lk cliff, not unlike some of the chalk
country near Arundel. These places marked the end of the British
sector at the time of the beginning of the battle. On the south or
left bank of the Somme River the ground was held by the French.

* * * * *

Such was our old front line at the beginning of the battle, and so the
travellers of our race will strive to picture it when they see the
ground under the crops of coming Julys. It was never anything but a
makeshift, patched together, and held, God knows how, against greater
strength. Our strongest places were the half-dozen built-up
observation posts at the mines near Fricourt, Serre, and La Boisselle.
For the rest, our greatest strength was but a couple of sandbags deep.
There was no concrete in any part of the line, very few iron girders
and not many iron "humpies" or "elephant backs" to make the roofs of
dugouts. The whole line gives the traveller the impression that it was
improvised (as it was) by amateurs with few tools, and few resources,
as best they could, in a time of need and danger. Like the old,
hurriedly built Long Walls at Athens, it sufficed, and like the old
camps of Caesar it served, till our men could take the much finer lines
of the enemy. A few words may be said about those enemy lines. They
were very different lines from ours.

The defences of the enemy front line varied a little in degree, but
hardly at all in kind, throughout the battlefield. The enemy wire was
always deep, thick, and securely staked with iron supports, which were
either crossed like the letter +X+, or upright, with loops to take the
wire and shaped at one end like corkscrews so as to screw into the
ground. The wire stood on these supports on a thick web, about four
feet high and from thirty to forty feet across. The wire used was
generally as thick as sailor's marline stuff, or two twisted
rope-yarns. It contained, as a rule, some sixteen barbs to the foot.
The wire used in front of our lines was generally galvanized, and
remained grey after months of exposure. The enemy wire, not being
galvanized, rusted to a black colour, and shows up black at a great
distance. In places this web or barrier was supplemented with
trip-wire, or wire placed just above the ground, so that the artillery
observing officers might not see it and so not cause it to be
destroyed. This trip-wire was as difficult to cross as the wire of the
entanglements. In one place (near the