English: Among the most haunting images of the Haig collection are those photographs taken in towns near the front line. Some are in ruins, others, like Valenciennes in this picture, seem relatively untouched, but almost all project a ghost-town atmosphere. In this photograph the only humans daring to be seen are the patrolling Canadian soldiers. We know from the original caption that somewhere out of sight, German machine-gunners are waiting.

Valenciennes lies to the north-east of Cambrai, in the Hainaut region of France. The town was near the front line during the Allied offensives of late summer and Autumn 1918, and the final week of the war started with an Allied push from Valenciennes towards Sambre-Oise Canal on November 4th 1918.
[Original reads: 'The first Canadian patrol entering Valenciennes from the West. They were met with very heavy machine-gun fire, but just afterwards a whole battalion entered.']

http://digital.nls.uk/74549220