The first battle the Canadian Expeditionary Force engaged in during World War I was the Second Battle of Ypres. However, a group of soldiers did participate in earlier engagements. These men were members of Princess Patricia’s regiment.
When World War I erupted, Canada had a very small army called “the permanent force.” This force had only a few thousand individuals, too small to serve the nation’s needs in war.
Capt. Andrew Hamilton Gault founded the Princess Patricia’s in August 1914. He offered the government a battalion that he would finance and equip. After receiving parliamentary approval, the government provided equipment.
Its official name was Princess Patricia’s Light Infantry. The unit was named after one of Queen Victoria’s granddaughters. Her father was governor general of Canada, the representative of the British monarch, for five years during the 1910s.
The majority of the 1,098 men who served in the battalion had previous military experience, having fought in the Boer War and/or with the British Army.
The battalion entered the trenches in January 1915, having trained separately from the rest of the CEF. Lt. Col. Francis Farquhar, the military secretary to the governor general and a veteran, trained the battalion.
The first major battle the battalion took part in was the Battle of Frezenberg in May 2015. Gault was seriously wounded, and several other officers were killed. The battalion suffered 461 casualties.
In December 1915, the battalion became part of the 3rd Canadian Division but maintained its name.
At the beginning of the war, it was a 85 percent British-born force, commanded by British officers. By the war’s end, the officers were mainly Canadians from all parts of the country.
The battalion earned 21 awards and suffered 4,076 casualties.
What is the Boer War?
It was two wars that occurred in South Africa involving the Boers, of Dutch decent, and the British.
The first war was in 1880-1881 and was a revolt by the Boers against British annexation of their territory, Transvaal. The war lasted less than a year and resulted in Britain controlling foreign affairs, and Transvaal controlling all internal affairs.
The Second Boer War began in October 1899. The British fought against Transvaal and the Orange Free State in what is modern day South Africa.
Tensions began almost as soon as the First Boer War ended. Gold was discovered in Witwatersrand, and diamonds previously were discovered in Kimberly. Both discoveries brought a large number of foreigners into the region.
The number of foreigners soon was greater than the Boer population, and they demanded voting rights, something the British resisted.
Diplomatic negotiations failed to end the conflict peacefully.
The Boers were effective guerrilla fighters, a tactic they had used in the first war. To combat this, the British instituted a scorched-earth policy. Towns, farms and crops were burned, and livestock was killed. This strategy was meant to deprive the Boers of their food sources.
Women and children from the burnt settlements were put into concentration camps. Native Africans also were imprisoned because it was thought they might aid the Boers in finding food. It is estimated 48,000 people died in the concentration camps from malnutrition and disease.
The most heartbreaking case is perhaps that of Lizzie van Zyl who died of typhoid at age seven in 1901. She and her mother were imprisoned in a concentration camp and separated.
Lizzie was given the lowest amount of rations possible and, starving, was moved to a hospital. At the hospital, Lizzie repeatedly cried out for her mother, but the medical staff refused to comfort her and even label her as an idiot (a Victorian mental health diagnosis) for not speaking English.
Lizzie’s photo was taken and used in British propaganda as proof the Boers neglected their children.
Activist Emily Hobhouse, however, used the photo to bring attention to conditions in the camps.
“She was a frail, weak little child in desperate need of good care,” Hobhouse reported. “Yet, because her mother was one of the ‘undesirables’ due to the fact that her father neither surrendered nor betrayed his people, Lizzie was placed on the lowest rations and so perished with hunger that, after a month in the camp, she was transferred to the new small hospital.”
Canada and the Boer War
In Canada, the electorate was divided over whether the nation should participate. Prime Minister Wilfred Laurier devised a compromise: Canadians could volunteer, but they would be supplied and funded by the British. Nearly 7,400 volunteered and 270 died.
Soldiers from British dominions were used to enforce the scorched-earth policy. Canadians fought in four major battles – Paardeberberg, Zand River, Doornkop and Leliefontein. They would receive a reputation for bravery.
Dr. John McCrae, who would become famous for writing “In Flanders Fields” a decade and half later, is perhaps the most famous Canadian to serve in the Boer War.
Physical and Medical Requirements
During World War I, there was no shortage of eager men willing to fight, but men needed to pass the military’s various requirements for service. Requirements varied from nation to nation. Great Britain’s stated men must be at least five foot three inches tall, have a minimum chest size of 34 inches and pass the medical exam.
At the war’s onset, 40 percent of men could not pass the army’s medical test. Standards lowered once the death toll mounted and recruitment became difficult. In Canada, the vision test was altered. In September 1916, men who could read a thick, black letter measuring 1.25 inches from a distance of 20 feet with both eyes and without glasses would be eligible for the infantry. Men who could read the letter from that distance with their right eye and a 3.5-inch letter with their left eye also were eligible. Men who could read a 3.5-inch letter with their right eye and a 1.25-inch letter with their left eye would be eligible for the medical corps, forestry battalions, engineering, the service corps and as drivers.
In Britain, a man had to be 18 to join the military and 19 to serve overseas, but some men lied about their ages to join. Many people born in the late 19th century didn’t have birth certificates, but recruitment officers, who were paid per recruit, were more likely to worry about their pocketbooks than a stranger’s safety and often looked the other way. It is estimated 250,000 boys under the age of 19 fought.
For decades, John Condon from Great Britain was believed to be the youngest Allied soldier to die. He was 14 when killed during the Second Battle of Ypres. Recently, however, records seem to indicate he was actually 18 years old, and the wrong date was listed on the tombstone. It is unclear who the youngest British soldier was.
“I was locked up on a train under guard, one of five under-age boys caught serving on the front being sent back to England,” George Maher, who was 13 in summer 1916, said. “The youngest was 12 years old.”
Arthur Currie: Commander of the Canadian Corps
Arthur Currie was born December 5, 1875, in Napperton, Ontario. Before the war, he worked as a teacher, real estate agent and insurance broker. He also served as an officer in the militia in British Columbia. Currie’s business schemes left him deeply in debt, and he used money earmarked for the militia to pay off his debts. Friends saved him from scandal and criminal charges.
Currie’s militia experienced earned him a commission during World War I. He was given command of the 2nd Canadian Brigade and fought at the Battle of Ypres. The following year he was given command of the 1st Division, and in 1917, he was given command of the Canadian Corps.
Under Currie’s command, the Corps experienced a number of successes, including Vimy Ridge. He was adamant the Corps would fight together, not broken up and used to support the British Army.
He earned the nickname Guts and Gaiters because he was foul mouthed and overbearing. Nonetheless, he believed artillery was vital to any campaign, adapted new tactics, trained soldiers to learn from past strategic mistakes and visited the front line often, although he did command from further behind the line than his soldiers would have preferred. He used the media to gain positive publicity for the Canadian Corps, which was largely ignored by the British media, despite its successes.
“Canadians, in this fateful hour I command you and I trust you to fight as you have ever fought, with all your strength, with all your determination, with all your tranquil courage,” Currie told the troops in April 1918. “On many a hard-fought field of battle you have overcome this enemy. With God’s help you shall achieve victory once more.”
Currie was knighted in 1917.
After the war, Currie served in an administrative role at McGill University. He endured attacks by his political rivals and sued a newspaper for libel, winning the case. He died November 30, 1933 in Montreal.
Historians remember him as a military leader who used tactics to spare as many lives as possible.
In Flanders Fields
“In Flanders Fields,” written by a doctor during the Second Battle of Ypres, is perhaps the best known poem to come out of World War I. Canadian military physician Major John McCrae was serving as brigade doctor when his friend, Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, was killed. The chaplain was engaged elsewhere, so McCrae was asked to conduct the funeral.
The poem is believed to have been composed at the Essex Farm Advanced Dressing Station on May 3, 1915. Dealing with his grief, McCrae sat near an ambulance and wrote a poem about the view before him. He showed the poem to a young soldier delivering mail, but not satisfied with the poem threw it away. Another officer retrieved it and encouraged McCrae to submit it to magazines.
It was published December 1915 in the British magazine Punch.
Although the poem was not McCrae’s first, it is his most famous.
McCrae rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel, and was in command of No. 3 Canadian General Hospital when he died of pneumonia in January 1918.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead.
Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.
World War One Slang Words and Phrases
Slang words that originated during World War I but are no longer in use, along with their definitions.
- Archie: German anti-aircraft fire.
- Blighty: A wound that was serious enough to send a solider home but not serious enough to kill him.
- Boche: Allied nickname for a German. Also Fritz, Hun, Jerry, Kraut.
- Chew the rag: Argue endlessly
- Crump hole: Crater left behind from a heavy artillery shell.
- Diggers: Australian troops
- Doughboys: American troops
- To be in a flap: Worried
- Frog: French soldier
- Gone West: To die
- Pogey-bait: A sweet snack
- Stopped one: Getting shot.
- Napoo: Done
- Potato Masher: A German hand grenade.
- Tin hat: A helmet
- Trench rabbit: A rat
- Wastage: Casualties as a result of actions taken by politicians or military leaders. Also, those killed in between major battles.
- Willie: Corned beef
- Wipers: The Ypres Salient.
Slang words that originated during World War I but whose meanings have changed. They are followed by their original meanings.
- Basket case: A solider injured so badly he could be carried off the battlefield in a basket.
- The Big Show: The Meuse-Argonne Offensive
- Camouflage: To disguise not a fabric pattern.
- Chatting: To sit around talking to other soldiers while picking lice (chats) from clothing.
- Chew the fat: Talk in a resentful manner.
- Cooties: Lice
- Crummy: Lice eggs
- D-Day: The start of a military operation.
- Lousy: Infected with lice.
- Over the top: To go over the top of a trench.
- Posh: Looking sharp.
Slang words whose meanings have not changed. While some originated during the war, others were regional terms that spread because of the conflict.
- A-1
- Ace
- Binge
- Breaking new ground
- Blimp
- Booby trap
- Bullshit (empty talk)
- Bunker
- Chow (food rations)
- Cold feet
- Conk out
- Cushy
- Digging in
- Dog fight
- Draftee
- Dud (a shell that doesn’t explode)
- Dugout
- Eleventh hour
- Fed-up
- Fleabag
- Funk
- Hush hush
- Joystick
- Kaput
- Khaki
- Kiwi (as a nickname for a New Zealander)
- Mockup
- No Man’s Land
- Pillbox
- Pipsqueak
- Push up the daisies
- Put a sock in it
- Scrounge
- Shell shock
- Shoot down in flames
- Souvenir (borrowed from the French)
- Stormtrooper
- Tailspin
- Trench coat
- Trip wire
- U-boat
- Up against the wall
- War of Attrition
- Zero hour
Tank Development
The Allies needed a weapon that could help end the war’s stalemate. They needed something that could cut through barbed wire in No Man’s Land and advance over large tracks of ground. They called their new, armored weapon “a tank” to disguise its development from the enemy.
Tanks ran on a track, a technology that had been developed for farm tractors. Reporters and soldiers said the new weapon resembled worms and armadillos. Rotating gun turrets were added to later models.
“The ‘tanks’ have added an element of humor which put the [British] army, through all its ranks, into a festive mood,” the Vancouver Daily World said.
The first tank attack occurred in September 1916 at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette. Twenty-five tanks participated in the battle with nine reaching the German line. More than any other objective, the first tanks were successful in frightening the enemy.
“Of course we surrendered, those of us who were alive,” a German prisoner told a British war correspondent. “Our machine guns turned loose on it. But the bullets were only blue sparks on the armor.”
Soon thousands of tanks were produced for the British and French, with the Allies producing nearly all the tanks used during the war. When the Americans entered the conflict, they used French-built tanks.
Despite their impressive look, tanks had a number of flaws including:
- Mechanical failure
- They advanced slower than the troops
- They became stuck in the mud
- They became stuck in craters
- Large bullets and shells could puncture the metal of early models
The men operating the tanks also faced challenges. The cabin was hot, deafeningly loud and full of engine fumes. Crew members wore gas masks and chain-mail to avoid asphyxiation and being hit by shrapnel. Tanks also had no radios, so carrier pigeons were the only means of communication.
Khaki University
Near the end of the war, Canada devised an idea, Khaki University, to keep soldiers occupied during down time, steer them away from vice, and prepare them for postwar life.
The program, originally called Khaki College, was the brainchild of Dr. Henry Marshall Tory who reported for the YMCA on the needs of men returning to civilian life. The National Council of the YMCA was active in Europe, setting up facilities for soldiers to enjoy recreation and sports or to conduct Bible studies. Tory recommended that men would benefit greatly from access to education.
Initially, courses were taught by chaplains but soon were instructed by professors, officers and men who held teaching degrees. Libraries also were established. The Canadian government recognized the program in September 1918 as a formal educational institution and it became a university.
Classes were held in army camps and hospitals throughout France and Britain. They ranged from self-study and hands-on training to study groups and formal lectures. Students could fill any gap in their skill set, from learning to how read to university-level courses. Credits earned could be applied to any educational institution back home. Textbooks were approved in Canada before being sent to Europe, and certificates were awarded upon completion of courses.
Among the courses offered were:
- High school matriculation
- Agriculture
- Foreign languages
- Cooking
- Science
- Speaking
- Business management
- Singing
- Teaching programs
- Mechanics
- Medicine
- Law
- Banking
- Composition
- Shorthand
For many men, education brought them hope. For some, it allowed them to restart civilian life with their skills sharp. For others, it was the start of a new life full of opportunity; 3,000 men learned how to read and write. By Armistice, 20,000 men were taking classes.
In addition, English women taught classes in homemaking to women who had married Canadian or who planned to move to Canada after the war.
Postwar study was divided into two semesters: October 1918-January 1919 and February-May 1919. The soldiers all were demobilized by June 1919, and Khaki University closed. By the time all the soldiers returned home, 50,000 had attended classes, 1,000 at university level.
Kinmel Park Riots
The Canadian Corps served admirably in World War I. One thing, however, marred its reputation: the Kinmel Park riots.
After Armistice, there was no official policy to send the troops home. The Canadian army and government disagreed over the best course of action. The government wanted a “first over, first back” system while Gen. Currie believed it was better for discipline, and for the communities back home, if repatriation happened according to military unit. Currie’s view won out. Canadian Corps was moved to England and Wales. There, the men waited months for demobilization and the return voyage back home.
The return-home strategy did not go smoothly. Ships were needed to transport 267,813 men and 54,000 dependents home; 50,000 people were supposed to be sent home monthly. The first ships, provided by the British government, proved to be too small to meet this demand. Inclement weather and British workers’ strikes only complicated matters.
In Canada, there were infrastructure problems. Ships had only two ports to enter the country. The nation’s other ports either were ice covered or too small. The railroads would only commit 25,000 spaces to transport the soldiers and their families.
It would take an estimated 18 months to get everyone back to Canada.
The process of sending entire units home meant some soldiers who had never even served on the frontline went home before those who had been in Europe for four and a half years. This caused resentment. Men kept busy with military drills, Khaki University and playing sports, but eventually they grew restless, and there were 13 incidents of unrest after Armistice.
The worst was the Kinmel Park Riots in Wales. At Kinmel, 17,400 service troops awaited repatriation. Combat troops were housed at other camps.
The men were upset for several reasons:
- Overcrowded facilities
- Being fed half rations
- No pay in a month
- Price gouging at the nearby “Tin Town” where they purchased goods and frequented pubs
- Harsh weather during one of the coldest winters in recent Welsh history
- The men at Kinmel were scheduled to leave, but the 3rd Infantry was sent home before them
At every camp, Canadian troops were upset because:
- 30 different forms, totaling 360 questions, needed filled out before returning home
- Ships were reallocated to take home the Americans who had been in Europe for a significantly shorter time
- The availability of ships in February had been inadequate with some voyages being either postponed or cancelled
The Kinmel Park Riots began March 4, 1919 and continued into the following day. It began as looting before growing into a riot of 200 men. When it was over, property was damaged, five men were dead and 23 were wounded. Some were arrested. The dead were buried next to approximately 200 solders who had died of the Spanish flu pandemic.
The British press sensationalized the riots. Nonetheless, the event did help the government arrange for a more efficient means to return a larger number of troops home.
This article is part of the reader's guide for The WWI Trilogy by Melina Druga. The trio of historical fiction books follow nurse Hettie and her family as they deal with the challenges and heartbreak the Great War brings.