tomorrow & two Battalions, the Royal Fusiliers & Northumberland Fusiliers, relieve two battalions of the 8th Brigade in the lines on the north of the Ypres Commines Canal. I motor to BERTHIN to see some trench mortar demonstration. The Stokes gun is the one that takes my fancy – it fires a cylindrical bomb & it can be fired so rapidly that five bombs are in the air at a time – the bomb detonates well & it can be fired as time (?) shrapnel – other experiments such as firing up rounds of ammunition to a captured trench when it is not possible to take them up by hand. I met the 2nd Army Commander Sir H Plumer & he broke the good news to me that I had been appointed to command the 20th Division naturally I am delighted & it is a command I have been longing for for ages. The 9th Brigade goes