It was in April, 1915, at the second battle of Ypres--or, as it
is more often termed in Canada, St. Julien or Langemarck--that
the quality of the men of the first contingent was blazoned
forth. The Germans had launched a determined attack on the
junction of the French and Canadian forces, seeking to drive
through to Calais. The use, for the first time, of asphyxiating
gases drove back in confusion the French colonial troops on the
left of the Canadians. Attacked and outflanked by a German army
of 150,000 men, four Canadian brigades, immensely inferior in
heavy artillery and tortured by the poisonous fumes, filled the
gap, hanging on doggedly day and night until reenforcements came
and Calais was saved. In sober retrospection it was almost
incredible that the thin khaki line had held against the
overwhelming odds which faced it. A few weeks later, at Givenchy
and Festubert, in the same bloody salient of Ypres, the Canadian
division displayed equal courage with hardly equal success. In
the spring of 1916, when the Canadian forces grew first to three
and then to four divisions, heavy toll was taken at St. Eloi and
Sanctuary Wood.
When they were shifted from the Ypres sector to the Somme, the
dashing success at Courcelette showed them as efficient in
offense as in defense. In 1917 a Canadian general, Sir Arthur
Currie, three years before only a business man of Vancouver, took
command of the Canadian troops.
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