The
full significance of the Somme had not dawned as yet upon the world. The
magnitude of the achievement was not yet estimated, but already names
hitherto unknown were flung up flaming into the world's sky in letters
of eternal fire, Ovillers, Mametz Wood, Trones Wood, Langueval, Mouquet
Farm, Deville Wood for the British, with twenty-one thousand prisoners,
and Hardecourt, Dompierre, Becquin-Court, Bussu and Fay for the French
allies, with thirty-one thousand prisoners.
On that line of carefully chosen and elaborately fortified defences, the
proudest of Germany's supermen of war had been beaten at their own game
by the civilian soldiers of "effete and luxury loving Britain," and the
republican armies of "decadent France," and still the Homeric fight was
raging. Foot by foot, yard by yard, the Hun was fighting to hold the
line which should make good his insolent claim to the hegemony of the
world. Step by step, yard by yard, that line was being torn from his
bloody fingers. Into that sea of fire and blood, the Canadians were to
plunge.
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