I saw them after desperate
struggles, covered in clay, parched with thirst, gassed, wounded, but
indomitable. Lens was the Troy of the Canadian Corps and the English
troops of the First Army, and it was only owing to other battles they
were called upon to fight in Flanders that they had to leave it at
last uncaptured, for the enemy to escape.
All this was subsidiary to the great offensive in Flanders, with its
ambitious objects. But when the battles of Flanders began the year was
getting past its middle age, and events on other fronts had upset the
strategical plan of Sir Douglas Haig and our High Command. The failure
and abandonment of the Nivelle offensive in the Champagne were
disastrous to us. It liberated many German divisions who could be sent
up to relieve exhausted divisions in Flanders. Instead of attacking
the enemy when he was weakening under assaults elsewhere, we attacked
him when all was quiet on the French front. The collapse of Russia was
now happening and our policy ought to have been to save men for the
tremendous moment of 1918, when we should need all our strength.
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