WWI underground: Unearthing the hidden tunnel war (...killed an estimated 10,000 Germans.)

BBC ^ | June 10, 2011 | Peter Jackson

[decimon]

Archaeologists are beginning the most detailed ever study of a Western Front battlefield, an untouched site where 28 British tunnellers lie entombed after dying during brutal underground warfare. For WWI historians, it's the "holy grail".

When military historian Jeremy Banning stepped on to a patch of rough scrubland in northern France four months ago, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

The privately-owned land in the sleepy rural village of La Boisselle had been practically untouched since fighting ceased in 1918, remaining one of the most poignant sites of the Battle of the Somme.

In his hand was a selection of grainy photographs of some of the British tunnellers killed in bloody subterranean battles there, and who lay permanently entombed directly under his feet.

When most people think of WWI, they think of trench warfare interrupted by occasional offensives, with men charging between the lines. But with the static nature of the war, military mining played a big part in the tactics on both sides.

The idea of digging underneath fortifications in order to undermine them goes back to classical times at least. But the use of high explosive in WWI gave it a new dimension.

One of the most notable episodes was at the Battle of Messines in 1917 where 455 tons of explosive placed in 21 tunnels that had taken more than a year to prepare created a huge explosion that killed an estimated 10,000 Germans.

Tunnelling was mainly done by professional miners, sent from the collieries of Britain to the Western Front.

[Joe 6-pack]

An interesting anecdote from the tunnel warfare of WWI involves the 'steel tree'. Click the pick to read the story:

[decimon]

Thanks.

That’s quite a story. Can’t imagine them doing that but it’s apparently documented.

[Free Vulcan]

No small part of that though was the tit-for-tat that had been going on between France and the German states for a couple of hundred years. Versailles was just payback for the Franco-Prussian war, which was payback for Napolean, among other things.

The French made sure they got their knives in, not only with the reparations, but making German cede territory it had held for up to more than a century and had little to do with WWI. I think that made it more personal for Germany because it appeared they were trying to knock them back 100 years, not just punish them for WWI.