Miners had an important (and sometimes underestimated) role in the Great War. This from Haig’s first dispatch as Commander-in- Chief.
“13. The work of the Tunnelling Companies calls for special mention. Increased mining activity on the part of the enemy has invariably been answered with enterprise combined with untiring energy on the part of our miners, who in carrying out duties always full of danger have shown that they possess in the highest degree the qualities of courage, perseverance, and self-sacrifice.
Their importance in the present phase of warfare is very great”.
The photo below shows the beautifully built and remarkably preserved incline to the Petite Bois Mine system and the interior of a deep tunnel system showing the intense blueness of the Ypresian clay. Taken from “The Battlefields of the First World War-The unseen panoramas of the Western Front”.
[img]http://www.aditnow.co.uk/showimage?f=/community/Personal-Album-272-Image-030/[/img]
The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.