Private Peat

Less than three months before this we were raw recruits. We were considered greenhorns and absolutely undisciplined. We had had little of trench experience. At Neuve Chapelle we...

Every man who goes into the active service of the present war knows that someday, somehow, somewhere, he is going to get plugged. We have expressions of our own as to wounds. If...

Some years ago a British statesman, then great, put on record a phrase which at once is polite and convincing. He wished to convey that a certain statement was a d---- lie, but...

That got me. It was then that I made up my mind I was going whether it lasted three months, as they said it would, or five years, as I thought it would, knowing a little bit of...

The worst days of this war are over. The worst days were those through which we came in the winter of 1914-15. The war may last ten years; the war may be over inside of a few mo...

We had only been about ten weeks in France when we were moved out of the trenches and placed in Ypres in billets. Some of us were actually billeted in the city itself, and other...

We were the first of the British Colonial soldiers to come to the aid of the Motherland. Judging from the wonderful reception given us, it was easy to see that the people were v...

At the outset of the war there was much speculation as to the response the Lion's cubs would make to the call for help. Britain, herself, never doubted that her children, now fu...

This first night in, had the commander-in-chief, had any one who questioned the discipline of the First Canadians, seen us, he would have been proud of our bearing, our behavior.

War! It was like we'd be in it. War between England and Germany. That war we had all heard of and knew was inevitable. The war of the ages was imminent.

The wisest thing that our commanders did was to sandwich the Canadian boys in with the British regulars. Without a doubt we of the First Division were the greenest troops that e...

Imagine a bright crisp morning in late September. The sun rises high and the beams strike with comforting warmth even into the fire-trench where we gather in groups to catch its...

But there was another trial now, and we were directed to rest billets in what presumably had been a two-story schoolhouse or seminary. As soon as we reached this shelter we flop...

"Not a word, men," he muttered, and we stumbled out of the station in silence that could be cut with a knife. Sure enough the enemy was near. He couldn't have been less than twe...

It was seven in the evening before we were ready to start. At that hour we quietly slipped our anchor and glided out of the harbor. We all thought we would be in France before m...

Some days in the trenches are dreariness itself. Sometimes we get discouraged to the point of exhaustion, but these days are rare and when they do occur there is always an allev...

We were a haggard bunch. Our faces were drawn in lines like old men, many were gray, some were white; our eyes were wild and glassy and we moved jerkily or started at the slight...