“But the artillery fire of the enemy continually grew in intensity, and it became more and more evident that the Canadian salient could no longer be maintained against the overwhelming superiority of numbers by which it was assailed. Slowly, stubbornly, and contesting every yard, the defenders gave ground until the salient gradually receded from the apex near the point where it had originally aligned with the French, and fell back upon St. John.
“Soon it became evident that even St. Julien, exposed from right and left, was no longer tenable in the face of overwhelming numerical superiority. The third brigade was therefore ordered to retreat further south, selling every yard of ground as dearly as it had done since five o’clock on Thursday. But it was found impossible, without hazarding far larger forces, to disentangle the detachment of the Royal Highlanders of Montreal, thirteenth battalion, and of the Royal Montreal Regiment, fourteenth battalion. The brigade was ordered, and not a moment too soon, to move back. It left these units with hearts as heavy as those of his comrades who had said farewell to Captain McCuaig.
“The German line rolled, indeed, over the deserted village, but for several hours after the enemy had become master of the village the sullen and persistent rifle fire which survived showed that they were not yet master of the Canadian rear guard. If they died, they died worthy of Canada. The enforced retirement of the third brigade (and to have stayed longer would have been madness) reproduced for the second brigade, commanded by Brigadier-General Curry, in a singularly exact fashion the position of the third brigade itself at the moment of the withdrawal of the French.
SECOND BRIGADE PUT TO TEST
“The second brigade, it must be remembered, had retained the whole line of trenches, roughly five hundred yards, which it was holding at five o’clock on Thursday afternoon, supported by the incomparable exertions of the third brigade, and by the highly hazardous deployment in which necessity had involved that brigade. The second brigade had maintained its lines. It now devolved upon General Curry, commanding this brigade, to reproduce the tactical maneuvers by which earlier in the fight the third brigade had adapted itself to the flank movement of overwhelming numerical superiority. He flung his left flank round and his record is that in the very crisis of this immense struggle he held his line of trenches from Thursday at five o’clock until Sunday afternoon, and on Sunday afternoon he had not abandoned his trenches. There were none left. They had been obliterated by artillery. He withdrew his undefeated troops from the fragments of his field fortifications, and the hearts of his men were as completely unbroken as the parapets of his trenches were completely broken. Such a brigade!
“It is invidious to single out any battalion for special praise, but it is perhaps necessary to the story to point out that Lieutenant-Colonel Lipsett, commanding the ninetieth Winnipeg Rifles, eighth battalion, of the second brigade, held the extreme left of the brigade position at the most critical moment.
“The battalion was expelled from the trenches early on Friday morning by an emission of poisonous gas, but recovering in three-quarters of an hour, it counter-attacked, retook the trenches it had abandoned and bayoneted the enemy, and after the third brigade had been forced to retire, Lieutenant-Colonel Lipsett held his position, though his left was in the air, until two British regiments filled up the gap on Saturday night.
CAPTURE OF ST. JULIEN
“The individual fortunes of those two brigades have brought us to the events of Sunday afternoon, but it is necessary, to make the story complete, to recur for a moment to the events of the morning.