Faced with this situation the idea of mining, on the British side at
least, occurred, arguably, to several people simultaneously, both at
home, in the Dominions and on the Western Front itself. The driving
force in Britain came from
John Norton
Griffiths, engineering contractor and Conservative Member of
Parliament for Wednesbury. He believed a system of tunnelling known as
"clay kicking" or "working
on the cross" , which was then being used on one of his contracts
for
the Manchester Corporation on a new drainage system, would be
ideally
suited to the conditions of Northern France and Flanders
(1). The problem he faced was in convincing
the
War Office of the value of such an idea. However, 'the first official
move
in mine warfare on the British side', according to the official history
of
the war
(2), an account also supported by
Captain
W. Grant Grieve
(3), was that made by
General
Sir Henry Rawlinson on 3 December 1914 in which he called for the
formation
of a special battalion made up of sappers and miners already serving
with
the army to begin such a task. The C-in-C, Sir John French, did not
agree.
Mining was the reserve of the Royal Engineers and it would remain so.
The overriding factor that should perhaps be considered at this point
is that the western allies, Britain and France, unlike the autocratic
regimes of the central and eastern empires, were liberal democracies
and so therefore the political/domestic element in the general war
effort was far more acute. While Germany became a military dictatorship
as the war progressed, the military of Britain and France could be
reined in by the politicians who were in turn influenced by public
opinion. Almost everywhere the German Army was on allied soil and so
the impetus was on the Allies to drive the enemy back beyond its
own borders as quickly as possible and to liberate friendly
territory. As a consequence they were under pressure to maintain an
offensive posture and so to this end, despite initial misgivings among
the die-hards within the British Army, anything that appeared to give
the initiative to the allied cause was considered. In the beginning
however, mining on an organised scale would take some convincing.
Half a world away in early 1915 a professor of geology at Sydney
University by the name of Edgeworth David, along with his colleague at
Melbourne University, Professor Ernest Skeats, proposed the formation
of a mining corps to the Federal
Government of Australia when the fighting in France became 'bogged
down'.This
was accepted and the Australian Mining Corps was born, which became
three
tunnelling companies when it arrived in France and were ransferred to
the
General Staff
(4). Edgeworth David gained
a
commission in the engineers and would later prove an invaluable asset
to mining
operations on the Western Front when he became the geological advisor
to
the Controller of Mines of the First, Second and Third Armies in
September 1916 and later on in the Inspector of Mines office at G.H.Q.
(5).
While these suggestions were being considered the German Army had
forged ahead with its plans to undermine the allies and, on the 20
December 1914, exploded ten small mines under the Indian Corps holding
the Givenchy-Festubert front. Ironically, British sappers, in support
of a proposed offensive by the Dehra Dun Brigade, had sunk an
experimental shaft and run a gallery some seventy feet deep to within
thirteen feet of the German lines when a trench mortar attack had
destroyed the trench in which the mine entrance was located and the
mine had to be abandoned
(6). The
confusion and pandemonium caused by the German mines (something that
will be discussed in the following chapter), acted as a catalyst.
Unrealistically G.H.Q. gave instructions for R.E. field companies to
begin offensive mining in retaliation to the German blows.
Unfortunately the R.E. did not have the training or the
manpower at the end of 1914 to undertake the task on the scale that
military mining required. Nevertheless, attempts were made by the 20th
Fortress Company to sink a shaft near Armentières in early
January 1915. There were immense problems with water seepage and the
outdated pumps could not handle it. In a further twist a sign was
lifted above the German lines, which read 'in perfect English . .
. "no good you mining here, it can't be done. We've tried"
(7). The mine was duly abandoned.
A number of incidents in January 1915 however, made it clear to G.H.Q.
that the Germans were mining 'on a definite system'
(8). Reports from the infantry at the front of
hearing noises underground were given support on 25 January when a
deserter came into the British lines with a report that German pioneers
had again undermined British front-line positions around the Cuinchy
sector. Shortly afterwards some twenty small mines were blown followed
by the now inevitable infantry assault upon the front-line trenches.
The situation was now becoming serious and something needed to be
done. However, the initiative in this regard came from the War Office
and
not from G.H.Q. itself.
By this time, the idea proposed by Norton Griffiths for the use of clay
kickers had reached the Secretary of State for War, Field Marshal Lord
Kitchener, who instructed him by telegram to report directly to the War
Office. Once there Norton Griffiths, who by now had been granted the
rank of Major in the
2nd King Edward's horse, went into a detailed explanation of his
proposal for the use of such a system of mining providing the ground
was suitable. He was ordered to France immediately to make an
inspection and to discuss the matter with the Engineer-in Chief,
Brigadier-General George Henry Fowke. Following these discussions and a
meeting with the sceptical C-in-C, Sir John
French, approval 'in principle' was given from the War Office for the
organisation
of special tunnelling companies made up of specialised volunteers and
men
already in service with mining knowledge. The organisation of
tunnelling companies
- which Norton Griffiths, Fowke, and his assistant Colonel R. N. Harvey
(9) along with other engineering staff had
devised
- called for eight companies each made up of five officers and
two-hundred
and sixty nine men, with general labour being provided by infantrymen
who
were to be temporarily attached.
Although many front-line commanders called for protection from German
mining activity, there was by no means a universal acceptance of this
type of warfare among senior British Officers. There was a belief that
if tunnelling could be avoided then the Germans would avoid it too.
However, as the deadlock set
in it became German tactical doctrine to undermine the enemy where
opposing lines were one hundred yards apart or less
(10). Throughout the first year of mining,
referred to in the Official History as
the 'first phase', there were those who thought it was a waste of
manpower and material resources that could be better put to use
elsewhere as the results from mining activity did little to aid the
overall war effort. In the early stages, during 1915, miners were under
the control of local infantry commanders who 'sometimes tried . . . to
prevent mining' to maintain the status quo of
their particular section of front, believing that to initiate such
activity would only bring about countermining by the enemy
(11). What should also be considered is that
mining by its very nature can only be employed in siege conditions and
pressure was on the British and French to expel the German Army from
France and Belgium as quickly as possible. Mining
took time and despite the static nature of the Western Front at the end
of
1914 there were those who still believed that it would not last and
that
a break-through would occur sooner rather than later. Added to this was
the
fear that the introduction to the front of 'untrained, fiercely
freethinking miners'
(12) would quickly
turn into an undisciplined mob when under fire. Such fears, however,
were to prove groundless.
Despite original misgivings as to the value of mining by many senior
officers at G.H.Q. its growing importance as a strategic weapon of war,
given the conditions
that prevailed on the Western Front, are illustrated by its rapid
expansion
from the eight companies originally envisaged. While it is true that
the
British front line had dramatically increased by the time of the Somme
offensive,
the size of the tunnelling force was, at this point, four times its
original
composition. By July 1916 its numbers had swelled to include 25
British,
3 Canadian, 3 Australian and 1 New Zealand Company. By the time of the
Messines
operation in June 1917 there were some 25,000 miners involved on the
British
side with twice that number of infantrymen in support.
Initially at least, British mining objectives were largely governed by
the need to give protection to front-line positions from German
underground attacks and by the lack of an organised and experienced
mining force. With the exception of the Hill 60 operation (which will
be looked at in more detail in chapter three) mining operations during
1915 were largely of a defensive nature. However,
Captain Grant Grieve, who was a tunneller himself, argues that most of
the
work carried out during this period must be written off. Much of the
work undertaken
was 'disjointed' and 'spasmodic' and lacked 'co-ordination'
(13). Nevertheless, valuable lessons had been
learned. Equipment was improved and the mining organisation as a whole
was restructured and centralised. A new staff structure was approved by
the War Office to commence
on the 1 January and the post of Inspector of Mines was created. Each
Army
Headquarters now had a Controller of Mines
(14)
and all were directly responsible to the Inspector. This greater
independence
meant that tunnelling companies would remain more or less in the same
sector
rather than having to move each time a brigade moved under the old
system
and so greater continuity could be achieved. Mining schools were set up
to
give practical experience to new arrivals not used to mining under such
conditions.
This was quickly followed by a mine rescue school under the direction
of
Lieutenant-Colonel Dale Logan, who had a 'special and wide ranging
experience
of miners' diseases and mine rescue work
(15).
Equipment improved quite dramatically and was usually created or
brought by officers serving within the tunnelling companies or those
associated with mining. Captain James Pollock, who took charge of 2nd
Army Mining School, was a Professor of physics at Sydney University. He
designed the geo-telephone
(16) for
underground listening of which several were made. In addition, within
the Australian Mining Corps, Captain Stanley Hunter was the inventor of
a boring machine he called the 'Wombat'. This was
powered by compressed air and was mainly used for drilling 6
1/2-inch
diameter
holes under enemy galleries for the purpose of demolition
(17). As galleries became longer the need for
air became paramount. Initially, after much older, noisy pumps had been
discarded, air supply was provided by a large pair of bellows connected
to a given length of pipe and was taken down to the face by the
tunneller. This meant that a
man had to keep pumping the bellows for an entire 8-hour shift and air
supply
became a problem as such men tired. This system was replaced with
electric
pumps of the 'quiet type'. Perhaps one of the most practical tools was
tubing.
This consisted of a series of steel rings that could be interconnected
and
driven into the ground where water or running sand was a major problem
and
allowed a shaft to be sunk to a depth where tunnelling could begin in
earnest.
A major problem for tunnellers was gas. Following an explosion of a
mine or camouflet
(18), carbon monoxide
would be produced
and would linger within a gallery. Undetectable by either sight or
smell
this would prove fatal to a miner if exposed to its effects for too
long.
Once a mine or charge had been fired tunnellers had to enter the
gallery
affected as quickly as possible. Tunnellers wearing
"proto" sets - special breathing
apparatus
- entered the mine first to inspect the damage or to rescue any men who
may
be trapped. To this end men were selected and sent to the Mine Rescue
School
to be trained in the use of this equipment and in rescue techniques.
However,
gas often lay in trapped pockets only to be released when the
atmospheric
pressure equalised. To help combat this and to give the men underground
advanced
warning of carbon monoxide, mice were initially used as they are
sensitive
to its effects. The mice were later replaced with canaries as they
showed
much greater sensitivity to the gas and, providing the bird's claws
were
pared they would fall from their perch, thereby giving much earlier
warning
than the mice
(19). If the canary's claws
were
too long then it would grip the perch in an attempt to withstand the
effects
of the gas and its value as an early warning device would be worthless
as
it would give false indications to miners resulting in unnecessary
deaths.
Therefore, in a direct way the life of a tunneller 'depended on the
length
of a canary's claws
(20). Despite such
precautions
miners still lost their lives due to the effects of gas, as a report by
171
company clearly illustrates. On 18 April 1915 following the explosion
of
a camouflet on an enemy gallery two sappers descended into the gallery
without
orders and lost their lives as a result of asphyxiation
(21).
Tunnellers not only undermined enemy positions but also constructed
dugouts and underground chambers which housed telephone exchanges,
battalion headquarters and provided a staging points in which an
assaulting force could wait in relative
safety and secrecy before an offensive. The most elaborate of these was
the
complex of tunnels in the Ypres salient around
Mount
Sorrel. To aid such tasks and given the nature and conditions of
war
on the Western Front, geology came to play an important role,
particularly
in regard to mining. Geology was used to aid mining in a number of
ways.
Firstly to determine whether of not mining was at all possible in a
given
area due to underground conditions; to gain, in advance, information of
the
type of material that would be encountered and the depth to which
mining
could be carried out; and by calculating the latter it would be
possible to
estimate the length of time needed to complete a given mining objective
(22).
The importance of geology as a military aid does not appear to have
been fully envisaged by the British General Staff during the early
stages of the war. The Germans on the other hand had recognised the
value that geology offered
and had 20 geologists on the Western Front in early 1916. By the end of
the
war this number had risen to 100. The British by contrast had only 3 by
mid
1918. However, there were also a number of qualified geologists serving
with
the tunnelling companies who could bring their talents to bear at a
localised
level. Two junior officers serving with the Australian Mining Corps
were
temporarily transferred to G.H.Q in October 1918 to help prepare
geological
maps
(23). Despite the disparity in
numbers
the British were first to organise a geological staff and although this
was
rather small they were aided by the fact that 'the geology of Northern
France
and Flanders is not very complex'
(24).
The
La Bassée Canal is more or less the dividing line between two
distinct
geological formations. To the north the land is mainly water logged and
its
composition is made up of 'sandy loam upon beds of saturated sand with
occasional
pebbles and sometimes shaly stone above blue clay'
(25).
Although silent working in this area was possible, the main difficulty
was
with the water. Mining in this type of ground was extremely problematic
as
in the early stages steel tubing was not available to aid in the
sinking
of shafts. However, pilling, a method by which close-boarded timbers
were
driven into the ground before any material was excavated, was used at
this
time with some success. To the south of the canal chalk appears nearer
to
the surface. The problems this brought was the difficulty of silent
working,
as the chalk had to be chipped or in some cases blasted away.
Whatever the difficulties, most tunnelling officers at least knew the
overall objectives of mining and its strategic use, even if G.H.Q. in
the early days, did not. At its most basic, the purpose of mining was
to undermine the enemy's front-line fortifications and in turn prevent
him from doing the same. Mining therefore, as Captain Graham of 185
Tunnelling Company outlined, was governed by four main factors. 1.The
importance of the position to be attacked. 2. The distance from the
objective (although given the close proximity of the opposing lines
this was usually taken as read). 3. Its strategic use (morale and
attrition). 4. The conditions on the ground. The tactical aim was in
placing
and exploding a mine at the moment of attack with the objective of
gaining
the greatest benefit in terms of surprise and demoralisation
(26). This latter objective became possible to
a much
greater degree from the beginning of 1916 with the reorganisation and
centralisation
of the tunnelling force and the beginning of offensive mining on a
larger
scale towards more clearly defined objectives in conjunction with other
arms.
The significance of mining within a wider strategic framework was
realised
on 7 June 1917 with the successful assault on the Messines Ridge
(27) that met all its objectives with
comparatively few casualties. The Messines operation was the crowning
point and finale of
the tunnelling force, which had been bought through bitter experience
and
much innovation on the part of the men since the beginning of 1915.
However, many trials awaited them before June 1917.