Under such conditions, but in such unshakable temper, the men of the 4th Canadian Division moved to the taking of the position known as Desire Support Trench, on which for days they had been casting covetous eyes. Our objective lay across our whole Divisional front, from about Farmer's Road on the right to some 600 yards west of the West Miraumont Road on the left. At this point our left flank made connection with the 18th Division, which was to attack, simultaneously with our advance, the western sector of Desire Trench, and other trenches which were protecting the approaches to Grandcourt Village. The right of our attack—a frontage of only five or six hundred yards, but one offering extreme difficulties—was confided to the 10th Brigade, under Brigadier-General W. St. P. Hughes. The left, and main, sector, beginning at the Pys Road, was committed to the 11th Brigade, under Brigadier-General V. W. Odlum, who had two Battalions from the 12th Brigade, the 38th and the 78th, attached to his command. There were thus three Battalions engaged upon the right sector, and five upon the left. The 10th Brigade, with its restricted frontage and limited objective, attacked with two companies of the 50th Battalion (Calgary Regiment, Lieutenant-Colonel E. G. Mason) and one company and one platoon of the 46th (South Saskatchewan Regiment, Lieutenant-Colonel H. J. Dawson) in the assaulting waves, with one company of the 44th (Winnipeg, Lieutenant-Colonel E. K. Wayland) in support. General Odlum made his attack with four Battalions, each represented by two companies in the assaulting wave, and one Battalion, behind his centre, in support. The attacking Battalions, from right to left, were as follows:—The 75th (Mississaugas Battalion, of Toronto, Lieutenant-Colonel S. G. Beckett), 54th (Kootenay Regiment, Lieutenant-Colonel A. G. H. Kemball), 87th (Canadian Grenadier Guards, Montreal, Lieutenant-Colonel R. W. Frost), and 38th of the 12th Brigade (Ottawa, Lieutenant-Colonel C. M. Edwards); while the Battalion supporting was the 78th (Manitoba, Lieutenant-Colonel J. Kirkcaldie), also of the 12th Brigade. The artillery supporting the operation consisted of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Canadian Divisional Artillery (commanded respectively by Brigadier-General H. C. Thacker, C.M.G., Brigadier-General E. W. B. Morrison, and Lieutenant-Colonel J. H. Mitchell), the Yukon Motor Machine-Gun Battery (Captain H. F. Murling), and also by the 11th Divisional Artillery and the 2nd Corps Heavy Artillery.
The barrage work of the artillery was admirably co-ordinated, and effectually cleared the way for that success which so abundantly rewarded the operation as a whole in spite of failure on the extreme right. While a concentrated standing barrage was flaming and crashing along the whole line of the enemy trench, at the hour for launching the attack (6.10 a.m.) a creeping barrage was put up along a line 200 yards in front of our own parapets. This line of roaring death rolled onward at the rate of 50 yards per minute, with the first wave of our assault following close behind it—so close, in their eagerness, that a sergeant swore he might have lighted his pipe at it. Presently this barrage merged into the standing barrage along the German trench. At fourteen minutes after the launching of the attack the combined barrage lifted from the doomed trench and rolled inexorably onward for another 250 yards, where it rested as a barrier against counter-attacks. The trench was seized, all opposition being swiftly overwhelmed, and our men rushed on behind the barrage to a distance of 150 yards beyond the captured line. Here they hurriedly dug themselves in, knowing that the Germans would begin to shell Desire itself as soon as it should be reported that we had captured it. In order that the enemy might not discover our ruse in time to thwart it, a dense smoke-screen was flung out by a special company of the Royal Engineers in front of the line where our men were furiously digging. The positions thus gained, about 150 yards beyond Desire, were consolidated and held; and they stood to mark the limit of Canada's advance on the Somme.
So much, in brief, for the battle of Desire Trench. Viewed as a whole, it was a rounded and clean-cut success, and earned warm commendation for General Watson and his hard-fighting 4th Division. To get an idea of the fluctuations of the struggle, it is necessary to take the operations of the 10th and 11th Brigades separately.
The task assigned to the 10th Brigade, as already stated, was an attack on a very narrow but extremely exposed and strongly defended objective. The whole line of this objective lay open to concentrated artillery fire from the enemy's rear, and was murderously cross-raked by the fire from a number of machine-gun nests. It proved, in the event, difficult to carry and impossible to hold. But this comparative failure, happily, did not vitiate the success of the main operation, which lay along the left front.
The 50th Battalion, occupying the Brigade left, made its advance successfully to a depth of some 300 yards, and gained its objective with small loss. This objective was a line running east from the Pys Road. Here, however, it got involved in our own smoke barrage, lost its direction (and consequently its touch with the troops on its left), swerved to the right, and left an open gap of about 200 yards between the two Brigades. Then the German guns from Lupart Wood in front opened an annihilating fire upon it, machine-guns swept it from both sides, and it was forced back with a loss of 12 officers and 200 other ranks—over half its total strength in the attack.
Meanwhile, the 46th Battalion, on the right, was faring no better. The attack was made by one company and one platoon, in two waves, on a front of 100 yards. There was a distance of 40 yards between the waves. The first wave, keeping a fair line in spite of the shell-holes, escaped the German barrage, and got to within 70 yards of the enemy's parapets with small loss. Here, however, it was met by massed rifle fire full in the face—for our own barrage at this point was playing behind instead of upon the German trench, and the trench was occupied in full force. At the same time a torrent of machine-gun fire opened up on the left. The wave was broken. The survivors took refuge in shell-holes, where they had to lie all day under a ceaseless storm of shell and bullets, till darkness enabled them to crawl back to our lines. The second wave fared even worse. It was caught by the enemy's barrage as it was coming over the parapet. Torn and diminished, it nevertheless rushed on, in the face of intolerable punishment, till it was a line no longer. Its remnants made their way into a sap and crept back into Regina. Later in the day, however, the Brigade was able to thrust forward again for a short distance on the left, toward the Pys Road, and so to contain the position which it had failed to capture. Thus contained the position ceased to be of service to the enemy or any serious menace to our new line on the left; and day or two afterwards it was simply pounded out of existence by a "combined shoot" of all our heavy guns.
In the main attack, all along the line westward from Pys Road, things went well from the start. By 7.30 reports came back from the 75th, 54th, and 38th Battalions that all were in their objectives and busy consolidating their gains. The only mystery was in regard to the 87th, which though apparently successful, had disappeared. While this matter was in doubt the Germans launched a counter-attack from Coulée Trench against the 54th Battalion. They advanced with a great show of resolution several hundred yards, then suddenly, to our astonishment, flung down their bombs and rifles, threw up their hands, and rushed into our line as eager prisoners. About 8.50 came news that the 38th Battalion, not content with having captured its objective, had pushed on and gained a section of Grandcourt Trench, where it was establishing itself successfully. Then about 9 o'clock the mystery of the 87th was solved. This Battalion also, feeling that it had not had enough had gone on to try conclusions with Grandcourt Trench, and made good its footing there.
These fine adventures of the 38th and 87th, however, were doomed to prove fruitless of result. The operation of the Canadians against Desire Trench was, as we have seen, part of a wider movement, extending far to the left, before Grandcourt Village. The 18th Division, on our immediate left, though worn with long fighting and far below strength, had made good upon its right, where it joined our lines, but had been held up by insurmountable obstacles near Grandcourt. For this reason the Higher Command decided that it would be inadvisable to attempt to hold such an advanced position as the 38th and 87th had taken in Grandcourt Trench. In the course of the day, therefore, came orders that all advanced units were to come back to their original first objectives and consolidate there. The line of Desire Trench, thus gained and secured, was an admirable one, strong for defence, and advantageous to attack from when next the occasion should offer itself. And on this line the 4th Division rested until, at the end of the month, they were relieved and moved back to Doullens. The casualties of the Division in this fine action amounted to 75 officers and 1,276 other ranks. The prisoners taken numbered 625, of whom 17 were officers. The Division received warm congratulations from the Commanders of the Corps and the Army upon the success of this its concluding operation in the blood-drenched battlefields of the Somme.
From these fields the Canadian Forces, the four Divisions henceforth united into an Army Corps in all respects complete within itself, were removed to the north of Arras, to take into their competent keeping that vital area lying under the menace of Vimy Ridge and the impregnable outposts of Lens.
Welded now by sacrifice, endurance, prudent and brilliant leaderships, and glorious achievements against the mightiest military Power in the world's history, into a fighting force of incomparable effectiveness, it was no less than their due that the most tremendous tasks should be set to these fiery and indomitable fighters of the North. To the Canadian Battalions the impregnable and the invincible had come to mean a challenge which they welcomed joyously. They knew that the utmost of which men were capable was now confidently expected of them. How gloriously they were to justify that high expectation, on the dreadful Ridge of Vimy, amid the bloody slag-heaps of Lens, and along the fire-swept crest of Passchendaele, remains to be told succeeding volumes of their story.