Two Hundred Years Underground in Flanders : Theoretical Considerations on Exploring the Historical Experience of the Underground Warfare
Abstract
The direct protagonists (sappers and miners) of the underground mine war, an integral part of the earl modern siege warfare, left almost no ego-documents at all. It is therefore extremely difficult to examine their experience, and so far this has only been possible through preserved sources written by their superiors, military engineers.
The author draws attention to the considerable similarity of techniques and culture of the underground mine war in the late phase of the early modern period in comparison with such efforts happening on the Western Front of World War I. Subsequently, based on theoretical inspirations combining cultural and historical anthropology and military (sensory) archeology and based on the work of British authors such as Matthew Leonard, he proposes to study the environment of underground war, conceived as a "sensescape" and how such an environment made sappers and miners to reconfigure their sensoriality and corporeality.
The findings of such research can provide substantial evidence of the experience of the underground mine war in older periods.