The outbreak of war saw stirring days in Canada. The Minister of Militia and Defense, General Hughes, later Sir Sam Hughes, had great energy and force, though he was at tacked by critics for rashness in words and for ill-considered, impulsive and arbitrary actions. In the end these attacks led to his retirement. In his support it must be said that he brought a fiery enthusiasm and energy to his task of malting preparations for war. Under his direc tion a military camp was formed at Val Cartier, near Quebec. When the war broke out few realized the long, desperate struggle that lay ahead and the Canadian government planned to send to Europe only a single division of 20,000 men, fully equipped for war. So eager, how ever, were the volunteers for service that by 7 Sept. 1914, a month after the outbreak of war, Canada had under arms 43,000 men. On 3 Oct. 1914, there steamed out of Gaspe Basin on the lower Saint Lawrence, escorted by a for midable array of warships, the greatest force which, as yet, had ever crossed the Atlantic. On board were 33,000 Canadian soldiers, most of whom, two months earlier, had been civilians with little thought of ever taking part in war. At the moment when this fleet sailed, the Canadian government announced the recruiting of a second division and, by April 1915, the movement to Europe of this force began. At the end of 1915 Canada had more than 200,000 men under arms. By this time it was clear that there could be no reserve in regard to Canada's participation in the war and that she was com mitted to the full extent of her men and re sources. By the end of 1917 she had sent 400,000 men over-seas and was raising an addi tional 100,000. At the time of writing she has four divisions in the fighting line, her casualties alone amount to many more than the total number of men in the four first divisions which she sent over seas, and a steady stream of rim men is still flowing to Europe, together with another and sadder flow of thousands of wounded and disabled men back to Canada from the battle-front. If the United States is forced to take part in the war on the same scale, the republic will send to Europe six or seven million men. Australia and New Zealand have sent an even greater proportion of their manhood.
It was one thing to send men across the sea, another to train them so that they should be able to take a worthy place in the battle line in front of the disciplined battalions of a military nation like Germany. For a long time the professional soldier had been contemptuous of civilian levies and the saying was often re peated that, for actual fighting, one trained soldier was worth more than a dozen of raw militiamen, with inexperienced officers, igno rant of war as a science. Remembering this, we can realize the anxiety, the fears and hopes, with which the unprofessional army was watched in Canada, when at last it reached the scene of war. The first Canadian division was sent to the front about Ypres, in Belgium, ground fought over the most bitterly, perhaps, of any part of the long front. On another front in the battle of Neuve Chapelle, 10 March 1915, Canadian artillery took part but not Canadian infantry.
The first great trial of Canadian arms was to come six weeks later. In April 1915, the resolve of the Germans was to force their way through to Calais and thus menace com munications between England and France with greater effect than could be secured from Ostend, already for months in German posses sion. The Canadians were at a critical point
on the line, in front of the villages of Saint Julien and Langemarck, near Ypres, in the de fense against the advance of the German army to Calais. At about five o'clock in the afternoon of 22 April 1915, the Germans discharged poisonous gases, slowly carried by a favorable wind to the allied lines, and followed with an attack in great force. In the front line on the Canadian left were French regiments of Turcos and Zouaves. The deadly gas not unnaturally caused a panic among these troops and they fled to the rear in great disorder with the wild eyes and anguished, distorted faces of men who had breathed invisible death and were in ter rible agony. With this support gone the Cana dian left was °in the air." Had the Canadian line broken, it is altogether likely that the German divisions, numbering 150,000 men, could have pressed through to Calais with all the dire consequences to the allied cause which this would have involved. The Canadian line gave a little. The left was bent back so that the two fronts were almost at right angles. For two terrible days and nights, fighting in shell holes and behind any defenses which the ground provided, the small force held on until adequate relief came. The Canadians lost 6,000 men, about one-third of all the Canadians then on the front, but they had baffled the enemy designs. CIt is not too much to say," wrote Sir John French, the commander-in-chief, ethat the bearing and conduct of these splendid troops averted a disaster." At Festubert (9 May) and Givenchy (15 June) the Canadians had further hard fighting. The three battles formed a terrible ordeal for troops hitherto untried.
The battle of Saint Julien, the name now generally used, and those which immediately followed are momentous in the history of modern war. They showed that newly-levied forces of good mettle can, after six or eight months of training, hold their own against the fiercest onslaught of professional armies. Not only so, but the training in initiative learned in civilian life made such men specially re sourceful fighters. It was the Canadians who first kept enemy nerves on edge by trench raids and they proved good bombers, woods men, roadmakers and generally handy men as need arose. As we have seen there had been nervousness in Canada as to the bearing of troops on the battle-line who, officers and men alike, had been untrained civilians less than a year earlier. Saint Julien and the experience which followed relieved anxiety on this score and since that day Canadians, civilians and military alike, have had calm confidence in the capacity of the Canadian divisions at the front. During the first years of the war the chief com mand of the Canadian forces was held by an officer of the regular British army, at first General Alderson and later, from 9 May 1916, Gen. Sir Julian Byng. But at the time of writing the Canadians have been, since 19 June 1917, under the supreme command of Get'. Sir Arthur Currie, who, three and a half years ago, was a business man in the Canadian West. His success is one chief proof furnished by Canada of the rapidity with which, in conditions of war, the civilian soldier may become effec tive.