“The Royal Highlanders of Montreal, thirteenth battalion, and the forty-eighth Highlanders, fifteenth battalion, were more especially affected by the discharge. The Royal Highlanders, though considerably shaken, remained immovable upon their ground. The forty-eighth Highlanders, who no doubt received a more poisonous discharge, were for the moment dismayed and indeed their trench, according to the testimony of very hardened soldiers, became intolerable. The battalion retired from the trench, but for a very short distance, and for an equally short time. In a few moments they were again their own. They advanced upon and occupied the trenches which they had momentarily abandoned. IN DIRE PERIL “In the course of the same night the third brigade, which had already displayed a resource, a gallantry, and a tenacity, for which no eulogy could be excessive, was exposed (and with it the whole allied cause) to a peril still more formidable. “It has been explained, and indeed the fundamental situation made the peril clear, that several German divisions were attempting to crush, or drive back this devoted brigade, and in any event to use their enormous numerical superiority to sweep around and overwhelm our left wing at a point in the line which cannot be precisely determined. The last attempt partially succeeded, and in the course of this critical struggle, German troops in considerable, though not in overwhelming, numbers swung past the unsupported left to the brigade and, slipping in between the wood and St. Julien, added to the torturing anxieties of the long-drawn-out struggle by the appearance, and indeed for the moment the reality, of isolation from the brigade base. “In the exertions made by the third brigade during this supreme crisis, it is almost impossible to single out one battalion without injustice to others, but though the efforts of the Royal Highlanders of Montreal, thirteenth battalion, were only equal to those of the other battalions who did such heroic service, it so happened by chance that the fate of some of its officers attracted special attention.