The Battle of Neuve Chapelle took place in the First World War in the Artois region of France. The attack was intended to cause a rupture in the German lines, which would then be exploited with a rush to the Aubers Ridge and possibly Lille. A French assault at Vimy Ridge on the Artois plateau was also planned to threaten the road, rail and canal junctions at La Bassée from the south as the British attacked from the north. The British attackers broke through German defences in a salient at the village of Neuve-Chapelle but the success could not be exploited.
Fortunino Matania illustration of Bengal Lancers returning from Port Arthur after the capture of Neuve Chapelle
Detail of the war memorial in the village of Preying (Saldenburg, Bavaria) naming Infantryman Mathias Ebner, killed during the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, 12 March 1915
The Battle of Aubers was a British offensive on the Western Front on 9 May 1915 during the First World War. The battle was part of the British contribution to the Second Battle of Artois, a Franco-British offensive intended to exploit the German diversion of troops to the Eastern Front. The French Tenth Army was to attack the German 6th Army north of Arras and capture Vimy Ridge, preparatory to an advance on Cambrai and Douai. The British First Army, on the left (northern) flank of the Tenth Army, was to attack on the same day and widen the gap in the German defences expected to be made by the Tenth Army and to fix German troops north of La Bassée Canal.
Aubers Ridge and Festubert, 1915
The Royal Munster Fusiliers receiving absolution from their chaplain, Father Francis Gleeson prior to the battle