by John Wilson
When the First World War began in the fall of 1914, Canadians and other members of the British Empire around the world rushed to volunteer. In April 1915 a Canadian division fought bravely at Ypres, preventing a breakthrough when the Germans used poison gas for the first time on the Western Front. By the fall of 1916, there were four Canadian divisions in the Canadian Corps, three of which were heavily engaged at the battle of Flers-Courcelette in September. At Vimy, the four Canadian divisions fought together for the first time, although still under a British commanding officer, Lieutenant-General Julian Byng. In August 1917 the Canadian Corps fought for the first time under a Canadian commander, Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Currie, at Hill 70 outside the French city of Lens. In October the Canadians returned to the same place that the 1st Canadian Division had fought in 1915 — again as a coherent unit — and fought their way to what was left of the village of Passchendaele before the winter weather mercifully ended the Third Battle of Ypres.
The Canadians learned a lot at both Vimy and Passchendaele, primarily about how to use their artillery to neutralize the German defences that had thwarted so many previous attacks. (At Vimy the Canadian guns destroyed 83 per cent of the German guns before the soldiers even left their trenches.) The Canadians practised their novel techniques and were lucky enough not to be in the front lines when the Germans launched their devastating attacks in March 1918. By the time the Germans wore themselves out, the four divisions of the Canadian Corps were a cohesive, efficient, battle-hardened unit ready to hit back.
On August 8, 1918, outside Amiens, the Canadian Corps, with the French to their south and the Australians to their north, attacked. Supported by tanks, the Canadians advanced 13 kilometres, the farthest single-day advance of any Allied attack since the first trenches were dug in 1914. The Canadians and Australians broke through the German defences into open country and began the hundred days of advance that led to the Germans seeking an armistice to end the war on November 11, 1918. General Erich Ludendorff, the German commander, called August 8 “the black day of the German army.”
The victory at Vimy remains in our minds because of the taking of the ridge after so many failed attempts, but also because there is a huge, magnificent memorial sitting on top of the ridge to keep that nation-building event fresh in our minds. Passchendaele holds a place in our imaginations because of the images of the mud and the horrific conditions in which the troops were asked to fight. There is no soaring memorial dominating the checkerboard of ordered fields around Amiens, and there was no slogging through corpse-riddled mud on August 8, 1918. Admittedly, Vimy and Passchendaele made the victory at Amiens possible, but Canadians should be equally proud of what their soldiers did the day the Allies finally broke through the German lines.
In my story, Allan McBride’s adventures are all based on fact. The 2nd Division served in all the places I mention, but no single unit within the Division served specifically in all the places Allan was. However, those places exist and the things that happened there really happened.
There were no Canadian units in the British front lines when the Germans broke through on March 21, 1918. I kept Allan’s Company “in the action” by having some of them sent to the British lines to learn the new techniques of defence that were being developed at that time. This was a common enough occurrence and was used to give as many units as much experience as possible.
The descriptions of trench life and the fighting at Passchendaele and in March of 1918 are accurate and based on numerous published descriptions. The mutiny at Etaples is loosely based on events that happened there in September 1917. It was triggered by a Red Cap shooting and killing a Scottish soldier on the bridge, although the Australians at Etaples were already upset at the arrest in August of one of their soldiers who had shouted abuse at an officer when the water was cut off during his shower. But these were only the triggers. The underlying reasons for the mutiny at Etaples were the brutal conditions in the camp — the endless marches, harsh punishments and primitive living conditions. These conditions were seriously resented by the soldiers there, especially those who had been in battle and were returning to the Front to fight again. The soldiers hated the Red Caps, whom they saw as bullies who didn’t have to fight with the regular troops. The men detested the restrictions placed on them, particularly the limits on access to the local town.
When the rioting exploded, it was mainly a violent expression of frustration by men who had had enough bullying and who knew they might well be dead in a few weeks. Most of the mutineers expressed themselves in attacking the Red Caps, burning some buildings and invading the town in search of alcohol and a good time. Their demands were simply for better conditions and more free time.
Having said that, there were political agitators in the British army who saw the recent Russian revolution and the French Army mutinies of 1917 as the beginning of a broader class war against the rich and powerful. Undoubtedly some of them were active during the mutiny, but Etaples wasn’t a revolution — it was a riot.
Understandably enough, the British authorities did not want word of the mutiny at Etaples to get out and potentially cause unrest elsewhere in the army. They kept it a secret and sent the men involved to the Front at Ypres as soon as possible. It has to be said that the men who rioted for a week at Etaples went quietly to do what they saw as their duty in the mud around Passchendaele.
The character of Harry Sommerfield is inspired by a real figure named Percy Toplis. Toplis was a petty criminal who had deserted and who lived by impersonating officers. He may have been a major instigator at Etaples, but little is known for certain of his activities at that time. Toplis was ambushed and shot dead by a policeman on the evening of June 6, 1920, on a quiet country road outside Penrith in the English Lake District.
During the war, the British authorities also suppressed information about desertion, sometimes even going to the length of lying to the next of kin of men executed. Between August 4, 1914, and November 11, 1918, around 3000 British and Empire soldiers were sentenced to death, the vast majority for desertion. Three hundred and six, including twenty-five Canadians, were actually tied to posts, blindfolded and shot at dawn by their comrades. Of the Canadians, two had been convicted of murder and one of cowardice. Twenty-two were shot for desertion. No Australians were shot, since their government did not allow the British to carry out executions for desertion.
The intriguing thing when reading the stories of the 306 men who were shot is how some of the deserters among them remained at large in the French countryside for months — in at least one case almost a year. It’s reasonable to assume that some of the 2700 others, whose death sentences were commuted, were also at large for a considerable time. It’s also probable that some deserters, like Percy Toplis, were never captured at all.
Of course, it was not only the British Army that executed deserters. Officially, the Germans shot 48 of their own men, although the figure is almost certainly low, as most records no longer exist. The French Army shot more than 600 soldiers, many during the mutinies of 1917, where there are persistent stories of decimation. (Decimation was a process used by the Romans, in which a unit to be punished — most commonly for mutiny or desertion in battle — is lined up and officers select every tenth man in line for execution.)
For French soldiers, desertion and evading capture were easier than for the British. France was their homeland and a number of them simply went home to hide on the family farm. There are persistent but unverified stories of mixed groups of deserters living in the French countryside, which was wilder and, in wartime, more chaotic than now. If these stories are true, the men must have existed in small groups that moved around and often received help from the locals. We don’t have clear details about these groups, but how else would some deserters evade capture for months in the French countryside?
Some deserters in the First World War left their units consciously, calculating their chances and planning their escape. However, most, like Allan, had no intention
of deserting. They suffered from what was then called shell shock. Today they would almost certainly be diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). PTSD occurs when someone experiences unbearable stress, a violent attack, a natural disaster or battle. The symptoms have been recorded, but not understood, among soldiers for at least 2500 years. These include flashbacks to the trauma, nightmares, guilt, depression, emotional numbing and memory problems. Photographs of soldiers suffering from PTSD tend to show them wide-eyed and staring into the distance, the so-called “thousand-yard stare.”
Most officers and doctors in the First World War didn’t recognize shell shock as a psychological condition, and considered the sufferers as malingerers or cowards. A few far-sighted doctors recognized the men’s symptoms as a genuine problem and attempted to treat it. The most famous of these was Dr. W. H. R. Rivers, who, along with several colleagues, worked with officers (including the poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon) at Craiglockhart Hospital in Edinburgh, Scotland.
It seems particularly harsh that, through ignorance, hundreds of young men were executed simply because they were ill. On December 11, 2001, Canada’s Veterans Affairs Minister rose in the House of Commons in Ottawa to read the names of the 23 Canadians shot for desertion or cowardice into the Parliamentary Record and the Book of Remembrance. Minister Ron J. Duhamel said: “Those who go to war at the request of their nation do not know the fate that lies in store for them. This was a war of such overwhelming sound, fury and unrelenting horror that few combatants could remain unaffected. While we cannot relive those awful years of a nation at peril in total war, and although the culture of that time is subsequently too distant for us to comprehend fully, we can give these twenty-three soldiers a dignity that is their due, and provide closure to their families.”
In 2006 the British Government pardoned all of the British and Commonwealth soldiers shot for desertion in the First World War.
Images and Documents
Image 1. James Cleland Richardson, twenty, whose courageous piping in the face of intense enemy fire inspired Canadian troops to storm German positions during the Battle of the Somme.
Image 2. Members of a French Canadian infantry battalion repair trenches with sandbags. Duckboards at the bottom of the trenches kept the soldiers out of some of the mud and water.
Image 3. Massive howitzers set up a barrage across the enemy lines, September 1916.
Image 4. Soldiers in a shell hole hold the line during the Battle of Passchendaele.
Image 5. Canadian troops go over the top.
Image 6. Wounded Canadian soldiers are taken to an aid post during the Battle of Passchendaele.
Image 7. Shocked and wounded soldiers are treated in a churchyard which was being used as a dressing station, July 1916
Image 8. After serving for two years, Private Elsworth Young was reported missing, arrested and returned to action. He fought for another two weeks, then was re-arrested, charged with desertion and executed by firing squad. This is his attestation paper, signed the day he enlisted at age nineteen.
Image 9. The Western Front in the area of northern France and Belgium, showing the trench lines for July 1918.
Acknowledgments
Every effort has been made to trace ownership of visual and written material used in this book. Errors and omissions will be corrected in subsequent updates or editions.
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint the following:
Cover cameo: George Herbert Casey of the 81st Infantry, courtesy of Mary Frances Handley-Andrus.
Cover background: 29th Infantry Battalion advancing over “No man’s land” through the German barbed wire and heavy fighting during the Battle of Vimy Ridge, Capt. H.E. Knobel, Canada. Dept. of National Defence /Library and Archives Canada, PA-001020.
Cover details: Aged journal © sx70/istockphoto; aged paper © Shutterstock/Filipchuck Oleg Vasilovich; belly band © raplett/istockphoto; (back cover) label © Shutterstock/Thomas Bethge.
Image 1: Piper James Cleland Richardson, V.C. (date of posthumous award 8 October 1916), 16th Battalion, C.E.F., Alexa Murray Collection/Library and Archives Canada, C-033428.
Image 2: Repairing trenches. 22nd Infantry battalion (French Canadian). July, 1916, Library and Archives Canada, PA-000263.
Image 3: Heavy howitzer in action, W. I. Castle/Library and Archives Canada, PA-000743.
Image 4: Personnel of the 16th Canadian Machine Gun Company holding the line in shell holes during the Battle of Passchendaele, William Rider-Rider/Library and Archives Canada, PA-002162.
Image 5: Canadian troops “going over the top” during training course at a trench-mortar school, W.I. Castle/Canada. Dept. of National Defence/Library and Archives Canada, PA-000648.
Image 6: Wounded Canadians on way to aid post. Battle of Passchendaele. November, 1917, Canada. Dept. of National Defence/Library and Archives Canada, PA-002107.
Image 7: Wounded British Soldiers, taken in a churchyard which was used as a Dressing Station, July, 1916, Library and Archives Canada, PA-000206.
Image 8: Attestation paper of Private Elsworth Young, Library and Archives Canada, RG 150, Accession 1992-93/166.
Image 9: Map by Paul Heersink/Paperglyphs.
The publisher wishes to thank Dr. Desmond Morton, author of Marching to Armageddon, A Military History of Canada, and When Your Number’s Up: The Canadian Soldier in the First World War, for sharing his historical expertise, and Barbara Hehner for her careful checking of the factual details.
About the Author
John Wilson grew up surrounded by the evidence of war. He was born in 1951, a mere six years after the Second World War had ended. The stories he grew up with were of the fighter pilots in the Battle of Britain, prisoners of war escaping from Germany, and the men and women of the French Resistance blowing up railway lines and spying for the Allies. The stories were made more real when he discovered that he’d had an uncle who flew Spitfires and was shot down and lost over the English Channel in 1941. However, there was another war that gradually began to capture his interest.
On bicycle excursions around the Scottish countryside, John often found himself stopping for a cool drink beside a war memorial in some tiny village. The memorials sometimes showed a carved soldier, but more often than not were simple granite pillars upon which were carved the names of the soldiers from the area who had died. John soon noticed that, while there might be two or three names from the Second World War, there were usually ten times that number of names from an older war, often called The Great War or the War of 1914–1918.
This discovery, combined with the old, limping men who offered poppies on the street before Remembrance Day, triggered John’s first foray into research. He read everything he could lay his hands on about this terrible event that had ended 33 years before he was born. A personal connection to the war was forged when he discovered that his wife’s great-uncle, Richard Hay, had lied about his age in 1914 to join the army and been killed at the Battle of Loos in 1915. Richard’s body was never found.
“Allan’s experiences with Sommerfield’s group of deserters is not based on an actual incident,” John says, “but it is plausible. It is also an aspect of the war that deserves to be better known, if that is possible after all this time.
“Historical fiction takes what we know as historical truth, changes it as little as possible, and weaves a story through what we do not know. This is easy with, for example, an explorer who disappears mysteriously. In that case, the story needs to be true to what we know of the character and his or her time, but there is a large space in which a tale can be crafted. More often, the space is smaller and requires the weaving of a fictional story through the labyrinth of known historical events. Sometimes, as with Shot at Dawn, the space where some of the story occurs is a grey area where we do not know for sure what happened. In these cases, I was dealing with the possible and probable, but that is no reason not to undertake the endeavour. Not all historical truth — some would say
very little — is accurately recorded in black and white.”
John is the award-winning author of thirty books, both fiction and non-fiction and for various ages. All are about his primary interest, the past. The settings are the time of dinosaurs (the Weet Trilogy), Roman Legions (Germania), modern wars (Four Steps to Death, Flames of the Tiger, Lost in Spain) and coal mines on Vancouver Island (Red Goodwin). He has revisited the First World War with both fiction — And in the Morning — and non-fiction — Desperate Glory: The Story of WWI. John’s most recent novels are Crusade: The
Heretic’s Secret, Book I; Death on the River; The Alchemist’s Dream and Where Soldiers Lie. In non-fiction, he has tackled the Second World War in Bitter Ashes: The Story of WWII. John’s honours include a Governor General’s Award nomination, four Geoffrey Bilson Award Honour Books, several Canadian Children’s Book Centre Best Books for Teens, three Sheila Egoff Award Honour Books, three New York Public Library Best Books for Teens, and multiple shortlists for the White Pine, Red Maple, Snow Willow, Manitoba Readers’ Choice, Chocolate Lily and Hackmatack Awards.
Other Books in the
Series
Behind Enemy Lines
World War II
Carol Matas
Deadly Voyage
RMS Titanic
Hugh Brewster
Prisoner of Dieppe