{"id":27195,"date":"2014-08-03T09:47:09","date_gmt":"2014-08-03T13:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=27195"},"modified":"2019-04-23T15:05:49","modified_gmt":"2019-04-23T19:05:49","slug":"the-princess-patricias-canadian-light-infantry-at-100","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2014\/08\/03\/the-princess-patricias-canadian-light-infantry-at-100\/","title":{"rendered":"The Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry at 100"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Ottawa Citizen<\/em><\/a> notes the centennial of one of Canada’s three regular force infantry regiments, the PPCLI:<\/p>\n

During four years of war, from August 1914 to November 1918, Canada contributed some 620,000 men to the fight against Germany. By war\u2019s end, 61,000 \u2014 about 1o per cent \u2014 of those who served in the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force had been killed. Another 172,000 had been wounded, gassed, crippled or psychologically damaged by the war. For a country of not yet eight million, it was an enormous undertaking, and an enormous sacrifice. The proportional loss for Canada a war today, with a population of about 34 million, would be more than 250,000 killed and 550,00 wounded.<\/p>\n

The Canadian Corps acquired a reputation for battlefield prowess. British prime minister David Lloyd George referred to the C.E.F. as \u201cthe shock army of the British Empire.\u201d This reputation was in some ways the making of the country, historians say. Canada\u2019s contribution to the war effort \u2014 men, munitions and food supplies \u2014 fostered a deeper sense of national identity and led to greater political sovereignty. Canada went from being a subordinate member of the British Empire to a nation in its own right on the world stage.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

When Britain declared war on Germany on Aug. 4, 1914, Canada, as a Dominion within the Empire, was automatically at war, too. Canadians, by and large, responded with enthusiastic support. Within days of the declaration of war the country was mobilizing. One Montreal businessman, Andrew Hamilton Gault offered $100,000 of his own money \u2014 about $2 million in today\u2019s currency \u2014 to finance and equip a regiment.<\/p>\n

Prime minister Robert Borden\u2019s government was only too happy to accept the offer, having committed itself to raising an army division of 25,000 men as Canada\u2019s initial contribution to the war. The Patricias received their official charter on Aug. 10. Gault, joined by Lt-Col. Francis Farquhar, a British Army veteran and military secretary to the governor-general, the Duke of Connaught, launched a cross-country recruitment campaign.<\/p>\n

\"PPCLI<\/a>More than 3,000 men responded to the call to arms, and headed for Ottawa. \u201cProspectors, trappers, guides, cow-punchers, prize-fighters, farmers, professional and businessmen, above all old soldiers, poured into Ottawa by every train,\u201d writes regimental historian, Ralph Hodder-Williams. By Aug. 19, 1,098 men were chosen \u2014 the Originals, as they became known \u2014- and Farquhar was named regimental commander.<\/p>\n

The PPCLI officially formed up on Aug. 23 at Ottawa\u2019s Lansdowne Park. Gault had asked the governor-general\u2019s daughter, Princess Patricia, if he could name the regiment after her. She agreed and offered to design a regimental Colour. \u201cI have great pleasure in presenting you with these colours, which I have worked myself. I hope they will be associated with what I believe will be a distinguished corps,\u201d the princess told the assembled soldiers. \u201cI shall follow the fortunes of you all with the deepest interest, and I heartily wish every man good luck and a safe return.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a naive hope, as it turned out. The Patricias boarded the R.M.S. Royal George for England in late September 1914. On Dec. 20, after a few months training in Britain, they arrived in Le Havre. Two weeks later, on Jan. 6 and 7, 1915, the Patricias moved into the Ypres Salient, the first Canadian regiment to go into the field.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

The Camp Colour presented by Princess Patricia in August of 1914 was consecrated in a religious ceremony in Belgium in late January 1919. A month later, the princess, who had returned to England in 1916, attached a commemorative silver gilt laurel wreath to the Colour\u2019s staff in a ceremony before the regiment\u2019s return to Canada. \u201cMy thoughts have been continually with you during the years of suffering and trial through which you have passed,\u201d she told the assembled regiment, \u201cand I think with mingled sorrow and pride of your many and gallant comrades who so willingly laid down their lives in the greatest of all causes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such sentiments may sound alien to contemporary ears, but to dismiss them as deluded or naive is to presume that those who lived through the Great War couldn\u2019t possibly have understood what they were doing as well as we can with our historical hindsight and sophisticated post-modern worldview.<\/p>\n

But that is an arrogant and condescending assumption, as Philip Child, a Canadian army officer who served with a howitzer battery in the trenches, suggests in his 1937 novel, God\u2019s Sparrow<\/em>. Child tells the story of Daniel Thatcher, a veteran of the trenches. At one point, reflecting on the dead, Thatcher reaches this conclusion: \u201cThe thousands went into battle not ignobly, not as driven sheep or hired murderers \u2026 but as free men with a corporate if vague feeling of brotherhood because of a tradition they shared and an honest belief that they were doing their duty in a necessary task.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

H\/T to Steve Paikin for the link.<\/p>\n

\n

& for us born here too. "@HDrakeUK<\/a>: For any guest like me living in this great country, I think this is a must-read http:\/\/t.co\/LnpegOEUjg<\/a>\u201d"<\/p>\n

— Steve Paikin (@spaikin) August 3, 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n