began on 2 September. The Battle of Drocourt-Quéant Line began with a concentrated artillery barrage, aircraft strafing the enemy and tanks leading the way, dragging hooks to pull back the barbed wire, clearing paths for the infantry of the 1st and 4th Divisions to storm forward. By the end of the day on the 2nd, the foremost echelons of attackers had fully advanced through the defences and overnight the German defenders largely abandoned their remaining positions. Over the following three days the Canadians advanced almost unharried 6 kilometres to the Canal du Nord, which the enemy had withdrawn behind. At the DQ Line the Canadians inflicted heavy casualties on the defenders and another 6,000 unwounded prisoners were captured at this time. Particularly noteworthy for such a brief battle was that seven Canadians earned a Victoria Cross on 2 September alone. The brief campaign, lasting from 26 August to 4 September, took a bitter toll on the Canadians as well, with the corps suffering 11,000 casualties in the fighting. Monument Site selection At the end of the war, The Imperial War Graves Commission granted Canada eight sitesfive in France and three in Belgiumon which to erect memorials. Each site represented a significant Canadian engagement in the war and for this reason it was originally decided that each battlefield would be treated equally and graced with identical monuments. The Canadian Battlefields Memorials Commission was formed in November 1920 and decided a competition would be held to select the design of the memorial that would be used at the eight European sites. In October 1922, the submission of Toronto sculptor and designer Walter Seymour Allward was selected as the winner of the competition, and the submission of Frederick Chapman Clemesha placed second. The commission decided Allward's monumental design would be used at Vimy Ridge in France as it was the most dramatic location. Despite a consideration that Alward's monument at Vimy could stand alone as the sole monument to the Canadian efforts in Europe Clemesha's 'Brooding Soldier' design was selected for the remaining seven sites but was later, for a number of reasons, erected only at the Saint Julien Memorial in Belgium. The remaining six memorials, to be built on sites at Hill 62 and Passchendaele in Belgium and at Bourlon Wood, Courcelette, Dury and Le Quesnel in France would each received a modest memorial designed under the supervision of architect and advisor