conductors. The bulk of the gas was directed
against the French, largely made up of Turcos and Zouaves, who were
driven back, suffering agonies.

POSITION BRAVELY HELD.

The Canadians suffered to some extent from the poison, and though there
were in the commands lawyers, college professors, business men, clerks
and workers of all sorts, who had been turned into soldiers within a few
months, and without previous military experience, they held their
position bravely. The Canadians were, of course, compelled to change
their position after the French fell back, and the Allied troops were,
to all effects and purposes, routed. But when the Germans, recognizing
the weakened position of the Canadians, attempted to force a series of
attacks, the Canadian division, as a matter of record, fought through
the day and through the night, for forty-eight consecutive hours, and
finally, in a counter-attack, drove the Germans back and regained a
position which had been lost by the British troops in the earlier
conflict.

Later, in the face of a devastating fire, in which many officers were
killed, battalions of the Canadians carried warfare to the first line of
German trenches, and in a desperate hand-to-hand struggle won the
trench. This attack, it is said, secured and maintained during the most
critical moment of the campaign the integrity of the Allied line.

In connection with the experience of the Canadians with the gas fumes,
it is necessary to note that at that time they were unprovided with gas
masks, or means of protecting themselves against the fumes, and the best
they could do was to stuff wet handkerchiefs in their mouths. The fumes,
although extremely poisonous, were not so effective with the Canadians
as on the French lines, largely because of the position of the
Canadians, and the direction of the wind, but in the several attacks a
number of the Canadians were asphyxiated.

HEROES WIN RECOGNITION.

So, all through the Ypres campaign, the Canadians faced the shot, shell
and poisonous gases of the Germans, and won recognition for their heroic
conduct which will stand to the credit of Canada for all time. At
Festubert, Givenchy, and, last but not least, Lens, the Canadians, step
by step, kept pace with the Allied advances.

In their general advance on Lens the Canadians occupied the strongest
outpost in the defense of that place, and pushing their troops on toward
La Coulotte, entered that village. The Germans wi