It was the scene of one of those actions in the long siege line which have the dignity of a battle; the losses on either side, about sixteen thousand, were two-thirds of those at Waterloo or Gettysburg.  Here the British after the long winter’s stalemate in the mud, where they stuck when the exhausted Germans could press no farther, took the offensive, with the sap of spring rising in their veins.

The guns blazed the way and the infantry charged in the path of the guns’ destruction; and they kept on while the shield of shell-fire held.  When it left an opening for the German machine-guns through its curtain and the German guns visited on the British what their guns had been visiting on the Germans, the British stopped.  A lesson was learned; a principle established.  A gain was made, if no goal were reached.

The human stone wall had moved.  It had broken some barriers and come to rest before others, again to become a stone wall.  But it knew that the thing could be done with guns and shells enough—­and only with enough.  This means a good deal when you have been under dog for a long time.  Months were to pass waiting for enough shells and guns, with many little actions and their steady drain of life, while everyone looked back to Neuve Chapelle as a landmark.  It was something definite for a man to say that he had been wounded at Neuve Chapelle and quite indefinite to say that he had been wounded in the course of the day’s work in the trenches.

No one might see the battle in that sea of mud.  He might as well have looked at the smoke of Vesuvius with an idea of learning what was going on inside of the crater.  I make no further attempt at describing it.  My view came after the battle was over and the cauldron was still steaming.

Though in March, 1914, one would hardly have given Neuve Chapelle, intact and peaceful, a passing glance from a motor-car, in March, 1915, Neuve Chapelle in ruins was the one town in Europe which I most wanted to see.  Correspondents had not then established themselves.  The staff officer whom I asked if I might spend a night in the new British line was a cautious man.  He bade me sign a paper freeing the British army from any responsibility.  Judging by the general attitude of the Staff, one could hardly take the request seriously.  One correspondent less ought to please any Staff; but he said that he had an affection for the regulars and knew that there were always plenty of recruits to take their places without resorting to conscription.  The real responsibility was with the Germans.  He suggested that I might go out to the German trenches and see if I could obtain a paper from them.  He thought if I were quick about it I might get at least a yard in front of the British parapet in daylight.  His sense of humour I had recognized when we had met in Bulgaria.