Upon declaration of war by Great Britain Canada immediately sprang to arms. The love of country and empire which had been no obvious thing burst forth in a patriotic fervor as deep as it was spontaneous and genuine. The call to action was answered with an enthusiasm the like of which had rarely, if ever, been seen in any British colony.
The Canadian Government called for 20,000 volunteers—enough for a single division—as Canada's contribution to the British army. In less than a month 40,000 men had volunteered, and the Minister of Militia was compelled to stop the further enrolment of recruits. From the gold fields of the Yukon, from the slopes of the Rockies on the west to the surf-beaten shores of the Atlantic on the east; from workshop and mine; from farm, office and forest, Canada's sons trooped to the colors.
It will be the everlasting glory of the men of the first Canadian contingent, that they needed no spur, either of victory or defeat: they volunteered because they were quick to perceive that the existence of their Empire was threatened by the action of the most formidable nation-in-arms that the world had ever seen. They had been stirred by the deepest emotion of a race—the love of country.
A site for a concentration camp was chosen at Valcartier, nestling among the blue Laurentian hills, sixteen miles from Quebec, and convenient to that point of embarkation. Within four days 6,000 men had arrived at Valcartier; in another week there were 25,000 men. From centers all over Canada troop trains, each carrying hundreds of embryo soldiers, sped towards Valcartier and deposited their burdens on the miles of sidings that had sprung up as though by magic.
The rapid evolution of that wild and wooded river valley into a model military camp was a great tribute to the engineering skill and energy of civilians who had never done the like before. One day an army of woodmen were seen felling trees; the next day the stumps were torn out and the hollows filled; on the third day long rows of tents in regular camp formation covered the ground, and on the fourth day they were occupied by civilian soldiers concentrated upon learning the rudiments of the art and science of war.
Streets were laid out; miles of water pipes, sunk in machine-made ditches, were connected to hundreds of taps and shower baths; electric light was installed; three miles of rifle butts completed, and in two weeks the camp was practically finished—the finest camp that the first Canadians were destined to see. The building of Valcartier camp was characteristic of the driving power, vision and genius of the Minister of Militia, General Sir Sam Hughes.
Of the 33,000 men assembled at Valcartier, the great majority were civilians without any previous training in warfare. About 7,000 Canadians had taken part in the South African war, fifteen years before, and some of these, together with a few ex-regulars who had seen active service, were formed into the Princess Patricia's Light Infantry. Otherwise, with the exception of the 3,000 regulars that formed the standing army of Canada, the men and most of the officers were amateurs.
It was therefore a feat that the Canadian people could well afford to be proud of, that in the great crisis they were able, through their aggressive Minister of Militia, not only to gather up these forces so quickly but that they willingly and without delay converted their industries to the manufacture of all necessary army equipment. Factories all over the country immediately began turning out vast quantities of khaki cloth, uniforms, boots, ammunition, harness, wagons, and the thousand and one articles necessary for an army.
Before the end of September, 1914, the Canadian Expeditionary Force had been roughly hewn into shape, battalions had been regrouped and remodeled, officers transferred and re-transferred, intensive training carried on, and all the necessary equipment assembled. On October 3, 1914, thirty-three Atlantic liners, carrying the contingent of 33,000 men, comprising infantry, artillery, cavalry, engineers, signalers, medical corps, army service supply and ammunition columns, together with horses, guns, ammunition, wagons, motor lorries and other essentials, sailed from Gaspe basin on the Quebec seaboard to the battle-field of Europe.
It was probably the largest convoy that had ever been gathered together. This modern armada in three long lines, each line one and one-half miles apart, led by cruisers and with battleships on the front, rear and either flank, presented a thrilling spectacle. The voyage proved uneventful, and on October 14th, the convoy steamed into Plymouth, receiving an extraordinary ovation by the sober English people, who seemed temporarily to have gone wild with enthusiasm. Back of that demonstration was the conviction that blood had proved thicker than water and that the apparently flimsy ties that bound the colonies to the empire were bonds that were unbreakable. The German conviction that the British colonies would fall away and the British Empire disintegrate upon the outbreak of a great war had proved fallacious. It was, moreover, a great demonstration of how the much-vaunted German navy had already been swept from the seas and rendered impotent by the might of Britain's fleet.