Canada in Flanders, Volume II

by Baron Max Aitken Beaverbrook

The lessons of history receive a startling reinforcement from the conduct of the Australian and Canadian troops. Both were volunteer and semi-trained troops in the strictest sense of the term—and what was true of the rank and file was, with a few distinguished exceptions, true of its officers and of its higher command. Both forces were confronted, the one in Gallipoli and the other at Ypres, with circumstances of unprecedented difficulty and danger. The landings in the Peninsula and the fierce fighting at Lone Pine Hill were certainly operations of an unusual character in war, and just of a kind, if Colonel Henderson's view is correct, to bring out the unsteadiness and unreliability of Volunteer troops, however brave. The same is true of Ypres. Here we find an attack by a new, horrible, and terrifying instrument of war, accompanied by a massed assault of the flower of the Prussian Army; the left of the position becomes a huge gap with the Canadian trenches in the air. Communication between units becomes more and more difficult in the swaying mêlée of the battle, and the senior officers are falling fast; supports for many hours there are none. If our semi-trained troops had broken under these combined stresses, who could have blamed them?

But in the face of these almost unparalleled difficulties, the Canadians showed the world an example of courage, steadiness, and co-ordinated discipline which could not have been surpassed by that Guards Brigade which stemmed the German tide in the first great onslaught at Ypres. The truth would appear to be that although, when other factors are equal between opposing forces, training and discipline will win, yet there resides in intense patriotism, high physical courage and endurance bred of pastimes which are akin to war, and superior personality, a force which can only be equalled by the last word in highly-trained infantry. Sudden and unexpected emergencies, so far from breaking the nerves of great Volunteer armies, as they do those of inferior trained troops, who are confused if the drill book fails them, bring out the resources of an individuality not yet crushed by tradition. The Volunteer adapts himself more quickly than a machine-made soldier.

April, 1915.

But it is time to turn to the fortune of the 2nd Division, part of which was already crossing the Atlantic at the time of the Second Battle of Ypres. The original offer of the Dominion Government had been a full division of all arms numbering 20,000. But the patriotism of the country outran the offer of the Government, and the actual number of the first contingent was 33,000 men. Of these, five battalions, the 6th, 9th, 11th, 12th, and 17th, had been left in England when the 1st Division sailed for France to act as the nucleus of a Drafting and Training Division. But even before the 1st Division had left for England the Dominion Government was feeling its way towards a further offer. The day after the great review of September 7th, 1914, at Valcartier, the Rt. Hon. Sir Robert Borden had cabled Sir George Perley that there were 43,000 men under arms in Canada, and had requested him to sound the Colonial Office as to the dispatch of a second contingent. In the first week of October, 1914, the offer of the 2nd Division of 20,000 men was made by the Dominion and accepted by the Imperial Government, and recruiting for it was started at once.

The 2nd Division consisted of the usual three brigades of infantry, but at the start each battalion was raised as a separate unit, for the purposes of enlistment and training. In fact, in some cases, companies of the same battalion were raised and partly trained in separate localities.

Oct., 1914.

The 4th Brigade was for a time under the command of Col. Denison. Illness intervened, and the high hopes of an officer with a splendid record were completely destroyed. The brigade then passed to the command of Brigadier-General Lord Brooke. The battalions were recruited from such well-known regiments as the Queen's Own (of Toronto), Royal Grenadiers, 21st Essex Fusiliers, 24th Kent Regiment, 28th Perth Regiment, 29th Highland Light Infantry, 7th London Fusiliers, 14th Prince of Wales' Own Rifles, 45th Victoria Regiment, the Brockville Rifles and the Governor-General's Foot Guards. Mobilisation commenced in October, 1914, and the 18th (Western Ontario Battalion) was commanded by Lieut.-Col. Wigle, the 19th (Ontario Battalion) by Lieut.-Col. MacLaren, the 20th (Northern and Central Ontario Battalion) by Lieut.-Col. Allan, and the 21st (Eastern Ontario Battalion) by Lieut.-Col. St. Pierre Hughes.

The 5th Brigade consisted of the 22nd (French Canadians), the 24th (Victoria Rifles), the 25th (Nova Scotia), and 26th (New Brunswick) Battalions. All these regiments began their mobilisation in the latter part of October and the first week in November, 1914, but they completed it for various reasons at very different dates. The brigade was taken over by Brigadier-General Watson, formerly commanding the 2nd Battalion of the 1st Division.

The 22nd Battalion, under Col. Gaudet, was recruited entirely from the French Canadians, and nearly all its officers and men hailed from Montreal or Quebec. Its point of concentration was St. John's. Some two thousand recruits offered themselves, and of these 1,100 were finally accepted or retained, the process of enlistment being completed by November 27th.

The next battalion of the brigade, the 24th (Victoria Rifles), Lieut.-Col. Gunn, was mobilised in Montreal on October 22nd, 1914, but did not complete its mobilisation until May 8th, 1915. There appears to have been a great rush of recruits, no fewer than four thousand offering themselves. The method here was to accept 1,800 men and continue to weed them out by a process of selection for several months until the full complement of the regiment was obtained. A great proportion of this battalion came from Montreal, and, like the 22nd, had carried out most of its preliminary training in the middle of the winter snows.