“Have you news of my boy Jack?”
Not this tide.
“When d’you think that he’ll come back?”
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.
Crowds gather at the Menin Gate Wall of Remembrance for the Last Post ceremony, Ypres, Belgium.
Wikimedia Commons.
Kipling and his wife found it hard to accept that their son had been killed and that his body had never been retrieved. The author’s grief prompted him to join the Imperial War Graves Commission (now the Commonwealth War Graves Commission), the group responsible for the care of the Commonwealth war graves. It was his suggestion that the words “Their Name Liveth for Evermore” be added to the Stones of Remembrance in the war cemeteries.
The Menin Gate, Ypres, Belgium.
Wikimedia Commons.
For graves of the Unknown Soldier, like his son, he could not accept only the inscription A SOLDIER OF THE GREAT WAR, and suggested KNOWN UNTO GOD be added across the bottom of the stone.
Each night at precisely 8:00 p.m., all evening traffic stops under the Menin Gate in Ypres, Belgium. The echoes from the past form a background orchestra for the playing of “The Last Post.” Words carved indelibly into our hearts and souls for nearly one hundred years join the echoes:
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
— “For The Fallen,” Laurence Binyon
We will remember!
Jim’s bible containing an inscription by his mother: “Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth. July 23, 1915.” As he lay dying in hospital, Jim asked the Chaplain to read to him: “… on my taking out my own Testament, he begged me to read it from the Bible his mother had given him which he said he had never failed to read day by day.”
WORDS OF WAR
Vimy
This Canada,
eighty-five hectares
a gift of gratitude
Loam rich with decomposition of bone, marrow, blood, flesh, sinews, sweat.
Echoes of guns, screams, tramping boots fading with time
The sun of this Canada does not span a continent from sea to sea
Does not floodlight golden carpeted canola fields framed in mountain shadows
Does not reflect diamond waves breaking against shores
This sun warms poppied fields whose blood red blossoms
Tiptoe across silent graves.
Winds winging across our Canada, over oceans, over channels
Weep on this Canada
And make verdant Hill 145, disguising wounds, camouflaging scars, silencing exploding shells.
This Canada a sanctuary
of silent prayers, of memories, of unrealized dreams
Rising heavenward in marble
A young woman forever
Looks down on purple hazed villages in valleys
Cows in pastures, young men sowing seeds
and mourns her nation’s loss.
Old now
These who are ours lie buried
in this Canada
our blood red maple leaf clings listlessly
against the flag pole here, mute testimony to
fading memories wisping across this land — this Canada
A part but apart.
— Marion Brooker
Statue (Canada Bereft) looks down from the Canadian National Vimy Memorial.
Timeline
1914
June 28
Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, is assassinated in Sarajevo, Bosnia.
August 1
Germany declares war on Russia.
August 3
Germany declares war on France.
August 4
Britain declares war on Germany after German troops invade neutral Belgium. The United States declares neutrality.
August 5
The governor general of Canada (Field Marshal His Royal Highness The Duke of Connaught) officially declares war on Germany.
August 20
German forces occupy Brussels, Belgium.
October–November
The First Battle of Ypres is fought; the onset of winter weather forced a break in hostilities.
December 24/25
British and German soldiers interrupt the war to celebrate Christmas, beginning the Christmas truce.
1915
January 19
Germany begins an aerial bombing campaign against Britain using Zeppelins.
March 10
The Canadian Expeditionary Force saw their first battle of the First World War in the French town of Neuve Chapelle. It was also the first time aircraft had been used effectively for aerial photography and strategic planning (and also for bombing).
April 22–May 25
The Second Battle of Ypres is fought.
May 3
John McCrae writes “In Flanders Fields.”
May 7
The RMS Lusitania is sunk by a German U-boat off the coast of Ireland, killing an estimated 1,198 people.
May 31
The first aerial bombing of London occurs. German Zeppelins kill 28 people.
July 21
Young Jim Fargey boards a train for Winnipeg to join the war effort.
July 22
Jim’s attestation papers are filed, and he becomes a member of the 79th Cameron Highlanders of Canada.
August 1
The “Fokker Scourge” begins over the Western Front as German pilots achieve air supremacy using the highly effective Fokker monoplane featuring a synchronized machine gun that fires bullets through the spinning propeller.
September 6
The first prototype tank is tested for the British army.
September 26
The French launch their third attempt to seize Vimy Ridge from the Germans in Artois. This time they secure the ridge.
October 12
British nurse Edith Cavell is executed by a German firing squad for helping Allied soldiers escape from Belgium.
December 25
British and German forces declare a Christmas truce, get out of the trenches, and have a kick-around football game in no man’s land.
1916
February 21
The Battle of Verdun begins in France.
July 1–November 18
More than 1 million soldiers die during the Battle of the Somme, including 60,000 casualties for the British Commonwealth on the first day.
September 15
The first appearance of tanks on a battlefield occurs as British troops attack German positions along a eight-kilometre front during the Battle of the Somme.
September 25
British and French troops capture several villages north of the Somme River, including Thiepval, where the British successfully use tanks again. However, heavy rain turns the entire battlefield to mud, preventing further advances.
October 8
Jim Fargey wounded in assault on Regina Trench.
October 15
Jim Fargey dies in hospital from his wounds suffered at the Battle of the Somme.
November 18
The Battle of the Somme ends with the first snowfall as the British and French decide to cease the offensive. The Germans have been pushed back just a few kilometres along the entire 24-kilometre front, but the major breakthrough the Allies had planned never occurred. Both sides each suffered over 600,000 casualties during the five-month battle. Among the injured German soldiers is Corporal Adolf Hitler, wounded in the leg by shrapnel.
1917
April 6
The United States declares war on Germany.
April 9–April 12
Canadian troops win the Battle of Vimy Ridge.
June 5
Conscription begins in the United States.
June 13
The first major Ger
man bombing raid on London leaves 162 dead and 432 injured.
July 24
The Military Service Act is passed in the Canadian House of Commons, thanks to the support of nearly all English-speaking members of Parliament, and in spite of the opposition of nearly all French-speaking MPs.
July 31
The Third Battle of Ypres, also known as the Battle of Passchendaele, begins when Allied offensive operations commence in Flanders.
August 29
The Military Service Act, allowing conscription, officially becomes law in Canada.
November 6
After three months of fierce fighting, Canadian forces take Passchendaele in Belgium.
1918
January 28
John McCrae dies of pneumonia at Boulogne, France.
March 3
Germany, Austria, and Bolshevist Russia sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, ending Russia’s involvement in the war.
March 21
The Second Battle of the Somme begins.
March 30–April 1
Conscription Crisis of 1917: On Easter weekend, a man is arrested in Quebec City for not having his conscription registration papers on him. The incident sparks a weekend of rioting as the crowds loot the offices of the army registrar and smash the windows of English shops. Four civilians are killed and dozens injured.
August 8
Battle of Amiens: Canadian and Australian troops begin a string of almost continuous victories with a push through the German front lines.
November 11
Germany signs an armistice agreement with the Allies between 5:12 a.m. and 5:20 a.m. in Marshal Foch’s railroad car in Compiègne Forest in France. It becomes official on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.
1919
June 28
The Treaty of Versailles is signed in the Hall of Mirrors at the Versailles Palace near Paris, France. The treaty is signed by the Allied nations and by the defeated Germany. In it, Germany takes full responsibility for starting the war, loses more than 12.5 percent of its land area, and is ordered to pay millions of dollars in reparations to Allied nations — the final payments were not made until October 4, 2010, 92 years after the end of the First World War.
1936
July 26
King Edward VIII unveils the Canadian National Vimy Memorial, designed by Walter Seymour Allward of Toronto, Canada. The memorial had taken 11 years to construct.
2007
April 9
After undergoing extensive renovations, the Canadian National Vimy Memorial is rededicated by Queen Elizabeth II, 90 years after the Battle of Vimy Ridge.
2010
February 18
John Henry Foster “Jack” Babcock dies at age 109; he is the last known surviving veteran of the Canadian military to have served in the First World War.
Resources
Books
Bennett, Captain S.G. Regimental History of the 4th Canadian Mounted Rifles. Toronto: Murray Print Co., 1926.
Christy, N.M. Gas Attack! The Canadians at Ypres, 1915. Access to History: The Canadian History Series: No. 1. Nepean, ON: CEF Books, 2002.
Christy, Norm. Futility and Sacrifice: The Canadians on the Somme, 1916. Access to History: Canadian History Series: No. 2. Nepean, ON: CEF Books, 2004.
Currie, Arthur. The Selected Papers of Sir Arthur Currie: Diaries, Letters, and Report to the Ministry, 1917–1933. Edited by Mark Osborne Humphries. Waterloo, ON: LCMSDS Press of Wilfred Laurier University, 2008.
Gilbert, Adrian. Going to War in World War I. London: Franklin Watts, 2001.
Gilbert, Martin. The Battle of the Somme: The Heroism and Horror of War. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2006.
Griffith, Paddy. Fortifications of the Western Front 1914–18. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2004.
Johnston, James Robert. Riding into War: The Memoir of a Horse Transport Driver 1916–1919. Fredericton, NB: Goose Lane Editions and the New Brunswick Military Heritage Project, Volume 4, 1971.
McCarthy, Chris. The Somme: The Day-By-Day Account. London: Brockhampton Press, 1998.
Middlebrook, Martin. The First Day on the Somme: 1 July 1916. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1984.
Nicholson, Colonel G.W.L. Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914–1919: The Official History of the Canadian Army in the First World War. Ottawa: Queen’s Printer and Controller of Stationery, 1962.
Razac, Olivier (translated by Jonathan Kneight). Barbed Wire: A Political History. New York: The New Press, 2002.
Ross, Stewart. The Battle of the Somme. Chicago: Raintree Press, 2004.
Tyler, G.C.A. The Lion Rampant: A Pictorial History of the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada 1910–1985. Winnipeg: Public Press, 1985.
Websites
Canadian War Museum: www.warmuseum.ca.
Library and Archives Canada (LAC),Lest We Forget Project: www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/cenotaph/index-e.html.
LAC, Military and Peacekeeping www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/military-peace/index-e.html.
Spartacus Educational, “The Somme”: www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWsomme.htm.
Veterans Affairs Canada: www.veterans.gc.ca.
Copyright © Marion Fargey Brooker, 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.
Editor: Allison Hirst
Design: Courtney Horner
Ebook Design: Carmen Giraudy
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Brooker, Marion 1932-
Hold the Oxo! [electronic resource] : a teenage soldier writes home / written
by Marion Fargey Brooker.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Electronic monograph in EPUB format.
Issued also in print format.
ISBN 978-1-55488-871-9
1. Fargey, James, 1897-1916. 2. Soldiers--Canada--Biography--Juvenile literature. 3. World War, 1914-1918--Canada--Biography--Juvenile literature. 4. Soldiers--Canada--Correspondence--Juvenile literature. 5. World War, 1914-1918--Personal narratives, Canadian--Juvenile literature.
I. Title.
D640.B76 2011a j940.4'8171 C2011-901919-1
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and Livres Canada Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.
Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.
J. Kirk Howard, President
www.dundurn.com
Unless specified, all images are from the author’s collection.
Front cover image: The young soldier, James Henderson Fargey, date unknown.
Back cover image: Jim (front) and two hometown friends, Arthur Abbis (rear) and Leslie Smith (middle), board the train for Winnipeg, July 21, 1915.
Page 5: The box, decorated by Jim’s mother, in which his letters have been kept for close to a century.
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