The Canadian Y. M. C. A. early made its presence felt as an auxiliary in the war. It penetrated Valcartier camp at the first call to arms in Canada in August, 1914, and with the first contingent that went overseas, sent six officers with the honorary rank of captain. Thus began the "service to the troops"—the motto of the Canadian Military Y. M. C. A.—which extended from Valcartier to the Rhine, and from Archangel to Palestine. In Canada it had thirty-eight centers of operation, including camps, barracks, red triangle clubs, hospitals, naval stations, and troop trains. In England it had seventy-six centers—regular camps and units, base camps, convalescent camps, and hospitals.
The "Y" officers had some difficulty in becoming affiliated with the British military establishment, where, being concerned with the Canadian contingent, their work lay. The British system did not provide for "Y" officers as army units. They acquired some sort of military status by their activities in the Canadian training camps in England; but there were army obstacles to their following Dominion troops to France. The British War office at length recognized them, but declined to admit them in the military organization. Nevertheless they got there. Each Canadian division was allowed a number of "Y" officers and aides, and the services they rendered duly drew an admission of their value from the British military authorities, the effect whereof was to endow them with all the privileges of the army establishment. The British were chary of "outsiders" in the army, but the Canadian "Y" officers soon proved that they were indispensable "insiders," and were recognized accordingly.
In the field the Canadian "Y" service became an enterprise on wheels. Consider its main purpose at the battle front. It was to feed, amuse, comfort, and succor the Canadian soldier. The Y. M. C. A. had ever to be at his heels. It served, among other things as a dispenser of morale. It was concerned about keeping the Canadian trooper braced up by supplying him with physical comforts and luxuries, and, when acceptable, with spiritual help. The "Y" contingents, therefore, had to keep on the track of the Canadian divisions, and were as much a mobile organization as the army it served.
"Everything," said a government report on their work, "turned toward the fighting machine facing the Germans. Over there, in France, was the real struggle to keep the advantages offered by the organization at the elbow of the soldier. Growing weekly with the increase of funds, the opportunities afforded, and the knowledge of the work required, the organization might easily have become too unwieldy for the rapid moves which have taken the Canadian Corps from Ypres to the Rhine in the course of its career.
"It was the solution of that problem, added to the lack of transport consequent on the requirements of immense armies, which taxed the ingenuity and resources of the 'Y'. It was a simple enough matter in general to provide for the needs of a corps at rest. That was merely a question of huts, marquees, tents, and determination. But when the Canadian corps moved—as it did from Ypres to the Somme, from the Somme to Lens, from Lens to Passchendaele, from Passchendaele back to Arras, from Arras to Amiens, from Amiens to Arras again, and thereafter advanced, guns, horse, and foot, miles a day at times—it tested the personnel, equipment, endurance, and ingenuity of the 'Y' to the utmost. It was not merely the closing in one place and the opening in another. There were always immovable huts in the old place, and nothing but ruins in the new. The huts had to be left—for some other organization to make use of for the incoming troops—but the provision left by the predecessors of the Canadians in the new area was naturally insufficient to the needs of the Canadian 'Y'."
Every army unit of sufficient size was reached in some way despite obstacles. The "Y" organization adopted a regular scheme of service by providing huts, entertainments, and reading and writing facilities, except in the few cases where detached units were constantly on the move. In running its canteens it conducted an immense retail business under all the disadvantages of instability. Stock had to be moved; new housing found, and fresh supplies were always subject to uncertain and irregular delivery. In 1918 this vast enterprise on wheels, pitching its moving tent, everywhere where Canadian troops (it might almost be said), stayed longer than five minutes, did $5,000,000 worth of business in its canteens; but to do so the "Y" headquarters' stores—a huge quantity of goods with corresponding equipment—had to be moved seventeen times. It had to keep pace with an army equipped with everything requisite to secure mobility.
Imagine, for example, a "Y" officer with his stock of comforts and luxuries trying to keep pace with a Canadian cavalry brigade. Yet the service was so successful and appreciated that the cavalry canteens were handed over to "Y" management. An outstanding incident turned on a "Y" officer's lack of a conveyance to transport his stock so as to keep in touch with the moving brigade. The commanding officer came to his rescue by finding him a horse, an old buggy, and a man, and with this outfit he trundled along with a case of tea, two cases of milk, two bags of sugar, a tea urn, and some cigarettes. He would set out well ahead in order to be in at the finish, but could not choose his routes, the cavalry having to move at night to conceal its operations, and smooth going was accordingly not easy.
The success of the "Y" men, in fact, was largely due to the facilities willingly afforded by the army authorities to enable them to keep pace with the troops, and the army's cooperation, it must be added, was a recognition of the value of the "Y" service in sustaining morale. Both the British and Canadian military establishments perceived that the "Y" was needed.
The men themselves took an occasional hand in an emergency to assist the movement of the "Y" service, an example of which occurred at Arras in August, 1918. The "Y" officer at the base was warned only a few hours ahead of the impending German attack, but had no supplies on hand for the free distribution of food and comforts to the wounded a "Y" service rendered after every battle. The supplies needed were at Boulogne. The drivers of the only two army lorries available had been on duty for twenty-four hours without rest, and the commanding officer refused to order them out to get the supplies in from that port, though he was willing for the drivers to go if the "Y" officer could prevail on them to go as a voluntary task. The exhausted men were undressing, apart, to retire, when the "Y" officer told them of the approaching battle.
"We've neither cigarettes, chocolate, hot coffee, nor biscuits for the boys," he said, "but there's any amount at Boulogne."