Part 26 (1/2)

”Whereas a state of war now exists between this country and Germany.”

On the following day came a call to the militia for active service and Canada had gone on record as having accepted her responsibilities as an integral part of the Empire. She was sending troops to help England not as volunteers who were to become British soldiers, but as Canadian soldiers, enlisted, clothed, armed, equipped and paid by Canadian dollars.

Shortly after this came another cablegram from Mr. Harcourt gratefully accepting the offer of the expeditionary force and requesting that it be sent forward as quickly as possible. This cablegram was supplemented by another suggesting one army division as a suitable composition for this expeditionary force.

The terms of enlistment were to be as follows:

”(a) For a term of one year unless war lasts longer than one year, in which case they will be retained until war is over. If employed with hospitals, depots of mounted units, and as clerks, et cetera, they may be retained after termination of hostilities until services can be dispensed with, but such retention shall in no case exceed six months.

”(b) To be attached to any arm of service should it be required of them.”

An army division of war strength consists of about 22,500 men composing all branches of the service.

While the call to arms found Canada prepared morally and financially, it found the country sadly unprepared from the standpoint of equipment. It was necessary to buy or make rifles, uniforms, guns and equipment of every description to increase the limited supply on hand to the necessary point. The quant.i.ty and variety of supplies required by an army division seems mountainous to the civilian. They ran the entire gamut from shoe laces to motor trucks, and these had to be purchased at the high prices caused by sudden demand wherever it was possible to obtain them in quant.i.ties with the greatest speed.

In this great work of mobilization Canada's fine railway organizations played a great and necessary part. With their aid and that of many prominent men in Canadian affairs the question of the gathering of materials at selected points went ahead rapidly.

The matter of enlistments held equally important sway. An order in council authorized an army of 22,218 officers and men and the recruiting officers wasted no time in setting about their work.

All over the Dominion men had been drilling ever since the danger of war became acute. The organized militia was hard at work.

Volunteers were being rapidly gathered and after a thorough medical examination were put in charge of a drill sergeant.

There was no difficulty in getting men and the recruiting officers from the first were overwhelmed with applications.

Canada was going to the aid of the mother country, not unwillingly, not with hesitancy, not with parsimony, but with a great rush of enthusiasm to save the Empire, Our Empire!

THE GREAT CAMP AT VALCARTIER

The problem of concentrating this huge body of men soon became a real one. A great mobilization camp was needed. A place not too far from the Atlantic, with ample railroad facilities, large and roomy enough for the maneuvering of large bodies of men as well as their housing in tents, must be found. A further qualification was that this great camp should be located in a position of strategic importance and one which could be defended should the necessity arise.

Such a place was found at Valcartier, a small village some sixteen miles from the City of Quebec on the line of the Canadian Northern Railway.

When the war was declared the government did not own Valcartier and few people had ever heard of it. Soon, however, the name began to grow more familiar with the newspapers and in a day or two the place became government property. For the purpose it proved ideal.

Great expanse of level country provided an ideal maneuvering ground. The site of the camp itself was high enough for good drainage and the Jacques Cartier River provided an abundance of good water.

But with the acquisition of the ground the work had just begun.

It was necessary to erect tents for the housing of 30,000 men. A commissary for their subsistence must be provided. Stores and storehouses had to be rushed to the spot and there was a huge amount of work of a more or less permanent character in the shape of water works with many miles of piping, shower baths, drinking troughs, an electric light plant and the like. The engineers were called upon immediately to lay out the camp and its many auxiliary features. A rifle range, the largest in the world, was immediately planned and put in operation for the training of the soldiers, for few men unacquainted with military life are able to handle modern high-powered military rifles with any degree of success, although the average man, under capable instructors, rapidly becomes proficient. Artillery ranges in the Laurentian Hills were established for the training of the field artillery.

Here the big sixty-pounders, which throw a sh.e.l.l for nearly five miles, first woke the echoes.

A great bridge-building record was made by the men of the Royal Canadian Engineers under the direction of Major W. Bethune Lindsay of Winnipeg. The Jacques Cartier River separates the main camp from the artillery practice grounds at the base of Mounts Ileene and Irene. Across this 350 feet of waterway the Royal Canadian Engineers built within four hours a barrel-pier pontoon bridge capable of carrying heavy batteries. The Major and his three hundred men worked with that well-ordered efficiency which characterizes the efforts of the British bred.

The race for the record started with the Canadian Northern Railway. The materials barrels, planking, etc. were freighted on to the ground with remarkable dispatch. The casks were made watertight, the timber was made ready, the twenty-foot bank cut down to provide an easy grade for traffic, and the actual test was on.

There was never a hitch. One party of men lashed the barrels to the heavy planks, and, as soon as that operation was complete, another party lifted the pier and carried it down the bank.

Another squad of men conveyed it on to the water, where it was taken in charge by still another party and floated out to the front line. The pier was drawn quickly into position, and as many men as could work with freedom soon had the flooring spiked down. The actual bridging commenced at eight o'clock; the span was complete at ten minutes after twelve. The extra ten minutes were accounted for by the fact that on one or two occasions pa.s.sing bodies of other troops necessitated a temporary cessation of carrying operations.

Col. Burstall, Director of Artillery at the Camp, visited the work during the morning and expressed his astonishment at the progress effected. Ordinarily it is a good day's work to throw a bridge of this cla.s.s across a three-hundred foot stream. Col. G.

F. Maunsell, Director General of Engineering Service in Canada, who is attached to headquarters at Ottawa, also paid close attention to the task and was vastly pleased with the result.

Col. Morrison, Ottawa, of the Artillery Service, hurried a gun across the bridge when completed, establis.h.i.+ng its efficiency at once. Without doubt the brother officers of Major Lindsay, in all branches of the service, were extremely gratified at the efficiency and despatch of the men making up the Royal Canadian Engineers at the big camp.