By now the weather had turned and the heavy rain was making field operations very difficult. Convinced that capturing Passchendaele would cost some 16,000 casualties, Currie planned carefully, making sure that he had ample supplies and had prepared his troops thoroughly and had enough artillery support. Even so, Will R. Bird, a Nova Scotian serving in the 42nd (Black Watch) Battalion, complained that “the whole affair was cockeyed. We were new in the sector. None knew the terrain. None knew what defenses the German had or his strength. The place after dark was a swampy wilderness with nothing to use as a guide.”[56]
The attack was launched on October 26 in heavy rain and battlefield conditions that were about as bad as they could be. John Angus MacNeil of Inverness, Cape Breton, later recalled that “it wasn’t raining—it was pouring down” and “more people drowned in the shell-holes than were killed by the bullets.”[57] Even so, after two weeks of ferocious fighting, Passchendaele was taken on November 6, and by the 10th the Canadians held all the high ground northeast of the town. The Third Battle of Ypres confirmed the Canadian Corps’ reputation as shock troops and may also have saved Haig’s career.
As usual, the cost of victory was high: more than 16,000 casualties, as Currie had predicted. One of them was Corporal Robert Clarence Borden, a young cousin of Sir Robert Borden, who had enlisted in July 1916 and was killed on October 30 while serving in the 85th Battalion. Nasmith thought Passchendaele was “the most terrible and tragic battle” that the Canadian Corps ever fought,[58] and Will Bird, who was there, later said that no man who survived Passchendaele would ever be the same.[59] Whether or not it was worth the price is obviously open to debate, but Clements recalls that among the men “there was not any feeling of glorious achievement or particular satisfaction.”[60] Agar Adamson, by now commanding the Princess Pats, noted that “the higher authorities are expressing to us their appreciation of our efforts, but I cannot help wondering if the position gained was worth the awful sacrifice of life.”[61]
Again, many men wondered if Currie was becoming just another butcher like Haig. What they didn’t know was that he had argued against the operation, warning Haig that it would be a slaughter and not worth the cost: “Let the Germans have it—keep it—rot in it!”[62] But Haig “spoke in the rosiest terms of our chances of breaking through,” according to Lieutenant Colonel Alan Brooke, who was Chief Artillery Staff Officer for the Canadian Corps at the time. “I had been all over the ground and, to my mind, such an eventuality was quite impossible. I was certain that he was misinformed and had never seen the ground himself.”[63]
It was true. When Lieutenant General Launcelot Kiggell, Haig’s Chief of Staff—who enjoyed a successful military career without ever actually having to serve in the field—went to have a personal look at the battlefield, he was genuinely appalled at the almost inconceivable horror of the sea of mud littered with corpses and is reported to have burst into tears, asking “Good God, did we really send men to fight in that?”[64]
Haig’s Ypres offensive was a catastrophe. Lloyd George, who had opposed it, described it as a “senseless campaign” and “one of the greatest disasters of the war.”[65] Borden claimed in 1937 that Currie told him shortly after the battle that its only purpose was “to save the face of the British High Command.”[66]
According to Denis Winter, the British and German forces fired 30 million shells at each other and sustained a million casualties in an area just seven miles wide. This constituted more killing per square yard than any other battle in the entire war.[67] And what had been achieved? Haig had pushed the Germans back five miles, thereby actually enlarging the salient, which was still surrounded on three sides by the Germans.
But if the Ypres offensive had failed, the Canadians had succeeded at Passchendaele, demonstrating that the Canadian Corps was “much the most effective unit in the BEF [British Expeditionary Force]” and Currie was emerging as “the most effective commander in the British Army.”[68] The Australians were similarly recognized as being among the most effective troops on the Western Front. Cyril Falls, a British staff officer who later wrote the first volume of the British official history, privately acknowledged that while the British army was the best disciplined, it was also the “least effective in the war, though one can’t say so in the Official History.” He blamed the British class system, which through most of the war only allowed men with the right social background, regardless of ability or experience, to become officers, as well as ineffective training, which he blamed on Haig.[69]
Undeterred, the ever-confident Haig now launched another offensive, this one against Cambrai, a French city just west of Arras and about forty-five miles south of Ypres. It was a key supply center for the German Hindenburg Line, which the Allies could threaten by capturing the nearby Bourlon Ridge, and unlike the Ypres Sector it was not a mass of mud. This was significant because Haig intended the battle for Cambrai to be fought primarily by tanks.
The battle for Cambrai, which began on November 20, 1917, has been described as “a leap into the war of the future,”[70] not only because it involved 430 tanks leading 5 infantry divisions but also because the massive artillery bombardment that preceded it, firing both regular shells and poison gas, was supported by hundreds of British airplanes bombing the German positions.
It was ill conceived, however, because tanks alone could not win a battle and Haig did not have enough troops, having had to send several divisions to Italy after the hapless Italians had just suffered a disastrous defeat at Caporetto. Haig knew that he didn’t have enough infantry, however, and therefore planned to use the Cavalry Corps if necessary as dismounted reinforcements for the infantry. This meant that, while the Canadian Corps did not participate in the battle, the Canadian Cavalry Brigade, made up of the Royal Canadian Dragoons, Lord Strathcona’s Horse, and the Fort Garry Horse, did because it was part of the British Fifth Cavalry Division.
The assault began well as the tanks crushed the barbed wire and reached the German trenches, but by the end of the first day, about half of them were out of commission from shellfire or mechanical problems. The British did succeed in taking Bourlon Ridge and Wood, but the Germans naturally counterattacked, and Byng did not have enough men to hold them back. At this point, on November 20, the Cavalry Corps launched an old-fashioned cavalry charge against entrenched German machine guns and artillery. The Fort Garry Horse participated in this remarkable if foolhardy episode and paid a high price for the honor: of the 133 cavalrymen who took part in it, only 46 survived.
Among them was Lieutenant Harcus Strachan, who took command of his squadron when its leader was killed. After overrunning the German machine-gun positions, he attacked the artillery and personally killed seven gunners with his sword. He and his men then fought their way back through the German lines at night on foot, taking fifteen prisoners with them. He was awarded the Victoria Cross for his bravery and leadership.[71]
It was all very gallant, but it also proved to be pointless because the British were unable to capture Cambrai, although they did gain some ground. They lost 44,000 men, the Germans lost 41,000, and the battle for Cambrai “devastated British morale like no other setback of the war.”[72] The Canadians could at least take some comfort from the fact that they had again distinguished themselves.
Sir Robert Borden. Source: Anon., Canada in the Great World War, vol. 2 (Toronto: United Publishers, 1919–21), 26.
Sir Sam Hughes. Source: Anon., Canada in the Great World War, vol. 2 (Toronto: United Publishers, 1919–21), 32.
Valcartier Training Camp, 1914 (Bain News Service. 1914. From Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/ggb2005017536/).
Sir Arthur Currie. Source: Anon., Canada in the Great World War, vol. 3 (Toronto: United Publishers, 1919–21), frontispiece.
Facts for Canadians poster (Toronto: Central Recruiting Committee, No. 2 Military Division. 1915. From Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/20
05691291/).
Sir Julian Byng. Source: Anon., Canada in the Great World War, vol. 3 (Toronto: United Publishers, 1919–21), 256.
John McCrae. Source: Anon., Canada in the Great World War, vol. 6 (Toronto: United Publishers, 1919–21), 110.
75th Battalion fixing bayonets in Regina Trench. Source: Anon., Canada in the Great World War, vol. 4 (Toronto: United Publishers, 1919–21), 180.
Canadian troops after capturing Vimy Ridge. Source: Anon., Canada in the Great World War, vol. 4 (Toronto: United Publishers, 1919–21), 148.
General Pershing visiting Canadian Headquarters. Source: Anon., Canada in the Great World War, vol. 5 (Toronto: United Publishers, 1919–21), 90.
Taking the salute at Mons. Source: Anon., Canada in the Great World War, vol. 5 (Toronto: United Publishers, 1919–21), 228.
Crossing the Rhine. Source: Anon., Canada in the Great World War, vol. 5 (Toronto: United Publishers, 1919–21), 256.
Vimy Memorial. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vimy_memorial_from_the_north_side_of_the_face.jpg).
Canadian Governor General Lord Tweedsmuir placing a wreath at the Canadian Memorial Cross, Arlington Cemetery, March 31, 1937 (Harris & Ewing, 1937; from Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/hec2009009178/).
1. Clements, Merry Hell, 203.
2. Upon reflection, Borden did not send the letter, but he kept it, no doubt because it reflected his mounting frustration, and quoted it in his memoirs, published in 1938. See Robert Laird Borden: His Memoirs, ed. Henry Borden. Vol. 2 (Toronto: Macmillan, 1938), 622–23.
3. Worthington, Amid the Guns Below, 42.
4. Clements, 138.
5. Quoted in Groom, A Storm in Flanders, 145.
6. Nasmith, On the Fringe of the Great Fight, 261–62.
7. Clements, 145.
8. Lewis, Over the Top with the 25th, 21.
9. G. C. McElhiney, “The 25th Battalion,” in Nova Scotia’s Part in the Great War, ed. M. S. Hunt (Halifax, NS: Nova Scotia Veteran Publishing Co., 1920), 75.
10. Quoted in Groom, 92.
11. Worthington, 44.
12. Quoted in Groom, 93.
13. Nasmith, On the Fringe of the Great Fight, 262.
14. Nasmith, On the Fringe of the Great Fight, 248.
15. Library and Archives Canada (LAC), RG 9, III, A, Series 8, File 8–1–52. Alderson notes.
16. Ibid.
17. Alderson was given the nominal post of inspector general of the Canadian forces in England but retired in November 1916. He was replaced as commander of the Canadian Corps by Sir Julian Byng, a British cavalry officer who had recently managed the British evacuation at Gallipoli. He subsequently commanded the British Third Army and in 1925 became governor general of Canada.
18. Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 145. For what it was worth, when the 25th retired from the lines for a rest, it was visited by King George and Queen Mary, who “walked through our lines and appeared much interested in our welfare.” Lewis, 21.
19. Tim Cook, “The Blind Leading the Blind: The Battle of the St. Eloi Craters,” Canadian Military History, 5, no. 2 (Autumn 1996): 9–10.
20. Vance, Maple Leaf, 74.
21. George Harold Baker (b.1877) was a lawyer in Sweetsburg, Quebec, when he was elected to the House of Commons in 1911. He was the son of George Barnard Baker (1834–1910), who served in the House of Commons from 1870 to 1874, 1879 to 1887, and 1891 to 1896. He also served in Quebec’s Legislative Assembly from 1875 to 1878 and was a member of the Senate from 1896 until 1910.
22. Vance, Maple Leaf, 75.
23. As impressive as this seems, it must be remembered that about 30% of British shells were duds that did not explode.
24. Morton and Granatstein, Marching to Armageddon, 94.
25. Clements, 198.
26. Chute, The Real Front, 41–42.
27. Gordon, 214.
28. Worthington, 59.
29. Quoted in Nicholson, 173.
30. Hilliam to GOC, Fifth Brigade, quoted in McElhenny, 78. Perhaps so, but there weren’t many of them left to command by the end of the battle. When the 25th reassembled at Albert, there were only eighty-nine all ranks. “In just short of three weeks the great battalion of over 1,000 finely trained wonderful Nova Scotians had temporarily ceased to exist.” Clements, 158.
31. Nasmith, Canada’s Sons, 302.
32. Clements, 153.
33. Clements, 203.
34. Clements, 153.
35. Gordon, 285.
36. Morton and Granatstein, 120.
37. Vance, Maple Leaf, 103.
38. Robin Neillands, The Great War Generals on the Western Front 1914–1918 (London: Robinson, 1998), 350.
39. Cook, Shock Troops, 148.
40. Keegan quoted in Vanier, Georges Vanier, Soldier, 191.
41. Quoted in Berton, Marching as to War, 180.
42. Cook, Shock Troops, 143–44.
43. Cook, Shock Troops, 146.
44. Percy Willmot to Dorothy Willmot, April 16, 1916, quoted in Brian Douglas Tennyson, Percy Willmot: A Cape Bretoner at War (Sydney, NS: Cape Breton University Press, 2007), 161.
45. Canadian War Museum, “The Battle of Vimy Ridge,” http://www.warmuseum.ca/cwm/exhibitions/vimy/index_e.shtmlacc (accessed July 26, 2013). Arthur Edward Ross (1870–1952) was a physician who served in the Canadian Army Medical Corps in the war, rising to Director of Medical Services for the CEF with the rank of Brigadier General. He was credited with being the first to find measures to combat trench foot and the effects of mustard gas. He also served in the Ontario Legislative Assembly from 1911 to 1921 and in the House of Commons from 1921 to 1935.
46. D. J. Goodspeed, The Road Past Vimy: The Canadian Corps 1914–1918 (Toronto: Macmillan, 1969), 93.
47. Tim Cook, “Vimy: A Battle Remembered,” Legion Magazine Online (March 1, 2012), http://legionmagazine.com/en/2012/03/vimy-a-battle-remembered-hill-70-a-battle-forgotten (accessed September 15, 2013).
48. Vance, Maple Leaf, 104.
49. Cook, Shock Troops, 305.
50. William Rawling, “Sir Edward Whipple Bancroft Morrison,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online, (accessed February 14, 2014).
51. Among the Canadian casualties at Hill 70 was my great-uncle Jonas (Jonnie) Willard Burns (1894–1923). Born in the little village of Marmora, Ontario, he was a teamster there when he enlisted in the 155th Battalion in January 1916. He went overseas in the 21st Battalion in November 1916 and was badly injured by machine gun fire at Hill 70, his injuries leaving him totally paralysed from his waist down. He was invalided back to a military hospital in Toronto, where he died in April 1923. He was awarded no medals or decorations, although he was entitled to wear a wound stripe.
52. Cook, Shock Troops, 306.
53. Quoted in Cook, Shock Troops, 305.
54. “Recollections of Captain F. C. Whiteman, RCE,” Ottawa Citizen, August 22, 1940, cited in Benjamin Isitt, From Victoria to Vladivostok: Canada’s Siberian Expedition, 1917–19 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010), 20.
55. Quoted in Cook, Shock Troops, 321.
56. Quoted in Groom, 220–21.
57. Quoted in H. L. Livingstone et al, “Cape Bretoners in World War One,” Cape Breton’s Magazine, 33 (June 1983): 161.
58. Nasmith, Canada’s Sons, Vol. 2, 29.
59. Quoted in Groom, 224.
60. Clements, 189.
61. Quoted in Groom, 221.
62. Quoted in Cook, Shock Troops, 317.
63. Quoted in Winter, Haig’s Command, 108. Born into a prominent Anglo-Irish family, Alan Brooke (1883–1963) was a professional soldier who served in the Royal Artillery and was seconded to the Canadian Corps from early 1917 until early 1918 when he was appointed to command the British First Army’s artillery. He later rose to Chief of the Imperial General Staff in 1941 and was promoted to Field Marshal in 1944. He was named Baron Alanbrooke in 1945 and Viscount Alanbrooke in 1946.
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