72nd Seaforth Highlanders of Canada - Electric Scotland

SEAFORTH HIGHLANDERS OF CANADA
familiar Chateau de la Haie. For a short period martial
music held the place of sterner martial measures. The
pipe band took its part in a grand performance of the
massed pipes and drums of the Canadian Corps at which
F. M. Sir Douglas Haig was present. Once more the fa
miliar airs of the northland and of Canada resounded
among the old trees of the Chateau, alternately recalling
the past and inspiring for the future It is noted in the
Battalion diary that the 72nd again won the champion
was the
ship of the Corps in the tug of war, and that this
first time that the Battalion met the 29th in that compe
tition, the result being a decided win for the 72nd. On
June 21th a Brigade practice for the attack on La Coulotte
was inspected by the Corps Commander. A joint church
parade with the 85th Battalion was also held, at which
various decorations were presented. June 25th saw the
Chateau de la Haie under a new aspect, the occasion being
that of the First Army Horse Show, H. R. H. the Duke of
Connaught being present.
A review of the situation at this time shows that for
over two months, the Canadians, after thrusting the Ger
man from his tenacious hold on Vimy Ridge, had lain more
or less dormant before the menace of the enemy s carefully
prepared defences from the Souchez on the north to Oppy
on the south. Dormant, however, is a word which must be
here taken in a comparative sense . The tactics which had
been decided upon by the higher command still held the
field the limited objective, progress by slow and calculat
ed stages a steady grinding attrition. During the two
months, fighting of a local but fierce character had gone
on along the entire front. At first the struggle for the
blood-soaked ruins of Oppy on the south continued for
some time, while during the month of May the left of the
Canadian line had flung itself time after time in minor
operations against the calcined rubble-heap of the electric
generating station and its adjacent trenches on the Hiron-
60