TTJI? RATTTT? JL LXLj ULrVL X. JLlCj GLORY OF CANADA 'nia I A.B . TUCKERo Mon Dec 15 09:32:54 1997 Date: Fri, 12 Dec 97 12:50:29 PST From: Melvyl System Subject: (id: VAF34459) MELVYL system document request To: SRLF-MELVYL@library.ucla.edu Message-ID: <199712122051.MAA07000@ebi.library.ucla.edu> Name: UCSB, Central Library (SRLF) Address: UC Santa Barbara Note: ILL LENDING UCSB COPY ONLY. 1 YEAR LOAN. THANK YOU. 1. Author: Tucker, Alfred Brook, 1861- Title: The battle glory of Canada, being the story of the Canai at the front, including the battle of Ypres, by A. B. Tucker. Imprint: London, New York, Cassell and company, ltd. [1915J Call numbers: SRLF AA0002973386 Type EXP SRLF for THE BATTLE GLORY OF CANADA Photo : Elliott er- Fry LIEUT.-GEN. E. A. HERVEY ALDERSON, C.B. Commanding the 1st Canadian Contingent The Battle Glory of Canada Being the Story of the Canadians at the Front, including the Battle of Ypres By A. B. Tucker Cassell and Company, Ltd London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne To the Lasting Memory of CANADIAN OFFICERS AND MEN who have fallen in the Service of their King and Country in THE GREAT WAR FOREWORD It has been said that it is a mistake to begin by an apology, but perhaps there are exceptions to the rule, and I think this little book needs a word or two of explanation. At this early period it is wellnigh im- possible to put together a complete story of the gallant Canadians at the Front. I have done what I could with the means at my disposal in the shape of interviews with officers and men who have returned wounded or invalided from the Front, to weave together the tale of the Dominion troops in France. I have let officers and men tell their own story as far as possible. Natur- ally there are gaps in the account, and the criticism might with justice be made that some battalions are more fully mentioned than others. That must inevit- ably be the case from the nature of the materials at my disposal. But in spite of obvious defects, I hope this short account may help my readers to understand better what the "boys" from Canada have done, not only in "saving the situation" at Ypres, but in the trenches. My thanks are due to the officers and men who have given me their accounts of various incidents at the Front; to the proprietors of the Canadian Gazette for allowing me to use a great portion of the work which I viii Foreword had originally done for them ; to Mr. Obed Smith and Mr. Barclay McConkey of the Canadian Emigration Offices for the loan of a number of letters ; and to the Editors of The Times, Daily Telegraph, Standard, Daily Mail, East Anglian Times, and United Service Gazette, and to Mr. H. R. Stockman, Managing Editor of the Labour Press Agency, for allowing me to quote from their matter. A. B. Tucker. May 26th, 191 5. CONTENTS CHAPTER I CANADA ANSWERS THE CALL TO ARMS PAGE No Ordinary War — Germany's Miscalculations — The Formation of the First Contingent — Its Arrival in England — General Alderson's Career — His Views on Soldiering — Life on Salis- bury Plain — The Contingent Represented in the Lord Mayor's Procession — Departure for France . . . . i CHAPTER II THE HEROIC PRINCESS PATRICIA's The Formation of the Regiment — Canada Bids it Farewell — Leaving Salisbury and Arriving at the Front — First Ex- periences — Into the Firing Line — The First Officer Killed — Gallantry in the Trenches — Visit from the Prince of Wales — Capturing a German Trench — Major Gault Wounded — Constant Turns in the Trenches — Colonel Farquhar Killed — His Successor Appointed — Honours for the Regiment — Heavy Fighting at St. Eloi — Heavy Casualties at Zonnebeke 15 CHAPTER III BRAVE WORK IN THE TRENCHES Sir John French on the Canadian Troops — Address by General Alderson — First Experiences in the Trenches — Letters Home — A Glimpse at Billets — Adventures with Snipers — Cana- dians' Part at Neuve Chapelle — St. Patrick's Day — Some Casualties — Work of the Engineers and Artillery — Report by General Alderson — Training to Meet German Methods —New Billets — Inspection by Sir H. Smith-Dorrien — Last Letters before the Battle of Ypree — Bringing down German Aeroplanes — Mr. W. L. Griffith's Report . . . .38 ix X Contents CHAPTER IV THE DEATHLESS STORY OF YPRES PAGE Introductory — The Canadian Line — The Attack on the Wood — Gallantry of the loth and i6th Battalions — The 2nd and 3rd to the Rescue — Stirring Stories by Officers and Men — Heavy Casualties — A Counter Attack — Fine Work by the ist and 4th Battalions — The " Gates of Hell" — Praise from British Soldiers — The 3rd Brigade and the Poison Fumes — Montreal Heroism — The 13th and 14th Battalions Fight for their Lives — Hanging on in Spite of Everything — The 15th Battalion Lose Heavily — Their Colonel's Charmed Life — The Glorious Part Played by the 2nd Division — Gallan- try of the Winnipeg Boys— The " Little Black Devils," Dazed by Gas, Hold their Line — " Retire be Damned ! " — A Costly Triumph—" The Boys Stuck It "—The 7th Bat- talion Lose their Colonel — British Columbians' Heavy Casualties — The Work of the Scientific Branches — En- gineers, Artillery-Signallers and Army Service Corps and their Share in the Fight — An Heroic Artillery Officer — Canadian Pluck 85 APPENDICES A. MESSAGES OF CONGRATULATION I47 B. THE officers' ROLL OF HONOUR 153 C. IN MEMORIAM 166 THE BATTLE GLORY OF CANADA CHAPTER I CANADA ANSWERS THE CALL TO ARMS In time of war how suddenly things look up in that queer, queer British Empire ! " I haven't a thing to take back," says Ireland, " but under the circumstances kindly show me the enemy as soon as possible. I want to get at him." " Yours of recent date received," says Canada. " Am sending men as fast as they can be got ready and transportation secured." " Reserving for a more auspicious time any hatred a part of our population justifiably bears to England," says South Africa, " we are prepared to do our utmost in the present war." " Serious local dissatisfaction will arise, sahib, unless Indians are permitted to give their lives for the honourable Empire, now that it is at war with a foreign nation," says India. It's everywhere the same story. In peace it's " Confound your stupid, unreasonable, fat-headed, doomed, arrogant soul ! " In time of need it's " Count on us to the limit ! " Which is why we say that the British Empire is a queer, queer institution ! — Chicago Herald. This great war has done for the Empire what no previous war has ever done. It has brought the Dominions overseas to a point of considering- the Empire's quarrel their quarrel. True, they have come to the assistance of the Mother Country before, but never in quite the same way. Sir George Perley, Acting High Commissioner for Canada, in speaking at the anniversary dinner of the Newspaper Press B 2 The Battle Glory of Canada Fund, emphasised this point very strongly, saying: " When war was declared last August the whole of Canada as one man rose and said they wished to take part in it, from Atlantic to Pacific. Recruits came forward on the first day of our anxiety, and within three days after the declaration of war official recruiting was actually begun. In Canada the Imperial feeling, if I may call it that, is strong — perhaps stronger than you know of here. To us the Empire is a very live thing indeed. It has been said that the Dominions have come to the assistance of the Mother Country in this war. I do not like that way of putting it ; not that we would not be proud and happy to come to the assistance of the Mother Country from whom we have had so many blessings, but this war is our war. We are part of the Empire which is assailed and threatened by the militarism of Germany, and we know that unless the Union Jack is supported and flies over us as of old, the liberty we and the other Dominions enjoy must be weakened, and that we shall be unable to hand down to our children the liberties we possess. This is a fight between liberty and popular government on the one hand and the endeavour of the Kaiser to enslave the world. Therefore, we consider that this is our war, and our men have gone to the front and will continue to do so until the war is over. I do not intend to say much about what the Canadians have done. They took part in the terrible battle at Ypres. They were sur- rounded, but did not give way. Some people say it was because they were brave, and others because they did not know the rules of war and that had it been a mimic war- fare they would have been declared prisoners. But that is the kind of war that Britain has waged all through the generations — hard wars, often hard-won wars. She never knew what it was to be defeated. Canada has done her best and will continue to do so. It needs no stirring words from me to discourse on such a subject. Our men have spoken for themselves." Herein is a new Imperial sentiment — a sentiment which A German Miscalculation 3 spells true Imperialism, and which explains the enthusiastic support given by overseas Dominions in this great crisis of our history. Germany made many miscalculations before war was declared. In no case was her reckoning" so ill-judged as in the case of Canada. From German sources we learn that it was commonly believed in Germany that, on the declara- tion of war. United States troops would cross the boundary and would be welcomed with open arms by the Canadian people. It was also believed that the German communities in the Ontario counties of Waterloo, Perth, Huron, and Bruce, and the American settlers in the West, were galled by the yoke of England, and were eagerly anticipating the day of their emancipation and incorporation under the flow- ing folds of the Stars and Stripes. But Germany was wholesalely deceived. The moment war was declared there was no doubt about the unanimous determination of the people of Canada to bear their share of responsibility in the Empire's war. Everywhere the people answered the appeal to patriotism, and, within a day or two, men were being enrolled for a Canadian contingent. All party politics were put aside, and a wave of passionate loyalty swept through the country. But it was not till some months later that it was made known in the Mother Country how exceed- ingly prompt Canada's response had been. In December last Sir Robert Borden, the Canadian Prime Minister, speaking at the Empire and Canadian Clubs at Toronto, said that on the ist of August he sent the British Government a secret telegram announcing Canada's desire to send an expeditionary force if war should ensue. The offer was not accepted until the 6th. Recruiting, mean- while, had begun, and within six weeks 35,000 men had been made ready to embark. Preparations were then made to raise another 35,000, which was subsequently increased to 50,000, and as soon as each contingent went forward a corresponding number of men would be enlisted to take its place. The Press had 4 The Battle Glory of Canada mentioned 100,000 as the number of Canadians under arms at home and abroad. "I prefer," Sir Robert said, "to name no figures. If the preservation of our Empire demands twice or thrice that number, we shall ask for them, and I know Canada will answer the call. There can be but one issue to this war. I don't expect it to be a speedy issue. I have reason to know that the results hitherto attained have been all that were anticipated by the Allies, but, so far as can be seen, there is a long strugg-le before us." Canada, Sir Robert continued, had emerged triumphant from the test of her unity, patriotism, and national spirit, and "this war has demonstrated the essential unity of the Empire. When the book is closed and the story has been told, we shall at least owe that to the Kaiser. It was to fall asunder as soon as he girded on his shining armour, but instead it has become tense with unity and instinct with life and action. Our decadent race was to flee in terror before his victorious troops, but the plains of Belgium and France tell no story of decadence. The history of British arms contains no annals more glorious. It is our hope and our confidence that Canada's record will not be less worthy." In a very short time the camp at Valcartier, fourteen miles north of the city of Quebec, was laid out. When the war broke out it was agricultural land, but crops were cut and roads made, and soon a town of tents replaced the farmsteads. The ploughshare gave way to the sword. Throughout the country enthusiastic scenes were witnessed as troops left for the camp. In response to the original call for 22,500 men there were at Valcartier within three weeks of the issue of the call 32,000 men, while there were under arms in the country a total of 40,600, which included some 6,600 men for garrison duty, guarding bridges, etc., and 1,000 men in Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry (to which, being distinct from the contingent proper, a separate chapter is given). Strenuous work was done by the troops while at Valcartier, and as a kind of climax the Duke of Connaught, the Governor-General, held Welcome to England 5 a review at the camp on Sunday, the 24th of September. Before the review many of the men attended a service. The Duke and Duchess of Connaught, Sir Robert and Lady Borden, the members of the Ministry, and many prominent people were present. Canon Scott, who preached, said that the present campaign was the most glorious that a nation had ever been called upon to wage, "because we are fighting not only for Canada, England, and the Empire, but for the greater, loftier cause of liberty. We are fighting for England because the British flag stands for liberty." At length the looked-for day of departure arrived, and early in October a fleet of ... transports left Canada, and . . . were brought safely to . . . and . . . without a single mishap. The secret of the departure was well kept, and the appearance of the . . . transports in . . . was the first news ... of the Canadians' arrival. The tale, however, quickly spread, and before the first boat dropped anchor . . . every vantage-point that could be reached near the harbour was crowded with people heartily cheer- ing. Recruits who were being trained in musketry drill at one place broke ranks and, waving their caps on their rifles, flung deep-throated welcomes to their new comrades in arms. Coasting vessels in the harbour blew their sirens, and ever and again one could hear some strong-lunged enthusiast yelling through a megaphone the trenchant demand, "Are we downhearted? " The answer rolled back in thousandfold shouts from every transport. The Canadians were as excited as their friends ashore. They lined the decks and even the rigging, cheering. Many of them had bands on board playing "The Maple Leaf" and other patriotic airs. The transports' sirens bellowed.* Stirring scenes were witnessed at . . . throughout the next two days, when the Canadian troops entrained for Salisbury Plain, the men being accompanied to the stations by cheering crowds. Motor-omnibuses were also used to * Various deletions by Censor. 6 The Battle Glory of Canada convey some of the men to the camps. The four camps that had been got ready were Pond Farm, The Bustard, West Down North, and West Down South. The officer appointed to command the conting-ent was Lieutenant-General Edwin Alfred Hervey Alderson, C.B. He soon became popular with the men, who looked forward with confidence to doing big things under his leadership when their turn came to take their place in the firing line. General Alderson, said the United Service Gazette, had had a distinguished record of service; in fact, it was given to few officers to obtain such rapid promotion as had fallen to his share. In less than thirty years he had advanced from subaltern to major-general, and, granted good luck at the front, there was no reason why he should not reach the top rung of the military ladder. Born on the 8th of April, 1859, the son of tlie late Mr. Edward Mott Alderson, of Ipswich, he was educated at the Grammar School of that ancient town. Aspiring to a military career, he joined the Militia, and passed thence into the Regular Army on the 4th of December, 1878, when he was posted to the ist Foot (the Royal Scots). Ten days later he went to the Royal West Kent Regiment as second- lieutenant, being promoted to lieutenant on the ist of July, 1 88 1. In the same year he saw active service under Sir Evelyn Wood with the mounted infantry of the Natal Field Force, when he took part in the later stages of the Transvaal Campaign, following which the Boers had ceded to them that part of South Africa subject to the suzerainty of the British Sovereign. In the following year the Egyptian trouble arose, and Lieutenant Alderson was ordered to the land of the Khedive, where he again served with mounted infantry. He was present in the engagements at Tel-el-Mahuta and Mahsameh in August, when the Egyptian camps were occupied by the British, and five Krupp guns and a train of ammunition were captured. He also participated in the two actions at Kassassin in August and September, and at the battle of Lieut.-Gen. Alderson*s Career 7 Tel-el-Kebir on the 13th of September, when the Egyptians were totally defeated and Arabi Pasha sought safety in flight. For his services Lieutenant Alderson was awarded the medal with clasp and the Khedive's bronze star. He took part in the Nile Expedition of 1884-85 with the Mounted Infantry Camel Regiment, and was present at the action of Abu Klea in January, 1885, when General Stewart defeated about 10,000 Arabs, but lost several British officers in the battle, including the famous Colonel Fred Burnaby. Lieutenant Alderson also participated in the reconnaissance to Metemmeh, when the Arab attack at Gubat on the British square was repulsed. His reward was two clasps to his medal. Getting his company on the 12th of June, 1886, Captain Alderson was appointed adjutant of his regiment on the 6th of March, 1890, and carried out the duties of that position until the 23rd of January, 1894. He was promoted major on the 27th of May, 1896, and in that year served in the operations under Sir Frederick Carrington, in South Africa, being appointed to the command of the mounted infantry and troops in Northern Mashona- land. His services were mentioned in dispatches {London Gazette, March 9th, 1897), and he received the medal and the brevet of lieutenant-colonel (May 8th, 1897). From the ist of September, 1897, to the 8th of October, 1899, he was D.-A.-A.-G. at Aldershot, and in this month he got an opportunity to show his real worth. The South African War had broken out, and Lieutenant-Colonel Aider- son was appointed to the command of the mounted infantry, ist Cavalry Brigade, for which he was graded A.-A.-G, retaining that post until the 17th of October, 1900. He took part in the relief of Kimberley, and early in January, 1900, simultaneously with a feint from Belmont by Colonel Pilcher, Lieutenant-Colonel Alderson was sent with a patrol of a company of mounted infantry to Prieska from De Aar, and on the 3rd he exchanged shots with the enemy across the river. The failure of Sir Redvers BuUer's operations against 8 The Battle Glory of Canada Spion Kop induced Lord Roberts to push his troops forward, and to counteract Cronje's efforts near Douglas. Prieska was re-occupied by Lieutenant-Colonel Alderson on the 27th of January with a battery and 600 mounted infantry. This force soon afterwards returned tO' De Aar, as the troops were required for a general advance. On the 13th of February Colonel Alderson was ordered to follow the cavalry to the Modder (which it was intended to cross) with mounted infantry, and to escort the ammunition column and pontoons, accompanied by the bearer companies and field hospitals. This he successfully accomplished, and reached the cavalry division shortly after dusk, being joined with the remainder of the ammunition and supply columns by Colonel Porter on the 14th. In charge of his mounted infantry, Colonel Alderson then took part in the advance, under General French, to Abon's Dam. On the 16th he moved northward to the eastern end of Dronfield Ridge until he faced the knoll near Macfarlane Siding, where the attack was to be made when Colonel Porter arrived from the south. The latter officer was, however, delayed by the fire of the Griqualand West commando, and so an attack on the Mac- farlane Knoll was made by Colonel Alderson, with the assistance of the 3rd Brigade, and the position was eventually carried. The relief of Kimberley was effected on the 15th of February. Lieutenant-Colonel Alderson took part in the operations at Paardeberg from the 17th to the 26th of February, and in the action at Poplar Grove, when, with other troops, he threatened the enemy's line of communications with Bloem- fontein. He also participated in the actions at Driefontein, Vet River (May 5th and 6th), and Zand River. In May and June, 1900, he was engaged in the Transvaal, and took part in the actions near Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Diamond Hill (June nth and 12th). From July to the 29th of November he was employed in the operations east of Pretoria, including the action at Reit Vlei. From the i8th of October, 1900, to the 22nd of July, 1901, he was Brigadier- A Leader of Men 9 General, Mounted Infantry Brigade, South Africa; and from the 23rd of July, 1901, to the 23rd of June, 1902, Inspector-General, Mounted Infantry, South Africa, being continued temporarily in the same appointment until the 5th of May, 1903. For his services in South Africa he was three times mentioned in dispatches {London Gazette, February 8th, 1900; Lord Roberts, March 31st, 1900; and Brigadier- General Broadwood, April 20th, 1900), and rewarded with the brevet of colonel (November 29th, 1900), the C.B., and, in addition, appointed A.D.C. to the Sovereign (November 29th, 1900, to November 30th, 1906). He received also the Queen's medal with five clasps and the King's medal with two clasps. On the 8th of May, 1903, he was promoted substantive colonel and given the appointment of Brigadier-General, 2nd Infantry Brigade, ist Army Corps (afterwards changed to ist Division, Aldershot Army Corps), which he held until the 28th of February, 1907. He was promoted Major-General on the ist of December, 1906, and on the 22nd of January, 1908, was appointed to the command of the 6th (Poona) Division, Southern Army in India, which he relinquished in 1912. His promotion to Lieutenant-General dates from the 14th of October, 1914. He possesses the bronze medal of the Royal Humane Society for (when a lieutenant) saving the life of a private of the 1st Battalion Somerset Light Infantry in the Nile, near Dongola, on the nth of June, 1885. He is the author of several publications, the principal of which are "With the Mounted Infantry and Mashonaland Field Force," " Pink and Scarlet," and " Lessons from 100 Notes made in Peace and War," His book about the Mashonaland Campaign was pub- lished in 1898, and gives an unusually good account of the operations. It is interesting as a narrative, and full of instruction to the practical soldier. "Pink and Scarlet; or, Hunting, a School for Soldiering," written in 1900, is equally instructive, and especially interest- 10 The Battle Glory of Canada ing, coming as it does from a divisional commander in the present war. General Alderson's great experience on active service and in the world of sport enabled him to produce a work which every young officer would be the better for reading. He is convinced that no man takes so readily to soldiering as a sportsman, and particularly a man who rides well to hounds. He quotes in support of this opinion the fact that the Duke of Wellington had a pack of hounds out in the Peninsula, and that history repeated itself out in South Africa, when Lord Kitchener not only allowed but encouraged the presence of hounds in Pretoria. General Alderson devotes a good deal of space to the care of the horse, and young officers will find many valuable hints in these chapters. Then we come to the many useful lessons the hunting field supplies to the young soldier who will observe and reflect on what he has seen. General Alderson takes his reader to a meet, and as each incident of the day comes along he points the moral for the soldier. "The image of war without the guilt," was Mr. Jorrocks's description of hunting, and this is practically the text on which the author of "Pink and Scarlet" dilates. One of the pithy little sayings to be found in the book is "Death loves a crowd, so do fools and funkers who have no wish to make up for themselves what they may please to call their minds. Crowds, both in the Image and the Real, mean casualties." Of the life of the Canadian troops on Salisbury Plain little need be said. There were months of weary training in exceedingly bad weather, when the camp became a sea of mud. The conditions were about as trying as they could be, but the men bore them without grumbling, and no doubt felt that life on the Plain was at least good training for the mud of the trenches. One of the earliest of distinguished visitors to the camp was Lord Roberts. The Canadians greatly appreciated his visit ; some had served under the veteran field marshal in South Africa, and all had a pro- found respect for him. Lord Roberts won the hearts of **'Bobs" and the Canadians ii the Canadian troops when he addressed them as "brother soldiers." In the course of his speech to them he said: "The prompt resolve of Canada to give us such valuable assistance has touched us deeply. That resolve has been quickened into action in what I consider a marvellously short space of time, and under the excellent organising- and driving power of your Minister of Militia — my friend Major-General Hughes — you quickly found yourselves in a fine camp in your own Laurentian mountains, where your training and musketry were able to be carried out in the most practical manner and with the least possible delay; the result being that to-day, less than three months from the declaration of war, I am able to greet this fine body of soldiers on English soil." In conclusion, Lord Roberts said: "I need not urge you to do your best, for I know you will. You will be fight- ing in the greatest of all causes — the cause of right, of justice, and of liberty. May God prosper you in that great struggle." A week or two later the King and Queen, who were accompanied by Lord Kitchener and Lord Roberts, made a tour of the Canadian camps at Salisbury Plain. At each camp the Canadians were drawn up in marching order and were inspected by the King, who later, through Lieutenant- General W. Pitcairn Campbell, Commander-in-Chief Southern Command, sent the message ; " It gives me great pleasure to have this opportunity of welcoming to the Mother Country so fine a contingent of troops from the Dominion of Canada. Their prompt rally to the Empire's call is of inestimable value, both to the fighting strength of my army and in the evidence which it gives of the solidarity of the Empire. "The general appearance and physical standard of the different units are highly creditable. I am glad to hear of the serious and earnest spirit which pervades all ranks, for it is only by careful training and leading on the part of officers and by efficiency, strict discipline, and co-operation on the part of all that the demands of modern war can be 12 The Battle Glory of Canada met, I shall follow with Interest the progress and work of my Canadians." One of the Canadian soldiers who attracted the attention of the King, Lord Kitchener, and Lord Roberts at the inspection was Sergeant H. A. Jarvis, of the 6th Battalion, Fort Garry's. Sergeant Jarvis, who is a man of splendid physique, wears the South African medal. The King asked him about his experiences in South Africa, inquired how long he had been in Canada, and if he was doing well there, and congratulated him on his physique and bearing. "I am pleased to see that you have come back to the colours," said the King, as he shook hands with the sergeant. Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener also asked him about the South African War and his life in Canada. London had a tiny glimpse of the Canadian troops when three hundred of them took part in the Lord Mayor's pro- cession. Never did a greater or more enthusiastic crowd gather to see the show. The procession was a khaki procession. To begin with, there were the ist and 2nd Regiments of King Edward's Horse, in both of which are Canadians serving. Then we saw a detachment of the Royal Naval Division which distinguished itself in the trenches at Antwerp ; and among the regiments of Yeo- manry and Territorials were the Reserve Battalions of the Honourable Artillery Company, which has a battalion serv- ing in France, and of the London Scottish, whose battalion at the front — one of the first Territorial battalions to get into the firing line — had won great glory by its magnificent bayonet charge at Messines. It is easy to imagine how the crowds cheered those gallant fellows. A welcome not less enthusiastic was given to the detachments of the contingents from Canada, New Zealand, and Newfoundland. It was London's first chance of seeing and greeting the Canadians, and right hearty that greeting was. "Well done, Canada! " It was a smart detachment, and, as one spectator said, it deserved to be welcomed. Xmas Day on the Plain 13 The Canadian troops represented every unit in the con- tingent — cavalry, artillery, infantry, rifles, and Highlanders, each being distinguishable by its coloured shoulder-straps. Thus, blue straps designated infantry ; yellow, cavalry ; green, rifles; thin red stripes, artillery; thin blue lines on white ground. Army Service Corps ; magenta. Army Medical Service, and so forth. The detachment must have been as gratified at the reception it was given as were the Canadians among the spectators. Christmas Day was spent on Salisbury Plain — by that time muddier than ever — very happily, the spirit of the men making light of discomforts. About 60,000 parcels from Canada arrived for the men, and among the presents was one from the Duchess of Connaught, consisting of 12,000 lbs. of maple sugar. There was a box for every officer and man, and a Christmas card with the box bore the words : " Good luck and best wishes for Christmas and for 191 5 from Louise Margaret Duchess of Con- naught." General Alderson issued the following General Order : " In wishing all ranks of the contingent all that is good and happy at this season of the year, the General Officer Commanding would also like to express his appreciation of the way in which the inevitable discomfort of being under canvas in England has been met. The spirit of all ranks in this respect has been most soldier-like. The General Officer Commanding has much admired it, and he wishes that time permitted of his seeing each man and thanking him for it, and at the same time wishing him a happy Christmas and a good New Year." The King's interest in the Canadian contingent was again demonstrated when, in December, a party of officers paid a visit to the front. While they were there His Majesty paid the troops at the front a visit. The special correspondent of the Montreal Star in Northern France wrote on that occasion : " I have had an interview with a Canadian colonel who had the honour of being interrogated 14 The Battle Glory of Canada by the King. Where the intimate talk occurred was very close to the shell zone, not in France, but in Belgium, and it was the maple leaves on the cap of the Canadian staff officer which attracted the King's notice. His Majesty knew just how many remounts were expected from Canada, their breed, and just what province they came from. He mentioned Manitoba and Alberta, and he thanked the officer for the splendid organisation work which had been done. He even went farther and showed intimate knowledge of how the horses were packed on transports, and said : ' Don't spare room, but get them here in good condition.' His Majesty is reported to have said : ' The loyalty of Canada has not surprised me. It has, with our other Dominions, made us proud of the Empire.'" In the meantime, owing to the wet winter, conditions had grown worse and worse on Salisbury Plain, and at length the contingent was billeted in the towns and villages round the Plain. But the sojourn round Salisbury Plain did not last long. On the i6th of February, in the Canadian House of Commons, Sir Robert Borden read the following dispatch from the Colonial Secretary to the Duke of Connaught : "Your Ministers will be glad to hear that the Canadian troops are doing well at the front, the contingent having crossed safely to France." There had, of course, been rumours about that the con- tingent was leaving, and so on, but not a word had been published. Sir Robert Borden's statement was the first public announcement of the Canadians' arrival in France. We must now leave the contingent for a time, and turn to Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, a regiment which is distinct from the contingent, and which went to^ the front some months before the great body of Canadian troops. CHAPTER II THE HEROIC "PRINCESS PATRICIA'S" A touch of the plain and the prairie, A bit of the Motherland, too ; A strain of the fur trapper wary, A blend of the old and the new. A bit of the pioneer splendour That opened the wilderness flats, A touch of the home-lover tender You'll find in the boys they call " Pat's." The glory and strength of the maple, The courage that's born of the wheat, The pride of the stock that is staple. The bronze of the midsummer heat, A mixture of wisdom and daring, The best of a new land, and that's The regiment gallantly bearing The neat little title of " Pat's." A bit of the man who has neighboured With mountains, and forests, and streams, A touch of the man who has laboured To model and fashion his dreams, The strength of an age of clean living. Of right-minded fatherly chats. The best that a land could be giving Is there in the breasts of the " Pat's." The Daily Courier, Brantford, Ontario. On the day of the declaration of war Mr. Hamilton Gault, of Montreal, offered to equip a regiment for active service. The offer was accepted, and in a few days a regiment consisting almost entirely of old soldiers was raised, and Lieutenant-Colonel F. D. Farquhar, Military 15 i6 The Battle Glory of Canada Secretary to the Governor-General, was appointed to the command of it, while the founder of the regiment, with the rank of major, was the second in command. The reg-iment was permitted to take the name " Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry," after the Governor- General's daughter. On the 23rd of August Princess Patricia presented colours to the regiment, after Divine Service. This was the first appearance of the regiment since its equipment, and it made a splendid showing. The great majority of the men had one or more medals. When presenting the colours, which she had worked with her own hands. Princess Patricia said that she hoped they would be associated with what she believed would be a distinguished corps. She would follow, she said, the fortunes of all with deep interest and she wished the regiment good luck. After the colours had been presented, the Duke of Connaught addressed the men in these words : " It gives me great pleasure to attend the first church parade that has been held by the regiment since its formation a week ago. I congratulate you upon its very creditable appearance, reflecting as it does the greatest credit on all ranks, and especially on the staff, upon whom so heavy a demand has been made. The attendance of the Duchess and myself to-day has given us an opportunity of accompanying our daughter on the occasion of the presentation by her to you of a camp colour which she has worked with her own hands. The Duchess and I are proud of having been asked by Major Hamilton Gault, to whose patriotism the inception of the regiment is due, to allow the regiment to be named after the Princess Patricia. I feel confident that you, the men of the regiment, representing every part of Canada as you do, many of whom are imbued with the great traditions of the army, in which you have formerly served, and who in every clime and in every part of the world have nobly done your duty toward your Sovereign and your country, will never forget the watchword of every true soldier — duty, discipline and mercy." A Crack Regiment 17 Those who witnessed the parade stated that it was very doubtful if a finer and more experienced body of men than the Princess Patricia's was ever gathered into one regi- ment at the beginning of a campaign. Ottawa gave a splendid farewell to the regiment. Im- mense crowds lined the route of march, flags were displayed everywhere, and the men were heartily cheered. Princess Patricia's eyes, it is said, were wet with tears as she bade the men a final farewell at the Central Station. There were many tearful partings also between the men and their relatives. The Duke and Duchess of Connaught were present, and also Sir Robert Borden and Lady Borden, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Sir George Foster, the Hon, Robert Rogers, the Hon. W. T. White, the Hon. L. P. Pelletier, the Hon. Louis Coderre, the Hon. Dr. Reid, the Hon. J. D. Hazen, and others. Colonel Sam Hughes, Minister of Militia, reviewed the regiment from a position in front of the Parlia- ment Buildings opposite the Rideau Club. On the arrival of the regiment at Montreal there was a repetition of enthusiastic scenes. Canada was proud of this crack regiment, and the people showed it. In due course the regiment arrived with the Canadian contingent at Plymouth, and went to Salisbury Plain. The officers of the regiment on its arrival were as follows : Lieutenant-Colonel Commanding, Lieutenant-Colonel F. D. Farquhar, D.S.O., late of the Duke of Connaught's household; Major, Major A. H. Gault; A djutatH, Captain H. C. Buller; Quartermaster, Hon. Lieutenant C. A. Wake; Paymaster, Hon. Captain D. H. MacDougall; Medical Officer, Major C. B. Keenan. Company Officers: Majors J. W. H. McKinery, C. Q. Court, J. D. H. Shaw, R. T. Pelly ; Captains J. S. Ward, C. F. Smith, A. S. A. M. Adamson, D. O. C. Newton; Lieutenants F. Fitzgerald, J. L. Car, D. E. Cameron, E. L. Christie, P. V. Cornish, D. F. B. Gray, C. E. Crabbe, S. L. Jones, W. G. Colquhoun, C. H. Price, J. P. French, F. F. Minchin, B. F. Balnsmith, H. M. Niven, M. S. de Bay, C. E. T. C i8 The Battle Glory of Canada Stewart, H. E. Sullivan, T. M. Papineau, S. H. Bennett, F. L. Eardley-Wilmot. The list is interesting in view of the fact that in a few months all but two or three were destined to appear in the casualty lists. The official figures regarding the men were as follows. The regiment consisted of i,ioi men. Of these 715 were of English birth, 148 were Scottish, 118 were Cana- dian, 73 were Irish, 9 Welsh, 7 from India, and 2 French. Of the 118 Canadian-born, 65 were from Western Canada. Worked out in percentages, this means that 64 per cent, were English, 13 per cent, were of Scottish birth, 6 per cent, were Irish, 7 per cent, were men claiming various nationalities, and 10 per cent, were Canadian born. The regiment spent some time with the contingent on Salisbury Plain and then went to Winchester, but was dis- patched to France in time for the men to eat their Christmas dinner within sound of the guns. A sergeant in the regiment wrote (as quoted in the Daily Mail) : " At last we are where we wanted to be, and are con- tented with our little lot. We had a fairly good Christmas. Dinner consisted of bully beef and biscuits and whatever we could forage. My friend Sergeant and myself did not do so bad, as we had one carrot, half a turnip, two leeks, one onion, two Oxo cubes, and 12 ozs. of bully beef, with three hard biscuits, all mixed up and boiled in a bully beef tin. It sure made a tasty dinner. To-day we had our Christmas pudding, }4 lb. a man, i-lb. tin of jam between four men, and a small bottle of wine also between four men. We are in good spirits, and within hearing distance of the big guns." News of the regiment's doings at first was scanty, but in January a private invalided home with frost-bitten feet kindly gave me the following details of the regiment's first experi- ences at the front. He said : " It was getting on in December before we got our orders to go to the front. We gaily marched out of Winchester to . We managed that easily enough, although it was our first march with full ammunition pouches, every man In Billets in France 19 receiving 120 rounds before starting-. We crossed at night, and disembarked on the following afternoon. The French folk were wildly enthusiastic as we marched off to the camp, seven miks off. On arrival we found there was no grub for us, and it was a sad and weary bunch that turned in for the night. Next day we marched down to the station and embarked in cattle cars — forty men in each car. If I had a grudge against a bunch of fellows, I think if I could put them, forty in a car, and haul them around for a few days and nights, with no stop longer than five minutes, and feed them twice daily on a couple of hard tack biscuits and a chunk of bully beef, I would feel my grudge was wiped out. At any rate, it was a most uncomfortable trip. Forty men cannot possibly lie down in one car. They can't even sit in comfort. We just squatted huddled up, and tried to forget cramp and such troubles. The second night we arrived at our jumping-off place, not far from , and after some delay started off in the dark for our billets. We had about ten miles to go, and we were all about baked by the time we got there. Our billets were the large farmhouses around a fairly decent village, and there we made ourselves tolerably comfortable in the straw and hay in the various barns and stables. We stayed there, doing nothing particu- lar, over Christmas until the 4th of January. Christmas Day went off very quietly with us. Our supply of Christmas pud- dings did not turn up until New Year's Day, but as the mail was arriving from England, several fellows got a private supply, and we were able to buy a few luxuries in the village, such as bottles of wine, etc., so our bully beef and hard tack were pretty well supplemented. " After the first day or two we were taken out daily, with full equipment, and made to dig trenches. A continuous line of them was being constructed right across the country. Our division dug three miles a day, and our task was to complete thirty miles. We got very fed up with the job, especially toward the end. We had about eight miles to march each way. We were allowed to remove our picks and equipment. 20 The Battle Glory of Canada but had to pile everything, with bayonet fixed, on top, not more than two yards away. All over this country two feet strikes water, so trench digging was always sloppy work. Early on the morning of the 3rd we were overjoyed to hear that we were to go straight into the firing line. We marched steadily all day, and crossed the Belgian frontier with the rest of the division. The cobble-stones were very wearying for a march. Moreover, once again we had to make a full day's march without food. When we got within three miles of the trenches shells burst somewhere near every now and again. •* We were told we were to extend the British line and to relieve French troops in the trenches. The Patricia's were given the post of honour, that of holding the extreme British left, facing the German fortified position. Absolute silence was ordered and no smoking was allowed. It was most weird. Great shell holes were plentiful in the cobbled roads. By and by we left the shelter of the hedge and road and were out in the open. All around rifles were cracking and everyone was ducking to avoid bullets. We had to cross 400 yards of open ground to reach our trenches. The mud was so awful that we had laboriously to pull each leg out of it with our hands at every step. Presently up went a flare from the enemy, turning the darkness into the brightness of day, and down we flopped and lay there until the light went out. Our chins were well under the slime and quite a lot got into our ears. Our rifles were so muddied that they resembled brooms, shovels — anything but rifles, just long chunks of mud. Our water-bottles and haversacks were in- distinguishable from lumps of mud. Up went another flare, and down we flopped again, and so, by slow degrees, we gradually flopped our way to the rear of our trench when the enemy turned a machine-gun on us. We wriggled forward on all fours, and at length reached what was to be our muddy home for the next forty-eight hours. The Frenchmen had all turned out as soon as we put in an appearance, and were wriggling their way across the open to safety and rest. Raked by **Jack Johnsons" 21 " Our first job was to number off in threes, every third man standing guard and being relieved by the other two in rotation each hour. We had time to look around. Fourteen dark shapes were seen ahead. These were the dead bodies of Frenchmen, who had been mowed down as they left the trench for a charge. They were lying on their faces, still clutching their rifles. The German trenches were sixty yards away, and beyond them was a small wood on rising ground, every tree of which seemed to contain a machine-gun. The slush in the trenches was well above our knees, and the problem was how to get a footing and tO' keep our rifles out of the slime. A heavy, drizzling rain gave a finishing touch to our joys in the night. Next day there were lively ex- changes of shots with the enemy, and in the afternoon the whole of the German batteries in their rear were turned on to our trenches. We were raked for about an hour by the most awful fusillade of shrapnel, * Jack Johnsons,' ' coal boxes,' and every description of heavy artillery fire. We could only crouch back and hope that our trench would escape. Dozens of shells fell all around. One of them lifted three dead Frenchmen high in the air and threw mud and water all over us, but we had no casualty in our trench at all. Our own batteries, which had arrived in considerable force in our rear, began to- reply to the Germans, and the air became thick with flying shells, and the din was almost deafening. Our guns soon got their measure, for within an hour they had silenced the German batteries, and we in the trenches were able to stretch our necks and limbs again. When night came I volunteered, with two others, to go and fill the water bottles for the platoon. We had to make our way back to a ruined brewery where the pump was still working. This we successfully managed. A few snipers' bullets whistled uncomfortably near to us, and it was during this journey, I think, that I had my maple leaf shot away. The night passed quietly, almost without incident, and the following day passed very quietly for us in the trenches. Our artillery carried on a terrific bombardment over our heads at 22 The Battle Glory of Canada the German guns, doing, I understand, great work, while the enemy was only able to reply at intervals. As the third night approached we earnestly prayed for a good, dark night so that our relief would not be seen. We were near the break- ing point. Most of us were shivering violently as if with ague. Our hands wouldn't clasp the rifles, which were mostly in an unusable condition from the mud, with bolts jambed hopelessly and no one with the strength to clean them. " Fortunately the night was dark and our relief turned up in good time, and out we struggled, the strong helping the weak; but hardly a man of us but was almost at the limit of endurance. We safely negotiated the open and wearily tramped, or, rather, hobbled back to the reserve trenches about a mile back, where we hoped to get rest for the next forty-eight hours. The reserve trenches proved a great disappointment. They were long covered dug-outs, into which we crowded and packed ourselves. The roof was less than four feet from the floor, sO' a sitting posture was compulsory. The roof leaked horribly, and most of us were in puddles of water. Our clothes were saturated with water and slime, and our limbs ached. So we remained in misery and discomfort until next evening, when we all crawled out to a ruined brewery near by, where a hot tea had been pre- pared for us — the first hot food we had tasted for four days and nights. We stayed there for the night. The following night the regiment mobilised and marched back for a week's rest. I was taken off in a motor ambulance with many others, either frostbitten or wounded." It was during this first experience of work in the trenches that the regiment lost its first officer to be killed, Captain D. O. C. Newton, M.V.O. Captain Newton had served in the Middlesex Regiment in the Boer War, and afterwards as A.D.C. to the Earl of Dundonald when the latter commanded the Canadian Militia, and to Earl Grey, Governor-General of Canada from 1906 to 1909. He was acting military secretary to the Duke of Connaught when the Princess Patricia's were In the Advanced Trenches 23 formed. He was extremely popular with his men, who recog- nised in him a very capable officer. Of the regiment's early work in the trenches when frost- bite and rheumatism claimed many victims, some of those who were invalided home gave graphic descriptions. A corporal suffering from rheumatism and other evil effects of life in the trenches, told me how, in the division to which the regi- ment was attached, each regiment took turns of duty in the advanced trenches, which were only forty yards from the Germans. All relief of trenches had to be effected at night, as to be outside the trench in the daylight meant certain death. Each regiment took its turn of forty-eight hours in the advanced trenches, and then, when relieved, went to the reserve trenches, where another forty-eight hours were spent, and then to dug-outs for twenty-four hours, after which a spell of rest was allowed. Only in the advanced trench was the fire really dangerous, and in the dug-outs there was prac- tically safety from fire. All the casualties took place when getting in or out of the trenches. The advanced trench, which had been occupied for some weeks by French troops, was two feet deep in slush and slime, and was very unsani- tary ; and what made conditions worse was that outside the trench were lying the dead bodies of French soldiers who had fallen in a charge some time previously. These poor bodies, horribly mangled by shell fire, had been left unburied, as it was quite impossible to approach them in face of the German fire. At night these bodies looked horrible, and many of the men used to fancy that they moved. A night in the trenches was not good for the nerves. Every now and then the Germans would send up a flare, which for half a minute made everything show up as if it was daylight. Then every- one dropped into the slime for fear of being seen. Food had to be brought to the trenches at night, and that was the only time that rations could be served out. Enough bully beef and hard tack biscuits was served out to last each man for twenty- four hours. The ration party who brought the food to the trenches always did so at the risk of being discovered by the 24 The Battle Glory of Canada flares and fired at. Of course, there was no possibility of getting hot food in the trenches. That made the cold of the wet trenches the harder to bear. From the 5th of January, when the regiment first went into the firing line, until the end of that month it was on and off in the trenches, and though constantly under fire it lost but few men, considering the terrible fire kept up by the Germans. Snipers accounted for most of the casualties. Captain Fitz- gerald and Lieutenant Price were both killed in that way. The regiment organised a "snipers' corps" to counteract the work done by the German snipers, and very soon Princess Patricia's men were paying the Germans back in their own coin. On the 4th of February the regiment came out of the trenches for a six days' rest. By this time they had earned a splendid reputation. An officer who came home invalided spoke with the greatest pride of the men of the regiment. They were, he said, splendid fellows, and though they had had a trying time in the trenches there was no grumbling. He could not say what were the total casualties, but he knew that in one company the losses were one officer and five men killed and eig^ht men wounded. Besides these there were men invalided, suffering- from complaints brought on by the state of the trenches. The country was just a quagmire, and the trenches were full of slush and mud. The communicating trenches were practically unusable, and latterly the men had gone into the trenches with forty-eight hours' rations, as it was too dangerous for the ration parties to come to the trenches. The German firings line was only about forty yards away from the Patricia's, while a German sap brought some of the enemy within fifteen yards of our trenches. Our men could hear the Germans talking- quite plainly. The officer went on to pay a tribute to the pluck and skill of the German snipers. The men in the enemy's trench varied very much. Sometimes they were first-rate shots, and on other days their place would be taken by men vastly inferior. One of the Patricia's had a singular experience. He was hit, and fell saying that he was done for. When he was examined he was Not Exactly a Picnic 25 found to be unwounded, and only suffering from the shock. The bullet had hit his pocket-book, had ploughed its way through a portrait of his wife, and had then passed out of the shoulder of his tunic without wounding him, though he had been knocked over by the shock. During the regiment's spell of rest, it received a visit from the Prince of Wales and Prince Arthur of Connaught, both of whom showed a warm interest in the regiment. On the 12th of February the Patricia's returned to the trenches. Sir John French in a dispatch published about this time spoke of the regiment, and said : " They are a magnificent set of men and have done excellent work in the trenches." The casual- ties up to this time among N.C.O.'s and men numbered thirteen killed, four died of wounds, and forty-three wounded. In addition, some 150 had been invalided home through sick- ness or accidents. Life in the trenches was, as one of the Princess Patricia's men said, not exactly a picnic. One of them writing home, and describing his ex|>eriences in a letter which was published in the Bath Herald, said : " We were given an especial honour, and took over trenches from the French troops. In dead silence and single file we set out after dark on our last three miles. Soon a few stray bullets began to whiz. Imagine a pitch dark night and a pouring rain. Nothing living but the single file of ghostlike figures creeping on in silence. The bullets became far more frequent as we came nearer to the trenches, until one could hear them hum by continually. Then a whispered order came along, * When the flares go up fall down flat wherever you are.' You know the light- blue flare that the Germans use. They throw them up about every five minutes, and they add by their weird colour to an already quite creepy scene. When one went up I was stand- ing in a big puddle of mud and water just mixed to a paste. I was pleased — ' not 'arf ' — to go down flop at full length in it; but it had to be done. We were then within 100 yards of our trenches and about 150 from the enemy. The bullets zipped overhead and came most uncomfortably close at times. 26 The Battle Glory of Canada Suddenly on our right a machine gun added its clatter to the crack of tlie rifles ; an attack, apparently, but not on our part of the line. We were left for some twenty minutes lying in the open while the guide confirmed his bearings. Though the Germans were within shouting distance, and despite the hail of lead, most of us went to sleep. " At last we arrived at our trench, and the French filed out and we went in. Oh, Glory ! I stood for hours in three feet of stiff mud. Whenever I wanted to move I had to get the next man to dig me out a little. I notice that the papers tell you that we live in nice boarded ' dug-outs ' — with doors and windows, tables and chairs, and I suppose mats to wipe our feet on. I should be overjoyed to notice a trench like that. I think if the mats were made to have ' Welcome ' stamped on them it would sound more complete. However, one must not grumble. We live and look well on what the papers call eggs and bacon ; we always thought it was bully beef and biscuits ; it comes in Frey Bentos tins, anyway. But after all we seem to keep well, and there are very few men with even colds in the regiment, and that after thirty- six hours standing up to our knees in slush or water. " Cramps in the stomach are what we do suffer from, and peppermints are a great help to avoid that. When you are sending a parcel to the front send peppermints (very strong ones), chocolate, socks (as many as you can), and apples or fruit of any kind. Sardines and sausages for a treat some- times, but the first four things are necessaries. Tobacco we get plenty of. A good scheme is to put in a few sheets of notepaper and envelopes, as you must realise that a man carries all his possessions on his back, and everything he carries gets soaking wet. If you want an answer to a letter enclose paper and envelope, and you will most likely be silently blessed. No doubt you know I was sent home with frost-bite, but I am ready to go back now. Queer thing to get that frost-bite, but there, if they must march a man over cobbled roads, and then stand him in water for a couple of days without any soles to his boots, he's almost bound to Winning a Reputation 27 get something- queer. All the boots we seemed able to get were sevens and eights, and they are no use to a man that requires tens, are they? And some of us, even a good many, have a ' lot turned up at the ends.' However, we manage to keep smiling. Some of the trenches we have occupied were worse than the first, but most were rather better, though not much." The spirit of the men was splendid. Whether in letters or by word of mouth officers and men told of their life in the trenches in the same cheerful fashion. They did not disguise the fact that there was much to be endured, but there was a keenness about them all to win a reputation for the regi- ment. The following letter from a corporal of the Patricia's written to his wife in Toronto gives a vivid picture of his experiences. The letter was dated " Somewhere in France, Jan. 26th," and it was as follows : " I was just making my last trip to the trenches just before dawn with a party of men taking some tea, when I underwent an experience I will never forget so long as I live. I had just left the trenches on my way back, and my company officer had told me to be very careful, when, bang ! bang ! bang ! about twenty bombs and shrapnel shells and a perfect avalanche of bullets burst over our heads. It was hell with the lid off for about five minutes. I knew I was near cover, if I could only get about ten yards. I shouted for the others to follow me, but two of them were too ex- hausted, and lay face down in the mud and escaped unhurt. I got round the corner and was pulled into safety by Sergeant-Major Smith and Sergeant Martin, all in, but safe. Two hours later Sergeant-Major Smith had his left arm shattered. Sergeant Martin was hit in the abdomen and is not expected to recover. Two of my comrades were killed outright, and my company officer was shot through the temple and died about two hours later. Captain Fitzgerald was killed whilst he was trying to find one of our dead men's identity disc. We have had three officers killed — soldiers and gentle- (< 28 The Battle Glory of Canada men all. I am telling you all this so as to let you know that I cannot be killed by bomb, rifle, or big- gun. That is confidence for you. Tell them all at home that the regiment is upholding dear old Canada's reputation. Toronto is a long way from here, but I wouldn't change places with the most comfortable place in the world." At length the monotony of life in the trenches was broken, and the regiment was given the chance of a close encounter with the Germans. Sir John French, in his report issued on the 2nd of March, said : " On our left a party of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry captured a German trench with great dash. After killing eleven of the occupants and driving off the remainder they succeeded in blowing up the trench. Our losses were trifling." Mr. Asquith, in the House of Commons on the previous day, in referring to the situation at the front, said : " Our own Dominions and our great Dependency in India have sent us splendid contributions of men, large numbers of whom are at the front. Before very long, in one or another of the actual theatres of war, the whole of them will be in the fighting line. We learn to-day with great satisfaction that Princess Patricia's Canadian Regiment has been doing most gallant and efficient work during the last few days." In this charge Major Hamilton Gault was wounded in the arm, and Captain Colquhoun was taken prisoner. The reports of the engagement were very meagre, but a corporal of the regiment sent home a brief account. He wrote : " On the last day of February, just before dawn, our company was ordered to attempt to force one of the German trenches. As we climbed over the parapet the enemy, by means of their magnesium flares, spotted us, and immediately opened up on us a withering machine-gun fire. " We lost men — some of my best friends and comrades — but on we kept plodding through a quagmire of mud, and when we jumped over the enemy's parapet into their trench we had to tramp over dead men. The rest of the Huns, afraid of the cold steel, fled screaming like children or went Death and Glory 29 down on their knees and begged for mercy. This, in true British fashion, was granted them." The official casualty list included — besides Major Gault and Captain Colquhoun — Lieutenant C. E. Crabbe, Lieu- tenant W. J. Doxsee, and Major J. S. Ward, all wounded. From this time onward the regiment, during its turn in the trenches, was constantly under fire, and the casualty lists told the tale of what the Patricia's suffered. In one week came the news that Lieutenant D. E. Cameron was killed. Major J. S. Ward had died of wounds, and Lieutenant A. M. Gow and Lieutenant C. J. T. Stewart were wounded. But the greatest blow came when Colonel F. D, Farqubar was killed by a sniper. He was greatly beloved by his officers and men. In Canada, where he was well known, his death caused deep sorrow. Sir Robert Borden, the Prime Minister, speaking in the Canadian House of Commons on the 22nd of March, said that of all the able men who had filled the posi- tion of Military Secretary to the Governor-General, none had performed his duties more efficiently and conscientiously. His death was a loss to the Empire. The Prime Minister read a letter received from Colonel Farquhar only that morning, in which he spoke with great pride of the fine work done by his regiment, and referred to the gallant action in which the regiment had taken part a few days before the date of the letter, March 4th. The Germans, wrote the colonel, occupied the trenches opfK>site, and it was decided that it was neces- sary to carry them by storm. The attack, led by Lieutenants Crabbe and Papineau, was made with great spirit and dash, and the Germans were routed. Colonel Farquhar's letter to Sir Robert Borden included the following messages which he had received : ** The Army Commander wishes you to express to the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry his appreciation of the grand piece of work performed by them this morning." " Please give my heartiest congratulations to the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry on their gallant and useful exploit." (From General Plumer.) 30 The Battle Glory of Canada " Please express to Lieutenant Crabbe and the party he led my great appreciation of their services." (From Com- mander-in-Chief.) " Congratulations on your splendid work." (From General Snow.) The capture of this trench was again referred to in a dispatch from Sir John French to the Duke of Connaught, in the following words : "The Princess Patricia's have performed splendid service in the trenches. When I inspected them, in pouring rain, it seemed to me that I had never seen a more magnificent- looking battalion, Guards or otherwise. Two or three days ago they captured a German trench with great dash and energy." In the same official casualty list that contained the name of Colonel Farquhar, were included those of Lieutenant F. Eardley-Wilmot, killed, and Lieutenant H. W. Niven and Lieutenant E. O. C. Martin, wounded. Lieutenant C. Wake, of the Princess Patricia's, in a letter to his wife in Toronto, described the funeral of Colonel Farquhar: " After the funeral. General Fortescue asked us to gather around him, and in a voice broken with emotion he said : ' Officers, non-commissioned officers, and men of the Princess Patricia's Light Infantry : Speaking for the staff, the death of your colonel is most deeply felt by us. A truer gentleman and more splendid soldier I have never known. Your work under him has been excellent. We sympathise with you in your loss, which is also ours. I can say no more.' " Lieutenant-Colonel Farquhar was the only surviving son of Sir H. T. Farquhar, Bart. He was born in 1874, and joined the Coldstream Guards when twenty-two years of age. He saw active service with his regiment in South Africa, going out in 1899 and winning the D.S.O. the follow- ing year. He was mentioned in dispatches, and was awarded the Queen's medal with five clasps. He served with the Chinese Regiment of Infantry, and in 1903 joined the Somali- Colonel Farquhar 31 land Expedition, in which he again was distinguished for bravery and for which he received another medal with clasps. From 1908 till 191 3 he served on the General Staff at the War Office, and in the latter year he was appointed Military Secretary to the Duke of Connaught. In 1905 he married Lady Evelyn Hely-Hutchinson, sister of the sixth Earl of Donoughmore, and two daughters were born to them. A recent pen-picture said of him : " Personally, Colonel Farquhar is a man of great nervous energy. His quick- ness of speech and movement bespeak the life and love of action. He infuses a desire to accomphsh something into not only his subordinates, but all those with whom he comes in contact. When not engrossed with soldiering, he rides, being an enthusiastic and expert horseman. He has ridden in many renowned races, and has won numerous valuable trophies upon the hunting and racing field. He is not par- ticularly fond of golf or angling as so many of his country- men are, but takes his first pleasure, as has been said, in the saddle." A memorial service was held in London at St. Mary's, Bryanston Square, on the 20th of March. Colonel Farquhar's death added one more name to the heavy list of casualties which had befallen the personal staff of the Duke of Con- naught. Captain Rivers-Bulkeley, who was killed in October last, had long been A.D.C. and equerry to His Royal High- ness. Captain D. O. C. Newton, the first officer to fall in Princess Patricia's regiment, was another of his A.D.C.'s, while Colonel Lowther, Captain Robin Grant, and Lieutenant A. C. D. Graham had all been more or less seriously wounded. On the 13th of April the London Gazette contained the appointment of a new commander of the battalion, as follows : Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. — Captain H. C. Duller, Rifle Brigade, to command the battalion and to be temporary lieutenant-colonel, vice F. D. Farquhar, D.S.O., Coldstream Guards (killed in action), dated March 21. 32 The Battle Glory of Canada Two days later the Loridon Gazette published the follow- ing honours conferred on officers of Princess Patricia's : Distinguished Service Order.— Major Andrew Hamilton Gault,* Princess Patricia's. For conspicuous gallantry at St. Eloi on Feb. 27, 19 1 5, in reconnoitring quite close tO' the enemy's posi- tion and obtaining information of great value for our attack which was carried out next day. On Feb. 28 Major Gault assisted in the rescue of the wounded under most difficult circumstances whilst exposed to heavy fire. Military Crosses. — Lieutenant W. G. Colquhoun, Princess Patricia's. For conspicuous gallantry and resource on numerous occasions, especially at St. Eloi on Jan. 26, 191 5, when he rescued, with the assistance of one man, a mortally wounded officer after three others had failed in the attempt, being under very heavy close-range fire the whole time. Again on Feb. 27, 191 5, at St. Eloi, this officer rendered valuable assistance on reconnaissance duty under very difficult and dangerous circumstances. Lieutenant T. M. Papineau, Princess Patricia's. For conspicuous gallantry at St. Eloi on Feb. 28, 191 5, when in charge of bomb throwers during our attack on the enemy's trenches. He shot two of the enemy himself, and then ran along the German sap throwing bombs therein. These accounts in the Gazette ate the only reports of the gallant deeds here described that have been published. It is therefore impossible, at present, to say more about them, than that they gave great satisfaction not only to the * Major Gault on the X5tli of April, 1915, had the honour of being invested with his order by the King at Windsor Castle. Major Gault Gets his D.S.O. 33 regiment, but to Canadians generally. A private in the regi- ment who was at the time home invalided with frost-bitten feet, spoke with enthusiasm to me of his officers. He said : "Major Gault deserved his D.S.O. He is splendid, and sets us all an example in never sparing himself. He was still in the firing line the day after he was wounded. He is immensely popular with his men — always kind and always cheery. I am glad to hear, too, that Lieutenant Colquhoun is not only alive, but has also been decorated. He is a mag- nificent fellow, over six feet in height. He joined the regi- ment as a private, was speedily made an N.CO,, and then was given a commission. When Captain Fitzgerald went out to bring in a wounded man and was himself mortally wounded. Lieutenant Colquhoun went out after him and brought him in. How it came about that we all thought Lieutenant Colquhoun must have been killed was as follows : He went out to make a reconnaissance to trace a German trench mortar which had given us a good deal of trouble, and we never saw him again. There is not a man in the regiment who will not be glad to hear that he is alive, although it is a pity that he is a prisoner. ... I cannot tell you how grieved we all were when Colonel Farquhar was killed. He was typical of all that is best in the British officer. He meant his regiment to be in the thick of the fighting and to earn a name for itself. Officers and men were all picked, and very few mistakes were made, and the trenches soon found them out. Week by week the trenches exacted their toll of officers and men. In addition to those already mentioned, the death of Captain R. G. R. Mansfield was recorded early in March. During the same period Lieutenant Stanley F. Jones was reported wounded, and Lieutenant P. V. Cornish, Captain D. F. B. Gray, Hon. Lieutenant Fennimore and Captain Minchin were invalided home. Here we may pause for a moment in the story to quote two letters written about this time by soldiers of Princess Patricia's, not because they add anything to our knowledge D 34 The Battle Glory of Canada of operations, but merely because they show what dear good fellows the men of the regiment were. There is a genuine ring of kindness and good-nature in the letters. A little schoolgirl at Ilminster received a letter from James H. Watson, of the Princess Patricia's, written in a con- valescent camp, thanking her for a marked egg contributed by her to a collection made at the infants' school, for wounded sailors and soldiers. The letter is as follows : " Dear Olive, I have just finished breakfast and enjoyed your egg very much, and must thank you for being so kind and thoughtful. Indeed, when I was having breakfast it brought many happy thoughts of the happy little Easter parties 1 used to have as a child in the highlands of Ireland. I am sure you must love our dear old flag, and when a Britisher is away, mixed up with foreigners, he thinks quite a lot about it. In Western Canada, when the Motherland declared war, we were all in such a way to help. I joined Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry on the 12th of August, and Princess Patricia, the daughter of the Duke of Connaught, after whom the regiment is called, made our colours with her own hands. We have nearly all of us fought for our King and Empire. I was wounded in the shoulder, but I am perfectly all right now and shall be going to my regiment shortly to fight the cruel, bad Germans again. We have lost all our officers except three. Our colonel, Colonel Farquhar, D.S.O., a kind and gallant soldier, got killed, and Major Hamilton Gault was wounded. It was he that paid all expenses. He bought all our clothes, guns and everything, and it must have cost him a few hundred thou- sand dollars. I will do my best to kill some Germans, that is if they don't kill me. I have got two medals for fighting in South Africa. Now, dear little Olive, I know we shall win, and we will make Germany pay for what they have done to the dear little Belgian children. Our flag is the flag of liberty, and there is more justice under it than under any other flag in the world." Another private, who received a parcel from a lady in Complimented by General French 35 Ireland, wrote in a letter of thanks : " I am in receipt of a parcel, and amongst its contents are a pair of socks which, I understand, were knitted by you; and I can assure you that your gift is very much appreciated. It is splendid to think that while we are at the front we are still remembered by the folks at home. I often think that after all we at the front have the easier part to play. It must be very hard for parents, more especially mothers, to have their sons in the fighting, and the suspense and anxiety that they undergo at times must be hard indeed. We from Canada fully appre- ciate the many kindnesses shown us by the people of the old land, and deem it a privilege to be engaged in a war against the common enemy side by side with the British troops and their Allies." Sergeant John Anderson, of the I^rincess Patricia's, who was wounded near St. Eloi and was sent to Netley Hospital, wrote to his brother describing the scene of that action : " There is always heavy fighting there all the time, and it is considered one of the strongest positions the Germans hold in the whole line. When the French Army handed over the trenches to us they said that the German position was im- pregnable. They could do nothing with it. Princess Pat's, on their own account, attacked the Germans twice and took part in one brigade attack. Of course we lost a lot of men, but I always got through successfully and never missed one hour of trench work in the two and a half months. I was the last original sergeant left, and we have lost pretty nearly the whole battalion. We have been reinforced by four dif- ferent drafts, and I do not think the regiment is more than 550 strong at the present time. I was wounded building a new trenchj standing on the top of a parapet making a loophole." In a later letter, Sergeant Anderson wrote : " I guess you saw by the papers that the ' P.P. 's ' had been at it again. There was no hot air attached tO' that report, and we were highly complimented by General French and the leading military heads on this side of the water. I must say I 36 The Battle Glory of Canada thought myself that it was a fine piece of work and carried out in a masterly manner. The British brought up big- guns, which absolutely destroyed the enemy's trenches that lay to our right front. From where we were we could hear the Germans screaming as the shells landed amongst them. At one time I was sorry for them, but I thought of my poor comrades that had gone, and saw with my own eyes the Germans trying to kill by shooting at our stretcher part; carrying wounded men." Since the battle of Ypres the Princess Patricia's have seen some very heavy fighting. The Daily Mail's special corre- spondent in the North of France, in a dispatch dated May lo, described a heavy bombardment of the British trenches west of Zonnebeke. He said : "The Princess Patricia's, backed by many other British regiments — the Monmouths, the London Rifle Brigade, the Argyll and Sutherland High- landers — suffered terribly and did many deeds of heroism which should live down the ages. Once again fighting for the same place as before, a small group of Canadians stood back to back, firing in both directions at enveloping Germans. The front trenches in which they were, and into which they had most reluctantly retired from the much more spacious trenches of Zonnebeke, were soon knocked quite out of shape and semblance of trenches by heavy shells. "They (the Germans) came, not in the old sheepish if splendidly drilled trot, but in short rushes. The Prussian Guard was there opposite the Patricia's, farther north in the line. Some of the enemy were dressed in khaki, and a few in almost civilian clothes." Within the next week or two the following casualties were published : Killed, Lieutenant A. Edwards. Died of wounds : Lieutenant R. F. Crawford. Wounded : Captain A. Adam- son, Lieutenant C. R. Banning, Lieutenant B. F. Bainsmith, Lieutenant-Colonel H. C. Buller, Lieutenant P. V. Cornish, Lieutenant M. S. De Bay, Major A. Hamilton Gault, Captain D. F. B. Gray, Captain S. H. Hill, Lieutenant A. G. Martin. Good Luck to the Patricia's 37 Captain N. C. Ogilvie, and Lieutenant G. Triggs. Missing : Lieutenant H. S. Denison and Lieutenant P. Lane. It will be seen that in this heavy list of casualties are the names of the new colonel of the regiment, Colonel Buller, and of the founder of the regiment, Major Hamilton Gault, wounded for the second time, and this time in three places. Reinforcements of officers and men became urgently neces- sary as there were only about 200 men left and hardly any officers. As I write, I hear of thirteen officers and 300 men having either arrived or being on their way. We must here wish the gallant Patricia's farewell and good luck. May they win more laurels, and if possible, add to the glorious reputation gained by Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. CHAPTER III BRAVE WORK IN THE TRENCHES " The Canadian troops having arrived at the front, I am anxious to tell your Royal Highness that they have made the highest impression on us all. I made a careful inspection the week after they came to the country, and was very much struck by the excellent physique which was apparent throughout the ranks. The soldierly bearing and steadiness with which the men stop in the ranks on a bleak, cold, and snowy day are most remark- able. After two or three weeks' preliminary education in the trenches, they have now taken over their own line, and I have the utmost confidence in their capability to do valuable and efficient service. ... I am writing these few lines because I know how deeply we all are indebted to the untiring and devoted efforts your Royal Highness has personally made to ensure the dispatch in the most efficient condition of this valuable contingent." Sir John French to the Duke of Connaught, March yd, 1915. We left the Canadian conting^ent billeted in towns and villages round Salisbury Plain. There they remained until the middle of February, when at length they received orders to sail for France. The secret of their departure was well kept ; they were smuggled out of the country, and the first that the public knew of their departure was news that they had landed in France. An officer writing on the 15th of February said : " Here we are at last after a four-days* journey which should have taken thirty hours. We ran into terrific weather, and had to ride the storm. We slept on the floor and in chairs all over the ship. It was only a cargo boat, and there was very little room. Everybody is well, but we don't know what we do next. Some say the firing line at once. The men were pleased to get in sight 38 Trench Wisdom 39 of land after such a stormy trip. They had to sleep among the horses, and most of them were ill." Sir John French, in his dispatch published on the 15th of April, mentioned the arrival of the Canadians, and expressed his opinion of them in the following terms : "On the 15th of February the Canadian division began to arrive in this country. I inspected the division which was under the com- mand of Lieutenant-General E. A. H. Alderson, C.B., on the 2oth of February. They presented a splendid and most soldierly appearance on parade. The men were of good physique, hard and fit. I judged by what I saw of them that they were well trained and quite able to take their places in the line of battle. Since then the division has thoroughly justified the good opinion I formed of them." Before the Canadians went into the trenches for the first time they were addressed by General Alderson, who spoke to all ranks of the Canadian division as follows : " We are about to occupy and maintain a line of trenches. I have some things to say to you at this moment, which it is well that you should consider. You are taking over good, and, on the whole, dry trenches. I have visited some myself. They are intact, and the parapets are good. Let me warn you first that we have already had several casualties while you have been attached to other divisions. Some of these casualties were unavoidable, and that is war. But I suspect that some — at least a few — could have been avoided. I have heard of cases in which men have exposed themselves with no military object, and perhaps only to gratify curiosity. We cannot lose good men like this. We shall want them all if we advance, and we shall want them all if the Germans advance. '■ Do not expose your heads, and do not look round corners, unless for a purpose which is necessary at the moment you do it. It will not often be necessary. You are provided with means of observing the enemy without expos- ing your heads. To lose your life without military necessity is to deprive the State of good soldiers. Young and brave 40 The Battle Glory of Canada men enjoy takings risks. But a soldier who takes unnecessary risks through levity is not playing- the game, and the man who does so is stupid, for whatever be the average practice of the German army, the individual shots, whom they employ as snipers, shoot straight, and screened from observation behind the lines, they are always watching. If you put your head over the parapet without orders, they will hit that head. There is another thing. Troops new to the trenches always shoot at nothing the first night. You will not do it. It wastes ammunition, and it hurts no one. And the enemy says, ' These are new and nervous troops.' No German is going to say that of the Canadian troops. " You will be shelled in the trenches. When you are shelled, sit low and sit tight. This is easy advice, for there is nothing else to do. If you get out you will only get it Vv'orse. And if you go out the Germans will go in. And if the Germans go in, we shall counter-attack and put them out; and that will cost us hundreds of men instead of the few whom shells may injure. The Germans do not like the bayonet, nor do they support bayonet attacks. If they get up to you, or if you get up to them, go right in with the bayonet. You have the physique to drive it home. That you will do it I am sure, and I do not envy the Germans if you get among them with the bayonet. "There is one thing more. My old regiment, the Royal West Kent, has been here since the beginning of the war, and it has never lost a trench. The Army says : ' The West Rents never budge.' I am proud of the great record of my old regiment. And I think it is a good omen. I now belong to you and you belong to me ; and before long the Army will say : ' The Canadians never budge.' Lads, it can be left there, and there I leave it. The Germans will never turn you out." At first the Canadian division was divided up and mixed with British regiments for instruction in the firing line. The men were so placed that at first British and Canadian soldiers were side by side, and then a little latter a British platoon Dodging the Snipers 41 and a Canadian platoon were placed side by side, and at length the Canadians took up their position as a division. A letter from General Alderson, transmitted by Sir George Perley to the Canadian Premier, describing- the work of the Canadians at the front, was read by Sir Robert Borden in the Dominion House of Commons on the loth of March. It was as follows : " Our men have been in the trenches over a week, and I am very glad to be able to say that they are doing quite remarkably well. I knew they would do well, but they have done much better than I expected, and all has gone with less trouble than I anticipated. All the artillery, infantry, engineers, medical people, supply, etc., have settled into their places, and work in a way which makes me both pleased and proud." By this time the ist, and and 3rd Brigades of Infantry and the artillery brigades were in the firing line, and the 4th Infantry Brigade was in reserve. Of their first experiences in the trenches officers and men wrote home cheerfully, and one officer wrote saying that his men were showing true Canadian adaptability by taking to life in the trenches like ducks to water. An officer of the Montreal Regiment wrote on the ist of March saying : ** We are divided up and mixed with British regiments for instruc- tion, but are in the firing line. The snipers are the very deuce. They pick our men off whenever they get a chance. The Germans are shelling us heavily. They shelled some buildings, but did little damage. The town where we are had 250 high-explosive shells dropped on it in one night. To-day, at the dinner hour, they started shelling again, and kept it up for sixty minutes. A piece of a shell dropped about ten yards from me. We put our men in the cellar under these conditions. "I was out in front of the firing line the other night, watching the men repair the barbed wire entanglements which get cut up by the fire during the day. Machine guns were turned on us, but we escaped without loss. . . . 42 The Battle Glory of Canada I am well and very interested in my life here. The men are behaving splendidly ; they are full of enthusiasm and bent on giving a good account of themselves. . . ." Another officer, in a letter to friends in this country, wrote under date March 2nd : "We are bang up in the firing line now, and have been for a week. We moved into our own section to-day. Previously we have been attached to a British brigade for instruction. Our head-quarters are in a very luxurious house, but unfortunately the Boches have a way of shelling it. Two men had their heads blown off yesterday by way of showing a little good fellowship." The spirit of the men may be judged from a letter written by a private in the 8th Battalion, who with a little party of friends* enlisted in Winnipeg. There is a breezy though sometimes grim humour about the letter which shows better than anything else could do the cheeriness of the writer in spite of the many discomforts — to say nothing of the dangers — of life at the front. The letter was dated Feb. 27th, from somewhere in France. I quote it in full : " We are the boys of the Winnipeg Battalion, under Colonel Lipsett, and you will be moderately thrilled to learn that we have been under fire on more than one occasion, and barring much involuntary ducking of the head — a thing we had hoped to rise superior to — have comported ourselves with the utmost sang-froid and aplomb. (Advt.) "Our battalion has not passed through its initial baptism of fire unscathed, but no deaths are reported so far. One unfortunate chap may lose an arm, another got a shot through the shoulder, but these are, I hope, all the more serious mis- adventures. " On Wednesday we (the platoon in which I am) went to the firing line, and Harrison, Bobbie Knight and Hamilton Chipman had the good fortune to be picked for the advance outpost — the nearest position to the enemy's * There were three of them, and we shall come across them again. I .five their names: Hamilton Chipman, A. Holt Knight, A. L. Saunders. Chipman is now a prisonerjof war, Saunders was wounded, and Knight was killed at the battle of Ypres. A Night Experience 43 lines — a distance of about loo yards. This is a record of their doings : "They had to cross open gfround to gfet to their posts ; had to wait until dusk, and entered the outpost at about 6.30. The duties there, as laid down by the sergeant in charge, were to watch for any advance in force, and to hold the position at any cost. As the firing line proper was behind, a supporting regiment on the flank — necessitating a cross fire from them which would incidentally cross the outpost — and as the Germans are directly in front, the chance of ever getting away was something under zero. There was nothing for it but to smile a sickly smile, make sure that the rifles were loaded and that bayonets would not come off if plunged to the hilt in a Prussian's wishbone. "Sleep was impossible, though they essayed it on many occasions after the two hours' watch was over. It snowed quite a bit to make matters worse, and then feet already metaphorically cold, got physically frigid. Somewhere, a little to the right, a German Maxim fired intermittently, and the minute the Canadians heard it bark they ducked with one accord. It is not good to get hit with one shot from a quick-firer, for, owing to their devilish rapidity, you would be the recipient of six other shots before your body struck the ground. "At intervals star rockets went up both from the British lines and the Germans', and the darkness would be brightly illuminated for a few seconds. Though the snipers on both sides were busy all night, very few shots actually passed over the Canadians' heads ; but those few were far too many. Such, at least, was the opinion of one Canadian private ! However, the night passed without mishap, the only visitors being several large rats who had evacuated a recently shelled cottage. " To tell the truth, the only feeling of nervousness came in the morning. The Canadians were supposed to be relieved at a little before six, so that they could cross the open space in comparative darkness. Five-forty came 44 The Battle Glory of Canada along, and with it the dawn, but no relief. Never to an excited imagination did the morning light augment with such rapidity. Finally, through the woods, the relieving party were seen approaching, and they were relieved — both ways ! Crossing the intervening open space was done rapidly, I can assure you, and in a crouching position. It seemed inevitable that the Maxim should let off a few rounds. " On the way back were seen the bodies of four Germans in a water-filled trench previously held by them ; but as they had been slain some three months previously, and as one of them was minus a head, there was no encouragement to dally long in observation. "The German trench mortars are annoying, as there is no explosion when they are sent in our direction — merely the ' bang ' which occurs when they explode. One piece struck within a foot of my foot, which made me glad that my boot was not double the size I take. "Take heart, however; we shall be away from the actual firing line for some time now, as we go back to our first billet, there to receive a much-needed bath and a general overhauling. "Now for a cold-blooded stab! Tobacco is always welcome. Matches are very necessary, and even more sweet things. A cake which did not arrive a mass of crumbs would be greeted with peals of childish laughter and much enthusiasm. A couple of indelible pencils and a small plain notebook would be precious. "Fmally, I have seen no English paper since leaving England, and, barring belief that England is at war with Germany, I know next to nothing." A few weeks in the firing line was enough to make old soldiers of the Canadian "boys," and they soon laid the foundation of the splendid reputation they have earned a reputation which was crowned at the second battle of Ypres. An officer about this time wrote home saying : " My men are hardly recognisable after four days in the trenches. Engineers in Clover 45 They are bearded and dirty and covered with mud. But though strangely altered in appearance, they are just as keen as ever. Their behaviour is winning them credit." The Canadian Engineers were at this time employed in making and repairing trenches and completing a line of barbed wire defences. A letter from a private, dated the 23rd of February, says : "Altogether I have thoroughly enjoyed my week here. I think we have made a fairly good showing, and everyone is keen. . . . We go down to the trenches by half com- panies, which gives us a night off alternately. Beyond night work we have not done much. We can get leave to go into the town in the afternoons and evenings. Grub improves a lot every day. The other night I was at the first-line trenches. Very interesting and much more com- fortable than I expected. In fact, I rather wish I was in the infantry, as they have a chance of hitting back occa- sionally. The mud here is no worse than on the Plain. The men have charcoal braziers and clean straw in the dug-outs. The infantry there seemed cheery and gave me some of the best soup I have tasted for months. Our job was to put up wire entanglements outside, and we worked for about two hours, with the Germans about four hundred yards away and nothing in between. In the bright moon- light one felt a good mark, but nothing came our way. The truth is the Germans had a working party out on the same game, and by a sort of mutual agreement we let each other alone. Every now and then a machine gun in our trenches would open fire for about half a minute, and the Germans would cheer loudly and reply with their gun. Whereupon more cheers from the Tommies. Beyond this and the con- tinual sniping there was not much doing. It is hard work carrying wire about and being hampered by an overcoat and ammunition, I got very hot and cross, and was covered with mud when I finished. Been watching an aeroplane being shelled by the Germans, flying very high, this afternoon." 4^ The Battle Glory of Canada A sergeant in one of the infantry battalions, writing- to his father in Manchester, in describing his first experiences in the trenches, says: "For the last week we have been very busy. Last Sunday we had a fourteen-mile march from our old billets to our present ones. To-morrow we are off again. On Tuesday night we marched four miles into the trenches, and not the reserve trenches either. On that night we were sandwiched in with a famous Irish regiment. Each man had a regular at his side to show him the ropes. Since, we have been in twice for twenty-four hours each, the only difference being that each of our platoons held its own piece of trench, right in the firing line. The last times have been with a crack regiment of kilties. Our platoon had its piece of trench, and on its right and left was a platoon of the ' Jocks.' To-morrow we are off to another portion of the line to do our work as a battalion. We never expected to be in it so soon. Of course, we have had some casualties, the sergeant who took the small * snaps ' I last sent home being killed the second time in. He was shot clean through the head. In fact, all the boys who have been hit have been shot in the head, mainly through not being cautious enough. The Tommy out here has a most wholesome respect for the German sniper — we also have now — and laughs when he reads of the bad shooting of the German infantry. The Germans certainly have brought sniping down to a fine art. "My respect for the British Tommy has gone up many hundredfold. First, because of the princely way they have acted towards us in the trenches; probably the finest recep- tion we have had — not consisting of flag-waving, but the things that count. They gave us their tinned stuff to eat, their tea, their cigarettes, and coke — the last being a most important item, quite as important as food. The ' kilties ' especially were fine. One sergeant gave me a waterproof which they wear — a most useful affair. The sergeant-major lent me a pair of waders and gave me a small Lee-Enfield rifle which casually I had said I would like to get hold of. And secondly, what they must have gone through this winter A Shell in a Bedroom 47 must have been hell. It is bad enough now in the trenches, with wet, cold feet from the time you go in until you come out. Still, things are getting better all the time, and as the spring comes it will be almost comfortable. Personally, I'm tickled to death to be doing my share." That the billets were not always safe was shown by a letter from an officer of the 48th Highlanders (15th Bat- talion), who wrote : " One 40-lb. high explosive dropped in our bedroom where four of us slept, but we happened to be out at the time, which was rather lucky, as everything in the room was ruined, including most of our clothes. The next one dropped in a pool of slime within fifteen feet of and myself, and only managed to thoroughly cover us with muck. The men were very funny about the whole thing when we got a party to clean up. They all gathered round and congratulated us on our escape, and offered us sleeping quarters in their dug-outs." Sometimes billets were on the scene of fighting in the early part of the war. "Many of the houses are riddled with bullets and shrapnel," wrote an artillery officer. "These and the graves that are so numerous around the village are the gruesome and silent tokens of the fierce fighting which must have taken place, with rough wooden crosses put up, bearing the regimental numbers of the soldiers, with the simple words, ' Killed in action, Oct. 14.' Some of our men have built a railing around these, and now we are erecting a tombstone, cut out of stone by one of our mechanics." Life for the Canadians alternated at this time between doing a turn in the trenches and days in billets. It was a strange life, and for a time uneventful. The Canadian Record Officer serving with the division gave an interesting descrip- tion of the billets which were occupied in these early days by the Canadian troops. "Picture to yourself," he wrote, " a narrow street, the centre paved, the sides of tenacious mud. Line it on each side with houses rather squalid, and 48 The Battle Glory of Canada with a few unimportant stores. Add a chdteau (not a grand one) for the headquarters, a modest office for the staff, and you have a fair conception of the billeting place which shelters that part of the division which reposes. But this town is like many other towns in this unattractive country. Its interest to us lies in the tenants of the moment. Walk down the street, and you will, if you are a Canadian, feel at once something- familiar and homelike in the atmosphere. One hears voices everywhere, and one does not need the brass shoulder-badgee ' Canada ' to know the race to which those voices belong. It may be the speech of New Brunswick, it may be the voice of British Columbia, or it may be the accents in which the French-Canadian seeks to adapt to the French of Flanders the tongue which his ancestors, centuries ago, carried to a new world ; but, whichever it be, it is all Canadian. "Soon a company swings by, going, perhaps, to bath- parade, to that expeditious process which, in half an hour, has cleansed the bathers and fumigated every rag which they possessed. And as they pass they sing carelessly, but with a challenging catch, a song which, if by chance you come from Toronto, will perhaps stir some association. For these — or many of them — are boys from the college, and the song is the university song whose refrain is Toronto. And if you go still a little farther in the direction of the front you will soon — very soon — after leaving the place of billeting, come to the country over which the great guns, by day and night, contend for mastery. And as one advances there seem to be Canadians everywhere. Here are batteries skilfully masked. Here are supplies on their way to the trenches. And all the time can be seen reliefs and reserves, until it seems as if it was strange to meet anyone not in khaki and without the badge of ' Canada.' "The liking for football which the Canadian has begun to share with his English comrade abates none of its keen- ness as he marches nearer to the front. A spirited match was in progress near our lines not long ago, when a dis- Football at the Front 49 tracting succession of ' Weary Willies ' began to distribute themselves not very far from the football ground. The only people who took no notice were the players, and nothing short of a peremptory order from the Provost Marshal was able to bring to an end a game which was somewhat unneces- sarily dangerous. And our men have, of course, made the acquaintance of ' Jack Johnson,' and without liking him, for he is not likeable; they endure him with as much con- stancy as a brave man need." As to their work in the trenches, the men were getting hardened to being under shell and rifle fire. An officer belonging to the ist Battalion, who was wounded on the 6th of March in the neighbourhood of Neuve Chapelle and sent home, told me that his greatest trouble was to make the men take care of themselves. He said he could not speak too highly of them. He believed them to be the best disciplined men Vv'ho had ever come out of Canada, " though discipline," he added, "as we understand it, is not quite the same thing as in the British Army. W^hile on Salisbury Plain the con- tingent was blamed for lack of discipline, but not always with justice. Many times the offending man did not belong to the contingent at all." Speaking of his own experiences in the trenches, the officer said : "The Canadian artillery, of which nearly all the officers are regulars, did wonderful work. We had a very quiet time really. There was a little shell fire from both sides, and a great deal of sniping. The Germans were three hundred yards away from our trench. We had a very small casualty list, and most of the casualties were due to stray bullets. We had to get sleep in the day if we could, as there was no chance at night. I was alone with my platoon in an isolated trench. It was an old trench past repair and almost knee-deep in mud. The remainder of the trench had fallen in, and that was why we were isolated. When I was taken off to the hospital, the regi- ment was getting ready to go into breastworks in front of the trench which had been constructed by the Canadian Engineers." 50 The Battle Glory of Canada At first there were more men put out of action from illnesses caused by the shocking state of the trenches than there were victims of the German fire. Indeed, the very inaction made life harder. A private in the Canadian Engineers, whose business it was to look after a section of trenches, wrote home saying : "The trenches are in a horrid state of mud. We shore up the banks with sandbags and hurdles, build dug-outs, etc., and get back to billets about 3 a.m., generally ' all in.' We spend next day in scraping mud off boots, coats, rifles, etc. The trenches are very dull here, and there is not half the excitement we had last week. Hardly a shot fired, and no sniping as we came up the road to speak of. The wretched infantry live there for four days and nights before relief. The Germans have a trench mortar which occasionally lets up a bomb ; once they got two or three, but usually they miss." An Ontario officer who was invalided home spoke of the resourcefulness of his men, and said in the course of conversation : "As an old soldier myself, I cannot help seeing how quickly the Canadians adapt themselves to circumstances. For instance, when we first went into the trenches the men had been there but a very short time before they had drained and boarded up the trenches, which were filled up with mud and slush, and had built dug-outs. The men bear their life in the trenches very well. They are enthusiastic and, moreover, very cheerful. The men in my battalion are a fine lot. There is a bond of good-fellowship between officers and men, and the men are encouraged to make suggestions, and I must say that they are mostly right. While there is more familiarity between officers and men among the Canadians than there is in the British Army, I do not think discipline really suffers. The Canadian artillery has been doing magnificent work, and has been repeatedly complimented. Indeed, Canadian troops generally cannot complain of want of appreciation. More than once they Crumpling Up a German 51 have been congratulated by generals, and General Alderson has expressed great admiration of their work and confidence in them. The men are eager to go forward." Many casualties were caused by snipers, and to account for one or two of the mischievous gentlemen was a joy. A Canadian officer, in a letter which was published in the Daily Telegraph, thus describes his adventures in stalking a sniper : " Oft' I went, crawling through the sodden clay and branches, going about a yard a minute, listening and look- ing. I went out to the right of our lines, where the Germans were nearest. It took about thirty minutes to do thirty yards. Then I saw the Hun trench, and waited for a long time, but could see or hear nothing. It was about ten yards from me. Then I heard some Germans talking, and saw one put his head up over some bushes about ten yards behind the trench. I could not get a shot at him, as I was too low down. Of course, I could not get up, so I crawled on again, very slowly, to the parapet of their trench. " It was exciting. I was not sure that there might not have been somebody there, or a little farther along the trench. I peered through their loophole, saw nobody in the trench, then the German behind put up his head again. He was laughing and talking. I saw his teeth glisten against my foresight, and I pulled the trigger. He just gave a grunt and crumpled up. The others got up and whispered to each other. " I do not know who were most frightened, they or I. There were five of them. They could not place the shot. I was flat behind their parapet and hidden. I just had the nerve not to move a muscle and stay there ; my heart was fairly hammering. They did not come forward. I could not see them, as they were behind some bushes and trees, so I crept back, inch by inch. "The next day, just before dawn, I crawled out there again, and found it empty again. Then a single German came through the woods towards the trench. I saw him 52 The Battle Glory of Canada fifty yards off. He was coming along upright, quite care- lessly, making a great noise. I heard him before I saw him. I let him get within twenty-five yards, and shot him in the heart. He never made a sound. "Nothing happened for ten minutes. Then there was noise and talking, and a lot of Germans came along through the wood behind the trench, about forty yards from me. I counted about twenty, and there were more coming. They halted in front. I picked out the one I thought was the officer. He stood facing the other way, and I had a steady shot at him between the shoulders. He went down, and that was all I saw. "I went back at a sort of galloping crawl to our lines, and sent a message that the Germans were moving in a certain direction in some numbers. Half an hour after- wards they attacked the right in massed formation, advanc- ing slowly to within ten yards of the trenches. We simply mowed them down. It was rather horrible. They counted two hundred dead in a little bit of a line, and we only lost ten. "They were pleased about the stalking and getting the message through. It was up to someone to do it, instead of leaving it all to the Germans, and losing two officers a day through snipers. All our men have started it now. It is quite a popular amusement." A dispatch rider who captured a sniper described his method as follows : " We have had some trouble lately with snipers. I was riding along a quiet country road near a wood when I heard a report from a rifle. Dismounting, and tying my horse to a tree, I had a good look around, and saw what at home we would term a farm servant working at a turnip pit in a field. Keeping out of his sight, I again mounted, rode back to a farmhouse, borrowed a farm servant's suit, and made off on foot, walking up the ploughed field as if interested in the straightness of the furrow, but more in- terested in my automatic revolver. I got within reach of K. of K. and the Canadians 53 him, and after a fairly good struggle I overpowered him, and handed him over to the authorities. On searching the turnip pit we found a rifle and fifty rounds of ammunition." So life went until, early in March, there were rumours of an advance, rumours which were forerunners of the battle of Neuve Chapelle. But the Canadians were doomed to disappointment. The infantry were not specially engaged, although the artillery played its part in that triumph of artillery science which preceded the British attack. The infantry were ready during the whole action for the order to advance, but the situation did not so develop as to send them to attack the German trenches. The Canadians had to remain on the defensive. But even so they rendered valuable service, and had a share in the glory of the battle in holding the Germans in their part of the line. Lord Kitchener, in referring to the engagement in the House of Lords, said : " I should like also to mention that the Cana- dian Division showed their mettle and have received the warm commendation of Sir John French for the high spirit and bravery with which they have performed their part." A Montreal officer, writing from the front on the loth of March — the date of the victory of Neuve Chapelle — indicates that though his section of the Canadians were under fire at that time, they were not actually in the Neuve Chapelle iction. The following are extracts from his letter : " Since writing last we have been in our own trenches. I had a redoubt of my own. During the day I was cut off from everybody else, and it was only at night that we could get food and water. To get to our next trench behind we had to cross an open space of some seventy-five yards, which was a ticklish performance, as the ground was full of holes and ditches filled with water. Flares were constantly sent up by the Germans, and we could not pick our ground to lie down, as rifle shots followed us thick and fast. We had some casualties, and, unfortunately, all were fatal. To-day we have news of victory near us, so we expect an advance soon." 54 The Battle Glory of Canada The best account of the part played by the Canadians at Neuve Chapelle came from the Winnipeg "boy " to whom reference has been made above. It was written immediately after the battle, and dated "Somewhere in France, March 13th " : "At 5.30 on the morning of Wednesday (the first day of the Neuve Chapelle attack) our officer told us to hurry over our breakfast, as a heavy fire was to be opened by our side, and the enemy, in replying, would probably drop a few rounds in our vicinity. We had just started to line up in the road outside when ' whop ' came a shell, bursting in the road a few yards ahead. ' Double for the trenches ! ' was the order, and away we went. The trenches were only about 150 yards away, yet the Germans had our position to a foot, and sixteen rounds of shrapnel burst literally in our midst. Had they burst overhead, as they should have, instead of exploding as they struck the ground, it's a very fair bet that nearly every man of us would have ' gone West ' ; but only one man got hit, a fellow a short distance back of me. He had his jaw broken, but will do all right. One shell burst about five feet to my left, between me and another man, but did nothing worse than spatter us copiously with mud. "We had to stay in the trenches until evening that day and all next day, but are now a bit farther back, returning for our second spell in the trenches. " In addition to the foregoing incidents, we had to carry up ammunition to the firing hne on the same night, and getting caught in the glare of a star shell, had a Maxim sprinkle a bushel or so of bullets in our direction. We were flat on our faces, however, and had the satisfaction of hearing them go over us. "There are rumours of stirring times for us soon, and it's a fact that an excellent advance has been accomplished by troops not a hundred miles away. Possibly our turn may come soon, and then we of the Winnipeg Battalion will be able to say that we have been in a bayonet charge. On Outpost Duty 55 When this occurs we shall have pretty nearly run the gamut of war thrills. "Before going into action we received the final admoni- tion from our general as to matters of correct deportment while in the trenches. Condensed, they amounted to a warning against needless exposure, the German snipers being given due credit for marksmanship, though the rank and file were not to be taken so seriously. We were further warned against promiscuous firing without a definite mark, such tactics merely demonstrating to our opponents that they had inexperienced troops with which to deal. W^e were further cautioned to be on our guard against possible abuse of the white flag, and the peroration concluded with an appeal to use the bayonet when advancing, and to press home the charge, bearing in mind the well-grounded dislike evinced by les Bodies for SheflSeld cutlery. "We took up our position in the trenches that night at about lo p.m., and I was delegated once more to the outpost position, not on account of any intrinsic merit, but merely because I happened to be available. Naturally, it had to rain that night, and it was very cold all night. There were two others with me, and we were on guard for two hours at a time, and then off for four hours, during which time we were supposed to sleep. A few desultory bullets thudded into our sandbags or whistled overhead, but there was no danger to be apprehended from them. "On the next day there was much sniping from the German lines, and very good shooting they made; but our men kept well under cover, and not a man was hit during over three days. On the other hand, our prize sniper, who has won innumerable prizes at Bisley, sniped three of them — a fact vouched for by an officer who had his field-glasses trained on the sniper. We had many close calls, of course, two of our men having their rifles hit, and in one place three bullets came right through the mud parapet, under the sandbags ; but a miss is much better than a mile in such cases. 56 The Battle Glory of Canada "We did lose one man, however, on the second day, the poor chap being instantly killed by a fragment of shrapnel. The Germans fired about twenty shells at us, and very good practice they made, and we squashed up against the breastworks with much vigour. To those who are superstitious, a certain significance might be attached to the fact that the number of our lost man's rifle was '13.' "The Germans sang 'Sons of the Sea' in very fair English at night, also ' God Save the King,' and I have seen a German, at whom one of our sergeants took a shot, wave back a miss with a shovel ! I have seen far more hostility and bitter feeling displayed between two football teams than appears to exist between the Germans in front of us and ourselves. When our machine guns open on them, or, rather, in their direction, one hears a chorus of derisive yells from their lines on the ' never-touched-me-at- all ' principle. Our humorists bellow across : ' Oh, Heine, vere iss Schmidt? ' and other fragments of Anglo-German conversation culled from vaudeville performers on the music-hall circuit; and yet if a fatigue party go out at night, to strengthen wire entanglements, for example, each side does its very best to hand that party a pass to Nirvana through the medium of Maxim guns and rifles. Truly ' Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands weep. ' "Our big thrill came r .. the second night in the trenches. At 8.30 the order suddenly came to ' Stand to ! ' This meant that every man had to stand up to his particular loophole and faco in the direction of the enemy. Next came the order, ' Every man to have his rifle in a firing position.' Speculation became rife. We noticed that no star shelL 'ad been sent up by the Germans, which would lead one to believe that they wished to conceal the advance of troops. In addition, there was a very different silence brooding over their lines in comparison with the firing prevalent the night before. Our theorising was interrupted jy another order, ' Each man is to take an extra bandolier Waiting for the Whistle 57 of cartridges,' and down the lines came box after box of ammunition for us and for the Maxims. Lastly, the order came, ' Commence rapid fire when a long- blast from the whistle is heard.' It sounded like a touch of real warfare at last, and I found myself trembling all over, just as I used to do before the start of a race or the commencement of a boxing bout. I don't think it was fear, but it was certainly a curious feeling. ' Bang I ' came from our left, and up soared a star rocket. Down we crouched and stared out in front, expecting to see a line of infantn*- advanc- ing. A second or so of light, and once more darkness, intensified by the momentan.- illumination. " I had a lot of little things to worry me during the mauvais quart d'heure I spent waiting for a whistle. In the first place I had on both my goatskin coat and my over- coat, and, being obese in consequence, I had an awful time getting my Webb equipment belt to fasten over it. I had a feeling that if a charge was in order the blessed thing might slip off, and I would be the loser of 130 rounds of ammunition, an entrenching tool, and other ohjets d'art. " Again, I was annoyed by the fact of the breastwork immediately in front of me being piled too high with sand- bags, and even though I pulled one away, if the rapid-fire trick was to be pulled off effectively, my only solution would be to make a flying leap on to the top of the parapet, and from that insalubrious position riddle the approaching hosts. "By far the most worr}-ing feature was the fact that my rifle bolt had not been working smoothly that afternoon, and consider how ridiculous I should have appeared had my rifle jammed after one shot ! It's the hardest thing in the world to keep your rifle in good working order, for all around is mud. "Well, there was no attack, and after standing to for an hour or so we were told to ' Stand down,' an order which met with the heartiest approval of all. "Eventually we were relieved by the [deletion by the 58 The Battle Glory of Canada Censor] and had a rotten march back to our billets. Our feet were more or less sore from having them encased in water-logged boots for three days, and the return to billets, a trip which took up about three hours, was a mournful affair. However, we all are smiling once more, having shaved and washed. "After this, three days as brigade reserves, which means a billet in a factory building and, I hope, a bath. Thence to the trenches for three days more, and so on till some- thing exciting occurs, such as a death or glory charge by the Prussians, or the discovery of a whole potato in the army ration of Mulligan." St. Patrick's Day was duly honoured by the Irish Cana- dians, and also by a good many who were not Irish. Major Victor W. Odium, of the 7th (ist British Columbia) Battalion Canadian Infantry, in a letter to Mr. Trimble, of the Armagh Guardian, wrote describing how happy the sprigs of sham- rock sent from the A.G. Comforts Fund made the men of the nth Irish Fusiliers of Canada serving with the 7th Canadian Battalion. "I went along the trenches," ran his letter, "and issued the shamrock not only to the men of the Irish Fusiliers of Canada, but to all Irishmen in the regiment. And on that day it was hard to find anyone whO' was not an Irishman, "With daylight, too, a rum ration was issued. So with rum and sun and shamrock the men were very happy. They gave three cheers for Ireland and St. Patrick — cheers which disturbed the Germans and drew from them a feverish burst of fire; the British cheers are always interpreted by the enemy as a signal for an attack. After cheering, our men turned up to their loopholes, and for half an hour gave the Germans better than they received. After that all settled down to the quiet, steady work of the day — continuous watching, persistent sniping, and never-ending draining and repairing of the trenches. " It is a month since the British Columbia battalion first entered the trenches. During that period it has been doing A Sight of the Prince of Wales 59 its work quietly and well. The Canadians have not yet had a serious test, but the spirit they have shown up to date goes to indicate that they have good stuff in them and will make a big effort to live and fight up to the average set by the British Regulars, of whom all Canadians feel so proud, and in whom they have such tremendous confidence. "We have been well cared for and well treated here. This war offers a tremendous contrast to the South African War. The latter was mostly hardship and little danger. This is mostly danger and comparatively little hardship. By the way, we still see bales of mufflers, helmets, and mitts arriving from various comfort funds. The day for these things is past, and they will have to be sent back. What the men ask for most eagerly are tobacco and cigarettes. What they really most need is underwear and socks." Letters from the front are, it must be remembered, censored, and it is not always easy to make them tally with accounts published, since the name of the place is suppressed. The following letter, from a sergeant in the 8th Battalion, dated the i8th of March, seems to refer to the battle at Neuve Chapelle, but even if it does not, it records two incidents which were not published in the daily Press : "You will have seen from the papers by this time where we are. That is the information we are not allowed to send out. The Germans know us now, and call out tO' us in the trenches. The artillery simply tore the ground all to pieces in our last engagement, and we all feel that we are superior to the Germans in all branches. Our boys are doing fine, and have been commended by the generals. There will be big doings before long. There is a spirit of hope and buoyancy in all. The list of casualties was heavy, and the Scottish regiments suffered greatly. Shells explode around our head-quarters almost daily, so you can see how close we are to the German lines. Mr. Winston Churchill was over here the day before yesterday, and Sir John French rode along the day before. The Prince of Wales drives Sir John French's car. That Is something to see. There is nothing 6o The Battle Glory of Canada new I can tell you about the situation. At a mile from the trenches it does not look as though there was a war on. Farmers are sowing their crops, and you do not see as many soldiers as you see going past your office. They are all in their billets, or in the trenches, or having a game of foot- ball. The other day the boys had to change their field of play, as the Germans had got the range and dropped a few shells in the field where the game was going on. I see Kitchener is after the manufacturers ; it would do some of them good to have a few hours in the trenches and see what the boys have got to face. We have been in these billets for two weeks, and they look upon us as the family." While, generally, things were quiet, the German sniper was always busy and casualties occurred daily. A Montreal officer, writing in the middle of March, referred to the snipers and said : " I believe we have had half a dozen casualties to-day. Nearly all of them occurred in my old fort, and were caused by a sniper to the rear of the lines. We got tired of it at last, and opened two machine-guns on him, and our batteries sent four shells into the building. There is not much left of it now. The farm behind my trench is a picture of utter ruin. Dead animals are lying about in all directions, and some of my men are now engaged in burying them. This gruesome work can only be done at night, as it is too dangerous in the day-time. I am going out to-night to see if we can locate a snip>er or two. They will get short shrift if we find them." Let us hope they did account for a iew of these German crack shots. The weather, even in the middle of March, was still very wintry and snow fell, making the trenches worse than ever. Even Mark Tapley might have been excused if he grumbled a bit at having to crouch down in mud and slush in a trench and be periodically shelled. But Canadians are all Mark Tapleys, it would seem, for they kept their spirits up and seemed to care for nothing except to be allowed to have "a Baths and Bull's-eyes 6i really good scrap " with the Germans. Very little news was obtainable, but the casualty lists showed that the Canadians were bearing their share of the burden of the war. A number of oflficers and men had also been invalided home suffering in various ways from the effects of life in the trenches. Periodically there came spells of rest, and then there was the joy of a bath and the chance of cleaning uniforms, etc. A Montreal officer, writing on the 25th of March, says : " It is rumoured that our division is to be the Army Reserve for a couple of weeks. This will give us a long rest. . . . The whole regiment had a hot bath yesterday and a change of clothes, and everyone is more cheerful as the result. . . . The ' bull's-eyes ' you sent are much appre- ciated by us all. They disinfect all the bad tastes and smells — and these are not a few. The illustrated papers, too, I received in the trenches, and they entertained us greatly. The losses at Neuve Chapelle were, I fear, very heavy. Victories cost dearly in this sort of warfare. We are all full of hope for the best, and perhaps before the end of the summer the war will all be over. The Germans heard about the loss of our ship* in the Dardanelles before we did, and kindly shouted the news over to us. Very nice of them, wasn't it? The enemy shelled the road we are on yesterday, and I am sorry to say some of our men were hit. I hope you will be optimistic, as I am sure that before long you will have good news of us." Most of the letters received about this time refer to the joys of a bath. And in a great many cases the writers, when asking for such things as socks and tobacco, beg that "bull's-eyes " might be sent to them. The constant menu of bully beef and biscuit evidently created a desire for some- thing sweet, and the peppermint in "bull's-eyes " made them very welcome. A picture of life in the trenches in the month of March was supplied by a Vancouver man* serving with the i6th (Canadian Scottish) Battalion. His letters have * Private F. Lidiard. 62 The Battle Glory of Canada now a pathetic interest, as he was reported "missing- " since the battle at Ypres, and on the 20th of May his parents received news of his having been killed in action in the battle of Ypres. In a letter penned on the i6th of March he writes : " Could you send me some soap for the face next time you write? as soap — i.e. decent soap — is hard to get. Do not worry if you do not hear from me for a whole week or ten days at a time, because we cannot get mail off while in the trenches, and when we get back it has to be collected and censored, which, of course, would cause delay. It is impossible to write letters in the trenches, owing to dirt, work of construction, sentry duties, cooking, cold feet and old women's gossiping parties. The mud is pretty bad, and everything one touches is muddy ; it is impossible to keep clean. The Government supply us with rubber boots up to the knees, and as long as the mud and water are only so deep we can keep dry feet. We get new socks when we want them, and they issue us tobacco and cigarettes ; also we get an issue of rum each day we are in the trenches. Last time we were in the trenches we had all we could eat; in fact, left some behind. We cook our own meals in a brazier. Of course, we have to take it in turns to use this brazier, and what with starting a fire, nursing it till it is good enough to cook on, and doing one's cooking, it takes quite a time and keeps us occupied. There are all sorts of water to be had for the getting, but the getting is a very dirty job, as the approach to the stream is through a com- municating trench with over two feet of water in it. There is a plank well above the water, and provided one does not slip off it, it is O.K. ; otherwise it means a boot full of water and being- wet to the waist." The Canadian engineers, during the first few weeks of their arrival at the front, earned a reputation for being capable. While Territorial engineers received a stiffening from a sprinking of R.E.'s, the Canadians, though only Militia and not Regulars, were left to their own devices, as Head first into a Ditch 63 being- considered perfectly able to do their work unassisted. And very busy they were at first. A New Brunswick man, serving in the Canadian engineers, writing home on the i6th of March, said : " Been having a very soft time here during the past two or three days. The weather has been ripping and spring- like, quite warm. Also there is very little work to do. We have fixed up the trenches and put so many hurdles, dug- outs, footpaths, etc., that now the weather is dry there is realty not much more to do unless we lay on hot and cold water. ... I wish, when any startling news appears, you would immediately post off a paper. We get no news here except what we read in the papers, and I never heard of the Neuve Chapelle affair until I saw it in the paper. Yesterday, by way of a little excitement, we had two German 'planes overhead, and our artillery blazed away at them. One came directly above us, and we gazed up at it open-mouthed until shrapnel from our own guns began to fall all round. Then we went inside. I wish one of our own machines had given chase. I expect we shall shift in a day or two." The same man, writing a few days later, said : "Thanks very much for your parcel. The knife and fork are quite all right. . . . Been down in the trenches every nig-ht, but where we go is still comparatively quiet. One night they turned on the machine-gun and got two of our fatigue party of infantry who were carrying pickets up to the trenches for us. It is as dark as anything when we get down to the trenches, and as we have generally to go across country rather than go along the trench, we tie ourselves up in fearful knots, though the German searchlights and star shells prevent our getting lost altogether. Last night one of our party went head first into a huge ditch, and we had the devil of a job to get him out. The whole place is inter- sected with ditches and communication trenches full of water, barbed wire, etc., and our only guide is the reflection of the fires in the trench. It is very funny as long as there is not much firing. I have had another bath, and on the way back 64 The Battle Glory of Canada ran into some men I hadn't seen for ages — one from my own office in M ." A Torontonian who is captain in the Canadian Divisional Engineers, writing from the front, says : "We are having a bit of a rest after five or six weeks in the trenches. It is amusing to read about what the Canadian division is supposed to have done since coming to France. We have not as yet made any of those glorious charges which some journalists have attributed to us. Our work has hitherto consisted of holding, improving and maintaining in good repair about four miles of front. This, I am proud to say, has been well done, and none of us has any reason to feel ashamed of the way our men have acted, nor any doubt how they will act when called to go forv\'ard. Besides Bell Irving, I have had only one other fatal casualty and few slightly wounded. The other two engineering companies have had worse luck. All other branches of the service are doing well. A few battalions which were somewhat doubtful are turning out the best of the lot. Canadians have every cause for pride in their first contingent." Nor were the Canadian artillery long in winning respect for their good shooting. In this connection the following extract fromaletter from a lieutenant in the Canadian artillery to a friend in London, dated the 17th of March, is interest- ing : "In regard to war news, I don't know that I can give you anything very interesting, as we are not allowed to mention any names of places or localities or to give any definite information ; but I can tell you what we are doing. We have been in the firing line since the 17th of February, and have been making good use of our time. We have entrenched ourselves and our guns, and we have a good crack at the Germans every day. Our shooting is, we are told, very good, and yesterday, when I found the battery on my hands, orders to open fire on the German trenches came, and we got eleven hits out of twelve shots. Pretty fair? Naturally, I was quite elated. Our billet has been shelled on several occasions, and the building is pretty well Shelling the Observation Station 65 messed up, but, so far, we have only had one casualty. Each officer in turn has to go down by the trenches and observe the artillery fire, and, believe me, it is some job. The Germans take great delight in trying to pot us, and while numerous bullets have missed me by short inches, and the observing station has been shelled several times, with me inside, they have not yet been able to get any of us." And the work of the artillery was not confined to good shooting, as can be seen from a letter from a sergeant in the 7th Battery, who wrote: "We started on Wednesday morning, about 1.30 a.m., and got finished with the laying of the wire the following night, about midnight. W^e had to lay part of the wire before daylight, and we had a few scraps with snipers. After daylight all our batteries opened fire right along the whole line, and the noise was simply awful, as we were in between the German batteries and our own, and got the whole benefit of the din. Several shells fell very near us, one bursting just behind us, the fuse cap flying right over my head and landing about four yards from me. I have the fuse to keep as a memento. I was trying to wriggle through the wire entanglements of our reserve trench at the time. I must say it was rather hot round about. As our wire ran out, we had to go and get the wire relaid to the trenches last Sunday. We could only do the work after dark. We got on all right, though at one place, where our wire was tied to a tree, and one of the boys got on my back to undo it, a ' very light ' fell just behind us, and the Germans let fly at us with a Maxim. The bullets were whistling through the branches of the trees to some tune, but all ended well for us. For three days and nights I had only about six hours' sleep, having been in the 'phone dug-out the night before we laid the wire." At the end of March General Alderson sent to Major- General Sam Hughes, Minister of Militia, a report in the course of which he said: "We have been holding some 6,500 to 7,000 yards of trenches since the first of March, F 66 The Battle Glory of Canada and I can safely say that all arms have settled into their work very well. I knew they would do well, but they have really done better than I expected. . . . We have not up to the present been attacked, but we have been considerably shelled at times, and the casualties up to date are six officers and 164 other ranks. I am very sorry to say that Major P. Rigby, a fine officer in the 7th Battalion, was killed by a shell. He is a great loss to his battalion. The co- operation between the field artillery and the infantry has been good, and our heavy battery had succeeded in demolish- ing a tower used by the Germans as an observation post. Our gunners are naturally very pleased." A reference was also made in the letter to the good work being done by Brigadier-Generals Mercer, Turner, Burstall, and Currie. Speaking of the health of the division. General Alderson said : "The health of the division is good, and the men seem cheerful and very keen. I feel sure that the high rate of their intelligence will soon make itself felt. The horses, too, are well, and we have less sick than any other division. I think there is no doubt that the experience on Salisbury Plain, disagreeable as it was, has really been a fine prepara- tion for the work out here. The men seem to think nothing of the French mud." All reports pointed to the fact that the Canadian troops were winning respect not only from the enemy, but from the British military authorities. Canadian officers were justly proud of their men. Brigadier-General M. S. Mercer, of the Queen's Own, commanding the ist Brigade, in letters to Canada, stated that the Canadians had fallen into the "game " of war splendidly. The men were very resourceful, and worked like beavers to make the trenches safe and the dug-outs more comfortable. He said : "War under present conditions is very queer. My brigade is holding a bit of the line — about 2,000 or 2,500 yards. The lines at one point are only some 65 yards apart, at another 85 yards, average distance from 200 to 350 yards, and this sort of thing Head-quarters Shelled 67 prevails for hundreds of miles. . . . Our head-quarters were shelled heavily, but, fortunately, no losses to staff. How- ever, as they had the range on us, we moved to other quarters. We are still within range of the guns, but they may not get on to the fact of our moving for a time. . . . We attended service this morning for men not in the trenches. It was held in a barnyard. A son of Fighting Dan Gordon was the preacher — a capital fellow. This game is bringing out a lot of splendid fellows in every branch of the service." Captain R. C. Darling, of the 15th Battalion (who was severely wounded on the 23rd of March, and died in a London hospital on the 19th of April), wrote saying that his brigade had relieved the Guards and Gordons, and that the Canadians felt it to be a very great honour. Again, about this time some extracts from the diary of Lieutenant-Colonel J. A. Currie, commanding the 48th High- landers, were published in the Toronto Star, and among them were the following : " I started out on foot with an officer of each of my com- panies to go to the head-quarters of the — . We got a motor-bus where the railway crosses the road. The brigadier and staff were all there. We rode out to a big farmhouse, where the conference was held. As we went along the road we could hear the Maxims going like air riveters. The Germans were shelling , which has been shelled again and again. They threw two shells into the a couple of blocks away from where I am quartered. "We consider it a great honour for my regiment to relieve the and the . The people at home in Canada will understand that, in spite of bad weather, sickness, and other difficulties that made us leave over 140 men in a hospital in England, that our hard work on drill and discipline has not been in vain. We have learned a great many lessons. The men now drill and move like Regulars. In fact, there are no regiments here that are smarter, although, to tell the truth, the trench work has been trying on my men. 68 The Battle Glory of Canada " I desire to give a due measure of praise to my officers. They have got their work up perfect, and the men, as a result, give me very little trouble. On parade the men are like a rock. The captains and officers have a knack of getting along with the men that makes for the best of discipline; that of prompt obedience, born of respect. There are many other regiments here — good ones, but there is very little fault to be found by me with mine. No commanding officer was ever better supported by his officers and non- coms." A private in the 7th Battalion, writing to a relative in Canada, stated that his colonel, in an address to his men, said : "There have been too many casualties among the Canadians. Of course, I know sometimes it is due to accidents — German machine guns, shots, and in getting out of trenches. ... A policeman on watch found out that you Canadians were falling in behind other regiments and march- ing right out as if you owned the earth. I liked that and was pleased. I knew it would not be hard to grow attached to you boys." The letter adds : "The last trenches we were in were at . We were out in front of our trenches and found a German rifle, I cleaned it and took a shot at the Germans with it. The Saxons hollaed over, ' Save your ammunition for the Prussians.' " Everything in the way of news from the front demon- strated that the Canadian troops were doing good work and were proud of the fact that their conduct was praised and appreciated by the authorities. This praise made them all the keener — indeed, enthusiasm and keenness were the dis- tinguishing features of letters home. Towards the end of March, the division went out of the trenches into reserve, nominally for rest, but letters written about this time show that the rest was spent in hard work, training the men for an expected advance, which was eagerly anticipated. A Montreal officer, serving in the 13th iBattallon, in a letter, dated the 29th of March, wrote: "Although we are Bishop of London at the Front 69 in reserve, we are working harder than ever before. We are being taught the fine points in the game of mining, grenade throwing and wire cutting, and also putting up wire entanglements. We do from six to eight hours a day at this work, so you see we are not idle. The men still look smart, and I think my battalion is a way ahead in this respect of others. There is distinctly something in the air, as the brigadier has had everyone at work cleaning up am- munition. It has been very cold during the last few days, but the ground is drying up and we have splendid skies. There are thousands of troops here waiting a chance to move." The same officer, in a letter dated the 31st of March, said : " We are still training very hard for the advance — route marching, wiring and all sorts of tricks we must learn in order to compete successfully with the enemy. I heard the Bishop of London twice the other day in stirring addresses, first to the officers and then to the men. He was splendid. General Alderson also spoke, and said he was both surprised and greatly pleased at the way in which we had done our part. Soon, he said, there will be hot work for us, and hard work at that. Our regiment is now in splendid shape, and I am very happy with my men." A Winnipeg man, a sergeant in the 8th Battalion, would seem to have had a premonition of the coming battle at Ypres. He wrote saying : "The next move we make forward will be at tremendous cost. We can go forward. Of that everyone is certain. The artillery do good work, but there is a lot of terrible work to be done after they have done their shelling. This hand grenade throwing — our boys are practising at it. I have had a few throws with cans filled with stones, and I find I have still some eye to throw with. We will have to get some more cricket players." Private Lidiard, of the Canadian Scottish, gave an amus- ing description of his billet, in a letter dated the 21st of March, in which he said : 70 The Battle Glory of Canada "We came back to billets again last Friday night, but I did not get a chance to write to you, as I spent all day cleaning up self and kit. Last evening they took our camp out for a march, and we did a good eight miles. I came back with sore feet. You see, we have been practically confined to billets ; and when in the trenches, of course, one gets little walking about. "Our company had a pretty easy time this last turn in the trenches, as we were on the reserve, and only had fatigues to do at night time after dark. You should have seen my bedroom in that billet ! My bed was a bunch of straw on the top of a pile of logs. Most of the roof of the building had been shot away. I slept very well in spite of it, and feel fit and well. I shall soon be able to sleep up a telegraph pole with comfort." Some of the men rather fretted at the want of excitement in being reserves. Hardships they could bear uncomplain- ingly, but inaction was trying. An Ontario man serving in the 1st Battalion wrote saying : "We are supposed to be in a rest camp, but if this is rest, give me the trenches. It should rather be called a train- ing base. Each morning we go out for a twelve- to fifteen- kilo, march over rotten roads with cobble stones, and in the afternoon practise advancing over rough ground and then digging ourselves in, getting over and through barbed wire, bomb and grenade throwing, etc. I shouldn't mind the marching in the least, but it is very hard going over loose metal. . . . There is a French battalion here engaged in road repair because they are in disgrace, they say. W^e have a lot of Indians in the neighbourhood. I think they are all splendid-looking troops and fine horsemen. We are being paid in French bills and have drawn only fifty francs since coming into the country, the rest being all put to our credit." In another letter Private Lidiard again spoke of life in billets — the battalion had moved since his last letter; he wrote : "Now to give you a few particulars of our billet, etc. Billeting Experiences 71 We had a pretty cosy time in the trenches this last time, and we have now moved our billets into a fairly large town. We are billeted in private houses for the first time, and are doing- ourselves well. Our host and hostess are both very decent, and try to make us welcome. Every morning they make us coffee, and won't let us pay for it. There are six other fellows in the house, four from my section, and two from another. The rest of my section are billeted across the road. We have the use of the front room, which is tiled, and the place is specklessly clean, although I am afraid that since we arrived there has been quite a lot of dust blown about, mostly off our clothes. We always come back from the trenches covered in mud, and this last time I spent the whole day cleaning myself up — the kilt takes quite a long time. We draw our rations as usual, and cook our bacon, or any- thing we like to buy, on our hostess's fire. We have sacks of straw to make our beds on — quite luxurious, is it not? Yesterday I was out at the back yard washing a towel ; the old lady came out to me with a boiler, and almost seized the towel out of my hand, saying ' Boinllez, bouillez! ' I guess that she thought it too dirty to wash. There are quite a lot of motor-buses here, and they do look strange standing at the kerb-side in the city square. I thought of getting aboard for Holborn or the Bank." A New Brunswick man in the Canadian engineers, writing on the ist of April to his mother, was evidently anxious that she should not suppose that he was going through any real hardships. The Canadian soldier takes his work cheerfully and makes fun of most of the discomforts he meets. The letter was as follows : "Thanks very much for your letters and the papers, all of which I got in due course. ... Of course, no sooner have I found a comfortable place to write in the farmyard than a goat thrusts its evil face out of a door and bites my cap. . . . This is really the best billet we have struck yet, though rather small, and the farm lady is quite hospitable. Please don't imagine I am suffering ' hardships.' The worst we 72 The Battle Glory of Canada get are only petty discomforts, and, of course, continual picnicking- is rather uncomfortable; but, on the other hand, I am entirely fit and fairly hard, and well fed and clothed. Also the east wind has gone, and it is warm and sunny. I have been up to the town, about three miles off, once or twice. Yesterday I took a push-bike and rode about seven miles to a place 2,000 yards from the German trenches, where there is digging going on. Bad going on these roads, which are all paved with cobble stones, crowds of traffic, soldiers marching, ambulances, supply wagons, etc. I believe it is a very hot corner there at night from stray bullets fired from the German lines. Yesterday they plugged a few shells over one of our batteries about 300 yards away, but that was all." During Holy Week the Canadian troops received a visit from the Bishop of London. He spoke to several groups of men, and the men were delighted with him. Easter Day was spent in billets, and many services were held so that as many as wished to do so might make their Easter com- munion — the last that a very great many were ever to make. Easter is always honoured in Canada, and one officer wrote : " We tried to make Easter Day as much like as it is at home as possible. For dinner we had turtle soup, roast chicken, mashed potatoes, French peas, peaches, and the cake you sent (it was a * corker ') with a little light French wine." Just before Easter there came orders to be ready to move, and a Montreal officer in the 13th Battalion wrote on the 3rd of April : "To-day we received our marching orders for a long move to another part of the line. The proposed movement of troops in this district has been called off. . . . At present we cannot tell what may be in store for us. We are diligently learning new methods of attack never before laid down in any book. It reminds me of the pictures one used to see of the storming of castles in the Middle Ages. Ladders are carried, bridging material, explosives, etc. While practising to-day I fell into a ditch of slimy water up to the waist, A Changed Outlook 73 which did not add to my comfort. We throw live bombs, and they seem to be about as dangerous to the throwers as to anybody else. A large piece of iron flew very close to my head, and I am surprised that no one was hurt. It was not bad fun, and the men liked it. We have had several football games, and this afternoon we hold sports. The men show fine condition, and no ill effects from trench life." Mr. H. R. Gordon, who was the special correspondent of the Toronto Star in the ranks of the contingent, also bore testimony as to the fine condition of the men early in April. He wrote : "I can't understand yet why we aren't worried by the sniping or the shelling. We take it all in the most matter of course way. But here, for instance, where the chances of being shelled are distinctly strong and where we're really in rather more danger than in the trenches, everyone goes about his daily work cooking, washing clothes, splitting up firewood as unconcerned as if we were in camp at Bustard. Our six months' training, I think, has strengthened and trained our minds and spirits even more than our bodies. Certainly we're very different in our outlook and behaviour from the gang that were at Valcartier. I've been reading through the Gospel of Mark and the latter half of Isaiah lately. Certainly out here one realises the feebleness and frailty of the thread of our individual lives. Heaven is very near, and hell, too. But I think we're all quite tranquil. I know I may get killed the next minute, but I don't worry in the least about it. It's a great relief to be able to be like that." How very soon the men were to be put to a tremendous test they did not know, and it is interesting tO' note their mental attitude. Nothing worried them. But all descrip- tions of the men, their good behaviour, their cheerfulness, and so forth seem extremely pathetic in the light of the awful trial that came to^ them a few weeks later. The time was now approaching when the Canadian divi- 74 The Battle Glory of Canada sion was to move into Belgium. The Montreal officer in the 13th Battalion, Royal Highlanders, whose letters have already been frequently quoted, wrote on the 9th of April : " I have not been able to write for the last few days as we have been on the move, and are now about seventeen miles from our last billet. I learn to-day that next week we are to take up trenches some distance farther on. With these moves we are seeing a lot of the country and of the troops at the front. We are now amongst some hills, which is a welcome change after the flat country we have left. From the top of one of these hills we can see the blue water of the North Sea. I was sent ahead with the billeting party, and found the work of billeting the regiment not altogether an easy job, as the farms are far apart. " The same officer, writing two days later, says : "We are still moving about, and are now a long way behind the trenches. We are preparing for another move. It is lovely spring weather where we are, and there is a big bowl of wild flowers beside me which I picked this morning. The men are either resting or wandering about the fields, and everyone is contented. Sir H. Smith-Dorrien inspected us yesterday. It was a real inspection, and there was not a man who did not come under his eyes. Our regiment looked splendid in new kilt aprons. General Smith-Dorrien was very pleased with the men, and afterwards he gathered the officers and sergeants together, and spoke to us at some length. He said that he was glad to have us in his army, and considered that it was a great piece of luck for him. He went on to say that we had surpassed the best hopes he had of us. The Canadian artillery and engineers, he thought, were excellent, and he knew that we would do well in the coming weeks, during which we should have the hardest kind of trench warfare. He concluded by saying that he would be sorry for the Germans who encountered the Cana- dians. General Alderson also spoke, and said he was proud of us, and he praised us for our splendid work in the trenches and for the support we had given to him." Inspected in a Thunderstorm 75 A New Brunswick man serving with the Canadian En- gineers, in a letter of the same date, wrote: "Thanks for your letters and the papers, also the parcel. Somebody sent me a huge cake from Buszard's, but I don't know who, as they put no name. However, I ate it and asked no questions. "We have trekked fifteen or sixteen miles again, but are still about that distance from the front, though in a different command. Billets as usual, but pigs everywhere, very smelly ! Also the people have seen no Germans and are not hospitably inclined to khaki. Otherwise it is all right, but of course we are fed up with doing nothing, and have no idea how long it will last. "On Easter Sunday I started off, with twenty-four hours' rations and blankets, and push-bikcd down to the village behind the trenches. Had a deuce of a ride, as it was just drying up after rain and my back wheel simply wouldn't stand upright. Once I went down under a lorry, and after that fell off every hundred yards regularly. Found some of the regulars down there who had been at Neuve Chapelle, and we had a cheery evening and the eggs you sent came in handy. It certainly was a hot spot for stray bullets on the road at night, so I didn't go there, my duties being to guard our shovels. "To-day General Alderson inspected us and told us what fine fellows we were. Of course we had a thunderstorm while waiting and got wet through ; no inspection is com- plete without one." Another man wrote : " I have finished doing guard over the prisoners, and am back with the boys. A German aero- plane a few days ago dropped bombs on the next village and killed a few civilians. We saw it being shot at, but it was not hit. Now the weather is getting better the aero- planes are active from 6 a.m. till dark, and it seems very difficult to bring them down. For some time we were billeted in an inn, so were lucky, but are now back among the rats. While on patrol lately we went up to within a quarter of a mile of a church which the Germans were shell- 76 The Battle Glory of Canada ing. They managed to do a good deal of damage, but no lives were lost. We have their measure everywhere. Our artillery a few days later destroyed the gun that shelled the church previously mentioned. We are playing a game of football to-night. We have played two games — ^drawn one and won one. Don't be shocked at our playing football, for you don't know what pleasure it gives us. "We have been living very ' high ' lately, having custards and night-cap puddings at will. We go tO' any farm and ask if we can buy and boil some milk and eggs and then make our puddings. Some of the people are very kind. . . . My French is giving me all kinds of fun, and I'm going strong. Last night we had a night alarm. We had to be up and out and all packed within half an hour. What a fine success the Russians had ! The better the Russians do, the better for us on our front, more so than people think." Private Lidiard of the i6th Battalion (Canadian Scottish), in a letter to his mother dated the 14th of April, writes : "I must tell you I was never in better health in my life. I am getting fat as a pig, and now the spring is here I am getting sunburnt. I have been out of the trenches now about ten days, but will be going in again pretty soon for another go; but I expect to come home soon, as in my opinion the war is pretty nearly over. I am convinced that the Germans are beaten. *' I must tell you of a funny little incident that happened to me the last time I was in the trenches. I was just going in when I saw a poor orphan chicken looking for a home; and, of course, I, being a kind-hearted fellow, gave it a home. I also found some vegetables and made a nice little stew. It was just ready, and I was just going to dig in when Mr. Hun took a shot at me and hit the top of the trench and shot a lot of mud into the pot, and it was good-bye to my dinner. I am now looking for Mr. Hun with a big smile and a big club. I also think I know the one who did it." Saving Their Breakfast 77 The German aeroplanes sometimes relieved the monotony of work in trenches or billets. An Irishman serving with the Canadian Artillery, in a letter home, writes: "We had an exciting time at a village about twenty miles from where we are now. We were working on the side of a road when a bomb was dropped by a German aeroplane on the cooking house of the Winnipeg Rifles, wounding one of the battalion and killing two Frenchmen. About ten minutes afterwards two of our aeroplanes went up in pursuit of the German air- man, who turned tail after dropping two more bombs, which landed in, a field of horses, killing five. Pursued by our airmen, he made for the German lines, and it looked as if he was going to escape, when a shot from one of our guns brought the machine down, and the airman was taken prisoner." But whether it was an aeroplane or shells that formed the incident of the day, the Canadians seized upon the event as the subject for a little humour, as the following extract from a letter of an infantry man shows. "The last time we were in the trenches we had a warm time of it. The Germans first opened fire on us when we were at breakfast, and it was a funny sight to see the fellows running with their equipment and rifle in one hand, and in the other their can of tea, and their bread and pot of jam under their arm. The second time the Germans started was just before the cook-shed, and I am sure all the boys were thinking whether their dinner was spoilt or not much more than they were of the shells. As luck would have it, the shell did not explode, and left our dinner intact ; and we thoroughly enjoyed it after waiting an hour for it. One of our billets caught fire and burnt all the fellows' equipment, etc., but that was the only damage done." A special and pathetic note is attached to the following extracts from Private Lidiard's letter dated the i7th-2oth of April, in that they were among the last he wrote before taking part in the battle on the 22nd of April in which he was killed. He wrote: "On the 15th of April we left our 78 The Battle Glory of Canada comfortable barn and marched some five miles nearer the firing line, where we were again billeted in a barn for one night. On Frida}', r^veill^ was at 4.30, but we did not actually get off till after 8.30, and we had the pleasure of a ride in a motor-bus. It reminds me of my last motor-bus ride when I was in London, but then they were not so up-to- date as here because they collected fares and did not provide a free Canadian newspaper to read, as they did to us here. "We had a ride of about twelve miles and then were packed for lunch and had to walk the rest of the way here. It was raining a bit last night, which made the ground very sticky, and it was hard going; also it was terribly dark, and very hard to follow the man in front when coming into the trenches. Of course, there was the usual falling into holes en route. In one place there was a stream or ditch to cross, and only two planks across it; it would have been funny if it had not been so uncomfortable, but most of the fellows missed the planks and waded through the water. Luckily for me a star shell went up just before I got there, and I was able to get a foot on the plank and make a jump for the bank, and had the good luck to land dry. We are not far from our favourite general's favourite place, and there have been quite a few scraps here. To-day {17th of April) has been very quiet and very few shots have come our way; only the artillery have been exchanging souvenirs over cur heads, and there has been quite a lot of firing at aeroplanes. "This morning (i8th of April) there was a lot of excite- ment over an aeroplane fight. Our machine was on top, and must have put the German machine out of action, because it planed down and was quite low over our heads. The German one managed to land over in their lines appar- ently safe and sound : their lines are about 150 yards from us. It was quite a sight, and the German kept very cool; he steered his machine out of sight behind some houses. This afternoon they shelled us and managed to do quite a lot of damage to our parapets. Needless to say, we all lay low and got as much cover as possible. There was all sorts Music Amid Shell-Fire 79 of earth flying around, but, so far, I have not heard of anyone being hurt. "April 2oth. Just completed my toilet and have had my first wash and shave since we came into the trenches. Our fellows have dug- a water hole behind the lines, so there is plenty of water now. We are making our fort quite homely ; we have now two cane-seated chairs and the remains of an oak chest of drawers. These were brought from a ruined farmhouse along with the wood for our fires. One of our fellows made an excursion last night after dark in front of our lines and came back with a German helmet. Last night we were all very busy making improvements, filling sand- bags and building up our parapets, and so were the Germans. I could hear them putting down their sandbags; of course, there was no firing by either party — that is the under- standing. "The fellows are all fit and well and in good spirits. One fellow has a mandoline, which he plays on occasions ; and yesterday some of the fellows were basking in the sun, lying on the ground behind our lines listening to the music and not taking any notice of the enemy's occasional shots. Also at jneal times we absolutely ignore the enemy. Meals are, of course, of more importance, and it is only the men on sentry duty who keep an eye on Fritz." A Montreal oflicer serving with the Royal Highlanders (13th Battalion), writing just before the great fight, says: " Every day the Germans place about twenty shells in our neighbourhood, and make things uncomfortable generally. The shells can be heard coming. They sigh along just as if they were tired, and explode with a tremendous row. The weather is splendid, but it is going to be very hot before long. Our new trenches are pretty bad. The French are not very particular where they bury their dead, and between the lines there are about thirty bodies visible which cannot be reached at the present time. It is not at all nice. How- ever, we have orders to make it hot for the Germans, so that they will have something to worry about." 8o The Battle Glory of Canada Before we come to the great battle of Ypres, and while we leave the Canadian troops in billets awaiting that fateful event, it may not be out of place to refer to a visit paid to the contingent by Mr. W. L. Griffith, the Secretary to the office of the High Commissioner for Canada, in the month of April, as in his report to Sir George Perley he gives us a glimpse of the contingent troops as he saw them. In the course of this report Mr. Griffith said : "My old chief. Lord Strathcona, a great judge of men and things, used to say with emphasis, ' The War Office is very good ! The War Office needs no praise from anyone ; but perhaps at this juncture it may be permissible to state that while acting on behalf of the Canadian authorities in a large number of important transactions over a period exceed- ing twelve years, I have become convinced that the War Office, in point of business efficiency and integrity, is unapproached by any similar body. "The remarkable success which has attended the trans- portation of the troops and all their requirements, the making of the necessary provision in the field for supplies for men and horses and for the care of the wounded, is entirely the result of the painstaking efforts of the authorities. There is consequently in the field an army found and fed as no other has ever been ; and, coupled with pride at the valour of his countrymen in this ghastly struggle, there is no Britisher but will feel a deep satisfaction that everything possible is being done to further their success and mitigate the hard- ships of the campaign. The Army Medical Corps has evolved methods by which the men periodically bathe and have their clothing antiseptically washed and treated so as to completely free them from those pests which are inevitable in the field. In one town a huge factory has been adapted in a most ingenious way to this purpose, and over i,ooo men pass through it daily. Hundreds of women are employed in laundering. Nor is the care for the men exhausted by the provision made for their bodily needs. I attended an excellent music-hall performance — ' The Follies ' — held in a The Menu at the Front 8i large municipal building, and crowded by troops recently from the trenches. The artistes, drawn from among the regiments, were quite up to the London standard, and the electric laughter evoked was eloquent of the blessed distrac- tion thus afforded. "The men are keenly appreciative of these admirable arrangements, and the effect upon their health and spirits cannot be exaggerated. "Rations have been mentioned. Here they are: ij^ lb. fresh meat, or i lb. (nominal) preserved meat; i}( lb. bread, or I lb. biscuit, or i lb. flour; 4 oz. bacon; 2 oz. butter (twice a week) ; 3 oz. cheese ; 2 oz. peas or beans, or dried potatoes ; ^ oz. tea; % lb. jam; 3 oz. sugar; j4 oz. salt; 1-20 oz. mustard; 1-36 oz. pepper; i-io gill (1-320 gal.) lime juice; j4 gill (1-64 gal.) rum; tobacco, not exceeding 2 oz. per week, for those who smoke. Fresh vegetables, whenever obtainable, will be issued at the rate of %' lb. per ration, and when these are supplied, peas, beans, or dried potatoes, and lime juice will not be required. "Extras for Men in Trenches. — Pea soup, when ordered; tea, % oz. extra ; sugar, i oz. extra. "Iron Ration. — i lb. (nominal) preserved meat; 12 oz. biscuit; 3 oz. cheese; ^ oz. tea, 2 oz. sugar, }^ oz. salt (in a tin) ; 2 cubes of meat extract (i oz.). " I questioned dozens of men as to their food and clothing, and, without exception, received not merely passive responses, but emphatic, unreserved testimony to their super-excellence. " In order to be in a position tO' speak from personal ob- servations, I inspected the rations, the shirts, boots, etc., and also the wool coats, dressing gowns and medical comforts in the hospitals ; and the variety, extent and condition of all these amply bore out the claim that no army has been so adequately provided. Colonel F. S. L. Ford, C.A.M.C., told me that ' The men are getting, without any doubt, the best attention ever given to soldiers in war time. Their health is excellent, and the Canadians are particularly fit.' "General Mercer spoke to the same effect, adding that G 82 The Battle Glory of Canada the ' Ross rifle has so far proved eminently satisfactory ' ; and, on leaving, he asked me to convey to Sir Robert Borden the following message : ' We are very happy to be here to bear our part in this war for international honour.' To sum up this aspect, let it be said that relatives and friends in Canada may rest assured that, well or wounded, all that is humanly possible has been and is being done on behalf of their dear ones in France. They lack for nothing essential, although they can always do with some extra socks. It is not possible in a hurried and brief report of this nature to recite all the facts upon which this conclusion is based, but it rests upon a full and careful observation made on the spot. "In discussing this matter with an officer in the trenches, he said, rather sharply, in reply to a remark of mine : ' Yes ; our needs have been fully met, but we deserve it.' This man had been in the fight from the outset, and the terrible char- acter of his experiences in the past and his gauge of what is to come had, like iron, entered his soul. "Although Mons is past, and Ypres — perhaps the greatest of all British military achievements — has been won, let no man underrate the struggle which must precede the crushing of the Germans. In my view, it will be tremendous and pro- tracted. Confronted by an entrenched enemy, brilliantly led, inspired by great bravery, and equipped with all the modern implements of war, the task now at hand must surely test us to the uttermost. The enemy, driven at great cost from one trench, will retire to another, and so the bloody process must go on until he is exhausted. " In face of all this, our gallant Army confidently yet grimly girds its loins. The only fear it has is that the sup- plies of ammunition may not be as plentiful as required. The Army claims that the precious lives already sacrificed imposes upon all the steady pursuit of our course to the bitter end. I deeply regretted to find that exaggerated reports as to strikes had worried our Army. We at home should learn to * consume our own smoke,' as our defenders at the front so nobly do. The Wit of Tommy Atkins 83 "The spirit animating the British Army is splendid. A wood immediately behind the trenches has been the scene of much fighting. It is not more than loo yards from the German firing line. In it are men's huts, and dotted about, tenderly cared for, are graves of the fallen. Frequently bullets embed themselves with vicious thuds in the sandbags, and every twig is barked by rifle fire. A few hundred feet away are the trenches, receiving a constant stream of shells and bullets. Yet ' Tommy ' has found time and inclination to profusely adorn his hut with cowslips transplanted from the wood. One hut, I observed from a neatly printed board, was ' Regent Street Villa ' ; other inscriptions were, * Ici on parle Billingsgate,' ' Wanted a housemaid, gentle and kind, age about twenty-four. No flirt need apply,' and yet another board, alongside two weakly green blades, bore the facetious notice, ' Keep off the grass.' "The discipline and spirits of the Canadians are also exemplary. General Smith-Dorrien informed me that the men had given him the utmost satisfaction, ' as men must,' he said, ' who have the spirit to come thousands of miles overseas to fight for a common ideal.' When General Smith- Dorrien was ins[>ecting the Canadian troops, he asked one of the men : * How old are you? ' ' Thirty-seven years, sir.' ' How many years have you served? ' ' Forty-one, sir.' ' How do you make that out? ' ' Well, sir, actually I am fifty-seven years of age, but I was allowed by the De- partment of Militia and Defence to enlist as at thirty-seven years. I have four sons now at the front.' ' Yes,' added his colonel ; ' and he came in second at the regimental heavy kit race.' Truly a fit exponent of the Canadian tempera- ment. The general complimented him upon what he properly termed his ' proud record.' " It was both pleasant and interesting to note the high esteem in which our French Allies were held by our Army, which freely bears tribute to the valour and endurance of the soldiers of the Republic. "The organisation for dealing with the wounded is as 34 The Battle Glory of Canada complete and perfect as can be. The stretcher-bearers bring the fallen men to the motor ambulances, where first aid is given ; thence they proceed to the clearing hospitals. If the condition of the patients permits, they then proceed, after treatment, to the base hospitals ; if it does not, they are retained until fit to be moved. At Boulogne, hospital ships, admirably fitted up for the purpose for which they are in- tended, convey the men to England. Nothing that science or money can provide is omitted, and all the institutions to which reference has been made are fitted up in the most complete manner. For instance, the Canadian Clearing Hospital I visited had a fully equipped dental surgery in which no appliance was lacking. Captain Dixon showed me a field soup kitchen — a gift, by the way, from Major Leonard — which he described as ' one of the most sensible things we have got.' One filling provides sufficient soup for 250 patients. "When this hospital receives a call for ambulance aid, a whistle is blown, and, ninety seconds after, motor ambul- ances, each to hold six wounded, are ready to proceed on their mission. I briefly mention these facts to assure the Canadian public that all that is possible, and more than might be ex- pected in the circumstances, is most speedily done to alleviate pain and save precious lives. " In driving along the British front I met men from all parts of the Dominion, and at times it almost seemed as if the scene lay in the districts around Toronto, so similar was the contour of the country. In one field a number of our boys were playing baseball within sound of the guns, but wherever one met them it was only to be impressed by their resolute demeanour and with the fact that each man is seized with the determination to uphold in this gigantic struggle the honour of the Dominion." CHAPTER IV THE DEATHLESS STORY OP YPRES " ' Carry the word to my sisters, To the Queens of the East and the South I have proven faith in the Heritage By more than the word of the mouth. They that are wise may follow Ere the world's war-trumpet blows : But 1 — I am first in the battle,' Said our Lady of the Snows." — RuDVAED Kipling. When the Canadians moved northwards intO' Belgium in the early days of April, General Sir H. Smith-Dorrien, when he inspected them, promised them " the hardest kind of trench warfare," and told them he would be sorry for the Germans who encountered his Canadian boys. They did encounter the Germans at close quarters in the second battle of Ypres, and in the words of Sir John French they " saved the situa- tion." "The Canadians," to use the words of the correspon- dent of the Exchange Telegraph Company, "gained a lasting place in the annals of British history. The feat of arms to the north-east of Ypres performed by the Canadians will never be forgotten while the English language is spoken." In the excellent account of the battle given by Sir W. Max Aitken, the Canadian Record Officer, it is pointed out that the battle cannot, of course, be described with precision of military detail until time has made possible the co-ordination of relevant diaries, and the piecing together in a narrative both lucid and exact of much which, so near the event, is confused and blurred. " But," continues Sir Max Aitken, 85 86 The Battle Glory of Canada " it Is considered right that those mourning in Canada to-day for husbands, sons or brothers who have given their lives for the Empire should have, with as little reserve as military considerations allow, the rare and precious consolation which in the agony of bereavement the record of the valour of their dead must bring. "And indeed the mourning in Canada will be very wide- spread, for the battle which raged for so many days in the neighbourhood of Ypres was bloody, even as men appraise battles in this callous life-engulfing war. But as long as brave deeds retain the power to fire the blood of Anglo- Saxons, the stand made by the Canadians in those desperate days will be told by fathers to their sons, for in the military records of Canada this defence will shine as brightly as, in the records of the British Army, the stubborn valour with which Sir James MacDonnell and the Guards beat back from Hougoumont the division of Foy and the army corps of Reille. "The Canadians have wrested from the trenches, over the bodies of the dead and maimed, the right to stand side by side with the superb troops who' in the first battle of Ypres broke and drove before them the flower of the Prussian Guards. Looked at from any point the performance would be remarkable. It is amazing to soldiers when the genesis and composition of the Canadian division are considered. It contained, no doubt, a sprinkling of South African veterans, but it consisted in the main of men who were admirable raw material, but who, at the outbreak of war, were neither disciplined nor trained, as men count discipline and training in these days of scientific warfare. "It was, it is true, commanded by a distinguished English general; its staff was supplemented, without being replaced, by some brilliant British staff oflScers. But In Its higher and regimental commands were to be found lawyers, college professors, business men and real estate agents, ready with cool self-confidence to do battle against an organisation in which the study of military science is the exclusive pursuit In Face of Fearful Odds 87 of laborious lives. With what devotion, with a valour how desperate, with resourcefulness how cool and how fruitful, the amateur soldiers of Canada confronted overwhelming odds, may, perhaps, be made clear even by a narrative so incomplete as the present." Thus Sir Max Aitken opens the thrilling story he tells of Canadian heroism in the face of fearful odds. His account of the battle is acknowledged by the officers who took part in the fight, and who have given their experiences to me, to be a very fair summary of what took place. No better ac- count has yet been published. Indeed, it may safely be said that no battle in the present war has been described for the public better than this account by Sir Max Aitken of the battle of Ypres. I have interviewed several officers who fought in the battle, and who kindly gave me their experiences and ex- plained the part their own particular unit took in the action. The problem set before me was how to make use of this material in conjunction with Sir Max Aitken's account.* I came to the conclusion that I could not do better than use his account and supplement it, wherever an officer referred to this or that incident, by his statement. Even so, the narra- tive cannot be made complete. There are many points on which questions might be asked — questions which cannot be answered yet. It is easy to criticise and say, "someone has blundered," but without real knowledge such criticism is futile. We must wait for an explanation of liow it came about that the salient of Ypres which was known to be a source of weakness to the forces holding it seems to have been left to be defended by a comparatively small body of men. But it is useless to raise the question, for it cannot be answered without a great deal more knowledge than we now possess. I hope, however, that the plan I laid out before starting on this chapter, and which I have tried to keep in mind in the writing will help to throw a little more light on • I have followed the Dailv Chronicle s version of Sir Max Aitken's account as being the fullest. 88 The Battle Glory of Canada the battle, though the account thus given will of necessity partake of the nature of patchwork. What I have done has only been to place the patches in the right place, and to keep each officer's account under the heading to which it belongs. The Canadian Line "On the 22nd of April," writes Sir Max Aitken, "the Canadian division held a line of, roughly, 5,000 yards, extend- ing in a north-westerly direction from the Ypres-Roulers railway to the Vpres-Poelcapelle road, and connecting at its terminus with the French troops. The division consisted of three infantry brigades, in addition to the artillery brigades. Of the infantry brigades the first was in reserve, the second was on the right, and the third established contact with the Allies." An officer belonging to the Royal Canadian Artillery, who has been serving in the 6th Battery C.F.A. and was in hospital suffering from concussion and bruises caused by German shell fire, speaking of the battle at Ypres, said that it was necessary to get out of one's mind the idea of the position being a straight line. Before the battle began tbe» position of the troops where the French and Canadians were lying next to each other might be described as a recumbent S. The French occupied the concave curve to the left, to the north-east of Ypres, and the Canadians were half-way along the convex curve, the rest being occupied by a British division. Of the Canadian line, the 8th and 5th Battalions were on the right, while the 13th and 14th were next to the French. "The day," continues the official account, "was a peace- ful one, warm and sunny, and except that the previous day had witnessed a further bombardment of the stricken town of Ypres, everything seemed quiet in front of the Canadian line. At five o'clock in the afternoon a plan, carefully pre- pared, was put into execution against our French Allies on the left. Asphyxiating gas of great intensity was projected The First of Poison Gas 89 into tlieir trenches, probably by means of force pumps and pipes laid out under the parapets. The fumes, aided by a favourable wind, floated backwards, poisoning and disabling over an extended area those who fell under their effect. "The result was that the French were compelled to give ground for a considerable distance. The glory which the French Army has won in this war would make it impertinent to labour the compelling nature of the poisonous discharges under which the trenches were lost. The French did — as every one knew they would do — all that stout soldiers could do; and the Canadian division, officers and men, look forv/ard to many occasions in the future in which they will stand side by side with the brave armies of France. "The immediate consequences of this enforced withdrawal were, of course, extremely grave. The 3rd Brigade of the Canadian division was without any left, or, in other words, its left was in the air. It became imperatively necessary greatly to extend the Canadian lines to the left rear. It was not, of course, practicable to move the ist Brigade from reserve at a moment's notice, and the line, extended from 5,000 to 9,000 yards, was naturally not the line that had been held by the Allies at five o'clock, and a gap still existed on its left. The new line, of which our recent point of contact with the French formed the apex, was now two sides of a right angle. "It became necessary," continues Sir Max Aitken, "for Brigadier-General Turner to throw back his left flank south- ward to protect his rear. In the course of the confusion which followed on the readjustments of position, the enemy, who had advanced rapidly after his initial successes, took four British 4.7 guns in a small wood to the west of the village of St. Julien, two miles in the rear of the original French trenches. "The story of the second battle of Ypres is the story of how the Canadian division, enormously outnumbered — for they had in front of them at least four divisions, supported by immensely heavy artillery — with a gap still existing, 90 The Battle Glory of Canada thoug-h reduced, in their lines, and with dispositions made hurriedly under the stimulus of critical danger, fought through the day and through the night, and then throug-h another day and night; fought under their officers until, as happened to so many, those perished gloriously, and then fought from the impulsion of sheer valour because they came from fighting stock. "The enemy, of course, was aware — whether fully or not may perhaps be doubted — ^of the advantage his breach in the line had given him, and immediately began to push a formid- able series of attacks upon the whole of the newly-formed Canadian salient. If it is possible to distinguish when the attack was everywhere so fierce, it developed with particular intensity at this moment upon the apex of the newly-formed line, running in the direction of St. Julien. "It has already been stated that four British guns were taken in a wood comparatively early in the evening of the twenty-second. In the course of that night, and under the heaviest machine-gun fire, this wood was assaulted by the Canadian Scottish, i6th Battalion of the 3rd Brigade, and the loth Battalion of the 2nd Brigade, which was intercepted for this purpose on its way to a reserve trench. The bat- talions were respectively commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Leckie and Lieutenant-Colonel Boyle, and after a most fierce struggle in the light of a misty moon, they took the position at the point of the bayonet. At midnight the 2nd Battalion, under Colonel Watson, and the Toronto Regiment, Queen's Own, 3rd Battalion, under Lieutenant-Colonel Rennie, both of the I St Brigade, brought up much-needed reinforcement, and though not actually engaged in the assault were in reserve. "All through the following days and nights these battal- ions shared the fortunes and misfortunes of the 3rd Brigade. An officer who took part in the attack describes how the men about him fell under the fire of the machine guns, which, in his phrase, played upon them * like a watering pot.' He added quite simply, ' I wrote my own life off.' But the line A Glorious Charge 91 never wavered. When one man fell another took his place, and with a final shout the survivors of the two battalions flung themselves into the wood. The German garrison was completely demoralised, and the impetuous advance of the Canadians did not cease until they reached the far side of the wood and entrenched themselves there in the position so dearly gained. They had, however, the disappointment of finding that the guns had been blown up by the enemy, and later on in the same night a most formidable con- centration of artillery fire, sweeping the wood as a tropical storm sweeps the leaves from a forest, made it impossible for them to hold the position for which they had sacrificed so much." This account of the heroic attack on the wood may be supplemented by a description given to me by a lieutenant of the i6th Battalion while in a London hospital, wounded. His account was as follows : "Our battalion was in reserve of the 4th Brigade on the extreme left. Wc came out of the trenches two days before the battle, namely, on the 20th of April. On the Thursday, 22nd of April, another officer and I went into Ypres to enjoy the luxury of a bath. Sounds of shelling became so much heavier than usual that we hurried from the building. We found a considerable part of the town on fire, and a large number of women and children fleeing, carrying away such of their possessions as they could — a very pitiable sight. We returned to our billets hastily, and on the way met a mounted officer who told us that our regiment was falling in. On reaching the billets we were told to take up a position near by and await orders. About 6.30 p.m. we were instructed to take up a position on the canal and hold it against the enemy. The roadway behind the canal was then being heavily shelled by lyddite and shrapnel. Soon after seven o'clock we were ordered to march into "\'pres, cross the bridge, proceed right to vSt. Julien, and await orders. Every now and then stretchers came past with wounded men. Bullets were rampant. We lay down and waited. Then we 92 The Battle Glory of Canada joined the loth Battalion and marched right forward, apparently in the direction of St. Julien. "Arriving at the long ridge, we saw a wood two miles away and were told that this was our objective. The Ger- mans must be driven out before daylight. It was arranged that the attack should be made at midnight. We moved forward and got into a hollow out of sight of the enemy in the wood about 300 yards away. " Everything was quiet and it was a beautiful night. Hearing no sound, we began to think there were no Germans in the wood. We gave the order to fix bayonets and take off overcoats. The battalions then lined up in long lines, the loth in front, and each company divided into haWes, one half thirty yards behind the other half. At midnight we moved forward quietly until the ridge was reached. The moon shone out, and I was thinking what a picture the flashing bayonets made in the moonlight when the Germans suddenly opened fire on us with machine guns and rifles. It was a hideous din. We were now about 200 yards from the wood and were ordered to give the charge. When we had gone about fifty yards the rank in front of me seemed to melt away. We rushed at the wood. Once in the wood fighting with bayonets began, and there was a general mix- up and a succession of hand-to-hand fights ; but we drove the Germans out. The rush to the wood really saved us, for when within twenty yards of it the Germans seemed to be firing over our heads. I was wounded while in the wood. I thought a clod of earth had hit my leg and knocked me over; it was some time before I realised that I had a bullet in my leg. I lay down and got hold of a rifle and had some shots at the Germans ; and afterwards managed to make my way back to the field ambulance. I fear that the loth and my own 1 6th Battalion suffered severely. There was no artillery to shell the wood before we advanced. It was a stiff job for two battalions to take it. If the Germans had known how few we were things might have turned out very badly." Private Gerald Hardman, of the Canadian Scottish, sent **We Went Down in Hundreds" 93 home the following account of the week's severe fighting from the 22nd to 29th of April : "This is the first moment I have had to write, and don't think I shall manage much now. You will read in the papers all that has happened in this last week. Briefly, it was as follows : After four days' trenches we were relieved on the night of the 20th of April and got to bed on the night of the 2ist of April. "April 22nd. — In the evening the French retired and we were called out, knowing nothing. Suddenly at nearly mid- night we discarded packs and with another battalion advanced with fixed bayonets; a burst of fire opened, and we charged in steady rushes over 600 yards of open ground in the face of a front and enfilade fire of rifles and machine guns, so intense that it seemed nothing could live in it. We went down in hundreds, but we got there, how I know not, and drove them out of their trench and back through a wood. The fire from the flanks never ceased. " Till an hour before dawn we held the position, and then, to keep touch with our flanks, retired and occupied the trench. Then we worked like devils to throw up a parapet, but at best it was an insecure barrier, and soon we were exposed to a bad rifle and worse shell fire. But we worked on. The foul gas that had driven the French out was in our ears, our eyes, and mouth, and we had neither water nor food. A mine was exploded under us, v/hich luckily only half went off. During that awful morning we made two rushes on the wood, and our numbers grew less and less. But we kept deepening the trench, and at night we were able to bring up food and water and got back some of the wounded. But the enemy's snipers were very active. "April 24th. — We handed over the trench in broad day- light to another battalion, and in so doing had to retire across the open under a hail of bullets, and occupied support trenches. The shelling never left off, and we burrowed right into the earth. Every building near by was simply swept away by ' Jack Johnsons,' and shrapnel and explosive shells 94 The Battle Glory of Canada were rained on us and round us. Reinforcements began to come up and we thanked God ; but they suffered terribly and were terribly brave. At night we got lots of rations and managed to forage a few necessities. I have lost all I possess except my fighting equipment. "During the night of the 25th we were withdrawn to reserve, but arriving at a farm at dawn were off again shortly. " Monday, April 26th. — We lay in a ditch and held a road. Our batteries right beside us gave them half an hour of the Neuve Chapelle racket ; what that is like has been described in the papers. During the night our position was discovered, and we were again exposed to a rain of shells and lost more men. We retired at dawn to the big farm, but at noon were called out again at the double, and dashed for two miles through our batteries which were going full blaze while the German shells searched all round for them. We stopped by one of the batteries and, as usual, dug ourselves in. At 8 p.m. we returned to the farm and got our second night's sleep in twelve days. But no rest yet ; they shelled the farm and we worked all day on dug-outs (28th of April). In the evening out we came again and lined the canal bank in reserve; dug ourselves in — more shelling, and more losses. The place is like a rabbit warren. "April 29th. — I am writing from our dug-out on the canal now. Things seem a little quieter, but the shells still come, and we hope in a day or two to be withdrawn to reform and rest. The strain and the lack of sleep has told on us and our nerves are very jumpy. They have kept us going on frequent issues of rum. Don't worry for me — I am all right and proud that the Canadians have justified themselves. I have been very fortunate and begin to trust my luck." A sergeant in the loth Battalion gave his experiences in a brief letter. He wrote : "Just a hurried scrawl to let you know I am safe and sound. You have no doubt seen by papers that we were engaged in the new battle of Ypres, and we had a very A Plucky Parson 95 anxious time. Our battalion opened the assault. The Ger- mans had a position in a wood and we had orders to get them out. We charged the position and forced the enemy back, but our losses were very heavy. The machine guns mowed our boys down like grass, but we stayed with it and came out on top. I went through the charge, but with my proverbial luck was not touched. Why, I do not know. Men fell all around me. It was a ghastly sight. The front of the wood was beyond description. Our dead and wounded were lying in heaps. We had the satisfaction of breaking the German attack at that particular point, and, moreover, we held the position until reinforcements came up. I believe ' K. of K.' thinks quite a lot of us now. Our whole division has had tremendous losses, and I guess we shall rest up and reinforce. But I can honestly say I don't want another time like that again — at least, not yet, anyway." Another private in the i6th, while lying wounded in hospital, said : "We were all in the fight. I must tell you about two men who did scout work during that charge. In our corps there is a parson, a little man physically, but all pluck. He had emptied his pistol, and with the empty pistol he captured a huge German. There was also our paymaster. He is over sixty and had never been in action before. He went into the fight with his revolver and his walking-stick, and he did great work with both. He came out with a slight wound, and he refused to go back to the dressing station." The following story by "one who took part in the fight- ing in the wood " was published in the Times: "It was about half-past four in the afternoon of Thursday that our pickets reported a sudden retiring movement on the part of our French Allies on the left of the Canadian division on the Ypres-Langemarch road. The strong north-east wind which was blowing from the enemy lines across the French trenches became charged with a sickening and suffocating odour which was recognised as proceeding from some poison- ous gas. The smoke moved like a vivid green wall some 96 The Battle Glory of Canada four feet in height for several hundreds of yards, extending to within 200 yards of the extreme left of our lines. Gradu- ally it rose higher and obscured the view from the level. The rifle fire which had hitherto been desultory increased in volume, but tended to become more and more erratic, as is always the case when men fire at random or without any clear idea of their mark. *' Soon strange cries were heard, and through the green mist, now growing thinner and patchy, there came a mass of dazed and reeling men who fell as they passed through our ranks. The greater number were unwounded, but they bore upon their faces the marks of agony. The retiring men were among the finest soldiers of the world, whose sang-froid and courage have been proverbial throughout the war. All were reeling through us and round us like drunken men, "Meanwhile, the enemy advanced, and we retreated to the base, where my particular battalion had been enjoying two out of the usual four days' relief in billets. It was now a little after five o'clock, and the Germans, continuing their unopposed advance, were seen feverishly entrenching them- selves at a distance of half a mile on a line parallel to the road leading to Poelcapelle. At nine o'clock they had con- structed their temporary trenches, while we were preparing to counter-attack. "About six I rejoined my battalion at a different point in the line, but I heard afterwards that there had been sharp fighting at St. Julien, where the 14th Canadian Battalion had put up a very stiff fight and resisted the enemy's ad- vance. Some of our fellows, who had been on a few hours' leave, came in from Ypres, which is ' town ' for us. They said they were having a bath when the occasional shell fire from the German trenches, which is in the everyday pro- gramme, became too hot to stand. They dashed into the street about half-past four to find that the place was being furiously bombarded, or rather, that the road along the eastern bank of the canal was being pounded by shell and Holding the Canal 97 was already full of dead and dying- horses and smashed-up wagons. "The object of the enemy was clearly to prevent reinforce- ments and ammunition from being brought up. The fright- ened women and children, who form the non-military popu- lation of Ypres, were already streaming out into the fields, where many lost their lives. "To return to my own personal experiences. It was about 6 p.m. when the battalion, with others, was ordered to stand to arms. Our orders were to take up a position on the western side of the canal bank and to hold it. We lined up and were then supplied with rations and ammunition. There we waited until shortly past seven under a moderate shrapnel fire, while the road behind us was being shelled by lyddite to hinder the arrival of reinforcements. We could hear heavy cannonading both to the north and the south, and occasionally sharp volley firing. "We all felt we were out for a big job, and were heartily glad when, at 7.15, the order was given to march. Crossing over the canal bridge we took the road towards St. Julien, branching off to the right at the cross-roads, to a village a little to the north-east of the former place. On our way we passed the Middlesex ' boys.' "The villagers turned out and wished us ' Good luck ' and vociferously cheered the Canadian Scottish battalions. This pleased our men hugely, particularly as we were told that the Highlanders were the men to settle the ' Boches.' Night was now coming on fast. There was no firing on our front, but there was a heavy cannonade on our left, shells passing over us from time to time. "We continued our advance, marching very slowly in order not to tire the men. We next heard heavy rifle firing on our left front. This was followed by raging shrapnel fire on our right, where some of the regiments must have suffered severely. "On arriving at a second cross-road, we entered a long plain on our left and the battalion lined up in column of H gS The Battle Glory of Canada companies to await orders. At this time, about lo p.m., we knew that heavy fighting- was going on in St. JuHen, where the 14th Battalion was engaged, and, as we were told, had retaken the place. The firing which we had heard for so long from that direction now died down. Our halt was not for long. We were ordered to change our front to the left, in the direction of St. Julien. The night had now become very dark. The moon, of which we had only had a few glimpses during our march, had disappeared behind dense black clouds, but farm buildings were ablaze all around us, and at a distance of, as near as I could judge, about two miles and a half, in nearly a straight line from our new front, there was a large wood. "The sound of firing had now entirely ceased and was succeeded by a silence which, to those of us who had been months at the front, was uncanny. After a further halt, which seemed interminable, but was really only one of minutes, we were ordered to move off in the direction of the wood. Scarcely had we done so when the intervening plain was again treated to shrapnel, but at intervals only, and we arrived within three-quarters of a mile of the outskirts of the forest without any casualties in our lot. " Here a further halt was called, and the officers were then told that the Germans were occupying the wood, that they had been in possession since four o'clock, and, in all probability, were entrenched therein. It was pointed out that the enemy were occupying a strong position in the rear of the British lines and that they must be driven out of it at all costs. It was whispered also that some British guns had been taken during the afternoon, and that it would be our ' bit ' to retake them. It was well understood ty all that we were in for bayonet work and that we should not be supported by artillery. "We again moved on, in column of companies, forming fours to pass through a narrow gateway. This passed, we deployed in long lines of half companies, the second half of each company keeping about thirty yards in the rear of the A Perfect Hell of Fire 99 first. All the battalions marched in this formation, and each first half-company knew that its ' pals ' in the second would not fail to support it when it came to the ' Charge.' The loth Battalion had the post of honour in the van, and its gallant colonel, Russell Boyle, fell leading it. "It wanted but a few minutes to midnight when we got to a hollow which was at most 300 yards from the wood. The moon now reappeared at intervals and we could have done without her. The shrapnel fire had completely ceased, and we had a second spell of a silence which could be felt. "Whispered orders were given to fix bayonets, which were obeyed in a flash. Overcoats, packs, and even the officers' equipments were dropped, and we immediately advanced in light order. " Scarcely had we reached a low ridge, in full view of the wood, when a perfect hell of fire was loosed on us from rifles and machine guns which the Germans had placed in position behind the undergrowth skirting the wood. "Instantly the word was given to charge, and on we rushed, cheering, yelling, shouting, and swearing, straight for the foe. At first the Germans fired a little too high, and our losses until we came within fifty yards of them were comparatively small. Then some of our chaps began to drop, then the whole front line seemed to melt away, only to be instantly closed up again. "Cheering and yelling all the time, we jumped over the bodies of the wounded and tore on. Of the Germans with the machine guns not one escaped, but those inside the wood stood up to us in most dogged style. We were so quickly at work that those at the edge of the wood could not have got away in any case. Many threw up their hands, and we did not refuse quarter. " Pressing on into the wood itself, the struggle became a dreadful hand-to-hand conflict. We fought in clumps and batches, and the living struggled over the bodies of the dead and dying. At the height of the conflict, while we were steadily driving the Germans before us, the moon burst out. 100 The Battle Glory of Canada The clashing bayonets flashed like quicksilver, and faces were lit up as by limelight. "Sweeping on, we came upon lines of trenches which had been hastily thrown up and could not be stubbornly defended. Here all who resisted were bayoneted ; those who yielded were sent to the rear. The trench fighting presented a spectacle which it is not pleasant to recall." How terribly the loth and i6th Battalions suffered may be gathered from a conversation I had with Major Lome Ross, of the 1 6th. He was wounded in the arm by a sniper before the battle, while inspecting the trenches that were to be taken over by the Canadian Division; but while over here in hospital he has kept in touch with his battalion. He gave me the following list of casualties in the battalion incurred in the battle. The officers killed were Captain J. Geddes, Captain C. Merritt, Captain H. M. Fleming, Hon. Captain Macgregor (Paymaster), and Lieutenant A. L. Lindsay. Those wounded were Major G. Godson, Captain G. H. Ross, Captain G. W. Jameson, Lieutenant S. H. Goodall, Lieutenant J. G. Kenworthy, Lieutenant G. S. Ager, Lieutenant G. H. Davis, Lieutenant Maclean, Lieutenant R. H. Tupper, Lieutenant Gilliat, and Lieutenant G. M. Ainslie. Seven officers were left untouched, namely. Colonel Leslie, Major Lcckie, Captain Rae, Captain Morrison, Lieu- tenant Kemp, Lieutenant Duncan, and Lieutenant Urquhart. An Eastern Ontario officer in the 2nd Battalion Canadian Infantry, who was lying wounded in a London hospital, in speaking of his experiences in the great battle of Ypres, said : "On April 22 we were in reserve billets. That evening we were ordered to stand to. We got orders at about ten to go forward. We crossed the canal north of Ypres, and went to the support of the i6th Battalion (Canadian Scottish) and the loth, who were attacking the wood in which four British guns had been taken. We had orders to extend out and advance until we reached the i6th Battalion or the enemy. We soon found the enemy, and the battalion, which was under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Watson, was A Big Effort by the Germans loi ordered to take the trench to the north of us. The trench was charged and taken. Our men behaved splendidly, but we lost very heavily. I was wounded in the charge, so I did not see the whole of the action. I understand that sixteen officers of the 2nd were in the casualty lists, and that we lost 500 or 600 men. The battalion held the trench until the 27th, but of its work after the charge I can tell you nothing." A Counter-Attack We must now turn to the ist and 4th Battalions, who were brought as reinforcements and sent forward to relieve the pressure on the 2nd and 3rd Brigades. Turning to Sir Max Altken's account, we pick up the thread of his narrative, which we left at the point where the Canadians, after taking the wood, were forced to give it up : "The fighting continued without intermission all through the night, and, to those who observed the indications that the attack was being pushed with ever-growing strength, it hardly seemed possible that the Canadians, fighting in posi- tions so difficult to defend, and so little the subject of deliberate choice, could maintain their resistance for any long period. Quite early on Friday morning it became apparent that the left was becoming more and more in- volved, and a powerful German attempt to outflank it developed rapidly. The consequences, if it had been broken or outflanked, need not be insisted upon. They were not merely local. " It was therefore decided, formidable as the attempt undoubtedly was, to try and give relief by a counter-attack upon the first line of German trenches, now far, far ad- vanced from those originally occupied by the French. This was carried out by the Ontario ist and 4th Battalions of the ist Brigade, under Brigadier-General Mercer, acting in combination with a British brigade which had been hurried to the front. "It is safe to say that the youngest private in the rank. 102 The Battle Glory of Canada as he set his teeth for the advance, knew the task in front of him, and the young-est subaltern knew all that rested upon its success. It did not seem that any human being could live in the shower of shot and shell which began to play upon the advancing troops. They suffered terrible casualties. For a short time every other man seemed to fall, but the attack was pressed ever closer and closer. "The 4th Canadian Battalion at one moment came under a particularly withering fire. For a moment — not more — it wavered. Its most gallant commanding officer, Lieutenant- Colonel Birchall, carrying, after an old fashion, a light cane, coolly and cheerfully rallied his men, and, at the very moment when his example had infected them, fell dead at the head of his battalion. With a hoarse cry of anger they sprang forward (for, indeed, they loved him) as if to avenge his death. The astonishing attack which followed, pushed home in the face of direct frontal fire made in broad daylight, by battalions whose names should live for ever in the memories of soldiers, was carried to the first line of German trenches. After a hand-to-hand struggle the last German who resisted was bayoneted, and the trench was won. "The measure of this success may be taken when it is pointed out that this trench represented in the German advance the apex in' the breach which the enemy had made in the original line of the Allies, and that it was twO' and a half miles south of that line. This charge, made by men who looked death indifferently in the face — for no man who took part in it could think that he was likely to live — saved, and that was much, the Canadian left. But it did more. Up to the point where the assailants conquered or died, it secured and maintained during the most critical moment of all the integrity of the Allied line. For the trench was not only taken, it was held thereafter against all comers, and in the teeth of every conceivable projectile, until the night of Sunday the 25th, when all that remained of the war- broken, but victorious battalions, was relieved by fresh troops." How Colonel Birchall Fell 103 One man of the 4th Battalion summed up his experiences in this attack by saying^: "They opened the gates of hell and pushed us in." It was certainly a very awful ordeal. Survivors can hardly talk of it without tears, for the casual- ties were terrible. An officer of the battalion, who came throug-h the fight without a scratch, only to be Invalided home later with a sprained ankle, the result of a motor-cycle accident, In describing to me the incidents of that fateful Friday, said : "My battalion, supported by the ist Battalion, were detailed at dawn of day on the Friday morning, the 23rd of April, to make a counter-attack In order to relieve pressure on the 2nd and 3rd Brigades. We had to go 2,300 yards across open country under a shower of hot shell. It was here we lost our commanding officer. Colonel Birchall, who was rallying the men when he fell, and all our N.C.O.'s were disabled or killed. Yet we reached the German trench, and took it at 4.40 a.m. The Germans retreated, and proceeded to shell their old trenches. Having got the range perfectly, they made the position terribly hot for us of the 4th Battalion. However, we held on for nineteen hours, and covered the retirement of the British troops. The 4th Battalion retired at 9.30 Into the reserve line, which had been occupied by British troops. At 1.30 on Saturday morn- ing the 4th Battalion again went Into action, fighting until 3.30, when they returned to reserve until midday, and then moved on to the road to St. Julien. There we dug ourselves in. The shell fire was terrific here; our transport was blown to pieces. "We went Into action with twenty-four officers; of these twenty-one were knocked out. It was an Indescribably awful three days — practically without rest, without water or food, and part of the time without ammunition. The most terrible part was when we collected the wounded and had done what we could to make them comfortable In the trenches, German shells fell on them and blew them to fragments. Our boys were heroes. Never for one half moment did they hesitate 104 The Battle Glory of Canada to advance, despite the hellish fire in front. When at length we were relieved it was heart-breaking to see our poor war- torn fellows, mustering only 220 strong. That was all that was left out of some 1,100 men; there were only forty-three left in my company. "I must say a word about Major Beattie, the Presbyterian chaplain of the ist Brigade. He deserves the V.C. As we went into action he was patting the boys on the back, and had a cheery word for all. Later he went out under fire and helped to bring in the wounded and to carry rations to the men. He won the heart of everyone by his simple kind- ness and his utter indifference to danger when doing a service." An Ontario officer belonging to the 1st Battalion, writing home on the 26th of April, said : "We have just arrived back this morning after a terrible gruelling. In our battalion there are only 300 left out of 1,050. Needless to say our nerves are not very strong after what we have been through. It was only by a miracle that I escaped. It was terrible to see one's friends fall all round one." Another Ontario officer, belonging to the ist Battalion, who was in a London hospital suffering from a gun-shot wound received in the battle, said that he had seen an account given by a Canadian in an evening paper, and there did not seem to be a word of truth in it. So much had been written in letters home that was not really accurate that he himself would not attempt to speak of the engagement. Men saw so little of what was happening beyond what was directly before them that they were liable to jump to con- clusions which were quite erroneous. He contented himself with saying that the firing of the Canadian artillery was splendid. From the trenches they watched the firing. Shell after shell found its mark. The following account of the work of the ist Brigade, given by wounded men in hospital at Wherstead Park, is taken from the East Anglian Daily Times:, More About Poison" Gas 105 "The first two of the Canadians wounded at the battle of St. Julien to leave Colchester Hospital have just arrived at the beautiful little hospital run by Mr. and Mrs. Dash- wood at Wherstead Park. One is a sergeant of the ist Battalion Canadian Infantry, and the other is a private of the 3rd Battalion. The former has been laid up with two bullets through his right forearm and one in the left leg, whilst the private is wounded in the right knee, the bullet having gone in at the outside of the knee and come out a few inches farther down on the other side. Both are full of praise for their general, who has clearly won the hearts of all who are under him. "Both have the typical modesty of a British Tommy, and what they have done, though they are proud of having done something for the Empire, they are somewhat loath to recount, but with the assistance of their hospital com- rades one could gather a slight impression of the awfulness of that battle when the Germans by diabolical means were enabled to thrust back the lines of the Allies for a consider- able distance. When the German thrust came the brigade were standing to some six miles in the rear, but even at that distance they felt some of the effects of the noxious gases liberated by our enemy. There was nothing to smell, and little to see but a slight haze, but the gases irritated their eyes so much that water was flowing as freely as if they were crying. . . . The order came to advance, and the Canadians went forward, their left on the village of St. Julien. " The left first came into contact with the enemy, and the advance had to be made against a small wood and a farmhouse, strongly held by the enemy, supported, as the sergeant grimly said, with machine guns every ten yards. Gradually creeping up in skirmishing order, the Canadians met a hot reception, but nothing could stop them. Officers fell, but the non-coms, took their place, and in one platoon the leading devolved on a private — a man named Brown — \yho led them gallantly. What with the withering fire frora, io6 The Battle Glory of Canada the machine guns and the incessant bombardment of the ground by the German artillery, it is a wonder they got through at all. Within loo yard* of the Germans the private, who is now at Wherstead, got hit in the knee. This brought him down, and so far as he was concerned the battle was over, but his comrades went on and captured the trenches, securing a number of prisoners, who were brought back in batches of twenty and thirty. "In the meantime one of the officers wanted to com- municate with a sergeant, and a young bugler went back to find him. He did find him, lying wounded out in the open. He was warned by the sergeant to lie close for a time, as the bullets were flying over in sheets, but he was not to be frightened. Raising himself a little to undo the sergeant's equipment, a bullet passed through his head, killing him instantly. The sergeant, after a time, was enabled to struggle back to the clearing station on the edge of St. Julien. The enemy's shells were dropping round the whole time, and an Algerian private, who, having lost his regiment, had attached himself to the Canadians, had a narrow escape from a shell, which burst in the stable in which he was lying wounded, and, with two companions, he was almost suffocated by the resultant fumes. After some waiting the motor ambulances arrived and the patients were transferred to them. For a long way on the journey back the ambulances were under fire, and one had a narrow escape, the shell bursting quite close to it. Another was put out of action by a bullet through its tank and had to complete the journey towed by another. "Although the left of the brigade were the first in touch with the enemy, gradually all were drawn in, and at the right flank was the sergeant who is now an inmate at Wher- stead. He, however, saw little of the Germans, for when 800 yards away he met with his wounds. The troops were coming up in skirmishing order, and whilst laying low, taking what cover they could, the sergeant heard a shell coming. It landed about two yards in front of him, and Deserved a V.C. 107 he thought it was all up. He immediately felt that he was hit in the arm, as he believed, by pieces of the shell, but on looking- he found that two bullets had gone through. They were in a line, and apparently had come from a machine gun. He turned to one of his men close to him to ask him to bandage him, when another bullet caught him in the leg and quite put him out of action. He added that people must not run away with the idea that the Germans are not brave. Those who have seen them in battle cannot but recognise that they are by no means cowards." British soldiers have expressed admiration for the Cana- dians — and praise from them is very dear to the Canadian troops. It takes a great deal to make a British Tommy think much of what was done by regiments other than his own, so the following little testimonials are valuable. Lance-Corporal Kay, 5th Battalion Durham Light Infantry, who took part in the battle of Ypres, and was in hospital wounded, spoke with high praise of the Canadian troops in that battle. The Durhams, he says, were ordered to support the 4th Canadian Infantry, who were in the first line of trenches on the bank of the Yser, outside Ypres. The French were forced to fall back, with the result that the Germans drove in a wedge which cut the Canadians off and practically surrounded them. The Canadians continued to fight desperately, and eventually more Canadians, who had been rushed to the spot, dashed to their comrades' assistance, and together they not only captured four guns which had fallen into the enemy's hands, but drove the Germans back to their original position. The Canadians were, said Corporal Kay, fine fellows, and fought like Trojans. Their losses were terrific, and every one of them who was left deserved the V.C. Private A. G. Bond, of the 8th Middlesex, who also was wounded in the battle, and was in hospital, also testified to the Canadians' gallantry. His battalion was in trenches behind the Canadians. When they dashed forward to support the French colonial troops, after reaching the first and second io8 The Battle Glory of Canada trenches, the enemy's asphyxiating gas compelled them to retire. The men gagged themselves with handkerchiefs and pieces of cloth, and bravely returned to the attack. They again took the two lines, and then moved off to the left, where they dug themselves in. A second time they were forced to retire by poisonous bombs, and yet again they returned and occupied the trenches, which were only twenty yards from the Germans. Here they suffered a heavy bom- bardment from trench mortars and hand grenades, and Private Bond was himself wounded. Describing the "glorious exploit " of the Canadians, he said that when the French troops retreated, the Canadians were surrounded in the shape of a horseshoe, and they were badly cut up. Charles Morgan, of the 9th London Regiment (Queen Victoria's Rifles), writing to his brother at Muswell Hill, narrates how his battalion was one of the reserve brigade which went to the aid of the Canadians in the fateful fighting before Ypres. "The good Canadians had held them (the Germans) back," he says, speaking of an early phase of the fighting. "The charge was very successful, and we were not wanted, but in the morning " (presumably Saturday, the 24th of April) "we had to go up in the firing line and help the Canadians ; it was then that we suffered, being heavily shelled at all the way, and the casualties were awful. . . . After two days in the trenches, and keeping them at bay with the splendid Canadians, we came out in early morning, when, helped with a thick mist, we got away clear," The following is an extract from a letter from the front written on the 24th of April : "In the last fight the Canadians have fought like the very devil. We lay next to them about six weeks ago, and they made our men look like pigmies. They are great, big, hard-looking fellows, and have proved more than a match for the Germans. For three days and three nights they have stuck to an almost untenable position, and closed the gap the Germans made between them and the French." The Immovable Highlanders 109 The Third Brigade and the Poison Fumes We must now turn our attention to the 3rd Brigade, commanded by Brigadier-General Turner, which we left hold- ing the Canadian left on Thursday afternoon, the 22nd of April, and which, after their first attack, assumed the defence of the new Canadian salient, at the same time sparing all the men it could to form an extemporised line between the wood and St. Julien. This brigade also, at the first moment of the German offensive, was made the object of an attack by the discharge of poisonous gas. The discharge was followed by two enemy assaults. The Canadian Record Officer, referring to the attack by gas, said : "At 4 a.m. on the morning of Friday, the 23rd, a fresh emission of gas was made both upon the 2nd Brigade, which held the line running north-east, and upon the 3rd Brigade, which had continued the line up to the pivotal point, and had then spread down in a south-easterly direction. It is, perhaps, worth mentioning that two privates of the 48th Highlanders who found their way into the trenches com- manded by Colonel Lipsett, 90th Winnipeg Rifles, 8th Bat- talion, perished in the fumes, and it was noticed that their faces became blue immediately after dissolution. "The Royal Highlanders of Montreal, 13th Battalion, and the 48th Highlanders, 15th Battalion, were more especially affected by the discharge. The Royal Highlanders, though considerably shaken, remained immovable upon their ground. The 48th Highlanders, which no doubt received a more poisonous discharge, were for the moment dismayed, and, indeed, their trench, according to the testimony of very hardened soldiers, became intolerable. The battalion retired from the trench, but for a very short distance and for an equally short time. In a few moments they were again their own men. They advanced upon and occupied the trenches which they had momentarily abandoned. " In the course of the same night the 3rd Brigade, which no The Battle Glory of Canada had already displayed a resource, a gallantry, and a tenacity for which no eulogy could be excessive, was exposed (and with it the whole Allied case) to a peril still more formidable. "It has been explained, and, indeed, the fundamental situation made the peril clear, that several German divisions were attempting to crush or drive back this devoted brigade, and in any event to use their enormous numerical superiority to sweep around and overwhelm its left wing. At some point in the line which cannot be precisely determined the last attempt partially succeeded, and in the course of this critical struggle German troops in considerable, though not in overwhelming, numbers swung past the unsupported left' of the brigade, and, slipping in between the wood and St. Julien, added to the torturing anxieties of the long-drawn struggle by the appearance, and indeed for the moment the reality, of isolation from the brigade base. "In the exertions made by the 3rd Brigade during this supreme crisis it is almost impossible to single out one bat- talion without injustice to others, but though the efforts of the Royal Highlanders of Montreal, 13th Battalion, were only equal to those of the other battalions who did such heroic service, it so happened by chance that the fate of some of its officers attracted special attention. "Major Norsworthy, already almost disabled by a bullet wound, was bayoneted and killed while he was rallying his men with easy cheerfulness. The case of Major D. R. McCuaig,* of the same battalion, was not less glorious, although his death can claim no witness. This most gallant officer was seriously wounded, in a hurriedly constructed trench, at a moment when it would have been possible to remove him to safety. He absolutely refused to move, and continued in the discharge of his duty. " But the situation grew constantly worse, and peremptory orders were received for an immediate withdrawal. Those who were compelled to obey them were most insistent to * This officer has since been reported to be a prisoner of war. Bravo Major McGuaig ! m carry with them, at whatever risk to their own mobihty and safety, an officer to whom they were devotedly attached. But he, knowing, it may be, better than they, the exertions which still lay in front of them, and unwilling to inflict upon them the disabilities of a maimed man, very resolutely refused, and asked of them one thing only, that there should be given to him, as he lay alone in the trench, two loaded Colt revolvers to add to his own, which lay in his right hand as he made his last request. And so, with three revolvers ready to his hand for use, a very brave officer waited to sell his life, wounded and racked with pain, in an abandoned trench. "On Friday afternoon the left of the Canadian line was strengthened by important reinforcements of British troops amounting to seven battalions. From this time forward the Canadians also continued to receive further assistance on the left from a series of French counter-attacks pushed in a north-easterly direction from the canal bank. " But the artillery fire of the enemy continually grew in intensity, and it became more and more evident that the Canadian salient could no longer be maintained against the overwhelming superiority of numbers by which it was assailed. Slowly, stubbornly, and contesting every yard, the defenders gave ground until the salient gradually receded from the apex, near the point where it had originally alined with the French, and fell back upon St. Julien. "Soon it became evident that even St. Julien, exposed to fire from right and left, was no longer tenable in the face of overwhelming numerical superiority. The 3rd Brigade was therefore ordered to retreat farther south, selling every yard of ground as dearly as it had done since five o'clock on Thursday. But it was found impossible, without hazarding far larger forces, to disentangle the detachment of the Royal Highlanders of Montreal, 13th Battalion, and of the Royal Montreal Regiment, 14th Bat- talion. The brigade was ordered, and not a moment too soon, to move back. It left these units with hearts as heavy 112 The Battle Glory of Canada as those with which his comrades had said farewell to Major McCuaig. The German tide rolled, indeed, over the deserted village, but for several hours after the enemy had become master of the village the sullen and persistent rifle fire which survived showed that they were not yet master of the Canadian rearguard. If they died, they died worthily of Canada. "The enforced retirement of the 3rd Brigade (and to have stayed longer would have been madness) reproduced for the 2nd Brigade, commanded by Brigadier-General Curry, in a singularly exact fashion, the position of the 3rd Brigade itself at the moment of the withdrawal of the French. The 2nd Brigade, it must be remembered, had retained the whole line of trenches, roughly 2,500 yards, which it was holding at five o'clock on Thursday afternoon, supported by the incomparable exertions of the 3rd Brigade, and by the highly hazardous deployment in which necessity had involved that brigade." A staff officer newly returned from the front gives it as his opinion that it was Montreal heroism that saved the Canadian division at one phase of the Ypres fight, and it was the heroism of the Canadian left which saved Ypres. The latest details to reach London also show how Major Norsworthy and Lieutenant Guy Drummond died. Major D. R. MoCuaig held the extreme left, and his Royal High- landers at one time carried some trenches from which the French were driven by poisonous German fumes. Much depended upon that Canadian extreme left being maintained, for, unless the Germans were held back, the whole Canadian division would be imperilled, and Ypres be in imminent danger. Communications were cut at half-past six on Thurs- day evening, the 22nd of April. Major Norsworthy, with the Royal Highlanders, was in the reserve trenches when he heard that Major McCuaig's position had become impossible. Hence, at nine o'clock, Major Norsworthy rallied his men, who showed themselves only too keen to go to the help of their comrades in front. They made a great charge forward A Charge without Parallel 113 with a dash and dlan for which, it has been said, British military history affords no parallel, unless it be the world- famed charge of the Light Brigade. In this terrible onset Lieutenant Guy Drummond fell. As at Balaclava, so here, only a few got through, but they succeeded in holding the first line for a considerable time at a most critical moment. Major D. R. McCuaig was left wounded in a trench in the heroically tragic circumstances described by the Canadian Record Officer. Major H. Barr^, 14th Battalion (Royal Montreal Regi- ment), stated that the heavy losses in his regiment, which occupied the second line of trenches at the Ypres fight, were due to the fact that shell fire was now concentrated on the second line to prevent reserves being brought up to the first line. Major Barr6 was wounded in the leg when the German bombardment had started. When he was hit he asked a captain of the Royal Highlanders, who was hurrying back for reinforcements, to tell his men where he was. Within half an hour two French-Canadians, who had volunteered, rushed into the bullet- and shell-swept zone and were by Major Barry's side. He explained the terrible risks they were running, but they replied : "W^e must get you away." They succeeded in carrying him, amid a heavy fire, to a farm, whence he was conveyed in an ambulance to the rear. While Major Barre was in Ypres, three houses were wrecked by shells close to where he was standing. A Montreal officer belonging to the 13th Battalion, who took part in the battle, wrote home from a rest camp, say- ing : "By this time you will have heard that I was one of the few to survive the battle of Ypres, which began on Wednesday, the 21st of April. On Sunday I was put into hospital, suffering from shock and gas. I am much better, and shall shortly be at the front again. The news is good, and within a few days we shall win a victory. I am now twelve miles behind Ypres, just resting. God only knows why I am alive, as it does seem impossible for anyone to get through it. All my equipment I had to leave behind. I 114 The Battle Glory of Canada My pack was blown to pieces by a shell, and twice I was buried under debris. Three pieces of shell bruised me, and I was temporarily knocked out by gas fumes. The deeds of the Canadians will live for ever, but the glory was bought at a great price. The men were perfectly splendid. They never hesitated for one moment when ordered to go forward." A letter was also received in Montreal telling how Major Norsworthy, 13th Battalion, met his death. It says : "Poor Norsworthy, of the 5th Royal Highlanders, was betrayed into thinking that French reinforcements were arriving by the Germans decked out in French uniforms and carrying a French flag. He ordered his men not to fire until, practically surrounded, he saw the Germans deploying. Then, shot through the neck, he still stood his ground, and shouted an order to Guy Drummond to inform the men and keep them under cover from the rear. Poor Guy ran to execute the order when both fell together." Another officer of the same battalion, writing to the father of the writer of the above letter, says : "Lieutenant H , in company with most of our officers, underwent a terrific strain ; but he kept his end up, and all of us are proud of the way in which the Canadians behaved. The price was very high, but I hope the traditions of our folk have been maintained." Of the "strain" there can be no doubt. The only wonder is that any were left alive. Here is another from a sergeant in the same battalion — Sergeant W. H. Bennett — written while in hospital at Cardiff suffering from a rifle wound : "Our battalion went into the trenches on Wednes- day night, the 21st of April, relieving the 1st Battalion, who had taken them over from a French regiment a few days previously. These trenches were in poor condition, and we at once set to work to get them made a little safer. There was no sleep for any of us that night. We worked like Trojans, filling sandbags, building parapets, and generally making the place more habitable. Eighty yards separated An Heroic Stand 115 us from the German trenches, and the intervening space was strewn with German dead. We could see them lying in the moonlight, and when the wind blew in our direction it was horrible. Still, this did not trouble us much, as the work we had on hand was more important. At dawn we knocked off and stood to arms. "Throughout the day everything was quiet, but at 5 p.m. we were subjected to a terrific bombardment, which continued without cessation for several hours. Fortunately, the Ger- mans failed to hit the section of trench held by my platoon, and at 8 p.m. not a man had been wounded; but just when it was dark the evil news filtered through. Groups of Turcos (French Algerian troops) filed through our lines on their way to the rear, and the news soon spread that they had to retire as they had been subjected to heavy shell fire, and that sulphuric bombs had been used. We knew that we were in for a hot time, because at that particular point the line in formation resembled a gigantic horseshoe, so that when the Germans poured through the breach they were right behind us. So fierce was the shell fire that we did not expect reinforcements, but we knew that we were expected to hang on, and we did. The news that came through was anything but encouraging. Major Norsworthy, the finest officer in our battalion, had been killed, four of our guns had been captured [Sergeant Bennett was misled here — the guns captured did not belong to the Canadians, but to the Territorials], sulphuric bombs were being used, and still we hung on — there was nothing else to do. "Our left had been swung back a little to prevent the enemy coming in behind, and at 5 a.m. this portion of the line was reinforced by one company of the Buffs, who reached our trenches by a circuitous route. All day on Friday we held on, although the bombardment was much fiercer than on the previous day. Men were being wounded all around, and barbed wire entanglements and parapets were blown in the air. Hourly we waited for the infantrv to attack ; in fact, we hoped for it, as fighting at close quarters ii6 The Battle Glory of Canada would have been more in our line. Still the attack was never made, and at nightfall we carried out our wounded. Then we received orders to retire our left flank still farther. This necessitated the digging of new trenches, and we com- menced work about ii p.m. We had finished just as dawn was breaking, and immediately the shelling commenced. Our trench was now at right angles to the German position — i.e. their first position — but there were many more on our front. We were enfiladed by the shell fire, and at 7 a.m. our trench was practically blown to pieces. Then what were left of us were ordered to retire on the 2nd Brigade, and I got shot in the thigh. So far as I was concerned the fight was over. I was sorry, because I would have liked to have seen a good hand-to-hand fight between their infantry and ours. However, that is one thing the German has always avoided since the war began. He has a wholesome respect for the British bayonet, and never allows it to come within reach of him if he can possibly avoid it. I expect it is against his cultured teaching to like such a crude weapon." Of the work of the 15th Battalion (48th Toronto High- landers), the following story, published in the Daily Telegraph, is valuable, as it contains some remarks by Colonel Currie, who commands the battalion : '" If we run short of ammunition,' asked an officer of this battalion in the fighting around Ypres, ' what then? ' ' Bayonets ! You must rely upon your bayonets. Hold the trench at all costs,' was the reply of the commanding officer. "There was no brilliant charge like that connected with the capture of the guns. Men in the trenches just held on, grim and stern, in obedience to orders. True, they were eventually overwhelmed. But they stayed and held the Germans sufficiently long to allow reinforcements to come up and save the situation, and, in the words of an officer, 'The majority never came back.' " It is now known that out of the battalion of 896 the total losses have been 691 officers, non-commissioned The Fight for St. Julien 117 officers, and men, and that only two officers — Colonel Currie, who was in command, and Major Marshall — came through uninjured. " It is interesting- to note that among the officers in this battle was a great-grandson of Colonel McKay, who is said to have climbed the Heights of Abraham with General Wolfe. He is the adjutant of the regiment. ' Coal- boxes ' were falling with such frequency in and around the trench which he occupied with his men that he was thought to be dead. A search was made for him, but he could not be found. Some time afterwards he was discovered crawl- ing to a dressing station, gripping regimental papers. He was suffering from a severe wound in his head, but he is now, happily, recovering. "There were four companies of the 48th Highlanders in the fight, three being in the trenches, and the fourth at St. Julien. An interesting letter has been sent by Colonel Currie to the regiment in Toronto descriptive of the fight, in which he says : " ' We were ordered to hold our position at all costs. Next morning the Germans attacked us with gas, followed by a terrible cannonade, then rifle fire. The redoubts carried out their orders and fought to the last man. In the even- ing orders came to retire, and the British troops took over our supporting trenches in the second line — the first had been overwhelmed. The Germans all day assaulted St. Julien, where Alexander had his company. Both he and Cory, who had gathered a handful of Buffs, Turcos, and French, held the north-east corner of the village till the last. No one got away. They carried out their orders to the letter. The Dublin Fusiliers were a quarter of a mile off, coming to take over the fight, when the end came. When orders came to retire, I ordered Marshall to take out the remnant of two platoons in second line, and re- mained in second line with seven men, and tried to find how things were in redoubts, but machine-gun fire drove us back.' ii8 The Battle Glory of Canada " It has been said by a survivor that ' coal-boxes ' fell on the trenches with almost the same regularity as the taps of the blacksmith's hammer on his anvil. Colonel Currie is said to have led a charmed life throughout the battle. A wounded officer who arrived from the front was asked what had become of his commanding officer. "' He must be dead,' was the reply. ' He could not possibly live where I saw him.' But, to the delight of the battalion, Colonel Currie is very much alive. After the fighting he was asked how he managed to escape a par- ticular German machine gun, which seemed to have been trained for his special benefit. * Well, you see, I under- stood that particular gun,' he replied with a smile, ' and when I started to move I always marked time two paces, and this baffled the officer in getting my correct range.' "There is no doubt that Colonel Currie was an inspira- tion to his men, and although he is one of the two officers not wounded, it is not because he had no narrow escapes. Once he was seen to stand against a willow tree on the road between Poelcapelle and St. Julien amid a hail of bullets. A shell fell about thirty feet from him, and then struck the tree just above his head, but did not explode. He was not alone on that occasion, and he remarked to a companion ' that it was at such a moment he felt glad he had no more inches.' "The remnant of the 48th Highlanders remained in action until the 3rd of May, losing men every day, and it is stated that the battalion lost the heaviest of any battalion of any division engaged, but held their ground till the British came. It proved that Canada, no k^ss than Scotland, can maintain the fighting traditions of a kilted regiment." The Glorious Part Played by the 2nd Division The 5th, 7th, and 8th Battalions composed the 2nd Division, which, it will be remembered, was on the Canadian right, the 5th and 8th in the trenches, and the An Immense Struggle 119 7th in reserve. No one would wish to make comparisons between brigades, but, without incurring the odium that is begotten of such comparisons, it may be permitted to say that this brigade played its part in the battle with the same conspicuous gallantry that distinguished the other brigades, though it has, perhaps, been less talked about. Pursuing the same plan that we followed hitherto, let us turn first of all to the account given by Sir Max Aitken of this brigade's work. He wrote : "The 2nd Brigade had maintained its lines. It now devolved upon General Curry, commanding this brigade, to reproduce the tactical manoeuvres with which, earlier in the fight, the 3rd Brigade had adapted itself to the flank move- ment of overwhelming numerical superiority. He flung his left flank round south, and his record is that, in the very crisis of this immense struggle, he held his line of trenches from Thursday at five o'clock till Sunday afternoon. And on Sunday afternoon he had not abandoned his trenches. There were none left. They had been obliterated by artillery. He withdrew his undefeated troops from the frag- ments of his field fortifications, and the hearts of his men were as completely unbroken as the parapets of his trenches were completely broken. In such a brigade it is invidious to single out any battalion for special praise, but it is, perhaps, necessary to the story to point out that Lieutenant- Colonel Lipsett, commanding the 90th Winnipeg Rifles, 8th Battalion of the 2nd Brigade, held the extreme left of the brigade position at the most critical moment. "The battalion was expelled from the trenches early on Friday morning by an emission of poisonous gas, but recovering in three-quarters of an hour, it counter-attacked, retook the trenches it had abandoned, and bayoneted the enemy. And after the 3rd Brigade had been forced to retire, Lieutenant-Colonel Lipsett held his position, though his left was in the air, until two British regiments filled up the gap on Saturday night. "The individual fortunes of these two brigades have 120 The Battle Glory of Canada brought us to the events of Sunday afternoon, but it is necessary, to make the story complete, to recur for a moment to the events of the morning-. After a very formidable attack the enemy succeeded in capturing the village of St. Julien, which has so often been referred to in describing the fortunes of the Canadian left. This success opened up a new and formidable line of advance, but by this time further reinforce- ments had arrived. Here, again, it became evident that the tactical necessities of the situation dictated an offensive movement as the surest method of arresting further progress. "General Alderson, who was in command of the reinforce- ments, accordingly directed that an advance should be made by a British brigade which had been brought up in support. The attack was thrust through the Canadian left and centre, and as the troops making it swept on, many of them going to certain death, they paused an instant, and, with deep- throated cheers for Canada, gave the first indication to the division of the warm admiration which their exertions had excited in the British Army. "The advance was indeed costly, but it could not be gainsaid. The story is one of which the brigade may be proud, but it does not belong to the special account of the fortunes of the Canadian contingent. It is sufficient for our purpose to notice that the attack succeeded in its object, and the German advance along the line momentarily threat- ened was arrested. "We had reached, in describing the events of the after- noon, the point at which the trenches of the 2nd Brigade had been completely destroyed. This brigade, the 3rd Brigade, and the considerable reinforcements which this time filled the gap between the two brigades, were gradually driven, fighting every yard, upon a line running, roughly, from Fortuin, south of St. Julien, in a 'north-easterly direction towards Passchendaele. Here the two brigades were re- lieved by two British brigades, after exertions as glorious, as fruitful, and, alas ! as costly as soldiers have ever been called upon to make. A Glorious Feat of Arms 121 "Monday morning- broke bright and clear and found the Canadians behind the firing line. This day, too, was to bring its anxieties. The attack was still pressed, and it became necessary to ask Brigadier-General Curry whether he oould once more call upon his shrunken brigade. ' The men are tired,' this indomitable soldier replied, ' but they are ready and glad to go again to the trenches.' And so once more, a hero leading heroes, the general marched back the men of the 2nd Brigade, reduced to a quarter of its original strength, to the very apex of the line as it existed at that moment. "This position he held all day Monday; on Tuesday he was still occupying reserve trenches, and on Wednesday was relieved and retired to billets in the rear. "Such, in the most general outline, is the story of a great and glorious feat of arms. A story told so soon after the event, while rendering bare justice to units whose doings fell under the eyes of particular observers, must do less than justice to others who played their part — and all did — as gloriously as those whose special activities it is possible, event at this stage, to describe. But the friends of men who fought in other battalions may be content in the knowledge that they, too, shall learn, when time allows the complete corelation of diaries, the exact part which each unit played in these unforgettable days. It is rather accident than special distinction which makes it possible to select individual battalions for mention." The following letter, received from one of three "Winni- peg boys " (already mentioned in the chapter on the con- tingent in the trenches), gave the first detailed account to reach London of the heroism of the 8th Battalion (90th Winnipeg Rifles) at the fateful moment at Ypres when the German hordes were trying to hack their way through the gap left by the retirement of the French Colonials before poisonous gas. "The 8th Battalion can hold its bit," was Colonel Lipsett's reply to a query from head-quarters. The letter ran as follows : — 122 The Battle Glory of Canada "A line of trenches in the most advanced part of the British horse-shoe position before Ypres. In that hastily prepared series of defences a Western Canadian battalion of infantry. On the left a gap caused by the enforced retire- ment of French troops. Through that gap German hordes, packed masses of the Kaiser's troops, trying to hack a way. Thick clouds of poisonous smoke rolling over all, carrying death and stupefaction to the gallant defenders who, with rifles hot from hours of rapid firing, held the key to Ypres. "This is a brief description of the situation of the 8th Battalion 90th Winnipeg Rifles, on the 22nd of April, the day when Germany made her supreme effort to break down British resistance. The battle had waged for hours. The gap offered big opportunities to the Germans. They poured towards the open gate, furious in the ecstasy of effort, in the face of death. Would they get through? That was the anxious question. If supports could be got to the position in time the day was saved. On the extremity of the line from the left the 8th Battalion fought gallantly along, and with their regiment remained the answer to the question : Could the Winnipeg Ninetieth hold out? " ' The 8th Battalion can hold its bit. ' So the answer came from the commanding oflficer, Lieutenant-Colonel L. J. Lipsett. The regiment fought on. Germans occupied the vacated trenches, and by rifle, machine-gun and shell fire, enfiladed the Canadians, brought a cross-fire to bear against which there was no protection. Germans attacked from the front also. The position seemed hopeless. The ranks were thinning fast. But with wonderful tenacity and devotion to duty the battalion held fast. Officers fell. Non-commissioned officers took their places. In the front well-controlled fire sent the enemy back in a rout. Six times were these assaults in mass repulsed with frightful loss to the Germans. Hours dragged by. Exhaustion pulled at the brains of the surviving defenders. It was night now; night of a day of fighting without cessation. Part of the battalion was put in to strengthen the extreme left, and so well was the work done Praise for the Winnipeg Boys 123 that enfilading slackened. In front the enemy was preparing to charge again. If the Germans could clear out this desperate resistance the day was perhaps won. A bugle sounded. The assault was on once more with increased weight. Rapid fire was opened and machine guns rapped out death by the second. The Germans charged almost to the parapet. At one machine-gun stood Sergeant Aldritt alone. His assistants were dead or wounded. With the coolness of parade he ' carried on,' and he mowed lanes through the living German mass in front. Soon he, gallant, precise, and determined to the last, fell over the gun he had worked so long. Now it was rifles only. But they prevailed. The attackers reeled, even before the bayonets, ready fixed for a last stand, were used. The Germans fled, and down in the trenches dropped exhausted men, even as the long- expected help had arrived. The gap was held. The Eighth had won its spurs. The battalion was brought back into reserve, a bare four hundred of the original thousand. " Proud of its glorious achievement in holding back the great German offensive at Ypres, at the most critical point in the line, the 90th Winnipeg Rifles is to-day receiving a nation's homage. Messages of congratulation were received from Lord Kitchener, Field-Marshal Sir John French, the British people, and the homeland of Canada. To-day, also, the battalion is reckoning the cost, but it will be a consider- able time before the actual figures are known. About six hundred casualties were suffered. Eight ofificers remain of the twenty-seven that went into action. Thirteen are in hospital with wounds, or suffering from gas poisoning. One is known to be dead. Four are missing. "Countless deeds of heroism were performed by the battalion members. It is particularly noteworthy that two non-commissioned officers — Sergeant Aldritt and Company- Sergeant F. Hall — killed in action, were to have been recom- mended for commissions. Both were among the heroes of the great defence. Sergeant Aldritt was one. He served his gim until death. Company Sergeant-Major F. Hall was 124 The Battle Glory of Canada the other. Hall gave his life in an attempt to bring a wounded comrade to safety. "The defence of Friday was only one part of the engage- ment in which the battalion participated. It was in the trenches nine days. "George Tapp, servant to the regimental sergeant- major, furnished a beautiful example of devotion. When, eventually, the 90th 's position was yielded by another regiment that took its place, it was found impossible to remove the sergeant-major, and Private George Tapp remained behind to look after him, and is now, presumably, a prisoner. Sergeant Bovill also stayed behind to tend other wounded men in the head-quarters dug-out. "The full story of the goth's part in the great Ypres battle is one of ringing glory, full of stories of individual action, enterprise and courage. While Winnipeg, in the main, will claim honour through the 8th Battalion, Brandon, Portage-la-Prairie, Fort William, Port Arthur, and Fort Francis have heroic representation in the regiment, and suffer with it in its losses." Private A. L. Saunders, another of the party of Winnipeg boys, wrote under date the 6th of May to Mr. Dudley Oliver in London : " Many, many thanks for your very kind letter. A touch of asphyxia kept me in bed until yesterday, making it rather difficult to write. As you know, the bombardment started on Thursday afternoon, the 22nd of April. Hell fire and brim- stone — shells and gas — the two are synonymous, I think. Almost at the start five shells struck the parapet before the dug-out which ' Chip ' and I call home, and of the eighteen men in the immediate vicinity only six escaped unscathed. There is no need for details. Such a scene has been described ere now many times, and our experience was only typical. With coats as fans we kept the air moving, so as to keep off the gas and help our asphyxiated fellows; and with * Chip ' (Hamilton Chipman) and Bobbie (Knight) I bound up other men's wounds. Harrison, the other of our four, Every Man a Hero 125 got hit In the arm and got out on the evening. As the sentries were hit, I went on duty then, and did not see the boys again until dusk, when there was a general stand to. That night the firing lessened, but we were kept busy repair- ing and getting out wounded. Both the boys were in good shape, apart from the cold, greatcoats having been loaned to those knocked out. There was not much time for idle talk, but the three of us arrived long ago at an agreement to advise parents, when the inevitable happened ; and when the doctor ordered one back, there was just the exchange of ' So long.' " I know so little of the end that I must refrain from writing now. I still refuse to believe what may be, and even now word may have gone home of dear old ' Chip ' and Bobbie. I trust so. But this I do know, and what more can a man ask? The boys stuck it, and you chaps at home must wait until you meet someone who was in the front trench to realise what a glorious fact that is. Many incidents have been crowded into a short space of time. Many meanorable sights I have seen, but few sad ones. Down through an ever-increasing, never-ending stream of wounded, it was al^vays the same : men happy that they had helped, pleased that they had done their bit. And, Dudley, it was worth while when from another tent you hear the fight dis- cussed, and T. A. (Tommy Atkins), who is generally chary of praise for any but his own mob, as he calls his regiment, makes such a rem.ark as ' When the Zouaves could stand no more, if it had not been for the Canadians, God only knows where we would be to-day ! ' "Soon I hope to be on my way back to the regiment, if it is still such ; only my shoulder is keeping me now. If ' Chip ' and Bobbie are not there, I doubt if I will stay. In the meantime my pack is buried in Belgium, and the only souvenir I was able to bring down with me was the wee bit shrapnel. Practically we must be re-equipped before going back to the front. It was good to hear from you. The mail has not followed me, and though the hospital is comfortable, 126 The Battle Glory of Canada the environment tends to make one rather hungry for the mail." Mr. G. Valentine Williams, the special correspondent of the Standard and Daily Mail, tells the following story of the gallantry of the 8th Battalion : " Properly speaking, the story of * The Little Black Devils ' begins thirty years back. Their formal name is the Winnipeg Rifles, and they won their nickname in the Riel rising in Canada, when their dash and gallantry so impressed the motley crew of Indians and half-breeds who rebelled under Louis Riel that they called the regiment 'The Little Black Devils.' On the 19th of April 'The Little Black Devils ' went up to the trenches in the Ypres region. They went up at night, as is the custom, and relieved their comrades, rather red-eyed and shaggy, and installed themselves as comfortably as might be, prepared to spend a monotonous time killing as many Germans as possible. The Canadian is a good enemy. There is a fine spirit of antagonism in his trenches. He does not believe in ' Christmas truces ' or like coquetries with the foe. "Two days passed without incident. On the afternoon of the third day — Thursday, the 22nd of April — the Winni- peg Rifles noticed a kind of vapour rolling over the French trenches on their left. Then came word that the French, race brethren of many a Winnipeg rifleman in the adjacent trenches, had been overwhelmed by poisonous gas fumes and had had to retire. Working parties of the Canadians who were out in front of the trenches that night noticed the Germans busy in front of their trenches — with what intent was presently to appear. "In the half-light of dawn of the following day the men on the watch in the Canadian trenches saw a bluish haze rising sluggishly in front of the German trenches about 200 yards away. " No. I Company of ' The Little Black Devils ' and part of No. 2 got the full blast of the fumes. The men collapsed on every side. But they never left the trench. "The Little Black Devils" 127 "They hung on, clapping a hand about mouth and nose, waiting for the German rush they knew must follow. The sergeant and his men escaped, though the fumes dazed them and made their eyes water and pain. . . . The Germans had opened a furious bombardment, throwing a screen of shrapnel all over the communication trenches by which the Canadians might have retired. Then, while the yellow vapour sagged slowly down the hill to the regimental head- quarters, where men were coughing and retching, the expected rush came. A line of grey-green forms came lumbering up at a run, expecting to find trenches deserted save for a few strangling victims. "There was not much of the devil in the appearance of the sorry line of Winnipeg Riflemen that awaited the onslaught. Vomiting and coughing and straining for breath, with dead-white or bluish faces and with watering eyes, they stood up at the parapet firing as steadily as at the butts. A timely warning to the guns had got them busy on the advancing Germans, and heroes like our sergeant were at the machine guns mowing down the advancing lines. The attack was beaten off and the line held fast. All that day ' The Little Black Devils ' held out against the fiends incarnate opposing them. Sickened by the fumes and battered by artillery, they stood fast. They even sent help to the adjacent Canadian brigade hard pressed by the enemy. In the course of the day a detachment of the Northumberland Fusiliers came up to lend them a hand in their hour of need. " Shortly after noon the order came to ' The Little Black Devils ' to fall back. But they had heard that the 3rd Brigade next door was going to counter-attack, and in the circumstances it was decided to hang on. "The officers roundly declared they would stay as long as they had a single man left to put on the parapet. So they stayed. At night relief came in the shape of Imperial troops, and on the 25th three companies of the gallant Winnipeg Rifles were able to leave the trenches. But ' The 128 The Battle Glory of Canada Little Black Devils ' cannot keep long out of trouble. In the course of desperate fighting during the day the remain- ing company under Lieutenant Owen, with a machine gun, was cut off. Presently it was surrounded by Germans on all sides. Owen was last seen at his gun. He never came back." The following is an extract from a letter (which seems to have been pretty severely censored) from Corporal J. E. Simpson, 90th Winnipeg Rifles, to his mother in Dublin. It describes the terrible experiences of the Canadian troops when attacked with poisonous gases : "April 30th, 1915. " I am feeling a lot better to-day ; the gas poison produced gastritis and bronchitis, so that is all that is wrong with me now, except a few minor things, such as my toes partially frozen, but the circulation is coming back. . . . We went to our trenches on April, and should have been relieved three days later, but the battalion who were to relieve us were suddenly taken as supports when the , so we had to stay on, and, instead of having a well-earned rest, we got the most awful bombardment that has occurred almost since the war started, and we lost a host of our good men and most of our officers. On the morning of I think, about 3 a.m., I was watching daybreak at the parapet, and had just brought in our ' listening patrol ' (two men), which I had placed half-way between our trench and the Germans, in the long weeds ; it was an unusually clear morning, and dawn was earlier than usual, as I was on duty all night long all the time in the trenches. I had just ordered ' stand to ' when I suddenly saw, about a quarter of a mile to our left, a heavy yellow mist coming from the German trenches towards ours, and almost immediately it belched forth all along the line, and came slowly to us with the wind. I shouted ' fumes,' but at once almost everybody was cough- ing and spitting, and gasping for breath, and blind as well ; so nobody could keep watch on the parapet. I knew the *' Retire be !" 129 Germans would rush us at once, so I managed to crawl on to the parapet and watch, and as the heavy mist disappeared, leaving a greenish haze, I saw the Germans climbing over their parapet, so I called to all who could to get up and ' fire rapid.' We killed all who got over, and no more attempted, but away on our left the Germans broke through, and soon thousands were swarming through. ... By this nearly all our poor chaps were either dead or unconscious. We struggled on, but I was nearly done with all the rest, and fell down. I tried desperately to stay conscious or awake, and move, but could not manage it altogether. However, I never forgot what was going on, and after some hours reinforcements came along, but all went to the left, and we were just as badly off, as the Germans were now making efforts to get at us, and we had to stop them. Then came the order to retire, but our colonel said, ' Retire be damned ! Hang on, boys, there are two battalions of the coming to our help.' So we hung on, but I never saw them come, though I heard they did, and got cut to pieces getting to us ; but we held the trenches. The L.B.D.'s were not beaten. We held a quarter of a mile of trenches right at the point, and it would have gone badly with the troops behind if we had retired early. " I managed to crawl out with all those of my section who were alive and conscious — not many, alas ! — and after about six hours I got to our head-quarters, only about seven hundred yards away ! It was deserted. Our medical officer and all our stretcher bearers were wounded or killed, so there was no hope of getting any help. I lay down in a shed with about twenty others, and stayed there all night and next day, being terribly shelled all the time, and with dead bodies lying on top of me. I had not the strength to throw them off. This was the second day and night without any food or water, and I could not get a drop of water for love or money. Then the Germans kept advancing nearer and nearer, until only fifty yards away, so we had to make a supreme effort to get out, or stay and be taken by the J 130 The Battle Glory of Canada Germans. I managed to crawl to another farm, which was an advanced dressing station, but it was deserted too. I could go no farther, so fell down again, and stayed there another night and day, when I had to try and move again, as the Germans were on top of me. This time I had more luck, and met a chap from the Regiment, who prac- tically carried me to a dressing station about a mile and a half away, where I was absolutely done. All I remembered then was being carried on stretchers, in ambulances, in trains, and ambulances again, until I arrived here (Rouen). I am being well looked after, and should soon be well again. I think Annie's Balaclava cap saved me. I pulled it right down over my face, and used it as a respirator. I have lost everything, from rifle to my clothes. ... I lost every- body of my battalion until I got here, when I met Corporal Clifton, of my own company. I have not heard a word of poor Billie yet. ... All our N.C.O.'s were wounded or poisoned ; in fact, I don't think there was a man left in our company of 246 men to answer the roll ! " Private Samuel Archer, of the Winnipeg Rifles, who went through this desperate battle at Ypres, received a bullet wound in the right arm and a shrapnel wound in the right thigh, and was taken to the Duchess of Con- naught's Hospital, Taplow, Bucks, writing to his parents in Ireland, said : " I got wounded on Sunday, the 25th of April, about one o'clock, after four days' hard fighting. It was an awful battle, and one I shall never forget. I suppose you heard about the Germans trying to poison us. Well, it did kill some of us. When I saw it coming I stuffed a pocket handkerchief in my mouth and held my nose, and breathed at long intervals until it went away. A drink of water afterwards made me all right. The next thing we had to contend with was the Germans coming right for us en masse. Everyone that was able got to their guns, but after a good fierce battle we beat them back. But such a sacrifice of human life; men and horses dead lying in Shells on Every Hand 131 heaps, and time may never be afforded to get them all buried. One thing — we held our ground against fearful odds. No one ever thought of retiring, and we were pretty well thinned out by shell fire. Before the battle the French retired on our left, which made it worse for us. We were almost surrounded, and but for our Canadian boys in reserve beating them back they would have been at us on rear and front, and our men saved the situation but at an awful cost; but, then, it was either death or victory for us — that was the spirit of every man. I seemed to get stronger every day of the battle, and I had no sleep for five days and nights, and very little food. After I got wounded I crawled half a mile to get my wounds dressed. I did not even know whether I would get to my destination, but thought I would have a try. The shells were bursting all around me, and bullets coming in all directions over my head, while the dead were lying everywhere. No matter where you went you could see nothing but dead bodies. After I had my wounds dressed I lay down for an hour or two in peace, but got little or none, as the Germans started shelling the dressing station — a little house it was — but, luckily, they massed it. Next came the news of an order that our army was retiring, and as we were just about eight hundred yards from the firing line there seemed Httle hope for us poor fellows. An officer came in and said that any of the men that could walk had better go ahead at once. I got up along with a few others, and thought I would try it. I did not relish the idea of being done to death by the Germans while lying there. I pitied the other poor fellows who could not walk, but I think our comrades would have tried to save them anyhow. I started on my journey with the help of a comrade. I had a walk of two miles to go, and during it we got no peace for shells bursting. The whole way down I came across the dead bodies of my comrades killed by shrapnel, and horses and transports lying in all directions. I would not call this war — it is slaughter. Finally, I got to head-quarters safe, and lay 132 The Battle Glory of Canada down on the cold, damp floor along with the other boys. We had to stay there till next morning. After being nicely settled down, ' boom-bang ' go the shells again for the head- quarters' dressing station. The shells came pretty close to knocking it down. The building fifty yards away was shattered to pieces. That was what we had to lie and listen to all night long, but thank God for bringing us safely through it all. One of our ambulances, with six patients, was coming along the road when a ' Jack Johnson ' burst and blew driver and all to pieces. Next morning (Monday) at lo a.m. we started for Pomemrange, and on arrival got our wounds dressed and something to eat, but still we were not free from shell fire. The enemy sent about six shells over that afternoon, a distance of about eight miles." Not much detail is available about the 5th Battalion, which is commanded by Colonel G. S. Tuxford. This bat- talion was holding the trenches at the extreme point of the salient — that is, on the Canadian right. A lieutenant of the battalion, who has been in a London hospital wounded, wrote to me explaining that one company (C), on the 24th of April, had to cross the open ground under very heavy fire in order to reinforce the 8th Battalion, which was on its left. The 8th had been badly knocked over by the gas. C Company of the 5th made a splendid dash and fulfilled their mission, but lost a large number on their way. "On Sunday, the 25th of April," the officer continued, "we were forced to retire owing to the fact that the Germans had cut us off. The 5th were the last to retire, and No. 4 platoon, under Major Robson, were the last to go. During the days from the 22nd of April to the 24th of April there were many gallant deeds performed. Colonel Tuxford was nothing short of marvellous. His presence of mind and his skill on the night of the retirement were magnificent. When we retired we fell back on Wieltje, and the following day advanced again, and held our ground as reserves under very heavy fire." In the Thick of It 133 Of the 7th Battalion, the stories told by survivors are no less stirring. The 7th is a British Columbian regiment, and the province may well be proud of its achievements. Lance-Corporal Quinton, 7th Battalion Canadian con- tingent, wrote : " It seems to me as if I had lived a lifetime since I wrote you last, and it's been just like one long night- mare. I have been through the thick of the battle, and am thankful to be here. The enemy was simply raining shells over us, and they were coming on in droves. Still we held them back, and men were dropping on both sides like nine- pins. It is marvellous how cool a man feels when men are falling all around and you are facing death every minute. I felt quite cool, and everyone else seemed quite the same. It is an actual fact that we were smoking cigarettes and passing them along to one another. But after the reinforce- ments came up, and we returned back, the reaction came. Men were shaking hands with comrades who they thought were dead — and what a pitiful few ! " One of the last orders issued to his men by Colonel W. Hart-McHarg, commanding the 7th Battalion (British Columbia), who died of wounds received in action, was the following: "On the arrival of the battalion in rest billets, after five weeks in the trenches in Belgium and France, the officer commanding desires to take this opportunity of expressing his keen appreciation of the conduct of all ranks in face of the enemy. He never had the slightest misgivings as to their ability to adapt themselves quickly to the novel conditions of trench warfare now existing, nor to the courage with which these duties would be carried out, but, notwith- standing this, he was both surprised and gratified at the keenness, coolness, and ability with which every situation was met. These remarks apply particularly to the night work both in and outside the trenches, and to the behaviour of the battalion on the loth of March, when the main attack on Neuve Chapelle was being made on our right." Major Moberley, of the 7th Battalion, invalided with appendicitis a week before the Ypres fight, told me that 134 The Battle Glory of Canada on arrival at the London hospital he found the next bed occupied by one of his own subalterns who was wounded at Ypres. From all the accounts he had heard from wounded comrades, his battalion, the yth, had suffered badly in the battle. The whole of the officers of No. i Company were in the casualty lists, and so were those of No. 3 Company. No. 2 Company had one killed and two wounded. He had heard nothing of No. 4 Company, and he was afraid that they were taken prisoners. He was especially grieved to hear that Colonel McHarg had died of wounds. He had compared the "Canadian Eye-Witness's " account with what had been told him by wounded officers, and it appeared to be a very accurate story. Major Moberley spoke with enthusiasm of his own men ; he would not wish for better men. They were good workers, and no men could have behaved better than they did. Of the hospital arrangements from the base to London, Major Moberley said that they were perfect. A Kamloops officer of the 7th Battalion, who was wounded at Ypres, and was in a London hospital, said his battalion was in billets behind the 2nd Brigade on the fateful Thursday on the right of the Canadian position. They were about one and a half miles from Ypres when ordered to relieve the 8th Battalion, who held the trenches on the left of the brigade's position. He went on to say : "We heard a big battle going on in front, and I and another officer went out to see what was going on, and we saw what appeared to be a great green curtain about two miles off, where the French were holding the line to the left of the Canadian line. Soon after this we saw the French retreating over the hill. Then a staff officer came along and told us to get our men together. That night No. i Company was ordered to occupy the support trenches behind the 8th Battalion. Our instructions were to remain there until daybreak, when we could move out to a field about fifty yards away, and shelter behind a hedge. At three o'clock in the morning we moved out to the field. Our A Merciful Wind 135 rations had come up during the night, and the men were preparing some food. " I was standing up when I saw over the German lines a balloon go up and drop two red signals. Immediately the German guns started a bombardment, and there was a hail of rifle fire. Our men were immediately ordered to fall in and to go back to the trenches. At the same time, just above the hedge where we were, four shells with gas burst, and more than half the company, who had had no food for several hours, were laid prostrate by the fumes. I was laid out for about twenty minutes. Some of the men escaped and got into the trenches. "Then the wind mercifully blew the gas away, and I was able to get together the rest of my men and reach the support trenches with them. We had not been there long before we were shelled with shrapnel, and I got a smack on the head from a splinter. Shortly afterwards I got another piece through my leg. I managed to crawl away to the dressing station of the 5th Battalion, about three-quarters of a mile away. By the time I reached it I was ' all in. ' I got there at about 5.15 in the morning. I had my wounds dressed, and was given some food, for which I was very grateful. During the evening the doctor told me he would get an ambulance for me. This arrived at three o'clock on Saturday morning. But it could not get to the dressing station, as the shells had blown a huge tree down across the road, so I had to be carried for half a mile on a stretcher to meet the ambulance. The ambulance took me to a station outside Ypres, where my wounds were re-dressed, and therk I was brought to Boulogne, and so here. Shells were falling on the road which the ambulance travelled, but, fortunately, it was not hit." The Work of Engineers and Artillery Sir Max Aitken, towards the end of his account of the battle, says : " It would not be right to close even this account without a word of tribute to the auxiliary services. The 136 The Battle Glory of Canada signallers were always cool and resourceful. The telegraph and telephone wires being constantly cut, many belonging to this service rendered up their lives in the discharge of their duty carrying out repairs with the most complete calmness in exposed positions. The dispatch-carriers, as usual, behaved with the greatest bravery. Theirs is a lonely life, and very often a lonely death. One cycle messenger lay upon the ground badly wounded. He stopped a passing officer and delivered his message, together with some verbal instruc- tions. These were coherently given, but he swooned almost before the words were out of his mouth. "The artillery never flagged in the sleepless struggle in which so much depended upon its exertions. Not a Canadian gun was last in the long battle of retreat. And the nature of the position renders such a record very remarkable. One battery of four guns found itself in such a situation that it was compelled to turn two of its guns directly about and fire upon the enemy in positions almost diametrically opposite. " It is not possible in this account to attempt a descrip- tion of the services rendered by the Canadian engineers or the Medical Corps. Their members rivalled in coolness, endurance, and valour the Canadian infantry, whose com- rades they were, and it is hoped in separate communications to do justice to both these brilliant services." Little has been said of the engineers and artillery who bore their part in this memorable battle, some of whom suffered heavy losses. It will not, therefore, be out of place to give the experiences of those officers and men of these branches whom I have seen, or whose letters have been lent to me. I feel that in the case of these branches of the service I cannot do them the justice they deserve owing to lack of material. An officer of the Canadian engineers, who refuses to allow his name to be mentioned, in speaking of the part his men took in the battle, said : "Two of our companies were In the firing line on the 22nd of April, and one was in reserve. They acted as Congratulated by Smith-Dorrien 137 infantry and helped to defend the line until they were relieved. The men were really splendid. They built bridges under shrapnel fire, and had the building material blown to pieces more than once. One of our men was badly wounded in the face while carrying planks, and had them blown out of his hands. The fire was awful — just hell. Our men also super- intended the construction of trenches. They built 1,200 yards of trenches in one night, right under the noses of the Grermans, who were only 200 yards away. For five nights and days the men worked with practically no sleep. But at least they were well fed. The Canadian Army Service Corps did splendid work and kept us going with rations regularly, and good rations too. They even transported material — sandbags, barbed wire, zinc roofing, etc. — to the front for us under shell fire. One company of engineers lost their pontoons, destroyed by shell fire. Another company spent two whole days in the trenches. I think we may be justly proud of our men, for while Territorial Engineers received some stiffening from a sprinkling of Royal En- gineers, we were left to our own devices. We found the trenches muddy, and we left them drained and boarded so that you could walk in them in carpet slippers. We were congratulated on our work by Sir H. Smith-Dorrien and General Alderson, and we feel proud to have earned any compliments." A New Brunswick man in the Canadian Engineers, writing home on the ist of May, says : " I am still alive and going strong, though I confess I have dropped about twenty pounds in weight during last week. It has been a hell of a week, and it is quite useless my trying to give you any coherent account of my ex- periences. Suffice to say that we did not charge with the infantry or do any stunts. We have been standing by con- stantly with horses hitched, and marched off to all corners of the battlefield at night — sometimes digging trenches, etc. The noise and the shelling have been terrific, and sleep mostly impossible. This town is a mass of dead horses. I think 138 The Battle Glory of Canada every driver deserves a D.C.M. I have seen them carrying- on with ammunition and suppUes, with shells falling all round them. The same with the Red Cross and ambulance men. The Germans have shelled every inch of the country with heavy guns. We have dug ourselves in here, and are fairly safe, though some infernal contrivance sneaks through the lines and opens fire at short range on the village behind us just as we are trying to get some well-earned sleep. Taubes fly overhead at all hours, and we rush under the trees. We have our own ' Terrier ' heavy batteries — recaptured — quite close, but the Germans have not yet discovered them. " Riding bikes and marching along shelled roads is bad for the nerves at first, but you get more or less used to it, and soon discover that the effect is very local. I put in twenty-four hours on bridge guard. We have them mined and ready to blow up. I shared a dug-out with two goats. The Germans have tried hard to hit the bridges with ' coal boxes '; they usually start about 3 a.m., and plug shell after shell, most of which go into the water. One laid out the goat, but it recovered, and we got lots of milk. In fact, I had a good time down there. We were on the first bridge, outside the town. I need not say more. The town is a heap of ruins. Yesterday and the day before I was sand- bagging headquarters, a ripping chateau full of Buhl cabinets, old masters, etc. ; we put sandbags in the drawing-room furnished after Louis the something style. The German gunners were trying to see how close they could get without hitting it. They put a ' coal box ' within a hundred yards, and another just over. They don't want to smash it. I am awfully glad the division has done so well. They talk of sending the Canadian infantry back in a day or two, and they deserve it. Whether we go with them or not remains to be seen. I suppose we have not lost enough men yet in this company — two killed and six wounded, all shrapnel. But I know that the nervous strain is less when you have some- thing definite to do. " I will write again soon. There is complete quiet now A Tragic Discovery 139 for the first time for eight days. Not a gun on either side has fired for twelve hours. Birds are zipping- in the thicket close by — nightingales and all sorts of whistlers." An officer of the 6th Battery, C.F.A., while in hospital suffering from concussion and bruises, stated that when the French line was broken, the Canadian artillery lying behind the Canadian infantry had to turn to the flank and shell the wood about which so much has already been said. This is an interesting point, because many of the infantrymen who have spoken to me of the battle seemed to be unaware that any artillery was supporting them. The Canadians only had field guns, and they were bombarded by Germany heavy artillery. The officer went on to say that on the 22nd of April his battery — there were eight Canadian batteries in the battle — went into action, and when he came away, injured, on the 4th of May, it was still fighting. His battery suffered severely — 40 out of 135 were among the casualties. The losses of the battery were nearly all suffered after the Cana- dian infantry had been withdrawn after being relieved. On Thursday, the 22nd of April, the 6th Battery was near Wieltje, under fire, but from there it was moved to Fortoin. On Friday it held its position, but on Saturday had to retire to Potijxe, and it was there when the officer left. His men, he said, suffered a good deal from the Germans' poisonous gas, although they did not get so much of it as some of the troops. Still, some of the men had enough to cause their removal to a hospital. Lieutenant Arthur Connaught Ryerson, gth Battery, while lying wounded at the Queen's Canadian Military Hospital, Beachborough Park, Shorncliffe, when asked for his ex- f>eriences, said : " I was hit when carrying ammunition to the advance lines. Imagine my horror when, just in front of me, I came across the dead body of my brother George." The full story of Lieutenant Ryerson's heroism came from Driver Sparks, of the 9th Battery, who was at the Cana- dian Stationary Hospital, Tr^port. Sparks, a Lancashire 140 The Battle Glory of Canada man by birth, served in the Cheshire Regiment before going to Canada. On the outbreak of war he enhsted in the Cana- dian contingent. This is his story: "On Thursday night, the 22nd of April, I was sent back to act as a means of communication between the 9th Battery, which was prac- tically cut off, and the ammunition supply. About eleven o'clock I got into touch with twelve wagons containing ammunition in command of Lieutenant Arthur C. Ryerson, 9th Battery. I warned him of the danger of being cut off. I told him that the enemy was in great force, and it was almost impossible to get through. He persisted, and got through with, I think, four wagons, bringing them out safely. Later I was sent by Colonel Mitchell to carry messages to the loth, nth, and 12th Batteries. On my return my sergeant told me Lieutenant Ryerson had again got ammunition to the battery, despite the Germans. Shortly after dawn an orderly told me that Lieutenant Ryerson was wounded. The German attack was very fierce. Their artillery was directed by aeroplanes over our position. One heavy shell found our dug-out, killed our sergeant and also four men, and wounded seven others. We were told to abandon the guns for the time, but they were recovered on the night of the 23rd." Lieutenant A. C. Ryerson is a son of Colonel G. Sterling Ryerson, president of the Canadian Red Cross Society, with whom much sympathy is felt on account of the sad bereave- ment he has suffered. His eldest son. Captain G. C. Ryerson, of the 3rd Canadian Infantry, was killed in the battle near Ypres ; Mrs. Ryerson and her daughter travelled by the Lusitatiia to visit the wounded son, and when the ship went down Mrs. Ryerson was lost. Miss Ryerson was saved. With regard to the work of the Canadian Army Medical Corps, a private in No. 3 Canadian Field Ambulance writes : "This is the first chance I have had to send a line to you. On Thursday evening, the 22nd of April, we had to retreat because the Huns were using asphyxiating gas. We No Time for Chloroform 141 had our hospital in a village just behind the firing- line, and they (the French) came rushing- past, all mixed with the civilian population. Old men, old women, children crying, being dragged along by their mothers, farmers driving cows. You can't realise what it was like. Then amidst all the tumult, German aeroplanes came over, dropping fire signals to direct their artillery. After a while the news came in that the Canadians had checked the German advance, but they were in a perilous position. Then the slaughter started. "Our boys have paid a terrible price, and the papers cannot praise them too much. Wounded began to pour in, and when it dropped dark we went out to fetch those that could not walk in. Shells were flying around like rain. We had no time for meals, just snatch a bite when we could. We worked for sixty hours like this without sleep. Our officers are heroes; they worked like Trojans in the operating room. There was no time to use chloroform, and operations were done without a murmur from the patients. Some of them had to lay out on the field for twenty-four hours. We could not get at them, the fire was so thick. "Our little Ford car came in with an officer sitting in the back seat with his head blown clean off. He looked jusf like a tailor's dummy, and there was another fellow in the front seat with his head hanging over the side in ribbons. A shell had struck the car as it was coming in with these two poor fellows wounded. The driver was badly wounded, but not killed. " One of our wounded was in a car that was captured, but he escaped. He does not know if the Germans killed the other boys that he was with, or just took them prisoners. The gas did not budge our boys, although some of our battalions are nearly wiped out. They were up against enormous odds, and as they come in wounded they say there are thousands of dead Germans lying out there. They just mowed them down with machine guns and rifle fire, because the Germans always charge in crowds instead of spreading out like the British. However, the defence has now turned 142 The Battle Glory of Canada into an attack, reinforcements having come up, and they have regained all lost ground and more to it in some places. We were shelled out of our hospital and had to move back to a farm. The Germans will never break through to Calais because they will not get another chance like this one. Reinforcements are pouring up here, and I venture to predict that they will be driven out of Belgium before this month is out. I am in splendid health." The following story of Canadian heroism may fittingly be included in the story of the fight. It was told by Sous- Lieutenant R^n^ Defarge while in hospital, and published by Mr. H. R. Stockman, though I have not been able to fix the incident in its proper place. Many deeds of heroism never become recorded, owing to the lack of witnesses. In this case we could not have got the story from Canadian lips, for none who took part in the incident survived. The story told by Lieutenant Defarge is as follows : "The green clouds of death and stupefaction came rolling over us on a high wind, and forced our line back as easily as air pressure forces a bullet from a rifle. Many of our men were overcome by the fumes and could not get away. What was left of us had to move as fast as we could into safety, still pursued by those fatal clouds. When we had taken ground in the rear on the right of the British, and the clouds had cleared, we saw an isolated British post of not more than one hundred men against whom a fierce German attack was being launched. They were a detachment that had been cut off from the main body, and they had tried to dig themselves in where they were. Their trenches were of the rudest kind, such as might be made by men pressed for time and under fire while they were working. The Germans had brought up at least a dozen machine guns, from which they were spitting out death at the brave little band, and there was also an incessant din of rifle fire. "The Germans made an attack with at least a battalion, and crept up close to the little post. The brave Englishmen kept their ground and fired steadily into the ranks of the Across Fire-scorched Fields i43 Germans. The attack wavered, and then recoiled in terror. It was only for a time. There was more machine-gun fire, and then another attack. It met with the same fate, being broken to pieces by the steady fire of the Englishmen. By this time our reinforcements were coming up, and our men were recovered from the effects of the fumes, so we were able to try to help our English comrades. Strong bodies of in- fantry were pushed forward to relieve the pressure on the little band, but at the same time the Germans flung forward fresh troops to cut ofif the English force. "In front of us, nearer to the Germans than to us, was a rise in the road stretching across some fire-scorched fields. The men who reached that first would have victory on their side and decide the fate of the band of English heroes. We had high hopes, and we ran as though our lives depended on it. The air was alive with bullets, and at the same time shells began to drop from the concealed German batteries in the rear. We were too few for the task, and for a moment or two we faltered as the fire got more intense. "Then we caught sight of the English in their little toy trench, and that gave us new courage. The rush was resumed, but at the same time the Germans hurried forward from their side, and the fire seem.ed to double its intensity. Still we pressed on and ever on, determined to get that hill first. It was now not more than one hundred metres off, and we were. more than ever confident of getting there first; but, alas for our hopes ! when we looked up we could see German caps on the crest, and then a murderous rain of bullets came down on us, and we had to go back with saddened hearts. When we were reinforced we had one more try to break through to our sore-pressed English comrades. "It was impossible, and our regret at failure was made more bitter because we could see from where we had taken shelter the English heroes still fighting away to keep the Germans from breaking the allied line. The attacks were being pushed home from three points now, but each one was broken like the others. At last the English rifle fire began 144 The Battle Glory of Canada to slacken, and finally ceased altogether. We knew then that their ammunition had run out. The Germans knew it too, and that made them wonderfully brave. From all three points simultaneously the attack was resumed, and it looked as though the brave little band would be overwhelmed. " One of them stood up in the trench. He had in his hand something that looked like a red rag, which he had attached to a pole of some kind showing just above the trench. Machine guns had now been brought forward on our side, and we made one last attempt to break through to the relief of the hard-pressed Englishmen. It failed again, and further German developments on our left forced us to withdraw for the time being. From our own trenches we were able to see something of the end of the drama being enacted in front of us. The Germans had now closed around the isolated post. "On the parapet of the trench stood all that was left of the Englishmen. They were clustered round their red rag on a pole, which we found afterwards to be a British flag of the handkerchief kind. They hadn't a cartridge amongst them, but they stood there with fixed bayonets waiting the attack. They could have saved themselves by surrendering, but I suppose they were men of better mould than that. The Germans poured in a terrible volley at close range, and then swept towards the band of heroes. Not more than a dozen remained now, and they didn't wait for the German attack. With levelled bayonets they threw themselves on the Germans, and every man perished. They were brave men, and had fought jusqu'a la tnort, as we say in France. " Later, when the German rush was stayed, and some of the ground was regained, our first care was to seek out the remains of those English heroes. The little hill on which they had made their last stand was truly a hill of death. It was covered with the dead bodies of Germans, far out- numbering the defenders, whose bodies lay where they had fallen. They were Canadian Highlanders. We buried them where they had fallen, all in one grave, feeling that men Lasting Fame Well Won 145 who had fought so well in life tog-ether would not want to be separated in death. Their grave on the field of honour was watered by the tears of many a French soldier." The list of casualties in the Canadian contingent is, at the time of writing, not complete, but Mr. Tennant, Under- Secretary for War, stated, in the House of Commons, that the casualties in Princess Patricia's Regiment, up to the 2nd of May, were : Officers, 20 ; other ranks, 308. In the Canadian Division the numbers were : Officers, 232 ; other ranks, 6,024 >' niaking a total of : Officers ... ... ... ... 252 Other ranks ... ... ... 6,332 Total 6,584 In bringing this story of battle and bravery to a con- clusion, I am made to feel how inadequate the account of the battle is. Much more remains yet to be said, and some day, no doubt, from official sources, we shall get a truer f>erspective of what happened. In the meantime we must rest content with the fact that the Canadians saved Ypres — "saved the situation " — and won lasting fame for them- selves. I have tried to supplement Sir Max Aitken's account of the battle by what I have learnt from various officers and men, and I leave the last words to him, because no more fitting last words than his could well be written. He con- cludes his story as follows : " No attempt has been made in this description to explain the recent operations except in so far as they spring from — or are connected with — the fortunes of the Canadian Division. It is certain that the exertions of the troops who reinforced, and later relieved, the Canadians were not less glorious, but the long drawn-out struggle is a lesson to the whole Empire. ' Arise, O Israel.' The Empire is engaged in a struggle without quarter, and without compromise, against an enemy still superbly organised, still immensely powerful, K 146 The Battle Glory of Canada still confident that its strength is the mate of its necessities. To arms, then, and still to arms ! In Great Britain, in Canada, in Australia, there is need, and there is need now, of a community organised alike in military and industrial co-operation, "That our countrymen in Canada, even while their hearts are still bleeding, will answer every call which is made upon them we well know. "The graveyard of Canada in Flanders is large. It is very large. Those who lie there have left their mortal remains on alien soil. To Canada they have bequeathed their memories and their glory. " ' On Fame's eternal camping ground Their silent tents are spread, And Glory guards with solemn round The bivouac of the dead.' " APPENDIX A MESSAGES OF CONGRATULATION Messages oI congratulation to Canada on the gallantry of her troops at the battle of Ypres were numerous. Among them were the following : — King George's message to the Duke of Connaught was as follows : " Congratulate you most warmly on the splendid and gallant way in which the Canadian Division fought during the last two days north of Ypres* Sir John French says their conduct was magnificent throughout. The Dominion will be justly proud. — George.'' The Minister of Militia received from the Duke of Con- naught a letter, in which His Royal Highness said : "Canada has every reason to be proud of the gallantry of her sons, who have nobly done their part in this great struggle for the liberties and honour of our Empire against the tyranny and injustice of Germany. " As an English officer, I am proud of our Canadian com- rades, and feel that they have brought honour to the British Army as well as to themselves, and that their heroic work will thrill the Dominion from the Atlantic to the Pacific. " I deeply lament the long list of casualties, and send our profound sympathy to every home which is plunged into sadness and sorrow by the tidings that reach us from hour to hour. 147 148 The Battle Glory of Canada "Assuring- you again of my heartfelt sympathy far the relations of all those Canadians, officers, non-commissioned officers and men who have so nobly fallen on the field of battle. — I am, etc. (Signed) Arthur. " P.S. — His Majesty, Lord Kitchener, and Sir John French have cabled me their admiration of the conduct of our Canadian troops. I have answered them and have also cabled to General Alderson expressing my appreciation." General Hughes, Minister of Militia, received a copy of a message which Sir John French had sent to General Aider- son (commanding the Canadian force). It ran : " I wish to express to you and to the Canadian troops my admiration for the gallant stand and fight they have made. They performed a most brilliant and valuable service last night and again this morning. " I have reported their splendid behaviour to the Secretary of State, and have a reply from him saying how highly their gallantry and determination in a difficult position are appre- ciated in England." Sir Robert Borden received the following cable from Colonel J. J. Carrick, M.P., the Canadian "Eye-Witness" in France : " In an interview this morning with Sir John French, he authorises me to cable you that the Canadians fought magnificently and splendidly, and their action will be one of the greatest factors in cementing in closer union the bonds of the British Empire in the eyes of the whole world." Sir Robert Borden, speaking for the Government in the Canadian House of Commons, paid a tribute to the Cana- dians and the splendid showing they had made. The magni- ficent pluck, gallantry, and resourcefulness of the Canadian troops at the front had saved a difficult situation, as the highest authority had publicly declared. They had proved Congratulations from Public Men 149 themselves equal to any troops in the world, and in so doing had brought distinction and renown to this Dominion. "My colleagues and I," he concluded, "deeply lament the long list of casualties, and send our profound sympathy to every home which is plunged into sadness and sorrow by the tidings that reach us from hour to hour." Sir George Perley, the Acting High Commissioner for Canada in London, telegraphed : "London is praising the conspicuous gallantry of our troops." Mr. Harcourt, Secretary of State for the Colonies, in a telegram to the Prime Minister of Canada, said : "Great Britain is proud of her Canadian brothers." General James Drain, of Washington, telegraphed to General Hughes, Minister of Militia : " I sincerely regret the terrible losses, but I glory in the magnificent showing of the Canadians." Colonel Hugh McLean, the member for St. John (New Brunswick), cabling to the Minister of Militia, said : "We mourn with pride our gallant comrades, who died fighting for the Empire and the right. Are we downhearted? Let our answer be 100,000 men in the fighting line and 50,000 In the reserve." Lord Brooke, of Sir John French's staff, cabled : " Hearty congratulations on the magnificent behaviour of the Canadian troops." The following telegram was sent to Mrs. Alderson, wife of Lleutenant-General Alderson, commanding the Canadian forces in the field : "Canadian women in London return thanks for your General's great leadership of their countrymen now fighting for the Mother Country In Flanders." 150 The Battle Glory of Canada In her reply, received by Mrs. G. McLaren Brown, Honorary Secretary, Ladies' Committee Canadian War Con- tingent Association, Mrs. Alderson says : " I am most deeply touched by the generous tribute paid by Canadian women in London, in the midst of their over- whelming personal sorrows, to my husband's leadership of the Canadian Division, through the long fighting, by which — with such imperishable glory — it saved the day for England and the Empire. With all my heart I thank you for this expression of your trust, which, at a moment like this, will be so greatly appreciated by him, and is so precious to me. I well know how their General grieves for the loss of many of the gallant and devoted men he loved so much, trusted with such proud confidence, and would so gladly have saved. It is my great honour to share with you, and with him, this pride and this regret." The following cable (says the Morning Post's Ottawa correspondent) from Sir John French has been received by Sir Robert Borden, the Premier : " It is fitting that on Empire Day I should once more tell you of the continued gallant achievements of your Cana- dian soldiers. They remain in the forefront of the fight, and I feel assured that their heroism and sacrifices, which are contributing so splendidly to the attainment of our immediate ends, will bind together Canada and the British Empire with those indissoluble bonds which are forged on the field of battle." Sir Robert Borden replied as follows : "Warmest thanks for your inspiring message. W^e are proud that our Canadian soldiers have proved themselves worthy of the great traditions of the British Army, which under your leadership has already achieved such splendid distinction by its valour and heroism during the present war, in which the greatness and the unity of our Empire have been made more manifest than ever before." What the Press Said 151 How Canada itself has been thrilled by the story is shown by the following quotations from its Press : — Winnipeg Telegram : "Certainly 'our boys ' have worthily upheld the best traditions of the British Army. They have taken a real part in the greatest war that has ever engaged the Empire. They have acquitted themselves gloriously. They have worthily fulfilled the highest expectations of a country that never for a moment has doubted their courage and their ability to hold their own with the best troops on the Continent." Toronto Star: " It is gratifying to know that in the supreme test of battle the Canadians so conducted themselves as to win not only the approval but the admiration of the British and French Armies. "Canada awoke this morning to read news that brought such acute feelings of grief and pride as the country never knew before." Manitoba Free Press : "The Canadian soldiers have had their baptism of fire and blood. Their encounter with the Germans to the north- east of Ypres was a fight in the open in which the splendid fighting qualities of the Canadian troops were established beyond all question. Put to the test of a situation that would have tried the mettle of the most seasoned troops, they acquitted themselves gloriously. Their valour and their steadiness saved the day for the Allies." Victoria Daily Times: "The fear expressed in some quarters that the laxity in discipline exhibited at Salisbury might affect the efficiency of the contingent has been dissipated. What they wanted was service at the front, a sight of the foe, a chance to strike a 152 The Battle Glory of Canada blow for the Empire, and, given the chance, they have shown their mettle." Calgary News-Telegram : "Stoical indeed must be the Canadian who could read without emotion even the brief and unadorned accounts of the prowess of the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force, the members of which, every one of them a volunteer, snatched victory from defeat and saved the day for the Allies at Langhemarcq." APPENDIX B THE OFFICERS' ROLL OF HONOUR This list is made out according to the dates of publication week by week up to May 26th, the date in each case being the end of the week in which the casualty was officially announced. January 14, 1915. DIED OF WOUNDS. Newton, Captain D. O. C, Princess Patricia's. DIED. Inglis, Captain, Chaplain to the Forces. February 35. KILLED. Fitzgerald, Captain F., Princess Patricia's. Price, Lieutenant C. H., Princess Patricia's. WOUNDED. Jones, Lieutenant S. L., Princess Patricia's. March 4, DIED. Mansfield, Captain R. G. R., Princess Patricia's. WOUNDED. Alley, Lieutenant H. R., 3rd Battalion. Macdonald, Lieutenant J. McK., 9th Battery Canadian Field Artillery. 153 154 The Battle Glory of Canada January 28. KILLED DURING TARGET PRACTICE. Briscoe, Lieutenant R., 103rd Regiment (Saskatoon). February 18. WOUNDED. Sullivan, Lieutenant H. E., Princess Patricia's. March 11. KILLED. Bell-Irving, Lieutenant D. P., Canadian Engineers. BOGGS, Lieutenant H. B., 7th Battalion. WOUNDED. Crabbe, Lieutenant C. E., Princess Patricia's. Doxsee, Lieutenant W. J., 2nd Battalion. Gault, Major A. Hamilton, Princess Patricia's. Ward, Major J. S., Princess Patricia's. MISSING. Colquhoun, Lieutenant W. G., Princess Patricia's. March 18. DIED. HiGlNBOTHAM, MAJOR G. M., 3rd Battalion. WOUNDED. Craggs, Lieutenant G. S., loth Battalion. Douglas, Lieutenant D. E., ist Battalion. March 35. KILLED. Cameron, Lieutenant D. E., Princess Patricia's. RiGBY, Major P., 7th Battalion. DIED OF WOUNDS. Ward, Major J. S., Princess Patricia's. Roll of Honour 155 WOUNDED. Abell, Captain T. H. S., 2nd Battalion. Bromley, Lieutenant H. A., 7th Battalion. Gow, Lieutenant A. M., Princess Patricia's Norton-Taylor, Lieutenant S., loth Battalion. Stewart, Lieutenant C. J. T., Princess Patricia's. April I. KILLED. Eardley-Wilmot, Lieutenant F. L., Princess Patricia's. Farquhar, Lieutenant-Colonel F. D., D.S.O., Princess Patricia's. Galaugher, Lieutenant W. N., ist Battalion. WOUNDED. Darling, Captain R. C, 15th Battalion. Martin, Lieutenant E. O. C, Princess Patricia's. Meikle, Lieutenant D., 5th Battalion. NiVEN, Lieutenant H. W., Princess Patricia's. Thackray, Lieutenant R. G., ist Brigade Canadian Field Artillery. April 8, WOUNDED. Rodgers, Captain G. R., 4th Battalion. April 15. PREVIOUSLY REPORTED MISSING, NOW REPORTED PRISONER OF WAR. Colquhoun, Lieutenant W. G., Princess Patricia's. April 29. KILLED. BiRCHALL, Lieut. -Colonel A. P., 4th Battalion. Brant, Lieutenant C. D., 4th Battalion. Drummond, Lieutenant G. M., 13th Battalion. Fleming, Captain H. M., i6th Battalion. Geddes, Captain J., i6th Battalion. 156 The Battle Glory of Canada Glover, Captain J. D., 4th Battalion. KiMMiNS, Major A. E., ist Battalion. King-Mason, Lieutenant C. G. D., 5th Battalion. KiRKPATRicK, Lieutenant A. D., 3rd Battalion. Lees, Captain G. O., 13th Battalion. Lindsay, Lieutenant A. L., i6th Battalion. MacDonald, Lieutenant M. D., 3rd Battalion. McLaren, Major J., loth Battalion. Merritt, Capt.ain C. M., i6th Battalion. Norsworthy^ Major E. C, 13th Battalion. Ryerson^ Captain G. C, 3rd Battalion. Steacie, Captain R., 14th Battalion. Williamson, Lieutenant G. M., 14th Battalion. DIED OF WOUNDS. Boyle, Lieut. -Colonel R. L., loth Battalion. WOUNDED. Acer, Lieutenant G. S., i6th Battalion. Ainslie, Lieutenant G. M., 16th Battalion. Allen, Captain R. A. S., 5th Battalion. Armour, Lieutenant S. D., i6th Battalion. Ballard, Lieutenant W. M., 4th Battalion. Barre, Major H., 14th Battalion. Bastedo, Lieutenant A. C, ist Battalion. Begy, Capt.ain G. E. B., 4th Battalion. Belson, Major B. H., 4th Battalion. Bennett, Lieutenant J. H., 4th Battalion. Boyd, Capt.ain H. B., 14th Battalion. Brown, LieutExNant G. O., 4th Battalion. Buell, Lieut. -Colonel W. S., 4th Battalion. Burton, Lieutenant R. B. S., 8th Battalion. Butler, Lieutenant W. C, ist Battalion. Clifford, Lieutenant E. W., ist Battalion. Cronyn, Lieutenant J. K., 3rd Battalion. Roll of Honour 157 Davis, Lieutenant G. H., 16th Battalion. Duncan, Lieutenant G. G., loth Battalion. FiTZPATRicK, Lieutenant W., 5th Battalion. Godson, Major G., i6th Battalion. Goodall, Lieutenant S. H., i6th Battalion. Hanson, Captain P. R., 14th Battalion. HuGGiNS, Captain S. J., 4th Battalion. Hunter, M.ajor A. T., ist Battalion. Jameson, Captain G. W., i6th Battalion. Kenworthy, LieutEx\ant J. G., i6th Battalion. Kirkcaldy, Major J., 8th Battalion. Knubley, Lieutenant \V. K., 14th Battalion. Lightfoot, Major J., loth Battalion. Lockhart, Lieutenant T. D., ist Battalion. LowRY, Lieutenant W. A., loth Battalion. McCuAiG, Captain G. E., 13th Battalion. McGregor^ Hon. Captain J. H., i6th Battalion. McKiNLEY, Lieutenant J. M., 4th Battalion, McLean, Lieutenant V. A., i6th Battalion. McLennan, Lieutenant A. G., 2nd Battalion. Miller, Lieutenant F. W., 4th Battalion. Parks, Captain J. H., ist Battalion. Pick, Lieutenant P. W., ist Battalion. Quintal, Lieutenant H., 14th Battalion. Raddall, Lieutenant T. H., 8th Battalion. Redman, Captain D. L., loth Battalion. Riley, Lieutenant J. R., 4th Battalion. Robinson, Capt.^in C. W., loth Battalion. Rogers, Captain G. R., 4th Battalion. Ross, Captain G. H., i6th Battalion. Sandeman, Major D. R., 5th Battalion. Smith, Captain G. J. L., ist Battalion. Smith, Captain H. H., 14th Battalion. Sutherland, Major D., ist Battalion. Tupper, Lieutenant R. H., i6th Battalion. Watson, Lieutenant C. H. D., loth Battalion. 158 The Battle Glory of Canada Weld, Lieutenant G. H., 8th Battalion. Whitehead, Lieutenant E. A., 14th Battalion. Young, Lieutenant N. M., 4th Battalion. Youngs, Lieutenant J. L., ist Battalion. WOUNDED AND MISSING. Kelly, Major E. T., 4th Battalion. KILLED. Warren, Captain T., 15th Battalion, DIED OF WOUNDS. Darling, Captain R. C, 15th Battalion. WOUNDED. Anderson, Lieutenant H. G., 7th Battalion. BoTHWEL, Lieutenant W. H., Princess Patricia's. Gibson, Lieutenant F. M., 15th Battalion. Ross, Major L., i6th Battalion. Thomson, Lieutenant A. T., loth Battalion. May 6. KILLED. Bennett, Major G. W., 2nd Battalion. Day, Lieutenant C. W., 2nd Battalion. Doxsee, Lieutenant W. J., 2nd Battalion. Gordon, Captain W. L. L., 2nd Battalion. Klotz, Lieutenant H. N., 2nd Battalion. DIED OF WOUNDS. Hart-McHarg, Lieut. -Colonel W. F. R., 7th Battalion. WOUNDED. Ball, Lieutenant A. G., loth Battalion. Ballantine, Major J., 4th Battalion. Roll of Honour 159 Bertram, Captain W. R., 8ih Battalion. BowEN, Captain P. E., 2nd Battalion. Dansereau, Lieutenant J. A., 15th Battalion. Duval, Captain J. L., ist Field Ambulance. Dyer, Major H. M., 5th Battalion. Ford, Lieutenant W. L., 7th Battalion. Gilliat, Lieutenant E. N., i6th Battalion. Greene, Captain M. K., 2nd Infantry Brigade. Hertzberg, Lieutenant H. F. H., Engineers. HiLLlAM, Capt.ain E., 5th Battalion. Jamieson, Captain R. H., 13th Battalion. Kemmis-Betty, Lieut. -Colonel H., 2nd Infantry Brigade. KiDD, Lieutenant T. A., 2nd Battalion. Lyne-Evans, Captain J. H., 3rd Battalion. McDonald, Captain H. F., 3rd Battalion. McGibbon, Captain R. H., ist Field Ambulance. McLaren, Captain G. H., 15th Battalion. McNaughton, Major A. G. L., 2nd Artillery Brigadje. Mersereau, Major C. J., 2nd Infantry Brigade. Molson, Lieutenant F. S., 13th Battalion. Morton, Capt.ain C. E., 3rd Battalion. Nasmyth, Major W. W., loth Battalion. Pragnell, Major G. S. T., 5th Battalion. Richardson, Lieutenant G. T., 2nd Battalion. ScHARSCHMiDT, LIEUTENANT H. B., 7th Battalion. Spencer, Lieutenant A. G., 7th Battalion. Watson, Captain G. K. W., 8th Battalion. Whelan, Lieutenant O. G., 2nd Battalion. Young, Lieutenant J. V., 3rd Artillery Brigade. WOUNDED AND MISSING. Bolster, Major H. G., 2nd Battalion. Culling, Captain E. C, 2nd Battalion. Hooper, Captain W. H. V., 2nd Battalion. Scott, Lieutenant C. R., 2nd Battalion. Sterling, Lieutenant R. A., 2nd Battalion. i6o The Battle Glory of Canada May 13. KILLED. Bell, Lieutenant A. L., 10th Battalion. Bromley, Lieutenant H. A., 7th Battalion. CoLDWELL, Lieutenant C. A., loth Battalion. Hague, Lieutenant O. C. F., Artillery. Harvey, Captain R. V., 7th Battalion. Helmer, Lieutenant A. H., Artillery. Holmes, Lieutenant C. C, 7th Battalion. HosKiNS, Lieutenant R., 3rd Battalion. Jarvis, Lieutenant W. W. P., 3rd Battalion. Jessop, Lieutenant N. A., 7th Battalion. Latta, Lieutenant R. P., 7th Battalion. McColl, Lieutenant D. C, loth Battalion. Medland, Lieutenant F. R., 3rd Battalion. Nasmyth, Lieutenant J. T. H., loth Battalion. Pott, Captain F., loth Battalion. Reynolds, Lieutenant J. E., 8th Battalion. Stairs, Lieutenant C. W., 14th Battalion. Wallace, Captain H. A. C, loth Battalion. PREVIOUSLY REPORTED WOUNDED, NOW REPORTED KILLED. McGregor^ Hon. Captain J. H., i6th Battalion. DIED OF WOUNDS. Allen, Captain R. A. S., 5th Battalion. Ball, Lieutenant A. E., loth Battalion. Muntz, Captain D. H. C, 3rd Battalion. WOUNDED. Allen, Captain W. D., 3rd Battalion. Arthur, Captain C. J., loth Battalion. BicKLE, Lieutenant E. W., 15th Battalion. Roll of Honour i6i Clark, Major D. A., Artillery. CuRRiE, Lieutenant J. M., 5th Battalion. DuRRAND, LlEUTExNANT G., 8th Battalion. Ellis, Hon. Lieutenant and Q.-M., 5th Battalion. Greenshields, Lieutenant M., 13th Battalion. Harriss, Lieutenant G. M., 8th Battalion. Leslie, Lieutenant G. H., yth Battalion. McCoMBE, Lieutenant C., 14th Battalion. Mason, Captain D. H. C, 3rd Battalion. Matthews, Major H. H., 8th Battalion. Mayor, Lieutenant W., 15th Battalion. O'Grady, Captain G. F. de C, 8th Battalion. Paget, Lieutenant R. J., 8th Battalion. Scott, Lieutenant H. M., 15th Battalion. Schoenberger, Lieutenant W. H., 15th Battalion. Simpson, Lieutenant J. H., 5th Battalion. Sinclair, Lieutenant D. H., loth Battalion. Smith, Lieutenant G. A., 3rd Battalion. Thompson, Lieutenant H. A., 14th Battalion. W.ARDEN, C.APTAIN J. W., 7th Battalion. WOUNDED AND MISSING. Brotherhood, Lieutenant W. C, !4th Battalion. O'Grady, Lieutenant W. de C, 8th Battalion. Pitblade, Lieutenant C. B., 13th Battalion. ScuDAMORE, Captain T. V., 7th Battalion. Thorn, Lieutenant L. W., 13th Battalion. PREVIOUSLY REPORTED WOUNDED, NOW RE- PORTED WOUNDED AND MISSING. Acer, Lieutenant G. S., i6th Battalion. Kenworthy, Lieutenant J. G., i6th Battalion. McLe.an, Lieutenant B. A., i6th Battalion. Ross, Captain G. H., i6th Battalion. i62 The Battle Glory of Canada MISSING. Alexander, Captain G. M., 15th Battalion. Allen, Lieutenant D. G., 3rd Battalion. ' Anderson, Major P., 3rd Battalion. Andrews, Lieutenant G. F., 8th Battalion. Barwick, Lieutenant H. A., 15th Battalion. Bath, Lieutenant E. O., 15th Battalion. Bell, Lieutenant J. K., 8th Battalion. Bellew, Lieutenant E. D., 7th Battalion. Byng-Hall, Major P., D.S.O., 7th Battalion. Cory, Captain R. Y., 15th Battalion. Daniels, Captain A. B., 15th Battalion. Fessenden, Lieutenant C. F., 15th Battalion. Fryer, Lieutenant T. C, loth Battalion. Green, Lieutenant G. E. D., 3rd Battalion. Irwin, Hon. Captain D. O., loth Y.M.C.A., attached. Johnson, Lieutenant B. L., 3rd Battalion. Jones, Lieutenant F. V., 15th Battalion. Kirkpatrick, Major A. J. E., 3rd Battalion. Langmuir, Lieutenant G. J., 15th Battalion. Locke, Captain P. J., 7th Battalion. McCuaig, Major D. R., 13th Battalion. McDonald, Lieutenant F. W., 15th Battalion. McDowall, Lieutenant H. C. V., 7th Battalion. McGregor, Captain A. R., 15th Battalion. McKenzie, Lieutenant W. A., 8th Battalion. McKessock, Lieutenant R. R., 15th Battalion. NoRTHWOOD, Captain G. W., 8th Battalion. Osborne, Major J. E. K., 15th Battalion. Owen, Lieutenant H. E. L., 8th Battalion. Smith, Lieutenant F. J., 15th Battalion. Steeves, Lieutenant R. F., 7th Battalion. Streight, Captain J. E. L., 3rd Battalion. Taylor, Lieutenant G. E!., 15th Battalion. Thorn, Lieutenant J. C, 7th Battalion. Roll of Honour 163 PREVIOUSLY REPORTED WOUNDED AND MISSING, NOW REPORTED MISSING. Bolster, Major H. G., 2nd Battalion. Culling, Captain E. C, 2nd Battalion. McLuRG, Lieutenant J. E., 2nd Battalion. May 20. UNOFFICIALLY REPORTED TO BE PRISONERS OF WAR. Alexander, Captain G. M., 15th Battalion. Allen, Lieutenant D. G., 3rd Battalion. Anderson, Major P., 31 d Battalion. Andrews, Lieutenant G. F., 8th Battalion. Barwick, Lieutenant H. A., 15th Battalion. Bell, Lieutenant J. K., 8th Battalion. Bellew, Lieutenant E. D., 7th Battalion. Fryer, Lieutenant T. C, loth Battalion. Hart, Dr. W. M., C.A.M.C. Johnston, Captain B. L., 3rd Battalion. Jones, Lieutenant F. V., 15th Battalion. Locke, Captain P. J., 7th Battalion. McDonald, Lieutenant F. W., 15th Battalion. McDowall, Lieutenant H. C. V., 7th Battalion. Northwood, Captain G. W., 8th Battalion. OSDORNE, Major J. E. K., 15th Battalion. Scudamore, Captain T. V., 7th Battalion. Small, Lieuten.ant F. J., 15th Battalion. Steeves, Lieutenant R. F., 7th Battalion. Streight, Captain J. E. L., 3rd Battalion. Thorn, Lieutenant J. C, 7th Battalion. KILLED. Edwards, Lieutenant N. A., Princess Patricia's. i64 The Battle Glory of Canada PREVIOUSLY REPORTED WOUNDED, NOW REPORTED KILLED. Bastedo, Lieutenant A. C, ist Battalion. LocKHART, Lieutenant T. D., ist Battalion. DIED OF WOUNDS. Crawford, Lieutenant R. F., Princess Patricia's. Glidden, Captain G. C, A.M.C. (attached loth Battalion). ScHREiBER, LlEUTEN.ANT W. E. B., Divisional Ammunition Column. PREVIOUSLY REPORTED KILLED, NOW REPORTED DIED OF WOUNDS. Lindsay, Lieutenant A. R., i6th Battalion. DIED. Dillon, Major W. P., No. 2 General Hospital. WOUNDED. AdamsoN, Captain A., Princess Patricia's. Alderson, Captain F. J., Field Artillery. Anderson, Captain S. J., 7th Battalion. Bainsmith, Lieutenant B. F., Princess Patricia's. Banning, Lieutenant C. R., Princess Patricia's. Bell, Captain F. C, A.M.C. BiCK, Lieutenant A. H., Field Artillery. Buller, Lieut.-Colonel H. C, Princess Patricia's. BuRLAND, Lieut.-Colonel W. W., 14th Battalion. Ch.^dwick, Lieutenant F. J. G., Divisional Cyclist Company. Chipman, Lieutenant L. de V., 13th Battalion. Cornish, Lieutenant P. V., Princess Patricia's. De B.4Y, Lieutenant M. S., Princess Patricia's. Gault, Major A. H., Princess Patricia's. Gow, Lieutenant A. M., Field Artillery. Grant, Lieutenant S., 14th Battalion. Gray, Captain D. F. B., Princess Patricia's. Roll of Honour 165 Hargraft, Captain S. A., 8th Battalion. Hill, Captain H. S., Princess Patricia's. Kennedy, Captain K. E., Field Artillery. Lovelace, Lieutenant S. E., Field Artillery. McKee, Captain W. A., Field Artillery. M.irtin, Lieutenant A. G., Princess Patricia's. MOTHERSILL, MAJOR G. S., Army Medical Corps. Ogilvie, Captain N. C, Princess Patricia's. Ormonds, M.-VJOR D. M., loth Battalion. PERRY, Captain K., 13th Battalion. Ryerson,. Lieutenant A. C, Field Artillery. Sharman, Major C. H. L., Field Artillery. Thexton, Lieutenant R. D., Engineers. TiNGLEY, LiEUTEN.\NT F. H., Field Artillery. Triggs, Lieutenant G., Princess Patricia's. Whitley, Lieuten.ant H. T. C, Field Artillery. PREVIOUSLY REPORTED WOUNDED, NOW RE- PORTED WOUNDED AND MISSING. Jameson, Captain G. W., i6th Battalion. SUFFERING FROM GAS POISONING. Dear, Lieutenant L. S., 8th Battalion. Matthews, Lieutenant H. S., Field Artillery. Maxwell- Scott, Lieutenant FL, 15th Battalion. Parker, Lieutenant H. S., Field Artillery. MISSING. Dennison, Lieutenant H. S., Princess Patricia's. Hart, Lieutenant W. M., 5th Battalion. Lane, Lieutenant P., Princess Patricia's. APPENDIX G IN MEMORIAM " To-night is Canada's night. The manhood of Canada was tested and came out pure and unadulterated gold. We com- memorate a feat of arms which will live for ever." — Bishop of London, at St. Paul's Cathedral. Sorrowful pride was the dominating note of the nation's tribute paid to the fallen Canadian heroes in the memorial service which was held on Monday, the loth of May, at eight o'clock in the evening, in St. Paul's Cathedral. It was an expression of the strong impulse among Englishmen to pay respect to the men from Canada who "saved the situation " in the terrible second battle of Ypres and in other phases of the war. The Archbishop of Canterbury was there, and the Bishop of London delivered a stirring address. Lord Dundonald represented the King ; and the Governor- General of Canada, the Duchess of Connaught and Princess Patricia were represented by Major-General Sir Ronald Lane. Her Royal Highness the Princess Louise was also present. Many well-known Canadians and Englishmen were there, including Sir George and Lady Perley, Earl Grey, Mr. Bonar Law, Sir Max Aitken (whose spirited " Eye-Witness " story was quoted by the Bishop), Mr. Kiphng, Sir Richard McBride, and General Sir F. Lloyd. The House of Commons sent a delegation of all parties, headed by the Colonial Secretary, and the Lord Mayor came in state. Fully an hour before the service the vast space in the nave began l66 The Memorial Service 167 to fill up, and by the time the service began there was only standing room. A huge Canadian ensign and the Union Jack hung at the entrance to the chancel. Under the dome were soldiers in their khaki uniforms, and with them mourning women in black. All eyes were turned to the wounded Canadian soldiers from the London hospitals. Some were wearing the blue hospital dress, many were too weak to stand. Several wore dark blue spectacles, and when these youngsters in uniform were led to a seat, groping pathetically, the scene was more than some could bear. The Coldstream Guards, who were in Canada not long since, volunteered their famous music for the ceremony. "One crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name," quoted the Bishop, and he spoke of "these children of the prairie who had sucked in freedom with their mother's milk." The stirring account of the Canadian Record Officer of the five days' fighting in the second battle of Ypres sent a glow through every heart, and many a tear fell for the brave men whose deeds were recorded. " Every soldier as he set his teeth for the advance knew the task in front of him," said Dr. Ingram. "What are we to say of those glorious lives flung down for the freedom of the world? Has God failed the trust of those men? No! They shall enjoy a longer and better life, in which you who mourn them shall share. Unseen spirits will speak to you and unseen hands support you." The Bishop put the second battle of Ypres into a phrase well worth repeating: "Here the blustering Goliath of the world met his David, and he was a Canadian." The Dead March in " Saul " was played by the Cold- stream band and the organ, and never could the solemn notes of this grand march have sounded more majestic or more moving than they did when played in the very heart of the Empire on such an occasion as this. Hardly had the last roll of the drums died away, when the Grenadiers sounded the "Last Post." The service concluded with the i68 The Battle Glory of Canada Canadian National Anthem, "O Canada, thou land of noble name," and "God Save the King." A memorial service was held in Parliament Grounds, Ottawa, on the 29th of April, in honour of the Canadian officers, N.C.O.'s, and men who fell in the battle near Ypres. Those present included the Duke and Duchess of Connaught, and Princess Patricia of Connaught, Sir Robert Borden (the Prime Minister), and other members of the Cabinet, besides 2,500 troops training for overseas service. The Governor- General's Foot Guards and other corps marched past, with bands at their head, as did also several nursing sisters in uniform. Canadian National Anthem. Words by Hblbn Tatlor. 8 bars Symph. first. C Lavallce 1. O Can - a - da, thou land of no - ble name, 2. O Can - a • da, thrice blest on ev - 'ry side, 3. O sa-cred love of al - tar aud of throne, fc^: i^^iiE^zEEtii Thy brow is crowned with Thy sons shall spread thy Breathe in oui hearts till gold - en leaves of glo - ry far and truth shall reigTi a fame ; Thine wide ; Their lone ; Till arm so great hope and high ivrattk and wrong and eu shall glo - dea pe n ous Both sword and cross doth vour, En - riched from heav'n a - rish, And faith and peace a • ::r=r: — {W T bear, bove, bide, -4- w --^:=^ Thine an - nals all vie Shall still protect for And all the hopes we to - ri-ous Thy gal-Iant deeds de • ev - er The Mo-thtr-iand thty che - rish Shall prove our coun- try's =^- 3^=}=-^ :st dare. Thy faith di - vine, love. Their faith di - vine, pride. Our fa • thers' song thy cou - rage bold, their cou - rag* bold, oiice more we sing, 1 1 Shall guard our homes, our Shall gviard her Tiomes, hv Our bat • tie - cry of ^^ T- izi: ^^ sa - cred rights up sa • cred rights up old "For Christ and rf^^!7-(£^ =CSr i.':m?r i -=>- gr-p=: hold, hold, King !" D.C. % -=. 8 iars : ~Syr-ipA. Shall guard our homes, our sa - cred rights up - hold. Shall guard her homes, her sa-cred rights up- hold. Our bat - tic - cry of old '* For Christ and King i " Copyright of Messrs. Chai-j^bll & Co., Ltd., by whose peimission the words and melody are reprinted. Printed by Cassell & Company, Limited, La Beile Sauvace, London, E.C. FS0.615. N ■p; University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. INTE^LieaA.RY LOAN LIFORNIA A 93106 uc SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A A 000 297 338 6 Unive Soi Li