being shunted about. One of Currie's first
objectives that he wanted above all things to achieve as a Canadian
commander of initiative, was the capture of Lens. He had a plan for
this. He was never allowed to carry it out. Says the author of
"Canada's Hundred Days":

"Thus when he is ordered to abandon his planned offensive at Lens and
take the corps up the Salient, he refuses point blank to serve under
the Commander of the Fifth Army. He is placed under his old Chief of
the First Army, looks over the ground before Passchendaele and then
protests against the whole operation as being useless in itself and
likely to cost the Corps 15,000 men."

It was said by some who believed they knew, that the Lens preparation
was nothing but a huge feint put up to mislead Heine for an attack in
force elsewhere. This was one of the bewildering events of that
baffling year when the French army was in a state of mutiny, the nation
behind the army in a state of nerves, and the politicians, clamouring
for victories--or at least a cessation of defeat. Something had to be
done, not only by France but by Britain, whose Premier insisted that
unless the Germans could be broken in the north he could not hold his
country united at home. There was a Council of War--so, a few weeks
before the writing of this, said a Canadian General in New York--at
which Currie was present. Sir Douglas Haig unexpectedly arrived and
was soon into an argument with the Canadian Corps Commander demanding
that he abandon Lens and strike at Passchendaele. The two commanders
were in violent disagreement. Currie refused to yield. The British
Premier went to France and met Currie, who gave way to the Premier--as
people usually did--and, against his own convictions, abandoned Lens.

The precise military significance is of less value here than the remark
credited to Lloyd George, who is reported to have said in England after
a subsequent War Cabinet meeting--that in the Canadian Corps Commander
he had met "the biggest thing physically and mentally on that front."

What Currie was at the head of the Corps no civilian then in Canada has
any means of knowing, except by what men say who were under him or
about him. A brawny veteran infantryman, whom I met with his chum,
said:

"Currie--oh, yes, he was a good general. But few of the men where I
was in the trenches or the billets ever liked him."

"But did you see much of him?"

"Too much, begad." His chum