An enormous concentration of artillery had been quietly effected on this front, including many of our newly arrived heavy batteries, and at 7.30 a.m. on the 10th March, some 300 guns opened a devastating bombardment on the German trenches along the frontage of attack. The severity of this bombardment was unprecedented. Trenches were obliterated, machine-guns and Germans were literally blown into the air, and so dazed were the enemy by the appalling ordeal that our men were able to stand on their parapets to watch the inferno in front of them. At 8.5 a.m. the range of the guns was lengthened on to the enemy's support trenches and our assaulting columns dashed forward. The Indians and the 25th Brigade met with little resistance, but the 23rd Brigade on the left found itself faced with a practically unbroken wire entanglement, from beyond which a deadly fire was poured into it by the enemy machine-guns. By 8.35 a.m. the right and centre brigades had effected a lodgment in the village, but the 23rd, being still held up and suffering terrible losses, the 25th Brigade swung to its left and turned the flank of the German troops who were opposing the 23rd. By this means our left was able to advance and by 11 a.m. the village of Neuve Chapelle was completely in our hands, and consolidation of the ground won was begun under cover of our artillery barrage, which effectually carried out its task of preventing the enemy bringing forward reinforcements for a counter-attack. The street fighting, however, had resulted in considerable disorganisation of units, so that valuable hours were lost in the necessary reorganisation, and it was not until 3.30 p.m. that the advance could be resumed. The attack so far had proved--as was intended--a complete surprise, and the enemy's resistance seems to have been paralysed except on the extreme left where our troops were still under heavy fire. The only local counter-attack which developed during the morning of the 10th was on the extreme right of the attack, where the enemy succeeded along the Rue du Bois in temporarily ejecting the Indian troops from the captured trenches, and in effecting a strong lodgment in the Orchard Trench in front of Richebourg L'Avoué. During the morning the Jullundur and Sirhind Brigades moved forward to Richebourg St Vaast and Vieille Chapelle respectively.