itish generals at first thought the
Canadian technical troops, such as the artillery and the engineers,
might lack skill. They found that the artillery knew their business as
well as the best British artillery, that the engineers were superior
in many ways and that now every corps commander wanted the Canadians.

General Smith-Dorrien, at the conclusion of the review, called the men
together and addressed them in a similar strain, and then we were
ordered to march our battalions off to their billets.

It was a great pleasure to hear a few words of commendation from such
a great soldier as General Smith-Dorrien, for the first Canadian
Division had been greatly lied about and maligned in England. Every
offence on the calendar had been charged against it, and one would
have thought, instead of being composed as it was of young, well
educated and well-behaved men, it was the off-scourings of the
Canadian prisons and jails.

If we were well drilled we owed it all to ourselves. We went to
England filled with high hopes that we were to be associated with
British Regulars and to have the best of British instruction. We were
disappointed from the first. No British troops were associated with
us. We had to work out our own salvation.

But the Canadian officers were a self-reliant lot, so the drill
manuals were conned carefully and the men were exercised in a sound
system that made the companies great self-confident fighting machines.
Every officer was on his metal and worked hard to bring his men to
perfection in spite of mud and rain and all sorts of difficulties
worse than we ever encountered in Flanders.

Comparisons are odious, but experience has shown that the Canadian
officer, on the whole, is equal to any officer in the British army.
His Majesty graciously ordered that we were to be classed as "regular
Imperial officers." We had to line up to that standard.

The present war is altogether unlike previous experiences in the
British army. "Forget South Africa" became a byword. The numbers are
so great and the ground so restricted that new conditions have arisen.
The Canadians quickly assimilated the new conditions.

On the morning of April 15th the battalion paraded at its billets at
Ryveld and marched to Beauvoorde. This hamlet consisted of a couple of
stores and a saloon. The men were quartered on farms. On one side of
the road is Belgium, the other side is France. I was quartered in the
estament or saloon, and the