landers' fields the crosses stand--
Strange harvest for a fertile land!
Where once the wheat and barley grew,
With scarlet poppies running through.
This year the poppies bloom to greet
Not oats nor barley nor white wheat,
But only crosses, row by row,
Where stalwart reapers used to go.
_Harvest in Flanders_--Louise Driscoll

INTRODUCTION

When the final history of this war is written, it is doubtful if any
other name will so appeal to the Canadian as Ypres and the Ypres
Salient; every foot of which is hallowed ground to French, Belgians,
British and Colonials alike; not a yard of which has not been
consecrated to the cause of human liberty and baptized in the blood of
democracy.

Here the tattered remnants of that glorious "contemptible little
army," in October, 1914, checked the first great onrush of the vandal
hordes and saved the channel ports, the loss of which would have been
far more serious than the capture of Paris and might, conceivably,
have proved the decisive factor in bringing about a Prussian victory
in the war.

Here the first Canadian troops to fight on the soil of Europe, the
Princess Pat's, received their trial by fire and came through it with
untarnished name, and here, also, the First Canadian Contingent
withstood the terrible ordeal of poison gas in April, 1915, and,
outnumbered four to one, with flank exposed and without any artillery
support worthy of mention, hurled back, time after time, the flower of
the Prussian army, and, in the words of the Commanding General of all
the British troops: "saved the situation."

Here, too, as was fitting, we received our baptism of fire (Second
Canadian Division), as did also the third when it came over.

For more than a year this salient was the home of the Canadian soldier
and Langemarck, St. Julien, Hill 60, St. Eloi, Hooge, and a host of
other names in this sector, have been emblazoned, in letters of fire,
on his escutcheon.

Baffled in his attempts to capture the city of Ypres, the Hun began
systematically to destroy it, turning his heaviest guns on the two
most prominent structures: The Halles (Cloth Hall), and St. Martin's
Cathedral, two of the grandest architectural monuments in Europe. Now
there was no military significance in this; it was simply an
exhibition of unbridled rage a