By the time that all doubt on that point was past General Hughes and his staff of assistants had already formulated their plan of action. From all parts of the country came offers of aid from men who had had military training.
Practically there was very little to build upon; Canada had barely a nucleus around which to create that big and efficient military organization which afterward became so powerful a factor in the military situation in France. The Royal Military College at Kingston had, indeed, turned out hundreds of young military officers, but most of them had accepted commissions in the British army and were now scattered all over the world in the British possessions as officers in British regiments.
Everything must be created anew. But the crude material, the man power, was there. According to the census taken in 1911 there were a little over a million and a half men between the ages of twenty and forty-four, of which a trifle over half were married, with families dependent on them. Allowing for a normal increase in the population, and for the fact that the military age was from eighteen to forty-five, and eliminating the physically unfit, Canada had available about a million and a half for active military service.
On August 6, 1914, the Government issued a call for volunteers for the formation of the First Army Division, to number about 21,000 men. The responses came immediately and in a volume greater than could be handled. To this first quota Ontario and the West contributed most generously. No more men were needed for the time being, though probably a hundred thousand men could have been obtained within those first few weeks, had they been needed. It was not till this first contingent had gone through its preliminary training and had been equipped and sent to training camp in England that the second call was issued, for another 21,000 men, in November, 1914.
CHAPTER III
DEPARTURE OF FIRST CONTINGENT
The calling together of the men, during the earlier period of the war at least, was the easiest part of the work in hand. The training and equipment of these first two contingents required all of the rest of the first war year. Eight thousand horses had to be purchased and shipped from all parts of the country to the training camps. Provisions to feed men and horses had also to be gathered in from all the Provinces and shipped across after the first contingent had sailed. Over a hundred special trains were needed to accomplish this before the end of the year, after which, as the Canadian forces on the other side increased, they were augmented in proportion. With the first contingent there was shipped a consignment of war material including seventy field guns alone. The total value of this first shipment approached close to $14,000,000.
Nor were these supplies confined to the use of Canadian troops exclusively. On August 6, 1914, when war had become a definite certainty, the governor general sent the following message to the British colonial secretary:
"My advisers request me to inform you that the people of Canada, through their Government, desire to offer one million bags of flour, of ninety-eight pounds each, as a gift to the people of the United Kingdom, to be placed at the disposal of his Majesty's Government, and to be used for such purposes as they may deem expedient."
This munificent gift was accepted with deepest expressions of gratitude, and with the assurance that "we can never forget the generosity and promptitude of this gift and the patriotism from which it springs." Two hundred trains, of thirty cars each, were required to transport this flour, valued at $3,000,000, to the port whence it was shipped.