Royal Engineer tunnelling companies were specialist units of the Corps of Royal Engineers within the British Army formed to dig attacking tunnels under enemy lines during the First World War.
The stalemate situation in the early part of the war led to the deployment of tunnel warfare. After the first German Empire attacks on 21 December 1914, through shallow tunnels underneath no man's land and exploding ten mines under the trenches of the Indian Sirhind Brigade, the British began forming suitable units. In February 1915, eight Tunnelling Companies were created and operational in Flanders from March 1915. By mid-1916, the British Army had around 25,000 trained tunnellers, mostly volunteers taken from coal mining communities. Almost twice that number of "attached infantry" worked permanently alongside the trained miners acting as 'beasts of burden'.
From the spring of 1917 the whole war became more mobile, with grand offensives at Arras, Messines and Passchendaele. There was no longer a place for a tactic that depended upon total stasis for its employment. The tactics and counter-tactics required deeper and deeper tunnelling, hence more time and more stable front lines were also required, so offensive and defensive military mining largely ceased. Underground work continued, with the tunnellers concentrating on deep dugouts for troop accommodation, a tactic used particularly in the Battle of Arras.
Background
In siege warfare, tunnelling is a long-held tactic for breaching and breaking enemy defences. The Greek historian Polybius, in his Histories, described accounts of mining during Philip V of Macedon's siege of the town of Prinassos; there is also a graphic account of mining and counter-mining at the Roman siege of Ambracia. Mining was a method used in siege warfare in ancient China from at least the Warring States (481–221 BC) period forward.Ebrey, 29.
In 1215 during the First Barons' War, John, King of England laid siege to Rochester Castle. Eventually, he ordered his troops to dig a tunnel under the south tower, which they held up with pit props. After the tunnellers lit the props, the tower fell down, ending the siege even though the castle's main walls remained standing.
In 1346, Edward III of England requested that miners from the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire accompany his expedition to France, during the first part of the Hundred Years' War between England and France.
The Corps of Royal Engineers were formed in 1717. In 1770, the Company of Soldier Artificers formed a specialist tunnelling troop in Gibraltar to dig defensive positions into the Rock.
During the Siege of Lucknow in 1857, Royal Engineers were asked to undertake counter-mining.
The use of mines filled with explosives as an offensive weapon for trench warfare was pioneered during the American Civil War, where a large mine was exploded by Union forces during the Battle of the Crater.
First World War formation
By the end of May 1915, continuous opposed trenches with no vulnerable flanks, stretched from the North Sea coast to neutral Switzerland. With both sides equally well dug-in and deploying comparable troop numbers and armaments, neither was to prove strong enough to force a decisive breakthrough. The resultant static warfare meant that tunnelling saw a brief resurgence as a military tactic. As in siege warfare, mining was possible due to the nature of the fighting. Secondly, the ground on the Western Front was a prime candidate for underground warfare. Although the British were equipped with Royal Engineers who were trained in carrying out sapping, mining and tunnelling operations, there was no core team of specialist skills.
Request and proposal
Even before it became apparent that the Germans were mining to a planned system, the commanding officer of the IV Corps, Lieutenant-General Henry Rawlinson, requested the establishment on 3 December 1914, of a special battalion to assist with mining duties.
Towards the end of 1914, the civil engineering company of Member of Parliament and British Army Major, John Norton-Griffiths, was working on sewerage renewal contracts in Liverpool and Manchester. The relatively small-bore tunnels were being driven by a manual technique known as clay-kicking. Only useful in firm clay soils, the man doing the digging sat with his back supported by a wooden frame, with his feet pointing towards the cutting face. With a spade-like tool he dug out the clay, passing the spoil over-head to one of his mates for disposal at the rear. In early December 1914, Norton-Griffiths wrote to the War Office suggesting that the technique would be useful attack, spying or for intercepting German tunnels coming in the opposite direction. He concluded by asking to be allowed to take a group of his "moles" to France where if the soil was right, they could quickly undermine enemy positions. His letter was filed.
On 20 December 1914, by digging shallow tunnels under no man's land, German sappers placed eight mines beneath the positions of the Indian Sirhind Brigade in Givenchy-lès-la-Bassée. Following their simultaneous detonation, an infantry attack resulted in the loss of the entire company of 800 men.
Kitchener responds Following further attacks, it was evident by January 1915 that the Germans were mining to a planned system. As the British had failed to develop suitable counter-tactics or listening devices, Field Marshal John French, commander of the British Expeditionary Force, wrote to the Secretary of State for War, Herbert Kitchener, describing the seriousness of the German mining situation. Norton-Griffiths received a telegram on 12 February 1915, instructing him to report to the War Office. On his arrival, he was shown into Kitchener's private offices, There, Kitchener showed him French's letter. Kitchener then asked Norton-Griffiths for his advice. Using a coal shovel from the room's fire grate, Norton-Griffiths sat on the floor and gave a demonstration of "clay-kicking."
Impressed but sceptical, Kitchener asked Norton-Griffiths to travel that day to France to communicate his method to the commanders there, and confirm the suitability of the Flanders soil. If positive, he would then raise a suitable battalion of "moles", as Norton-Griffiths had named his new teams, the same name as their civil engineering counterparts. Arriving with two of his employees at the GHQ Saint-Omer office of the Engineer-in-Chief (E-in-C), Brigadier George Henry Fowke, on 13 February, Norton-Griffiths gave another demonstration of "clay-kicking." A sceptical Fowke instructed his assistant, Colonel Harvey, to take Norton-Griffiths and his employees to Army and Corps headquarters on 14 February, to see what the Corps of Royal Engineers thought of the idea.
In an early public relations exercise, on 14 February, Norton-Griffiths got Colonel Harvey to stop at four headquarters – Army, Corps, Division and Brigade. At each briefing, Norton-Griffiths repeated his demonstration. On arrival at the front line, (a mile from where the first German mine had exploded the previous December), they confirmed the excellent conditions of the clay-based soil and returned to St Omer via the four headquarters to communicate their findings. The following day, the team held further meetings in St Omer, concluding with a meeting between Norton-Griffiths, Fowke and Sir John French, the C-in-C, for a personal explanation. Fowke gave his agreement to a trial to which French agreed, and the three set out a structure for what were to be called tunnelling companies, rather than Norton-Griffiths' preference for 'moles': a symbol which many of the tunnelling companies would later adopt as their unit sign.
In a meeting with Lord Kitchener on 17 February, he reported on his visit to France and the agreement of Collins and Fowke to form trial tunnelling companies. Norton-Griffiths pointed out that to deploy the units at the speed which Lord Kitchener had suggested, would require the recruitment of civilians, who could not undergo basic military training to enable their immediate deployment to the front line. Kitchener's staff were highly sceptical of the proposal, but using his carte-blanche skill to cull such skilled men from regular infantry units, Norton-Griffiths won his argument. The same day, 17 February, British sappers at Hill 60 near Ypres blew a small mine which they had taken over from the French, but without great effect. The Germans retaliated with a small mine at Zwarteleen, but were driven out of the British positions. On 21 February, however, they blew a large mine nearby, killing forty-seven men and ten officers of the 16th Lancers. In mid-March the Germans blew another large mine at Zwarteleen, creating a deep crater and damaging their own lines in the process.
First tunnelling companies Norton Griffiths travelled to Manchester on 18 February and closed down one of his tunnelling contracts, making 18 staff redundant. The following day the War Office gave its approval to the Royal Engineers tunnelling company scheme. On the same day, 18 formerly redundant Manchester men turned up in Chatham to be enrolled, clothed and turned into Royal Engineers. One of the most rapid acts of the First World War, men who were working underground as civilians on 17 February, were working underground on the Western Front a mere four days later. The first nine Royal Engineer Tunnelling Companies, numbers 170 to 178, were each commanded by a regular RE officer – they comprised: five officers and 269 sappers, aided by temporarily attached infantrymen as required, (which almost doubled the companies' number). Norton-Griffiths, in the rank of major, acted as a liaison officer between these units and the E-in-C's office in St Omer.
Although able to select almost any soldier he wished, as he had predicted, Norton-Griffiths was quickly forced to recruit civilians. The new recruits in these units, aged anything up to 60, did not readily conform to military discipline and Norton-Griffiths' skills as a politician and as an engineer were called on in recruiting the men he needed and integrating them into the military environment. His judgement of people was remarkably accurate, he very rarely made a mistake in selecting men for a commission. The deployment of the first eight units led to the introduction of the tunnelling method that allowed the British to dig tunnels at a rate of per day, compared to the Germans' .
Hill 60, Ypres Salient The first attack of the newly formed tunnelling companies of the Royal Engineers was carried out by 173rd Tunnelling Company. First deployed in the Ypres Salient with the 28th Division, the tunnelers laid six mines by 10 April 1915. These mines (together with others that were unfinished) were filled with around of Ammonal explosives, the resulting explosions ripping the heart out of Hill 60 over a period of about 10 seconds. The effect was a mini-earthquake that split the ground under the entire hill, white flames shot into the sky. Concrete pillboxes and soldiers occupying them came down in all directions away. The explosion resulted in a deep crater, with surrounding trenches sandwiched shut so fast that soldiers were crushed, still in their standing positions. The Germans all around were crying with fear. Many retreated in terror, the-then tunnel master, Otto von Füsslein, was castigated, although the position was quickly recaptured a few days later.