system by shell and rifle fire. The check of the Twenty-third Brigade banked other commands back of it, and the Twenty-fifth Brigade was obliged to fight at right angles to the line of battle. The Germans quickly rallied at these points, and took a terrific toll in British lives. Particularly was this true at three specially strong German positions. One called Port Arthur by the British, another at Pietre Mill and the third was the fortified bridge over Des Layes Creek.

Because of the lack of telephone communication it was impossible to send reinforcements to the troops that had been held up by barbed wire and other emplacements and upon which German machine guns were pouring a steady stream of death.

As the Twenty-third Brigade had been held up by unbroken barbed wire northwest of Neuve Chapelle, so the Seventh Division of the Fourth Corps was also checked in its action against the ridge of Aubers on the left of Neuve Chapelle. Under the plan of Sir Douglas Haig the Seventh Division was to have waited until the Eighth Division had reached Neuve Chapelle, when it was to charge through Aubers. With the tragic mistake that cost the Twenty-third Brigade so dearly, the plan affecting the Seventh Division went awry. The German artillery, observing the concentration of the Seventh Division opposite Aubers, opened a vigorous fire upon that front. During the afternoon General Haig ordered a charge upon the German positions. The advance was made in short rushes in the face of a fire that seemed to blaze from an inferno. Inch by inch the ground was drenched with British blood. At 5.30 in the afternoon the men dug themselves in under the relentless German fire. Further advance became impossible.

The night was one of horror. Every minute the men were under heavy bombardment. At dawn on March 11th the dauntless British infantry rushed from the trenches in an effort to carry Aubers, but the enemy artillery now greatly reinforced made that task an impossible one. The trenches occupied by the British forces were consolidated and the salient made by the push was held by the British with bulldog tenacity.

The number of men employed in the action on the British side was forty-eight thousand. During the early surprise of the action the loss was slight. Had the wire in front of the Twenty-third Brigade been cut by the artillery assigned to such action, and had the telephone system not been destroyed the success of the thrust would have been complete. The delay of four and a half hours between the first and second phases of the attack caused virtually all the losses sustained by the attacking force. The total casualties were 12,811 men of the British forces. Of these 1,751 officers and privates were taken prisoners and 10,000 officers and men were killed and wounded.

The action continued throughout Thursday, March 11th, with little change in the general situation. The British still held Neuve Chapelle and their intrenchments threatened Aubers. On Friday morning, March 12th, the Crown Prince of Bavaria made a desperate attempt under cover of a heavy fog to recapture the village. The effort was made in characteristic German dense formations. The Westphalian and Bavarian troops came out of Biez Wood in waves of gray-green, only to be blown to pieces by British guns already loaded and laid on the mark. Elsewhere the British waited until the Germans were scarcely more than fifty paces away when they opened with deadly rapid fire before which the German waves melted like snow before steam. It was such slaughter as the British had experienced when held up before Aubers. Slaughter that staggered Germany.

So ended Neuve Chapelle, a battle in which the decision rested with the British, a victory for which a fearful price had been paid but out of which came a confidence that was to hearten the British nation and to put sinews of steel into the British army for the dread days to come.

The story of Neuve Chapelle was repeated in large and in miniature many times during the deadlock of trench warfare on the western front until victory finally came to the Allies. During those years the western battle front lay like a wounded snake across France and Belgium. It writhed and twisted, now this way, now that, as one side or the other gambled with men and shells and airplanes for some brief advantage. It bent back in a great bulge when von Hindenburg made his famous retreat in the winter of 1916 after the Allies had pressed heavily against the Teutonic front upon the ghastly field of the Somme. The record is one of great value to military strategists, to the layman it is only a succession of artillery barrages, of gas attacks, of aerial reconnaissances and combats.

One day grew to be very much like another in that deadlock of pythons. A play for position here was met by a counter-thrust in another place. German inventions were out-matched and outnumbered by those coming from the Allied side.

Trench warfare became the daily life of the men. They learned to fight and live in the open. The power of human adaptation to abnormal conditions was never better exemplified than in those weary, dreary years on the western front.

 

The fighting-lines consisted generally of one, two, or three lines of shelter-trenches lying parallel, measuring twenty or twenty-five inches in width, and varying in length according to the number they hold; the trenches were joined together by zigzag approaches and by a line of reinforced trenches (armed with machine guns), which were almost completely proof against rifle, machine gun, or gun fire. The ordinary German trenches were almost invisible from 350 yards away, a distance which permitted a very deadly fire. It is easy to realize that if the enemy occupied three successive lines and a line of reinforced intrenchments, the attacking line was likely, at the lowest estimate, to be decimated during an advance of 350 yards—by rifle fire at a range of 350 yards' distance, and by the extremely quick fire of the machine guns, each of which delivered from 300 to 600 bullets a minute with absolute precision. In the field-trench, a soldier enjoyed far greater security than he would if merely prone behind his knapsack in an excavation barely fifteen inches deep. He had merely to stoop down a little to disappear below the level of the ground and be immune from infantry fire; moreover, his machine guns fired without endangering him. In addition, this stooping position brought the man's knapsack on a level with his helmet, thus forming some protection against shrapnel and shell-splinters.

At the back of the German trenches shelters were dug for non-commissioned officers and for the commander of the unit.

Ever since the outbreak of the war, the French troops in Lorraine, after severe experiences, realized rapidly the advantages of the German trenches, and began to study those they had taken gloriously. Officers, non-commissioned officers, and men of the engineers were straightway detached in every unit to teach the infantry how to construct similar shelters. The education was quick, and very soon they had completed the work necessary for the protection of all. The tools of the enemy "casualties," the spades and picks left behind in deserted villages, were all gladly piled on to the French soldiers' knapsacks,