WAR infographic

A fatal game of cat and mouse

 

• Due to lack of air power and tanks, one innovative response to the attacker's problem was found: tunnel warfare

  • It implied digging tunnels and placing mines and explosives beneath the enemy trenches and detonating them

 

• For the job of digging, tunneling companies were employed

  • Professional miners are kept secret by the state. Companies operated in such secrecy that little was known for years after the war.

 

• Both the Germans and the Allied forces employed this tactic.

  • That caused constant actions of mining and counter-mining, with both sides struggling to locate and destroy each other's tunnels.

  • The only way of finding the enemies location was to listen quietly for the clink of shovels from the other side.

  • The tunnels of two sides often came close to each other, and the tasks were to use smaller explosions to collapse the enemy tunnels. Faster miners stayed alive.

 

• Colliding with the enemy was disastrous!

  • No covers to hide behind from gunfire and explosives

  • Confrontations were often brief.

  • The tunnellers biggest enemy was poison gas - the silent killer

  • Of major importance was to make as little noise as possible - to prevent the enemy from detecting you.

 

The Battle of Messines in 1917

 

• On June 7 the British attack on the Messines Ridge in West Flanders (south Belgium)

• The front length was around 14 kilometers

• The explosion of 19 mines beneath the German trenches signaled the start of the Battle

  • 455 tons of explosives was set throughout 21 tunnels

  • the operation took over a year to prepare

  • Tunnels were dug to a depth of 30 meters

  • The explosion killed an estimated 10,000 Germans.

  • Each individual explosion ripped a hole in the German defenses and destroyed everything above it

  • A blast was so loud it was said to be heard in London, over 210 kilometers away.

• After explosion attack, it took just 3 hours for the British troops to take the German positions

  

Did you know?

 

The canary was the animal that served the British army as a primitive but effective method of detecting gas.

 

One unexploded mine remains undiscovered to this day.

 

The British had around 25,000 trained tunnellers.