The Canadians had been lucky to avoid the bloodbath at the Somme that started on July 1, 1916. The first day of the campaign saw more than sixty thousand British casualties, including the near annihilation of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment at Beaumont Hamel, France.

But by September, even the Canadians were called to take their turn in a series of new attacks. On September 15, the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division launched successful attacks toward the small French hamlet of Courcelette. The French-Canadian 22nd “Van Doos” Batallion and the 25th Battalion (Nova Scotia Rifles) captured the objective and then held off seventeen German counterattacks through four days of extreme and bloody close-quarters fighting.

The fighting throughout September and October left the Canadians exhausted. Only blistering artillery barrages, which eventually pounded the German position into a smudge on the landscape, enabled Canadian and British soldiers to declare victory. With both sides shattered and winter setting in, the Battle of the Somme came to an end.

The fighting at the Somme came at the cost of 24,000 dead and wounded Canadians. The human toll of the battle remains as controversial today as it was at the time.

— Text by Joel Ralph