Tag Archives: WWI

He Suffered for Nothing in The Great War: The Aftermath of the Shell-Shocked Soldier in the Post-War Western World

February 4, 2024 J.M. Stephens 2 Comments

By Cameron Telch

Cam Telch holds a Master Of Arts and a Master of Education and is a doctoral student in the Faculty of Education at Mount Saint Vincent University. Cam has also volunteered at The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada Regimental Museum and Archive.

Originally published in the Royal Canadian Military Institute’s Sitrep January-February 2024 Volume 84, Number 1. Reprinted with the author’s permission.

Introduction

The Canadian Centre for the Great War (CCGW) in Montreal is dedicated to preserving Canada’s memory of the Great War. Creating numerous virtual and in-person exhibitions, the CCGW has covered all aspects of the war, including the confinement of enemy populations in Canada, the demobilization of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, and female nurses and medicine. At the beginning of 2023, the CCGW developed its latest online and travelling exhibition, Shell Shocked: The Long Road to Recovery.

Shell Shocked analyses the Canadian and some British narratives of shell shock. Covering the history of shell shock into five categories, they include “In the Trenches,” “Treatment,” “Malingerers,” “Armistice,” and “PTSD.” “In the Trenches” covers the connection between conflict and nervous breakdown; “Treatment” examines traditional and modern methods of psychiatry; “Malingerers” is the marginalization of shell-shocked soldiers; “Armistice,” is the aftermath of shell shock in post-war Canada; lastly, “PTSD” is the historical relationship between shell shock and PTSD. The CCGW’s exhibit argues that all soldiers and officers, regardless of social standing, were susceptible to a nervous breakdown during the war.

During the fall of 2023, the RCMI acquired Shell Shocked from the Lethbridge Military Museum in Alberta. While the exhibition covers a broad range of topics, this article will focus on the aftermath of shell shock in the post-war Western world. Shell Shocked reveals that two new schools of thought emerged during the war. The former was led by Dr. W.H.R. Rivers who argued that shell shock was a product of the war and developed treatments where shell-shocked victims were encouraged to discuss their trauma. Clarence B. Farrar, Chief Psychiatrist, the leading authority of the latter for the Department of Soldiers’ Civil Re-establishment of Canada, asserted that shell shock was a condition of a weakened character deficiency or poor genetics. While the war did lead to the great shell shock debate, and often produced revolutionary new ideas toward the foundation of psychology, the latter school of thought about shell shock emerged, unfortunately, as the dominant position in Canada and Britain and, to some extent, in the United States after the war. As a result, shell-shocked veterans became victims of prejudice. This article will argue from a larger perspective in order to demonstrate that marginalization of shell-shocked veterans was not solely a Canadian phenomenon.

The Official View of Shell Shock After the Great War

After the war, the question of shell shock lingered in the post-war Western world. Debates continued regarding the origin, diagnosis, and treatment of shell shock. The British government investigated the nature of shell shock with the 1922 Report of the War Office Committee Enquiry into Shell-Shock to try and settle the debate. Investigated and led by Lord Southborough in April 1920, the committee, including men who maintained traditional beliefs about mental illness, called forth fifty-nine witnesses to give evidence on shell shock, including army officers, psychologists, neurologists, and army doctors who treated shell-shocked soldiers, both on the Western Front and in Britain. After two years of testimony, and with the release of the final report in 1922, the committee recognized, to an extent, the need for psychological therapies to treat nervous soldiers; that doctors must acquire some understanding of psychology, and soldiers must be granted shorter periods of frontline service including constant rotation, and be sent home frequently to prevent nervous breakdowns.

While the 1922 document certainly contained some groundbreaking conclusions, they were overshadowed by the committee’s conservative beliefs about mental illness. The British War Office recommended that the term shell shock be abolished from the official military language, that nervous casualties not be listed as combat wounds, and that soldiers should receive better training to create a high spirit of morale to combat nervousness. As Lord Southborough’s committee concluded: “The most likely type of man for ‘shellshock’ is the brooding, introspective, self-analyzing man, the type who in the last war was constantly estimating his chance of survival, and whose imagination added the terrors of the future to those of the present.” Southborough’s committee disregarded the lived combat experiences of shell-shocked soldiers and officers. It unanimously decided that shell shock was a pre-existing condition that affected men with lesser masculine qualities, including those who easily succumbed to fear. It appeared that the lessons acquired from the war, including that every soldier and officer can have a breakdown in combat, were dismissed in favour of this new interpretation of shell shock.

The results from Southborough’s committee had far-reaching implications throughout the British Empire. In Canada, some doctors echoed a similar stance to that of their British counterparts. Sir Andrew (Dr.) Macphail, Canada’s official Great War historian, said: “that shell-shock is a manifestation of childishness and femininity and that against such there is no remedy; that hysteria is the most epidemical of all diseases.” Dr. Macphail, along with other Canadian medical authorities, contended that masculinity meant the suppression of emotions, and it was born on the battlefield. As Macphail thought, shell shock reverted its victims to a child-like mentality as they broke down crying, wet the bed, screamed when left alone at night, and panicked easily. He believed that shell-shocked men became overly hysterical as they “were not fit for the hard business of war.” In reality, the average shell-shocked Canadian soldier was 27 years old. In some ways, Macphail was correct to portray grown men as children as the image of “the early twentieth-century madman was widely held to be either dangerous or ridiculous.” While it was easier to depict shell-shocked veterans as boys to generate greater public compassion, the problem that Macphail implied was that they were grown men who required motherly affection, as he believed that shell shock deprived its victims of their manhood.

Throughout the mid-1920s, other experts in the United States interpreted shell shock differently. One expert, Dr. Frederick W. Parsons, of the New York State Hospital Commission, offered a radical view on it. Parsons denied the existence of shell shock, arguing “that there is no such thing as shell shock” from a psychological perspective. Parson still interpreted shell shock as a bodily injury from the result of an artillery explosion. Fear was the underlying reason why some soldiers broke down, despite the stoic state of the “soldier veteran who never complained of shell shock [as] real soldiers, the men who went through the crucible, never made a joke of a comrade laid up with shell shock.” For the shell-shocked veteran of the 1920s, their combat experiences were again undermined by this view. Shell shock was believed to be an example of mass hysteria where some soldiers panicked easily and could undoubtedly influence the behaviour of their comrades. Explaining shell shock from a physical point of view meant that wounds were attributed to their condition; Parson’s denial of shell shock from a mental health perspective indicated that there were no visible injuries to suggest otherwise.

The Shell-Shocked Veterans’ Experience

During the early 1920s, there was heightened anxiety in Britain that shell shock led to a surge in crimes among veterans. In February 1920, The Vancouver Sun reported that a former British officer shot and killed a bank manager during a robbery in Leeds. The same paper also relayed that, in a similar case, another robbery was committed by a veteran in Newcastle. The Vancouver Sun made it apparent that shell shock might make “[a] man (…) not know what he is doing and has left men weak-willed.” The debate that emerged during this period was that shell-shocked veterans were not in control of their actions when a crime was committed. Rather, they were the unfortunate victims of their mental tendencies. This image of the shell-shocked veteran probably created uneasiness among some Britons, who feared that they might not be held accountable for their crimes and used mental illness as their justification. However, not all people believed that the shell-shocked veteran would not be held accountable in the legal system. The Gazette conveyed that a report from the commissioners of prisons and the directors of convict prisons in Britain said, “shell shock [is] an excuse for criminal acts.” As this report argued, prosecuting and convicting shell-shocked veterans would send a clear message that they were not victims of their mental symptoms but had every intention to commit the crime for their own gain, whether it was robbery or fraud. The report communicated one message to the public: the shell-shocked ex-serviceman is highly unpredictable and menacing.

With the end of hostilities, Canadian veterans expected to receive their fair share from the state in the form of a pension. But those veterans with invisible wounds were at a massive disadvantage compared to ex-servicemen with physical injuries. Several government organizations were established between 1916 and 1918 to assist returning soldiers. The first of these was the Board of Pension Commissioners (BPC), created in 1916, to assist wounded soldiers who were ineligible to return to the workforce, and which eventually administered a pension system by 1918. The Department of Soldiers’ Civil Re-establishment (DSCR) was created in 1918 to evaluate the injuries of returning servicemen and determine the kind of medical treatment and job training they required. The DSCR submitted the medical forms of returned soldiers to the BPC, which determined their pension eligibility. Canadian veterans with a missing limb or in a sling or cast were granted a pension as their injuries proved beyond doubt that their injuries were war-related. Those veterans with shell shock and other mental health disorders experienced greater struggles as there was no evidence to suggest that their mental wounds were attributable to their service. One medical officer at the Ontario Military Hospital in Cobourg, Ontario dismissed shell shock as “simply exaggerated” as a special “kind of medical evidence” was required to qualify for a pension. The challenges of shell-shocked veterans were unparalleled since it was difficult to acquire a source of income, whether pension or job, to support themselves and their families. As The Calgary Daily Herald exemplifies, “a returned man, made a physical wreck through shell shock watches the mail hopefully twice a day for the pension which never comes. Until it does come, he and his two halfstarved little boys must have enough food and warmth to sustain them.”

During the Great War, there was a stigma in the Allied medical community that shell shock caused its sufferers to go insane. That same stigma was still associated with shell shock after 1918. In Canada, there is some evidence to suggest that some shell-shocked soldiers were admitted to lunatic asylums during the war. After the war, there are scant statistics in the archives about how many Canadian veterans with shell shock were declared insane and confined to mental institutions. While the reality is not as clear in Canada, the situation of shell-shocked veterans in Britain created a fulsome image. In Britain, as many as 5,000 or 6,000 British veterans with shell shock and other mental health disorders were sent to lunatic asylums. The situation for British veterans was gloomy, it was almost as if the British government absolved itself of caring for its citizen-veterans. The circumstances concerning the families of shell-shocked veterans were more demoralizing as some families could not handle the challenges, including screaming and violent outbursts, brought upon by their shell-shocked loved ones; to preserve their sanity, some families abandoned their loved ones and admitted them to lunatic asylums, where some veterans spent the remainder of their life.

Conclusion

Historian Martin Stone argued that the Great War was a watershed moment for the development and advancement of mental health. While it is certainly true that the war led to some groundbreaking psychiatric treatment methods, including talking therapies, the need for a quiet environment, diet, and rest, it appeared that the lessons of the war were forgotten during the post-war years. With the Second World War, the mental health lessons and treatments of the First World War had to be rediscovered and relearned. Even with the Vietnam War and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the cycle of rediscovery and relearning occurred yet again. With the endless pattern of violence and conflict throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, soldiers and officers of Western armies must suffer psychologically for the lessons of the past to be realized.

The CCGW’s Shell Shocked showcases the Canadian experience of shell shock but also touches upon the British experience. While highlighting the many commonalities between the Canadian and British experiences of shell shock, including combat and breakdown, the stigma of mental health, and the aftermath of shell-shocked veterans at the end of the Great War, Shell Shocked also demonstrates traditional and modern attitudes about mental health. The war was a clash of thinking between old and new ideas. This article argued that mental health attitudes did not change after the war, as the old way of thinking lingered. Shell-shocked soldiers were the victims of prejudice by the medical community during the war as they were mostly perceived as cowards, malingerers, or insane. While their service might have held personal significance in 1914, the war eventually changed by December 1914 as it became one of survival and attrition. From 1915 onwards, the service of shell-shocked soldiers to the Canadian Expeditionary Force and British Expeditionary Force meant almost nothing if they were to be treated quickly by doctors, only to return to the same inhumane conditions, including mud, rain, sleet, rats, lack of sleep, and constant artillery bombardments in their trenches, all of which was responsible for their breakdown, but rejected by many medical personnel. Even in the years after the war, many shell-shocked veterans were cast aside by the Canadian and British governments, receiving the same kind of treatment they underwent during the war. Deprived of the promise that the Canadian and British governments would care for their citizen-veterans, many shell-shocked veterans were left to their own devices to cope with their broken minds. They resorted to heavy drinking, or were confined, in some cases, for decades in mental asylums. Some also committed suicide, or existed on the fringes of their respective societies. Shell-shocked veterans truly suffered for nothing during and after the war, only to become marginalized and outcast in the official historiography of the Great War.

First World War 3rd Battalion Executions

December 21, 2023 J.M. Stephens 1 Comment

Twenty-five Canadian soldiers were executed during the First World War: twenty-two for desertion, one for cowardice, and two for murder.

In 2001, the Canadian government added the names of those executed for desertion and cowardice during the war to the Book of Remembrance at Parliament Hill. (See full speech by the Minister of Veteran Affairs below.)

In 2006, the British parliament granted an official pardon to all soldiers of the British and Dominion forces.

Two executed soldiers served with the 3rd Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force which The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada perpetuates.

Pte. Côme Laliberté

Côme Laliberté was born on 24 March 1893 in Lotbinière Quebec, the son of Ludger Laliberté (deceased in 1907) and Eugénie Hamel, of Montréal, Québec.

He served with the 22e Battalion (service number 61703) from October 24, 1914, to March 3, 1915, and was released due to his conduct.

Three days later in March, he re-enlisted in the 41st Battalion (stating being born in Lotbinière in 1893), travelling with them to England in June 1915.

Before the end of 1915, Laliberté already had several entries on his conduct sheet.

Date	Offence	Punishment
29 June 1915	Drunkenness	Fined 2 days’ pay
5 August 1915	Absent Without Leave (AWOL)	Fined 2 days’ pay
10 September 1915	Out of barracks with a pass and improperly dressed	7 days Field Punishment No. 1

On moving up to the trenches during the Summer of 1916, as part of the 3rd Battalion’s contribution to the battles around Mount Sorrel, Laliberté left the ranks and refused to go forward. He was tried for desertion, found guilty and sentenced to death by shooting.

On 4 August 1916, Laliberté (aged 23) was executed by firing squad. His remains are now located in Poperinghe New Military Cemetery, Plot II, Row H, Grave 3.

Pte. Edward James Reynolds

Edward James Reynolds was born on 2 January 1896 in Toronto. In April 1915, Reynolds enlisted in the 35th Battalion. By November 1915, Reynolds was a member of the 3rd Battalion in the line near Ploegsteert.

On 25 July 1916, the Germans exploded a mine under a portion of the front line called “The Bluff”. The 3rd Battalion was ordered forward to plug the resulting gap in the front line. However, Reynolds fell out from his platoon only to be found 2 days later at his battalion’s transport lines. Reynolds claimed that he had been ordered back and got lost. This excuse was accepted.

During the following night (26 July 1916), Reynolds was ordered to accompany a ration party up to the front line. Again Reynolds fell out and went back to his battalion’s transport lines. This time Reynolds was arrested and charged with desertion. He was found guilty by a court-martial and sentenced to death.

At 05:27 on 23 August 1916, Reynolds (aged 20) was executed by firing squad. His remains are now located in Longuenesse Souvenir Cemetery, Plot IV, Row A, Grave 39.

It is of interest that both the Toronto Star and the Toronto Telegram reported at the time that Reynolds had been killed in action.

Speech by the Hon. Ronal Duhamel, December 11th, 2001:

Mr. Speaker, hon. colleagues, I rise in the Chamber to speak about the First World War and the fate of some Canadian soldiers, a fate that has been essentially forgotten in the pages of history.

For the young nation of Canada, the promise and optimism that infused the dawning 20th century was abruptly cut short by the First World War. No one anticipated such carnage, or that we would soon be sending young citizens into a war that would see 65 million people from 30 nations take up arms, where 10 million people would lose their lives and 29 million more would be wounded, captured or missing.

Never before had there been such a war, neither in the number of lives taken, nor in the manner of their taking. New weapons would turn fields of battle into slaughter grounds, while the rigours of life in the trenches would kill many of those who escaped bullet or bayonet.

This “war to end all wars” challenged our small country of 8 million to its limits. Almost 650,000 served in the Canadian Forces in the Great War. Over 68,000—more than one in ten who fought—did not return. Total casualties amounted to more than one third of those who were in uniform. Thousands came home broken in body, mind, and spirit.

The service of Canadians in uniform was as remarkable as it was distinguished. History records their sacrifice in places whose names resonate even to the present day. Battle names such as Ypres, The Somme, Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele and Amiens.

Those who lived then and the historians who followed would declare that Canada came of age because of its actions and ingenuity during World War I.

But where history speaks of national sacrifice and achievement, it is too often silent on the individual stories of triumph, tragedy and terror of those who fought and died on the terrible killing fields of France and Belgium.

Those who went to war at the request of their nation could not know the fate that lay in store for them. This was a war of such overwhelming sound, fury and unrelenting horror that few combatants could remain unaffected.

For the majority of the Canadians who took up arms and paid the ultimate sacrifice, we know little of their final moments, except that they died in defence of freedom.

Today I want to talk about 23 of our fallen. I would like to tell the House about these soldiers because these circumstances were quite extraordinary. These 23 soldiers of the Canadian Expeditionary Force occupy an unusual position in our military history. They were lawfully executed for military offences such as desertion and, in one case, cowardice.

We can revisit the past but we cannot recreate it. We cannot relive those awful years of a nation at peril in total war, and the culture of that time is subsequently too distant for us to comprehend fully.

We can, however, do something in the present, in a solemn way, aware now, better than before, that people may lose control of their emotions, have a breakdown for reasons over which they have little control. For some it would have been known today perhaps as post-traumatic stress disorder.

To give these 23 soldiers a dignity that is their due and to provide a closure for their families, as the Minister of Veterans Affairs on behalf of the Government of Canada, I wish to express my deep sorrow at their loss of life, not because of what they did or did not do but because they too lie in foreign fields where poppies blow amid the crosses row on row.

While they came from different regions of Canada, they all volunteered to serve their country in its citizen-army, and that service and the hardships they endured prior to their offences will be recorded and unremembered no more.

Allow me to enter their names into the record of the House: Quartermaster Sergeant William Alexander, Bombadier Frederick Arnold, Private Fortunat Auger, Private Harold Carter, Private Gustave Comte, Private Arthur Dagesse, Private Leopold Délisle, Private Edward Fairburn, Private Stephen Fowles, Private John Higgins, Private Henry Kerr, Private Joseph La Lalancette, Private Come Laliberté, Private W. Norman Ling, Private Harold Lodge, Private Thomas Moles, Private Eugene Perry, Private Edward Reynolds, Private John Roberts, Private Dimitro Sinizki, Private Charles Welsh, Private James Wilson and Private Elsworth Young.

We remember those who have been largely forgotten. For over 80 years, they have laid side by side with their fallen comrades in the cemeteries of France and Belgium.

I am announcing today in the Chamber that the names of these 23 volunteers will be entered into The First World War Book of Remembrance along with those of their colleagues. Adding the names of these citizen soldiers to the pages of this sacred book, which lies in the Memorial Chamber not far from here, will be a fair and just testament to their service, their sacrifice and our gratitude forevermore.

Lest we forget.

With info from Wikipedia, the Canadian War Museum and OpenParliament.ca

First World War

Making Connections to the Past

December 14, 2017 J.M. Stephens Leave a comment

I would presume that most people working in museums inherently believe that preserving history is important – I would certainly hope so at least. And while preservation can be a monumental task all on its own, it’s really only half of the challenge. The real value comes in being able to share this history – to make it accessible in some ways.

When we think of museums, the first method of achieving this that usually comes to mind is through exhibits. Visitors can see – and in some cases touch – real artefacts and are provided with additional background, context and perspectives to better understand the history we present.

This might be considered the ideal approach and while over 350,000 people visit our museum’s exhibits each year, we also know that many people around the world with some link with our Regiment, may never get that opportunity. With that in mind, we’ve tried to digitize much of our collection and make it available online, here on our website, on our Flickr site (over 10,000 photos currently), Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. And we’ve also made our collection catalogue available online as well with images and descriptions of almost 2,000 objects entered to date.

All of this takes an incredible amount of work and coordination, and most of our volunteer team have contributed to this effort in some way or another. But I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to occasionally wondering if anyone actually accesses any of this information, and if all this work is worth it. The stats tell us that our Flickr site has had over 1,000,000 views and our website gets about 80,000 page views annually which is very exciting but still somewhat impersonal.

Occasionally though we get comments on our website about how the information helped them connect with a relative or letting us know they have more information to share – even objects to donate, and those always seem to make our efforts worthwhile.

Last month though, we received an email that couldn’t help but recharge the whole museum team:

“My name is Liz Grogan and I am the granddaughter of Sgt. J. Lutton 6164.

A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting with my 95 year old mom, John’s middle and only surviving daughter, Kathleen ( Kae) Smith who was browsing through a book I was reading for my book club called “The War that Ended Peace, The Road to 1914” by Margaret MacMillan.

Knowing that her father, my grandfather had been in WW1, I decided to google his name, and you can imagine my surprise and excitement to discover this:

John Lutton WWI Letter to Annie Deyell
This letter in our collection was written in 1917 in England by Sergeant John Lutton, 198th Battalion, to Annie …

I had researched his name prior to Remembrance Day on other occasions , but I had not seen this letter before!

So Mom and I sat together and I read the letter out loud as mom watched the screen. I had not scrolled through to see how long it was, so my thanks to WO Emily Kenny for her hard work!

I can’t express how magical this moment was, that I will never forget. We laughed, we cried and we were simply in awe of having this amazing opportunity to have a personal peek at the life and love between mom’s future mom and dad and my future grandmother and grandfather.

And to reflect that this letter is 100 years old is beyond magical!!”

When I read this email, I couldn’t help but smile and was clearly reminded that our efforts are definitely worthwhile!

Of course Liz was interested in how we came to have the letter. In June a stamp collector in Nova Scotia contacted us because he had this letter in his collection and had found online that we perpetuated the 198th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force. We quickly accepted his offer and the letter was soon in our collection. WO Kenny just happened to be directing staff on a music course at CFB Borden for the summer and offered to transcribe the letter in her spare time so we could put it online. The letter is long and rather rambling, and proper punctuation was not Sgt Lutton’s strong point but she soon had it done and we posted it to our website.

While this was happening we also researched Sgt Lutton’s life and service. While training in England he contacted meningitis and was hospitalized for 6 months before being found unfit for overseas service and returned to Canada where he was hospitalized for another three months. Though he never made it to the trenches of France or Belgium, his story does illustrate the other dangers many soldiers faced from diseases and poor health conditions they faced just getting to the front.

Lutton was lucky enough to recover from his meningitis and married Annie in 1919. He died in 1948 and is buried in Park Lawn Cemetery.

We’re very thankful that Liz took the time to share their experience and to send us the delightful family photo below of Annie and John.

3rd Battalion, Remembrance

Dedication of new markers in the town of Courcelette

August 29, 2016 J.M. Stephens Leave a comment

Once again, the Regiment has worked with its fellow regiments, The Governor General’s Horse Guards (GGHG) and The Royal Regiment of Canada to honour the 3rd Battalion (Toronto Regiment), Canadian Expeditionary Force, which each unit perpetuates.

On May 30th, the GGHG dedicated new markers in the town of Courcelette to commemorate the battle honours of Somme 1916, Pozieres, Flers-Courcelette and Ancre Heights, all costly battles for the 3rd Battalion and the 4th Canadian Mounted Rifles, which the GGHG also perpetuate.

Costs for the memorials are shared between the three regiments. Previous markers commemorate St. Julien and Passchendaele, and a marker for Mount Sorrel was dedicated in June.

3rd Battalion, First World War

Looking for 3rd Battalion CEF Descendants

November 20, 2015 J.M. Stephens 4 Comments

One of the friends of the museum WO (Ret) Bruce Walter CD, sent us a great photo of the HQ Lewis Gun section of the 3rd Canadian Battalion, Toronto Regiment taken on January 1st, 1919 “on the Rhine, Germany”. The photo includes his wife’s grandfather – James Herbert Smith.

Bruce recently wrote to us with an update and a request:

"It's been almost a year since I sent those pictures and I've even met a descendant of one of the guys who served with Leanne's grandfather!   The guy on the far left of the 2nd row is Frank Adderley (mis-spelled on the back).  He sits beside Leanne's grandfather, Herb Smith (2nd from left in the 2nd row).  Maureen Adderley is the granddaughter of Frank and we met her (finally) this past Remembrance Day.  

I'd like to initiate a search to find present day descendants of these men.  I'll be using the information from the back of the picture and also information taken from their Attestation papers.  From there I hope to "reach out" to localities and newspapers.  I was wondering if you could initiate an item on the QOR web page in case there are any descendants still contact with the QOR (or possibly still serving)!"

So we’re doing just that. Below is the information from the back of the photograph about the soldiers.

If you have any information that you think might be able to help Bruce, you can contact him directly via email by clicking here.

Service #	Name	Initials	Address	Town
138005	BESSO	J.W.	30 Murial or 30 ½ Hebet Ave	Toronto
1096162	CHURNSIDE	F.	464 Euclid Ave	Toronto
916307	WILKES	T.E.		Lovering, Ont
757560	ISHERWOOD	S.	34 Primrose Ave	Hamilton
800109	BRIGGS	J.	Box 17	Holland Landing
202004	WINDLE	F.W.	2 Fermenaugh Ave	Toronto
201523	ADDERLEY	F.d.S.	19 Lyall Ave	Toronto
785103	SMITH	J.H.	443 Wilson St	Hamilton
A4197	SHARLAND	T.S.	2185 Gerrard St. E.	Toronto
139211	WIGGINS	W.R.	1032 Ossington Ave	Toronto
757162	PAGE	T.W.		Bronte, Ont
784781	LEWIS	C.	172 East 23^rd St	Mt Hamilton
238196	HOUCHEN	E.V.	c/o W.J.H. Miller RR2 No. 8	St Thomas
669487	KERBY	W.D.		Copleston, Ont

First World War, Remembrance

“It is Written” painting on loan to our museum

September 28, 2015 J.M. Stephens 1 Comment

This summer we were pleased to accept a loan of the spectacular painting It is Written by Brian Lorimer. The loan was facilitated by Honorary Lieutenant Colonel Brendan Caldwell on behalf of the Caldwell Foundation which owns the 5′ x 6′ painting which now hangs in our Riflemen Room. LCol Caldwell also donated a copy of the beautiful Project Remembrance book to the museum library.

Providing a glimpse into one of the more mundane yet psychologically important aspects of a soldier’s life, It is Written represents a soldier engaged in the quiet pastime of writing a letter home.

The canvas is inscribed with one-time Rifleman John McCrae’s “In Flanders Fields”. This canonical war poem was penned from the back of an ambulance after McCrae’s friend Alexis Helmer died as the result of wounds sustained in the Second Battle of Ypres and is perhaps the most well-known English-language poem of the Great War.

Project Remembrance is a fine art collection by Canadian painter Brian Lorimer that inspires remembrance and commemorates the centenary of the onset of The First World War. The paintings are a fresh and compelling rendering of the Canadian experience of the Great War, describing moments of individual fortitude and trial. More than that, they are a call to Canadians to consider and draw inspiration from the strength of character exhibited by our soldiers.

Their mission is to preserve, promote and celebrate Canadian history and heritage through the powerful medium of art. Their goal is to raise funds to assist in the betterment of Military personnel and their families. Funds raised with the support of Project Remembrance, individual and corporate donations are provided directly to the Support Our Troops Program.

If you would like to support Project Remembrance, you can purchase copies of the work as framed or unframed on paper, reproduced on canvas, as art cards or the book, via their online store.

We are extremely grateful to the Caldwell Foundation for this loan and encourage you to view it on your next visit to the museum!

3rd Battalion, First World War

100th Anniversary of the 2nd Battle of Ypres

April 24, 2015 J.M. Stephens 3 Comments

Major Adam Saunders is a Queen’s Own Rifles officer currently posted to 32 Brigade Headquarters. His grandfather Thomas Cully, served in D Company, 3rd Toronto Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force. This article was written by Adam while in Belgium.

Most of the participants eyes were watering, as the scene at Vancouver Corner was an emotional one. The tears were from being lost in another time while listening to Belgian school children signing songs of peace and remembrance. One hundred years earlier the tears at this place were a result of the effects of the first industrial scale gas attack in history. Here we stood at the Vancouver Corner Memorial at 5 pm on April 22nd, 2015, lost in the nightmarish reflections of 5 pm on the 22nd of April 1915 when the German Army unleashed chlorine gas against the French portion of the Ypres salient. Canadians immediately felt the effects of the ensuing attack by the German ground troops. The French line had broken and the Canadian flank was ripped open.

Today school children, diplomats, history books, photos, the land itself all reflect the scars from 100 years earlier. The Canadian ambassador to Belgium, together side by side with the German ambassador to Belgium, laid a wreath at the foot of the Brooding Soldier monument on the 100th Anniversary. It was a fitting union of remembrance and forgiveness. The children sang songs of forgiveness, but nothing tells the story like the tens of thousands of graves and a few massive memorials in the Ypres salient marking the final resting places of a generation efficiently mowed down by industrialized warfare.

The Canadian 'Brooding Soldier' memorial was unveiled in 1923 to commemorate the Second Battle of Ypres. — The Canadian ‘Brooding Soldier’ memorial was unveiled in 1923 to commemorate the Second Battle of Ypres.

On April 24th 1915 the Canadians would soon have their turn to experience the full-on effects of chlorine gas. The gas was indiscriminate. It routed out mice and rats and rabbits from their homes in the ground and it strangled sheep and cattle. The gas also kills people. Our troops suffered the full effects of the chlorine gas, just as the French had two days previous. We were better prepared and managed to hold some of the challenged ground and many still hold that very ground. They are included on the lists of the missing and are more than likely in the ground in the area.

For a week previous in 1915, the Canadian 2nd and 3rd brigades had been occupying the front lines of the already infamous Ypres salient. They were tucked between the French on the left and the British on the right. Our 1st Brigade under then Brigadier General Malcolm S. Mercer (of The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada) was held in reserve near Vlamertinghe. Finally after the Division was subjected to six months of awful weather, it was spring. It was a nice day.

Early on April 22nd it was becoming evident a German attack was imminent. The reserve brigade was put on short-notice-to-move a number of times. As pressure mounted throughout the day and that evening on our two brigades in the front line it became necessary to push the 1st brigade forward into the evolving battle. The battalions of the 1st brigade (1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th) were sent forward in pairs. The 1st and the 4th engaged in a heroic action up Mauser Ridge to establish some kind of viable flank to protect against the rapidly advancing Germans. The French army had all but ceased to be an effective force due to the initial gas attack and the Canadians had to re-establish some semblance of a protracted defensive line.

The 2nd and 3rd battalions crossed the Yser canal at pontoon bridge number 4, in the dark moving past Essex Farm where John McCrea’s medical teams were at the ready. They marched cross country past the ongoing flanking attacks of Geddes detachment and the 1st and 4th. As the 3rd advanced towards Mousetrap Farm which was the 3rd Brigade HQ, they suffered their first casualties from German artillery fire. Those who were killed were immediately buried and those wounded were the first guests of the newly established forward medical aide stations, manned by stretchers bearers, medics and battalion Medical Officers.

As the 3rd awaited orders, 400 yards away the 10th and 16th Battalions were ordered forward into the legendary attack of Kitchener’s Wood just before midnight. The battalions formed up in line by company and advanced in the dark towards the woods, using the North Star as navigation reference. They chased the Germans out at bayonet point and recaptured the guns lost by an London Artillery unit days earlier. The 10th and 16th ceased to be effective fighting forces due to the number of casualties they sustained, yet more was expected of them over the next few hours.

C and D companies of the 3rd Battalion under QOR Major Kirkpatrick were ordered to plug a gap in the line between Kitchener’s Wood and St Julien. These men formed up in line by company, and advanced cross-country in short rushes. They came under fire and fought a pitched battle from farm house to farm house. Our men dug in under fire and under cover of darkness. Many officers and men had been killed. From first hand accounts, the officers led from the front and their men bravely followed. In the morning of the 24th it was the Canadians turn to suffer a gas attack. Artillery fire preceded the gas and followed-on after the gas, as did masses of advancing German soldiers. The Germans were flanking the Canadians so the order to retire was given. The men of C and D companies had nowhere to go. Their comrades from A and B companies, just 500 yards away heard the withering fire as they ran out of ammunition and were silenced. Six wounded men had escaped from the two forward companies. The rest were killed, wounded or taken prisoner. The Ross rifles our men were using weren’t up to the task of such a fight.

Upper Canada College First World War prisoners of war including 3rd Battalion's Major Kirkpatrick. — Upper Canada College First World War prisoners of war including 3rd Battalion’s Major Kirkpatrick.

On our right an equally dramatic and heroic battle was taking place with the 13th and 15th battalions. A Victoria Cross was won that day by Corporal Fred Fisher of the 13th. Both battalions faced the gas attack, full on.

For the historians in the crowd we think deeply about the exploits of this one battle and the losses of so many brave souls. It doesn’t seem to make sense now and it was on an unfathomable scale, but our thoughts return to the Belgian school children finishing songs of peace and forgiveness. I stood today for my grandfather Thomas Cully service number 10014 of D Coy. I remember all his pals and their families from the 3rd on the solemn and historical day. I shared the day at this place with a few new and old friends, many of whom were here for the same reason as I. I was here to feel, to remember, to be sad, to look for meaning and to thank goodness for all that we have as Canadians.

Sadly there remain 4 years of such commemorations. We will tire of hearing about WW1 soon enough, yet imagine how tired a generation became of fighting it 100 years ago.

Private Harold Reginald Peat (3rd Battalion), Lieutenant Colonel Pete Anderson, DSO (3rd Battalion) and Sergeant Arthur Gibbons (1st Battalion) each wrote and published first hand accounts of this battle. They are well worth a read. Peat’s “Private Peat“*, Anderson’s “I, That’s Me” and Gibbons’ “A Guest of the Kaiser” are available online at no cost.

Adam Saunders

*Perhaps also worth noting that in 1918 Peat’s book was made into a silent film in which he starred as himself:

“This propaganda picture was based on a book of the same name by Harold R. Peat, and put together inexpensively by Artcraft/Paramount with the help of newsreel footage. Peat, one of the first North Americans to enlist in World War I, was actually a Canadian, but here they make him a red-blooded American. He is alone in the world, except for his girlfriend Mary (Miriam Fouche), and he is anxious to join up when war breaks out. But the army rejects him because of his small chest. He is despondent until he and his friend, Old Bill, concoct a scheme whereby they are both accepted. After a stint in training camp, Harry bids his sweetheart Mary goodbye and accompanies Bill to France. Following several adventures at the front, Bill is killed and Harold, in trying to save a load of ammunition, is wounded. Harold spends some time in a French hospital, after which Mary comes to France to bring her heroic private home.” [from silenthollywood.com]

First World War

RCMI Installs Captain Charles Rutherford’s Pistol

January 8, 2015 J.M. Stephens 4 Comments

Captain Charles Smith Rutherford, VC, MC, MM

The Royal Canadian Military Institute’s museum collection was started in 1890 and it now holds many significant items. For example there is the Colt pistol used by Captain Charles Rutherford, V.C., to capture 80 Germans and 2 machine gun posts, for which he won the Victoria Cross in August 1918. Rutherford was born on a farm in Colborne Ontario on 9 January 1892. He joined The Queen’s Own Rifles in 1916, transferred to the 5th Canadian Mounted Rifles and went off to war.

At 26 years of age, Rutherford was in command of an assault party during the 4th Battle of the Scarpe near Monchy, France on 26 August 1918. He found himself a considerable distance ahead of his men when he confronted a strong enemy party. With a masterful bluff, while brandishing his revolver, he took 45, prisoners including two officers and three machine-guns. The lieutenant then observed gunfire from another pillbox that was holding up the assault, so he attacked with his troops, capturing another 35 prisoners and their guns. The last sentence of his VC citation reads, “The bold and gallant action of this officer contributed very materially to the capture of the main objective and was a wonderful inspiration to all ranks in pressing home the attack on a very strong position”.

On 11 June 1989, C.S. Rutherford was the last winner of the Victoria Cross from World War I to die. He was 97 years of age and is buried at in Union Cemetery, Colborne, Ontario. His story is one to be remembered as his combat revolver goes on display once again.

By Gil Taylor

First World War

Voices of War, Dreams of Peace: The Legacy of the First World War

August 29, 2014 J.M. Stephens Leave a comment

Toronto for Voices of War, Dreams of Peace: The Legacy of the First World War

St. Andrew’s Church on Saturday, October 4 at 7:30 p.m.

Foreign correspondent Brian Stewart, classical music expert Rick Phillips and friends will be featured in an evening of talks, dramatic readings, music and a visual show about the First World War and our community.

Voices of War: Dreams of Peace: The Legacy of the First World War will recall an important period in our history – from 1914 “Toronto the Good” to the wartime stories of St. Andrew’s fallen soldiers and their families – and examine the legacy of “the war to end all wars” for 2014.

Period music including It’s a Long Way to Tipperary, Keep the Home Fires Burning, and Nimrod from Elgar’s Enigma Variations will be performed on the church’s splendid Bösendorfer Imperial grand piano and Karl Wilhelm organ.

A reception will follow the event.

Tickets are $20 for adults and $10 for students. Advance tickets are available atwww.standrewstoronto.org or at the door (cash or credit card). For more info, call (416)-593-5600, ext 231.

St. Andrew’s Church is on King St.W. at Simcoe St., opposite Roy Thomson Hall. Nearest TTC Station: St. Andrew. Wheelchair Accessible.

First World War

First World War Symposium

August 12, 2014 J.M. Stephens Leave a comment

On Sunday September 28, 2014 the Regimental Museum of the Queen’s Own Rifles and the 15th Battalion CEF Memorial Project (48th Highlanders of Canada) present a symposium on the First World War featuring acclaimed authors and presenters on the Great War:

Andy Robertshaw: Feeding Tommy: Battlefield Recipes from the First World War; Digging the Trenches
Robert Konduros and Richard Parrish: WW1: A Monumental History
Norm Christie: For King and Empire
Jack Granatstein: The Greatest Victory: Canada’s One Hundred Days, 1918

Details

The event will be held at Moss Park Armoury, 130 Queen Street East, Toronto, M5A 1R9 from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Seating is limited to 100 attendees so make sure you register early!
The cost is $65 which includes lunch.
There will also be book signings, dealers, and artifacts.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What are my transport/parking options getting to the event?

There is a municipal parking lot one block west of the Armoury on Queen Street. Parking on side streets near the Armoury is limited and mostly metered. If at all possible we encourage you to use public transit. The Queen St East streetcar passes in front of the armoury a short distance from the Yonge-University-Spadina subway line (Line 1)

2. Is my registration/ticket transferrable?

Yes you can transfer your ticket online up to to another person (see updating your registration info below) by the end of day on September 25th.

3. Can I update my registration information?

You can update the information on your order (like name, email address, or answers to the organizer’s questions) from Current Orders under My Tickets.

4. Do I have to bring my printed ticket to the event?

Please print and bring your ticket to the event. If you do not have your ticket you will be required to provide identification that will support your registration information.

255th Bn, First World War

Milestones

August 4, 2014 J.M. Stephens 1 Comment

On this the 100th Anniversary of Canada going to war in 1914, we wanted to share some milestones with you. We’re very excited that late last night we surpassed 100,000 views on our website since we launched in February 2012! About three-quarters of those views were from visitors in Canada however the remaining 25% were from 134 countries.

We started small but since then we’ve made 119 posts, have 249 static pages and have uploaded 1,025 images.

Fittingly some of the most viewed pages on our site our the transcriptions of the war diaries of the 3rd Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force which were completed as part of a crowdsourcing project in the Fall of 2012.

We’ve continued to add material relating to the First World War including nominal rolls, letters from soldiers, personal diaries and profiles on a number of QOR that served. We’ve recently put links to all this material on our WWI Resources Page to make it easier for visitors to find – please take a look!

Of course this isn’t the end – we’ll continue to post information and resources particularly related to the First World War over the coming years and months. Thank you for being on this journey with us!

First World War, Remembrance

WWI Public Commemorative Ceremony

July 23, 2014 J.M. Stephens Leave a comment

Thursday July 31

On behalf of Blake Goldring, Founder and Chair of Canada Company, you are invited to a special evening to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the beginning of the First World War.

Join the Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History, the Munk School of Global Affairs and the Canadian Armed Forces on the evening of July 31 at Varsity Stadium for this commemorative event.

Host: former war-correspondent, Gemini-winner Brian Stewart, Remarks by noted historian Margaret MacMillan and the CDS, Gen Thomas J. Lawson, CMM, CD. Vocal performances by Ruth Ann Onley, Danielle Bourre, and Jean Miso with the Canadian Children’s Opera Chorus.

Event is free but tickets required; for reservations and further info click here.

First World War, Uncategorized

WWI Swearing and Slang

Link March 27, 2014 J.M. Stephens Leave a comment

Check out this blog post on First World War swearing and slang::

http://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/swearing-wwi.html

3rd Battalion, First World War

3rd Bn CEF War Diaries Online

January 28, 2014 J.M. Stephens Leave a comment

Perhaps not surprisingly, as the centenary of the First World War approaches, some of the most popular pages on our website are the transcribed war diaries of the 3rd Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force.

Libraries and Archives Canada had scanned several hundred pages of these diaries and posted them on to their website as jpeg photos. As valuable as this was, they were impossible to search and the way they were listed on their site made it a challenge to find a particular date quickly.

First entries in the 3rd Battalion, CEF War Diaries

So in the Fall of 2012, we undertook to crowd-source the transcriptions of these pages and were very pleasantly surprised by the results! Within just eleven weeks, 27 volunteers all recruited online and some from the far corners of the world, had transcribed 53 months of diaries and they were posted on our website! This has also allowed us to link to other information on our website such as specific soldier profiles and to include photos of relevant artifacts. We continue to add to these pages as we can.

I highly encourage you to check them out if you have not already done so because they give, in concise military way, a chilling perspective on this horrible war.

We’ve received some positive feedback on this resource but I was particularly pleased to see the recent comment reprinted below, from a US Army Lieutenant Colonel whose Scottish grandfather crossed the border from US to join the 255th Battalion, CEF. He eventually see combat with the 3rd Battalion. His story also illustrates how the war continued to impact families long after it had ended.

Folks,

Thanks for transcribing the 3rd Bn war diaries. In August 1913, my grandfather, John Denning Wallace, immigrated from Paisley, Scotland to Kearny, New Jersey. In April 1918, he crossed the border and joined the Toronto Regiment to fight with the CEF in WWI. He served with the 3rd Bn on the front lines near Arras, France, from November 1917 until July 15, 1918, when he sustained a gunshot wound in the left arm. In February 1919, he was medically discharged for the “GSW left arm” and for “trench exposure.” A few years later, he died from the trench exposure at age 30 [1926].

On review of my grandfather’s CEF discharge certificate and military records, they did not reveal how he sustained his combat wound, and for many years I often wondered. Thankfully, the 3rd Bn war diaries provided me with some background. The 3rd Bn war diaries for July 14-16 1918, and the 3rd Bn end of month casualty report for July 1918, reveal that my grandfather, “Wallace, J.D.”, and three other 3rd Bn soldiers were wounded by machine gun fire whilst “laying wire ” near Post 7 in the Fampough sector near Arras. The next day, one had died from his wounds.

Now I know.

Thanks.
Wayne S. Wallace,
LTC, U.S. Army

First World War, Second World War

Regimental Christmas Cards from the First and Second World War

Image November 24, 2013 J.M. Stephens 3 Comments

As we approach another holiday season, we’re sharing some of the Regimental Christmas Cards that will be on a temporary exhibit at the Museum starting 1 December. This first series is primarily from the First World War with one from 1941. The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada perpetuate the 83rd, 166th and 198th Battalions represented below.

Cover of 1915 Christmas card of the 83rd Battalion, CEF

Inside of the 1915 Christmas Card of the 83rd Overseas Battalion, CEF (perpetuated by The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada)

Inside of the 1915 Christmas Card of the Commandant and Officers of The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada

Inside of the 1915 Christmas Card of the Warrant Officers, Staff-Sergeants and Sergeants of the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada

Front cover of the 1916 Christmas Card of the 166th Battalion, CEF

Inside of the 1916 Christmas Card of the 166th Battalion, CEF Sergeants’ Mess

Centre inside of the 1916 Christmas Card of the 166th Battalion, CEF Sergeants’ Mess.

Inside back of the 1916 Christmas Card of the 166th Battalion Sergeants’ Mess

Front cover of the 166th Battalion, CEF Sergeants’ Mess Christmas Card

1916 Christmas Card from the Officer Commanding and Officer’s of the 166th Battalion, CEF

1916 Greetings from the 198th Battalion, CEF which was training at Exhibition Camp, Toronto at the time.

Taken in England in 1941, it includes a formal photograph Queen Mary, Colonel-in-Chief with the Officers of the First Battalion.

First World War

Approaches to Canadian Epitaphs of the Great War

September 8, 2013 J.M. Stephens 3 Comments

By Eric McGeer
Originally published in Canadian Military History, Spring 2013

Eric teaches at Northmount School in Toronto. He is currently working on the military history of the University of Toronto, focusing mainly on the university’s contingent of the Canadian Officers’ Training Corps. He is also serving on our Museum’s First World War Advisory Team.

“Time but the impression deeper makes”*

This paper begins with a flight of fancy meant to put its subject in a novel perspective. Imagine archaeologists at some distant time in the future coming upon the British memorials and war cemeteries clustered along the old Western Front. Suppose, too, that although the written sources for the Great War no longer survive, the mandate of the War Graves Commission to maintain the monuments in perpetuity has ensured a good state of preservation. In the same way that archaeologists test the historicity of the Trojan War against the evidence from Bronze Age sites, or reconstruct the workings of the Roman army from its camps and fortifications, our imagined archaeologists would set about collating and interpreting the details in the commemorative monuments to form a reasonably coherent picture of the Great War. They would infer from the sheer density of the war cemeteries that it had been a very static conflict; from the dates, regiments, and nationalities incised on the headstones they could establish a chronology of events and a latter-day “Catalogue of Ships” listing the peoples drawn from all over the world into the British Empire’s order of battle. The number of nameless graves, tallying with the registers inscribed on the memorials to the missing, would induce recognition of a frighteningly destructive war that inflicted not only mass death but mass annihilation. Some explanation for this would emerge from the insignia on the headstones identifying artillerymen, machine gunners, tank crewmen, and fliers, which bear witness to the advances in military technology that made such a rigidly concentrated war so consumptive of human life. An archaeologist sensitive to the contradictory logic of human affairs might perceive the trap into which the belligerents worked themselves, that victory alone, at any price, could redeem the sacrifice that mounted with each year of the war.

The evidence responding to the basic questions of who fought the war, when and where and how it was fought, would naturally lead to more speculative inquiry. Anyone beholding these monuments would marvel at the herculean effort involved in creating them and at the scrupulous desire to commemorate every last one of the fallen by name, signs of the debt of remembrance which the survivors felt they owed to the dead. In seeking answers to the very human and very taxing questions as to how people at the time justified so costly a struggle, and how the victors rationalised the appalling price of victory, our future archaeologists would seize upon a body of evidence, unique in history, which historians of our age have been slow to exploit in their study of the memory of the Great War. Thousands of personal inscriptions, engraved on the headstones of the fallen, convey the grief of the families who suffered the loss of fathers, husbands, brothers, sons (and, lest we forget, daughters), and the consolatory themes by which they reconciled themselves to their loss. In their great abundance, cutting across all levels of society, and in their affecting simplicity, the epitaphs preserve the voice of the generation that bore the burden of the war and tried to find meaning in its terrible exactions. They invite us to explore the sources of comfort to which they turned in their distress, and – to do what our age finds it very hard to do with respect to the Great War [1] – to accord fair recognition to sensibilities and attitudes which we have long since discarded, and to beliefs and ideals which ever since the 1960s have come to have less and less meaning. “Our dear Daddy and our hero”; “Baby of the family. Mother still anxious for his return”; “Also in memory of his brother Samuel, killed at Courcelette, 16th September 1916” [2] – these are but three of countless examples reminding us of the claim of the bereaved on our sympathies and of our obligation in return to examine the epitaphs through the prism of their emotions, values, and sources of consolation. [3]

The personal inscriptions, let it be said, have not gone entirely unnoticed. The provision allowing next of kin to contribute short valedictions is duly noted in histories of the Imperial (now Commonwealth) War Graves Commission, [4] even if its significance as the first occasion in history that the general populace could add a private voice to the official commemoration of the war dead is not as emphasized as it might be. The poignancy of these inscriptions – and many truly are gems of compression – has inspired two anthologies, John Laffin’s We Will Remember Them, presenting Australian epitaphs, and Trefor Jones’s On Fame’s Eternal Camping Ground, a wider selection of British and Dominion examples. [5] Both fulfill the purpose of anthologies in providing a selection of memorable personal inscriptions; and it is not to detract from the value of these collections, particularly Laffin’s, to point out that neither ventures into the larger questions of the cultural context and provenance of the epitaphs. It is to say, however, that there has as yet been no attempt to situate the epitaphs of the Great War in the long tradition of sepulchral inscriptions originating in Antiquity, [6] to identify and elaborate upon their sources, [7] and to integrate them within the cultural history of the Great War, a subject in which myth and memory have come to occupy the high ground. Such an undertaking lies beyond the remit of this paper, which proposes instead to outline the approaches to a deeper, and potentially more revealing, study of the personal inscriptions. Although the focus is mainly on Canadian epitaphs, the sense of imperial unity and the close cultural affinity between Great Britain and the English-speaking dominions make the observations offered here broadly applicable to the corpus of epitaphs from the First World War. [8] Any discussion of the personal inscriptions must first balance their worth against their limitations as sources. Though they echo the sentiments of their time, they speak directly for only a small proportion of the dead and those who commemorated them, as some rough calculations will show. Of the 66,000 Canadians killed in the Great War, 11,000 have no known grave; of the identified graves, just under half carry a personal inscription, many of which repeat formulae (“Rest in peace,” “Gone but not forgotten,” “Son of … born in…”) of little more than fleeting interest. The number of inscriptions that offer insight into the minds of the bereaved, individually and collectively, comes to about 3,000 by my count, speaking for about five percent of Canada’s war dead. [9] Their form and realm of expression, though not without variety, adhere to the restrictions imposed by the War Graves Commission and by the conventions of the time. Here the exceptions prove useful in illustrating the rules and, more importantly, the latitude shown in their application. When scanning the collection, for instance, it becomes clear that while most inscriptions stay within the prescribed length of 66 characters (including the spaces between words), a great many do not, the most striking example being a text of over 450 characters covering the headstone of a Canadian lieutenant buried in France. [10] Similar discretion is evident in the content of the epitaphs. The Commission reserved “absolute power of rejection or acceptance” over the inscriptions submitted, yet there are several noteworthy examples giving vent to anger or resentment which demonstrate the range of acceptability. “He did his duty. My heart knoweth its own bitterness. Mother”; “A bursting bud on a slender stem, broken and wasted, our boy”; “Another life lost, hearts broken, for what”; “Sacrificed to the fallacy that only war can end war”; “Many died and there was much glory.” [11] The lengths to which the Commission was prepared to go in accommodating the wishes of next of kin stand out in one stark inscription, indescribably moving in its restoration of honour to the memory of a soldier executed for desertion: “Shot at dawn. One of the first to enlist. A worthy son of his father.” [12]

The taut, pointed simplicity of these examples proves yet again that economy of words makes for much greater impact than does prolixity, something that Rudyard Kipling and Frederic Kenyon well understood when they made their recommendations on personal inscriptions. [13] The infrequent but telling departures from the norm also bring out another point deserving of emphasis. Whatever control the Commission exercised over the personal inscriptions should be construed not as censorship but as a safeguard of propriety and dignity in the war cemeteries. The restrictions on length, and the small fee charged for an inscription, were deterrents against “the effusion of the mortuary mason, the sentimental versifier, or the crank,” and are consistent with the opposition to inappropriate epitaphs that the proponents of the cemetery reform movement of the nineteenth century had long made part of their programme. [14] They took the view that irreverent or semi-literate inscriptions undermined the moral benefits to persons visiting cemeteries to reflect on the vicissitudes of this life and the promise of the one to come. As this view took hold, collections of epitaphs judged suitable for sepulchral inscriptions proliferated throughout the second half of the 19th century. The trend in civil cemeteries towards the spiritual edification of visitors was even more pronounced in the military burial grounds, in which the common aim of the architects and horticulturalists was to create the tranquil, contemplative atmosphere of an English garden, a setting designed to inspire reflection and meditation on the sacrifice of the fallen. We must also take into account the emotional restraint bred into a generation of parents born in the 1850s and 1860s commemorating sons born in the 1880s and 1890s – in other words, people deeply rooted in the Victorian Age – which surfaces in this epitaph, “Sadly missed, silently mourned by his wife and children,”15 and many more referring to private sorrows, silent thoughts, or hidden tears – faultlessly Victorian in concealing the intensity of the grief behind the stoic façade presented to the world.

Few epitaphs represent original compostions. The Victorians preferred to select their gravestone inscriptions, and it seems to have been the assumption on the part of the Commission that next of kin contributing epitaphs would draw from venerable authorities. In the years immediately following the war, a canon of remembrance verse took shape, including such familiar pieces as Laurence Binyon’s “For the Fallen” and John McCrae’s “In Flanders Fields,” which supplied a number of apposite lines; but most of those seeking literary valedictions turned to the poets whose works they had learned in their schooldays when memory work and recitation were staples of pedagogy. A trawl through the University of Toronto’s calendars from the years before the war reveals that the poems most often quarried for epitaphs – Tennyson’s “Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington” (“The path of duty was the way to glory”), “Break, break, break” (“O for the touch of a vanished hand and the sound of a voice that is still”) or Shelley’s “Adonais” (“He hath outsoared the shadow of our night”) – were required reading for high school matriculants in English who, like all students of the time, went through a thoroughly Anglocentric curriculum. [16] Sunday School, following or followed by church, immersed people from an early age in the hymns and writings, particularly John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress and John Henry Newman’s “Lead, Kindly Light,” which provided a plentiful source of spiritual comfort. But if the generation raised before the war entrusted the expression of its grief, acceptance, or hope to one book, it was to the King James Version of the Bible. It is impossible to overstate the centrality of the Bible in Victorian culture. To paraphrase one scholar, Scriptural knowledge is a prerequisite for entering into the thought-world of the generation that went through the Great War. [17] “(Assurance) What time I am afraid I will trust in Thee. Ps. 56.3”; “O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in Thee. Ps. 84.12”; “God hath delivered my soul from the place of hell for He shall receive me. Ps. 49. 15”; “My favourite reading, 1st bk. Cor. ch. 13”:18 these are among the epitaphs that display the family’s awareness of the passages which the soldier read each day and to which he turned in times of trial. The annotated Bible of a Canadian soldier killed in 1918 contains a list of 18 passages, all from the New Testament, connecting the teachings, experiences, and tribulations of Christ and His followers to the various aspects of a devoutly Christian soldier’s life on active service – and in two texts frequently used as epitaphs, 2 Timothy 4: 5-8 (“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith”) and Revelation 21: 4 (“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes”) – to the eventuality of his death and reward. [19] If these readings formed a kind of spiritual anchor for the men in the trenches, other standard selections supplied comfort to the bereaved. The very Victorian habit of reading one’s experiences through the lens of the Bible, and making sense of this earthly pilgrimage by identifying oneself with its stories or characters, guided the next of kin who in like fashion turned to familiar consolatory passages (“Blessed are they who mourn”) or sought reassuring parallels. The mother of a Newfoundland soldier killed on 1 July 1916 chose a line from Luke 7: 12, “The only son of his mother and she was a widow,” that movingly depicts the loneliness of her grief, eased, we can only hope, by the compassion which Christ shows to the sorrowing mother in the Biblical passage. [20]

Epitaphs drawn from the Bible broadened rather than narrowed the range of expression. There are examples to suggest that families selected passages to give voice to feelings which, phrased in less authoritative tones, might have been rejected as too contentious or excessive. “Young men, ye have overcome the wicked one. I John 2.13,” represents a rare instance of triumphalism that puts paid to the Kaiser and all his works without overtly hostile reference to the enemy, a practice discouraged by the Commission.21 “By this I know Thou favourest me, that mine enemy doth not triumph against me” quotes Psalm 41.11 to imply that God had denied victory to Germany; an epitaph drawn from Psalm 68: 30, “Scatter Thou the people that delight in war,” issues a veiled call for divine retribution against a militaristic enemy held responsible for causing the war.22 Those opposed to war were aware that no one could object to the injunction against violence uttered by Christ, “They that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Matthew 26: 52,” or His promise of benediction, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” [23]

The depths of love between a wife and husband might find their most tender expression in Scripture, particularly in the oft-chosen Song of Songs (“Mine till the day break and the shadows flee away”; “Many waters cannot quench love”), or in this richly allusive passage: “My beloved is unto me as a cluster of camphire in the vineyards of En-Gedi.” [24] The great number of personal inscriptions citing the Song of Songs should also remind the present generation, no longer on instantly familiar terms with the King James Version, not to overlook the significance of epitaphs that can sometimes pall through repetition. Though often interpreted in allegorical or mystical ways, the Song of Songs was for the people who lived at the time of the Great War the most powerful expression of married love and the firmest pledge that this love was stronger than death. [25]

Where the study of Canadian epitaphs proves most fruitful, however, is in further elucidating the themes of consolation so thoughtfully explored by Jonathan Vance and in broadening our understanding of the meaning assigned to the Great War by those whose lives were blighted by loss and grief. Two inscriptions, “He gave his all for freedom, the whole wide world to save” and “I have given my life to promote peace between nations,” [26] encapsulate the general belief that this had been “the war to end all wars.” From our disillusioned perspective a century on, this idealism seems wishful and naive, but the people who had these epitaphs engraved on the headstones of their loved ones had grown up with the Victorian world view that suffering and death had purpose, all disasters had a moral, and progress came at a price. [27] They also belonged to the first generation to realise what kind of war the technically advanced armies of industrialised, fully mobilised countries could fight; and they saw in this harrowing experience a warning to the future: “If death be the price of victory, O God forbid all wars”; “Break, day of God, sweet day of peace, and bid the shout of warriors cease.” [28] The unquestionable sincerity of these pleas compels us to recognise the consoling vision of a better world which the people of Britain and the Dominions drew from the Allied victory. The losses, terrible as they were, had resulted in the triumph of one set of principles and values over another: “Right is stronger than might”; “For King and country thus he fell, a tyrant’s arrogance to quell.” [29] The defeat of autocracy and militarism which had brought on the war, and the moral obligation imposed by the horrendous cost to uphold the ideals of freedom, democracy, and concord among nations (“Justice owes them this, that what they died for not be overthrown”), [30] would ensure that such a catastrophe could never happen again. In the minds of comtemporaries the replacement of Tsarist Russia with democratic America in the Allied coalition had reinvigorated the Allied cause by transforming it into a crusade to create a better world (taking Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points as its blueprint) that would abide by a just and stable peace. [31] The belief that a husband, son, or father had given his life in what was surely a divinely sanctioned cause (“Yet remember this, God and our good cause fight upon our side”) [32] found its way onto many a headstone: “He allured to a better world and led the way”; “We grudge not our life if it give larger life to them that live”; “Liberty and freedom had to be won by the willing sacrifice of life”; “He died so that life might be a sweeter thing to all. He liveth.” [33]

“Christ Jesus Who gave Himself, a ransom for all”; “By his death our life revealing, he for us the ransom paid”; “He died for others. Even so did Christ.” [34] From casting a soldier’s death as an offering towards a world made new, it was but a short step to hallowing the fallen as an elect who had died that their kin and country might live and, in the highest sense of sacrifice, laid down their lives for humanity: “Our soldier boy endured the Cross and won the crown” is one of many epitaphs assigning redemptive significance to the suffering of the soldiers who in remaining “faithful unto death” had given the ultimate proof of their devotion: “He gave his pure soul unto his captain Christ”; “Jesus died for me. I’m not afraid to die for Him.” [35] As Vance has shown, after the Somme or Passchendaele, the established churches, which had wholeheartedly supported the war, were at a loss to explain the carnage in terms of historical theology or as the operation of God’s providence. [36]

The only explanation lay in passages emphasizing the Christian virtues of suffering and sacrifice (“Thou, therefore, endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ”) which bestowed meaning and purpose on the deaths of so many soldiers whose sacrifice had led to victory (in itself confirmation of the righteousness of the Allied cause) and the prospect of a world purged of iniquity: “The blood of Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth us from all sin,” on one soldier’s headstone, could not proclaim more forthrightly the belief that the fallen had done their part to redeem mankind by shedding their blood in willing emulation of the Redeemer. [37]

“It is finished,” Christ’s dying words in the Gospel of John, is inscribed on the headstone of a young artilleryman who died four days after the Armistice. [38] The war was over, the long agony had ended, and death had been swallowed up in victory, leading many families to exalt their dead as “One of Christ’s faithful warriors,” “A volunteer for Jesus,” or “A Christian hero,” [39] as they found solace in a conviction widely shared among Canadians that the battlefields of France and Flanders had been, in the words of John Arkwright’s hymn “O Valiant Hearts,” “a lesser Calvary.” For those pondering the reward for the soldiers who had not lived to see the victory which their travails had helped to achieve, there were comforting reminders from Scripture of God’s covenant with His servants: “And I will restore to you the years the locusts have eaten”; “And their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. Heb. 8. 12”; “If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him.” [40] But where the soldiers’ endurance and sacrifice had won them salvation and life everlasting, the mourners had to carry on along their own Via dolorosa: “I lift my cross each day and think of thee, brave heart”; “He wears a crown. I wear a cross. Mother.” [41]

“For God and right. Let not a whisper fall that our hero died in vain.” [42] Confronted by a death toll so terrible and benumbing, those left to cope with their grief were understandably inclined to embrace the idealism or religious faith that made the sacrifice meaningful and necessary. These were not the only barriers against the unwelcome – and unbearable – feeling of despair or futility at so great a loss of life. “I will give him a white stone and in the stone a new name – victory.” [43] Canadians could also take considerable pride in the exploits of their soldiers which in many cases tempered the grief of the mourners. The same impulse that led Canadians to name schools, streets, geographical features, and even their children, after famous battles is apparent in epitaphs proudly noting soldiers’ deaths in the feats of arms that made the reputation of the Canadian Corps: “Died of wounds received at Ypres”; “He fell at the Somme. It is immortal honour”; “Mort à Vimy à l’age de trente ans en combattant pour la grande cause”; “Killed near Passchendaele”; “Killed in action at Cambrai”; and one more that reflected the renown won by the Canadians in spearheading the war-winning offensive that began at Amiens on 8 August 1918 – “Tomorrow will be Canada’s day.” [44] Other epitaphs no less proudly record the soldier’s courage in the performance of his duties or the esteem in which his comrades held him: “Died for King and country while keeping line open under shell fire”; “Killed leading an attack at Regina Trench”; “Mentioned in despatches for gallant and distinguished conduct;” “Beloved by officers and men”; “His captain said ‘No braver soldier ever led men into battle’” [45] – this last being one of several examples indicating that letters of condolence to next of kin inspired the inscription on a soldier’s grave.

Just how protective Canadians were of the heroic and morally bracing legacy of the Canadian Corps can be seen on the headstone of a soldier killed in May 1917, five weeks after the United States entered the war. “I raised my boy to be a soldier” states the epitaph supplied by his mother. [46] Her choice of words, baffling to our eyes, would have met with grim approval at the time. It is a Canadian retort to the popular American song, “I Didn’t Raise My Boy to be a Soldier,” which grated on Canadian nerves when the sanctimonious Yankees stayed out of a struggle that strained Canada to the limit, and again when the Doughboys began to claim all the credit for winning the war. [47] The doyen of Canada’s military historians, Charles Stacey (1906-1989), recalled a joke passed around after the war which had the American general Pershing annoyed about the late arrival of his cab in Paris. “When it did arrive, Pershing protested to the driver, who was a female, ‘My good woman, you’re three minutes late.’ And the lady replied, ‘My good man, you’re three years late.’” [48] When borne in mind that the Dominion of Canada had lost a much greater proportion of her young manhood than had her far more populous, late-coming neighbour, both the levity and the epitaph make palpable Canadians’ resentment at the diminution of their efforts in the Great War, not simply for patriotic but for intensely personal reasons.

A new appreciation of the composition of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, and of the assorted backgrounds and loyalties of the men in its ranks, emerges from the epitaphs. If the CEF is pictured as a pyramid, the “Canadians” born in Britain would form the broad base of the structure, their origins indicated by the hundreds of inscriptions noting addresses or birthplaces in the United Kingdom, and by professions of allegiance to their native lands and empire: “A son of England – from Canada, given to the Empire”; “Mortuus est pro Scotia” (i.e. “He died for Scotland”). [49] A sprinkling of epitaphs in Welsh (“Yn eich Duw coeliwch uchw dig gelyn all alw’n iach” – “Believe in God and even your enemy will respect you”) and in Scots Gaelic (“G’un robhdiagrasmhor ohuit a mhic” – “God be gracious to you, my son”) show that English was by no means the mother tongue of all the British immigrants who made up half the CEF. [50] The next layer up would contain the men born in Canada, whose epitaphs display an increasingly self conscious national identity. Many record Canadian birthplaces; and while declarations of loyalty to Britain and Empire abound (“One of Canada’s gifts to the Empire, a life”), a swelling tide of Canadian sentiments (“Our lad is a hero, great Canada’s pride”) support the general consensus that the Great War marked the first step on the road from Dominion to nation. [51] Nor was all the patriotic phraseology penned in Britain, for we find an epitaph citing what would one day become the national anthem (“O Canada, he stood on guard for thee”) and another drawing attention to Canada’s rediscovered war poets: “In years to come when time is olden, Canada’s dream shall be of them.” [52] Within the great cross-section of Canadian society represented in the epitaphs (“From a homestead, Quantock, Sask.”; “Dearly beloved son of Maj. Gen. S.C. Mewburn C.M.G. Minister of Militia & Defence, Canada”), [53] we find faint but perceptible echoes of the trials and controversies as much a part of Canada’s experience of the Great War as the deeds of her soldiers. May we take, for instance, the many epitaphs emphasizing the soldier’s voluntary enlistment or the ready acceptance of his duty (“I am going. My country needs me”) as the last shots in the battle over conscription? [54] “Rejected four times, accepted the fifth”; “Discharged from N.Z. forces as unfit, having lost the sight of an eye. Re-enlisted at Vancouver” [55] – what do these two extraordinary examples tell us about the standards for enlistment as the need for men became ever more desperate after 1916? The paucity of epitaphs in French testifies to Quebec’s indifference to an English war, yet if few in number these adieux attest to the determination of the only French speaking battalion in the teeming hosts of the British Empire to uphold the reputation of their people on the field of battle: “O Dieu, prenez ma vie pour Votre gloire et celle du Canada-français”; “A la fleur de l’age il sacrifia héroïquement sa vie pour son pays.” [56] Also among the epitaphs that should spur interest in the groups which have until recently gained little purchase in the predominantly English-Canadian narrative of the war are the ones which commemorate native soldiers (“One of the many Canadian Indians who died for the Empire”) and the men from non-British backgrounds (“He was the first Icelander to give his life for Canada”). [57]

As we move up towards the apex of the pyramid, the CEF begins to resemble the Foreign Legion. Not surprisingly, given the geographical proximity, we come upon Americans who headed “over there” by way of Canada long before April 1917. One acted on the outrage felt by Americans at an incident that nearly brought the United States into the war in 1915: “A volunteer from the U.S.A. to avenge the Lusitania murder.” [58] Some were students (“One of American Harvard vanguard, entering Canadian service in 1916”) motivated by the desire to help not Britain but a country much dearer to American hearts: “A citizen of the United States who fought and died for France.” [59] One wonders if this young man ever crossed paths with Private Victor Hugo Sørensen, one of a surprising number of soldiers identified by their inscriptions as a “Dansk frivillig” (Danish volunteer). [60] A handful, like Sørensen and the impressively named Count Ove Krag-Juel-Vind-Frijs, [61] had immigrated to Canada, yet most were Danish citizens motivated either by the strongly Francophile tendencies shown in Private Sørensen’s given names, or, as is more likely the case, by lingering anger at Bismarck’s craftily orchestrated annexation
of Schleswig-Holstein in 1864 and concerns that the Kaiser’s Germany had the same regard for Danish neutrality as it did for Belgian. A handful of epitaphs in Dutch may hint that men from another traditionally neutral country bordering Germany shared these apprehensions. If the Danish and Dutch volunteers were 20 years ahead of their time, there were others whose motives to enlist in Canadian service had more to do with defeating Germany’s major ally. The epitaph of a Czech who died on active service with the Canadian Pioneers strikes the nationalistic note of a people longing to be free from Austro-Hungarian rule: “Lehkou ti zeme Belgie chloubo matky čechie” – “May the earth of Belgium be light upon you, pride of the Czech motherland”; [62] that of a Serbian immigrant and volunteer leads us to shake our heads yet again at the incredible interplay of events that linked Canada in common cause with a country to which few Canadians can have given much thought before 28 June 1914: “Za otatsbinu i saveznika život svoj dao” – “For his fatherland and ally he gave his life.” [63]

The study of the personal inscriptions, as this paper has attempted to show, touches on subjects ranging from the broad to the particular, casting light on national, cultural, and social history, and, above all, on the myriad experiences and stories submerged within the vast depths of the Great War. “Be ashamed to die until you have gained some victory for humanity’; “Son of my heart, live for ever. There is no death for you and me”; “It is well done, Dad” [64] – ennobling, saddening, austere, rarely bitter, never cynical, the epitaphs cannot fail to touch the hearts of sympathetic readers; however, to return to the flight of archaeological fancy with which we opened, it has been the purpose of this paper to take the reader below the layer of emotion and expose the strata where further investigations must begin if the epitaphs are to enhance our understanding of the memory of the Great War. It is no great revelation to say that the epitaphs speak with the voice of a very different time, not of artists or writers, but of a populace in mourning. It warrants saying only to point us in the direction in which further research should proceed – back into the nineteenth century, not forward into the twentieth, led by Jay Winter and other scholars who have rightly insisted on the durability of the cultural traditions which sustained the generation faced with the mass death of the Great War, and would sustain a following generation faced with the mass evil of the Great War’s sequel. [65] Only by excavating, so to speak, down to the foundation of the epitaphs, unearthing clues to the reasons behind their choice and setting them firmly in the cultural context of their time, can we hope to retain our ever attenuating link with a generation whose response to the tragedy of the war is so rich in historical and human interest.

*From the inscription on the headstone of Lance Corporal Andrew Ramage, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry (Wimereux Communal Cemetery).

Notes
1. The contrast between the attitudes of one time and those of another struck one historian at Tyne Cot War Cemetery as he compared the inscriptions on the headstones with the comments in the visitors’ book; see Paul Reed, “Vestiges of War: Passchendaele revisited,” in Peter H. Liddle, ed., Passchendaele in Perspective. The Third Battle of Ypres (London: Leo Cooper, 1997), pp.467-78, esp. 471-72.

2. Epitaphs of Private George Brignell, 54th Battalion Canadian Infantry [CI] (Cantimpré Canadian Cemetery); Private Albert Kick, 4th Battalion CI (Sancourt British Cemetery); Private Alec Feltham, 52nd Battalion CI (Nine Elms British Cemetery).

3. Best described by David Cannadine, “War and death, grief and mourning in modern Britain,” in Joachim Whaley, ed., Mirrors of Mortality: Studies in the Social History of Death (London: The Stanhope Press, 1981), pp.187-242, esp. 212-17. See also Jonathan Vance, “Remembering Armageddon,” in David Mackenzie, ed., Canada and the First World War: Essays in Honour of Robert Craig Brown (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), pp.409-33, and Alan R. Young, “We throw the torch’: Canadian Memorials of the Great War and the Mythology of Heroic Sacrifice,” Journal of Canadian Studies 24, no.4 (Winter 1989-90), pp.5-28.

4. Philip Longworth, The Unending Vigil: A History of the Commonwealth War Graves
Commission (Reprinted Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen and Sword Books, 2003); Mark Quinlan, Remembrance (Hertford: Authors OnLine Ltd., 2005, pp.69-153). The cemeteries in which Canada’s Great War dead are interred are the subject of Norm Christie’s projected Sacred Places: Canadian Cemeteries of the Great War (Ottawa: CEF Books, 2011-).

5. John Laffin, We Will Remember Them: AIF Epitaphs of World War 1 (Kenthurst, New
South Wales, Australia: Kangaroo Press, 1995); Trefor Jones, On Fame’s Eternal Camping Ground: A Study of First World War Epitaphs in the British Cemeteries of 11 the Western Front (Trowbridge, Wiltshire: Cromwell Press, Ltd., 2007).

6. The study of the epitaphs and the standard themes of consolation which have endured in western culture from Antiquity down to the present day begins with Richmond Lattimore, Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1962), esp. pp.215-65, and Joshua Scodel, The English Poetic Epitaph: Commemoration and Conflict from Jonson to Wordsworth (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 1991).

7. This cuts both ways, since scholars writing on the epitaphic tradition have not taken the personal inscriptions of the two world wars into consideration. They have no place, for example, in Karl Guthke’s otherwise valuable study, Epitaph Culture in the West: Variations on a Theme in Cultural History (Lewiston-Queenston-Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2003), pp.325-58.

8. British, Canadian, Newfoundland, Australian, and South African epitaphs would come together within this corpus. The New Zealand government forbade personal inscriptions on the grounds that not all families would be able to afford the cost involved. Though one can appreciate the egalitarian spirit of this decision, it must be reckoned a great loss to posterity that the families of New Zealand soldiers – so highly regarded for their performance in both world wars – could not add their voice to the commemoration and popular memory of the Kiwis.

9. Jones estimates that about 45 percent of identified graves have an inscription, noting that the percentage on officers’ graves is much higher since their families could afford the fee charged by the Commission (which was eventually made voluntary, but too late for poorer families who had declined to submit an inscription). The issue of cost did not affect Canadian families since the Canadian government covered the cost of inscription s. See On Fame’s Eternal Camping Ground, pp.11-12; Longworth, The Unending Vigil, p.44.

10. Lieutenant Alfred Evans, buried in Bailleul Communal Cemetery Extension. In full it reads: “In loving memory of Lieutenant Alfred James Lawrence Evans. B.Sc. McGill. 1st Canadian Division 7th December 1915. Aged 26 years. Born at Quebec. Died of wounds received on 23rd November 1915 while in command of 1st Bde Mining Sec. 3rd Btn. front line trenches, Belgium. Mentioned in despatches for gallant and distinguished conduct in the field. ‘The brave die never, being deathless they but change their country’s arms for more, their country’s heart.’”

11. Private Reuben haley, Duke of Wellington’s Regiment (Puchevillers British Cemetery); Private Thomas Quinlan, Royal Warwickshire Regiment (Rat ion Farm Cemet ery); Private William Rae, 20th Battalion Australian Infantry (Villers-Bretonneux Cemetery); Lieutenant Arthur Young, Royal Irish Fusiliers (Tyne Cot Cemetery); Sergeant William Clegg, Canadian Army Medical Corps (Bramshott Churchyard).

12. Private Albert Ingham, Manchester Regiment, (Bailleulmont Communal Cemetery); on his execution and his father’s insistence on having the details of his death inscribed on his headstone, see Cathryn Corns and John Hughes-Wilson, Blindfold and Alone: British Military Executions in the Great War (London: Cassell and Company, 2001), pp.256-60.

13. The recommendations on personal inscriptions were set out by Sir Frederic Kenyon, War Graves. How the Cemeteries Abroad Will Be Designed (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1918) (reprinted in Quinlan, Remembrance, pp.245-63 (the relevant passage on pp.251-52); Rudyard Kipling, The Graves of the Fallen (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1919), passim. See also Jones, On Fame’s Eternal Camping Ground, pp.8-14, and Laffin, We Will Remember Them, pp.24-27, with examples of the inscriptions suggested by the Commission.

14. See John Morley, Death, Heaven and the Victorians (London: Studio Vista, 1971), pp.42-44, 52-57; Guthke, Epitaph Culture in the West, pp.67-81; Karen Sanchez-Eppler, “Decomposing: Wordsworth’s poetry of epitaphs and English burial reform,” Nineteenth-Century Literature 42, no.4 (1988), pp.415-31.

15. Private Alfred Cogan, Canadian Army Medical Corps (Oxford Road Cemetery).

16. On the reading material in Ontario schools before and during the war, and the values it imparted, see the illuminating, well-judged new study by Susan Fisher, Boys and Girls in No Man’s Land: English-Canadian Children and the First World War (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011), pp.15-27, 51-103.

17. Timothy Larsen, A People of One Book: The Bible and the Victorians (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp.1-8, 295-98.

18. Private William Barnes, 19th Battalion CI (Warloy-Baillon Communal Cemetery
Extension); Private James MacDonald, 1st Canadian Mounted Rifles (Menin Road South Military Cemetery); Driver Charles Maxted, Canadian Engineers (Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery); Private Alfred Blackmore, 46th Battalion CI (London Cemetery and Extension).

19. Michelle Fowler, “Faith, Hope and Love: The wartime motivation of Lance Corporal Frederick Spratlin, MM and Bar, 3rd Battalion, CEF,” Canadian Military History 15, no.1 (Winter 2006), pp.45- 50. Lance Corporal Spratlin died on 8 August 1918, and lies buried in Toronto (Demuin) Cemetery. Given the strength of his character and convictions, the inscription on his headstone, “I died that truth and honour might live,” is no empty sentiment. The evidence of the epitaphs also throws light on the religious beliefs of Great War soldiers studied by Richard Schweitzer, The Cross and the Trenches: Religious Faith and Doubt among British and American Great War Soldiers (Westport, CN and London: Praeger, 2003), pp.84- 117, 129-39; see also Duff Crerar, Padres in No Man’s Land: Canadian Chaplains and the Great War (Montreal-Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1995), pp.161-65.

20. Private Arthur Jones, Royal Newfoundland Regiment (Knightsbridge Cemetery).

21. Private William McGreer, 47th Battalion CI (Cérisy-Gailly Military Cemetery). The
Australian historian Bruce Scates gives an example of an epitaph rejected by the Commission (“His loving parents curse the Hun”) and again when resubmitted
(“With every breath we draw we curse the Germans more”); see Return to Gallipoli:
Walking the Battlefields of the Great War (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2006), pp.48-53.

22. Private Vernon Earle, 27th Battalion CI (Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery).

23. Private Eugene Smith, 2nd Canadian Mounted Rifles (Bouchoir New British Cemetery); Private William Harpham, 50th Battalion CI (La Chaudière Military Cemetery).

24. Private Kenneth Neil MacDonald, 13th Battalion CI (Rue-Petillon Military Cemetery).

25. The interpretative approaches to the Song of Songs in Jewish and Christian exegesis are reviewed by Marvin H. Pope in The Anchor Bible: Song of Songs. A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1977).

26. Private Adon Smith, 87th Battalion CI (Adanac Military Cemetery); Private Emanuel Fulton, 31st Battalion CI (Passchendaele New British Cemetery).

27. It is very striking to compare reactions to the First World War with reactions to various catastrophes in the Victorian Age. To take one example, the collapse of the Tay River Bridge in 1879 was seen as a regrettable but acceptable accident in the great march of progress. As one contemporary put it, “life is not lost which is spent or sacrificed in the grand enterprises of useful industry.” See John Prebble, The High Girders (London: Pan
Books, Ltd., 1959), p.59.

28. Private John Wray, Lancashire Fusiliers (Authuille Military Cemetery); Sergeant
Wellesley Taylor, 14th Battalion CI (Chester Farm Cemetery).

29. Private Albert Boustead, 15th Battalion CI (Bruay Communal Cemetery Extension);
Private Harrison Allen, 16th Battalion CI (Villers Station Cemetery).

30. Private George Hargrave, 29th Battalion CI (Brussels Town Cemetery).

31. The ideological contest of the Great War, and the issues at stake in the minds of contemporaries, are well expounded by John Bourne, “The European and International consequences of the Armistice,” in Hugh Cecil and Peter Liddle, eds., At the Eleventh Hour. 12 Reflections, Hopes and Anxieties at the Closing of the Great War, 1918 (Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen and Sword Books, 1998), pp.315-326. The impetus given by American churches to the notion of a Crusade for a better world has been analysed by Richard M. Gamble, The War for Righteousness: Progressive Christianity, the Great War, and the Rise of the Messianic Nation (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2003), pp.163-79, 209ff.

32. Private Sydney Turner, 2nd Battalion CI (Fosse No.10 Cemetery); Private Reginald
Aldridge, 5th Battalion CI (Bully-Grenay Communal Cemetery, British Extension).

33. Company Sergeant-Major Arthur Dunlop, 2nd Canadian Mounted Rifles (Nine Elms British Cemetery); Captain Alexander MacGregor, 28th Battalion CI (Rosières Communal Cemetery and Extension); Private William Stanley Mills, 5th Canadian Mounted Rifles (Maple Copse Cemetery); Private William Sime, 29th Battalion CI (Adanac Military Cemetery).

34. Private Mackie Stewart, 102nd Battalion CI (Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery);
Private Alexander Dunn, 78th Battalion CI (Barlin Communal Cemetery); Lieutenant
Thomas MacKinlay, 29th Battalion CI (Boulogne Eastern Cemetery).

35. Private Charles Everett Clark, 5th Battalion CI (Maroc British Cemetery); Lieutenant Guy Drummond, 13th Battalion CI (Tyne Cot Cemetery); Private Alexander McDonald, Canadian Machine Gun Corps (Bac-du-Sud British Cemetery).

36. Jonathan Vance, Death So Noble: Memory, Meaning, and the First World War
(Vancouver: UBC Press, 1997), pp.35-48.

37. Private Ernest McClelland, 1st Battalion CI (Chester Farm Cemetery).

38. Driver Alex Henderson, Canadian Field Artillery (Etaples Military Cemetery).

39. Lance Corporal Colin Broughton, 5th Battalion CI (Railway Dugouts Burial Ground); Private John Reid, 52nd Battalion CI (Nine Elms British Cemetery); Private Leslie Unthank, 18th Battalion CI (Ridge Wood Cemetery).

40. Corporal William Bowyer, 7th Battalion CI (Bailleul Communal Cemetery Extension), citing Joel 2: 25; Corporal Alfred Jones, 20th Battalion CI (Ridge Wood Cemetery); Sergeant David Hunter, 102nd Battalion CI (Givenchy Road Canadian Cemetery), citing 2 Timothy 2: 12.

41. Lieutenant William Clipperton, 8th Battalion CI (Lapugnoy Military Cemetery); Private Charles Ainslie, 8th Battalion CI (Brookwood Military Cemetery).

42. Lieutenant Lloyd Scott, 38th Battalion CI (Bourlon Wood Cemetery).

43. Private Hal Bowers, 47th Battalion CI (La Chaudière Military Cemetery).

44. Private Eusèbe Loiseau, 22nd (French Canadian) Battalion (Wimereux Communal Cemetery); Private James Stickels, Royal Canadian Regiment (Contay British Cemetery); Private Arthur Goyette, 22nd (French Canadian) Battalion (Bruay Communal Cemetery Extension); Private Edward Beldam, 2nd Canadian Mounted Rifles (Tyne Cot Cemetery); Private William Bartling, 52nd Battalion CI (Canada Cemetery); Lieutenant-Colonel Elmer Jones, DSO and Bar, 21st Battalion CI (Longeau British Cemetery). It is worth noting that references to the battles of the war set the corpus of Canadian epitaphs apart from British and Australian collections, in which one finds comparatively fewer specific mentions of the engagements where the soldier lost his life.

45. Sergeant Harold Flynn, 38th Battalion CI (Albert Communal Cemetery); Lieutenant
Willoughby Chatterton, 3rd Battalion CI (Adanac Military Cemetery); Major Edward Norsworthy, 13th Battalion CI (Tyne Cot Cemetery); Corporal George Brown, Canadian Field Artillery (Brandhoek New Military Cemetery No. 3); Lieutenant Eric Lane, 85th Battalion CI (Vis-en-Artois British Cemetery).

46. Private Mostyn Scott Sands, 28th Battalion CI (La Targette Military Cemetery).

47. Vance, Death So Noble, pp.176-80; see also Paul Litt, “Canada Invaded! The Great War, Mass Culture, and Canadian Cultural Nationalism,” in Canada in the First World War, pp.323-49, esp. 333-40.

48. C.P. Stacey, Canada in the Age of Conflict: A History of Canadian External Policies. Vol.1: 1867-1921 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984), p.234.

49. 2nd Lieutenant Francis Lawledge, Royal Flying Corps (Bailleul Road East Cemetery); Private Harry Walker, 29th Battalion CI (Wulverghem-Lindenhoek Road Military Cemetery).

50. Private Llewellyn Jones, 1st Canadian Mounted Rifles (La Targette Military Cemetery); Lance Corporal Alexander MacDonald, 72nd Battalion CI (Nine Elms British Cemetery).

51. Private William Smith, 49th Battalion CI (Raillencourt Communal Cemetery Extension); Private Wilfrid Spicer, 2nd Canadian Mounted Rifles (Caix British Cemetery).

52. Private Reginald Box, 16th Battalion CI (Sancourt British Cemetery); Gunner Donald McKinnon, Canadian Field Artillery (Aubigny Communal Cemetery Extension). The line is taken from a poem by Helena Coleman (1860-1953), “Autumn, 1917,” which appeared in her Marching Men: War Verses, first published in 1917 and republished in 2008 by Dodo Press. The themes and diction of Canadian war verse would make for an interesting comparative study with the epitaphs; see Jonathan Vance, “Battle verse: Poetry and nationalism after Vimy Ridge,” in Geoffrey Hayes, Andrew Iarocci, and Mike Bechthold, eds., Vimy Ridge: A Canadian Reassessment (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2007), pp.265-77. On the resurgence of interest in Canada’s war poets, see Joel Baetz, Canadian Poetry from World War I: An Anthology (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2009).

53. Private Ayrton Wragge, 13th Battalion CI (Puchevillers British Cemetery); Lieutenant John Mewburn, 18th Battalion CI (Courcelette British Cemetery).

54. Private Edward Panabaker, PPCLI (Nine Elms British Cemetery).

55. Private Charles Turner, 10th Battalion CI (Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery); Private Arthur Hackney, 29th Battalion CI (Rosières Communal Cemetery Extension).

56. Lieutenant Joseph Hudon, 22nd (French Canadian) Battalion (Tranchée de Mecknes Cemetery); Captain Maurice Bauset, 22nd (French Canadian) Battalion (Sunken Road Cemetery, Contalmaison). On the 22nd Battalion as the standardbearer of French Canada’s martial reputation, see Jean-Pierre Gagnon, Le 22e bataillon (canadien-français) 1914-1919 (Ottawa et Québec: Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 1986), pp.301-307.

57. Private Lawrence Marten, 52nd Battalion CI (Wimereux Communal Cemetery); Private Magdal Hermanson, 8th Battalion CI (Wimereux Communal Cemetery).

58. Driver Leland Fernald, Canadian Field Artillery (Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery).

59. Lieutenant Phillip Comfort Starr, Royal Engineers (Bedford House Cemetery); Private Roy Marshall, Canadian Army Service Corps (Lapugnoy Military Cemetery).

60. Private Sørensen, 4th Battalion CI, is buried in Quatre-Vents Military Cemetery. His name is incorrectly rendered on his Canadian attestation paper and in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission database as “Sorenson.”

61. Buried in Kemmel Chateau Military Cemetery; his inscription in Danish would read in English: “Now my eyes are closed, Father in Heaven, and I enter the care of the world above.”

62. Private Dominick Naplava, Canadian Pioneers (Tyne Cot Cemetery).

63. Private Chris Meti (Metič), Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry (Bois-Carré British Cemetery).

64. Lance Corporal George Edward Pike, Royal Newfoundland Regiment (Y Ravine Cemetery); Private Hal Sutton, 5th Battalion CI (Hinges Military Cemetery); Private Richard Boughton, 21st Battalion CI (Courcelette British Cemetery).

65. The reliance on Great War precedents in the epitaphs commemorating Canada’s
Second World War dead is discussed in my book, Words of Valediction and Remembrance: Canadian Epitaphs of the Second World War (St. Catharines: Vanwell Publishing Ltd, 2008), pp.44-54, 57-91.

First World War

The trench talk that is now entrenched in the English language

November 26, 2012 J.M. Stephens Leave a comment

“From cushy to crummy and blind spot to binge drink, a new study reveals the impact the First World War had on the English language and the words it introduced.”

“The results of the research are included in a new book, Trench Talk: Words of the First World War, which documents how new words and phrases originated, while others were spread from an earlier, narrow context, to gain new, wider meanings.”

3rd Battalion CEF War Diaries Transcription Project

September 3, 2012 J.M. Stephens Leave a comment

Help Needed!

We’re looking for assistance in transcribing digitized copies of the 3rd Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Forces War Diaries for posting on this site. The 3rd Battalion, known as the Toronto Regiment, is perpetuated jointly by the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada and the Royal Regiment of Canada. Transcribing the diaries allows us to easily search them and link to specific names and events in the battalions history.

How this works:

Review the list of scanned pages on our 3rd Battalion War Diaries Transcription Project Page. Pages in italics indicate that someone has already committed to transcribe them. Pages that have been completed will be removed from the list.
Note that the diaries up until April 30, 1915 have already been transcribed by the Canadian Great War Project and are in the process of being posted onto our site.
It is not necessary for everyone to transcribe chronological order – if there is a time period you are interested in feel free to take that on – however to keep things simple, please complete the transcription for at least a complete month at one time.
We DO want to transcribe all pages entitled WAR DIARY. For this stage of the project we DON’T need to transcribe all appendices. “Messages” generally should be transcribed – Operations Orders should not – however please reference untranscribed appendices so that we can provide links to them.
It is NOT necessary to transcribe index pages – We’ll try to remove them from this list when we have time.
Send an email to museum@qormuseum.org to tell us you are interested in participating. In your email indicated which months/year you will be working on so we update our list and avoid duplication of effort.
Please send you transcription in text format (not tables). You use Word or simply paste them into the text of your email. See the format to be used in this example for November 11, 1918. Please make sure you review or better yet, have someone else review your transcription for accuracy. Typed entries are pretty easy to copy but transcribing handwriting entries can sometimes be tricky!
You do not need to save up all your transcriptions and send in at once. If you finish a month, please send them to us. We’ll try to post as quickly as possible.
If you have any questions, please email us at museum@qormuseum.org and we’ll do our best to respond as quickly as possible with the caveat that we too, are all volunteers!

Thanks in advance for assisting us with this exciting project!!

Major John Stephens, CD (Ret)
Curator

The Queen's Own Rifles of Canada Regimental Museum and Archive

Tag Archives: WWI

He Suffered for Nothing in The Great War: The Aftermath of the Shell-Shocked Soldier in the Post-War Western World

Introduction

The Official View of Shell Shock After the Great War

The Shell-Shocked Veterans’ Experience

Conclusion

First World War 3rd Battalion Executions

Pte. Côme Laliberté

Speech by the Hon. Ronal Duhamel, December 11th, 2001:

Making Connections to the Past

Dedication of new markers in the town of Courcelette

Looking for 3rd Battalion CEF Descendants

“It is Written” painting on loan to our museum

100th Anniversary of the 2nd Battle of Ypres

RCMI Installs Captain Charles Rutherford’s Pistol

Voices of War, Dreams of Peace: The Legacy of the First World War

Toronto for Voices of War, Dreams of Peace: The Legacy of the First World War

First World War Symposium

Milestones

WWI Public Commemorative Ceremony

WWI Swearing and Slang

3rd Bn CEF War Diaries Online

Regimental Christmas Cards from the First and Second World War

Approaches to Canadian Epitaphs of the Great War

“Time but the impression deeper makes”*

The trench talk that is now entrenched in the English language

3rd Battalion CEF War Diaries Transcription Project

Help Needed!

"In Pace Paratus – In Peace Prepared"

Introduction

The Official View of Shell Shock After the Great War

The Shell-Shocked Veterans’ Experience

Conclusion

Share this:

Pte. Côme Laliberté

Speech by the Hon. Ronal Duhamel, December 11th, 2001:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Toronto for Voices of War, Dreams of Peace: The Legacy of the First World War

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

“Time but the impression deeper makes”*

Share this:

Share this:

Help Needed!

Share this:

"In Pace Paratus – In Peace Prepared"