A Minstrel in France

by Sir Harry Lauder

But the best souvenir of all I got at Vimy Ridge I did not pick up. It was given to me by my friend, the grave major—him of whom I would like some famous sculptor to make a statue as he sat at his work of observation. That was a club—a wicked looking instrument. This club had a great thick head, huge in proportion to its length and size, and this head was studded with great, sharp nails. A single blow from it would finish the strongest man that ever lived. It was a fit weapon for a murderer—and a murderer had wielded it. The major had taken it from a Hun, who had meant to use it—had, doubtless, used it!—to beat out the brains of wounded men, lying on the ground. Many of those clubs were taken from the Germans, all along the front, both by the British and the French, and the Germans had never made any secret of the purpose for which they were intended. Well, they picked poor men to try such tactics on when they went against the Canadians!

The Canadians started no such work, but they were quick to adopt a policy of give and take. It was the Canadians who began the trench raids for which the Germans have such a fierce distaste, and after they had learned something of how Fritz fought the Canadians took to paying him back in some of his own coin. Not that they matched the deeds of the Huns—only a Hun could do that. But the Canadians were not eager to take prisoners. They would bomb a dugout rather than take its occupants back. And a dugout that has been bombed yields few living men!

Who shall blame them? Not I—nor any other man who knows what lessons in brutality and treachery the Canadians have had from the Hun. It was the Canadians, near Ypres, who went through the first gas attack—that fearful day when the Germans were closer to breaking through than they ever were before or since. I shall not set down here all the tales I heard of the atrocities of the Huns. Others have done that. Men have written of that who have firsthand knowledge, as mine cannot be. I know only what has been told to me, and there is little need of hearsay evidence. There is evidence enough that any court would accept as hanging proof. But this much it is right to say—that no troops along the Western front have more to revenge than have the Canadians.

It is not the loss of comrades, dearly loved though they be, that breeds hatred among the soldiers. That is a part of war, and always was. The loss of friends and comrades may fire the blood. It may lead men to risk their own lives in a desperate charge to get even. But it is a pain that does not rankle and that does not fester like a sore that will not heal. It is the tales the Canadians have to tell of sheer, depraved torture and brutality that has inflamed them to the pitch of hatred that they cherish. It has seemed as if the Germans had a particular grudge against the Canadians. And that, indeed, is known to be the case. The Germans harbored many a fond illusion before the war. They thought that Britain would not fight, first of all.

And then, when Britain did declare war, they thought they could speedily destroy her "contemptible little army." Ah, weel—they did come near to destroying it! But not until it had helped to balk them of their desire—not until it had played its great and decisive part in ruining the plans the Hun had been making and perfecting for forty-four long years. And not until it had served as a dyke behind which floods of men in the khaki of King George had had time to arm and drill to rush out to oppose the gray-green floods that had swept through helpless Belgium.

They had other illusions, beside that major one that helped to wreck them. They thought there would be a rebellion and civil war in Ireland. They took too seriously the troubles of the early summer of 1914, when Ulster and the South of Ireland were snapping and snarling at each other's throats. They looked for a new mutiny in India, which should keep Britain's hands full. They expected strikes at home. But, above all, they were sure that the great, self-governing dependencies of Britain, that made up the mighty British Empire, would take no part in the fight.

Canada, Australasia, South Africa—they never reckoned upon having to cope with them. These were separate nations, they thought, independent in fact if not in name, which would seize the occasion to separate themselves entirely from the mother country. In South Africa they were sure that there would be smoldering discontent enough left from the days of the Boer war to break out into a new flame of war and rebellion at this great chance.

And so it drove them mad with fury when they learned that Canada and all the rest had gone in, heart and soul. And when even their poison gas could not make the Canadians yield; when, later still, they learned that the Canadians were their match, and more than their match, in every phase of the great game of war, their rage led them to excesses against the men from overseas even more damnable than those that were their general practice.

These Canadians, who were now my hosts, had located their guns in a pit triangular in shape. The guns were mounted at the corners of the triangle, and along its sides. And constantly, while I was there they coughed their short, sharp coughs and sent a spume of metal flying toward the German lines. Never have I seen a busier spot. And, remember—until I had almost fallen into that pit, with its sputtering, busy guns, I had not been able to make even a good guess as to where they were! The very presence of this workshop of death was hidden from all save those who had a right to know of it.

It was a masterly piece of camouflage. I wish I could explain to you how the effect was achieved. It was all made plain to me; every step of the process was explained, and I cried out in wonder and in admiration at the clever simplicity of it. But that is one of the things I may not tell. I saw many things, during my time at the front, that the Germans would give a pretty penny to know. But none of the secrets that I learned would be more valuable, even to-day, than that of that hidden battery. And so—I must leave you in ignorance as to that.