CANADIANS--THAT'S ALL
Less than three months before this we were raw recruits. We were considered
greenhorns and absolutely undisciplined. We had had little of trench
experience. At Neuve Chapelle we had "stood by." At Hill 60 we had watched
the fun. But our discipline, our real mettle, had not yet been put to the
test.
That evening of the twenty-second of April when we marched out from Ypres,
little did any of us realize that within the next twenty-four hours more
than one-half of our total effectives were to be no more.
I feel sure that our commanders must have been nervous. They must have
wondered and asked themselves, "Will the boys stand it?" "How will they
come out of the test?"
We were about to be thrown into the fiercest and bitterest battle of the
war. There were no other troops within several days' march of us. There
was no one to back us up. There was no one else, should we fail, to take
our place. "Canadians! It's up to you!"
I could tell of several stirring things that happened to other battalions
during that night, but I am only telling of what I saw myself, and it will
suffice to write of one most stirring thing which befell the Third.
As we crossed the Yser Canal we marched in a dogged and resolute silence.
No man can tell what were the thoughts of his comrade. We have no bands,
nor bugles, nor music when marching into action. We dare not even smoke. In
dark and quiet we pass steadily ahead. There is only the continued muffled
tramp--tramp--of hundreds of feet encased in heavy boots.
To the far right of us and to the far left shells were falling, bursting
and brilliantly lighting up the heavens for a lurid moment. In our
immediate sector there were no shells. It was all the more dark and all the
more silent, for the noise and uproar and blazing flame to right and left.
We were on rising ground now. Up and up steadily we went. We reached the
top of the grade, when suddenly from out of the pit of darkness ahead of
us there came a high explosive shell. It dropped in the middle of our
battalion. It struck where the machine gun section was placed, and
annihilated them almost to a man.
Then it was that our mettle stood the test. Then it was that we proved the
words Canadian and Man synonymous. Not one of us wavered; not one of us
swerved to right or left, to front or back. We kept on. There was hardly
one who lost in step. The commanders whispered in the darkness, "Close up
the ranks." The men behind those who had fallen jumped across the bodies of
their comrades lying prone, and joined in immediately behind those in the
forward rows.
The dead and wounded lay stretched where they had fallen. Coming behind us
were the stretcher-bearers and the hospital corps. We knew our comrades
would have attention. This was a grim business. We pressed on.
There was a supreme test of discipline. It was our weighing time in the
balance of the world war, and we proved ourselves not wanting. We were
Canadians--that's all.
That afternoon the gas came over on us. The Germans put gas across on us
because they hated us most. It is a compliment to be hated by the Germans.
Extreme hatred from a German in the field shows that the hated are the most
effective. They hated the French most at first, they hated the Imperial
British, they hated us; they have hated the English again; soon, when the
United States comes to her full effectiveness, she will take her place in
the front rank of the hated.
We Canadians were a puzzle to them. When we went into the trenches at
first, the enemy would call across the line to us, "What have you come over
here to fight us for? What business is it of yours? Why did you not stay
back home in Canada and attend to your own affairs, and not butt into
something that does not concern you? If you had stayed at home in your own
country, WHEN WE CAME OVER AND TOOK CANADA, we would have treated you all
right. Now that you have interfered, we are going to get you some day and
get you right."
Yes; when they came over and took Canada. That was the very reason we were
fighting. We wanted to keep our own part of the empire for ourselves. It
is ours absolutely, and we had no intention that Germany should own it. We
knew exactly what the Hohenzollern planned to do. If France were subdued,
if England were beaten on her own ground, then Canada would be a prize of
war. We preferred to fight overseas, in a country which already had been
devastated, rather than carry ruin and devastation into our own land, where
alone we would not have had the slightest chance in the world for beating
Germany.
In the front lines of the Ypres salient was the Third Brigade, made up of
Canadian Highlanders, whom the Germans, since that night have nicknamed
"The Ladies from Hell." In this brigade were men from parts of Nova Scotia,
Montreal, from Hamilton, Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver.
To the left of these lay the Second Brigade of Infantry. These were men for
the most part from the West. There was the Fifth, commonly known as the
"Disappointed Fifth," from Regina, Moose Jaw and Saskatoon. There was the
Eighth, nicknamed by the Germans "The Little Black Devils from Winnipeg."
The Tenth, the famous "Fighting Tenth," with boys from Southern Alberta,
mainly Medicine Hat and Calgary and Lethbridge. And there was the Seventh
of British Columbia.
[Illustration: POSITIONS BEFORE AND AFTER SECOND BATTLE OF YPRES APRIL
1915]
It was the Second Brigade which the First was supporting. To the left of
the Eighth Battalion, which was the extreme Canadian left wing, there were
Zouaves and Turcos. These were black French Colonials. To these
unfortunates, probably the Canadians owe their near disaster.
In the far distance we saw a cloud rise as though from the earth. It was a
greeny-red color, and increased in volume as it rolled forward. It was like
a mist rising, and yet it hugged the ground, rose five or six feet, and
penetrated to every crevice and dip in the ground.
We could not tell what it was. Suddenly from out the mist we men in
reserves saw movement. Coming toward us, running as though Hell as it
really was had been let loose behind them, were the black troops from
Northern Africa. Poor devils, I do not blame them. It was enough to make
any man run. They were simple-minded fellows. They were there to fight for
France, but their minds could not grasp the significance of the enemy
against whom they were pitted. The gas rolled on and they fled. Their
officers vainly tried to stem the flying tide of them. Their heels barely
seemed to touch the ground. As they ran they covered their faces, noses and
eyes with their hands, and through blackened lips, sometimes cracked and
bleeding, they gasped, "Allemands! Allemands!"
Some of our own French-speaking officers stopped the few running men they
could make hear, and begged of them to reform their lines and go back to
the attack. But they were maddened as only a simple race can be frenzied by
fear, and paid no heed.
It is in times like this, in moments of dire emergency, that the officer of
true worth stands out, the real leader of men. There were a dozen incidents
to prove this in the next few hurried, desperate moments. None can be more
soul-stirring than the quick thought, quick action and foresight displayed
by our own captain. He did not know what this smoke rushing toward our
lines could be. He had no idea more definite than any of us in the ranks.
But he had that quick brain that acts automatically in an emergency and
thinks afterward.
"Wet your handkerchiefs in your water-bottles, boys!" he ordered.
We all obeyed promptly.
"Put the handkerchiefs over your faces--and shoot like the devil!" he
panted.
We did this, and as the gas got closer, the handkerchiefs served as a sort
of temporary respirator and saved many of us from a frightful death. We in
the reserves suffered least. Yet some of us died by that infernal product.
A man dies by gas in horrible torment. He turns perfectly black, those men
at any rate whom I saw at that time. Black as black leather, eyes, even
lips, teeth, nails. He foams at the mouth as a dog in hydrophobia; he
lingers five or six minutes and then--goes West.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
Marvelous is the only word to describe the endurance, the valor of the
Ladies from Hell. They withstood the gas, and they withstood wave after
wave of attacking German hordes. And yet even their wonderful work was
overtopped by that of the Eighth, which, being exposed on the left by the
black troops who had fled, had to bear the brunt of a fight which almost
surrounded them.
It was wonderful. I shall never forget it. There were twelve thousand
Canadian troops. In the German official reports after the battle, they
stated that they had used one hundred and twenty thousand men against us,
and one thousand guns. We had not one gun. Those that we had were captured
when the African blacks had left. It was our strength against theirs--no,
it was white man's spirit against barbarian brutality.
For six days and nights that terrible death struggle continued. Every man
was engaged: cooks, doctors, stretcher-bearers, chaplains, every one of us
held a rifle. The wounded who had to take their chance of living because
there was no way to convey them back to shelter--some of them would sit up,
if they possibly could, to load and load again rifles which they lifted
from dead comrades. They would hand us these as our rifles got too hot to
hold. And still the German attacks persisted. Still they came on. And still
we did not budge an inch from our position as it was when the gas first
came over. They did not gain a yard, though when the British reserves at
last reached us, there were only two thousand of us left standing on our
feet; two thousand of us who were whole from out the twelve thousand that
had started in to repel the attack.
The two thousand of us were still in the old position. Still we held in our
safe-keeping the key of the road to Calais, to Paris, to London and
farther. The key to world power which the Hohenzollern coveted.
Behind Ypres to-day there lie four thousand five hundred of the flower of
the Canadian contingent. Four thousand five hundred young men who made the
extreme sacrifice for King, for Flag, for Country, for Right. They lie in
their narrow beds of earth, and over them wave the shading leaves of maple
trees. For thoughtful citizens sent over and had planted "Canada's little
maple grove"--a monument in a strange country to the men who fought and
died and were not defeated.
On the night of April twenty-second, General Alderson and his officers saw
that the situation was desperate. They thought to save their men. The
general sent up the command: "Retire!"
The word first reached the Little Black Devils. The men heard it, the
officers heard it, and they looked over the flattened parapet of their
trench. They saw the oncoming hordes of brutes in a hellish-looking garb,
and they sent back the answer: "Retire be damned!"
The general, the officers, rested content. With a spirit such as these men
showed even against desperate odds, nothing but victory could result.
The gas and the attacking waves of men poured on. We were not frightened.
No; none of us showed fear. Warfare such as this does not scare men with
red blood in their veins. The Germans judge others by themselves. A German
can be scared, a German can be bluffed. They thought that we were of the
same mettle, or lesser. At the Somme we put over on the enemy the only new
thing that we have been able to spring during the whole three years--the
tanks. Were they scared? They were terrified! They dropped rifles,
bayonets, knapsacks, everything--and ran. Had not our tanks stuck in the
awful mud of France, or had they a trifle more speed, I believe it might
have been possible for us to have reached Berlin by this time.
It was because we could not be frightened that General French, then
Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force, cabled across the
world on the morning of the twenty-third of April, "The Canadians
undoubtedly saved the situation."
No word of definite praise, no eulogy, no encomiums. Just six words--"The
Canadians undoubtedly saved the situation."
The night of April twenty-second was probably the most momentous time of
the six days and nights of fighting. Then the Germans concentrated on the
Yser Canal, over which there was but one bridge, a murderous barrage fire
which would have effectively hindered the bringing up of reinforcements or
guns, even had we had any in reserve.
During the early stages of the battle, the enemy had succeeded to
considerable degree in turning the Canadian left wing. There was a large
open gap at this point, where the French Colonial troops had stood until
the gas came over. Toward this sector the Germans rushed rank after rank of
infantry, backed by guns and heavy artillery. To the far distant left were
our British comrades. They were completely blocked by the German advance.
They were like rats in a trap and could not move.
At the start of the battle, the Canadian lines ran from the village of
Langemarcke over to St. Julien, a distance of approximately three to four
miles. From St. Julien to the sector where the Imperial British had joined
the Turcos was a distance of probably two miles.
These two miles had to be covered and covered quickly. We had to save the
British extreme right wing, and we had to close the gap. There was no
question about it. It was our job. On the night of April twenty-second we
commenced to put this into effect. We were still holding our original
position with the handful of men who were in reserves, all of whom had been
included in the original grand total of twelve thousand. We had to spread
out across the gap of two miles and link up the British right wing.
Doing this was no easy task. Our company was out first and we were told to
get into field skirmishing order. We lined up in the pitchy darkness at
five paces apart, but no sooner had we reached this than a whispered order
passed from man to man: "Another pace, lads, just another pace."
This order came again and yet again. Before we were through and ready for
the command to advance, we were at least twice five paces each man from his
nearest comrade.
Then it was that our captain told us bluntly that we were obviously
outnumbered by the Germans, ten to one. Then he told us that practically
speaking, we had scarcely the ghost of a chance, but that a bluff might
succeed. He told us to "swing the lid over them." This we did by yelling,
hooting, shouting, clamoring, until it seemed, and the enemy believed,
that we were ten to their one.
[Illustration: LINES AS THEY APPEARED, APRIL 24 BADLY BENT BUT NOT BROKEN]
The ruse succeeded. At daybreak when we rested we found that we had driven
the enemy back almost to his original position. All night long we had been
fighting with our backs to our comrades who were in the front trenches. The
enemy had got behind us and we had had to face about in what served for
trenches. By dawn we had him back again in his original position, and we
were facing in the old direction. By dawn we had almost, though not quite,
forced a junction with the British right.
The night of April twenty-second is one that I can never forget. It was
frightful, yes. Yet there was a grandeur in the appalling intensity of
living, in the appalling intensity of death as it surrounded us.
The German shells rose and burst behind us. They made the Yser Canal a
stream of molten glory. Shells fell in the city, and split the darkness of
the heavens in the early night hours. Later the moon rose in a splendor of
spring-time. Straight behind the tower of the great cathedral it rose and
shone down on a bloody earth.
Suddenly the grand old Cloth Hall burst into flames. The spikes of fire
rose and fell and rose again. Showers of sparks went upward. A pall of
smoke would form and cloud the moon, waver, break and pass. There was the
mutter and rumble and roar of great guns. There was the groan of wounded
and the gasp of dying.
It was glorious. It was terrible. It was inspiring. Through an inferno of
destruction and death, of murder and horror, we lived because we must.
Early in the night the Fighting Tenth and the Sixteenth charged the wood
of St. Julien. Through the undergrowth they hacked and hewed and fought and
bled and died. But, outnumbered as they were, they got the position and
captured the battery of 4.7 guns that had been lost earlier in the day.
This night the Germans caught and crucified three of our Canadian
sergeants. I did not see them crucify the men, although I saw one of the
dead bodies after. I saw the marks of bayonets through the palms of the
hands and the feet, where by bayonet points this man had been spitted to a
barn door. I was told that one of the sergeants was still alive when taken
down, and before he died he gasped out to his saviors that when the Germans
were raising him to be crucified, they muttered savagely in perfect
English, "If we did not frighten you before, this time we will."
I know a sergeant of Edmonton, Alberta, who has in his possession to-day
the actual photographs of the crucified men taken before the dead bodies
were removed from the barnside.
Again I maintain that war frightfulness of this kind does not frighten real
men. The news of the crucified men soon reached all of the ranks. It
increased our hatred. It doubled our bitterness. It made us all the more
eager to advance--to fight--to "get." We had to avenge our comrades.
Vengeance is not yet complete.
In the winter of 1914-1915 the Germans knew war. They had studied the game
and not a move was unfamiliar to them. We were worse than novices. Even our
generals could not in their knowledge compare with the expertness of those
who carried out the enemy action according to a schedule probably laid down
years before.
We knew that on the day following the terrible night of April twenty-second
we must continue the advance, that we dare not rest, that we must complete
the junction with the right wing of the British troops. And the enemy knew
it, too.
We expected that the Germans would be entrenched possibly one hundred or
even two hundred yards from our own position, but not so. His nearest
entrenchment was easily a mile to a mile and a half across the open land
from us.
The reason for this distance was simple enough. We had succeeded in our
bluff that we had many hundreds more of men than in reality was the case.
The enemy calculated that had we this considerable number of troops we
would capture his trenches, were he to take a position close in, with one
short and mad rush. He further calculated that had we even a million men,
he would have the best of us if we attempted to cross the long, open flat
land in the face of his thousands of machine guns.
April twenty-third was one of the blackest days in the annals of Canadian
history in this war, and again it was one of the most glorious. That day we
were given the task of retaking the greater part of the trenches which the
Turco troops had lost the day preceding.
We lay, my own battalion, easily a mile and a half from the German trench
which was to be our objective. About six o'clock in the morning we set out
very cautiously, with Major Kirkpatrick in command. C and D Companies were
leading, with a platoon or two of B Company following, comprising in all
about seven hundred and fifty men. At first we thought the advance would be
comparatively easy, but when we entered the village of St. Julien, the
German coal boxes were falling all around us. So far our casualties were
light.
To the left of the village we formed in field skirmishing order--about five
paces apart--but before the formation of five successive lines or waves was
completed, each man was easily eight paces away from his nearest mate
instead of five. We were told that our objective was an enemy trench system
about four hundred yards in length.
It is impossible to convey in words the feeling of a man in such a
situation as this. Apparently none of us actually realized the significance
of what we were about to undertake. Probably it was because we were no
longer in the trenches, and because we had been out and in the open all the
night before.
We stood there waiting. Overhead there was the continuous "Crack, crack,
crack!" of enemy machine gun and other bullets. It was evident that we had
already traversed a mile of our way, and that only half a mile lay ahead of
us. The enemy bullets were flying high. I heard no command; I do not think
any command was given in words, but of a sudden we heard a "Click!" to the
left. No one even glanced in the direction. Every man fixed his bayonet.
The man on the extreme left had fixed his, the "Click" had warned his
comrades eight paces away, and the ominous sound, ominous for Hans and
Fritz, "Click, click, click!" ran along the lines.
The advance had started. In front were our officers, every one of them from
junior to senior, well ahead of their men. A wave of the hand, a quarter
right turn, one long blast of the whistle and we were off. We made mad
rushes of fifty or sixty yards at a time, then down we would go. No place
to seek cover, only to hug Mother Earth.
Our lads were falling pretty fast; our officers even faster. To my left
Slim Johnstone got his; ahead of me I saw Billy King go down. I heard some
one yell out that Lieutenant Smith had dropped. In the next platoon
Lieutenant Kirkpatrick fell dead. A gallant lad, this; he fell leading his
men and with a word of cheer on his lips.
We were about two hundred yards from the enemy's trench and my estimation
is that easily one-third of our fighting men were gone. Easily eighty per
cent. of our officers were out of the immediate game. Right in front of our
eyes our captain--Captain Straight--fell. As he went down he blew two short
blasts on his whistle, which was the signal to hug the earth once more.
And we dropped.
The officers and men who had been hit had begun their weary crawl back to
the dressing station; that is, all of them who were able to make the
effort. We saw that Captain Straight made no attempt to move. Some of us
crept up to his side.
"Hit in the upper leg," he whispered in reply to the queries.
"Go back, sir, go back!" we urged, but Captain Straight was obdurate. He
had made up his mind that he was going to see the thing through, and stick
to it he would no matter what the cost to himself. He realized that only by
some super-human effort would we now be able to take the enemy trench. The
machine gun fire was hellish. The infantry fire was blinding. A bullet
would flash through the sleeve of a tunic, rip off the brim of a cap, bang
against a water-bottle, bury itself in the mass of a knapsack. It seemed as
though no one could live in such a hail of lead. But no one had fallen down
on the task of the day. Each battalion was advancing, with slowness and
awful pain, but all were advancing.
Captain Straight knew how we were placed for effectives, both in officers
and men. He knew how we adored him. He lay a few minutes to get his breath,
then attempted to stand, but could not, as one leg was completely out of
commission. He dragged himself along with his hands, catching hold of the
tufts of grass or digging his fingers into the soft earth. He made thirty
or forty yards in this way, then one long blast of his whistle and we
rushed ahead, to fall flat on a level with him as he sounded the two-blast
command. Probably ten times he dragged himself forward, and ten times we
rushed and dropped in that awful charge. The captain gritted his teeth, for
his pain must have been horrible. He waved his arm as he lay and waited
ahead of us--"Come on, lads--come on!" And we came.
I don't know what other men may have felt in that last advance. For myself,
the thought flashed across my mind--"What's the use? It is certain death to
stay here longer; why not lie down, wait till the worst is over and be able
to fight again--it is useless, hopeless--it is suicide to attempt such a
task." Then just ahead of us I saw Captain Straight crawling slowly but
surely, and through the "Zing!" of bullets I heard his voice, fainter but
still earnest and full of courage, cry out: "Come on, lads--come on!"
He was one of the first to roll over into that improvised German trench.
No, we could not have failed; we could not have stopped. As one of our
young boys said afterward: "Fellows, I'd have followed him to Hell and then
some!"
It was Hell all right, but no matter; we had gone through it, and got what
we had come for--the German trench.
Out of the seven hundred and fifty of us who advanced, a little over two
hundred and fifty gained the German trench; and of that number twenty-five
or more fell dead as soon as they reached the enemy, and got that revenge
for which they had come.
I doubt if there will again be a battle fought in this war where the
feeling of the men will be as bitter as at St. Julien. Men were found dead
with their bayonets through the body of some Hun, men who had been shot
themselves thirty yards down the field of advance. Their bodies were dead,
as we understand death, but the God-given spirit was alive, and that spirit
carried the earthbound flesh forward to do its work, to avenge comrades
murdered and womanhood outraged. It was marvelous--it may have been a
miracle. It was done, and for all time has proved to the boys who fought
out there the power of the spirit over the flesh.
We had seen atrocities on the Belgians the day before. We had seen young
girls who were mutilated and horribly maltreated. We had been gassed, we
had seen our comrades die in an awful horror. We had had our sergeants
crucified, and we were outnumbered ten to one. After all this, and after
all the Hell through which we had passed from six that morning until after
two, when we reached the enemy trench and presented the bright ends of our
bayonets, Mr. Fritz went down on his knees and cried, "_Kamerad! Kamerad!_"
What did we do? We did exactly what you would have done under like
circumstances. "_Kamerad!_"--Bah!
There is no doubt that the German soldier is a good soldier as far as he
goes. He is good in a charge and if he had not done the despicable
things--the dreadful outrages which he has done--he could be admired as a
fighting machine. But there is one department where we of the Allies have
him licked to a frazzle. Talk to any man who has been out there and he will
say the same. The German soldier can not hold in a hand-to-hand fight. He
can't face the cold steel. The second he glimpses the glint of a bayonet he
is whimpering and asking for mercy.
The German bayonet is a fiendish weapon. It is well its owner can not use
it. For myself I do not know of one case where a comrade has been wounded
by enemy steel. His bayonet is longer than ours, and from the tip for a few
inches is a saw edge. This facilitates entrance into the body, but on
turning to take it out it tears and rends savagely.
It is impossible to describe the work of every battalion in a battle. In a
charge, a concerted charge, such as we went through on April twenty-third,
there was not one battalion that did better than another. There was not one
officer who did better than another, there was not one man who outdistanced
his fellow in valor. We all fought like the devil. It is only possible to
convey the doings of the whole by telling the achievements of the few.
Boys of the Fourth Western Ontario Battalion, commanded by Colonel Birchall
of St. Catharines, who came through this business, have told me that their
colonel lined them up and made a short speech to them. He took them into
his confidence. He told them that the whole battalion should advance
together; that he did not think it good policy to leave any part in
reserve. He said: "I am going to lead you, boys; will you come?"
There was a sonorous "Aye, aye, sir!" along the ranks.
Colonel Birchall pulled his revolver from its holster, looked at it a
moment and then threw it to the ground. Then he took his small riding
switch and hung the loop over the first finger of his right hand.
"Ready, boys!" he cried, and twirling the little cane round and round, he
strode ahead.
It was a terrible piece of work. On every side shells and bullets were
falling. Men went down like ninepins at a fair. But always ahead was the
colonel, always there was the short flash of his cane as it swished
through the air. Then he was hit, a bullet in the upper right arm. He did
not stop; he did not drop the cane.
"On, boys, on!" And the men stumbled up and forward.
Seven times Colonel Birchall was a mark for enemy fire. Seven times fresh
wounds gushed forth with his life's blood. He was staggering a little now,
but never a falter; on and on he went, the little cane feebly waving.
Men say that at times the lines seemed to waver and almost to break; that
the whole advancing force, small and scattered though it was, seemed to
bend backward as cornstalks in wind, but always they saw the colonel ahead
and recovered balance.
Colonel Birchall fell dead on the parapet of the German trench, but he got
what he had come after. His men were with him. There were seven hundred and
more dead and wounded in the battalion, but the trench was theirs and Fritz
was again begging for mercy.
There are stories, wonderful stories of stirring things done by the several
battalions, but it is not possible to give them in detail. Men made
undying names in this battle, names which will go down through the ages as
have the names of other British soldiers. There was Brigadier-General
Turner, who is now Major-General, of the Third Brigade. There was
Lieutenant-Colonel, now Brigadier-General, Watson of the Second Battalion,
who, together with Lieutenant-Colonel Rennie, now Brigadier-General, of the
Third Battalion, reinforced the Third Infantry Brigade. These two were of
the First Brigade. Then there came the Seventh Battalion, which is the
British Columbia Regiment of the Second Brigade, and the Tenth Battalion,
also of the Second.
Lieutenant-Colonel Boyle commanded the Fighting Tenth, and gave his life in
the advance. The Sixteenth Battalion Canadian Scottish were under command
of Lieutenant-Colonel Leckie, who has since become Brigadier-General. The
Tenth had many losses. Major MacLaren, second in command, died in hospital
shortly after being taken there, and Major Ormond was wounded. Major
Guthrie is another man who carried the Tenth forward to more triumphs.
Brigadier-General Mercer, Lieutenant-Colonel Morrison, Captain T.E. Powers
are others, and Lieutenant-Colonel, since Brigadier-General, Lipsett,
commanded the Ninetieth Winnipeg Rifles, whose men suffered severely from
gas.
Major Norsworthy was killed while trying to bring up reinforcements. He
endeavored to reach Major McCuiag, who had the great misfortune, after
doing marvelous work and saving an almost desperate situation, to be taken
prisoner by the enemy. Men of the Seventh Battalion were Colonel
Hart-McHarg, Major Odlum and Lieutenant Mathewson. The Second Brigade was
under command of Brigadier-General Currie, who now is the
Commander-in-Chief of the Canadian Expeditionary Forces.
Lieutenant-Colonel, now Brigadier-General, Armstrong, commanded the
Engineers, but crowning all of these names is that of our beloved
Commander-in-Chief at the time, General Alderson.
Ten thousand names more could be added to this gallant roll of honor. At
the beginning of the battle of Ypres our lines were a little over twelve
thousand strong, and after six days and nights of fighting there remained
two thousand of us standing. We had practically not budged an inch. The
Germans had not broken our line, our one thin, straggling, far-stretched
line. We remained the victors of Ypres.
Perhaps our greatest reward came when on April twenty-sixth the English
troops reached us. We had been completely cut off by the enemy barrage from
all communication with other sectors of the line. Still, through the
wounded gone back, word of our stand had drifted out. The English boys
fought and force-marched and fought again their terrible way through the
barrage to our aid. And when they arrived, weary and worn and torn, cutting
their bloody way to us, they cheered themselves hoarse; cheered as they
marched along, cheered and gripped our hands as they got within touch with
us. Yell after yell went upward, and stirring words woke the echoes. The
boys of the Old Country paid their greatest tribute to us of the New as
they cried:
"Canadians--Canadians--that's all!"