2 From Vimy Ridge to Amiens

Grim Months

For the 50th Battalion and the rest of the Canadian Corps, the remaining months of 1917 would be the bleakest period of the war. Tough fighting and heavy casualties would seem to bring the Canadians little closer to victory. And save for the greenest reinforcements, which made up a large part of the Corps by late April, the novelty of war had worn very thin.

“Quiet Times”… Or So They Say

On the night of the April 24–25, the 50th was back in the front line near Liévin on the southwest outskirts of Lens, and only a few kilometres north of Vimy Ridge. Given their line was a railway embankment, lacking both trenches and dugouts, digging in was the priority. But under Watson’s command, there would be aggressive patrolling to prod the enemy, too. Leading one of the first patrols, Lt. John Ladler was badly wounded and became one of the handful of 50th men taken prisoner during the war.¹ The enemy’s nighttime forays had to be repelled, too. Their artillery and trench mortars steadily bombarded Canadian positions, and the Canadian artillery retaliated in kind, sometimes sparking “shoots” that lasted for hours. Gas shelling added to the misery. Such was life at the front during so-called quiet periods, when regardless of the reason, the infantry took the beating.²

Henry “Ducky” Norwest

On April 28, the 50th’s war diary noted proudly that “sniper Norwest got three Boches.”³ This was the first mention of one of the deadliest marksmen in the BEF, Henry Louis Norwest. Although he was in his early thirties and supporting a wife and three children, the Alberta-born Métis man had enlisted in the 3rd Canadian Mounted Rifles in January 1915, only to be dismissed three months later for insobriety. In September he tried again, this time joining the 50th Battalion. It was a challenge for Natives or Métis to gain full acceptance from white soldiers, and the 50th was overwhelmingly white. However, Norwest’s quiet, uncomplaining temperament ultimately won over most of his comrades, as did his bravery and the marksmanship skills, which all of them recognized could save their lives. One of his closest friends in the 50th remembered him simply “as one man who fought for his country and his buddies’ sake.” But in a way that sadly reflected the racism of those times, for that same comrade maintained years later that while “his colour may have been dark …, his heart was white, and also his mind all the way through.”⁴ The sniper’s job entailed a very personal form of killing, first stalking and then, with a single aimed shot, usually to the head, slaying an enemy whose features he could clearly make out. “Ducky” Norwest was one of the many Indigenous Canadians who filled the CEF’s sniper ranks⁵—Indigenous soldiers accounted for the Corps’ six most proficient snipers. By Vimy Ridge, Norwest had slain nearly sixty unwary Germans from blinds meticulously constructed within Canadian lines or natural hideaways in no man’s land. His exceptional performance picking off officers and machine-gun crews during and after the assault on The Pimple earned him the MM, and a bar (second award) would follow for comparable work during the Battle of Amiens, shortly before he was himself cut down by a German sniper’s round.⁶

The Advance on Lens

The next objective for Horne’s First Army had begun to take shape—an advance northward to the coal-mining centre of Lens. For the 4th Division, this would first entail clearing a number of defended positions blocking their route along the main Arras–Lens highway.⁷ On May 29, Page was alerted that his battalion would soon be thrown into action to clear and hold open ground between the Souchez River and the highway which included an abandoned power station and beyond it Callons Trench. The 44th Battalion would simultaneously attack on the right flank, pushing the Germans back beyond the highway and capturing the village of La Coulotte and a nearby brewery complex. The entire area had been heavily fortified with numerous well-concealed strong points and underground shelters for their garrisons. Page and Hilliam were careful to reconnoitre the ground, with scouts undertaking follow-up reconnaissance two days later to make sure nothing vital had changed.⁸

The Electric Generating Station

The plan was to launch the operation at midnight on June 2–3. Lt.-Col. Page decided on a two-company attack—Capt. Svendsen’s C Company on the right and Lt. P. G. Leadley’s A Company on the left, with B Company (Capt. Allen) and D Company (Maj. Dawson) in support, respectively. Given that the power station was already a ruin, thus offering plenty of opportunities for improvised strongpoints, the preliminary bombardment was made solely with gas, which proved very effective. June 2 was spent preparing for battle: checking weapons, ammunition and other gear, and ensuring they had adequate water, since over mostly open ground resupply of anything would be difficult.⁹ All officers met at noon for a final conference.¹⁰ Then it was just a matter of waiting for zero hour as the men filtered forward into their jumping-off positions, a shallow “trench” hardly recognizable as such after days of German bombardment. Victor Wheeler painted a vivid picture of these last hours:

It was a time of sobering reflection. Men became edgy and jaws clamped as zero-hour approached; their thoughts turned to safety and home, to life itself. [They] grew quiet and serious, and unashamedly puffed on their Woodbine Willies with an unaccustomed introspection, as Eternity tapped on [their] shoulders and enquired, “Are you ready?” ¹¹

At precisely midnight, a mix of heavy and field artillery, trench mortars and machine guns rudely shattered the silence. And with that, fifteen officers and 435 other ranks from the 50th moved off to their fate. The initial German counter-barrage was desultory, though men remembered “[we] caught it all.”¹² Regardless, German artillery would dominate the day. The advancing infantry almost immediately encountered stubborn resistance, and everything started breaking down.

Back at battalion headquarters, the situation was obscure since communications with the forward troops, as was inevitable in trench warfare, all but completely broke down. The lack of information was excruciating, but finally at 0235 word came from Capt. Allen that B Company had seized its objectives and was in touch with elements of both the 44th Battalion on its right and A Company on its left. Subsequent reports (delivered by courageous runners) from C and D Companies were less reassuring—Capt. Leadley, A Company’s commanding officer, had been killed in the initial advance. While the 44th Battalion had taken its objectives, it could not hold them against fierce German fire, and at 0520 Page learned that the Manitobans had fallen back all the way to their start line. Daylight did not clarify matters, and he went forward to gauge the situation himself. It was not good. Troops had occupied the ruins of the generating station and sections of Callons Trench, while others had managed to improvise shallow defensive positions in the rock-hard soil wherever they found themselves. But this was little help against the pinpoint salvoes from German artillery and the trench mortars that were directed without interference from Hill 65 on the far side of the Souchez. Added to this was devastating sniper and machine-gun fire, including from the open flank exposed by the 44th Battalion’s retreat. To make matters worse, German reserves were streaming forward and infiltrating the gaps between the scattered Canadian positions. They were soon launching localized counterattacks from what seemed like every direction.¹³ An isolated party of A Company men was trapped far forward, and a plan was improvised to relieve them. But this would have been suicide given the murderous German fire, and Page called off the attempt. By 1500, Lieut. Barge, the only officer left with D Company, reported his men had suffered 75 percent casualties and their position was untenable.¹⁴ A decision was now made to launch a limited counterattack with what remained of B Company to keep open a line of withdrawal for the other three companies. Reserves were also allotted from Brigade headquarters to reinforce both A and D Companies, but they arrived well into the evening, far too late to be used. At 1800, Page received a message from a wounded Capt. Svendsen that ammunition was running low and there were great numbers of wounded. Without immediate reinforcement and resupply, they would be overrun. It took forever to get messages authorizing withdrawal to any of the embattled groups, and forty-five minutes later a hurricane bombardment from the German field guns signalled a powerful counterattack against all remaining Canadian positions. The men resisted heroically, driving off the enemy until they ran out of grenades. Then, pooling their ammunition and abandoning what little cover they had, the survivors somehow managed to extract themselves from the battlefield, some bearing the wounded while the rest formed a rear guard, keeping their pursuers at bay with short bursts of rifle and Lewis-gun fire. Nineteen hellish hours after setting off, the survivors collapsed into the shell craters and bits of trench where they’d started the attack.¹⁵

Wheeler called the fighting their hardest yet, and overall casualties had been very heavy. The Germans, too, had suffered steep losses, with the garrisons of several of their strongpoints reportedly wiped out in hand-to-hand fighting or incinerated by the liberal use of phosphorous bombs.¹⁶ The further from the blood and gore, the more positive the assessment of such operations tended to be. Maj.-Gen. Watson had stayed up through the night to keep apprised of his brigade’s progress, later noting approvingly in his diary that “90 prisoners taken and a great number of casualties inflicted. Canadian losses 700 [and] congratulations received from the higher ups.”¹⁷ But for the participants, there was no attempt to disguise the operation as anything but a disaster. Page identified the chief causes: unrestricted German observation of the battlefield from Hill 65, the inability to interdict German reinforcements, the unfortunate (if unavoidable) withdrawal of the 44th Battalion that left their right flank hanging, and the difficulty of digging any protective cover in such compacted soil.¹⁸

The practical purpose of this and most of the other attacks staged by the 4th Division during this period was to draw out (and kill) German reserves while identifying the routes feeding them forward so these could be shelled when future counterattacks seemed imminent.¹⁹ Worthy goals in attritional warfare, but it hardly seemed worth the price paid here. And for the 50th Battalion, the butcher’s bill, including a junior officer listed as missing, came to 201 of the 450 men committed, or two-thirds of the officers and close to half of the overall force.²⁰ The following day a brief truce permitted both sides to clear their wounded. For good reason, soldiers were always suspicious the enemy would fail to honour such an arrangement and open fire. The Canadians fixed bayonets, tied strips of bandage to the blades, then slung their Lee-Enfield rifles over their shoulders so that the white cloth would clearly show their intentions as they moved out into no man’s land.²¹

A Posthumous Victoria Cross

Among those killed on June 3 was Pvt. John Pattison, who’d been recommended for the Victoria Cross at Vimy. Having suffered a minor foot wound there, he had only just returned to the battalion. Given his age and the buzz about a pending award, Page had been willing to keep him behind the lines, but soaring casualties meant sending everyone forward. By noon Pattison and five others, having become separated, were holding out in a crater in the Callons Trench system, the 50th’s final objective. Unable to advance or retreat, sometime in the early afternoon a direct hit from a German howitzer had killed them all. On August 4 Lt.-Col. Page wrote Sophia Pattison confirming her husband’s Victoria Cross, and offering some hope that he might be a prisoner. It was not until August 18 when a British advance swept through the area and found some crude wooden crosses, one of them with Pattison’s identity discs attached, that he was confirmed as killed in action. German soldiers had buried his remains.²² In early October his widow received a formal letter signed by the king. It said simply: “It is a matter of sincere regret to me that the death of … Private J. G. Pattison, 50th Canadian Infantry Battalion, deprived me of the pride of personally conferring upon him the Victoria Cross, the greatest of all rewards for valour and devotion to duty.”²³ Doubtless it was some consolation. On the evening before the attack, Pattison had penned a letter to his son Henry who, having just turned eighteen, was now old enough to be put in a reinforcement draft:

I was pleased to hear that you [were] quite well and I am pleased to say it leaves me the same at present but I don’t know for how long as we take another trip pretty soon. I will write to you as soon as possible when we get through. That is if I’m able … I have been in quite a few places out here but everything is about the same—nothing but war. I wish it was all over. I hope you succeed in staying over there some time yet. I have not got that decoration yet but the captain said it had gone through to England and he thought it would be Jake … Dear Hen I hope I have the same luck as last time and come through safe. Remember me to all friends. I don’t think I can say anymore this time. Hoping to see you soon I remain your loving father.²⁴

Aftermath

In light of the June 3 debacle, Arthur Currie, who was soon to be appointed Byng’s successor as Corps commander,²⁵ suggested to Gen. Horne that in future such attacks should be conceived as large raids, inflicting maximum pain but making no attempt to hold the ground, since German artillery was too strong. The First Army commander and his staff required little persuading.²⁶ For men pondering their good fortune to be alive, there was the welcome news that relief was imminent. It was a “honey sweet” word, second only to “blighty” in the trench soldiers’ lexicon.²⁷ On their first day out of the line, Page saw to it that only “rest” was on the schedule. The following day, save for a muster to get an accurate count of men on strength (necessary for “company reorganization”), he wisely set aside for soccer and baseball games.²⁸

The first significant body of reinforcements, thirty-one other ranks, reached the battalion on the June 11, with another 273 following five days later.²⁹ Unfortunately there were few officers, and the serious shortfall had to be made good from men returning from courses or leave, but mostly with field promotions from the ranks. The latter men at least had combat experience, which was no small advantage. Toward the end of the month, Brig. Hilliam gave a lecture to all of his officers on recent operations entitled “How we did it and how it should have been done.” No record of his analysis survives. In what was surely more entertaining if not more informative, that evening the other ranks enjoyed a performance by the visiting Blighty entertainment troupe.³⁰

Future Plans … And Preparations

In late June, First Army had been ordered by GHQ to tie down German reserves so they could not be shifted to Flanders where a major offensive—ultimately the Battle of Passchendaele—was being prepared. It was assumed that any attack on the major coal-mining district around Lens would threaten Lille as well, forcing the Germans to stand and fight. How these plans unfolded would define the Canadian Corps’ operations over the next two months.³¹

Tactical training intensified as July wore on. This usually saw the infantry and specialist arms training on their own under their own officers, but also included a couple of successful full-battalion exercises. There were also plenty of lectures, mostly focusing on practical subjects like “Platoon Organization in the Attack” or “Tactical Handling of the Lewis gun.” Page’s own favoured subject was “Discipline.” And a number of officers and NCOs were always detached on courses at the various British or Canadian training schools.³² But it was not all smooth sailing. Inspecting the battalion on July 20, Currie had found it “in a shocking state,” whereupon Watson went down with Hilliam the next day “and gave them another going over.” It is not clear what was shocking—appearance (spit and polish), discipline, or something else, and though it was no consolation, Watson had considered the 47th Battalion almost as bad after inspecting them. Regardless, there is no indication that Page’s reputation suffered any permanent damage. And when the divisional commander next inspected the battalion, Currie was pleased to find “a great improvement.”³³ With the pace and complexity of training increasing, and with Page and Hilliam regularly monitoring its progress, a return to action seemed imminent.³⁴ On August 11, the 4th Division formally marked the anniversary of its arrival in France. No doubt the originals pondered the implications of their much-thinned ranks after only twelve months in the field. But there was little time to dwell on that.

The Battle of Hill 70

On August 15, as dawn broke, a thunderous artillery barrage heralded the start of an assault on Hill 70, a height of land immediately north of Lens that dominated the city. Both Horne and Currie and their staffs had concluded that Canadian possession of it would compel the enemy to fight hard to retake it. The men of the 1st and 2nd Divisions had to overcome stiff opposition and several battalions were badly cut up, but success marked the day.³⁵ Simultaneous with the main assault, the 10th’s sister brigade, the 12th, launched a feint from the south which ended up drawing more German artillery fire than the main attack itself. Four hours later, the 11th Brigade pushed strong patrols toward the centre of Lens, again to draw German attention (and reserves) from the real objective. Although Brig. Odlum’s men were beaten back, the 4th Division’s diversions on August 15 “had proved [their] worth.”³⁶

During the ensuring four days the Canadians poured pre-arranged artillery and machine-gun fire into the German lines to break up what they incorrectly took to be the anticipated German counterattacks. Nevertheless, Canadian arms, in what was Currie’s first operation as Corps commander, had won an unquestioned victory.³⁷

The Scorching Furnace

So far, the 4th Division had been no more than an intermittent participant on the 2nd Division’s southern flank, edging closer to the outskirts of Lens and its miner-cottage suburbs to the west. Now, Watson’s men would carry the burden of the battle. First Army was determined to make the Germans fight hard for Lens so any reserves could not be transferred to the Ypres Salient where the Battle of Passchendaele was now well underway.³⁸ After Lt.-Col. Page and his scout officer, Lt. A. W. Scott, had carefully reconnoitred it, the 50th completed an uneventful occupation of their new frontage on the division’s far left flank near the Béthune–Lens road and nearby rail line during the night of August 17–18.³⁹ The following day, Page received orders from Brig. Hilliam spelling out his immediate plans—a two-brigade attack into Lens with the 46th and 27th Battalions on the 50th’s flanks. This would entail seizing and occupying a 2,700m stretch of the enemy’s front line, including Aloof, Aconite and Alpaca Trenches. There would be ample artillery support including three heavy artillery groups.⁴⁰ All of the battalion’s resources would be committed. B Company (on the right) and D Company (on the left) would lead the assault, each deploying two platoons in two waves, for a total of eight, while A and C Companies would both provide two platoons equipped with special bunker-busting explosive charges for mopping up. The remaining four platoons would be held back at battalion headquarters as a ready reserve. Given that bombing was matchless in annihilating enemy garrisons during the mêlée of trench fighting, everyone would carry extra grenades. Zero hour was set for first light on August 21.

Barely twenty-four hours before the planned attack, Page received a 2nd Division intelligence report claiming that the Germans appeared to be abandoning Aloof Trench. As its capture “would materially assist my attack the following morning,” he requested and received Hilliam’s permission to seize it immediately. A daylight attack without the benefit of either artillery preparation or support meant total reliance on surprise. Immediately, platoon-sized parties from B Company under Lts. J. H. Colville and J. M. Taylor moved off via old communications trenches to Aloof and commenced the relentless task of bombing their way in from either end. But the intelligence was faulty, and the attackers were driven back with heavy losses. To make a bad situation worse, the Germans then bombarded the battalion’s forward positions. Overall, there were about fifty casualties to no purpose.⁴¹ Since the planned operation was still going ahead, the night was spent assembling the various units in their jumping-off positions. Page concluded that he had to reverse A and B Companies’ original roles, the latter’s recent losses outweighing the confusion last-minute changes were bound to cause. Meanwhile the Germans, now alerted, battered the Canadian positions with high explosive and gas shells, causing another sixty-odd casualties.⁴²

Fair weather greeted the Canadians on the August 21, but little else went right. The 50th Battalion advanced over open ground on a 650-m frontage, overrunning Aloof Trench and continuing on to the junction of the Béthune and La Bassée roads, their final objective. Aided by an excellent barrage, that advance started well, but German artillery carpeted Aloof Trench as the Canadians arrived, causing numerous casualties, and withering machine-gun fire picked off more. Pressing on with marked courage but steadily thinning numbers, only small parties—Lt. John Weir’s twenty-odd men was the largest—managed to reach their final objectives where, unable to link up, they held on for dear life. Eventually, Weir attempted to lead his men back to their own lines. A fair number managed to make it, but tragically Weir was not one of them.

At 0600, when Lt.-Col. Page went forward to ascertain the situation for himself, he could locate only 138 men. Recognizing the danger, he immediately summoned forty-eight men from his reserve platoons to close the battalion’s open right flank. There were only two officers to lead them, one of whom was promptly wounded while the other had only been taken on strength forty-eight hours earlier. Facing an intense barrage, the effort had no chance.

By midday, Page had submitted two plans for a co-ordinated second attack on Aloof Trench, with Hilliam adopting the one requiring the least artillery support, since little would be available. At 1800, the assault force—now just remnants of platoons—attempted to bomb their way into and down Aloof from three directions, using ruined German communications trenches to avoid a suicidal overland approach. In the event, only the attack from the southern end led by Lt. Hodges gained much ground, and it was too weak to repel counterattacks. The other two parties were forced back under fire, though they managed the remarkable feat of evacuating all their wounded. The day’s assaults were greatly hindered by the ground. This was a built-up area—not the usual farmland. Beyond including a warren of badly damaged but still serviceable communication trenches (which were ideal avenues for enemy infiltration), there were countless demolished houses and other buildings, many of which had been transformed into machine-gun-equipped strong points or snipers’ blinds. None of the infantry had trained to operate in this alien landscape.⁴³

At least with darkness, the scattered groups of infantry still holding forward positions could finally begin clearing the many wounded, receive desperately needed ammunition and water, and strengthen their improvised positions, for to live one simply had to find cover. It was a disheartening for those who had successfully retreated only to find themselves back at their start lines after such terrible sacrifices.⁴⁴ To all intents a battalion had not fought that day—rather handfuls of courageous but terrified men in isolated, disconnected groups had.

When the 50th’s attack was blunted, it exposed the flanks of both its neighbouring battalions. Such gains as the 6th Brigade’s units managed on its left exacted a heavy price and by day’s end were only tenuously held. On its right, the attacks by the 46th and 47th Battalions managed to reach—and barely hold—their objectives, but they, too, suffered severe casualties. Overall, Canadian efforts that day had been a disaster, repulsed by the robustness of the defences, German firepower and well-planned counterattacks almost everywhere. The six battalions committed suffered 1,154 casualties, 346 of them fatal.⁴⁵ That only 200 German soldiers, many of them wounded, were taken prisoner points to both the ferocity of the fighting—much of it hand-to-hand in the case of the 50th Battalion—and the fact that for most of the day, Canadians were engaged in desperate defensive actions or falling back.

There was no further action on August 22 though both sides continued to shell the area heavily. As the war diary recorded, “the men [were] very fatigued and they were rested as much as possible.” ⁴⁶ Page managed to cobble together a preliminary casualty list covering known losses over the previous 36 hours, but it considerably understated the dead given the enemy retained the battlefield, and his list included no missing in action. Still, they were bad enough: eleven killed and 188 wounded (including many gassed).⁴⁷ The following evening, August 23, Maj. Parry reached the front line with what reinforcements could be scraped together, ninety men mostly drawn from the 50th’s transport lines. Their appearance permitted Lt.-Col. Page to dispatch an equal number “showing signs of weakness and strain” to the rear.⁴⁸

The final act in the Lens tragedy fell to the 50th Battalion. On August 24, plans for another attack on Aloof Trench were cobbled together. Page improvised three understrength companies and a small reserve from the infantry at hand. In place of the usual supporting artillery barrage, the assault force would rely on an intense barrage of mortar bombs and rifle grenades, which in the event did suppress most German fire. Carrying parties bringing ammunition and other stores forward suffered twenty casualties from shelling, but all was ready by zero hour, 0200 on August 25. The goal of the three parties, together about 120 men, was to fix blocks at either end of a section of Aloof Trench several hundred metres long, cutting off any possibility of reinforcement (or escape) and slaughtering the garrison. On time to the second, Canadian and British heavy batteries commenced smashing German rear areas, while a storm of mortar bombs and rifle grenades pummelled the ground the assault parties would have to cross as well as Aloof Trench itself. The latter abruptly stopped after four minutes, with the infantry on their objectives. This operation went almost flawlessly, with only seven wounded. Despite intelligence reports, there were few German defenders as many of them had fled. By 0345, Aloof Trench—which like the rest of the Lens battlefield reeked from the nauseating stench of rotting corpses—was at last in Canadian hands.⁴⁹

On the night of August 25–26, the 50th Battalion was relieved. The men who snaked to the rear were physically spent, and one can only guess at their mental state. In his memoir, Wheeler described their time in Lens as “this scorching furnace,” notably refusing to condemn those among his comrades who had wounded themselves to escape from it.⁵⁰ Writing to his hometown newspaper a few days later, Pvt. William Orritt simply summed up their six days trying to capture Aloof Trench as “pure slaughter,” noting wryly that “our battalion has done its bit, for we came out awful short of men.”⁵¹

The operations undertaken after Hill 70 were a test of commanders as well as the courage and determination of ordinary soldiers. Generally, historians have been critical of the command judgments of Brig. Hilliam, Maj.-Gen. Watson, and the division’s senior staff officer, Lt.-Col. William Ironside.⁵² There is no doubt that at this stage of the war the latter pair believed there was no substitute for aggression, and Hilliam fit that mould as well. In fairness, the boundary between rashness and calculated risk is hard to measure in combat. Overall, the plans to press on into the outskirts of Lens were driven by the Corps commander and his staff, and larger British considerations at the Army level and above. Senior 4th Division officers were given a task that the ruined urban terrain, the strength of the German defences, and the loss of surprise rendered problematic. After the success at Hill 70, continued attacks predictably degenerated into attritional fighting but did succeed in executing Horne’s and Currie’s strategy of preventing German units from being shifted to the Ypres Salient, where a far more important offensive was underway. In the words of General Hermann von Kuhl, “the fighting at [Hill 70 and Lens] cost us … the expenditure of considerable numbers of troops who had to be replaced [and] the whole previously worked out plan for relieving the fought-out troops in Flanders had been wrecked.”⁵³

As for Lt.-Col. Page, Lens was his second major operation. A battalion commander executed plans in which he often had little or no input. His recommendation to Hilliam to attack Aloof Trench a day early when intelligence indicated the German garrison had been withdrawn illustrated his aggressiveness. Had the intelligence been correct, it would have been a coup for the brigade, and saved many lives on August 21. Criticism that this attack was rash, giving away Canadian plans, cannot be sustained, since the Germans, after being shoved off Hill 70 only days before, must have suspected a major push into Lens might well follow. Once the battle for Aloof Trench commenced, the battalion’s resilience under quite awful combat conditions reflected well on Page’s commitment to the training of his officers and men, not to mention the respect in which they clearly held him. His competence, steel nerves and personal courage were on ample display during those five days. As one veteran put it, “by his personal example, [he] was able to influence the example of every man in the battalion.”⁵⁴ More than anyone, he held the battalion together. And not for the last time.

Out of the line, Page could finally determine an accurate casualty count. It made bleak reading: three officers and fifty-four other ranks killed or died of their wounds, twelve officers and 268 men wounded or gassed, and thirty-three other ranks missing—altogether 370, or a loss rate of over fifty percent.⁵⁵ The following day the men bathed, and those needing new boots and clothing received them. There was also the thankless but necessary task of completing the reorganization of decimated platoons and companies. By month’s end, the first 118 replacements were in hand, soon followed by another 177, including fourteen freshly-minted lieutenants. Rebuilding the battalion meant bringing the newcomers up to speed, for their training in England always left gaps.⁵⁶ But it also meant imbuing the new men with the esprit de corps and fighting culture old-timers had forged under fire and which the reinforcements needed to absorb as quickly as possible.

As September passed, the battalion quickly fell into the usual routine of periods out of the line or holding quiet sectors. Casualties for the entire month numbered only five killed and nineteen wounded. As for training, platoon, company, and even full-battalion exercises, over-the-tapes were the norm now, providing the element of tactical realism that had proved invaluable when introduced for Vimy.⁵⁷ After inspecting Page’s battalion, Maj.-Gen. Watson left most impressed.⁵⁸ Word also filtered down confirming the first batch of gallantry awards for actions at Lens. Among those acknowledged was L/Cpl. F. A. Brown with a DCM. ⁵⁹ Brown’s actions were typical of the sort of individual initiative and courage the fighting around Aloof Trench had required:

When driven back with his section from their final objective he returned to the position which was swept by machine-gun fire and snipers, in search of his platoon commander. At his second attempt he was severely wounded, but this did not prevent him from again returning until he eventually found his officer, who was dead. He brought back with him a wounded man whom he had found in a shell hole, and a great deal of extremely valuable information. His self-sacrifice and devotion throughout the whole of this operation were a magnificent example to all who witnessed his conduct.⁶⁰

Passchendaele

Plans for a major BEF offensive in Flanders had been gestating for many months. The one finally adopted called for a breakout from the Ypres Salient, both to end the general trench stalemate on the Western Front, but also to recover the Belgian channel coast and the ports from which the U-boat menace was threatening to strangle Britain’s seaborne commerce.⁶¹ The collapse of morale in much of the French field army after the disastrous Chemin des Dames offensive in the spring meant fighting just to keep the Germans distracted also became a justification for a major push. As it finally took shape, Haig’s scheme combined the old optimism of victory through decisive breakthrough and the pragmatism of victory through relentless attrition. The shaping of major operations was beyond the purview of Canadian commanders but suffice to say the Corps would be inevitably drawn into the literal and figurative morass that was Passchendaele.

The great offensive was launched at dawn on July 31, but all hope of a breakthrough vanished in the first few days. It didn’t help that the heavens soon opened, turning the farmland, with its drainage destroyed by relentless shelling, into a swamp. Regardless, the battle—attritional warfare at its grimmest—ground on, steadily drawing in fresh divisions, German as well as British, to replace the spent ones. By September, drier weather (and ground), coupled with the shift of the main thrust to Second Army (which was commanded by Hubert Plumer, a committed practitioner of bite-and-hold tactics), delivered more hopeful results. But the rains returned in early October onward—“our most effective ally,” as Crown Prince Rupprecht, the Canadians’ old adversary from the Vimy Ridge sector, candidly noted in his diary.⁶² Both Plumer and other senior commanders recommended calling off the offensive before conditions became impossible, but Haig was not persuaded. Instead, the BEF would press on to capture Passchendaele Ridge and the eponymous nearby village before calling it a day. By October 12 a herculean effort by Anzac troops got within striking distance of that objective but could go no further. It would now be the Canadian Corps’ turn.⁶³

On October 13, four days after the Corps was transferred to Plumer’s Second Army, Currie and his able staff were told to prepare a plan to capture Passchendaele Ridge and what was left of the namesake village. The Canadians relieved II Anzac Corps five days later and got to see first-hand the desolate sea of mud across which they would attack. “[The] battlefield looks bad,” Currie noted with understatement in his diary.⁶⁴ Logistical preparations, particularly the assembly of overwhelming artillery superiority, took priority since without adequate supplies and the firepower to blast out the defenders, infantry assaults would be doomed. The final directives called for a methodical series of limited attacks supported by crushing barrages, with the infantry quickly replaced by fresh units before the mud exhausted them.⁶⁵

German Defences

The German defences faced by the 50th Battalion and the rest of 4th Division at Passchendaele were dictated by considerations of terrain and manpower. Given that a spade could barely be put into the ground before flooding occurred, sophisticated trench systems and underground bunkers were out of the question. One solution—though in the event not one the 50th Battalion would face until the autumn of 1918—were pill boxes, reinforced concrete structures built at ground level in which soldiers could shelter from a bombardment before moving outside to fight their weapons from the cover of nearby shell craters. At least when it could be applied, German doctrine now called for a series of defensive zones that would mostly rely on mutually supporting machine guns to wear down the attack until it ran out of momentum and could be successfully counterattacked by fresh units. The Germans’ own artillery would buttress these machine-gun defences. Spreading the defences out in zones (rather than concentrating them in lines) would reduce the impact of the attackers’ own artillery, the element of bite-and-hold doctrine the enemy most feared.⁶⁶ In practice, however, the limited depth of BEF attacks during the preceding weeks and the Germans’ heavy infantry losses meant this integrated defensive plan was reduced to a lone defensive zone and reserves adequate for only limited counterattacks. German soldiers who found themselves in the attackers’ path would be expected to die where they stood.⁶⁷

Back into Belgium

On October 7, Lt.-Col. Page returned from sick leave (more accurately an enforced rest) and re-assumed command. Two days later, the battalion received orders to prepare to move north with the rest of the 4th Division. General Horne’s inspection of the 10th Brigade as it left his command fell victim to a downpour, but he saw to it that his brief congratulatory message was still read to all officers and men: “I have formed the highest opinion of your soldierly qualities. Your record speaks better for your fighting qualities than I can. Good luck with you.”⁶⁸

Heading to Passchendaele they would surely need it. After three days, first by bus and train and ending with a gruelling six-hour march in the rain—“many sore feet” the war diary lamented—they finally reached their new billets about 5 kms west of Hazebrouck, close by the Belgian border, where they would remain for a week.⁶⁹ The few days were not wasted. Page started by lecturing his platoon and company commanders on German defensive practices and BEF attack methods employed so far, including how to deal with pill boxes. The following day company-level tactical training commenced, with the CO’s promise of a bottle of Belgian ale to every man no doubt spurring enthusiasm.⁷⁰ It’s worth noting how impressed the Germans were with the infantry tactics employed by British Empire troops at Passchendaele. British Offensive Procedures, a thorough assessment drawn up by senior staff and circulated throughout the German Army in late October, is worth citing:

In the overwhelming majority of instances the infantry attack is prepared with the utmost care …. [The infantry] advances immediately behind its own artillery fire…. One wave is allocated a particular objective in advance. The waves in rear leapfrog the forward waves in turn. The objectives are generally set close together; so the amount of ground gained each time is slight. Having taken its objective, each wave organises itself immediately for hasty defence …. Whenever necessary, the troops prepare their attacks on specially designed exercise areas. The role of each man in the attack is laid down exactly.⁷¹

Still, the enemy recognized that it was the skillful employment and prodigious scale of their artillery that was carrying British assaults to success.⁷²

On October 18, all four of the brigade’s battalion commanders reconnoitred the new front line, and the following day thirty officers and senior NCOs bused to Poperinghe to study a ground plan. On October 21 officers from all four of the 10th Brigade’s battalions were addressed by General Currie. A shy man not known for inspirational eloquence, at least in front of large groups, most of his observations didn’t seem to strike the war diarist as worth recording.⁷³ The 50th’s other ranks, who attended a church service, may have benefited more. Early the next morning the battalion were transported to Poperinghe, where they formed up and marched through the remains of Ypres to Potijze on its eastern outskirts to take up their reserve position.⁷⁴ For the newer men, Ypres’ charred and rubble-choked ruins must have swept away any illusions about the destructive power of artillery.

The 4th Division’s Plan of Attack

The Canadian Corps planned to carry out their assault in four stages spread over a fortnight, with the 3rd and 4th Divisions responsible for the first two. Stage 1 would see Maj.-Gen. Lipsett’s 3rd Division attack on a broader and deeper front, advancing 1,100 m to their Red Line objective. Meanwhile, on their right, Watson’s men, initially just the 46th Battalion, with the rest of the 10th Brigade, including the 50th, in support, would attack on a smaller section of frontage and advance only about 500 m. The most heavily defended obstacle was Decline Copse, a wooded area that straddled the Ypres–Roulers Railway on the far right flank of 4th Division’s sector (which was shared with the 1st Australian Division). After enduring heavy shelling, Decline Copse had been reduced to a tangled landscape of shattered stumps bisected by a deep railway cutting. The latter provided the depleted ranks of the 11th Bavarian Division a rarity in the Ypres Salient—the opportunity for defenders to dig in and fortify their positions. Having reached the Red Line and cleared Decline Copse, the 4th Division would briefly regroup, then renew its attack with the 12th Brigade to capture the Blue Line, with the 3rd Division paralleling their advance. The Blue Line would provide a base from which the fresh 1st and 2nd Canadian Divisions could complete the final two stages by seizing Passchendaele Ridge and village.⁷⁵

Mud and Guts

As any veteran of the Ypres Salient would have maintained until his dying day, it never stopped raining. “Ground bad going,” the 50th’s war diary noted on their first day in the line.⁷⁶ The Canadian gunners’ ceaseless bombardment earned the inevitable retaliation, which made the situation of the men who were sheltering in caved-in ditches up to their knees in cold, fetid water or lying in the open, wrapped in their groundsheets, even more miserable that it already was. Considerable energy was expended to repair the trenches but it proved a Sisyphean task owing to the rain and shelling. Amidst all this, Brig. Hilliam and Lt.-Col. Ironside visited battalion headquarters to discuss the attack scheduled for October 26 with Page and his senior officers.⁷⁷

Shortly after dusk on October 25, the 46th Battalion crept forward through the muck and took up their assembly positions immediately behind the two platoons holding the 50th’s outpost line. Their attack was set for 0540. The 50th’s C and D Companies would constitute the reserve, and the battalion was under orders to help mask the 46th’s assembly by aggressively patrolling throughout the night.⁷⁸ Most of the two-man outposts also edged as near to the enemy as they could.

At 0500, having suffered four straight days of shelling, the Bavarians now endured its forty-minute crescendo.⁷⁹ That over, the Saskatchewan boys then staggered forward, hugging their creeping barrage which unfortunately included many “shorts.”⁸⁰ The objective, Decline Copse, was well defended, and the intervening 600 metres was a sea of mud. At 0940, D Company moved forward so they could respond more quickly if called upon. In the early afternoon, Lt.-Col. Page went to the 46th Battalion headquarters to consult with Lt.-Col. Dawson at the latter’s request, and thereafter acted as the operation’s unofficial second-in-command.⁸¹ In fact, the 46th’s assault had gone miraculously well, for despite cruel losses they had cleared most of their objective.⁸² But under continuous German shelling, the survivors struggled to consolidate their gains. Late in the afternoon, the enemy vigorously counterattacked, a crisis made worse when the defenders’ mud-caked rifles and Lewis guns and even the Vickers machine guns that had been manhandled forward to provide additional firepower started jamming. Flares fired to call in artillery support brought no response for twenty minutes—an eternity for the desperate infantry.⁸³ With both flanks hanging, enabling the Germans to attack on three sides, the 46th’s position was precarious. Fearful they would be cut off, Capt. Reid managed to rally the mostly isolated groups of men who were often without officers or senior NCOs to steady them, and slowly fall back, carrying their wounded with them.⁸⁴ As invariably happens during fighting withdrawals, some soldiers appeared to be drifting back rather further than intended, past the 50th’s outpost line, and only the timely intervention of D Company’s Lts. Albert Thorne, William Gordon, and Walter Burgess, along with some of the 46th’s own officers, checked what seemed might have become a much more serious episode.⁸⁵ Page, who had witnessed the actions of the three lieutenants, was understandably proud that all the D Company men had held their ground, but seems to have judged the 46th Battalion’s performance rather too harshly.⁸⁶

The 46th’s front finally stabilized immediately in front of the outpost line and the remainder of the 50th Battalion were ordered forward to support them, though in reality they hardly had to move at all. Two non-commissioned officers, A/Sgt. C. Rattray and A/Cpl. E. J. Clarke, earned DCMs for their initiative and sterling leadership during the fierce fighting that had ensued.⁸⁷ The German counterattack spent itself, and apart from the continual shelling of the Canadian lines, which would have taken many more lives had so many German shells not been duds, the action died down. Apart from D Company’s involvement (three platoons had joined the assault) and the fire support from the 50th Battalion’s machine gunners throughout the afternoon, the battalion was not directly involved in the fighting until later in the day when it reinforced the 46th Battalion’s fall-back line. Both battalions were relieved that night by the 47th, which was promptly ordered to regain the ground taken and then lost by the 46th, but their improvised effort failed to make any headway. After a brief rest and some food, parties of Page’s men were sent back out to retrieve the many dead and wounded, an exceedingly dangerous assignment given the relentless shelling.⁸⁸ Among the many who participated, Pvt. Morrill, a battalion stretcher bearer (medic), was singled out for recognition. The citation for his DCM bears repeating:

He went forward [during the 46th’s attack] dressing and attending to the wounded throughout the day under heavy shell and machine gun fire. Though wounded, he remained in “No Man’s Land” during the night searching for and bringing in wounded. His example of fearlessness and devotion to duty was an inspiration to all ranks.⁸⁹

This first round of attacks by the Canadian Corps continued for two more days, with the 50th Battalion standing to both nights in case they were needed.⁹⁰ By late on October 27, all 10th Brigade objectives had been consolidated, including Decline Copse, and twenty-four hours later, the second phase of the 4th Division advance was complete.⁹¹ Three days of heavy fighting had gained a secure jump-off line for the next phase of the attack, which culminated in the capture of Passchendaele Ridge (and village) on November 10.⁹² And with that, the Battle of Passchendaele was over. On the evening of October 28, the 50th trudged back to Potijze, and then by train on to Brandhoek the following day where hot meals, recreation, and concert entertainments filled the remainder of the month. Casualties over their seven days in the line amounted to 194 killed, wounded and missing.⁹³ Given that most of these casualties occurred among members of the battalion who had not been engaged in any offensive action, the figures testify to the steady toll exacted when living under almost constant shellfire. While the 50th had been spared the worst of Passchendaele, it had suffered.⁹⁴ The poignant words of a young Bavarian leutnant who faced the Canadians in late October, and who had found himself in the same predicament as Page’s men—serving as part of a front-line reserve force that was not committed—eloquently describe their shared experience:

On October 29th, we who had been in reserve moved forward into the front line itself, where, split into groups of six or eight men, we occupied water-filled shell holes. In the event we were not involved in a battle, but having to sit it out, enduring these awful conditions, had a far worse effect on morale and spirit than even the most difficult fighting.⁹⁵

A New Brigadier

The relationship between Watson and two of his brigadiers—Victor Odlum and James MacBrien—was professionally, and in the case of Odlum, personally, close. Both held their commands from the division’s arrival at the front through to the armistice. The 10th Brigade proved a different matter. Politics and personal favour had forced Watson to accept his third brigade commander, but after a poor performance on the Somme, he had successfully worked to get Brig. Hughes sent home. His replacement, the English-born Edward Hilliam, had been something of a Watson protégé, but the latter’s enthusiasm for his new brigadier faded. At both Lens and Passchendaele, Hilliam had pressed attacks too far, and he displayed an authoritarian streak in dealings with subordinates and even Watson’s own staff. Commanding in the “English style,” as it was derisively called, alienated Canadian officers. But as a pre-war regular, the British were more than willing to take him, and Watson and Currie were just as willing to let him go.⁹⁶ The 10th Brigade’s new commander would be Ross Hayter. Canadian-born and a graduate of RMC, he had pursued a career in the British Army. In 1914, the latter had assigned him to the Canadian Expeditionary Force, where he had performed ably in senior staff positions.⁹⁷ Hayter proved an inspired selection, displaying flare, competence and a common touch in executing his responsibilities until he left the brigade mere weeks before the armistice.

November brought the start of a slow move back to the Vimy Ridge/Lens area where the most intensive regime yet of classroom and field training was soon in full swing.⁹⁸ The steady diet of infantry and specialized-arms work ensured the platoon and company assault tactics outlined in the latest BEF manuals would become second nature as well as prepare all ranks to lead if their officers became casualties.⁹⁹ As usual, Page was on hand to encourage and cajole, and their new brigadier was also a regular observer.¹⁰⁰

Thanks to the passage of the Military Voters’ Act, 845 soldiers on the battlefield would be able to make their voices heard in the Canadian federal election. Voting was slated to start on December 10, so on December 9 all officers and men, two companies at a time so as not to interfere with the day’s training schedule, were lectured by their commanding officer and a senior staff officer from brigade on the issues at stake.¹⁰¹

Even the heavy snowfalls in the latter part of the month did not interrupt the pace of training, though at least it made their surroundings seem more Christmassy. In an army of civilians far from home, the season tugged at soldiers’ hearts, and being out of the line, carolling was permitted. On Christmas day, most attended either the Anglican or Catholic morning services, though doing so was voluntary. A concert followed, but the highlight was a Christmas dinner “declared to be excellent by everyone.”¹⁰² There were four servings during the day so as to accommodate the entire battalion in some comfort. Page attended them all, extending his personal best wishes and reading aloud the various greetings from King George V and Queen Mary and a string of senior commanders.

After a sixty-four-day hiatus, the 50th found itself back in the front line holding a section of trenches extending from the Souchez River to the Arras–Lens railway line, ironically the very spot where many comrades had been killed seven months earlier. The war diary’s entry for December 30 offered a reassuring “a quiet day throughout. Little activity on either side. No casualties.”¹⁰³ In fact, the battalion had not suffered a single casualty that month. Nonetheless, it had been a year of trials for the battalion. In the eight months since Vimy Ridge, it had suffered 153 killed and 830 wounded, plus seventy-seven gassed, and a further eighty still listed as missing.¹⁰⁴ Those spending that penultimate day of 1917 carrying out the mundane tasks of trench warfare—buttressing trench walls, repairing barbed wire and the like—surely pondered what 1918 would hold, and when the war might finally end. Only the most optimistic could have thought anytime soon.

The Final Year

By the middle of January, the weather conspired to turn the trenches and ground in general into a quagmire—with B Company nearly flooded out at one point. Conditions were so bad that raiding was even called off, but the work of resupply, salvage, and repair had to proceed and the exhausted soldiers kept at it.¹⁰⁵ The ceaseless demand for work parties remained a drain on the men’s time and energy and could (and did) frustrate the best laid training plans.¹⁰⁶

Fortunately, March brought a stretch of fine spring weather and the return of more intensive training, with most of the work focused on the company, platoon, and section in combat, emphasizing the use of their various weapons in combination and manoeuvring on the battlefield.¹⁰⁷ To harden the men physically, route marches in full packs became commonplace. And in a harbinger of things to come, Lt.-Col. Page, Maj. Parry and Maj. Keegan and eight other 50th Battalion officers attended a day-long lecture where British experts discussed the new art of infantry-tank co-operation.¹⁰⁸ This was followed up with two days of practical field demonstrations for all ranks by members of the 7th Brigade Tank Corps.¹⁰⁹ Everyone had seemed attentive—in a matter of months, some of the things they had learned would save their lives. Page pushed his men hard, knowing energy expended on training now would pay big dividends in combat soon enough. But training could be tedious, so he often turned the training into platoon-on-platoon competitions, drawing on his soldiers’ competitive natures and unit pride. Company soccer matches—where significantly, officers and men played together—achieved the same goals. “Battalion holidays,” granted after especially productive rounds of training, were another Page innovation, one eagerly embraced by officers and men alike.¹¹⁰

The Kaiserslacht

By March 23, the 50th was back occupying a portion of the front line in the Loos sector immediately north of what was left of Lens. Here things were relatively quiet, but the same could not be said of the Third and Fifth Army fronts further south, where on the morning of March 21 all hell had broken loose. The Germans had unleashed an offensive of overwhelming ferocity designed to rip open the hinge between the two British Armies near St. Quentin and roll up the remainder of the BEF—including First Army and its Canadian Corps—against the channel coast. Employing their best (and by this stage of the war, irreplaceable) infantry units, particularly the elite stosstruppen, ¹¹¹ the Germans hoped to deal a war-winning blow before the flood of American “doughboys” tipped the military scales irrevocably in the Allies’ favour.¹¹² The onslaught would wreak terrible damage on the BEF, but it still stopped short of sparking the outright panic the German high command had counted on. And the attackers suffered grievous losses themselves. Follow-up attacks in April also started well but facing bitter resistance and crippled by faltering logistics, these too petered out.¹¹³ Thereafter, the Germans’ attention shifted to the French front, but with no more success, their effort to seize Paris and destroy the Grand Army of the Republic culminating in a decisive French victory at the Second Battle of the Marne in July.¹¹⁴

Learning How to Defend … All Over Again

For the BEF, an army that had not had to seriously defend ground since the spring of 1915 and had frankly become careless, preparing to absorb and defeat a surprise attack now assumed priority. During most of the spring, the Canadian Corps, along with the rest of the BEF, toiled to improve their defensive positions and put much effort into developing a more effective defensive doctrine and suitable tactics to implement it. Elastic defence coupled with powerful counterattacks became the broad plan. For a unit unfortunate enough to be in the front line this meant fending for—and if need be, expending—themselves. As the 50th’s Plan of Defence and Action in Case of Attack spelled out, “All ground occupied by [companies] must be fought for and there is to be no voluntary retirement [even if outflanked].”¹¹⁵ The hard lessons of March and April were absorbed (even if, ironically, they would not be needed). But as the focus returned to preparations for offensive operations, the Allied commands would continue to exaggerate the German Army’s fighting strength right up until the armistice.¹¹⁶

Waiting for the War

Throughout this period, from March through July, when the fate of the Allies’ cause hung in the balance, the Canadian Corps saw no major action—in this, they were almost alone among the units of the BEF. For a variety of reasons, Currie felt it best to keep the Corps together rather than parcelling out individual divisions as “fire brigades,” and Borden’s government supported this position. The British were disappointed (to put it mildly) and pointed to the willing co-operation of the comparable Australian Imperial Force in staunching the bleeding. Realistically, of course, the smaller, nimbler British and Australian divisions were more effectively employed under the prevailing operational conditions than an oversized corps of over 100,000 men. The Canadian contribution came in defending an ever-expanding frontage—eventually half as much again as they had held in mid-March—freeing up British and other Empire forces to do the fighting.¹¹⁷ For its part, the 50th Battalion suffered minuscule casualties in April—four killed and thirty-one wounded¹¹⁸—a month of otherwise fierce fighting for the BEF. It meant, however, that when the opportunity for counterattacking a much-weakened enemy arrived later in the year, the Canadian Corps, alone among the formations of the BEF, would be well rested and at full strength.¹¹⁹

The waiting, training and digging continued into June.¹²⁰ Methods of infantry-tank co-operation were now a regular part of training, though for the most part without actual tanks. The battalion was finally able to rectify this toward the end of the month with an ambitious exercise calling for the 50th, flanked by phantom British battalions, and with six real tanks in support, to evict the Germans from a ridge they had just captured.¹²¹ While this would provide the platoons and companies the opportunity to employ everything they’d learned about leapfrogging and sectional rushes, smoke screens, dealing with open flanks, and maintaining communications, the centrepiece was getting close-up experience with tanks. The exercise was completed twice, with tank officers leading a debriefing session between the two. As an obviously frustrated Maj. Parry summed up the day,¹²² “the show started well, but owing to the well-intentioned ‘butting-in’ of brigade staff, was not an unqualified success [although] many lessons were learned.”¹²³

Gas

One of the most disturbing passages in Victor Wheeler’s memoir describes him watching the death throes of a friend and fellow original. Although his comrade had also been severely wounded, it is the gassing that obsesses Wheeler:

The wheezing and frothing from [Cpl. Tom’s] mouth like that of a horribly bloated bullfrog, the dilated eyeballs, the pond scum-green discoloration of face and the gurgling sound issuing from his throat … Green gas suds bubbled up, ran down his chin and trickled inside his khaki tunic.¹²⁴

By 1918 gas warfare was widely used by both sides. No longer merely blown by the prevailing wind, the chemicals were loaded as pressurized liquids into artillery shells that could be delivered accurately onto their targets regardless of weather conditions. In 1918, mastering the ability to fight in a gas environment was one of the Canadian Corps’ highest priorities. Coping with gas was a necessity not just for the infantry but for all the arms who had to venture into the killing zone, including stretcher bearers. The impact of poison gas on combat operations is often understated, and sometimes even dismissed, mostly because it directly killed relatively few soldiers. But gases, all of which sank into low-lying areas, natural places of refuge for wounded men, undoubtedly killed many whose cause of death was attributed to their initial wounds. And even if soldiers were not killed, treating gas casualties helped overwhelm the field medical services, especially during offensives. While the British Empire forces were equipped with an excellent gas mask—the small box respirator (SBR)—it was designed for normal exertion, not the demands of combat. Having to dash about, carry heavy loads, or feed shells into a howitzer for hours on end while wearing an SBR taxed even the fittest men, greatly reducing their battlefield efficiency. Mustard gas rarely killed, but it severely disabled men by blistering any moist surface, from lungs to eyes and sweat-drenched skin. Other gases came in devilish cocktails—a lachrymatory or nausea-inducing gas to make the soldier rip off his SBR mixed with a poison gas that could then fill his lungs. Right to the end of the war ordinary trench soldiers considered gas the most insidious of weapons, and the psychological toll alone cannot be underestimated. The fact that the Canadian Corps developed effective anti-gas practices did not alter that.¹²⁵ Nor should it be forgotten that as much as gas warfare interfered with soldiers on the battlefield, it crippled logistics, horses being far harder to protect than men.

The End of the Beginning … The Beginning of the End

From April 1917 through the early summer of 1918, the Canadians had endured long periods of inactivity, at least when it came to sustained combat. This was particularly true for the 50th Battalion, which had played only a modest role at Passchendaele. Of course the time had not been wasted since training had been intensive. Confident and at full strength, Currie’s command was now the most powerful corps available to the BEF, and the 50th Battalion was an integral part of this exceptional fighting machine. As “Bomb-Proof” Andy Munro had put it in a letter home written some months earlier: “Yes, the Canadians have a record that is second to none, and our unit has a record too, that is not surpassed, but equaled by others. The boys all know it. They do not boast of it or feel vain, but they feel proud of it just the same.”¹²⁶

Preparations were well underway for British troops to relieve the 4th Division along with the rest of the Canadian Corps. On the morning of August 1, Page’s men trekked back to billets at Neuville St.-Vaast.¹²⁷ The veterans especially could feel something very big was in the works. From March through July, luck had been on their side, the battalion suffering a mere seven killed and sixty-eight wounded.¹²⁸ But their long absence from battle would end in the rolling grain fields southeast of Amiens. What came to be called The Hundred Days was about to start. For the Canadian Corps it would bring their hardest sustained fighting of the war—three battles on the scale of Vimy Ridge fought in just over nine weeks. Past achievements faded—what mattered now was conquering this challenge. Though none in the battalion would have dared dream it, the end was finally in sight.