|
World
War I |August 1914 |
Recruitment |
Sam Hughes |
To England
|To France |
2nd Battle of Ypres |
Battle of St Julien |
The Navel War |
Festubert |
Givenchy |
Canadian Corps |
The Air War |
Newfoundland |
The Somme |
St Eloi Crater |
Mount Sorrel |
Hill 70 |
Passchendaele | Vimy Ridge
| Amiens |
Cambrai |
Mons | Flanders Fields
| Victory
After the initial rush
of volunteers and the filling out of the regiments, one
of the main basic training centres in Valcartier,
Quebec, prepared the new soldiers to obey orders and
behave within the limits of expected military
discipline. Due to the urgency for troops in Europe it
was decided that the first units would depart for Europe
as quickly as possible.
On the night of
September 23/24th the 31,000 raw troops were given
orders to prepare fro embarkation on transports to
Europe. They packed up heir equipments and were loaded
on trains for Quebec City, where they boarded 33 ocean
liners which were assembling in the Gaspe Basin
where they would then meet up with escort vessels and
cross the Atlantic. On October 3rd the troop ships
departed led by the HMS Charybdis, HMS Diana, HMS
Eclipse, flanked by the HMS Glory, HMS Suffok and
followed up by the HMS Talbot. The battle cruiser HMS
Queen Mary was to join up with the convoy later to
replace the HMS Suffolk.
As the fleet passed the Avalon Peninsula
of Newfoundland, it was joined by SS Florizel, a sealing
ship which carried the Newfoundland regiment. This was
only the third time that Canadian troops had left Canada
to fight abroad (the first being the Sudan, the second
being the Boer War) but this was by far the largest
contingent to depart for overseas service.
On October 14th the Canadian troops
arrived at Plymouth and Devonport and began to disembark
the troops. Due to wartime secrecy and in order not to
attract enemy ships or U-boats, the arrival of the
troops was a surprise for the English citizenry and
their joy at receiving help from the dominions was
overwhelming. They crowed the streets and cheered the
Canadian and Newfoundland troops as they marched along
the streets of the cities on their way to their training
stations on the Salisbury Plain at Bustard, West Down
South, West Down North, Pond Lake, Lark Hill and Sling
Plantation. This became their home until they departed
for France.
This proved to be a
good location for training as it was similar to the ugly
conditions of rain and mud that they would have to deal
with in France, but the foul conditions did take their
toll with illness, flu, spinal meningitis and a damping
of moral when the weather was extremely bad. They
trained, marched, learned how to use their weapons
effectively, how to deploy for combat and how to obey
their officers. They also developed a comradely and a
feeling of Canadian nationalism that could not be
created in ordinary life back home. This was their first
step towards becoming some of the best troops of the
First World War.
They were visited and
reviewed by King George and Queen Mary of England and
the great leaders of the British military establishment,
Lord Kitchener and Lord Roberts. Their training time was
relatively short and in December the orders had come
through for their deployment to France and by the new
year they were on their way.
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