Thus two sharp blows had been given in this region and bad blood was nowise abated by the results. A third was about to follow, and it was to be a much greater effort than either of the others. By the end of winter the British had been heavily reinforced. In No vember 1914 the Territorial troops, fresh from intensive training in England, began to come over by battalions. By the end of February they had arrived in divisions. A whole division of Canadians were also on the spot, full of that vigor which the American air gives to those who have breathed it deeply. There were, also, troops of British stock assembled from many far flung imperial garrisons, shivering in a climate that had nothing in common with the tropical scenes from which they had been abruptly shifted. In all, General French had about. 500,000 men when spring opened. He organized them into two field. armies, in each of which were three corps. Over the first army General Haig had command, over the second was General Smith-Donien. The first stood on the southern part of the British line, from Estaires to La Basset, where it joined the French army of Gen. de Maud'Huy. ' The sec ond held the front from Estaires north to the point of the Ypres salient, where it connected with the French forces organized into an army under General D'Urbal. This was the largest body of British soldiers assembled up to that time and it was better equipped with arms and artillery than any other force. But for all that, experience was to show that. it was not well enough supplied for the demands of the new t)pe of warfare.
General French and his officers were con fident that they could break through the Ger man lines. The people at home shared their feeling, and there was a general expectation that something would be done commensurate with the great effort that had been expended. It was thought that only the coming of spring and the diminution of the mud that filled the trenches and co ered the surface of the north country were needed for the realization of these hopes.
The scene selected for attack was that which had witnessed the two affairs just de scribed. Three and a half miles north of Givenchr was Neuve 'Chapelle, a straggling vil lage which had been in British hands early in the war. It was later talcen and held by the Germans and made an inconvenient salient in the British lines. Behind it was the Aubers Ridge commanding the approaches to Lille. To cut through the lines here and seize this ridge would have an important effect upon the whole German position in this region. After due deliberation it was decided to make the attempt, and preparations were made in the most careful and elaborate manner.
By this time it was known to all men that the war was an artillerists' war to a larger ex tent than in any preceding struggle. The Ger mans had foreseen this fact, but it was left for the French, with their keener wits, to show how the best use was to be made of the vast numbers of cannon that were assembled. In their fighting in Champagne they had used what they called the curtain of fire, later known as the °barrage)) Placing their 75's close to gether side by side with identical range and firing rapidly they were able to drop a continu ous line of exploding shells at a given distance. Then by increasing the range by successive brief interv-als they gradually moved this cur tain forward. As it went it demolished wire entanglements, trenches and their defenders and permitted the infantry, who were held in check as they advanced behind the moving cur tain, to pass unscathed across No Man's Land and occupy and organize the enemy's trenches.
By raising the range still more the artillery could inake it impossible for the enemy to de liver his counterattack before the newly estab lished lines were safely occupied. The value of the barrage against entrenchments was well established in the war. It was at Neuve Chapelle that the British used it first. Al though it appears simple to the inexperienced observer, it is a very delicate affair and de pends for success upon exact co-operation be tween infantry and artillery, as well as upon good staff work and perfect transmission of orders by telephone.
At this point the British had control of the air and were able to mass their artillery with out detection by the foe. At 7:30 on the morn ing of 10 March they opened the most concen trated fire the scene of war had yet witnessed. The troops were massed in the trenches in front of Neuve Chapelle and went forward at 8:05, when the barrage was shifted to the back German areas. The houses of the village.were now leaping into ruins and' no Ger mans in them were able to escape. At 8:35 the artillery shifted to the area back of the vil lage, and the infantry followed into the ruined streets, where some dazed Germans were left to surrender. So far as Neuve Chapelle itself was concerned. the attadc was a success. A hole had been blown in the German line a mile and three-quarters wide, and the British troops who had been assembled in the forward trenches were in the village safely established in newly constructed trenches. It was a part of the plan to have them followed with a strong column in support which would nish through the gap and seize the ridge to the east that led into Lille. This feature of the pro gram miscarried for three reasons: (1) The gap was not wide enough to permit extensive operations through it. The German positions on each side of it enabled the undisturbed enemy artillery to enfilade the troops in the gap and confine them closely in their trenches; (2) the necessity of bringing up the support ing columns promptly was not understood, with the result that it was not until four o'clocic in the afternoon that they were sent forward, and at that time the Germans had organized strong defenses on the ridge; (3) the intense bombardment had made such heavy demands on the stock of ammunition that there was not enough at hand to carry on the action on the scale that was necessary to in sure success. The result was, therefore, that this action, which began so well, did not yield the full fruit that had been expected. The German salient was flattened out, but the -fur ther advance toward Lilk was not realized. During the Ilth and 12th the British made in• effective and costly attempts to widen their position. On the latter day the Germans made the expected counterattacks, but their thrusts were badly co-ordinated arid caused little trots. ble to the British. On the night of the 12th General Frenth, recognizing that the effort had spent itself, ordered the army to organize their trenches in the ground gained and give over the offensive. Although the battle of Name Chapelle yielded no territorial results com parable to the sacrifices, it taught the British a useful lesson in the conduct of massed at tacks on enemy trenches. They lost 12,811 killed, wounded and missing and estimated that their opponents lost nearly 20,000.