Foreword
Major Priestley's book is not intended as an official record; nevertheless it affords a graphic and accurate account of what took place on a small but decisive sector of the Western front during the “Battles of the Hundred Days.”
It was my good fortune to take over command of the North Midland Division at a critical moment of its career, and just before we marched south to join General Sir H. Rawlinson's Fourth Army. To my predecessor, Major-General W. Thwaites, must be ascribed the credit of having organized and trained the Division into a fighting machine in which every officer and man was imbued with a real soldier's spirit.
It is to this fixed determination to win through at all costs, regardless of incidents on flank and in rear, that I mainly attribute the successes won by the Division.
We joined the IX Corps, commanded by Lieut.-Gen. Sir Walter Braithwaite, and consisting of three distinguished fighting units, but the 46th were determined to make a name for themselves second to none.
No man can say that they failed.
Gerald F. Boyd,
Major-General.
