Away to the east the faint light of a gray and sullen day now began to appear. The heavy clouds hung low in the sky, and ahead the mist shrouded the view. Before long the Germans knew that a big attack was preparing, but they took no steps to meet it. Our artillery now began to boom; "ranging shots" were being fired, but soon all was silent again. On the stroke of 7.30 some 350 guns suddenly spoke with an overpowering din that racked the brain and split the ears. The terrific roar was incessant, and the discharges were so rapid that it seemed as if they came from a gigantic machine gun. The very earth shook as though struck by Thor's[28] hammer. The first shells that hit the German position raised huge clouds of smoke and dust, and nothing could be seen but the green fumes of lyddite and the spouting columns of red earth. Barbed-wire entanglements were blown into a myriad fragments, parapets crumbled like sand castles, and trenches on which men had worked for months were flung into shapeless ruin. Bodies of mangled men were hurled high into the air, and ghastly fragments were blown back into the British lines. Four shells were hurled on every yard of the German trenches, and more ammunition was used in the thirty-five minutes during which the bombardment lasted than in a year and a half of the South African War. Long before the awful cannonade ended the German trenches had ceased to exist. They were reduced to a welter of earth and dust.
While the bombardment lasted our troops could walk outside their trenches in safety, for the Germans were so "pinned to the ground" that those of them who remained alive dared not lift their heads. From behind the ragged clouds in the sky where the aeroplanes were sailing the sun now began to shine, making still darker the black pall that hung over the German position, and flashing back from the rows of gleaming bayonets in the British trenches. At five minutes to eight our gunners lengthened their fuses, and shells began to fall fast and furiously on the village itself. Some of the houses were seen to leap into the air. Columns of dust like the sand spouts of the desert sprang up; trees went down like wheat before a sickle; bricks and stones fell in torrents. Then came the great moment. Whistles blew; our men swarmed over the parapets and rushed towards the German trenches.
The Rifle Brigade racing headlong through the Ruins of Neuve Chapelle during the Attack on the Village.
(From the picture by Christopher Clark. By permission of The Sphere.)
"The village," says a writer who visited the scene a few days after the battle, "was a sight that the men say they will never forget. Once upon a time Neuve Chapelle must have been a pretty little place, big as villages in these parts go, with a nice clean church (whence it probably got its name), some neat villas, half a dozen inns, a red-brick brewery, and on the outskirts a little old white château. Now hardly stone remains on stone. It was indeed a scene of desolation into which the Rifle Brigade—the first regiment to enter the village, I believe—raced headlong. Of the church only the bare shell remained; the interior was lost to view beneath a gigantic mound of rubbish. Of all that once fair village but two things remained intact—the great crucifixes reared aloft, one in the churchyard, the other over against the château. From the cross that is the emblem of our faith the figure of Christ, yet intact, though all pitted with bullet marks, looked down in mute agony on the slaying in the village."
Five separate infantry attacks were made on the village. The first attack was made by the 24th Brigade, to the north of the village; the second, by the 23rd Brigade, against its north-east corner; the third, by the 25th Division, against the village itself; the fourth, by the Garhwal Brigade of Indians, against its south-west corner; and the fifth, by the Dehra Dun Brigade, against Port Arthur. The 25th pushed into the wreckage of the German trenches without difficulty. They were only occupied by the shreds and tatters of the dead and a few dazed and stupefied men, their faces yellow with fumes, their clothes torn from their backs, and their equipment and weapons destroyed. In some places a few machine guns which had escaped destruction kept up fire from concealed positions, and snipers took toll of our men as they advanced. The first to reach the goal were the 2nd Lincolns and the 2nd Royal Berkshires, who opened out to let the Irish Rifles and the Rifle Brigade pass through them and take the village. From a trench in front of the Berkshires came the rattle of machine-gun fire. Two German officers, alone, were working the gun, and they continued to fire until they fell beneath the bayonets of our men. Equally gallant deeds were done on the British side. A lance-corporal who had been wounded three times and had been told to lie down insisted on advancing with his fellows. Nor was he the only wounded man who plied bayonet and grenade on that red day.
The village was now only a rubbish heap; the church was a broken shell, and the very graves in the churchyard had been torn open by our shells. Strange to say, while houses and trees were falling, a crucifix at the cross roads remained untouched, and spread its gaunt arms in mute protest above the terrible scene of slaughter and destruction. Once more our gunners lifted their sights and lengthened their fuses, and between the village and the German supports in the rear created a curtain of fire through which no living thing could pass. Then our men swept into the battered streets. Through the thick pall of smoke Germans were seen on all sides, some holding up their hands, others flying for life, and others, again, firing from the windows, from behind carts, and even from behind overturned tombstones. Machine guns clacked viciously from houses on the outskirts, and many a Briton fell a victim to them. Nevertheless, before long the village was wholly ours.
The Garhwalis to the right of the 25th were equally successful. Within a quarter of an hour after the assault began they had carried the first line of German trenches, and soon afterwards the 3rd Gurkhas met the Rifle Brigade in the southern outskirts of the village. Together they swept on past the heap of ruins which had once been the hamlet of Port Arthur into the woods at the foot of the rising ground.
Now comes the tragical part of the story. The 23rd Brigade, which attacked to the left of the 25th, advanced, you will remember, against the north-east of the village. Unhappily, the artillery had not properly shelled this part of the German position, and in a slight hollow the wire entanglements and the trenches were almost untouched. When the 2nd Devons, the 2nd West Yorks, the 2nd Scottish Rifles (Cameronians), and the 2nd Middlesex pushed forward they found themselves up against unbroken wire. The Cameronians suffered severely. A storm of bullets from rifles and machine guns assailed them, but they never wavered. Go on they could not; go back they would not. Men were seen in that zone of death tearing at the wire with raw and bleeding hands, while their comrades were falling fast around them. Those who survived were obliged to retire and lie down in the open under a tornado of shot and shell, until one company made a gap and broke through the line of defence. Fifteen officers, including the commander, Colonel Bliss, were killed or wounded, and when the terrible day was over only 150 men out of 750 answered the roll call. "You have many noble honours on your colours," said Sir John French, when he addressed the gallant remnant some days later; "none are finer than that of Neuve Chapelle, which will soon be added to them."
The 2nd Middlesex had a similar trial, and bore it with the same bravery. Machine guns were turned on them from several points, and as they pressed forward men fell at every step. Three times they strove to reach the trench, but three times they failed, and were forced to lie down in the open until a message was sent back to the artillery. Guns were relaid on the trench, and before long the entanglements were destroyed. When this was done the Middlesex, aided by a bombing party, carried the position, and were able to move forward to an orchard on the north-east of the village, where they joined the Devonshires. The 1st Battalion of the King's Liverpool, which was attached to the ill-fated division, also found itself up against unbroken wire. A company sergeant-major spent five minutes under the entanglement trying to cut it, and miraculously escaped with his life. The colonel, though wounded, refused to leave his men, and remained with them throughout the day. A young officer who had been shot down near the wire kept shouting to his men to come on until his breath failed him. In this battalion alone 100 men were killed and 119 were wounded.