Underground Warfare 1914-1918

by Simon Jones

  [Anon.], Deep Gallery Shelters, Translated at the Army War College from a French Study, July 1917, (Government Printing Office, Washington, 1917).

  [Anon.], Écoles du Génie, École de Mines, approbation ministérielle du 16 Juillet 1901, Édition mis à jour jusqu’au 30 avril 1909, (Imprimerie Nationale, Paris, 1918).

  [Anon.], Écoles du Génie, École de Mines et d’Explosifs, (Imprimerie Nationale, Paris, 1925).

  [Anon.], Écoles du Génie, École de Mines Supplément au Livre de l’Officier (approbation ministérielle du 22 Janvier 1917), (Imprimerie Nationale, Paris, 1917).

  [Anon.], Écoles du Génie, Instruction Pratique, École de Mines, Livre de l’Officier (approbation ministérielle du 25 Juillet 1908), (Imprimerie Nationale, Paris, 1916).

  [Anon.], Extracts from the old mining regulations Issued by the General of Pioneers, Army Headquarters, Laon, April 1915, General Staff SS461, 1916.

  [Anon.], Feld=Anweisung Heeres=Sauerstoff=Schutzgerät, [War Ministry, Berlin], 1917.

  [Anon.], The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914–1918, (MacLehose, Jackson and Co., Glasgow, 1921).

  [Anon.], First Report of the Committee on Siege and Fortress Warfare, (War Office, 1908).

  [Anon.], German Army Handbook, April 1918, (Arms and Armour Press, London, 1977).

  [Anon.], German and Austrian Tactical Studies Translations of Captured German and Austrian Documents and Information Obtained From German and Austrian Prisoners from the British, French and Italian Staffs, (Government Printing Office, Washington, 1918).

  [Anon.], German Mining Officer’s Diary Captured at Fricourt, July 1916, General Staff, SS465, 1916.

  [Anon.], Instruction Allemand sur le Service du Pionier dans la Guerre de Siège (1913), Traduction du text allemand faite à la Section Technique Genie, (Imprimerie Nationale, Paris, 1915).

  [Anon.], Interim Report of Major-General Hickman’s Siege Committee, November 1914, (War Office, 1914).

  [Anon.], Military Engineering (Part II) Attack and Defence of Fortresses, (HMSO, London, 1910).

  [Anon.], Military Engineering (Part IV) Mining and Demolitions, (HMSO, London, 1910).

  [Anon.], Military Engineering (Vol. IV) Demolitions and Mining, (HMSO, London, 1923).

  [Anon.], Notes on Recent Operations No. 2, Edited at the Army War College from French and British Sources, July, 1917, (Government Printing Office, Washington, 1917).

  [Anon.], Notes on the Construction and Equipment of Trenches, Compiled from the latest sources Army War College April 1917 (Government Printing Office, Washington, 1917).

  [Anon.], Notes on Trench Warfare for Infantry Officers, Revised Diagrams. Issued by the General Staff, December 1916, (HMSO, London, 1917).

  [Anon.], Notes on the Construction of Deep Gallery Shelters, Translated and edited at Army War College, October 1917, (Government Printing Office, Washington, 1917).

  [Anon.], Notice sur les Travaux Scientifiques de M. Jean Perrin, (Édouard Privat, Toulouse, 1923).

  [Anon.], Report of the Committee on Siege Artillery Material, December 1914, (War Office, 1914).

  [Anon.], Report of the Siege Operations held at Chatham July and August 1907, (School of Military Engineering, Chatham, 1907).

  [Anon.], Sprengvorschrift von 1911, (Georg Bath, Berlin, 1918).

  [Anon.], ‘Tunnellers’ Old Comrades Association Annual Dinner, 1927’, Tunnellers’ Old Comrades Association Bulletin, No. 2, 1927, pp. 13–24.

  [Anon.], Verdun An Illustrated Historical Guide, (Éditions Lorraines Frémont, Verdun, nd).

  [Anon.], Vorschriften für den Stellungskrieg für alle Waffen. Teil 2. Minenkrieg, (Kriegsministerium, Berlin 1916).

  [Anon.], The Work of the Royal Engineers in the European War, 1914–19, Military Mining, (Institution of Royal Engineers, Chatham, 1922).

  [Anon.], The Work of the Royal Engineers in the European War, 1914–19, Work in the field under the Engineer-in-Chief, B.E.F., Geological Work on the Western Front, (Institution of Royal Engineers, Chatham, 1922).

  Alexander Barrie, War Underground, (Star Books, London, 1981, originally Frederick Muller, London, 1962).

  Peter Barton, Peter Doyle & Johan Vandewalle, Beneath Flanders Fields, the Tunnellers’ War 1914–1918, (Spellmount, Staplehurst, 2004).

  Georges Blond, Verdun, (MacMillan, New York, 1964).

  Adolf Buchner, Der Minenkrieg auf Vauquois, (W. Goertz, Karlsfeld, 1982).

  Francis Buckley, Q. 6. A And Other Places Recollections of 1916, 1917, 1918, (London, Spottiswoode, Ballantyne & Co. Ltd, 1920).

  W. Buhr, Die Geschichte des I. Westf. Pionier=Bataillons Nr. 7 und seiner Kriegsverbände im Weltkriege 1914/18, (Gerhard Stalling, Oldenburg, 1938).

  C.E.W. Bean, The Story of Anzac from 4 May, 1915, to the Evacuation of the Gallipoli Peninsula, (2 Vols.), (Angus and Robertson Ltd, Australia, 1941).

  C.E.W. Bean, The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914 - 1918 Volume IV The Australian Imperial Force in France: 1917, (Angus and Robertson Ltd, Australia, 1933).

  Nigel Cave, Battleground Europe Arras Vimy Ridge, (Leo Cooper, London, 1996).

  John Whiteclay Chambers II (ed.), Oxford Companion to American Military History, (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999).

  Hermann Cron, Imperial German Army 1914–18: Organisation, Structure, Orders of Battle, (Helion and Company, Solihull, 2006) originally published as Geschichte des Deutschen Heeres im Weltkriege 1914-1918, (Berlin, Militarverlag Karl Siegismund, 1937).

  Myles Dungan, Irish Voices from the Great War, (Irish Academic Press, Dublin, 1995).

  R. East, (ed.), The Gallipoli Diary of Sergeant Lawrence of the Australian Engineers – 1st A.I.F. 1915, (Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1981). Brigadier General J. E. Edmonds, Military Operations, France and Belgium, 1915, (2 Vols.), (MacMillan and Co. Ltd, London, 1927). Brigadier General J. E. Edmonds, Military Operations, France and Belgium, 1916, (2 Vols.), (Imperial War Museum, London, nd) (1932). Brigadier General J. E. Edmonds, Military Operations, France and Belgium, 1916, [Vol. I] Appendices, (MacMillan and Co. Ltd, London, 1932).

  Brigadier General J. E. Edmonds, Military Operations, France and Belgium, 1917, [Vol. II], 7th June – 10th November Messines and Third Ypres (Passchendaele), (HMSO, London, 1927).

  Brigadier General J. E. Edmonds, Military Operations, France and Belgium, 1918, [Vol. II], March–April: continuation of the German offensives, (MacMillan and Co. Ltd, London, 1937).

  Cyril Falls, The History of the 36th (Ulster) Division, (M’Caw, Stevenson & Orr Ltd, Belfast, 1922).

  Captain Cyril Falls, Military Operations, France and Belgium, 1917, [Vol. I], The German Retreat to the Hindenburg Line and the Battle of Arras, (Imperial War Museum, London, nd) (1940).

  Commandant R. de Feriet, La Crête des Éparges 1914–1918, (Payot, Paris, 1939).

  ‘W.G.’ [Walter Gard’ner], One Mole Rampant, [Privately published, c.1921].

  Captain Genez, Histoire de la Guerre Souterraine, (Librairie Militaire Berger Levrault Paris 1914) (translated in Royal Engineers Journal, Vol. XX, 1914).

  Jean-Jacques Gorlet, La Guerre de Mines dans l’Oise 1914–1917 en secteur calme, (Société Archéologique Historique et Scientifique de Noyon, 2005).

  H. W. Graham, The Life of a Tunnelling Company, (J. Catherall & Co. Ltd., Hexham, 1927). Captain W. Grant Grieve and Bernard Newman, Tunnellers, (Herbert Jenkins, London, 1936).

  Ralph G. Hamilton, The War Diary of the Master of Belhaven, (London, 1924).

  Gen Sir Charles Harington, Plumer of Messines, (John Murray, London, 1935).

  Hartenstein, Das Ruhrhessische Pionier=Bataillon Nr. 11 im Weltkriege 1914–1918, (Bernhard Sporn, Zeulenroda, 1936).

  Paul Heinrici (Ed.), Das Ehrenbuch der Deutschen Pioniere, (Verlag Tradition Wilhelm Rolf, Berlin, 1931).

  Held, (et. al.), Das Königlich Preussische Garde=Pionier=Bataillon und seine Kriegsverbände 1914/18 (2 Vols.), (Carl Fr. Berg, Berlin, 1932).

  L. Hughes and J. Dixon, “Surrender
Be Damned” A History of the 1/1st Battalion the Monmouthshire Regiment, 1914–18, (CWM Press, Caerphilly, 1995).

  Simon Jones, World War I Gas Warfare Tactics and Equipment, (Osprey, Oxford, 2007).

  Ernst Jünger (trans. Basil Creighton), The Storm of Steel, (Constable, London, 1994) (1929).

  Ernst Jünger (trans. Basil Creighton), Copse 125 A Chronicle from the Trench Warfare of 1918, (Zimmerman & Zimmerman, 1985) (1929).

  George L. Kerr, Practical coal mining: a manual for managers, under-managers, colliery engineers, and others, (Charles Griffin & Co. Ltd, 1905).

  Oberstleutnant L. Knies, Das württembergische Pionier=Bataillon Nr. 13 im Weltkrieg 19141918, (Chr. Belser A G, Stuttgart, 1927).

  August Lehmann, Das K. B. [Königliches Bayerisches] Pionier=Regiment (Max Schick, Munich, 1927).

  Karl Lehmann, Bayerische Pioniere im Weltkriege, (R. Piper & Co. Verlag, Munich., 1918).

  Timothy T. Lupfer, The Dynamics of Doctrine: the changes in German tactical doctrine during the First World War, (Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 1981).

  Maj. Gen. Sir W.G. MacPherson (et. al., Eds.), Medical Services Diseases of the War, Vol. II, (HMSO, London, 1923).

  Maj. Gen. Sir W.G. MacPherson, Medical Services General History, Vol. III, (HMSO, London, 1924).

  Lt. Geoffrey Malins OBE, How I Filmed the War, (Herbert Jenkins Limited, London, 1920).

  Ministère de la Guerre, État-Major de l’Armée – Service Historique, Les Armées françaises dans la grande guerre, Vol. II, (Imp. Nationale, Paris 1931).

  Ministère de la Guerre, État-Major de l’Armée – Service Historique, Les Armées françaises dans la grande guerre, Vol. III, (Imp. Nationale, Paris, 1931).

  Ministère de la Guerre, État-Major de l’Armée – Service Historique, Les Armées françaises dans la grande guerre, Tome IV, Vols. 1–3, (Imp. Nationale, Paris, 1927–1936).

  Ministère de la Guerre, État-Major de l’Armée – Service Historique, Les Armées françaises dans la grande guerre, Tome V, 2nd Vol., Annexes 1st Volume, (Imp. Nationale, Paris, 1937).

  Generalleutant Otto v. Moser, Die Württemberger im Weltkriege, (Chr. Belser A. G. Stuttgart, 1927).

  J. C. Neill (Ed.), The New Zealand Tunnelling Company, 1915–1919, (Whitcombe & Tombs, Auckland, 1922).

  Jonathon Nicholls, Cheerful Sacrifice, (Leo Cooper, London, 1990).

  Oberkommando des Heeres, Der Weltkrieg 1914 bis 1918, Die Kriegführung im Frühjahr 1917, Vol. 12, (E. S. Mittler & Sohn, Berlin, 1939).

  C.F. Aspinall-Oglander, Military Operations Gallipoli, Vol. II, May 1915 to the Evacuation, (William Heinemann, London, 1932).

  Maj. De Pardieu, A Critical Study of German Tactics and of the New German Regulations, (trans. Capt. Charles F. Martin), (United States Cavalry Association, Kansas 1912).

  André Pézard, Nous autres, à Vauquois 1915–1916, (Paris, La Renaissance du Livre, 1918).

  Maj. G. R. Pridham, RE, Siege Operations carried out by the 20th and 42nd Companies, Royal Engineers, June, 1913, (War Office, 1913), p. 11.

  R. E. Priestley, The Signal Service in the European War of 1914 to 1918 (France), (Institution of Royal Engineers, Chatham, 1921).

  R. Prior and T. Wilson, The Somme, (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2005).

  R. Prior and T. Wilson, Passchendaele: The Untold Story, (Yale, London, 1996).

  Maj. Gen. H. L. Pritchard, RE, (Ed.), History of the Corps of Royal Engineers, Vol. V, The Home Front, France, Flanders and Italy in the First World War, (Institution of Royal Engineers, Chatham, 1952).

  Maj. Gen. H.L. Pritchard, RE, (Ed.), History of the Corps of Royal Engineers, Vol. VI, Gallipoli, Macedonia, Egypt and Palestine 1914–18, (Institution of Royal Engineers, Chatham, 1952)

  Lt. Col. G.P.G. Robinson, RE, The Durand Mine and First World War Tunnel System in the Grange Area of the Canadian Memorial Park, Vimy (School of Military Engineering, Chatham, 1989)

  Günther Rückbeil, Das 1. Rheinische Pionier=Bataillon Nr. 8 und seine Kriegsverbände im Weltkriege 1914/18, (Gerhard Stalling, Berlin, 1926).

  Ernst Schmidt, Argonnen, (Gerhard Stalling, Berlin, 1927).

  M. Schwarte (Ed.) Die Militärischen Lehren des Großen Krieges, (E. S. Mittler & Sohn, Berlin, 1920).

  M. Schwarte, Kriegstechnik der Gegenwart, (E. S. Mittler & Sohn, Berlin, 1927).

  Friedrich Seesselberg, Der Stellungskrieg 1914–1918, (E. S. Mittler & Sohn, Berlin, 1926).

  Lt. Col. J. Shakespear, A Record of the 17th and 32nd Service Battalions Northumberland Fusiliers (N.E.R.) Pioneers 1914–1919, (Northumberland Press Limited, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1926).

  Lt. Col. J. Shakespear, The Thirty-Fourth Division 1915-1919, (H. F. & G. Witherby, London, 1921).

  Johan Somers, Imperial German Uniforms and Equipment 1907–1918, [Vol. 1.], (Schiffer Military History, Atglen, PA, 2005).

  Geoffrey Sparrow & J. N. MacBean, On Four Fronts with the Royal Naval Division, (Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1918).

  R. C. Smart, Recent Practice in Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus, (Charles Griffin & Co. Ltd, 1921).

  Maj. Gen. Sir Ernest D. Swinton, Eyewitness, London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1932.

  Brig. Gen. Trevor Ternan, The Story of the Tyneside Scottish, (The Northumberland Press, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, 1919).

  Capt. [Hippolyte-Michel] Thobie, La Prise de Carency par le Pic et Par la Mine, (Berger-Levrault, Paris, 1918).

  Capt. H. D. Trounce, Notes on Military Mining, (Engineer School, Washington DC, 1918).

  Henry de Varigny, Mines et Tranchées, (Berger-Levrault, Paris, 1915).

  Stephen Westman, Surgeon with the Kaiser’s Army, (William Kimber, London, 1968).

  Kenneth Wiggins, Siege Mines and Underground Warfare, (Shire, Princes Risborough, 2003).

  Karl Witte, 3. Rheinisches Pionier=Bataillon Nr. 30 (Gerhard Stalling, Berlin, 1928).

  Bruno Zschokke, Handbuch der militärischen Sprengtechnik für Offiziere aller Waffen, (Verlag von Veit & Comp., Leipzig, 1911).

  Articles

  Col. G. H. Addison, ‘The German Engineer and Pioneer Corps,’ The Royal Engineers Journal, Vol. LVI Dec. 1942, pp. 307–328.

  [Anon.], ‘German regulations for field fortifications and conclusions reached in Russia from the battles in defensive positions in Manchuria’ [Translation from The Militär Wochenblatt], Professional Memoirs. Corps of Engineers, United States Army and Engineer Department at Large, Vol. II, No.7 (1910), pp. 347–369.

  [Anon.], ‘The Messines Ridge Mines, 7th June, 1917. German Accounts’, Royal Engineers Journal, Vol. LIV, 1940, pp. 345–353.

  H. Standish Ball, ‘The Work of the Miner on the Western Front, 1915–1918’, Transactions of the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy, Vol. XXVIII, 1919, pp. 189–248.

  Bryan Frayling ‘Tunnellers’, Royal Engineers Journal, August 1988, pp. 170–176.

  Capt. A. Gay, ‘Sapping Operations, Especially for Infantry: From a lecture to cadets at Saint Maixant, France by Capt A. Gay, French Army’, Professional Memoirs. Corps of Engineers, United States Army and Engineer Department at Large. Vol.10 (1918).

  Harvey, R. N. Lt Col, ‘Obstacles. Their tactical use, construction, and methods of destruction or surmounting them,’ The Royal Engineers Journal, Vol. XX, No. 4, October 1914, pp. 217–222.

  Bryn Hammond, ‘Professionals and specialists: military mining on the Western Front’, Imperial War Museum Review, No. 6 (Trustees of the Imperial War Museum, London, n d).

  Maj. Gen. R. N. Harvey, ‘Military Mining in the Great War, A Lecture delivered at the S.M.E., Chatham, on November 14th, 1929’, Royal Engineers Journal, XLIII December 1929.

  Maj. Gen. R. N. Harvey, ‘Notes on Mining from the G.H.Q. Viewpoint’, Tunnellers’ Old Comrades Association Bulletin, No. 4, 1929.

  Alistair Horne, The Price of Glory Verdun 1916, (Penguin Books, London, 1964).

  Simon Jones, ‘A Mine Rescue Officer on the Western Front’, Royal Engineers Journal, Vol.

  109, 1995, pp. 250-25
5.

  W. Kranz, ‘Minierkampf und Kriegsgeologie im Wytschaetebogen’, Vierteljahreshefte für Pioniere, 1935. ‘V. L’, ‘The Engineers in Grant’s Campaigns of 1864-5’, Royal Engineers Journal, Vol. LII, 1938, pp. 452–454.

  David Dale Logan, ‘The difficulties and dangers of mine-rescue work on the Western Front; and mining operations carried out by men wearing rescue-apparatus’ and ‘Accidents due to structural defects of apparatus or injury to apparatus; and the future of the Proto apparatus’, Transactions of the Institute of Mining Engineers, Vol. LVII, 1918–19, pp. 197–259.

  Brig. R. M. Merrell, ‘The Berlin Spy Tunnel – a Memoir’, Royal Engineers Journal, Vol. 116, 2002, pp. 105–107.

  H. Tatham, ‘Tunnelling in the Sand Dunes of the Belgian Coast’, Transactions of the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy, Vol. XXVIII, 1919, pp. 249–260.

  Capt. Töpfer, ‘Technics in the Russo-Japanese War’, (from the Kriegstechnische Zeitschrift, 1906), Professional Memoirs. Corps of Engineers, United States Army and Engineer Department at Large. Vol. II, No.6 (1910), pp. 174–201.

  O. H. Woodward, ‘Notes on the Work of an Australian Tunnelling Company in France’, Australasian Institute of Mining & Metallurgy, Proceedings, No. 37, 1920, pp. 1–53.

  Published digital media

  Durand Group, First Avenue Operation Beaumont Hamel 2002 (CD-ROM), (Durand Group, 2002).

  Unpublished Dissertation

  Ritchie Wood, The Contribution of the British Mining Effort on the Western Front to the Allied Victory, (Masters Degree, Birmingham University, 2008).

  Internet sources

  A. Girod, ‘Les exhumations du Mont Cornillet’, (2005), http://www.lced.org/div_04.php

  Nagel, ‘Extrait d’un rapport émis par le médecin allemand du bataillon, médecin en chef, le Docteur Nagel 11/476’, http://pagesperso-orange.fr/champagne1418/recit/recit9. htm#cornillet

  [Anon.], ‘Topographische Srukturfragmente auf der Höhe Mort Homme’, (Historischer Studienkreis Hamburg/ Berlin), http://www.archivaria.de/morthomme.html