George Andrews, MP (Centre Winnipeg)
"I do not wish to be understood as saying that those men who enlisted early in the war had more courage than those who enlisted later, because as a matter of fact I am convinced that it took more courage to join up in the later stages, but it was the spirit of those men who sprang to arms in 1914 that saved the show; and I think we all realize that in the future the thing that will count is not our great railways not our enormous resources or our millionaires, but Canada's honour, and we must breed and bring up in this country men who at the drop of the hat will spring to arms in its defence." (Hansard, April 25, 1919)
The men (and women) who volunteered in the early months of the war did not know what they were getting into. They, like the generals in charge, expected the war to be one of maneuvers and fast-moving battles followed by rest and regrouping. But within the first few months armies were bogged down in trenches, with progress measured by the daily count of sniping and shelling casualties, punctuated by seasonal bloodbaths where literally thousands gave their lives to advance the line sometimes no more than the length of a football field.
Those who volunteered later likely had none of their predecessor's illusions. and still they volunteered.
Already by early 1915 letters from soldiers, some published in the Edmonton Bulletin, were describing life at the front.
Bonnie Doon man Walter Guild told this story -
"There was 600 yards [600 metres] separating us from the German trench. We were given the order to advance and take it. Think of it. Advancing across an open field that was swept clean by bullets, shrapnel, shell, bombs and machine guns. And we had no artillery to support us.
However the whole line [of us] got up and went for them. But it was of no use. Very few of us got 15 yards [15 metres]. All of our officers got laid out. four were killed and two wounded. So our sergeant gave the order to require back to the ridge. There could not have more than 20 of us left alive in that first line. It was a perfect laughter. The field was covered with dead. Some were awful sights, heads blown off arms and legs blown off faces all cut to pieces. and the groans of the wounded were cruel."
He wrote of risking his life by taking water to a wounded buddy with a shattered leg lying in the field.
"I tried dragging him [to safety] but it was no good and our stretcher bearers all had been shot."
He piled dirt and rocks to protect the man. "I was getting along fine when he got a bullet right in the top of the head. He just gave one groan and stiffened out. I just lay beside him and cried like a kid. I couldn't help it."
Walter eventually rejoined his unit. The next morning they launched another charge. This time "we went right through the wood. The Germans are sure afraid of the bayonet. There were some terrible sights in the wood. We pinned them to trees, jabbed them all over... We had not enough men to hold the wood and had to retire again.
The Germans are awful cowards. Some asked for mercy on their knees but I think we had seen too much of German culture to think of it..."
(Walter Guild letters home, Edmonton Bulletin, May 31, 1915; Feb. 3, 1917. See also the book Memories of Bonnie Doon.)
And yet knowing this hell they would be going to, still some men signed up. That took the special kind of courage that Andrews granted them.
After the Unionist government (a pro-conscriptionist coalition of Conservative and Liberal MPs) was re-elected - in the famously unfair* election of 1917 - the government imposed conscription.
As it had promised during the election campaign, it first brought conscription in only for those not working in the hard-pressed agricultural sector. Many farmer men and women (some women were given the right to vote for the first time in this federal election) had voted for the Unionist government on the understanding that farmers would not be conscripted. But soon the government broke with its promise and began to move to conscript farmers as well. Some conscripts were pushed to the front lines and by some accounts fought as hard there as the volunteer soldiers.
23 Canadian soldiers were found guilty of desertion or cowardice and executed during WWI. (Wikipedia - List of Canadian soldiers executed for military offences)
They were all volunteer soldiers. Several, including Ling, Lodge and Welsh, were executed after conscription was brought in. I don't know why all those executed were volunteers. Perhaps conscripts did not go AWOL as much as volunteers due perhaps to conscripts having such a relatively shorter experience of the war. Or perhaps even the tone-deaf Unionist government realized the political capital that would be paid for pushing a person into the army and then shooting him themselves.
Here's a moral dilemma.
Given that unfortunately on occasion men in all WWI armies were shot for desertion or cowardice, the war that was both called the "the Great War" and "the war to end all wars," the question is if one group - those who volunteered for army service or those who were conscripted (drafted) - were not to be liable to being shot for fleeing the battle, which should it be?
One group says because the volunteer took on the duty of his own volition, he should be free to cancel it when he chose.
The other group said that because the conscript was unwilling to join up in the first place, he should be given the benefit of his smaller personal investment and given right to leave when things got too rough.
What do you think?
(There is probably no correct answer.)
*In the 1917 federal election, many men were disenfranchised. Some women but not other women were given the vote. The army vote was used as a slush fund of votes that the government placed as it desired. The sitting Liberal MP (Frank Oliver) received the most votes in the Edmonton West riding, but after the Borden's Unionist government distributed the army vote, Unionist candidate William Griesbach, a serving military commander, was found to have more votes and given the seat.
Although the election was never overturned, there were many accusations of unfairness. The government was pulled up short. And the next election, held in 1921, was conducted more fairly, with full adult enfranchisement (barring those racial groups - Treaty Indians, Asiatics etc. - still wrongly barred from voting). In that election, the Conservative-led Unionist coalition was no more and many of the sitting Unionist MPs ran under the Conservative label. Such was the case with Strathcona MP James Douglas, who had been elected in 1909 as a Liberal MP to fill the seat of Wilbert McIntyre (of McIntyre Park fame) after his untimely passing.
The Government's breaking of its no-farmer-conscription promise and its many other instances of inattentiveness to the people's will was paid for by the loss of every seat in Alberta. Alberta voters gave every federal seat in the province to a Farmer or Labour candidate. (Of course there were some Conservative and Liberal voters in each district but they were ignored as all small voting blocks are under First Past The Post.)
Thanks for reading.
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