Because of the lack of telephone communication it was impossible to send reinforcements to the troops that had been held up by barbed wire and other emplacements and upon which German machine guns were pouring a steady stream of death.

As the Twenty-third Brigade had been held up by unbroken barbed wire northwest of Neuve Chapelle, so the Seventh Division of the Fourth Corps was also checked in its action against the ridge of Aubers on the left of Neuve Chapelle.  Under the plan of Sir Douglas Haig the Seventh Division was to have waited until the Eighth Division had reached Neuve Chapelle, when it was to charge through Aubers.  With the tragic mistake that cost the Twenty-third Brigade so dearly, the plan affecting the Seventh Division went awry.  The German artillery, observing the concentration of the Seventh Division opposite Aubers, opened a vigorous fire upon that front.  During the afternoon General Haig ordered a charge upon the German positions.  The advance was made in short rushes in the face of a fire that seemed to blaze from an inferno.  Inch by inch the ground was drenched with British blood.  At 5.30 in the afternoon the men dug themselves in under the relentless German fire.  Further advance became impossible.

The night was one of horror.  Every minute the men were under heavy bombardment.  At dawn on March 11th the dauntless British infantry rushed from the trenches in an effort to carry Aubers, but the enemy artillery now greatly reinforced made that task an impossible one.  The trenches occupied by the British forces were consolidated and the salient made by the push was held by the British with bulldog tenacity.

The number of men employed in the action on the British side was forty-eight thousand.  During the early surprise of the action the loss was slight.  Had the wire in front of the Twenty-third Brigade been cut by the artillery assigned to such action, and had the telephone system not been destroyed the success of the thrust would have been complete.  The delay of four and a half hours between the first and second phases of the attack caused virtually all the losses sustained by the attacking force.  The total casualties were 12,811 men of the British forces.  Of these 1,751 officers and privates were taken prisoners and 10,000 officers and men were killed and wounded.

The action continued throughout Thursday, March 11th, with little change in the general situation.  The British still held Neuve Chapelle and their intrenchments threatened Aubers.  On Friday morning, March 12th, the Crown Prince of Bavaria made a desperate attempt under cover of a heavy fog to recapture the village.  The effort was made in characteristic German dense formations.  The Westphalian and Bavarian troops came out of Biez Wood in waves of gray-green, only to be blown to pieces by British guns already loaded and laid on the mark.  Elsewhere the British waited until the Germans were scarcely more than fifty paces away when they opened with deadly rapid fire before which the German waves melted like snow before steam.  It was such slaughter as the British had experienced when held up before Aubers.  Slaughter that staggered Germany.