French formed the apes, ran, quite roughly, as follows:-

     
April 25th, when all that remained of the war-broken
but victorious battalions was relieved by fresh troops.
  In this attack, the work of the 1st Artillery Brigade
was extremely efficient.  Under the direction of
Lieut.-Colonel Morrison, whose services have gained
him the command of the artillery of the 2nd Divi-
sion with the rank of Brigadier-General, the battery
of four 18-pounders was strengthened, in the after-
noon, with two heavier guns.
  Captain T. E. Powers, of the Signal Company
attached to General Mercer's command, maintained
communication throughout with the advanced line
of the attack under a heavy shell fire that cut the
signal wires continually.  The work of the Company
was admirable, and was rendered at the price of
many casualties.
  It is necessary now to return to the fortunes of
the 3rd Brigade, commanded by General Turner,
which, as we have seen, at five o'clock on Thursday
was holding the Canadian left, and after their first
attack assumed the defence of the new Canadian
salient, at the same time sparing all the men it could
to form an extemporised line between the wood and
St. Julien. This Brigade was also at the first moment
of the German offensive made the object of an attack
by a discharge of poisonous gas.  The discharge
was followed by two enemy assaults.1
Although the fumes were extremely poisonous

advanced on and reoccupied the trenches which they
had momentarily abandoned.
  In the course of the same night, the 3rd Brigade,
which had already displayed a resource, a gallantry,
and a tenacity for which no eulogy could he exces-
sive, was exposed (and with it the whole Allied
cause) to a peril still more formidable. It has been
explained, and, indeed, the fundamental situation
made the peril clear, that several German divisions
were attempting to crush or drive back this devoted
Brigade, and in any event to use their enormous
numerical superiority to sweep around and over-
whelm its left wing. At some point in the line which
cannot be precisely determined, the last attempt
partially succeeded, and, in the course of this critical
struggle, German troops in considerable, though not
in overwhelming numbers, swung past the unsup-
ported left of the Brigade, and, slipping in between
the wood and St. Julien, added to the torturing
anxieties of the long-drawn struggle by the appear-
ance, and indeed for the moment the reality, of isola-
tion from the Brigade base.
  In the exertions made by the 3rd Brigade during
this supreme crisis it is almost impossible to single
out one battalion without injustice to others, but
though the efforts of the Royal Highlanders of
Montreal, 13th Battalion, were only equal to those
of the other battalions who did such heroic service,
it so happened, by chance, that the fate of some of
its officers attracted special attention.
  Major Norsworthy was in the reserve trenches,
half a mile in the rear of the firing line, when he
was killed in his attempt to reach Major McCuaig
with reinforcements; and Captain Guy Drummond

fell in attempting to rally French troops. This was
on the afternoon of the 22nd, and the whole respon-
sibility for coping with the crisis then fell upon the
shoulders of Major McCuaig until he was relieved
early on the morning of the 23rd.  
    All through the afternoon and evening of the
22nd, and all through the night which followed,
McCuaig had had to meet and grapple with difficulties
which might have borne down a far more experi-
enced officer. His communications had been cut by
shell fire, and he was, therefore, left to decide for
himself whether he should retire or whether he
should hold on. He decided to hold on, although
he knew that he was without artillery support and
could not hope for any until, at the earliest, the
morning of the 23rd.
   The decision was a very bold one.  By all the
rules of war McCuaig was a beaten man. But the
very fact that he remained appears to have deceived
the Germans. They might have overwhelmed him,
but they feared the supports, which did not in reality
exist.  It was not in the enemy's psychology to
understand that the sheer and unaided valour of
McCuaig and his little force would hold the position.
   But with a small and dwindling force he did hold
it, until daylight revealed to the enemy the naked
deception of the defence.
   In case the necessity for retreat developed, the
wounded had been moved to the trenches on the
right; and, under the cover of machine gun fire,
Major McCuaig withdrew his men just as Major
Buchanan came up with reinforcements.
    The sorely tried Battalion held on for a time in
dug-outs, and, under cover of darkness, retired again 

 to a new line being formed by reinforcements. The
rearguard was under Lieut. (now Captain) Green
shields. But Major McCuaig remained to see that
the wounded were removed.  It was then, after
having escaped a thousand deaths through the long
battle of the night, that he was shot down and made
a prisoner.
   The story of the officers of the 7th Battalion
(British Columbia Regiment) is not less glorious.
This Battalion was attached to the 3rd Brigade on
Thursday night, and on Friday occupied a position
on the forward crest of a ridge, with its left flank
near St. Julien. This position was severely shelled
during the day. In the course of the afternoon the
Battalion received an order to make its position
secure that night. At half-past four Colonel Hart-
McHarg, a lawyer from Vancouver, Major Odlum
(who is now Lieut.-Colonel commanding the Batta-
lion), and Lieut. Mathewson, of the Canadian En-
gineers, went out to reconnoitre the ground and
decide upon the position of the new trenches to be
dug under cover of darkness. The exact location
of the German troops immediately opposed to their
position was not known to them. The reconnoitring
party moved down the slope to the wrecked houses
and shattered walls of the village of Keerselaere-a
distance of about 300 yards - in broad daylight with-
out drawing a shot; but, when they looked through
a window in the rear wall of one of the ruins, they
saw masses of Germans lining hedges not 100 yards
away, and watching them intently.  As the three
Canadian officers were now much nearer the German
line than their own, they turned and began to retire
at the double. They were followed by a burst of
        

fire the moment they cleared the shelter of the
ruins.  They instantly threw themselves flat on the
ground. Colonel Hart-McHarg and Major Odlum
rolled into a shell-hole near by, and Lieut. Mathew-
son took cover in a ditch close at hand. It was then
that Major Odlum learned that his Commanding
Officer was seriously wounded.  Major Odlum
raced up the hill under fire in search of surgical
aid, leaving Lieut. Mathewson with the wounded
officer.  He found Captain George Gibson, medical
officer of the 7th Battalion, who, accompanied
by Sergt. J. Dryden, went down to the shell-hole
immediately.   Captain Gibson and the sergeant
reached the cramped shelter in safety in the face of
a heavy fire. They moved Colonel Hart-McHarg
into the ditch where Mathewson had first taken
shelter, and there dressed his wound.  They re-
mained with him until after dark, when the stretcher-
bearers arrived and carried him back to Battalion
Headquarters; hut the devotion and heroism of
his friends could not save his life. The day after
he passed away in a hospital at Poperinghe.1
But his regiment endured, and, indeed, through
out the second battle of Ypres fought greatly
and suffered greatly.  Major Odlum succeeded
Coloel Hart McHarg.  At one time the Batta-
lion was flanked, both right and left, by the enemy,
through no fault of its own; and it fell back
when it had been reduced to about 100 men still
able to bear arms. On the following day, strength-
ened by the remnants of the 10th Battalion, the
7th was again sent in to hold a gap in our line,

which duty it performed until, again surrounded
by the enemy, it withdrew under cover of a dense
mist.1, 2
   Every effort was made by General Alderson from
first to last, to reinforce the Canadian Division with
the greatest possible speed, and on Friday afternoon
the left of the Canadian line was strengthened by
the 2nd King's Own Scottish Borderers and the
1st Royal West Kents, of the 13th Infantry Brigade.
From this time forward the Division also received
further assistance on the left from a series of French
counter-attacks pushed in a north-easterly direction
from the canal bank.
  But the artillery fire of the enemy continually
grew in intensity, and it became more and more
evident that the Canadian salient could no longer
be maintained against the overwhelming superiority
of numbers by which it was assailed. Slowly, stub-
bornly, and contesting every yard, the defenders
gave ground until the salient gradually receded from
the apex, near the point where it had originally
aligned with the French, and fell back upon St.
Julien. Soon it became evident that even St. Julien
exposed to fire from right and left, was no longer
tenable.3

   The 3rd Brigade was therefore ordered to retreat
further south, selling every yard of ground as dearly
as it had done since five o'clock on Thursday. But
it was found impossible, without hazarding far
larger forces, to disentangle detachments of the
Royal Highlanders of Montreal, 13th Battalion, and
of the Royal Montreal Regiment, 14th Battalion.
The Brigade was ordered, and not a moment too
soon, to move back.
  The retirement left these units with heavy heart~
The German tide rolled, indeed, over the deserted
village; but for several hours after the enemy bad
become master of the village, the sullen and per-
sistent rifle fire which survived, showed that they were
not yet master of the Canadian rearguard. If they
died, they died worthily of Canada.
  The enforced retirement of the 3rd Brigade (and
to have stayed longer would have been madness)
reproduced for the 2nd Brigade, commanded by
Brigadier-General Currie (now Major-General), in
a singularly exact fashion, the position of the 3rd
Brigade itself at the moment of the withdrawal of
the French. The 2nd Brigade, it must be remem-
bered, had retained the whole line of trenches,
roughly 2,500 yards, which it was holding at five
o'clock on Thursday afternoon, supported by the
incomparable exertions of the 3rd Brigade, and by
the highly hazardous deployment in which necessity
had involved that Brigade.
  The 2nd Brigade had maintained its lines.  It
now devolved on General Currie, commanding this

Brigade, to repeat the tactical manoeuvres with which,
earlier in the fight, the 3rd Brigade had adapted
itself to the flank movement of overwhelming
numerical superiority. He flung his left flank round
immense struggle, he held his line of trenches from
Thursday at five o'clock till Sunday afternoon. And
on Sunday afternoon he had not abandoned his
trenches.  There were none left. They had been
obliterated by artillery.
   He withdrew his undefeated troops from the
fragments of his field fortifications, and the hearts
of his men were as completely unbroken as the
parapets of his trenches were completely broken.
In such a Brigade it is invidious to single out any
battalion for special praise, but it is perhaps neces-
sary to the story to point out that Lieut.-Colonel
Lipsett, commanding the 8th Battalion (90th Winni-
peg Rifles) of the 2nd Brigade, held the extreme
left of the Brigade position at the most critical
moment.
   The Battalion was expelled from the trenches
early on Friday morning by an emission of poisonous
gas; but recovering, in three-quarters of an hour it
counter-attacked, retook the trenches it had aban-
doned, and bayoneted the enemy. And after the
3rd Brigade had been forced to retire, Lieut.-Colonel
Lipsett held his position, though his left was in the
air, until two British regiments, 8th Durham Light
Infantry and 1st Hampshires, filled up the gap on
night.
   At daybreak on Sunday, April 25th, two com-
panies of the 8th Battalion (90th Winnipeg Rifles),
holding the left of our line, were relieved by the

Durhams, and retired to reserve trenches.  The
Durhams suffered severely, and at 5 p.m. on Sunday
afternoon, a Company of the 8th Canadian Battalion
took their place on our extreme left The Germans
entrenched in the rear of this Company, and German
batteries on the left flank enfiladed it. The Position
became untenable, and the Company was ordered to
evacuate it, two platoons to retire and two platoons
to cover the retirement. The retiring platoons were
guided back, under terrific fire, by Sergeant (now
Captain) Knobel, with a loss of about 45 per cent.
of their strength. They joined the Battalion Reserve.
Of the platoons which covered this retirement, every
officer and man was either killed or taken prisoner.
All the officers of the Company who were in action at
the time the retirement was ordered, remained with
the covering platoons.
  The individual fortunes of the 2nd and 3rd
Brigades have brought us to the events of Sunday
afternoon, but it is necessary, to make the story
complete, to recur for a moment to the events of
the morning. After a very formidable attack the
enemy succeeded in capturing the village of St.
Julien, which has so often been referred to in
describing the fortunes of the Canadian left. This
success opened up a new and very menacing line of
advance, but by this time further reinforcements
had arrived.
   Here, again, it became evident that the tactical
necessities of the situation dictated an offensive
movement as the surest method of arresting further
progress.  General Alderson, who was also in com-
mand of the reinforcements, accordingly directed that
an advance should be made by two British brigades

(the 10th Brigade under Brigadier-General Hull,1
and the Northumberland Brigade), which had been
brought up in support.  The attack was thrust
through the Canadian left and centre; and as the
troops making it swept on, many of them going to
certain death, they paused an instant, and, with
ringing cheers for Canada, gave the first indication
to the Division of the warm admiration which their
exertions had excited in the British Army.2
   The advance was indeed costly, but it was made
with a devotion which could not be denied. The
story is one of which the Brigades may be proud, but
it does not belong to the special account of the
fortunes of the Canadian contingent. It is sufficient
for our purpose to notice that the attack succeeded
in its object, and the German advance along the line,
momentarily threatened, was arrested.
   We had reached, in describing the events of the
afternoon, the points at which the trenches of the
2nd Brigade had been completely destroyed. This
Brigade, the 3rd Brigade, and the considerable re-
inforcements which by this time filled the gap
between the two Brigades, were gradually driven,
fighting every yard, upon a line running roughly

from Fortuin, south of St. Julien, in a north-easterly
direction towards Passchendaele.  Here the two
Brigades  were relieved by two British brigades, after
   Monday morning broke bright and clear and found
the Canadians behind the firing line. But this day,
too, was to bring its anxieties The attack was still
pressed, and it became necessary to ask Brigadier-
his shrunken Brigade.
repled, "but they are ready and glad to go again
to the trenches." And so, once more, a hero leading
to the very apex of the line as it existed at that
moment.  The Brigade held this position throughout
Monday; on Tuesday it occupied reserve trenches,
and on Wednesday it was relieved and retired to
billets in the rear.1

   It is a fitting climax to the story of the Canadians
at Ypres that the last blows were struck by one who
had borne himself throughout gallantly and resource-
fully. Lieut.-Colonel Watson, on the evening of
Wednesday, April 28th, was ordered to advance with
his Battalion and dig a line of trenches which were
to link up the French on the left and a battalion of
the Rifle Brigade on the right. It was both a diffi-
cult and a dangerous task, and Lieut.-Colonel
Watson could only employ two companies to dig,
while two companies acted as cover.
  They started out at 7 o'clock in the evening from
the field in which they had bivouacked all day west
of Brielen, and made north, towards St. Julien. And,
even as they started, there was such a hail of shrap-
nel, intended either for the farm which served as the
Battalion's Headquarters, or for the road junction
which they would have to cross, that they were com-
pelled to stand fast.
  At 8 o'clock, however, Colonel Watson was able
to move on again; and, as the men marched north,
terrible scenes en route showed the fury of the artil-
lery duel which had been in progress since the Batta-
lion had moved out of the firing line on the morning
of the 26th.
  At the bridge crossing Ypres Canal, guides met
the Regiment, and the extraordinary precautions
which were taken to hide its movements indicated
the seriousness of its errand.
  The Battalion had suffered heavy losses at this
very spot only a few days before, and a draft of five
officers and 112 men from England had reinforced
it only that morning. And the officers and men of
this draft received an awful baptism of fire within

practically a few hours of their arrival at the front.
High explosives were bursting and thundering;
there were shells searching hedgerows and the
avenue of trees between which the Battalion marched,
and falling in dozens into every scrap of shelter
where the enemy imagined horses or wagons might
be hidden. Slowly and cautiously, the march con-
tinued until the Battalion arrived behind the first line
trench held by a battalion of the King's Own Scot-
tish Borderers. Through this line Colonel Watson
and his men had to pass, and on every side were
strewn the bodies of scores of Ghurkas, the gallant
little soldiers who had that morning perished while
attempting the almost impossible task of advancing
to the assault over nearly 700 yards of open ground.
   When the Battalion reached the place where the
trenches were to be dug, two companies were led out
by Colonel Watson himself, to act as cover to the
other two companies, which then began digging
along the line marked by the Engineers. And if
ever men worked with nervous energy, these men
did that night. From enemy rifles on the ridge
came the ping of bullets, which mercifully passed
overhead although, judging from the persistency
and multitude of their flares, the enemy must have
known that work was being done.
   It was two o'clock in the morning before the work
was finished, and the Battalion turned its back
upon about as bad a situation as men have ever
  The return to the billets at Vlamertinghe was dis-
tressing in the extreme.  Officers and men, alike
worn out, slept on the march oblivious of route and
destination 

   During the night of May 3rd 1 and the morning of
the 4th, the 1st Canadian Infantry Brigade withdrew
to billets at Bailleul. On the night of May 4th
Lieut.-General Alderson handed over the command
of this section of front to the General Officer Com-
manding the 4th Division, and removed his head-
quarters to Nieppe, withdrawing the 3rd Canadian
Infantry Brigade on the night of the 4th, and the
2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade on the 5th of May.2

   Such, in the most general outline, is the story of
a great and glorious feat of arms. A story told so
soon after the event, while rendering bare justice to
units whose doings fell under the eyes of particular
observers, must do less than justice to others who
played their part - and all did - as gloriously as
those whose special activities it is possible, even at
this stage, to describe. But the friends of men who
fought in other Battalions may he content in the
knowledge that they too will learn, when the his-
torian has achieved the complete correlation of
diaries of all units, the exact part which each played
in these unforgettable days. It is rather accident
than special distinction which has made it possible
to select individual battalions for mention.
   It wou1d not be right to close even this account
without a word of tribute to the auxiliary services.
The signallers were always cool and resourceful.
The telegraph and telephone wires were being con-
stantly cut, and many belonging to this service ren-
dered  up their lives in the discharge of their duty,
carrying out repairs with the most complete calmness
in exposed positions.  The despatch carriers, as
usual, behaved with the greatest bravery. Theirs is
a lonely life, and very often a lonely death. One
cycle messenger lay on the ground badly wounded.
He stopped a passing officer and delivered his mes-
sage, some verbal instructions. These were
coherently given, but be swooned almost before the
words were out of his mouth.
   The Artillery never flagged in the sleepless

struggle in which so much depended upon its exer-
tions. Not a Canadian gun was lost in the long
battle of retreat. And the nature of the position
renders such a record very remarkable. One battery
of four guns found itself in such a situation that it
was compelled to turn two of its guns directly about
and fire on the enemy in positions almost diametric-
ally opposite.
   The members of the Canadian Engineers, and of
the Canadian Army Medical Corps, rivalled in cool-
ness, endurance and valour the men of the battalions
who were their comrades. On more than one occa-
sion during that long battle of many desperate
engagements, our Engineers held positions, working
with the infantry. Lieut.-Colonel (now Brigadier-
General) Armstrong commanded our Engineers
throughout the battle. A fighting force, a construc-
tive force and a destructive force in the battle of
Ypres, the Canadian Engineers plied their rifles,
entrenched, and mined bridges across the canal (the
approaches to which they held) in case of final
necessity.
   No attempt has been made in this description to
explain the recent operations except in so far as
they spring from - or are connected with-the for-
tunes of the Canadian Division. The exertions of
the troops who reinforced, and later relieved, the
Canadians, were not less glorious, but the long-
drawn-out struggle is a lesson to the whole Empire-
"Arise, 0 Israel!" The Empire is engaged in a
struggle, without quarter and without compromise
against an enemy still superbly organised, still
immensely powerful, still confident that its strength
is the mate of its necessities. To arms, then, and

still to arms! In Great Britain, in Canada, in Aus-
tralia, there is need, and there is need now, of a
community organised alike in military and industrial
co-operation.
    The graveyard of Canada in Flanders is large.
It is very large. Those who lie there have left their
mortal remains on alien soil. To Canada they have
bequeathed their memories and their glory.
         

          "On Fame's eternal camping ground

             Their silent tents are spread,
             And Glory guards with solemn round
             The bivouac of the dead."