After a very fatiguing march of thirty-one miles, the Lahore Division arrived at Ouderdom on the 25th April. It is as usual not my intention to describe the events which led up to this battle. The Germans trusted to the use of gas, a new feature in war, to break through our line and to capture Ypres. So unexpected was any such method of attack that the French Colonial Division, on which the brunt fell, was perforce obliged to abandon its front, and in so doing exposed the left flank of the Canadian Division on its right. The Canadians drew back their left, retiring on St. Julien with extraordinary steadiness and gallantry. The Huns meantime rushed over the vacated ground, killing and slaughtering the helpless victims of their devilish devices. After heavy fighting and attempts at counter-attack, by the evening of 24th April our advanced lines had retired to between St. Julien and Fortuin. Notwithstanding every effort on our part, the effect of the gas had done its work, but there was one thing the Germans had not as usual calculated on, as far as the Canadian Division was concerned, and that was that their foe consisted of men of the Anglo-Saxon race, and Canadian soldiers cannot be defeated by any enemy. The Huns had had their turn, the day was not far distant when they would be hoist with their own petard. By the 25th April the attack had been checked in some degree in the vicinity of St. Julien, and the following day brings us to the date on which the Lahore Division joined in to help stem the tide. Shortly the orders of the Second Army (under which the Division now found itself) were, that it was to be used in co-operation with the French, and on their right, in an attack in a north or north-east direction from about St. Jean. The actual time was to depend on that fixed by the French to deliver their attack. The following extract from a letter from the Chief of Staff, Second Army, to Major-General Keary will explain the situation: 25th April. The Army Commander is determined not to commit your Division to the area east of Ypres until he is sure that the French plans have matured.... You will only be able to make an attack on a front of two Brigades with a Brigade in support.... Sir Horace (Smith-Dorrien) would not wish the Division to press forward unless the French on your left had already done so. These directions were clear and left no room for doubt and uncertainty. The Ypres-Langemarck road was to be the dividing line between the French right and the Lahore Division’s left; whilst the Lahore right would be in touch with the Fifth Corps to the east.