ter the soldiers were provided with proper respirators
containing a chemical antidote, they were in no danger of being
"gassed." Among those in the thick of the gas attack were the first
Canadian contingent, who bore themselves with unflinching fortitude,
not only that, but after the first surprise of the attack was over,
the survivors charged with rare heroism.

Strategy which formerly meant the swift movement of a few thousand
troops to one flank or another overnight, or in a two or three-hour
march, now means the concentration of hundreds of thousands by
railway trains upon a particular point and of many thousands of guns
and enormous quantities of material of every kind from shells to
that for building railroads to keep up with your advance.

But the general of to-day no less than the general of yesterday,
would always know where his enemy is most vulnerable, and strike him
at that point. In the spring of 1915, the line of least resistance
for the German army was obviously to the east where the loose
organization of the Russian army, lacking munitions, was stretched
over a front of over a thousand miles.

The French were better off in munitions, and their army and the
British had a front of four hundred and fifty miles of intact trench
line. It is estimated that in order to hold a battle front with
modern troops, about three thousand men to the mile are required.
This does not mean that there are three thousand actually on every
mile; but counting the thin line in the trenches, the thicker line
in the reserve trenches and the soldiers who are out of the trenches
resting and the battalions in reserve and the reserve supplies of
men in the depots who can promptly be brought into action.

For example, to hold a mile of the famous Ypres salient might
require double the number of men necessary to hold a mile where the
lay of the ground was in the favor of your troops. Owing to the use
of motor trucks and to railway trains, whenever there is an attack,
concentration of men at any point is very rapid. Holding to this
rule, the Germans maintained all through the summer of 1915,
1,500,000 men on their western front, and they had that number at
least to spare for their eastern front. Field Marshal von Hindenburg
said that by hammering he would get Warsaw, and he was to keep his
word with stolid German persistence. Napoleon, who had depended upon
the number of his guns, would have fully appreciated the
Austro-German plan