After the first trying test at Saint Julien, the Canadian army settled down to do its share in holding a part of the long line in France and Flanders. The three chief scenes of war in which the Canadian divisions took part were at Ypres; on the Somme, in the great offensive of the summer of 1916; and before Lens, chiefly in the fighting of 1917. In what is now known as the battle of Saint Eloi, on the Ypres line, beginning on 3 April 1916 and lasting many days, the Germans made a terrific con centration of artillery fire on the Canadians. There were three Canadian divisions in the line of battle. The hoped-for British advance did not succeed, in spite of local successes. The battle of Sanctuary Wood, in the same area, a terrible struggle, was fought in June 1916, and the Canadians held the ground after incur ring fearful losses. The outstanding result of the long fighting was that the British continued to hold the Ypres salient upon which the Germans had concentrated their fiercest at tacks. In September of that year the Canadian divisions were on the Somme where in many weeks of hard fighting their most conspicuous victory was at Courcelette. The Somme offen sive was not the striking success which had been hoped for, but it' was successful enough to cause a considerable German retirement in that region early in 1917.
While the Ypres salient will probably always be regarded as the chief battlefield for the Canadian troops during the war, the city of Lets is an objective for which they went through very hard fighting, after being with drawn from the Somme. In the early spring of 1917 the British planned a great offensive and, by the fortune of war, the Canadian troops were in the hottest part of the attack. On 6 April 1917, the allied forces were cheered by the entrance of the United States into the war. Three days later, as if to celebrate it, they made the great attack at Vimy. Nearly 20,000 prisoners 200 guns and some 300 machine guns fell to the British. The Canadians took part in the attack on the portion of the line called Vimy Ridge and captured 3,000 prisoners. It was then that Vimy became a great name in the military annals of Canada. The city of Toronto has undertaken, when the war is over, to restore the village of Vimy as a memorial of Canada's part in a striking military success.
By midsummer of 1917 the British had fought their way to points close to Lens and then prepared for a new offensive in that region. This took in the last days of October and early in November. The most striking feat of the Canadians in this offensive was the capture on 6 Nov. 1917 of the strongly defended village of Passchendalle. This fur nished the dramatic close to the Canadian fight ing of 1917, beyond which the present record does not go.
Before the close of the year 1917 the Cana dian casualties amounted to about 6,000 offi cers and 124,000 men. A good many of the
wounded returned to the fighting line, but the list of final losses in the Canadian army makes a grim record. Exact figures are not yet avail able, but by the end of 1917 the dead, includ ing those killed in action, dead of wounds or disease, and missing and counted dead, amounted to some 2,000 officers and 38,000 men, a total of 40,000 men — numbers slight com pared with the losses of the nations in Europe, but yet appalling. To such great losses indeed must be added those of wholly or partially dis abled men of whom the number must be nearly as many.
In spite of such losses, the war has had a stimulating effect upon Canadian character and production. For the first time in the history of the world a great army from America has fought in Europe to redress that balance of the Old World which, a century ago, England re dressed in the new, by coming to the support of the Monroe Doctrine. It marks an epoch in the history of mankind that Canadian divisions, to be followed in 1918 by divisions from the United States, should thus fight in Europe in a cause in which neither of them had any thought of direct gain beyond their own secu rity. "Nothing in the history of the world has ever been known quite like it?) said a dis tinguished French general. "My countrymen are fighting within 50 miles of Paris . . . But . . . the Canadians at Ypres fought with supreme and absolute devotion for what to many of them must have seemed simple ab stractions; and that nation which will support for an abstraction the horrors of this war of all wars will ever hold the highest place in the records of human Precisely the same spirit brought the United States into the war. Facility of communication has made the whole modern world a unit. The idealism of the western peoples is practical, for, to each of them, danger and security alike involve a world wide range of forces.
Not less on the material than on the moral side has Canadian life been stimulated. Canada has supplied vast quantities of munitions for the allied armies fighting in Europe and the skill and enterprise of her industrial leaders have made marked advances. In spite of the drain of war upon her male population, agricul tural production has been increased and Canada remains one of the chief exporters in the world of food supplies. The enhanced value of her commodities has been so great as almost to counterbalance the cost to her of the war. For the first time in history the Canadian govern ment has secured huge loans from the masses of the Canadian people. For the first time also Canada has a heavy trade balance in her favor, due chiefly to the export of munitions. It is an unexpected result of war that this former debtor state, borrowing large sums, has now become a creditor state financing great supplies of munitions for the Allies. See also SINCE