remarkable of all the slides slipped into the
stereopticon of the war artist. To quote from "Canada's Hundred Days",
by J. F. B. Livesay, concerning the secret strategy of Sir Arthur
Currie for the great Amiens show in August, 1918:

"That afternoon the Corps Commander had a talk with the two Canadian
correspondents. Before him was a large scale map and the barrage map.
It was all very clear and lucid. We take up our line here; and our
first objective is there; 'zero' hour was named; our final objective
for the day over there--constituting a world record for a first day's
advance. . . .

"So at last all is ready. The story goes that the Corps Commander was
asked how soon he could deliver the Corps in fighting trim at the
appointed place. 'By the tenth,' he had said. 'Too long; do it by the
eighth.' And he did it. . . .

"And it was all done secretly and by night. For an entire week the men
of Canada were passing south from their old front, taking circuitous
and puzzling routes. None knew where they went. They sang as they
marched--a thing they had not done for two years.

"Foremost that night of nights was one's sense of wonder at how it had
been done; how of many tangled threads of railway and lorry and march,
all that great and intricate machine--more complex far than Wellington
had gathered on the field of Waterloo--had been assembled in perfect
order to the minute. . . .

"Up the winding hill go all the impedimenta of war--marching
battalions, traction-engines towing great guns, ammunition trains, long
lines of Red Cross lorries; everywhere the pungent odour of petrol.
From every little wood belch forth men. They march silently. They
might be phantoms, dim hordes of Valhalla, were it not for the spark of
a cigarette, a smothered laugh. There is no talking. All is tense
excitement. For miles and miles in a wide concentric sweep every road
and lane and bypath is crowded with these slow-moving masses. Over the
bare hillsides lumber the heavy tanks, just keeping pace with the
marching men.

". . . . Berlin thinks we are in Flanders; London that we are in the
south. All is well. . . .

". . . . The watch hand is creeping round--half-past three--four--ten
past four--an interminable laggard. It is to be the greatest barrage
of the war.

". . . . 'Zero' is set for four-twenty, and the pointer has barely
reached that figure when behind us there goes up a mighty flare, and
simultaneously all a