For those who merely looked on an attack in force as an incident of the Great War, the coming battle may have been only a new phase in the struggle; for me as Commander of the Corps it meant much more. I was standing on the brink of an experiment which might have momentous consequences. I was responsible, in my own way, for important issues; I was, on a very small scale it is true, but nevertheless in a somewhat similar position to the first Japanese General who met and overthrew his Russian opponents. It was a question of the East versus the West, and although I felt sure of my brave men, it remained to be proved how the East would take it. The night of 9th March 1915 will ever remain one of my most inspiriting recollections. I can recall every moment of it; I did not sleep long, but I thought a lot; I did not doubt, but the thing had to be made good. Many beside myself thought much that night, but I wonder if one felt a greater joy than I did as I realised that a life’s work was to be tested. That life had been mostly spent in India, amongst Indian soldiers, and when dawn proclaimed that the supreme moment was at hand, I walked into the small garden of my dwelling and felt with Thomas Jefferson That all men are created equal. Although the night of the 9th March had been cloudless up till about midnight, the morning broke cold, damp, and misty. I stood in the drizzle with my friend Khwaja Mahomed Khan, A.D.C., and as the watch marked the hour for the intense bombardment, I said to him, “This is a great hour in Indian history. Praise be to Allah.” And he replied, “Allah is with us, the Germans’ turn for a thrashing has arrived.” The Lahore Division during the early morning of the 10th March moved up to Vieille Chapelle-La Couture and the area La Tombe Willot-Les Lobes-Zelobes, the Ferozepore Brigade remaining in Army reserve at Calonne. After some preliminary registration the previously arranged Artillery bombardment commenced at 7.30 A.M. For the first ten minutes three Brigades of 18-pounders fired at the enemy’s wire entanglements, which they succeeded in demolishing pretty completely, as we afterwards found. For the remaining twenty-five minutes of the first phase of the bombardment the 18-pounders (eighteen batteries) were covering the area held by the enemy and the southern flank, so as to prevent the arrival of reinforcements. During this same period of twenty-five minutes the 4·5-inch and 6-inch howitzers shelled the trenches which were to be assaulted.