Canada in Flanders, Volume II

by Baron Max Aitken Beaverbrook

The presence of General Hughes was significant, for he above anyone else was the embodiment of Canada in arms. He had performed the amazing feat of raising a huge army in a country remote from Europe to do battle for the Imperial cause. When one remembers that the presence of 7,000 men in South Africa at the beginning of a century only fifteen years old was regarded at the time as a crowning achievement on the part of the Dominion; that the enrolment of 40,000 men for the camp at Valcartier and the dispatch of the First Contingent had been considered only twelve months before this review as a triumph of patriotism and organisation, who would have ventured to predict that in September, 1915, another contingent of equal strength would be about to set sail for Flanders; that by the dawn of 1916 a 3rd Division would be in the trenches and engaged in the death grapple of June; and that far beyond this huge reserves would lie waiting in Canada to create yet other divisions or replace the fallen in the field? Great Armadas had crossed the Atlantic carrying armies beside which those dispatched by the might of Great Britain against Washington and his levies in a day when Chatham still lived, dwindle into insignificance. And the tireless energy of Sir Sam Hughes directed the system which procured the men to meet the demand. Like all strong men he has, and has had, not only friends, but opponents; but if these will set aside the controversies of the present and look down the vista of the future to an impartial and final judgment, both alike will perceive the singleness and simplicity of purpose which constitute greatness of character, and, joined to strength of will, lead to greatness of achievement. As the General looked on the march past of the 2nd Division he might well have been thinking of the pride of work well done; but in reality his heart was with the men, who were going out to fight, suffer, and perhaps to die for their common cause; and in such thoughts there is no room for any pride except that of the aim and the race.

The Colonial Secretary has a natural claim to address a force of Imperial troops, but in this case there are special reasons why Mr. Bonar Law should have been given a cordial welcome. He is Canadian born and British trained, and therefore represents a natural link of union between the Dominion and the Mother Country. Direct and business-like, at once enthusiastic and unimpassioned, he is the natural interpreter between the newer nations and the old.

The conditions of the review were not happy. A heavy thunderstorm had broken the summer weather, and the troops were wet through long before the inspection began. The men, of course, were not worried, and it struck more than one observer that the driving rain and heavy cloud-wrack behind it gave a solemnity to the occasion which might have been lost in the mere picture of green glades, tall immemorial trees, and brightly-dressed spectators. Rain, after all, has about it a certain air of reality for anyone who is going to Flanders. As the artillery removed itself on its own devices, the long columns of infantry, platoon by platoon, began to swing past the saluting base, where stood the Colonial Secretary and the Canadian Minister. The dull afternoon light shone on the rippling bayonets, beneath which thousands of men, superbly fit, marched by to prove to Canada and the Empire that the New World was still ready to redress the balance of the Old. Something of this seems to have stirred in the Colonial Secretary's mind as he addressed the officers. In simple language he told his hearers that when he watched them marching past he thought how strong had been the call of duty which had brought them there. The world knew what they had sacrificed, and that every one of them was prepared to face danger and death and to give a good account of himself when the opportunity came. He realised their courage and their devotion, and he thought also, when he saw so many young faces, that, after all, their sacrifice was not perhaps so great as that of those whom they had left behind in anxiety as to the fate of their dearest. He himself was born in Canada—he was proud of what Canadian troops had done and of the future which lay in front of them. "After the war things would never be quite the same again." Already by an arrangement with the Mother Country and the self-governing Dominions it was understood that when the time came for peace, the Dominion Governments were to have a say in the negotiations. That marked a great step onwards, but it was only a step. It had long been his hope and was now his belief that as a result of the war the time would come when the whole of the self-governing Dominions, in proportion to their population and resources, would share with the Mother Country in the duty and honour of governing the British Empire.

Sept. 2nd, 1915.

The 2nd Division had at least the sense that they were contributing to the making of history. Nor were they without the further assurance that their efforts were appreciated. On September 2nd, 1915, his Majesty the King, accompanied by Lord Kitchener, inspected the Division before it left for the Front. Once more, under a grey and gloomy sky, it marched out—this time to parade before its Sovereign. The 2nd Division was only following in the steps of the 1st, which had already received that supreme honour. But the 1st Division had already earned the King's accolade in the field, and there was a rigid determination on the part of the 2nd to do the same. So, as line after line of infantry went by the saluting point, the unspoken homage was in the heart of every man: "One King, One Country, One Empire."[[3]]

Sept. 14th, 1915.

Major-General Turner (Vol. I., p. 190) had taken over the Division from General Steele, who had been appointed to command the troops in the Shorncliffe area. Preparations were now begun for departure. The Divisional Supply Column had already started on September 5th. The real crossing, however, began on September 13th, 1915, when the transport, with the 4th Canadian Infantry Brigade, the Borden Machine-Gun Battery, the Divisional Signallers, the 4th Canadian Field Ambulance, and all the motor ambulance wagons of the Division, left Southampton for Havre. On the night of September 14th the Headquarters Staff and the bulk of the Division embarked, including the 4th Brigade, Canadian Field Artillery. The rest of the Divisional Artillery, the 5th, 6th[[4]] and 7th Brigades, were left behind for a time to complete their training, proceeding later to France on January 18th, 1916.

Eight battalions were left in reserve and absorbed in the Training Division at Shorncliffe—the 23rd, 30th, 32nd, 36th, 39th, and 43rd, to supply drafts for the Infantry, the 48th for the Pioneers, and the Royal Canadian Regiment afterwards incorporated in the 3rd Division. The 2nd Canadian Division Headquarters in Shorncliffe were then closed.

The voyage of the 2nd Division was not to be a long one like that of the 1st, from Bristol in the West of England to St. Nazaire on the coast of Brittany. The high, white cliffs of Folkestone by day and the light of its lamps by night are clearly visible from the high downs above Boulogne in fair weather; while the light of Gris Nez flashing like a wheeling spearshaft has long been familiar to the Canadian troops. It was for Boulogne that the 2nd Division set out—to the harbours below the heights from which the statue of Napoleon on its great bronze column still looks out, as he did all the summer of 1805, at the white cliffs on which he was never to set foot, to the coast, too, whence Cæsar first saw the almost fabulous land of Britain. Those conquerors of the modern and ancient worlds would have marvelled had they beheld the sailing of 20,000 men of French and British birth from the other side of the Atlantic across the narrow salt-water trench, once the confluent of the Thames and Rhine, to defend the land of Gaul against that Teuton menace which both of these had overthrown.

Who of the millions that have undergone the experience will ever forget their first crossing of the Channel in a troopship? The absence of any lights and the swift drive of the engines give the sense of a stealthy escape from the unseen perils of the deep. Dimly visible for a moment is a dark shape of another transport or some destroyer of the escort. The men who can crowd below are perhaps asleep, but to the remainder, shivering a little on deck in the sea breeze, the whole air and the chopping seas seem to breathe something of danger, of the mystery of the dark, and the romance of the High Adventure yet ahead. It was in this atmosphere that a serious collision occurred. The Staff of the 4th Brigade under Brigadier-General Lord Brooke and the 10th Battalion were aboard a paddle-wheeled steamer when a dark mass suddenly shot out of the night and rammed her amidships. The shock threw everybody off their feet; no one could tell at first whether it was a German cruiser or a friend; and had panic broken out among the massed humanity of over a thousand souls on board it would not have been surprising. But the Volunteer troops showed themselves in calmness and discipline the equal of any Regulars. The instant the collision occurred the troops were paraded on deck with the life-belts which had been provided for them. For a time it was thought that the ship was going down. But the men ranged on deck remained steady in the ranks, and the parties told off to loose the rafts carried out their duties swiftly and surely. The incident adjusted itself. The stranger, which turned out to be one of our own destroyers, had by a fortunate chance struck the great wooden paddle-box of the steamer, and though the latter was for a time out of control, no irretrievable damage had been done. The transport carrying the Divisional Staff stood by and endeavoured to tow her in, but the hawsers and steel cables parted under the strain of the rough weather. It was necessary to send for tugs from Boulogne, and, finally, at five in the morning, that port was made. All through the night an escort of destroyers which had raced up at the first news of the accident circled round flashing their searchlights over the seas to guard against a possible submarine attack, but no enemy appeared to disturb the work of rescue. The remaining ships of the Division, despite the heavy weather, made the passage in security, and the whole body began to pass up country to effect its junction with its comrades of the 1st Division.