Underground Warfare 1914-1918

by Simon Jones

  4. Captain Genez, Histoire de la Guerre Souterraine, (Librairie Militaire Berger Levrault, Paris, 1914) (translated in Royal Engineers Journal, Vol. XX, 1914), p. 321.

  5. Bruno Zschokke, Handbuch der militärischen Sprengtechnik für Offiziere aller Waffen, (Verlag von Veit & Comp., Leipzig, 1911), p. 162.

  6. Mark Grimsley ‘Siege of Petersburg’ in John Whiteclay Chambers II (Ed.), Oxford Companion to American Military History, (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999), p. 546; ‘V L’, ‘The Engineers in Grant’s Campaigns of 1864–5’, Royal Engineers Journal, Sept. 1938, p. 131.

  7. Zschokke op. cit., p247–249.

  8. Dupuy op. cit.

  9. Extracts from the old mining regulations Issued by the General of Pioneers, Army Headquarters, Laon, April 1915. SS461 General Staff 1916.

  10. Zschokke, op. cit., p. 163; [anon.] Instruction allemand sur le service du pionier dans la guerre de siège (1913), (Ministère de la Guerre Paris 1915); [anon.] Sprengvorschrift von 1911, (Georg Bath, Berlin, 1918).

  11. Col. G.H. Addison, ‘The German Engineer and Pioneer Corps,’ The Royal Engineers Journal, Vol. LVI Dec. 1942, p. 313.

  12. Toepfer (Captain), ‘Technics in the Russo-Japanese War’, (from the Kriegstechnische Zeitschrift, 1906), Professional Memoirs. Corps of Engineers, United States Army and Engineer Department at Large. Vol. II, No.6 (1910) pp. 192–3; 201.

  13. Anon., ‘German regulations for field fortifications and conclusions reached in Russia from the battles in defensive positions in Manchuria’ [Translation from The Militär Wochenblatt], Professional Memoirs. Corps of Engineers, United States Army and Engineer Department at Large, Vol. II, No.7 (1910), pp. 365, 369.

  14. Major De Pardieu, A Critical Study of German Tactics and of the New German Regulations, (trans. Captain Charles F. Martin), (United States Cavalry Association, Kansas, 1912), p. 117.

  15. Écoles du Génie, Instruction Pratique, École de Mines, Livre de l’Officier (approbation ministérielle du 25 Juillet 1908), (Imprimerie Nationale, Paris, 1916); Écoles du Génie, École de Mines, approbation ministérielle du 16 Juillet 1901, Édition mis à jour jusqu’au 30 avril 1909, (Imprimerie Nationale Paris 1918).

  16. La Butte Meurtrie Vauquois La guerre des mines 1914–1918, (Les Amis de Vauquois et de sa Région, 2004), p. 180.

  17. Report of the Siege Operations held at Chatham July and August 1907, (Chatham: School of Military Engineering, 1907), p. 7.

  18. Ibid., p. 27.

  19. Ibid., p. 31.

  20. Ibid., p. 45.

  21. Ibid.

  22. Ibid., p. 30.

  23. Mining in France 1914–1917 by Major-General R.N. Harvey, late Inspector of Mines, p. 1, National Archives (NA), WO106/387.

  24. First Report of the committee on Siege and Fortress Warfare, 1908, p. 3, NA, WO33/2986.

  25. Major G.R. Pridham, RE, Siege Operations carried out by the 20th and 42nd Companies, Royal Engineers, June, 1913, p. 11, NA WO279/50.

  26. Op. cit., p. 12.

  27. Op. cit., p. 11.

  28. Interim Report of Major-General Hickman’s Siege Committee, November 1914, NA, WO33/699; Report of the Committee on Siege Artillery Material, December 1914, NA, WO33/701.

  29. Military Engineering (Part II.) Attack and Defence of Fortresses, General Staff, War Office, 1910. (London: HMSO 1910), p. 5.

  30. Major General H.L. Pritchard RE (Ed.), History of the Corps of Royal Engineers, Vol. V., (Chatham, The Institution of Royal Engineers, 1952), p. 454.

  31. Genez, op. cit., p. 394.

  32. Lt Col R.N. Harvey, ‘Obstacles. Their tactical use, construction, and methods of destruction or surmounting them,’ The Royal Engineers Journal, Vol. XX, No. 4, October 1914, p. 217.

  33. Harvey, Mining in France, op. cit., pp. 1–2.

  34. Colonel Toepfer, ‘Minenkämpfe’ in M. Schwarte (Ed.) Die Militärischen Lehren des Großen Krieges, (Ernst Siegfried Mittler und Sohn, Berlin, 1920), p. 211.

  35. Op. cit., p. 212.

  Chapter 2

  1. [Anon.], 1er et 21e Régiments du Génie Historique, (Judas & Machard, n.d.), p. 67.

  2. Ministère de la Guerre, État-Major de l’Armée – Service Historique, Les Armées françaises dans la grande guerre, Vol. II, (Imp. Nationale, Paris, 1931), App. 427.

  3. Report of article by Col. Baills in Revue du Génie Militaire, June 1929, RE Journal December 1929 Vol. XLIII, p.189; August Lehmann, Das K. B. [Königliches Bayerisches] Pionier=Regiment (Max Schick, Munich, 1927), pp. 97, 99.

  4. General Staff, Handbook of the German Army at War, April, 1918, reprinted as German Army Handbook April 1918, (Arms and Armour Press, London, 1977), pp.97–100.

  5. Karl Witte, 3. Rheinisches Pionier=Bataillon Nr. 30 (Gerhard Stalling, Berlin, 1928), pp. 39–40.

  6. Ernst Schmidt, Argonnen, (Gerhard Stalling, Berlin, 1927), p.120.

  7. [Anon.], 1er et 21e Régiments du Génie Historique, op. cit., p.45.

  8. Witte, op. cit., pp. 41–42, 52–53.

  9. Quoted in Henry de Varigny, Mines et Tranchées, (Berger-Levrault, Paris, 1915), pp.64–65.

  10. Les Armées françaises dans la grande guerre, Vol. II, op. cit., p.114.

  11. Captain W. Grant Grieve and Bernard Newman, Tunnellers, (Herbert Jenkins, London, 1936), pp. 25–26.

  12. A German VII Corps report quoted by Grieve and Newman (ibid.) states all ten mines fired, but this is contradicted by the History of the 7th Pioneers which states that the charge in Sap 6 could not be used. W. Buhr, Die Geschichte des I. Westf. Pionier=Bataillons Nr. 7 und seiner Kriegsverbände im Weltkriege 1914/18, (Gerhard Stalling, Oldenburg, 1938), pp. 119–122.

  13. Buhr, ibid.

  14. VII Corps report, Grieve and Newman op. cit., p. 29.

  15. Brigadier General J.E. Edmonds, Military Operations, France and Belgium, 1915, Vol. 1, (MacMillan and Co. Ltd, London, 1927), pp. 20–22.

  16. Les Armées françaises, op. cit., Vol.2, p. 212.

  17. Ibid., Appendix 510, Letter to armies 30/12/14.

  18. G.H. Addison, The Work of the Royal Engineers in the European War, 1914–1918 Miscellaneous (Institution of Royal Engineers, Chatham 1927), p. 7.

  19. Mining in France 1914–1917 by Major-General R.N. Harvey, late Inspector of Mines,

  20. Interview with F.G. Hyland, Barrie Papers, Royal Engineers Museum (REM).

  21. Mining in France, op. cit., pp. 2–3, Harvey states that the GOC IV Corps wrote to GHQ on or about 3 December 1914 asking for a battalion of sappers and miners; Military Operations 1915 Vol. 1, op. cit., p. 33 and Tunnellers, op. cit., p. 25 probably following Harvey also date this letter to 3 December 1914; Tunnellers p. 25 also states that Rawlinson wrote to ‘Army headquarters’ and that his proposal was received ‘with approval, and forwarded to G.H.Q., with a strong recommendation that it should be adopted’, however, armies were not created in the BEF until 26 December 1914; [Anon.], The Work of the Royal Engineers in the European War, 1914–19. Military Mining (Institution of Royal Engineers, Chatham, 1922), p. 1 states that the demand came from IV Corps at the end of December and that it was ‘warmly supported’ by the GOC 1st Army (i.e. Gen. Haig).

  22. Military Operations, 1915, Vol. 1, op. cit., p. 33, no date is given for the instruction but it is presumed to have come after 26 December.

  23. Tunnellers’ Old Comrades Association (TOCA) Bulletin No.2, 1927, p. 18.

  24. Sir John Norton Griffiths, ‘Memorandum on Moles’, TOCA Bulletin No.3, 1928, p. 58.

  25. Mining in France, op. cit.

  26. TOCA Bulletin No.2, 1927, p. 18–19. Norton Griffiths’s memory of the sequence of events was not perfect as the mining attack suffered by the 16th Lancers near Hill 60 took place on 21 February 1915.

  27. Friedrich Seesselberg, Der Stellungskrieg 1914–1918, (E.S. Mittler and Son, Berlin, 1926), p. 296.

  28. Hartenstein, Das Ruhrhessische Pionier=Bataillon Nr. 11 im Weltkriege 1914–1918, (Bernhard Sporn, Zeulenroda, 1936), p.128.

  29. Paul Heinrici [Ed.], Das E
hrenbuch der Deutschen Pioniere, (Verlag Tradition Wilhelm Rolf, Berlin [1931], p. 146.

  30. Quoted in Heinrici, op. cit.

  31. Seesselberg, op. cit., p. 309.

  32. Commandant R. de Feriet, La Crête des Éparges 1914–1918, (Payot, Paris, 1939), pp. 69–86.

  33. Maurice Genevoix, Les Éparges, (Pierre de Tartas, 1974), p. 99.

  34. Feriet, op. cit.

  Chapter 3

  1. Capitaine [Hippolyte-Michel] Thobie, La Prise de Carency par le Pic et Par la Mine, (Berger-Levrault, Paris 1918), p. 142. Thobie commanded the 20/11 Engineer Company and this section is largely based on his detailed account of the assault on Carency.

  2. Ibid., p. 148.

  3. Ibid., p. 194.

  4. War Diary, French 70th Infantry Division, [SHAT].

  5. Thobie, op. cit., p. 229.

  6. Major General Belin, Note au sujet des travaux de mines, GQG, État-Major, 3e Bureau, No. 820 3/3/15, Annexe 1055, Ministère de la Guerre, État-Major de l’Armée – Service Historique, Les Armées françaises dans la grande guerre, Vol. II, (Imp. Nationale, Paris, 1931).

  7. This section is drawn from the detailed recent study by Jean-Jacques Gorlet, La Guerre de Mines dans l’Oise 1914–1917 en secteur calme, (Société Archéologique Historique et Scientifique de Noyon, 2005).

  8. Gorlet, op. cit., p. 173.

  9. Gorlet, op. cit., p. 167.

  10. Gorlet, op. cit., p. 172.

  11. Commandant R. de Feriet, La Crête des Éparges 1914–1918, (Payot, Paris, 1939), pp. 173, 178.

  12. Ibid., p. 179.

  13. Ministère de la Guerre, État-Major de l’Armée – Service Historique, Les Armées françaises dans la grande guerre, Vol. III, (Imp. Nationale, Paris, 1931), p. 634.

  14. Nivelle, ‘Note pour le 2 C.A.’, 14/5/1916, annex 311, Ministère de la Guerre, État-Major de l’Armée – Service Historique, Les Armées françaises dans la grande guerre, Vol. IV, (Imp. Nationale, Paris, 1933).

  15. André Pézard, Nous autres, à Vauquois 1915–1916, (Paris, La Renaissance du Livre, 1918), p. 282.

  16. The section on Vauquois is based largely on the study by les Amis de Vauquois, La Butte Meurtrie Vauquois La guerre des mines 1914–1918, (Les Amis de Vauquois et de sa Région, 2004).

  17. Pézard, op. cit., pp. 236–237.

  18. Amis de Vauquois, op. cit., p. 240; Karl Witte, 3. Rheinisches Pionier=Bataillon Nr.30 (Gerhard Stalling, Berlin 1928), pp. 63–64.

  19. Adolf Buchner, Der Minenkrieg auf Vauquois, (W. Goertz, Karlsfeld, 1982), p. 57.

  20. Pézard, op. cit., p. 276.

  21. Buchner, op. cit., p. 54.

  22. Report of Captain Durant 20/12/1917 Service Historique de la Défense, Département de l’armée de Terre (SHAT) – 2 V 221, quoted in Amis de Vauquois, op. cit., p. 279.

  23. Buchner, op. cit., p. 62. Feikert states that they entered the gallery and took a French prisoner which is not confirmed by the account in Amis de Vauquois, op. cit., p. 280.

  24. Buchner, op. cit., p. 61.

  Chapter 4

  1. Captain W. Grant Grieve and Bernard Newman, Tunnellers, (Herbert Jenkins, London, 1936), pp. 37.

  2. TOCA Bulletin No. 2, 1927, pp. 18–19.

  3. Grieve & Newman, op. cit., pp. 39, 46. Brigadier General J. E. Edmonds, Military Operations, France and Belgium, 1915, (MacMillan and Co. Ltd, London, 1927). Vol. 1,

  4. Grieve & Newman, op. cit., pp. 53–54.

  5. Diary of Sir John Norton Griffiths, 10/4/1915, NA WO158/129.

  6. Edmonds, Military Operations 1915 Vol. 1, op. cit., p. 168; [Anon.], The Work of the Royal Engineers in the European War, 1914–19. Military Mining, (Institution of Royal Engineers, Chatham, 1922), pp. 20–22.

  7. Norton Griffiths diary, op. cit., 19/4/1915.

  8. Edmonds, Military Operations 1915 Vol. 1, op. cit., p. 167.

  9. Held, [et al] Das Königlich Preussische Garde=Pionier=Bataillon und seine Kriegsverbände 1914/18, Vol. 1, (Carl Fr. Berg, Berlin, 1932), p. 264.

  10. Grieve & Newman, op. cit., p. 46; Edmonds, Military Operations 1915 Vol. 1, op. cit., p.

  11. Military Mining, op. cit., p. 23; ‘W.G.’ [Walter Gard’ner], One Mole Rampant, [privately published, c.1921], p. 151–2.

  12. Who’s Who in Wales, 1926, quoted by L. Hughes and J. Dixon, “Surrender Be Damned” A History of the 1/1st Battalion the Monmouthshire Regiment, 1914–18, (CWM Press, Caerphilly, 1995), p. 298.

  13. Letter of 12/7/1915, Gard’ner, One Mole Rampant, op. cit., pp. 213–215.

  14. For a detailed account of the Hooge mine see Peter Barton, Peter Doyle & Johan Vandewalle, Beneath Flanders Fields, the Tunnellers’ War 1914–1918, Spellmount, Staplehurst, 2004), pp. 155–157.

  15. Hepburn states in an interview with Barrie in 1960 that he went from 20ft to 60ft depth in July 1915 but he is probably confusing this with later shafts, Barrie papers, Royal Engineers Museum (REM); Norton Griffiths diary, op. cit., 18/6/1915 & 11/7/1915 gives depths for these shafts as 21ft but on 2/11/1915 refers to the ‘old level’ as 30ft; Mulqueen, Memoirs of Major F.J. Mulqueen, DSO MC, Royal Engineers Library (REL), states ‘about 35ft’.

  16. Gard’ner, One Mole Rampant, op. cit., p. 217.

  17. Barton, et. al., Beneath Flanders Fields, op. cit., p. 152.

  18. Geoffrey Cassels, the officer responsible for this mine, provided a detailed account to Barrie in 1960, Barrie papers, op. cit., Barrie used this in his own book, Alexander Barrie, War Underground, (Star Books, London, 1981, originally Frederick Muller, London, 1962) and also forms part of a detailed description in Barton, et. al., Beneath Flanders Fields, op. cit., pp. 148-154.

  19. Plan Pl. VII Craters on Cuinchy Front in Military Mining, op. cit. shows the centre of the mine blown from No. 2 tunnel as 80ft NW of H brickstack. These blows were reported to have buried a complete platoon of the 14th Westphalian Division, W. Buhr, Die Geschichte des I. Westf. Pionier=Bataillons Nr. 7 und seiner Kriegsverbände im Weltkriege 1914/18 (Gerhard Stalling, Oldenburg, 1938), p. 134.

  20. Quoted by Edmonds, Military Operations 1915 Vol. 2, op. cit., p. 31.

  21. Buhr, Geschichte des I. Westf. Pionier=Bataillons Nr. 7, op. cit., p. 135.

  22. Ibid., pp. 134–137.

  23. Grieve & Newman, op. cit., p. 68; Supplement to the London Gazette, 2/10/1915.

  24. Norton Griffiths diary, op. cit., 14/6/1915.

  25. Edmonds, Military Operations 1915 Vol. 2, op. cit., p. 94; War Diary 176 Tunnelling Company, RE, NA, WO95/244.

  26. Edmonds, Military Operations 1915 Vol. 2, op. cit., pp. 263–264.

  27. Ibid., p. 252.

  28. Ibid., pp. 253 & 255.

  29. Ibid., p. 257.

  30. Grieve & Newman, op. cit., p. 70–71.

  31. Geoffrey Sparrow & J.N. MacBean, On Four Fronts with the Royal Naval Division, (Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1918), p. 88.

  32. J. Murray, Gallipoli As I Saw It, (William Kimber, London, 1965), pp. 116-118.

  33. R. East, (Ed.), The Gallipoli Diary of Sergeant Lawrence of the Australian Engineers – 1st A.I.F. 1915 (Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1981), p. 24.

  34. C.E.W. Bean, The Story of Anzac [Vol. 2] from 4 May, 1915, to the Evacuation of the Gallipoli Peninsula, (Angus and Robertson Ltd, Australia, 1941) p. 815.

  35. East, Lawrence diary, op. cit., p. 87.

  36. Bean, The Story of Anzac, op. cit., p. 817.

  37. Ibid., p. 820.

  38. Ibid., p. 861.

  39. Table based on ibid., p. 879.

  40. Grieve & Newman, op. cit., p. 86 state it was more than twenty mines.

  41. Murray, Gallipoli As I Saw It, op. cit., p. 188.

  42. Major General H.L. Pritchard, RE, (Ed.), History of the Corps of Royal Engineers, Vol. VI, Gallipoli, Macedonia, Egypt and Palestine 1914–18, (The Institution of Royal Engineers, Chatham, 1952), p. 93.

  43. Maj Gen R. Napier Harvey, ‘Notes on Mining from the G.H.Q. Viewpoint’, TOCA Bulletin, No. 4, 1929, p. 29.

  44. Letter to Alex
ander Barrie 7/2/1960, Barrie papers, REM. Cropper later felt that Norton Griffiths and Harvey had taken the credit for his idea to go under the ridge using the blue clay layer, partial interview transcript, Barrie papers REM; Barrie, War Underground, op. cit., pp. 193–194.

  45. Norton Griffiths diary, op. cit., 20/12/1915.

  46. Harvey, Mining in France, op. cit., p. 7.

  47. R. N. Harvey, ‘Military Mining in the Great War, A Lecture delivered at the S.M.E., Chatham, on November 14th, 1929’, Royal Engineers Journal, XLIII Dec. 1929, p. 538.

  48. Maj. Gen G.H. Fowke, Chief Engineer, to GS, GHQ, 3/3/1915, notes from War Office records, Barrie Papers, REM.

  Chapter 5

  1. Maj Gen R.N. Harvey, ‘Military Mining in the Great War, A Lecture delivered at the S.M.E., Chatham, on November 14th, 1929’, Royal Engineers Journal, XLIII Dec. 1929, p. 539.

  2. Notes from War Office records, Barrie papers, REM; Harvey, Military Mining in the Great War, op. cit., p. 539.

  3. Norton Griffiths diary, op. cit., 12/12/1915.

  4. Speech by Norton Griffiths, ‘Tunnellers’ Old Comrades Association Annual Dinner, 1927’, TOCA Bulletin, No. 2, 1927, p. 21.

  5. Norton Griffiths diary, op. cit., 24/10/1915, 11/12/1915.

  6. Details of charges from 170 Tunnelling Company War Diary, noted in Barrie papers, REM; Brigadier General J. E. Edmonds, Military Operations, France and Belgium, 1916, [Vol. 1], (Imperial War Museum, London, nd, originally published 1932), p. 175 records the charges incorrectly.

  7. Edmonds, Military Operations, France and Belgium, 1916, [Vol. 1], op. cit., pp. 174–175; Barrie, War Underground, op. cit., includes details about this attack in Chapter 10 probably derived from an interview with William Morgan of 170 Tunnelling Company which has not survived amongst the interview transcripts in the Barrie papers in REM.

  8. Military Operations, France and Belgium, 1916, [Vol. 1] Appendices, (Macmillan and Co. Ltd, London, 1932), p. 49 Appendix 7, 36th Infantry Brigade Order No. 79, 1/3/1916.

  9. Ibid.

  10. Edmonds, Military Operations, France and Belgium, 1916, [Vol. 1], op. cit., pp. 176–177.

  11. [Anon.], The Work of the Royal Engineers in the European War, 1914-19. Work in the field under the Engineer-in-Chief, B.E.F., Geological Work on the Western Front, (Institution of Royal Engineers, Chatham, 1922), Fig. 10, Section C.