From Destruction to Large-Scale Disruption: The Birth of Infiltration Tactics

By mid-1917, many Allied commanders had realized that decisive penetration was no longer possible. Pétain, among others, advocated limited objective attacks, designed to reduce systematically an enemy’s position in small portions. Some tacticians, however, were thinking along bolder lines. In May 1915, French captain André Laffargue (1891–1994) argued in a pamphlet that specially trained teams of skirmishers armed with light machine guns and grenades should precede the main attack. The mission of these special groups was to infiltrate into the German lines ahead of the main attack, locate and neutralize the deadly German machine guns, and even probe deeply enough to disrupt the German artillery. Laffargue's pamphlet at first did not get much serious attention from the British and French armies. The Germans, however, translated and printed a captured copy during the summer of 1916.

Good article. One wonders about French OPSEC though.