Were These WW1 Underground Tunnels The Worst Place To Fight?

The First World War will always be remembered for its trenches, but many

fight

ing occurred even deeper in

tunnels

. A 300 meter tunnel dug by the Germans was recently discovered near the town of Crayon. This tunnel has not yet been excavated, but I have been To see some of the

tunnels

built by the Allies that survived to this day, I have come to one of the best preserved battlefields of the First World War. Now you can still see the shape of the Allied front line and this fence is here to protect people because there are still a lot of unexploded ordnance from World War I there, so you can't cross there now, but the reason why I'm here not to look at the battlefield on the surface, but to find out what happened beneath.

Let us now come to a

place

that shows how far the war had advanced in the years since it began in 1914. These are the enormous tunnels dug in the chalk under the Vimy Ridge that the Canadians used to achieve one of the most impressive victories of the history. The water pointing to this is the Vimy Ridge, it is one of the most prominent massive structures on this part of the Western Front, it is as if there are miles of flat farmland and then this huge ridge rises like a breaking wave, the Germans had very very strong. positions at the top of that ridge and it was given and it was the Canadian's job to get them out of there if you want a job to work properly you have to ask the Canadians in this life and what did the Canadians take in this approach that would change the way the The British attacked on the Western Front and achieved something that had never been done before, which was a very quick and very successful attack that drove the Germans back.

They did this by tunneling through this material. They used the fact that the self is. built on porous but fairly stable chalk, so you could tunnel deep into this ridge line, you could create communication trenches, you could carry the supplies needed to launch a major assault like this, and perhaps most important of all, you could excavate deeply under the Germans. There were lines about 13 massive mines under those German lines that would be detonated at a particular point and they detonated those mines on the morning of April 9, 1917, it was Easter Monday, they were due to go the day before Easter Sunday, but ' There had been a terrible blizzard so the ground was still covered in snow, they detonated these mines with giant explosions and all these tunnels were filled with infantrymen who were as close to the German lines as possible and when the mines exploded , they were able to jump out and just make the short distance across no man's land and take those objectives, then they were able to repel any German counterattack.

It was a limited operation, well rehearsed, perfectly planned and containing the seeds of all future successes against the Germans, but look at this tunnel order down here, which direction should we go? These tunnels were dug by Welsh miners because they were the best miners in the world at the time, they had experience digging in chalk and they could dig about six meters a day and there are 10 kilometers of tunnels down here that just gives you an idea of ​​the scale of the scale of preparation the effort required to break through these German positions this was an operation that took years to accomplish, but it was such a successful operation that the German high command had to completely reevaluate the way they were going to defend themselves against British and German troops.

Commonwealth that were gaining confidence gaining experience with each passing month of the war look at that crawl space there, sometimes they didn't need to build tunnels big enough for infantry battalions to pass through So only the miners would have to crawl from one tunnel to the next. following. It's scary, it's difficult. I mean, there were a lot of jobs in World War I that were horrible, but I think living and operating here in these

underground

spaces was pretty bad. Don't forget the The Germans knew they had their own sappers, their own miners, they knew the Allies were trying to do this, so there were mines against mines, attempts to collapse each other's tunnels and, very occasionally, two tunnels would collapse.

They found and then they were brutal medieval melee. Fighting down here in the dark, while two desperate groups of young men fought for their lives, even though April 9 is remembered as one of the most successful days in the Allied war effort, until that moment it is still worth remembering that around 2,400 Canadians lost their lives that day, it is the bloodiest day in Canadian history, but the first, second and third division achieved most of their objectives in the morning, that short dash across no man's land thanks These tunnels really paid off, but the fourth division. They fought so there were lessons to be learned and they did not yet have the ability to completely and decisively break the German lines, which would require more months of brutal warfare.

I have come to the city of Aras and now I am going 20 meters

underground

to look at something truly remarkable, even by the standards of the Western Front, these vast caverns are actually artificial, they are quarries, they were quarried by stonemasons in the 17th and 18th centuries. to obtain the limestone to build the magnificent Aras buildings above me now, when the British took over this part of the front line in early 1916 and realized that these huge old quarries would be the perfect bunkers, basically underground hideouts for the army men, sparing them from the brutal destructive fire of the Germans that was ravaging the area.

The whole city of Aras is surprising that the people of Aris forgot about these quarries, they were used during the Second World War as air raid shelters and were locked up and because it was the British army that ran this

place

during the war. the townspeople didn't really have much connection with this, the townspeople had largely been evacuated and were discovered in the 1990s by rs archaeologist and then turned into a beautiful high-end visitor attraction museum technology and well worth it. Visit it, it's only been open a few years. Sometimes I think nothing connects you to the lives of those men in World War I like the graffiti they left behind.

It's so personal, it's so humorous, and it's in the strangest places we've ever been. the caves now and this is a New Zealand TBM, you can see the nose there, whether it's a big chin, a big chin, a big nose, I like this guy, he's obviously related to me and then he's wearing this iconic New Zealand hat , it was known as a lemon squeezer. He named the Wellington Tunnels not because, well, not directly after the Iron Duke who would have marched near here after his victory at Waterloo, but because a lot of the tunnels here were made by New Zealand diggers and gave each cave system and the names of the corresponding areas. to cities in New Zealand, so we have Wellington here, we have Auckland further north and then we have other New Zealand cities further south as well, so that's what gives this place its underground geography that it was able to maintain in its heyday. around 25,000 soldiers down here was a large underground city that was in fact the population of aras before the war and at times would have been packed with men taking shelter from German bombing raids or preparing for an offensive through 20 kilometers of tunnels. were excavated there are so many little pieces of evidence that take us back to the time of the first world war the black writing here on the latrine of course it is very important if you have so many men down here uh maintenance of health and hygiene is of vital importance for everyone know exactly where to go to the bathrooms, it's very useful to know that it's easy to get lost down here, a lot of numbers on these pillars and then I like these, these are the burn marks from the candles that were later placed on the little shelf over there, so there.

There would have been some electricity down here, but much of it was illuminated by candlelight. It would have been creepy. Imagine yourself illuminated by candles. The thud and shudder of heavy artillery pounding above. It would have felt quite comforting down here, but also quite strange. Probably pretty scary. For many people, this is a World War I tunnel leading from a large quarry to other quarries. These are called Nelson and Blenheim. The reason they are called that is because they are towns in New Zealand that are south of Wellington, which is the Wellington Quarry. It is a bit ironic that all of these quarries are named after famous moments in much of Anglo-French history. , like admiral nelson and the battle of blenheim, although of course we are now in france allied with the french in 1916. one thing i have found a lot of them down here, lots and lots of pickaxe heads.

Those were the vital tool. Everything was done by hand. He said New Zealand tunnels could dig about 60 meters a day down here. Is awesome. I like the way I've recreated the audio below, it gives a very eerie feeling of what it must have been like when it was full of British and Commonwealth troops. You've rebuilt bunk beds here so they've been stacked like sardines and too. objects found on the battlefield from 100 years ago, so the quarries and large cavernous spaces are from the 17th century, but these connecting tunnels were dug during the First World War by both the British and also by New York tunnel diggers.

Zeeland and together they united all of these. quarries in a large underground city this is very exciting this part here this part is not open to the public so it is almost as if the soldiers have still left a lot of detritus from the war although it feels quite safe and solid down here there is evidence now that Quite a significant collapse and although these tunnels were at great depth, obviously the constant bombardment that this area received weakened some of these structures. Some amazing graffiti here, this says it all. Actually a sapper, which is a military word for a minor or tunneller, T Collins, there's his number. date 26 second 1917, I believe, and I said: New Zealand Engineer Tunneling Company, this is one of the legendary New Zealand tunnel diggers who was here.

I have not left his mark. One thing I like about being in these tunnels, you can't. Get lost because the good British Army made sure everyone knew where everyone was at all times. Two arrows from Blenheim, so next we go to the Blenheim quarry. You can see these electrical cables up here, they're actually from World War II when it was. a shelter for French civilians, but there would have been cables here during the British period, but they were removed as the front line advanced, the British stripped these tunnels and took almost everything with them, except they are cans, nests, ammunition boxes, all the detritus that accompanied the armies of the Western Front, you think of the millions of tons of supplies needed to keep this army here in France and Belgium, right where we are going to entrench tools, look at these boots, can you imagine how exciting that must be been? the aras regional archaeologist in the 1990s and discovered these tunnels that have been lost to history, i mean, they say being an archaeologist is not like the great indiana jones, but i think they might be wrong on this occasion, look at this, okay i see a sign for blenheim over here here we go entrance to blenheim with the second world war the mark of the second world war is once now this was a tunnel dug by the New Zealand tunnellers another small mined tunnel that linked a large quarry to this next quarry, so that was Nelson Quarry, let's see what Blenheim has to offer.

It is surprising that these tunnels still pass under Aras today. Much of the legacy of the first war is still hidden from most of us. We go about our daily lives, but it is still lurking there and then. I've got all sorts of graffiti here this remarkable look at this good, like King Shropshire's infantry, that's good, oh it's good to see a light infantry soldier down here, my great grandfather was in the summer Saturday infantry, look at this, there are different numbers of cultures. and the languages ​​and ethnic groups in the mighty British empire at the time it stretched from the Pacific islands to northern Canada, India, had all been down here, pushing each other,

fight

ing for the king emperor, for what it seems, some photos of women here are weird. maybe a love that is beautiful, someone's love or a pin-up.

I think this sounds a lot like Charlie Chaplin. I think graffiti can sometimes bring you closer to these men who are now 100 years dead than almost anything else. Welcome to the historic hit. youtube channel that we are relaunching, we have the best exclusive content that goes directly to this historic youtube channel and you can find out, for example, what the hell am I standing on thetop of this mast, you should probably subscribe.