On the 15th Major Lord Henry Seymour and Captain J. Hughes came from the 2nd Battalion. On the 20th a draft of 350 men arrived with the following officers: Captain M. Maitland, Captain G. C. G. Moss, Lieutenant the Earl of Dalkeith, Lieutenant Lord Stanley, Second Lieutenant the Hon. C. Hope Morley, and Second Lieutenant A. B. Lawford. On the 21st Lieut.-Colonel C. Corkran arrived and took command of the Battalion, and on the 24th Lieutenant C. Mitchell was appointed Adjutant in the place of Lieutenant C. Greville, who proceeded to Brigade Headquarters for duty with the Grenade Company. The greater part of the rest of the month was spent in billets, when the Battalion was reorganised, but the usual routine was followed, and the Battalion took its turn in the trenches. [Sidenote: April.] Nothing worth recording happened in April. The days that were spent in the trenches were uneventful, and when in reserve the Battalion went into billets at Estaires. On the 2nd, Lieutenant Corry and Lieutenant St. Aubyn, on the 21st a draft of thirty men under Second Lieutenant C. Dudley Smith, and on the 27th Captain F. L. V. Swaine, Second Lieutenant E. O. R. Wakeman, and Lieutenant L. E. Parker joined the Battalion. [Sidenote: May.] The first few days in May were spent in the trenches, which the enemy's artillery at times shelled very heavily. It was thought at first that this denoted an attack, but although the Battalion stood to arms nothing serious in the way of an attack developed. On the 3rd Captain J. Morrison was wounded, and there was a certain number of casualties. On the 2nd Captain T. Dickinson, 16th Cavalry, Indian Army, was attached to the Battalion, and on the 12th Captain W. S. Pilcher arrived. On the 9th the 1st Battalion Grenadiers with the remainder of the 20th Brigade moved up to the support trenches in rear of the Eighth Division, but was not called upon to go into action. CHAPTER XI THE BATTLE OF FESTUBERT The 1st Battalion [Sidenote: May 1915.] In May the French resolved to make a determined attack on the German line in Artois, and in order to prevent the enemy moving up any reinforcements to support that part of the line, Sir John French agreed to attack simultaneously at Festubert, where the German Seventh Corps was posted. [Sidenote: May 9.] Sir Douglas Haig, who was entrusted with the task, began operations on May 9, when the Eighth Division captured some of the enemy's first-line trenches at Rougebanc, while the First and Indian Divisions attacked south of Neuve Chapelle. But the enemy's positions proved much stronger than had been expected, and little progress was made in either place. During this attack the 1st Battalion Grenadiers was never engaged, but remained in close support. Lieut.-Colonel Corkran himself accompanied the Eighth Division, and remained with it in case the services of the Battalion should be required.