It was a grim and awful ordeal to be the first to endure a method of warfare so diabolical in its conception, so fiendish in its effects, that its equal has hardly been encountered in all the blood-stained history of man. The whole British Army applauded the noble words in which its Commander-in-Chief alluded to the conduct of the French on that occasion. In his despatch of June 15 Sir John French said, referring to the gas attack on the French: “I wish particularly to repudiate any idea of attaching the least blame to the French Division for this unfortunate incident. After all the examples our gallant Allies have shown of dogged and tenacious courage in the many trying situations in which they have been placed throughout the course of this campaign, it is quite superfluous for me to dwell on this aspect of the incident, and I would only express the firm conviction that, if any troops in the world had been able to hold their trenches in the face of such a treacherous and altogether unexpected onslaught, the French Division would have stood firm.” We know now that many of our brave Allies, both officers and men, stayed and died at their posts, victims of slow asphyxiation. You may find the graves of many of them to-day, among other places by the canal bank, around Ypres, and in a little burial-ground close to a road leading out of Poperinghe. Fortunately, the healthy respect the Germans had for their new ally delayed their advance, and enabled the news of the overwhelming of the right of the Allied line to reach General Headquarters, where it was received with amazement. Prompt measures were taken, for it was at once recognized that the Canadian left was dangerously exposed. The fact that the Germans had, on April 20, started bombarding Ypres with 17-inch shells had aroused the suspicions of General Bulfin, commanding the 28th Division, which was on the right of the Canadians. Knowing that most of the practicable roads from west to east led through Ypres, he very wisely ordered everything to come east of the city, in anticipation of some German move which at that time he was unable to fathom. The most urgent need of the moment, after the retirement of the French, was to fill the gap left in the line between the French who had escaped the poisoned gas and were still in their old positions and the Canadian left. Colonel Geddes of the Buffs was accordingly put in command of four battalions in reserve east of Ypres--the Buffs, the Middlesex, the 5th King’s Own, and the Yorks and Lancaster--and two Canadian battalions in billets at Wieltje, and sent up to stop the gap. At the same time the 13th Brigade, which had just emerged exhausted from the fighting at Hill 60, was rushed up from its rest-billets to support the French and the Canadians along the Pilckem Road.