12 Text : Christian Defrance Canadians, fromfrom VimyVimy RidgeRidge toto thethe CanalCanal dudu NordNord

E has counted the graves in three military cemeteries in his local commune. Guy de Saint-Aubert is the Hmayor of Sains-lès- and has thrown himself into a commemorative project that he wasn’t in the least bit expecting. He was certainly familiar with the main thread of the turbulent events experienced in his village during the Great War, but there is so much more to the story…

“I was aware that villagers bridgehead on the fields to the Photo: Dominique Faivre documentary collection had been evacuated, and that south of Sains-lès-Marquion. the Germans had blown up the After a brief lull, they went on the church in 1917. My brother had offensive again, entering the vil- even received a photo of the lage from the rear and taking the event sent by a German with enemy completely by surprise, whom he corresponded and with the Canadian “steamroller” who had even fought in Sains!” taking five hundred prisoners. “A The mayor had even heard talk of tactical masterpiece within the the “capture” of the village, of its Battle of the Canal du Nord, “reconstruction”, involving the the most complex operation digging of twenty wells, “plus, of of the Great War, and a plan course, the British cemeteries”. that was incredibly ambitious”, Except that of the 273 graves at asserts Michel Gravel. “The Quarry Wood, 260 are Canadian; battle was won here in Sains, of the 257 at the Ontario Cemetery, so a monument was needed 142 are Canadian; and of the 227 to commemorate it”, he adds, at the Sains-lès-Marquion British remembering the memorial at the Cemetery, 177 are also Canadian. Bois de . Although the It was the arrival in Sains of famous 14th Battalion lost sixty Photo: Christian Defrance Michel Gravel in 2003 which “set men on 27 September, a total the cat among the pigeons” for of 9,000 Canadians were killed the mayor of the village. Since along the road from to 2001, Gravel, a roof salesman Cambrai between 26 August and from Cornwall, Ontario, has spent 9 October 1918. All these soldiers all his time researching ’s had made “the supreme sacri- military past. An inveterate his- fice”, Michel Gravel pronounces tory buff, he has thumbed his darkly. “He knows them like the nose at academics. In particular, back of his hand”, explains the he has published “Tough as mayor of Sains. “In front of each Nails” (“Arras à Cambrai par le grave he will tell you that so- chemin le plus long”), which pro- and-so died in Marquion, ano- From 1914-18 to today: a Canadian battalion passes through Barlin (above); soldiers from the 14th Battalion vides a new insight into the cap- ther at the hospital, and even are buried at the cemetery in Sains-lès-Marquion where Michel Gravel and Jim Vallance pay their respects (below). ture of Canal du Nord. Supporting the names of their parents.” documentation comes in the form So it was, therefore, at the end of of regimental journals and the August, that Michel was able to recollections of “Hillie” Foley, show Jim Vallance “the exact a roofer from . “Gravel spot where his great-uncle, told us what happened on 27 James Wellington Young, was September 1918 in Sains-lès- killed on 27 September 1918”. 619,000 soldiers mobilised Marquion”, states Guy de Saint- Jim Vallance, who was making Gloriously sunny skies welcomed Queen Elisabeth II to on 9 April 2007, where she was presiding Aubert, “and I wanted to satisfy his second visit to Sains-lès- over the official inauguration of the restored monument. “Victory at Vimy Ridge enabled Canada to occupy the curiosity of our local inha- Marquion, is famous in Canada an important place in the world, inspiring a young country to become a magnificent nation”, she said. In bitants.” as a songwriter for Bryan Adams, Canada, everyone knows about Vimy, however in the grand scheme of things this small part of the Pas-de- the Scorpions, Joe Cocker, Rod is just a single episode in Canada’s participation in the Great War. From October 1914 onwards, No more fighting Stewart, Tina Turner and others. Canadian volunteers were already arriving in England and were involved in early fighting near Ypres at Hence the inauguration of a com- Jim Vallance and Bryan Adams the beginning of 1915. The Canadian Expeditionary Force had already distinguished itself in the battles memorative plaque on the square wrote “Remembrance Day” (11 of Ypres and in the face of the horrors of poison gas, as well as in Neuve-Chapelle in March 1915, and on 31 August 2008. Ninety years November) in 1986: “The guns and Givenchy in May and June 1915. From July to November 1916, there they are again in the before, on 27 September 1918 will be silent on Remembrance tragic Battle of the Somme. And then at Vimy Ridge from 9 to 14 ; Arleux; the 3rd Battle of the to be exact, on the left flank Day. We’ll all say a prayer on Scarpe; ; Avion; Hill 70 and the offensive against Lens in (the only large-scale urban of the Allied offensive against Remembrance Day”. In Sains- battle in the Great War); Amiens in August 1918; the breaching of the Hindenburg Line during the autumn the Hindenburg Line, the 14th lès-Marquion, everyone is com- of 1918; and the advance from Arras to Cambrai. In total, the Canadian Expeditionary Force committed Battalion (Royal Montreal mitted to weapons being silenced 619,000 men to the First World War (a figure based initially on volunteers and then on conscription after Regiment) of the 3rd Canadian forever. Liberated in 1918 by the Vimy, to which was opposed). There were many immigrants in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, Infantry Division attacked the Canadians, the village is now and it is estimated that half of all its soldiers were born in the . Add to these Ukrainians, Germans who were holding the twinned with the German town Russians, Scandinavians, Dutch, Belgians and a plethora of Americans, not forgetting four thousand native Canal du Nord. Supported by an of Neuenheerse. “There’ll be Indians, Inuits and Métis. The human cost was a very heavy one: 66,655 dead, of whom 19,660 were uni- artillery barrage and by four tanks no more fighting”, sings Bryan dentified. In places such as , Vimy, Étaples, Écoivres, Thélus, Villers-au-Bois and elsewhere, from the British Tank Corps, the Adams. 28,785 Canadian officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers are laid to rest in the six hundred or so 14th Battalion established a We hope that is the case. cemeteries1918-2008 and burial sites in the Pas-de-Calais. Text : Christian Defrance 13

The 22e Battalion «indefatigable heroism»

5 SEPTEMBER 1915, 8.30pm, and the steamer Princess maps) in a suburb of Lens, of Argyll is berthing in Boulogne-sur-Mer. On the where the attack took place on 1quayside the few spectators “listen attentively”. For 15 August 1917. In later years, over a year now Boulogne has been used to the sight of a ski run in Les Laurentides British troops disembarking at the port, but this evening the would be named Côte 70: quite new arrivals are speaking French. The news travels fast: the a transition from coal to snow! French-Canadians are heading for the front! “The 22nd caused Following new raids in Belgium, quite a stir”, wrote Joseph Chaballe in his “Histoire du 22e the 22nd spent Christmas and bataillon canadien-français”, a battalion officially born on 21 New Year in the “civilised sur- Photos: François Caron private collection. October 1914 following the actions of fifty or so individuals roundings” of Ligny-lès-Aire: “frustrated” by the fact that the first contingent of volunteers “What joy for all our poor tom- which had departed for Europe did not include a single mies used to the horror of deso- exclusively French-speaking fighting unit within its ranks. late ruins to spend a few weeks in a village that had not seen the On 16 September, the 22nd took and held Courcelette “to war, to be able to breathe fresh reached Saint-Omer, where the final man…” in the terrible country air without the burning the general headquarters allo- battle of the same name: “If hell sensation of powder and poi- cated it an interpreter who was is as abominable as what I saw soned gas in their throats, and heard to exclaim: “mais nom in Courcelette, I wouldn’t want to be able to sleep for an entire d’un chien, vous parlez tous le my worst enemy to go there”, night without being suddenly français, et l’anglais bien mieux wrote Colonel Tremblay in his and continually woken by the que moi” (“good grief – you campaign journal. The hell of sound of cannons”, wrote A.-J. all speak French, and English Courcelette brought with it des- Lapointe in “Soldier of Quebec”. better than I do!”). 1,178 men pair and revolt within the bat- The 22nd began 1918 in the were readying themselves for talion, in which three soldiers Neuville-Vitasse and the trenches, including 1,078 were shot for desertion. On 1 sectors: “filthy sectors, mud up French-speaking Canadians, 47 October came the attack on the to your knees; no trenches, just French-Americans from New Regina trench. Men fell in their shallow ditches with individual England, 14 French, 10 British, hundreds, and the four com- holes that men dug as fast as 4 Swiss, 3 Italians, 2 Spanish, panies, their ranks decimated, they could”. The battalion made 1 Mexican, 1 Argentinian and needed urgent reorganisation; their way through the south some Russians! During the on the 15th they established of the Artois: , course of 38 months of war, quarters in Bully-Grenay and , Lattre-Saint- and taking reinforcements into at Fosse 10 with the “ch’ti” (the Quentin, Bienvillers-au-Bois account, 5,919 officers, non- local inhabitants of the Pas- and . Then came commissioned officers and sol- de-Calais), where they were the Battle of Amiens in early diers served in the 22nd. From entrenched in the heart of the August and Chérisy at the end September 1915 to August sector. Their new objec- of the same month: “...indefa- Included in the list of 1,074 dead from the 22nd Battalion is the name Célestin 1916, the 22nd went on the tive in 1917 was the attack on tigable heroism. All the officers Hermary, originally from Saint-Floris in the Pas-de-Calais. Having emigrated attack, suffered the effects of Vimy Ridge on 9 April – the of the 22nd were either killed or to Canada with his family in 1907, Célestin signed up in September 1916. mud and gas, and demonstrated greatest Canadian victory of the wounded”. At Chérisy, Georges Following his arrival in on 7 September 1917, he was killed near their bravery and energy around Great War and a joint English- Vanier, the future Canadian Mercatel on 2 April 1918 and buried at the Orchard Cemetery. the “Ypres Salient” in Flanders. and French-speaking success. ambassador to France from These “Frenchmen dressed in Having barely gathered their 1945 to 1953, and Governor long “march on Germany” then Québec City and then Montreal. English style” (i.e. khaki) then emotions, the 22nd arrived at General of Canada (the first followed. The battalion returned 1,074 officers, non-commis- headed for the Somme, com- Côte 70 (the French transla- French speaker to be appointed to England on 10 May 1919 sioned officers and other ranks manded by Lieutenant-Colonel tion of Hill 70, named after to the post) from 1959 to 1967, aboard the Olympic, the sister from the 22nd battalion died in Tremblay. On the evening of the 70 marker, a figure which lost his right leg. The Battle of ship of the Titanic, and received combat or as a result of combat, 15 September 1916, the 22nd appears on local topographical Cambrai, the Armistice and the a hero’s welcome a week later in with 2,887 others wounded. Filip Konowal, the Ukrainian of Hill 70

On Monday 22 August 2005, along the Béthune to Lens road, a bronze plaque in three lan- guages (English, French... and Ukrainian) was inaugurated near the Hill 70 battlefield where Filip Konowal’s actions were rewarded with the , the highest British military dis- tinction. Filip Konowal had a “fascinating yet little-known history”. He served for three years and 357 days in the ranks of the Canadian Expeditionary Force in which 10,000 Ukrainian- Canadians enlisted, while thousands of others were interned in camps as “citizens from an enemy country”. Born on 15 September 1888 in Kudkiv, on the border between the Russian The medals of Filip Konowal, a hero of both Canada and the . and Austro-Hungarian empires, Filip enlisted in the Russian imperial army at the age of 21. In 1913, he emigrated on his own to Canada, working as a lumberjack out West before heading Konowal worked as a caretaker in Canada’s House of Commons before being assigned the East to Ontario with the aim of quickly being reunited with his family. Having volunteered post of custodian of the Prime Minister’s office. He died in Ottawa on 3 June 1959 and was in 1915, he landed in France in August 1916, where he was involved in the battles of the more or less forgotten until the acts of Canadian-Ukrainian reconciliation, which took place Somme, Vimy Ridge, and Lens, where we was awarded the prestigious Victoria Cross (alone after the year 2000 and were overseen by Lubomyr Luciuk, a professor from Ontario. In killing sixteen enemy soldiers in three days) and received a serious head wound. He returned 1956, describing his heroic actions on Hill 70, Filip Konowal declared to a journalist: “I was to Canada after the war, learning that his wife had died of hunger in the Ukraine, and that so fed up standing in the trench with water to my waist that I said the hell with it and started his daughter had been interned in a camp. Having slowly recovered from his injuries, Filip after the German army!”.