All the troops of the Twenty-ninth Division had lived up to their fame, but a special word should be said of the Newfoundlanders, who, in their first action, kept pace with the veterans beside them. This battalion of fishermen, lumbermen, and farmers proved once more the grand stuff which is bred over the sea--the stuff which Bernhardi dismissed in a contemptuous paragraph. "They attacked regardless of loss, moving forward in extended order, wave behind wave. It was a magnificent exhibition of disciplined courage." Well might General Hunter-Weston say next day after visiting the survivors: "To hear men cheering as they did, after undergoing such an experience, and in the midst of such mud and rain, made one proud to have the command of such a battalion." The losses of the Newfoundlanders {56} were severe. Losses are always the index of the sorrow elsewhere, but when they fall so heavily upon a small community, where every man plays a vital part and knows his neighbour, they are particularly distressing. From Cape Race to the coast of Labrador there was pride and mourning over that day. The total losses of the division were heavy, and included Colonels Pierce and Ellis of the Inniskillings and Borderers. It must have been with a heavy heart that General Hunter-Weston realised, with the approach of night, that each of his divisions had met with such losses that the renewal of the attack was impossible. He, his Divisional Commanders, his officers and his men had done both in their dispositions and in their subsequent actions everything which wise leaders and brave soldiers could possibly accomplish. If a criticism could be advanced it would be that the attack was urged with such determined valour that it would not take No until long after No was the inevitable answer. But grim persistence has won many a fight, and no leader who is worthy to lead can ever have an excess of it. They were up against the impossible, as were their companions to right and left. It is easy to recognise it now, but it could not be proved until it had been tested to the uttermost. Could other tactics, other equipment, other methods of guarding the soldiers have brought them across the fatal open levels? It may be so, and can again only be tried by testing. But this at least was proved for all time, that, given clear ground, unshaken troops, prepared positions, and ample artillery, no human fire and no human hardihood can ever hope to break such a defensive line. It should be added that here as {57} elsewhere the British artillery, though less numerous than it became at a later date, was admirable both in its heavy and in its lighter pieces. Observers have recorded that under its hammer blows the German trenches kept momentarily changing their shape, while the barrage was as thick and accurate and the lifting as well-timed as could have been wished. There was no slackness anywhere, either in preparation or in performance, and nothing but