The War Under No-Man’s Land: Military Mining and Tunnel Combat in World War One

History Unplugged Podcast

History Unplugged

Society & Culture, History

4.2 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 30 July 2024

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Beneath the trench warfare of World War One existed an entirely separate war underground: battles in the mines and dugouts between the Great Powers. In 1914–17, the underground war was a product of static trench warfare, essential to survive it and part of both sides' attempts to overcome it.

In the stagnant, troglodyte existence of trench warfare, military mining was a hidden world of heroism and terror in which hours of suspenseful listening were spent monitoring the steady picking of unseen opponents, edging quietly towards the enemy, and judging when to fire a charge. Break-ins to enemy mine galleries resulted in hand-to-hand fighting in the darkness.

We are joined by Simon Jones to discuss the ingenuity, claustrophobia and tactical importance of the underground war. He is the author of “The War Underground, 1914-1918: Tactics and Equipment.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	Scott here with another episode of the History Unplugged Podcast.
0:07.0	World War I had perhaps the worst fighting conditions of any modern war.
0:12.0	Soldiers spent months in trenches dealing with rats,
0:14.8	lice, standing water which caused trench foot, and then they'd have to go over the top
0:18.4	after the whistle blue, running head-vers into machine gun nests. You could also also face death underwater and U-boats, death in the air with
0:25.4	incredibly rickety aircraft, but perhaps one of the worst places to fight was underground.
0:30.5	Miners on both sides of the war built miles of underground tunnels in order to bypass
0:35.0	no man's land but if the tunnels from each side ran into each other then miners
0:39.4	would have to fight hand-to-hand.
0:41.1	And cramp tunnels in the dark using daggers, hand bombs, usually with minimal military
0:46.0	training because they were a simple working-class miner from Cornwall.
0:49.7	The mines it created were massive, some as long as five miles at a depth of 30 meters.
0:54.6	But despite their considerable efforts, the mines were never able to overcome trench warfare.
0:59.4	And by 1917, when strategy shifted, the all-arms battle and mobility was restored to the battlefield,
1:05.6	mining was outdated.
1:07.2	To look at this forgotten aspect of World War I, we're joined by Simon Jones, author of the War Underground, 1914- 1918, tactics and equipment
1:15.0	to discuss the ingenuity, claustrophobia,
1:18.0	and tactical importance of the Underground War.
1:20.0	Hope you enjoy this discussion. And one more thing before we get started with this episode, a quick break for word from our sponsors.
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1:38.0	sloth on a branch. He couldn't sleep before. Now listen to him. sounds like an elephant with a chest infection.
1:44.8	Well they call him a dreamer and now they're right. All aboard mister I can never
	...

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