Sniping in France: With notes on the scientific training of scouts, observers, and snipers

by H. Hesketh-Prichard

There was one duty of back area observers which was always interesting, and this was watching enemy railway crossings. All these crossings were, of course, registered by our guns, and it was the duty of the observer to keep a good look-out on them, and when a train stopped in the station, and consequently a good deal of traffic was held up on either side of the railway crossing, he would ring up the guns. A few well-placed shells would then wreak havoc upon the enemy.

A system which was extraordinarily clear and interesting was adopted by one Corps. This Corps had, let us say, five posts manned by observers. All these posts were linked up with artillery. Back at Corps, stretched on an enormous table, was a large map, on which, of course, the five observation posts were marked. The observers in the posts sent in their daily diary of observation, and when anything in it was of importance, it was entered on this large map. Thus, we will call the posts Tiger, Lion, Leopard, Puma and Jaguar, the names by which they were known. Everything observed from Lion was entered in red ink, everything from Tiger in violet, and from the others also in different coloured inks. It was thus possible at a single glance to tell exactly what had been seen during the past week from each post. Of course sometimes two posts observed the same thing, but only on the extreme limits of their area of observation.

A good observation post was a great asset, and sore, indeed, were the observers if it was given away. There was one such post on a certain front which lay within six hundred yards of the enemy’s front line. This post had been used, and had remained undiscovered for four months. One day there was some change in the arrangement of Corps, and a smart young staff captain arrived at the post and stated that he had orders to take it over from the observers.

Luckily the observer officer, who shall be nameless, was in the post, and he is reported to have addressed that staff captain as follows:

“There are two ways, sir, in which this can be done. The one would be if you were to bring me a written authorization from the head of Intelligence in my Corps, telling me to deliver up the post. That would be the proper and official way. The other would be to throw me out. Which are ye for?”

As the speaker was over six feet high, and had to pass most-doors sideways, he remained in unmolested possession of that post.

One lingers over observation, because it was so intensely interesting. During the long and weary period of trench warfare, when one saw so few Germans in the ordinary course of events, it was delightful to be able to go and look, with the help of a Ross glass, into their private life. Many and many a time did officers say to me that one of the things they most desired and would most enjoy would be to go for a short tour behind the German lines and see what it all looked like. I quite agreed with them, but by the use of the telescope we were able to visualize a great deal of the German common task and daily round.

One early morning, when I was at First Army Sniping School, it became necessary that a recently-joined N.C.O. who had just come out from England, should be what Archibald Forbes’ German general called “a little shooted.” Almost as soon as it was light we went down to the line and crawled up through a wood which overlooked the German lines. This wood would have been an almost ideal place for observation, and, indeed, there were two or three observation posts there, but, as usual, some incoming division had wanted some of the material which went to the making of these posts and had torn it from them, thus giving them most royally away. The result was that the woods were by no means a health resort, as one never knew when the Germans would start shelling them.

That summer morning, however, the sun had risen clear and bright, throwing for a short period of time some kind of illusion over the sad and war-worn landscape—for really after two or three years in France one began to feel a horror of broken masonry and the ugly distortion of war. Very rarely was a scene beautiful, on that part of the front at any rate, but on this morning there was a tang in the air, and it was good to be alive. With our telescopes, as soon as we reached a point of vantage, we were able to see various slight movements in the German lines. It was a curiously peaceful movement—fatigue parties moving about carrying large pots full of cooked rations. In front of us and at no great distance there was a little rounded hummock, which had obviously been strengthened with concrete. Two men came up to this, bearing two large pots slung upon a pole between them, and shortly afterwards four more arrived. All went into a concrete fort which was too large to be a pill-box. I suggested to an officer who was with me that the place ought to be shelled, but he laughed and said: “They have tried it a couple of times, but the shells have simply bounced off. And now they have the place safely registered on the map, and if we come to advance in that quarter we should put some howitzer on to it which would do the work properly.”

Some of these German strong posts certainly did need heavy guns to deal with them. No doubt there is a great satisfaction in having an absolutely safe hole into which to creep when artillery fire begins, but it is doubtful whether it is good policy to make too good arrangements of this kind. Many Germans no doubt saved their lives by going down their deep dug-outs and into their concrete pill-boxes, but many more, as is common knowledge, when our men came over, stayed down too long and were bombed to death.