THE GERMAN TRENCHES IN CHAMPAGNE

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2676, 24 January 1916, Page 9

THE GERMAN TRENCHES IN CHAMPAGNE

MARVELS OF ENGINEERING VISIT TO THE "FUNK HOLES" The German trenches in Champagne, ; writes 6. H. Perris, in the "Daily Chronicle," scores of miles of which are now in the possession of the French, are_ very wonderful works. As an achievement of military engineering tiiey liave never been equalled, and only approached at isolated points like the Labyrinth near Souchez in Artois. We now know that, by the narrowest of shaves, the German second line saved tho armies of von Fleck and von Ditfurth from a complete disaster on the evening of September 25; that, according to one German witness, a general retreat must have been ordered if the French artillery could have kept Tip its terrible bombardment for another couple of hours. Yet the German second line was, in fact, of trifling strength compared with tho front positions. The latter had been strengthened and extended continuously for mole than a year. Over a front of 18 miles, from two to three miles deep, every fold of tlie ground had been used to the best effect to create fields of firo that 110 assailant could cross alive. Four particularly powerful salients stood out upon this front, the foremost trenches being doubled and even quadrupled, while the numerous approaches were fitted for lateral defence; and the whole I system, with its supporting blockhouses | and fields of barbed wire, was" fed by many miles of field railways. It was a wonderful piece of work, and one or two isolated points of it still remain in tho hands of its authors. I take it I shall be complimenting them if I say that they have not attemptedany considerable counter-offensive in Champagne, in part, because they knew they would have to recapture their own as well as the French fieldworks, old and new. Nevertheless, when all is said that justly can be said for the German engineers, it is to be remarked that their scientific scheme had a purely defensive character, and led to an overweening confidence just as surely as, at the beginning of the war, years | of regimentation under iron discipline ! had led to an overweening confidence in ■ a certain mechanical kind of offensive— i the assault in mass formation. The Funk Holes.

You can see how they must have felt when you examine tho dug-outs which were the officers' quarters and tho men's shelters. The typical French, or British dug-out is a perfunctory hiding-place, sunk shallow in the side and bottom of tho trench, or-,buttressed up with sandhags,' stones, cement, iron plates, and any old thing that comes handy—with a scorn characteristic Tommy calls them "funk holes." The German officer looked down a long staircase of 30 steps, for all the world like tho tunnels leading down to the tombs of tho Theban Pharaolis in the desert beside the Middle Nile; and, in all probability, he felt a glow of patriotic pride as he tlionght of tho marvellous offspring of the wedding of militarism and mechanical science. In a few years the peasants of Champagne will dig up some of these tunnels and subterranean caverns, which are at present lost under tons of debris of tho French bombardment; they will find the bodies of officers who were resting there when the earth fell in upon. them. Not that they had lacked anything of. courage; but the telephone wires being broken by the preparatory. cannonade, they could not always be warned in time that the entrance to tlieir tunnel was being broken in.

They thought they were going to he safo in those holes for ever; or at least as long as was necessary to obtain satisfactory terms of peace. It was not an irrational calculation, for the strength of scientific field works can hardly be exaggerated. But it made too little of the French spirit; and even in the purely mechanical domain it overlooked some very simple but important factors. Tlie broad result we know, though only the German Government can reveal the full roll of their losses. The original armies of defence, numbering some 120,000 men, were practically extinguished. The rear positions were successfully held, as I have said, by the narrowest shave, and new lines established by reinforcements, brought piecemeal from other parts of the Western front, from the German depots, and even from Russia.

Jena and Austerlitz and many another bloody field on wliich the greatest of soldiers won his fame were child's play compared with this terrific encounter. Yet the French officers speak of it temperately, without a shadow of boasting over their 25,000 prisoners and 150 capturned cannon. We had the pleasure of being received for a few minutes by the general, one of the army commanders who has held l|is post throughout the war, and the utmost he could be persuaded_ to say' about the victory was' that "it had evidently achieved important results, moral as well as material."