A New Kind of War

A New Weapon

15 September 1916, The Battle of the Somme

The river Somme, a once peaceful and beautiful French landscape, in which farmers and city-dwellers alike took their children to swim and relax by the river during the hot summer sun, the lush grass and green trees had swayed gently in the breeze and the laughs of the children had echoed across the shallow hills. All that has changed, were one of those families to return to the river and the area surrounding it, it would be unrecognizable, the lush grass that had once covered the area for as far as the eye could see now was a dull brown mud, trampled by soldiers and covered in miles and miles of barbed wire, the tall trees had all been leveled save a few dead and dying remnants. The soft rolling hills now either looked like a mountain or were simply no longer there. Instead, they were replaced by massive craters that made the once serene landscape look more like the surface of an alien world rather than rural France. 

The landscape was continuously scarred with miles and miles of trenches that weaved back and forth across the barren landscape, these glorified death traps were the all too temporary homes of millions of men some just boys. Whether they were here through a sense of patriotism or through their countries conscription systems, the War did not care it swallowed them whole as equals, The British trenches were nearly bursting with young Britons all wearing the standard British uniform of a thick wool dyed khaki, most carried a simple rifle, a Lee-Enfield Mk III, a bolt action that allowed most soldiers to fire 20 to 30 rounds per minute, a smaller amount of them mostly officers and designated trench raiders were also carrying a small Webley revolver, a pistol that had proven itself effective in the endless mud that filled the area between the trenches, adequately named no-mans land, this expanse of craters created by the exploding shells of both sides and covered in miles of barbed wire were the soldiers worst nightmare a designed killing ground that a soldier counted himself lucky to even look at much less walk, or more likely, crawl across. 

Hans Gunther, a German officer who had grown up in the streets of Berlin and had been swept up into the military at a young age, quietly watched all the commotion in the British trench through a simple telescope, really a long brass tube with a tiny mirror fitted to the top, pokings one head out was almost assuredly a death sentence especially with the British trenches so full of eager new soldiers who had yet to witness the total devastation that this clash of new weapons and old tactics had been causing for over two years. But Hans had to be careful nonetheless as if a keen-eyed British soldier spotted the glint of the mirror a hail of bullets would soon follow as soldiers tried to shoot the mirror and if one of them were to be successful the shattering mirror could easily take out his eye and that of his fellow soldiers who themselves sat anxiously watching Hans. 

"Well, how does it look?"  asked Karl, a private that had just recently gone through training and was still eager to see his first fighting, Hans himself had seen to much slaughter for ten men, he had watched during the first day of the British offensive as thousands of men walked arm in arm across no-mans land and a slow walking pace, and he had sat and watched while the machine guns had opened fire and the men began to fall like fields of wheat to the scythe, by the end of the first day Hans had seen enough men die and blood flow to make him sick to the stomach and that night, his daily ration would not stay down. 

"The Tommies are certainly moving about and look to be ready to attack, you run up to the men at the guns and make sure they are ready" ordered Hans. 

Karl quickly got up and shot off with an eagerness only found in new soldiers, Hans looked at the faces of the other men as they watched the young private weave his way through the maze of trenches up to the concrete bunkers that housed the machine guns that had proven to be the most efficient killers of this bitter war. The faces of Hans men were covered in mud and lines had grown on their faces that had not been there a mere 6 months ago, this war had taken a toll unlike any had before and today was shaping up to be yet another bloodbath.