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Innocent Heroes

Page 14

by Sigmund Brouwer


  As Montague walked down the road, William Northstar cheerfully honked the horn.

  The war proved that the fighting spirit of my tribe was not squelched through reservation life. When duty called, we were there, and when we were called forth to fight for the cause of civilization, our people showed all the bravery of our warriors of old.

  —Mike Mountain Horse, First World War veteran

  Many First Nations soldiers served as platoon leaders and combat instructors; at least fifty have been decorated for bravery in battle.

  Because of this, many of the First Nations soldiers hoped that on their return to Canada they would get recognition and improved living conditions because of their achievements and sacrifices during the war. While they did receive some benefits after the war, it was still not equal to the benefits given to other veterans.

  Indeed, on September 1, 1919, the Six Nations veterans sent a letter to the deputy superintendent general of Indian Affairs in Ottawa that began as follows:

  “Sir, we the undersigned, members of the Six Nations Indians, loyal soldiers of His Majesty The King, of the Township of Tuscarora in the county of Brant do most humbly implore and petition you Sir to hearken and consider our cry for deliverance from our present system of government…and we hope and pray that, the ‘Canada’ for which our friends and comrades fought and died, the same ‘Canada,’ we fought and gladly suffered for, may see fit to grant us this change.”

  The most decorated First Nations soldier in World War One was Francis Pegahmagabow. Shortly after arriving in France, Pegahmagabow fought in the Second Battle of Ypres, where he faced the chlorine gas that the Germans unleashed for the first time in war history. Next, at the Battle of Somme, he was wounded in the left leg, but returned to action. In a later battle, by then a corporal, he guided lost reinforcements to their place along the line. After that, during the Battle of the Scarpe, with his company almost out of ammunition, he faced machine gun and rifle fire to go into No Man’s Land and return with enough ammunition for his company to fight off the enemy.

  Upon his return to Canada, he actively tried to make political change, based in part on his dislike of his Indian agent, and tried to free his people from “white slavery.” In 2016 on National Aboriginal Day, his memory was honored with a life-sized bronze monument unveiled in Parry Sound, Ontario.

  Many World War One First Nations veterans were involved in similar attempts for political change. Their travel experiences had given them a wider perspective on their home situations, and they felt that since they had earned the respect of the soldiers beside them in the trenches, they deserved the same rights as veterans back in Canada.

  So many First Nations chiefs sent letters to the Department of Indian Affairs that, in 1933, this department changed its policy and did not allow chiefs to correspond with the department directly anymore. Instead, the new policy forced them to work through their Indian agents. Given that many of the letters addressed complaints about Indian agents, it reduced the power of First Nations chiefs.

  PASS SYSTEM

  Because of the Northwest Rebellion led by Louis Riel, members of the Canadian government worried that First Nations people would leave their reserves to join the fight. And even though the act of requiring passes for First Nations to travel violated treaty rights, the system was put into place.

  This system required that before a First Nations person could travel—regardless of the reason—the local Indian agent had to sign a permission slip issued by the Department of Indian Affairs. Parents were denied the chance to visit their children at residential schools, children couldn’t leave to visit elderly parents, and siblings might go years without seeing each other. The North West Mounted Police protested the system back in 1893, but they were overruled by the Department of Indian Affairs, even though the department head acknowledged the pass system was not grounded in law.

  Credit 44

  It was a system that lasted well past World War One. Leona Blondeau, from the George Gordon Reserve in Saskatchewan—where Thomas Northstar from the fictional story returns after the war—remembers that as a child, she needed to get permission to leave the reserve to travel by wagon to the closest town, Punnichy, even if all they were doing was going to get ice cream.

  Credit 45

  Leona was eight years old when the federal policy officially ended in 1941, but she recalls restrictions still lasting for years past that.

  “We never went anywhere,” she told a reporter. “We stayed on the reserve. We were very segregated….It was the way life was, I thought. I didn’t realize it wasn’t the right thing to do.”

  First Nations World War One veterans, like all First Nations peoples across Canada, were not permitted to buy and sell land, or even produce, without permission from an Indian agent.

  It was not until 1956, thirty-eight years after the war, that First Nations men and women were granted citizenship as Canadians.

  WHEN THE GUNS FELL SILENT

  The French forest north of Paris was made of beech trees and oak trees, a forest wide enough that it would take a day’s walk to cross from one end to another. Here was quiet and shade, well away from the mortars and shelling of the Great War. And here, early in November, a secret meeting took place in a private rail car parked on a siding where tracks cut through the forest.

  Those inside the train had arrived from Germany, and the location and secrecy were chosen to give them privacy from journalists and protection from any locals who might want to take revenge for the damage of the Great War.

  Those inside the train were presented with a list of demands to end the war, and they were given seventy-two hours to sign. They had little choice. The Battle of Vimy Ridge, barely a year and a half earlier, had been one of a series of Allied victories that made winning the war inevitable, especially after the United States joined the war in 1917.

  In that forest, at 5:00 a.m. Paris time, on November 11, 1918, those inside the rail car agreed to the terms of a ceasefire—known as an armistice—and signed a declaration that all fighting on land and air would stop within six hours.

  On that same morning, 190 kilometers (120 mi.) to the north, Private George Lawrence Price was part of a force advancing into a small village in Belgium, determined to help stop a machine gunner who had fired on their troops during the crossing of a canal. He served with the “A” Company of the 28th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. At 10:58 a.m., he was shot by a sniper.

  Two minutes later, at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, all shooting stopped. The guns were finally silent. After fifty-two months of horrendous fighting, the Great War was over. George Lawrence Price, age 25, was the final Canadian soldier to give up his life in the Great War.

  This ceasefire remained in place until the Treaty of Versailles officially ended World War One. It was signed on June 28, 1919, exactly five years to the day after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand had begun the chain of events leading to the war.

  On November 11, 1919, King George V hosted the first official Armistice Day events on the grounds of Buckingham Palace. This led to November 11 becoming Remembrance Day in many countries across the world, a day set aside to honor and acknowledge the sacrifices made by military and families during war, conflict and peace.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you to George Gordon First Nation Chief and Council for help with background and research. Thank you, too, for allowing me to include photos of George Gordon war veterans in the video documentary, which can be found at www.​thebattl​eofvimyridge.​com. Thanks so much to Samantha Swenson at Tundra Books for brilliant advice, much patience and a sense of humor that made working together on the project a lot of fun. And also thanks to Amy Tompkins at Transatlantic Agency; it’s a great partnership.

  SOURCES

  While the following list shows the books used for research, I found two books in particular to be very useful in giving a sense of what it was like in the trenches for Canadian so
ldiers in World War One: Over the Top by Arthur Guy Empey and Vimy by Pierre Burton. Over the Top is an excellent informal portrayal of a soldier’s daily life, and Vimy gives an amazing perspective on the significance of the Canadian victory at Vimy Ridge.

  SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

  BOOKS

  Baynes, Ernest Harold. Animal Heroes of the Great War. London: Albion Press, 2016.

  Boyden, Joseph. Three Day Road. Toronto: Penguin Books, 2006.

  Brewster, Hugh. At Vimy Ridge: Canada’s Greatest World War I Victory. Markham, ON: Scholastic Canada, 2007.

  Bulanda, Susan. Soldiers in Fur and Feathers: The Animals That Served in World War I—Allied Forces. Crawford, CO: Alpine Publications, 2013.

  Burton, Pierre. Vimy. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1986.

  Cooper, Jilly. Animals in War: Valiant Horses, Courageous Dogs, and Other Unsung Animal Heroes. London: Corgi, 1984.

  Empey, Arthur Guy. Over the Top. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, The Knickerbocker Press, 1917.

  Granatstein, J.L. The Greatest Victory: Canada’s One Hundred Days. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

  Hayes, Adrian. Pegahmagabow: Life-Long Warrior. Toronto: Blue Butterfly, 2009.

  Jenkins, Ryan. World War 1: Soldier Stories—The Untold Soldier Stories on the Battlefields of WWI. Success First Publishing, 2015.

  Le Chêne, Evelyn. Silent Heroes: The Bravery and Devotion of Animals in War. London: Souvenir Press, 1994.

  Story, Neil R. Animals in the First World War. Oxford: Shire Publications, 2014.

  Winegard, Timothy C. For King and Kanata: Canadian Indians and the First World War. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2012.

  WEBSITE RESOURCES

  For readers who would like to learn more about the Canadian Expeditionary Force in World War One, please visit this website: www.​thebattle​ofvimyridge.​com. You will find direct links to helpful websites about the Canadian forces in World War One, as well as links to articles and stories from the research behind Innocent Heroes and a teacher’s guide available for download, with a glossary and terms.

  PHOTOS

  Every reasonable effort has been made to trace ownership of, and give credit to, copyrighted material.

  LITTLE ABIGAIL

  1 (PIGEON)

  All-silhouettes.​com

  2

  Cher Ami

  www.​atlasobscura.​com/​places/​cher-ami (public domain)

  3

  A man in British army uniform attaches a message to a carrier pigeon ready to fly.

  National Library of Scotland, photographer David McLellan http://​digital.​nls.​uk/​74548774

  Used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

  4

  Five horse-drawn mobile pigeon lofts parked around the perimeter of a small field. A soldier feeds the pigeons on the roof.

  National Library of Scotland, photographer David McLellan

  http://​digital.​nls.​uk/​74548776

  Used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

  5

  Two soldiers on motorbikes with wicker baskets strapped to their backs to carry pigeons.

  National Library of Scotland, photographer David McLellan

  http://​digital.​nls.​uk/​74548780

  Used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

  BOOMER

  6 (CAT)

  Designed by Freepik.​com

  7

  Togo, the mascot of the British battleship Dreadnought

  Photo credit: © IWM

  Licensed from the Imperial War Museums First World War Agency Collection

  8

  A soldier in his shirtsleeves leans over a makeshift tub filled with water. Existing in the squalor of the trenches, soldiers rarely if ever had the opportunity to wash or change clothes. Unsuccessful attempts were occasionally made to kill off lice and other parasites by boiling uniforms in large vats of water.

  National Library of Scotland, photographer John Warwick Brooke

  http://​digital.​nls.​uk/​74547804

  Used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

  9

  Allied troops occupy a German trench.

  National Library of Scotland, photographer John Warwick Brooke

  http://​digital.​nls.​uk/​74548256

  Used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

  10

  Soldiers build a dugout in the supporting reserve lines. Underground dugouts like these were used by officers for planning attacks, while soldiers used them for eating and resting.

  National Library of Scotland, photographer John Warwick Brooke

  http://​digital.​nls.​uk/​74547964

  Used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

  11

  Remains of a captured German trench after heavy artillery fire. The entrance to a tunnel gives some idea of the labyrinthine network of tunnels and trenches that formed the front line defenses on the Western Front.

  National Library of Scotland, photographer John Warwick Brooke

  http://​digital.​nls.​uk/​74547954

  Used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

  12

  Stripped down to their shirts and braces, two British soldiers use a can of water to catch up on their washing.

  National Library of Scotland, photographer John Warwick Brooke

  http://​digital.​nls.​uk/​74548096

  Used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

  COAL DUST

  13 (HORSE)

  Momentbloom/​Vecteezy.​com

  14

  A group of cavalrymen

  National Library of Scotland, photographer John Warwick Brooke

  http://​digital.​nls.​uk/​74546984

  Used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

  15

  Gas mask drill for horses

  National Library of Scotland

  http://​digital.​nls.​uk/​74548674

  Used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

  16

  Two British soldiers ride a team of packhorses through a deep stream. After it had been repeatedly proven that cavalry attacks had no place on the Western Front, many cavalry horses joined the packhorses and mules that were used to carry supplies.

  National Library of Scotland, photographer John Warwick Brooke

  http://​digital.​nls.​uk/​74548942

  Used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

  TOMATO

  17 (DOG)

  Designed by Freepik.​com

  18

  A dog with a gas mask. This dog was employed by a sanitary corps in locating wounded soldiers.

  Photo by Francis Whiting Halsey

  Public Domain: first published in the USA before 1923.

  19

  Three men in a trench wearing gas masks.

  National Library of Scotland, photographer John Warwick Brooke

  http://​digital.​nls.​uk/​74547760

  Used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

  20

  A dog-handler reads a message brought by a messenger dog, in France during World War One. The message would have been rolled up inside a waterproof container attached to the dog’s collar.

  National Library of Scotland, photographer Tom Aitken

  http://​digital.​nls.​uk/​74549024

  Used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

  21

  British messenger dogs with their handler. Messenger dogs were based in sectional kennels near the front lines. On average, each sectional kennel had forty-eight dogs and sixteen handlers, a ratio that indicates how important the dogs’ work was at the front.
/>
  National Library of Scotland, photographer Tom Aitken

  http://​digital.​nls.​uk/​74549184

  Used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

  22

  Messenger dogs and their handlers marching to the front. In addition to carrying messages, these dogs probably performed a wide range of important tasks, including sentry duty, acting as decoys, ambulance duties and killing vermin.

  National Library of Scotland, photographer Tom Aitken

  http://​digital.​nls.​uk/​74549026

  Used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

  LEO

  23 (BIG CAT SILHOUETTE)

  Akira/​FreeVector.​com, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

  24

  A soldier in a shallow trench with his pet dog.

  National Library of Scotland, photographer John Warwick Brooke

  http://​digital.​nls.​uk/​74547656

  Used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

  25

  A man and a monkey stand next to a captured German trench mortar.

  National Library of Scotland, photographer John Warwick Brooke

  http://​digital.​nls.​uk/​74546686

  Used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

  26

  R.A.F. Squadron’s fox mascot in France during World War One.

  National Library of Scotland, photographer David McLellan

  http://​digital.​nls.​uk/​74548676

  Used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

  27

  A triumphant dog sits atop a gun surrounded by gunners. Proudly perched on top of what looks like a howitzer, this pet dog was the regimental mascot of the artillery gunners also gathered around the gun.

 

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