Besides the battalions alluded to above there was another in which we are interested, though not connected with the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada, except that several of the latter’s officers assisted in the raising and organization of it: the 198th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force was raised in Toronto by men of Kent.
We in England are inclined affectionately to term the Queen’s Own “The Canadian Buffs,” but this is not its name.
The 198th War Battalion was, like our 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th, a war unit only, but during its existence it was called by the name of “Canadian Buffs,” though never formally or officially allied to the old regiment.
It was commanded by Lt.-Colonel J. A. Cooper and had colours presented to it on the 1st November, 1916, by Sir John Hendrie, the Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of Ontario, who in his speech on the occasion laid stress on the honour granted to the battalion by His Majesty The King, in allowing it to be called by the name of such an historic regiment.
The Canadian Buffs lost seven officers and ninety-nine other ranks killed.
CHAPTER XIII
THE END OF THE SALONICA AND MESOPOTAMIA CAMPAIGNS
I. 4th Battalion
Before studying the final phases and great events of 1918 in France and Flanders, and the conclusion of the war in that area, it may be as well to see how matters ended further afield and in other regions where the Buffs were engaged. It may be remembered that the 10th left Palestine in March, when the initial successes of the German offensive rendered it necessary to reinforce the Western Armies with every available man. Therefore the continuation of the history of that battalion is similar, as regards locality, to that of the 1st, 6th and 7th. The 4th remained in India till some time after the end of the struggle. The 5th endured a weary time in Mesopotamia, and the 2nd was in the neighbourhood of Salonica. As far as the 4th Battalion is concerned, with the exception of the tour of work at Aden, already described, it saw no war as a unit, though nearly all its individual members at some time or another were seriously engaged. For instance, when this battalion returned from the Aden campaign and was stationed at Bareilly, it sent, as well as detachments to the north-west frontier of India, about five hundred officers and men to the 5th in Mesopotamia.
In July, 1918, the 4th Battalion proceeded to Multan, in the Punjaub, and was in this place when news of the armistice reached India. Now, the great cessation of hostilities brought the blessings of peace to all the rest of the Buffs, even if it brought no immediate change of surroundings, but this was not the case as regards the garrison of India; all sorts of internal troubles were fomented in the great eastern dependency, particularly in the Punjaub, chiefly because certain ignorant and foolish folk at home are too full of the sense of their own importance to leave the ruling of foreign lands to those of our nation who really know all about it and have made their adopted country their life study. Troublous times there were, and in May, 1919, six months after war was supposed to have ended, martial law having been proclaimed, the Buffs were employed on different important points on the railway line and at Amballa, Lahore and other places. Another Afghan war, too, broke out and about half the battalion was employed upon it, both officers and men being called upon to perform various duties at the front. Headquarters, under Lt.-Colonel Dunstan, who had succeeded Lt.-Colonel Gosling, remained at Lahore during the hot weather of 1919. At last, at the end of October, a year after the European peace, the men were collected, embarked on the S.S. Nevasa and landed at Devonport in November, after five years’ foreign service, which must be a record, or nearly so, for a strictly home service unit.
The good work of this battalion is recorded in the following letter written, just before its departure from India, by the Commander-in-Chief, General Sir C. C. Munro:—