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C. Mud & Blood
From HCO Jr
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Trench Warfare
In its first two years, World War I turned out to be an agonizingly slow and painful war of attrition. The numbers of dead and wounded steadily mounted to shocking levels, while each side gained little in territorial or strategic results.
As early as October 1914, both sides began to secure their positions, solidify their gains and provide shelter and protection from bullets and shells by digging trenches before the onset of winter. Originally designed as temporary measures, trenches rapidly became permanent, with barbed wire and machine gun emplacements protecting the deepest trenches.
Soon. two parallel lines of trenches stretched 750 kilometres from the English Channel in the north through Belgium and most of eastern France, to the border of neutral Switzerland in the south. The Germans were able to retreat to the best defensive positions, close to vital strategic railways lines, an area that they would build into the Hindenburg Line in the winter of 1916/1917. It was on this Western Front that Canada was to be chiefly engaged.
On both sides, the soldiers worked long and hard digging the trench lines. Most were over two metres deep and a metre and a half across, wide enough for two men to pass one another easily. They were laid out in a zigzag pattern, to protect soldiers from direct hits by shells. Sandbags provided modest protection on the top while duckboards, or wooden flooring, was supposed to keep the soldiers' feet dry.
Sometimes the enemy trenches were as close as twenty-five metres, but normally a greater distance constituted the so-called "no man's land, the barren, shell-filled land between the trenches. Outside the trenches, land mines, mud, and barbed wire made 'no man's land' a virtual death sentence for both sides. Often the wounded were simply left to die as their dying moans went unanswered.
Trench Life
During the time of relative calm, conditions grew tedious and boring. Men fixed collapsing trench walls, tended the wounded and ill, or retreated to the slightly less primitive conditions in the support trenches further from the front lines. Since the soldiers were constantly tired, cold, wet, and dirty, disease spread rapidly. Two of the most common - and insidious - were trench foot and trench mouth.
Often, men worked knee-deep in water. Not surprising, they suffered from a fungal disease called 'trench foot' which caused rotting of flesh between and around the toes, and made the feet swell and go numb. Once the swelling went down, the pain was almost unbearable. Often gangrene set in forcing amputation, in the most primitive conditions. The British Army treated 20,000 soldiers for trench foot during the winter of 1914-15.
They also suffered from trench mouth, a painful gum infection. Virtually everyone had body lice and fleas, resulting from being able to bathe properly. Large rats thrived, feeding on the garbage and human waste.
During the trench war, more men were hospitalized due to various diseases resulting from unclean water than those hospitalized because of wounds. Many others suffered from 'shell-shock,' a kind of nervous breakdown caused by the constant exploding of shells, the horrendous conditions and the brutality of the fighting. Some simply went insane, seeing the deplorable conditions that they were being subjected to, or seeing a comrade die an excruciating death.
The three dreaded words - "over the top - bellowed by their commanding officer, meant that the men would have to scale the trench wall and try to charge across 'no man's land' to engage the enemy. The dash through cut barbed wire, shell craters and mud often spelt instant death or an agonizingly slow one. The wounded and dying would be carried back under gunfire. However, medical care was so archaic and in such short supply that many of the wounded envied their dead comrades.
The Christmas Truce
After the failure of the Schlieffen Plan, the war in Western Europe ground to a halt in the mud of Flanders and France. From the English Channel in the north to Switzerland in the south, both sides hunkered down behind their trenches. Fighting was sporadic, especially during the sullen winter months. Both sides stared at one another across the gloomy and barren reaches of 'no man's land. Every now and again, one or the other side would order its troops "over the top" in a gallant, but largely, futile attack on enemy machine gun posts. Hundreds, then thousands of lives were lost with little real gain or loss on either side.
The one bright note in the first months of the war occurred on Christmas Eve, 1914, near Armentieres, France, as both sides lay down their weapons, met and exchanged gifts in the middle of "no man's land". The truce began when German soldiers started to sing "Silent Night" in German. British troops responded with the same song in English, and gradually both sets of soldiers moved out of their trenches and met in no-man's land. After exchanging stories and swapping brandy and cigarettes, several games of soccer broke out. The only result recorded was a 3-2 victory by the Germans, quoted in soldiers' letters from both sides.
On some parts of the front hostilities were officially resumed on Boxing Day at 0830 - ceremonial pistol shots marking the occasion. The day after that most human experience, they settled back to the job of war, killing the very men they had just fraternized with. By the end of 1915 both sides were far too bitter for this to happen again.
1915 - Blood and Gas - The Second Battle of Ypres
Early in February 1915, the 1st Canadian Division reached France and took over a quiet section of the line in the Armentières sector in French Flanders. In the first week of April 1915, they were ordered to move right to the Allied front line protecting the Belgian city of Ypres. Their task was to hold about 3.5 kilometres of trench line on the far left of the British Expeditionary Force and beside a French Algerian colonial division.
Ypres was a dangerous place. It was an important military centre for the Allied lines. All troops left for the front line through the Menin Gate. The British Army was determined to keep hold of the city, and a bulge, or salient, was formed in the front line which left Ypres exposed on three sides to enemy shellfire from higher ground.
The British suspected that the German Army were planning to use a new weapon of war - chemical gas - and Canadians were among the first to face the effects. The Germans were in fact bringing 75 kg poison gas cylinders to the front. The plan was to open them when the wind was right, releasing gas clouds that would float towards the Allied lines. It took several days to carry the cylinders through the maze of trenches to the front line and place them for an attack. The task was carried out when visibility was poor to avoid alerting the enemy, who could fire at the cylinders, exposing friendly troops to their own chemical agents.
On April 22, 1915, after waiting for a favourable northeast wind, the Germans started an artillery barrage, and then launched 5 700 cylinders of deadly greenish-yellow chlorine gas into a light breeze, The gas was heavier than air and it sank into the Allied trenches, burning the eyes, throats, and lungs of the soldiers. It forced them out into the open, where they faced a German infantry assault. The French defenses crumbled as men gagged, gasped, choked, and died. The Algerians who survived fled in panic, leaving a huge four-mile gap in the line.
The Germans, seeing that they held the advantage, sought to sweep behind the Canadian trenches and encircle 50 000 Allied troops. But they did not have enough reserves or protection against their own gas for their troops to take advantage of the gap. The Canadians held their line in order, and launched a counter-attack, driving the Germans out of Kitchener's Wood near St. Julien. They suffered heavy casualties, but bought some time to close the gap.
'Canadian Clodhoppers' at St. Julien, 1915
Two days later, on the 24th, the Germans launched another gas attack, but General Arthur Currie's Second Canadian Brigade fought valiantly to close the gap in the line. To fight the toxic fumes, they designed makeshift gas masks, dipping handkerchiefs or cotton ammunition bandoleers in the muddy water. Some even urinated on them, and then held them tightly over their mouths and noses. That saved hundreds of lives.
Over that day and the following one, pounded by shellfire, blanketed by clouds of poison gas, and hampered by their Ross rifles overheating and jamming, the Canadians refused to retreat even after their trenches had been obliterated. They managed to re-establish a continuous front, and held on until reinforcements arrived on the 25th. The Germans were incredulous at being checked by 'Canadian clodhoppers', many with only eight months military training.
- FEATURE: [gaspoisoning.php Aa medical report on the effects of poison gas]
A Newfoundland MD, Dr. Cluny Macpherson, soon invented a metal and rubberized cloth device called a gas mask that allowed the wearer to breathe through an airline which filtered the gas-filled air.
At Ypres, the Canadians forged their a reputation as a brave and formidable fighting force. But the costs were heavy. In their first major military engagement, in a strictly defensive role and in a space of two weeks, Canada's First Division listed fully one-third of its soldiers wounded, missing, or missing in action. The Canadians suffered 5,975 casualties: more than a thousand killed, with the remainder wounded, captured or listed as missing; of this total, 5,026 were infantrymen. Four Victoria Crosses were awarded to Canadians Edward Donald Bellew, Frederick "Bud" Fisher, Frederick William Hall and Francis Alexander Scrimger.
After the Battle of Ypres, the greatly weakened Canadian forces marched south to participate in the Allied offensives already underway. While the British mounted diversionary attacks in French Flanders, the French attacked at Atois. The Canadians fought in aid of the French forces at Festubert in May 1915 and Givenchy in June. The fighting there continued the established pattern - grim frontal assaults against heavily fortified enemy defenses. Yet again, the result was heart breaking, with heavy casualties (almost 2 500 deaths at Festubert and another 500 at Givenchy) matched against quite negligible gains.
TOPIC: Some contend that this first use of chlorine gas (later mustard gas would be used, and shells replaced cylinders) marked the advent of modern warfare. Others argue that real "total war" (war that makes no distinction between professional, trained soldiers and innocent civilians) began when a German dirigible dropped a bomb over an east end London pub.
September 1915 - Founding of the Canadian Corps
Despite the appalling conditions and mounting casualty lists, enthusiasm for the war remained high back home. The true nature of the fighting had not been reported back in the Canadian papers. There was still the 19th century romantic conception of war as a glorious enterprise for "King and Country." Young men poured into the recruiting stations, and in the spring of 1915, a new 2nd Canadian Division joined the battle-hardened 1st Division in France after a period of training in England.
In September, a powerful new fighting force was created - The Canadian Corps. It was commanded until June 1917 by British regular army Lieutenant-General, E. A. H. Alderson, who was finally replaced by a the heart of the Corps, Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Currie, a pre-war militia officer from Victoria, B.C. who had been given the Second Canadian Brigade of the 1st Division in 1914. But all through the war most of the first-grade staff officers in the Canadian Corps were British regulars.
In August 1916 the Canadian Corps reached its full strength of four divisions. Each division had three brigades of four battalions, and it stayed that way. In 1918 the British Army, unable to raise enough recruits, tried to get General Currie to break the Canadian Corps in two, and give some to the British Fifth Army, but Currie successfully opposed the scheme. He kept the Canadian Corps together. It was far stronger, in the last stages of the war, than any comparable British unit; it was called "the most powerful self-contained striking force on any battlefront".
The Canadian Corps was largely a volunteer army for most of the war, and the Corps kept up to strength by voluntary enlistment. Even in 1917 when declining recruiting made compulsory service necessary, and Parliament passed the Military Service Act to provide for conscription. only about 11 percent of Canada's troops were draftees. Currie made no reductions to the strength of the Corps, and it remained in action right up to the final push into Germany.
1916 - The Battle of The Somme
"It was the biggest barrage that had ever been. They [the Allies] fired millions of shells. They were firing over 100,000 shells a day; relentless, relentless banging and booming of this tremendous bombardment. So loud you could hear it in England, if the wind was in the right direction - 60 or 70 miles away."
John Keegan
As trench fighting dragged on in Flanders and France, and autumn rains turned the terrain in a muddy quagmire, the horrific casualty figures were reported back home. Both sides recognized that the war of attrition was going nowhere and costing dearly in terms of lives and morale. Both the British and German High Commands were also facing growing charges of incompetence. Both saw a full frontal assault as the only viable option.
The Allies devised a bold plan for the first day of July 1916 along the Somme River in France. They called it "The Big Push," and the plan was to break the German defences and clear a path for the cavalry through to the English Channel. More than 100 000 Allied troops would leave their trenches, advancing along 'No Man's Land' in broad daylight, facing the full onslaught of enemy fire. Canadians would fight as part of the British forces under the command of General Douglas Haig.
However, the Germans beat the Allies to the punch. Near the end of February, they chose to launch a major offensive against the heavily fortified French city of Verdun. For ten full months, both sides tried to exhaust one another in an orgy of death. More than a quarter of a million soldiers on both sides were killed and another 400 000 were wounded. As the French forces suffered the greater losses in their gallant but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to hold Verdun, the British and Canadians now had to assume a greater burden of the fighting.
Carnage at Beaumont Hamel
"The enemy's fire was effective from the outset, but the heaviest casualties occurred on passing through the gaps in our front wire, where the men were mown down in heaps."
Newfoundland Regiment War Diary, July 1, 1916. MG 40 G1.
The date July 1, 1916, has come to symbolize the horrors of trench warfare, and troops from Newfoundland and Labrador suffered the most. The 1st Newfoundland Regiment, one of the four battalions of the British 29th Division's 88th Brigade, were assigned to take the third enemy line with a battalion from the Essex Regiment. They were told to expect little opposition.
At 7:30 a.m. on July 1, after a week-long bombardment of German positions, the Allies began their massive counter-assault as the first of 60,000 men began advancing into "No Man's Land along the British 4th Army's 24-kilometre front. This marked the first day of the Battle of the Somme, one of the bloodiest days of the entire War.
The entire operation proved to be an unmitigated disaster. The British CO, Sir Aylmer Hunter-Weston, who had been British commander in the Gallipoli campaign in 1915, made the mistake of firing off two mines earlier than planned (two and ten minutes prior to the infantry assault), thereby warning the Germans opposite him of his impending attack. So the Germans not only knew of the planned assault, but the earlier Allied artillery siege had missed many of its targets. Most German defenders had easily survived the bombardment. Now they began raking the front with machine-gun, artillery and rifle fire. Thousands of Allied troops were gunned down in the pockmarked craters between the two lines of trenches. By nightfall, more than 57 000 Allied troops were killed, wounded, or missing, the highest casualty rate ever suffered by the British army.
At 2 am, the 1st Newfoundland Regiment completed a five-hour march to the trenches. At 8:45 am they were ordered in to support the 87th Brigade. The Essex Regiment was delayed by clogged trenches and at 9:05 a.m., the Newfoundlanders started their advance near the tiny village of Beaumont Hamel. To reach the enemy's trenches they had to march down a gentle slope and cross 900 metres (over half a mile) of exposed open ground, in broad daylight. No Allied artillery fire covered them.
Each man carried more than 25 kilograms of food, supplies and ammunition. Few made it even as far as the Allied barbed wire. The zig zag lanes cut in the barbed wire the night before were a death trap for the troops, and they were expected to move in parade-ground formations through these gaps in the wire. The enemy just set the sights of the machine guns on the gaps and fired, mowing the men down in waves. Those who made it to "No Man's Land" could see across another 500 metres (547 yards) of exposed slopes to the German first line of defence.
It was a killing field. Very few Newfoundlanders survived for long in the hot hail of machine gun bullets. Of the 801 men who went 'over the top' that morning, only 69 returned to answer the roll-call. The dead numbered 255, 386 men were wounded and 91 were recorded missing. Every officer who went forward was either killed or wounded.
Shortly after 10:00 a.m., the British attack was called off. Despite some initial successes, the day's objectives had not been achieved. Total British losses for the day were 57,470 men, of which 19,240 were fatal. No unit suffered heavier losses than the Newfoundland Regiment. On that morning, the Newfoundland Regiment suffered 684 casualties, of whom 310 had been killed or were missing. It was one of the highest casualty rates of the war, and the single greatest military disaster in their history. The Divisional CO later wrote of the Newfoundland effort: "It was a magnificent display of trained and disciplined valour, and its assault failed of success because dead men can advance no further."
Despite the carnage, hardly any ground was captured that day. Nevertheless, General Douglas Haig, the commander, remained obstinate and inflexible. He insisted that the attack continue. And it did so for the next 141 days.
Still today, Newfoundlanders commemorate the slaughter, ironically on the same day that they celebrate Canada Day.
The Canadian Corps missed the carnage of July 1; however, CEF units would begin to be deployed on the Somme in August 1916.
Lions Led by Donkeys?
"The Canadian army was different in several respects from its European counterparts. It was an all volunteer force. They had a very different profile to the industrialized slum dwellers of Manchester or the estate workers of Germany. Canadians were unaccustomed to showing respect and deference to anyone who could not stand firmly on his own two feet without the supports of wealth or title."
Arthur Currie
The Battle of the Somme was the great turning point in the war. It crushed the hopes of an entire generation once and for all. It unleashed a bloodbath that continued for another two years.
The Battle was more rightly a series of military engagements over a three-month period, rather than a single encounter. In went on for 142 days altogether. While the Allies took only eleven miles of trenches, the cost exacted was exceedingly high. It was a long, drawn-out, horrific encounter than in the end proved very little, other than the fact that Haig and the High Command was willing to risk men like cannon fodder. Truly, World War One had become a war of attrition in which the goal seemingly became not instant victory over the dreaded enemy, but rather simply outlasting him.
Four months later, when the Battle mercifully ended, casualties for both sides had reached one million and a quarter, of whom over 24 000 were Canadian. And what had been gained? A scant 11 kilometres. When news of the slaughter reached home, people were horrified. Arguably no single engagement of World War One turned the people as much against the war. Many blamed Haig, and said the offensive was a needless waste of life, with brave soldiers fighting under inept leadership - "Lions led by Donkeys".
The equation of spiralling casualties and declining volunteer enlistments had to be addressed. Conscription, compulsory military service, once again wracked Canadian unity, far more severely in 1917 than it had done almost twenty years earlier during the Boer War. In 1914, there had been an initial rush of volunteers. Thousands enthusiastically rushed to join the effort. They marched triumphantly behind brass bands to enlistment offices. However, as the war dragged on far longer than first thought (the feeling at the start was widely shared that the conflict would be over by Christmas of 1914!) and reports of the horrendous conditions on the Western Front began to trickle home, volunteer numbers began to dry up. At the same time, the death toll continued to climb steadily. (See table below.)
Canadian Enlistment/Casualty Rates for 1917
| Month | Enlistments | Casualties |
|---|---|---|
| January | 9 194 | 4 396 |
| February | 6 809 | 1 250 |
| March | 6 640 | 6 161 |
| April | 5 530 | 13 477 |
| May | 6 407 | 13 457 |
| June | 6 348 | 7 931 |
| July | 3 882 | 7 906 |
| August | 3 117 | 13 232 |
| September | 3 588 | 10 990 |
| October | 4 884 | 5 929 |
| November | 4 019 | 30 741* |
| December | 3 921 | 7 476 |
- indicates the Battle of Passchendeale
Conscription & the Military Service Bill
Early in 1917, Prime Minister Borden visited the Canadian Corps at the front. He was horrified to see the appalling conditions. He was told that declining volunteer enlistments were not keeping pace with the growing casualty numbers. Military commanders informed him that unless the trend was reversed, victory would be in grave jeopardy. Shortly afterwards, Borden attended the Imperial War Conference. He believed that his desire to fashion an increasing sense of Canadian independence and to gain a separate voice at the final peace treaty necessitated a minimum of 500 000 Canadian soldiers in Europe.
The only solution was conscription. However, Borden did not introduce it lightly. He well recalled the divisiveness of the issue for Laurier almost twenty years earlier. He well knew that both Quebec and many western farmers would roundly oppose the decision. One last-ditch gasp at a volunteer campaign was attempted. However, the man in charge, Hughes, angered French Canadians by using English Protestant recruiters as well as printing all manuals and signs in English only. Volunteers simply did not come forward in the necessary numbers.
French Canadians did not simply oppose conscription because they wanted to keep their sons on the farms and out of the trenches. Their respected spokesman, Henri Bourassa, articulated the thoughts of many when he claimed that World War One was a foreign war that had nothing to do with Quebec. When some argued that France was involved, the French Canadian response was that France had abandoned them on the Plains of Abraham back in 1759. Bourassa argued that Germany posed no more threat to the liberties of French Canadians than did their own government. After all, the Manitoba Schools Act of 1890 and the more recent Regulation 17 (Ontario) in 1912 had prohibited French as a language of instruction in two provinces. Finally, Bourassa and all French Canadians bristled at the suggestion that they were cowards. English Canadians pointed to the numbers (Ontario contributed 63% of the volunteers in proportion to its population; Alberta - 92%, British Columbia - 104%, the Maritimes - 38%; while Quebec only 20%).
Nevertheless, Borden believed that the severe shortage of troops had to be addressed. So he passed the Military Service Bill in the middle of 1917. All able-bodied men between the ages of 20 and 45 were now eligible for being drafted into the Canadian Army. There were few exceptions - men in essential wartime production jobs and conscientious objectors.
The division within the country was immense and immediate. Laurier, representative of more moderate French Canadian opposition, became disillusioned when 22 Liberals from his caucus voted for the Military Service Bill. It was clear that only a national election, even in the midst of a war, could possibly resolve the issue. Borden, very adroitly, prior to the December election, passed two pieces of legislation that heightened his chances for victory at the polls. The Military Voters Act allowed soldiers overseas, regardless of age, to vote. The Wartime Election Act gave the vote to female relatives of soldiers. Clearly, both groups would be likely to endorse the government's conscription policy. At the same time, the latter law took away the right to vote from recently arrived immigrants from enemy nations - a group likely to oppose conscription. This effectively disenfranchised some 30 000 Canadians.
The Conservative government was transformed into a Union (or coalition) government as a number of disaffected Liberals bolted Laurier and joined Borden. The December 1917 election was divisive and bitter, with both sides trumpeting the loyalty issue. The final result mirrored the split in the country as Borden and his Union government won an overwhelming majority but captured a scant three seats in Quebec. The anti-conscription, anti-government riots that occurred in Montreal and Quebec City were but the visible manifestation of that split. In the end, conscription turned out to be a failure. Not only did it create a giant rift between French and English in Canada, in the end, it only produced about 45 000 conscripts on the battlefield.
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