VOLUME I.

CANADA IN FLANDERS

By Sir Max Aitken, M.P.

WITH A PREFACE BY THE RT. HON. A. BONAR LAW, M.P., LL.D., SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES

AND AN INTRODUCTION BY THE RT. HON. SIR ROBERT BORDEN, G.C.M.G., M.P., LL.D., PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA

_WITH MAPS AND APPENDICES_

HODDER AND STOUGHTON LONDON TORONTO NEW YORK MCMXVI

FIRST EDITION . . Printed January, 1916. SECOND EDITION . . Printed January, 1916. THIRD EDITION . . Printed January, 1916. FOURTH EDITION . . Printed February, 1916. FIFTH EDITION . . Printed February, 1916. SIXTH EDITION . . Printed February, 1916. SEVENTH EDITION . . Printed February, 1916. EIGHTH EDITION . . Printed February, 1916. NINTH EDITION . . Printed February, 1916. TENTH EDITION . . Printed February, 1916.

TO THE OFFICERS AND MEN NOW SERVING IN THE CANADIAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE IN FLANDERS AND TO THE MEMORIES OF THOSE WHO HAVE FALLEN, I DEDICATE THIS LITTLE BOOK.

PREFACE

BY THE RT. HON. A. BONAR LAW, M.P.

The author of this book is an intimate personal friend, and possibly for that reason I take too favourable a view of his work; but I think he has already rendered a great service, and not to Canada alone.

As Canadian Record Officer, he published a glowing account of the part played in the Battle of Ypres by the Canadian contingent. This account was circulated widely, and it contributed largely to make the deeds of the Canadian soldiers a household word, not only throughout the Dominion, but in the United Kingdom as well.

The present work seems to me a model of lucid, picturesque, and sympathetic narrative, and it will have, I feel sure, a lasting value.

We have a right to feel very proud of the part which is being played in the terrible tragedy of this war by the great Dominions of the British Crown. We had no power to compel any one of them to contribute a single penny, or to send a single man, but they have given of their best, not to help us, though I think they would have done that also, but to defend the Empire which is theirs as much as ours.

Led by a General who a few years ago was in arms against us and who is the Prime Minister of South Africa, the Union Government have wrested from Germany a territory larger than the whole German Empire; and a South African contingent is now in England ready to play their part on the battlefields of Flanders.

The Australians and New Zealanders have shown in the Dardanelles that in courage, resourcefulness, and tenacity better troops have never existed in the world. Whatever the final result of that operation may be, the blood which has been shed there has not been shed in vain. Not to Australians and New Zealanders alone, but to men of every race throughout the British Empire, the Peninsula of Gallipoli will for ever be sacred ground because of the brave men who lie buried there.

"In glory will they sleep, and endless sanctity."

What Canada has done, and is doing, shines out in every page of this book. Higher praise could not be given than was contained in the despatch of the Commander-in-Chief after the Battle of Ypres: "In spite of the danger to which they were exposed, the Canadians held their ground with a magnificent display of tenacity and courage, and it is not too much to say that the bearing and conduct of these splendid troops averted a disaster which might have been attended with most serious consequences."

Our enemies said, and probably they believed, that the outbreak of war would be the signal for the breaking-up of the British Empire. They have been mistaken. After this war the relations between the great Dominions and the Mother Country can never be the same again. The pressure of our enemies is welding us together, and the British Empire is becoming in reality, as well as in name, a united nation.

A. BONAR LAW.

COLONIAL OFFICE, _December_ 6_th_, 1915.

INTRODUCTION

BY RT. HON. SIR ROBERT L. BORDEN, G.C.M.G.

More than a year ago the bugles of the Empire sounded throughout the world the call to duty. The justice of the cause was recognised in every quarter of the King's dominions, and nowhere more fully than in Canada; it has since been confirmed by the judgment of the civilised world. Within a week Canada had sprung to arms; within three weeks 35,000 men were marshalled on Valcartier Plain, which had been transformed, as if by magic, into a great military camp; within six weeks from the outbreak of war a Canadian Division, fully organised and equipped in every branch of the service, with a surplus of guns and ammunition nearly sufficient for another Division, and with a detail of reinforcements amounting to 10,000 men, was ready to proceed overseas.

Twice in September of last year I saw these forces march past under review by the Duke of Connaught. Later, I visited every unit of the contingent, addressed their officers, and bade them all God-speed. The Armada which left the shores of Gaspé on October 3rd, 1914, carried the largest army that ever crossed the Atlantic at one time.

In the midst of the following winter they went to the front. Few of them had any previous experience of war. They had lived in a peace-loving country; they had been gathered from the varied avocations of our national life; they had come from the hills and valleys and surf-beaten shores of the Maritime Provinces; from the banks of the St. Lawrence and its hundred affluents in the two great central Provinces; from the mining and lumber camps of the north; from the broad prairie Provinces and their northern hinterlands; from the majesty of the mountains that look to the east upon the prairies and to the west upon the Pacific; from the shores of the great western ocean; from all the far-flung communities of our Dominion they had hurried, quickly responsive to the call.

Almost in the dawn of their experience at the front there came to them an ordeal such as has seldom tested the most tried of veterans. An unknown and terrible means of warfare, which temporarily shattered the gallant forces that held the line at their left, poured upon them torture and death. The bravest and most experienced troops might well have been daunted and driven back by the fierceness of the onslaught to which they were exposed and by the horrible methods of the attack. Assailed by overwhelming numbers on front and flank, the held their own in a conflict which raged for days; they barred the path against the German onrush and saved the day for the Empire, for the Allies and for the world.

The story of their tenacity, their valour, and their heroism has been well told in the pages that follow. But it can never be completely told. Many of those upon whom memories along splendid incidents of that story were indelibly engraven lie beneath the sod in Northern France and in Belgium.

On more than one stricken field the record thus made by the 1st Canadian Division has held good. From the lips of those who fought at Festubert and at Givenchy, from dauntless survivors of the Princess Patricia's Regiment, I have heard, in many a hospital and convalescent home in the Motherland, what their comrades had dared and done.

No Canadian can ever look forth unmoved upon that valley where Ypres lies shattered in the distance, and the sweep of the hills overlooks the graves of more than 100,000 men who fell because a remorseless militarist autocracy decreed this war.

In the years to come it will be the duty and the pride of Canada to rear, both in this Dominion and beyond the ocean, monuments which will worthily commemorate the glorious deeds of her sons who offered the supreme sacrifice for liberty and civilisation.

R. E. BORDEN.

OTTAWA, _December_ 6_th_, 1915.

"'Carry the word to my Sisters-- To the Queens of the East and the South, I have proven my faith in the Heritage By more than the word of the mouth. They that are wise may follow Ere the world's war-trumpet blows: But I--I am first in the battle,' Said our Lady of the Snows." --KIPLING.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

I am so conscious of the imperfections of the chapters which follow that I was for long unwilling to publish them in the form of a book. They were written under great difficulties and in many moods; nor am I unaware that the excuse for collecting them is very slender. It was, however, represented to me by persons of much authority, that the subjects dealt with excited an interest so lively in Canada that imperfections in the workmanship would be readily overlooked in the Dominion.

I therefore publish my impressions of the fortunes of the 1st Canadian Division and of Princess Patricia's Regiment. Some of the scenes described fell in whole, or in part, under my own observation. In dealing with others I have had access, in the discharge of my duties, to a large number of military diaries and official documents.

It may be stated that the greatest care is being taken by the Canadian Government to collect and preserve every authoritative document which may hereafter throw light upon the military history of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. Nor is there reason to doubt that the official historian of Canada (whoever he may prove to be) will find abundant material for a grave and adequate work. Perhaps such a one may find here and there in these hurriedly written pages a contemporary echo, however faint and elusive, of the clash and passion of war which the author has attempted to describe.

I shall be content if one Canadian woman draws solace from this poor record of her dead husband's bravery; if even one reader recognises for the first time the right of the Canadians to stand as equals in the Temple of Valour with their Australian brothers who fought and died at Anzac; if the task of consolidating our Imperial resources, which may be the one positive consequence of this orgy of destruction, counts one adherent the more among those who have honoured me by reading these records.

And of Englishmen I ask nothing but that they shall hereafter think of my countrymen as "Brothers in whom a man trusts even if a great quarrel arises."

W. M. AITKEN.

CONTENTS