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Quite a cheery, interesting march we had, too, along the road from Armentières to Neuve Eglise. We were told that we were to march past General Sir Horace Smith Dorrien, whom we should find waiting for us near the Pont de Nieppe a place we had to pass en route. Every one braced up at this, and keenly looked forward to reaching Nieppe.
Rumors came of hard fighting farther along the line, and sometimes, on nights when the clouds hung low, the flashes of the guns at Ypres looked like incessant lightning. From the sand dunes at Nieuport and Dixmude there was firing also, and the air seemed sometimes to be full of scouting planes. The Canadians were moving toward the Front at Neuve Chapelle at that time.
"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.
One thing that worried Gervaise who had lived so quietly in her lodgings in the Rue Neuve, was the thought of again being under the subjection of some unpleasant person, with whom she would be continually quarrelling, either on account of water spilt in the passage or of a door shut too noisily at night-time. Concierges are such a disagreeable class!
The departure-night came, and company by company we handed over to a battalion that had come to relieve us, and collected on the road leading back to Neuve Eglise. I handed over all my gun emplacements to the incoming machine-gun officer, and finally collected my various sections with all their tackle on the road as well.
We knew that the big advance was about to begin, and a study of the map told us that the first blow would likely be struck at Neuve Chapelle, with an idea of forcing our line forward several miles so we would gain the command of the high ground back of Aubers, Herlies and Fromelles, a region of coal mines.
Then if you try to pierce the northern haze, beyond that ruined tower, you may follow in imagination the course of the Yser westward to that Belgian coast where Admiral Hood's guns broke down and scattered the German march upon Dunkirk and Calais; or if you turn south you are looking over the Belfry of Bailleul, towards Neuve Chapelle, and Festubert, and all the fierce fighting-ground round Souchez and the Labyrinth.
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 were constantly out in front of their lines at night reconnoitreing the German lines and boldly trying to get a look into the German trenches. I had to check them several times and warn them against taking any unnecessary risks. Daniels had a very hard section of trenches at Neuve Chapelle.
The words of the Germans in characterizing the tremendous bombardment of the British were: "That is not war; it is murder." The belief in the supposed superiority of the German artillery was so shaken in the minds of the General Staff as a result of the fighting on the Neuve Chapelle front that they shortly after issued an order to try a series of experiments on animals with asphyxiating gases.
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