Among many articles needed for war,
And possibly, in part, to sympolise
The fight from 1914 - is use of barbed wire.
The metal twine, with its stars of spikes,
Defined as having defensive values.
What in peacetime fenced in cattle,
Now employed its thorn’s to use
Between humankind –
For nations at war, the practicality
Of barriers building, is a necessity.
Thus boomed American industries,
In the production of spiked wire.
A ban of such fences, had across
States a backing of law - within state
Of New York were restrictions -
Within its uses of fencing, even out
To the West, barbed wire remained rare.
The rolls of spike metal had been
An all American invention -
Its uses had been hardly seen
In any European country - until then,
When entanglements were devised.
Placed before trenches, these
Rolls of vicious wires,
Would halt charges of enemy men.
Cheapness and ease of use,
Of thorny wire in multiple impale,
Could quickly make barricades -
That after any shell barrages,
Construction was easily remade -
So came creation in a necessity
With the usage of wire cutters.
by Jamie Mann.
Anon.,1914. Boom in Barbed Wire. The Daily Telegraph, [online] 8
Dec. p.6. Col.2. Available at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ww1-archive/11275709/Daily-Telegraph-December-8-1914.html
[Accessed: 8 December 2014].
Mann, J., 2014. 100 years Ago - Poems by Jamie Mann. [letter] (Personal
communication, 08 December 2014).
#WW1 #WW1centenary #GreatWar #WW1poem #GreatWar #ww1centenary
#worldwarone #worldwaroneremembered #WW1Unitedstates
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