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 WAR ON THE
WESTERN FRONT

OSPREY
PUBLISHING
 WAR ON THE
WESTERN FRONT

Editor
OR GARY SHEFFIELD
First published in Great Britain in 2007 by Osprey Publishing,
Midland House, West Way, Botley, Oxford 0X2 OPH, United Kingdom.
443 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016, USA.
Email: info@ospreypublishing.com

Previously published as Elite 78: World war J Trench warfare (1) 1914-16by Dr Stephen Bull; Elite 84: World war J Trench
warfare (2) 1916-18 by Dr Stephen Bull; Warrior 12: German Stormtrooper 1914-18 by Ian Drury; Warrior 16: British
Tommy 1914-18 by Martin Pegler; and Warrior 79: US Doughboy 1916-19 by Thomas A. Hoff.

© 2007 Osprey Publishing Ltd

All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted
under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrical, chemical, mechanical, optical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. Enquiries should be addressed to
the Publisher.

Every attempt has been made by the Publisher to secure the appropriate permissions for materials reproduced in this book.
If there has been any oversight we will be happy to rectify the situation and written submission should be made to
the Publisher.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978 1 84603 210 3

Adam Hook has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the illustrator
of Warrior 79: US Doughboy 1916-19.
Gary Sheffield has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author
of the foreword to this book.

Index by Alison Worthington

Typeset in Adobe Garamond and Helvetica Neue
Originated by PDQ Digital Media Solutions
Printed in China through World Print Ltd.

07 08 09 10 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For a catalogue of all books published by Osprey please contact:

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Front cover: Gassed, painting by John Sargent, 1856-1925 (The Art Archive I Imperial War Museum)
Back cover: Red poppy (Peter Garbet/iStockphoto)
Endpapers: Third battle ofYpres (IWM, C02265)
Note on British Tommy chapter: First-hand accounts are from the author's interviews with World War I veterans. These
interviews are on tape and are held in the Imperial War Museum archives.
Note on measurements: Both the Imperial and metric systems were in use during the World War I era. No attempt has been
made to standardize to one system in this book, though approximate conversions have been provided where necessary.

Imperial War Museum Collections

Many of the photos in this book come from the Imperial War Museum's huge collections which cover all aspects of conflict
involving Britain and the Commonwealth since the start of the 20th century. These rich resources are available online to
search, browse and buy at www.iwmcollections.org.uk. In addition to Collections Online, you can visit the Visitor Rooms
where you can explore over 8 million photographs, thousands of hours of moving images, the largest sound archive of its
kind in the world, thousands of diaries and letters written by people in wartime, and a huge reference library. To make an
appointment, call (020) 7416 5320, or e-mail mail@iwm.org.uk. Imperial War Museum www.iwm.org.uk
CONTENTS
Foreword by Dr Gary Sheffield 6

PART I: WARRIORS ON THE WESTERN FRONT 8

German Stormtrooper by lan Drury
French Poilu by lan Sumner
British Tommy by Martin Pegler
US Doughboy by Thomas A. Hoff

PART II:TRENCH WARFARE 170

The Early Years of War by Dr Stephen Bull
The Somme and Beyond by Or Stephen Bull

Further Reading 264

Index 266
FOREWORD
Dr Cary Sheffield

World War I was fought in many parts of the globe. The Middle East, East and West Africa, Turkey,
Italy, Poland, Russia, the Balkans, even the Falkland Islands and the South Pacific: all of these
regions saw combat. But it was the Western Front, a narrow band of territory stretching from the
Belgian coast to the Swiss frontier, where the war was decided. Here, from August 1914 to
November 1918, was the primary focus of two of the major belligerents, France and Britain, and
it was where a third, Germany, in March 1918 chose to make an all-out, make or break effort to
win the war. That is not to underplay the importance of other theatres of war, especially the Eastern
Front, but although Germany won a decisive victory over Russia in 1917-18, catastrophic defeat
in the West rendered these successes in the East worthless. In November 1918 Germany, militarily
vanquished by the Western Allies, collapsed into defeat and revolution. There could be no starker
illustration of the primacy of the Western Front during World War I.
The campaigns on the Western Front fall into several easily identifiable phases. The first began
with Germany's execution of the Schlieffen Plan in August 1914. Mobile operations had by
mid-September evolved into semi-open warfare as rudimentary trenches began to appear. The
failure of the Germans to break through the Allied lines at Ypres in early November marked the
effective end of the first phase of fighting on the Western Front. Periods of temporary stalemate
had occurred in earlier conflicts such as the American Civil War (1861-65) and the Russo-Japanese
War (1904-05). At the end of 1914, there was every reason to believe that the deadlock would soon
be broken. World War I repeated the pattern of previous wars, in that trench warfare did prove to
be a hiatus before the resumption of mobility; but it was a phase that lasted longer than anyone
could have imagined at the end of 1914.
The reason for the stalemate lay in the temporary dominance of the defensive over the
offensive. Quick-firing artillery and machine guns, barbed wire and trenches dominated the
battlefield. The sheer numbers of troops crammed into a relatively small area without flanks to turn
made fluid warfare much more difficult to achieve than on the plains of eastern Europe. Unlike
Napoleon and Wellington a century before, or Rommel and Patton a generation later, generals of
1914-18 could not exercise voice control over their corps and divisions. Armies were now too big
and dispersed for such personal control, and radio communications too primitive. And unlike their
counterparts at Waterloo and D-Day, they lacked an effective instrument of exploitation. Horsed
cavalry, although by no means as useless on the Western Front as many have asserted, could no
 FOREWORD

longer carry out its traditional role of exploiting battlefield success, and its eventual natural Opposite:
successor, the tank, was only invented in the middle of the war and was too rudimentary to do Bombers of 1st Battalion,
much more than demonstrate the potential of armoured forces. To this lethal cocktail we must add Scots Guards, in 'Big Willie'
trench at Loos, October 1915.
industrialized societies, fuelled by nationalism, organized for total war and producing armies of
(IWM, 017390)
unprecedented size with war-making materiel to support them. The challenges facing the armies on
the Western Front were unprecedented.
The year 1915 saw the first, fumbling attempts to break the deadlock, but, in spite of new
tactics and weapons, it was marked by battles of attrition on the Western Front. In 1916, this
pattern was repeated at Verdun and on the Somme, but warfare was beginning to take on a
decidedly modern form. The combination of aircraft and artillery working in close cooperation,
and infantry tactics based around the light machine gun, together with the debut of the tank,
pointed the way to developments that characterize warfare to the present day. The year 1917 is
remembered as one of attritional slaughter, but while the casualties were undoubtedly heavy,
tactics were becoming increasingly sophisticated. By the end of the year, as the battle of
Cambrai (November-December 1917) demonstrated, it was increasingly difficult for defenders
to prevent a skilled and determined attacker from breaking through. This conclusion is
reinforced by the initial success of the Germans in March 1918, and the Allies' victorious
'Hundred Days' campaign (August-November). In the end, however, tactical brilliance was not
enough. The Germans failed at the operational and strategic levels; the Allies did not make the
same mistake.
Ultimately, the war was decided not by generals but by the front line soldiers. For four long
years they endured terrible conditions - the sheer resilience of their morale is remarkable. In recent
years, historians have increasingly come to reject the idea that they were mere passive victims of the
enemy or their own commanders. This book puts the ordinary soldier centre stage by bringing
together a number of fascinating studies of Tommy, Fritz, the poilu and the doughboy. All
contributors have taken their own approach to the subject, and there has been no attempt to
impose uniformity of opinion. The resulting book is a treasure-trove of detailed information about
uniforms and weapons, tactics and training, placed into context by an authoritative account of the
evolution of warfare on the Western Front. Novices to the subject and experts alike will find this
an invaluable guide to the Western Front and the soldiers who fought there.

7
PART I

WARRIORS ON
THE WESTERN FRONT

German Stormtrooper by fan Drury 10

French Poilu by fan Sumner 54
British Tommy by Martin Peg/er 92
US Doughboy by Thomas A. Hott 128
GERMAN STORMTROOPER
fan Drury

At 6.20am on 20 November 1917 a thousand guns opened fire on the German trenches defending
the town of Cambrai. Under cover of this ferocious bombardment, 378 tanks lumbered across No
Man's Land, spearheading a surprise attack that smashed through the German lines. After three
years of trench warfare, the British Army had at last developed the means to crack open the Western
Front. The 'green fields beyond' were finally in sight.
For the first time in the war, church bells were rung in England to celebrate a major victory.
However, ten days later the Germans counter-attacked. They swiftly recaptured part of the newly
created salient, and in some places penetrated beyond the original British front line. Yet the Germans
had no tanks. Their attack was led by units of elite infantry: Stosstruppen or 'stormtroops'. Fighting
in small groups, amply equipped with light machine guns, mortars, grenade-launchers and hand
grenades, they advanced at an equally astonishing rate. By midday on 30 November the leading
stormtroops had gained 5 miles.
Units of Stosstruppen had fought in France before, but never in such numbers. Many more
would have been available for the counter-stroke at Cambrai, but most stormtroop formations were
still in Italy, where they had played a key role in the battle of Caporetto, nearly knocking Italy out
of the war, and compelling Britain and France to send sorely needed divisions to shore-up
the Italian Front. However, the victory at Cambrai counted for more to the German military
leadership. It proved that the German Army had the capability to rupture the Western Front, to
penetrate the defences not only of the gravely weakened Italians, but also of the British Army itself.
And unless Germany could achieve victory in the West by the following summer, it was doomed
to certain defeat, since the United States' entry into the war had given the Allies overwhelming
industrial and numerical superiority.
On 3 December 1917 the Bolshevik leaders were compelled to accept an armistice, taking
Russia out of the war. German infantry divisions were already piling into trains to begin the long
journey home, and by the spring of 1918 the German forces on the Western Front had gained
400,000 fresh troops - the last reinforcements they would ever receive.
The German soldiers returning from the East had fought a very different war from their
comrades in the West, and they had a great deal to learn before they could participate in the great
offensive of 1918. The German infantry on the Western Front had been transformed: gone were
the uniformly armed and equipped rifle companies of 1914. The 19th-century style skirmish lines
 GERMAN STORMTROOPER

employed that fateful autumn had become a distant memory. Infantry companies no longer fought Opposite:
as monolithic blocs, but were divided into platoons that were themselves split into sub-units, each A classic study of a stormtrooper.
with a discrete tactical role. By late 1916 the organization of German infantry battalions on the He wears the M1907 engineers'
tunic, and M1917 field-grey
Western Front had begun to foreshadow that of World War 11.
trousers. Around his neck is
In their search for tactical progress on the Western Front, the Stosstruppen were at the forefront
slung a M1917 bandolier for rifle
of modern infantry tactics. Those employed at Cambrai and throughout 1918 involved individual
ammunition clips, leaving his belt
squads of soldiers using a combination of weapons. The magazine-loading rifle - the sole weapon free to hook on four M1916 stick
of the infantry in 1914 - had become just one element in an array of mutually complementary grenades. (Friedrich Herrmann
weapons. While British and French tactics had advanced too, in some respects they had not Memorial Collection)
travelled as far or as fast: by 1918 the German stormtroop battalions were using the same sort of
'gun group' and 'rifle group' minor tactics that 2 Para used at Goose Green in 1982: indeed, the
infantry battle on the desolate ridgeline above Darwin would probably have seemed remarkably
familiar to a World War I stormtrooper (although the lack of artillery would have astonished him).
Trenches were suppressed by machine gun fire, then assaulted with grenades (in 1918 the
stormtroops used cut-down Russian field guns and rifle grenades); particularly difficult bunkers
were tackled with heavy weapons.
Like the Parachute Regiment, the stormtroopers had a strong esprit de corps. Fit and aggressive
A stormtroop company poses
shock troops, they earned their distinctions - and extra rations - by proven bravery on the battlefield.
for a group photograph during
Their training emphasized individual initiative. Non-commissioned officers were no longer there just 1918. It is at less than half its
to enforce the officers' authority, but to provide tactical leadership throughout the platoon. established strength in riflemen,
The British learned through bitter experience how successful the Germans' defensive tactics had but it includes two MG08s and
become, and in 1918 they began to reorganize along the same lines. But stormtroops and their one MG08/15. (IWM, 055371)

11
WAR ON THE WESTERN FRONT

This group of nine soldiers has

formed an assault party in order
to raid an enemy trench in 1916.
All wear the standard infantry
uniform with M1907 or simplified
M1907 field tunics, M1907
trousers and marching boots.
(Friedrich Herrmann Memorial
Collection)

methods were never fully understood. The effects of their actions were painfully clear, but even
when it came to writing the official history, the best explanation the British official historian could
offer was that the Germans had copied the idea from a French pamphlet (Vol 11 of The Official
History of Operations in France and Belgium 1917 credits Captain Andre Laffargue, whose
pamphlet 'The Attack in Trench Warfare' was commercially published in 1916).
In the forefront of tactical development throughout the conflict, stormtroopers were still
associated with victory even after Germany plunged to defeat. In the chaos that followed that
defeat, many paramilitary groups modelled themselves in the stormtroops' image. One even
hijacked the name. When the then-obscure German Workers' Party organized a gang of toughs to
deal with its opponents on the street, it called them the Sturmabteilung (SA) ('assault detachment')
in conscious imitation. The SA was to become the strong arm of the Nazi party until Adolf Hitler
achieved supreme power.

CREATING AN ELITE
The first official German stormtroop unit was authorized on 2 March 1915. Oberste Heeresleitung
(OHL), the High Command of the field army, ordered the VIII Corps to form a detachment for
the testing of experimental weapons and the development of appropriate tactics that could break
the deadlock on the Western Front. It was considered a natural job for the pioneers - the only
element of the pre-war army experienced with hand grenades and trained for siege warfare.
For several decades the German Army had been preparing to invade its neighbours. Not
entirely ignorant of German intentions, the French, Belgian and Russian governments had fortified
their frontiers, guarding vital road and rail junctions with modern castles of concrete and steel.

12
 GERMAN STORMTROOPER

CHRONOLOGY 1 July 1916 The battle of the Somme begins. Although

the first day is a disaster for the British, by
1 August 1914 Germany declares war on Russia. August the Germans have lost more men
3 August 1914 Germany invades Belgium, France in this battle than in six months of fighting
and Luxemburg. around Verdun.

5-10 September 1914 German invasion of France defeated

15 September 1916 Tanks are used for the first time in a
at the battle of the Marne. British operation on the Somme.
23 October 1916 All German armies in the West ordered
9-14 September 1914 German counter-attacks defeat and
to form a stormtroop battalion, although
destroy the Russian armies that have
many have created unofficial stormtroop
invaded East Prussia.
units already.
Oct-Nov 1914 German attacks at Ypres fail to break
December 1916 German Army introduces the MG08/15
the British Expeditionary Force and
machine-gun as a GPMG, but captured
the front line on the Western Front
Lewis guns remain in widespread use until
is established from the Channel to
the end of the war.
Switzerland. It will barely move for
the next three years. 31 January 1917 Germany announces unrestricted
submarine warfare.
18 January 1915 The first flame-thrower unit is created by
the German Army, commanded by Captain 23 February 1917 German armies in the West begin to
Hermann Reddemann, former chief of the withdraw to the Hindenburg Line.
Leipzig fire brigade. 12 March 1917 First Russian Revolution. Tsar Nicholas
2 March 1915 The German Army High Command abdicates on 15 March.
authorizes the creation of the first official 30 November 1917 Stosstruppen spearhead the German
stormtroop unit, a company commanded counter-attack at Cambrai, penetrating up
by Major Kaslow of the 18th Pioneer to 5 miles on the first day.
Battalion. 3 December 1917 Bolsheviks agree armistice, taking Russia
23 May 1915 Italy declares war on the Central Powers. out of the war, and releasing 400,000
August 1915 Major Kaslow is replaced by Captain Rohr German troops for operations in the West.
of the Guards Rifles and the unit is 21 March 1918 Ludendorff offensives begin with an attack
renamed Sturmabteilung Rohr. on the British Fifth Army that achieves a
21 February 1916 German offensive begins at Verdun. complete breakthrough, rupturing the
Sturmabteilung Rohr is transferred there. Western Front for the first time since 1914.

1 April 1916 Sturmabteilung Rohr expanded to battalion 15 JUly 1918 Ludendorff begins the last of his offensives
strength. that ultimately fail to break the Allied
armies. German casualties in these
May 1916 German High Command orders all armies
operations total 963,000.
on the Western Front to send two officers
8-12 August 1918 At the battle of Amiens, the British break
and four NCOs to Sturmbataillon Rohr
clean through the German front line,
to be trained in the new weapons and
overrunning corps HQs with armoured cars.
tactics.
October 1918 The influenza pandemic strikes Germany.
4 June 1916 Brusilov offensive begins: the Russians
Killing over 400,000 people, it quickly
inflict a major defeat on Austria-Hungary,
spreads to the army.
forcing the Germans to divert troops,
including new stormtroop formations, 9 November 1918 Kaiser Wilhelm abdicates.
to the Eastern Front. 11 November 1918 Armistice signed.

13
WAR ON THE WESTERN FRONT

A machine gun post in a front line

trench during the retreat to the
Siegfried Line, February 1917.
As German infantry companies
received more light machine
guns, platoons began to subdivide
into 'gun groups' and 'rifle groups',
capable of independent fire and
movement. (IWM, 044170)

While the German Army had acquired the heavy artillery and specialist engineer units to storm
such strongpoints, it had not anticipated the stalemate that was to follow its failure to defeat the
French Army in 1914.
Machine guns were at the heart of the problem. Even more effective than pre-war studies had
suggested, they showed a remarkable ability to survive artillery bombardment in sufficient numbers
to mow down attacking infantry. All armies had experienced this, but the armaments company
Krupp, in Germany, was first to offer a technical solution. If heavy artillery could not succeed, why
not try the opposite tack? Krupp designed the Sturmkanone - a 3.7cm light cannon that could
be easily manoeuvred in the front line - and to test it the first Sturmabteilung was created.
Commanded by a pioneer officer, Major Kaslow of the 18th Pioneer Battalion, the detachment
became known as Sturmabteilung Kaslow. Other equipment they evaluated included steel helmets
and body armour. After three months' training the unit was sent into action, parcelled out in
detachments to various front line battalions. The Krupp guns proved cumbersome and vulnerable,
and the unit suffered over 30 per cent losses in a series of minor attacks.
Kaslow was replaced in August 1915 by Captain Willy Ernst Rohr, a 37-year-old career soldier
from the prestigious Garde-Schiitzen (Guard Rifles) Battalion. Under his dynamic leadership, the
assault detachment evolved new tactics to break into an enemy trench system. The Sturmkanone
were replaced by cut-down field guns captured from the Russians, and the soldiers adapted their
uniforms and personal equipment to suit their new methods. Combat operations in the Vosges
that autumn suggested Rohr's ideas were sound, and in early February 1916 Sturmabteilung Rohr
was transferred to Verdun. It was expanded to battalion strength on 1 April, and in May the High
Command ordered all armies on the Western Front to send two officers and four NCOs to Rohr's
command to learn the new techniques. Sturmbataillon Rohr was to be an instructional unit with
a high turnover in personnel, not an elite formation that simply creamed off the most capable
soldiers from line regiments.

14
 GERMAN STORMTROOPER

FORMATION OF STOSSTRUPPEN
On 23 October 1916 General Ludendorff ordered all German armies in the West to form a
battalion of stormtroops. Impressed by an honour guard from Sturmbataillon Rohr he had
inspected at the Crown Prince's headquarters, Ludendorff soon became aware that the German
armies in France and Belgium had changed considerably in the two years he had been away in
Russia. By the beginning of December 1916, the First, Second and Fifth German armies each had
an assault battalion, and the other 14 German armies established one during the course of the
month. However, many of these new Sturmbataillone were created by amalgamating existing
stormtroop units that had sprung up among the divisions. While Rohr's battalion was created by
the High Command (and soon won powerful friends, including the Crown Prince, von Falkenhayn
and ultimately Ludendorff), it had no monopoly of new tactical ideas. Since mid-1915 some
German regiments had been creating small units of shock troops from within their own ranks.
These select troops operated in sections, platoons and even whole companies, and enjoyed a variety
of tides. Many favoured Sturmtrupp (assault troop), but others included ]agdkommando (hunting
Stormtroopers are inspected
commando) and Patrouillentrupp (raid troop). When the first flame-thrower units were assembled
outside their rest billets before
in early 1915, under Captain Reddemann, he called his men Stosstruppen (stormtroops). This
going into the line. Note the
caught the soldiers' imagination and, regardless of their unit's actual title, the men of these first
sandbags bulging with stick
assault detachments began to refer to themselves as Stosstruppen. grenades, and the puttees and
OHL did not intend the stormtroops to be a permanent feature of the German order of battle boots that have replaced the
but a model for the rest of the army. Once this had been achieved, the stormtroop formations were pre-war jackboots. (IWM, 085934)

15
WAR ON THE WESTERN FRONT

to disappear. Consequently, the stormtroop battalions were never incorporated into the peacetime
army structure and were never assigned home barracks or recruiting areas in Germany. They were
not associated with historical regiments from the 18th century in the way regular regiments
embraced their military heritage; nor did they receive colours.
By November 1916 more than 30 German divisions included some sort of assault detachment.
Several independent corps, Landwehr divisions and even the Naval Division had also established a
stormtrooper unit on their own initiative. This remarkable process of parallel development
stemmed from the training methods and doctrine of the pre-war German Army. In all other major
This stormtrooper, shown in a armies training methods were determined by the High Command, but the 22 corps districts of the
posed study, is demonstrating the
Imperial German Army were fiercely independent. While the renowned General Staff planned
use of the M1917 stick grenade.
German strategy, peacetime troop movements were left entirely to the corps commanders, who
Note at his feet six grenade heads
reported directly to the Kaiser. This tradition of tactical independence paid handsome dividends
wired around a completed
grenade to form a 'concentrated after 1914. The general staffs of other armies worked equally hard to solve the tactical problems
charge'. (Friedrich Herrmann of the Western Front, but many handicapped themselves by trying to micro-manage the front
Memorial Collection) line battle. German regimental officers, accustomed to less interference in their tactics, had
more freedom to experiment. As a result, by the summer of 1915
stormtroop units were springing up throughout the German armies
in the West. Sturmbataillon Rohr would be the most famous, and
was instrumental in winning official approval for stormtroops, but
the simultaneous appearance of assault detachments in so many
divisions demonstrates just how successfully the German military
system encouraged individual initiative.

UNIFORMS
German infantrymen began World War I in one of the more practical
uniforms worn by the rival armies. Although the style of the German
field service dress harked back to the glory days of 1870, the 1910-
pattern feldgrau uniform was eminently suitable for the opening
campaigns of 1914. However, once the German Army went on the
defensive in the West, the soldiers' appearance began to change. One
of the first casualties was the Pickelhaube itself. Its spike served no
practical purpose but was the first part of a German soldier to become
visible if he peered over the parapet, and front line soldiers soon
dispensed with it. The M 1915 Pickelhaube featured a detachable
spike, and the drab cloth cover worn over it lost the red regimental
number on the front. The construction of the M 1915-pattern
Pickelhaube reveals a second influence on the German soldiers'
appearance, and one that would prove almost as significant as the
demands of trench warfare: the effect of the Allied blockade. The
Pickelhaube was supposed to be made from boiled leather, but felt,
thin metal and even compressed cardboard were tried as substitutes.

16
 GERMAN STORMTROOPER

The stormtroop detachments in 1915 wore standard service uniforms. During that year, the
appearance of the front line troops differed only in minor detail from that of 1914. In a change
agreed before the war, steingrau (stone-grey) trousers were introduced to replace the feldgrau ones German stormtroops, 1917. The
because the latter seem to have faded too quickly. The M1907-10 tunic was superseded by a more centre and left figures are part
of a Flammenwerferteam,
utilitarian version - the distinctive cuffs were replaced by plain turnbacks, and the false skirt pocket
3rd Guard Pioneer Battalion.
flaps disappeared. Soldiers were supposed to blacken their leather equipment, including their boots,
This team's weapon is the Kleif
belts and cartridge pouches, but this was not always possible in the front line, as captured
M1916, which was capable of
equipment shows. about 20 metres' (66 feet) range.
The centre figure directs the
projector pipe, while the figure on
WARTIME EQUIPMENT the left carries the fuel tank. The
From 1915 soldiers were issued with a new piece of defensive equipment - one that was to prove figure on the right is the platoon
leader. At his belt he carries three
indispensable when the German scientists introduced their so-called 'higher form of killing'. The
1916 stick grenades. He is hurling
M 1915 respirator had a rubberized fabric face piece and a detachable filter (soldiers carried a spare).
a 'concentrated' charge consisting
The increase in the use of poison gas by both sides compelled soldiers to carry respirators and to
of six grenade heads wired
rig up gas alarms in their front line positions. It also added a unique element of horror to the around a complete stick grenade.
battlefield. However, for all the suffering it caused, this ghastly application of industrial technology (Adam Hook © Osprey
failed to break the deadlock. Publishing Ltd)

17
WAR ON THE WESTERN FRONT

On 21 September 1915 the German Army introduced a completely new infantry uniform. The
Bluse (blouse) was supposed to replace both earlier tunics, although the 1907/10 and 1914 patterns
remained in use until the end of the war. Cut slightly looser, it had two large slanted pockets at the
front, and looked rather more like a modern combat jacket than the 19th-century style of the
earlier tunics. The front buttons - metal, painted grey - were concealed behind a flap, and the
shoulder straps were detachable. Manufactured in a dark field grey, it had a fall-down collar faced
with green. As before, the jackets ofJager and Schiitzen regiments were dyed a much greener shade
of feldgrau.
The M1895 knapsack, with its distinctive cow hide back, was too cumbersome for trench
warfare. While it remained on issue until 1918 and was worn in action on the Russian Front, by
late 1915 German infantry in France and Belgium had begun to use an 'assault pack'. They
wrapped their greatcoat in a tent cloth and rolled it around a mess tin, creating a smaller, handier
pack, more suited to their needs. Their old knapsacks would be used when marching behind the
lines, but were often put into battalion stores while the infantry were in the front line.
The first article of uniform that distinguished a stormtrooper from a regular infantryman
appeared in early 1916. In time, it would become the trademark of the German soldier in both
World Wars. Its very shape has such an emotional charge that the US Army agonized throughout
the 1970s before introducing its similarly shaped Kevlar helmet - soon dubbed the 'Fritz'. The
M1916 Stahlhelm was part of a range of body armour tested by the German Army from 1915.
Dubbed by the British the 'coal scuttle' helmet, it was made from silicon-nickel steel and weighed
1.2kg (2 t /21b). Extending over the ears and back of the neck, it offered better protection than either
the French M 1915 mild-steel 'Adrian' helmet or the revived medieval design favoured by the
British. It was padded inside and adjusted by leather straps to fit each individual. Thick lugs
projected from either side to support an additional steel plate across the front of the helmet. The
Stahlhelm was issued to sentries and snipers, but was rarely seen by ordinary riflemen.
From its inception, Sturmabteilung Rohr was used to test body armour that might be effective
in No Man's Land. The early stormtroops experimented with shields rather like those used today
for riot control; but in those pre-Kevlar days, the German shields were made from solid steel and
proved too heavy to use during an attack. The protection they offered could not compensate for
the loss of mobility. Steel breastplates were similarly restrictive, and tended to be worn by look-outs
or other exposed personnel in static positions.
The German Army's pre-war interest in siege warfare paid an unexpected bonus in the autumn
of 1914: the arsenals of its border fortresses were packed with hand grenades, originally intended
for use by the garrisons. These were shipped to the front line, where they gave the Germans a useful
advantage during the first months of trench warfare. Since only the pioneers had been trained in
their use, individual pioneers were posted to infantry battalions as supervisors. During 1915 two
new types of grenade entered production and soon became standard weapons: the Eierhandgranate
(egg grenade) and the Stielhandgranate (stick grenade).
By February 1916, when the German Army launched its great offensive at Verdun, stormtroop
detachments had begun to assume a rather different appearance from soldiers in regular infantry
battalions. Stormtroops were among the first to receive the new steel helmet; most of the Fifth
German Army's infantry were still wearing the Pickelhaube with the spike removed. The
stormtroops spearheading the attack were well equipped with stick grenades, each carrying a dozen

18
 GERMAN STORMTROOPER

or more in a sandbag slung across his chest. Captain Rohr's men had also substituted ankle boots Six members of an assault
and puttees for their 1866-pattern leather jackboots - another practice that was to spread detachment pose proudly with
throughout the assault units over the following two years. The stormtroopers had also started a group of dejected French
prisoners they have just captured.
sewing leather patches on their elbows and knees - shielding their most vulnerable joints from the
Some troopers have field-made
wear and tear of crawling. The first wave over the top at Verdun was primarily armed with hand
cloth helmet covers; M1907
grenades, so the men carried their rifles slung and did not wear the issue belt and shoulder harness
infantry field tunics are worn with
that supported the ammunition pouches. Extra clips of 7.92mm cartridges were carried in cloth M1917 trousers, M1866 marching
bandoliers, each holding 70 rounds. boots or puttees with M1912
By the end of 1916 official stormtroop battalions were established throughout the Western ankle boots. They carry locally
armies. Soldiers were selected from regular battalions, posted to a stormtroop formation for a made grenade sacks, and the
period and then returned to their original unit. A typical infantry battalion of mid-1917 would corporal (left) has a field torch
suspended from a front button.
have included a number of officers and junior NCOs who had served in a stormtroop formation.
(Friedrich Herrmann Memorial
Exact figures are impossible to obtain, since a high proportion of the Imperial Army's records was
Collection)
destroyed by RAF Bomber Command in 1945.
Men who had served with the stormtroops may well have returned with different uniforms
as well as different tactical ideas. In Ludwig Renn's autobiographical novel, Krieg ('Ular), a newly
arrived officer says to an NCO, 'You are wearing puttees and leather knee-pieces. Is that allowed

19
WAR ON THE WESTERN FRONT

In the regiment, sergeant-major?' Learning

that the man has just returned from a storm
battalion, the captain is delighted, and plans a
whole platoon of assault troops. But Renn
implies that some line officers were not best
pleased with N COs returning to the battalion
with personalized uniforms - and a new sense
of their own importance. Renn's real name
was Arnold von Golssenau, and he was a
career officer who may have encountered such
an attitude among his colleagues.

WEAPONS SHORT
MAGAZINE
RIFLES AND CARBINES
In 1914 German infantry regiments were
uniformly armed with the 1898-pattern
Mauser rifle. Chambered for the 8x57mm
rimless cartridge, it held five rounds in an
internal box magazine that was loaded through
the action by brass stripper clips. The side of
the stock was cut away on the right, allowing
the soldier to slide the cartridges in with the
flat of his thumb, rather than push them down
with the tip. This had a practical advantage
over the British Short Magazine Lee-Enfield
(SMLE) in which you had to press home
the rounds with the end of your thumb,
sometimes splintering the nail in your haste to
get the rifle back into action (see p.105). On
the other hand, because it was cocked on
Sturmbataillon Rohr tested opening, the Mauser bolt was less tolerant of poor quality ammunition and dirt around the
several types of body armour in breach. One could not retain his sight picture while working the Mauser's action, and the
1915, rejecting all but the steel magazine only held half as many rounds as an SMLE. The Germans attempted to increase the
helmet as too cumbersome to
Mauser's firepower by issuing a 25-round magazine, but it only appeared in limited numbers and
fight in. This elaborate breastplate
was rather awkward to handle. With its backsight down, the M 1898 was sighted to 200 metres
was subsequently issued to some
(219 yards), and it could be elevated by 50-metre (55-yard) increments to a maximum of 2,000
snipers and sentries. (Friedrich
Herrmann Memorial Collection) metres (1.2 miles). Weighing 4kg (9Ib) unloaded, and 1,250mm (4ft) long, the M1898 was a
robust and accurate weapon, ideally suited to the open warfare of 1914, but not for the trench
fighting that followed.
20
 GERMAN STORMTROOPER

The German Army issued carbines to all other arms: cavalry, artillery, pioneers, independent A German machine gun platoon
machine gun companies and motor transport units. The only infantry units to use them at the on the march during the second
beginning of the war were the Jager and Schiitzen battalions. The standard carbine was the battle of the Somme, 1918. They
are equipped with captured
M1898AZ (Karabiner 98 mit Aufplanz- und Zusammensetzvorrichtung), which was 1,090mm
British Lewis guns, which were
(3 1/2ft) long and had a 590mm barrel instead of the 600mm of the M1898. Two much shorter
used extensively by German
carbines had been tested before the war, but were rejected because the muzzle-flash and recoil from
machine gun units after 1916.
a 435mm barrel proved unacceptable. (IWM, 055482)
Sturmbataillon Rohr adopted the K.98 carbine during 1915, and it slowly became the standard
armament of stormtroop formations throughout the German armies in the West. It was
significantly shorter, and thus handier in the confines of the trenches; but at prevailing combat
ranges it was no less accurate or hard-hitting. When it came to re-arm in the 1930s, the German
Army adopted a new Mauser with similar dimensions to the K.98 for all infantry units.

AUTOMATIC WEAPONS
The stormtroop battalions also received the world's first effective sub-machine gun, the MP 18.
Designed by Hugo Schmiesser, the MP 18 introduced most of the features that were to make the
sub-machine gun the key close-quarter weapon ofWorld War 11. Chambered for 9mm Parabellum,
the MP 18 fired from the open bolt: pulling the trigger sent the bolt forward, where it stripped the
uppermost round from the magazine, chambered it and fired it. If the trigger was held back, the

21
WAR ON THE WESTERN FRONT

bolt continued to cycle, driven directly back by the propellant gas and flung forward again by the
return spring. It was mechanically simple and highly effective. Over 30,000 were supplied to the
German Army during 1918, but most of them arrived after the great March offensive. General
Ludendorff looked to the MP 18 to increase the defensive power of the German infantry as the
Allies began their assault on the Hindenburg Line.
Some soldiers in the stormtroop battalions had had experience with rapid-fire weapons, if not
automatics. NCOs in charge of machine gun or mortar teams were often equipped with pistols
capable of doubling as a carbine. Both the P08 Luger and the 'Broomhandle' Mauser were capable
of receiving a shoulder stock which gave them an effective range of over 91 metres (100 yards).
More practically, it gave the NCOs a handy self-defence weapon that was much better than a rifle
when enemy bombing parties were closing in. For close-quarter fighting in the enemy trenches, an
Artillery Model Luger with a 32-round 'snail' magazine made much more sense than a bolt-action
rifle with a five-round magazine. As Erwin Rommel observed in Attacks, 'In a man-to-man fight,
the winner is he who has one more round in his magazine.'

HAND GRENADES
The pioneers' hand grenades of 1914 were soon replaced by far more effective weapons. The
M 1915 Stielhandgranate is the most famous, and it became almost the primary weapon of the
assault battalions. When stormtroop detachments led the attack at Verdun in February 1916, many
of them went into action with their rifles slung, leaving their hands free to lob stick grenades into
surviving French positions. The stick grenade consisted of a hollow cylinder about 100mm (4in)
Germans practise throwing hand long and 75mm (3in) in diameter containing an explosive mixture of potassium perchlorate,
grenades. (Ian Drury) barium nitrate, black powder and powdered aluminium. The cylinder had a metal clip on the side,

22
 GERMAN STORMTROOPER

enabling it to be attached to a belt. It also had a hollow wooden throwing handle 225mm (9in)
long. A cord projected from the bulbous end; pulling it ignited a friction tube that detonated the
main charge 5 /2 seconds later. Some were issued with 7-second fuses, others with 3-second fuses;
J

the type of fuse was stamped on the handle. There was also a percussion-fused version, detonated
by a spring-powered striker when it hit the ground.
In 1916 German infantry began to receive a new grenade, the Eierhandgranate or 'egg grenade'.
Weighing 310g (lloz) it was made of cast iron, painted black and was the size and shape of a hen's
egg. A friction lighter ignited a 5-second fuse, although an 8-second fuse was available if it was fired
from a grenade-launcher. This tiny grenade could be thrown as far as 50 metres (55 yards) by an
experienced grenadier, but its explosive effect was fairly limited. The egg grenade was first
encountered by the British on the Somme: stormtroops counter-attacked north ofThiepval in July
1916, hurling the new grenades into captured trenches and re-taking most of the original German
front line.
Both main types of German grenade relied primarily on blast rather than fragmentation, and
they were far more effective in the confines of a trench than in the open field. Stormtroopers
assaulting particularly well-defended positions tended to tape batches of stick grenades together
and then post these deadly packages over the enemy parapet or into the slits of concrete bunkers.

MACHINE GUNS
The German Army did not take to machine guns with the same readiness as the British and French
armies: only in 1913 were they issued to line infantry regiments. However, wartime experience
soon vindicated the machine gun lobby of the pre-war army, and the number of machine gun
companies rose rapidly. In 1914 each infantry regiment included a six-gun machine gun company.
During 1915 regiments received supplementary machine gun sections of 30-40 men and three
or four machine guns, and by the end of the year many regiments had two full strength machine
gun companies. In the winter of 1915/16 specialist machine gun units, known as machine gun
marksmen (Maschinengewehr Scharfichutzen Trupps) were created. Trained specifically for offensive
use of machine guns, their personnel underwent a four- or five-week instruction course and were
formed into independent companies of six guns. They were first seen at the front line at Verdun.
By mid-1916 the ad hoc development of machine gun units had left some regiments with as
many as 25 machine guns, and others with their regulation six. In August a new standard
organization was adopted: all machine gun companies were to consist of six weapons and all infantry
regiments were to have three such companies, one attached to each infantry battalion. The machine
gun marksmen companies were grouped into machine gun detachments (Maschinen-Gewehr
Scharfichutzen-Abteilungen), each of three companies. One such detachment was normally attached
to each division engaged in active operations at the front. When the divisional Sturmbataillone were
formed in December 1916, each battalion had either one or two machine gun companies.
The number of German machine gun units continued to increase during 1917, although the
number of machine gun companies per regiment remained the same. Machine gun companies were
expanded to eight, ten and finally 12 weapons per company, and the number of independent
companies was increased too. A stormtroop battalion could have anything from 12 to 24 machine
guns, while independent Sturmkompagnien had their own machine gun platoon of two weapons.

23
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insurance—Euthanasia, I suppose? Really, the Euthanasia’s been
responsible for more crimes than psychoanalysis.”
“Yes, I’m afraid you’ve got it all right. What did he die of?”
“Something that generally means suicide—or rather, you think it
does. The old sleeping draught business? Veronal?”
“No stupid, gas. The gas left turned on. And where’s Chilthorpe,
please?”
“It’s on the railway. If my memory serves me right, it is Chilthorpe
and Gorrington, between Bull’s Cross and Lowgill Junction. But the
man, you say, belongs somewhere else?”
“Pullford; at least it sounded like that. In the Midlands
somewhere, he said.”
“Pullford, good Lord, yes. One of these frightful holes. They make
perambulators or something there, don’t they? A day’s run, I should
think, in the car. But of course it’s this Chilthorpe place we want to
get to. You wouldn’t like to look it up in the gazetteer while I just get
this row finished, would you?”
“I shan’t get your sock finished, then. On your own foot be it! Let’s
see, here’s Pullford all right. . . . It isn’t perambulators they make, it’s
drain-pipes. There’s a grammar school there, and an asylum; and
the parish church is a fine specimen of early Perp., extensively
restored in 1842; they always are. Has been the seat of a Roman
Catholic Bishopric since 1850. The Baptist Chapel”——
“I did mention, didn’t I, that it was Chilthorpe I wanted to know
about?”
“All in good time. Let’s see, Chilthorpe—it isn’t a village really, it’s
a ship town. It has 2,500 inhabitants. There’s a lot here about the
glebe. It stands on the River Busk, and there is trout fishing.”
“Ah, that sounds better.”
“Meaning exactly?”
“Well, it sounds as if the fellow had done himself in by accident all
right. He went there to fish—you don’t go to a strange village to
commit suicide.”
“Unless you’ve got electric light in your house and want to commit
suicide with gas.”
“That’s true. What was the name of the inn, by the way?”
“The Load of Mischief. Such a jolly dedication, I think.”
 “Now let’s try the map.”
“I was coming to that. Here’s the Busk all right. I say, how funny,
there’s a place on the Busk called ‘Mottram.’ ”
“Anywhere near Chilthorpe?”
“I haven’t found it yet. Oh, yes, here it is, about four miles away.
Incidentally, it’s only twenty miles or so from Pullford. Well, what
about it? Are we going by car?”
“Why not? The Rolls is in excellent condition. Two or three days
ought to see us through; we can stay, with any luck, at the Load of
Mischief, and the youthful Francis will be all the better for being left
to his nurse for a day or two. You’ve been feeding him corn, and he
is becoming obstreperous.”
“You don’t deserve to have a son. However, I think you’re right. I
don’t want to trust you alone in a ship town of 2,500 inhabitants,
some of them female. Miles, dear, this is going to be one of your big
successes, isn’t it?”
“On the contrary, I shall lose no time in reporting to the directors
that the deceased gentleman had an unfortunate accident with the
gas, and they had better pay up like sportsmen. I shall further point
out that it is a great waste of their money keeping a private spy at
all.”
“Good, then I’ll divorce you! I’m going to bed now. Not beyond the
end of that second row, mind; we shall have to make an early start
to-morrow.”
 Chapter III.
At the Load of Mischief
By next morning Bredon’s spirits had risen. He had received by
the early post a confidential letter from the company describing Mr.
Mottram’s curious offer, and suggesting (naturally) that the state of
his health made suicide a plausible conjecture. The morning was
fine, the car running well, the road they had selected in admirable
condition. It was still before tea time when they turned off from its
excellent surface onto indifferent by-roads, through which they had
to thread their way with difficulty. The signposts, as is the wont of
English signposts, now blazoned “Chilthorpe,” “Chilthorpe,”
“Chilthorpe,” as if it were the lodestone of the neighbourhood, now
passed it over in severe silence, preferring to call attention to the fact
that you were within five furlongs of Little Stubley. They had fallen,
besides, upon hill country, with unexpected turns and precipitous
gradients; they followed with enforced windings the bleak valley of
the Busk, which swirled beneath them over smooth boulders
between desolate banks. It was just after they had refused the fifth
invitation to Little Stubley that the County Council’s arrangements
played them false; there was a clear issue between two rival roads,
with no trace of a signpost to direct their preference. It was here that
they saw, and hailed, an old gentleman who was making casts into a
promising pool about twenty yards away.
“Chilthorpe?” said the old gentleman. “All the world seems to be
coming to Chilthorpe. The County Council does not appear to have
allowed for the possibility of its becoming such a centre of fashion. If
you are fond of scenery, you should take the road to the left; it goes
over the hill. If you like your tea weak, you had better take the valley
road to the right. Five o’clock is tea time at the Load of Mischief, and
there is no second brew.”
 Something in the old gentleman’s tone seemed to invite
confidences. “Thank you very much,” said Bredon. “I suppose the
Load of Mischief is the only inn that one can stop at?”
“There was never much to be said for the Swan. But to-day the
Load of Mischief has added to its attractions; it is not everywhere
you can sleep with the corpse of a suicide in the next room. And the
police are in the house, to satisfy the most morbid imagination.”
“The police? When did they come?”
“About luncheon time. They are understood to have a clue. I am
only afraid, myself, that they will want to drag the river. The police
always drag the river if they can think of nothing else to do.”
“You’re staying at the inn, I gather?”
“I am the surviving guest. When you have tasted the coffee in the
morning you will understand the temptation to suicide; but so far I
have resisted it. You are not relatives, I hope, of the deceased?”
“No; I’m from the Indescribable. We insured him, you know.”
“It must be a privilege to die under such auspices. But I am afraid
I have gone beyond my book: when I say poor Mottram committed
suicide I am giving you theory not fact.”
“The police theory?”
“Hardly. I left before they arrived. It is the landlady’s theory, and
when you know her better you will know that it is as well not to
disagree with her; it provokes discussion.”
“I am afraid she must be very much worried by all this.”
“She is in the seventh heaven of lamentation. You could knock
her down, she tells me, with a feather. She insists that her custom is
ruined for ever; actually, you are the second party to stay at the inn
as the result of this affair, and the jug and bottle business at mid-day
was something incredible. The Band of Hope was there en masse,
swilling beer in the hope of picking up some gossip.”
“The other party, were they relations?”
“Oh no, it’s a policeman; a real policeman from London. The
secretary, I suppose, must have lost his head, and insisted on
making a cause célèbre of the thing. I forgot him, by the way, a little
chap called Brinkman; he’s at the Load too. A thousand pardons, but
I see a fish rising. It is so rare an event here that I must go and
attend to it.” And, nodding pleasantly, the old gentleman made his
way to the bank again.
Chilthorpe is a long, straggling village with the business part
(such as it is) at the lower end. The church is here, and the Load of
Mischief, and a few shops; here, too, the Busk flows under a wide
stone bridge—a performance which at most times of the day attracts
a fair crowd of local spectators. The houses are of grey stone, the
roofs of blue slate. The rest of the village climbs up along the valley
all in one street; the houses stand perched on the edge of a steep
slope, too steep almost for the cultivation of gardens, though a few
currant and gooseberry bushes retain a precarious foothold. The
view has its charms; when mists hang over it in autumn, or when the
smoke of the chimneys lingers idly on a still summer evening, it has
a mysterious and strangely un-English aspect.
The hostess, presumably to be identified with “J. Davis, licensed
to sell wines, spirits and tobacco,” met them on the threshold,
voluble and apparently discouraging. Her idea seemed to be that she
could not have any more guests coming and committing suicide in
her house. Bredon, afraid that his patience or his gravity would break
down, put Angela in charge of the conversation, and so delicate was
her tact, so well-placed her sympathy, that within ten minutes their
arrival was being hailed as a godsend, and Mrs. Davis, ordering the
barmaid to bring tea as soon as it could be procured, ushered them
into a private room, assuring them of accommodation upstairs when
she could put things to rights. It had been one thing after another,
she complained, all day, she didn’t really hardly know which way to
turn, and her house always a respectable one. There was not much
custom, it seemed, at Chilthorpe, lying so far away from the main
road and that—you would have supposed that in a R.A.C. Listed
Hotel suicides were a matter of daily occurrence, and the
management knew how to deal with them. Whereas Mrs. Davis
hadn’t anybody but the girl and the Boots, and him only with one
arm. And those boys coming and looking in through the front
window; “disgraceful,” she called it; and what were the police for if
they couldn’t put a stop to it? And the reporters—six of them she’d
turned away that very day—coming and prying into what didn’t
concern them. They didn’t get a word out of her, that was one thing.
 Though, mark you, if Mrs. Davis didn’t know poor Mr. Mottram,
who did? Coming there regular year after year for the fishing, poor
gentleman; such a quiet gentleman too, and never any goings-on.
And how was she to know what would come of it? It wasn’t that the
gas leaked; time and again she’d had those pipes seen to, and no
complaints made. If there had have been anything wrong, Mr.
Pulteney, he’d have let her hear about it, he was one for having
everything just as he liked, and no mistake. . . . Yes, that would be
him, he was a great one for the fishing. Such a queer gentleman too,
and always taking you up short. Why, yesterday morning, when she
went to tell him about what had happened in the night he was as
cool as anything; all he said was, “In that case, Mrs. Davis, I will fish
the Long Pool this morning,” like that he said. Whereas Mr.
Brinkman, that was the secretary, he was in a great taking about it,
didn’t hardly know what he said or did, Mr. Brinkman didn’t. And to
think of all the gas that was wasted; on all night it was, and who was
to pay for it was more than she knew. Summing up, Mrs. Davis was
understood to observe that it was a world for sorrow, and man was
cut down like a flower, as the sparks fly upward. However, there was
them above as knew, and what would be would be.
Of all this diatribe Bredon was a somewhat languid auditor. He
recognized the type too well to suppose that any end was to be
gained by cross-examination. Angela cooed and sighed, and dabbed
her eyes now and again at appropriate moments, and in so doing
won golden opinions from the tyrannous conversationalist. It was a
strong contrast when the maid came in with the tea things; she
plumped them down in silence, tossing her head defiantly, as who
should imply that somebody had recently found fault with her behind
the scenes, but she was not going to take any notice of it. She was a
strapping girl, of undeniable good looks, spoilt (improved, the Latins
would have said) by a slight cast in one eye. In the absence of any
very formidable competition it was easy to imagine her the belle of
the village. So resolute did her taciturnity appear that even Angela,
who could draw confidences from a stone, instinctively decided that
it would be best to question her later on. Instead, she whiled away
the interminable interval which separates the arrival of the milk jug
from that of the teapot by idly turning over the leaves of the old-
fashioned visitors’ book. The Misses Harrison, it appeared, had
received “every attention” from their kind and considerate hostess.
The Pullford Cycling Club had met for its annual outing, and the
members pronounced themselves “full to bursting, and coming back
next year.” An obviously newly married couple had found the
neighbourhood “very quiet”; a subsequent annotator had added the
words “I don’t think!!!” with the three marks of exclamation. The
Wotherspoon family, a large one, testified to having had a “rattling
good time” at this old-world hostelry. The Reverend Arthur and Mrs.
Stump would carry away “many pleasant memories” of Chilthorpe
and its neighbourhood.
Miles was wandering aimlessly about the room inspecting those
art treasures which stamp, invariably and unmistakably, the best
room of a small country inn. There was the piano, badly out of tune,
with a promiscuous heap of dissenting hymn-books and forgotten
dance tunes reposing on it. There were the two pictures which
represent a lovers’ quarrel and a lovers’ reconciliation, the hero and
heroine being portrayed in riding costume. There was a small
bookshelf, full of Sunday-school prizes, interspersed with one or two
advanced novels in cheap editions, clearly left behind by earlier
visitors. There was a picture of Bournemouth in a frame of repulsive
shells. There was a photograph of some local squire or other on
horseback. There were several portraits which were intended to
perpetuate the memory of the late Mr. Davis, a man of full bodily
habit, whose clothes, especially his collar, seemed too tight for him.
There were a couple of young gentlemen in khaki on the
mantelpiece; there was a sailor, probably the one who had collected
the strange assortment of picture post-cards in the album under the
occasional table; there were three wedding groups, all apparently in
the family—in a few words, a detective interested in such problems
might have read there, a picture, the incredibly long and complicated
annals of the poor.
To Bredon it was all a matter of intense irritation. When he visited
the scene of some crime or some problem, he was fond of poking his
way round the furniture, trying to pick up hints from the books and
the knickknacks about the character of the people he was dealing
with. At least, he would say, if you cannot pick up evidence about
them you can always catch something of their atmosphere. Mottram
had hardly played the game when he died in a country inn where he
had not been able to impress his surroundings with any touch of his
own quality; this inn parlour was like any other inn parlour, and the
dead body upstairs would be a problem in isolation, torn away as it
was from its proper context. The bedroom doubtless would have a
text over the washing-stand, a large wardrobe stuffed with family
clothes and mothballs, a cheap print of the “Soul’s Awakening”; it
would just be an inn bedroom, there would be no Mottram about it.
“I say,” Angela interrupted suddenly, “Mottram seems to have
visited this place pretty regularly, and always for the fishing season.
There are some fine specimens of his signature; the last only written
two days ago.”
“Eh? What’s that?” said Bredon. “Written his signature in already,
had he? Any date to it?”
“Yes, here it is, ‘J. W. Mottram, June 13th to’—and then a blank.
He didn’t know quite how long he would be staying, I suppose.”
“Let’s see. . . . Look here, that’s all wrong, you know. This isn’t a
hotel register; it’s just a visitors’ book. And people who write in a
visitors’ book don’t write till the day they leave.”
“Necessarily?”
“Invariably. Look here: look at Arthur Stump. You can see from
his style and his handwriting what a meticulous fellow he is. Well, he
came here on May twenty-first, and stayed till May twenty-six. The
Wilkinsons came here a day later, on the twenty-second, and left on
the twenty-fourth. But the Wilkinson entry comes first, and that’s
because they left first, don’t you see? And here is Violet Harris doing
the same; she puts her name before the Sandeman party. Look at
Mottram’s entry last year. He didn’t leave a blank then, and fill in his
date of departure afterward; you can always tell when a thing is filled
in afterward because the spacing is never quite exact. No; Mottram
did something quite foreign to his habit when he wrote June
thirteenth to blank, and quite foreign to the habits of every one I
know.”
“You get these little ideas sometimes. No; you can’t have tea till
you come and sit at the table. I don’t want you sloshing it about all
over the place. Now, what can have been the idea of writing that
entry? Nobody wanted proof that he’d been there. Could it be a
forgery, done from last year’s entry? That would mean that it isn’t
Mottram upstairs at all, really.”
“We shall know that soon enough. . . . No; there’s only one idea
that seems to me to make sense. He came to this place knowing that
he was never going to leave it alive. And consequently he wanted to
put an entry in the book which would make it look as if he had been
paying just an ordinary visit, and was expecting to leave it alive.
People will never see that they’re overreaching themselves when
they do that kind of thing. It’s absurd to go on such slight indications,
but so far as I can see the presumption is this: Mottram meant to
commit suicide, and meant to make it look as if he hadn’t.”
“The date’s all right, I suppose?”
“Bound to be. No sense in falsifying it when it could always be
verified from the bill. Landladies have a habit of knowing what night
guests arrived.”
“Let’s see, then. He arrived on the thirteenth; and he was found
dead in the morning, that’s yesterday morning, Tuesday. The
thirteenth was Monday—he’d only been here one night.”
“Well, we’ll hope we can find all that part out from the secretary. I
don’t much want another hour of Mrs. Davis. Meanwhile, let’s see if
you can knock any more out of that teapot; I’m as thirsty as a fish.”
 Chapter IV.
The Bedroom
They did not escape another dose of Mrs. Davis, who appeared
soon afterward to announce that the big room upstairs was ready for
them, and would they step up and mind their heads please, the stairs
were that low. It was indeed a rambling sort of house, on three or
four different levels, as country inns are wont to be; it did not seem
possible to reach any one room from any other without going down
and up again or up and down again. At the head of the stairs Mrs.
Davis turned dramatically and pointed to a door marked “5”. “In
there!” she said, the complicated emotion in her voice plainly
indicating what was in there. To her obvious confusion the door
opened as she spoke, and a little, dark man, whom they guessed
then and knew afterward to be the secretary, came out into the
passage. He was followed by a policeman—no ingenuity could have
doubted the fact—in plain clothes. Bredon’s investigations were
ordinarily made independently of, and for the most part unknown to,
the official champions of justice. But on this occasion Fate had
played into his hands. “By Gad!” he cried, “it’s Leyland!”
It was, and I will not weary the reader by detailing the
exclamations of surprise, the questionings, the reminiscences, the
explanations which followed. Leyland had been an officer in the
same battalion with Bredon for more than two years of the war. It
was at a time when the authorities had perceived that there were not
enough well-dressed young men in England to go round, and a
Police Inspector who had already made a name for efficiency easily
obtained commissioned rank; with equal ease he returned to the
position of an Inspector when demobilized. Their memories of old
comradeship promised to be so exhaustive and, to the lay mind, so
exhausting, that Brinkman had gone downstairs and Angela Bredon
to their room long before it was over; nay, Mrs. Davis herself,
outtalked for once, retired to her kitchen.
“Well, this is Al,” said Leyland at last. “Sure to be left down here
for a few days until I can clear things up a bit. And if you’re working
on the same lay, there’s no reason why we should quarrel. Though I
don’t quite see what your people sent you down for to start with.”
“Well, the man was very heavily insured, you know; and, for one
reason or another, the company is inclined to suspect suicide. Of
course if it’s suicide it doesn’t pay up.”
“Well, you’d better lie low about it and stay on for a few days.
Good for you and Mrs. Bredon to get a bit of a holiday. But of course
suicide is right off the map.”
“People do commit suicide, don’t they, by leaving the gas on?”
“Yes, but they don’t get up and turn the gas off and then go back
to bed to die. They don’t open the window, and leave it open”——
“The gas turned off? The window opened? You don’t mean”——
“I mean that if it was suicide it was a very rum kind of suicide, and
if it was accident it was a very rum kind of accident. Mark you, I’m
saying that to you; but don’t you go putting it about the place. Some
of these people in the inn may know more about it than they ought
to. Mum’s the word.”
“Yes, I can see that. Let’s see, who were there in the house? This
secretary fellow, and the old gentleman I saw down by the river, I
suppose, and Mrs. Davis and the barmaid and the Boots—that’s all
I’ve heard of up to now. That’s right, keep ’em all under suspicion.
But I wish you’d let me see the room; it seems to me there must be
points of interest about it.”
“Best see it now, I think. They’re going to fix up the corpse
properly to-night; so far they’ve left things more or less untouched.
There’s just light enough left to have a look round.”
The inn must at some time have known better days, for this room
was generously proportioned, and could clearly be used as a bed-
sitting room. But the wall-paper had seen long service; the
decorations were mean, the furniture shabby; it was not the sort of
accommodation that would attract a rich man from Pullford but for
the reputation the place had for fishing and, perhaps, the want of any
rival establishment. Chilthorpe, in spite of its possibilities of water-
power, had no electric light; but the inn, with one or two neighbouring
houses, was lighted by acetylene gas from a plant which served the
vicarage and the parish hall. These unpleasant fumes, still hanging
in the air after two days, were responsible, it seemed, for the tragic
loading of the bed which stood beside them.
To this last, Bredon paid little attention. He had no expert medical
knowledge, and the cause of death was unquestioned; both the local
man and a doctor whom the police had called in were positive that
the symptoms were those of gas poisoning and that no other
symptoms were present; that there were no marks of violence, no
indications even of a struggle; the man had died, it seemed, in his
sleep as if from an overdose of anæsthetic. Beside his bed stood a
glass slightly encrusted with some whitish mixture; Bredon turned
toward Leyland with an inquiring look as his eye met it.
“No good,” said Leyland. “We had it analysed, and it’s quite a
mild sort of sleeping draught. He sometimes took them, it seems,
because he slept badly, especially in a strange bed. But there’s no
vice in the thing; it wouldn’t kill a man however heavily he doped
himself with it, the doctor says.”
“Of course it explains why he slept so soundly and didn’t notice
the gas leaking.”
“It does that; and, if it comes to that, it sets me wondering a little.
I mean, supposing it was murder, it looks as if it was done by
somebody who knew Mottram’s habits.”
“If it was murder, yes. But if it was suicide, it’s easy to understand
the man doping himself, so that he should die off more painlessly.
The only thing it doesn’t look like is accident, because it would be
rather a coincidence that he should happen to be laid out by a
sleeping draught just on the very night when the gas was left on. I’d
like to have a look at this gas.”
There was a bracket on the wall, not far from the door, which
originally had been the only light in the room. But for bed-sitting room
purposes a special fitting had been added to this giving a second
vent for the gas; and this new vent was connected by a long piece of
rubber tubing with a standard lamp that stood on the writing-table
near the window. There were thus three taps in all, and all of these
close together on the bracket. One opened the jet on the bracket
itself, one led to the rubber tubing and the standard lamp and the
third was the oldest and closest to the wall, serving to cut off the
supply of gas from both passages at once. This third main tap was
turned off now; of the other two, the one on the bracket was closed,
the one which led to the standard lamp stood open.
“Is this how the taps were when the body was first found?” asked
Bredon.
“Exactly. Of course we’ve turned them on and off since to make
certain that the jets were both in working order. They were, both of
them. And we tried the taps for finger-prints—with powder, you
know.”
“Any results?”
“Only on the main tap. We could just trace where it had been
turned on, with the thumb pressing on the right-hand side. But there
were no marks of fingers turning it off.”
“That’s damned queer.”
“Gloves?”
“Oh, of course you think it was murder. Still, if it was murder it
should have been the murderer who turned it on and off. Why did he
conceal his traces in one case and not in the other?”
“Well, as a matter of fact, it was Mottram who turned the gas on.
At the main, that is. The tap of the standard seems to have been on
all the time, at least there were no marks on it. That’s queer too.”
“Yes, if he wanted it to be known that he committed suicide. But if
he didn’t, you see, the whole business may have been bluff.”
“I see, you want it to be suicide masquerading as accident. I want
it to be murder masquerading as suicide. Your difficulty, it seems to
me, is explaining how the tap came to be turned off.”
“And yours?”
“I won’t conceal it. The door was locked, with the key on the
inside.”
“How did anybody get in, then, to find the corpus?”
“Broke down the door. It was rotten, like everything else in this
house, and the hinges pulled the screws out. You can see, there,
where we’ve put fresh screws in since.”
“Door locked on the inside. And the window?” Bredon crossed to
the other side of the room. “Barred, eh?” It was an old-fashioned
lattice window with iron bars on the inside to protect it from
unauthorized approach. The window itself opened outward, its
movement free until it reached an angle of forty-five degrees; at that
point it passed over a spring catch which made it fast. It was so
made fast now that Bredon examined it.
“This too?” he asked. “Was the window just like this?”
“Just like that. Wide open, so that it’s hard to see why the gas
didn’t blow out of doors almost as soon as it escaped; and there was
a high wind on Monday night, Pulteney tells me. And yet, with those
bars, it seems impossible that any one should have come in through
it.”
“I think you’re going to have difficulties over your murder theory.”
“So are you, Bredon, over your suicide theory. Look at that shirt
over there; the studs carefully put in overnight; and it’s a clean shirt,
mark you; the outside buttonholes haven’t been pierced. Do you
mean to tell me that a man who is going to commit suicide is going to
let himself in for all that tiresome process of putting studs in before
he goes to bed?”
“And do you mean to tell me that a man goes out fishing in a
boiled shirt?”
“Yes, if he’s a successful manufacturer. The idea that one wears
special clothes when one is going to take exercise is an upper-class
theory. I tell you, I’ve seen a farmer getting in the hay in a dickey,
merely to show that he was a farmer, not a farm labourer.”
“Well, grant the point; why shouldn’t a man who wants to commit
suicide put studs in his shirt to make it look as if it wasn’t suicide?
Remember, it was a matter of half a million to his heirs. Is that too
heavy a price for the bother of it?”
“I see you’re convinced; it’s no good arguing with you. Otherwise,
I’d have pointed out that he wound up his watch.”
“One does. To a man of methodical habit it’s an effort to leave a
watch unwound. Was he a smoker?”
“Brinkman says not. And there are no signs of it anywhere.”
“The law ought to compel people to smoke. In bed, especially—
we should have got some very nice indications of what he was really
up to if he had smoked in bed. But I see he wasn’t a bedroom
smoker in any case; here’s a solitary match which has only been
used to light the gas—he hasn’t burnt a quarter of an inch of it.”
“That match worries me too. There’s a box on the mantelpiece,
but those are ordinary safeties. This is a smaller kind altogether, and
I can’t find any of them in his pockets.”
“The maid might have been in before him and lighted the gas.”
“They never do. At least, Mrs. Davis says they never do.”
“It was dark when he went to bed?”
“About ten o’clock, Brinkman says. You would be able to see your
way then, but not much more. And he must have lit the gas, to put
the studs in his shirt—besides, he’s left some writing, which was
probably done late that night, though we can’t prove it.”
“Writing! Anything important?”
“Only a letter to some local rag at Pullford. Here it is, if you want
to read it.” And Leyland handed Bredon a letter from the blotting-pad
on the table. It ran:

To the Editor of the Pullford Examiner:

Dear Sir:
Your correspondent, “Brutus,” in complaining of the closing of
the Mottram Recreation Grounds at the hour of seven p.m.,
describes these grounds as having been “presented to the town
with money wrung from the pockets of the poor.” Now, Sir, I
have nothing to do with the action of the Town Council in
opening the Recreation Grounds or closing same. I write only as
a private citizen who has done my best to make life amenable
for the citizens of Pullford, to know why my name should be
dragged into this controversy, and in the very injurious terms he
has done. Such recreation grounds were presented by me
twelve years ago to the townspeople of Pullford, not as “blood-
money” at all, but because I wanted them, and especially the
kiddies, to get a breath of God’s open air now and again. If
“Brutus” will be kind enough to supply chapter and verse,
showing where or how operatives in my pay have received less
pay than what they ought to have done——
 At this point the letter closed abruptly.
“He wasn’t very handy with his pen,” observed Bredon. “I
suppose friend Brinkman would have had to get onto this in the
morning and put it into English. Yes, I know what you’re going to say:
if the man had foreseen his end he either wouldn’t have taken the
trouble to start the letter or else he’d have taken the trouble to finish
it. But I tell you, I don’t like this letter—I say, we must be getting
down to dinner; attract suspicion, what, if we’re found nosing round
up here too long? All right, Leyland, I won’t spoil your sport. What
about having a fiver on it—suicide or murder?”
“I don’t mind if I do. What about telling one another how we get
on?”
“Let’s be quite free about that. But each side shall keep notes of
the case from day to day, putting down his suspicions and his
reasons for them, and we’ll compare notes afterward. Ah, is that Mrs.
Davis? All right, we’re just coming.”
 Chapter V.
Supper, and Mr. Brinkman
Mrs. Davis’s cuisine, if it did not quite justify all the ironic
comments of the old gentleman, lent some colour to them. With the
adjectival trick of her class she always underestimated quantity,
referring to a large tureen as “a drop of soup,” and overestimated
quality, daily suggesting for her guests’ supper “a nice chop.” The
chop always appeared; the nice chop (as the old gentleman pointed
out) would have been a pleasant change. As surely as you had eggs
and bacon for breakfast, so surely you had a chop for supper; “and
some nice fruit to follow” heralded the entrance of a depressed
blanc-mange (which Mrs. Davis called “shape,” after its principal
attribute) and some cold green-gages. These must have come from
Alcinous’s garden, for at no time of the year were they out of season.
If Angela had stayed in the house for a fortnight, it is possible that
she would have taken Mrs. Davis in hand and inspired her with
larger ideas, As it was, she submitted, feeling that a suicide in the
house was sufficiently unsettling for Mrs. Davis without further
upheavals.
The coffee room at the Load of Mischief was not large enough to
let the company distribute itself at different tables, each party
conversing in low tones and eyeing its neighbours with suspicion. A
single long table accommodated them all, an arrangement which
called for a constant exercise of forced geniality. Bredon and Leyland
were both in a mood of contemplation, puzzling out the secret of the
room upstairs; Brinkman was plainly nervous, and eager to avoid
discussing the tragedy; Angela knew, from experience in such
situations, the value of silence. Only the old gentleman seemed quite
at his ease, dragging in the subject of Mottram with complete sang-
froid and in a tone of irony which seemed inseparable from his
personality. Brinkman parried these topical references with
considerable adroitness, showing himself as he did so a travelled
man and a man of intelligence, though without much gift of humour.
Thus, in reply to a conventional question about his day’s sport,
the old gentleman returned, “No, I cannot say that I caught any. I
think, however, that I may claim without boasting to have frightened
a few of them. It is an extraordinary thing to me that Mottram, who
was one of your grotesquely rich men, should have come down for
his fishing to an impossible place like this, where every rise deserves
a paragraph in the local paper. If I were odiously rich, I would go to
one of these places in Scotland, or Norway, even, though I confess
that I loathe the Scandinavians. I have never met them, but the
extravagant praise bestowed upon them by my childhood’s
geography books makes them detestable to me.”
“I think,” said Brinkman, “that you would find some redeeming
vices among the Swedes. But poor Mottram’s reason was a simple
one; he belonged to these parts; Chilthorpe was his home town.”
“Indeed,” said the old gentleman, wincing slightly at the
Americanism.
“Oo, yes,” said Angela, “we saw Mottram on the map. Was he a
sort of local squire, then?”
“Nothing of that sort,” replied Brinkman. “His people took their
name from the place, not the other way round. He started here with a
big shop, which he turned over to some relations of his when he
made good at Pullford. He quarrelled with them afterward, but he
always had a sentimental feeling for the place. It’s astonishing what
a number of group names there are still left in England. There is no
clan system to explain it. Yet I suppose every tenth family in this
place is called ‘Pillock.’ ”
“It suggests the accident of birth,” admitted the old gentleman,
“rather than choice. And poor Mottram’s family, you say, came from
the district?”
“They had been here, I believe, for generations. But this habit of
naming the man from the place is curiously English. Most nations
have the patronymic instinct; the Welsh, for example, or the
Russians. But with us, apparently, if a stranger moved into a new
district, he became John of Chilthorpe, and his descendants were
Chilthorpes for ever.”
“A strange taste,” pursued the old gentleman, harping on the
unwelcome subject, “to want to come and lay your bones among
your ancestors. It causes so much fuss and even scandal. For
myself, if I ever decided to put a term to my own existence, I should
go to some abominable place—Margate, for example—and try to
give it a bad name by being washed up just underneath the pier.”
“You would fail, sir,” objected Brinkman; “I mean, as far as giving
it a bad name was concerned. You do not give things a good name
or a bad name nowadays; you only give them an advertisement. I
honestly believe that if a firm advertised its own cigarettes as beastly
it would draw money from an inquisitive public.”
“Mrs. Davis has had an inquisitive public to-day. I assure you,
when I went out this morning I was followed for a considerable
distance by a crowd of small boys who probably thought that I
intended to drag the river. By the way, if they do drag the river, it will
be interesting to find out whether there were, after all, any fish in it.
You will let me be present, sir?” turning to Leyland, who was plainly
annoyed by the appeal. Angela had to strike in and ask who was the
character in Happy Thoughts who was always asking his friends to
come down and drag the pond. So the uneasy conversation
zigzagged on, Mr. Pulteney always returning to the subject which
occupied their thoughts, the rest heading him off. Bredon was
deliberately silent. He meant to have an interview with Brinkman
afterward, and he was determined that Brinkman should have no
chance of sizing him up beforehand.
The opportunity was found without difficulty after supper;
Brinkman succumbed at once to the offer of a cigar and a walk in the
clear air of the summer evening. Bredon had suggested sitting on
the bridge, but it was found that at that hour of the evening all the
seating accommodation was already booked. Brinkman then
proposed a visit to the Long Pool, but Bredon excused himself on the
ground of distance. They climbed a little way up the hill road, and
found one of those benches, seldom occupied, which seem to issue
their invitation to travellers who are short of breath. Here they could
rest in solitude, watching cloud after cloud as it turned to purple in
the dying sunlight and the shadows gathering darker over the hill
crests.
“I’m from the Indescribable, you know. Expect Mrs. Davis has told
you. I’d better show you my cardcase so that you can see it’s
correct. They send me to fool round, you know, when this sort of
thing happens. Have to be careful, I suppose.” (“This Brinkman,” he
had said to Angela, “must take me for a bit of a chump; if possible,
worse than I am.”)
“I don’t quite see”—— began Brinkman.
“Oh, the old thing, suicide, you know. Mark you, they don’t
absolutely bar it. I’ve known ’em pay up when a fellow was obviously
potty. But their rules are against it. What I say is, If a man has the
pluck to do himself in he ought to get away with the stakes, Well, all
this must be a great nuisance to you, Mr. Brickman”——
“Brinkman.”
“Sorry, always was a fool about names. Well, what I mean is, it
can’t be very pleasant for you to have so many people nosing round;
but it’s got to be done somehow, and you seem to be the right man
to come to. D’you think there was anything wrong in the upper
story?”
“The man was as sane as you or I. I never knew a man with such
a level head.”
“Well, that’s important. You don’t mind if I scribble a note or two?
I’ve got such a wretched memory. Then, here’s another thing: was
the old fellow worried about anything? His health, for example?”
There was an infinitesimal pause; just for that fraction of a
second which is fatal, because it shews that a man is making up his
mind what to say. Then Brinkman said: “Oh, there can be no doubt of
that. I thought he’d been and told your people about it. He went to a
doctor in London and was told that he’d only two more years to live.”
“Meaning, I suppose”——
“He never told me. He was always a peculiar man about his
health; he got worried even if he had a boil on his neck. No, I don’t
think he was a hypochondriac; he was a man who’d had no
experience of ill-health, and the least thing scared him. When he told
me about his interview with the specialist he seemed all broken up,