his men reeling back in retreat to the prepared defenses along the line
of the Aisne, the war in the western theater resolved itself into a play
for position from deep intrenchments. Occasionally would come a sudden
big push by one side or the other in which artillery was massed until
hub touched hub and infantry swept to glory and death in waves of gray,
or blue or khaki as the case might be. But these tremendous efforts and
consequent slaughters did not change the long battle line from the Alps
to the North Sea materially. Here and there a bulge would be made by
the terrific pressure of men and material in some great assault like
that first push of the British at Neuve Chapelle, like the German attack
at Verdun or like the tremendous efforts by both sides on that bloodiest
of all battlefields, the Somme.

Neuve Chapelle deserves particular mention as the test in which the
British soldiers demonstrated their might in equal contest against the
enemy. There had been a disposition in England as elsewhere up to that
time to rate the Germans as supermen, to exalt the potency of the
scientific equipment with which the German army had taken the field.
When the battle of Neuve Chapelle had been fought, although its losses
were heavy, there was no longer any doubt in the British nation that
victory was only a question of time.

[Illustration: THE BATTLE GROUND OF NEUVE CHAPELLE]

The action came as a pendant to the attack by General de Langle de
Cary's French army during February, 1915, at Perthes, that had been a
steady relentless pressure by artillery and infantry upon a strong
German position. To meet it heavy reinforcements had been shifted by
the Germans from the trenches between La Bassée and Lille. The
earthworks at Neuve Chapelle had been particularly depleted and only a