Almost in the dawn of their experience at the front there came to them an ordeal such as has seldom tested the most tried of veterans. An unknown and terrible means of warfare, which temporarily shattered the gallant forces that held the line at their left, poured upon them torture and death. The bravest and most experienced troops might well have been daunted and driven back by the fierceness of the onslaught to which they were exposed and by the horrible methods of the attack. Assailed by overwhelming numbers on front and flank, the held their own in a conflict which raged for days; they barred the path against the German onrush and saved the day for the Empire, for the Allies and for the world.
The story of their tenacity, their valour, and their heroism has been well told in the pages that follow. But it can never be completely told. Many of those upon whom memories along splendid incidents of that story were indelibly engraven lie beneath the sod in Northern France and in Belgium.
On more than one stricken field the record thus made by the 1st Canadian Division has held good. From the lips of those who fought at Festubert and at Givenchy, from dauntless survivors of the Princess Patricia's Regiment, I have heard, in many a hospital and convalescent home in the Motherland, what their comrades had dared and done.
No Canadian can ever look forth unmoved upon that valley where Ypres lies shattered in the distance, and the sweep of the hills overlooks the graves of more than 100,000 men who fell because a remorseless militarist autocracy decreed this war.
In the years to come it will be the duty and the pride of Canada to rear, both in this Dominion and beyond the ocean, monuments which will worthily commemorate the glorious deeds of her sons who offered the supreme sacrifice for liberty and civilisation.
R. E. BORDEN.
OTTAWA, December 6th, 1915.
"'Carry the word to my Sisters—
To the Queens of the East and the South,
I have proven my faith in the Heritage
By more than the word of the mouth.
They that are wise may follow
Ere the world's war-trumpet blows:
But I—I am first in the battle,'
Said our Lady of the Snows."
—KIPLING.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
I am so conscious of the imperfections of the chapters which follow that I was for long unwilling to publish them in the form of a book. They were written under great difficulties and in many moods; nor am I unaware that the excuse for collecting them is very slender. It was, however, represented to me by persons of much authority, that the subjects dealt with excited an interest so lively in Canada that imperfections in the workmanship would be readily overlooked in the Dominion.