With Cavalry in 1915 / The British Trooper in the Trench Line, Through the Second Battle of Ypres

by Frederic Coleman

The German first line trenches to the west of the town were well constructed. Though they had been considerably damaged by the rain of shells that had been poured on them, they were not as badly demolished as one might expect. Back of this first line of defence was a second line, weaving in and out—here in front, now behind, now through, the string of houses on the west of Vermelles' main street.

In the southern portion of the town were the ruins of the Château Watteble. The grounds of the once imposing château allowed a sufficiently clear space for still another formidable trench-line. Behind that the enemy had placed other lines, burrowing here and there at points of vantage through the town. Adjacent to the château were piles of bricks that once had been a fine farm, the Ferme Brion, and in front of it, completely demolished, and bearing no semblance of shape or form that would indicate its original outlines, was a chapel, where a German gun had been placed. This gun, a French officer told me, had been served gallantly until the French were but fifty yards distant, when a battery of the famous "75's" found the range and totally annihilated the gun, the chapel, and any of the enemy who were so unfortunate as to be in its vicinity.

The church, its square tower battered out of shape, was still the most conspicuous landmark of the country round. Another sample of devastation was the brewery, and attached to it an elaborate dwelling, one portion of which was built over a metal frame. All the covering had been torn from the iron girders, leaving the mere skeleton of the framework practically intact, a weird sight.

The German trenches and communications burrowed so consistently everywhere from the western edge of the town, and on through to the eastward, that every foot of ground afforded opportunity for study. These lines of defence, all connected and fed by approach trenches, cleverly constructed, with their traverses and reserve off-shoots, led away for hundreds of yards to the rear of the front line.

That, then, was the town the French had to face, defended by machine-guns in splendid emplacements, every position well manned. The first line commanded an open front of slightly rising ground, clear of all obstacles and capable of being swept for 800 to 1,000 yards. Military science in trench construction had been aided by ingenuity of a high order, and hours of wandering over and through the rabbit warrens made for men, as cleverly as ever rodent designed his burrow, found one discovering new wonders at every step.

The trenches proper were for the most part deep and narrow, stout of wall, reinforced with every manner of material likely to strengthen the defensive ramparts and bastions. Here the thickness of a piece of house wall had been doubled by sandbags. There the face of a trench had been reinforced by huge stones, interspersed with all sorts of receptacles, such as water-buckets, cooking utensils, wheel-barrows, and all manner of tins, filled with brick, small stones or cement.

A woman's bodice neatly tied about a few pounds of stone, the wooden cover of a household sewing-machine, loaded with brick, and even a stout brown-paper cardboard box full of mortar, caught my eye as I searched the stoutly-built wall curved round and back and round again through what had once been a house-yard. Traverses that demanded admiration from the most apathetic student of engineering, loops of trenches that commanded every front, approach trenches that wriggled like some great yellow-brown snake off toward the rear, were perfect each one in its own way.

Practically every point in the town could be reached by a German on tour of inspection of its defences, without the necessity of his leaving cover, save to cross the roadway of the main thoroughfare. Beside all this under-the-surface protection, the shelter of the buildings, all constructed of brick or stone and strongly built, was by no means to be despised.

Truly, when the French officer said no place could be made more secure, there was some reason for his words. But strong as it was, and in spite of its splendid artillery support, the position was one that the French had to take, whether or no. Six long weeks of constant work was represented by those torn and wounded fields that stretched away westward to Noyelles. Sapping their way, entrenching and consolidating every forward step, the little men in red and blue crept up to a line varying by from one to two hundred yards, and even nearer at one point, to the German front.