Weeks passed before the occurrences of that fateful day were made clear to me. Every sort of rumour was afloat. On the 10th and the 11th I was between Merville (where General Haig had his headquarters), Estaires and Laventie, but no one seemed to know in those days as to just why things had gone so badly when the promise of success had been so great.
Later I knew.
General Haig had been quite reasonably correct in his estimate of the enemy's strength. Our chance to break through the German line was the finest opportunity of the whole war.
That, with such odds in our favour, with a preponderance of guns and shells as well, we should have so signally failed, and lost over 18,000 men into the bargain, required some explanation.
The tragedy of Neuve Chapelle was a failure to take advantage of an initial success. The 25th Brigade, with the 23rd Brigade on its left, nobly did the work assigned to it. It took Neuve Chapelle itself, and reached the position it had hoped to reach. The 24th Brigade was to come up, through the 23rd and 25th Brigades, and as it advanced, the 20th Brigade, on its left, was to move forward. Still to the left of the 20th Brigade the 21st Brigade was in readiness, and on its left the Northamptonshire Yeomanry, which had been put into the trenches previously occupied by the 20th Brigade, to free that command for the attack.
Thus, once the preliminary ground-clearing was done by the 23rd and 25th Brigades on the right, and the town of Neuve Chapelle was taken, the 24th Brigade was to come on and form the right of a line composed of itself, the 20th and 21st Brigades, which were to pivot on the Northamptonshire Yeomanry and sweep over the Auber Ridge.
On the left of the Yeomanry waited the 22nd Brigade, ready to jump forward the moment this swinging movement had developed.
The initial success won, the whole line waited, eyes on the right, for the signal to go on. Before nine o'clock in the morning all was ready, and the road cleared.
All day the watchers waited in vain.
It was after four o'clock in the afternoon before the word came.