Soon the sight of tanks became part of the routine of existence, and interest in watching an advance centered on the infantry which they supported in a charge; for only by its action could you judge whether or not machine gun fire had developed and, later, whether or not the tanks were silencing it. The human element was still supreme, its movement and its losses in life the criterion of success and failure, with an eternal thrill that no machine can arouse. If the tanks had accomplished nothing more than they did in the two great September attacks they would have been well worth while. I think that they saved twenty-five thousand casualties, which would have been the additional cost of gaining the ground won by unassisted infantry action. When machines manned by a few men can take the place of many battalions in this fashion they exemplify the essential principle of doing the enemy a maximum of damage with a minimum to your own forces. XXVIII CANADA IS QUICK Canada's first offensive--The "surprise party"--Over nasty ground--Canada's hour--Germans amazed--Business of the Canadians to "get there"--Two difficult villages--Canadians make new rules--Canada's green soldiers accomplish an unheard of feat--Attacking on their nerve--The last burst--Fewer Canadians than Germans, but--"Mopping up"--Rounding up the captives--An aristocratic German and a democratic Canadian--French-Canadians--Thirteen counter-attacks beaten--Quickness and adaptability--Canada's soldiers make good. The tanks having received their theatric due, we come to other results of Sept. 14th when the resistance of the right was stiff and Canada had her turn of fortune in sharing in the brilliant success on the left. It was the Canadians' first offensive. They knew that the eyes of the army were upon them. Not only for themselves, after parrying blows throughout their experience at the front, but in the name of other battalions that had endured the remorseless grind of the Ypres salient they were to strike the blows of retribution. The answer as to how they would charge was written in faces clear-cut by the same climate that gave them their nervous alertness. On that ugly part of the Ridge where no stable trench could be made under the vengeful German artillery fire and small numbers were shrewdly distributed in shell-craters and such small ditches as could be maintained, they crept out in the darkness a few days before the attack to "take over" from the Australians and familiarize themselves with this tempest-torn farming land which still heaved under tornadoes of shells. The men from the faraway island continent had provided the jumping-off place and the men from this side of the Pacific and the equator were to do the jumping, which meant a kind of overseas monopoly of Pozieres Ridge.