A Rifleman Went to War

to the presence or absence of trewes underneath any kilt ascending this stairway. I am told that trewes were a nuisance, besides unnecessary and an affront to Scot hardihood and pride. As illustrating the hardihood — and possibly the pride — a friend told me of one night crossing the Irish Sea during a Northeast blizzard with a good deal of sleet driving along the deck of one of those narrow little packets. A Highland soldier spent the entire passage on deck. My friend did, also, but he was well buttoned up in a nice “British Warm”, which he had bought while on leave. His old coat was at hand, and after a time he offered to lend it to the Scot, who, declining, assured him that he had one in his pack, just in case it should be required when, later, he went to Inverness.

But to get back to the importance of the kilt: The Scot was not only brought into the army as an individual and allowed to serve with those whom he knew; but with him came the kilt and the sporran and the glengarry and all the associations of tradition and history and racial pride of Scotland for a thousand years. Forcibly deprived of these things, submerged in regiments which were not theirs, not a little of that fighting stuff which established the reputation of “The Ladies from Hell” would have been lost. We have no occasion for anything comparable to the kilt; but we do have sectional feeling and sectional pride, not as sharply defined as that between Scotland and England, but there just the same, and not to be ignored in any scheme to give the American soldier a chance to realize fully his superb qualities as a fighting man.

We do have bands — and what a hell of a mess we make of them. Again, to take the extreme example, a Scottish regiment would be humiliated if required to march to music made by men assembled from Cockney orchestras. It not only must have bagpipes but bagpipes played by Scotsmen, not recruits from a London vaudeville. Why? Because it is necessary to his pride in his regiment and in himself. All our regiments may have brass bands (though I am partial to the pipes for martial music), but the music and the musicians should belong to the regiment. A band may be excellent in itself, but it is not going to complete the excellence of the organization if it is not in all respects at one with it. A bunch of weatherbeaten Tennesseeans will forever have a thorn in its side if it must forever be confronted with a band composed of Wops, though they might readily concede the excellence of this band with another regiment to which it belonged. It seems absurd to be arguing about this; but the condition exists, and it seems to me equally absurd to have to point out the importance of remedying it. Perfect discipline — a fine spirit in the company — not only imposes a duty and sets an ideal for the soldier; it presupposes that everything will be done to realize the finished ideal. If it is not done, there is a failure on the part of the command, a breach of faith in a tacit compact with the private soldier.

It is in these things that the British Army won my admiration. That the men come first, was not only a cliche of the newspapers and a honeyed phrase for home consumption; it was a fact. The British soldier groused and grumbled and said all sorts of things about all sorts of Brass Hats; but at bottom he had a good deal of affection for the organization that showed an intelligent regard for his peculiar qualities and feelings.

Nor was this organization so hide-bound and hopelessly devoted to precedent and custom as is commonly supposed. K.R.&O. (King’s Regulations and Orders) was the Bible for all British soldiers. Yet many of the Colonials took it as a sort of a point for departure rather than strict conformity — and got away with it. We probably distressed a good many dyed-in-the-wool English officers; but on the whole, the system was not so inelastic. It made Britishers of Sikhs and Gurkhas and still left them Sikhs and Gurkhas. And for the most part it allowed the Canadians sufficient latitude to remain Canadians without being very badly hampered.

A little further word about the Canadians is necessary, for it happens that, during the years since the war, I have frequently been complimented by the remark, usually made in introductions: “Mac went over with the Pats.” and a lot of other stuff along the same line.

Now; just to set at rest a lot of these “fairy tales”, I want to record the fact that I never, at any time, belonged to that organization — much as I should have liked to.

The Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry was the first Canadian organized force to share actively in the conflicts on the Western Front. Membership in that organization, even after it had been whittled down by successive engagements, was a mark of honnor which we, of the other Canadian contingents, fully appreciated. When I left the front, they were incorporated in the Third Division, under command of General Shaw. Another unit of this Division was the King Edward Horse. The others were mostly recruited from India — sort of a mongrel outfit, if you want to consider it that way; but they sure were fighting fools.

The “Pats” had, during the war: EIGHT commanding officers.

That is a separate paragraph and is inserted for the information of the uninitiated and the edification of the “soldat”.

You, the reader, may not understand why I am spending all this time telling about an outfit with which I was never connected. Well, I’ll tell you. Soldiers are soldiers and to all of us who are worth — what’ll we say? Hell room? — anyway, they were our living examples during all the rest of the war.

Oh, sure; I know some other outfit probably lost more men and all that. And, also, you may rise up to remark that these same “Pats” took a hell of a licking the first time they tried to take St. Eloi. Say, boy, they took a worse one on the second day of June, 1916. But they came back to take Regina trench in October of the same year — didn’t they?

The Canadian soldier was never licked. Say what we may about our own fine American troops, I, as an American born and with more than twenty years service under the Stars and Stripes, am here to certify that the men from over our Northern border are just as good at this fighting game as we are.

From the first day Canadian troops went into the line — it was at St. Eloi, that first time — until the end of the war, when they had their front lines East of Mons, they never were licked. About the only time they had to give up a bit of ground was on that June second operation, in 1916. That was a slam, all right, but I’ll tell the cock-eyed world we took it all back, again; didn’t we? Yea boy; we took it all back and plenty more — before Heinie had a chance to even think about it, we had all our own trenches back — all the way from Hooge to Hill Sixty. That was the time I wrote to my father, an old Civil War Officer: “Remember what Kit Carson said at Chantilley? ‘Lovely fighting all along the line: go in anywhere’”. Sure: plenty fighting for all of us.

The casual American reader of “War Stories”, is very apt to think that the “Pats” were the only soldiers that Canada sent to the war. Well, I’ll tell you something about that, too. It is just about the same as the story that the U.S. Marines won the war at Belleau Wood. The “Pats” were a magnificent fighting regiment. So are our Marines. No man on earth has more respect for their qualities than I have, but, just the same, you want to remember that they were not fighting the whole war by themselves. That Second U.S. Division was composed of two infantry regiments and two of the Marines. Some enterprising war correspondent, writing the story of their fighting during those critical days, forgot to mention the fact that these two Marine regiments were but a part of the Second Division — the others, as I recall it, being the Ninth and Twenty-third Infantry Regiments.

In my opinion — and after thinking it over for some sixteen years — the men who really won the war (if it was actually won by anyone) were the members of the First Canadian Division. I was not a member of that Division — though I tried hard enough to be.

Their superb courage in withstanding the initial ordeal of poison gas is, in my estimation, the outstanding event of the war.

But I don’t want to get excited about this. It was an exciting time — war at its best and worst, its most sublime and most pitiful and horrible; but I was going to give you some idea as to the make-up of the Canadian Expeditionary Forces, after those first units, led by the Princess Pats, which were sent out at once to do their bit while Canada was getting ready. A First Division was in action during the first winter of the war. The Second followed in the spring, and later two others, until as the organization was completed and filled out there were in France four divisions, with the fifth constantly in process of filling up in England and as constantly being sent out in small detachments to reinforce those in the field.

Service was voluntary in Canada until the last year of the war, and new units were steadily being authorized and recruited in various centers throughout the Dominion. I am not in possession of official information here, but I suspect that it was much easier to secure recruits for service units being formed in various localities than it was to get replacements for the battalions already in the field. In any case, many were formed which never got any further than England, though they left Canada as complete units, not always up to strength, perhaps, but with a full complement of officers. When these were broken up, they were not scattered indifferently to all units in the field. So far as possible they were kept together, men from one new battalion going as needed to replace casualties in a particular battalion or in two battalions in France. Thus was done all that could be done to maintain and make use