As everyone knows, this was one of the sectors of the original
British line so that everything connected with it was essentially
English. Since the fighting at Festubert in 1915 comparative peace had
reigned along this front and we were content to allow it to remain so
after our noisy experiences at Ypres and Nieuport.
Givenchy was once a mining village situated on a spur of the Aubers
Ridge, which, running west to east, looks down upon the flat ground,
stretching uninterruptedly northwards through Festubert, Neuve Chapelle
and Laventie towards Armentieres. Someone had facetiously suggested in
the trench diary (a beautifully bound document that had been handed down
from battalion to battalion from early days) that "Givenchy Church be
kept in a state of repair for the Huns to register on," and therein lies
an important fact. Had the church tower been standing, and one could
have got into it, a glorious view of a large part of Northern France
would have been obtained. Looking eastwards one saw La Bassee half
concealed by thick woods while to the northeast were the outskirts of
Lille. Southwards and south-west were the mining villages of the Lens
district with their huge conical fosses. In other words, Givenchy was an
important tactical point and the fiercest efforts of the Boche in 1914
had failed to move British troops from it, although at the end of the
fighting it lay in a very sharp salient, which was only straightened out
after Festubert in 1915.
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