Foxhole: was the term used in the Great War?

[augmauns]

Hi

A search of the Australian newspapers on Trove for the decade 1910-1919 gives 2 unique references to "foxhole". Both of them are English translations of letters found on German soldiers :

" ...These German soldiers are grand letter writers, and men sitting in wet ditches—in "foxholes," as they call their dugouts ..."

" ... A man in the 14th Bavarians wrote describing a day under fire: 'In one shell-hole after another lie dirt-grey soldiers, in hurriedly deepened or hastily improvised foxholes. A nervous disquiet or a dull resignation is on all faces'….”

Greg

[Mark Hone]

Thank you for all these responses. Unfortunately, I can't find an email address for the producers of 'Home Front' to communicate our findings.

[Kath]

To sum up:

The Germans used 'Fuchsloch' which was rendered as "Foxhole" in English when relating anecdotes about them.

Kath.

[SiegeGunner]

What the Germans in WW1 described as a 'Fuchsloch' (fox hole) or 'Fuchsbau' (fox's earth) was an excavation into the side of a bank (to obtain shelter on 3 sides), such as a funkhole dug beneath the parapet of a trench or into the side of a shell crater, not a 'freestanding' rifle-pit or mini-trench for a couple of men, as 'foxhole' was used by the Americans in WW2.

[Guest]

just because it doesn't appear in war diaries is no evidence at all.

TR

QED

[Terry_Reeves]

Quite right, but you made the running and have proved nothing.

TR

[David Filsell]

Terry,

I did not say that they did not use the term, but that they do not reference it. The three guides to British army slang were compiled by ex soldiers who were there and also undertook research - Partridge is particularly known as an assiduous researcher - and do not reference it. Blunden used it in 1928, I think, although I have not checked, when writing while he was in Japan.Otherwise it does seem solely a US and German useage. (There were of course a large number of Germans who had served in the army who emigrated to the US - a link perhaps, a trigger with/to it's use by American soldiers then and since)

Equally the Guardian quote about Germans in "in fox holes" might well have simply been a direct translation and used by a journo for colour/criticism in his story.

Finally, I am not aware of ever having seen the term in any of the many personal accounts I have read by Brits or in translations of German works - novels and personal accounts about the war - in English which seems to indicate to me that translators might have felt the term would not be familiar to English language readers.

On the basis of the evidence I remain convinced that the term did not gain currency with the BEF.

[SiegeGunner]

I use 'foxhole' in my translations of German WW1 material because 'funk hole' is too specifically British. But almost always with qualification, as in 'There were not enough dugouts, so some of the men had to shelter in foxholes dug into the parapet wall of the trench'.

[Terry_Reeves]

David

I did not say that they did use the term, and that is the real point. Others did use the term however, as witnessed by some of the other posts above. As you will no doubt be aware , Partridge's publicatiobwas not published until 1930 which of course is after Blunden's contribution. I am not at all convinced about the idea German translation being copied but it is clear that the usage was being used in Britain during the war..

I think your last sentence may well have the word "not" missing the way. This is not meant to be disparaging.

TR

[Guest]

Quite right, but you made the running and have proved nothing.

TR

Terry the OP asks when it became common usage. To me that suggests some evidence is required to prove a BBC scriptwriter's theory it was in common usage by the British in the Great War.

To make convoluted arguments that the lack of evidence means it could have happened is a step too far for me. Being asked to disprove conjecture that is not yet proven is a line of thinking I have no interest in pursuing. I much prefer evidence based research rather than being asked to disprove conjecture. One could just as easily argue that the Angel of Mons saved the day, or the 5th Norfolks were spirited away by UFOs at Gallipoli and that has to be disproved. It is a nonsense. In my world at least.

I am not trying to convince you. If you choose to believe it was in common usage that is your prerogative.

It is clear to me that on the evidence so far presented, the term was not in common usage by the British. In 70 million words of contemporary diaries and histories that you so readily dismiss I can't find a single British example. These were written by men who served. If it was in common usage, one might think that at least one diarist or author might have used it once. From the evidence presented so far it appears to be a German term translated into English.

If more evidence appears and it is to the contrary, I may well change my entrenched view. MG

[cullbaggie]

Jack Sheldon uses Foxholes in his book Germans on the Somme 1914 - 16, which is the reports the germans wrote

[David Filsell]

Terry,

Thanks for the correction. Appreciated. But I still fail to see common useage from the evidence on the thread and believe it to be a WW2 term, an still not really in common use until Hollywood influenced us - not that I would go to the stake for this view. Incidentally is it actually even in common use in the British Army - I ask only because I really do not know.

Regards

David

[Terry_Reeves]

Terry the OP ask when it became common usage.

To me that suggests some evidence is required to prove a BBC scriptwriter's theory it was in common usage by the British in the Great War. To make convoluted arguments that the lack of evidence means it could have happened is a step too far for me. Being asked to disprove conjecture that is not yet proven is a line of thinking I have no interest in pursuing. I much prefer evidence based research rather than being asked to disprove conjecture. One could just as easily argue that the Angel of Mons saved the day, or the 5th Norfolks were spirited away by UFOs at Gallipoli and that has to be disproved. It is a nonsense. In my world at least. I am not trying to convince you. If you choose to believe it was in common usage that is your prerogative. It is clear to me that on the evidence so far presented, the term was not in common usage by the British. In 70 million words of contemporary diaries and histories that you so readily dismiss I can't find a single British example. These were written by men who served. If it was in common usage, one might think that at least one diarist or author might have used it once. From the evidence presented so far it appears to be a German term translated into English.

If more evidences appears and it is to the contrary, I may well change my entrenched view. MG

I have not said that the word was in common usage but there seems to be that that once something is said it is written in stone. My view is that you should start before the beginning and finish after the end.

TR

[Muerrisch]

One of my pleasures is reading accounts by other ranks ..... Richards, Lucy for example. They wrote a long time after the war.

not a foxhole in sight.

The jury is heavily weighted against FOXHOLE in British use in the Great War

[SiegeGunner]

I'm perfectly happy with the finding that almost all recorded occurrences of 'foxhole' during the GW come from German. That doesn't exclude the possibility of the term being used in speech in English by men who were familiar with 'natural' foxholes and would apply it to excavations that resembled one. It's not as if 'fox hole' was an alien concept like 'beaver lodge' or 'wolverine's den' ... so it's perhaps surprising that it wasn't in common use, and the reason may well be that there just weren't many holes on a WW1 battlefield that resembled one.

[nigelcave]

So, at the end of all this, we can safely say that the Germans used foxhole (in German of course, and the British and Dominion armies - if they did - rarely, given the evidence of the multitude of memoirs where it does not seem to have appeared, with one or two exceptions. On that basis, I would say that it is not a British army term of the Great War and it would be a mistake to use it in documentaries/drama production etc when referring to the BEF.

[Mark Hone]

Thanks. I didn't realise that I was going to spark such a lively debate! As mentioned above, I haven't yet discovered a good method of contacting the producers of the radio series.

[Stoppage Drill]

Incidentally is it actually even in common use in the British Army - I ask only because I really do not know.

Regards

David

"Shell Scrapes" is the term I recall.

[Gareth Davies]

Isn't the difference that foxholes are vertical and shell scrapes are horizontal? The former are for standing in whereas the latter are for lying in.

Happy to be proven wrong.

[SiegeGunner]

Siege Gunner, on 22 Apr 2016 - 6:13 PM, said:

What the Germans in WW1 described as a 'Fuchsloch' (fox hole) or 'Fuchsbau' (fox's earth) was an excavation into the side of a bank (to obtain shelter on 3 sides), such as a funkhole dug beneath the parapet of a trench or into the side of a shell crater, not a 'freestanding' rifle-pit or mini-trench for a couple of men, as 'foxhole' was used by the Americans in WW2.

As I said earlier ...

[Guest]

Another German reference. The English translation of Unteroffizier Siegfried Brase's diary. Reserve Infantry Regiment 241

“Suddenly very heavy artillery fire started coming down, initially around one of the buildings we had left back in Broodseinde, but then behind us and falling ever closer to our zig-zag trench, which actually offered almost no protection and we had barely begun to construct small fox holes . . . shouting came from our right. To the left my comrade Körner, who had had a good laugh at my expense a little earlier, was hit by rifle bullets twice in the arm whilst out in the open. Our artillery fell silent, their guns in some cases destroyed, in others they had no ammunition left to fire. We could no longer hear our machine guns either; they had been wrecked by shellfire though, remarkably, their crews, sheltering in their holes, were completely unharmed".

Sheldon, Jack (2011-06-13). German Army at Ypres 1914, The (Kindle Locations 4140-4145). Casemate Publishers. Kindle Edition.

[bill24chev]

Maybe we are looking at this from the wrong angle!

Perhaps the question should be why did the Home Front writers use the word Foxhole instead of the word "Funkhole" as in contemporary British WW1 use.

This could be because FUNK has a modern meaning related to a type of Soul/Jazz music, and the writers would understand what a Foxhole is but struggle with the concept of a Funkhole.

The modern listener, (not a WW1 pedantic such as most of us on this forum) will associate with the foxhole as a small shelter from enemy fire. Although this type of two man trench was not in common use in WW1, even the German 'Fuchsloch' (fox hole) or 'Fuchsbau' (fox's earth) is not actually the same as the two man trench used in WW2 and later.

bill

[paulgranger]

'funk' as a Great War word has connotations of fear, cowardice, failure to 'man up', so it is interesting that 'funkhole' would be in widespread use within the military. Ironic usage, perhaps?

[Guest]

Funk also meant tobacco smoke or stale air. A funk hole might well have those characteristics rather than a hole to dive into when in a blue funk.. I think the etymology traces the word back to the old Femish word for fog or smoke. My speculation. MG

[SiegeGunner]

Given the average Tommy's level of proficiency in German, I'm surprised that 'Fuchsloch' wasn't adopted into English as 'f*ck hole' ...