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The point selected was Neuve Chapelle, a village at the foot of the Aubers ridge which guarded La Bassée to the south-west and Lille to the north-east. The German line there formed a marked salient, and an attack on the ridge, if completely successful, would shake the security of Lille, and if but moderately successful would cut off La Bassée and straighten the line as far as Givenchy.
They generally like to leave a bit of a church tower or gable standing, for as nearly as I could follow their gunnery they used these points to "clock on," that is to say, a ruined steeple will be the centre of the clock. The observer will then direct the guns something like this, "Aubers Church, one o'clock, five hundred yards."
On March 10th the British commenced an offensive at Neuve Chapelle which, had it proved successful, would have involved the Canadians in the projected advance upon the Aubers Ridge, which formed the key to Lille.
A kilometer southwest, the trench line is crossed by the road to Aubers called the Rue D'Enfer, or in our language, the Road to Hell. If this road is paved with good intentions I have never seen any of them. It is strongly held by the Germans. The "intentions" take the form of "crump" holes excavated by German shells in the pavement.
Aubers is at the apex of one; and Illies at the apex of the other. Both of these villages were held by the Germans. The ridge extends northeast, beyond the junction of the spurs, from Fournes to within two miles southwest of Lille. Along the ridge is the road to Lille, Roubaix, and Tourcoing, all of which are among the chief manufacturing towns of France.
Presently, in the lee of a little brick farmhouse a short distance from the village of Aubers, we alighted, and, with warnings that it was better not to keep too close together, walked a little farther down the road. Not a man was in sight, nor a house, nor gun, not even a trench, yet we were, as a matter of fact, in the middle of a battle-field.
I was taken by my son-in-law, Captain Williams Ellis, and a life-long friend, Lord Ruthven, then the Master of Ruthven, and chief Staff Officer of the Guards Division, into the first trench-line opposite the Aubers Ridge, and incidentally to view some of the worst and wettest trenches on the whole front, at the moment held in part by my son-in- law's regiment, the Welsh Guards.
The 1,100 French cannon hurled 300,000 shells on the German fortifications that day. The reverberations were deafening and terrifying. They startled the British engaged at the Aubers Ridge. The deluge of projectiles crashed their way through the supposedly impregnable work of engineering that the Germans had erected, and buried their mangled defenders in chaotic ruins.
The country on our side is perfectly flat and full of hedges and ditches. Every hedge concealed a battery of guns of all kinds and sizes. On the German side, half a mile back from their trenches, the ground slopes up. The villages of Aubers and Fromelle are on the western slope and the ridge behind is our true objective.
A branch line of railway ran from La Bassee to Fromelles and supplied the German batteries on our front with ammunition and no doubt took coal back. On the east side of the ridge ran the canal from La Bassee to Lille, also the two lines of railway between the same places. With our footing secure on the Aubers Ridge the gates of Lille and La Bassee would be at our mercy.
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