Canadian Corps

Several Canadian ambulances are located at Caen but escape injury.

there joins the canadian corps about this time a young staff officer lent by the british army who at once makes himself very popular this is his royal highness the prince of wales some of us had apprehensions of an atmosphere of swank and embarrassment but these are speedily set at rest he lives like any other staff officer in an armstrong hut and soon he is a familiar figure chatting freely with both officers and men and it is not long before g s o number two is regarded as a distinct acquisition to corps he brings with him a charm and vivacity of manner one thought of his grandfather king edward that sets us all at our ease an unstudied courtesy and friendly interest that breaks down the most crusted reserve with a keenness for his work that at times must be a source of anxiety to those responsible for his well-being for he is never so happy as when rotting around the front line and has a way of slipping off by himself and paying unexpected visits to battalion and company headquarters it is after one of these when his host was clearly overcome by the honor unexpectedly thrust upon him that he remarks he couldn't have been afraid of me it must have been the name so through several weeks he weaves his unconscious charm and when he comes to leave us it is with reluctance on his part and regret on ours for not even the sternest democrat among us whether officer or man in the ranks can long resist a winning personality whose frankness disarms while his natural unassuming bearing wins confidence and even affection it is a valuable experience on both sides citizens of a democratic country like canada are accustomed to the aloof detachment and cultivated superiority of their great ones in a word to the snobbishness of wealth and power and it is a delightful contrast to find in the heir to the throne a fine simplicity and the easy assumption of equality among soldiers and friends this impression is so genuine so spontaneous that one hears his praises on every hand gentlemen the prince of wales will dine with us to-morrow night and i want you all to be in your places this injunction of the mess president was not needed and that evening will always be remembered by members of the friendly c mess as a most delightful experience most of us might be described by the ungenerous as old fogies but that night we refurbished our youth and gave the prince a good old-fashioned canadian welcome it is at caen that news comes to the canadian corps of the armistice proposals enemy accepts unconditionally wilson's terms agrees to evacuate and asks for an immediate armistice i don't think we'll listen to that for a while everything is going fine and the spirit of our men is splendid comments an officer of the 5th CMR, first to enter Cambrai, where the news reached him.

We must have an unconditional surrender, or in two months' time he will be ready to start at us again.

And one of his men adds, We lads have been at it a long time, but we want to see it through even if we stay six months or a year.

For the revolving treads carry on their upper surfaces deposits of earth.

On these little gardens have sprung up the seed borne by birds and the wind.

They resemble miniature kindergarten classes, for on this roof of steel now flourish grass and clover, bindweed and buttercup, daisies and ragged robin, even through her broken tractor a little beech-tree struggles good tank solon you did not achieve that eminence and there render your life until your task was done for even as you floundered and stopped there came the sharp yell of the infantry as they fell upon the boche gunners with bayonet and bomb within a stone's throw to the left where the raised road gives protection lies an enemy five point nine inch battery position shells already fused stand in place but the guns are on their way to the canadian corps captured gun park a light railway turns up to the battery from fontaine notre dame most of the dugouts are unfurnished and blind the boche was packing in for the winter even as we fell upon him on the west end of the wood is a wonderful opip built up into the trees commanding a wide sweep of country in front of the marquion line and the canal de nor nearby are two eight-inch guns captured by bing the previous november but not removed and still lying there rusted and impressive The top of the wood, intact though it seems from a distance, is blasted.

Only splintered trunks remain, and these too must die.

Part 1.

Preface and Chapter 1 of Canada's 100 Days with the Canadian Corps from Amiens to Mons.

August 8 to November 11, 1918.

This is a LibriVox recording.

Preface and Chapter 1.

Preface.

This book has been written to give the Canadian people a clear, fuller concept of the wonderful work of the Canadian Corps during the 100 days.

To that consideration, every other has been subordinated.

For the ones who get it done.

BATTLE PIECES On September 28, Canadian Corps headquarters moved from Nouvelle Vitesse into what had been an enemy headquarters situated in the heart of the Ducour-Cannes line, half a mile east of Cannes.

The new camp is on rising ground and remains fairly dry even in wet weather, a pleasant change from our previous quarters.

the enemy had here constructed elaborate dugouts thirty feet below the surface with commodious canvas-lined rooms but for the most part the staff works and sleeps in tents grouped in and about a little wood the whole camouflaged against air observation The enemy persistently shells our railhead at Caen with a long-distance gun, whose shell at stated intervals goes whining over the camp.

Little damage is done, though one shell lands in the lines of the corps garage.

Several Canadian ambulances are located at Caen but escape injury.

there joins the canadian corps about this time a young staff officer lent by the british army who at once makes himself very popular this is his royal highness the prince of wales some of us had apprehensions of an atmosphere of swank and embarrassment but these are speedily set at rest he lives like any other staff officer in an armstrong hut and soon he is a familiar figure chatting freely with both officers and men and it is not long before g s o number two is regarded as a distinct acquisition to corps he brings with him a charm and vivacity of manner one thought of his grandfather king edward that sets us all at our ease an unstudied courtesy and friendly interest that breaks down the most crusted reserve with a keenness for his work that at times must be a source of anxiety to those responsible for his well-being for he is never so happy as when rotting around the front line and has a way of slipping off by himself and paying unexpected visits to battalion and company headquarters it is after one of these when his host was clearly overcome by the honor unexpectedly thrust upon him that he remarks he couldn't have been afraid of me it must have been the name so through several weeks he weaves his unconscious charm and when he comes to leave us it is with reluctance on his part and regret on ours for not even the sternest democrat among us whether officer or man in the ranks can long resist a winning personality whose frankness disarms while his natural unassuming bearing wins confidence and even affection it is a valuable experience on both sides citizens of a democratic country like canada are accustomed to the aloof detachment and cultivated superiority of their great ones in a word to the snobbishness of wealth and power and it is a delightful contrast to find in the heir to the throne a fine simplicity and the easy assumption of equality among soldiers and friends this impression is so genuine so spontaneous that one hears his praises on every hand gentlemen the prince of wales will dine with us to-morrow night and i want you all to be in your places this injunction of the mess president was not needed and that evening will always be remembered by members of the friendly c mess as a most delightful experience most of us might be described by the ungenerous as old fogies but that night we refurbished our youth and gave the prince a good old-fashioned canadian welcome it is at caen that news comes to the canadian corps of the armistice proposals enemy accepts unconditionally wilson's terms agrees to evacuate and asks for an immediate armistice i don't think we'll listen to that for a while everything is going fine and the spirit of our men is splendid comments an officer of the 5th CMR, first to enter Cambrai, where the news reached him.

We must have an unconditional surrender, or in two months' time he will be ready to start at us again.

But by 1941, the public, politicians, and military officials wanted to see Canada do its part on land.

There were sort of echoes of the success of the Canadian Corps from World War I, and this cast a long shadow over thoughts of Canada's land participation in this world war.

Thus, be it pressure from Grasset, Criar, or even the Canadian public and politicians who wanted to see Canada involved in a land fight, it was eventually decided to send two battalions to Hong Kong.

This numbered roughly 2,000 men, including two female nurses.

By some estimates, three quarters of French troops and nearly half of all British troops fell ill during this period, exacerbating the sense of panic among Allied commanders and perhaps contributing to early German successes.

As we've seen previously, the ability of the Canadian Corps to maintain its pool of manpower was one of its key advantages that made the Canadians so valuable to the British in the final phase of the war.

At least in part, that was due to the severe manpower crunch inflicted by influenza in the spring.

But while the British and French troops may have been hit first, the disease quickly jumped the trench line.

His heart labors visibly under his bared chest.

Thus the Canadian Corps, after nine days' intense fighting, culminating in the capture of the Drocourt-Cayenne line, abandon itself to rest.

But it is a rest of a comparative kind only.

The cessation of hand-to-hand fighting, but not relief from the perils of war.

Presently, perhaps, where we lie, the Bosch will make a stand, and we shall dig in, for the winter, the winter, the winter, the abominable winter.

Such a feeling in early September is natural, inevitable, but it may be here noted that much the same idea obtained until well on into October, until indeed weeks after the Bosch had made his first proposals for an armistice.

To take a still greater leap ahead, few men in the Canadian Corps believed in the armistice as an accomplished fact on the very night before it was promulgated.

The reason for this lay no doubt in the fact that it was the fortune of the Canadian Corps to be fighting its way hard right up to what one may term the zero hour of peace.