LAND AND .W. A T E R. 
March 20, 1915. 
The line in the imiuediate neighbourhood of 
this field, beginning with the canal between La 
Bassee and Bethune, ran somewhat as follows (so 
far as can be gathered by an observer at boras 
f]-om the French and English reports). It started 
from the neighbourhood of Cuinchy just north of 
StVaast ' 
Htclifboura® 
KEttvr / 
CHAPELIE J\. 
I 
lA BASSEE 
:En£Cis£i Miles 
tliat slight slope of land which the French car- 
ried some weeks ago, when they took the ruined 
chateau of Vermelles. The trenches covered tjie 
little village of Givenchy and then ran down the 
slope upon which this place is built on to the 
marshy flat just west of Festubert (which the Ger- 
mans foolishly and Flemishly spell with an h). This 
point in front of Festubert represents the extreme 
of the indentation which the local German suc- 
cesses caused in the allied line in an attack they 
delivered mainly against the Indian troops some 
Aveeks ago. From this extreme point it went 
north-eastward again, not far from the lane that 
leads from the church of Festubert to the high 
road on the east, passing by the group of scat- 
tered houses near Quinquerue; thence it went 
north, still with a little east in it, covering the 
two Richebourgs, until it struck the high road 
about a kilometre behind Neuve Chapelle church. 
(Tlience it ran off due north-east to the Barn Wood, 
or Bois de Grenier. It was in this small section 
jthat the chief effort was to be made. If the reader 
.will look at the accompanying sketch map he will 
ee« that the importance of the salient held by the 
Germans round La Bassee largely consists in the 
railway facilities of the place. (See Plan III.) It 
is fed by lines which supply it from the neighbour- 
hood of Lille on the north-east and Douai on the 
south-east, which lines support one another 
in a whole system of communications, all based 
on the main railway which runs from Douai to 
Lille. It will further be seen that, so far as the 
communications with Lille are concerned (and 
Lille is, of course, the principal depot for all this 
part of the German front), the junction outside 
the village of Don is of great importance. There 
concentrate upon it the two lines leading to Lille 
from La Bassee as well as the lines from the 
south and the line from Formelles in the north. 
That is why Don was bombarded by British air- 
men. Much stress has been laid upon the high 
road which also runs from La Bas.see northward 
to Estaires, but this is not of any great import- 
ance, for it ends, so far as the Germans are con- 
cerned, in the air, being cut by the allied trenches 
about five miles from La Bassfe and before it 
reaches any source of supply. It is, hovrever, 
true that a smaller road coming in and join- 
ing this main road from Estaires at Neuve 
Chapelle somewhat relieves the pressure u{x»n the 
main road north-eastward out of La Bassee. which 
is the chief artery of transport communication 
with Lille. 
Before the action began the village of Neuve 
Chapelle, and the church which is its centre, lay 
between the two lines of trenches, British and 
German, the British holding apparently the 
line marked A B in the sketch on page 4, 
and the Germans the main village street marked 
C D. It was about half-past seven in the morn- 
ing of .Wednesday, the 10th, that the action 
opened with a very heavj'^ and concentrated fire 
from the larger guns and from the howitzers 
behind the British lines, parallel upon a smaller 
scale to the corresponding deluge of heavy 
artillery fire which opened each of the great recent 
actions in Champagne. This rafale (if one 
may apply that term to heavj^ artillery, which 
more properly belongs to the work of field bat- 
teries) continued for over half an hour. It so 
dominated the German trenches that it quenched 
their fire while it was proceeding, and on the same 
evidence the men of the British trenches were free 
to move at will during that period. Shortly after 
eight o'clock, following upon this preparation, the 
assault was launched, and was immediately 
successful, the whole group of German trenches, 
roughly in three lines, falling into tlie hands of 
the British, save at one point, which held out till 
noon. This point, which thus continued until 
midday to form the resisting angle in the midst 
of the British advance, would seem to have lain 
somewhere near the point marked with an X upon 
the sketch map IV., and it was maintained against 
three separate attacks. It fell at last to the 
arrival of reinforcements, and the whole line 
straightened out from a point about a mile and a 
half north of Neuve Chapelle, south-westward, to 
more than half a mile in front of the village. On 
the south of this movement, another advance from 
the southern of the two Richebourgs all but reached 
the little wood called the Bois de Biez, while in 
the afternoon, upon the north, again in front of 
Neuve Chapelle, another advance covered a 
further four hundred yards of ground. Mean- 
while one point in the line had continually held 
against the British advance, and this was the 
cross roads at Z (see plan IV.), where the village 
street falls into the main Estaires road and comes 
on towards Richebourg I'Avoue. The enemy here 
held out till half-past five in the afternoon, 
and the place was only carried by nightfall. 
The total result of the operations will seem to have 
been the occupation of a belt shaded upon the 
small map opposite. The next day very violent 
efforts upon the part of the enemy were made to 
recover the lost ground, the strongest being made 
2» 
