As a Reserve Battalion the 17th served throughout the War and practically all Nova Scotian Infantry Drafts passed at one time or another through its ranks. From it were drawn the drafts for the Highland Brigade 1st Division, and latterly those for Nova Scotia Infantry Units in the Field. As a Reserve it outlived many of its enemies.
Of the gallant hearts that left Nova Scotia in August, 1914, many have paid the price and sleep their last sleep on alien soil.
“And, when the last Great Bugle Call
O’er Vimy sounding, throbs,
When the last grim joke is entered
In the big black book of Jobs,
And Belgic battlefields give up
Their victims to the air,
I shouldn’t like to be the man
That played those men unfair.”