was necessary for them to keep their eyes upon each other so that each might be ready for any sudden onslaught of the other. Snipers were always ready to fire at any head that showed itself above the parapet of the trench and so the soldiers had to steal an idea from the submarines and build them periscopes with which they could look over the top of their trenches without exposing themselves. A trench periscope was a very simple affair, consisting of a tube with two mirrors, one at the top and one at the bottom, set at such an angle that a person looking into the side of the tube at the bottom could see out of the opposite side of the tube at the top.

Observation posts were established wherever there was a slight rise in the ground. Sometimes these posts were placed far in advance of the trenches and sometimes even behind the trenches where it was possible to obtain a good view of the opposing lines. Sometimes a tunnel would be dug forward, leading to an outlet close to the enemy's lines, and here an observer would take his position at night to spy with his ears upon the activities of the enemy. Observers who watched the enemy by day would often not dare to use periscopes, which might be seen by the enemy and draw a concentrated fire of rifles and even shell. So that every manner of concealment was employed to make the observation posts invisible and to have them blend with their surroundings. Observers even wore veils so that the white of their skin would not betray them.

Redrawn from Military Map Reading by permission of E. C. McKay

Fig 1. A "sniperscope" with which a sharp-shooter could take aim without showing his head above the parapet

Snipers were equally ingenious in concealing themselves. They frequently used rifles which were connected with a dummy butt and had a periscope sighting-attachment. This attachment was called a "sniperscope." The rifle-barrel could be pushed through a loophole in the parapet and the sniper standing safely below the parapet could hold the dummy butt to his shoulder and aim his rifle with perfect accuracy by means of the periscope. It was next to impossible to locate a sniper hidden in this way. One method of doing it was to examine rubbish, tin cans, or any object that had been penetrated by a bullet and note the direction taken by the bullet. This would give a line leading toward the source of the shot, and when a number of such lines were traced, they would cross at a spot where the sniper or his gun was stationed, and a few shell would put the man out of business. Dummy heads of papier maché were sometimes stuck above the parapet to draw the fire of enemy snipers and the bullet-holes which quickly appeared in them were studied to discover the location of the snipers.

Redrawn from Military Map Reading by permission of E. C. McKay

Fig. 2. A fixed rifle stand arranged to be fired after dark

Sometimes fixed rifles were used. These were set on stands so that they could be very accurately trained upon some important enemy post. Then they could be fired in the dark, without aiming, to disturb night operations of the enemy. Often a brace of rifles, as many as six, would be coupled up to be fired simultaneously, and by operating a single lever each gun would throw out the empty cartridge shell and bring a fresh one into position.

STEEL BRIER PATCHES

The most important defense of a trench system consisted in the barbed wire entanglements placed before it. Barbed wire, by the way, is an American invention, but it was originally intended for the very peaceful purpose for keeping cattle within bounds. Long ago it was used in war, but never to the extent to which it was employed in this world struggle. The entanglements were usually set up at night and were merely fences consisting of stout posts driven into the ground and strung with barbed wire running in all directions, so as to make an impenetrable tangle. Where it was possible to prepare the entanglements without disturbance and the position was an important one, the mass of barbed wire often extended for a hundred yards or more in depth. Just beyond the entanglements trip-wires were sometimes used. A trip-wire was a slack wire which was laid on the ground. Before being laid, the wire was tightly coiled so that it would not lie flat, but would catch the feet of raiders and trip them up. Each side had "gates" in the line through which this wire could quickly be removed to let its own raiding-parties through. Sometimes raiders used tunnels, with outlets beyond the barbed wire, but they had to cut their way through the metal brier patches of their opponents.

Early in the war, various schemes were devised for destroying the entanglements. There were bombs in the form of a rod about twelve feet long, which could be pushed under the wire and upon exploding would tear it apart. Another scheme was to fire a projectile formed like a grapnel. The projectile was attached to the end of a cable and was fired from a small gun in the same way that life-lines are thrown out to wrecks near shore. Then the cable would be wound up on a winch and the grapnel hooks would tear the wire from its fastenings. Such schemes, however, did not prove very practicable, and it was eventually found that a much better way of destroying barbed wire was to bombard it with high-explosive shell, which would literally blow the wire apart. But it required a great deal of shelling to destroy these entanglements, and it was really not until the tank was invented that such obstructions could be flattened out so that they formed no bar to the passage of the soldiers.

The Germans not only used fixed entanglements, but they had large standard sections of barbed wire arranged in the form of big cylindrical frames which would be carried easily by a couple of men and could be placed in position at a moment's notice to close a gap in the line or even to build up new lines of wire obstruction.

MINES AND COUNTER-MINES

In the earlier stages of the war it proved so impossible to capture a trench when it was well defended by machine-guns that efforts were made to blow up the enemy by means of mines. Tunnels were dug reaching out under the enemy's lines and large quantities of explosives were stored in them. At the moment when it was intended to make an assault, there would be a heavy cannonading to disconcert the enemy, and then the mine would be touched off. In the demoralizing confusion that resulted, the storming-party would sweep over the enemy. Such mines were tried on both sides, and the only protection against them was to out-guess the other side and build counter-mines.

If it were suspected, from the importance of a certain position and the nature of the ground, that the enemy would probably try to undermine it, the defenders would dig tunnels of their own toward the enemy at a safe distance beyond their own lines and establish listeners there to see if they could hear the mining-operations of their opponents. Very delicate microphones were used, which the listeners would place on the ground or against the walls of their tunnel. Then they would listen for the faintest sound of digging, just as a doctor listens through a stethoscope to the beating of a patient's heart or the rush of air through his lungs. When these listening-instruments picked up the noise of digging, the general direction of the digging could be followed out by placing the instrument at different positions and noting where the noise was loudest. Then a counter-mine would be extended in that direction, far enough down to pass under the enemy's tunnel, and at the right moment, a charge of TNT (trinitrotoluol) would be exploded, which would destroy the enemy's sappers and put an end to their ambitious plans.

A very interesting case of mining was furnished by the British when they blew up the important post of Messines Ridge. This was strongly held by the Germans and the only way of dislodging the enemy was to blow off the top of the ridge. Before work was started, geologists were called upon to determine whether or not the ground were suitable for mining-operations. They picked out a spot where the digging was good from the British side, but where, if counter-mines were attempted from the German side, quicksands would be encountered and tunneling of any sort would be difficult. The British sappers could, therefore, proceed with comparative safety. The Germans suspected that something of the sort was being undertaken, but they found it very difficult to dig counter-mines. However, one day their suspicions were confirmed, when the whole top of the hill was blown off, with a big loss of German lives. In the assault that followed the British captured the position and it was annexed to the British lines.