39
Minenwerfer
Date of construction: 1914–18
Location: Hill 62 Sanctuary Wood Museum, near Ieper, Belgium
MORTARS ARE WEAPONS that are intended to lob a heavy projectile in a steeply arcing trajectory over a short distance. Their use dates back at least five centuries, when they were used to assist in the breaking of sieges; unlike normal field artillery with their flat trajectories, mortars have to be deployed relatively close to their ultimate targets. Mortars are muzzle-loaded and relatively simple; they require just a sufficient explosive charge to blast their projectile toward the enemy. Mobile, and capable of being used by infantrymen, they were tailor-made for trench warfare. Trench mortars were to become increasingly sophisticated as the war proceeded; used as a means of destroying or reducing enemy trenches, they were capable of killing large numbers of men in any given trench.
The Minenwerfer was a German trench mortar that was effective at both destroying sections of the front-line trench and reducing the morale of its occupants. Minenwerfers came in three sizes: heavy (25cm shell), medium (17cm shell), and light (7.58cm shell). Feared in combat, but mobile like machine guns, they were typically captured during trench raids. The example illustrated is a typical 25mm schwerer Minenwerfer, one of three different types on display at the Hill 62 Sanctuary Wood (Trench) Museum near Ypres. This museum has been open since the 1920s; it is not inconceivable that this relic has been there the whole time, examined by tourists and pilgrims alike. But today, this rusting metal, industrial-looking object is as difficult to translate into the snarling intensity of the weapon in combat as it is to give physical expression to the memories of the combatants, who universally feared the power of these weapons. As described by Private Alfred M. Burrage of the Artists’ Rifles: “There is no explosion which, for sheer gut-stabbing ferocity, is quite like that of a Minenwerfer. The bursting of one close at hand was like one’s conception of the end of the world.” As the shell could be observed in flight, sentries with whistles were placed in the front line, their duty to observe the flight of the mortar shell and alert their comrades.
The British experimented with a variety of contraptions—including catapults firing grenades—but the first effective mortars started to appear in 1915. These included the “toffee apple” mortar: a 2in-diameter tube firing an explosive charge mounted on a long shaft, but which was liable to destabilize the round in flight. More reliable was the Stokes mortar, a simple 3in drainpipe affair that was effectively the prototype for mortars in use today in armies across the world. Stokes bombs were dropped into the tube, a striker activating the charge and propelling the round up to 1,500 yards. Stokes mortar bombs still litter the former battlefields in out-of-the-way places; unstable still, they remain volatile, a deadly echo of a past war.
Successful as the Stokes was, it was the Minenwerfer that was most feared. Our rusting example is one of at least 16,500 produced and used during the war, a testimony to their value in the extended trench warfare siege.
