TRAINING FOR THE TRENCHES
LESLIE VICKERS
[Illustration: BRITISH "TANK" IN ACTION]
TRAINING FOR THE
TRENCHES
A PRACTICAL HANDBOOK
BASED UPON PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
DURING THE FIRST TWO YEARS
OF THE WAR IN FRANCE
BY
CAPTAIN LESLIE VICKERS
LATE LIEUT. SEAFORTH HIGHLANDERS
LECTURER IN TRENCH WARFARE,
DEPARTMENT OF MILITARY SERVICE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1917,
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO
LIEUT. GORDON ALFORD
OF THE "ANZACS,"
A VERY GALLANT SOLDIER, A BOYHOOD FRIEND,
WHO MADE THE GREAT SACRIFICE ON THE SOMME,
AUGUST, NINETEEN-SIXTEEN
INTRODUCTION
Since the Great European War broke out, printing presses have been
busy producing text books, handbooks and guides for soldiers. Military
authorities and civilians alike have come to realise that this war
has changed many of our old conceptions of strategy and that it has
introduced conditions that are entirely unprecedented. New methods
have had to be devised--sometimes on the field itself in the midst
of the greatest difficulties--for meeting new and novel methods of
warfare. Every deadly engine of destruction has called forth some new
invention to cope with it. Soldiers have had to live and fight under
conditions that to the lay mind, or to the mind of the military men
of a few years ago, would seem to be impossible. It is reasonable to
assume that the inventive genius of the world will be turned more and
more in the direction of the problem of how to construct still more
terrible machines of destruction. The next war, if there be one, is
not likely to be any less fearful than the present, so that the soldier
who is called upon to engage in it will require to know the lessons
that have been learned in this war. The author hopes that from a fairly
long training in England in preparation for work in France, and from
some months in the trenches on the Western British front, he may be
able to offer suggestions that will be of value to men who are training
themselves with a view to becoming efficient soldiers. He sends this
little book forth, not as a treatise on war, nor yet as a scientific
handbook. He merely desires it to serve to bring home lessons that are
sometimes too dearly bought. "Experientia docet" is the proverb that we
used to write in our copy books, and he will feel that he is repaid if,
from his experience, others are enabled to learn. While he trusts that
there will be many veteran soldiers and instructors who will be glad
to have this information in convenient form, he intends this little
book primarily for the use of those who are civilians in the process of
becoming soldiers.
L. V.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE CIVILIAN AND THE SOLDIER 15
II. HEALTH 21
III. DISEASE 33
IV. VERMIN 46
V. HEALTH AND OFFICERS 50
VI. COVER AND TRENCHES 62
VII. PROTECTION OF TRENCHES 80
VIII. ARTILLERY FIRE 90
IX. GAS AND LIQUID FIRE 97
X. THE ATTACK--DEFENCE 101
XI. THE ATTACK--OFFENCE 104
XII. EQUIPMENT FOR THE FIELD 116
XIII. TRICKS FOR THE TRENCHES 124
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
BRITISH "TANK" IN ACTION _Frontispiece_
FIGURE
1. SHOWING USE OF NATURAL COVER BY SOLDIER
LYING DOWN 22
2. SHOWING USE OF SANDBAG AND EARTH FOR
PROTECTION 22
3. SHOWING POSITION OF BODY BEHIND EARTH,
AND DIRECTION OF FIRE ROUND RIGHT
SIDE OF COVER 26
4. TRENCH SYSTEM SHOWING FIRE, SUPPORT
AND RESERVE TRENCHES; REDOUBTS; COMMUNICATING
TRENCHES; SAPS; LISTENING
POSTS, ETC. 28
5. SHOWING METHOD OF CUTTING TRENCH;
PARAPET AND PARADOS; DRAINAGE 28
6. SHOWING REVETTING; FLOORING MADE OF
BOARDS AND CHICKEN WIRE; DRAINAGE 30
7. TRENCH WITH SIMPLE DUGOUT UNDER PARAPET 32
8. FINISHED DUGOUT, 6'X4'X4' WITH DEEP
ENTRANCE AND SHRAPNEL-PROOFING 32
9. FINISHED TRENCH SHOWING PARAPET AND
PARADOS; FIRING STEP OF EARTH; FLOORING;
AND SHELTER DUGOUT UNDER PARADOS 34
10. MACHINE GUN POSITION WITH HEAVY OVERHEAD
COVER 36
11. SIMPLE ENTANGLEMENTS MADE OF BARBED
WIRE AND ROUGH POSTS 42
12. TRENCH PERISCOPES 46
13. SIMPLE LOOPHOLE MADE OF STEEL PLATE
LET INTO PARAPET 52
14. ORDINARY HAND BOMB WITH FUSE LIGHTED
AUTOMATICALLY AS LEVER IS RELEASED 52
15. TRENCH BOMB GUN FIRING BOMB WITH
STEM; AND TRENCH MORTAR FIRING LARGE
BOMB 54
16. SIMPLE GAS MASK WITH FLUTTER VALVE OR
CHECK VALVE. AMBULANCE DOGS AND
HORSES IN THE GAS ZONE WERE EQUIPPED
AS SHOWN 56
17. BRITISH SOLDIER FULLY EQUIPPED WITH
PACK, ENTRENCHING TOOL, SANDBAGS AND
STEEL HELMET 78
TRAINING FOR THE TRENCHES
TRAINING FOR THE TRENCHES
CHAPTER I
THE CIVILIAN AND THE SOLDIER
The change from civilian to soldier is one that is not easily
accomplished. We soon find that there are many new conditions to be
faced, many new and uncongenial tasks to be undertaken, and all sorts
of strange and novel regulations to which we must render the strictest
obedience. In civilian life we become thoroughly independent. We come
and go more or less as we please. We do not usually ask the permission
of any one if we wish to depart a little from our customary habits. Not
since we left school have we answered to roll-calls to any considerable
extent, and only in the summertime, "for the fun of it," have we done
our own housekeeping and submitted to domestic duties. In civilian life
we have been allowed to work out our own salvation, and if we have
been part of a machine at all it has been a huge social machine in
which we did not figure as a cog but rather as an attachment.
In military life things are all changed. We become at once cogs in the
great machine. We have a definite work to perform. The smooth running
of the plant depends on _us_. We lose much of our independence. We
realise that other cogs depend on us, and, further, that there are
many bigger cogs who drive us and whose bigness and authority we must
thoroughly appreciate and recognise. In my own experience, after some
years of being my own master to the degree that only the professional
man understands, I found it much to my dislike to be obliged to get
permission before I could leave the camp grounds for half an hour. A
sentry with a fixed bayonet helped me a little in the appreciation
of my new circumstances, and when in a few days' time I was the
sentry myself, it did me the world of good and took the edge off my
displeasure. Again it is not to the liking of the ordinary man to be
told that he must rise at a certain hour, and much less is it to his
liking to be told that he must be in bed at a certain hour after which
talking is considered a misdemeanour and is punishable. _But_ a few
weeks of enforced early rising makes one give thanks for the pure fresh
air of the small hours of the day; and a few days of hard physical
exertion in the process of training makes a man glad to conform to the
rule of early to bed, and gives him reason to class as a nuisance the
man who talks after "Lights Out" and thus prevents him from sleeping.
In civilian life, too, a man usually chooses with scrupulous care his
roommate or mates. In the army one may be placed in a tent or a billet
with men who are by no means congenial, unless he is lucky enough to
have been able to join a group of companions who form a unit. But even
the experience of having uncongenial companions is not altogether
without its compensations; for every civilian finds that he has need
of rearranging his estimates of men when he enters the army. The
sooner our own corners are rubbed off the better, and many of them are
inevitably rubbed off when we are ten or thirteen in a tent!
The quality that is the salvation of the volunteer is his keenness.
We volunteer _because_ we are keen and we would be ashamed to be
otherwise. The rules and regulations of army life are liable to try
our tempers and our patience. There may come times when we question
very seriously the wisdom of having "joined up." There may be occasions
when we thoroughly despise our seniors and conclude that everything
military was arranged for our oppression. Bit by bit we shall lose the
conviction that we "know it all" already, and as knowledge increases
within us, we shall appreciate more and more the knowledge and
experience of those placed over us. Regulations and even red tape will
be seen to have a wise purpose, though, to the end of our days, we may
long for some official scissors to cut it.
The change from civilian to soldier is produced in one way only--THE
LEARNING OF OBEDIENCE. This is the first and last lesson. The civilian
is only obedient in certain ways and to a limited extent. The soldier
is obedient in every way and to any extent, even to death. It would be
wrong of me to indicate that "the habit of implicit obedience" comes
easily to the average man. It is difficult to acquire. But it is the
"sine qua non" of a good soldier and _must_ be acquired. It is the
heart of the system. Obedience is given to some one by every rank in
the army, from the highest general to the humblest private.
When we have learned obedience we need to learn discipline--for the
two words do not mean exactly the same thing. Discipline may be of
two kinds. First of all there is SELF-DISCIPLINE. This includes the
restraint of selfishness; the cultivation of the spirit of comradeship,
generosity and thoughtfulness; the cultivation of habits of moderation
in smoking, drinking, etc.; and the elimination of those vices that
tend to rob us of our strength or impair the clearness of our thinking.
Then there is, secondly, ARMY DISCIPLINE, which includes obedience,
thoroughness, common sense and resourcefulness. This question is dealt
with at length in military handbooks and needs few words from me.
The point to remember is that training for modern war is a serious
business, not to be entered upon lightly, nor regarded as a "cinch." A
man must first of all be fit in body to be able to withstand the many
physical hardships that he will be sure to encounter. Then he must be
fit in mind to provide him with the imagination and the resourcefulness
that he will certainly be called on to show. His heart must be strong
not only in the opinion of the surgeon but in the opinion of those who
judge his "all-round manhood." He must be trained in such a way that he
will be able to stand not only the physical but the nervous strain as
well. A visit to the hospitals in England and France will provide the
spectacle of row after row of beds containing men who have never been
wounded but whose nerves have gone to pieces in the strain of modern
warfare.
Remember to take your training seriously--it pays.