by Simon Jones
The French would never allow themselves to be attacked in such a passive manner: ‘Battles in entrenched camps as occurred at Plevna or Mukden will never take place in a war with the French army.’14
The French, however, retained, and to some extent updated, their manuals for mining prior to the outbreak of war. These included comprehensive coverage of areas such as shaft sinking, driving of galleries, the construction of charge chambers, the calculation of charges, ventilation, lighting, the use of a range of mechanical boring devices, the preparation and firing of charges and rescue work.15 The French also included siege warfare practice in their 1913 manoeuvres.16
Diagrammatic representation of a scheme of countermines. The listening galleries or écoutes (E), 30-40m in length, run from a counterscarp gallery beneath the fortress or from a covering (envelope) gallery (A–B). The listening galleries may be linked by transversals (T) to improve security and ventilation. Smaller galleries, rameaux de combat, or attack branches (r), are run to deal with sounds of the attacker, from which charges may be blown. From the French Livre de l’officier of 1908.
Calculation of a mine charge and the radius of rupture. From the French Livre de l’officier of 1908.
A timbered shaft sunk in easy ground, 1m square, to 6m depth. From the French Livre de l’officier of 1908.
The timbers for the French rameaux de combat, or attack branch gallery, 60cm wide by 70cm high. This was the smallest gallery, designed to be driven quickly towards an enemy mine. From the French École de Mines manual of 1909.
Instruction in change of gradient of a close-timbered mine gallery. From the French École de Mines manual of 1909.
A large French hand-powered mine ventilator, 1879 model. Pre-war equipment proved too noisy for use in trench warfare. From the French École de Mines manual of 1909.
In 1907 the British staged their first siege exercise since 1887 at the School of Military Engineering at Chatham. For two months mines were advanced beneath two obsolete forts and a number of charges were fired. These manoeuvres were provoked by the events of the Russo-Japanese war and, in particular:
…the want of technical skill shewn by the Japanese troops in their attack on Port Arthur, directed the attention of the English Military Authorities to the great necessity for the instruction of troops in siege warfare, more especially with regard to mining and counter-mining operations, the study of which had been practically neglected for many years. It was thought that the days of mining and of hand grenades were numbered. The recent Russo-Japanese war has, however, clearly demonstrated that this is far from being the case.17
The forts around Chatham, though obsolete, were chosen because they possessed many features in common with those around Port Arthur. Following the exercises many practical lessons were reported on. The sappers discovered that in the chalk their galleries could be mainly unsupported by timbering, and that rather than sinking vertical shafts, sloping, inclined galleries started a few yards back were preferable from the point of view of spoil removal and ventilation. Progress was about 2ft an hour, but some men were much more expert than others. It was important to conceal the excavated spoil so that the locations of mine entrances were not given away to the enemy. A former miner who visited the exercise and another serving in the infantry showed that experience enabled men much more clearly to estimate the distances of sounds heard underground. The noise of picking in chalk was distinct from 20m away and just audible at 45m. Footsteps were very clear and the commanding engineer of the defenders recommended the use of rubber or rope-soled shoes, hobnail boots also being dangerous in flinty ground when handling explosives. The small trucks used for removing the spoil were too noisy, and it was recommended that they should have rubber tyres and ball bearings. On several occasions the opposing mine galleries broke into one another, but there was difficulty in deciding who occupied the gallery. It was thought that such cases would not occur in war, as one side or other would probably fire a charge before the galleries actually met. However, the commander of the attacking forces was able, by reference to Vauban’s Traité des Mines of 1795, to verify that such encounters did occasionally occur and for such eventualities he recommended the use of pistols, knives and grenades, as well as a small shield on wheels.18 Sophisticated deception measures were employed or suggested, such as the use of work in a shallow tunnel to disguise work at a lower level, and for some men to continue picking to disguise that fact that a gallery was being charged with explosives and tamped.
The most dramatic event of the exercise was the blowing of five charges of 225lbs gunpowder to destroy the sheer counterscarp wall of the defensive ditch, which could then be assaulted. All charges were fired electrically, but there were some problems with over-sensitive fuses. The largest charge blown was 414lbs, but the gas produced by the explosion hampered the advance of the miners:
British mining equipment from the 1911 manual, but recognisable to sappers of the Crimean War.
…it was found that although it was possible to enter the galleries very shortly after the various explosions, yet that directly an attempt was made to go on excavating, the gases confined in the debris escaped, causing nausea, and in one case insensibility.19
The standard issue of breathing apparatus for entering the gassy galleries, of which two types were described in the report, was primitive and of no use, and had probably been in store for many years as the rubber was perished. The Denayrouze respirator (see below), designed for entering only a short distance, was a long tube held in the mouth, fitted with a one-way valve which prevented exhaled air being re-inhaled. The air was not pumped, but had to be sucked in by the wearer. The one issued to the defenders was in too poor condition to be tried: ‘…it does not seem a very efficient arrangement, is most unpleasant to use, and unless each man had his own mouthpiece, most unhygienic.’20
The other type, the Applegarth Aérophore, comprised a copper helmet, resembling that of a diver, to which was attached a water and gas-proof jacket. Air was fed into the helmet with a hand pump. The apparatus was not designed for walking stooped in a mine gallery and the window in the helmet, which also quickly became misted, prevented the wearer from seeing more than a few feet in front: ‘Captain Charles, who tried this apparatus, reports that he was very nearly stifled after about two minutes.’21
It was recommended that more upto-date rescue apparatus be obtained. The commander of the attacking force also recommended that the army again have specialist miners amongst its personnel:
The Denayrouze respirator. From the French École de Mines manual of 1909.
The Applegarth Aérophore, a copper helmet fed by an air pump, already out of date when it was tried at the 1907 siege exercise. When issued in France in 1915 it was mistaken for diving apparatus. From the British 1911 mining manual.
If, as seems not improbable, mining operations are likely to be frequently undertaken in future wars, I would suggest that the trade of miner should be re-introduced into the Corps of Royal Engineers.22
The report of the exercise, printed at Chatham, contained many useful lessons, but as the Chief Instructor in Fortification at the School of Military Engineering on the outbreak of war, R.N. Harvey, recalled: ‘Unfortunately the report on these operations was treated as confidential and the lessons derived from the exercise were not generally known.’23
Following the exercise the British War Office appointed a committee in 1908 ‘to consider and report as to the means for maintaining and improving the science of siege warfare.’ It recommended that Royal Engineer (RE) units be earmarked as Siege Companies and trained annually in siege exercises.24 In line with this, the 20th and 42nd Fortress Companies Royal Engineers staged a siege exercise at Lulworth in June 1913, against an earthwork based on part of a fort at Port Arthur. Although not on the scale of the Chatham exercise, practical experience was again gained and a 250lb (113kg) gunpowder charge was blown. The detection of the opposing miners by listening was found to be highly subjective and means were tried
to improve the effectiveness: ‘One method of listening is to drive a peg in, bite on it and stop your ears.’25
A boring tool devised by Captain Rogers was tried, and found to be valuable in soft ground where the mines were within a few feet of one another, but on very stony ground it was said to be hardly worth trying.26 After blowing a 100lb (45kg) camouflet the danger of carbon monoxide was a nasty revelation:
As soon as untamping began at the far end of the air space, the officer and men working began to feel giddy and faint; no fumes or smell were observable and a candle burned well; it was probable that carbon monoxide was present, and the Medical Officer and War Office Chemist, who were present confirmed this view. Work had to be stopped, it was resumed next morning, but had to be suspended at once. The Chemist gave it as his opinion that the poisonous gas might remain absorbed in the earth and sandbags for days and even weeks.27
The camouflet not forming a crater, there was nowhere for the gas to vent and it remained trapped in the gallery and surrounding strata.
Renewed interest in the problems of siege warfare was reflected by the formation of a siege committee chaired by Major General Hickman, which sat in 1914 to consider the resources needed to attack a German fortress, in particular the heavy artillery requirements. It also considered engineering resources and recommended that gunpowder should remain the standard explosive for mining and that an apparatus for bored mines should be provided. The committee reported in December 1914, by which time events had overtaken it.28 The war had been in progress four months and trench warfare was established along the Western Front. The impossibility of assailing field fortifications without very high casualties was proven beyond doubt and siege warfare techniques, including sapping and mining, were in progress against them.
The British issued new manuals on Mining and Demolitions and Attack and Defence of Fortresses in 1910. These incorporated some of the lessons of the 1907 exercise, but had not kept up with civilian practice in respect of technology, equipment and explosives. The authors also refused to anticipate that defensive works constructed in the field could be sufficient to stop a determined attack; defences were described as ‘storm-proof ’ where: ‘…attacking infantry can be destroyed as fast as they can approach, no matter how great their dash and determination.’29
Such a work, according to the manual, could ‘only be rendered storm-proof by the construction of a deep ditch’ a notion later ridiculed by the Royal Engineer Corps History:
In short: by the methods of the eighteenth century! This too after the South African War, ten years earlier, in which Boer defensive positions consisting of simple trenches and barbed wire had proved themselves over and over again to be storm-proof! The general attitude taken up in regard to instruction in siege works was that operations in a European war would be so mobile that the necessity for siege operations would be most unlikely to arise.30
This attitude extended to all the major belligerents. There were, however, some officers, mainly engineers, who recognised the difficulties that trenches and barbed wire could cause and that the attack might be held up to such an extent that mining would be necessary. A French army engineer, Captain Genez, in 1914 concluded in a historical study of underground warfare that the experience of the Russo-Japanese War suggested that mining might in future have to be used in the attack and defence of not only fortresses, but also defensive field works.31 This view was echoed by Lieutenant Colonel R.N. Harvey RE, the Chief Instructor in Fortification at the School of Military Engineering, who, in a lecture to senior officers in 1914 on the problem of attacking barbed wire, ended with a similar proposal:
There remains the way under, by which the entanglements may be destroyed by mining. This, I think, will be the way of the future, for it is difficult to imagine any troops again facing the carnage wrought at Port Arthur.32
After the war Harvey described the pre-war training of RE units as:
…usually limited to 2 or 3 days and by special care this period could be so extended that a gallery of some 30ft could be completed and a mine laid and fired. The mines of course [were] driven in the most favourable soil available.
For the conditions that the British were to meet in 1914 he described this as ‘almost useless’.33
In 1920 Toepfer, who as a Captain fourteen years before had hoped for more prominence for the technical troops, lamented the lack of preparation for mining on the outbreak of war:
When in the Russo-Japanese War the Russian Sappers advanced against individual Japanese strongpoints by mining, the fact was not really heeded that, as a development of defensive warfare, trench warfare was born.34
In the world war, he said, the arena of combat for the miner shifted from the fortress to no man’s land, and mining became a weapon of major importance for commanders. Major deficiencies soon become apparent, however, with the German mining capability. There was a lack of proper principles for underground warfare and the tactical and technical training was inadequate, both at the level of command and among troops. The ‘high command frequently didn’t know where to start’. The miners were competent at sinking shafts and driving tunnels at shallow depths through easily workable soil, but ‘experience was lacking’ and the impact of geological strata and water levels were insufficiently studied or considered. Technologically the military had fallen behind the civilian mining industry and so the equipment available was not remotely adequate for a vigorous and intense mining programme: ‘It was not easy to find civilians with mining experience involved in the military effort.’ Finally, the pioneers alone could not deal with the situation:
The trained pioneer mining personnel were not numerous enough by far and the engineer field companies were by training and number unable properly to increase mine warfare to the full extent, so that professionally trained and also untrained auxiliary workers had to be called on.35
Toepfer’s analysis of the shortcomings of German mining on the eve of the war also reflected the ability of the Germans to respond to the shortcomings. The assimilation of civilian mining experience and technology into the armed forces was to be a deciding factor in the coming struggle.
Chapter 2
Mining Operations 1914 – early 1915
The predictions of Toepfer, Genez and Harvey were proved correct in 1914. After a war of movement during August-September, fought according to doctrines of the primacy of the offensive, the German advance was halted at the Battle of the Marne. Both sides dug in along the River Aisne, with trenches and barbed wire in positions which proved extremely costly to capture with artillery and infantry attacks. Within a few weeks siege warfare-style sapping and mining attacks were begun by the German and French forces.
On the Argonne front the French 22/3 Company of the 1st Regiment of Engineers began constructing underground shelters for the infantry on 15 October, and ten days later commenced a system of countermines by driving rameaux de combat in front of its lines. By 7 December this system was complete, providing defence against possible German underground attack.1 The French 4th Army remedied the shortage of engineers that this warfare engendered in the Argonne with provisional engineer battalions, comprising auxiliary companies formed from the infantry.2
South of the River Somme, at Dompierre, in October the general commanding the 28th Division ordered an attack on the village by sapping and mining. The lieutenant commanding the 14/2 Engineer Company pointed out that the distance to be covered, 300m, and the lack of mining material, would make the operation very lengthy, and in this he was backed by the Chief Engineer of the Corps. This was overruled by the Divisional commander and mining was started by two companies. On 11 November the Germans took prisoner some soldiers of the French engineers, who revealed that in their sector major mine workings were in progress. Counter measures were assigned to the 3rd Bavarian Pioneer Company, who took delivery four days later of a consignment of timber mining frames, ‘the first of millions and yet more millions’ and commenced the construction of underground listening posts the s
ame day. Thus mining escalated and spread along the whole front of the French 28th Division. It continued for ten months, but without significant results for either side.3
The Germans provided the necessary pioneer troops for the unfolding trench warfare by expanding eight fortress battalions into regiments, the various companies being split up and allotted to different sectors. These extra companies were particularly useful for sapping and mining and were the only German troops who had practised mining before the war. They were under army command, which meant that potentially they could remain in a sector when divisions were relieved. This advantage for the miners, however, was not always exploited.4 One of the earliest attacks by sapping and mining, which culminated in the blowing of underground mines, was made in the woods of Argonne on 13 November by one of the fortress units, the 2nd Company of the 30th Rhineland Pioneer Regiment. In early November the Pioneers drove forward saps and used grenades to defend them from French attack. As in a siege, the work of the sappers was particularly dangerous:
Most sap heads had already approached quite close to the enemy posts. The attempts by the French to prevent our sapping led to violent hand grenade fights. Since these were a novelty, it was recognized as a particularly brave act that Pioneer Weils picked up a French grenade and pulled out the burning fuse. After that use was often made of this method; also French hand grenades with burning fuses were frequently thrown back.
