OUR NEIGHBORING ALLY.
CANADA'S RECRUITING--RAISE 33,000 TROOPS IN TWO MONTHS--FIRST
EXPEDITIONARY FORCE TO CROSS ATLANTIC--BRAVERY AT YPRES AND
LENS--MEETING DIFFICULT PROBLEMS--QUEBEC AROUSED BY CONSCRIPTION.
The world has marvelled at the achievement of Canada at Valcartier camp
near Quebec and the dispatch across the Atlantic Ocean of a fully
equipped expeditionary force of 33,000 men within two months of the
outbreak of war between Great Britain and Germany. But the magnitude of
that feat cannot be appreciated properly until one considers that on
August 4, 1914, Canada had a permanent force of only about 3500 men.
These soldiers, who for the most part were instructors and men on guard
duty, provided a nucleus for a training organization. In addition to its
"standing army," the Dominion had an active militia numbering
approximately 60,000 men. Their training consisted of what has been
aptly called "after-supper soldiering." Members of city regiments
drilled for one night each week, participated in an annual church parade
and spent two weeks every year in summer camp.
The training of the rural regiments consisted almost entirely of the two
weeks in summer camp. Yet from these militia units were drawn a large
proportion of the men in the first Canadian oversea contingent, while
the militia regiments, to a large extent, formed the basis of Canada's
recruiting organization after the outbreak of hostilities.
Enlistments during the first two years in the expeditionary force
numbered approximately 415,000, while probably 150,000 applicants were
rejected as physically unfit.
Immediately upon the declaration of war Major General Sir Sam Hughes,
Minister of Militia, telegraphed the officers commanding the militia
regiments to commence recruiting for oversea service. After the
recruits were signed up and accepted, they lived at home and drilled
during the day at the armories throughout the Dominion.
Meanwhile, Valcartier camp was being prepared for the gathering army.
The building of this great military center almost overnight was an
engineering feat of no mean magnitude. Two weeks after work was started,
troops recruited by the militia regiments began to arrive, and before
the end of a month Valcartier was a tented city of 25,000 soldiers.
There were some complaints, of course. They were inevitable in an
encampment so hastily prepared. But the essentials were there, and when
the contingent sailed from Gaspe, on the coast of Quebec, on October 3,
it was a well-trained, efficient body of soldiers, besides being the
largest army that ever crossed the Atlantic at one time.
AN EFFICIENT COMMANDER.
The contingent was in command of Lieutenant-General Edwin Alfred Hervey
Alderson. He was born at Ipswich in 1859 and began his military career
with the Militia, going to the regular army in 1878. He joined the Royal
West Kent Regiment as Second Lieutenant and rapidly won promotion. He
served in the Transvaal, later in Egypt and participated in actions at
Kassassin and Tel-el-Kebir, receiving the Khedive's bronze star. Service
in South Africa and in India followed, during which General Alderson
successively became Captain, Major and Lieutenant Colonel. He became a
Colonel in 1903 and was placed in charge of the Second Infantry Brigade,
and in 1908 commanded the Sixth Division, Southern Army of India, having
meantime been given the rank of Major General.
After the departure of the first contingent recruiting was continued by
the militia regiments, and during the winter the men were quartered in
exhibition grounds, Y.M.C.As., sheds, etc. In the spring of 1915
existing camps were enlarged and new ones opened.
During this period the recruiting machinery developed from the militia
regiments. Through the latter officers were recommended to command new
battalions. These O.Cs. selected most of their subordinate officers from
their own militia regiments and used the parent organization as a
general basis for recruiting operations, headquarters being located at
the regimental armories.
The keen competition existing between the militia units was maintained
between the new oversea formations, and battalions were raised in a few
weeks. For months enlistments all over Canada averaged more than 1000
men daily, and with recruits coming forward at this rate, there was no
necessity of protracted delay in bringing battalions up to strength.
DIFFICULTY OF RECRUITING.
There was a disposition, especially in military circles, to attribute
the increasing difficulty of the recruiting situation during the winter
of 1915-16 and since to a change of system and the introduction of the
so-called "political colonels." The change, however, was rather the
result of new conditions than the cause of it. Recruiting had slowed
down--largely from natural causes.
A new appeal was needed to reach a class of eligible men who had not yet
enlisted. The recruiting problem apparently had outgrown the facilities
of the militia organizations. Rightly or wrongly, the government
commissioned a number of well-known men, without military experience, to
raise battalions. Their popularity and local confidence in them were the
excuses for their appointment--and the experiment was in the main
successful.
Perhaps there was a suggestion of politics about it, although it may be
stated emphatically that politics had not been a serious influence in
connection with the recruiting, training or leadership of Canada's
oversea forces. That such is the case stands to the enduring credit of
Major General Hughes.
The attempt to "popularize" recruiting was soon found to entail serious
evils. Competition for recruits in an already well-combed field became
very keen. The new political colonels realized that their reputations
were at stake, and in the effort to fill up their battalions various
undignified and regrettable expedients were employed. Cabarets,
bean-counting contests, lotteries and callithumpian methods generally
marked a period in Canada's recruiting history not pleasant to review,
and which brought discredit upon the entire voluntary enlistment system
as a permanent method of filling up armies.
TRAINING SERIOUSLY DELAYED.
Besides the moral influence of such schemes to get men in khaki, the
recruiting efforts of the political colonels had a serious effect in
delaying the training of new men. With their personal reputations as
organizers involved, the commanding officers were reluctant to admit
inability to fill up the ranks of their units, and repeatedly pleaded
for more time.
For months partly recruited battalions made little or no progress with
their training, while the officers devised new recruiting "stunts" and
while men were being sought in the highways and byways.
The situation was complicated by allowing a number of infantry
battalions to recruit in the same area at the same time, with the result
that the new men came in driblets, valuable time was lost and much money
wasted. In some cases it has taken well over a year from the date when
they were authorized before battalions were dispatched oversea--due very
largely to ineffective recruiting methods. Battalions were allowed to
continue the heart-breaking quest for recruits long after they should
have been amalgamated and sent to England. Such amalgamations came
ultimately, battalions retaining their identity when leaving Canada only
when 600 or more strong.
The high cost of recruits was a direct consequence of competition among
battalions recruiting independently in the same territory at the same
time. The government allowance was not adequate to maintain the pace and
had to be supplemented by private funds.
There was in Toronto a certain group of fifty recruits referred to as
the "$10,000 squad," because it is estimated that the cost of recruiting
them averaged nearly $200 each, the money coming from private funds of
officers and their friends. Perhaps the estimate involves some
exaggeration, but many units added to their ranks only at a cost of $50
or more per recruit.
Some idea of the waste of such a system may be secured when it is stated
that, with men coming forward freely, the cost of recruiting is
considerably less than $10 per man, even after allowing a generous bonus
to the recruiting sergeants. More serious than the cost in money was the
delay in training men needed at the front.
A POLITICAL IMPOSSIBILITY.
Canada's experience constitutes a severe indictment of the voluntary
system of recruiting, although sterner measures at the outset were a
political impossibility. The free-will enlistment plan had to be given a
thorough test, and its inadequacy demonstrated and repeatedly emphasized
before public opinion would support resort to compulsion.
English-speaking Canada at least learned that lesson, and it is
extremely doubtful whether the United States would have adopted the
selective draft system at the commencement of its participation in the
war, if it had not been that the experience of Canada and the United
Kingdom established the weakness inherent in the voluntary system.
Besides the camp at Valcartier, a great artillery camp was set up at
Petewawa, where the best facilities existed for long range gun practice.
Ontario saw two camps at Niagara and Camp Borden; Manitoba saw one on
the plains, Alberta another in the picturesque district near Calgary,
while British Columbia had its camp at Vernon.
INADEQUATE RECRUITING.
The volunteer recruiting in Canada, in its incipiency, while resultful,
was soon found to be not adequate. Under it, however, there was a
widespread response that stirs the blood, for men hurried to the lines
from the Yukon and the Peace Rivers; from Hudson's Bay and the farther
hinterlands, from prairie and mountain; white men and the red men;
cowboys and city chaps, harvesters and hunters, mechanics and
mountaineers, backwoodsmen and frontwoodsmen. And also among the
enlisters were thousands of Americans who fought side by side with
Canadian, Briton and Frenchman.
Canada has large German settlements, including 300,000 German and
Austrian settlers in the western provinces. Prompt action was taken on
the outbreak of the war to deal with the alien element that might prove
dangerous and disloyal. Nearly 10,000 were speedily interned, from Nova
Scotia to British Columbia. A large proportion were Austrian laborers
who had been railway navvies. These were placed in western camps and
used in building trails and roads in national parks, or in clearing the
forest for future settlement in Northern Ontario.
Many individuals of known pro-German sympathies were also put out of
harm's way, and some famous trials were held which served to give
salutary warnings to all others that freedom of speech has its
limitations in times of war, and that the rumors that the sinking of the
Lusitania was being celebrated behind closed doors was hardly palatable.
Others, again, were caught in attempts to destroy property and it is to
the credit of police and military vigilance that few succeeded in their
nefarious designs. The internment camp proved a wholesome example, and
the pro-German in Canada took the advice of the United States Government
to its German subjects "to keep their mouths shut." It is also a fact
that the occupants of the detention camps in the Dominion were well fed
and treated, in striking contrast to the disturbing reports that leaked
through as to the way Canadian war prisoners in Germany fared.
CANADA'S WAR FINANCIERING.
Next, the story of how Canada is financing her share of the war, for it
is a costly business. Three domestic war loans, totaling $450,000,000,
were voluntarily subscribed, each in fact being doubly underwritten, and
yet the savings of the people in the banks is (1917) the highest on
record--over a billion and a quarter. Part of the war revenue is being
raised by war taxes on letters, checks, legal documents and some
articles of import. Happily the normal revenue of the country was never
so large nor the trade of the Dominion so buoyant. All these factors are
helping to carry the war burden.
The generosity of the people, under the heavy strain, was most marked.
Many millions were given to the various war help funds, chiefly to the
Red Cross and the Canadian Patriotic Fund, of 700 branches, which
supplements the Government separation allowance to soldiers' dependents
by other grants. Canada had, up to that time, by the way, the highest
paid soldiery in the world, privates getting $33 a month.
It is interesting to note that there are several branches of the
Canadian Patriotic Fund in the United States, which looked after the
families and dependents of Americans who enlisted in the Canadian ranks.
Canadian total givings in cash and kind to their own, as well as to the
Belgians, French, Servian, Armenian and other funds and Governmental
grants of grain and provision, would represent a very much larger figure
than that here mentioned.
The orders placed in Canada averaged $1,500,000 worth for every day in
the year.
The women of Canada in every way render practical patriotic service.
Hundreds of nurses were placed in overseas and home hospitals. The
farmers' wives raised large sums of money as did the school children.
Organizations of all kinds came into existence, not alone collecting
money, but contributing vast quantities of war material and soldiers'
comforts, and sending packages of food and clothing regularly to
Canadian prisoners in German camps.
Still another war problem was the care of the returned wounded soldiers,
and a serious problem it was. The procession of the disabled was a
pathetic one. Military convalescent hospitals were set up in many
centres, in addition to the opening of private homes for the same
beneficent purpose.
CANADA PART OF AMERICA.
Canada may be an English possession, but to us it is part of America,
and certainly no two countries have rested side by side in greater
friendship than the "Dominion" and the United States. You can find no
great fortifications along the 3000 odd miles of border between Canada
and the United States. The countries have lived in peace and harmony and
together, or side by side they have battled for peace on the fields of
Flanders.
All the world knows what Canada has done on the battlefields abroad,
fighting with those troops from Australia, New Zealand, India and lesser
English territory, to drive the ruthless Germans back and crush the
Empire to which they swear allegiance.
The Canadian troops were taken after landing in France to a point within
the country between St. Omer and Ypres, where they served with honor to
themselves, their presence having a salutary effect on the British
soldiery, who had been facing the German forces. At the battle of Neuve
Chapelle the Canadians held part of the line allotted to the first army,
and while not engaged in the main attack, rendered valuable help, their
artillery being very active, and at the battle of Ypres in April, 1915,
they took a notable part.
In the latter part of April, the Canadian division held a line of about
5000 yards, connecting with that of the French troops, and faced the
memorable gas attack of the Germans, which was the first noted in the
war. The asphyxiating gas was projected into the trenches by means of
force pumps and pipes laid under the parapets, the German sappers having
carefully placed these conductors. The bulk of the gas was directed
against the French, largely made up of Turcos and Zouaves, who were
driven back, suffering agonies.
POSITION BRAVELY HELD.
The Canadians suffered to some extent from the poison, and though there
were in the commands lawyers, college professors, business men, clerks
and workers of all sorts, who had been turned into soldiers within a few
months, and without previous military experience, they held their
position bravely. The Canadians were, of course, compelled to change
their position after the French fell back, and the Allied troops were,
to all effects and purposes, routed. But when the Germans, recognizing
the weakened position of the Canadians, attempted to force a series of
attacks, the Canadian division, as a matter of record, fought through
the day and through the night, for forty-eight consecutive hours, and
finally, in a counter-attack, drove the Germans back and regained a
position which had been lost by the British troops in the earlier
conflict.
Later, in the face of a devastating fire, in which many officers were
killed, battalions of the Canadians carried warfare to the first line of
German trenches, and in a desperate hand-to-hand struggle won the
trench. This attack, it is said, secured and maintained during the most
critical moment of the campaign the integrity of the Allied line.
In connection with the experience of the Canadians with the gas fumes,
it is necessary to note that at that time they were unprovided with gas
masks, or means of protecting themselves against the fumes, and the best
they could do was to stuff wet handkerchiefs in their mouths. The fumes,
although extremely poisonous, were not so effective with the Canadians
as on the French lines, largely because of the position of the
Canadians, and the direction of the wind, but in the several attacks a
number of the Canadians were asphyxiated.
HEROES WIN RECOGNITION.
So, all through the Ypres campaign, the Canadians faced the shot, shell
and poisonous gases of the Germans, and won recognition for their heroic
conduct which will stand to the credit of Canada for all time. At
Festubert, Givenchy, and, last but not least, Lens, the Canadians, step
by step, kept pace with the Allied advances.
In their general advance on Lens the Canadians occupied the strongest
outpost in the defense of that place, and pushing their troops on toward
La Coulotte, entered that village. The Germans withdrew in this
neighborhood from a line about one and three-quarters miles long.
The task of the Canadians was to capture German outposts southwest of
Reservoir Hill. The attack was evidently expected. The Germans scuttled,
abandoning ground upon which machine gun fire was immediately turned by
Germans located on the hill. This was speedily followed by heavy
artillery fire, which continued during the night in the vicinity of the
Lens electric station.
The enemy's dugouts were searched, found to be empty, and wrecked.
The German retirement ceased during the night. Patrols sent out opposite
Mericourt and to the south found the enemy's front line strongly held.
The Germans made huge craters at all cross roads in Avion and leading
towards Lens.
Patrols which were sent out reached the summit of Reservoir Hill without
opposition and pushed on down the eastern slope and the strong Lens
outpost was effectively occupied. Meanwhile, south of the Souchez River
the Canadians drove forward on the heels of the retiring Germans.
Railway embankments east of Lens electric station were occupied. The
advance was then continued toward La Coulotte. As night fell strong
parties were sent out to consolidate the positions occupied, while
patrols were sent forward to keep in touch with the Germans.
WANTON DESTRUCTION.
Several days previous the Germans were known to be destroying houses in
the western part of Lens, with the object of giving a wider area of fire
for their guns. It was their intention of clinging to the eastern side
of the city and prolonging the struggle by house-to-house fighting.
Under a protecting concentration of artillery fire, Canadian troops
successfully stormed and captured the German front line before Avion, a
suburb of Lens. By the advance the British line was carried forward to
within one mile of the centre of Lens.
The Canadians, heartened by successes gained in a few days at a
relatively small cost, decided to attack across the open ground sloping
upwards to Avion and the village of Leauvette, near the Souchez River.
They met with opposition of a serious character at only one point, where
a combination of machine gun fire and uncut wires delayed the advance.
The attack was not intended to be pressed home at this particular spot,
as the ground specially favored the Germans, so that the delay did no
harm. The assaulting troops comprised men from British Columbia,
Manitoba, Central Ontario and Nova Scotia.
The attack was made along a two-mile front. On the extreme left, Nova
Scotians pushed their way up the Lens-Arras road to the village of
Leauvette. Here they took a number of prisoners. At the other end of the
line, east of the railway tracks, enemy dugouts were bombed. Their
occupants belonged to the crack Prussian Guards Corps, the Fifth Guard
Grenadiers, who refused in most cases to come out and surrender.
At daybreak, Canadian airplanes, flying low over Avion, saw few Germans
there. Craters which had been made by mine explosions at the crossroads,
seriously hindered them in bringing up troops from Lens for
counter-attacks.
GERMAN AVIATIK DEFEATED.
In an air duel fought at probably the highest altitude at which
aviators, up until that time, had met in combat, nearly four miles, a
Canadian triplane pursued and defeated a German two-seated Aviatik. The
German machine had sought safety by climbing upward and the triplane
pursued. At a height of 20,000 feet the pilot of the German craft either
fell or jumped from it and disappeared at the moment of the first burst
of fire from the gun on the Canadian. The German observer then was seen
to climb out upon the tail of the machine, where he lost his hold and
plunged headlong. The Aviatik turned its nose down and fell.
It is meet that some note be taken of the fact that while the Canadian
soldiers were battling for humanity and the preservation of the British
Empire in Flanders there was being celebrated in their native land the
fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Dominion. All Canada took
part in the celebration on June 1, 1917, as did large numbers of men
from the United States officers' training camp at Niagara, where
recruits were preparing to receive Commissions in Uncle Sam's Army.
Up until 1867 Canada had been the scene of bitter strife between the
French and British. At that time the provinces were brought quite
closely together, and commenced a new era of prosperity. The foundation
was then laid for a wonderfully prosperous country, one filled with
almost limitless possibilities.
The confederation of Canada had its birth in a meeting of delegates
from all over British North America, which was held in 1864, and these
delegates, after deliberating for nearly three weeks, passed a large
number of resolutions which formed the basis of what eventually became
the Act of Union. In the following January these resolutions were
submitted to the Legislature of Canada and after due debate there was
passed in both chambers of Parliament a measure for the purpose of
uniting the provinces in accordance with the provisions of the Quebec
resolutions. The meeting was in Quebec.
PLAN OF UNION PASSED.
A number of difficulties were encountered, so that it was 1867 before
the plan of union was submitted to the Imperial Parliament, where it was
warmly received and passed without alteration of any description within
a few days. The royal assent was given on March 29, and the act
constituting the new Canada went into effect on July 1, which day has
since become known as Dominion Day, and is the chief of all Canadian
holidays.
The federal Constitution of Canada is contained in an Imperial Act of
Parliament, known as the British North America Act, and it is based very
largely upon that of the mother country. The ministry of the day holds
office at the pleasure of the House of Commons, the members of which are
elected by the people. At the head of the affairs is a Governor-General,
who is appointed by the Crown and paid by the people of Canada. As is
the case with the British sovereigns, he acts with and on the advice of
the ministers for the time being, and also like the King, he can
dissolve the Parliament.
The number of members of the House of Commons is regulated by the
following clauses of the act: "On the completion of the census in the
year 1871, and of each subsequent decennial census, the representation
of the four provinces shall be readjusted by such authority in such a
manner, and from such time as the Parliament of Canada from time to
time provides."
Previous to the passing of the British North America Act, the great
Dominion had consisted of a conglomeration of provinces, some of them of
almost fabulous extent, into which the white man from the West had
penetrated. Tradition has it that some thousand years ago a Norseman, by
name Leif Ericson, coming in his great beaked galley, through the
northern seas, from Greenland, was the first white man to stand on
Canadian soil.
Another five centuries were, however, to pass before John Cabot, sailing
from Bristol, in the days of Henry Bolingbroke, brought the first
British ship into a Canadian port. After him the fishermen of Europe
came in increasing numbers to the great banks, with the result that
little by little, as their tiny vessels touched the American shores, the
great continent began to be known to the people of Europe.
DOMINION'S FOUNDATIONS LAID.
It was not really, however, until the year 1534 that the foundations of
the Dominion may be said to have been sunk. In that year Jacques Cartier
sailed from the port of St. Malo, with two little ships, intending to
attempt the northwest passage to Japan. Francis the First was then
ruling in Paris, and there was great adventure in the air of France.
Cartier did not make the northwest passage, but he did touch the coast
of Canada, or, to be more exact, the coasts of Labrador and
Newfoundland. It was then the 10th of May, and having sailed around the
island, he steered south, and crossing the gulf entered the bay which,
by reason of the great heats of midsummer, he named Des Chaleurs.
Holding along the coast, he came to the little inlet of Gaspe, and here,
at the entrance to the harbor, he erected a huge cross surmounted by the
arms and lilies of France. He could find no passage, however, to the
northwest, and so he turned his ship, and sailed back to St. Malo.
The Court in Paris heard his story with interest. His cause was taken up
by the King; and, as a result, in the succeeding May, he sailed again to
the new world with three well found ships. On the day of Saint Lawrence
he entered the great bay, to which he at once gave the name of the
Saint, and passing on came, in September, to anchor in the Isle of
Orleans.
REAL FOUNDER OF CANADA.
The man, however, with whose name the early history of Canada is most
fully connected, had not as yet been born. Nor was it until the year
1567 that, at Brouage in Saintonge, Samuel de Champlain came upon the
scene. In the year 1603, when Elizabeth was ruling in England, and Henry
of Navarre in France, Champlain came to Canada. He had been a soldier of
le Bearnais, in the great wars with the League, an officer of marine,
and a man with no little knowledge of natural science, as knowledge was
then accounted. He came now in command of an expedition, fitted out by
the merchants of Rouen, with the idea of forming a Canada company, as
England had her Barbary Company, her Eastland Company, her Muscovie
Company, or her Turkey Company. And in this way the French came into
Canada.
Thus there began those American wars between the two countries, divided
at home only by the English Channel, which went on century by century,
largely through the employment of the Indian tribes, until that
September night when Wolfe's boats drifted in, from the fleet to the
shore, and the battle on the Plains of Abraham permanently settled the
question of domination in favor of the British.
The British conquest of Canada did not, however, mean the cessation of
fighting. There came, presently, the war between Great Britain and the
American colonies, one of the most amazing exploits of which was the
marvelous march of Arnold and Montgomery through the forests of Maine
to the St. Lawrence, ending in the wonderful siege, of the year 1775,
and the heroic failure to storm the defenses by scaling the rocks from
the river bed. Eventually the boundary between the United States and the
British possessions was settled by the Treaty of Paris, in 1783, just
twenty years after an earlier Treaty of Paris had recorded the surrender
of Canada by France to Great Britain.
CANADA, FROM COLONY TO DOMINION.
For the last century and a half the story of Canada has been the story
first of a British colony and then of a British Dominion. A great flood
of new colonists had come into the country after the victory of the
States in the War of Independence, when many of the royalists of New
England crossed the border. As a result, there had grown up the two new
provinces of Upper Canada, now known as Ontario, and New Brunswick. The
relations between all the provinces were, however, far from harmonious,
with the result that what between quarrels among themselves and risings
against the British authority, the condition of Canada was anything but
promising, when, after the Rebellion of 1837, Lord Durham was sent over
to try to evolve order out of chaos.
He found the "habitant" still unreconciled to the British rule; he found
a condition of many little Pontiacs, all very much as was that famous
village on the summer evening when Valmond threw the hot pennies to the
children, as the auctioneer and monsieur le cure came down the street;
he found another Canada of British colonists with so little sympathy for
the habitant, that, he declared, the two never met save in the jury box,
and there only to obstruct justice.
It was then that Lord Durham, by a great stroke of statesmanship,
brought peace to Canada. A democratic form of representative government
was bestowed on the people. The division of Quebec into two provinces,
which the habitant had desired when they were one, and resented when
they were two, was annulled, with the result that the ground was
prepared for the union which was to come just thirty years later.
Lord Durham made history and made a nation, for the confederation, when
it came, was the inevitable superstructure built upon the foundations of
his laying, but he ruined a reputation. His contempt for the conventions
of politics, the radicalism of his methods, his failure to make any
obeisance to the governmental deities, official or ex-official, combined
with his almost superhuman tactlessness, gave his enemies every
opportunity they could desire.
He was viciously attacked, and finally throwing up his mission, returned
to England and gave up politics.
REPORT NOT TO BE DISPOSED OF.
The good, however, men do lives after them. Lord Durham's report,
drafted for him by two master hands, those of Charles Buller and Edward
Wakefield, could not be disposed of by perfervid orators or ill-informed
editors. It passes into the category of historic and illuminating state
papers. And, though Lord Durham fell, when, on the first of July, 1867,
the British North America Act became operative, it was the handle of his
trowel that struck that great cornerstone of liberty and empire, and
declared it well and truly laid: the first of the Dominions, now having
a population of approximately 8,000,000.
Thrown upon their own resources, when Great Britain began to draw in its
loans of 1911-12, the people of Canada were temporarily at a loss as to
how to meet the situation; the hardships which followed, however,
prepared them to meet, with resolute determination, the greater problems
that crowded upon them in 1915-16. Canada, through all the past, had
been a dependent and a debtor nation; the war made it self-reliant,
spurred its people on to the development of natural resources, and
assured them, not only that the Dominion could stand alone, but that,
throughout all the future, it can be a pillar of strength to the Empire
and to democracy.
There were times when she was threatened by more than the ordinary
difficulties which come to a nation, as when it became necessary in 1917
to pass a Conscription Act, the Province of Quebec threatened to secede.
Quebec is a French territory, and it was a matter of world-wide comment
that the volunteer enlistments for the Canadian army from the province
were insignificant.
While the French Canadians were proud of France and their cousins across
the seas, they were opposed to being compelled to fight for England, and
the proposal to secede was largely advocated by the French-Canadian
clergy.
RECIPIENTS OF UNSTINTED HONORS.
Among the heroic troops that faced the Germans in Flanders none was more
honored in all Canada and England than the Princess Patricia's Light
Infantry. Out of this battalion, which sailed away from Canada's shores
with the first expeditionary force, scarcely one-fourth of the proud
number lived through the terrible campaigns of Flanders, in which the
Dominion forces participated.
The battalion constituted what was regarded as one of the most efficient
military units in Canada, and in August, 1914, had been presented with
colors wrought by the hand of Princess Patricia, daughter of the
Governor General of Canada, the Duke of Connaught. The Princess,
standing beside her mother, the Duchess of Connaught, in Lansdowne Park,
Ottawa, presented the colors to the little force, wishing them a safe
return, while thousands applauded and the spirit of patriotism ran high.
The "Princess Pats," as they came to be known, had within the
organization a large portion of men of military experience who had seen
service in South Africa and elsewhere, and consequently when they landed
in France they were the first to be sent into the trenches and to
action. In the winter and spring of 1914-15 they had some bitter
experiences and participated in several desperate attacks and defenses,
but it was not until the campaign at Ypres that the organization was
almost annihilated, when it faced one of the most terrific bombardments
of the war, and fought in a section largely cut off from the main line.
Here Lieutenant-Colonel Farquhar, commander of the battalion, lost his
life and nearly all of the officers were wounded.