War the Storm of Steel on the Surface Drove Soldiers Deep Underground

Underground The storm of steel on the surface drove soldiers deep underground on the battlefields of the First World War. Group / Durand Leonard War Matt Leonard explores the human experience. © Matt Photos: 22 MILITARYHISTORYMONTHLY October 2012 he outbreak of the First World War heralded the chance for many young men to embark on an adventure beyond their Twildest dreams. Most had no idea what they would face, even after the conflict began, for there was no embedded news coverage delivering a steady stream of images from the front. Photographs and film footage were tightly controlled, and although casualty figures were available in black and white every morning, the cold numbers were deliberately Leonard distanced from the visual and visceral Matt realities they represented. © Before 1914, wars had, of course, been fought on a large scale, embracing all the technologies of the time. But this war was different: it was a global, Above Situated beneath the Chemin des Dames industrial conflict which mechanically ridge, Maison Rouge was just one of the many destroyed almost everything it came into souterraines utilised by the opposing armies. contact with, whether man, machine, or Right A pump room discovered in the T21 landscape. Any notions of glory that new Group German tunnel system beneath Vimy Ridge. arrivals at the front may have had were Durand Durand soon overwhelmed by the inordinate © quantities of matériel and the sheer underground quarries), or complex magnitude of firepower deployed by tunnel systems designed to defend the both sides. frontlines from subterranean attack and casualties, and the movement of fresh The ferocity of this new and dreadful then take the fight to the enemy in a soldiers up to the forward positions. type of warfare meant that men very deadly, troglodyte game of cat and mouse. Smaller trenches were also dug into No quickly sought refuge within the earth. The weaponry employed was not Man’s Land for observation or forward The decision to live below ground would confined to surface operations. The machine-gun posts, and ‘Russian saps’ see soldiers become more animal than frontlines in Europe and elsewhere were were driven out into no-man’s-land as human, as they dug themselves ever soon underpinned by a subterranean jumping off points for raids or attacks. deeper into the earth – the same earth battlefield which itself would become an By the time the lines settled down that was slowly being consumed by essential part of the bloody business of into stalemate, this sinister man-made the new and insidious technologies of trench warfare. spider’s web stretched from one end of modern warfare. each theatre of conflict to the other. Before long, all life at the front was Trenches In consequence, very little of the lived underground, either in trenches On arrival at the front, soldiers were war could actually be seen from the or dugouts, or even deeper beneath the soon glad of the protection afforded by frontlines, and often it was not easy even surface in caves, souterraines (medieval the trenches, places they came to regard to tell how deep the enemy’s defences as home. For, these narrow, muddy, were. One trench line would be crossed filthy burrows provided some measure only for the attackers to realise that of safety from the zone of flying metal they had many more lines to conquer, Complex tunnel above, even if a direct hit could still stretching out over several kilometres. dissolve a trench into the mudscape of Thus, the central importance of aerial systems were no-man’s-land. reconnaissance, systematic mapping of designed to take Dugouts were soon excavated to enemy trenches, and constant updating provide improved living quarters for of intelligence. the fight to the officers, and these could also serve as A new world had been created, one that forward dressing stations or battlefield reconfigured man’s previous relationship enemy in a deadly, HQs. The frontlines of the war were with his environment, and one that not just single trenches facing the eventually gave rise to a new kind of troglodyte game of enemy; rather, they were a complex and soldiers’ trench society – a ‘conflict ‘‘cat and mouse. intimate defensive system incorporating culture’ of a kind never known before. individually named trenches, of different depths and sizes, spreading out The underground domain in all directions. As trench lines developed, the defences Left Carbon monoxide gas could be lethal These many semi-subterranean were soon expanded into the many deep underground, so gas doors were utilised passages allowed for communications ancient quarries and caves that existed to curb the effects of this silent killer. back to the rear, the evacuation of beneath the Western Front. For www.military-history.org MILITARYHISTORYMONTHLY 23 TUNNELS OF WWI Leonard Matt © Leonard / Durand Group / Durand Leonard Matt © Leonard / Durand Group / Durand Leonard Matt © centuries, the French had been mining underground spaces. They utilised wood, family farm back home in Canada, a their land in order to utilise the chalk concrete, and metal to create spacious, link to an idyllic past which was forever to build towns and villages, leaving dry, and almost homely defences, which shattered by a global industrial war. large voids deep in the bowels of the not only offered greater security than Commonly, crude headstones would earth. The Royal Engineers, along with the British and French positions, but be carved, remembering comrades their Canadian, Australian, and French also allowed for a more bearable who had died in combat, reflecting the counterparts, as well as the German existence in the shadow of the war’s grisly appalling casualty rate of the war. At the Pioneer battalions, began to develop determination to destroy. Froidmont souterraine, on the Chemin these features into complex, multi- As this new subterranean world took des Dames, is one of these unique levelled systems that could accommodate shape, soldiers of all sides began to memory objects, listing the names of vast numbers of men close to, and often adorn the walls of their new domain six men and asking that they may ‘Rest right below, the frontlines. with thoughts, memories, hopes, and in Peace’. Yet, strangely, none of these Command-and-control centres, fears in the form of graffiti and intricate men died during the war. Perhaps it was hospitals, dormitories, ammunition carvings. Graffiti ranged from basic carved as a last testament, something that stores, and even cemeteries were inscriptions of name, rank, and number, would remember them if they perished, constructed below ground in order to to slogans, poetry, and reflections on life or perhaps it was a way of confronting service a modern army at war. On the before the war. fate. It is one of the many examples of eve of the Battle of Arras in 1917, up to the deeply ambiguous nature of the First 24,000 men were stationed beneath the New world, lost worlds World War’s material culture. town, ready to be funnelled into the At Maison Blanche, for instance, a As well as graffiti, men left far more frontline trenches. souterraine near the village of Neuville detailed and personal carvings in the The Germans, their positions fixed and St Vasst, Private Lacey, who would not chalk walls of their underworlds. Most intended to be immovable, incorporated survive the war, drew pictures on the were not professional soldiers. They electricity and running water into their bare chalk walls of the animals on his had either signed up to fight or been 24 MILITARYHISTORYMONTHLY October 2012 Leonard © Matt images Both LIVING UNDERGROUND CLOCKWISE FROM BOTOM LEFT A tunnel beneath the Loos battlefield showing tool marks and the soot made by one of the candles that provided illumination; An example of the many thoughts and musings that line the walls of the subterranean world beneath the Western Front; Carved into the walls of the Maison Blanche Soutteraine at Neuville St Vaast, this object provided a tangible link with home.; Often carvings and inscriptions portray national and regimental pride along with religious beliefs and thoughts of life and death; A carving depicting one of the ships that brought the AEF to France. conscripted, and they brought with them together represent some of the finest Mine warfare skills honed in former lives. Artisans, material culture from the conflict. With In no time at all the trench lines of the such as stonemasons, carpenters, and much of the surface traces of the war Western Front ran from the sea in the painters, used their talents to leave their now disappeared, the subterranean north to the borders of Switzerland in mark, depositing their thoughts and worlds beneath the old frontlines the south. Flanking the enemy’s lines feelings in the underground landscapes are some of the last remaining was out of the question and the business of France and elsewhere. archaeological and anthropological of advancing over no-man’s-land Incredible carvings of regimental vestiges that can still provide tangible involved massive casualties. So both badges, symbols of national identity and evidence of the soldier’s life at war. sides sought other avenues of attack. personal objects that linked the soldiers It was not long before digging and with their far-off homes, can be found tunnelling began on the same scale as in the troglodyte spaces that still exist trench building on the surface. Firstly, all along the Western Front. At Maison On the eve of the a network of tunnels was created, going Blanche, there is a large letterbox carved ever-deeper underground, in order into the souterraine’s walls, a physical Battle of Arras, to protect the lines from the enemy’s and emotional link to the soldier’s up to 24,000 men similar intentions.

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