A BATTLE DESCRIBED

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 144, 19 June 1915, Page 11

A BATTLE DESCRIBED

THE STRUGGLE FOR NEUVE CHAPELLE THRILLING ACCOUNT. The London News Agency received from a correspondent the following description of the battle of Neuve . Chapelle. Thie is the first full and independent account of the engagement to be published : — For many reasons the brilliant British success at Neuve Chapelle is one of the most interesting engagement* of the war. For the first time the British Army has broken the German line, and struck tho Germans a blow which they will remember to the end of their lives. The importance of our success does not, however, lie so much in the capture of the German trenches along a front of two miles, the killing of some 6000 Germans, and the taking of 2000 prisoners. It is the revelation of the fact that the much-vaunted German army machine, on which the whole attention of . a mighty nation has been lavished for four decades, is not invincible. Neuve Chapelle has, above all things, shown the British soldier that in him the German has met his master, and that, given proper artillery _ support, the offensive can be taken against the German line, strong though it is, with every chance of success. When the German official history of the war comes to be written, it will be seen how close we were to turning this brilliantly-fought engagement into a victory which would have exercised a decisive influence on the rest of the campaign. We were pioneers at Neuve Chapelle. Like all pioneers, we had to pay the price, but the lives so freely, bo gallantly, giyen will not have been 'laid down fn vain. And, as tho German casualties, nearly twice as high as our own, attest, we learned that, contrary to the teachings of military history, in modern warfare it is not necessarily the aggressor, provided he is backed by sufficient guns, who suffers most. ARTILLERY PREPARE THE WAY. The dawn which broke reluctantly through a veil of clouds on the morning of Wednesday, 10th March,, seemed as any other to the Germans behind the white and blue sandbags in their long line of trenches curving in a hemicycle about the battered village of Neuve Chapelle. For five months they had remained undisputed masters of the positions they had here wrested from the British in October. Ensconced in their comfort-ably-arranged trenches, with but a thin outpost in their fire trenches, they had watched day succeed day and night succeed night without the least variation from the monotony of trench warfare, the intermittent bark of the machine guns— rat-t-t-tat-tat--tat— and the perpetual rattle of rifle-fire, with here and there' a bomb, and now and then an exploded mine. For weeks past the German airmen had grown strangely shy. On this Wednesday morning none were aloft to spy out the strange doings which, as dawn broke, might have been descried on the desolate roads behind the British lines. From 10 o'clock of the preceding evening endless files of men marched silently down the_ roads leading towards the Gerr^n positions, through Laventie and .Kiehebourg St. Vaast, poor, shattered villages of the dead, where months of incessant bombardment have driven away the last inhabitants, and left roofless houses and rent roadways. MARCH TO THE FRONT. Watch the troops as they go by. Here come Indians, dark faces beneath slouch hats, kukris slung behind their waistbelts. Not Gurkhas these — they are farther down the road — but Garhwalis, • a tribe akin of similar cast of face, with a strong Mongolian strain, but men of sturdier build. Here are the Leicesters, "the Tigers," /as they call them from their badge; here Territorials of the Royal Fusiliers, here the Lincolns and the Berks, the silver cross of the Rifle Brigade, the star and bugle of the Scottish Rifles, the Black Watch in their bonnets, the Northants, the Worcesters, heroes of Ypres. Halted by the roadside are the Middlesex, the West Yorks, the Devons; every burr of Britain, from Land's End to John o' Groats, is heard on these deserted highways. Two days before, a quiet room, where Nelson's prayer stands on the mantelshelf, saw the ripening of the plans that sent these sturdy sons of Britain's four kingdoms _ marching all through the night. Sir John French met the Army Corps commanders and unfolded to them his plans for the offensive of the British Army against the German line at Neuve Chapelle. The onslaught was to be a surprise. That was its essence. The Germans were to be battered with artillery, then rushed before they recovered their wits. We had 36 clear hours before us. Thus long, it was reckoned (with complete accuracy, as afterwards appeared) must elapse before the Germans, whose line before ub had been weakened, could rush up reinforcements IMPORTANCE OF NEUVE CHAPELLE. To understand the importance of Neuve Chapelle, it is necessary to glance at the conformation of the ground. Just beyond the village the flatness of the plain is broken, and the land begins to rise gently towards a. ridge running in a horseshoe from Aubers to lilies — both in German hands. There is a plateau between. From this ridge the ground descends again to where Lille, Roubaix, and Tourcoing, three of the richest cities of France (now in German occupation), lie together in the plain. Neuve Chapelle, defended by a great network of German trenches, extending from the Moulin de Pietre on the northwest, to the fortified port known as Port Arthur, situated about the cross-roads at the junction of the great Estaires-La Bassee road with the Rue dv Bois, stood between us and the Aubers-Illies ridge. He who would gain the ridge must first carry the village of Neuve Chapelle. The village was to be our first objective. This attained, the troops were to press on to the Bois de Biez, a wood, thick in parts, but consisting of trees of different ages. Simultaneously with the attack on Neuve Chapelle an assault was to be launched against the road running from the Moulin de Pietre to Pietre. Shattered houses turned into strongholds through the installation of machine guns by the Germans barred the way to the ridge on the fringe of the wood and at the elbows of the Pietre-road. _ The attack on the whole German position was entrusted to the Indian Corps on the right and the Fourth Army Corps in the centre and on the left. After the first line of German trenches, in some places only 80 yards distant from ours, had been captured, the ground was to be consolidated — i.e., put in a state of defence, and the Indians were to sweep on to the Bois de Biez, whilst the Fourth Corps, attacking from the west and north-west, were to occupy the village, and then press on towards the ridge. CONCENTRATED GUNFIRE. The whole experience of this war has gone to show that infantry cannot advance against machine-guns defended by barbed- wire entanglements. A machinegun, firing 600 shots a minute, can reap ' down advancing infantry like ripe corn.

A great general has truly said that two men with a machine-gun can hold up a biigade. Concentrated artillery fire is therefore the indispensable preliminary to an offensive in the present trench warfare. That is why guns and shells are needed — as many as possible — and that is why the strikes which delay their production are so fiercely resented by our army in the field. Our artillery was to prepare the way for the assault on Neuve Chapelle. A few hours before dawn everything was ready for opening, on the stroke of halfpast 7, the most formidable concentration of fire from guns of all calibres that the present war has yet seen. The battalions t which were to open the attack were by now wedged together in trenches and ditches, waiting for the first gun to give the signal of battle. Behind their sandbags, a white line juflt visible in the half-light before dawn, the Germans kept watch, unconscious of the inferno about to break loose upon them. Not all were unconscious. Prisoner* taken in the fight relate that in one section of the German trenches a captain became aware of unusual movement in the British lines, opposite him, and soon discovered that the enemy trenches were full of men. He sent an urgent message back to to his artillery, requesting the battery commander to open fire. The latter replied politely that he had strict injunctions not to open fire without express orders from the corps commander. Of a sudden the deep boom of a British gun struck on the ears of our waiting troops. But the bombardment was not yet. For an hour or two the gune boomed intermittently, "registering," as it k called — that is, making sure of their respective ranges — rather like a cricketer having a few balls at the nets before he goes in to bat. Then dawn broke softly, the shadows melted, and the clouds drifted away; and here and there a British aeroplane sallied pluckily forth over the German lines, to be greeted by white balls of shrapnel smoke hanging motionless in the clear morning air TROOPS IN SPLENDID FORM Our troops are m magnificent form. During the night hoi coffee has been served out all round. Some have had a warm supper. No one thinks of breakfast now. Many regiments have discarded overcoats. The sun, stealing along the line, glints off the points of bayonets fixed " for business." Every man of those waiting thousands knows what stands before, knows that when the guns ha^ve had their say for five and thirty minutes he will be out in the open making for the blu© and white line in front of him as hard as he can pelt. God ' How the time drags! The aeroplanes glitter aloft. Here and there a bird sings. Subalterns are glancing at their watches. Then hell broke loose. With a mighty hideous screeching burst of noise hundreds of guns spoke. The men in thefront trenches were deafened by the sharp reports of the field guns spitting out their shells at close range, to cut through the German barbed-wire entanglements. In some cases the trajectory of these vicious missiles was so flat that they passed only a few feet above the British trenches. The din was continuous. An officer who had the curious idea of putting his ear to the ground said it was as though the earth were being smitten great blows with a Titan's hammer. After the first few shells had plunged screaming amid clouds of earth and dust into the German trehches a dense pall of smoke hung over the German lines. The sickening tumes of lyddite blew back into the British trenches. In some places the troops were smothered in earth and dust, or even spattered with blood from the hideous fragments of human bodies that went huitling through the air. At one point the upper half of a' German officer, his cap crammed on his head, was blown into one of our trenches. Words will never convey any adequate idea of the horror of thos-3 five and thirty minutes. When the hands of the ofheers' watches pointed to five minutes past 8 whistles resounded along the British lines. At the same moment the shells began to burst further ahead, for, by previous arrangement, the gunners, lengthening their fuses, were "lifting" on to the village of Neuve Chapelle, so as to leave the road open for our infantry to rush in and finish what the guns had begun. CAPTURE OF THE VILLAGE. The shells were now falling thick among the houses of Neuve Chapelle, a confused mass of buildings seen reddish through the pillars of smoke and flying earth and dust. At the sound of the whistle— alas ! for the bugle, once the herald of victory, now banished from the fray ! — our men scrambled out of the trenches and hurried higgledy-piggledy into the open. Their officers were in front. Many, wearing overcoats and carrying rifles with fixed bayonets, closely resembled their men. It was from the centre of our attacking line that the assault was pressed home soonest. The guns had done their work well. The trenches were blown to irrecognisable pits dotted with dead. The barbed wire had been cut like so much twine. The Germans left alive in the trenches, half-demented with fright, surrounded by a welter of dead and dying men, mostly surrendered. Things had moved so fast that by the time the troops were ready to advance against the village, the artillery had not finished its work. So, while the Lincolns and the Berks assembled the prisoners, who were trooping out of the trenches in all directions, the infantry on whom devolved the honour of capturing the village waited. One saw them standing out in the open, laughing and cracking jokes amid the terrific din made by the huge howitzer shells screeching overhead and bursting in the village, the rattle of machine guns all along the line, and the popping of rifles. Over to the right, where the Garhwalis had been working with the bayonet, men were shouting hoarsely, and wounded were groaning as the stretcher-bear-ers, all heedless of bullets, moved swiftly to and fio over the shell-torn ground. SCENE OF DESOLATION. The village was a sight that the men say they will never forget. It looked as if an earthquake had struck it. It was indeed a scene of desolation into which the Rifle Biigade — the first regiment to enter the village, I believe — raced headlong. Of the church only the bare shell remained, the interior lost to view beneath a gigantic mound of debris. The little churchyard was devastated, the very dead plucked from their graves, broken coffins, an\d ancient bones scattered about amid the fresher dead, the slain of that momiing — grey-green forms asprawl athwart the tombs. Of all that once fair village but two things remained intact — the gveat crucifixes reared aloft, one in the churchyard, the other over against the chateau. From the Cross that is the amblem of our faith, the figure of Christ, yet intact, though all pitted with bullet-marks, looked down in mute agony on the slaying in the village. The din and confusion were indescribable. Through the Mick pall of shell smoke Germans were seen on all sides, Borne emerging half-daj:ed from cellars and dug-outs, their hands above their heads ; others dodging round the shattered houses ; others firing from the windows, from behind carts, even from bohind the overturned tombstones. Machineguns were firing from the houses on the outskirts, rapping out thair nerve-rack-ing note above the noise df the rifles. Many strange incidents n/ere observed.

In one cellar a poitly German was found dancing about in an agony of fear, screaming in a high-pitchea voice in English : — "Mercy ! mercy. I am married ! "Your missus won't thank us for sending you home !" retorted one of the meti who took him prisoner, and his life was spared. A Rifle Brigade subaltern, falling over a sandbag into a German trench, came upon two officers hardly more than boys, their hands above their heads. Their facea were ashen-grey ; they were trembling. One said gravely in good English, "Don't shoot! I am from London also!" They, too, were .mercifully used. GREENJACKETS AND GURKHAS. Just outside the village there was a scene of tremendous enthusiasm. The Rifle Brigade, smeared with dust and blood, fell in with the Third Gurkhas, with whom they had been brigaded in India. The little brown men were dirty, but radiant. Kukri in hand they had very thoroughly gone through some houses at the cross-roads on the Rue dv Bois, and silenced a party of Germans who were making themselves a nuisance there with some machine-guns. Riflemen and Gurkhas cheered themselves hoarse. Then they pushed on to where a fringe of scraggy trees on the horizon marked the Bois de Biez. It is now half -past eight, the hour when folks in England are comfortably sitting down to their breakfast, when trim maids are bringing tea to the bedsides. Neuve Chapelle is ours, but the German resistance is not broken. Only a few hundred yards from where Riflemen and Gurkhas are fraternising in the first flush of victory Englishmen are traversing the last stern stage of a soldier's career in the field — the path of death. FEARFUL BLAST OF FIRE. Whistles blow, the men leave their trenches. Instantly they are withered by a fearful blast of fire. The German trench is untouched. So is the barbed wire, 200 yards of it. The Garhwalis never waver All the officers of the leading companies are killed, right ahead of their men. The battalion staggers under the blast of fire, loses its direction, swings, to the right, and captures, after fierce in-fighting with bayonet and knife, a section of trench there, only to be cut off in the upshot by the Germans fn the intact trench. On their left the Leicesters have gone through with a rush. Handy men with the bayonet, hardly a man in the battalion, the Second, that does not do his work. So gallantly, indeed, did the Tigers bear themselves this day that after the light the divifiional general vi&ited them in their billets to congratulate them on the good showing they made. The Leicesters come in tor fire from the German trench which iias been left intact. It is a bad gap in our attacking line, and it must be closed. Five ©£ the Garhwalis' officers are dead now, killed in the first lino after prodigies of bravery In this fight the battalion is to lose 20 officers and 350 men killed and wounded. The Germans have started' to' shell the Garhwali trenches; but the men, though' without officers, are steady. These stout little hillmen have seen their officers fall, fearlessly exposing themselves ; they remember that, and it keeps them firm. "Now the Leicesters are going to effect a junction with the marooned Garhwalis. A bombing party is creeping down the communication trench to pelt the Germans into the open. Cricket is good training for bomb-throwing, and the Tigers fling their bombs into the crowded German trenches as fast and true as though they were throwing down a wicket. As the Germans are driven out into the open they are shot or bayoneted, or slashed iwith the kukri. The captain lays out five Germans with his revolver. TERRITORIAL CHARGE. The day is wearing on. The attack has dragged badly at thie point in the line. The Seaforths, with kilts flying, are despatched to execute a flank attack on the German trench. From the front the 3rd London Regiment, a Territorial battalion of the Royal Fusiliere, delivers a splendid charge. The men come tear, ing across the pitted fields strewn with dead, bayonets well down, cheering as they go. They drop men as they plunge along — but who cares in such a charge, under the eyes of the elite of the army? — the Regulars cheer them as they swing past, and they carry in their stride the last German stronghold, and the gap is closed. As the sun sinks blood-red bohind the grim skeleton that was once the village of the New 'Jhapel our men dig themselves in on the new line we have won between the village tnd the Biez Wood. You who read these lines may never have heard of the Scottish Rifles, as the 2nd Battalion of the Cameronians likes to be designated. A fine, proud corps, the old 90th Light Foot, the Scottish Rifles, "do not advertise," as they will tell one in the accent of Lanark or of Aberdeen, but they are "the only regiment in the British Army that can lay claim to three commanders-in-chief and two field-marshals " — Lord Hill, Lord Woleeley, and Sir Evelyn Wood, to wit. Ii» a few hours of martyrdom the Scottish Rifles at Neuve Chapelle showed that they have lost nothing of the spirit which won them fame at Lucknow and at Spion Kop. All their officers, save one, were killed or wounded, the colonel, Lieut. -Colonel Bliss, and his adjutant, falling side by side bravely leading the first line. The losses among the men were in proportion. A hundred and fifty odd were all that their sole surviving officer, a second lieutenant of the Speciai Reserve, could collect after the German position had been won. But though all their officers were gone, the men remained as steady as on parade, " moulding themselves," as one who went all through the fight put it, "on the glorious example given them by their officers." And the Scottish Rifles showed the Germans how a Scot can handle a bayonet. MIDDLESEX'S GREAT ATTACK. On getting out of. their 1 trenches the Middlesex were a little crowded. As they pressed forward to the attack they were suddenly swept by a diabolical fire from two machine-guns posted at either end of the German trench, so as to cover with their converging fire a patch of about 200 yards front. In this zone no man could live. But the Middlesex were men of grit. They did not stop. They got as far as the wire. They hacked at it, tore at it till their hands were raw and bleeding, and their uniforms rent to tatters. From their starting point right up to the wire they left a deep lane of their dead and dying 120 yards long, a 6ight so poignant that men, coming suddenly on that bloody trail, broke down, and wept at the sheer pity, at the undying glory of it. Three timee the 2nd Middlesex tried to burst through and silence those machine-guns that barked death at them. Their efforts were in vain. So the Middlesex lay down there in the open amongst their dead, amongst the whizzing bullets and the bursting shrapnel. Their colonel managed to get a message back ''to our guns to turn their fire again on the German trench in front, and presently our guns opened fire and destroyed the wire. In the meantime a bombing party of the Middlesex had cleared some Germans out of the environs. Tho Germans had been sniping from a cross-road, and had signified their readiness to surrender. On noticing, however, that the bombing party consisted only of an officer and six men, they ducked down in their trench again and reopened fire The bombing party pushed on, and pelted them out into tho open whor« the machine-gun officer <it

tho Middlesex was waiting for them with his Maxim. The Middlesex were now able to get on to their objective, a large orchard north-east of the village, where serious resistance had been anticipated. The Devons had got in there already, and made mincemeat of the Germans. There the Middlesex stayed, and consolidated the position. I GERMANS ON THE RUN. By half-past 1 in the afternoon village and envhons were in our hands, but the advance was still delayed by the "dragging" of the brigades, where the battalions had been held up by the barbed wire. The conditions were ideal for a further advance towards the Aubers Ridge. The Germans were on the run. The total demoralisation of the prisoners proved that. Few of the dead found up to that hour were fully equipped. The prisoners were panic-stricken. They were not second-class troops, either, not pot-bellied, bespectacled Landwehr or Landsturm, but fine, upstanding young Westfalians, clean, and in good uniforms. Most of the prisoners seemed heartily relieved at their capture. The Border Regiment bagged a Prussian colonel. He was delighted to be taken. Of his Own initiative he formed up his men, bawling^ at them in the most approved Prussian barrack-yard style, and marched them off through the British lines. Tlie Borderers say the men seemed more scared of their colonel than of the "hated English." ENEMY'S COUNTER-ATTACK. Dawn -had not broken on the morning of 12th March, when the Germans opened fire on Neuve Chapelle. Everybody in the British lines knew that this was the harbinger of a counter-attack, one of those thrusts en masse beloved of German commanders. At 5 a.m., sure enough, before it was light, surging masses of greycoats appeared in front of our left, east of Neuve Chapelle, and south of Port Arthur, on our extreme right. This German counter-attack was % ghastly business. The few prisoners who were taken say they were told that there had been "a slight mishap," and that "a few British soldiers" were in Neuve Chapelle, and had to bo driven out. The attack was ill-timed and illprepared. Tho German staff work seems to have been at fault, for their troops appeared to have expected to find us much farther back. In front of the Worcesters the enemy — they were Bavarians — advanced in column of route, an officer on horseback with drawn sword in their midst. A non-commissioned officer was seen driving the men along with a whip, as though they had been a herd of cattle. UNFAVOURABLE WEATHER. It was now clear that the preliminary to any successful advance must be the destruction by artillery of the three German BtrongholdB — the two on the Pietre-road, and the bridgehead over the River Layes. Orders to our troops were to break down the German barrage of fire at all costs. All that man could do against the German line they did, with that self-sacrifice and steadfast courage that they had shown throughout the two dajs' fighting. At half-past 12 the Rifle Brigade went forward in the face of the most devastating fire, and actually managed to reach the trench in front of it, 100 yds away, at heavy cost. The German fire was so terrific and continuous that the wounded who strewed the ground did not dare lift their heads for fear of being shot. At 5 another attempt was made to get forward, but the front line only succeeded in reaching the same ground as the Rifle Brigade already held. There we remained until nightfall, when, it becoming apparent that no advantage was to be derived from holding the flooded trenches we had gained at the cost of so many valuable lives, the order was given to fall back on the positions from which tho afternoon attack j was made. * j The fighting was now practically over, j The Germans had apparently realised : that the recapture of Neuve Chapelle and their trenches opposite the Bois dv Biez was impossible,, and settled down to strengthen their positions protecting the Aubers Ridge. Nevertheless, throughout the 13th they kept up a violent bombardment of our new line, without, however, achieving any success. HARD DAY'S FIGHTING. Tho 13th was a hard day for our army. The troops were worn out with three days' fighting. In many cases they were in very insufficient cover, though they worked feverishly, dog-tired as they were, to entrench themselves efficaciously. The new trenches were very wet, and a biting wind added to the general discomfort. In many cases the men fell asleep standing up at their loop-holes, and a sergeant tells how he went down the line of his trench after dark, tugging at a leg here and there to make sure that the men were still awake. More than once he found himself plucking the boot of a dead German. On the 14th most of the troops which had taken part in this historic engagement had been relieved. The victory of Neuve Chapelle has welded the British Army in the field even closer together than before. The Army unites in mourning for the brave men that died, as in admiration for the countless deeds of individual heroism the fight brought forth, and satisfaction at the important results achieved. No one rejoices more at the splendid manner in which the Army stood the test than Sir John French, who, in a stirring special order to the First Army, expressed his "fervent most heartfelt appreciation of the magnificent gallantry and devoted, tenacious courage displayed by all ranks." With his eulogy , will be mingled the warmest thanks of England.