On the enemy side, the Germans had profited from the peace in which they had been left since 1914 to construct the strongest position on the Western Front. The hard, dry, chalky soil was easily mined and they had driven dugouts thirty feet below ground, impervious to artillery fire, provisioned to withstand siege and linked to the rear by buried telephone cable and deep communication trenches. On the surface they had constructed a network of machine-gun posts, covering all angles of approach across the treeless downs, and in front of their fire trenches laid dense entanglements of barbed wire.
