r the immortal stand of Joffre at the first battle of the Marne and
the sudden savage thrust at the German center which sent von Kluck and
his men reeling back in retreat to the prepared defenses along the line
of the Aisne, the war in the western theater resolved itself into a play
for position from deep intrenchments. Occasionally would come a sudden
big push by one side or the other in which artillery was massed until
hub touched hub and infantry swept to glory and death in waves of gray,
or blue or khaki as the case might be. But these tremendous efforts and
consequent slaughters did not change the long battle line from the Alps
to the North Sea materially. Here and there a bulge would be made by the
terrific pressure of men and material in some great assault like that
first push of the British at Neuve Chapelle, like the German attack at
Verdun or like the tremendous efforts by both sides on that bloodiest of
all battlefields, the Somme.

Neuve Chapelle deserves particular mention as the test in which the
British soldiers demonstrated their might in equal contest against the
enemy. There had been a disposition in England as elsewhere up to that
time to rate the Germans as supermen, to exalt the potency of the
scientific equipment with which the German army had taken the field.
When the battle of Neuve Chapelle had been fought, although its losses
were heavy, there was no longer any doubt in the British nation that
victory was only a question of time.

The action came as a pendant to the attack by General de Langle de
Cary's French army during February, 1915, at Perthes, that had been a
steady relentless pressure by artillery and infantry upon a strong
German position. To meet it heavy reinforcements had been shifted by the
Germans from the trenches between La Bassee and Lille. The earthworks at
Neuve Chapelle had been particularly depleted and only a comparatively
small body of Saxons and Bavarians defended them. Opposite this body was
the first British army. The German intrenchments at Neuve Chapelle
surrounded and defended the highlands upon which were placed the German
batteries and in their turn defended the road towards Lille, Roubaix and
Turcoing.

The task assigned to Sir John French was to make an assault with only
forty-eight thousand men on a comparatively narrow front. There was only
one practicable method for effective preparation, and this was chosen by
the British general. An artillery concentration