The German soldier can not hold in a hand-to-hand fight. He
can't face the cold steel. The second he glimpses the glint of a bayonet he
is whimpering and asking for mercy.
The German bayonet is a fiendish weapon. It is well its owner can not use
it. For myself I do not know of one case where a comrade has been wounded
by enemy steel. His bayonet is longer than ours, and from the tip for a few
inches is a saw edge. This facilitates entrance into the body, but on
turning to take it out it tears and rends savagely.
It is impossible to describe the work of every battalion in a battle. In a
charge, a concerted charge, such as we went through on April twenty-third,
there was not one battalion that did better than another. There was not one
officer who did better than another, there was not one man who outdistanced
his fellow in valor. We all fought like the devil. It is only possible to
convey the doings of the whole by telling the achievements of the few.
Boys of the Fourth Western Ontario Battalion, commanded by Colonel Birchall
of St. Catharines, who came through this business, have told me that their
colonel lined them up and made a short speech to them.
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