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Learning from the Canadian Corps on the Western Front

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Learning from the Canadian Corps on the Western Front Canadian Military History Volume 15 Issue 1 Article 2 2006 Learning from the Canadian Corps on the Western Front Christopher Pugsley Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh Part of the Military History Commons Recommended Citation Pugsley, Christopher "Learning from the Canadian Corps on the Western Front." Canadian Military History 15, 1 (2006) This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Canadian Military History by an authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Pugsley: Learning on the Western Front Learning from the Canadian Corps on the Western Front Christopher Pugsley You can have an entirely civilian army and, if it’s entirely civilian its members will be dead before they are good.1 Brigadier-General (later General) A.G.L. McNaughton here is a curious paradox about the power. This was in large measure due to the TCanadian Corps that is summed up in this guiding hand of perhaps the most brilliant corps quotation from Canadian Brass, Stephen J. commander of the war, the unlikely, diffident, Harris’s study of the evolution of a professional corpulent figure of Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur army in Canada. How did this military organisation Currie. become so effective in war, considering the background it had and the structure that Recent historical studies in Australia, Canada supported it for most of its existence? This and New Zealand demonstrate that we are at model of tactical excellence was born amid the last moving away from what Jeffrey Keshen calls chaos of Canadian Minister of Defence Sam “the cult of the superior soldier,”4 one where Hughes’ egomaniacal control at Valcartier Camp. “Johnny Canuck” or “Tommy Cornstalk,” the It was beset by jealousies, political backhanders, “Aussie,” “Digger,” “Fernleaf ” or “Pig Islander” corruption and influence peddling, and saddled of Australia and New Zealand dominates the with favourites as incompetent officers who at popular imagination of national achievement and best were “very weak” and had “no power or habit identity in each country’s mythology of the First of command.”2 Hughes determined to ensure World War. Read C.E.W. Bean’s Australian official that no Regular soldier received a command histories,5 or Pierre Berton’s Vimy, and parallel appointment, and instead put in his favourites. images are displayed, of a fierce, individualistic, These were drawn from the citizen militia, whose rough-around-the-edges soldier who is also ability was summed up by the young iconoclast somehow self-disciplined and fearless in battle; and future military theorist J.F.C. Fuller, who a soldier who is seen as uniquely Australian remarked that the Canadians had potential or uniquely Canadian. As an aside, the New only “if the officers could all be shot.”3 Yet the Zealanders knew they were unique, but never had Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) rose above the prophets to proclaim it quite so vehemently, this administrative nightmare, even if its impact although Robin Hyde’s image of James Douglas continued to haunt the force for most of its Stark in Passport to Hell comes close.6 As I have existence. argued in earlier chapters, something more than distinctive national traits accounts for success in By 1918 the Canadian Corps was the most effective battle. Examinations of experience on the Western fighting formation among the British armies on Front show that Australia, Canada and New the Western Front, superior in performance to Zealand followed parallel paths in the evolution of its vaunted Australian contemporary in terms professional citizen expeditionary forces during of organisation, tactical efficiency and staying the First World War. © Canadian Military History, Volume 15, Number 1, Winter 2006, pp.5-32. 5 Published by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2006 1 Canadian Military History, Vol. 15 [2006], Iss. 1, Art. 2 Library and Archives Canada (LAC) PA 1370 Archives Canada (LAC) PA Library and Library and Archives Canada (LAC) PA 1356 Archives Canada (LAC) PA Library and A formidable pair: Lieutenant-General the Honourable Sir Julian Byng (left) and his successor as General Officer Commanding, Canadian Corps, Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Currie. Both were tactical and organizational innovators who forged the Canadian Corps into the outstanding premier corps on the Western Front. This chapter examines some of the points of On 5 June 1916, two months after Lieutenant- contact between the three dominion forces in General Sir William Birdwood’s I ANZAC Corps the Great War, and highlights the influence of the arrived in France, the first formal Australian Canadian experience. One should not assume trench raid on the German lines was mounted by that the title is influenced by my receiving a combined parties of 26th and 28th Battalion of Canadian Studies Grant for 1998; rather it 7th Brigade in the Armentières sector of northern reflects the simple reality that the Canadians France. The raid was carefully planned and, as got to the Western Front first, while the Gallipoli C.E.W. Bean recounts: Campaign sidelined the Anzacs in 1915. When the Anzacs arrived in France in March 1916 the The whole party was withdrawn for a fortnight Canadians were already veterans in theatre. They to a rear area, and there went into training after had demonstrated their prowess in holding the the fashion of a football team before an important game. This included a sharp course of physical line under gas attacks at the second Ypres, when training, and close practice in carrying out its the 1st Canadian Division formed part of British raid. A replica of the enemy’s trench, which had V Corps in April 1915.7 While the “sideshow” of been photographed from aeroplanes, was dug the Anzac landings on Gallipoli were occurring in on the training ground and the operation was the same week, they were not considered to have rehearsed again and again until it went almost 10 the same significance as they were far removed automatically. from what was regarded as the primary theatre of This was the first of a series of raids mounted conflict.8 Ironically, the formation of the Australia against the German lines, as preparations for and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC Corps) the Battle of the Somme further south grew was used as the precedent for the drive to form in intensity. The British Commander-in-Chief, the Canadian Corps after the arrival in France of General Sir Douglas Haig, was demanding the 2nd Canadian Division in September 1915.9 6 https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol15/iss1/2 2 Pugsley: Learning on the Western Front every effort all along the trench lines held by the found with forbidden articles in his possession British armies to prevent the Germans thinning when searched — was tied up after returning out numbers and sending reinforcements south from work at night. On one occasion during stormy weather some of the prisoners refused to to the Somme front. In taking over the line work, but the extra punishment of being tied up forward of Armentières, the Australians and out of doors in a storm and afterwards solitary New Zealanders were very conscious of their confinement in a dark cell on a diet of bread amateur status. The independence that marked or biscuit and water, prevented recurrences of 13 the Gallipoli Campaign was gone, since in France this nature. this was regarded as a sideshow and no test of worth. Instead, they now numbered five of the The draconian methods practised by the 50 British and dominion divisions of the British Canadians impressed the Anzac visitors, and armies facing the real enemy in the form of the were adopted by both the Australians and the German Imperial armies in the trenches of the New Zealanders in the running of their field Western Front. punishment centres. Both Birdwood’s I ANZAC Corps and Godley’s II ANZAC Corps were In mounting this first raid the Australians conscious that the Canadians were the veterans sought outside expertise, requesting assistance among the dominion forces on the Western Front. from the Canadian Corps; as “the Canadians were the pioneers in enterprises of this kind, There had been little pre-war contact; unlike two of their officers were borrowed from the Australia and New Zealand, Canada had followed 1st Canadian Division to assist in training the the British system of a voluntary militia and had team.”11 The New Zealand Division sought similar not brought in compulsory military training for assistance from the Canadians in mounting their its citizen army. From the outset it had been first raid; the training notes and lesson plans employed in the primary theatre of war on the used by the New Zealand Division in training Western Front, and with the arrival of the 2nd young officers in patrolling in no-man’s-land, and Canadian Division it became the Canadian in the techniques of trench raids, were drawn Corps in September 1915. The continued ad from Canadian Corps experience.12 The Anzacs hoc expansion of the Canadian Corps beyond had already benefited from their experience after the resources of the Canadian population to receiving grim reports of the Canadian difficulties effectively sustain it occurred in parallel with the with inadequate camp facilities and the resulting expansion of the original ANZAC Corps into two breakdown in health during their training on the corps. In July 1915 the Canadian Government wintry Salisbury Plains over Christmas 1914. planned for an expeditionary force of 150,000. This had been a significant factor in the decision In October 1915 this was increased to 250,000 to assemble and train the ANZAC Corps in Egypt and on New Year’s Day 1916 the Canadian Prime Minister, Sir Robert Borden, announced that instead of proceeding on to the United Kingdom.
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