Barbed wire had a new and terrible significance for me from the first
day which we spent in the trenches. I could more readily understand
why there had been so long a deadlock on the western front. The
entanglements in front of the first line of trenches were from fifteen
to twenty yards wide, the wires being twisted from post to post in such
a hopeless jumble that no man could possibly get through them under
fire. The posts were set firmly in the ground, but there were movable
segments, every fifty or sixty yards, which could be put to one side in
case an attack was to be launched against the German lines.
At certain positions there were what appeared to be openings through
the wire, but these were nothing less than man-traps which have been
found serviceable in case of an enemy attack. In an assault men follow
the line of least resistance when they reach the barbed wire. These
apparent openings are V-shaped with the open end toward the enemy. The
attacking troops think they see a clear passage-way. They rush into the
trap and when it is filled with struggling men machine guns are turned
upon them, and, as Shorty said, "You got 'em cold."
That, at least, was the presumption. Practically, man-traps were not
always a success. The intensive bombardments which precede infantry
attacks play havoc with entanglements, but there is always a chance of
the destruction being incomplete, as upon one occasion farther north,
where, Shorty told me, a man-trap caught a whole platoon of Germans
"dead to rights."
"But this is wot gives you the pip," he said. "'Ere we got three
lines of trenches, all of 'em wired up so that a rat couldn't get
through without scratchin' hisself to death. Fritzie's got better wire
than wot we 'ave, an' more of it. An' 'e's got more machine guns,
more artill'ry, more shells. They ain't any little old man-killer
ever invented wot they 'aven't got more of than we 'ave. An' at 'ome
they're a-s'yin', 'W'y don't they get on with it? W'y don't they smash
through?' Let some of 'em come out 'ere an' 'ave a try! That's all I
got to s'y."
I didn't tell Shorty that I had been, not exactly an armchair critic,
but at least a barrack-room critic in England. I had wondered why
British and French troops had failed to smash through. A few weeks
in the trenches gave me a new viewpoint. I could only wonder at the
magnificent fighting qualities of soldiers who had held their own so
effectively against armies equipped and armed and munitioned as the
Germans were.
After he had finished drugging his trench pets, Shorty and I made a
tour of the trenches. I was much surprised at seeing how clean and
comfortable they can be kept in pleasant summer weather. Men were
busily at work sweeping up the walks, collecting the rubbish, which
was put into sandbags hung on pegs at intervals along the fire trench.
At night the refuse was taken back of the trenches and buried. Most of
this work devolved upon the pioneers whose business it was to keep the
trenches sanitary.
The fire trench was built in much the same way as those which we had
made during our training in England. In pattern it was something like
a tesselated border. For the space of five yards it ran straight, then
it turned at right angles around a traverse of solid earth six feet
square, then straight again for another five yards, then around another
traverse, and so throughout the length of the line. Each five-yard
segment, which is called a "bay," offered firing room for five men. The
traverses, of course, were for the purpose of preventing enfilade fire.
They also limited the execution which might be done by one shell. Even
so they were not an unmixed blessing, for they were always in the way
when you wanted to get anywhere in a hurry.
"An' you are in a 'urry w'en you sees a Minnie [_Minnenwerfer_] comin'
your w'y. But you gets trench legs arter a w'ile. It'll be a funny
sight to see blokes walkin' along the street in Lunnon w'en the war's
over. They'll be so used to dogin' in an' out o' traverses they won't
be able to go in a straight line."