MOBILISATION
It required the outbreak of the war to bring home the inevitable
weakness of such a system, and when the Canadian Parliament announced
the intention of sending a contingent of thirty thousand men, even the
most enthusiastic shrugged their shoulders and said "Impossible."
But the feat not only was accomplished, but nearly trebled in the
accomplishment, and if there is one man who can claim to have arisen as
a Moses from among the people and achieved this miracle it is
Major-General Sir Sam Hughes, at that time known generally as Sam
Hughes, the Minister of Militia.
Sam Hughes did not arise in a single hour--neither was Rome built in a
day. He had been rising for several years, and it had taken the combined
efforts of both the Liberal and the Conservative parties to hold him
down.
Looking backward one cannot help thinking what a pity it was he had not
been given a free hand. He supported the Ross rifle, and raised it from
the status of a political weapon to that of a military one, and whatever
opponents to this weapon may claim they must remember that it was the
weapon that held the line at Ypres in those last few days of April,
1915, and had it not been available the Canadian Division would have
probably been in England patiently drilling with dummy rifles, and the
glory of having saved the situation would have fallen upon other troops.
However, the actual declaration of war drew people's attention to the
Militia, and they demanded action.
Some commanding officers made stirring speeches by platform or Press,
offering the services of their battalions as complete units--an
impossibility to accomplish owing to the terms of enlistment; others
with more modesty sent in their applications, without any flourish of
trumpets, for service in any capacity.
But along the border, wherever there were canals, bridges, and other
public works that might easily be damaged by fanatic sympathisers from
the United States, volunteers were called for to supply the necessary
guards.
Subsequent events justified these precautions, but for some time the men
on duty were the object of much attention from the small boy and that
type of young man who still roams the streets and declares that the
Allies are a long time winning the war!
Spy fever was rampant, and such experts as Begbie Lyte were constantly
in demand to investigate lights that flickered in any manner that a
vivid imagination might possibly take for signalling.
At other points practical jokes were played, such as driving a calf at
night in the direction of the sentry. The soldier receiving no answer to
his challenge would fire in the direction of the noise, and a loud laugh
would greet him. Once or twice, however, the sentry waited for the laugh
and fired in that direction, so that this variety of joke soon lost its
popularity.
Once, however, mobilisation had been ordered the militiamen were
replaced by men who had volunteered for active service. The armouries
began to hum with activity. In the West it was hard to find
accommodation for the men who came from isolated homesteads and lonely
ranches, some even from the Arctic Circle, to enlist. The West still
continues to supply the bulk of our recruits, due largely to the fact
that the majority are, if not British born, at least the sons of British
fathers, and consequently felt the call more personally than the sons of
families four or five generations in the country. Quebec, from which
province one would expect the most owing to the ties of race and
language with our Allies, has been frankly disappointing, although
certain exclusively French-Canadian battalions have done, and are
continuing to do, as good work as any on the Western front.
A week or two dragged on before the actual order to depart for the big
concentration camps came, and various conjectures were made as to their
location. Petewawa was suggested as one, but given up as too isolated.
Niagara, Barriefield, Three Rivers, and other "annual" sites were other
favourites, but each had some objection, for no concentration such as
thirty thousand men had been held in the history of Canada.
Eventually, however, we learned that one large camp was to be formed at
Val Cartier. Except that Val Cartier was in Quebec, no one knew
anything of this little hamlet.
Orders came thick and fast ordering this equipment to be worn and that
to be left behind. Some days rifles were to be taken and greatcoats left
in stores, and next day the rifles were to be left and greatcoats were
to be taken. The result was that some of the telegrams went astray, and
commanding officers at the last minute ordered what equipment they
thought most suitable to be worn.
The Umpteenth Battalion took down the leather harness that had adorned
its armoury walls for many a year and spent an anxious day fitting it
together, Begbie Lyte and the other officers who had volunteered for the
front flitting from one group of contestants to another.
At last every man had a working knowledge of the fifty odd buckles and a
hazy idea as to where the straps were supposed to cross his chest and
where not. The colonel looked with pride on this difficulty overcome and
said, "Thank Heaven! we will probably get a more modern outfit as soon
as we strike camp." Alas! We buckled and unbuckled those straps and
rolled and unrolled our greatcoats for half a year before the new kit
was handed out.
This was only one of the many steps that led up to that final day when,
with the band playing such cheerful airs as "The Girl I left behind me"
and "Will ye no come back again," the active service volunteers of the
Umpteenth Battalion left their native town.
The way to the station is but dimly remembered as a haze of faces,
spasmodic attempts at cheering, and the waving of many handkerchiefs.
Much handshaking and the sudden thrusting of presents into arms already
full prefaced the actual pulling out of the train.
The officers gathered on the back of the last car and watched the white
faces of the crowd dwindle to pin points, and then a curve hid town and
people alike from view.
It was less lonely inside the car, where were officers of another
battalion whose men were in the fore part of the train. The elder men
talked in low, serious tones as befitted those who knew something of
what lay before them.
To Lyte and the younger subalterns it seemed as though they were on the
threshold of life's Great Adventure, as indeed they were.
But they were not facing a war of chivalrous deeds such as they
imagined.
Alas for our ideals! war now appears in its true light, as the game of
commerce played on a larger scale with human lives as pawns in the place
of dollars and cents!
And as for chivalry, how can it live in the midst of machine-guns,
asphyxiating gases, and liquid flames?