GERMANS HAVE LEARNED MUCH
“The history of the great war,” to quote from a French paper, “will show, among other things, how the Germans profited by the lessons of recent conflicts. The South African, the Russo-Japanese, and the Balkan wars were studied minutely by them, and their particular preparations, their tactics, and their artifices result from the knowledge thus acquired. They learned much, especially, as regards the formation of trenches.
“After 1870 we confined ourselves to three regulation types of trenches: for men prone, kneeling, and standing. While in training, our soldiers were taught how to take shelter momentarily between advances, by digging up the soil a little and lying flat behind the smallest of mounds. They were instructed, moreover, how to protect themselves from the enemy’s fire by propping up their knapsacks in front of them. This meant insufficient protection, and an extremely dangerous visibility, since the foe, by simply counting the number of knapsacks, could know the strength opposed to him. To insure the making of such shelter, a French company was equipped with eighty picks and eighty spades; that is, 160 tools for 250 men. These tools were fixed on to the knapsacks; and it took some time to bring them into use.”
The German methods for defensive and offensive trench-making are quite different. Each man has a tool of his own, which is fixed on to the scabbard of his sword-bayonet. When occasion for fighting arises, the line conceals itself, and, as soon as it is engaged, it prepares for possible retreat, making strong positions assuring an unrelenting defensive and counter-attacks.
STANDARDIZED MODEL
It is on these sound principles that all the German fighting-lines are organized, on a more or less standardized model. The fighting-lines consist generally of one, two, or three lines of shelter-trenches lying parallel, measuring twenty or twenty-five inches in width, and varying in length according to the number they hold; the trenches are joined together by zigzag approaches and by a line of reinforced trenches (armed with machine guns), which are almost completely proof against rifle, machine gun, or gun fire. The ordinary German trenches are almost invisible from 350 yards away, a distance which permits a very deadly fire. It is easy to realize that if the enemy occupies three successive lines and a line of reinforced entrenchments, the attacking line is likely, at the lowest estimate, to be decimated during an advance of 650 yards—by rifle-fire at a range of 350 yards’ distance, and by the extremely quick fire of the machine guns, which can each deliver from 300 to 600 bullets a minute with absolute precision. In the field-trench, it is obvious, a soldier enjoys far greater security than he would if merely prone behind his knapsack in an excavation barely fifteen inches deep. He has merely to stoop down a little to disappear below the level of the ground and be immune from infantry fire; moreover, his machine guns can fire without endangering him. In addition, this stooping position brings the man’s knapsack on a level with his helmet, thus forming some protection against shrapnel and shell-splinters.
At the back of the German trenches, shelters are dug for non-commissioned officers and for the commander of the unit. The latter’s shelter is connected with the communication trench; the others are not. If one adds that the bank, or, rather, the earth that is dug from the trenches and spread out in front, extends for five or six yards, and is covered with grass, or appropriate vegetation, it will be recognized that the works concealing the German lines can be seen only when a near approach is made to them.
