TRENCH WARFARE
TRENCH
WARFARE
A MANUAL FOR OFFICERS AND MEN
BY
J. S. SMITH
SECOND LIEUTENANT WITH THE BRITISH
EXPEDITIONARY FORCE
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & CO.
681 FIFTH AVENUE
COPYRIGHT, 1917,
By E. P. DUTTON & CO.
Printed in the United States of America
TO
THE AMERICAN OFFICERS AND MEN
WHO SERVED AND
ARE SERVING THEIR COUNTRY
UNDER ALIEN FLAGS
vii
INTRODUCTION
It is a safe bet that when the German armystarted for Paris they had plans for use in theevent of disaster. The disaster occurred, anda new type of warfare requiring the highestcourage, skill and endurance was born. I sayborn because although trench warfare wasknown before, it died in birth compared to thiswar, for the amount of science, energy andvariety of weapons used.
More earth has been removed by a combinationof man, pick and shovel in making thesetrenches than was excavated to make the PanamaCanal possible, and in less time.
It is my object in this book to give a faintidea and knowledge of the trenches, and to approximatelyexplain the way warfare is carriedon, and I offer the information contained hereinas a basic foundation on which to use thefurther knowledge you will gain as an officer,and which, for obvious reasons, I will not andcannot give here.
The notes are all taken from different coursesviiiof instruction, and observations made duringthirty-one months of service, fifteen of whichwas spent on the Belgian and French fronts,both as private and officer in the infantryservice.
I do not lay down my information as expertand final by any means, but as trench warfarechanges from day to day, improvements aremade, old ideas discarded, new ones tried, itcan be seen that nothing can be laid down asa cut and dried rule, but the principles of trenchbuilding, generally speaking, remain the same.This I have endeavored to give, along with afew other notes which will give an idea of themany and varied tasks that a second lieutenantmust know before he is fit to take hold of menin a place such as the Western Front, wherethere is very seldom a chance to rectify mistakes,or to experiment more than once.
When the British and French armies startedtheir retreat from Mons, as far as the Britisharmy was concerned they were hampered bytheir want of knowledge of trench warfare asused in the South African war. The men retiredday by day, hardly staying in one placelong enough to dig themselves in. At that timefor digging a trench system, one valuable lessonwas learned, and that was, that the holeixsuch as they had been taught to make in justsuch circumstances as they were up against thenwas no good, as it offered them no protection