Inventions of the Great War

and Under

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 def

eat 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

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

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

eper, 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 ever

x tenths of a mile; or six mi

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 f

ROUND

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 pa

rwood &

Trenches as viewe

r 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

"Scientifi

oscopes to detect the Mini

. 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

ILROADS I

d, 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

S AND "SN

lf 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 ve

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

y Map Reading by per

sharp-shooter could take aim witho

ulder 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

y Map Reading by per

le stand arranged t

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

BRIER

onsisting 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 w

ble 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 destroyin

in the form of big cylindrical frames which would be carried easily by a couple of men and could be placed i

ND COUN

nemy'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.

ere 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

table 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 suspecte