lesson, and now
countless shells and guns were pouring into France from Great Britain
where thousands of factories, new and old, toiled night and day, under
the inspiring energy of Mr. Lloyd George.

On June 13th, in a terrific counter-attack, the Canadians in turn
blasted the Huns from the trenches taken from them a few days before.
The First Canadian Division recaptured and consolidated all the ground
and trench systems that had been lost Thus ended the second year of
Canadian military operations in the Ypres salient. Each of the three
Canadian divisions had been tried by fire in that terrible region, from
which, it was said, no man ever returned the same as he entered it.
Beneath its torn and rifted surface, thousands of Canadians lie, mute
testimony to the fact that love of liberty is still one of the most
powerful, yet most intangible, things that man is swayed by.

A very distinguished French general, speaking of the part that Canada
was playing in the war, said, "Nothing in the history of the world has
ever been known quite like it. My countrymen are fighting within fifty
miles of Paris, to push back and chastise a vile and leprous race, which
has violated the chastity of beautiful France, but the Australians at
the Dardanelles and the Canadians at Ypres, fought with supreme and
absolute devotion for what to many must have seemed simple abstractions,
and that nation which will support for an abstraction the horror of this
war of all wars will ever hold the highest place in the records of human
valor."

The Fourth Canadian Division reached the Ypres region in August, 1916,
just as the other three Canadian divisions were leaving for the Somme
battle-field farther south. For a while it occupied part of the line
near Kemmel, but soon followed the other divisions to the Somme, there
to complete the Canadian corps.

It may be stated here that though a fifth Canadian division was formed
and thoroughly trained in England, it never reached France. Canada,
until the passing of the Military Service Act on July 6,1917, depended
solely on voluntary enlistment. Up to that time Canada, with a
population of less than 9,000,000, had recruited 525,000 men by
voluntary methods. Of this number 356,986 had actually gone overseas.
Voluntary methods at last, however, failed to supply drafts in
sufficient numbers to keep up the strength of the depleted reserves in
England, and in consequence conscription was decided upon. By this