Breastwork "trenches"

[clive_hughes]

I've read often enough about the practice of creating massive sandbag breastworks in lieu of trenches in certain areas where water was to be found just below the surface.

Would anyone care to state the areas on the Western Front where this was the practice? I'm particularly wondering if it was so in the vicinity of Richebourg St.Vaast, but a broader list might be of interest.

More to the point, how did a breastwork system actually look or work, compared to the "normal" trenches? In those, there were at least the front, support and reserve lines which required communication trenches to interconnect. How was a breastwork position similarly organised?

Likewise the dugouts, shelters, aid posts and headquarters etc. - built into the sandbags, or what?

Sorry if this is a basic question - it's just that I realised I couldn't envisage what they looked like beyond a thick single line of piled sandbags.

LST_164

[Guest]

There is this

" The type and nature of the trench positions varied a lot, depending on the local conditions. For example, in the area of the River Somme on the Western Front, the ground is chalky and is easily dug. The trench sides will crumble easily after rain, so would be built up ('revetted') with wood, sandbags or any other suitable material. At Ypres, the ground is naturally boggy and the water table very high, so trenches were not really dug, more built up using sandbags and wood (these were called 'breastworks'). In parts of Italy, trenches were dug in rock; in Palestine in sand. In France the trenches ran through towns and villages, through industrial works, coalmines, brickyards, across railway tracks, through farms, fields and woods, across rivers, canals and streams. Each feature presented its own set of challenges for the men who had to dig in and defend. In the major offensives of 1915, 1916 and 1917 many trench positions were only held for a few days at a time before the next advance moved them on into what had been no man's land or the enemy position. These trenches were scratch affairs, created as the advancing troops dug in, and were sometimes little more than 18 inches deep. "

From the Long Long Trail HERE

and an example HERE

Cheers Mike

[centurion]

Mentioned in "A Passionate Prodigality", unfortunately I don't have my copy to hand.

[dycer]

LST,

From an aged 14 year old,at the time, Soldier's memoirs describing conditions in the Fleurbaix Sector November 1914.

"The trenches in those days were simply holes in the ground where people had dug in.The weather became,so bad that both Jerry and ourselves decided,well "You better try and make yourselves comfortable for the winter because you cannot fight over these conditions," extreme cold,heavy rain and snow.Men were doing four days and nights standing in places filled up with water.Consequently the men became ill.Continually standing in water led to trench feet,you could not get dry clothes,you stood up in what you had.There was no shelter,just a rubber sort of macintosh so there was a heavy illness list.If the medical officer thought you were going to have pneumonia you were shifted.

During the very cold frosty nights the place was still.You could hear Jerry coughing or whistling.One evening I remember,something prompted me to start whistling the first bar of a German song I had learned at school named "The Lorelei".The next thing I hear is the second bar coming up in the distance!So I whistled through the tune with this Jerry.The story got around and I can tell you I was severely reprimanded for it."

George

[Tom Tulloch-Marshall]

I have seen accounts describing the German breastworks about Neuve Chapelle at the time of the March 1915 battle as multi-coloured and incorporating all kinds of doors and other household furniture which the enemy had stripped from French property. The British breastworks about "Black Watch Lane" (for example) are noted as issolated during daylight hours because they are not connected to anything.

Tom

[stoj22]

This one I think is somewhere near Laventie....

[clive_hughes]

Thank you very much everyone for those informative pictures and links. I must have a look at Chapman's book as well.

Any evidence of whether these breastworks were the norm at Richebourg St.Vaast 1915-16?

LST_164

[paulgranger]

Edmund Blunden spent some time in or near Richebourg and Cuinchy, and although his descriptions aren't totally detailed, he certainly gives the impression that much of the British Line in the area consisted of a sandbag parapet or rampart, and this often wasn't continous - he refers to the 'Islands' as isolated forward posts, approachable only at night. Quite what protection existed from shells exploding to the rear of the positions isn't clear, but it appears to have been non-existent.

On a different tack, I seem to remember a reference to 'high command trenches' in referring to surface positions built of sandbags, but I can't recall where this comes from. I always assumed it meant that the positions commanded the area from a height, and had nothing to do with the upper echelons of the staff.

[Cnock]

Hi

also British breastworks and revetted trenches in the dunes at Nieuport

Cnock

[clive_hughes]

Thanks for the extra observations folks.

LST_164

[SiegeGunner]

The German front line at Fromelles (Aubers Ridge 1915 and Fromelles 1916), and for some distance on both sides, consisted of high and thick breastworks with shallow trenches behind (due to the high water table). These were breached by mines in 1915 and preparatory artillery fire in 1916, allowing break-ins through the resulting breaches. Drainage was somewhat better behind the front line and one of the principal communication trenches was called the 'Kastenweg' - the 'Case Way', which was lined with ammunition boxes that were used to store reserves of ammunition and hand grenades.

[Jack Sheldon]

This is a view of men of RIR 99 26th Res Div manning the Bieberkolonie [beaver Colony] in the Ancre valley in 1915. I apologise for the fact that it is not the clearest of shots, but it is the only one I have ever come across. There was no questionof being able to dig in this swampy area; indeed lengthy footbridges had to be provided to produce dry approaches to it. It was not even easy to dig earth to put in sandbags. Instead many hundeds of trees were felled and put in position - hence the name. Later, whereever possible, concrete was used to strengthen the position, but there has been not one single trace of any of it for many years.

Jack

[Cnock]

Hi,

German breastworks in the dunes at at Lombardzijde

Cnock

[Jack Sheldon]

No shortage of sand there to fill the bags, Eddy!

Jack

[Steven Broomfield]

Did they have those little flags to put on top of the sand castles?

[centurion]

Example from the E front of building up rather than digging down

[Heid the Ba]

I have seen accounts describing the German breastworks about Neuve Chapelle at the time of the March 1915 battle as multi-coloured and incorporating all kinds of doors and other household furniture which the enemy had stripped from French property. The British breastworks about "Black Watch Lane" (for example) are noted as issolated during daylight hours because they are not connected to anything.

Tom

The BEF breastworks of the time were built in pre-war style with everything flattened off and squared up so anything sticking above them stood out while the German ones were less regular so loopholes etc were much harder to spot.

[clive_hughes]

Thank you for those images. Looking at them, I get the feeling that their protection value was limited. I wonder if this on average made for more of a laissez-faire attitude on the part of the opposing garrisons? Movement would be very limited in daylight (not that it wasn't elsewhere).

In one case I'm thinking of, a shell hits a dugout and a couple of men are killed. Not uncommon at all; but if the "dugout" isn't a deep hole in the ground but an above-ground cobbled-together arrangement of sandbags and salvaged bits of timber etc, then the title "dugout" is a bit of a misnomer.

The other thing is that if this is the Front Line, what's behind it that would stop a determined offensive? Do the supports and reserve lines look the same? In the Richebourg area I have seen notes of "keeps" behind the Front trenches in 1915, suggesting a strongpoint-based defence system nearer to that employed on the eve of the March 1918 Offensive.

LST_164

[SiegeGunner]

Again at Fromelles, the German positions on the plain below the ridge included deep mined dugouts in the support trench area, tanked and drained by electric pumps. Not sure exactly when the mains electrical supply was installed, but it was in place by the time of the 1916 battle. The terrain there and at Richebourg (just a few miles away) is much the same, and there were certainly strongpoints in the hinterland behind the front line positions at Fromelles in 1916, most of them constructed inside existing buildings (farm buildings, cottages, etc). Those on the right side of the battlefield (from the German perspective) were named after farms and those on the left side were named after towns in Bavaria. The network of strongpoints, with interlocking fields of fire, was still in the process of construction at the time of the 1916 battle, and one key strongpoint, known as Grashof, was not manned as it was still unfinished.

The breastworks were very substantial and incorporated storage spaces, loopholes, etc, with a heavily wired glacis on the forward side, but were still acknowledged to be more vulnerable to artillery fire than a deep trench system.

[Heid the Ba]

Remember that in most cases (sweeping generalisation alert) the Germans were on higher ground so could dig deeper, the British lines were more likely to be waterlogged so more likely to be breastworks. As the Germans rarely attacked there was little threat of breakthrough.

[centurion]

In one case I'm thinking of, a shell hits a dugout and a couple of men are killed. Not uncommon at all; but if the "dugout" isn't a deep hole in the ground but an above-ground cobbled-together arrangement of sandbags and salvaged bits of timber etc, then the title "dugout" is a bit of a misnomer.

If above ground called 'a bomb proof shelter' - an optimistic term

[centurion]

The breastwork trench was the idea of the Anglo Dutch engineer Cohorn (I use the spelling he used when he became a British subject) back in the late 17th century. High water table where he did his fortress work. He would have used gabions filledwith mud rather than sand bags - probably much solider but less easy to manipulate.

[SiegeGunner]

On the Aubers Ridge front, the Germans' principal defensive strength was in their second-line positions on the higher ground, but they also had very substantial advanced positions (much more than outpost lines) down on the plain, where they too were compelled to build breastworks rather than dig deep trenches.

[SiegeGunner]

He would have used gabions ...

If I remember correctly, the core of the German front-line breastwork at Fromelles was constructed using gabions.

[clive_hughes]

I can appreciate how these strongpoints (like the later concrete versions) could cover the ground in front with fire. So this might have been how the less-entrenched Front line was effectively supported.

The "bomb-proof shelter" also rings true! My thanks to you again.

LST_164