The modern warrior, like a mole, lives under ground and displays his greatest activity at night. With the coming of subterranean warfare, as trench-fighting can be appropriately called, great armies have had to adopt unique methods. They have been compelled to build peculiar little forts--for a trench is a fort, in fact--wherever their soldiers meet the enemy. In consequence these rectangular excavations have been improved far beyond their original outline. The first trench was nothing more nor less than a hole in the ground, deep enough to protect a man kneeling, standing, or sitting, as the case might be. Before the advent of the modern rifle and modern cannon, these defenses, with several feet of loose earth thrown up in front of them, served admirably. In those days the question of head-cover was of minor importance; today a protective roofing is the sine qua non of any well-constructed trench. Early in the European war it was discovered that the trench offered the safest haven from the bursting shells of the enemy’s field artillery. To all intents and purposes, shrapnel, or, as its inventor termed it, the man-killing projectile--is practically harmless in its effect upon entrenched troops. Unless a shell can be placed absolutely within the two-feet wide excavation it wastes its destructive powers on the inoffensive earth and air. This has led to a modification of artillery methods, which, in turn, compels the elaboration of the trench and emphasizes the importance of head-cover. GERMANS HAVE LEARNED MUCH “The history of the great war,” to quote from a French paper, “will show, among other things, how the Germans profited by the lessons of recent conflicts. The South African, the Russo-Japanese, and the Balkan wars were studied minutely by them, and their particular preparations, their tactics, and their artifices result from the knowledge thus acquired. They learned much, especially, as regards the formation of trenches. “After 1870 we confined ourselves to three regulation types of trenches: for men prone, kneeling, and standing. While in training, our soldiers were taught how to take shelter momentarily between advances, by digging up the soil a little and lying flat behind the smallest of mounds. They were instructed, moreover, how to protect themselves from the enemy’s fire by propping up their knapsacks in front of them. This meant insufficient protection, and an extremely dangerous visibility, since the foe, by simply counting the number of knapsacks, could know the strength opposed to him. To insure the making of such shelter, a French company was equipped with eighty picks and eighty spades; that is, 160 tools for 250 men. These tools were fixed on to the knapsacks; and it took some time to bring them into use.”