[!--QuoteBegin--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--QuoteEBegin--]“The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.”[/quote]
Edward Grey, Foreign Minister of Great Britain, August 4th, 1914.
Midnight, August 4th, 1914, brought a sudden change in the British Empire. War had been declared, and the forces of King George V were being mobilized to engage the might of Kaiser Wilhelm II’s German army. Although the first British soldiers to touch down on French soil would be the regular British army, who took the name “Old Contemptibles” after a derogatory slur from the Kaiser, it would not be soon before soldiers flooded in from the Dominions. South Africa’s forces, under former Boer General Jan Christian Smuts, engaged German colonial forces in Africa. The Australians and New Zealanders, lumped together into a group known as ANZAC (Australia-New Zealand Army Corps), were first flung into battle during the ill-fated Gallipoli operation, and would later serve side-by-side with the forces of the largest Dominion: Canada.
The Canadian Expeditionary Force consisted of soldiers from all over Canada, from British Columbia to Nova Scotia. Most of the men who enlisted to fight for Britain were British-born, men caught up in the waves of nationalism that spread throughout every major combatant nation in the First World War. These included men of Scottish descent, who formed units known as highland regiments. Of all the Canadian units, the highlanders would be at the fore of battle, and would be the basis of the formation of a reputation that Canadian soldiers overseas still bear to this day.
The 1st Canadian Division, an infantry unit, arrived in France in time to occupy a piece of the Ypres Salient, which was a triangle around the Belgian city of the same name that jutted into German lines. German-held territory around the Ypres Salient was on high ground, however, which meant that the Canadian and French forces holding the salient were under constant fire and pressure. The constant flow of murderous machine-gun and artillery fire earned the salient the nickname “Hellfire Corner”.
Among the units in the 1st Canadian Division were the Royal Highland Regiment of Canada, also known as the Black Watch; the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada, from Vancouver, British Columbia; the North Nova Scotia Highlanders and the Cape Breton Highlanders, collectively known as the Nova Scotia Highland Regiment; as well as the Calgary Highlanders. Other Highland units were included as well, as well as forces of the Canadian Mounted Rifles (without their mounts) and regular infantry.
The Second Battle of Ypres is remembered for two closely-linked events. The first was the introduction of gas as a weapon en masse. Chlorine gas was brought in canisters to the front line by the Germans and released on April 22nd, 1915. The yellowish-green gas crossed the lines and caused the 45th Algerian Division to panic and retreat. The German attack was then carried out, but the second event that would distinguish the battle occurred to hold the lines in place: Canadian bravery.
Led by the Cape Breton Highlanders, the 1st Canadian Division on the fringe of the gas cloud resorted to primitive techniques learned in coal mines. The soldiers urinated into socks and handkerchiefs and tied these makeshift filters over their face to reduce the suffering caused by the chlorine gas. The British general of the 1st Canadian Division, Lieutenant-General E. Alderson, ordered the Canadian brigade in the gas cloud to withdraw. According to the official British historian, the Dominion forces on the line thrice refused the call to withdraw, instead choosing to counter-attack German forces! By the time the Second British Army arrived to fill the gap 6.4 kilometer gap the retreating French colonial forces had left, the Germans had been tossed back to their starting positions by the actions of the 1st Canadian Division.
On the 24th of May, General Erich von Falkenhayn’s Germans attempted to overrun the salient again. This time they chose to attack the apex of the salient, realizing that the forces there were the greatest threat to the offensive. However, the Canadians, when hit by the gas attack, held the line again, despite horrific casualties. According to the official history of the Calgary Highlanders, over 6,000 of the 10,000 men of the 1st Canadian Division became casualties by the end of Second Ypres.
[!--QuoteBegin--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--QuoteEBegin--][Upon reaching the front line trench] we found what was left of ‘A’ Company who had been holding this trench, lay in the bottom of it, overcome with gas. Black in the face, their tunics and shirt fronts torn open at the necks in their last desperate fight for breath, many of them lay quite still while others were still wriggling and kicking in the agonies of the most awful death I have ever seen. Some were wounded in the bargain, and their gaping wounds lay open, blood still oozing from them. One poor devil was tearing at his throat with his hands. I doubt if he knew, or felt, that he had only one hand, and that the other was just a stump where the hand should have been. This stump he worked around his throat as if the hand were still there, and the blood from it was streaming over his bluish-black face and neck… What human being could have stood by and seen such sights without wanting to end the sufferings of such poor devils with a bullet?[/quote]
A soldier’s recollection of the aftermath of gas warfare gives us an example of the trying conditions the Highland Regiments existed in, during Second Ypres, and also an example of the adversity through which they battled to obtain something akin to victory. Second Ypres, however, was a defensive battle. The Canadian Corps, with the Highland Regiments, would be called into battle again many more times, including at Canada’s greatest victory of the First World War: Vimy Ridge.
In 1917, the British planned a massive offensive to coincide with French General Robert Nivelle’s supposed war-winning attack. Although the French attack was a miserable failure and resulted in large scale mutiny in that country, the British assault on Arras was somewhat of a success. However, by far the most successful portion of the Arras offensive was the capture of a feature that dominated the landscape. Seven times French forces attacked the feature, and seven times they were repulsed. However, the eight attempt was to be made by the four divisions of the Canadian Corps, using a set-piece attack that would become the model for the war-winning tactics the Commonwealth Armies would employ in 1918.
The battle for Vimy Ridge is widely considered to be the moment that Canada was born as a nation. In one of the most successful attacks of the First World War, Vimy Ridge was carried by the Canadians, who tunneled assault forces almost up to the German lines, and then supported this infantry with a creeping barrage. Canadians, braver than most Allied forces, followed right on the heels of the barrage, so that when the artillery assault ended, the Germans found the Canadians charging out of the dust and into their lines.
Almost all of Vimy Ridge was captured on the first day of the offensive, April 9th, 1917. However, the apex of the Ridge remained in German hands. The Canadians pursued the Germans past this hill, and as a result isolated the enemy there. The Canadian Corps’ commander, Lieutenant-General Sir Julian Byng, brought up one of his supply units to take the formation. The North Nova Scotia Highlanders were hastily equipped and sent into battle, and outnumbered and lacking artillery support, seized the apex of Vimy Ridge on April 12th, 1917.
The actions of the North Nova Scotia Highlanders added to the reputation already established in Ypres. In his book regarding the evolution of warfare during World War One, Second World War panzer leader Feldmarschall Heinz Guderian often referred to the Canadian Corps as “having a reputation for offensive-mindedness” and “having a reputation for aggressiveness”. These laurels would be continued by opponents into the Second World War, where famous general Erwin Rommel would refer to the Canadians as “along with the New Zealanders, the only soldiers in this war I fear.” Rommel’s experience was based not only on the appreciation of the Canadians as a general in World War Two, but also as an officer in the trenches in the first.
Defending in horrible conditions at Second Ypres and attacking in favourable conditions at Vimy Ridge were two of the achievements of the Highland Regiments in the war. The third was to be established at the Third Battle of Ypres. Easily the worst planned British offensive of the war, and almost as bloody as the Battle of the Somme, Third Ypres sent over three hundred thousand soldiers to their deaths.
The land around Ypres had been turned into a mire of shellholes by three years of fighting by the time Third Ypres opened on July 31st, 1917. The opening offensive met with a sharp rebuttal from the Germans in the area, and fell quite short of its objective. Over the next three months, the British, ANZACs, and then the Canadians would attack through mud and mire and blood, in the battle quite aptly known as the “Hell of Passchendaele.”
The Seaforth Highlanders were assigned an objective in the region of Passchendaele known as Crest Farm. Their attack on Crest Farm was similar to the overall Battle of Passchendaele, although on a much smaller scale. The Seaforth men advanced as fast as they could across shell-pitted fields swamped with water and mud. Men vanished into shell holes and mud, never to be seen again. Finally the Highlanders reached cover in the form of a mud filled gully. They closed on Crest Farm and scrambled up the sides of the gully, attacking the German lines from point-blank range. Like most skirmishes in Passchendaele, the battle for Crest Farm quickly closed to fighting with fixed bayonets. The Seaforth Highlanders were commended for their actions, as the offensive on Crest Farm was supposed to be conducted by an entire division, rather than a regiment. General Douglas “Butcher” Haig commended the Seaforth men as such: “The unit that took Crest Farm had by this action accomplished a feat of arms which would go down in the annals of British Arms as one of the greatest achievements of a single unit.”
Passchendaele has been considered the stereotypical battle of World War One in that it was a perfect display of men’s lives being squandered for absolutely no reason. The seizure of the village of Passchendaele gave the British little more than a salient into German lines which could be counter-attacked. The conditions were similar to hell on earth:
[!--QuoteBegin--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--QuoteEBegin--]Mud. We slept in it, ate in it. It stretched for miles – a sea of stinking mud. The dead buried themselves in it. The wounded died in it. Men slithered around the lips of huge shell craters filled with mud and water… [On] each side of the track lie the debris of war… Here and arm and a leg. It was a nightmare journey… Finally dawn broke, a hopeless dawn. Shell holes and mud. Round about rifles with fixed bayonets stuck in the mud marking the places where men had died and been sucked down.[/quote]
The men of the Highland Regiments were at the forefront of the Canadian Corps, which at the expense of a quarter of its manpower, finally seized Passchendaele on November 10th, 1917. The battle ended, but the image of torment remained. For many Highland units, Passchendaele represented the height of conflict in World War One. The image of brave highlanders carrying on, up to their kilts in muck, is an image still represented today when the battle of Passchendaele is spoke of.
Second Ypres, Vimy Ridge, and Passchendaele are the three major battles that Canadians participated in during the First World War. The units that participated in these battles took huge casualties. The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada took over 8,000 casualties during the war, representing fully 68% of its strength killed, wounded, or captured. Similarly, the Seaforth Highlanders that distinguished themselves at Passchendaele took 66% casualties during the war’s duration.
The achievements of the Highlanders in these battles has them fondly remembered as brave, bagpipe-blaring, kilted warriors who held the lines against all odds; men who charged enemy positions, outnumbered, and carried the day; soldiers who could advance through mud, machine-gun fire, and mustard gas. The reputation of these Scots-Canadians remains in the memories of those who fought in and those who study the First World War. As long as Canadian history is studied, the valiant exploits of the “Ladies from Hell” will be remembered as being among the actions that forged Canada from a variety of colonies English, French, Scot, and other, into a true nation.
Edward Grey, Foreign Minister of Great Britain, August 4th, 1914.
Midnight, August 4th, 1914, brought a sudden change in the British Empire. War had been declared, and the forces of King George V were being mobilized to engage the might of Kaiser Wilhelm II’s German army. Although the first British soldiers to touch down on French soil would be the regular British army, who took the name “Old Contemptibles” after a derogatory slur from the Kaiser, it would not be soon before soldiers flooded in from the Dominions. South Africa’s forces, under former Boer General Jan Christian Smuts, engaged German colonial forces in Africa. The Australians and New Zealanders, lumped together into a group known as ANZAC (Australia-New Zealand Army Corps), were first flung into battle during the ill-fated Gallipoli operation, and would later serve side-by-side with the forces of the largest Dominion: Canada.
The Canadian Expeditionary Force consisted of soldiers from all over Canada, from British Columbia to Nova Scotia. Most of the men who enlisted to fight for Britain were British-born, men caught up in the waves of nationalism that spread throughout every major combatant nation in the First World War. These included men of Scottish descent, who formed units known as highland regiments. Of all the Canadian units, the highlanders would be at the fore of battle, and would be the basis of the formation of a reputation that Canadian soldiers overseas still bear to this day.
The 1st Canadian Division, an infantry unit, arrived in France in time to occupy a piece of the Ypres Salient, which was a triangle around the Belgian city of the same name that jutted into German lines. German-held territory around the Ypres Salient was on high ground, however, which meant that the Canadian and French forces holding the salient were under constant fire and pressure. The constant flow of murderous machine-gun and artillery fire earned the salient the nickname “Hellfire Corner”.
Among the units in the 1st Canadian Division were the Royal Highland Regiment of Canada, also known as the Black Watch; the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada, from Vancouver, British Columbia; the North Nova Scotia Highlanders and the Cape Breton Highlanders, collectively known as the Nova Scotia Highland Regiment; as well as the Calgary Highlanders. Other Highland units were included as well, as well as forces of the Canadian Mounted Rifles (without their mounts) and regular infantry.
The Second Battle of Ypres is remembered for two closely-linked events. The first was the introduction of gas as a weapon en masse. Chlorine gas was brought in canisters to the front line by the Germans and released on April 22nd, 1915. The yellowish-green gas crossed the lines and caused the 45th Algerian Division to panic and retreat. The German attack was then carried out, but the second event that would distinguish the battle occurred to hold the lines in place: Canadian bravery.
Led by the Cape Breton Highlanders, the 1st Canadian Division on the fringe of the gas cloud resorted to primitive techniques learned in coal mines. The soldiers urinated into socks and handkerchiefs and tied these makeshift filters over their face to reduce the suffering caused by the chlorine gas. The British general of the 1st Canadian Division, Lieutenant-General E. Alderson, ordered the Canadian brigade in the gas cloud to withdraw. According to the official British historian, the Dominion forces on the line thrice refused the call to withdraw, instead choosing to counter-attack German forces! By the time the Second British Army arrived to fill the gap 6.4 kilometer gap the retreating French colonial forces had left, the Germans had been tossed back to their starting positions by the actions of the 1st Canadian Division.
On the 24th of May, General Erich von Falkenhayn’s Germans attempted to overrun the salient again. This time they chose to attack the apex of the salient, realizing that the forces there were the greatest threat to the offensive. However, the Canadians, when hit by the gas attack, held the line again, despite horrific casualties. According to the official history of the Calgary Highlanders, over 6,000 of the 10,000 men of the 1st Canadian Division became casualties by the end of Second Ypres.
[!--QuoteBegin--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--QuoteEBegin--][Upon reaching the front line trench] we found what was left of ‘A’ Company who had been holding this trench, lay in the bottom of it, overcome with gas. Black in the face, their tunics and shirt fronts torn open at the necks in their last desperate fight for breath, many of them lay quite still while others were still wriggling and kicking in the agonies of the most awful death I have ever seen. Some were wounded in the bargain, and their gaping wounds lay open, blood still oozing from them. One poor devil was tearing at his throat with his hands. I doubt if he knew, or felt, that he had only one hand, and that the other was just a stump where the hand should have been. This stump he worked around his throat as if the hand were still there, and the blood from it was streaming over his bluish-black face and neck… What human being could have stood by and seen such sights without wanting to end the sufferings of such poor devils with a bullet?[/quote]
A soldier’s recollection of the aftermath of gas warfare gives us an example of the trying conditions the Highland Regiments existed in, during Second Ypres, and also an example of the adversity through which they battled to obtain something akin to victory. Second Ypres, however, was a defensive battle. The Canadian Corps, with the Highland Regiments, would be called into battle again many more times, including at Canada’s greatest victory of the First World War: Vimy Ridge.
In 1917, the British planned a massive offensive to coincide with French General Robert Nivelle’s supposed war-winning attack. Although the French attack was a miserable failure and resulted in large scale mutiny in that country, the British assault on Arras was somewhat of a success. However, by far the most successful portion of the Arras offensive was the capture of a feature that dominated the landscape. Seven times French forces attacked the feature, and seven times they were repulsed. However, the eight attempt was to be made by the four divisions of the Canadian Corps, using a set-piece attack that would become the model for the war-winning tactics the Commonwealth Armies would employ in 1918.
The battle for Vimy Ridge is widely considered to be the moment that Canada was born as a nation. In one of the most successful attacks of the First World War, Vimy Ridge was carried by the Canadians, who tunneled assault forces almost up to the German lines, and then supported this infantry with a creeping barrage. Canadians, braver than most Allied forces, followed right on the heels of the barrage, so that when the artillery assault ended, the Germans found the Canadians charging out of the dust and into their lines.
Almost all of Vimy Ridge was captured on the first day of the offensive, April 9th, 1917. However, the apex of the Ridge remained in German hands. The Canadians pursued the Germans past this hill, and as a result isolated the enemy there. The Canadian Corps’ commander, Lieutenant-General Sir Julian Byng, brought up one of his supply units to take the formation. The North Nova Scotia Highlanders were hastily equipped and sent into battle, and outnumbered and lacking artillery support, seized the apex of Vimy Ridge on April 12th, 1917.
The actions of the North Nova Scotia Highlanders added to the reputation already established in Ypres. In his book regarding the evolution of warfare during World War One, Second World War panzer leader Feldmarschall Heinz Guderian often referred to the Canadian Corps as “having a reputation for offensive-mindedness” and “having a reputation for aggressiveness”. These laurels would be continued by opponents into the Second World War, where famous general Erwin Rommel would refer to the Canadians as “along with the New Zealanders, the only soldiers in this war I fear.” Rommel’s experience was based not only on the appreciation of the Canadians as a general in World War Two, but also as an officer in the trenches in the first.
Defending in horrible conditions at Second Ypres and attacking in favourable conditions at Vimy Ridge were two of the achievements of the Highland Regiments in the war. The third was to be established at the Third Battle of Ypres. Easily the worst planned British offensive of the war, and almost as bloody as the Battle of the Somme, Third Ypres sent over three hundred thousand soldiers to their deaths.
The land around Ypres had been turned into a mire of shellholes by three years of fighting by the time Third Ypres opened on July 31st, 1917. The opening offensive met with a sharp rebuttal from the Germans in the area, and fell quite short of its objective. Over the next three months, the British, ANZACs, and then the Canadians would attack through mud and mire and blood, in the battle quite aptly known as the “Hell of Passchendaele.”
The Seaforth Highlanders were assigned an objective in the region of Passchendaele known as Crest Farm. Their attack on Crest Farm was similar to the overall Battle of Passchendaele, although on a much smaller scale. The Seaforth men advanced as fast as they could across shell-pitted fields swamped with water and mud. Men vanished into shell holes and mud, never to be seen again. Finally the Highlanders reached cover in the form of a mud filled gully. They closed on Crest Farm and scrambled up the sides of the gully, attacking the German lines from point-blank range. Like most skirmishes in Passchendaele, the battle for Crest Farm quickly closed to fighting with fixed bayonets. The Seaforth Highlanders were commended for their actions, as the offensive on Crest Farm was supposed to be conducted by an entire division, rather than a regiment. General Douglas “Butcher” Haig commended the Seaforth men as such: “The unit that took Crest Farm had by this action accomplished a feat of arms which would go down in the annals of British Arms as one of the greatest achievements of a single unit.”
Passchendaele has been considered the stereotypical battle of World War One in that it was a perfect display of men’s lives being squandered for absolutely no reason. The seizure of the village of Passchendaele gave the British little more than a salient into German lines which could be counter-attacked. The conditions were similar to hell on earth:
[!--QuoteBegin--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--QuoteEBegin--]Mud. We slept in it, ate in it. It stretched for miles – a sea of stinking mud. The dead buried themselves in it. The wounded died in it. Men slithered around the lips of huge shell craters filled with mud and water… [On] each side of the track lie the debris of war… Here and arm and a leg. It was a nightmare journey… Finally dawn broke, a hopeless dawn. Shell holes and mud. Round about rifles with fixed bayonets stuck in the mud marking the places where men had died and been sucked down.[/quote]
The men of the Highland Regiments were at the forefront of the Canadian Corps, which at the expense of a quarter of its manpower, finally seized Passchendaele on November 10th, 1917. The battle ended, but the image of torment remained. For many Highland units, Passchendaele represented the height of conflict in World War One. The image of brave highlanders carrying on, up to their kilts in muck, is an image still represented today when the battle of Passchendaele is spoke of.
Second Ypres, Vimy Ridge, and Passchendaele are the three major battles that Canadians participated in during the First World War. The units that participated in these battles took huge casualties. The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada took over 8,000 casualties during the war, representing fully 68% of its strength killed, wounded, or captured. Similarly, the Seaforth Highlanders that distinguished themselves at Passchendaele took 66% casualties during the war’s duration.
The achievements of the Highlanders in these battles has them fondly remembered as brave, bagpipe-blaring, kilted warriors who held the lines against all odds; men who charged enemy positions, outnumbered, and carried the day; soldiers who could advance through mud, machine-gun fire, and mustard gas. The reputation of these Scots-Canadians remains in the memories of those who fought in and those who study the First World War. As long as Canadian history is studied, the valiant exploits of the “Ladies from Hell” will be remembered as being among the actions that forged Canada from a variety of colonies English, French, Scot, and other, into a true nation.
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