Preliminary reconnaissances of the new line by senior commanders and their staffs began on 3rd March. The first troops moved off to the new area on 6th March. During the march, the Division staged in the Beauval-Candas area and the Frevent area. Finally, Divisional headquarters opened on 12th March at Duisans, General Harper taking over command of the line at 8 A.M. on that date. The march to the new area is chiefly memorable to those who took part in it from the fact that much of it was carried out in a blinding snowstorm, with all its attendant discomforts. The cold was intense, and was severely felt by parties proceeding to carry out preliminary reconnaissances in motor lorries and by the troops as they arrived each night in new billets. The Division, after its six weeks period of rest and training, was at the top of its form, and presented a most soldierly appearance. It had profited considerably from its training, in spite of the fact that it had been handicapped by spells of bad weather. This was the last period of rest of more than ten days' duration which the Division was to have until the following January. The new sector extended roughly from the ruined village of Roclincourt on the right to the ruined village of Neuville St Vaast (exclusive) on the left. The front line trenches were some thousand yards east of these two villages. This country had been the scene of tremendous fighting when the French had advanced along the Lorette ridge and attacked the Vimy heights in conjunction with the British operations at Loos. Here the French had made considerable progress, much of it yard by yard, after bitter fighting. Their gains, however, had not all been held. The fighting had been of so desperate and stubborn a nature that French and Germans had repeatedly dug themselves in close proximity to each other. As a result, the whole sector consisted of an unintelligible maze of trenches, aptly called by the French the Labyrinth. The country in rear of the lines contained many villages now well known to the Highland Division--the ruins of Ecurie, Anzin, Marœuil, Bray, Ecoivres, Mont St Eloi. This area can almost be called the spiritual home of the Highland Division in France, since it occupied it for three months in 1916, five months in 1917 during the battle of Arras, and returned there in May 1918. From May onwards it remained in that part of the world, with the exception of a brief interlude in Champagne, and from it began its victorious advance which culminated with the Armistice. In this sector the whole country-side was overlooked by the enemy in an astonishing degree. He occupied the famous feature known as the Vimy Ridge, of which the highest point just north of Thelus reached the height of 135 metres. His foremost trenches were on the outlying spurs of the Ridge, while the trenches taken over from the French were in the low-lying ground at the foot of these spurs.