Earl J. Hess
War Underground: A History of Military Mining in Siege Warfare
(University of Kansas, 2025) 366 pp. $54.99
When we think of military history, the first things that come to our minds are cavalry charges, artillery barrages, bloody infantry encounters and sieges done by mounting wooden ladders. Maybe, if we are into the 20th century warfare, we think of air bombardments, dog fights and the submarine menace.
We rarely think of one of the most gruesome aspects of war, and especially sieges: underground warfare, the type of war done by digging tunnels, like moles, in the dark, with little air, a few candles and wondering all the time when the whole thing is going to collapse on top of you. Underground warfare has been practiced since the dawn of siege warfare, and has become more and more specialized.
The author, Earl J. Hess, is professor emeritus of history at Lincoln Memorial University. He has written and edited more than 30 books on the American Civil War. Hess’s book is a sort of textbook of underground warfare. The technical language is very well welded with a very easy to read style. It’s a real pleasure to cross through tunneling, sapping, mining and massacring in a very vivid style. The action takes the reader through key episodes of military history, i.e. 300 sieges from the ancient times to our days. The 15 chapters are a trip into digging and trying to destroy the enemy and the reading is absolutely delightful. We start in the ancient times, with Greeks, Romans and others, then cross into the Roman Empire, then to the Middle Ages, the modern period and finally, to the 20th century. Various types of lighting fuses are also presented. Several illustrations and diagrams accompany the text, but these can be found all over the Internet. The author recognizes that one of the main problems was the use of sources, because of the language barrier, so he mainly used sources in English. Still, the result is more than useful and entertaining – well, he also discusses why sources are not actually very useful when it comes to tunneling and mining. At least, until the modern age. Besides written sources, the ancients left us the bas-reliefs and frescoes in palaces, temples and various other buildings, so we can get a better glimpse of what was going on back then.
There were various ways of conquering a fortification, and mining was just one of them. First there was sapping, when walls were breached under the cover of a mobile siege machine, then followed sapping plus tunneling, which developed its own rules and procedures. The ancient times and the medieval period benefitted from a certain type of mining, while also using civilian miners for the job or whoever was available. There was a turning point, though, in the 15th century, as gunpowder arrived and began to be used in large quantities, thus having a huge impact on warfare and, of course, tunneling. Now armies could make walls and towers explode and create havoc, not only collapse them. Conditions became more gruesome and the level of destruction rose.
In the modern times, the job became specialized and special units dealt with this task. Civilian miners from the mines were no longer called to dig the tunnels. Two main problems always had to be dealt with – the collapse of tunnels and the lack of air for the diggers. Everything was explained in the manuals that started to appear, to be published all over in several languages and to be used in order to forge new generations of military specialists in tunneling and mining. While countermines it seems to have been used since the dawn of this craft, countermines began now to be more used and deadlier than before, because of the gunpowder.
World war I was the peak of this craft, when civilian miners and specialized troops were brought to the Western Front to perfect tunneling, and the chapter on his topic is one of the best in the book. After WW2, the domain disappeared, also because of the development of weapons that could cross over fortifications and render them useless, such as planes, shells and paratroops. Mining now will not ne the „classic” one, even if it is used, but not for destroying fortifications.
Today, trenches and tunnels are still used in the war in the Ukraine, even if not in the way that this book presents. Mines are still used, with gruesome results. Perhaps soldiers are not throwing wasps and bees at the enemy, and smoke has been replaced by grenades. The book shows us where it all started in this domain and where it stopped, at least, until now. It is the kind of book to take to the seaside, when your kids build sand castles, or study at home with the browser open in order to check and expand ideas and concepts about one of the most violent acts of war ever. Enjoy!
Andrei Pogăciaș
