On guard against saboteurs and espionage, troops guard the Boston & Maine Railroad bridge and the Hoosac Tunnel, in Adams, Massachusetts.

Troops guarding railroad bridge and tunnel

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These boys are on guard at the Hoosac Tunnel on the Boston & Maine Railroad in the western part of Massachusetts. Most of the freight from the West passes this tunnel, and the authorities of the state deemed it wise to post guards as a protection against fanatics and spies. The Hoosac Tunnel is the largest and most important in the New England states; it is 4¾ miles long. This precaution, however, is not limited to New England, as most of the railroad bridges, canals, locks, etc., throughout the country have been guarded by regulars or National Guardsmen ever since the declaration of war with Germany.

Photo © International Film Service, Inc.

No 16. Published by American Colortype Co., Chicago

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Key incidents of sabotage during the war include:

On Monday, April 12, 1915, Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia, was about to dine with one of his military attachés and two French officers with the munitions mission to Russia when Russia's Okhta munitions plant was blown up in Petrograd. Russia had inadequate munitions to support its offensives against the Central Powers, and was planning one against Silesia in southeastern Germany. See quotation.

On July 30, 1916, saboteurs detonated a railroad car filled with dynamite, setting off further explosions at the Black Tom munitions plant in Jersey City, New Jersey, the largest munitions and gunpowder shipping facility in the United States. The saboteurs included Paul Hilken, son of the head of the Baltimore office of the North German Lloyd shipping fleet and local honorary German consul, and Captain Frederick Hinsch, commander of the North German Lloyd cargo ship Neckar. The United States, neutral until April, 1917, supplied the Entente Allies with arms, raw materials, and financing. See quotation.

The Haidar-Pasha, or Haydarpaşa, railway station in Constantinople at the southwestern end of the Bosphorus on the Asian shore of the Sea of Marmora was destroyed on September 6, 1917. The explosion destroyed, besides the railway station and rolling stock, warehouses and much of the harbor. Turkish forces were assembling at Aleppo in Syria for deployment to Mesopotamia for the recapture of Baghdad, or to Palestine where the British were reinforcing their position. Estimates of the dead include hundreds of Turkish, German, and Austro-Hungarian troops, and 1,000 civilians. See quotation.