It was only recognized later in the enormous defensive battles that, in the ‘war of material’, such inflexible holding on to high ground which seemed in isolation to be tactically significant was an absurdity.²⁰

There was a realisation, however, that they either had to give up attempting to sink shafts in their front lines, or lose the front line itself. The Germans, therefore, began to follow the British practice of sinking deeper shafts from behind the front line, which were of a larger diameter, although unlike the British when timber was inadequate they attempted to use concrete-lined shafts. They aimed to sink at least two shafts in each sector and to link them in case of one shaft head becoming blocked. According to Füsslein, his miners succeeded in spite of the advice of civilian specialists:

Hydraulic engineering experts from Germany explained that it was impossible with the means available in the field (a lack of drilling rigs and a means of securing the shafts, a lack of powerful heavy pumps with mechanical power), to get through the swimming sand of the east slopes. However, for the miner, the word ‘impossible’ did not exist. And he succeeded…

This is again in contrast with the British experience, where the whole engineering process became a civilian one and where possible the miners got the equipment that they demanded.

At the Bluff the 1st Company of the 24th Pioneers drove ‘infinitely long, cramped galleries’ which they blew on 25 July 1916, creating an enormous crater, although the 1st Canadian Tunnelling Company had anticipated the blow and casualties were minimized. Füsslein found the situation in the Ypres salient, when he took over in September 1916, was as it had been at Wytschaete: