The world war

by Logan Marshall

HOW CANADA PREPARED FOR WAR

The story of the patriotic ardor of the Canadians is of interest, as given by a correspondent of the London GRAPHIC, who passed through the Dominion after the opening of the war.

“The news of the great war came like a bolt from the blue. The effect was startling. The ordinary flow of Canadian life was suddenly arrested. The customary routine seemed to stop dead still. The whole of Canadian thought and much of the people’s energy were switched on to the great staggering fact that Europe was at war, and the old country fighting for its life. A most wonderful and touching patriotism welled up in the heart of the Canadians. The air became electric with excitement and enthusiasm. The prairie was indeed on fire. Passing through English towns on my journey to London the calm and peaceful demeanor of the people and the even flow of life seemed in strange contrast with the land I had just left, where the population was throbbing with loyal passion, and the war dominated the existence of the inhabitants, high and low, from Victoria to Halifax. One Canadian scene that remains impressed upon my mind was the sea of upturned faces in front of the offices of the Calgary News Telegram—every ear straining to the point where the war news was announced at intervals through a megaphone.

“‘We stand shoulder to shoulder.’ Sir Robert Borden, the Premier, had said, ‘with Britain and the other British Dominions in this quarrel, and that duty we shall not fail to fulfil as the honor of Canada demands.’ It is being fulfilled in a score of different ways, but mainly in the practical spirit that is characteristic of the country. The Dominion is the Empire’s granary, and through the granary doors, as the Motherland knows, are passing huge gifts of food to the British population. At the same time the stoppage of the export of all foodstuffs to other countries is proposed.

“Soon the Dominion began to mobilize. Regiments seemed to spring up, as if by magic, from the ground—not hordes of untrained men, but stalwart horsemen, accustomed to the rifle and inured to a hard outdoor life. The Germans will knock against another ‘bit of hard stuff’ when they meet the Canadian contingents. One of the regiments carries the name of the Princess Patricia, who, by the way, holds quite a unique position in the hearts of the people. The popular Princess was, shortly after I left, to have presented her regiment with their colors—worked by her own hands.

“Londoners were happy in the knowledge that more such men could be sent, if necessary, up to 200,000 in number—such was the earnestness of the people. One met this practical earnestness in a dozen different directions—in such facts, for instance, as the conversion of the great Winnipeg Industrial Hall into a military training center—and not the least significant feature in the situation is the manner in which the prevalent enthusiasm had spread to the American inhabitants of the country. The trade intimacy between the United States and the Dominion was, indeed, constantly growing, and the many great American manufacturing concerns which had planted themselves in Canada had attained prosperity. It was pleasant and reassuring to think that this had not weakened the ties of attachment to the old country. In the days to succeed the war the Dominion can look back with pride upon the part she bore in sustaining the arms of Mother England, and can take her place with happy confidence and added strength as the eldest daughter in the great family of British peoples.”

The enthusiasm thus indicated among the Canadians, which had its outcome in the despatch of 323,000 sons of the dominion in late September to the seat of war, to be quickly followed by a second contingent, was paralleled in India, which sent to France 70,000 of its dusky sons to join the struggling hosts. As for the remaining countries of the British empire, Australia, South Africa, East Africa, etc., a similar sentiment of loyalty prevailed, manifested there by the sending of contingents or in expeditions against the German colonies in the South Sea and in Africa. The whole empire was ready to support the mother country.

Certainly the Kaiser of Germany, William the War Lord, had set loose in the air a nest of hornets to sting his well-trained warriors. By his side stood only Austria, a composite empire which soon found all its strength too little to hold back the mighty Russian tide that swept across its borders. Thus this one stalwart nation, with its weak auxiliary, was forced to face now east, now west, against a continent in arms. It is difficult to imagine that the Kaiser could have hoped to succeed, despite the training of his people and the strength of his artillery. “God fights with the heaviest battalions,” said one who knew, and the weight of battalions, though at first on William’s side, could not remain so.