# "Trenches" or "fox holes" at the Battle of Mons (WWI) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 29, 2017, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trenches-or-fox-holes-at-the-battle-of-mons-wwi/787626 "2017-05-29T00:44:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2017, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trenches-or-fox-holes-at-the-battle-of-mons-wwi/787626/1 "2017-05-29T00:44:22Z")
What can we properly call the way in which the Germans and British dug themselves in at Mons? Were they “trenches” or “fox holes” ? I look forward to your feedback. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2017, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trenches-or-fox-holes-at-the-battle-of-mons-wwi/787626/2 "2017-05-29T01:47:28Z")
I call it a failure of the enemy military. Really, who lets the enemy fortify themselves? Who lets the enemy alone long enough to dig in? ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2017, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trenches-or-fox-holes-at-the-battle-of-mons-wwi/787626/3 "2017-05-29T03:59:27Z")
I definitely wouldn’t call myself an expert on the Battle of Mons, but it’s my understanding that the British did dig some trenches near the Mons Canal (and possibly elsewhere). I don’t know if they dug foxholes or not but I would think that there were at least a few foxholes dug. I don’t know how familiar you are with the military terms, but a foxhole is just a small hole that can hold one or two soldiers at most. They typically aren’t all that deep. A trench is usually much larger. While a trench could be shallow but long (basically picture a foxhole as a dot and a trench as a line), trenches were typically deeper than foxholes and if they were really dug in, the trench could be big enough for a person to stand up in and not be exposed. I’ve never seen pictures of the trenches at Mons, but I think they were relatively shallow. The Battle of Mons was pretty early in the war, and trench warfare hadn’t really become the way of doing things yet. The British trenches were also hastily dug, which again makes me think that they weren’t all that deep. Also, where the British did some trench digging, I get the impression that they relied more on existing structures for cover than they did trenches. Again, trench warfare hadn’t really become the standard way of doing things yet, so they didn’t dig in and go trench crazy like everyone did later in the war. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2017, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trenches-or-fox-holes-at-the-battle-of-mons-wwi/787626/4 "2017-05-29T04:03:19Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > Really, who lets the enemy fortify themselves? Who lets the enemy alone long enough to dig in? Again, I’m no expert on the Battle of Mons, but from what I’ve read, the Germans thought that they were facing an unskilled force, when in fact the British Expeditionary Force that they faced was highly skilled and experienced. The Germans thought that they were facing a larger force than they actually were, and I’ve read that the German estimates of the number of British machine guns were significantly higher than what the British actually had. At one point the Germans charged and got mowed down with pretty devastating results, so it’s not like the Germans were just sitting around twiddling their thumbs while the British dug themselves in. ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2017, 9:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trenches-or-fox-holes-at-the-battle-of-mons-wwi/787626/5 "2017-05-29T09:38:10Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > Again, I’m no expert on the Battle of Mons, but from what I’ve read, the Germans thought that they were facing an unskilled force, when in fact the British Expeditionary Force that they faced was highly skilled and experienced. The Germans thought that they were facing a larger force than they actually were, and I’ve read that the German estimates of the number of British machine guns were significantly higher than what the British actually had. > > At one point the Germans charged and got mowed down with pretty devastating results, so it’s not like the Germans were just sitting around twiddling their thumbs while the British dug themselves in. Thanks engineer\_comp\_geek. I appears that the British and Germans had trenches, though they ma have been relatively shallow compared to later ones. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2017, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trenches-or-fox-holes-at-the-battle-of-mons-wwi/787626/6 "2017-05-29T10:17:34Z")
Foxholes were small shelters cut into the walls of trenches: [https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/4a/3a/f7/4a3af7deffc35b764cc861a48fa310a3.jpg](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/4a/3a/f7/4a3af7deffc35b764cc861a48fa310a3.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2017, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trenches-or-fox-holes-at-the-battle-of-mons-wwi/787626/7 "2017-05-29T12:12:41Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > I call it a failure of the enemy military. > > Really, who lets the enemy fortify themselves? Who lets the enemy alone long enough to dig in? Defensive weapons were better in WWI than offensive weapons and tactics. A handful of machine guns could hold off any attack for hours; plenty of time to dig in. Artillery was slow moving and couldn’t keep up with the infantry, and the infantry was generally limited to the walking pace of its soldiers, so it took time to bring up reinforcements if they weren’t already there in reserve. Air support didn’t exist (planes were just for reconnaissance). You’re assuming that they fought WWI using modern weapons and transportation. They didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2017, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trenches-or-fox-holes-at-the-battle-of-mons-wwi/787626/8 "2017-05-29T13:57:03Z")
> [@davidmich](#): > > What can we properly call the way in which the Germans and British dug themselves in at Mons? Were they “trenches” or “fox holes” ? I look forward to your feedback. A trench is a relatively long hole in the ground lateral-wise with room for a pretty large number of men to fight close together side by side. A foxhole is a smaller hole with only enough lateral room for one or a few men. As mentioned a foxhole might also refer to an individual dugout within a trench, but more often refers to a fighting hole dug into the surface from which the soldier could fire. Photo’s from WWI show that troops sometimes dug ‘WWII style’ foxholes, and trenches were not unknown in WWII. But in general trenches were much more common in WWI and foxholes in WWII. The basic reasons were tendency toward more movement and lower density of forces in WWII: infantry would typically have less time to dig in before moving again, and the standard of issue of automatic weapons and heavy infantry weapons would be such that there was less reason for a group of men to fight shoulder to shoulder rather than take more advantage of dispersal. Sometimes though systems of foxholes would eventually be connected into trenches in WWII if the unit was static for long enough. It was Soviet doctrine for example to do that. Mons was at the beginning of WWI and so the fighting was a mixture of tactics of movement both sides still assumed would be the norm and quickly digging in. Some photo’s show quickly dug trenches, I suppose individual fighting holes or ‘foxholes’ couldn’t be ruled out either. But the firepower of 1914 infantry units on both sides of the Western front was much less than 1918 ones or WWII ones, so again more reason to mass rifle fire from a trench rather than disperse riflemen and machine gun and mortar crews in foxholes as became the norm in WWII. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2017, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trenches-or-fox-holes-at-the-battle-of-mons-wwi/787626/9 "2017-05-30T01:45:19Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Defensive weapons were better in WWI than offensive weapons and tactics. A handful of machine guns could hold off any attack for hours; plenty of time to dig in. Artillery was slow moving and couldn’t keep up with the infantry, and the infantry was generally limited to the walking pace of its soldiers, so it took time to bring up reinforcements if they weren’t already there in reserve. Air support didn’t exist (planes were just for reconnaissance). > > You’re assuming that they fought WWI using modern weapons and transportation. They didn’t. Indeed, though the magazine fed rifle on its own produced such a volume of fire to heavily favor the defender without even taking into account the machine gun. Monsieur I. S. Bloch, a Polish banker wrote a fairly prescient work in 1897 entitled _The War of the Future in its Technical, Economic and Political Relations_ that is often quoted, this from J. F. C. Fuller’s [_Armament and History_](https://www.amazon.com/Armament-History-Influence-Classical-Warfare/dp/0306808595): > [@](#): > > “The outward and visible sign of the end of war,” he wrote, “was the introduction of the magazine rifle… The soldier by natural evolution has so perfected the mechanism of slaughter that he has practically secured his own extinction.” > > His description of the modern battle is exact, for it is exactly as it was fought seventeen years later. And his prediction of the coming war is no less so: > > “At first there will be increased slaughter on so terrible a scale as to render it impossible to get troops to push the battle to a decisive issue… The war, instead of being a hand-to-hand contest in which the combatants measure their physical and moral superiority, will become a kind of stalemate, in which, neither army being able to get at the other, both armies will be maintained in opposition to each other, but never able to deliver a final and decisive attack… That is the future of war - not fighting, but famine; not the slaying of men, but the bankruptcy of nations and the break-up of the whole societal organization… Everybody will be entrenched in the next war. It will be a great war of entrenchments. The spade will be as indispensable to a soldier as his rifle. All wars will of necessity partake of the character of siege operations… Soldiers may fight as they please; the ultimate decision is in the hands of _famine_…” ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2017, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trenches-or-fox-holes-at-the-battle-of-mons-wwi/787626/10 "2017-06-02T01:26:44Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Indeed, though the magazine fed rifle on its own produced such a volume of fire to heavily favor the defender without even taking into account the machine gun. Monsieur I. S. Bloch, a Polish banker wrote a fairly prescient work in 1897 entitled _The War of the Future in its Technical, Economic and Political Relations_ that is often quoted, this from J. F. C. Fuller’s [_Armament and History_](https://www.amazon.com/Armament-History-Influence-Classical-Warfare/dp/0306808595): I don’t know if I’m conflating two things when discussing 'going over the top" and carrying a Thompson machine gun at the same time. I do remember from my reading how extremely wasteful of manpower it was and soldiers refusing to follow orders to “go over the top”(was that with the Thompson gun or with machine gun fire coming from the trenches??) . I’m not sure if by the time the Thompson gun was being used by the end of the war, if that particular fighting strategy had been halted. ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2017, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trenches-or-fox-holes-at-the-battle-of-mons-wwi/787626/11 "2017-06-02T01:34:38Z")
> [@davidmich](#): > > I don’t know if I’m conflating two things when discussing 'going over the top" and carrying a Thompson machine gun at the same time. I do remember from my reading how extremely wasteful of manpower it was and soldiers refusing to follow orders to “go over the top”(was that with the Thompson gun or with machine gun fire coming from the trenches??) . I’m not sure if by the time the Thompson gun was being used by the end of the war, if that particular fighting strategy had been halted. I don’t think the Germans adopted the same strategy. I believe it was more defensive on the Western Front. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2017, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trenches-or-fox-holes-at-the-battle-of-mons-wwi/787626/12 "2017-06-02T02:06:23Z")
> [@davidmich](#): > > I don’t know if I’m conflating two things when discussing 'going over the top" and carrying a Thompson machine gun at the same time. I do remember from my reading how extremely wasteful of manpower it was and soldiers refusing to follow orders to “go over the top”(was that with the Thompson gun or with machine gun fire coming from the trenches??) . I’m not sure if by the time the Thompson gun was being used by the end of the war, if that particular fighting strategy had been halted. The Thompson submachine gun didn’t enter production until 1921. Other hand carried automatic weapons were used in WWI though. As I mentioned that was a big difference between even 1914 and 1918 infantry units, lots more automatic weapons in the latter, both tripod mounted machine guns and eventually hand carried light machine guns or machine rifles (a term often used at that time in English from the French ‘fusil mitrailleur’). It’s somewhat off the direct topic but there’s room for debate how much technology alone, especially as of 1914, dictated static warfare since for example the armies of the American Civil War dug plenty of trenches from mid-war onward (they can still be seen in the now overgrown areas of the 1863 Chancellorsville battlefield for example), and warfare was significantly more fluid on the WWI Eastern Front than Western. Rommel gained Hitler’s attention with his book mainly about leadership of a mountain infantry unit in successful mobile offensive warfare v the Romanians and later the Italians at Caporetto. The terrain and density of forces were major factors also. Anyway back to trenches specifically as opposed to individual fighting holes (or ‘foxholes’), one factor was firepower. The organic firepower of 1914 infantry units was indeed higher than 19th century ones (though not all that much different from some wars of the 1890’s and early 1900’s) but machine guns were still issued on a scale similar to regimental support infantry guns, a few per regiment. The bulk of organic infantry firepower was still rifle fire, which benefited from being massed, men shoulder to shoulder but without becoming a big target, hence trenches. As the scale of infantry automatic weapons issue grew, greatly through 1918 and more by WWII, the advantage tended to shift to the greater dispersal of a man or two per foxhole, as the focus of infantry firepower (really) shifted to automatic weapons, and infantry mortars, another WWI weapon much more common by the end than at the beginning. ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2017, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trenches-or-fox-holes-at-the-battle-of-mons-wwi/787626/13 "2017-06-02T05:23:37Z")
> [@Corry\_El](#): > > The Thompson submachine gun didn’t enter production until 1921. Other hand carried automatic weapons were used in WWI though. As I mentioned that was a big difference between even 1914 and 1918 infantry units, lots more automatic weapons in the latter, both tripod mounted machine guns and eventually hand carried light machine guns or machine rifles (a term often used at that time in English from the French ‘fusil mitrailleur’). > > It’s somewhat off the direct topic but there’s room for debate how much technology alone, especially as of 1914, dictated static warfare since for example the armies of the American Civil War dug plenty of trenches from mid-war onward (they can still be seen in the now overgrown areas of the 1863 Chancellorsville battlefield for example), and warfare was significantly more fluid on the WWI Eastern Front than Western. Rommel gained Hitler’s attention with his book mainly about leadership of a mountain infantry unit in successful mobile offensive warfare v the Romanians and later the Italians at Caporetto. The terrain and density of forces were major factors also. > > Anyway back to trenches specifically as opposed to individual fighting holes (or ‘foxholes’), one factor was firepower. The organic firepower of 1914 infantry units was indeed higher than 19th century ones (though not all that much different from some wars of the 1890’s and early 1900’s) but machine guns were still issued on a scale similar to regimental support infantry guns, a few per regiment. The bulk of organic infantry firepower was still rifle fire, which benefited from being massed, men shoulder to shoulder but without becoming a big target, hence trenches. As the scale of infantry automatic weapons issue grew, greatly through 1918 and more by WWII, the advantage tended to shift to the greater dispersal of a man or two per foxhole, as the focus of infantry firepower (really) shifted to automatic weapons, and infantry mortars, another WWI weapon much more common by the end than at the beginning. Thanks for that correction Corry El. It was the BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle / M1918 or Rifle, Caliber .30, Automatic, Browning, M1918) that was first used in 1918 "By July 1918, the BAR had begun to arrive in France, and the first unit to receive them was the U.S. Army’s 79th Infantry Division, which took them into action for the first time on 13 September 1918.[10] The weapon was personally demonstrated against the enemy by 2nd Lieutenant Val Allen Browning, the inventor’s son.[10] Despite being introduced very late in the war, the BAR made an impact disproportionate to its numbers; it was used extensively during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive and made a significant impression on the Allies (France alone requested 15,000 automatic rifles to replace their notoriously unreliable Chauchat machine rifle).[10] > **[M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:72dJovG12M4J:https:%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FM1918_Browning_Automatic_Rifle%2B&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ph)** > > approx. 11 kg (24 lb) (M1922) > The Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) is a family of American automatic rifles and machine guns used by the United States and numerous other countries during the 20th century. The primary variant of the BAR series was the M1918, chambered for the .30-06 Springfield rifle cartridge and designed by John Browning in 1917 for the American Expeditionary Forces in Europe as a replacement for the French-made Chauchat and M1909 Benét–Mercié machine guns that US forces had prev... “United States Marines briefly took possession of the BAR. Marines from the First Battalion of the Sixth Marines had talked the “doggies” of the United States 36th Division into trading their Browning Automatic Rifles for their “much better” Chauchats. But complaints from Officers of the 36th resulted in the issuance of a command from Marine Lt Col Harry Lee on 9 October 1918: All Browning guns and equipment now in Marine possession were to be turned in. [11]” “The BAR was designed to be carried by infantrymen during an assault[1] or advance while supported by the sling over the shoulder or fired from the hip. This is a concept called “walking fire” — thought to be necessary for the individual soldier during trench warfare.[2] The BAR never entirely lived up to the original hopes of the War Department, being neither a rifle nor a machine gun.[3]” Thank you all. Very helpful ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2017, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trenches-or-fox-holes-at-the-battle-of-mons-wwi/787626/14 "2017-06-02T14:12:20Z")
> [@davidmich](#): > > Thanks for that correction Corry El. It was the BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle / M1918 or Rifle, Caliber .30, Automatic, Browning, M1918) that was first used in 1918 > … (France alone requested 15,000 automatic rifles to replace their notoriously unreliable Chauchat machine rifle).[10] Indeed the M1918 Browning was used by the AEF in the final weeks of WWI, besides its better known use in WWII: 4 of the 21 US divisions in the final Meuse-Argonne offensive had them as ‘machine rifles’, the others Chauchats. But the CSRG Model of 1915 or Chauchat was in widespread use much earlier. The British used the US designed Lewis machine gun in a similar role (more towards a real light machine gun) and the Germans the MG08/15, a barely practical to hand carry ‘light’ version of the Maxim type MG08 machine gun (‘Spandau’ to the Allies), among other such weapons of various combatants. In this way infantry company firepower changed greatly from Mons in 1914 even by ca. 1916 then more by 1918, besides growing numbers of tripod mounted mg’s in machine gun companies. Also the Chauchat wasn’t viewed as negatively by the French as the US. The US view distilled down to today includes the disastrous M1918 Chauchat, re-engineered for the the US .30 cal round rather than French 8mm in the M1915. The M1918 Chauchat pretty much didn’t work. Latter day tests, remarkably, showed that the weapon can be made to work pretty well by simply finishing the chamber to original specs. French and US Ordnance reports of 1918 had pointed out the incorrect chamber neck dimension and out of spec chamber finish, but the weapons weren’t rushed back to the factory nor field ordnance shops directed to fix them. See “Honour Bound-The Chauchat Machine Rifle” by Demaison and Buffetant. As that book also shows with many first hand accounts, the US user view of the M1915 Chauchat was more ambivalent. The French were impressed with the BAR but ultimately decided not to buy it. The postwar FM 24/29 which replaced the Chauchat in French service had unlicensed design features from the BAR though. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2017, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trenches-or-fox-holes-at-the-battle-of-mons-wwi/787626/15 "2017-06-02T16:33:29Z")
Trenches are very elaborate. Even includes safety features like the parados. > **[Definition of parados | Dictionary.com](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/parados)** > > Parados definition, a bank of earth built behind a trench or military emplacement to protect soldiers from a surprise attack from the rear. See more. Here’s a design. [https://goo.gl/images/uU4giI](https://goo.gl/images/uU4giI) A fox hole, is a hole in the ground. ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2017, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trenches-or-fox-holes-at-the-battle-of-mons-wwi/787626/16 "2017-06-02T20:37:32Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Trenches are very elaborate. Even includes safety features like the parados. > [PARADOS Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com](http://www.dictionary.com/browse/parados) > > Here’s a design. > [https://goo.gl/images/uU4giI](https://goo.gl/images/uU4giI) > > A fox hole, is a hole in the ground. Thanks very much for these links aceplace. Thank you all. Very helpful indeed.