Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights Part 46

A POLITICAL IMPOSSIBILITY.

Canada's experience const.i.tutes a severe indictment of the voluntary system of recruiting, although sterner measures at the outset were a political impossibility. The free-will enlistment plan had to be given a thorough test, and its inadequacy demonstrated and repeatedly emphasized before public opinion would support resort to compulsion.

English-speaking Canada at least learned that lesson, and it is extremely doubtful whether the United States would have adopted the selective draft system at the commencement of its partic.i.p.ation in the war, if it had not been that the experience of Canada and the United Kingdom established the weakness inherent in the voluntary system.

Besides the camp at Valcartier, a great artillery camp was set up at Petewawa, where the best facilities existed for long range gun practice.

Ontario saw two camps at Niagara and Camp Borden; Manitoba saw one on the plains, Alberta another in the picturesque district near Calgary, while British Columbia had its camp at Vernon.

INADEQUATE RECRUITING.

The volunteer recruiting in Canada, in its incipiency, while resultful, was soon found to be not adequate. Under it, however, there was a widespread response that stirs the blood, for men hurried to the lines from the Yukon and the Peace Rivers; from Hudson's Bay and the farther hinterlands, from prairie and mountain; white men and the red men; cowboys and city chaps, harvesters and hunters, mechanics and mountaineers, backwoodsmen and frontwoodsmen. And also among the enlisters were thousands of Americans who fought side by side with Canadian, Briton and Frenchman.

Canada has large German settlements, including 300,000 German and Austrian settlers in the western provinces. Prompt action was taken on the outbreak of the war to deal with the alien element that might prove dangerous and disloyal. Nearly 10,000 were speedily interned, from Nova Scotia to British Columbia. A large proportion were Austrian laborers who had been railway navvies. These were placed in western camps and used in building trails and roads in national parks, or in clearing the forest for future settlement in Northern Ontario.

Many individuals of known pro-German sympathies were also put out of harm's way, and some famous trials were held which served to give salutary warnings to all others that freedom of speech has its limitations in times of war, and that the rumors that the sinking of the Lusitania was being celebrated behind closed doors was hardly palatable.

Others, again, were caught in attempts to destroy property and it is to the credit of police and military vigilance that few succeeded in their nefarious designs. The internment camp proved a wholesome example, and the pro-German in Canada took the advice of the United States Government to its German subjects "to keep their mouths shut." It is also a fact that the occupants of the detention camps in the Dominion were well fed and treated, in striking contrast to the disturbing reports that leaked through as to the way Canadian war prisoners in Germany fared.

CANADA'S WAR FINANCIERING.

Next, the story of how Canada is financing her share of the war, for it is a costly business. Three domestic war loans, totaling $450,000,000, were voluntarily subscribed, each in fact being doubly underwritten, and yet the savings of the people in the banks is (1917) the highest on record--over a billion and a quarter. Part of the war revenue is being raised by war taxes on letters, checks, legal doc.u.ments and some articles of import. Happily the normal revenue of the country was never so large nor the trade of the Dominion so buoyant. All these factors are helping to carry the war burden.

The generosity of the people, under the heavy strain, was most marked.

Many millions were given to the various war help funds, chiefly to the Red Cross and the Canadian Patriotic Fund, of 700 branches, which supplements the Government separation allowance to soldiers' dependents by other grants. Canada had, up to that time, by the way, the highest paid soldiery in the world, privates getting $33 a month.

It is interesting to note that there are several branches of the Canadian Patriotic Fund in the United States, which looked after the families and dependents of Americans who enlisted in the Canadian ranks.

Canadian total givings in cash and kind to their own, as well as to the Belgians, French, Servian, Armenian and other funds and Governmental grants of grain and provision, would represent a very much larger figure than that here mentioned.

The orders placed in Canada averaged $1,500,000 worth for every day in the year.

The women of Canada in every way render practical patriotic service.

Hundreds of nurses were placed in overseas and home hospitals. The farmers' wives raised large sums of money as did the school children.

Organizations of all kinds came into existence, not alone collecting money, but contributing vast quant.i.ties of war material and soldiers'

comforts, and sending packages of food and clothing regularly to Canadian prisoners in German camps.

Still another war problem was the care of the returned wounded soldiers, and a serious problem it was. The procession of the disabled was a pathetic one. Military convalescent hospitals were set up in many centres, in addition to the opening of private homes for the same beneficent purpose.

CANADA PART OF AMERICA.

Canada may be an English possession, but to us it is part of America, and certainly no two countries have rested side by side in greater friends.h.i.+p than the "Dominion" and the United States. You can find no great fortifications along the 3000 odd miles of border between Canada and the United States. The countries have lived in peace and harmony and together, or side by side they have battled for peace on the fields of Flanders.

All the world knows what Canada has done on the battlefields abroad, fighting with those troops from Australia, New Zealand, India and lesser English territory, to drive the ruthless Germans back and crush the Empire to which they swear allegiance.

The Canadian troops were taken after landing in France to a point within the country between St. Omer and Ypres, where they served with honor to themselves, their presence having a salutary effect on the British soldiery, who had been facing the German forces. At the battle of Neuve Chapelle the Canadians held part of the line allotted to the first army, and while not engaged in the main attack, rendered valuable help, their artillery being very active, and at the battle of Ypres in April, 1915, they took a notable part.

In the latter part of April, the Canadian division held a line of about 5000 yards, connecting with that of the French troops, and faced the memorable gas attack of the Germans, which was the first noted in the war. The asphyxiating gas was projected into the trenches by means of force pumps and pipes laid under the parapets, the German sappers having carefully placed these conductors. The bulk of the gas was directed against the French, largely made up of Turcos and Zouaves, who were driven back, suffering agonies.

POSITION BRAVELY HELD.

The Canadians suffered to some extent from the poison, and though there were in the commands lawyers, college professors, business men, clerks and workers of all sorts, who had been turned into soldiers within a few months, and without previous military experience, they held their position bravely. The Canadians were, of course, compelled to change their position after the French fell back, and the Allied troops were, to all effects and purposes, routed. But when the Germans, recognizing the weakened position of the Canadians, attempted to force a series of attacks, the Canadian division, as a matter of record, fought through the day and through the night, for forty-eight consecutive hours, and finally, in a counter-attack, drove the Germans back and regained a position which had been lost by the British troops in the earlier conflict.

Later, in the face of a devastating fire, in which many officers were killed, battalions of the Canadians carried warfare to the first line of German trenches, and in a desperate hand-to-hand struggle won the trench. This attack, it is said, secured and maintained during the most critical moment of the campaign the integrity of the Allied line.

In connection with the experience of the Canadians with the gas fumes, it is necessary to note that at that time they were unprovided with gas masks, or means of protecting themselves against the fumes, and the best they could do was to stuff wet handkerchiefs in their mouths. The fumes, although extremely poisonous, were not so effective with the Canadians as on the French lines, largely because of the position of the Canadians, and the direction of the wind, but in the several attacks a number of the Canadians were asphyxiated.

HEROES WIN RECOGNITION.

So, all through the Ypres campaign, the Canadians faced the shot, sh.e.l.l and poisonous gases of the Germans, and won recognition for their heroic conduct which will stand to the credit of Canada for all time. At Festubert, Givenchy, and, last but not least, Lens, the Canadians, step by step, kept pace with the Allied advances.

In their general advance on Lens the Canadians occupied the strongest outpost in the defense of that place, and pus.h.i.+ng their troops on toward La Coulotte, entered that village. The Germans withdrew in this neighborhood from a line about one and three-quarters miles long.

The task of the Canadians was to capture German outposts southwest of Reservoir Hill. The attack was evidently expected. The Germans scuttled, abandoning ground upon which machine gun fire was immediately turned by Germans located on the hill. This was speedily followed by heavy artillery fire, which continued during the night in the vicinity of the Lens electric station.

The enemy's dugouts were searched, found to be empty, and wrecked.

The German retirement ceased during the night. Patrols sent out opposite Mericourt and to the south found the enemy's front line strongly held.

The Germans made huge craters at all cross roads in Avion and leading towards Lens.

Patrols which were sent out reached the summit of Reservoir Hill without opposition and pushed on down the eastern slope and the strong Lens outpost was effectively occupied. Meanwhile, south of the Souchez River the Canadians drove forward on the heels of the retiring Germans.

Railway embankments east of Lens electric station were occupied. The advance was then continued toward La Coulotte. As night fell strong parties were sent out to consolidate the positions occupied, while patrols were sent forward to keep in touch with the Germans.

WANTON DESTRUCTION.

Several days previous the Germans were known to be destroying houses in the western part of Lens, with the object of giving a wider area of fire for their guns. It was their intention of clinging to the eastern side of the city and prolonging the struggle by house-to-house fighting.

Under a protecting concentration of artillery fire, Canadian troops successfully stormed and captured the German front line before Avion, a suburb of Lens. By the advance the British line was carried forward to within one mile of the centre of Lens.

The Canadians, heartened by successes gained in a few days at a relatively small cost, decided to attack across the open ground sloping upwards to Avion and the village of Leauvette, near the Souchez River.

They met with opposition of a serious character at only one point, where a combination of machine gun fire and uncut wires delayed the advance.

The attack was not intended to be pressed home at this particular spot, as the ground specially favored the Germans, so that the delay did no harm. The a.s.saulting troops comprised men from British Columbia, Manitoba, Central Ontario and Nova Scotia.

The attack was made along a two-mile front. On the extreme left, Nova Scotians pushed their way up the Lens-Arras road to the village of Leauvette. Here they took a number of prisoners. At the other end of the line, east of the railway tracks, enemy dugouts were bombed. Their occupants belonged to the crack Prussian Guards Corps, the Fifth Guard Grenadiers, who refused in most cases to come out and surrender.

At daybreak, Canadian airplanes, flying low over Avion, saw few Germans there. Craters which had been made by mine explosions at the crossroads, seriously hindered them in bringing up troops from Lens for counter-attacks.

GERMAN AVIATIK DEFEATED.

In an air duel fought at probably the highest alt.i.tude at which aviators, up until that time, had met in combat, nearly four miles, a Canadian triplane pursued and defeated a German two-seated Aviatik. The German machine had sought safety by climbing upward and the triplane pursued. At a height of 20,000 feet the pilot of the German craft either fell or jumped from it and disappeared at the moment of the first burst of fire from the gun on the Canadian. The German observer then was seen to climb out upon the tail of the machine, where he lost his hold and plunged headlong. The Aviatik turned its nose down and fell.

It is meet that some note be taken of the fact that while the Canadian soldiers were battling for humanity and the preservation of the British Empire in Flanders there was being celebrated in their native land the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Dominion. All Canada took part in the celebration on June 1, 1917, as did large numbers of men from the United States officers' training camp at Niagara, where recruits were preparing to receive Commissions in Uncle Sam's Army.