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"The men have learnt at last to dig and burrow like
rabbits": Entrenchment, Field Fortifications, and the
Learning Process in the British Expeditionary Force,
1914-15
Dykstra, Bodie
Dykstra, B. (2014). "The men have learnt at last to dig and burrow like rabbits": Entrenchment,
Field Fortifications, and the Learning Process in the British Expeditionary Force, 1914-15
(Unpublished master's thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. doi:10.11575/PRISM/28247
http://hdl.handle.net/11023/1538
master thesis
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UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
“The men have learnt at last to dig and burrow like rabbits”:
Entrenchment, Field Fortifications, and the Learning Process in the British Expeditionary
Force, 1914-15
by
Bodie D. Dykstra
A THESIS
SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE
DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
CALGARY, ALBERTA
May 2014
© Bodie D. Dykstra 2014
ii
Abstract
Academic historians have in the past three decades largely dispelled the notion that British
generalship in the First World War was plagued with incompetence and have instead
explained the heavy casualties of the conflict as the by-product of commanders learning to
overcome the tactical difficulties of static trench warfare. Such analyses have inevitably
focused on the British army’s offensive role, since it was in the attack that Britain suffered
its heaviest losses. The role of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) on the defensive in
1914 and early 1915 has consequently gone largely overlooked. Trench warfare contained
both offensive and defensive qualities, the latter of which revolved chiefly around the
construction and employment of field fortifications. In terms of its theories and ideas about
how to use earthworks on the battlefield, the BEF was well prepared for war in 1914.
Barring some temporary setbacks, most notably during the First Battle of Ypres, the British
army between September 1914 and March 1915 continuously adapted its field fortification
techniques and gradually improved its methods of training inexperienced officers in new
methods, until the change in its operational-strategic posture from defence to offence
resulted in the British gradually falling behind the Germans in terms of both defensive
theory and field fortification quality.
iii
Acknowledgements
Mom, our conversations about this project were crucial to my formulating ideas. The end
product owes much to your genuine interest and unwavering support.
iv
Table of Contents
Abstract .................................................................................................................................. ii
Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................... iii
Table of Contents .................................................................................................................. iv
List of Abbreviations ............................................................................................................. v
Maps ...................................................................................................................................... vi
Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 1
Chapter 1: Developing a System after South Africa ............................................................ 16
Chapter 2: Response and Adaptation on the River Aisne .................................................... 34
Chapter 3: Overcoming Setbacks at La Bassée and First Ypres .......................................... 54
Chapter 4: Consolidation and the Test of Second Ypres ..................................................... 76
Postscript and Conclusions .................................................................................................. 97
Bibliography ...................................................................................................................... 111
Appendix A: Prewar Trench Designs and Specifications .................................................. 118
Appendix B: Prewar Designs of Machine-Gun Emplacements and Redoubts .................. 119
Appendix C: Forward and Reverse Slope Trench Sites .................................................... 120
Appendix D: Field Fortifications, September 1914 – May 1915 ...................................... 121
v
List of Abbreviations
BEF British Expeditionary Force
GHQ General Headquarters
IWM Imperial War Museum
LAC Library and Archives Canada
Ms Manuscript
NAM National Army Museum
TNA The National Archives of the United Kingdom
Ts Typescript
1
Introduction
In the United Kingdom, the image of the First World War as a grand national
tragedy perpetrated by an ill-prepared and largely incompetent British generalship remains
pervasive one century later. Academic historians have in the past three decades largely
dispelled this notion and explained the losses of the war as the by-product of commanders
learning to overcome the tactical difficulties of static trench warfare, but such analyses have
inevitably focused on the British army’s offensive role, since it was in the attack that
Britain suffered its heaviest losses. The Battle of the Somme in the summer of 1916 and the
fighting around Passchendaele in the summer and autumn of 1917, in particular, have
attracted considerable attention from both popular and academic historians because of the
enormous losses sustained in return for only a few miles of ground. Consequently, the
offensive aspects of trench warfare, namely the weapons and tactics necessary to overcome
the deadlock on the Western Front, have received the bulk of attention from historians of
the British army in the First World War. Trench warfare had both offensive and defensive
elements, however, the latter of which revolved chiefly around the construction and
application of field fortifications. Focus on the large-scale British offensives and the
development of the army’s capacity to successfully attack German positions between 1915
and 1918 have overshadowed the role of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) on the
defensive and, by extension, its use of field fortifications during the early phases of the war
in 1914 and early 1915.
Although Franco-British forces spent the majority of the war attempting to dislodge
the occupying Germans from Belgium and parts of northeastern France, in 1914 the
Entente was on the strategic defensive in the west. The war opened in early August with the
French and Germans developing simultaneous offensives, but the French push to recover
the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine (Plan XVII) failed to produce any substantial results.
On the other hand, the German drive through Belgium, spearheaded by the
disproportionately strong First and Second Armies on the right wing, made relatively good
2
progress. Obstructing the Germans’ advance was therefore the Entente’s primary objective.
With the German right wing crossing the River Marne and threatening to advance on Paris
in early September, General Joseph Joffre, the French Commander-in-Chief, orchestrated a
flanking manoeuvre with the newly-organized French Sixth Army. Seeing his position as
compromised, General Helmuth von Moltke, the chief of the German General Staff,
ordered his armies to retire on 9 September. Joffre and his British counterpart, Field
Marshal Sir John French, failed to capitalize on their victory and the German First and
Second Armies safely withdrew, digging in on the north side of the River Aisne on the
12th. Although Moltke had temporarily assumed the defensive, his replacement, General
Erich von Falkenhayn, remained committed to securing a quick victory in France and
launched fresh attacks in Champagne, Artois, and finally Flanders. Joffre, frustrated by his
inability to catch the retiring Germans between 9 and 12 September, likewise ordered his
armies to advance. The result was that in late September and early October 1914, both sides
were attempting to outflank one another in a series of operations that has become known,
rather erroneously, as the “race to the sea.” Strategically, however, the Allies remained on
the defensive in the West since their principal goal was to prevent the Germans from
renewing their drive toward Paris.1
The BEF mounted only two brief offensives in 1914, both of which resulted in
largely defensive engagements. The first, launched in cooperation with the French as part
of the Marne battle, was slow, cautious, and ended in the army’s introduction to static
trench warfare on the Aisne in mid-September. After the initial attempt to wrestle the high
ground from the entrenched Germans failed on 14 September, Sir John French resigned the
army to simply holding its positions and fending off enemy counter-attacks. The BEF’s
second offensive, this time through Flanders as the last stage of the “race to the sea,”
produced an encounter battle which, due to the sheer numerical superiority of the attacking
German forces, quickly transformed into a desperate defensive battle. It was only with
Falkenhayn’s failure to break through and envelop the Allied left wing in Flanders that the
German army assumed the strategic defensive in the west. Both sides spent the winter of
1 For a broad narrative of the war on the Western Front in 1914, see Hew Strachan, The First World War, vol. 1, To Arms (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 163-280; For recent German and French perspectives, see Holger H. Herwig, The Marne: The Opening of WWI and the Battle that Changed the World (New York: Random House, 2009) and Robert A. Doughty, Pyrrhic Victory: French Strategy and Operations in the Great War (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005), 46-104.
3
1914/15 improving their trenches and fortifying their defensive positions. Even though
Falkenhayn had abandoned his plans to win the war on the Western Front in late November
1914, the BEF fought another major defensive battle when the German Fourth Army
launched renewed attacks against Ypres in April and May 1915, in large part to test the
effects of asphyxiating gas. Thus, for the first ten months of the war the British army
experienced mostly defensive combat.2
Entrenchment and field fortification were crucial elements of the defensive in the
First World War. The revolution in weapons technology in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries dramatically improved the range, accuracy, and killing power of small
arms and artillery, exacerbating the need for shelter on the battlefield. Trenches in the
American Civil War (1861-65) and Russo-Turkish War (1877-78) were shallow by First
World War standards, but as weapons became increasingly lethal over the course of the
next three or four decades, particularly with the advent of time-fused shrapnel shells which
burst in the air and could kill or wound a number of unprotected men with a single shot,
infantry began to dig deeper for better shelter. Quick-firing artillery, the barrel of which
was mounted on a chassis and equipped with buffers to reduce recoil, allowed gunners to
fire without having to adjust their aim between shots. When combined with the improved
firing rate of breech-loading mechanisms, quick-firing guns were a substantial
improvement in artillery technology which reinforced the importance of infantry
entrenchment. Indeed, quick-firing artillery was the deadliest weapon of the First World
War. The Russo-Japanese War (1904-05) clearly demonstrated to European observers the
killing power of new guns and affirmed the role of trenches in twentieth-century warfare.
Besides providing shelter, entrenchments also aided the defender in guarding against
infantry attacks. Because deep trenches concealed their occupants from view, riflemen
therefore presented a smaller and less visible target. Entrenched positions were even more
formidable when supported by stand-alone field redoubts or screened by obstacles such as
barbed wire. Although Japanese forces managed to overcome Russian field defences in
Manchuria with determined infantry attacks, the enormous losses incurred in the process
foreshadowed the vital role that fortifications would play on the Western Front. In spite of
2 J.M. Bourne, Britain and the Great War 1914-1918 (New York: Edward Arnold, 1989), 31; Strachan, The First World War, 163-280.
4
the significance of trench work and fortification by 1914, British military historians have
overlooked the BEF’s level of preparedness for the entrenchment requirements of the First
World War and how effectively it applied field defences during the battles of 1914 and
early 1915.3
Early narratives of the BEF published while Britain was still at war downplayed the
role of field fortifications in order to emphasize the heroic and human qualities of British
successes. This first phase of British First World War historiography intended to boost
morale at home rather than critically appraise British fighting methods, and consequently
authors highlighted the bravery, endurance, heroism, and exceptional marksmanship of the
ordinary British rifleman over the defensive value of entrenchments.4 In his description of
the Battle of the Aisne, for example, Arthur Conan Doyle remarked that “One can well
sympathise with the feelings of the German commanders who, looking down from their
heights [on the north bank of the Aisne river valley], saw the British line in a most
dangerous strategical [sic] position, overmatched by their artillery, with a deep river in their
rear, and yet were unable to take advantage of it because of their failure to carry the one
shallow line of extemporised trenches.” The Germans could do “nothing” to challenge the
BEF’s superior marksmanship skills and British defensive fire reportedly left “a fresh
fringe” of dead enemy soldiers in front of the fire trenches on numerous occasions. In this
assessment, Conan Doyle emphasized the skill of British riflemen and their capacity to hold
on in spite of German artillery superiority. He failed to acknowledge, however, that British
trenches were deep and well-concealed behind the crest of the hill so that German gunners
could not directly observe or target them. The supposedly ill-fated German infantry
therefore had little artillery support when they attacked British positions.5
Sir James Edmonds, the official historian of the British army in the First World
War, examined field fortifications in greater detail than the contemporary narrators of the
1910s, but his analyses were shallow and suffered from an acute lack of contextualization.
3 John Terraine, White Heat: The New Warfare 1914-18 (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1982), 103-10, 142-6; Hew Strachan, European Armies and the Conduct of War (London: Allen & Unwin, 1983), 111-24; Michael Howard, “Men Against Fire: Expectations of War in 1914,” International Security 9, no. 1 (Summer 1984), 41-57; Nicholas Murray, The Rocky Road to the Great War: The Evolution of Trench Warfare to 1914 (Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2013), 45-170. 4 Keith Grieves, “Early Historical Responses to the Great War: Fortesque, Conan Doyle and Buchan,” in The First World War and British Military History, ed. Brian Bond (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 15-37. 5 Arthur Conan Doyle, The British Campaign in France and Flanders 1914 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1916), 180-1.
5
Written at the direction of the Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence, the
official histories were published over the course of more than two decades, the first three
volumes of which detailed the British defensive battles of 1914 and early 1915. Edmonds, a
Royal Engineer officer who served as the 4th Division’s Chief of Staff until September
1914 and afterward as a staff officer at General Headquarters (GHQ), had a unique insight
into field fortifications. However, he was reluctant to criticize his former superiors,
particularly in the 1920s when many senior commanders such as Field Marshal Sir Douglas
Haig, Sir John French’s replacement as Commander-in-Chief of the British army from late
1915 until the end of the war, were still alive.6 Thus, Edmonds did not assign responsibility
in cases where the BEF’s fortifications proved inadequate to withstand enemy attack.
Furthermore, his descriptions of British defences suffered from poor contextualization. He
viewed the early trench networks constructed on the Aisne and in Flanders as primitive
relative to the more mature and therefore more developed field works of 1916-1917. To
Edmonds, the trenches of 1914 and early 1915 were representative of the first stage in the
evolution of First World War field defences, but evolution did not necessarily begin in
1914. As will be demonstrated later in this thesis, the South African War was a seminal
event in the development of British field fortification techniques which Edmonds neglected
to consider in his assessments of early First World War trench systems.7
The 1930s marked a significant change in the historiography of the British army
which ultimately resulted in historians largely ignoring the BEF’s experience on the
defensive and its application of field fortifications in 1914 and early 1915. With the
growing anti-war sentiment of the 1930s, epitomized by the 1928 novel All Quiet on the
Western Front and its subsequent 1930 film adaptation, coupled with Germany’s re-
emergence as a military power and the threat of a new world war in the second half of the
decade, the idea that the unprecedented losses of 1914-18 were the product of inept British
generalship began to take root. Significantly, Haig’s death in 1928 helped remove the taboo
6 See David French, “Sir James Edmonds and the Official History: France and Belgium,” in The First World War and British Military History, ed. Brian Bond (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 69-86. 7 Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence, Military Operations: France and Belgium, 1914, vol. 1 (London: Macmillan, 1922), 430-5. See also Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence, Military Operations: France and Belgium, 1914, vol. 2 (London: Macmillan, 1925) and Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence, Military Operations: France and Belgium, 1915, vol. 1 (London: Macmillan, 1927). The official histories are henceforth cited as Military Operations 1914 and Military Operations 1915.
6
of criticizing former BEF commanders. Basil H. Liddell Hart, a former army captain turned
historian, spearheaded the attack on the military leadership in his 1930 The Real War.
Liddell Hart argued that British losses on the Western Front were the direct result of
incompetency at the highest levels of the British military apparatus. In his estimation,
defeating the Central Powers on the Western Front was not the most prudent strategic
approach. Other strategic options, like the Dardanelles, Africa, and the Middle East, should
therefore have been exploited in order minimize casualties. By focusing on the war in
France and Belgium the War Office therefore ensured that supposedly unskilled
commanders like Haig were permitted to squander the lives of British soldiers in futile
frontal attacks against well-established and largely impregnable German defences. In this
way, Liddell Hart was most concerned with the casualties resulting from what he regarded
as meaningless offensives on the Western Front; the General Staff’s handling of the Somme
and Flanders offensives predictably received the bulk of his criticisms. This vein of
analysis proved highly appealing in the socio-political climate of the 1930s and with the
Second World War producing a lull in First World War scholarship, the argument that the
British army was a “lion led by donkeys” persisted into the 1960s.8
A revisionist trend emerged after the nature and scope of the Second World War
helped contextualize the experience of 1914-18. Revising the “donkeys” thesis, however,
meant that historians continued to prioritize explaining the casualties of the Somme and
other Western Front offensives over analyzing the BEF’s defensive battles or its use of
field fortifications during the first ten months of the war. The first phase of revisionist
historiography tended to argue that the casualties of the Western Front were more the
product of circumstances beyond the control of military leaders rather than widespread
incompetency.9 Cyril Falls, in the preface to his 1959 The Great War, “denied the
allegation that the leadership [of European armies] was mentally barren.” Although
8 Sir Basil Liddell Hart, The Real War (London: Faber and Faber Ltd., 1930); Hew Strachan, “‘The Real War’: Liddell Hart, Crutwell, and Falls,” in The First World War and British Military History, ed. Brian Bond (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 41-52; The phrase “lions led by donkeys” originated with Alan Clark in his 1961 The Donkeys. Although not a scholarly work, The Donkeys was indicative of the pervasiveness of Liddell Hart’s arguments. See Alan Clark, The Donkeys: A History of the BEF in 1915 (London: Hutchinson, 1961) and Alex Danchev, “‘Bunking’ and Debunking: The Controversies of the 1960s,” in The First World War and British Military History, ed. Brian Bond (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 263-88. 9 Danchev, “‘Bunking’ and Debunking,” 263-88; Strachan, “‘The Real War,’” 41-52; For an early example of revisionist literature, see C.R.M.F. Crutwell, A History of the Great War, 1914-1918 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1934).
7
“baffled” by static trench warfare, commanders applied “skill and intelligence” in their
attempts to restore mobility to the battlefield. Unlike Liddell Hart, Falls did not dispute
British grand strategy and accepted that the Western Front was the decisive theatre. He
argued that fighting in the west was so costly because its decisiveness meant that it was
held by more troops, more guns, and better fortifications than any other front.10 Early
revisionists’ treatment of the Somme battle was indicative of the changing historiographical
assessment of the British army in the 1960s. To John Terraine, the root of British
difficulties on the Somme was “the rawness” of the volunteer troops comprising the
majority of the ranks in 1916, not the ineptitude of Haig or General Sir Henry Rawlinson,
the architect of the offensive. Terraine conceded that the Somme was “probably the greatest
single catastrophe of the whole War [sic],” but argued that the “shock” of nearly 60,000
casualties on 1 July 1916 had “obscured” the fact that, in the 140 subsequent days of the
battle, the British army “inflicted [its] first major defeat upon the Germans” and introduced
important new tactical and technological innovations, namely the tank.11
The idea that the British army improved its fighting methods over the course of the
war, and that its leadership adapted to the conditions of the Western Front and learned to
overcome stalemate through trial-and-error, caused historians to begin arguing in the late
1970s and early 1980s that the losses of the First World War were the product of the army’s
unpreparedness for the tactical realities of 1914. This second phase of revisionist literature
was indebted to the Public Records Act of 1967, which made the previously-classified
official military documents available to historians in 1968. Tim Travers was one of the first
academics to extensively mine the records housed at the Public Records Office (known as
The National Archives since 2003) in Kew.12 He concluded that Haig and the senior British
command were not incompetent, but that tactical innovation and the adoption of new
weapons before 1914, particularly heavy howitzers but also the machine gun, was
hampered by conservatism in the army’s upper ranks. Reluctance to deviate from
traditional methods led to a continued emphasis on the moral rather than the technical
10 Cyril Falls, The Great War (New York: Capricorn, 1959) 10-1. 11 John Terraine, The First World War 1914-18 (London: Macmillan, 1984), 114-120. First published by Macmillan and Hutchinson in 1965; See also John Terraine, Haig: The Educated Soldier (London: Cooper, 1990). First published by Macmillan and Hutchinson in 1963. 12 The National Archives recommends capitalizing the definite article, regardless of whether or not it comes at the beginning of a sentence.
8
qualities of war, which limited how quickly the army adopted new techniques.13 Historians
Shelford Bidwell and Dominick Graham expanded on this argument and stressed that in
1914 the British army lacked anything approaching a coherent tactical “doctrine.”
Tacticians before the war failed to develop the methods of employing infantry and artillery
that were necessary to take heavily-fortified enemy positions, and consequently many of
the difficulties of 1916 stemmed from commanders’ efforts to produce a true attack
doctrine.14 This idea that the casualties of the war were the result of a “learning curve” in
the British army eventually transplanted the “donkeys” thesis by the 1990s.
While the later revisionist school resembled both Liddell Hart and earlier
revisionists like Falls and Terraine in that it ultimately aimed to explain the death toll of the
Western Front, historiography has recently begun to move toward describing how and why
the British army became tactically proficient. Led by historians Paddy Griffith, Robin Prior,
Trevor Wilson, and Gary Sheffield in the late 1990s and early 2000s, this “post-revisionist”
school has argued that the British army in fact became the most effective fighting force on
the Western Front.15 In his aptly titled Forgotten Victory (2001), Sheffield argued that
historians’ fixation on the failures at the Somme and the hindrances obstructing the army
from learning new lessons had obscured the fact that the British army won the war in
1918.16 The post-revisionist school embraced the “learning curve” thesis to explain tactical
development in 1915-18 as a trial-and-error process. According to this interpretation, the
losses of the Somme were the source of important lessons about how to punch holes in
German defences, protect infantry during the advance to enemy lines, and solidify captured
positions. One key product of the move away from explaining casualties has been what
Sheffield referred to as the “scholarly rehabilitation” of Haig and other senior commanders.
13 Tim Travers, “The Offensive and the Problem of Innovation in British Military Thought, 1870-1915,” Journal of Contemporary History 13 (1978), 531-53; Tim Travers, The Killing Ground: The British Army, The Western Front and the Emergence of Modern War 1900-1918 (South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword, 2003). First published by Allen & Unwin in 1987. 14 Shelford Bidwell and Dominick Graham, Fire-Power: British Army Weapons and Theories of War 1904-1945 (London: Allen & Unwin, 1982), 2-37. 15 Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson, Command on the Western Font: The Military Career of Sir Henry Rawlinson 1914-1918 (South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword, 2004). First published by Blackwell in 1992; Paddy Griffith, Battle Tactics of the Western Front: The British Army’s Art of Attack, 1916-18 (New Have: Yale University Press, 1994); Gary Sheffield, Forgotten Victory: The First World War, Myths and Realities (London: Headline, 2001); See also Tim Travers, How the War was Won: Command and Technology in the British Army on the Western Front, 1917-1918 (London: Routledge, 1992). 16 Sheffield, Forgotten Victory, xi-xvi.
9
In his most recent work, a military biography of the commander-in-chief, Sheffield
operated from the assumption that Haig was an educated commander capable of learning
the lessons of the war and applying new techniques, a far cry from Liddell Hart’s
supposition that Haig was unintelligent and inflexible.17
Another product of the post-revisionist move away from explaining casualties has
been a growing tendency for historians to acknowledge that the prewar British army was in
fact better prepared for the fighting on the Western Front than Travers, Bidwell, or Graham
had argued in the 1980s. Nikolas Gardner, in his study of the nature of British command in
1914, demonstrated that senior officers, although they continued to endorse the positive
effects of bravery and self-sacrifice, showed a keen interest in new tactics and technologies.
His notion of the “hybrid” officer as a commander who simultaneously embodied
traditional military conservatism and modernizing tendencies suggested that British
leadership was capable of learning lessons from the outset.18 Spencer Jones, moreover, has
argued that the BEF was, as a direct result of the lessons learned from the South African
War in 1899-1902, in fact the most tactically proficient and well-trained force on the
Western Front in August 1914.19 Significantly, Jones did not focus solely on attack tactics
but also discussed defence and entrenchment. Generally speaking, post-revisionists have
tended to look at the offensive since it was by attacking that the British army compelled the
Germans to sign the armistice in November 1918. Growing emphasis on reassessing the
BEF’s preparedness in 1914, however, has recently led to a somewhat greater interest in
entrenchment. South Africa, Jones argued, was the origin of British First World War
entrenchment tactics and field fortification techniques, and that the army’s experience
digging trenches in 1899-1902 proved invaluable on the Western Front in 1914.20
In spite of Jones’ assessment of entrenchment in the BEF after South Africa,
historians’ overwhelming focus on the army’s experience on the attack since the 1930s has
had two important effects on the historiographical treatment of field fortifications. First,
explaining the casualties of the Western Front and the notion of the offensive “learning
17 Gary Sheffield, The Chief: Douglas Haig and the British Army (London: Aurum Press, 2011), 7. 18 Nikolas Gardner, Trial by Fire: Command and the British Expeditionary Force in 1914 (Westport: Praeger, 2003), 2-32. 19 Spencer Jones, From Boer War to World War: Tactical Reform of the British Army, 1902-1914 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2012). 20 Jones, From Boer War to World War, 104-13.
10
curve” have resulted in historians viewing field fortifications primarily as obstacles that had
to be overcome rather than components integral to the BEF’s ability to fight on the
defensive. Barbed wire, for example, has been typically described in post-revisionist
histories in terms of the problems it posed for attacking British infantrymen, not how well
British defenders employed it in 1914-15.21 Furthermore, because historians have focused
their efforts on the offensive qualities of trench warfare, namely the development of new
weapons and attack tactics, little original research has been conducted on British
entrenchment and fortification practices, with the result that Edmonds’ poorly
contextualized and highly uncritical assessments of defences in 1914-15 have largely
endured into the 2000s. Ian Beckett, for instance, echoed the official historian’s
descriptions of British field works in his narrative of the first Flanders battles, particularly
those around Ypres in late October 1914. Even Gardner, whose research was based on a
thorough reading of the official records in Kew, also cited the official history when his
narratives or arguments required him to describe the state of British field fortifications.22
Jones’ look at entrenchment from 1899-1914 and, to a lesser extent, Richard Holmes’ semi-
academic 2004 account of how the regular British soldier experienced the war on the
Western Front, which included a section on trench systems and digging, were the
exceptions. In general, the construction and development of British field fortifications in
1914-15 have not received much scholarly attention since Edmonds.23
This dearth of new insights has resulted in the BEF retaining a reputation as being
unprepared for the trench war and negligent on the defensive. Edmonds, Terraine, and even
Sheffield argued that because the British did not possess the heavy artillery and trench
mortars in 1914 which later came to dominate the war, the German army was innately more
prepared to fight a static trench war than the BEF.24 Travers, Bidwell, and Graham
reinforced this notion by demonstrating that the British lacked the necessary combined-
arms tactics to successfully overcome enemy trench systems in 1914-15. This argument,
although contested by Jones and some other post-revisionist historians, namely Stephen
21 Sheffield, Forgotten Victory, 98-99; See also Griffith, Battle Tactics of the Western Front, 29-44. 22 Ian Beckett, Ypres: The First Battle, 1914 (Edinburgh Gate: Pearson Education, 2004), 115; Gardner, Trial by Fire, 131. 23 Richard Holmes, Tommy: The British Soldier on the Western Front, 1914-1918 (London: Harper Collins Publishers, 2004), 245-64. 24 Military Operations 1914, 430-5; Terraine, The First World War, 61-2; Sheffield, Forgotten Victory, 99.
11
Badsey, only accounted for the offensive components of trench warfare and lacked
reference to the BEF’s entrenchment and field fortification capabilities.25 Edmonds
suggested that British troops were not well-trained in digging before the war, but he
neglected to suggest why or assess the extent to which the army understood how to apply
field works in battle.26 In addition, comparisons of the British works of 1916-17 with those
of the German army have produced an image of the BEF as only marginally concerned with
entrenchment. Niall Ferguson, for example, chastised the quality, habitability, and comfort
of the army’s field works relative to its opponent.27 Indeed, it is sensible to conclude that
the Germans, having assumed the strategic defensive on the Western Front in 1915, would
have had better earthworks because the absence of immediate offensive prospects meant
that they could be largely permanent. Comparisons with German defences, although
typically accurate, have further contributed to the idea that the British army was innately
inferior to the Germans in its capacity to fight a trench war. German tactical successes
against the British army during the offensives of March 1918 only served to reinforce
historians’ conception of the British as not capable of effectively using field fortifications
or fighting on the defensive.28
This thesis contests the interpretation of the BEF as wholly unprepared for the
defensive requirements of trench warfare and the image of the army as deficient in its
capacity to construct and employ fortifications in 1914-15. In terms of its theories and ideas
about how to use field works, the BEF was well prepared for the war in 1914. Barring some
setbacks, most notably deficiencies in prewar training, the infantry’s reliance on Royal
Engineers for entrenching tools, and the negative effects of the offensive spirit during the
First Battle of Ypres, the army continuously adapted its field fortification techniques and
gradually improved its methods of training inexperienced officers between September 1914
and March 1915. The process by which the army’s leadership at GHQ learned new lessons,
modified existing tactics, and disseminated amendments to prewar theory resembled the
25 Stephen Badsey, Doctrine and Reform in the British Cavalry, 1880-1918 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008). Badsey argued that the British cavalry was not a backward and obsolete military arm. On the contrary, he asserted that the cavalry made a number of important technical and tactical changes prior to 1914 and successfully adapted to the conditions of the static fighting on the Western Front. 26 Military Operations 1914, vol. 1, 430-5. 27 Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War (New York: Basic Books, 1999), 350. First published by Allen Lane in 1998. 28 For the March 1918 German offensives from a British perspective, see Bourne, Britain and the Great War, 82-92; Travers, The Killing Ground, 220-49.
12
“learning curve” in that setbacks and failures proved educational and sparked further
improvement. Although the BEF did not possess the weapons or tactics necessary for the
offensive requirements of trench warfare, it was intellectually equipped to use field
fortifications to good effect and was therefore more prepared than Edmonds and revisionist
historians like Bidwell and Graham have suggested. In addition, the army’s capacity to
adapt its field fortifications to match the realties of combat on the Western Front in 1914
and early 1915 reinforce Gardner’s argument that the senior command in the early phases
of the war took interest in improving the army’s technical capabilities. Lastly, that the BEF
was both prepared to dig and dug quite well during the first ten months of the war indicates
that it was not, as historians have come to assume, innately inferior to the German army in
its capacity to entrench and fight a war dominated by field fortifications.
In terms of approach and methodology, this thesis resembles Nicholas Murray’s
recent The Rocky Road to the Great War (2013) in that it analyzes field fortifications from
a defensive point-of-view. Whereas British First World War historians have analyzed the
antecedents to trench warfare in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to
determine why European militaries did not alter their offensive tactics to account for the
dangers inherent in the attack, Murray used these pre-1914 examples to understand how
trench designs evolved in response to improved weapons technology and how defenders
employed field fortifications to strengthen their positions. In other words, Murray was
interested in what made field fortifications defensively effective.29 However, whereas
Murray limited his assessments mainly to how field fortification designs changed in
response to improvements in weapons technology, this thesis goes further and examines
how the British army manned its defences. In addition, because the present work aims to
use field fortifications and their development in 1914-15 as a method of determining how
well the British high command responded to the realities of the First World War, it
therefore seeks to uncover how quickly tactical officers responded on the ground, how
effectively senior commanders modified existing tactics in order to reflect changing
techniques, and the processes by which the most up-to-date methods were transmitted
throughout the army and to new formations arriving from the United Kingdom. In short,
29 Murray, The Rocky Road to the Great War, 1-5.
13
this thesis employs both an on-the-ground tactical approach and a focus on the workings of
the British military leadership.
Unit war diaries, personal diaries, and battlefield communications between units or
their superior formations provide the bulk of the evidence for how field fortification
techniques were applied at the front lines. Royal Engineer records are particularly valuable
as they give insight into the technical aspects of field fortification design that infantry
records typically overlook. Because the official records of Haig’s I Corps, namely the 1st
Division Commander Royal Engineers, housed at The National Archives in Kew, are
unusually detailed regarding the construction of field works, this thesis tends to rely on
them more heavily than those of other BEF formations. The personal papers of tactical
officers and of General Rawlinson, housed at the Imperial War Museum and the National
Army Museum in London, respectively, are also consulted. Furthermore, J.M. Craster’s
Fifteen Rounds a Minute (1967), an annotated collection of diary entries written by officers
and enlisted men in the 2nd Division’s 2/Grenadier Guards in 1914, is an important source
for the BEF during the first period of the war. Craster’s interest in how the mobile war
transformed into static trench warfare in September and October 1914 benefits this thesis in
that his chosen documents often detail the development of field fortifications. In this way,
Fifteen Rounds a Minute offers unique insights into how one British battalion entrenched
and built its field works.30 Prewar infantry training manuals, military engineering manuals,
tactical memoranda, and official tactical pamphlets issued by the War Office are used to
assess how well prepared the army was in 1914, and to examine how well senior formation
commanders and the army’s leadership at GHQ absorbed the lessons of the war and
disseminated new methods. Official tactical memoranda in unit and formation war diaries
at The National Archives and the series of pamphlets published by the War Office in late
1914 and early 1915, all of which are housed at the Imperial War Museum, are significant
in that they reveal the army’s state of knowledge at a given moment, therefore permitting
analysis of how theory and techniques evolved over time.
This thesis defines field fortifications (also referred to as field works or field
defences) as any type of fortification constructed on the battlefield that was temporary or
30 See J.M. Craster (ed.), Fifteen Rounds a Minute: The Grenadiers at War, August to December 1914 (London: Macmillan, 1967).
14
semi-permanent in nature. Whereas the fortress systems around Antwerp in Belgium or
Verdun in France were constructed in fixed locations before the opening of hostilities,
characteristic of field fortifications was their comparatively short build times and their
capacity to be established without considerable foresight or planning. The term
encompasses both entrenchments and obstacles. The former could be any combination of a
trench, dugout, outpost, or redoubt. Entrenchment and earthwork are used interchangeably,
mostly for stylistic purposes, but also because in the case of the British army in the First
World War, entrenchments were constructed primarily out of earth. Entrenchment, when
describing an action, refers to digging or constructing earthworks. Obstacles were field
fortifications designed specifically to obstruct the movement of enemy troops. Breastworks,
ditches, or, most commonly, wire and barbed wire entanglements were examples of
obstacles in the First World War. Field fortifications served two primary purposes: to
shelter men from enemy fire and aid in the defence against infantry attack. While obstacles
remained mostly limited to obstructing enemy troop movements, some entrenchments
provided protection while simultaneously resisting enemy assault. Trenches, for example,
both sheltered men and helped conceal their occupants from enemy view while redoubts
offered some degree of protection and presented a substantial barrier for enemy infantry to
overcome.31
Chapter 1 begins by analyzing the British army’s reactions to the war in South
Africa to provide the necessary foundation from which to assess the BEF’s level of
preparedness for the First World War. In addition, this analysis of how the British army
modified its entrenchment and field fortification techniques between 1902 and 1914
establishes the continuity between South Africa and the Western Front that the official
history and later studies of British defensive capabilities have lacked. The second chapter
discusses the BEF’s tactical response to the power of German artillery on the River Aisne
in September 1914 and the General Staff’s subsequent tactical adaptation in early October.
The performance of the British field fortification system at the battles of La Bassée and
31 Murray approached his study of field fortifications under the assumption that they performed six major functions: (1) helping prevent desertion, (2) providing physical protection, (3) enhancing fighting power, (4) reinforcing key tactical points, (5) providing a secure base, and (6) dominating an area. Desertion was not an issue for the British army in the First World War. Moreover, functions 3-6 can be reduced to simply a combination of function 2 (physical protection) and defending against infantry attack. Thus, in the simplest terms, field fortifications in the First World War only served two functions: (1) sheltering troops and (2) defending against infantry attack. See Murray, The Rocky Road to the Great War, 22-39.
15
First Ypres in Flanders are the focus on the third chapter, the latter portion of which
examines the army’s tactical adaptations in time for renewed German attacks against Ypres
in early November. Significantly, the Flanders battles represented a major setback in the
development of British field fortifications in the First World War. Chapter 4 discusses the
BEF’s responses to the failures of the first Flanders battles, the challenges of terrain and
wet weather, and new threats from aerial observation and German trench mortars during the
winter of 1914/15. Finally, through an examination of the newly-arrived V Corps’
defensive stand on Frezenberg Ridge as part of the Second Battle of Ypres in May 1915,
Chapter 4 analyzes how well the War Office and General Staff trained inexperienced
officers in new entrenchment tactics and field fortification methods. Finally, the Postscript
and Conclusions section briefly outlines British entrenchment theory in 1916-17 and the
effects of the strategic offensive on field fortification development after Second Ypres
before summarizing this thesis’s principal arguments.
16
Chapter 1
Developing a System after South Africa
In 1906 Sir Richard Haldane, the Secretary of State for War, confirmed Britain’s
commitment to intervene in a future European war with the formation of the BEF. Efforts
to re-evaluate tactics and fighting methods to prepare the BEF for war against a first-rate
Continental power were complicated, however, by recent developments in military
technology, namely quick-firing artillery and the machine gun. British military theorists
hotly debated how best to use these new weapons and minimize infantry losses in
offensives, but, as historians Shelford Bidwell and Dominick Graham demonstrated, the
BEF nevertheless lacked a coherent attack doctrine in 1914. On the other hand, between
1902 and 1914 the army developed clear ideas about how to entrench and construct field
works. Experience in South Africa and, to a lesser extent, observations of the fighting
between the Russians and Japanese in Manchuria confirmed to the army the importance of
entrenchments on the modern battlefield, led to improved trench designs and shelter
systems to deal with enemy artillery, and produced new methods of fortifying positions for
defence against infantry attack. The field fortification system developed by British
tacticians between 1902 and 1914 both reflected the improvement in weapons technology
in the late nineteenth century and demonstrated a clear understanding of how fortifications
could strengthen a defensive position. Although the BEF suffered from training
deficiencies, dependence on Royal Engineers for tools and technical expertise, and a
continued doctrinal emphasis on the offensive, the field fortification system developed
before 1914 was largely suited to the requirements of modern war. In other words, the BEF
was, in spite of these shortcomings, intellectually prepared to use entrenchments in the First
World War.
Historian Spencer Jones argued that the experience in South Africa triggered a
considerable change in how the army perceived entrenchment. Before 1899, infantry
manuals described shallow trenches of no more than 1.5 feet (0.3 metres) in depth that were
17
rarely to be dug any deeper for fear of obstructing the movements of friendly cavalry.1
Construction of more thorough defences was regarded as the domain of the Royal
Engineers. The Boers, in contrast, built deep and cleverly-sited trench systems that
provided defending troops with excellent shelter from artillery fire and were difficult for
the enemy to detect. At Paardeberg, Boer trenches so successfully withstood regular
bombardment that one British observer reckoned the position could have held out for many
weeks had it not run out of supplies. At Colenso and the Modder River, the British had little
idea of the whereabouts of Boer positions until the defenders opened fire. The effectiveness
of Boer trenches and the casualties caused by artillery and rifle fire as a result of their own
careless entrenching habits led the British to imitate Boer methods. By the end of the war in
1902, British infantry had learned the value of good spade work and routinely dug in
whenever they captured an important tactical point. 2
Colonel E.D. Swinton, a veteran of South Africa, neatly summed up the lessons of
the war in his 1904 tactical treatise, The Defence of Duffer’s Drift. Although Swinton’s aim
was to educate young officers on the merits of critical thinking and on-the-spot decision
making, he also emphasized three general points about entrenchment and the preparation of
defensive positions. First, shallow trenches with high parapets were “worse than useless”
since they provided enemy gunners a clear target but did not offer troops much cover from
shrapnel. Deep trenches sheltered infantry from rifle fire and shells exploding overhead,
and traverses could help localize the effect of shells that managed to hit a position directly.
Head cover, high parapets through which troops could fire their weapons without exposing
themselves, offered additional protection.3 Second, a deep field of fire allowing riflemen to
maximize the effect of their weapons should be the chief consideration in the selection of a
defensive position. Swinton suggested that points at the base of a slope trending toward the
enemy were the strongest.4 The Boers utilized such sites to good effect at the Battle of
Magersfontein. British artillery, ignorant of the Boer position, shelled the hilltop and
inflicted only three casualties. The defenders were left largely unmolested and, positioned
1 Since contemporary documents identified distances and volumes in imperial units, this thesis uses feet, yards, and miles while providing the metric conversion in brackets. 2 Jones, From Boer War to World War, 104-6. 3 E.D. Swinton, The Defence of Duffer’s Drift (Washington, D.C.: National Capital Press, 1916), 27-8, 36. Traverses were earthen walls that extended out from the oblique front of a trench. See Appendix A, figure 5. 4 Swinton, The Defence of Duffer’s Drift, 36-7, 45-6.
18
with a long, clear, and unobstructed field of fire, wreaked havoc on the advancing British
infantry.5 Third, camouflaging trenches made it difficult for enemy guns to find defensive
positions and helped surprise attacking troops. Swinton suggested that dummy positions,
covering parapets with brush or earth, and conforming trenches to the natural folds in the
ground were the best methods of concealment.6 These three points, that trenches should be
deep and carefully dug, sited to afford a good field of fire, and well camouflaged, became
the key principles governing fortification theory before 1914.
The Russo-Japanese War, although less impactful than South Africa, confirmed
many of the lessons of 1899-1902 and demonstrated the power of quick-firing artillery. In
general terms, Tim Travers, Michael Howard, and Yigal Sheffy argued that the war taught
British tacticians rather little. Howard perhaps worded it best when he asserted that expert
observers “read into the experiences of the war very much what they wanted to find.”7
Firepower proponents found in the static fighting dominated by artillery a validation of the
merits of defensive fire. Proponents of morale and manpower, on the other hand, regarded
Japanese successes as evidence of the superiority of discipline, self-sacrifice, the offensive
spirit, and the bayonet. Both schools of thought acknowledged the place of entrenchments
on the battlefield.8 The question regarding field fortifications after 1905, then, was not if
they applied to war in a European context, but rather how infantry would break through
them. The war in Manchuria did, however, serve to reinforce to the British army some key
lessons of South Africa. General Sir Ian Hamilton, the senior British military attaché to the
Japanese army and the General Staff’s chief source of information about the war, evaluated
Russian defensive performance using the same criteria that Swinton described in The
Defence of Duffer’s Drift. He concluded that the Russians failed to hold their trenches at
Yalu River partly because they were poorly camouflaged, easily seen by enemy gunners,
and lacked any form of head cover.9 Sheffy argued that the Germans were the only western
European army to convert their observers’ findings on field defences into practical reform,
5 Jones, From Boer War to World War, 105. 6 Swinton, The Defence of Duffer’s Drift, 36-7. 7 Howard, “Men Against Fire,” 534. 8 Howard, “Men Against Fire,” 523-34; Travers, “The Offensive and the Problem of Innovation in British Military Thought,” 537-42; Yigal Sheffy, “A Model Not to Follow: The European Armies and the Lessons of the War,” in Impact of the Russo-Japanese War, ed. Rotem Kowner (New York: Routledge, 2007): 253-69. 9 Ian Hamilton, A Staff Officer’s Scrap-Book during the Russo-Japanese War (London: Edward Arnold, 1905), 30-2.
19
which contributed to their supposed defensive superiority in 1914.10 The British army,
however, produced some alterations to its shelter techniques after 1905, largely in response
to the power of heavy quick-firing artillery in the Russo-Japanese War (see below).
As previously mentioned, field fortifications served two primary purposes, the first
being to cover troops from enemy fire. As the wars in South Africa and Manchuria
demonstrated, developments in weapons technology rendered cover indispensable and the
army responded by designing deeper trenches and more effective shelters. Even though the
Boers possessed few heavy guns, Instruction in Military Engineering Part I: Field
Defences, published in 1902 shortly after the South African War, made clear that improved
artillery technology, specifically in the form of shrapnel but also howitzers, rendered
shallow trenches with high parapets insufficient to protect troops. Instruction in Military
Engineering and its successors, the 1905 Manual of Military Engineering and the 1911
Manual of Field Engineering, specified that trenches should be no less than 4.5 to 5.0 feet
(about 1.4 metres to 1.5 metres) in depth, regularly traversed every ten to forty feet (three to
twelve metres), and equipped with undercut recesses in which men could seek temporary
shelter during bombardment.11 Instruction in Military Engineering also contemplated head
cover.12 The Manual of Military Engineering spoke of it favourably, but also warned that it
made trenches more conspicuous and reduced the number of rifles in the firing line. The
power of quick-firing artillery in Manchuria, however, led the Manual of Military
Engineering to advocate the use of “top” or “overhead” cover consisting of sheets of
corrugated iron covered with earth which completely shielded the top of a trench from
high-trajectory fire.13 The Manual of Field Engineering was more restrained about the use
of either head or overhead cover and argued in 1911 that they should only be applied in the
latter stages of an engagement when opposing lines had crept so close together as to render
10 Sheffy, “A Model Not to Follow,” 261-2. 11 War Office, Chatham School of Engineering, Instruction in Military Engineering Part I:Field Defences, 7th ed. (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1902), 55-6, 67-8; War Office, General Staff, Manual of Military Engineering (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1905), 36-7, plate 16; War Office, General Staff, Manual of Field Engineering (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1911), 29, plate 9; See Appendix A, figures 1-4 for diagrams of trench and shelter designs. 12 Instruction in Military Engineering, 68-9. Head cover was essentially a parapet high enough to cover a man while standing on the firing step. It was typically constructed of either earth or sandbags. In order that a rifleman could utilize his weapon while remaining covered, metal loopholes through which the rifle could be aimed were inserted into the parapet. 13 Manual of Military Engineering, 34-6.
20
concealing a position largely superfluous.14 Despite this hesitancy to build head or
overhead cover from the outset, South Africa and Manchuria prompted engineers to
acknowledge its fundamental significance, which in September 1914 contributed to the
development of the first dugouts.
The Manual of Field Engineering envisioned a system of two interconnected trench
lines through which men and supplies could freely move without being exposed to enemy
fire. Front-line firing trenches would serve as the main point of defence and be connected
via communications trenches to supporting cover trenches garrisoned with local reserves
further in the rear. Undercut recesses and overhead cover were best suited to cover trenches
since fire steps precluded the construction of the former in fire trenches, and the latter could
potentially obstruct a rifleman from freely aiming and rapidly firing his weapon.15 When
equipped with recesses or overhead cover, support trenches provided greater shelter than
traverses or high parapets in fire trenches, particularly against high-trajectory howitzer fire.
The main defensive advantage afforded by superior cover in support trenches was that it
allowed men in the firing line to temporarily withdraw to better-sheltered positions during
periods of heavy bombardment, and then move back into the front trenches once enemy
firing ceased.16 This concept was first articulated in the 1905 Manual of Military
Engineering and was therefore likely a response to the observed power of quick-firing
howitzers in the Russo-Japanese War rather than a lesson learned from first-hand
experience in South Africa.17 Significantly, moving troops from firing to support positions
could partly compensate for poorly concealed fire trenches in the line-of-sight of enemy
artillery.
The second role of field fortifications was to defend against infantry attacks.
Trenches, Instruction in Military Engineering argued, could not in themselves present
effective barriers to enemy assaults, but when fortified with obstacles and machine-gun
posts, their defensive capabilities could be considerably enhanced.18 Obstacles were, in the
words of the Manual of Field Engineering, used to obtain “definite control” of both the
14 Manual of Field Engineering, 27-8. 15 Manual of Field Engineering, 29-31. 16 Manual of Field Engineering, 29. 17 Manual of Military Engineering, 37. 18 Instruction in Military Engineering, 55.
21
direction and speed of enemy troop movements. Barbed wire was the preferred tool. The
Manual of Field Engineering instructed engineers to leave gaps in entanglements screening
fire trenches, the positions of which would be known to defending infantry, with the object
of funnelling attackers into zones swept with concentrated fire. Machine guns could
improve the effectiveness of obstacles by drastically increasing the amount of fire trained
on these gaps.19 Machine-gun platforms constructed as appendages to fire trenches, usually
in the shape of a half-circle extending toward the enemy’s lines, increased the weapon’s
radius of fire and therefore its capacity to enfilade advancing infantry.20 In theory, the
combination of barbed wire entanglements and well-sited machine-gun emplacements had
considerable defensive potential, but was limited in practice by ammunition and water
supply for machine guns. Furthermore, as Travers has argued, senior officers’ reluctance to
view the machine gun as anything more than a “weapon of opportunity” resulted in the
allotment of only two per battalion.21 Nevertheless, the tactical benefits of machine-gun
emplacements and barbed wire were well understood by 1914.
Field redoubts were a form of earthwork specifically designed to thwart infantry
attacks. Instruction in Military Engineering described redoubts as stand-alone positions
“entirely enclosed” by traversed trenches and strengthened with wire. The size and garrison
of a redoubt depended on the nature of the ground and local defensive requirements, but the
Manual of Military Engineering and the Manual of Field Engineering recommended
oblique faces approximately sixty feet wide (twenty metres) manned by twenty to thirty
infantrymen.22 Redoubts had greater resisting power against infantry than a group of
trenches because their non-linear arrangement could deliver enfilading fire on attacking
troops as the passed by. Men in redoubts, however, were vulnerable to enemy artillery.
Though traversed trenches and shelter positions within the enclosure could shield troops to
some extent, a redoubt’s large size and conspicuous nature made it an obvious target. For
this reason, engineering manuals stressed that they should be positioned behind the front-
line trenches so that they were more difficult to spot. Furthermore, redoubts in the rear
19 Manual of Field Engineering, 35-6. 20 Manual of Military Engineering, 37-8; Manual of Field Engineering, 32. See Appendix B, figures 1-2. 21 Travers, “The Offensive and the Problem of Innovation in British Military Thought,” 531-5. 22 Instruction in Military Engineering, 71, plate 19; Manual of Military Engineering, 39, plates 25-9. Recommended garrison sizes were 1 to 1.5 men per yard (0.9 metres) of parapet. See Appendix B, figure 3 for a top view of a standard redoubt.
22
could act as rallying points for withdrawing defenders, help check successful enemy
infantry assaults, and allow the line to reform for local counter-attacks.23 The Manual of
Field Engineering heavily emphasized this point. Trenches and redoubts, it argued, should
work together in an “elastic” way. If the enemy managed to penetrate the front line, the
garrison of a redoubt would then repel the breakthrough and facilitate the recapture of lost
positions with a counter-attack.24 In this way, redoubts added an element of depth to
defensive lines. Though the front line of firing trenches remained the indisputable first line
of defence, this emerging theory regarding the tactical application of redoubts demonstrates
that British officers, particularly engineers, were thinking in terms of elasticity.
Ideas about machine-gun emplacements, redoubts, and defensive elasticity
underscored the army’s understanding of the merits of defensive fire, and improvements in
trench design reflected its newfound respect for the power of modern artillery. On the
surface, deep and well-sheltered trench systems augmented with barbed wire
entanglements, machine-gun posts, and redoubts appeared to both account for the dangers
of enemy artillery and exploit the advantages of defensive fire. The issue of siting positions
complicated this apparent balance. The topographical contours of a battlefield presented
two options for siting trenches: the forward and reverse slopes. These sites afforded
contrasting and largely irreconcilable advantages. Forward slopes, with more observable
ground between defending infantry and enemy positions, afforded a more superior field of
fire when compared to reverse slopes. They also controlled the high ground, from which
defenders could view enemy movements while simultaneously denying him the same
advantage. Reverse slopes, on the other hand, had relatively shallow fields of fire and
conceded the high ground. However, forward slopes stood in the line-of-sight of the enemy
and its artillery and were far more vulnerable to shell fire than positions on reverse slopes.
In other words, they maximized the effect of defensive fire but were exposed to enemy
observation. In contrast, trenches on reverse slopes, concealed from enemy guns by the
crest of a hill, more effectively sheltered defending infantry but limited its field of fire.25
23 Instruction in Military Engineering, 71-2; Manual of Military Engineering, 38-9; Manual of Field Engineering, 32-4. 24 Manual of Field Engineering, 33. 25 Military Operations 1915, vol. 2, 312. Edmonds described the comparative advantages and disadvantages of forward and reverse slopes in reference to the positions of V Corps on the eve of the Second Battle of
23
Thus, the choice between siting trenches on a forward or reverse slope depended on
whether theoreticians considered fire effect or securing shelter more tactically expedient.
Entrenchment tactics favoured the former and based the siting of trenches on the
assumption that the advantages of good fields of defensive fire offset the potential dangers
of exposure to enemy guns, thus tacitly advocating forward slopes. The 1902 edition of
Infantry Training asserted that the strength of a fortified position depended principally on
the field of fire which it afforded.26 Cover from enemy fire was of secondary importance.
Instruction in Military Engineering reiterated this point, stressing that the value of deep
fields of fire outweighed that of concealment or cover.27 Subsequent infantry and military
engineering manuals did not deviate from this fundamental principle. According to the
Manual of Military Engineering, for example, good fields of fire of about 400 feet (350
metres) were not to be sacrificed to “any other consideration.”28 Field Service Regulations
1909, and later Infantry Training 1911 and Infantry Training 1914, asserted that the “chief”
point an officer should consider when establishing an entrenched position was that “fire
from it should be effective.”29 Besides good fields of fire, the other attraction of forward
slopes was good observation, particularly for artillery. Since trenches on forward slopes
held the high ground, they consequently gave artillery a direct line-of-sight to the enemy
and a good position from which to engage opposing guns and infantry with direct fire.
Bidwell and Graham explained that although the Russo-Japanese War expounded the
possibility of firing indirectly from behind cover or on reverse slopes, a consequence of the
increased accuracy afforded by quick-firing technology, artillery tactics still favoured close
infantry support.30 Indeed, Field Artillery Training 1914 underscored that for guns to most
effectively support troops on the defensive, they should be positioned on high ground rear
of the main defensive line, which necessitated that fire trenches be sited on forward
Ypres. See Chapter 4. See also Appendix A, figures 1-2 for diagrams and further explanations of forward and reverse slopes. 26 War Office, General Staff, Infantry Training 1902 (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1902), 206. 27 Instruction in Military Engineering, 59. 28 Manual of Military Engineering, 31-2. 29 War Office, General Staff, Field Service Regulations 1909 Part I: Operations (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1912), 146. First published in 1909; War Office, General Staff, Infantry Training 1911 (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1911), 133-4; War Office, General Staff, Infantry Training 1914 (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1914), 154. 30 Bidwell and Graham, Fire-Power, 8-13.
24
slopes.31 Related to the idea that the high ground should be held for the purpose of
maintaining good observation of the enemy was the notion that the forward slope served as
a more favourable point from which to launch an attack or counter-attack. This affinity for
forward slopes ultimately stemmed from an underestimation of firepower. Although deeper
trenches, improved shelter, machine-gun posts, and redoubts indicate that British tacticians
acknowledged both the dangers and defensive merits of firepower, they adopted forward
slope sites to maximize range and observation, suggesting that they also underestimated the
effect of their own defensive fire. Consequent exposure to enemy guns, while recognized as
potentially hazardous, was not regarded so threatening as to negate the advantages of good
fields of fire. The true lethality of modern firepower, first evidenced to British commanders
on the River Aisne in September 1914, revealed that forward slopes were not viable
positions and that more shallow fields of fire of 100 yards (about 90 metres) or less were
more than adequate.32
British tacticians were not ignorant of the dangers of forward slopes and siting
regulations heralded a degree of caution regarding artillery by emphasizing concealment as
a means of compensating for the risk of exposure. Concealment took two forms. The first
form, cover from view, aimed to disguise and camouflage trenches in the enemy’s line-of-
sight. Rendering excavated earth inconspicuous, covering parapets with brush or foliage,
and assimilating trenches with the natural contours of the ground were regarded as the most
effective methods. Considerable foresight would be required to disguise positions, both in
terms of siting and gathering the necessary materials to camouflage trench works.
Furthermore, regulation manuals only provided broad guidelines of how to conceal
trenches and made few definite recommendations. Cover from fire was the second form of
concealment and, unlike cover from view, aspired to hamper the ability of enemy gunners
to range and locate positions by siting trenches away from prominent terrain features.33
Dummy trenches composed of fake parapets could draw artillery fire away from the true
position. Siting trenches on reverse slopes could also provide superior cover, but only at the
expense of reducing fields of fire. Infantry Training 1914 warned against exposing trenches
31 War Office, General Staff, Artillery Training 1914 (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1914), 255. 32 See Chapter 2. 33 Manual of Field Engineering, 21-4; Infantry Training 1914, 154-7.
25
to strong artillery, recommending instead that more shallow fields of fire from concealed
trenches “may give better results,” but it did not encourage siting on reverse slopes.34 The
only explicit mention of reverse slopes came in reference to support positions. Infantry
Training manuals from 1902 made clear that cover trenches, the specific purpose of which
was to shelter infantry from enemy fire, should be deployed behind the crest of a hill.35
Overall, concealment was of enormous value if trenches were to be sited on forward slopes,
but it never received the warranted degree of attention before 1914. At training exercises,
umpires regularly complained that troops did not understand its key role. The senior umpire
for Blue Force at the 1912 army manoeuvres, for instance, asserted that trench work
“generally showed a lack of appreciation of the value and importance of concealment,” but
he made no suggestions of how troops could have made improvements.36 In general,
concealing trenches remained somewhat of an afterthought, but even though the most
effective concealment method, siting trenches on reverse slopes, was not adopted for fire
trenches before 1914, the superior cover it afforded was recognized, thus making adaptation
to the firepower realities of the First World War a potentially straightforward process.
British commanders had the necessary theoretical knowledge of reverse slopes to
quickly correct siting issues during war, but deficiencies in peacetime training meant that
troops were poorly practiced in digging and deploying entrenchments on the battlefield.
General problems of training included the relatively small numbers of men concentrated for
unit exercises and the General Staff’s inability to ensure that the quality of training was
consistent in the various military commands.37 Due to the dual nature of the British army in
which half of a battalion served abroad on imperial garrison duty while the other half
remained at home as a recruitment force, whole units rarely trained together and officers
wielded only skeleton forces during manoeuvres. Officers in command of higher
formations, such as a division, therefore had almost no experience directing forces
comparable in size to those that left for Europe in August 1914. These shortcomings,
compounded by the army’s low proportion of defence funding relative to the Royal Navy,
34 Infantry Training 1914, 150. 35 Field Service Regulations 1909, 156-77; Infantry Training 1911, 133-9; Infantry Training 1914, 155-6; Manual of Field Engineering, plate 16. 36 Report on Army Manoeuvres 1912, p. 140, The National Archives (TNA): WO 279/47. 37 Timothy Bowman and Mark Connelly, The Edwardian Army: Recruiting, Training, and Deploying the British Army, 1902-1914 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 69-70.
26
affected its performance as a whole in the early phases of the First World War.38 However,
it was the absence of proper facilities, a growing apathy toward digging caused by the
waning number of officers with combat experience, and the problems stemming from
demarcating simulated field works during manoeuvres that specifically affected
entrenchment training.
Training of infantry in spade work after South Africa reflected the army’s
recognition of its new significance, but its quality declined markedly after 1908. As
Inspector General of the Forces, Sir John French stressed to infantry officers in 1905 that
“the skillful use of entrenchments is one of the most powerful weapons in their armoury.”39
As late as 1908 he commented that entrenchment in the 5th Division, for example, was
“carefully executed” and “carried out in accordance with tactical principles.”40 Only one
year later he observed that although the division was practiced in digging, commanders
sited their trenches poorly. He found the trenches of the 13th Brigade to be “well dug,” but
he protested that their siting did not afford a good field of fire.41 After his 1910 inspection,
a dismayed French doubted if entrenching was “now insisted upon to an extent
proportionate to its vast importance in modern war.”42 A 1912 memorandum on training
showed little improvement, remarking that men did not receive sufficient instruction in the
use of the portable entrenching tool, issued to home battalions in 1910, and that the tactical
importance of siting trenches was “frequently lost sight of” during company training.43
General C.W. Douglas, French’s successor as Inspector General, noted on the eve of the
First World War that although the standard of entrenchment training had improved since
1912, troops still handled their tools poorly and were not practiced in laying obstacles or
siting positions.44
One of the primary reasons for this observed decline in the standards of infantry
training was the scarcity of facilities on which the men could practice their digging skills.
The Aldershot army base had plenty of government-owned land consisting of soft and
38 Bowman and Connelly, The Edwardian Army, 69-73. 39 Quoted in Jones, From Boer War to World War, 108. 40 IGF Annual Report for 1908, Army Council Minutes 1909, p. 236, TNA: WO 163/14. 41 IGF Annual Report for 1909, Army Council Minutes 1910, p. 365, TNA: WO 163/15. 42 IGF Annual Report for 1910, Army Council Minutes 1911, pp. 237-8, TNA: WO 163/16. 43 Memorandum on Army Training, 19 December 1912, p. 12, TNA: WO 279/552. 44 IGF Annual Report for 1913, Army Council Minutes 1914, pp. 327-33, TNA: WO 163/20.
27
easily-worked soil that could be dug up as necessary, but other training areas were not so
well endowed.45 Southern Command, for instance, was almost totally devoid of ground for
entrenchment training. During his 1909 inspections, French was unable to inspect the 3rd
Division’s entrenching skills because its commanders objected to destroying the surface of
Salisbury Plain.46 Paucity of funds was the underlying problem. The Military Manoeuvres
Act of 1897 allowed entrenchment on privately-owned land, but it aimed to minimize
damages so as to reduce claims of compensation from farmers and asserted that all trenches
had to be filled in after they had been dug. Entrenching that would disturb “antiquarian
remains, or places of historic interest or exceptional beauty” was strictly prohibited.47
Training and Manoeuvre Regulations 1909 encouraged unit commanders to deal in person
with landowners and required them to immediately speak to a compensation officer if he
opted to entrench on private property, thereby creating a number of proverbial hoops
through which he would have to jump in order to dig.48
French posited that another cause of poor entrenchment training after 1908 was that
as the number of men who had fought in South Africa grew fewer, the lessons of that war
became “dimmer.”49 Indeed, in 1914 only half of the men in the BEF had served for more
than two years.50 This decline in the number of war-hardened veterans with first-hand
experience dealing with the consequences of modern firepower created apathetic feelings
toward digging which, when combined with the prohibitions against entrenching on certain
ground, resulted in what French described as “slackness” during training.51 General
Douglas, as the senior umpire for Blue Force during the 1909 army manoeuvres, observed a
“marked disinclination” on the part of the troops to dig trenches and reported they had a
tendency to apply prohibitions even to areas where restrictions did not apply.52 Soldiers’
reluctance to dig was largely the product of their contempt for the hard labour of
45 Jones, From Boer War to World War, 108. 46 IGF Annual Report for 1908, Army Council Minutes 1909, p. 220, TNA: WO 163/14. 47 Excerpt from the Military Manoeuvres Act of 1897 in War Office, General Staff, Training and Manoeuvre Regulations 1913 (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1913), 126. 48 War Office, General Staff, Training and Manoeuvre Regulations 1909 (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1909), 78-87. 49 IGF Annual Report for 1910, Army Council Minutes 1911, p. 238, TNA: WO 163/16. 50 Jones, From Boer War to World War, 109-10. 51 IGF Annual Report for 1910, Army Council Minutes 1911, p. 244, TNA: WO 163/16. 52 Report on Army Manoeuvres 1909, p. 112, TNA: WO 279/31.
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entrenching. According to the Manual of Field Engineering, a five-foot (1.5 metre) deep
trench could be constructed in four hours with each individual soldier excavating 80 cubic
feet (2.25 cubic metres) of earth, or an approximately four-foot long section.53 Digging
would be easier in softer soils, but nevertheless, troops were generally not fond of the
“dull” work of entrenching, particularly after marching. The fact that men were required to
fill in their trenches added work to an already tiring enterprise. According to one General
Staff officer in 1912, it was “disheartening to troops to know that the more they dig the
more they will have to put back.”54
In lieu of digging, unit commanders were permitted to lay out coloured tape with
their entrenching tools to denote earthworks, which had the adverse effects of promoting
bad tactical habits and creating unrealistic combat scenarios. Douglas summed up the
problem when he argued that prohibitions against digging “encouraged the use of the tape
rather than the spade.”55 Laying tape was simply easier and less tiring than digging. During
the 1909 manoeuvres a Red Force battalion laid down tape, advanced a few hundred yards,
laid down a second line of tape, then attacked an enemy position. When the attack failed,
the battalion simply withdrew to a new line and put down tape for a third time.56 Had the
battalion actually constructed three sets of trenches, it would have taken upwards of twelve
hours if the men actually managed to muster enough energy to complete all three lines.
They thus learned neither the foresight necessary to plan positions, nor the labour and time
required to dig a proper trench. Furthermore, tape was often difficult for umpires to see.
The senior umpire of Blue Force complained after the 1910 manoeuvres that he observed
troops lying down in what appeared to be “exceedingly indifferent” positions in open fields
or on exposed slopes, only to be informed later that they were supposed to be entrenched.57
In spite of these acute problems, no alternative method of replicating realistic entrenching
practices emerged before the First World War. General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, the
commanding officer at Aldershot and later the commander of the British II Corps in 1914,
argued in 1911 that trenches should as often as possible be actually dug rather than simply
53 Manual of Field Engineering 1911, 15-7. 54 Quoted in Jones, From Boer War to World War, 110. 55 Report on Army Manoeuvres 1909, p. 112, TNA: WO 279/31. 56 Report on Army Manoeuvres 1909, p. 112, TNA: WO 279/31. 57 Report on Army Manoeuvres 1910, p. 152, TNA: WO 279/39.
29
“imagined,” but the 1913 edition of Training and Manoeuvre Regulations contained the
same prohibitions as the 1897 Military Manoeuvres Act and still recommended using tape
as a substitute for digging.58
Constructing field fortifications required the close cooperation of engineers,
infantry, and, in some cases, cavalry. Although infantry manuals stressed the skillful
tactical employment of trenches and dealt at length with the issue of siting, serious
construction endeavours like building overhead cover, shelter positions, and obstacles
remained the special domain of engineers. Infantry Training 1914 contained no design
specifications for fire or cover trenches, merely noting that cover trenches should be
“deep.” It made no mention of obstacles at all.59 Discussions of defensive tactics in cavalry
regulation manuals lacked even brief reference to entrenchments. The defensive merits of
mobility rather the value of entrenchments was the emphasis. Though Cavalry Training
1907 asserted that positions should, time permitting, be “put into a state of defence,” it
remarked that preparations should only be of the “simplest kind,” thereby extricating
cavalry from any serious entrenching duties.60 Training reflected this division between
these three arms. Sir John French observed in 1910 and 1911 that infantry seldom built
obstacles like wire entanglements or even planned to use them during exercises.61 At army
manoeuvres, coordination between infantry and Royal Engineer units was often confused
or substandard. For example, at the 1910 manoeuvres a detachment of Territorials was
charged with establishing the main defensive line for Red Force, but no engineers were
dispatched to assist them. After a 2nd Division exercise in 1912, Douglas criticized some
infantry battalions for not calling on their assigned engineer detachments to help them dig
trenches.62 Training of cavalry in entrenchment was almost non-existent. Cavalry Training
1907 noted that cavalrymen should be “familiar” with defensive works and that special
“cavalry pioneers,” non-commissioned officers with engineering backgrounds, train with
58 Instructions for Collective Training, 2 January 1911, Imperial War Museum (IWM): Maxse Papers; Training and Manoeuvre Regulations 1913, 112. 59 Infantry Training 1914, 156; 148-61. 60 War Office, General Staff, Cavalry Training 1907 (London: His Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1910), 133-4. Reprint edition with amendments. 61 IGF Annual Report for 1910, Army Council Minutes 1911, pp. 243-4, TNA: WO 163/16; IGF Annual Report for 1911, Army Council Minutes 1912, p. 514, TNA: WO 163/17. 62 Report on Army Manoeuvres 1910, p. 58, TNA: WO 279/39; IGF Annual Report for 1912, Army Council Minutes 1913, p. 646, TNA: WO 163/18.
30
the Royal Engineers, but no reports from the Inspector General before 1914 made reference
to how skilled cavalrymen were in digging trenches. It can therefore be presumed that
cavalry troopers had little to no practice with the spade. In addition, cavalrymen were only
issued the portable entrenching tool in early 1914, further substantiating that entrenching
was not seriously studied or rehearsed by the cavalry before the First World War.63
Infantry, being the first to take a position, would have to shoulder much of the
burden of entrenching a position, but its ability to do so was potentially handicapped due to
its deficiency in tools.64 Though each rifleman and non-commissioned officer was equipped
with the portable entrenching implement, it was only suitable in soft soils and its short
length limited the amount of leverage the user could exert, therefore intensifying fatigue.65
Heavier tools more useful in hard soils, such as picks and spades, remained stowed for
transport in wagons behind the front lines. Each of a battalion’s two wagons contained an
allotment of 55 shovels and 38 picks, or a total of 110 and 76 per battalion, respectively. A
brigade reserve wagon had an additional 568 shovels and 368 picks. Thus, a battalion of
approximately 1,000 men had only enough tools for about 18 per cent of its established
troop strength. The total for a brigade of four battalions was 46 per cent, but those stowed
in brigade reserve were not easily accessible.66 These quantities were insufficient for
serious digging and made the infantry dependent on engineers for tools. When Territorials
were dispatched to construct Red Force’s main defensive line at the 1910 manoeuvres, for
example, it was soon discovered that they did not possess the necessary tools to complete
the task, a problem impossible to solve without an attached Royal Engineer field
company.67 Furthermore, since carts behind the front line would not necessarily keep pace
with troop movements, battalions hastily entrenching a position would not always have
63 See various IGF Reports; Cavalry Training 1907 (reprint edition), 212-5; Badsey, Doctrine and Reform in the British Cavalry, 1880-1914, 198. Badsey argued that the issuing of the portable entrenching tool to cavalrymen was an indication of how modern the cavalry had become by the First World War. In the context of the shock versus firepower debate and the cavalry’s affinity for the lance over the rifle, equipping cavalry with entrenching tools was certainly an important victory for firepower advocates. However, in the context of entrenchment training and tactical theory in the BEF as a whole, the cavalry was woefully unprepared for a war of entrenchments; See also Jones, From Boer War to World War, 167-206 and Bowman and Connelly, The Edwardian Army, 75-95. 64 Comments on Training 1913, Aldershot Command Papers, p. 7, TNA: WO 279/53. 65 Manual of Field Engineering, 10. 66 War Office, General Staff, Field Service Manual 1914: Infantry Battalion, Expeditionary Force (London: His Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1914), 39. 67 Report on Army Manoeuvres 1910, p. 58, TNA: WO 279/39.
31
easy access to the bulk of their tools. For this reason, Smith-Dorrien emphasized in 1911
that combined training between engineers and infantry should emphasize pushing tool carts
forward and using engineers, more liberally supplied with implements, to assist in
entrenching operations. Although the difficulty of getting tools to the front line was
recognized, no alternative method was proposed and tool shortages contributing to the
infantry’s dependence on specialists remained a perennial problem during the mobile or
semi-mobile phases of the war in 1914.68
A final obstacle that had the potential to impede the army from effectively
employing field fortifications in war was the growing emphasis after 1909 on the offensive
in British military ethos. Field Service Regulations 1909 made clear that “if victory is to be
won, the defensive attitude must be assumed only in order to obtain or create a favourable
opportunity for decisive offensive action [emphasis in original].”69 The 1911 and 1914
editions of Infantry Training further distinguished between active and passive defence. The
aim of active defence was to temporarily hold the enemy while generating a manpower
reserve for a decisive counter-attack. Passive defence, on the other hand, sought no more
than to repulse enemy attacks. The former was preferable since the latter afforded the
enemy unchallenged initiative and therefore risked “crushing defeat.”70 This subordination
of the defensive regarded the purpose of entrenchments as a means to facilitate offensive
operations rather than to hold the line indefinitely. Field Service Regulations 1909 and
Infantry Training 1914 emphasized that defensive positions should be chosen and prepared
with a view to “economising the power expended on defence in order that the power of
offence may be increased.” Thus, the ultimate goal of entrenching was to reduce the
number of men required to hold a position, thereby freeing up reserves for counter-
attacks.71
The main effect that the primacy of the offensive had on entrenchment practice was
that troops spent little time preparing their positions for extended occupation. Accounting
68 Instructions for Collective Training, 2 January 1911, IWM: Maxse Papers; War Office, General Staff, Field Service Manual 1914: Field Company, Royal Engineers, Expeditionary Force (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1914), 59. Each of the four sections in a Royal Engineer field company was allotted 24 shovels, 3 spades, and 22 pick axes. Thus, a field company of approximately 200 men had nearly as many entrenching implements as an infantry battalion. 69 Field Service Regulations 1909, 127. 70 Infantry Training 1911, 131-2, 144-5; Infantry Training 1914, 149, 162-3. 71 Field Service Regulations 1909, 140; Infantry Training 1914, 149.
32
for the drainage of surface water and communications from fire trenches to rear areas was
particularly neglected. Though engineering manuals insisted that drainage must be attended
to and communications trenches should be constructed if time permitted, troops rarely did
either during exercises. Sir John French complained in his 1911 inspection that defences
lacked drainage systems and communications trenches, making the entire position “only
suitable for temporary occupation.”72 French’s argument is contradictory, however, in that
he endorsed the passive defence while he argued in the same report that troops had not paid
sufficient attention to the principle of economising men for counter-attacks.73 This
contradiction highlights an underlying problem with entrenchment theory before August
1914. Senior officers understood the value of well-built field defence systems in repulsing
enemy infantry attacks and limiting the casualties caused by artillery fire, but they
simultaneously equated their construction and lengthy occupation with a loss of initiative
and probable defeat. During the First World War, particularly at First Ypres and La Bassée,
this incongruity in defensive entrenchment theory had near-disastrous consequences since
units were continuously ordered to attack and had little time to prepare their defences.
When the German offensives developed and the British were thrown firmly on the
defensive, battalions were expected to hold their lines for weeks in only rudimentary and
often flooded trenches equipped with few or no covered communications.
How well prepared was the BEF for the entrenchment requirements of the First
World War? It was certainly not, as Sir James Edmonds and Niall Ferguson have implied,
ignorant of field fortifications and their value on modern battlefields. By 1914 engineers
had designed a system that addressed the power of artillery with deep trenches, head and
overhead cover, and undercut recesses. Combined with plans to withdraw troops from fire
trenches through communications trenches to cover positions, this knowledge served as the
necessary antecedent to the development of dugouts. The basic tenets of fortifying a
position for defence against infantry attack, namely with barbed wire, machine-gun
emplacements, and redoubts, were also thoroughly articulated before 1914. The weakness
of the BEF was therefore not intellectual ineptitude. Rather, an underestimation of
firepower, deficiencies in training, the infantry’s dependence on Royal Engineers, and the
72 IGF Annual Report for 1911, Army Council Minutes 1912, p. 515, TNA: WO 163/17. 73 IGF Annual Report for 1911, Army Council Minutes 1912, p. 514, TNA: WO 163/17.
33
primacy of the offensive had the potential to limit the army’s ability to effectively
implement its field fortification system on the battlefield. In short, the BEF was well
prepared in terms of its theory, but it was not well practiced in applying that theory.
Exposure to modern firepower during the first two months of the war, most notably that of
German heavy howitzers, quickly revealed these shortcomings and set in motion a process
of adaptation. The learning process, moreover, could prove straightforward due to an
understanding of reverse slopes and shelter positions, and acknowledgements of infantry
tool shortages. Applying an effective field fortification system thus depended on the senior
command’s capacity to use engineers so as to capitalize on their expertise, adapt its theory
and absorb new lessons, and effectively transmit modified techniques to all its tactical
officers, particularly those arriving on the Western Front in late 1914 and early 1915.
34
Chapter 2
Response and Adaptation on the River Aisne
By 17 August 1914, four of the BEF’s six divisions, approximately 80,000 men
organized into two corps, had crossed the English Channel and completed their assembly
near Amiens in northeastern France. Their first objective was to cover the left flank of the
neighbouring French Fifth Army as it advanced on Charleroi. After a brief engagement
with the German First Army near Mons on 23 August, the sheer weight of enemy
numerical superiority and the unexpected withdrawal of the French Fifth Army compelled
the BEF to retreat with the Germans in close pursuit. Sir John French, the Commander-in-
Chief of the BEF, having all but abandoned any prospect of reviving his disorganized force,
halted his retreat on 4 September and supported the planned French counter-attack. The
BEF, having swelled to three corps with the arrival of the 4th and 6th Divisions (III Corps),
played only a minor role in the subsequent Battle of the Marne. Weary from the retreat and
erring on the side of caution, French and his corps commanders began on 6 September to
slowly push into the gap that had opened between the German First and Second Armies.
General Helmuth von Moltke, the chief of the German General Staff, seeing his flank
compromised by the eastward movement of the French Sixth Army on the Ourcq, withdrew
his right wing on the 9th. The French Commander-in-Chief, General Joseph Joffre, ordered
a “vigorous” pursuit, but weeks of near-continuous fighting had left Allied troops
exhausted. Relatively unmolested the Germans crossed the River Aisne on 12 September
and established defensive positions on its northern heights. The BEF began crossing the
river the following day and on the morning of the 14th began its push up the northern
slopes.1
The Battle of the Aisne marked the beginning of static trench warfare for the BEF.
When the British attack on 14 September ground to a halt in thick weather and difficult
1 For an overview of the Battle of the Frontiers and the Marne, see Strachan, The First World War, vol. 1, 219-261; For a more detailed analysis of the Marne, particularly from the German perspective, see Herwig, The Marne, 191-306; For British operations in August and early September 1914, see John Terraine, Mons: Retreat to Victory (New York: Macmillan, 1960) and Gardner, Trial by Fire, 33-72.
35
terrain against German heavy artillery fire, both sides took to the spade and the BEF
remained stationary until it withdrew to Flanders in early October. Unlike the brief
defensive stands at Mons and Le Cateau in late August, the Aisne was the first prolonged
engagement requiring extensive field defence construction, and was therefore the first test
of the army’s entrenchment and fortification capabilities. Military theorists’
underestimation of the power of modern artillery was quickly apparent. Brigade and
battalion commanders discovered between 14 and 16 September that forward slope sites
were untenable and units in all sectors of the British line adopted reverse slopes for their
fire trenches. In most respects, however, prewar entrenchment theory proved well suited to
the conditions of the Aisne battle and promoted the development of an effective field
defence system capable of withstanding German bombardment and infantry attacks.
Equipped with the knowledge of the advantages of reverse slopes and a theoretical
familiarity with cover trenches and the basic tenets of fortification, units deviated from
prewar siting regulations without hesitation and dug dual lines of deep trenches augmented
with traverses, undercut recesses, and barbed wire entanglements, all linked when possible
via communications trenches. The Aisne was also instructive in that it conditioned the BEF
to large-scale entrenchment, reinforced a number of lessons learned in South Africa but
subsequently neglected during peacetime training, and prompted division and corps
commanders to critically consider how their units’ responses had affected existing theory.
That field fortifications proved so effective and were modified when necessary to match the
conditions of the battle indicate that the army was, in spite of training deficiencies and the
infantry’s dependence on Royal Engineer tools and expertise, largely prepared for the
entrenchment requirements of the First World War and fully capable of quickly adapting to
new circumstances.
The only significant change to prewar entrenchment theory made necessary by the
fighting on the Aisne was the switch from forward to reverse slope sites. Prior to the Aisne
at Mons and Le Cateau, units followed existing siting recommendations and positioned
their trenches on forward slopes to maximize the effect of their weapons on attacking
infantry. For instance, when directed to dig in near Mons, the commanding officer of the
4/Middlesex Regiment in the 3rd Division selected for his fire trenches points on the
forward slope of a ridge behind the Mons-Condé canal. Hedges screening the firing line
36
were seen as satisfactory to conceal the position from enemy view.2 German artillery, in the
words of historian Holger H. Herwig, “mercilessly battered” the 4/Middlesex’s exposed
trenches on 23 August and inflicted as many as 400 casualties, roughly forty per cent of its
peacetime establishment. Nevertheless, the battalion’s forward slope sites afforded it a deep
field of fire, for the defenders had a clear view of attacking German infantry as it advanced
in columns toward the canal and could pour rapid fire into its closely formed ranks.3 At Le
Cateau the battalions of the 5th Division entrenched the forward slope with the aim of
giving its artillery a good line-of-sight to the enemy. The result was that the guns of the
German First Army could see and directly target both the British infantry and artillery
positions. Defending troops suffered heavy losses in the ensuing engagement, particularly
when they exposed themselves on the crest line while retreating from their fire trenches
nearer the base of the hill.4 Despite the damage done to infantry by German artillery at
Mons and Le Cateau, there is no evidence to suggest that divisional or corps commanders
questioned the viability of forward slope sites after these early battles. On the contrary, the
effectiveness of defensive rifle fire at Mons demonstrated that they could potentially prove
highly advantageous, therefore likely confirming rather than bringing into question prewar
siting regulations.
The Aisne reversed this confidence in the viability of forward slopes and
unequivocally demonstrated that cover from fire rather than attaining deep fields of fire
should govern the siting of defensive positions. This reversal in thinking was relatively
straightforward for the BEF due to tacticians’ understanding of the advantages of reverse
slopes. However, the immediate cause of the army adopting reverse slopes for its fire
trenches was tactical expedience rather than foresight or planning. In the evening of 13
September Sir John French ordered the BEF, forward units of which had already
established themselves on the northern banks of the river, to “vigorously” continue their
pursuit of the reportedly retreating Germans the following morning.5 Securing the high
2 Diary of T.S. Woollcombe, 22 August 1914, 4/Middlesex Regiment War Diary, August 1914 – October 1915, TNA: WO 95/1422. 3 Herwig, The Marne, 154. Herwig estimated First Army losses as high as 5,000 on 23-24 August; Terraine, Mons, 104. 4 Strachan, The First World War, vol. 1, 223; Herwig, The Marne, 182. 5 Operations Order No. 24, GHQ War Diary, 13 September 1914, TNA: WO 95/1. The German First and Second Armies had in reality halted their withdrawal and begun constructing defensive positions on 12 September.
37
ground was the primary tactical objective. As per prewar theory, brigade and battalion
commanders on 14 September therefore had every intention of entrenching the forward
slope in order to hold the plateau, but a number of factors rendered this task exceedingly
difficult. The heights north of the Aisne stood between 300 to 325 feet (90 to 100 metres)
atop heavily wooded, steep, and broken slopes cut by numerous spurs and ridges which
afforded the Germans good screens, enfilading positions, and a vital advantage in
observation.6 German high-trajectory fire weapons, including a number of siege howitzers
released from Maubeuge, were extremely well suited to defensive fighting on the Aisne
since they could indirectly shell the river valley from reverse slopes without coming into
the line-of-sight of British guns, the majority of which were 18-pounder field pieces
designed to fire on targets directly.7 British gunners’ ability to support the infantry by
neutralizing enemy batteries was therefore very limited. This combination of difficult
terrain, poor observation, and German artillery superiority, particularly in heavy howitzers,
placed attacking British battalions at a considerable disadvantage. Rain and thick weather
on 14 September compounded the problem and the capture and subsequent defence of the
heights against counter-attack proved a very costly endeavor.
The experience of the 2nd Brigade in General Douglas Haig’s I Corps epitomized
both the obstacles confronting tactical commanders as they attempted to secure the heights
and their motives for extemporaneously adopting reverse slope positions for their trenches.
Ordered to advance toward Troyon as the lead element of the 1st Division, the 2nd Brigade
aimed to seize the Chemin des Dames, a prominent road which ran along the plateau. Thick
fog and difficult terrain caused considerable confusion during the attack and the battalions
of the 2nd Brigade became intermingled with one another and those of the neighbouring
3rd Brigade as they advanced up the broken slopes. Fog also made it difficult for gunners to
locate enemy infantry positions and troops thus had practically no artillery support.8
Although the brigade managed to reach and temporarily establish itself on the Chemin des
6 Douglas Wilson Johnson, Battlefields of the World War, Western and Southern Fronts: A Study in Military Geography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1921), 240-3. 7 Strachan, The First World War, vol. 1, 257-9; Bidwell and Graham, Fire-Power, 12-3. The British 18-pounder was an 84 mm caliber gun, slightly larger than the French 75 mm and German 77 mm field guns. Divisional artillery in 1911 consisted of 54 18-pounder field guns and only 18 34-pounder field howitzers. Plans to incorporate more heavy pieces were incomplete in 1914 and the 18-pounder remained the predominant gun in the BEF. 8 Ts diary of E.S. Bulfin, 14 September 1914, TNA: CAB 45/140.
38
Dames, the position proved completely untenable. Rifle and machine-gun fire from
entrenched German infantry concealed behind brush and in farm fields inflicted what one
observer considered “truly appalling” casualties. A German counter-attack supported by a
heavy artillery bombardment forced the brigade off the heights and a British attempt to
recapture them later in the evening failed.9 One company of the 2/King’s Royal Rifle Corps
advanced beyond the plateau and onto the forward slope but exposure to German fire and
an absence of artillery support compelled it to withdraw behind the hillcrest.10 Unable to
advance any further and seeking to escape the “full force” of German shell and shrapnel
fire, General E.S. Bulfin, commander of the 2nd Brigade, opted to consolidate his position
and ordered his battalions to entrench on the reverse slope.11
Inability to safely occupy the heights leading to entrenchment of reverse slopes
occurred throughout the BEF. In the 2nd Division, the 2/Grenadier Guards advanced on the
high ground north of the Soupir farm, but owing to confusion between battalions, stiff
infantry resistance, and heavy shell fire, it failed to make appreciable progress and
entrenched on the reverse slope at night fall. Support companies took cover further down
the hill behind a wall enclosing the farm.12 The 13th Brigade in the 5th Division near the
centre of the BEF line had established itself on the north side of the river on 13 September
and managed to capture a spur on the Chivres ridge the following day. Disorganization of
the brigade’s battalions and incessant German shelling prompted the brigadier to decide
against holding the ridge itself, and he instead ordered his units to withdraw and dig in at
the foot of the hill.13 On the British left, the 4th Division captured and strongly entrenched
the high ground northeast of Bucy on 13 September. Having achieved its primary tactical
goal, it made no attempt to advance any further so General Alymer Hunter-Weston,
commander of the 11th Brigade, directed his battalions to make any modifications to their
sites that “recent experience” may have dictated. Cover from artillery fire was the foremost
9 Diary of an anonymous second lieutenant, 13 September 1914, 1/Loyal North Lancashire Regiment War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1270. The author mistakenly dated the attack as occurring on 13 September. 10 2/King’s Royal Rifle Corps War Diary, 14 September 1914, TNA: WO 95/1272. 11 Ts diary of E.S. Bulfin, 14 September 1914, TNA: CAB 45/140; The war diary of the 1st Division Commander Royal Engineers also notes that the 2nd Brigade entrenched the reverse slopes on 14 September. See 26th Field Company to 1st and 2nd Division Commander Royal Engineers, 15 September 1914, 1st Division Commander Royal Engineers War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1244. 12 Diary of George Jeffreys, 14 September 1914, in Fifteen Rounds a Minute: The Grenadiers at War, August-December 1914, ed. J.M. Craster (London: Macmillan, 1976), 88. 13 13th Brigade War Diary, 13-14 September 1914, TNA: WO 95/1548.
39
concern. The Germans, in possession of the Chivres ridge, had a clear view of British
defensive positions to the south and west, particularly those of the 10th and 11th Brigades
situated on the heights near Bucy. Consequently, on 16 September Hunter-Weston clarified
his previous order and specified that trenches should be sited so that they were “secure” and
concealed from German artillery fire originating from this point.14
With his forces unable to dislodge the Germans from the heights, French ordered
the BEF on 15 and 16 September to “strongly” entrench and solidify the positions gained
on the 14th.15 Although he coveted a renewed northward advance, difficult terrain and
continued German artillery superiority precluded any offensive action and thus
strengthening field works became the BEF’s primary task. Even with trenches sited on
reverse slopes, the unforeseen ferocity of German heavy shell fire and the lack of support
from friendly guns threatened the BEF’s position on the Aisne. Units responded by digging
deeper trenches and constructing improved shelters to better withstand regular
bombardment. In the early stages of the battle, when most engineering field companies
were occupied with repairing bridgeheads demolished by the German First Army on 12
September, improvement took the form of infantry digging deeper and hastily adding
undercut recesses or rudimentary traverses. For instance, an anonymous second lieutenant
in the 1/Loyal North Lancashire Regiment wrote on 16 September that his battalion spent
the previous night deepening its trenches.16 The 1/Royal West Surrey Regiment similarly
deepened its trenches on the night of 15/16 September and further improved them with
recesses on the 16th for protection against high explosive shell fire.17 The
1/Northumberland Fusiliers in the 3rd Division reported to its parent brigade on 16
September that it had begun to construct traverses since German gunners had ranged the
position and were accurately pitching shells directly into its trenches.18 Improving the
quality of trenches by digging deeper continued into late September and became part of a
battalion’s daily routine. The war diary of the 2/King’s Royal Rifle Corps made note of
14 11th Brigade to Battalions, 14 and 16 September 1914, 11th Brigade War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1486; Ms Diary of Alymer Hunter-Weston, 13-16 September 1914, British Library: Hunter-Weston Papers. 15 Operations Order No. 26-27, 15-16 September 1914, GHQ War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1. 16 Diary of an anonymous second lieutenant, 16 September 1914, 1/Loyal North Lancashire Regiment War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1270. 17 1/Royal West Surrey Regiment War Diary, 15-16 September 1914, TNA: WO 95/1280/1. 18 1/Northumberland Fusiliers to 9th Brigade, 16 September 1914, 9th Brigade War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1425.
40
troops digging better trenches and working on their positions for four consecutive days
between 21 and 25 September.19
From the outset, the BEF aimed to develop the shelter system consisting of two
parallel lines of entrenchments linked via communications trenches described in the 1911
Manual of Field Engineering. On 17 September, the 4th Division in III Corps ordered its
three brigades to dig cover trenches for supports and reserves, and to construct “covered
approaches” from them to firing trenches.20 In the 1st Division, the 1/Loyal North
Lancashire Regiment began work on second-line trenches on 16 September.21 The
1/Northumberland Fusiliers, suffering losses in spite of traversing due to their trenches
having been ranged by German artillery, also began arranging on the 16th to dig shelter
trenches behind the main firing line. The goal, the battalion indicated in its communication,
was to withdraw two-thirds of the front-line garrison to these cover positions during the day
so as to expose fewer men to enemy shelling. This response was a particularly adept
application of prewar entrenchment theory. Since German howitzers had located and could
target the battalion’s trenches with indirect fire, they in effect reduced the advantage
afforded by the reverse slope site. Digging a second line not yet ranged by enemy gunners
to which troops could retire therefore helped compensate for poorly concealed firing
trenches.22
The limiting factor for infantrymen in the early stages of the battle, when
engineering units were busy attending to the bridging of the Aisne, was not an absence of
knowledge on how to construct adequate shelter systems or a shortage of motivation to dig,
but rather a scarcity of tools with which to carry out the work. In fact, the infantry’s
deficiency in entrenching tools was already clear in August and almost immediately
recognized as a problem. In a memorandum to the Commanders Royal Engineers of the 1st
and 2nd Divisions dated 24 August, Major Pritchard of the 26th Field Company noted that
infantry battalions had at their disposal “very few tools.” Individual riflemen and non-
commissioned officers were each equipped with the portable entrenching tool, but it was
19 2/King’s Royal Rifle Corps War Diary, 21-25 September 1914, TNA: WO 95/1272. 20 4th Division to brigades, 17 September 1914, 11th Brigade War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1486. 21 Diary of an anonymous second lieutenant, 16 September 1914, 1/Loyal North Lancashire Regiment War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1270. 22 1/Northumberland Fusiliers to 9th Brigade, 16 September 1914, 9th Brigade War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1425.
41
not regarded as suitable for thorough entrenching and Royal Engineer units had at Mons
been forced to hand over their picks and shovels. Even then the number of tools available to
infantry battalions was insufficient to dig proper defences, necessitating that they seek out
and acquire civilian tools from homes and farms.23 This deficiency in entrenching tools was
so acute at Le Cateau that men who could not find civilian tools reportedly scooped earth
with mess tins or even their hands.24 The underlying problem, Pritchard argued, was that
there was “a tendency to treat [infantry] tool carts as if they were baggage wagons & to
bring them in too late & send them away too early.” He therefore recommended that
infantry tool carts be made as readily available to battalions as engineer carts were to field
companies.25 Implementing this solution would entail good communications between front-
line units and rear areas not easily maintained when advancing troops lacking wireless
radios lost contact with their baggage trains. Furthermore, infantry brigades contained an
allotment of tools for less than half of their men.26 Augmenting the infantry’s gross supply
would require shipments from the United Kingdom, a time-consuming logistical feat made
more difficult by the lengthening of supply lines as the BEF rapidly retreated away from
the English Channel in late August and early September.
Tool shortages persisted on the Aisne and were acute between 13 and 16
September. Bulfin, for instance, indicated that the men of the 2nd Brigade had to
requisition tools from farms around Vendresse and Troyon before they set about
entrenching in the evening of the 14th.27 General Smith-Dorrien, the commander of II
Corps, complained in his diary that although his 3rd and 5th Divisions had managed to dig
themselves in “pretty well” by the night of the 15th, they had done so with “the minimum”
of entrenching tools.28 In III Corps, the 12th Brigade reported to the Commander Royal
Engineers of the 4th Division at 16:27 local time on 14 September that it “badly needed”
tools to construct its trenches. Labour and technical guidance was not the issue since the
brigade indicated that Royal Engineer assistance was not necessary and that it only required
23 26th Field Company to 1st and 2nd Division Commander Royal Engineers, 24 August 1914, Appendices to 1st Divisional Commander Royal Engineers War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1244. 24 Ernest W. Hamilton, The First Seven Divisions: Being a Detailed Account of the Fighting from Mons to Ypres (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1916), 64. 25 26th Field Company to 1st and 2nd Division Commander Royal Engineers, Appendices to 1st Divisional Commander Royal Engineers War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1244. 26 See Chapter 1. 27 Ts diary of E.S. Bulfin, 14 September 1914, TNA: CAB 45/140. 28 Ts Diary of Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, 15 September 1914, TNA: CAB 45/206.
42
a loan of tools. The 4th Division responded three hours later with assurance that 150 picks
and shovels would arrive by 20:30.29 This loan represented a mere nine per cent increase in
the brigade’s total tool allotment. That it received an additional 370 picks, 547 shovels, and
123 spades less than a week later suggests that the 150 tools received on the 14th proved
inadequate.30 The presence of Royal Engineers and their carts alleviated shortages in most
infantry units, but the dearth of tools early in the battle partly contributed to trench
construction proceeding more slowly than anticipated. The 1911 Manual of Field
Engineering expected an individual rifleman to dig in normal conditions a 4.0 foot (1.2
metres) wide section of 5.0 foot (1.5 meter) deep trench in four hours.31 By 19 September,
five days after II Corps first broke ground, some of the 3rd and 5th Divisions’ trenches
were still too shallow for troops to stand in.32 Exhaustion, incessant enemy fire, and
reduced manpower stemming from casualties sustained on the 14th also negatively affected
the pace of trench construction, but a dearth of tools meant that fewer men could engage in
digging, even if they were physically capable.
Field defence development accelerated once the bulk of the engineering forces had
completed their work bridging the Aisne and infantry had access to Royal Engineer tools
and expertise. In addition to field companies assisting infantry by deepening fire trenches,
adding rudimentary head cover, and improving shelter and communications trenches, the
arrival of the Royal Engineers at the front lines marked the appearance of the first dugouts.
The range and power of German high-trajectory guns required cover for men not
immediately engaged in the fighting and so engineers took the idea of cover positions one
step further. The result was shelters in the rear of the fire and support trenches for officers
and reserves. Brigadier-General J.F. Trefusis, the 4th Brigade’s adjutant to the 1/Irish
Guards, recorded in his diary that by 1 October the battalion had two such shelters. He did
not describe their form in any detail, but due to the uneven terrain and easily-worked soil of
the Aisne valley, hollows cut into the hillside large enough for multiple men would have
been sufficient protection against shell fire.33 Indeed, Lieutenant-Colonel Wilfred R.A.
29 12th Brigade to 4th Division, 14 September 1914, 4th Division Commander Royal Engineers War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1463. 30 4th Division Commander Royal Engineers War Diary, 21 September 1914, TNA: WO 95/1463. 31 See Chapter 1. 32 Memorandum for Lieutenant-Colonel Lord Loch, 19 September 1914, IWM: Loch Papers. 33 Ts Diary of J.F. Trefusis, 28 September and 1 October 1914, IWM: Trefusis Papers.
43
Smith, commander of the 2/Grenadier Guards, described in a 21 September letter to his
wife that he was writing in a sort of “cave” dug behind the battalion’s main defensive
line.34 Sited on a reverse slope and cut into the hillside, the 1/Irish and 2/Grenadier Guards’
dugouts were thus protected from direct enemy fire by the crest of the hill and further
shielded from high-trajectory howitzer fire by the earth above. Where shelters could not be
dug deep enough into a reverse slope to provide adequate protection from howitzer fire,
dugouts were augmented with overhead cover. A photograph of the 1/Somerset Light
Infantry’s reserve positions, likely taken in late September or early October before III
Corps withdrew from the Aisne, depicts a position consisting of a shallow recess equipped
with a wooden ceiling held up by posts dug into the earth.35
Although constructing additional cover in the form of dugouts was a key response
to heavy artillery fire, preparing positions for defence against infantry attack remained a
high priority. By 17 September the Germans had turned their attention away from the Aisne
and toward the Allied left flank near Albert, but the First and Seventh Armies continued
launching holding attacks until late September to pin the French and British in place and
prevent them from shifting forces to the northwest. Reverse slope trench sites, though
superior to forward slopes in terms of cover from fire, afforded far more shallow fields of
fire than what Haig referred to as the “text book” standard of 400 yards (350 metres) called
for in infantry training manuals.36 Bulfin, for instance, observed the depth of the 2nd
Brigade’s fields of fire to be in some places less than 80 yards (about 75 metres). Shallow
fields of fire meant that riflemen had less time to aim, fire, and reload their weapons before
attacking troops rushed the front lines. Defending infantry thus relied heavily on barbed
wire entanglements to stall the forward movements of attacking troops. Since infantry units
were not themselves supplied with barbed wire or the wooden stakes on which to mount it,
Royal Engineer field companies were attached to brigades and charged with both the
construction and placement of entanglements.37
34 Wilfred R.A. Smith to his wife, 21 September 1914, in Fifteen Rounds a Minute, 95. 35 Photograph of shelter and reserve trenches, Ms Diary of Alymer Hunter-Weston, British Library: Hunter-Weston Papers. 36 “Operations of the Ist Corps on the River Aisne, 13th to 30th September 1914,” I Corps War Diary, TNA: WO 95/988. See also “Situation of the 1st Corps after the battle of 14th September,” Ts Diary of Douglas Haig, TNA: WO 256/1. 37 Appendices to 1st Division Commander Royal Engineers War Diary, various messages dated 14-28 September 1914, TNA: WO 95/1244.
44
Demand for wire in most cases exceeded that of the available supply and quantities
were often insufficient to evenly screen trench positions. Difficulty transporting materials
up the rugged slopes from rear areas to front-line defences was one cause of wire
shortages.38 Engineers’ efforts to speedily erect wire entanglements were therefore limited
by the rate at which materials could be transported, and units typically used wire faster than
it was delivered. The 23rd Field Company reported on 25 September that it had during the
previous night erected approximately 300 yards (275 metres) of wire entanglements in front
of the 2nd Brigade’s right flank, but also indicated that it would require more wire in order
to continue screening the position.39 Gross quantity was another inhibiting factor. The
Commander Royal Engineers of the 1st Division, after having received the 23rd Field
Company’s report, requested the divisional Deputy Assistant Director of Ordnance Services
order a minimum ten additional miles (16 kilometres) of wire from GHQ.40 Faced with
supply deficiencies, the 23rd Field Company improvised by concentrating wire
entanglements in front of the most vulnerable sections of trench where fields of fire were
the shallowest.41 It is unclear if other field companies followed suit. The war diary of the
5th Field Company, for example, made no mention of compensating for supply shortages in
this way. Regardless, the 23rd Field Company’s solution was a practical response to the
problem of unexpectedly shallow fields of fire caused by reverse slopes and the chronic
deficiencies in available wire, demonstrating that engineers had, like the infantry, quickly
begun to adapt to defending positions on reverse slopes.
The appearance of cover and communications trenches, embryonic dugouts, and
barbed wire entanglements indicates that inconsistent and insufficient prewar training and
the infantry’s dependence on Royal Engineers for tools and expertise had only marginal
effects on the army’s capacity to develop its field fortification system. Growth was uneven,
however, in the sense that some battalions went further than others to secure shelter and
fortify their positions, which may have been a reflection of poor training. In a number of
38 5th Field Company War Diary, 22 September – 2 October 1914, TNA: WO 95/1330. 39 23rd Field Company to 1st Division Commander Royal Engineers, 25 September 1914, Appendices to 1st Division Commander Royal Engineers War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1244. 40 1st Division Commander Royal Engineers to 1st Division Deputy Assistant Director of Ordnance Services, 25 September 1914, Appendices to 1st Division Commander Royal Engineers War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1244. 41 23rd Field Company to 1st Division Commander Royal Engineers, 25-6 September 1914, Appendices to 1st Division Commander Royal Engineers War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1244.
45
cases, battalion records noted that upon relieving another unit in a different section of the
line, troops had to improve trenches in order to meet their particular standards. For
example, after having recently completed its communications trenches and dugouts, and
finished digging its fire trenches deep enough so that the troops could stand in them without
exposing their heads, the 1/Irish Guards were relieved on 1 October by the
2/Worcestershire Regiment. Trefusis complained that it was “Rather annoying as we had
had all the work of making these trenches etc. and building shelters so that the Battalion
[sic] that relieved us will get the benefit … [W]here we go [next] I expect we will have to
start all over.” Conversely, the Worcestershires reportedly complained that the Irish
Guards’ trenches were too wide.42 Thus, in spite of the specifications laid out in military
engineering manuals, in September 1914 there existed in practice no standard design.
Disparity between units could plausibly have been the consequence of varying degrees of
Royal Engineer assistance, but was more likely the result of infantry battalions having had
no practice constructing complete field defence systems in peacetime. With minimal
experience digging trench networks and little more than textbook theory to guide them,
battalions went only as far as they considered necessary.
Overall, the BEF’s field fortifications on the Aisne were, in spite of ordnance
shortages and uneven levels of development, very effective at both sheltering defending
troops from shell fire and resisting infantry attacks. In reference to the former, Hunter-
Weston wrote on 14 September that unless a German shell fell directly into a trench – a
highly unlikely scenario – the men of his brigade were “quite safe.”43 Smith-Dorrien
similarly recorded in his diary on the 27th that although the Aisne valley was “a mass of
bursting shells,” German artillery had caused very few casualties owing to good trenches.44
Captain E.J. Pike of the 2/Grenadier Guards wrote in a 23 September letter that the German
shelling went on “all day” and enemy snipers fired on his trench during the night, but the
unit had “been very lucky lately” and lost very few men. “[B]eing in the trenches,” he
concluded, “saves them.”45 In fact, the only significant casualties suffered by the
2/Grenadier Guards due to shell fire while on the Aisne was on the 16th when a German
42 Ts Diary of J.F. Trefusis, 1 October 1914, IWM: Trefusis Papers. 43 Ms Diary of Almyer Hunter-Weston, 14 September 1914, British Library: Hunter-Weston Papers. 44 Ts Diary of Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, 27 September 1914, TNA: CAB 45/206. 45 Quoted in Craster, in Fifteen Rounds a Minute, 101-2.
46
heavy shell hit a quarry behind the battalion’s main defensive line housing supports and
wounded. About 100 men in total were either killed or injured in the quarry, but the fire
trenches emerged from the bombardment unscathed. Major George Jeffreys noted that
because the battalion was dug in on a reverse slope, most shells flew over the main trench
lines and landed a safe distance behind them.46 Effective use of cover trenches also reduced
losses. For example, when the Germans began bombarding the 2nd Brigade on 5 October,
Bulfin withdrew the troops from the front lines to cover trenches and consequently only a
“few men” were hit.47
Since the task of the German First and Seventh Armies was simply to prevent the
Entente from shifting forces to the northwest, the ability of British defences to withstand
full-scale infantry assaults was never seriously tested. Furthermore, the BEF did not fight
any prolonged infantry engagements on the Aisne and thus it is difficult to precisely
determine how fortifications, specifically barbed wire entanglements, factored into
defensive battles. It was quickly apparent, however, that British tacticians before the war
severely underestimated the effects of their own defensive fire. Tactical and operational
officers realized shortly after 14 September that the relatively shallow fields of fire afforded
by reverse slope trench sites were more than sufficient to combat enemy infantry. Although
the 2nd Brigade’s fields were in some places less than 80 yards (about 75 metres), Bulfin
recorded that his battalions successfully beat back two German counter-attacks on 14
September. Thus, the brigade’s trench site did not prove to be a significant defensive
handicap.48 Lieutenant-Colonel Lord Edward Loch, liaison officer between GHQ and II
Corps, reported that even though the fields of fire in front of the 3rd Division were less than
the optimal 400 yards (350 metres), they were “quite good enough against infantry.”49
Regarding the impact of fortifications, relatively low casualty figures and tactical officers’
tendency to attribute their success to good trenches suggests that field defences did in fact
help the BEF stop German infantry. Smith of the 2/Grenadier Guards credited light losses
during a 20 September attack solely to effective fortifications:
In the evening [the Germans] made a feeble attack, and we wiped them out. I was thankful the men have learnt at last to dig and burrow like rabbits. I don’t know
46 Diary of George Jeffreys, 16 and 18 September 1914, in Fifteen Rounds a Minute, 91. 47 Ts Diary of E.S. Bulfin, 5 October 1914, TNA: CAB 45/140. 48 Ts Diary of E.S. Bulfin, 14 September 1914, TNA: CAB 45/140. 49 Memorandum for Lieutenant-Colonel Lord Loch, 19 September 1914, IWM: Loch Papers.
47
what others lost, but we lost only 2 killed, and 4 wounded, entirely owing to good digging.50
Unit records did not describe in detail the effect of barbed wire in slowing the forward
movement of enemy attackers, but Haig noted at the end of September that entanglements
placed in “suitable locations” successfully held up German troops on “several occasions.”51
Therefore, the combination of good trenches and well-sited barbed wire entanglements
reduced losses by shielding troops and generating more time for men to aim, fire, and
reload their weapons, thereby enhancing the already powerful effect of defensive fire.
Sir James Edmonds asserted that the Aisne defences were rudimentary compared to
those developed later in the war, and described the trenches as simply “narrow fire pits”
which were rarely continuous and easily knocked in by enemy shells. To Edmonds, this so-
called “Augustan” period of fortification was, as its namesake implied, the first stage in a
lengthy evolution culminating in the defences of 1916-17.52 His assessment, although
applicable to the First World War, did not place the Aisne fortifications in their wider
context. The British army had not constructed field defences in wartime since South Africa
and the scale of fortification in 1899-1902 did not compare to that made necessary by
German heavy artillery on the Aisne. Between South Africa and the Aisne, then, the field
fortifications of the latter represented considerable growth over those of the former. Though
the BEF was unprepared to fight a war of entrenchments in terms of its training and tools
supply, it was equipped after South Africa with the necessary theoretical foundation to
employ a robust system capable of adaptation. Trenches were indeed rudimentary
compared to those of 1916-17, but, contrary to Edmonds, were more advanced than
traversed rifle pits. Although trenches in some cases remained disconnected, battalions
quickly realized that continuous systems provided superior shelter and many endeavoured
to link trench segments together. Trefusis, for example, noted on 1 October that he could
walk fully erect from one end of his battalion’s trench line to the other without exposing
himself to enemy fire.53 Embryonic dugouts, communications trenches, and well-placed
50 Wilfred R.A. Smith to his wife, 21 September 1914, in Fifteen Rounds a Minute, 96. 51 “Notes on R.E. work during the operations on the AISNE between 13th ànd 27th September, I Corps War Diary, TNA: WO 95/988; See also “Notes on R.E. work during the operations on the AISNE between 13th ànd 27th September,” Ts Diary of D. Haig, TNA: WO 256/1. 52 Military Operations 1914, vol. 1, 433. 53 Ts Diary of J.F. Trefusis, 1 October 1914, IWM: Trefusis Papers.
48
barbed wire entanglements only enhanced the system’s ability to withstand enemy artillery
bombardment, promote the movement of troops between fire and cover trenches, and stall
enemy infantry attacks.
The reason that field fortifications on the Aisne reached this level of complexity
was because infantry and engineers had ample time to work on them. Though some
battalions made minor modifications to their trench sites and units on the extreme British
right had to adjust their positions to match the movements of the adjacent French Fifth
Army, the Aisne was in every sense a truly static battle. The BEF made no attempt after 14
September to drive the Germans from their positions on the heights and thus, in spite of the
warnings in Field Service Regulations 1909 and subsequent Infantry Training manuals, its
defence was completely passive. By allowing troops to hunker down in their trenches,
encouraging units to develop their defences to the fullest extent, and not ordering repeated
attacks that may have continuously shifted the line, Sir John French ensured that the BEF’s
fortifications received ample attention. This decision was operationally sound. As Smith-
Dorrien explained, the BEF had “nothing to lose” from holding its positions on the Aisne.
Since a quick and decisive victory in the west was crucial to the success of the German war
plan, the French and British armies had much to gain from simply stalling the Germans’
efforts. In the words of Smith-Dorrien, “the longer we can detain [them] the better.”54
Driving the Germans from their positions on the Aisne was of no immediate operational or
strategic value. Improving trench positions and creating tactically strong lines of defence,
on the other hand, helped fulfill the Allied purpose of slowing German advances into
France. In short, the Aisne underscored the relationship between solid field fortifications,
passivity, time, and defensive effectiveness. The subsequent battles in Flanders, in contrast,
would demonstrate that an offensive attitude severely reduced the army’s ability to
withstand large-scale attack by distracting units from preparing trench positions.
With the Aisne battle at a standstill and the Germans’ attention focused on turning
the Allied left flank in Champagne and Picardy in late September and early October, GHQ
set about absorbing recent lessons for the purpose of instructing formations due to arrive on
the Continent, namely IV Corps from Great Britain and the Indian Corps from overseas.55
54 Ts Diary of Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, 18 September 1914, TNA: CAB 45/206. 55 See Gardner, Trial by Fire, 92-5 for an overview of the main points contained in the corps reports.
49
On 24 September, GHQ’s Sub Chief of Staff Sir Henry Wilson released to each of the
BEF’s three corps a memorandum requesting details on any tactical and administrative
“experience” gained since early August. Although the reports were officially authored and
signed by each corps’ chief of staff, in many cases, particularly in II Corps, there was an
effort to include input from the divisions and even brigades.56 GHQ therefore sparked an
upward flow of information meant to facilitate the adjustment of any prewar regulations
requiring modification. Once collected, GHQ and the General Staff aimed to consolidate
this information and supply it to the IV and Indian Corps for dissemination. Thus, Wilson’s
memorandum represented the first organized attempt to improve the fighting methods of
the BEF. As regards field fortification theory, the memorandum was important in the sense
that it afforded brigade, divisional, and corps officers the opportunity to inform the British
high command of new techniques and ideas.
In general, the corps reports affirmed to GHQ the importance of good trenches and
indicated that corps commanders remained confident in prewar fortification methods.
Smith-Dorrien argued in II Corps’ report that there were “few notes to be made on the
subject of infantry” and that the “soundness of our Field Service Regulations and Infantry
Training has been thoroughly proved.” Trench work, he concluded, “has been carried out as
practiced in peace time, and there is practically nothing new to add to the regulations in this
respect.”57 Sketches of trench system designs in the report reflected those in prewar
engineering manuals. It recommended that trenches be a minimum of 3.5 feet (about 1.0
metres) deep, 2.0 feet (0.5 metres) wide, and traversed at regular intervals.
Communications trenches were to link all fire and cover trenches to reduce the risk of men
being caught in the open during reliefs or withdrawals. Any deviations from the Manual of
Field Engineering were minor. For instance, the report opposed undercut recesses, but only
because they were liable to collapse in wet weather, not for their inability to adequately
shelter men. Any problems that II Corps encountered were not due to poor theory or bad
technique. Rather, the report asserted that enemy shells inflicted “unnecessary” casualties
only in cases where troops had “skimped” on digging and did not carefully construct their
56 GHQ to corps, 24 September 1914, II Corps War Diary, TNA: WO 95/629. 57 “Notes, based on the experience gained by the Second Corps during the campaign,” II Corps War Diary, TNA: WO 95/629.
50
trenches.58 The reports of I and III Corps similarly echoed the main points of trench
construction in prewar manuals. That of the latter formation, for instance, reinforced that
trenches should be deep, narrow, and traversed every “five to ten rifles.”59 In short, corps-
level officers saw no reason to significantly alter their methods of sheltering infantry.
The main point relayed to GHQ in the corps reports was that German heavy artillery
had affected the way in which divisional and corps commanders conceived of how field
defences should be employed on the battlefield. All three reports agreed that the unexpected
power of German guns had made necessary the entrenchment of reverse slopes, but they
went further and argued that since reverse slopes deprived German artillery of its ability to
evict defenders from trenches on its own, such sites compelled enemy infantry to attack. In
other words, reverse slopes made it impossible for the Germans to rely solely on their guns.
Reverse slopes therefore had the dual advantage of adequately shielding defending troops
while simultaneously coaxing the Germans into exposing their infantry to British defensive
fire.60 The report of III Corps succinctly summed up this new defensive approach by
maintaining that the occupation of ground for defence “should be made to combine the fire
of our own guns and rifles against the enemy’s infantry, while denying to the enemy the use
of his artillery by the siting of trenches in positions … behind rather than on the crest line
or forward slopes.”61 This approach contrasted starkly with the active defence touted in
Field Service Regulations 1909 and Infantry Training manuals. Experience on the Aisne
indicated that hunkering down in defences and waiting for enemy attacks was not only a
necessity dictated by German artillery superiority, but more tactically expedient than
entrenching a position which afforded good observation for friendly guns, deep fields of
fire, and favourable points from which to launch counter-attacks. This change in tactical
thinking was only made possible by commanders’ acknowledgment of their own defensive
firepower. Whereas prewar manuals underestimated the effect of small arms defensive fire
and advocated fields of fire exceeding 400 yards (350 metres), infantry combat on the
58 “Notes, based on the experience gained by the Second Corps during the campaign,” II Corps War Diary, TNA: WO 95/629. 59 “Report to III Corps,” III Corps War Diary, TNA: WO 95/688. 60 “Memorandum on British and German Tactics,” I Corps War Diary, TNA: WO 95/588; “Notes, based on the experience gained by the Second Corps during the campaign,” II Corps War Diary, TNA: WO 95/629. 61 “Report of III Corps,” III Corps War Diary, TNA: WO 95/688.
51
Aisne demonstrated to divisional and corps commanders that rifleman were sufficiently
lethal at less than 100 yards (91 metres).62
The result of the corps reports was two General Staff memoranda representing the
accumulation of new tactical information which GHQ deemed pertinent enough to pass
along to newly-arriving formations. The first, “Tactical notes: for the information of troops
arriving in the theatre of operations,” outlined lessons for each of the army’s three arms
based on the experiences of August and September. For infantry and engineers, the
memorandum underscored the importance of digging. “Our soldiers who have fought in
this war,” it remarked, “have come to regard the entrenching tool as one of their most
valuable possessions.” It further noted that shallow trenches were “quite ineffective,”
encouraged troops to construct recesses and overhead cover, and reiterated the corps
reports’ recommendations that trenches on reverse slopes favoured a passive defensive
approach. However, there is no indication in this memorandum that the General Staff
considered deviating from an offensive doctrine. Experience on the Aisne produced some
change in the way that senior British officers conceived of employing field fortifications,
but it did not in any way impact British military ethos which continued to heavily favour
the offensive. Although “Tactical notes” stressed the value of digging and highlighted the
lessons of the Aisne, it did not correct the underlying problem with entrenchment theory,
that even though good field fortifications required time to construct, time spent digging
afforded the enemy initiative and therefore the offensive should be resumed at every
opportunity.
The focus of the second memorandum, “Notes on the preparation of an entrenched
position,” was on the more technical aspects of shelter construction and design. Like
“Tactical notes,” it emphasized the point that trenches should be carefully constructed so as
to reduce avoidable casualties. Furthermore, it also detailed in the form of diagrams drawn
from observations of Aisne field defences various types of fire trenches, cover positions,
and dugouts.63 The memorandum underscored how experience with German heavy artillery
had made shielding infantry from enemy fire a top defensive priority, but it was flawed in
62 “Memorandum on British and German Tactics,” I Corps War Diary, TNA: WO 95/588; “Notes, based on the experience gained by the Second Corps during the campaign,” II Corps War Diary, TNA: WO 95/629; “Report of III Corps,” III Corps War Diary, TNA: WO 95/688. 63 See Appendix D, figure 1 for an example of a dugout constructed on the Aisne in September 1914.
52
that it described trenches and shelters that were specific to the Aisne battlefield. Deep
dugouts cut into steep hillsides, for example, would be impossible to construct on the
extremely flat battlefields of Flanders and northeastern France.64 In addition, the clay
substructure and high water table of the Flanders plain rendered digging deep trenches
impractical since they would quickly inundate.65 “Notes on the preparation of an
entrenched position” was an achievement for the General Staff in the sense that it
accurately conveyed how units dealt with German fire on the Aisne, but much of its content
was not applicable to the BEF’s area of operations in October and November 1914. With
the advantage of hindsight, it is apparent that the memorandum was of little practical value
to the Indian and IV Corps, both of which were sent directly to Flanders. Nevertheless,
there is no evidence to suggest that the General Staff made any effort to determine the
character of the land to which the army was transferring or how its terrain would affect
trench construction.
When evaluated in terms of what senior officers learned from the Aisne, “Tactical
notes” and “Notes on the preparation of an entrenched position” suggest that the battle was
highly educational and that its lessons vis-à-vis field fortifications were indeed apparent.
The former included all the main points of the corps reports and the latter represented a
genuine effort to understand how best to provide infantry with adequate shelter. The two
memoranda indicate that the BEF’s response to the conditions of the Aisne was
successfully absorbed and incorporated into existing tactical thought. They serve as
evidence that the BEF had by mid-October adapted its field fortification theory and
techniques to match the experienced realities of the war. However, considering that GHQ
intended these memoranda to serve as guides for officers due to arrive in Flanders and who
lacked first-hand experience, “Tactical notes” and “Notes on the preparation of an
entrenched position” were together only partially successful, primarily because the latter
did not address the vast difference between the terrain of the Aisne river valley and that of
the Flanders plain. Thus, senior commanders and the British General Staff excelled at
64 “Notes on the preparation of an entrenched position,” dated October 1914, Lahore Division War Diary, TNA: WO 95/3911. Also in III Corps War Diary, TNA: WO 95/668. 65 See Johnson, Battlefields of the World War, 9-25 and Beckett, Ypres: The First Battle, 42-7 for more on the terrain of Flanders and its impact on trench construction.
53
identifying problems and formulating solutions, but were lacking in their capacity to
consider their relevance to future operations.
By the time the last British units had begun to withdraw from the Aisne in mid-
October, GHQ and the General Staff had, with the cooperation of the divisions and corps,
corrected the most obvious entrenchment-related problems encountered to date. That the
BEF so seamlessly altered its siting regulations indicates that its prewar entrenchment
tactics were relevant to the conditions of the First World War. Indeed, British units
developed a robust field defence system on the Aisne which closely resembled that
described in the Manual of Field Engineering, suggesting that training deficiencies and the
infantry’s reliance on engineers for tools and technical expertise were by no means
debilitating weaknesses. Having made the necessary modifications to its tactics and
thoroughly highlighted the vast importance of digging and proper trench work, the BEF had
upon its arrival in Flanders successfully adapted its entrenchment theory. Adaptation,
however, would mean nothing if senior operational officers like General Henry Rawlinson,
the commander of IV Corps, failed to disseminate this information to brigade- and
battalion-level commanders responsible for siting positions and overseeing their
development. Moreover, although the General Staff attempted to relay to IV Corps the
shelter designs well suited to the Aisne battlefield, its failure to address the flat topography
and water-logged soil of Flanders meant that the entire BEF, including those formations
that had first-hand combat experience, would have to improvise. The lengthy battles around
Ypres and La Bassée in October and early November 1914 would test not only how well
the BEF could transmit new techniques and ideas, but how well its units could adapt to
unforeseen and largely unanticipated circumstances, most notably the notorious mud of
Flanders. Lastly, continued devotion to the offensive had the potential to deny British units
the important benefit of time and therefore negatively affect their efforts to properly
entrench in preparation for what amounted to be the army’s greatest challenge of 1914.
54
Chapter 3
Overcoming Setbacks at La Bassée and First Ypres
Stalemate on the Aisne prompted both sides to shift their forces to the north in
hopes of exploiting the open flank between Albert and the English Channel. General Erich
von Falkenhayn, the chief of the German General Staff since 14 September, aimed to strike
the French left with Crown Prince Rupprecht’s Sixth Army from Lorraine. General Joseph
Joffre countered with a new French Second Army and a detachment of two infantry and
one cavalry corps, later designated the Tenth Army. These movements, erroneously known
as the “race to the sea,” resulted in a series of indecisive battles which stretched the trench
lines from Champagne, through Picardy and Artois, and into southwestern Belgium.1 With
the Sixth Army stalled, Falkenhayn raised a new Fourth Army to drive through Flanders
and strike the Tenth Army’s left flank.2 Sir John French, hoping to shorten his lines of
supply and communication, proposed to Joffre that he withdraw the BEF from the Aisne
and redeploy it on the Allied left. Joffre reluctantly agreed, and on 2 October British
battalions began leaving their trenches on the Aisne. Smith-Dorrien’s II Corps arrived west
of La Bassée on the 9th, followed by III Corps near Armentières two days later. The newly
designated IV Corps, commanded by Rawlinson and originally tasked to relieve the
beleaguered Belgian fortresses at Antwerp, withdrew to the vicinity of Ypres on 16
October. The last British formation to leave the Aisne, Haig’s I Corps, took up positions on
the 19th between IV Corps to the south and French marines defending Dixmude to the
north.
The “race to the sea” and the mobile war ended when Entente forces clashed with
the German Fourth and Sixth Armies. For the BEF, the Flanders battles were the most
costly of 1914 and resulted in nearly 60,000 casualties, approximately 65 per cent of its
1 On 4 October Joffre organized the Second and Tenth Armies into a new Army Group North under General Ferdinand Foch. 2 For a general history of the “race to the sea,” see Strachan, The First World War, vol. 1, 262-80; For the French perspective, see Doughty, Pyrrhic Victory, 85-104; For the German perspective, see Holger H. Herwig, The First World War 1914-1918: Germany and Austria-Hungary (New York: Arnold, 1997), 113-20 and Holger H. Herwig, “Eyeball to Eyeball with the Enemy” Quarterly Journal of Military History 21, no. 2 (Winter 2009): 88-93.
55
total losses for the year and more than one quarter its total strength in mid-October.3
Although the Battles Nomenclature Committee identified seven distinct engagements,
fighting generally clustered along two axes: II, III, and later the Indian Corps in the south
between La Bassée and Armentières, and I, IV and the Cavalry Corps in the north near
Ypres. British operations proceeded in two phases, beginning with the army’s initial
advance from 12-18 October and followed by its lengthy defence against German attacks
between 19 October and 22 November.4 The latter phase comprised three German
offensives. First were those of the Fourth and Sixth Armies which began on 20 October.
British II and IV Corps bore the brunt of these first attacks, their lines nearly collapsing
between 20 and 26 October. From 29-31 October, a new German army group composed of
infantry units and heavy guns from the Sixth Army and commanded by General Max von
Fabeck launched a second attack against the BEF, concentrated against the 1st and 7th
Divisions along the Ypres-Menin road. A period of relative calm in early November
preceded Falkenhayn’s final bid to break through when German formations, spearheaded
by the Guards Division opposite I Corps near Nonne Bosschen Wood, attacked on 11
November. The attacks faltered against improved British defences and although fighting
continued until 22 November, the Flanders battles effectively ended on the 12th.5
In terms of entrenchment and fortification, the battles of La Bassée and First Ypres
represented a step backward from the Aisne and an episode of temporary regression in the
development of British field defence capabilities in 1914-15. The General Staff’s continued
confidence in the offensive and its failure to consider how terrain on the Flanders plain
would affect trench construction in “Notes on the preparation of an entrenched position”
had important consequences in mid- to late October. Sir John French and GHQ, optimistic
about the prospects of outflanking the German Sixth Army in spite of numerous warnings
that large enemy formations were assembling to the east, opened the battle with an attack
instead of securing tactically strong lines of defence. Advancing troops had little
opportunity to dig fortifications and defended largely incomplete and rudimentary positions
3 Keith Simpson, The Old Contemptibles: A Photographic History of the British Expeditionary Force, August to December 1914 (London: Allen & Unwin, 1981), 108; Strachan, The First World War, vol. 1, 278. 4 Beckett, Ypres: The First Battle, 1914, 4-5. The battles named by the Battles Nomenclature Committee were La Bassée (10 October – 2 November), Armentieres (13 October – 2 November), Messines (12 October – 2 November), Langemark (21-24 October), Gheluvelt (29-31 October), and Nonne Bosschen (11 November). 5 For the BEF and the Flanders battles see Military Operations 1914, vol. 2; Anthony Farrar-Hockley Death of an Army (New York: William Morrow, 1968); Beckett, Ypres: The First Battle, 1914.
56
when the Germans counter-attacked. Difficulties working with the water-logged Flanders
soil, constant enemy pressure, exhaustion, and tool shortages inhibited efforts to improve
earthworks thereafter. Compounding these early struggles was Rawlinson’s failure to
communicate to his tactical officers the importance of concealing trenches from enemy fire.
Brigadiers in IV Corps therefore followed obsolete siting regulations and entrenched
forward slopes on 18-21 October. As a result of these largely self-imposed difficulties,
British field works were not sufficiently developed to adequately shelter defending infantry
from German shell fire, and defensive lines remained weak and were vulnerable to being
pierced by repeated infantry assaults. In spite of its initial failures, by early November the
BEF had begun to adapt to the intensity of the fighting in Flanders when Haig’s I Corps
constructed the first redoubts to help defend against enemy breakthroughs by adding an
element of elasticity to trench lines. Thus, the Flanders battles were indicative of how
adapting field fortifications to the realities of the war resembled the “learning curve” in the
sense that setbacks proved painfully educational, and led to commanders improving their
techniques and applying more effective methods.
Due to the generally featureless topography of the Flanders plain, establishing the
full field defence system consisting of firing trenches linked to cover positions or dugouts
via communications trenches, as described in the Manual of Field Engineering and
constructed in a number of instances on the Aisne, was of considerable importance. On the
Aisne, trenches sited behind hillcrests escaped the brunt of heavy artillery bombardments
because they were well concealed and out of the enemy’s line-of-sight. In other words, only
very accurate, high-trajectory fire could damage trenches and inflict many casualties. In
contrast, in only a few places did the ground in Flanders rise above 100 feet (30 metres).
Mount Kemmel, whose status as a “mountain” was entirely relevant to its surroundings,
was the highest point on the battlefield at about 400 feet (120 metres).6 Sparse hills meant
that concealing positions on reverse slopes was not always possible, and so trenches were
inescapably more visible and in turn subjected to more accurate fire. Safely withdrawing
troops through communications trenches to better shelter further in the rear was the only
way to prevent heavy losses. This detail was not lost on formation commanders. When
ordered on 21 October to establish a new defensive position behind its front lines, the 3rd
6 Beckett, Ypres: The First Battle, 1914, 42-3.
57
Division’s headquarters specified to its brigades that it be constructed “with a view to
economy of men in the front line.”7 Though it was clear to division-level officers that cover
positions, shell-proof dugouts, and good communications trenches were necessary to
reduce casualties, they required time to construct. On the Aisne, for example, the 4th
Division ordered its brigades to begin building cover trenches four days after it had first
entrenched on 13 September.8 Sir John French did not appreciate this fact and instead chose
to attack through Flanders even though intelligence suggested that Falkenhayn was
preparing an offensive of his own.9
Whereas heavy fighting on 14 September gave way to a prolonged static
engagement favourable to defensive development, the offensives in Flanders produced a
series of encounter battles which denied infantry and engineers the time required to
construct complex field works before the German attacks began. In the south, battalions in
II and III Corps recurrently dug in during the advance, but continuous movement hampered
their ability to improve one particular position. Captain C.I. Stockwell of the 2/Royal
Welch Fusiliers in the 6th Division tidily summed up the problem. On 19 October the
battalion advanced to Fromelles, where it occupied some positions originally constructed
by French cavalry. Finding the trenches too shallow, the officers began discussing plans to
improve them when the brigadier arrived and “pooh-poohed the notion,” announcing the
battalion would soon be advancing again.10 The 1/East Surrey Regiment dug its first line of
trenches in the evening of 13 October. It occupied these same positions for two additional
days, but new orders to continue the advance on the 16th prevented it from developing
them any further.11 Units in II Corps typically occupied trenches only two- or three-days-
old when the Germans attacked. The 3rd Division’s 9th Brigade, for example, entrenched
fresh positions after capturing the village of Herlies on 17 October. With the division under
orders to advance on the 18th, but unable to do so for fear of opening a gap between it and
French cavalry on the left, the brigadier wisely instructed his battalions to spend the day
7 3rd Division to 8th and 9th Brigades, 21 October 1914, 9th Brigade War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1425. 8 4th Division to brigades, 17 September 1914, 11th Brigade War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1486. 9 For more on French’s decision to ignore intelligence indicating the presence of large German formations in line of his advance, see Farrar-Hockley, Death of an Army, 44-6; Gardner, Trial by Fire, 152-3; Beckett, Ypres: The First Battle, 1914, 58-62. 10 Quoted in J.C. Dunn (ed.), The War the Infantry Knew, 1914-1919, 2nd ed. (London: Jane’s, 1987), 74-5. 11 1/East Surrey Regiment War Diary, 12-19 October 1914, TNA: WO 95/1563.
58
improving their defences. Nevertheless, on 20 October the 9th Brigade defended trenches it
had dug only three days before.12
The offensive also negatively affected the quality of a secondary defensive position
behind II Corps’ front line. Smith-Dorrien, having quickly recognized that his formation’s
haphazardly-entrenched positions were not adequate for prolonged defence against
concerted enemy attacks, hastily ordered the construction of a new line in the evening of 21
October, only about thirty-six hours before the 3rd and 5th Divisions withdrew to and
occupied it early on the 23rd. He had originally considered the idea before the 16th, but
thought it unnecessary because his corps had begun to make relatively good progress.13
Historian Nikolas Gardner has argued that Smith-Dorrien experienced considerable anxiety
regarding the security of his job as II Corps commander and his decision to cancel
construction of a secondary trench line may therefore have stemmed from his apprehension
of appearing hesitant or irresolute to Sir John French. In both cases, the offensive ethos was
the underlying cause.14 Either Smith-Dorrien remained confident that his formation could
successfully carry on its attack, or he feared displeasing his attack-oriented commander-in-
chief. By waiting until the situation was desperate rather than establishing a reserve line in
advance on 16 October, Smith-Dorrien denied the engineers charged with preparing the
position five additional working days. As a result, II Corps’ new defences were poorly
developed when the 3rd and 5th Divisions arrived. Their most apparent weakness was a
dearth of cover trenches. The 15th Brigade reported to the 5th Division on 23 October that
its new defences were “very unsatisfactory” and completely lacked shrapnel-proof
shelters.15
The encounter phase was shorter in the north around Ypres, lasting only two and
three days for I and IV Corps, respectively, but troops in these formations also had little
time in their trenches before coming under attack. The 1/Royal West Surrey Regiment in
the 1st Division, for example, began its advance in the morning of 20 October. It did not
entrench that night, but instead went into billets in nearby farmhouses. The battalion
12 1/Lincolnshire Regiment to 9th Brigade, 17 October 1914, 9th Brigade War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1425; 9th Brigade to battalions, 18 October 1914, 9th Brigade War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1425; 4/Royal Fusiliers Regiment to 9th Brigade, 20 October 1914, 9th Brigade War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1425. 13 II Corps to 3rd Division, 16 October 1914, 3rd Division War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1375. 14 Gardner, Trial by Fire, 128-31. 15 15th Brigade to 5th Division, 23 October 1914, 5th Division War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1510.
59
encountered considerable enemy resistance as it renewed its advance on the 21st. Two
companies dug trenches in the evening, the night before being heavily attacked on 22
October.16 The 2/Grenadier Guards in the 2nd Division entrenched two separate trench
lines in two days on 20 and 21 October. Having passed through Ypres early in the morning
of the 20th, the battalion took up and entrenched a position northeast of St. Julien without
coming into contact with the enemy. The following day, 21 October, the Grenadier Guards
left these positions and mounted an attack with the 3rd Brigade. Major George Jeffreys
recalled encountering “serious opposition” and the battalion made little progress. It
entrenched a second position that night, which it improved on the 22nd before intense
German shelling began on the 23rd.17 The 7th Division in IV Corps, after having aborted its
attempt to relieve the Belgians at Antwerp and withdrawn to Ypres between 9 and 14
October, was marginally better off in terms of time than the 1st or 2nd Divisions.18 Its 20th
and 21st Brigades established their first positions on 16 October. They spent the 17th
improving these trenches, but in accordance with GHQ’s orders to advance toward Menin,
entrenched a new line on the 18th. Both brigades remained in these trenches for three days
before heavy German shelling commenced in the morning of 21 October.19
The immediate results of the offensive in the north were that the Germans caught
the BEF, particularly I Corps, in only partially-constructed and poorly-sited trenches which
were not continuous, often formed exposed tactical salients, and lacked sufficient barbed
wire screens. In the 1st Division, trenches dug during the infantry’s advance in some
instances sat in highly exposed positions. Because the 1/Royal West Surrey Regiment
advanced further than the neighbouring 2/Welch Regiment and 2/King’s Royal Rifle Corps,
for example, its trenches jutted into enemy lines and were exposed to artillery fire on both
flanks.20 Furthermore, since its defensive lines were not continuous, some trench segments
as a result of their haphazard placement even came under enemy fire from the rear.
Engineers attempting to provide greater cover by constructing traverses and encouraging
infantrymen to dig recesses suggested that the only real remedy would be to straighten out
16 1/Royal West Surrey Regiment War Diary, 20-22 October 1914, TNA: WO 95/1280. 17 Diary of Major George Jeffreys, 20-23 October 1914, in Fifteen Rounds a Minute, 108-112. 18 7th Division War Diary, 9-17 October 1914, TNA: WO 95/1627. 19 20th Brigade War Diary, 17-21 October 1914, TNA: WO 95/1650; 21st Brigade War Diary, 17-21 October 1914, TNA: WO 95/1658. 20 1/Royal West Surrey Regiment War Diary, 20-23 October 1914, TNA: WO 95/1280.
60
the line.21 To defend against infantry attacks, the 23rd Field Company began laying wire as
soon as the line stabilized on 22 October, far more quickly than it had done on the Aisne in
September.22 However, because Haig’s force was advancing until the moment the German
Fourth Army counter-attacked, engineers, in spite of their best efforts and rapid response
time, could do little to adequately fortify positions before defending battalions came under
attack.
Whereas GHQ directed II and III Corps to hold their positions after 20 October, I
Corps received new orders to attack on 25-28 October, forcing it to begin trench
construction from scratch. With IV Corps thinly stretched over a wide frontage of about six
miles (almost ten kilometres), French shifted I Corps southward to east of Ypres. Relief of
Rawlinson’s force required Haig to mount an attack in order to alleviate pressure on the 7th
Division and facilitate the withdrawal of its heavily-pressed units, namely the 22nd
Brigade. This movement, combined with the fact that the 7th Division’s trenches were in a
state of disrepair (see below), Haig’s units had to dig fresh positions. The 2/Grenadier
Guards attacked toward Reutel on 25 October, but owing to stiff enemy resistance from
well-concealed infantry, made little progress and dug new trenches after dark.23 The
battalion remained in this position until the 28th when it received new orders to attack
toward Becelaere with the 6th Brigade. Again, the Grenadier Guards encountered
considerable opposition and had to entrench for the second time in four days. They
managed to construct two trench lines before heavy German shelling began in the morning
of 29 October, but there is no indication that they were continuous or equipped with
communications trenches.24
Historians of the BEF have not identified this link between the offensive and
poorly-prepared field works in late October. Sir James Edmonds described I Corps’
defences around Ypres on 22 October as short, disconnected lengths of shallow trench
which had no dugouts, communications trenches, or “anything in the nature of a second
line.” These positions, he remarked, lacked complexity because they were “hastily
21 26th Field Company to 1st Division Commander Royal Engineers, 24 October 1914, Appendices to 1st Division Commander Royal Engineers War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1244. 22 1st Division Commander Royal Engineers to 23rd Field Company, 22 October 1914, Appendices to 1st Division Commander Royal Engineers War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1244. 23 Diary of George Jeffreys and Bernard Gordon-Lennox, 25 October 1914, in Fifteen Rounds a Minute, 115-7. 24 Diary of George Jeffreys, 28-29 October 1914, in Fifteen Rounds a Minute, 118-9.
61
constructed during the few hours that the troops had been on the ground.”25 He was correct
in both his assessment of the quality of I Corps’ field works and the identification of time
as the immediate cause, though he failed to correlate the latter with the army’s repeated
orders to advance. On the other hand, Anthony Farrar-Hockley, Ian Beckett, and Gardner
criticized GHQ’s unwarranted optimism at the beginning of the battle and argued that the
offensive resulted in numerous casualties and severely weakened much of the army,
particularly II Corps. Nevertheless, while all three cited Edmonds’ descriptions of British
field works, none drew the connection between the offensive, shortage of time, and poor
quality trench systems.26 Sir John French and, to a lesser extent, his Sub Chief of Staff Sir
Henry Wilson were ultimately responsible for British units having so little time to dig
earthworks. Both continued to endorse offensive operations in Flanders in spite of the
indications that passive defence promoted trench construction and field works development
on the Aisne. In other words, they failed to resolve the underlying contradiction in British
entrenchment theory. The General Staff acknowledged the importance of proper spade
work in “Tactical notes,” but GHQ did not deviate from the offensive ethos in Flanders,
causing the BEF to be caught with its field works unprepared for what amounted to be its
greatest challenge of 1914.
Occupying incomplete and hastily-constructed shelters when the Germans attacked,
infantry and engineers sought to improve defences in late October, but their efforts to do so
were frustrated in a number of ways. Many difficulties stemmed from the water-logged
Flanders soil. Engineers on the Aisne could simply drain water by cutting troughs at the
bottom of a trench, but owing to the flat topography in Flanders, gravity was more of a
hindrance than an ally as water tended to pool in any depressions or holes. Moreover,
beneath the topsoil was a thick layer of clay which prevented water from being absorbed
into the ground. It therefore tended to mix with the topsoil to produce a highly viscous
mud. This process affected trench construction in two ways. First, deep trenches were
susceptible to inundation since the water table in Flanders was relatively high due to the
clay substructure. Second, muddy sidewalls were liable to collapse both under their own
weight and when exposed to the forces produced by exploding shells. Overall, terrain in
25 Military Operations 1914, vol. 2, 173. 26 Farrar-Hockey, Death of an Army, 83; Beckett, Ypres: The First Battle, 1914, 62; Gardner, Trial by Fire, 152-3.
62
Flanders was not favourable for the deep trenches called for in military engineering
manuals or dug on the Aisne. Trenches instead had to be shallow unless constructed atop
some of the sparse high ground where the water table was further beneath the surface.27
Because “Notes on the preparation of an entrenched position” gave tactical officers
no indication of how to modify their trenches to compensate for the high water table,
battalions encountered considerable difficulty digging and maintaining subterranean shelter
in Flanders. As both sides began to entrench, throw up barricades and breastworks, and
otherwise modify the landscape on which they fought, they obstructed natural drainage
channels which proceeded to flood sections of the battlefield. The area behind II Corps’
second line was so wet as to resemble a “bog.”28 Though rain was relatively sparse in
October compared to the late autumn and winter, showers in the night of 25/26 October
troubled soldiers in the trenches.29 Captain James C. Dunn, a medical officer in the 2/Royal
Welch Fusiliers, recalled undercut recesses collapsing and whole sections of trench falling
away when high-explosive shells landed nearby.30 Further north in the 2nd Division,
Jeffreys of the 2/Grenadier Guards complained in his diary on the 26th that the rain-soaked
ground frustrated his men as they sought to improve the trenches they had dug the previous
day.31 In addition to making trenches shallow, then, the high water table and wet soil
encumbered the growth of field fortifications by forcing men to spend their time shoring up
and repairing crumbling fire trenches instead of digging new support shelters or
communications trenches. Attempts to equip positions with better shelter often failed to
materialize. Dugouts, in particular, were difficult to build in the Flanders soil. The 11th
Field Company in the 2nd Division, for instance, completed a dugout around 03:00 on 31
October, only to have it collapse as the men were on their way to billets for the night.32
The army’s first instinct was to shore up trench walls to prevent them from
collapsing, but this solution required large quantities of sandbags which were in desperately
short supply. Each battalion contained a peacetime allotment of only thirty, and although
Royal Engineer field companies left for Europe in August with 852 apiece, construction
27 Beckett, Ypres: The First Battle, 1914, 42-3; Farrar-Hockley, Death of an Army, 174-5; Johnson, Battlefields of the World War¸9-25; Military Operations 1914, vol. 2, 89, 173, 264. 28 II Corps to 5th Division, 24 October 1914, 5th Division War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1510. 29 See Johnson, Battlefields of the World War, 9-25. 30 Dunn (ed.), The War the Infantry Knew, 83. 31 Diary of George Jeffreys, 26 October 1914, in Fifteen Rounds a Minute, 117. 32 Ms Diary of W.H. Long, 31 October 1914, IWM: Long Papers.
63
projects at Mons and on the Aisne had diminished their supply.33 In fact, the 23rd Field
Company reported to the 1st Division Commander Royal Engineers on 23 October that it
was already experiencing shortages.34 Even though two million additional sandbags arrived
in Flanders on the 28th, field companies did not begin using them for defensive works in
time for the attacks of 29-31 October.35 The earliest indication of these new sandbags going
to front-line infantry units came from the war diary of the 4th Division Commander Royal
Engineers, which noted that the division had received 1,400 sandbags on 30 October.36 In
the 1st Division, the next mention of sandbags came on 4 November when the Commander
Royal Engineers instructed its two field companies to deliver “liberal” quantities to the
infantry battalions.37 Improved supply of sandbags in early November was sufficient to
shore up positions for the remainder of the Flanders battle, but in the long term was only a
temporary solution. Beginning in late November and lasting for the duration of the winter,
the BEF’s most visible and persistent enemy in Flanders was the mud, whose damage to
trenches engineers could only temper with wooden duckboards and revetments.
In addition to terrain, enemy pressure hampered field fortification development in
two ways. First, enemy shell fire and sniping made it dangerous for infantrymen to dig
freely. For instance, the 6th Division reported that in many places troops in the 18th
Brigade could do no work during the day on 25 October owing to “heavy” shell fire.38
Daytime shelling meant that infantry and engineers preferred to dig and lay wire at night.
Snipers, however, aided by the cover of darkness, were most active after nightfall. Even at
night, then, infantrymen risked being hit if they exposed themselves. Captain G.H. Davies
of the 19th Brigade wrote that in spite of his best efforts to encourage the men to “dig like
hell,” the threat of being hit by enemy snipers deterred them from standing up to do so.39
Second, full-scale infantry attacks could set back defence construction by forcing units to
evacuate their trenches and start from scratch. The 16th Brigade, for example, first came
under enemy attack on 20 October. The 1/Buffs occupied the front-line positions while the
33 Farrar-Hockley, Death of an Army, 107. 34 23rd Field Company to 1 Division Commander Royal Engineers, 23 October 1914, Appendices 1st Division Commander Royal Engineers War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1244. 35 Farrar-Hockley, Death of an Army, 107. 36 4th Division Commander Royal Engineers War Diary, 30 October 1914, WO 95/1463. 37 1st Division Commander Royal Engineers to 23rd and 26th Field Companies, 4 November 1914, Appendices to 1st Division Commander Royal Engineers War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1244. 38 “Narrative of events, Oct. 18th – Oct. 25th,” 6th Division War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1581. 39 Quoted in Dunn (ed.), The War the Infantry Knew, 82.
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brigade’s remaining three battalions had withdrawn slightly in the morning to begin
working on a second trench line.40 Around 23:00, German infantry pierced the 18th
Brigade’s lines on the Buffs’ left. In order to avoid being enfiladed or attacked from the
rear, the battalion withdrew to the secondary position, consequently turning the 16th
Brigade’s support trenches into firing trenches. The brigade spent 21 and 22 October
attempting to shore up this new line, but when German infantry renewed their attacks on
the 23rd, the fire trenches were not continuous or equipped with covered communications
linking the front lines to support areas. A 6th Division after-action report argued that the
16th Brigade simply had “no time” to develop its defences any further.41
Continuous enemy pressure and heavy fighting exhausted infantry in all formations
and detracted from troops’ capacity to dig. Smith-Dorrien observed on 22 October that the
men of the 5th Division appeared “quite worn out” from incessant fighting, a sentiment
echoed in the division’s war diary. As a consequence of the formation’s fatigue, when it
withdrew with the rest of II Corps on the night of 22/23 October to find its new trenches
“very little prepared,” the men were “too exhausted to do much work” improving them.42
An anonymous second lieutenant in the 1/Loyal North Lancashire Regiment recorded in his
diary for the 30th that digging trenches after a day of heavy fighting was “too much for us,
for by this time we are dead beat. After I had dug down a couple of feet I gave it up, and
told the men to do the same. We had to reserve some strength for now.”43 Heavy fighting
therefore presented the second lieutenant with the difficult choice of either exhausting
himself and his subordinates with digging better trenches, or allowing them to recuperate
some energy to fend off future German attacks. Choosing the latter gave the men valuable
rest, but only at the expense of shelter.
Tool shortages continued to affect some battalions. However, because Royal
Engineer field companies advanced with the infantry during the offensive and were not
occupied with other construction projects as they had been on the Aisne, tools were more
accessible to infantry in Flanders. For example, the 9th Field Company reported that during
40 16th Brigade War Diary, 18-20 October 1914, TNA: WO 95/1605. 41 “Narrative of events, Oct. 18th – Oct. 25th,” 6th Division War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1581. 42 Ts Diary of Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, 22 October 1914, TNA: CAB 45/206; 5th Division War Diary, 22-23 October 1914, TNA: WO 95/1510. 43 Diary of an anonymous second lieutenant, 30 October 1914, 1/Loyal North Lancashire Regiment War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1270.
65
the evening of 13 October it lent tools to infantry in the 4th Division, which were returned
the next morning before the advance resumed.44 That field companies were attached to
combat units during the advance in Flanders indicates that the tool shortages between 14
and 17 September on the Aisne had impressed upon division-level infantry and Royal
Engineer officers the advantages of having engineers at the front lines from the outset.
Even so, by the time of the Flanders battles they had not completely solved the problem of
supply, and tools remained at a premium for some infantry units. When the 1/Somerset
Light Infantry took over positions from the 4th Dragoon Guards and 19th Hussars on 21
October, it reportedly did not have enough tools to turn what one observer termed “badly
made pits” offering “no protection from shell fire” into proper trenches.45 In the north, the
anonymous second lieutenant of the Loyal North Lancashires wrote on 28 October that
digging trenches west of the Ypres-Menin road proved “a very difficult job” since tools
were “scarce.”46 These and similar instances aside, reports of tool shortages in unit war
diaries and official communications, particularly those between infantry brigades and Royal
Engineer field companies, were far fewer in number in late October than in mid-September.
As a consequence of the army’s offensives and the problems arising from difficult
terrain, constant enemy pressure, exhaustion, and to a lesser extent tool shortages, shelter
was chronically inadequate to protect defenders from the effects of heavy shell fire in late
October. Hastily-constructed trenches in many cases did not survive high explosive shell
fire. On 26 October, for instance, German artillery blew in a number of the 3rd Division’s
trenches. Originally constructed as part of Smith-Dorrien’s new defensive line on 21-22
October, this position lacked shell-proof dugouts. Defending battalions therefore suffered
“severely” in their firing trenches and had to retire, forfeiting the village of Neuve
Chappelle to German infantry.47 In addition, the absence of communications trenches made
movement between front and rear areas extremely hazardous. The commander of the
2/Grenadier Guards remarked in a note to his regimental adjutant on 28 October that the
44 “Report of Work done by No. 2 and No. 3 Sections on night 13th/14th Oct.,” 4th Division Commander Royal Engineers War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1463. 45 Anonymous 1/Somerset Light Infantry Ts Diary, 21 October 1914, IWM: misc. 230, item 3279. 46 Diary of an anonymous second lieutenant, 28 October 1914, 1/Loyal North Lancashires War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1270. 47 “Report on Operations of the 3rd Division from 11th to 30th October 1914,” 3rd Division War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1375.
66
battalion had lost many orderlies tasked with sending messages to the front lines.48 Captain
Dunn claimed that the “want of communications trenches” in the 2/Royal Welch Fusiliers’
positions were the cause of “many casualties.” Without communications trenches, troops
reinforcing firing trenches from support positions during enemy attacks had to cross over
open ground and expose themselves to enemy sniper and artillery fire.49
Although the expeditionary force as a whole suffered casualties as a result of
deficient shelter, IV Corps encountered additional problems when its battalions entrenched
forward slopes. Rawlinson’s formations, particularly the 7th Division, had a reputation for
elitism within the British army since the majority of its battalions were drawn from
overseas garrison duty. However, the 7th Division and the other element of IV Corps, the
3rd Cavalry Division, only arrived in Europe on 6-8 October and had no first-hand combat
experience on the Western Front. On 18 October the 7th Division received orders to
advance on Menin, but Rawlinson, having learned of large enemy formations east of his
objective, decided to postpone the attack.50 Wheeling toward the southeast to face Menin,
the 7th Division found itself in possession of the northern portion of Messines-
Passchendaele Ridge. As the predominant topographical feature of the area, it afforded a
vital advantage in observation to the army which possessed it.51 Upon occupying the ridge,
the 7th Division’s brigades followed the siting recommendations in Field Service
Regulations 1909 and Infantry Training 1914 and entrenched the forward slope to solidify
their hold of the tactically important high ground. The 3rd Cavalry Division likewise dug
its trenches on the forward slope in positions to the right of the 20th Brigade three days
later. Although IV Corps had captured and fortified some of the sparse high ground on the
Flanders battlefield, its battalions unwittingly placed themselves in a dangerously exposed
position in the direct line-of-sight of Germany gunners.52
48 Wilfred A. Smith to 2/Grenadier Guards’ regimental adjutant, 28 October 1914, in Fifteen Rounds a Minute, 119. 49 Dunn (ed.), The War the Infantry Knew, 83. 50 Beckett, Ypres: The First Battle, 1914, 58-61; Gardner, Trial by Fire, 146-7. 51 Johnson, Battlefields of the World War, 39. 52 20th Brigade War Diary, 18 October 1914, TNA: WO 95/1650/1; 21st Brigade War Diary, 18 October 1914, TNA: WO 95/1685; 3rd Cavalry Division War Diary, 16-27 October 1914, TNA: WO 95/1141; 3rd Cavalry Division to 3rd Cavalry Brigade, 27 October 1914, Appendices to 3rd Cavalry Division War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1142. A trench map dated 27 October shows the division’s trenches on forward slopes; Rawlinson to Capper, 22 October 1914, National Army Museum (NAM): Rawlinson Papers. In this message, Rawlinson informed General Thomas Capper, commander of the 7th Division, that the 22nd Brigade’s struggles on 22 October were in large part the consequence of it being entrenched on the forward slope.
67
German artillery battered IV Corps between 22 and 27 October, obliterating many
exposed trenches, inflicting heavy losses, and severely weakening lines of defence. The
22nd Brigade on the 7th Division’s left flank suffered heavily and could not hold its
positions against concerted shell fire on the 22nd. Brigadier-General R.M. Owens recalled
after the war that German artillery fired on the 1/Royal Welch Fusiliers at “point-blank
range,” blowing in their trenches and killing a number of soldiers as they climbed out of
their ruined shelters.53 With the Welch Fusiliers’ trenches “wholly annihilated” and
casualties in the battalion approaching 750 officers and men, almost three-quarters of its
total strength, the 22nd Brigade began to withdraw in considerable disarray during the
afternoon.54 German artillery hit the 20th Brigade’s trenches near Kruiseke equally as hard
on 26 October. The brigade’s war diary recorded that enemy shells “repeatedly” blew in the
battalions’ trenches, “burying five or six men at a time, each man having to be dug out with
a shovel.” The brigade’s defences were so fragile that resistance collapsed when German
infantry attacked around 15:30. The 2/Scots Guards, which occupied the front-line trenches
during the bombardment, were surrounded and nearly destroyed. The 20th Brigade retired
from its positions on the ridge in the late afternoon and regrouped further to the rear during
the evening, its casualties for the day being around 2,000 or about fifty per cent of the
entire unit.55
Officers in the 3rd Cavalry and 7th Divisions appear to have been largely ignorant
of both the dangers of entrenching forward slopes and the advantages of siting fire trenches
behind the crests of a hill. The 20th Brigade’s war diary listed the length of the brigade’s
line, an exposed salient near Zandvoorde, and nearby wooded patches as “serious defects”
with the position entrenched on 18 October, but it made no mention of forward slopes.56
The 21st Brigade boasted that its forward slope position was “quite good” with respect to
its field of fire. It was thus unaware that, as brigadiers had learned first-hand on the Aisne,
acquiring deep fields of fire was not the primary consideration governing the siting of a
position and that they in fact needed to be sacrificed for better concealment from enemy
53 “Questions asked of Brig.-General R.M. Owens, C.M.G., as to doings of 1st Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment at YPRES in October and Nov. 1914. Together with Brig.-General Owen’s Replies,” TNA: CAB 45/141. 54 Hamilton, The First Seven Divisions, 178; Gardner, Trial by Fire, 157. 55 20th Brigade War Diary, 26 October 1914, TNA: WO 95/1680. 56 20th Brigade War Diary, 18 October 1914, TNA: WO 95/1680.
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guns.57 The 3rd Cavalry Division’s war diary noted with apparent astonishment on 27
October, “It would seem that trenches must be on reverse slopes – field of fire giving way
to protection against hostile shell fire.” Accompanying this statement was a sketch of a hill
with the forward and reverse slopes labelled as “wrong position” and “right position,”
respectively.58 Officers in other formations scrutinized IV Corps’ comparative
inexperience. Following the withdrawal and virtual destruction of the 2/Scots Guards on the
26th, Major Bernard Gordon-Lennox of the 2/Grenadier Guards commented, “Can’t make
out why every Battalion [sic] doesn’t dig itself in properly. If they did they might never be
turned out of their trenches like some of them have been lately.”59 Whether Gordon-Lennox
was referring to its forward slope sites or some other deficiency is unclear. Regardless, that
he criticized the 20th Brigade’s digging skills implies a considerable gap in knowledge
between I and IV Corps.
Rawlinson was responsible for his brigades’ difficulties on Messines-Passchendaele
Ridge since he neglected to disseminate the lessons of the Aisne and communicate the
importance of concealing trenches. Following the 22nd Brigade’s retreat on 22 October,
Rawlinson blamed its commander, General S.T.B. Lawford, for the unit’s inability to hold
its positions on the ridge. In a letter to the 7th Division commander, General Thomas
Capper, Rawlinson stated that the brigade’s heavy losses “were largely due to the bad siting
of the trenches” and that “[Lawford] alone must be held responsible for this.”60 As Gardner
pointed out, choosing trench sites was not the responsibility of formation commanders like
Rawlinson or Capper.61 However, since IV Corps assembled in Flanders in early October,
“Tactical notes” and “Notes on the preparation of an entrenched position” may not have
made their way into the hands of tactical officers in the 3rd Cavalry and 7th Cavalry
Divisions. In fact, neither of these memoranda appears in the war diaries of IV Corps or
either of its subordinate formations.62 Thus, Rawlinson had an obligation to ensure that his
brigadiers were aware of new methods. That he recognized forward slopes as the source of
57 21st Brigade War Diary, 18 October 1914, TNA: WO 95/1685. 58 3rd Cavalry Division War Diary, 27 October 1914, TNA: WO 95/1141. 59 Diary of Bernard Gordon-Lennox, 26 October 1914, in Fifteen Rounds a Minute, 117. 60 Rawlinson to Capper, 22 October 1914, NAM: Rawlinson Papers. 61 Gardner, Trial by Fire, 158-9. 62 See IV Corps War Diary, TNA: WO 95/706; 7th Division War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1627; Appendices to 7th Division War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1634; 3rd Cavalry Division War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1141; Appendices to 3rd Cavalry Division War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1142.
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the 22nd Brigade’s problems in his letter to Capper indicates that he was very much aware
of their hazards. Indeed, Rawlinson witnessed first-hand how trenches were being
constructed on the Aisne when he temporarily filled in for the injured General Thomas
Snow as the commander of the 4th Division on 23 September.63 Having plausibly not seen
GHQ’s memoranda and received no information from their superiors indicating that
entrenchment methods had changed, Lawford and his counterparts in the 20th and 21st
Brigades abided by prewar siting regulations. To the best of their knowledge, they had
correctly sited their defences. Sir John French acknowledged that Rawlinson was at least
partially responsible for his corps’ troubles when dissolved IV Corps and pulled the 3rd
Cavalry and 7th Divisions from his command on 27 October.64
Given its difficulties establishing defences of sufficient strength to adequately
shelter infantry from shell fire, why did the BEF’s lines not buckle and collapse under
heavy German pressure in late October? First, Falkenhayn never concentrated his attacks
on a single axis and instead chose to pressure the Entente defenders along the entire line.
Thus, he did not achieve a sufficient numerical superiority to exploit breakthroughs and
transform tactical gains into operational results. Second, German attack tactics had not
solved the problem of crossing the fire-swept zone between opposing trench lines.
Problems of communication between infantry and artillery, difficulties locating enemy guns
for counter-battery fire, growing shell shortages, and the continued preference of close-
order infantry attacks ensured heavy casualties during attacks in October and early
November.65 Third, Britain’s French allies reduced the BEF’s responsibilities by relieving I
Corps and the 7th Division near Langemark on 25 October, and plugging holes with its
cavalry in the south between II and III Corps.66 Fourth, Haig’s effective use of the 2nd
Brigade as a mobile reserve shored up weak points in the line and relieved pressure on units
adjacent to breakthrough points on 29-31 October.67 Lastly, the marksmanship skills, rapid-
63 Ts Diary of Sir Henry Rawlinson, 21 September 1914, NAM: Rawlinson Papers; Beckett, Ypres: The First Battle, 1914, 57; Wilson and Prior, Command on the Western Front, 11. 64 General Sir Edmund Allenby’s Cavalry Corps and Haig’s I Corps took control of the 3rd Cavalry and 7th Divisions, respectively. 65 Bruce Gundmundsson, Stormtroop Tactics: Innovation in the German Army, 1914-1918 (New York: Praeger, 1989), 4-7, 10-13. 66 Terraine, The First World War, 45. 67 Gardner, Trial by Fire, 222-4.
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fire training, and generally good morale of volunteer British infantrymen ensured that the
BEF’s resistance was stubborn and costly for the attacker.68
As German attacks subsided after 31 October and a period of relative calm ensued
for the first ten days of November, French and GHQ, tempered by the heavy casualties and
desperate fighting of late October, wisely adopted a defensive attitude and so afforded
infantry and engineering units their first real opportunity to focus on improving field works.
In I Corps, the formation against which the German Guards Division would concentrate its
attacks on 11 November, Royal Engineers’ first priority was to lay barbed wire
entanglements. One engineer in the 11th Field Company wrote in his diary that he did little
else between 3 and 8 November other than lay wire in front of the trenches near
Zillabeke.69 The 23rd Field Company’s war diary noted that the unit wired the 1st
Brigade’s positions for five of the first six days of November.70 Wire also appears to have
been in adequate supply. While I Corps was advancing from 19-21 and 25-28 October the
23rd and 26th Field Companies regularly complained to the 1st Division Commander
Royal Engineers about a shortage of wire at the front. Shortages during these periods
stemmed largely from confusion. On the 25th, for instance, the 26th Field Company
reported that it had taken more wire than it could carry, even though the 23rd Field
Company was experiencing shortages. The former had to return the surplus to 1st Division
headquarters before the latter could retrieve it, thereby adding an additional step to the
supply process.71 Reports of wire shortages ceased once I Corps’ front had begun to
stabilize after 31 October. In fact, the 26th Field Company had enough wire to erect
entanglements in Polygon Wood behind the 1st Brigade’s front-line positions.72
With two million new sandbags in Flanders as of the 28th and more time to spend
digging cover trenches and dugouts, the BEF’s field defence systems in early November
began to compare in complexity to those constructed on the Aisne, but they nevertheless
remained incomplete by 10-11 November. The 26th Field Company reported to the 1st
68 Terraine, The First World War, 42; “Questions asked of Brig.-General R.M. Owens, C.M.G., as to doings of 1st Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment at YPRES in October and Nov. 1914. Together with Brig.-General Owen’s Replies,” TNA: CAB 45/141. 69 Ms Diary of W.H. Long, 3-8 November 1914, IWM: Long Papers. 70 23rd Field Company War Diary, 1-7 November 1914, TNA: WO 95/1252. 71 26th Field Company to 1st Division Commander Royal Engineers, 25 October 1914, Appendices to 1st Division Commander Royal Engineers War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1244. 72 26th Field Company to 1st Division Commander Royal Engineers, 1 November 1914, Appendices to 1st Division Commander Royal Engineers War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1244.
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Division Commander Royal Engineers on 6 November that it had nearly completed digging
for the 1/South Wales Borderers “17-man shelter pits” linked to the battalion’s fire trenches
with 80 foot (25 metre) long, zigzagged communications trenches.73 Owing to increased
supplies of sandbags, dugouts also began to appear in greater number in November. Troops
in the 2/Grenadier Guards, for example, completed work on “quite good” splinter-proof
dugouts with overhead cover for battalion headquarters on the 2nd. Gordon-Lennox even
wrote that the when the battalion rotated out of the front lines of the 4th, it went into
dugouts.74 The 23rd Field Company constructed two dugouts for the staffs of the 1st and
6th Cavalry Brigades on 5 and 6 November, respectively.75 The full field defence system
necessary to adequately shelter troops and promote the safe movement of infantrymen
between cover and firing trenches therefore began to emerge. However, heavy German
shelling on 10 November in preparation for the assault of the Guards Division on the 11th
still caused significant damage. Captain E.J. Pike of the 2/Grenadier Guards recalled that
enemy gunners had ranged the battalion’s line “pretty well” and “there were a few direct
hits” which resulted in heavy casualties. Another officer noted that trenches on the
battalion’s right were “destroyed” and that the unit lost “a lot of men.”76 In spite of their
best efforts in early November, then, the Grenadiers were unable to completely make up for
lost time caused by Sir John French’s offensives and the heavy fighting thereafter in late
October.
The BEF, particularly Haig’s I Corps, also began adapting to the intense nature of
the fighting in Flanders by adding a degree of depth to defences in the form of redoubts.
The primary lesson of late October was that some form of elasticity was necessary to repel
tactical breakthroughs and prevent enemy infantry from exploiting gaps in defensive lines.
In cases where German troops broke through a position, usually the result of the troops
evacuating their trenches on account of heavy shell fire, men situated adjacent to the breach
would be at risk of being enfiladed. On 22 October, for instance, the retreat of the 22nd
Brigade left the 2/Wiltshire Regiment on its right in a “very precarious” position with its
73 26th Field Company to 1st Division Commander Royal Engineers, 6 November 1914, TNA: WO 95/1244. 74 Diary of George Jeffreys, 2 November 1914, in Fifteen Rounds a Minute, 127; Diary of Bernard Gordon-Lennox, 4 November 1914, in Fifteen Rounds a Minute, 128. 75 Ms Diary of W.H. Long, 2-3 November 1914, IWM: Long Papers; 23rd Field Company War Diary, 5-6 November 1914, TNA: WO 95/1252. 76 Diaries of E. Pike and E. Ridley, 10 November 1914, in Fifteen Rounds a Minute, 134-5.
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left flank completely “in the air.”77 Worst case scenario, German troops could exploit a
breach and surround adjoining troops. In the 1st Brigade on 29 October, a “very heavy”
shell fire opened a gap beside the 1/Scots Guards near Gheluvelt. German troops broke
through, made their way behind the battalion, and struck the stunned defenders from
behind.78 In late October, launching counter-attacks to recapture lost positions was the
preferred method of combating tactical breakthroughs. The 2/Worcestershire Regiment’s
counter-attack and recapture of Gheluvelt on 31 October, for example, helped close the gap
between the 1st and 7th Divisions and prevented large-scale withdrawals on either side of
the Menin road.79Alternatively, withdrawing adjacent units to new lines of defence
conceded ground and forced troops to dig fresh trenches. Counter-attacks were costly and
not always easy to initiate, however, particularly if a position lacked adequate supports or
withdrawing troops had no place to rally behind the front lines.
Haig quickly recognized that redoubts placed 100 to 150 yards (about 90 to 135
metres) behind the front lines were the solution to repairing breaches and on 3 November
he ordered his chief engineer, Colonel S.R. Rice, to oversee their construction in the 1st and
2nd Divisions.80 The redoubts constructed by I Corps in November, and later by the entire
BEF in the winter of 1914/15, were referred to as “strong points” by contemporaries, but
their designs closely resembled those described in prewar military engineering manuals.
One strong point constructed for the 1/Black Watch comprised a traversed trench dug
around a rectangular garden. The entire enclosure was screened with barbed wire. Dubbed
Black Watch Corner by its garrison, this strong point differed from a proper redoubt only in
that it lacked internal shelters, likely because it was constructed in a relatively short period
of time. Indeed, Royal Engineers reportedly completed Black Watch Corner only one hour
before the Germans attacked in the morning of 11 November. Besides the absence of
additional shelters for infantry, Black Watch Corner was, like a prewar redoubt, constructed
behind the battalion’s front line trenches for the purpose of engaging enemy troops who
77 “Information from COL. FORBES, 2nd Wiltshire Regt. about operations Oct. 1914,” CAB 45/140. 78 “Statement made by R.H. FITZ-ROY, Lieutenant, 1/Scots Guards: Captured at Gheluvelt, Belgium, 29.10.14,” TNA: CAB 45/140. 79 Gardner, Trial by Fire, 222. 80 Ts Diary of Sir Douglas Haig, 3 November 1914, TNA: WO 256/2; 1st Division Commander Royal Engineers to 1st Brigade, 3 November 1914, Appendices to 1st Division Commander Royal Engineers War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1244.
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had broken through, and to act as a point from which defenders could launch counter-
attacks on lost positions.81
The strong points in I Corps proved highly effective at wearing down German
infantry as they broke through the first-line trenches in front of Nonne Bosschen and
Polygon Woods on 11 November. According to one senior staff officer, strong points “were
the saving of the day. The [German] attackers blundered on them after they had broken
through our line, and were taken in enfilade and broken up and driven into woods and
hollows for shelter. They were a lesson in defensive tactics for all time.”82 When about 900
men of the German 1st and 3rd Foot Guards Regiments broke through the 1st Brigade’s
firing trenches, retiring British troops and supports rallied to form a new defensive line
centered on Black Watch Corner and a strong point held by the 1/Scots Guards. In the case
of the former, Captain Andrew Thorne recalled that enemy troops did not see Black Watch
Corner until they had past it, at which point the garrison of some forty riflemen “did
considerable execution by firing into their backs” as they entered Nonne Bosschen Wood.83
A lieutenant in the 1/Northamptonshire Regiment told Edmonds after the war that “scarcely
one of the Germans” who broke through the 1st Brigade’s lines on 11 November “ever got
back.”84 Haig’s I Corps, reduced to one quarter of its full strength as a consequence of
continuous and heavy fighting since 22 October, had almost no reserves to follow up on its
success behind the 1st Brigade’s lines, however, and the German Guards Division retained
possession of some British trenches north of Polygon Wood. Nevertheless, strong points
served their primary purpose of blunting the German breakthrough on 11 November by
limiting the size of the breach and preventing large-scale withdrawals in adjacent sections
of the line.85
81 Military Operations 1914, vol. 2, 426-7; War Office, General Staff, Notes from the Front Part III and Further Notes on Field Defences (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, February 1915), 55. See Appendix D, figures 2 and 3 for diagrams of strong points. 82 Quoted in Military Operations 1914, vol. 2, 426. Edmonds did not provide the name of the speaker. See Chapter 1 for a description of redoubts. 83 “Account of the attack by the Prussian Guard on November 11th, as given by Captain Thorne, Staff Captain, 1st Brigade,” TNA: CAB 45/141; Military Operations 1914, vol. 2, 426; Beckett, Ypres: The First Battle, 1914, 169. 84 “Account of the fighting on November 11th as related by Lieutenant Farrar who took command of the Northamptons after the C.O. and 2nd in command had been killed,” TNA: CAB 45/141. 85 Gardner, Trial by Fire, 226. Gardner gave the strength of the 3rd Cavalry, the 1st, 2nd, and 7th Divisions, and the reinforcements from II Corps as 16,000 on 6 November. A full-strength infantry division comprised some 12,000 infantry; Beckett, Ypres: The First Battle, 1914, 32.
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Historians have generally overlooked both the tactical importance of strong points
and Haig’s role in their development and application. Edmonds viewed the redoubts of
1914 as rudimentary and unremarkable relative to the larger British redoubts or the
Germans’ concrete pillboxes that emerged on the Western Front in 1916-7. In fact, he only
acknowledged their defensive value in a footnote.86 Like the field fortifications on the
Aisne, Edmonds assessed the first redoubts not as an important adaptation to the conditions
of the First World War, but rather as early progenitors of more sophisticated structures.
Later historians similarly glossed over redoubts in their analyses of the first Ypres battle.
Farrar-Hockley confused I Corps’ redoubts with dugouts reinforced with overhead cover,
and Beckett simply cited Edmonds, indicating that I Corps had in fact constructed some
around Nonne Bosschen and Polygon Woods.87 Haig and his staff at I Corps deserve some
credit for adapting to combat in Flanders with their successful application of redoubts.
Because enemy pressure on the Aisne was at no point substantial enough to warrant the
construction of redoubts as appendages to existing defences, they did not appear until the
heavy fighting in Flanders made them advantageous. Haig and Rice championed strong
points and their potential to combat enemy breakthroughs, making Haig the first formation
commander to instigate their widespread and organized construction. Edmonds credited
neither Haig nor Rice in the official history. As evidenced in a letter to Edmonds after the
war, Rice viewed redoubts as an important Royal Engineer accomplishment.88 Indeed, that
he and Haig so eagerly endorsed them and ensured their prompt and timely construction in
early November indicates that they were among the first senior officers to find a workable
solution to the tactical challenges of the Flanders battle.
The BEF’s problems in late October were a temporary interruption in the
development of its field fortification abilities early in the First World War. The offensive
ethos combined with Sir John French’s optimism put the army in a position of disadvantage
from which it could not recover when infantry and engineers encountered problems digging
in wet soil under constant enemy pressure. Furthermore, as evidenced by Rawlinson’s
failure to inform his tactical officers about the dangers of forward slopes, dissemination of
improved methods to inexperienced formations remained incomplete. Nevertheless, a
86 Military Operations 1914, vol. 2, 426. 87 Farrar-Hockley, Death of an Army, 175; Beckett, Ypres: The First Battle, 1914, 169. 88 S.R. Rice to Edmonds, 6 November 1922, TNA: CAB 45/141.
75
return to the defensive combined with I Corp’s application of strong points in early
November meant that the BEF had largely corrected its earlier mistakes and advanced its
knowledge on how to construct robust field fortification systems. In this way, the failures
of the Flanders battles were the source of new lessons. Fighting continued until 22
November but Falkenhayn’s failure to break through the Allied lines with the Guards
Division signalled the effective end of the First Battle of Ypres. With the line now
stabilized across the entire Western Front, the BEF had ample opportunity to improve its
field fortifications, confront new dangers in the form of aerial observation and German
trench mortars, and develop ways of adapting positions to the water-logged terrain of the
Flanders plain. Furthermore, the arrival of new formations in early 1915, namely the three
divisions of General Herbert Plumer’s V Corps, meant that the General Staff had to diffuse
the lessons of the Aisne and Flanders to a growing number of “green” officers.
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Chapter 4
Consolidation and the Test of Second Ypres
The bloody battles that produced the static Western Front thoroughly exhausted all
of the participants, and the winter of 1914/15 was a period of relative calm in which both
sides recuperated and reinforced their depleted ranks. The BEF, organized into two armies
in late December, fought only one major engagement, a First Army offensive at Neuve
Chappelle in March 1915, before the beginning of the Second Battle of Ypres on 22 April.1
The stabilization of the front afforded the army the opportunity to absorb the lessons of La
Bassée and First Ypres, consolidate and improve its defensive positions, and respond to the
new threats of trench warfare in Flanders. The General Staff simultaneously adapted the
most current methods into existing thought with a series of new tactical pamphlets. The
27th and 28th Divisions, the last two regular army formations, and the 1st Canadian
Division, organized as V Corps under the command of General Sir Herbert Plumber,
arrived in Flanders in February 1915 and bore the brunt of renewed German offensives.
Second Ypres therefore serves to illustrate both the durability of improved British field
fortification theory and how well the army disseminated the lessons of 1914. Introduced to
the most current methods during field training before taking over their own sections of the
line, these newly-arrived divisions performed reasonably well despite engineers siting some
trenches on the forward slopes of Frezenberg Ridge in early May. In short, the progress
made during the winter and the largely successful transmission of new techniques to V
Corps prior to Second Ypres indicates that the failures of late October were indeed a
temporary setback in an otherwise continuous process of adaptation and improved training
in 1914-15.
Development of field defences during the winter was far more coordinated than it
had been in September or October. On the Aisne, the quality of works and the number of
1 First and Second Armies were commanded by Haig and Smith-Dorrien, respectively. Historians commonly use the term British Army rather than British Expeditionary Force after the re-organization of the four British corps and the Indian Corps into two armies. For stylistic purposes and because only one additional corps (V Corps) arrived during the period covered in this chapter, the two terms are used interchangeably.
77
communications trenches, dugouts, and barbed wire entanglements varied considerably
between battalions. Officers above the brigade level of command had little to do with their
construction. Conversely, beginning in late November the corps took more interest in
ensuring satisfactory quality and played a greater role in the design and growth of trench
networks. For example, the reconstituted IV Corps, commanded by Rawlinson, issued a
memorandum on 24 November instructing its divisions on how to plan their defences.2
Haig went further and held a conference with the senior staffs of the 1st and 2nd Divisions
on 24 December in large part to discuss the state of field works in I Corps and to determine
how best to improve them.3 Smith-Dorrien took a more direct approach. After having
provided his divisions with instructions in late November, he followed up with a tour of the
trenches on 24 December to see their progress first-hand. He found them lacking in a
number of respects and drafted a memorandum to his unit and formation commanders
detailing the necessary improvements.4 These efforts differed from “Tactical notes” and
“Notes on the preparation of an entrenched position” in that they were designed to produce
specific results rather than merely familiarize officers with new methods and techniques.
For this reason, the nature of field defence development during the winter differed from the
Aisne in that corps commanders clearly defined what they expected their infantry and
engineers to accomplish. This new “hands-on” approach further ensured that officers
responsible for overseeing construction projects were informed of the most current
entrenchment and fortification methods.
The most obvious lesson of La Bassée and First Ypres was that hastily-constructed
shelters were insufficient to protect troops from heavy shell fire and that withdrawing them
from the front lines during periods of heavy bombardment was the best method of reducing
casualties. This concept was not new, but the frequency with which German artillery
destroyed British trenches during the Flanders battles underscored its growing importance.
In addition, bombardments were so regular and so continuous that officers recognized their
cessation invariably meant an infantry attack. Holding troops in better-sheltered support
positions with revetted or sandbagged recesses and then rushing them forward when
2 Memorandum regarding entrenched positions, 24 November 1914, IV Corps War Diary, TNA: WO 95/706. 3 I Corps to 1st and 2nd Divisions, 23 December, 1st Division War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1217. 4 Memorandum from II Corps to 3rd and 5th Divisions, 25 December 1914, Appendices to II Corps War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1630; Memorandum from II Corps to commanders of divisions, brigades, and battalions, 27 December 1914, Appendices to II Corps War Diary, TNA: WO 95/630.
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artillery fire terminated could both prevent casualties from exploding shell and fill the front
line with rifles during infantry attacks.5 Doing so required good cover and communications
trenches, a point which senior officers emphasized. Smith-Dorrien instructed his divisions
on 27 November to link their firing trenches to supports and reserves with communications
trenches in order to facilitate the safe and speedy reinforcement of the front line. He later
found during his inspections that his corps had neither enough communications nor cover
trenches and stressed to his commanders the need to construct more.6 Haig reinforced the
importance of abundant communications trenches in his 24 December conference. “Every
effort,” he remarked, “should be made to construct communications trenches so that men
can be moved back if shelling is heavy.”7
The other principal lesson of the Flanders battles was that strong points constructed
100 to 150 yards (about 90 to 135 metres) behind the front line were tremendously effective
at blunting tactical breakthroughs and repairing breaches in the line. In an amended version
of “Notes on the preparation of an entrenched position” drafted for the 1st Division,
Colonel H.S. Jeudwine argued that “It was largely due to the resistance made by [strong
points on 11 November] that the enemy’s formations were broken, his further advance
stayed, and our line ultimately re-established with little loss of ground.”8 The principal
difference between a proper prewar redoubt and the strong points constructed in Flanders
continued to be the absence of internal shelters in the latter.9 Designs varied between
formations and depended largely on the nature of the terrain and the size of the garrison,
but all strong points shared two common characteristics. First, a strong point was either
completely enclosed or screened on three sides with barbed wire so that enemy troops
could not rush the defenders with the bayonet. Second, strong points needed to be laid out
so as to maximize their capacity to enfilade attacking infantry. Hexagonal or octagonal
5 Amended version of “Notes on the preparation of an entrenched position” prepared by Colonel H.S. Jeudwine, 1 December 1914, 1st Division War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1227; Memorandum regarding entrenched positions, 24 November 1914, IV Corps War Diary, TNA: WO 95/706. 6 Memorandum from II Corps to 3rd and 5th Divisions, 25 December 1914, Appendices to II Corps War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1630; Memorandum regarding entrenched positions, 24 November 1914, IV Corps War Diary, TNA: WO 95/706. 7 Notes from I Corps’ 24 December conference, I Corps War Diary, TNA: WO 95/589; See also “Notes on Trench Warfare,” 1st Division War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1227. 8 Amended version of “Notes on the preparation of an entrenched position” prepared by Colonel H.S. Jeudwine, 1 December 1914, 1st Division War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1227. 9 1st Division to I Corps, 5 December 1914, 1st Division War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1227. See Appendix D, figures 2 and 3 for diagrams of strong points.
79
designs were preferred because numerous sides allowed more rifles to bear on approaching
troops at one point.10 Although I Corps was the first to apply strong points, by early 1915
they had appeared in all formations. Engineers in II and IV Corps, for example, finished
constructing strong points in early December and early January, respectively.11
Stabilization also gave the BEF the opportunity to apply proper machine-gun
emplacements on a large scale for the first time in the war. In spite of the static nature of
the Aisne battle, machine-gun emplacements resembling those described in the Manual of
Field Engineering never appeared, likely since German infantry pressure was not
substantial enough to warrant their construction. The 23rd Field Company reported on 28
September that it constructed a machine-gun “pit” on the left of the 1/Black Watch’s
trenches to enfilade any attacking infantry, but made no further notes about its capabilities
or design.12 At La Bassée and Ypres, infantry and engineers were preoccupied laying wire,
shoring up hastily-dug trench positions, and, in early November in I Corps, constructing
strong points. In contrast, the 2/Grenadier Guards in the 2nd Division and the 12th Field
Company in the 4th Division both constructed machine-gun emplacements by the end of
the second week of December.13 Designs of emplacements, like those of strong points,
were diverse. Sketches in the war diary of the 1st Division Commander Royal Engineers,
for example, closely resembled prewar designs in that the emplacement was an appendage
to a fire trench and equipped with head cover.14 On the other hand, a sketch sent from the
1st Division to I Corps differed in that the emplacement was entirely enclosed by trench
and linked to the firing line via a short communications trench.15 The primary purpose of
any emplacement was to give the machine gun a wide radius of fire so that gunners could
enfilade attacking troops. For this reason engineers typically constructed emplacements in
10 1st Division to I Corps, 5 December 1914, 1st Division War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1227; 2nd Division Commander Royal Engineers to 2nd Division, 5 December 1914, TNA: WO 95/1283; Amended version of “Notes on the preparation of an entrenched position” prepared by Colonel H.S. Jeudwine, 1 December 1914, 1st Division War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1227. 11 14th Brigade to 5th Division, undated, 5th Division War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1510; Rawlinson to Kitchener, 3 January 1915, IWM: Rawlinson Papers. 12 23rd Field Company to 1st Division Commander Royal Engineers, 1st Division Commander Royal Engineers War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1244. 13 Lord Cavan to regimental lieutenant-colonel, 8 December 1914, in Fifteen Rounds a Minute, 161; Ms Diary of F. Souton, 11 December 1914, IWM: Southon Papers. 14 1st Division Commander Royal Engineers to 1st Division, 4 December 1914, Appendices to 1st Division Commander Royal Engineers War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1244. See Appendix B, figures 1 and 2 for diagrams of prewar machine-gun emplacements. 15 1st Division to I Corps, 5 December 1914, 1st Division War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1227.
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front of fire trenches. Concealing them, either behind brushwork or in the natural folds of
the ground, was of paramount importance, so much so that one memorandum claimed that
as long as an emplacement was properly hidden, almost any design would be effective.16
Besides applying the most recent lessons of La Bassée and First Ypres and
enhancing field defences with machine-gun emplacements, the BEF encountered a number
of new challenges to which it had to adapt during the consolidation period in December and
January. One was enemy aerial observation. Concealing trenches from direct observation
on reverse slopes was, as the Aisne demonstrated, relatively straightforward and rather
effective. However, by late November both sides had begun frequently employing aircraft
to spot batteries and trench positions. The less subtle method of preventing aerial
observation was to shoot down enemy aircraft. Since aeroplanes were not usually equipped
with wireless radios at this early stage in the war, shooting them down would ensure that
precise positions remained unknown to the enemy.17 With field artillery pieces unable to
target aeroplanes, troops were encouraged to fire on them with their rifles. As one
memorandum from December testified, shooting down aircraft in this way was extremely
difficult. Troops’ inability to aim at fast-moving aeroplanes was considered the primary
cause.18 Furthermore, firing at an aeroplane and failing to disable it could potentially reveal
otherwise hidden trench positions to spotters.
The more effective method of combatting aerial observation was simply to disguise
defences so as to make them indiscernible from the surrounding terrain when viewed from
above. Overhead cover camouflaged with soil or brush was the preferred technique.
However, it mostly applied to dugouts and machine-gun emplacements.19 Fire trenches
were not equipped with overhead cover since it interfered with troops’ ability to freely aim
and fire their weapons.20 Infantry and engineers could do very little to effectively conceal
fire trenches from aerial observation and thus enemy gunners had a greater chance of
successfully ranging them than cover trenches or dugouts with overhead cover.
Conspicuously placed dummy trenches could confuse aerial observers and draw fire away
16 1st Division to I Corps, 5 December 1914, 1st Division War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1227. 17 Falls, The Great War, 1914-1918, 104-5; Holmes, Tommy, 371. 18 1st Division to I Corps, 23 December 1914, TNA: WO 95/1227. 19 1st Division to I Corps, 5 December 1914, 1st Division War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1227. The memorandum also recommended laying a blanket over the machine gun. 20 See Chapter 1.
81
from real positions, but attempts to conceal trenches from aerial observation were
ultimately only partly successful. Hence, the army continued to rely on thinly garrisoning
the front line to ensure that potentially ranged positions did not suffer heavy casualties from
accurate artillery fire.21
Adapting defences to protect troops from German trench mortars, or Minenwerfer,
was another new challenge. Originally designed as a siege weapon, Minenwerfer proved
well suited to static trench warfare since they combined high-trajectory fire with better
mobility than a field howitzer, thereby allowing German infantry to push them forward into
positions where they could observe and accurately target enemy trenches. A German
Minenwerfer concealed in a sap close to British lines, for example, directly hit and
destroyed a section of the 2/Grenadier Guards’ trenches on 24 December.22 The BEF first
addressed the danger of trench mortars in late November. A memorandum titled
“Protection against Minen Werfer” described a net “stretched” over trenches at such an
angle that incoming bombs rebounded off them and fell a safe distance to the front. The
memorandum credited the idea to French engineers and there is no evidence to indicate that
Royal Engineers actually constructed any of these adjuncts. Besides such nets being highly
conspicuous, the chief problem was that they, like overhead cover, would have inhibited
riflemen from using their weapons.23 In December, Haig requested the 1st and 2nd
Divisions provide recommendations on how to defend against Minenwerfer. The latter
suggested constructing a system of advanced observation outposts from which troops could
attempt to detect hostile trench mortars before they opened fire. Outposts were not a new
concept. The Manual of Field Engineering described outposts as useful for forward
observation, and some battalions built them on the Aisne to warn defenders of impending
infantry attack and to help locate enemy artillery positions. Nevertheless, outposts were a
practical adaptation of prewar ideas to the new problem of trench mortars.24
21 1st Division to I Corps, 5 December 1914, 1st Division War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1227. 22 Diary of George Jeffreys, 24 December 1914, in Fifteen Rounds a Minute, 166. Saps were short lengths of trench which extended out from a fire trench toward enemy lines. They served as sheltered approaches to hostile positions and were also used as launching points for trench raids. 23 “Protection against Minen Werfer,” Appendices to 1st Division Commander Royal Engineers War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1244. 24 1st Division to I Corps, 23 December 1914, TNA: WO 95/1227; 2nd Division to I Corps, 23 December 1914, TNA: WO 95/1283; Diary of George Jeffreys, 18 September 1914, in Fifteen Rounds a Minute, 93; Manual of Field Engineering, 30.
82
The army’s biggest challenge in the winter was learning how to deal with water in
the trenches. Troops experienced some difficulty with water and mud during the first
Flanders battles, but heavy precipitation beginning in late November and continuing until
January transformed trenches into veritable quagmires. Maintaining them was extremely
difficult. By the end of November, “considerable lengths” of the 7th Division’s fire
trenches had fallen in where infantry had dug recesses.25 A late December report from the
4th Division to III Corps remarked that trench work was a “very difficult matter” and that
trenches left unattended for even a couple of days were liable to collapse.26 In addition,
movement through muddy and flooded trenches was slow and potentially hazardous. An
anonymous observer in the 4th Division’s 1/Somerset Light Infantry reported that the mud
was so thick that it took him “about an hour” to walk 200 yards (approximately 180
metres). The 2/Grenadier Guards also encountered difficulty moving in mud. Lieutenant-
Colonel Wilfred A. Smith related the plight of his battalion in a letter to his wife:
[The trenches] were so wet and muddy, you cannot approach them without being shot at, so all communications has to be by trenches, which are sodden and mostly under water. On our way [to the fire trenches], four men sank [into the mud] up to their hips. It took nearly four hours to dig them out and they all fainted several times from cold.27
The war diary of the 2/King’s Royal Rifle Corps similarly recorded on 31 December that
one man fainted from the cold after being stuck in mud for 1.5 hours.28 According to Major
George Jeffreys, movement was so difficult in the Grenadiers Guards’ new trenches that
when the Germans attacked with a Minenwerfer on 24 December, the result was a “general
scramble” in which two companies suffered losses because troops could not get to safety
owing to the depth of the water and the thickness of the mud.29
One solution to flooding was to adjust or modify defensive lines. General Thomas
Capper’s 7th Division, its trenches inundated in late November beyond the point of infantry
or engineers being able to recover them, requested IV Corps approve a withdrawal to new
positions on drier ground. Rawlinson complied, but adjusting the 7th Division’s lines
affected the right flank of the 6th Division and thus the whole junction between III and IV
25 7th Division War Diary, 29 November 1914, TNA: WO 95/1627. 26 4th Division to III Corps, 31 December 1914, III Corps War Diary, TNA: WO 95/688. 27 Wilfred R.A. Smith to his wife, 26 December 1914, in Fifteen Rounds a Minute, 169. 28 2/King’s Royal Rifle Corps War Diary, 31 December 1914, TNA: WO 95/1272. 29 Diary of George Jeffreys, 24 December 1914, in Fifteen Rounds a Minute, 166.
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Corps had to fall back.30 Further north, the 4th Division’s response to flooding was
considerably more innovative. According to General J.P. Du Cane, III Corps’ Chief of
Staff, water had rendered the division’s trenches “useless for the purpose for which they
[were] intended.” However, he concluded that the flat, muddy terrain of the Flanders plain
was not conducive to offensive action, and thus in his opinion the Germans would be
unable to develop a rapid attack. Rather than withdraw the 4th Division’s lines to new
positions on drier ground, Du Cane instructed the division to abandon its flooded trenches
and hold the front line with a series of disconnected outposts in the form of strong points or
fortified buildings. These outposts were to be arranged in two lines, with a third line of
reserves organized to the rear. Defence of this type, Du Cane claimed, would necessarily
“be distributed in some depth and would rely on the strength of defended posts and
localities and on counter-attack, rather than on holding a continuous trench line.” He
recognized the principal weakness of this system was an increased vulnerability to artillery
fire since strong points and redoubts were not intended to provide its garrisons with
extensive shelter.31 However, abandoning continuous trench lines in favour of outposts and
strong points meant that the front lines would consequently be more lightly garrisoned and
fewer men exposed to shell fire. The 4th Division began applying Du Cane’s system in
early January.32
The army also modified the design of its trenches in order to lessen their
susceptibility to flooding. Sandbags and wooden revetments helped to shore up muddy
trench walls, but the quantity of available material was insufficient for the amount of trench
in British lines. Lieutenant-Colonel L.R. Fisher-Rowe, commander of the 1/Grenadier
Guards in the 7th Division, estimated in early December that although his battalion held
only 1,200 yards (or just under 1,100 metres) of front, communications trenches and
traverses in firing lines amounted to nearly two miles (3.2 kilometres) of total trench.
Shoring up the entire network would have required thousands of sandbags which, in spite
of the two million that arrived in late October, remained in short supply.33 As late as April
1915, V Corps complained that it lacked enough sandbags to improve the positions it had
30 IV Corps to III Corps, 30 November 1914, IV Corps War Diary, TNA: WO 95/ 706. 31 III Corps to 4th Division, “Memorandum regarding defence,” 22 December 1914, 12th Brigade War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1501. 32 4th Division to III Corps, 1 January 1915, 4th Division War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1441. 33 L.R. Fisher-Rowe to his wife, 5 December 1914, IWM: Fisher-Rowe Papers.
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recently taken over from the French.34 Furthermore, although revetments reinforced trench
walls, they did not prevent the trench from filling with water. Wooden duckboards helped
troops move through trenches with muddy floors and although engineers quickly began
laying them in early December, the deep trenches that were so effective at sheltering troops
on the Aisne were wholly impractical in Flanders.35 Instead, shallow trenches shielded with
high parapets or breastworks became the norm by the end of 1914. Units began
implementing trenches of this design soon after the Flanders battles. For instance, the 14th
Brigade reported to the 5th Division in late November that it had constructed a number of
new trenches which were only 2.0 feet (0.6 metres) deep but equipped with a 2.5 foot (0.8
metre) high parapet. These trenches offered the same 4.5 feet (1.4 metres) of cover as a
standard subterranean trench and made a “considerable difference in the health and comfort
of the troops.”36 The main disadvantage of a shallow trench shielded with high breastworks
was that it made a conspicuous target for enemy gunners. Thus, as Haig reinforced to his
divisional commanders in late December, positions with breastwork fire trenches required
good cover trenches reinforced with sandbags and wooden revetments to which front-line
troops could retire during heavy shelling.37
Although constructing breastworks in lieu of digging deeper was largely successful
in reducing the impact of flooding, troops continued to suffer from the cold induced by
long-term exposure to water and so the army aimed to limit the amount of time battalions
spent in the trenches. Snow first fell in the BEF sector in mid-November and drops in
temperature over the next month put troops, sometimes standing in water up to their ankles,
at risk of illness and hypothermia.38 Brigades had on their own initiative instituted rotation
cycles as early as the Aisne battle and continued to do so during La Bassée and First Ypres,
but the poor condition of many trenches in late November and early December prompted
formation commanders to intervene and formalize the rotation process. The 5th Division,
for instance, instructed its brigades on 27 November to ensure that no battalion spent more
34 27th Division trench report, 14 April 1915, V Corps War Diary, TNA: WO 95/743. 35 Ms Diary of Private F. Southon, 9 December 1914, IWM: Southon Papers. 36 14th Brigade to 5th Division, undated (from late November), 5th Division War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1510. 37 Notes from I Corps’ 24 December conference, I Corps War Diary, TNA: WO 95/589. 38 Jeffreys recorded the first snowfall as being on 15 November. See Diary of Goerge Jeffreys, 15 November 1914, in Fifteen Rounds a Minute, 141.
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than three consecutive days in the front lines.39 Haig emphasized the importance of short
rotations in his 24 December conference. Indeed, Jeffreys of the 2/Grenadier Guards
reported at the end of the month that owing to the “awful conditions” in the trenches, 2nd
Divison headquarters had limited front-line tours to a mere forty-eight hours.40 On the
Aisne, in contrast, the Grenadiers Guards occupied the front lines almost continuously
between 15 and 28 September, spending only two nights in reserve. Although the
battalion’s companies rotated between fire and support positions on a regular basis, the unit
as a whole nevertheless remained in the front lines.41 Removing troops from the trenches in
regular cycles was an important adaptation to the cold and wet conditions of the winter
which, combined with more shallow trenches reinforced with breastworks, helped keep the
men healthy and physically fit to fight.
The lull in operations during the winter and early spring also gave the General Staff
the opportunity to digest the lessons of the war and adapt its tactics accordingly. Between
late November and the beginning of the Second Battle of Ypres in late April 1915, the War
Office published a series of “Notes on Field Defences” and three tactical pamphlets titled
Notes from the Front to foster dissemination of the most current methods to both new and
experienced officers. The first edition of Notes from the Front, a verbatim copy of III
Corps’ Aisne report to GHQ, appeared in November 1914. Parts 1-7 of “Notes on Field
Defences” surfaced in early December and were published later that month as the
entrenchment section of Notes from the Front Part II. The General Staff issued Notes from
the Front Part III, contained in which were an additional seven field defences notes, and
“Notes on Field Defences No. 15” in February and March 1915, respectively. The Notes
from the Front series was broad in its subject matter and tackled a number of tactical issues
which included entrenchment. As their name implied, the “Notes on Field Defences”
focused exclusively on field works and fortifications. Thus, the General Staff and War
Office considered digging and trench work important enough in late 1914 and early 1915 to
warrant special attention.
39 5th Division to brigades, 27 November 1914, 5th Division War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1510. 40 Notes from I Corps’ 23 December conference, I Corps War Diary, TNA: WO 95/589; Diary of George Jeffreys, 30 December 1914, in Fifteen Rounds a Minute, 171. 41 See Fifteen Rounds a Minute, 90-104.
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Taken as a whole, the three volumes of Notes from the Front and fifteen “Notes on
Field Defences” successfully incorporated all the major entrenchment- and fortification-
related lessons of 1914 and early 1915. Methods of concealing positions from enemy fire
and observation were principal points. Notes from the Front Parts I and II and the
December 1914 series of “Notes on Field Defences” emphasized the advantages of siting
trenches on reverse slopes in spite of the relatively shallow fields of fire they afforded.
Furthermore, being a copy of III Corps’ Aisne report, the first volume of Notes from the
Front also highlighted how reverse slopes denied the Germans the ability to rely
exclusively on their artillery and in turn forced them to expose their infantry.42 Notes from
the Front Part III went one step further and recommended using advanced observation
posts to keep enemy artillery observers “at bay.” Since entrenching reverse slopes conceded
control of the high ground and allowed German observers to occupy it, thereby giving them
a potentially clear view of British positions beyond the hillcrest, advanced outposts
constructed on the heights or forward slopes and garrisoned with a few rifles could help
limit enemy incursions onto the high ground by bringing sections of it under effective
infantry fire. As the 2nd Division suggested, advanced posts could also be used in this way
to spot Minenwerfer.43 Notes from the Front Part III was also the first in the series to
describe concealing trenches from aerial observation. Based on troops’ lack of success
shooting down aircraft with their rifles in late 1914, it recommended the more practical
solution of using earth, brushwork, natural folds in the ground, or dummy trenches to
disguise trench works.44
The concept of withdrawing troops from front-line trenches to safer cover positions
during bombardments, the tactical value of strong points, and how to construct trenches so
as to limit flooding were three other important lessons articulated in the “Notes on Field
Defences” and Notes from the Front. The third volume of the latter echoed Jeudwine’s
amended version of “Notes on the preparation of an entrenched position” and noted that
since German artillery typically ceased firing “just before” the infantry attacked, troops
42 War Office, General Staff, Notes from the Front (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, November 1914), 2, 8-9, 15; “Notes on Field Defences,” parts 1-7, in War Office, General Staff, Notes from the Front Part II (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, December 1914), 5-6. 43 “Notes on Field Defences,” parts 8-14, in War Office, General Staff, Notes from the Front Part III and Further Notes on Field Defences (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, February 1915), 43-4. 44 “Notes on Field Defences,” parts 8-14, in Notes from the Front Part III and Further Notes on Field Defences, 44.
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could leave the fire trenches largely vacant during bombardments.45 Notes from the Front
Part III also described the advantages of strong points and included a sketch of Black
Watch Corner as an example of an effective design. Strong points, the pamphlet remarked,
were “found valuable in arresting an attack on the trenches which has been successful and
also in supporting the counter-attack.”46 Entrenching in winter conditions was the focus of
“Notes on Field Defences No. 15.” It recommended that infantry and engineers construct
trenches when possible to conform to natural drainage so as to limit flooding, but it also
recognized that doing so was rarely possible on the Flanders plain and therefore included a
diagram of a breastwork fire trench. The breastwork itself was shown as reinforced with
sandbags or wooden revetments. In addition, “Notes on Field Defences No. 15”
recommended filling flooded trenches with barbed wire and constructing new breastworks
behind them.47 Rawlinson’s IV Corps had done this as early as late December. In a 3
January 1915 letter to Field Marshal Horatio H. Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War,
Rawlinson wrote that in cases where “the ground permits [infantry and engineers] use the
old trench as a wet ditch [and] fill it with barbed wire.”48 Wire laid in this way would be
both largely invisible to advancing enemy infantry and shielded from the effects of enemy
artillery fire.
The system described in the “Notes on Field Defences” and Notes from the Front
was linear and highly rigid. Trenches, dugouts, strong points, machine-gun emplacements,
concealment, and withdrawing troops during bombardments were all meant to allow the
infantry to defend its forward positions, or else speedily reclaim them with a minimal loss
of ground if captured by the enemy. Beginning in early February 1915, GHQ ordered the
First and Second Armies to begin constructing “auxiliary” lines to the rear of their main
positions. These so-called GHQ lines would be in addition to the “subsidiary” lines
constructed on the initiative of individual formations. By the spring of 1915 British
defences therefore consisted of the front line, itself composed of fire and cover trenches,
subsidiary lines, and finally the GHQ lines. Smith-Dorrien, the commander of Second
45 Notes from the Front Part III and Further Notes on Field Defences, 6-8. 46 “Notes on Field Defences,” parts 8-14, in Notes from the Front Part III and Further Notes on Field Defences, 53-5. 47 “Notes on Field Defences No. 15,” in Notes from the Front Part IV and Further Notes on Field Defences (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, May 1915), 51-2. 48 Rawlinson to Kitchener, 3 January 1915, IWM: Rawlinson Papers.
88
Army since late December 1914, clearly summed up the function of these lines in a
memorandum to his corps commanders. In the event of “a long series of misfortunes,” he
remarked, “it should be possible by means of these subsidiary lines to reconstitute the
defensive line over and over again before a general retirement to the GHQ [reserve] line
becomes inevitable.”49 In theory, the infantry was to hold its forward trenches unless forced
back on a large scale to a secondary line, at which it would mount another defensive. Work
on subsidiary lines and the GHQ line was often neglected, however, with the result that
they were considerably weaker than forward trenches and often filled with water. The
Commander Royal Engineers of the 27th Division, for example, informed Sir James
Edmonds after the war that although in early May 1915 the GHQ line was well wired, it
consisted of shallow trenches with no dugouts, support trenches, or covered
communications. In practice, then, only the front lines were strong enough to allow British
troops to mount an effective resistance.50
Du Cane described some points which the Germans later implemented as part of
their defence-in-depth tactics, namely populating the front lines with outposts in place of
trenches and relying on counter-attack to contain enemy advances, but his system was a
solution to a local problem and he did not intend that it replace traditional trench lines on a
large scale. Strong points afforded field defence networks an element of elasticity, but they
remained a contingency. Whereas German infantry in 1916-18 lightly held forward
outposts and gradually retired in order to pull the enemy into zones swept with enfilading
machine-gun and artillery fire, British formations were to strongly defend front-line fire
trenches and hold them until forcibly expelled.51 In late 1914 and early 1915, linear
defensive tactics of this nature were not unique to the BEF. Assuming the strategic
defensive after having failed to break through the Allied lines at La Bassée and First Ypres,
General Erich von Falkenhayn ordered the German armies in France and Belgium to
strongly fortify their front lines. Forward positions, he announced, “must be retained” since
“even our relinquishment of totally useless objectives is considered a major
accomplishment by the enemy and is then exploited accordingly.”52 The German army was
49 Second Army to corps, 9 February 1915, Second Army War Diary, TNA: WO 95/268. 50 G. Walker to Edmonds, 7 March 1925, TNA: CAB 45/141. 51 Herwig, The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary, 247-8.
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not introduced to the concept of defence-in-depth until the late spring of 1915 and did not
begin to apply it before the summer of 1916. By the Second Battle of Ypres, the German
army employed a field defence system of comparable depth and elasticity to that described
in Notes from the Front and the “Notes on Field Defences.”53
The principal weaknesses of the winter and spring pamphlets were that they did not
replace prewar manuals and appeared a considerable time after the methods they described
were already standard practice at the front. The General Staff intended the “Notes on Field
Defences” and Notes from the Front to be read “in amplification” of prewar training
manuals, and while it acknowledged that some aspects of pre-1914 entrenchment theory
required revision, namely siting regulations, it did not overwrite outdated tactics with new
methods.54 Its neglect to do so may have caused some confusion among V Corps engineers
who carelessly entrenched the forward slope of Frezenberg Ridge in early May (see below).
In addition, the “Notes on Field Defences” and Notes from the Front did not reflect the
most current techniques. For example, infantry and engineers on the Western Front began
experimenting with breastworks and shallow trenches almost as soon as the fighting in
Flanders subsided in mid- to late November, but these new designs did not appear in any
tactical memoranda until the publication of “Notes on Field Defences No. 15” in March
1915. Strong points, the effectiveness of which corps commanders immediately recognized
after their successful application on 11 November, were first described in Notes from the
Front Part III in February 1915. In short, there was a delay of about two or three months
between corps commanders adopting a method and the General Staff codifying it in tactical
pamphlets. Consequently, during training in the United Kingdom, troops in the 27th, 28th,
and 1st Canadian Divisions did not study and rehearse all the same techniques that infantry
and engineers were employing in the front lines.
The experience of the infantry in the 1st Canadian Division demonstrates how the
training of new formations during the winter of 1914/15 did not reflect the new
entrenchment requirements of the war. For engineers, more than half of their training
53 “Falkenhayn’s Standing Orders for the Defence in the West, 1914,” in Mark Osborne Humphries and John Mahr, eds, Germany’s Western Front: Translations from the German Official History of the Great War Volume II (Waterloo: Wilfred Laurier Press, 2010), 384-7; Herwig, The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary, 165. The Germans captured a French document outlining the concepts of defence-in-depth in May or June 1915. 54 “Notes on Field Defences,” parts 1-7, in Notes from the Front Part II, 1.
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consisted of studying the 1911 Manual of Field Engineering, most of the points in which,
namely the designs of redoubts and the importance of thinly garrisoning the front line,
remained relevant in 1915. Canadian infantry, on the other hand, had very little time to
practice digging. Of the 144 hours allocated to individual training, only two hours were
earmarked for entrenchment.55 The war diary of the 5th Canadian Battalion mentioned that
the unit only practiced digging proper trenches on two occasions between November and
February. Moreover, the trenches it constructed were only 3.75 feet (1.14 metres) deep and
lacked a substantial parapet or breastwork. Although the trenches it constructed were
apparently traversed, their specifications conformed to neither the deep subterranean
trenches called for in prewar manuals nor the shallow breastwork trenches being
constructed at the front.56 The latter did not appear in tactical memoranda until the release
of “Notes on Field Defences No. 15” in March 1915, so Canadian troops were likely not
familiar with this new design. The relatively shallow trenches may therefore have stemmed
from the fact that the men still had to fill them in after digging. General Edwin Alderson,
commander of the 1st Canadian Division, informed his formation on 22 December that any
battalions that had yet to fill in their trenches were to “do so as soon as possible.”57
Classroom training for infantry officers included readings and discussions of Notes from
the Front, but by the time the division was preparing to leave Salisbury Plain for Flanders
in early February, the War Office had only published the first two volumes.58
Although the Notes from the Front volumes presented in classroom training during
the winter did not reflect the most current lessons of the war, field training at the front for
inexperienced infantry officers ensured that they were familiarized with at least some of the
newest techniques. Whereas IV Corps deployed straight into battle and suffered heavy
losses as a consequence of its officers’ ignorance of revised siting regulations, officers in
Plumer’s V Corps had the opportunity to learn first-hand about trench warfare before taking
55 Orders from General E.A.H. Alderson, 3 November 1914, 1st Canadian Division War Diary, LAC: RG9, Militia and Defence Records, Series III-D-3, Volume 4823, Reel T-7182; “Syllabus of Training,” 14 November 1914, 1st Canadian Division War Diary, LAC: RG9, Militia and Defence Records, Series III-D-3, Volume 4823, Reel T-7182; Andrew Iarocci, Shoestring Soldiers: The 1st Canadian Division at War, 1914-1915 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), 43-4. 56 5th Canadian Battalion War Diary, 14 November and 1 December 1914, LAC: RG9, Militia and Defence Records, Series III-D-3, Volume 4916, Reel T-10708. 57 Orders from General E.A.H. Alderson, 22 December 1914, 1st Canadian Division War Diary, LAC: RG9, Militia and Defence Records, Series III-D-3, Volume 4823, Reel T-7182. 58 Andrew Iarocci, Shoestring Soldiers, 51-3.
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over their own section of the line. The commissioned and non-commissioned officers of the
27th Division, representing along with those of the 28th Division the final cohort from the
pre-1914 regular army, arrived in Flanders for field training with the 4th Division at the end
of December. Each officer only spent twenty-four hours in the trenches, but also received
further instruction from the veteran officers behind the lines. Trench work and reliefs were
the bulk of the curriculum. “Every facility,” 4th Division headquarters relayed to its
brigadiers, “will be given to [the officers of the 27th Division] to learn everything that they
can about trench work and the system of relieving battalions in the trenches should be fully
explained to them.”59 Field training for officers of the 1st Canadian Division with the 7th
Division in February 1915 similarly focused on entrenchment and field fortification.
According to the Canadians’ training syllabus, British regular officers were to cover “all
subjects of trench warfare,” namely how to construct proper trenches, lay obstacles, and
limit flooding.60 Field training therefore fostered the direct transmission of information
from veteran officers to inexperienced “green” officers. It consequently compensated for
the War Office and General Staff’s delay in codifying new methods in Notes from the Front
and the “Notes on Field Defences,” and helped prevent officers from making old mistakes
like those in IV Corps had at First Ypres.
The Second Battle of Ypres tested both the effectiveness of the BEF’s field defence
system and the army’s capacity to diffuse the entrenchment-related lessons of 1914 and
early 1915. The German Fourth Army’s use of asphyxiating chlorine gas, however,
complicates any assessment of British defensive performance. Gas caused French
Territorials and colonial troops to panic and flee on 22 April, thereby opening a 4 mile (6.4
kilometre) wide gap on the northern side of the Ypres salient and exposing the left flank of
the 1st Canadian Division. The Canadians’ retirement to St. Julien and their heavy losses
from renewed fighting on the 24th, which included a second gas attack, were therefore not
the consequence of poor field defences.61 The BEF’s consolidation of its trench systems
59 4th Division to brigades, 29 December 1914, 4th Division War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1140. 60 “Course of Instruction for Canadian Infantry with British Regulars on the front lines,” 1st Canadian Division War Diary, LAC: RG9, Militia and Defence Records, Series III-D-3, Volume 4823, Reel T-7182. 61 See Iarocci, Shoestring Soldiers, Chapters 5-8. For more on the BEF and its responses to gas after Second Ypres, see Alberrt Palazzo, Seeking Victory on the Western Front: The British Army and Chemical Warfare in World War I (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press), 41-53; For a Canadian perspective, see Tim Cook, No Place to Run: The Canadian Corps and Gas Warfare in the First World War (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1999), 11-58.
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during the winter aimed to protect troops from weapons like artillery, machine guns, and
even trench mortars. Gas was new and unexpected. Deep entrenchments offering riflemen
protection from shell fire were in fact a liability during gas attacks since chlorine vapour,
being heavier than the air, sank and suffocated men seeking shelter near the bottom of
trenches or in subterranean dugouts.62 With the 1st Canadian Division thrown back and V
Corps’ left flank largely up in the air as a result of French retreats, on 27 April Plumer
requested Sir John French permit him to withdraw to a shorter and more defensible line.
French agreed and on the night of 3/4 May, the 27th, 28th, and 1st Canadian Divisions
withdrew to new positions on Frezenberg Ridge. Unlike the fighting in April, the first
engagement on Frezenberg Ridge between 7 and 13 May did not feature gas attacks and
was therefore more indicative of the how durable the BEF’s field defence system was
against traditional weapons. Moreover, because V Corps had to construct a new defensive
line, the battle also revealed how successfully its infantry and Royal Engineer officers had
absorbed the lessons of the Aisne, La Bassée, and First Ypres.
The new positions of the 27th and 28th Divisions on Frezenberg Ridge remained
incomplete when the Germans attacked on 7 May. The underlying cause, however, was a
dearth of time rather than an absence of knowledge. Captain J.E. Munby noted that on the
eve of the German attack the 83rd Brigade’s trenches were shallow, too narrow, and in
many places “very wet.” The wire in front of the position remained weak.63 Royal
Engineers in V Corps recognized all of these problems before the brigade occupied the
position. Engineers stated in a 3 May report that they were in the process of both deepening
and widening the 83rd Brigade’s trenches, and intended to construct revetments to keep
them from collapsing in the wet weather. Wire to screen positions and sandbags for
breastworks or revetments were in short supply, however, and the engineers evidently did
not receive a sufficient amount of either before 7 May.64 Thus, the problems that Munby
identified with the defences were not the product of ignorance. Furthermore, engineers
working on the 83rd Brigade’s positions dug long communications trenches to rear areas
62 “From experiences in the 2nd Army of the recent use by the enemy of Asphyxiating Gases round Ypres,” Second Army to V Corps, early May 1915, V Corps War Diary, TNA: WO 95/749. This document also described an early respirator in the form of a cotton pad soaked with a solution of hypo-sulfate and glycerin. 63 “Description of the trench like taken up near FREZENBERG on the 3rd May, by Capt. J.E. Munby,” 83rd Brigade War Diary, TNA: WO 95/2273. 64 28th Division to 83rd Brigade, 3 May 1915, 83rd Brigade War Diary, TNA: WO 95/2273; L.D. Whitehead to Edmonds, 19 April 1926, TNA: CAB 45/141.
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and Plumer ordered the 27th and 28th Divisions on 3 May to construct “numerous” strong
points “with as little delay as possible” when they arrived at the new line.65 How many
strong points the corps managed to build before the German attacks is not clear.
Nevertheless, infantry and engineer officers knew what was required to improve the
position, but they were simply unable to satisfactorily complete the work in the ten days
between breaking ground on 27 April and the beginning of the renewed German attacks on
7 May. Indeed, the Commander Royal Engineers of the 27th Division argued after the war
that the new positions remained relatively weak because of “time and time only.”66
The biggest problem with the Frezenberg line was not the shallow trenches or poor
wire entanglements noted by Munby, but rather that V Corps engineers carelessly sited
some of the 28th Division’s trenches on forward slopes. Most trenches followed the back
side of the ridge, but where it bent sharply toward Ypres between the Zonnebeke-Ypres
railway in the south and Weiltje in the north, the line “hung down like a loop” onto the
forward slope.67 The most affected unit was the 83rd Brigade, particularly the
3/Monmouthshire Regiment. The battalion’s shallow and poorly traversed fire trenches
were in full view of enemy guns and subjected to accurate fire. Its support trenches were
concealed behind the hillcrest, but since German gunners could clearly observe the
movements of British troops on the ridge, rushing men forward to the front line to meet
infantry attacks simply invited more artillery fire. German shelling began the day after the
83rd Brigade took up their new positions. According to Lieutenant L.D. Whitehead, many
of the Monmouthshires’ trenches were “blown away” by artillery fire. On 8 May, “heavy
bombardment … and the serious cost of attaining any reinforcement of the front line in
daylight made the front line as it was indefensible. A few hours bombardment was
sufficient to annihilate the garrison.”68
With the Monmouthshires’ trenches “practically obliterated” and many of the
defenders killed or wounded from heavy shelling, advancing German infantry tore a hole in
65 28th Division to 83rd Brigade, 3 May 1915, 83rd Brigade War Diary, TNA: WO 95/2273; Plumer’s Force to 4th, 27th, and 28th Divisions, 3 May 1915. 66 G. Walker to Edmonds, 7 March 1925, TNA: CAB 45/141. 67 L.D. Whitehead to Edmonds, 19 April 1926, TNA: CAB 45/141. 68 “Additional information from Capt. Seddon,” TNA: CAB 45/141; Comments on 28th Division, 84th Brigade at Second Ypres by Colonel W.B. Wallace of the 1/Suffolk Regiment, TNA: CAB 45/141; L.D. Whitehead to Edmonds, 19 April 1926, TNA: CAB 45/141; L.D. Whitehead to Edmonds, 28 April 1926, TNA: CAB 45/141.
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the 83rd Brigade’s line, compelling the left of the neighboring 27th Division to fall back so
as to avoid being enfiladed. A counter-attack by the 4th Division on 13 May helped restore
the situation and prevent further withdrawals, but once German troops had captured fire
trenches on forward slopes, it proved difficult to dislodge them. From the perspective of
British gunners, enemy infantry occupying the 83rd Brigade’s former firing trenches were
on the reverse slope and thus shielded from direct fire by the crest of the ridge. As a result
of British guns being unable to target the backside of the ridge and the heavy casualties
from days of bombardment, the 83rd Brigade did not recover its former positions. Its losses
were so substantial that the 28th Division was withdrawn and replaced in the front lines by
the 1st and 3rd Cavalry Divisions on 12-13 May.69 Fire trenches sited on the reverse slopes
of Frezenberg Ridge, although similarly shallow and lacking substantial breastworks, better
withstood German bombardments. For example, Munby’s unit on the far right of the 83rd
Brigade was dug in behind the hillcrest and only withdrew to conform to the movements of
retreating units to the north.70 In the 27th Division, the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light
Infantry Battalion, similarly entrenched on the reverse slope, also held on until the 83rd
Brigade’s retreat compelled it to retire on 10 May.71
Sir James Edmonds was highly uncritical of the 28th Division’s trench sites despite
Whitehead insisting after the war that the 83rd Brigade’s position on the forward slope was
dangerously vulnerable. In his assessment of the Frezenberg line, Edmonds merely weighed
the comparative advantages and disadvantages of forward and reverse slope sites.
Entrenching the reverse slope of the ridge, he argued, would have conceded ground and
made it difficult for British gunners to find enemy batteries.72 However, experience on the
Aisne and Messines-Passchendaele Ridge in September and mid-October, respectively,
made explicitly clear that observation and fields of fire should be sacrificed for better
concealment from enemy artillery. Whitehead adamantly sought to convey in his edits of
the official history the dangers of forward slope sites and the indefensible nature of the
3/Monmouthshire Regiment’s positions on Frezenberg Ridge. He argued that the line either
69 “5th Corps Summary of Operations, from 7th to 15th May (inclusive),” V Corps War Diary, TNA: WO 95/743; “Notes on the Second Battle of Ypres” by Brigadier-General F. Lore Anley, TNA: CAB 45/141. 70 “Description of the trench line taken up near FREZENBERG on the 3rd May, by Capt. J.E. Munby,” TNA: CAB 45/141; “Additional information from Capt. Seddon,” TNA: CAB 45/141. 71 Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry Battalion War Diary, 8-9 May 1915, LAC: RG 9, Militia and Defence Records, Series III-D-3, Volume 4911, Reel T-10703. 72 Military Operations 1915, vol. 1, 312.
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should have been situated entirely on the reverse slope, thereby conceding the high ground
and limiting observation, or the forward slopes held with lightly-manned observation posts
while the main trench lines remained concealed behind the hillcrest.73 The latter solution,
articulated in Notes from the Front Part III, would have both shielded infantry from direct
artillery fire and given the defenders a view of enemy positions beyond the ridge. Edmonds
declined to include Whitehead’s suggestions in the final edition of Military Operations
1915 and thus incorrectly implied that forward slopes were not the cause of the 83rd
Brigade’s problems on 8 May.
The engineers who sited and constructed the Frezenberg line between 27 April and
7 May were ultimately responsible for the forward slope sites. Whereas units in the 3rd
Cavalry and 7th Divisions entrenched forward slopes at First Ypres because Rawlinson
failed to relay revised siting regulations to their commanders, engineers in V Corps were
clearly aware of the dangers of exposing trenches to enemy artillery observation since they
dug most of the trenches behind the hillcrest. The General Staff’s decision not to overwrite
the old siting regulations in prewar manuals may have led to some degree of confusion
among engineers. The “Notes on Field Defences” and Notes from the Front pamphlets
made explicitly clear that they were to be used in “amplification” rather than in lieu of
training manuals. Field companies digging trench lines on Frezenberg Ridge, relatively new
to the Western Front and not having experienced intense defensive fighting prior to Second
Ypres, may have been under the impression that forward slope sites were still acceptable.
Another plausible explanation is that engineers dug trenches on the forward slopes so as to
keep the line relatively straight. Since Frezenberg Ridge bowed west toward Ypres where
the trench positions ended up on forward slopes, engineers may have attempted to avoid
creating a large salient in the 28th Division’s lines that was susceptible to enfilading fire.
Colonel R.D. Petrie, V Corps’ chief engineer, oversaw the construction of the Frezenberg
line and was accountable for the manner in which his field companies sited positions. His
role in the precise placement of trenches is not clear, but he either endorsed entrenching
portions of the forward slope or neglected to intervene and correct it. Regardless, in each
case Petrie failed to ensure that his engineers properly concealed trenches from enemy
73 L.D. Whitehead to Edmonds, 19 April 1926 and 28 April 1926, TNA: CAB 45/141.
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artillery, and he therefore must bear a degree of responsibility for V Corps’ difficulties on
Frezenberg Ridge.
Overall, V Corps engineers’ entrenching of forward slopes was the only interruption
to an otherwise productive period of learning and adaptation between November 1914 and
early spring 1915. After having failed to apply the lessons of the Aisne, La Bassée, and
First Ypres the BEF capitalized on the cessation of the mobile war, and sought to
consolidate its defensive position and adjust its methods and entrenchment tactics. Prewar
theory remained relevant into 1915. Strong points, for example, served the same tactical
purpose as redoubts and continued to share many of their key design characteristics.
Shallow breastwork trenches, on the other hand, although ultimately the product of building
higher parapets, had no clear analogue in engineering manuals.74 In addition, officers at the
divisional and corps levels of command grappled with how to deal with the new threat of
German Minenwerfer and, in the case of Du Cane, began to think in terms of increased
depth and elasticity, if only as a way of combatting the effects of flooding. The Germans’
reduction of the Ypres salient in late April and early May 1915 was therefore more the
product of the effects of gas than British defensive ineptitude. Only a relatively short
section of the Frezenberg line was on forward slopes, suggesting that the cause was
negligence on the part of Petrie and his field companies rather than ignorance of proper
siting regulations. In short, as a consequence of tactical adaptation and better methods of
dissemination in the form of field training, V Corps performed better in its first defensive
engagement than IV Corps had in mid-October.
74 Prior to the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, field fortifications were primarily constructed above ground in a manner similar to breastworks. However, trenches of this type did not appear in any military engineering manuals and although Royal Engineers may have been broadly familiar with their design, constructing them does not appear to be part of the prewar training syllabus. See Murray, The Rocky Road to the Great War, 7-9.
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Postscript and Conclusions
Second Ypres marked the last real test of British field fortifications and their
capacity to defend against full-scale enemy attack until the German offensives in the spring
of 1918. With the Germans occupying parts of northeastern France and most of Belgium,
and Falkenhayn having assumed the defensive on the Western Front in November 1914, the
Entente switched to the operational-strategic offensive in early 1915. British commanders
therefore began turning their attention away from developing defences to devising new
ways of breaking through them. This process began with the First Army’s offensive at
Neuve Chappelle in March 1915, which demonstrated that thoroughly planned and
meticulously-executed attacks could succeed with limited objectives, ample artillery
support, and sufficient reserves. The enormous losses and meagre gains along the River
Somme in July 1916 confirmed that breaking through enemy lines on a wide frontage was
likely not possible. Early failures also led to innovations in artillery tactics. The
introduction of the rolling (creeping) barrage, devised to keep enemy defenders hunkered
down in their trenches or bunkers for as long as possible and prevent them from firing on
advancing troops, signalled a move toward using artillery to neutralize resistance rather
than destroy defensive positions and kill the defenders. The Battle of Arras in the spring of
1917 revealed that the army had absorbed some of the lessons of the Somme, as evidenced
by the Canadian Corps’ capture of the well-defended Vimy Ridge. Offensives in Flanders
in the summer and autumn of that year failed to produce similar results, largely due to poor
planning and the difficulties of attacking over water-logged and muddy terrain. However,
the BEF partially compensated for these failures in the autumn when it achieved a degree of
surprise with the mass use of tanks in lieu of preliminary artillery barrages at Cambrai.1
The army’s offensive posture from late 1915 to early 1918 offered British officers
very little experience from which to derive lessons on how to improve defence systems. A
1 For a narrative of British operations from late 1915 to early 1918, see Bourne, Britain and the Great War, 1914-1918, 49-80.
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March 1916 tactical pamphlet titled Notes for Infantry Officers on Trench Warfare
described a field defence system virtually indistinguishable from that in Notes from the
Front and the “Notes on Field Defences.” Heavily traversed fire trenches continued to serve
as the main line of resistance. In front of the fire trenches, advanced outposts warned
defenders of attacks or enemy movements and machine-gun emplacements wore down
advancing troops with enfilading fire. Barbed wire entanglements would both impede the
attackers’ movements and funnel them into zones swept with defensive infantry and
artillery fire. Support trenches, similarly traversed but potentially also recessed to provide
riflemen with added shelter, situated 70 to 100 yards (approximately 65 to 90 metres)
behind the fire trenches and linked to them via communications trenches served to shelter
front-line garrisons during bombardments. When artillery fire ceased, the majority of troops
would move forward to meet the impending infantry assault. Strong points and redoubts
behind the support trenches would “break up a hostile attack” which succeeded in
penetrating the front two lines and help “prevent its further development” by presenting
large obstacles for attacking troops to overcome, delivering enfilading fire on hostile
infantry, and acting as a point at which withdrawing defenders could rally for the counter-
attack. Sited 400 to 500 yards (about 365 to 450 metres) behind the strong points and
redoubts was a third line for reserves. Composed of dugouts and good shelter trenches, this
third line, connected to the rest of the system with communications trenches, would house
reserve battalions and unit headquarters.2
Any points in Notes for Infantry Officers that were not described or differed from
those in Notes from the Front or the “Notes on Field Defences” were simply clarifications,
added detail, or logical extensions of the lessons of 1914-15. The entrenchments described
in Notes for Infantry Officers were fundamentally no different than those constructed on the
Aisne and in Flanders between September 1914 and May 1915. Rather, experience in the
trenches during and after the Second Battle of Ypres made clear which design
specifications and construction methods worked best and provided the most effective
shelter. The pamphlet described the ideal dugout as having two exits and a thick roof
covered with a thin “bursting layer” of brick or stone to explode shells close to the surface.
2 War Office, General Staff, Notes for Infantry Officers on Trench Warfare (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, March 1916), 15-17.
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Breastworks were to be a minimum of ten feet (three metres) thick at the top and were best
constructed by erecting two revetments of sandbags or gabion and then filling the space
between them with earth.3 New points in Notes for Infantry Officers were not the product of
new lessons. For instance, in addition to the strong points and redoubts behind the support
trenches, the pamphlet suggested constructing similar defences behind the reserve line. The
idea was that additional strong points, sited to create overlapping fields of fire, would wear
down enemy attacks in cases where defenders were compelled to abandon the front lines
and retire to subsidiary defensives lines. Using strong points behind reserve lines was no
different than employing them closer to the front; their role in a defensive battle remained
contingent on infantry withdrawing from positions further forward.4 Other entrenchments
not depicted in any volumes of Notes from the Front or the “Notes on Field Defences” were
new responses to old lessons. Fire bays, small “T” or “L” shaped entrenchments jutting out
toward enemy lines from the fire trenches, served the same purpose as traverses in that they
were devised to help localize the effects of exploding shells. The introduction of hand
grenades in late 1914 and early 1915, moreover, led Notes for Infantry Officers to advocate
constructing “bombing trenches” immediately behind fire trenches. Described as an
earthwork large enough to garrison only a few men, bombing trenches would house
infantry whose task was to toss grenades into positions taken by the enemy. Bombing
trenches were, in addition to strong points, another way to help facilitate the speedy
recapture of lost fire trenches.5
Entrenchment and field fortifications did not exist in a vacuum and were affected by
the army’s switch to the offensive in autumn 1915. One consequence was a decline in the
preference for reverse slope trench sites. Notes for Infantry Officers declared that the
purpose of field fortifications was first to “facilitate the preparation and launching of an
unexpected assault” while also serving to defend against “sudden attack by the enemy.”6
That the pamphlet placed developing offensives ahead of sheltering men and resisting
infantry attacks is highly indicative of both the army’s new operational-strategic posture in
1916 and the senior command’s changing attitude toward field fortifications. Prewar
3 Notes for Infantry Officers, 23, 29. 4 Notes for Infantry Officers, 18-19. 5 Notes for Infantry Officers, 15-17. 6 Notes for Infantry Officers, 6.
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training manuals spoke of field fortifications in similar language, but experience on the
Aisne and at La Bassée and First Ypres clearly demonstrated that the power of German
artillery made necessary concealing trenches on reverse slopes, even if it meant conceding
the high ground.7 Advanced outposts could exert some degree of control over the high
ground and act as observation posts for gunners, but Notes for Infantry Officers feared that
they were liable to be rushed and taken by enemy infantry. Trenches on forward slopes, on
the other hand, dominated the high ground and therefore afforded good observation points
and more favourable positions from which to launch attacks. Notes for Infantry Officers,
like Field Service Regulations 1909 and Infantry Training 1914, tended to favour forward
slopes for these reasons. Furthermore, Notes for Infantry Officers argued that the Germans’
employment of aeroplanes and observation balloons to range British positions largely
negated the advantages of reverse slopes. However, the revival of forward slopes as the
favoured site for fire trenches was closely linked to the argument that field fortifications
needed to facilitate offensive action. The comparative safety of reverse slopes was therefore
sacrificed for better launching points for attacks.8
Another consequence of the switch to the offensive, and related to the restoration of
forward slope trench sites, was the proliferation of active defence in 1916-17. Notes for
Infantry Officers declared that attacking and overcoming enemy defences required “dash
and gallantry of a very high order,” and expressed concern that the “comparative inactivity”
of life in the trenches fostered among the troops a “passive and lethargic attitude.” The
pamphlet argued that “minor local enterprises” in the form of trench raids would furnish the
“offensive spirit” required in larger attacks and would help the army maintain the
initiative.9 Stabilization on the Aisne in mid- to late September caused similar concern
about the negative effect of static trench warfare on the offensive spirit of the men. Like
Notes for Infantry Officers, II Corps’ report to GHQ in early October concluded that the
best method of preventing a decline in the offensive spirit was to “insist on small local
attacks and enterprises.”10 Although active defence was encouraged from the outset, the
7 See Appendix C, figures 1 and 2. 8 Notes for Infantry Officers, 10-12. 9 Notes for Infantry Officers, 8. 10 “Notes, based on the experience gained by the Second Corps during the campaign,” II Corps War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1629; See also Gardner, Trial by Fire, 94-5. The birth of trench raids as a method of encouraging the offensive spirit in troops was a key component of Gardner’s concept of the “hybrid officer.”
101
army’s defensive attitude on the Aisne and the need to solidify positions during the winter
of 1914-15 in order to recover from the losses of the autumn meant that developing good
field fortifications was of more immediate importance than raiding enemy trenches.
Furthermore, trenches sited on reverse slopes favoured a passive defensive approach. The
experience with German heavy artillery in September 1914 led commanders to
acknowledge that concealing trenches behind hillcrests effectively denied the Germans the
ability to rely solely on their guns, thereby making it possible to sit largely idle, and lure the
enemy into using his infantrymen and exposing them to defensive fire. Siting positions on
forward slopes meant that troops could not simply wait indefinitely in the safety of their
concealed trenches for the enemy to attack. It was therefore no coincidence that Notes for
Infantry Officers downplayed the advantages of reverse slopes while simultaneously
lauding active defence.
Finally, the prospect of moving the line forward in an attack meant that British
commanders tended to regard their field fortifications as more temporary than their German
counterparts in 1916-17, with the consequence that the BEF fell behind the Germans in
terms of the quality and complexity of their earthworks. British military leadership in the
First World War never regarded field defences as permanent features of the battlefield. On
the other hand, the German army, having assumed the strategic defensive in 1915 and
resigned itself to holding its positions on the Western Front, had good reason to make their
defences as robust and habitable as possible. The Germans’ use of concrete for blockhouses
and redoubts, in particular, blurred the distinction between permanent fortifications and
temporary field works. German troops were reportedly astonished at the relative
“shoddiness” of captured British trenches. Conversely, British troops advancing on the
Somme and at Ypres in 1916 and 1917 expressed amazement at the comfort of German
entrenchments. Edward Underhill reported in November 1916 that one German dugout
reportedly had a ceiling more than six feet high, and was equipped with a large mess hall
ordained with tapestry and a stencilled frieze of an iron cross and a shield. In addition,
British dugouts were typically not as deep or well-revetted as those of the Germans, and
were therefore more vulnerable to shell fire and collapse.11
11 Holmes, Tommy, 245-64; Sheffield, Forgotten Victory, 123-5; For a similar but more crudely-articulated assessment of British field defences in 1916-17, see Ferguson, The Pity of War, 350.
102
Historian Alexander Watson claimed that British earthworks were inferior to those
of the German army because the dominance of the offensive spirit in the BEF “burdened”
troops by depriving them of the materials, such as concrete, to construct the same quality of
defences as their opponents.12 The offensive meant that field fortifications in the BEF were
more temporary in nature than in the German army, but British troops did not stop digging
in late 1915. In spite of the growing disparity in the quality of British and German field
fortifications in 1916-17, earthworks in the BEF were nevertheless more habitable during
the middle years of the war than in 1914 for the simple reason that formations inhabited the
same positions for many months and had ample opportunity to improve them. Indeed,
Notes for Infantry Officers considered trench work a good way to keep men busy during
operational lulls.13 Indicative of this growth was the development of British dugouts. In
1914 and early 1915, dugouts typically consisted of a shallow trench or recess reinforced
with overhead cover. By 1916, dugouts were in many cases fully subterranean with as
many as four entrance points. Furthermore, unlike at the Aisne and during the early phases
of the first Flanders battles, trenches later in the war were continuous as long as the
topography and the water table permitted, and defensive systems comprised numerous
support and communications trenches, redoubts, and machine-gun emplacements.14 When
assessed independently and without comparisons to German defences, then, British field
fortifications continued to develop after Second Ypres in spite of the army’s emphasis on
active defence and the revival of forward slope trench sites. Because the BEF had no
experience fighting large-scale defensive battles, however, the system remained largely
unchanged for almost three years. In other words, Britain’s strategic objective of ejecting
the Germans from France and Belgium meant that developing means to attack
understandably took precedence over defensive development, with the result that the army
employed for much of the war a system designed to deal with the close-order infantry
tactics of 1914 and early 1915, not the advanced combined arms tactics of 1917-1918.
When the Germans launched their final bid for victory on the Western Front in the
spring of 1918, the BEF, particularly Sir Hubert Gough’s Fifth Army, was caught without a
12 Alexander Watson, Enduring the Great War: Combat, Morale and Collapse in the German and British Armies, 1914-1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 13-14. 13 Notes for Infantry Officers, 8. 14 Holmes, Tommy, 245-72.
103
field fortification system capable of defending against concentrated attacks and new
German assault methods. Until the summer of 1916 the British and German armies both
employed linear defensive tactics designed to hold the front lines at all costs, but after
General Erich von Falkenhayn’s resignation as chief of the German General Staff in
August, the German army began organizing its defences in three zones arranged in depth.
The forward zone, a series of outposts and strong points up to three miles (about five
kilometres) deep, served to wear down advancing infantry and break up attacks. The main
point of resistance was the battle zone, one to two miles (1.6 to 3.2 kilometres) deep and
composed of multiple lines of trenches, redoubts, machine-gun posts, and dugouts. A
reserve zone beyond the range of hostile artillery housed supports assembled for counter-
attacks.15
The British unsuccessfully attempted to emulate this system in early 1918. In the
case of the Fifth Army, infantry and engineers, challenged by a shortage of labour,
neglected to construct a reserve zone. Furthermore, Haig, the British Commander-in-Chief
since Sir John French’s dismissal in late 1915, consented to French requests that the BEF
shoulder a greater responsibility on the Western Front and took over additional positions
south of the Somme, thereby overextending Gough’s forces, particularly III Corps. Gough
had neither the necessary field works nor sufficient reserves to fully employ a true defence-
in-depth, and as a result British troops were concentrated in the forward and battle zones.
The outposts and strong points in the forward zone were not meant to shelter infantry from
artillery fire and, in addition, were often too far apart to create overlapping fields of fire,
which allowed some German troops to slip through unmolested.16 Besides a shortage of
labour and reserves, the Fifth Army likely failed to develop defence-in-depth because
Gough and his senior infantry and Royal Engineer officers did not fully understand how to
apply it. Indeed, the army had no experience using defence-in-depth before the Germans
mounted their offensives in the spring of 1918.
The result was that the Germans scored a series of initially stunning tactical
successes against the BEF. With Bolshevik Russia having capitulated in late 1917, General
15 Herwig, The First World War, 247-8. 16 Historian Gary Sheffield argued that Haig was aware of Fifth Army’s relatively weak position on 21 March but did not reinforce Gough’s formations because the necessary reserves were simply not available for the BEF to be strong along the entire line. Leaving the Fifth Army stretched thin was therefore a conscious decision for Haig. Sheffield, The Chief, 266-8.
104
Erich Ludendorff, the effective commander of the German army since Falkenhayn’s
resignation, aimed to win the war in the west before the United States amassed sufficient
manpower in France to definitively tip the balance in favour of the Entente. Operation
Michael, the first of four primary offensive thrusts, was aimed at the British Third and Fifth
Armies and opened on 21 March 1918. A brief but intense German artillery bombardment
stunned the Fifth Army defenders in the forward zone and attacking German forces quickly
advanced to the main line of British trenches. Troops in the battle zone held out until mid-
afternoon before being overwhelmed and thrown back, exposing the right flank of General
Julian Byng’s Third Army. In the first two days of the Michael offensive, the British Third
and Fifth Armies suffered almost 200,000 thousand killed, wounded, or missing. The
Germans captured another 93,000 prisoners and over 1,000 artillery pieces. By early April,
Michael had pushed the front line nearly forty miles (sixty-five kilometres) west and placed
German forces in a position to capture the critical British-controlled rail junction at
Amiens. A second offensive, Operation Georgette, aimed to break through the British front
straddling the Lys. Between 9 and 29 April, the German Fourth and Sixth Armies advanced
more than ten miles (six kilometres) toward Hazebrouck. Despite these relatively large
territorial gains by First World War standards, problems supplying foot soldiers advancing
a considerable distance beyond their railheads and the absence of a mobile arm to exploit
breakthroughs meant that the German attacks suffered from a lack of sustained momentum
and eventually petered out. The British, in spite of their initial defensive failures,
particularly in March, were therefore able to re-establish their lines and counter-attack in
August.17
The BEF enjoyed far greater defensive success early in the war and most of what
the British learned about field fortifications occurred during its comparatively short stint on
the operational-strategic defensive between September 1914 and May 1915. The
fundamentals of the British field defence system were clearly articulated before the war,
mostly as a product of the experience in South Africa, but also, although to a lesser extent,
in response to observations of the fighting in Manchuria. The Battle of the Aisne was the
first test of the BEF’s field fortification capabilities. British infantry and engineers dug
deep and established a system capable of resisting infantry attacks and, largely because of
17 Herwig, The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary, 400-6.
105
the fire trenches having been sited on reverse slopes, effectively sheltering troops from
artillery fire. Aiming to improve the army’s fighting methods in late September and early
October, the General Staff adopted reverse slopes as the recommended site for fire
trenches. It did not, however, acknowledge that the robustness of the army’s field defences
on the Aisne was the product of troops having sufficient time to construct them. The
proliferation of the offensive spirit at GHQ denied the BEF this same advantage in
Flanders, and infantry did not have the opportunity to dig the earthworks necessary to
defend against what amounted to be biggest defensive challenge of 1914. In addition,
Rawlinson neglected to relay the importance of siting trenches on reverse slopes to the
tactical officers in his newly-arrived IV Corps. Consequently, the German Fourth and Sixth
Armies exacted a heavy toll on the poorly-entrenched BEF in late October. Nevertheless,
Haig and his chief engineer, Colonel S.R. Rice, learned to adapt and constructed strong
points in time for renewed German attacks on 11 November. The winter of 1914/15 was a
period of recuperation in which the BEF consolidated its defences and adjusted to digging
on the water-logged Flanders plain. Field training for the inexperienced officers in Plumer’s
V Corps meant that his formations were better prepared than their counterparts in IV Corps
who deployed straight into battle. Although Plumer’s engineers sited some trenches on the
forward slopes of Frezenberg Ridge in early May 1915, they also attempted to equip the
position with good communications trenches, barbed wire, and strong points, indicating
that they had absorbed the majority of entrenchment-related lessons to date.
The BEF was largely equipped in August 1914 with the necessary knowledge of
field fortifications to meet the requirements of the First World War. Infantry and engineers
employed a number of prewar methods to good effect in 1914-15 without making any
major modifications. The deep and narrow trenches adopted in the 1902 Instruction in
Military Engineering as a direct response to observations of Boer entrenchment practices in
South Africa proved highly effective at protecting infantry on the Aisne. Barbed wire, a
salient feature of First World War trench systems, was extolled in military engineering
manuals before 1914 as the most effective type of obstacle. Even though field companies
faced barbed wire shortages on the Aisne and Frezenberg Ridge, concentrating wire where
fields of fire were extremely shallow partly compensated for limited quantities. The
practice of withdrawing troops from the front lines and sheltering them in better cover
106
trenches 50 to 100 yards (45 to 90 metres) to the rear during enemy artillery
bombardments, initially described after the Russo-Japanese War in the 1905 Manual of
Military Engineering, remained an important method of protecting infantrymen throughout
the war, particularly in cases where the Germans controlled the high ground and could
clearly see British defensive positions.
Because the BEF was well prepared, radical innovation was not required in 1914-
15, and so when existing techniques proved to be insufficient, prewar methods only need to
be adapted to suit First World War conditions. Prewar siting regulations, although they
ultimately demonstrated an underestimation of the power of artillery in 1914 and favoured
good fields of fire over concealment from enemy guns, endorsed siting support trenches on
reverse slopes for the superior cover they afforded. Thus, siting fire trenches on reverse
slopes was straightforward for infantry officers because they were familiar with the
advantages of concealing trenches behind hillcrests. Redoubts served as the framework for
the strong points largely responsible for I Corps beating back German attacks on 11
November. The development of dugouts, moreover, stemmed directly from an appreciation
of overhead cover. Military engineering manuals expressed concern that overhead cover in
front-line trenches would impede riflemen from freely using their weapons, and after this
had proven to be the case early in the Aisne battle, field companies focused on adding it to
reserve positions and unit headquarters instead, which, when covered with earth, evolved
into the shell-proof shelters described as dugouts in later tactical pamphlets.18 Forward
outposts, originally intended to provide artillery observers points from which to look for
enemy defensive positions and give defenders advanced warning of infantry attack, were
found useful in spotting German Minenwerfer crews and exerting a degree of control over
the high ground forfeited by siting fire trenches on reverse slopes.
Many of the weaknesses affecting the BEF’s preparedness for the First World War
did not severely handicap its capacity to construct field fortifications. As evidenced by the
adoption of reverse slopes and the recognition that relatively shallow fields of fire were
sufficient for defending infantry, tacticians’ ultimate underestimation of firepower before
18 The term “dugout” did not appear in official General Staff memoranda or War Office publications until Notes for Infantry Officers in March 1916. Notes from the Front and “Notes on Field Defences” referred to dugouts as “bomb-proof shelters.” However, “dugout” was used among infantrymen, tactical officers, and in Royal Engineer units from at least late October 1914. See, for example, the Ms Diary of W.H. Long, 31 October, IWM: Long Papers.
107
1914 proved to be of little concern on the defensive. Training deficiencies had similarly
little impact. On the Aisne, development was uneven in that some battalions were more
thorough and dug better quality earthworks than others, but commanders’ growing interest
in field defences in late 1914 and early 1915 meant that systems became increasingly
standardized. The infantry’s dependence on Royal Engineers for their tools and technical
expertise, although causing digging to proceed more slowly during the first few days of the
Aisne battle than the Manual of Field Engineering had anticipated, was largely negated
once lines stabilized and field companies could spend the majority of their time assisting
combat units. Furthermore, attaching field companies to infantry brigades during the
Flanders offensives in mid-October helped alleviate tool shortages at the front. The army
never fully overcame the difficulty of keeping the front lines well supplied with tools
during mobile or semi-mobile operations, but the issue became largely inconsequential
after the Western Front became static since infantry units were no longer in danger of
advancing ahead of their tool carts. The one weakness that did have serious consequences
was the offensive in British military ethos. The proliferation of the offensive spirit,
particularly among Sir John French and his Sub Chief of Staff, General Sir Henry Wilson,
almost produced a disaster for the BEF in mid- to late October when the army was, for all
intents and purposes, still on the strategic defensive.
That so many features of the prewar system were successfully implemented in 1914
and early 1915 without the need for serious innovation reinforce historian Spencer Jones’
argument that the British army was more intellectually prepared to fight a trench war than
historians like Shelford Bidwell, Dominick Graham, and Tim Travers have argued. Indeed,
in 1914 the BEF possessed neither the heavy artillery that came to dominate combat on the
Western Front nor the combined-arms attack tactics that eventually contributed to the
defeat the German army in 1918. British commanders did, on the other hand, appreciate the
importance of entrenchments and grasped how to use them. In this sense, they largely
anticipated the role that field fortifications would play in the First World War. Fixation
with the offensive in British military ethos, however, meant that extensively using them
was analogous to conceding the initiative to the enemy, a line of thinking that was the
major cause of the BEF’s defensive setbacks. Nevertheless, when British infantry units
were afforded the opportunity to dig, they, with Royal Engineer assistance, dug quite well.
108
The system that emerged was better developed and more capable of sheltering troops and
defending against infantry attacks than Sir James Edmonds and, by extension, many
subsequent British military historians have suggested. Edmonds viewed the earthworks of
1914 and early 1915 purely in the context of the First World War and did not acknowledge
that they were an improvement over those dug in the South African War. In other words, he
appraised the quality and effectiveness of early defences using the British trenches and
permanent German field works of 1916-17 as his primary points of reference rather than
assessing them in terms of how far they had come since 1902. Moreover, Edmonds either
ignored or failed to realize that the field defences constructed on the Aisne, in the latter
stages of the First Battle of Ypres, and during the winter of 1915/15 were largely identical
in terms of their arrangement and function to those established later in the war. Therefore,
the system that Edmonds used as one of his baselines for assessing early defences differed
from the works of 1914-15 mostly in the sense that the trenches were simply more
habitable, a direct consequence of troops having occupied and worked on the same
positions for many months.
That formation commanders absorbed new lessons and the General Staff adapted
entrenchment tactics in 1914 and early 1915 reinforce the now well-documented argument
that British generalship in the First World War was not comprised of incompetent
“donkeys.” Additionally, it also indicates that the British were not uninterested in field
fortifications and negligent on the defensive as Edmonds and Niall Ferguson have implied.
Wilson instigated the learning process in late September when he requested the BEF’s three
corps provide information on the most recent tactical lessons of the war for the purpose of
informing new formations prior to their arrival on the Continent. The later Notes from the
Front and “Notes on Field Defences” pamphlets, although they did not necessarily reflect
the most up-to-date technical changes, represented a genuine effort to improve tactics and
educate new and inexperienced officers. At the corps level of command, Haig and his chief
engineer, Colonel Rice, were largely responsible for implementing strong points and should
thus receive some credit for the British army adapting to the conditions of heavy defensive
fighting in Flanders. General J.P. Du Cane, III Corps’ Chief of Staff, devised a solution to
flooding in the trenches which shared some characteristics with what the Germans later
employed as defence-in-depth. Even if his somewhat radical solution to a common problem
109
was not adopted throughout the BEF, Du Cane nevertheless exemplified the British military
leadership’s capacity to innovate and “think outside the box,” even in the early stages of the
war.
Learning to implement an effective field defence system was not a completely linear
process and paralleled the sort of “learning curve” experienced with the development of
offensive tactics in 1915-18. The first Flanders battles represented a temporary, albeit
costly, setback in the use of earthworks. Sir John French expressed concern as Inspector
General of the Forces that training in entrenchment between 1908 and 1912 did not reflect
its vast importance in modern war, but he failed to heed his own advice in mid-October
1914, and ordered the BEF to attack when it should have been digging in and preparing for
what intelligence reports indicated was an large and impending German attack. The army
also experienced setbacks in training and dissemination. Rawlinson’s failure to impart the
lessons of the Aisne to his tactical officers was the most significant, and although the
General Staff improved the way in which it transmitted new information with field training,
it did not make explicit enough to V Corps engineers that all fire trenches needed to be
sited on reverse slopes. Thus, the learning process led to gradual improvement in the BEF’s
capabilities between September 1914 and May 1915, but improvement was in many cases a
consequence of initial mistakes. It was after the failures of First Ypres, for instance, that
Haig ordered I Corps to construct strong points, formation commanders began to assert
control over field defence construction, and the General Staff instituted field training for
new officers.
Further research into British field fortification theory during the offensive phase of
the war would yield important insight into the relationship between the offensive and the
defensive in the BEF, and would shed light on how the offensive spirit affected
commanders’ perception of defences and their influence on morale. Furthermore, the
historiography of the British army in the First World War would benefit from a more
detailed study of the defensive battles in the spring of 1918. Although historians like Gary
Sheffield have asserted that Gough was not prepared to arrange his defences in depth, they
argued that his primary deficiency was a shortage of labour to construct positions and a
lack of reserves. To what extent did Gough and his senior staff truly understand how to
employ defence-in-depth? Lastly, comparative studies of the use of field fortifications in
110
the French and German armies in 1914 and early 1915 would help to contextualize the
British experience and indicate if the British application of field works was unique. If it
was not unique, a comparative study would illustrate how well the BEF performed relative
to the other armies fighting in the same conditions. British defensive theory, that field
fortifications served to allow defenders to hold the front line at all cost, closely resembled
the German system until the summer of 1916, but what was the precise point at which the
quality of earthworks in the two armies began to diverge? Was the German army innately
better-prepared to fight a defensive trench war or were its superior fortifications in 1916-17
the sole consequence of it being on the strategic defensive?
In the wider context of the Western Front in 1914-15, the BEF played an ultimately
indecisive role. Historian J.M. Bourne, referring specifically to 1914, correctly asserted that
the British military contribution was “puny” compared to that of the French. Even in
Flanders in late October and early November 1914, where the BEF made its most
significant contribution to Allied defensive victory in the first year of the war, French
forces held a front twice as long as the BEF.19 The impact of British field fortifications on
the overall outcome of the war in the west, then, was largely negligible. Bourne’s
characterization of early British engagements as “soldiers’ battles,” in which most of the
important command decisions were made at or below the company level, however, was not
entirely accurate.20 Senior officers at GHQ or in charge of corps and divisions played an
active role in improving the army’s field fortification system and training tactical officers in
new entrenchment techniques. Whereas historians interested in the offensive phase of the
war, such as Paddy Griffith, have often focused on the period of learning after Second
Ypres, the development of British field fortifications during the first ten months of the war
suggests that there was an important degree of continuity between the offensive learning
curve of 1916-18, and the adaptation of entrenchment tactics in 1914-15. In other words,
the British army’s experience on the defensive, although not strategically decisive, was
valuable in that it contributed to the process of institutional learning that proved essential to
the development of attack tactics in 1916-18.
19 Bourne, Britain and the Great War, 26-7; Terraine, The First World War, 44-5. 20 Bourne, Britain and the Great War, 28.
111
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Appendix A
Prewar Trench Designs and Specifications
Figure 1 – Standard fire trench. Drainage channel (A), fire step (B), and parapet (C) to shield rifleman from shell fragments and rifle fire. Figure 2 – Recessed cover trench. Pardos (D) to shield rifleman from shells exploding behind the trench, undercut recess (E), and revetments (F) to help prevent E from collapsing. Figure 3 – Head cover. Head cover (H) is composed of sandbags stacked so that there is space through which the rifleman can aim his weapon. Earth (shaded) is thrown in front for camouflage. Figure 4 – Overhead cover. Overhead cover (I) composed of corrugated steel and camouflaged with earth (shaded). A sandbagged loophole (J) allows riflemen to use their weapons without exposing themselves. Figure 5 – Traversed trench. Standard fire trench with traverses (K) built of earth to protect against enfilading fire and localize the effects of exploding shells. * Adapted from War Office, General Staff, Manual of Field Engineering (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1911).
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Appendix B
Prewar Designs of Machine-Gun Emplacements and Redoubts
Figure 1 – Machine-gun emplacement (top view). Machine-gun platform (C) extends toward enemy lines as an appendage of trench D. Head cover (A) is supported by sandbags (B).
Figure 2 – Machine-gun emplacement (profile view). Machine-gun platform (F) extends toward enemy lines as an appendage of trench E. Head cover (G), supported by sandbags, protects the machine-gun crew from rifle fire and shell fragments.
Figure 3 – Standard redoubt. The redoubt is enclosed with traversed trenches (H). Shelters (I) within the enclosure provide garrison troops with some cover from shell fire.
* Adapted from War Office, General Staff, Manual of Military Engineering (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1905) and War Office, General Staff, Manual of Field Engineering (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1911).
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Appendix C
Forward and Reverse Slope Trench Sites
Figure 1 – Siting on a forward slope. Fire trenches (C) are in view of enemy guns (D) whereas cover trenches (A) on the reverse slope are not and can only be hit with indirect fire. Trenches at position C afford a long field of fire and protect defensive guns at position B on the crest of the hill, which has a view of D and attacking enemy infantry. However, position C is in the direct line-of-sight of D and troops both reinforcing A from C and withdrawing from C to A are exposed to direct fire from D. Trenches at C hold more ground than trenches at G, and maximize observation of enemy positions from the high ground at B while simultaneously denying him view of friendly positions behind A . Fire trenches could also be sited further toward the base of the forward slope to make them less conspicuous to enemy observers.
Figure 2 – Siting on a reverse slope. Both fire trenches (G) and cover trenches (F) are on the reverse slope. Trenches in positions G and F are concealed from the direct fire of enemy guns at position H and troops can reinforce G or withdrawal from G to F without coming into view of H. Fire trenches at G have a far more shallow field of fire than those at C and defensive guns must be placed to the rear at position E without a direct line-of-sight to H. Guns at E, however, can still directly target attacking enemy infantry as they advance over the crest of the hill toward G. Trenches at G concede the high ground and do not offer good observation of the enemy.
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Appendix D
Field Fortifications, September 1914 – May 1915
Figure 1 – Dugout constructed on the Aisne. Deep recess in which men take shelter (A) supported with overhead cover (B). Pardos (C) to protect troops in A from shell fragments exploding behind the dugout.
Figure 2 – Strong point. Enclosed section of traversed trench (D) screened with barbed wire (E).
Figure 3 – Black Watch Corner. Traversed trench (F), built around a garden, enclosed by barbed wire (G).
Figure 4 – Breastwork fire trench. Breastwork of sandbags or wooden revetments (J) constructed behind the abandoned trench (K). Drainage channel (H) helps keep water from eroding fire step (I).
* Adapted from “Notes on the preparation of an entrenched position,” Lahore Division War Diary, TNA: WO 95/3911; 1st Division to I Corps, 5 December 1914, 1st Division War Diary, TNA: WO 95/1227; War Office, General Staff, “Notes on Field Defences No. 15,” in Notes from the Front Part IV and Further Notes on Field Defences (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, May 1915).