By this time Britain had thoroughly learned her lesson, and now countless shells and guns were pouring into France from Great Britain where thousands of factories, new and old, toiled night and day, under the inspiring energy of Mr. Lloyd George.
On June 13th, in a terrific counter-attack, the Canadians in turn blasted the Huns from the trenches taken from them a few days before. The First Canadian Division recaptured and consolidated all the ground and trench systems that had been lost Thus ended the second year of Canadian military operations in the Ypres salient. Each of the three Canadian divisions had been tried by fire in that terrible region, from which, it was said, no man ever returned the same as he entered it. Beneath its torn and rifted surface, thousands of Canadians lie, mute testimony to the fact that love of liberty is still one of the most powerful, yet most intangible, things that man is swayed by.
A very distinguished French general, speaking of the part that Canada was playing in the war, said, "Nothing in the history of the world has ever been known quite like it. My countrymen are fighting within fifty miles of Paris, to push back and chastise a vile and leprous race, which has violated the chastity of beautiful France, but the Australians at the Dardanelles and the Canadians at Ypres, fought with supreme and absolute devotion for what to many must have seemed simple abstractions, and that nation which will support for an abstraction the horror of this war of all wars will ever hold the highest place in the records of human valor."
The Fourth Canadian Division reached the Ypres region in August, 1916, just as the other three Canadian divisions were leaving for the Somme battle-field farther south. For a while it occupied part of the line near Kemmel, but soon followed the other divisions to the Somme, there to complete the Canadian corps.
It may be stated here that though a fifth Canadian division was formed and thoroughly trained in England, it never reached France. Canada, until the passing of the Military Service Act on July 6,1917, depended solely on voluntary enlistment. Up to that time Canada, with a population of less than 9,000,000, had recruited 525,000 men by voluntary methods. Of this number 356,986 had actually gone overseas. Voluntary methods at last, however, failed to supply drafts in sufficient numbers to keep up the strength of the depleted reserves in England, and in consequence conscription was decided upon. By this means, 56,000 men were drafted in Canada before the war ended. In the meantime, through heavy fighting the demand for drafts became so insistent that the Fifth Canadian Division in England had to be broken up to reinforce the exhausted fighting divisions in France.
It would be an incomplete summary of Canada's part in the war that did not mention some of the men who have been responsible for the success of Canadian arms. It is obviously impossible to mention all of those responsible; it is even harder to select a few. But looking backward one sees two figures that stand forth from all the rest—General Sir Sam Hughes in Canada, and General Sir Arthur Currie commander of the Canadian corps.
To General Sir Sam Hughes must be given the credit of having foreseen war with Germany and making such preparations as were possible in a democracy like Canada. He it was of all others who galvanized Canada into action; he it was whose enthusiasm and driving power were so contagious that they affected not only his subordinates but the country at large.
Sir Sam Hughes will be remembered for the building of Valcartier camp and the dispatch of the first Canadian contingent. But he did things of just as great importance. It was he who sought and obtained for Canada, huge orders for munitions from Great Britain and thereby made it possible for Canada to weather the financial depression, pay her own war expenditures and emerge from the war in better financial shape than she was when the war broke out. It was easy to build up a business once established but the chief credit must go to the man who established it.
Sir Sam Hughes was also responsible for the selection of the officers who went overseas with the first Canadian contingent. Among those officers who subsequently became divisional commanders were General Sir Arthur Currie, General Sir Richard Turner, General Sir David Watson, Generals Lipsett, Mercer and Hughes.
Of these generals, Sir Arthur Currie through sheer ability ultimately became commander of the Canadian corps. This big, quiet man, whose consideration, prudence and brilliancy had won the absolute confidence of Canadian officers and men alike, welded the Canadian corps into a fighting force of incomparable effectiveness—a force which was set the most difficult tasks and, as events proved, not in vain.