– author’s recollection
“And pretty soon the officers? They’re beginning to notice all this cuz nobody’s doing their job … ‘I say, Cecil, nobody’s getting killed. What’s going on?’ ”
General Sir Arthur Currie, the first Canadian commander of Canada’s forces overseas in the First World War, receives glowing tributes in almost all the official accounts.
These glowing tributes notwithstanding, a lot of Canadians, veterans, and conscripts alike, had little regard for General Currie. During the last months of the war, it was widely believed in the ranks that Currie was volunteering the Canadian Corps in the most difficult tasks. Consider the comment, for example, of Sergeant Len Davidson, Canadian Engineers 7th Battalion:
“On the way home they put us on a forced march. My corporal from Montreal was there. When General Currie drove by on his rounds, somebody threw a Mills bomb at his car and blew the tire off it, because the guy was angry. The brass blamed the incident on this corporal from Montreal. He disappeared somewhere. That was why the 3rd Division didn’t go into the Army of Occupation. That’s my opinion.”
– gordon reid, Poor Bloody Murder: Personal Memoirs of the First World War
(Oakville, on: Mosaic Press, 1980), page 244.
“ … we’re working out a deal with Fritz over there who’s just as fucked up and fed up as we are … ”
Earlier cases of Christmas fraternization had caused great uneasiness among the generals on both sides: what if the soldiers simply stopped fighting each other? So concerned were some staff officers at Vimy that on Christmas Day, 1916, some units cancelled the rum ration. But the Princess Pats got an extra ration that day and proceeded to arrange a truce with their opposite numbers. Private Norman Keys, a Montrealer who spoke German, acted as a spokesman in the exchange that followed in No Man’s Land. Like his comrades, Keys was wearing his new rubber boots and fresh clothing issued that morning, and smoking a Christmas cigar – all of which impressed the Germans. Orders from above quickly put an end to the fraternizing and shelling resumed …
… When the Canadians first reached Vimy Ridge, a sign was hoisted above the German trench: welcome canadians. Another read: cut out your damn artillery. we, too, were at the somme.
– pierre berton, Vimy
(Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2010), page 81.
Nobody ever fired on the Vimy Front, at the time I was there. Nobody thought of war. I was told that for months nothing had happened there. Complete peace had reigned on both sides of the Line. By mutual consent the Hun and the Canuck abstained from hostilities, except for a shot or two now and then. After my recent experience this peace was almost uncanny. They always say it is impossible to start a war again after an armistice. This local peace must have been very enervating for the troops.
– wyndham lewis,
Blasting and Bombardiering
(London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1937; reprinted London: Calder & Boars, 1967), pages 200–01.
At breakfast time we would see smoke coming from the stovepipe chimneys in the dugouts behind the German trenches. That would be the signal for us to light our fires. Just after that, friend and foe would go on top of the ground looking for firewood, water, or souvenirs. We left our rifles in the trench … We waved at each other …
It was so quiet at times that our officers would come along the trench, ordering us to fire. We fired up in the air.
One evening a ration party of Scots Guards passed us in the trench. They said one of their men had been killed unnecessarily that day. It happened in the following way: a high ranking officer while inspecting the front trench noticed one of the Scots Guards fire over the parapet and duck down. The officer reprimanded the man on the spot … He ordered the man to stand up and take a proper aim. While the man obeyed the order, a sniper’s bullet caught him in the middle of his forehead.
– gordon reid, Poor Bloody Murder: Personal Memoirs of the First World War (Oakville, on: Mosaic Press, 1980), page 68.
“ ‘It’s been a great day for Canada’ …”
The men were told that they had to take the wood at the point of bayonet and were not to fire, as the 10th Battalion would be in front of them. I passed down the line and told them that they had a chance to do a bigger thing for Canada that night than had ever been done before. “It’s a great day for Canada, boys,” I said. The words afterwards became a watchword, for the men said that whenever I told them that, it meant that half of them were going to be killed.
– canon frederick george scott,
The Great War As I Saw It
(Toronto: F. D. Goodchild, 1922), pages 61–62.
“ … tell it to Sweeney …”
As they stood fidgeting on the parade ground, the commanding officer appeared, hoisted himself onto a box, and made the kind of speech that commanding officers like to make and private soldiers don’t care to hear: “Now men, you are going to the front. You are going to get your heart’s desire – a crack at the Hun and a German helmet … ” It began to rain but the CO kept it up over a chorus of taunts and grumbles … “Tell it to Sweeney,” somebody yelled …
− pierre berton, Vimy
(Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1986), page 137.
“ … ain’t gonna get me dead with my name on some fucking plaque somewhere ‘For God, King, and country’ … Fuck you … ”
We were out of the trenches for a week. A young officer gave us a lecture. He said, “We’re going to take all the villages around Ypres and then we’re going to turn around to the left and then come down the coast.” I was smiling at him … [I said,] “You know what will happen instead of taking all those villages? We’ll go up two or three yards in front of our trench.” That’s what happened.
− gordon reid, Poor Bloody Murder: Personal Memoirs of the First World War (Oakville, on: Mosaic Press, 1980), page 98.
So desolate, so meaningless were these August struggles that the record of them in histories and memoirs fills one with a certain weariness … Listlessly the men assemble at the jump-off tapes. Behind the same familiar barrage they advance through the same narrow porridge-like strip of ground. The same hidden machine-guns greet them; the same whizz-bangs open up at them … The men on both sides are lacerated and punctured, bleed and die, in numbers that baffle the imagination. Nameless new beings take their place, but nothing else changes.
– leon wolff,
In Flanders Fields: The 1917 Campaign
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1991), page 189.
Hump your pack and get a move on. The next hour will bring you three miles nearer to your death. Your life and death are nothing to these fields – nothing, no more than it is to the man planning the next attack at ghq. You are not even a pawn. Your death will not prevent future wars, will not make the world safe for your children. Your death means no more than if you had died in your bed …
– guy chapman, A Passionate Prodigality: Fragments of Autobiography
(London: Ivor Nicholson & Watson, 1933; reprinted as A Passionate Prodigality: Echoes of War. London: Buchan & Enright, 1985), page 122.
“ … and I got my three-oh-three right there … and I coulda done it, shoulda done it … ”
The advance is held up for a while. The attackers are lying down taking advantage of whatever cover they can find. They are firing at us with machine guns …
At that moment Captain Clark crawls into the bay. He motions to Fry who is about to crawl over the top of the trench to come down. Fry points to his arm.
“Get the hell down here,” Clark shouts. Fry does not obey but still points to his arm.
Clark draws his revolver. Broadbent steps up to intervene. Clark turns. Fry reaches into his holster with his left hand. He fires at the officer’s back. Clark sags to the bottom of the trench with a look of wonder in his face.
It is nearly dark.
− charles yale harrison, Generals Die in Bed (New York: William Morrow, 1930), page 199.
Lt. Col. Graham Seton Hutch
ison tells how, during the frantic retreat of March, 1918, he stopped a rout when he encountered a group of forty men preparing to surrender to the swarming Germans. Hutchison explains:
“Such an action as this will in a short time spread like dry rot through an army and it is one of those dire military necessities which calls for immediate and prompt action. If there does not exist on the spot a leader of sufficient courage and initiative to check it by a word, it must be necessary to check it by shooting. This was done. Of a party of forty men who held up their hands, thirty-eight were shot down with the result that this never occurred again. ”
– paul fussell,
The Great War and Modern Memory, illustrated edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), page 223.
“ ‘Strike … en grève … tu comprends, Rosie?’ ”
Unsurprisingly, given the level of slaughter at Verdun, the area between Paris and Verdun was the most affected by mutiny. In the two weeks immediately preceding the mutiny, more than 250,000 French soldiers had died to gain 500 yards of ground in the Chemin de Dames. In April 1917 entire units refused to go back up the line, protesting against bad conditions and against the offensive. The mutinies mushroomed. Between April and September, an estimated 500,000 soldiers were affected, 68 divisions – over half the divisions in the French army – in 151 recorded incidents …
Many wanted to march on Paris, chanted “Down with the war” and sang the Internationale. In some units, the idea of creating soviets was discussed. In May, mutineers from the 36th and 129th regiments met and composed a resolution: “We want peace … we’ve had enough of the war and we want the deputies to know it … When we go into the trenches, we will plant a white flag on the parapet. The Germans will do the same, and we will not fight until the peace is signed”. …
…
Mutinies were not confined to the French army, however. In September 1917 there were five days of disorder among British troops at Étaples base cape. Étaples was notorious for its brutal regime and bullying officers … a report from a participant in the mutiny [said]: “About four weeks ago about 10,000 men had a big racket at Étaples and cleared the place from one end to the other, and when the General asked what was wrong, they said they wanted the war stopped”.
– megan trudell, “Prelude to Revolution: Class Consciousness and the First World War.” International Socialism, Issue 76 (September 1997), pages 67–107.
“ ‘Wouldn’t take comfort from me … ’ ”
I went in to the prisoner, who was walking up and down in his cell. He stopped and turned to me and said, “I know what you have been trying to do for me, sir, is there any hope?” I said, “No, I am afraid there is not. Everyone is longing just as much as I am to save you, but the matter has been gone into so carefully and has gone so far, and so much depends upon every man doing his duty to the uttermost, that the sentence must be carried out.” He took the matter very quietly, and I told him to try to look beyond the present to the great hope which lay before us in another life. I pointed out that he had just one chance left to prove his courage and set himself right before the world. I urged him to go out and meet death bravely with senses unclouded, and advised him not to take any brandy. He shook hands with me and said, “I will do it.” Then he called the guard and asked him to bring me a cup of tea. While I was drinking it, he looked at his watch … and asked me what time “it” was to take place. I told him I did not. He said, “I think my watch is a little bit fast.” The big hand was pointing at ten minutes to six. A few minutes later the guards entered and put a gas helmet over his head with the two eye-pieces behind so that he was completely blindfolded. Then they handcuffed him behind his back and we started off in an ambulance to a crossroad which went up the side of a hill. There we got out and the prisoner was led over to a box behind which a post had been driven into the ground … The prisoner was seated on the box and his hands were handcuffed behind the post. He asked the A. P. M. if the helmet could be taken off, but this was mercifully refused him. A round piece of white paper was pinned over his heart by the doctor as a guide for the men’s aim. I went over and pronounced the Benediction … The doctor and I then went into the road on the other side of the hedge and blocked up our ears, but of course we heard the shots fired. It was sickening …
The firing party marched off and drew up in the courtyard of the prison. I told them how deeply all ranks felt the occasion, and that nothing but the dire necessity of guarding the lives of the men in the front line from the panic and rout that might result, through the failure of one individual, compelled the taking of such measures of punishment.
– canon frederick george scott,
The Great War As I Saw It
(Toronto: F. D. Goodchild, 1922), pages 213−14.
The whole ambiguous duplicity of the chaplain’s calling was apparent as was the whole revolting sham of his function. Even more revolting because the man was sincere and kind, resigned to his sacerdotal calling with that inner toughness that a social conscience gives to the intelligent bourgeois. The guillotine, doubtless, is not Christian. But the guillotine is necessary to the Christians. The death of a convict, at a predetermined hour, “by verdict of law”, on that seesaw plank, is a horrible thing. But the justice that commands that death is sacred. The chaplain’s duty is to sympathize with the convict’s final anguish. His “social” duty is to make sure the guillotine functions properly. Christian compassion plays its part as does the oiling of the blade.
– victor serge, Men in Prison (London: Writers & Readers Publishing Cooperative, 1977), page 74.
“ ’Tis the rose that I keep in my heart.”
Years ago, I spent an autumn afternoon at the Westmount Library going through First World War memoirs and memoranda on dusty back shelves. Later as I walked back home to Verdun, a door suddenly opened and a silver-haired woman, of a genteel type now almost extinct, leaned outside and stared up the street as if she was expecting someone. From her frown of disappointment I knew then and there that she was the sister of a young officer reported missing in action fifty years before, and all these years later still expecting to see him one day walking up the street. Saw all that at one glance.
– author’s recollection
“And … I did lose it as far as my wife, Francine, is concerned … ”
My father, James Joseph, was wounded twice, both times in bombing raids. The first time by a v-1 rocket that killed the guy in the bunk above him and splintered my father all over with shrapnel. Jagged fragments of copper, brass, and steel that took years to grow completely out of his flesh. I remember, as a very young preschooler, in the kitchen after my father took his bath, picking tiny metallic bits out of the back of this silent and often bitter man. We did not know about post-traumatic stress in those days but my mother always said he came back a stranger from that war. A stranger to us and to himself.
– author’s recollection
Each week I see in the Leavesden mental hospital, the largest in England, a man whose memory is perfect, within the limits of his great age, to 1917. Thereafter he can remember nothing. An explosion had wiped out the recording mechanism from his life and hospitalized him from that day to this.
– denis winter,
Death’s Men: Soldiers of the Great War
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985), page 140.
“ … there’s some kind of riots in Quebec, he says … Anti-Conscription Riots they called them”
On June 28 [1917], Alphonse Verville, a member of Montreal Plumbers Local 144, [Member of Parliament] for Montreal Hochelaga since 1906, denounced conscription. “There are two major views on the War,” he told the House of Commons, “that of the exploiter and that of the exploited.”
… The next day he told the House that Labour stood for a general strike:
“When I say that organized labour will do all it can against conscription … I want this House to know what that means, it means a general strike … As for the French Canadians, they are prepa
red for civil war.”
– charles lipton, The Trade Union
Movement of Canada: 1827−1959
(Toronto: nc Press, 1967), pages 170−71.
Conscription became the central issue of the December 17, 1917, election. In Griffintown [Pointe-Saint-Charles] ... Doherty, the incumbent and architect of the conscription law, faced … hecklers at rowdy political meetings …
Several disturbers disrupted … with their hollering.
Home Rule for Ireland!
Home Rule for Griffintown!
…
One questioner wanted Doherty to explain why twenty-five thousand [British] soldiers were being kept in Dublin instead of being sent to the front. Doherty had no answer and said he was not responsible for that.
“Well, you want us to take their place!” the man shot back.
– sharon doyle driedger,
An Irish Heart: How a Small Immigrant Community Shaped Canada
(Toronto: HarperCollins, 2010), page 270.
“Well, yeah, we had fun with that, the first of the ‘Wanna Go Home Riots’ they called them … ”
In a small cemetery in North Wales lies a tribute to a fallen soldier of the First World War. A large sandstone crucifix marks the grave of David Gillan, a 22-year-old Canadian who answered the call to arms and fought for his King and country on the Western Front.
Bolsheviki: A Dead Serious Comedy Page 5