LAND A N D 3^^ A T E R. 
March 6, 1915. 
wire 
with interruptions of earth which prevent their 
bein<' swept along tlieir whole length with fii;e i" 
case an enemy gets up to the line, and also provided 
with hollows underground where men not actually 
on the watch can rest and sleep. The trenches do 
not consist of one individual line, but of a complex, 
one set behind the other, sometimes two, sometimes 
three, sometimes more than three, though there are 
Bections in which the nature of the ground and of 
the defence is such that retirement to the places 
behind the trench wliei^e the stores of aram-unitiou 
and the quarters of command are can be effected 
without a complexity of this kind. From the front 
line to the second, from the second to the third (if 
there is a third) trenches perpendicular to the 
general line and zigzagging so as to save those who 
pass through them from enfilading fire (that is, 
fire along the length of the trench) are constructed. 
These are the trenches of communication, longer 
or shorter according to the kind of cover afforded 
and to any one of a thousand accidents of ground. 
These two systems of trenches opposing one 
the other (which would look, upon a complete plan, 
more like cracks in glass than anything else) fight 
each other in a number of different ways. The 
object of all such fighting being, of course, to make 
one's opponent almndon his trenches, or, better 
etill, to kill, wound, and capture him in his section 
of trench as you cany it. Let us see how this can 
be accomplished. 
Supposing the opposing forces possessed 
nothing but rifles and stores of explosives, then 
tliey would fight only thus : They would continu- 
ally watch vvith periscopes and through small 
openings on the edges of the trench the movements 
of their opponents, shooting at any object that 
showed itself. From time to time a body would 
leave some section of trcnch and try to nish across 
the open. They would choose for this a favourable 
moment, at dusk, for instance, or in the dark, or 
perhaps when they thought their enemy was off his 
guard. Against such a rush the defenders would 
pour as heavy a fire as they could, and in most 
cases they would stop it, particularly as in front 
of the trenches are constructed obstacles of all 
kind^ especially networks of barbed ^ 
stretched intricately among a number of posts. 
It is obvious that with fighting of such a sort 
the two forces would pretty well f "^^'^^^^^^f, ^^J^ 
the other unless there were overwhelming numl^i 9 
upon one side. Where the trenches are fairly close 
small bombs thrown by hand or grenades can be 
used as weapons of offence to clear or to confuse 
the opposing trench, and other devices, such as 
trench mortars and spring catapu ts, arc used 
The impossibility of trench fighting being decided 
Vietween equal forces in this fashion is heightened 
bv the use of machine guns, which are so posted as 
to rake the approaches to a trench and to mow 
down the men caught in the wire entanglements in 
But to such small arms there is added the field 
artillery, a weapon firing a shell about three inches 
in diameter and covering at its point oi explosion 
a radius of, say, something like a cricket pitch. 
The concentrated fire of a number of these guns 
will, of course, make any piece of ground unten- 
able And if vou can concentrate such fire upon a 
particular attack you make it suffer even more 
severely than rifle fire even makes it suffer. This 
fire from field guns has the further use of keeping 
down the firing power of the trenches opposed to 
it. It " searches " them, and by carefully timing 
the fuses of the shells it can cause considerable 
losses even through the very narrow entrances 
which are all the trenches present to the surface. 
If one side had field artillery and the other had 
not, the side which had field artillery would ulti- 
mately, though slowly, break the resistance of the 
trenches opposed to it. But the effect of these 
shells, with their flat trajectory skimming the 
surface, is ten-fold more against an advance in the 
open than it is against men dug in. These field 
guns must further be used very accurately, for 
they fire over their ow^n men and are posted in con- 
cealed positions well behind the line, their range 
being at an extreme not more than six thousand 
yards and their useful work mostly done at ranges 
between one thousand five hundred and three 
thousand yards. They also work against one 
another, a battery of such guns attempting to keep 
down the fire, and, if possible, to destroy, other 
batteries opposed to them. In such a plan 
as that which I have given you might have 
a field battery concealed in some such posi- 
tion as A, and working against another field 
battery concealed in some such position as B. 
Both A and B would be used to fire at the trenches 
opposed to them over their own men, to sweep the 
zone between the trenches in case of an attack, 
and to shoot at each other, and to keep down each 
otiier's fire, or, if possible, to destroy each other. 
These field guns also shoot at marks well behind 
the lines on which they are established, as villages 
or posts where they believe that men are concen- 
trated for relieving the men in the trenches ; they^ 
fire at the roads along which transport can come — • 
and so forth. 
Thus A will shell a village placed at C, and 
will shell tlie road leading from C to D, another 
village or place of concentration, but v^ith field 
artillery alone and fairly matched on the two sides 
tlie trench problem, as I have called it, will not be 
solved, because with the broad trajectory of such 
weapons, and the comparatively small range and 
the comparatively small radius of action of the 
shell, their true work is rather against men in tha 
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