CHAPTER XVII
NEUVE CHAPELLE AND WAR IN BLOOD-SOAKED TRENCHES
After the immortal stand of Joffre at the first battle of the Marne and
the sudden savage thrust at the German center which sent von Kluck and
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.
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