The Drocourt–Quéant Line (also referred to as the Drocourt–Quéant Switch) ran between the French cities of Drocourt and Quéant and was part of a defensive system that ran from a point within the Hindenburg Line, eleven miles west of Cambrai, northward to within seven miles west of Douai and terminated along the front east of Armentières.

The system incorporated numerous fortifications including concrete bunkers, machine gun posts and heavy belts of barbed wire.

[2] At 5:00 a.m. on 2 September 1918, Canadian and British forces attacked the Drocourt–Quéant Line supported by tanks and aircraft.

Seven Canadians were awarded VCs individually that day: Bellenden Hutcheson, Arthur George Knight, William Henry Metcalf, Claude Nunney, Cyrus Wesley Peck, Walter Leigh Rayfield and John Francis Young.

The next day the Germans retreated to the Hindenburg Line with the Allies taking many prisoners.