Canada in Flanders, Volume I

by Baron Max Aitken Beaverbrook

"The next ten or twenty years will be pregnant with great results for this Empire, and it is of infinite importance that questions of purely domestic concern, however urgent, shall not prevent any of us from rising to the height of this great argument. But to-day, while the clouds are heavy, and we hear the booming of the distant thunder, and see the lightning flash above the horizon, we cannot, and we will not, wait and deliberate until any impending storm shall have burst upon us in fury and with disaster. Almost unaided, the Motherland, not for herself alone, but for us as well, is sustaining the burden of a vital Imperial duty, and confronting an overmastering necessity of national existence. Bringing the best assistance that we may in the urgency of the moment, we come thus to her aid in token of our determination to protect and ensure the safety and integrity of this Empire, and of our resolve to defend on sea as well as on land our flag, our honour, and our heritage."

This gift of wise and spacious speech has been used more than once with extreme impressiveness—notably at the Guildhall—during the Prime Minister's recent visit. "All that," he said, "for which our fathers fought and bled, all our liberties and institutions, all the influences for good which penetrate humanity, are in the balance to-day. Therefore we cannot, because we must not, fail in this war."

It was my duty to accompany Sir Robert Borden on the visit which he paid to the front, and I gladly embrace this opportunity of substituting for the stories of bloodshed and glory, which have engaged my pen so much, the record of a mission which, though peaceful, was of profound and often of most moving interest.

Sir Robert Borden arrived in England in the middle of July. On Friday, the 16th, he motored to Shorncliffe, accompanied by Sir George Parley and Mr. R. B. Bennett, M.P. There he met General Hughes. At nine o'clock on the morning of the 17th the Canadian troops of the 2nd Division marched past the Prime Minister. It was impossible to watch without emotion, if one came from Canada, this superb body of men gathered from every part of the Dominion, and animated in all ranks by the desire to take their place side by side with the 1st Division, and, if possible, to wrest from the war laurels as glorious as theirs. Certainly, on the view, no finer body of men could be imagined, and if to a critical eye it seemed that the tactical efficiency of the Western regiments was a shade higher than that of the Eastern, the reflection readily occurred that the whole of the 1st Division was criticised, on this very ground, and that this war, of all wars, is not to be determined on the parade ground.

Sir Robert Borden's tour began on Tuesday, July 20th. Accompanied by Mr. R. B. Bennett and a military staff, he embarked for France. Colonel Wilberforce, the Camp Commandant, who had served on the staff of a former Governor-General of Canada, met him at the pier on his arrival. After lunch he visited a Canadian base hospital, commanded by Colonel McKee, of Montreal. It was pathetic to see the pleasure of the wounded at his presence, and the plainness with which they showed it, in spite of the pain which many of them were suffering.

The next visit was paid to a British hospital, where Sir Robert saw Captain George Bennett, of the Princess Patricias, who was just fighting his way back to consciousness after one hundred and twenty-five days of burning fever.[[1]]

From the hospital the Prime Minister went to the graveyard, where he planted seeds of the maple tree on the graves of our dead officers and men. The scene was touching, and Sir Robert was deeply moved. Side by side with the British dead, lie Captain Muntz, of the 3rd Battalion Toronto Regiment, Major Ward, of the Princess Patricias, whose fruit farm in the Okanagan Valley lies fallow, and Lieutenant Campbell, of the 1st Battalion Ontario Regiment, who won the Victoria Cross and yet did not live to know it. How he won it, against what odds, and facing how certain a death, has been fully told in another chapter.

Sir Robert then visited the McGill College Hospital, commanded by Colonel Birkett, the Canadian Base Hospital, in charge of Colonel Shillington, and Colonel Murray MacLaren's Hospital, under canvas, in the sand dunes fringing the sea. Everywhere one noticed the same patience under suffering, the same gratitude for all done to relieve pain, and the same sincere and simple pleasure that the Prime Minister of Canada had wished to see them and to thank them.

Perhaps the long corridor tents in the sand dunes impressed themselves most upon the memory. The convalescents stood to attention to receive the Colonial Prime Minister. Some would not be denied whom the medical staff would perhaps rather have seen sitting. Nor was it less moving to notice how illustrious in private life were many members of the brilliant staff which had assembled to meet the first citizen of Canada. Colonel Murray MacLaren, Colonel Finlay, Colonel Cameron, and many others, if they ever reflect upon the immense private sacrifices they have made, would draw rich compensation from the knowledge that their skill and science have in countless cases brought comfort in the midst of suffering to the heroic soldiers of Canada. Sir Robert, in a few sentences of farewell, made himself the mouthpiece of Canada in rendering to them a high tribute of respect and gratitude.

Early on Wednesday morning the Prime Minister set forth to visit the Canadian troops at the front. He was joined in the course of his journey by Prince Arthur of Connaught, who came to represent the Governor-General of Canada.