German postcard of some of the battlefield of Artois, site of the First, Second, and Third Battles of Artois (1914 and 1915), the Battle of Loos (1915), and the Battle of Vimy Ridge (1917). Loos is in the upper right, the road to Vimy on the center right. The world's largest French military cemetery is on the heights of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette.
Nr. 52. Vogelschaupostkarte von der LorettohöheKriegspostkarte aus 'Der Krieg'Bird's eye view postcard of the Loretto HeightsWar postcard from 'The War'
"On 14th April at 11.15 P.M., after four days' artillery activity, the [German] enemy fired a mine at St. Eloi (4,000 yards south of Ypres) and began a methodical bombardment. An artillery barrage, in which the XI. Heavy Artillery Brigade, as well as the divisional batteries of the II. Corps, took part, was at once put down, and no infantry attack followed; but the incident attracted attention to that quarter, and was possibly intended to have that result."
With war on the ground static, and many of the strategic high points of Belgium and northern France relatively low, miners and mining units were employed in digging tunnels for the placement of explosives, literally to undermine the enemy positions. A month earlier, on March 14, the Germans had fired two mines at St. Eloi, Belgium, and, immediately attacking the stunned British defenders, had taken 'the Mound', a man-made hill about thirty feet high.
Military Operations France and Belgium, 1915, Vol. I, Winter 1914-15: Battle of Neuve Chappelle : Battle of Ypres [Second] by J. E. Edmonds, page 163, copyright © asserted, publisher: Macmillan and Co., Limited, publication date: 1927
1915-04-14, April, 1915, St. Eloi, Notre-Dame-de-Lorette
