The Division attacked on a two-brigade front, the 152nd Brigade being on the right and the 153rd on the left. Each brigade attacked on a two-battalion front, the leading battalions taking as far as the Blue line inclusive, the remaining two battalions taking up to the Green line. In this attack Lieut.-Colonel H. G. Hyslop, D.S.O., commanding 7th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, commanded the 153rd Infantry Brigade. On 17th May 1917, Brigadier-General D. Campbell, C.B., after having commanded the 153rd Brigade in the field for over two years, had returned home for a well-earned period of rest. General Campbell will always be remembered by those who served with him for his unfailing courtesy to all, and for the evenness of his temperament, no matter how adverse the circumstances. With his departure the Division lost the last of its earliest Brigadiers who had guided it through its infancy and adolescence. General Campbell was succeeded by Brigadier-General Alistair Gordon, C.M.G., D.S.O., Gordon Highlanders. General Gordon had been seriously wounded in the early days of the war, and had, after his recovery, been employed as a Brigadier-General on the Staff at the War Office. In the short period that he served with the Division, it became evident that had he survived a distinguished career would have awaited him. On the day before the battle General Gordon and his brigade-major, Hugh Lean of the Highland Light Infantry, while walking round the trenches, were struck by the same shell, Lean being killed and General Gordon mortally wounded. Lean had always been unlucky. Very early in the war he had been severely wounded, for a time losing his sight. At Arras he received a severe scalp wound from the same shell that killed the brigade intelligence officer with whom he was walking. He, however, gallantly remained at duty. In his next tour in the line he was struck a severe blow on the elbow by the nose-cap of a bursting shell, but again remained at duty. A few days before going into the line on the last occasion, in conversation he expressed a definite opinion that he would be killed in the coming operations, as indeed he was. Colonel Hyslop, who at the last moment assumed command of the 153rd Brigade, had been the first regimental officer to land in France with the Expeditionary Force, and had the unique record of having served with a battalion continuously from the date of landing. Opposed to the Highland Division, and holding a slightly more extended front, was the 23rd (Reserve) Saxon Division, in process of being relieved by the 3rd Guards Division. The Guards had already taken over the rear lines up to the Black line, and were actually carrying out the relief of the front systems when the attack was launched. The enemy held the trenches with four battalions from the front line to the river Steenbeek inclusive, and with five battalions in reserve north of the Steenbeek.