WAR NEWS BY MAIL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15932, 1 June 1915, Page 10

WAR NEWS BY MAIL.

THE NEUVE CHAPELLE FIGHT.

HEROISM OF BRITISH TROOPS.

SUCCESSES OF ALLIED FORCES.

NEW ZEALANDERS AT FRONT.

mm TO TRADITIONS.

GERMANS FALL LIKE OORN,

MAGNIFICENT CHARGES.

POSITION HELD WHEN WON. The following brilliant story of the great Neuve Chapelle victory, which came to hand by yesterday's mail, is the first full and independent account of this glorious achievement. Neuvs Chape ; le, says the writer, has fc.iovi. «1 t-iin,"'. jrwi 'he British soldier ihat in h-.:i wo Gf.wr '.as met his master and that, given proper artillery support, the offensive can be token against the German line, t-irong though it is, with every chance of success. When the German official history of the war tomes to he written it will he 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. The issue at stake, after the capture of Neuve Chapelle on the morning of March 10 was great enough to justify .far greater lossffl than those we sustained in the magnificently executed attempt to push forward the advantage alresdy gained. 'If we were prevented, mainly by unfavourable weather conditions, from benefiting- to the full by our success, we held the ground we had won, despite repeated and desperate counter-attacks by fresh German troops hastily thrown into the field. We wero pioneers at Neuve Chapelk Imbued with the fighting spirit of our fathers, our army, after months of inaction, was the first to put the last lesson learned during the long winter in the trenches. Like all pione?rs, we had to pay the price, but the lives so freely, so gallantly, given will not have been hid down in vain.

in the half-light before dawn, the Germans kept watch, unconscious of the inferno about to break loose on them. Not all were unconscious. Prisoners taken in tho fight relate that in cue 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 cf men. He sent Rn urgent message back to his artillery requesting the battery commander to open fire. The latter replied politely that he had strict injunctions not to open firs without expms orders from the corps commander. " Also. . . . bedauere seLr. , . ." (" I regret extriftiely. . .") The First Gun. Of a sudden the deep boom of a, British gun struck on tho ears <>f our waiting troops. Bub tha bombardment was not vet. for an hour or two the guns boomed intermittently " rptjisterin;;," as it is ciuhd—that is, making sine of their respective ranges— r<uher like a cricketer luring a f'w balls at the net? before he goes in to bat Then dawn broke softly, the shadows melted, and the clouds drifted away, and here u.od there a British aeroplane sallied pluckily forth over the German lines to be greeted by white balls of shrapnel smote hanging motionless in the clear morning air. Then hell broke loose. With & mighty, hideous screeching burst of noiso hundreds of guns spoke. The men in the front trenches were deafened by the sharp reports of the field guns spitting out their shells at close range to cut through the Germans' barb-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 car to the ground said it was as though the earth, were being smitten with great blows by a Titan's hammer. After the first few shells had plunged screaming amid clouds of earth and dust into the German trenches, a dtnsu pall of smoke hung over the German lines. The sickening fumes of lyddite blew back into the British trenches. The Horror of the Shells. In some places the troops were smothered in earth and dust or even spattered with blood from the hideous fragment of human bodies that went hurtling through the air. At one point tho 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 honof of those 35 minutes. When the hands of tho officers.' watches pointed to five minutes past eight, whistles ! resounded along the British lines. At tho I same moment the shells began to burst 1 farther ahead, for, by previous arrangement, the gunner*, lengthening tb«ir fuses, wera "lifting" on to the village of Xeu':o Chtjwlle, eo as to leave the road cpen for our LAntry to risk in and linish what the guns had begun. The shells were now falling • " ; ck among the cruses of Nenve Chapelle ; a confused mass of buildings seen redd 'i through the pillars cf smoke end flying earth and dust. At the sound of the whistle—! for the bugle, once the herald of victory, is now banished from tho fray our men scrambled out of the trenches and hurried Jnggledy-piggedly :'nto the open. Their officers were in front. Many, wearing overcoats and carrying rifles with fixed bV.onet'), closely resembled t!"ir men. It was from the centre of our attacking line that the assault was pressed homo soonest. The guns had done their work well. The trenches were blown to unrecognisable pits dotted' with deau. The barbed-wire had been cut like so much twine. Starting from the Rue Tilleloy, the Lincolns and the Berkshires were off tho mark first with orders to swerve to the right and left respectively as soon as they had captured the fast line of trenches to let the Royal Irish Rifles and the Rifle Brigade through to the village. Bravery of Two Germans.

Assembling the. Troops. The .dawn which, broke, reluctantly through a veil of clouds on the morning of Wednesday, March 10, seemed as any other to the German? behind the- -white and blue wndbagg in their long line of trenches curving i". a hemicycle ah rat thus battered village of Neuve Chape Jo. For -weeks past the German jirinen had gro^n.'strangely shy. On this Wednes-" U* none was aloft to spy cat he strange doings •which as dawn broke m'gfct hire been des-sied on the d'so~iu .0 roads behind the British lines. From ten o'clock of the preceding evening endhis files of men matched, silently down •ie roads leading towards the German , positions, through Laventie and Eichebomy St. Vard, poor shattered villages of the dead, where months sf scess&it • bombardment have driven away lite last inhabitants and left roofless houses and , r..n load ways. Hen from Every Country. Watch the troops as they go by. Here ; ■.oine Indians, dark facet beneath slouch hats, kukris slung behind their waistbelts not Gurkhas these—they are farther down the road—but Garhwaiia, a tribe akin, of similar cast of face with a strong Mongolian strain, but men of sturdier build. Here are the Leicester*, " The Tigers" as they call them from their badge; hero territorials of the Royal Fusiliers; here the Lincolns and the Berks; the silver cioss of the Rifle Brigade; the star and bugle of the Scottish Rifle*; th« Black Watch in their bonnets the Northante, the Worcesfcers, 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 Nelsoa'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 wjts. The Flan of Attack. The village vat, jn le our first objective. This attaint', f-e troops were to press on to H-. ; Bo : du Jiez, a wood thick in parts but consisting of trees of different ages. Simultaneously with the attack on Nuve Chapelle an asscult was to be launched agai; it the road running from the Moulin de Pietre to Pietre. Snattered houses turned ir/j strongholds through the installation of machine guns by t;he German, barred the way to the ridgo on the fringe of the wood and at the db'jws of the Piitiv Road. The attack on 'be whole German position was entrusted •;j the Indian Corps on the right and the 4th Army Corps in the centre and on the left. After the first line of German trenches, in some places only 80 .yards < J stent from ours, had been captured, the S, uund was to be consolidated— put in a state of defence—and 'he Indiana were to sweep on to the 3ois de Biez, while the 4th Corps, attacking from the west an! north-west, were to occupy the village and then press on towards the ridge. flu. whole experience of this war has gone to show that infantry cannot advance against machine guns defended by barbed-wire entanglements. A machine gun, firing 600 shots a minute, can reap down advancing infantry like ripe corn. A great general ha? truly said that two men with a machine gun can hold up a l>rig 'de. Concentrated artillery fire is i.herefore the 'iidispenpable preliminary 11 an offensive ia th-2 present trench warfare. That is why guns and shells are neededas many as possible— that is why the strikes which delayed their production are so fiercely resented by our army in the field. Artillery to Clear the Way. 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 7.30, the most formidable concentration of fire from guns of all calibres that the present war has yet seen. The battalions which were to open the attack were by now wedged together in ' trenches' and ditches waiting for the first (run to give the signal of battle. Behind their sandbags, a white line just visible

The Germans left alive in the Trenches, half demented with fright, surrounded by a welter of dead and dying men, mostly surrendered. The Berkshircs were opposed with tho utmost gallantry by two German officers, who had remained alone in a trench serving a machine gun. But the lads from Berkshire made their way into that trench and bayoneted the Germans where they stood, fighting to the last. • The Lincolns, against desperate resistance, eventually occupied their section of trench and then waited for the Irishmen and the Rifle Brigade to come and take the village ahead of them. Meanwhile the second 39th Gahrwalis on*the right had taken their trenches with a rush and were awav towards the village and the Biez Wood. Things had moved so fast that by the ti::ie the troops were ready to advance against the village thf artillery ha J not fi.r-U-ci its work. Sv, while the Unco'. *ud '.'a' Berks assembled the prisoners who were'trooping out of the v.-er:cheti in all directions, the infantry on whom '(evolved the honour of taring '.he tillage waited. Bloody #ork in the v There was bloody work in thf .Milage of Keuve Chapelle. 'The capture .' :<■ v>»> ! at the bayonet point is general!.- ~•'■<» business, in which instant, unronuitivi.al surrender i* the only means by which bloodshed, a deal of bloodshed, can be prevented. If there is individual .eeistance here and there the attacking troops cannot discriminate. They must go through, flay--1 ing as they go such as oppose them 'tho Germans have a monopoly of the finishingoff of wounded men), otherwioe the enemy's resistance would not bo broken and the assailants would be sniped and enfiladed from hastily prepared strongholds at half a Uozen different points. Like an Earthquake. The village was a sight that the inert say they will never forget. It, looked as if an earthquake had struck it. The published photographs do not give any idea of the indescribab'e mass of ruins to which our guns reduced t. The chaos is so utter that the very line of the streets is all but obliterated. < Tt was indeed a scene of desolation into which the Rifle Brigade— first regiment to enter tho village, I believeraced headlong. The din and confusion were indescribable. Through the thick pall of shell-smoke Germans were seen on all sides, some emerging half-dazed from cellars and outs, their hands above their heads, others dodging round the shattered j houses, others firing from the windows, from behind carts, even from behind tho overturned tombstones. Machine-guns were firing from the houses on the outskirts, rapping out their nerve-racking note above tho noise of the rifles. A Tlifle Brigade subaltern falling over a sandbag into a German trench came upon two officers, hardly more than boys, their hands above their heads. Their faces were ashen grey, they were trembling. One said gravely in Rood English, " Don't shoot! I am from London also!" They were mercifully treated.

Just outside the village there was a scene of tremendous enthusiasm. The Rifle Brigade, smeared with dust and blood, fell in with the 3rd Gurkhas, with whom they had been brigaded in India. Tho little brown nun were dirty, but radiant. Kukri in hand, they had thoroughly gone through some houses at the crossroads on the Rue du Bois and silenced a party of Germans who were making themselves a nuisance there with some machineguns. Riflemen and GurKhas cheered themselves hoarse. Then they pushed on to where a fringe of scraggy trees on the horizon marked the Bois du Biwe.

It was now half-past eight. Neuve Chapello is ours, but (lie German resistance is not broken. Only a few hundred yarns from where riflemen and Gurkhas are fraternising in the first flush of victory Englishman are traversing the /mat stern stage of a soldier's career in the 'Jeld, the path of death. How Brave Men Died. If you would hear the manner of their death then follow 1110 first to the extreme right of the line to that sinister group of ruined houses known as Port Arthur. We are with the Ist 39th Garhwalis, a tough regiment that showed its worth in Burma and in the Tirah campaign. Whistles blown, 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 a fierce in-fighting with bayonet and knife, a sec tion of trench there, only to be cut off in the upshot by the Germans in the intact trench. On their loft the Leicesters have gone through with a rush. Handy men with the bayonet, hardly a man in the battalion, tho 2nd, that does not do his work. So gallantly, indeed did the Tig* bear themselves this day that after toe fight the divisional general visited them in their billets to longratulato them on the g'. 'd showing they made. The Lei'.esteis come in for fire from the German trench which has been left intact. It is a bad gap in our attacking line and it must he closed. Example ot the Officers. Five of the Garhwalis' officers are dead now, killed in the first line 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 ami it keeps them firm. Now the Leicesters are going to effect a junction with the marooned Garhwalis. A bombing party is creeping dow>: the communication trench to pelt the Gpit.iwps into the open. Cricket is good tra.-.:.. for bomb-throwing, and th. Tigers flint,' their bombs into the crowded Gorman trenches as fast and two us though they were throwing down a «icvet. As the Germans are driven out into the ier li;»; are shot or bayoneted or slashed with Git kukri. The captain lays out live Germans with his revolver. Territorials' Charge. The day is wearing on. The rtu.k ua* dragged badly at this point in lie line. The Seafoiths, with kilts flying, are ■'e". patched to execute a flank attack on \he German trench. From the front a territorial battalion of the Royal Fusiliers, the 3rd, London, Regiment, delivers a splendid charge. The men come tearing across tho 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, atvl they carry in their stru the last German stronghold and the r •]) is rinsed. As th* sun sinks blood-red behind the grim skeleton that was once the village of the New Chapel, our men dig themselves in on the new line we have won between the village and the Biez Wood. Germans od the Run.

Rifle Brigade who had crawled out of the trench tamo back with' nine Germans, gingerly tailing behind him on all fours. It was now clear that the preliminary to any successful advance must be the destruction by artillery of the three German: strongholds—the two on the Pietre road and the bridgehead over the River La-yes. But the weather allied itself with our existing difficulties. The clear atmosphere prevailing during the first day of tlfe fighting had given way to mist, impeding the artillery observation work and making it increasingly hard to distinguish friend from foe amid a network of trenches, which in some places were only 50yds apart. With hopes high mid courage undaunted 'our troops went forward again against the German line protecting the ridge. The 2nd Scots Guards, the Ist Grenadiers, ; the Borderers, and the 2nd Gordons, with their Territorial Battalion, the 6th. were among the regiments taking part in the assault. With incredible tenacity, using grenade and bayonet, part of the attacking troops worked their way right tip to the houses about the Moulin de Pietre. Gallant Soldier's Death. Here it was that the 6th Gordons lost their colonel, Lieutenant-Colonel Maclean. A subaltern, hearing he had been killed* hastened to his side, and found him still alive, lying in the open behind the trench with a 'bullet in his back and sinking fast. He was Buffering grievously. The young officer retched the colonel some morphia, which eased his pain. •Thank you," said the dying man ; "and now, my boy. your place'is not here. Go about your unty. So he dismissed him, and died a little while later, a very gallant gentleman. Orders to our troops were, to break down the German barrage of fire at all costs. All that human men could do i.gainst the German line they did with that seU-savrifice and steadfast courage that thev had shown throughout the two davs' lighting. At half-past twelve the Rifle Brigade went forward in the face -.f the most devastating fire, and actually managed to icach the trench in front of it lOOvds awav, at heavy cost. The German fir* was'so terrific and continuous 'that tlv wounded who strewed the ground 'did not dare lift their heads for fear of being shot. At five another attempt was Imailo to get forward, but the front line only succeeded in reaching the same '"round as the Rifle Brigade already held. There v.v remained until nightfall, when, it becoming apparel that no advantage was to b<- derived irem holding the flood*J trendies «'«* had gained at the cost of so many valuable lives, ihe order was-giv-'il to fall back on the positions from which tV afternoon attack was made. I The lighting was now practically over. The :}<!i.;;..\3 had apparently realised that j the recapture of Xeuve Chapclle and their I trenches opposite the Bois dn Ilioz was J impossible, and settled down to strengthen I their positions protecting the libera | ridge. Nevertheless, throughout the 13th, I lliev kept up a violent bombardment of our" new line without, however, achieving any success. j Men Sleen Standing, ! The loth was a hard day lor our as my. :''lio troops were worn out villi '.hrce 'ins' fighting. In many cases tlie-men fell asleep standing up at their loopholes, 'a-,,1 .-. sergeant tells how he went down I the line of his trench alter dark, tugging at a Kg here and there to make sure that the men were still awake. More ,th>-n once be found himself plucking the , Wot of a dead German. On the 14th i moat of the troops which had taken part (in this historic engagement had been re-i'li-ved. ■ , ii , ! The victory of Neuve (hopelle has I welded the British Army in the Held even 'closer together than before. 'Ihe army 'unites in mourning; for the brave men that died, as in admiration for the countless ! deeds of individual , heroism the light brought forGi and satisfaction at the mi Iportant results achieved I No one rejoices more at the splendid ! manner in which the army stood the test I than Sir John Trench, who. in » stirring special order to the Ist .' ran-, ex'pressed his "fervent and most heartfelt appreciation of the. magnificent jsllantrv land devoted tenacious courage displayed !hy all ranks." With hi* eulogy «-ill be mingled the warmest thanks of England. !

It was 1.30 >n (li'o ftornom when tJir j village and env'.oiv •. eif ; M our hands. ! hut the ndvanee was still delayer! by flic " 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 Auber? Ridge. Tile Germans were on tli.» inn. The total demoralisation of the prisoners proved that. In point of fact it « fl , not till 3.50 th.it tho advance ■ i.uld proceed. At this mo-' went the enemy's op 4 iosition was still so | paralysed that our Men were abb- to form up unscathed in the open outside | the village before advancing. Opposite the wood tho soldiers got out of the trenches and walked about. The whole of our left attacked the Pietre road, hut . the German machino guns pasted in the houses on the road held is up. ' The (Gurkhas on the right penetrated into the I Bcis du Biez, but a German stronghold at a bridge over the little stream, known a3 the Riviere des Laves, enfiladed the Indians, and the Gurkhas were unable to tetain their advantage. First Counter-attack. Just before dawn the next morning tho Germans made their first attempt to deprive us of our capture. Their counterattack was driven off with heavy loss, and we pursue! them till wo were checked by those fatal strongholds on the Pietrc road. In the meantime our artillery had been steadily sholling the wood with a view to hindering the arrival of the Gem an reinforcements, which were known, to be en route. Two German regiments posted in the wood are believed to have been decimated. For days afterwards the enemy was observed to be bringing dead bodies out of the wood and burying them in the fields in tho rear. All that day the Germans shelled our new line. Our troops .'/food it imperturbably as ever, thoigl wo had some losses. During the night, the expected German reinforcements began to arrive-c-Bavarinn ana Saxon ragmen which had been resting at Tourcoing, after a, spell in theGerman trenches round Ypres. J Dawn bad not buksn on the morning iof March 12 when th - Germans opened j fire or, Neuve r ' ti>, Everybody in the British lines '< *tv t* *■ this was tho harbinger of a conn' - -attack, one of these thrusts on masse i-jlovcd of German commander; At 5 fo.m., sure enough, before 't was light, surging masses of grey coats appeared in front of our left, east ci Neuve Chapelle and south of Port Arthur oa our extreme right. ", Ghastly 3u°lness." This German cc unter-attac.k was a ghastly business. The few prisoners who were taken sav they were told that thero had been "a slight "mishap," end that " a few British soldier.i were in Nenvo Chapelle, and had D be driven out. Tho attack was ill-timed and ill-prepared. In front of the Worcester*, the enemy—they were Bavarians— in column of loute, an officer on horseback with drawn sword in their midst. A non-commis-sioned officer was seen driving the men along with a whip as though they had Veen a herd of cattle. _ The slaughter was sickening. In front of one of the brigades the Bavarians, coming along at the ambling trot adopted by the /"ieruian infantry at tho assault, and bawling "Honrra!" in tho approved I fashion, blundered into the fire of no fewer than 21 machine guns. The files of j men did not recede or stagger. They I were just swept away. One moment ono , had the shouting, ambling crowd before I one's eyes; the next moment where it had been lay a writhing, convulsed pile of bodies heajed up on the brown earth. When day broke, amid the rattle of machine-gun and rifle fire, the German; i j corpses were seen to make ramparts, bei ' hind which ihe wounded took cover. In ono case at jeast the Germans, feverishly : ; . digging themselves in, were actually seen I I to use the corpse of one of their com--1 , rades to finish off the parapet of their trench. | All through the morning the German i ' wounded crawled into the British lines,, where they were well cared for and sent j ; down in our ambulance's. The Gurkhas i I' stood up on the parapet and called to the Germans to come in. A man in the I