A Rolling Sand Bag, by Frederic Villiers (1851–1922). Undated, but probably 1915. Source: Villiers 45.
Villiers did not confine himself to depicting the English soldiers. Here he explains a tactic used by French infantryman, nicknamed "poilu" or "hairy" for their preference for copious facial hair: "In the early days of the advance of the Germans, all manner of dodges were employed by the poilu to dig himself in under any kind of protection. Men would crawl forward pushing in front of them giant sand bags and, arrived at the proposed trench line, they would hastily dig themselves in under this fairly substantial cover" (43).
Obviously, this was a perilous and rather primitive way of conducting warfare during the Great War, and speaks of the very amateurish ploys used in troop movements.
Scanned image and text by Jacqueline Banerjee. [You may use the image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned it, and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
Villiers, Frederic. Days of Glory: the sketch book of a veteran correspondent at the front. New York: George H. Doran, 1920. Internet Archive, from a copy in the State Library of Pennsylvania. Web. 28 April 2025.
Created 28 April 2025