At the end of February 1915 Sir John French had come to a happy decision and that was to attack the enemy at some selected point. I cannot enter here into the reasons, or discuss the general military situation; suffice it to say that the centre of the objective was to be the village of Neuve Chapelle, and that it was the good fortune of the Indian Corps to be in this line, with its left or northern flank resting opposite to it. Amongst the reasons assigned by him was one which was particularly apposite to the occasion, viz. “the need of fostering the offensive spirit in the troops after the trying and possibly enervating experiences which they had gone through of a severe winter in the trenches.” This, in itself, was indeed a very weighty reason for giving all ranks an opportunity of stretching their limbs. For over five months on and off we had lived a tedious life. Our reveille was the morning hate; our weary day, a long-drawn-out and slow process of avoiding shells, which we could seldom reply to for there was little ammunition to do it with; our evenings, an interminable gloom lighted up by German Véry lights and other fireworks, and our nights a long vigil of tired men, waiting in muddy trenches for the dawn. No wonder then that the prospect of an advance, preceded by what we knew must be a sharp fight, cheered all ranks and revived their spirits. Nothing struck me more during my year in France than their evident delight when they became aware that the inertia of the trenches was to give place to something more active. As a Sikh native officer said to me on the day preceding the battle, “Sahib, we shall have a chance of proving that the Indian Army can fight and not only do sentry-go in the _khandak_ (trenches). We shall again be able to cry, _Fateh_ (victory).” Our left rested on the right of Rawlinson’s Fourth Corps, on the La Bassée-Estaires road, and our right on the Chocolat Menier Corner, from which point the line was carried on by the First Corps past Givenchy. Since those early days of the war so many attacks have been made on a colossal scale, and such detailed accounts of them have been published, illustrated, and placed on the stage, that it would be superfluous to describe what was done by way of preparation. But it is an erroneous idea to imagine that in those days details were neglected or only cursorily gone into. Nothing could have been more minutely arranged to the very smallest item; no Staffs ever more thoroughly studied, checked, and elaborated essentials than did those of the Corps. From the big guns down to the men’s boots nothing was neglected by the Staff, commanders, and other regimental officers. Indeed, as I now study the orders issued I realise that, although frequently making bricks with but scanty straw, each blade of that straw was utilised to the greatest advantage.