In common with thousands of other Canadian and Imperial soldiers I saw the
evacuation and destruction of Ypres. On the morning of April 21, 1915, we
marched along the Ypres-Menin road, which road was the key to Calais, to
Paris, to London and to New York. We marched along in the early hours of
the morning, just after dawn. To our left passed a continuous stream of
refugees. We looked toward them as we went by. We saluted as they passed,
but many of us had dimmed vision.

We had heard of German atrocities. We had seen an isolated case or two as
we marched from town to town and village to village. We had not paid a
great deal of attention to them, as we had considered such things the work
of some drunken German soldier who had run riot and defied the orders of
the officers. Though we had certainly seen one or more cases that had
impressed us very deeply. The case I cited earlier in this book never left
my thoughts. But here on the king's highway, we saw German atrocities on
exhibition for the first time. I say exhibition, and public exhibition,
because it was the first time we had seen atrocities in bulk--in
numbers--in hundreds.

Ypres had been destroyed in seven hours, after a continuous bombardment
from one thousand German guns. It was a city of the dead. The military
authorities of the Allies told the civilians they must leave. They had to
go, there was no alternative. The liberation they had hoped for was in
sight, but their road to it was of a roughness unspeakable.

There was the grandfather in that procession, and the
grandmother,--sometimes she was a crippled old body who could not walk.
Sometimes she was wheeled in a barrow surrounded by a few bundles of
household treasure. Sometimes a British wagon would pass piled high with