by Gwynne Dyer
You have to remember there was no TV, there was no radio, but a dispatch would come through that, say, the Somme Battle was in progress.… And the phone rang incessantly—these poor, anxious voices: “We’re so sorry to bother you, but is there any news?”
So at the age of, I suppose about eight or nine by then, I was part of the chain of communication, because I would let my father rest. And I remember what a dreadful time I had pronouncing the names of these various battles. And Daddy would tell me what dispatch had come through, and I’d just repeat it.
Naomi Radford, Edmonton
By the end of 1916 Canada was a divided country: divided between those families who had a son, a husband, or a brother serving overseas and those who were still essentially living in the atmosphere of peacetime. The latter group might follow the progress of the European war in the newspapers, but they could not share the quiet terror of those who spent their days waiting for the official message that it was time to dress in mourning.
The sight of a telegraph boy was a thing of horror … because they were never allowed to phone bad news. And you’d see the boy come down the street on his bicycle, and you’d watch what house he stopped at. And then, later, probably my mother would go over, one of the neighbours would go over.
Naomi Radford
The resentment against men who had not volunteered was greatest in the West, where a large majority of families had a close relative in the trenches. At times it had a very bitter edge.
The odd person, mostly old people, would go around, and they’d see a chap that they felt should be overseas, and they would bounce up and put a white feather on him.
And of course, as the war went on these were often chaps who’d come back wounded, or had a heart condition or something. It was a very cruel thing to do.…
Oh no, there was no organisation as far as I know. They were just “public-spirited” people.
Naomi Radford
But far more than for the “shirkers” in their own communities, English Canadians with relatives in the forces reserved their deepest feelings of resentment for French Canadians. It was universally felt in English Canada that French Canadians were not carrying their share of the burden—and of course they weren’t, for they didn’t think it was their burden.
Canada being part of the British Empire, it is the sacred duty of the Canadian people to assist Great Britain in her heroic defence of liberty. This was the position taken by the Episcopacy of French Canada at the outbreak of the War, and this is the attitude Bishops … will continue to maintain to the very end. The obligations we owe the British Crown are sacred obligations.
Archbishop Bruchési of Montreal, Laval, January 7, 1916
The Catholic hierarchy in Quebec almost unanimously supported the British cause during the war, in fulfilment of the church’s part in the old bargain: you don’t meddle in our empire, and we’ll support yours. However, it was fighting an uphill battle against its own curés, who shared the general conviction that the Kaiser was not casting lascivious eyes on Trois-Rivières and that the war was none of French Canada’s business. But there were some French Canadians who joined up anyway.
4.15 a.m.
Only ten minutes now before zero. The horizon shows a line of grey. Dawn is coming; and my heart is filled suddenly with bitterness when I realize that the day may be my last.… A shell bursts in our trench, breaking the leg of a man a few yards away. Stretcher-bearers apply a dressing and carry him to the rear. “There goes one man who won’t die in the attack,” remarks a soldier, almost enviously.
Our company commander, Capt. J.H. Roy, appears. “Ten rounds in your magazines and fix bayonets!” he orders. There is a click of steel on steel. Only two minutes now remain.… Yesterday, I believed I could die with something approaching indifference. Now I am aware of an intense desire to live. I would give anything to know beyond doubt that I had even two whole days ahead of me.… I see things—differently than I did yesterday.
Signaller Arthur Lapointe, 22nd Battalion, CEF, Soldier of Quebec: 1916–1919
At one time or another thirteen battalions destined to join the CEF strove to attract French Canadian recruits in Quebec, but apart from the 22nd Battalion, only the 163rd “Poil-aux-Pattes” and the 189th (recruited mostly in the Gaspé) reached Europe—and after the dreadful losses suffered by the 22nd Battalion at Courcelette in September 1916, the others were broken up to refill its ranks. The 22nd was a remarkable formation, with possibly the most distinguished fighting record in the entire Canadian army, but there were scarcely enough French Canadian volunteers to keep that single battalion up to strength.
4.25 a.m.
Zero hour! A roll as of heavy thunder sounds and the sky is split by great sheets of flame.… Through the deep roaring of the guns I can hear the staccato rat-a-tat of machine-guns. I scramble over the parapet and, with Michaud, am one of the first in No Man’s Land. Our company is forming up and the moments of delay seem endless.… A shell strikes a few yards away, and Lieut. Gatien is seriously wounded. We are not allowed to help him; that is the stretcher-bearers’ duty. The noise of the barrage fills our ears; the air pulsates, and the earth rocks under our feet. I feel I am in an awful dream and must soon awake.…
We reach the enemy’s front line, which has been blown to pieces. Dead bodies lie half buried under the fallen parapet and wounded are writhing in convulsions of pain.… Through clouds of smoke, I catch sight of German soldiers running away. Shall I fire at them? I pity the poor devils and have seen enough dead lying in the mud; but this is war, so I open fire. A German soldier falls. Did one of my bullets find a mark, or was he struck down by a shell? I shall never know.
Soldier of Quebec: 1916–1919
There were some practical reasons why so few French Canadians joined the forces: they tended to marry younger, and the army that was seeking their services had become an almost entirely “English” institution (among some eighty Canadian brigadier generals in the First World War, only four were French Canadian). But these obstacles were unimportant compared to the fundamental French Canadian disinclination to die for the British empire.
As far as most French Canadians were concerned, the sentimental tie to France was not strong enough to justify dying for her, and loyalty to the British empire did not oblige its Canadian subjects to die in Britain’s wars in other continents. So English Canadians were coming to see all French Canadians as cowards or traitors, while French Canadians who had enlisted found themselves regarded as dupes by many of their own people. After a year at the front Talbot Papineau sent an open letter to his cousin, Henri Bourassa:
Can a nation’s pride be built upon the blood and suffering of others? … If we accept our liberties, our national life, from the hands of the English soldiers, if without sacrifices of our own we profit by the sacrifices of the English citizen, can we hope to ever become a nation ourselves? … Yet the fact remains that the French in Canada have not responded in the same proportion as have other Canadian citizens.… For this fact … you will be held largely responsible. You will bring dishonour and disfavour upon our race, so that whoever bears a French name in Canada will be an object of suspicion and possibly of hatred.
Talbot Papineau to Henri Bourassa, March 21, 1916
But Papineau was as much English Canadian as French Canadian (his father, like Henri Bourassa’s, was descended from Louis-Joseph Papineau, but his mother was American and he was brought up in Montreal mainly in English). Bourassa replied in another open letter, pointing out that even in English Canada it was the relatively recent arrivals, the “blokes” from Britain, who had done much of the volunteering. Moreover, he added, “the floating population of the cities, the students, the labourers and clerks, either unemployed or threatened with dismissal, have supplied more soldiers than the farmers,” whose roots were in the land. Even if he changed his personal position, Bourassa said, he could not persuade French Canadians to enlist. French Canadians “look upon the perturbations of Europe, even
those of England or France, as foreign events. Their sympathies go naturally to France against Germany, but they do not think they have an obligation to fight for France.”
I have just found Michaud safe and sound.… We have taken the German second support line and captured about fifty prisoners, all haggard and wild-eyed, as though they had traversed a hell on earth. Most of them are wounded. One young lad with a badly torn face is raising awful cries. Another, with a leg torn away, is groaning; and his moans rend one’s heart. Further away lies one of our men, a young soldier, a comrade of mine from the old 189th. He is terribly wounded, and holds his beads in his one remaining hand. Time and again he calls for his mother, and when his sufferings are more than he can endure prays for death. I can’t stand the sight of his suffering, and walk away, with a great lump in my throat.
Soldier of Quebec: 1916–1919
Apart from the 22nd Batallion, however, it had become an almost entirely English Canadian war, and as the casualties mounted, so did the pressures from English Canada to compel French Canadians to “do their share.” Only a few English Canadian politicians, like R.B. Bennett, the director of national service, whose recruiting work brought him into regular contact with French Canadians, were fully aware of the dangers this entailed. Bennett frankly told his English Canadian audiences that for the sake of national unity it might be better if the burden of sacrifice remained unequal: “We don’t want to have our forces spent in quelling riots at home.” But that was not what the audiences wanted to hear, nor were there many English Canadian politicians with the wisdom or the courage to say it to them.
The Canadians played a part of such distinction [on the Somme in 1916] that thenceforward they were marked out as storm troops; for the remainder of the war they were brought along to head the assault in one great battle after another. Whenever the Germans found the Canadian Corps coming into the line they prepared for the worst.
David Lloyd George, War Memoirs, vol. 6
Once we got there we were strictly Canadian—there was no fooling around at all. We thought we were quite superior to everybody else, you know.
George Turner, Sergeant, CEF
By the end of 1916, despite all the political infighting and the disastrous losses (the Canadians had 24,029 casualties during the Battle of the Somme), the Canadian Corps in France had become a competent, highly professional army—and despite the very large proportion of English-born volunteers in its ranks, everybody in the corps developed a strong Canadian identity. But as the politicians at home struggled to find enough men to send to the front as replacements, the Canadians in the field ran into a new problem. The reinforcements were sent out so hastily that they were sometimes virtually untrained.
I found myself in a shell hole with some infantryman, and looking over a hundred yards or so away there was a German who was standing up out of a shell hole and shooting as if he was shooting at rabbits. I don’t know whether he hit anybody, but any rate he was there. And I sort of said: “Why don’t you shoot? Why don’t you fire at that man?”
“Oh, I don’t know how to fire.…”
He just couldn’t use a rifle. So I took the rifle from him and took a shot, and the man disappeared. I don’t suppose I hit him, but at any rate he wasn’t there anymore.
“Tommy” Burns (later general, then a junior officer in the 11th Brigade)
The rate of losses in the Canadian army was already the major problem, and in 1917 it became critical. The last straw, ironically, was the most famous Canadian success in the war, the capture of Vimy Ridge. It was a long escarpment dominating an industrial plain, from which “more of the war could be seen than from any other place in France,” and no significant advance was possible along the most important part of the British front as long as it stayed in enemy hands. The Germans had held most of the ridge since October 1914, and 200,000 had already been killed or wounded in previous British and French attempts to capture it. In April 1917 the job of taking it was given to the Canadian Corps.
It was the first time that all four Canadian divisions had fought together as a corps, and the Canadians prepared for the assault with the meticulous care that was becoming their trademark in battle. They spent weeks studying a scale model of the battle area and practising the planned manoeuvres. More than a million artillery shells—50,000 tons—fell on the Germans in the week before the attack (they called it “the week of suffering”). Even now Vimy looks like a partially reclaimed moonscape, and signs still warn of unexploded shells.
Very early on April 9, Easter Monday (having spent Sunday at church services), the men of the four Canadian divisions were given a stiff tot of rum and began moving forward under cover of a heavy barrage. For once the weather was in their favour: the snowstorm in which the Canadians crept forward across no man’s land was unusual for April, but the snow was flying into the Germans’ faces, concealing the Canadian advance. The Canadian Official History says the attack “went like clockwork,” but nothing in battle goes like clockwork: some regiments in the 11th Brigade, which had suffered heavy losses in other recent fighting, had just “lost their confidence” (as the saying went):
When they were supposed to get up, out over the top and go forward, they tended, after some casualties had occurred, to just not go on any further. And actually, with many of the troops being quite green, you couldn’t expect them to do any better than that. When you got a bit forward, you found that the advancing troops had sort of stuck in the mud, somehow or other, and the attack as planned just fell apart.
“Tommy” Burns
Nevertheless, the bulk of the Canadian army swarmed up over the ridge and seized the German trenches. Although the Germans were very well dug in, a lot of the forward positions were taken by surprise, but the attackers were taking heavy losses.
I got bowled over nearly at the start, but picked myself up and ran on with the boys towards the German trenches, and believe me it was some fighting. It was like hell let loose. I was through the Somme but that was nothing compared to this one.… It was at the second line that I was knocked out by the concussion of a high explosive shell that burst right near me. By this time there were only two of us left of our machine gun crew.
The shock of the explosion threw me into a shell hole. Corporal Lang … came into the hole after me and gave me a drink of rum and water, which soon pulled me around and we started off for Fritz’s third line. By this time the enemy were calling for quarter and surrendering fast.
J.M. Thompson, Paris, Ontario, April 1917
We went over Vimy Ridge just at dusk. The Canadian attack … had left it a jungle of old wire and powdered brick, muddy burrows and remnants of trenches.…
Two hours later we found Fourteen Platoon, hardly recognising it. The sergeant was there, and MacDonald, but most of the others were strangers.… MacDonald told us our company had gone straight through to the objective in spite of sleety snow and mud and confusion, but a flanking fire from the left, where the 4th Division had been held up, had taken a heavy toll. Belliveau and Jenkins and Joe McPherson had been killed in one area. One shell had wiped out Stevenson and two others.
MacMillan had been shot in the stomach and had died after waiting hours in the trench. Gilroy and Westcott and Legge had been killed by machine-gun fire. Herman Black had run amuck. They found him almost at the bottom of the Ridge, near a battery position, with eight dead Germans about him, four of them killed by bayonet.
Will R. Bird, Ghosts Have Warm Hands
After two days of futile counterattacks the German commander, Crown Prince Rupprecht, ordered the withdrawal of his troops onto the plain below. He had lost a dominating position, and 4,000 Germans had been taken prisoner. But the Canadians had suffered 10,602 casualties, including 3,600 dead.
On April 10, word reached us of the splendid victory of the Canadians in taking Vimy Ridge on the preceding day.
Fine tribute from Haig [the British commander-in-chief]. Some mention in editorials, but none in “Times,” which i
s disgraceful.…
Dispatched telegrams of congratulations to General Byng. Robert Borden, Memoirs, vol. 2
It was partly in recognition of the Canadian Corps’ achievement at Vimy that it was finally given a Canadian commander in the early summer of 1917, and so became the first completely Canadian field army in the country’s history. But while Lieutenant General Sir Julian Byng, the British officer who had commanded the Corps since May 1916, was well liked by the troops, his Canadian successor, General Sir Arthur Currie (who had been an insurance agent and part-time militia officer when the war broke out), was not. Leslie Hudd, by now a seasoned veteran, met Currie after he was recommended for a French Croix de Guerre and a British Military Medal for single-handedly taking a German machine-gun post.
I was just a buck private. So the [French] General came down and he embraced us all, and I was kissed on both cheeks. Currie came, and he shook hands with the officers and sergeants, but he just pinned it on the privates.… I never had much use for Currie. I thought it was his job to congratulate us the right way. All the privates thought that; thought they were worth a handshake from their commander. Not that I’ve got anything against him as a general, but you could say he wasn’t too popular.
Leslie Hudd
Currie was a shy, ungainly man who had none of the actor’s skill at currying favour with the troops that is cultivated by so many successful generals. But although his later life was blighted by a campaign of slander directed by Sam Hughes and his cronies, who claimed that he wasted men’s lives needlessly, Currie actually worked very hard at keeping them alive. He was an excellent and conscientious commander who was once considered by Prime Minister David Lloyd George as a possible replacement for Sir Douglas Haig, the British commander-in-chief in France.