Sniping in France, with Notes on the Scientific Training of Scouts, Observers, and Snipers

FRANCE

CHAPTER I

THE GENESIS OF SNIPING

READERS of this book must realize the necessarily very narrow and circumscribed point of view from which it is written. It is simply an account of some memories of sniping, observation and scouting in France and Flanders, and its purpose is to preserve, as far as may be, in some form the work and training of a class of officers and men whose duties became ever more important as the war progressed. It is in the hope that the true value of sniping and scouting will continue to be recognized in the future training of our armies, as it certainly was recognized in the later years of the war, that this book is written.

The idea of organized sniping was not a new one to me when I went out to France in May, 1915. I had been there before, in the previous March, and had seen the immense advantages which had accrued to the Germans through their superiority in trench warfare sniping.

It is difficult now to give the exact figures of our losses. Suffice it to say that in early 1915 we lost eighteen men in a single battalion in a single day to enemy snipers. Now if each battalion in the line killed by sniping a single German in the day, the numbers would mount up. If any one cares to do a mathematical sum, and to work out the number of battalions we had in the line, they will be surprised at the figures, and when they multiply these figures by thirty and look at the month’s losses, they will find that in a war of attrition the sniper on this count alone justifies his existence and wipes out large numbers of the enemy.

But it is not only by the casualties that one can judge the value of sniping. If your trench is dominated by enemy snipers, life in it is really a very hard thing, and moral must inevitably suffer. In many parts of the line all through France and Belgium the enemy, who were organized at a much earlier period than we, certainly did dominate us. Each regiment and most soldiers who have been to France will remember some particular spot where they will say the German sniping was more deadly than elsewhere, but the truth of the matter is that in the middle of 1915 we were undergoing almost everywhere a severe gruelling, to say the least of it.

When I went out in May, 1915, I took with me several telescopic-sighted rifles, which were either my own property or borrowed from friends. I was at the time attached to the Intelligence Department as an officer in charge of war-correspondents, and my work gave me ample opportunity to visit all parts of the line. Whenever I went to the line I took with me, if it was possible, a telescopic-sighted rifle, and I found that both brigades and battalions were soon applying to me to lend these rifles. In this way opportunities arose of visiting the line and studying the sniping problem on the spot.

One day I remember I was going through the trenches in company with the Australian Correspondent, Mr. Gullett, when we came to a very smart notice board on which was painted the word Sniper, and also an arrow pointing to the lair in which he lay. The sniper, however, was not in the lair, but was shooting over the top of the parapet with a telescopic-sighted rifle. These rifles were coming out from England at that time in very small numbers, and were being issued to the troops.

I had for many years possessed telescope-sighted rifles, and had some understanding of their manipulation as used in big-game shooting. In a general way I could not help thinking that they were unsportsmanlike, as they made shooting so very easy, but for shooting at rabbits with a small-bore rifle, where you only wounded your rabbit unless you hit him in the head, they were admirable and saved a great deal of unnecessary suffering.

But to return to the sniper. Much interested, we asked him how he liked his rifle, and he announced that he could put a shot through the loophole of the iron shields in the German trenches every time. As the German trenches were six hundred yards away, it seemed to me that the sniper was optimistic, and we asked him if he would let us see him shoot. I had with me a Ross glass which I always carried in the trenches, and when the sniper shot I saw his bullet strike some six feet to the left of the plate at which he was aiming. He, however, was convinced from the sound that it had gone clean through the loophole! He had another shot, and again struck well to the left. I had a look at his sight, which was a tap-over fitting, and seeing that it was a little out of alignment I questioned the sniper as to how much he knew about his weapon. It is no exaggeration to say that his knowledge was limited.

From this moment all telescope-sighted rifles became a matter of great interest to me, and it was not long before I came to the conclusion that about 80 per cent. were quite useless, much worse, in fact, than the ordinary open sights, in the hands in which they were. The men using them had in most cases hardly any knowledge of how their sights were aligned. A tap or a knock and the rifle was straightway out of shooting.

For the benefit of the untechnical reader it will be well here to remark that if a telescopic sight set upon a 4-inch base is one-hundredth of an inch out of its true alignment, it will shoot incorrectly to the extent of 9 inches at 100 yards, and, of course, 18 inches at 200 yards, and 54 inches at 600 yards. The sights had been issued without instruction, were often handed over as trench-stores, and were served out by quartermaster-sergeants who very often looked on them as egregious fads.

It seemed to me that here was something definite to go upon towards that organization of sniping in which I so much desired to have a hand. That evening I laid the matter before my Commanding Officer, Lieut.-Colonel A. G. Stuart, of the 40th Pathans, than whom surely no finer officer went to the war. He was killed in 1916 by a chance bullet a mile behind the trenches, when he was serving near Ypres as G.S.O.1 to the 50th Division.

He listened with both sympathy and interest. You say, said he, that all or nearly all the telescope-sighted rifles you have seen are so incorrect as to be worse than useless. Are you quite sure of this?

Quite sure, said I. And that is only one side of it. The men have no idea of concealment, and many of them are easy targets to the Hun snipers.

The proper authorities should move in the matter, said Colonel Stuart.

There don’t seem to be any proper authorities, sir. The officers know no more than the men about these sights, and what I want to do is this: If it is possible I should like to be appointed as sniping expert to some unit. I believe I could save hundreds of lives even in a brigade the way things are.

Colonel Stuart said nothing, so I went on:

Will you help me to get a job of this kind, sir? I am asking because it seems absurd for a fellow like me who has spent years after big game to let men go on being killed when I know perfectly well that I can stop it.

Are you sure of that?

I am quite willing, sir, to go to any unit for a fortnight’s trial, and if I do not make good, there will be no harm done.

Well, said Colonel Stuart at length, we will talk to people about it and see what they say.

After that, Colonel Stuart often questioned me, and I pointed out to him our continued and heavy losses, the complete German superiority, the necessity not only of a course of training but, more important still, the selection of the right men to train and also their value to Intelligence if provided with telescopes, and made a dozen other suggestions, all very far-reaching.

When I look back now on these suggestions, which came from a very amateur soldier of no military experience, I can only marvel at Colonel Stuart’s patience; but he was not only patient, he was also most helpful and sympathetic. Without him this very necessary reform might, and probably would, have been strangled at birth, or would have only come into the Army, if it had come at all, at a much later time.

Colonel Stuart not only allowed me to speak of my ideas to various officers in high command, but even did so himself on my behalf. I was amazed at the invariable kindness and courtesy that I met on every hand. I used to introduce myself and say: Sir, I hope you will forgive me if I speak about a thing I am awfully keen on—sniping, sir. The Huns got twelve of the Blankshires in this Division on their last tour of duty, and I think we could easily beat them at this if we had proper training and organization. And then I would lay out my plans.

But, though people listened, there were immense difficulties in the way, and these might never have been surmounted, although quite a number of Corps and Divisional G.O.C.’s had said to me: If you can get away from your job at G.H.Q., come here and be our sniping expert. We shall be very glad to have you.

Still, as I say, there is a thing in the Army called Establishment, and there was no Establishment for a sniping officer, and if the matter were put through the War Office it would probably take some months, I knew, to obtain an establishment. Colonel Stuart, however, once I had convinced him, backed me up in every possible way, going to see the M.G.G.S., Third Army, Major-General Sir A. L. Lynden-Bell, who was in full sympathy with the idea. It was thus that the matter was mentioned to Sir Charles Monro, commanding the Third Army, and Colonel Stuart arranged with Brigadier-General MacDonogh, now Lieut.-General Sir George MacDonogh, who was then in command of the Intelligence Corps, to allow me to serve with the Third Army as sniping expert.

John Buchan,* who was at that time the Times correspondent on the Western Front, also gave the idea great encouragement. He had seen for himself the awful casualties that we were suffering, and considered the scheme which I laid out to be a sound one.

Sir Charles Monro, in talking over the matter, made a remark which I have always remembered.

It is not, he said, "only that a good shot strengthens his unit, but he adds to its moral—he raises the moral of his comrades—it raises the moral of the whole unit to know that it contains several first-class shots."

These are not the exact words which Sir Charles used, but they are as near them as I can remember.

Now that I had got my chance I was at first extremely happy, but later, as I could not go to my new work at once, I became a little nervous of failure, and pictured myself unsuccessful in my attempt to dominate the German snipers. I began to wish that I had gone to my work a month earlier, for when the Third Army took over from the French, the Germans offered any amount of targets, whereas I now heard that they were becoming more cautious. I, therefore, cast about for some way in which I might hope to make certain of success, and to this end, having conceived a plan, I went down to Neuve Chapelle, where my friend, Captain A. C. Gathorne-Hardy, 9th Scottish Rifles, since killed at Loos leading his men and within ten yards of the German wire, was in the line. We obtained from the old German trenches a number of the large steel plates from behind which the German snipers were wont to shoot, and these I took home with me to England, for I had obtained a week’s leave before taking up my new duties.

I proceeded to try on these plates all kinds of rifles, from the Jeffreys high velocity .333 to heavy elephant guns of various bores, and was delighted to find that the bullets from the .333, as well as the elephant guns, pierced them like butter. Here, again, Colonel John Buchan came to my assistance, and obtained for me a fund, to which Lord Haldane, Lord Glenconner and Lord Finlay kindly contributed the money, and which enabled me to purchase the necessary rifles. Later on, Mr. St. Loe Strachey, the editor of The Spectator, continued to keep up my fund, which really was of incalculable value to us, and out of which everything from dummy heads purchased at Clarkson’s to football jerseys for the splendidly-appointed Sniping School, which finally eventuated, were purchased.

At length I was free of my work at G.H.Q., and went down to the Third Army, where I was attached to the 7th Corps, the 4th Division, and the 10th and 12th Infantry Brigades.

It would be out of place to describe in detail the days that followed. Suffice it to say that very early in the proceedings it became clear that snipers must always work in pairs, one man shooting and one man finding the targets with the telescope. The regulation issue of the latter was at the time, I think, about eight telescopes per battalion, and these were used by the Signallers, but Lord Roberts’ Fund, administered with extraordinary energy by Mr. Penoyre, came to the rescue, and soon a certain number of telescopes dribbled down into the 4th Division line. As to the heavy and armour-piercing rifles, they did their work exceedingly well, and no doubt caused a great surprise to the enemy.

One day I obtained leave to go to Amiens, where I visited the French Camouflage Works, and found to my delight that they had made a number of papier-mâché models of the heads and shoulders of British soldiers. Of these I was able to purchase a large quantity, and had no longer any need to buy in London, where the heads were rather theatrical properties than the real thing. The uses to which the heads were put were varied. They were, in these early days before they were too much advertised (for they afterwards became an issue in our Army), most useful in getting the enemy to give a target. It was also possible, by showing very skilfully the heads of Sikhs or Ghurkas in different parts of the line, to give the German Intelligence the impression that we were holding our line with Indian troops, and I have no doubt they were considerably worried to account for these movements.

One day I received orders from Army Headquarters telling me that Colonel Langford Lloyd, D.S.O., had now started a telescopic-sight school in the 10th Corps area, and ordering me to go there and to collaborate with Colonel Lloyd in a book upon sniping and telescopic sights. I went and found a splendid school running, in which the instruction in telescopic sights was rapidly correcting these rifles in the 10th Corps.

I had the opportunity at Colonel Lloyd’s school of learning a great deal that I did not know about telescopic sights, and many other matters in which Colonel Lloyd is a past master. He listened with great interest to the various ruses, of which there was now quite a long list, that we had employed in the trenches.

We wrote our pamphlet on sniping and telescopic sights, a pamphlet which, owing to a change in the Army Command, was never published, and shortly after my visit to Colonel Lloyd I received the intimation that my trial time with the Third Army had been successful, and that steps would now be taken to get me placed permanently upon its strength. In the meantime, I went from brigade to brigade, burning with eagerness to make organized sniping a definite fact. The instruction took place both in and out of the trenches, and during the course of it we had many interesting experiences. As soon as people began to talk about sniping as a new and interesting subject, our arrival in the trenches became rather trying, as we were certainly looked upon as something in the light of performing animals who would give some kind of a show of greater or less interest. But the Higher Command soon put a stop to this, and thenceforward we were allowed to plough our lonely furrow.

It would be difficult to describe the various days spent in the trenches, or the duels that took place there; but each one threw fresh light upon sniping and showed the enormous extent to which it might be developed. I will make some reference to these days in later chapters.

As I have stated, snipers always worked in pairs, one observing, the other shooting, and soon we found that the notes kept by the observer were invaluable from an Intelligence point of view. If a line was well covered