The _Volkscharakter_, as the Germans say, finds very definite expression in the trenches constructed by the Germans, the French, and the British. I do not propose to make comparisons, which are always invidious, and which, moreover, might involve me in paths where I should find the blue pencil of the Censor blocking my passage. The German, with his craze for organization and his love of bodily ease, builds a solid trench, admirably suited, one must admit, to the purposes of this war. But I am one of those who contend that there is such a thing as over-organization, and I am inclined to believe that the German, with all his elaborations of trench warfare, his cemented trenches, his “super-barbed-wire,” his iron-doored ammunition stores, overlades his organization with detail. The exquisite neatness of the French mind shows itself clearly in the perfect orderliness of the French trenches, with tidily bricked flooring, the sides lined with plaited branches or rabbit netting. The French trenches contain the largest dug-outs to be found on this front--deep subterranean caves, tremendously solid in construction, with sometimes as many as three or four layers of massive tree-trunks laid across the roof. I think that the perfect network of communication and support trenches, which are always found about trench-lines constructed by the French, denote a certain æstheticism in the French mind. The British trenches are the least elaborate of the trenches of the three belligerents. Nothing that would make for efficiency in them is sacrificed to comfort, and the striving, first and last, is to evolve a defence work that not only affords adequate protection to the men, but is equally well suited for an offensive as well as a defensive. Both the Germans and the French, thanks to the universal service system, have large stocks of workmen--navvies, carpenters, engineers, and the like--who have been called to the colours, who, though not first-class fighting-men, can be usefully employed in squads on trench work. We, on the other hand, with our army recruited haphazard, must take our resources as we find them. The pioneers, who have done magnificently in this war, cannot be expected to do all the digging and construction work that trench warfare demands; their efforts must be supplemented by the soldiers themselves, some of whom, by chance, may be labourers with their hands, many of whom, however, are not.