by Simon Jones
The situation was now critical for the French front line. During the night noises of German boring and blasting continued and Gourlat concluded that they were constructing a chamber to take a mine charge in the third tunnel and that a blow could occur four to five hours after the last blast. He proposed that the infantry should evacuate the front line, leaving only sentries, and increase the barbed wire and chevaux-de-frise defences. His sappers should, in the meantime, listen and try to provoke the Germans to blow again by drilling down, although this would be highly dangerous for his men. He also proposed the urgent creation of a new defence line, 30 to 40m behind the first, from which he could set about creating a system of countermines to form a defence underground, which he could not do from the present front line as the Germans were already too close. He also proposed that a retaliatory mine be blown in the mining system of the division to their west. The divisional commander agreed to these proposals, except that of blowing a mine in a neighbouring sector as a distraction. He also asked for the replacement of Prange as his commander of engineers, blaming him for allowing the German miners to reach his front line despite clear warning signs. The Germans having initiated mining, the French were obliged to take countermeasures, despite the difficulty of driving through the rock.
At the end of 1915 there was a growing view in the French command that too much uncoordinated mining had been carried out, which had been a waste of effort. On 13 December General Joffre sent instructions to his Army Group commanders on the subject. Until then mining had been conducted on the initiative of subordinate units and this had resulted in a dilution of effort, with only partial results. He stated that it was likely that more benefit would be gained by concentrating effort at carefully chosen points. Mining was a means of wearing down the enemy that should not be neglected, and tube mines especially should be used to obtain superiority. Joffre wished to learn from experience so far and called for reports of mining already in progress, wanting details of which units were involved, any special equipment in use and whether equipment and personnel were adequate. He called for reports as to whether there were other parts of the front where mining could be usefully commenced and for officers who had gained experience to report on modifications that could be made to equipment in service.
In responding to Joffre’s call for reports, both General Ebener, commanding the 35th Corps, and General Nivelle, commanding 61st Division, made direct reference to a mine blown on 23 December at Bois Saint-Mard, which had given the Germans no advantage whatsoever. The tunnelling in this sector through hard limestone, initiated by the Germans in January, had led to the blowing of 15 German and 25 French mines and camouflets during 1915. This was not a particularly active sector and demonstrates how mining was resorted to because the other side was using it, but with neither side achieving anything. By December the French defensive system was such that they felt confident that they had defeated any German prospect of threatening the security of their lines. Instead of mining, the Germans found it easier to use heavy mortar fire against the French mine shaft heads. The large mine of 3 or 4,000kg blown by the Germans on 23 December was after a French camouflet had also detonated one of their charges. The German blow created a crater 32m in diameter and killed Sergeant Mourdon and Sappers Ballas and Chaumont, buried at a gallery face, whose bodies could not be recovered. On the surface an infantry sentry, Private Fortineau, was killed and his brother was partly buried but rescued alive. The French had taken possession of the crater, bringing their line 15m closer to the Germans. Ebener was dismissive of the amount of effort that the Germans had put in to killing four men: ‘Such is the result for the Germans of several months work.’8
Nivelle pointed out that it had taken the Germans long months of work to lay the mine blown that day, but that the French now occupied the crater: ‘Offensive mine warfare would be pointless without a worthwhile objective. When the only objective is the enemy trench, the effort is not in proportion with the result.’9
Ebener was equally forthright about the lack of value of mining and stated that it should only be carried out in those areas most threatened and even there should be reduced to defensive work:
The result of studies made on the ground and the experience gained by more than ten months of mine warfare is that, on the front of the 35th Army Corps, there is no location where a mine offensive could be advantageously undertaken. At various places where the proximity of the two opposing lines could facilitate the work, the only result which would be obtained by mining would at best be to blow up a salient or a portion of trench. One would then be immediately opposite an intact second line trench and the meagre success thus acquired by months of work and all the consumption of men, material and inevitable effort could be obtained just as easily by a concentrated shooting of the 58 [58mm mortar] and howitzers lasting a few hours.10
The Bois Saint-Mard sector did not in itself possess sufficient tactical significance to justify the level of mining effort and here, as in many other sectors, the French were able to reduce the scale of operations. The scepticism of the French as to the value of mining saw a major decline in its use in their sectors during 1916. Only in those areas where the Germans refused to scale back mining in response did it remain active.
Les Éparges was one such sector. After the French mining attack on the western end of the Éparges ridge on 17 February 1915, their attacks continued in March without mines but, during May and June, mine warfare ‘darkly, slyly, develops, then predominates.’ Within a month the plateau on the summit ceased to exist, obliterated by craters up to 60m in diameter: ‘On each side, and month by month, the shafts and the galleries multiply, the explosive charges increase, the craters become more vast.’11
In late September and October the Germans exploded a series of mines around Point X at the eastern end of the ridge. In the first, on 26 September, three were killed, four wounded and fifteen were buried or disappeared. Two days later they blew two more mines nearby, killing six. Heavy daily bombardments with mortars and artillery followed and then, on 13 October, a massive mine, blown at 1.30am, wiped out five complete sections of the French 303rd Regiment, whose bodies could not be traced, and threw up high lips. Two more mines followed at 2.15am and a fourth at 4.10am, even larger than the first and burying more of the 303rd. The survivors attempted to defend the positions, but could not establish where their own lines had been: ‘The instantaneous and fantastic metamorphosis of things makes it no longer possible either to locate or to recognize anything.’12
Gradually the French consolidated their hold on the northern side of the craters, the Germans on the south side. Some men were dug out, but on 14 October an officer and fifty-seven men were still missing. The French replied on 16th with two mines to the west, in no man’s land, and seized the craters, which dominated the German trenches. At certain times, during October and November 1915 and in the spring of 1916, the rate of blows at Les Éparges exceeded four in a week. For three years, until mid-1918, mining was carried on continuously by both sides along the 800m ridge top and no man’s land comprised an almost continuous furrow of mine craters 700m in length. The German pioneers made use of the steep escarpment along the southern slopes of the ridge to start deeper mines, driving into the side of the ridge, and were able to gain the advantage over the French. The possibility of a German attack on Verdun increased the significance of the ridge as an observation post over the Woëvre plain. General Dubail, commanding French Army Group East, proposed on 11 November 1915 to force the Germans from the ridge with a major mining attack. This was planned from 29 December, but the French handicap in mining, stemming from a shortage of specialist troops and modern equipment as well as the distance between the opposing lines and thus the amount of effort required, led to its abandonment.13
The opening of the Verdun offensive in February 1916 ensured the continuing importance of the ridge. In May General Nivelle, recently appointed to command the 2nd Army, gave detailed instructions to the 2nd Corps over the need act
ively to continue mining at Les Éparges. Nivelle, critical of mining being used where there was no worthwhile objective, ordered mining to be stepped up at Les Éparges. He instructed the 2nd Army to take precautions against German mine charges west of point E, which the Germans could blow before they had the means to counter them. They were to reduce the garrison of the threatened zone and to use methodical listening to establish the extent of the zone. Listening should be done at intervals of not less than 40m, during which time absolute silence should be enforced in their lines. Surface saps and trenches would have to be supplemented in case of disruption by German charges. He specified that the countermines should be begun somewhat behind and with a slope of about 40 per cent and take into account the declivity of the ground so that they reached a depth of at least 20m. If listening indicated that the Germans were deeper then it would be necessary to begin the inclines further back. It was essential that work continue day and night and, once the galleries had sufficient depth, dugouts should be constructed to accommodate the shifts and to conceal spoil until it could be evacuated after dark. Finally Nivelle ordered that spoil should not be allowed to accumulate around the gallery entrances where the enemy could detect it.14 The struggle at Les Éparges continued throughout 1916 with charges of up to 40 tonnes. In 1917 German galleries reached into the rear of the French position, under and beyond their shafts, although the French held tenaciously on to their side of the ridge. From the autumn of 1917 the blows became less frequent, but they continued into 1918, with a mine blown as late as August 1918. The ridge was captured by a combined Franco-American offensive on 12-13 September in which mining played no part.
Les Éparges ridge showing the mines blown in September and October 1915. From Feriet, La Créte des Éparges.
Vauquois
You, the others, who are not here and who will come later, you will never understand…you will be like strangers and enemies, you will not know what it means, the mine in the west, at Vauquois, the mine of 14 May 1916, or how Death towers alive over mankind. (Lieutenant André Pézard, 46th Infantry Regiment)15
In 1914, the village of Vauquois sat on a plateau on a ridge, the Butte de Vauquois, 289m above sea level. The value of the ridge for observation led to fierce fighting over its possession in the winter of 1914. As at Les Éparges, mining began owing to the value of the position and escalated to the extent that it seemed to have become an end in itself, despite attempts by commanders to control it. Between March 1915 and April 1918 there were 519 mines or camouflets blown at Vauquois, within an area of front 464m wide and 340m deep. The French launched an attack on 17 February 1915, corresponding to that of Les Éparges, supported by six mines of 25 to 50kg. Half of these failed to explode, however, and over the following weeks the French slowly pushed on to the summit through the remains of the village. This fighting resulted in a situation which encouraged further mining, as the lines were too close together for the French to use artillery to render the plateau untenable to the Germans. This was possibly a deliberate policy on the part of the Germans, as by allowing the French partial occupation they retained their observation but made it harder for the French to dislodge them.
In March the 1st Company of the 30th Rhineland Pioneers (1/Pi 30), a regiment created from a pre-war fortress battalion, began mining from the house cellars, which the French become aware of and began defensive galleries. Both sides soon reached the sandstone, called gaize, which forms the bulk of the ridge. This was very hard and could only be worked by picking, but had the advantage that in its unblown state it did not require timbering. French engineers of Company 5/1 sank shafts to 3.60 and 4m and began rameaux de combat 0.80m high by 0.60m wide. Initially they advanced these untimbered but, as they neared the Germans, timbered them according to their regulations. By mid-April the French had nine shafts running from their front line, but these were vulnerable to German rifle grenades and even hand grenades and also caused congestion in the trenches. In early May the French attempted another assault, supported by a mine to be fired five minutes before the infantry attack. However, the powder had become damp and failed to break surface. The French gained a foothold in German positions in the west but the main attack in the east failed.16
The advance of the German miners led the French to fire two small camouflets of 30kg cheddite on 13 May in an attempt to forestall them. On the same night the Germans broke through the roof of a shallow French gallery after sinking a shaft in no man’s land, surprising the miners at work with pistol fire and also, reportedly, asphyxiating grenades. The French were driven from the gallery and Corporal Menges, leading the patrol, jumped in and loaded a charge of 100kg, which destroyed it. The French used their intact galleries over the next few days to blow four mines and a camouflet, destroying German positions in the front line and also those German tunnels approaching their own lines. By doing so, however, they revealed the location of their own galleries. The Germans were able to resume their advance and fired three powerful charges close to the French front line.
The French responded in June by starting work on a stronger system of defences based on shafts every 15 to 20m along the whole 400m front, with the aim of preventing any German tunnels reaching within 15m of their front line. These galleries gave the French a potential advantage, but the Germans responded with new galleries to a depth of 4m, started from their second line and again using house cellars. They achieved rapid progress through the sandstone with electric drills powered by a generator in Varennes mill behind their lines. The Germans also began to link their galleries with transversals, creating more powerful defensive systems, which the French at Vauquois almost never did. The network quickly grew. On 19 June the French broke into a German gallery but found it empty apart from a lantern, picks and shovels. On 22 August they discovered a void, which on investigation turned out to be a natural fault. However, in the light of his electric torch the officer suddenly saw a German in front of him and fired his pistol, seriously wounding him. A German gallery had also broken into the void. The French blew a charge to destroy it and hastily tamped their gallery. The Germans in their turn investigated the following day and blew camouflets of 475kg and 550kg.
Two additional French engineer companies, the 5/3 and 5/51, joined the 5/1 and, during summer 1915, the French appeared to have the advantage, blowing, in four months, 77 charges to 51 German. During 1915, two out of three charges broke surface, creating a mass of craters each of about 10m diameter. The infantry gave up trying to occupy these craters, which caused casualties with negligible advantage and proved impossible to hold. The opposing sides satisfied themselves with ‘crowning’ the crater lip nearest to their lines and connecting it by saps. The action of the mines rendered occupying the plateau increasingly difficult and the two sides concentrated more on attack underground as a means of destroying the enemy positions. In June 1915 this battle was conducted at 4-6m below ground, but by the end of the year was down to 15-20m. As each side attempted to dig beneath each new crater so the level gradually deepened and, as they worked through ground blown by earlier explosions, timbering became more necessary and pockets of gas a hazard. The Germans were frequently able to resume the underground advance more quickly than the French following a blow and this forced the French to fire their tunnels closer to their own shafts and even to destroy them in the process. From December 1915 explosive charges exceeded one tonne when the French Company 5/1 exploded a 1,300kg charge at E17, forming a crater 20m in diameter. On 22 February Company 5/3 blew a mine of 2,030kg. By this time, the French mine entrances were concealed in dugouts under the trench parapet to protect them from rifle grenades and mortars. Within the dugouts were housed hand-operated centrifugal fans, while at the bottom of each shaft was an area 2-3m in length to store filled sandbags of spoil, ready to tamp a charge laid at short notice.
Both sides also dug accommodation for their troops beneath or immediately behind the front lines. The Germans in particular excavated deep and extensive dugouts into the gaize, which enabl
ed them to squeeze a defence system with first and second lines, and large numbers of infantry, into the narrow band of plateau between their front line and the steep side of the ridge. At the end of 1915 the Germans ceased using vertical shafts from the first or second line and had begun to use the sheer slope on their side of the ridge for a new series of galleries about 15m from the top of the ridge. They installed a 60cm gauge railway line in the galleries to remove spoil, which they tipped directly down the slope. In November 1915 they began deep flanking galleries on the east and west of the plateau at 25m depth. By using the rear slope they could easily pass beneath the craters to reach depths of 40m. The Germans also continued to blow charges from their shallow system on the flanks some way from the French lines, to make them believe that they were making little progress in these sectors. The French believed that sunken lanes on the east and west would enable them to detect German mining in the vicinity, but the new German galleries were far too deep to be heard from the surface.