Horses, Mules, and the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great War

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2016 "Maintaining the Mobility of the Corps:" Horses, Mules, and the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great War

McEwen, Andrew

McEwen, A. (2016). "Maintaining the Mobility of the Corps:" Horses, Mules, and the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great War (Unpublished doctoral thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. doi:10.11575/PRISM/26813 http://hdl.handle.net/11023/3296 doctoral thesis

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“Maintaining the Mobility of the Corps:” Horses, Mules, and the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great War

Andrew Scott McEwen

A THESIS

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES

IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE

DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

GRADUATE PROGRAM IN HISTORY

CALGARY, ALBERTA

SEPTEMBER, 2016

Animal transportation played a crucial role in the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) during the

Great War. In an era of growing mechanization and technological development, horses and mules still provided the overwhelming bulk of draught power in the combat zone. They hauled artillery, supplies, and ambulances, packed ammunition, served as officers’ riding mounts, and chargers for cavalrymen. By the Armistice of 11 November 1918, the CEF alone utilized 24,134 horses and mules in France and Belgium.

The task of overseeing their health and working efficiency fell to just a few officers and enlisted personnel of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps (CAVC). Only 73 Veterinary Officers and 780 Other Ranks presided over this truly living and breathing transportation system. They treated diseases, wounds, exhaustion, malnourishment, and exposure to the elements. They saved what animals they could, and humanely destroyed those they could not. They were, in the words of Canadian Corps commander Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Currie, essential for “maintaining the mobility of the Corps.”

However, their contributions remain largely overlooked in the prevailing historiography.

Neither the multifaceted literature exploring the conflict’s impact on Canadian society, nor the considerable scholarship on the CEF in France and Flanders, seriously considers the role played by Canadian horses and veterinarians in the war. A few monographs, book chapters, and journal articles acknowledge these crucial facets, though they too remain largely insular and do not connect the services of horses and veterinarians to the war’s broader chronology.

This dissertation seeks to redress such omissions. It argues that Canada’s horses and mules, and the veterinary efforts to keep them healthy, exerted a clear impact on combat operations in the

Great War. It explores their foundations in pre-war society Canadian to understand how both

ii became key facets of the Dominion’s war effort, and further emphasizes the broader British

Imperial context both served within overseas. Utilizing a broad array of war diaries, weekly casualty reports, government publications, internal correspondence, and contemporary periodicals from Canadian and British sources alike, this study exhibits how horses, mules, and veterinarians critically impacted Canada’s Great War experience.

iii Acknowledgements

In many ways, this dissertation represents the culmination of my professional and personal interests. Growing up, I developed a keen interest in British and Canadian military history, fueled by visits to battlefields and historic sites both in Canada and abroad, that carried me through my university career. This study also reflects a spirit of family history, for I am very much a product of the Canadian veterinary profession. My parents, Dr. Scott McEwen and Dr. Beverly McEwen

(née Poitras) met while studying at the Ontario Veterinary College. My paternal grandfather, Dr.

Kenneth McEwen, graduated from OVC in 1951, as did my maternal uncle, Dr. Barry Poitras, in

1977, and my maternal aunt and uncle Dr. Gilda Poitras and Dr. Reg Westgarth in 1979. This dissertation, then, forms my own small contribution to that proud tradition of animal health and veterinary science, reconciling as it does my love of history and interest in my family’s past.

There are a number of individuals I wish to acknowledge for helping me in any number of ways during the completion of this project. Foremost I thank the wonderful support of my supervisor, Dr. Patrick Brennan, whose kind ear, cheerful encouragement, and open mind made him an ideal advisor and mentor for my doctoral studies. My departmental committee members,

Drs. John Ferris and David Marshall, always provided eager conversation, sound advice, and suggestions for new ideas throughout my studies. My external committee members, Dr. Robert

Huebert and Dr. Tim Cook, extended critical suggestions on improving my dissertation into the future, and I remain grateful for their time and efforts. Other faculty members in the department, namely Drs. Hendrik Kraay, George Colpitts, Mark Konnert, Holger Herwig, and Frank Stahnisch, provided professional guidance and advice in the research, teaching, and writing of my degree. A very special thanks, too, to the Department of History’s administrative staff, Lori Somner, Marion

McSheffrey, Brenda Oslawsky and Diane McInnes, for their invaluable assistance over the years.

iv Completion of this degree was also made possible through generous funding from a number of agencies. The Department of History, Graduate Students’ Association, and the Faculty of

Graduate Studies at the University of Calgary, the Government of Alberta, the Social Sciences and

Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Métis Education Foundation, the Arthur J.E. Child

Memorial Foundation, the Captain Nichola K.S. Goddard Memorial Foundation, and the Frog

Lake Energy Resources Corporation all lent generous financial resources for teaching, conference and research travel, and living expenses through the course of my degree. I remain profoundly grateful for their generosity.

Researching and writing a dissertation can, at times, feel a very lonesome and isolating task. Nevertheless, I was very fortunate indeed to enjoy a peer support network of like-minded graduate students that both indulged “shop talk” and provided badly-needed distractions away from said talk. Will Pratt and I shared many a conference hotel billet, archive research room, and organized a very successful Great War conference in 2014. I am lucky I shared an office with him, along with Stuart Barnard and Mikkel Dack, during my formative years at Calgary. My other colleagues and friends, Shannon Murray, Ryan Blaney, Beau Cleland, Aylin Attila, Erna

Kurbegovic, Avram Lytton, Matthew Hefler, Kathryn Griffin, Amber Adair, Geoff Adair, and

Dorian Klepach, all provided guidance, encouragement, and welcome distractions from the pressures of graduate school from 2010 to 2016. Any names I missed are entirely the fault of my own, though I am certain any aggrieved parties will not hesitate to remind me as such.

Too much cannot be said for the stolid support, calming demeanour, and boundless love of

Melanie Wedel. Over the past four years, Melanie learned far more about mange, glanders, remount sales, and combat veterinary medicine than I suspect she bargained for. Throughout the writing of this dissertation, she shared in my excitement with each new discovery, assuaged every

v setback, and remained a constant force of optimism and friendship. I will remain profoundly grateful for her love, patience, and support for the rest of my life.

Ultimately, it is to my parents, Scott and Beverly, that this dissertation is dedicated. From a young age, they encouraged me to read, to write, to think, and to pursue my passions. They raised my brother and I in a rich environment of intellectual debate, wry humour, and a deep fondness for animals, with even a horse or two appearing along the way. Their exuberance, their kindness, and their confidence, laid the foundations for project well before its conception.

vi Dedication

To Drs. Scott and Beverly McEwen -

For always pushing me to my best.

vii Table of Contents

Abstract ...... ii Acknowledgements ...... iv Dedication ...... vii Table of Contents ...... viii List of Tables ...... ix List of Figures and Illustrations ...... x List of Symbols, Abbreviations and Nomenclature ...... xi Epigraph ...... xii

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

CHAPTER ONE – A “HORSELESS AGE”? HORSES IN PEACE AND WAR, 1886-1914 ...... 27

CHAPTER TWO – “A DECIDED BENEFIT TO THE SERVICE:” CANADIAN MILITARY VETERINARY REFORMS, 1899-1914 ...... 66

CHAPTER THREE – “KINDLY RUSH THE WORK:” MOBILIZATION AND DISPATCH OF THE FIRST CANADIAN CONTINGENT, 1914 –15 ...... 109

CHAPTER FOUR – “GIVE CANADA A CHANCE:” THE CANADIAN REMOUNT MARKET, 1914-17 ...... 169

CHAPTER FIVE – “GAMELY STAND TO THEIR HORSES:” INITIATION TO THE WESTERN FRONT, FEBRUARY-JUNE 1915 ...... 218

CHAPTER SIX – “ALL NECESSARY PRECAUTIONS:” VETERINARY ADMINISTRATION AND INNOVATION, JULY 1915 - AUGUST 1916...... 266

CHAPTER SEVEN – “JUST WORKED TO DEATH:” THE SOMME AND VIMY RIDGE, SEPTEMBER 1916-MAY 1917 ...... 304

CHAPTER EIGHT – “HAVE DONE THEIR WORK FAITHFULLY:” HILL 70 AND PASSCHENDAELE, JUNE 1917 TO FEBRUARY 1918...... 342

CHAPTER NINE – “ON THE GO ALL THE TIME:” THE SPRING OFFENSIVES AND HUNDRED DAYS, MARCH-NOVEMBER 1918 ...... 381

CHAPTER TEN – “NO LONGER PRACTICAL:” DEMOBILIZING HORSES AND VETERINARIANS, 1918-1940 ...... 429

EPILOGUE – “AN ENDURING PARTNERSHIP:” IN MEMORIAM, 2012 ...... 468

CONCLUSION ...... 474

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 487

viii List of Tables

Table 1.1: Horse Population of Canada, 1891-1913……………………………………35

Table 1.2: Horses Required for Canadian Militia, 1910……………………………...... 55

Table 2.1: Veterinary Surgeons in Dominion of Canada, 1881-1921………………….74

Table 3.1: Horses Arriving on Transports with 1st Canadian Contingent……………...132

Table 3.2: Animal Strength of 1st Canadian Division, 26 February 1915……………...164

Table 4.1: Canadian Remounts Purchased and Received by the British Government…214

Table 7.1: “Return of Casualties in Field Units B.E.F. 1917”………………………….333

Table 9.1: Canadian Corps Animal Strength, Battle of Amiens………………………..405

Table 9.2: Canadian Corps Animal Strength, Battle of Arras (1918)…………………..412

Table 9.3: Canadian Corps Animal Strength, Battle of Canal du Nord and Cambrai.....419

Table 9.4: Canadian Corps Animal Strength, Pursuit to Mons, 1918…………………..422

Table 10.1: Animals and Gear Sold to Belgian Government, 1919…………………….444

ix List of Figures and Illustrations

Figure 3.1: Artillery Crossing Pontoon Bridge, Valcartier Camp, 1914………………..131

Figure 6.1: Calcium Sulphide Mange Dipping Tanks…………………………………..297

Figure 7.1: Pack Animals of 20th Battery CFA, Neuville-Saint-Vaast, April 1917…….326

Figure 8.1: Calcium Sulphide Scrub, No. 2 Canadian MVS, August 1917……………..361

Figure 9.1: Royal Field Artillery team killed by shellfire, Cléry, 1 September 1918…...411

Figure 9.2: 18-Pounder Gun Team, Canal du Nord, September 1918…………………..415

Figure E.1: Canadian National War Memorial, Confederation Square, Ottawa…………471

Figure E.2: Winnie-the-Bear Statue, Assiniboine Park, Winnipeg………………………471

Figure E.3: Animals in War Memorial, Hyde Park, London…………………………….472

Figure E.4: Animals in War Memorial, Confederation Park, Ottawa……………………472

Figure E.5: Animal in War, Ottawa, Panels Two and Three…………………………….473

x List of Symbols, Abbreviations and Nomenclature

ADVS Assistant Director of Veterinary Services AEF American Expeditionary Force AVC Army Veterinary Corps AVD Army Veterinary Department BEF British Expeditionary Force CAVC Canadian Army Veterinary Corps CCVES Canadian Corps Veterinary Evacuating Station CEF Canadian Expeditionary Force CFA Canadian Field Artillery CIB Canadian Infantry Brigade CMR Canadian Mounted Rifles CPAVC Canadian Permanent Army Veterinary Corps DAC Division Ammunition Column DADVS Deputy Assistant Director of Veterinary Services DDR Deputy Director of Remounts DDVS Deputy Director of Veterinary Services DG Director General DSO Distinguished Service Order DVS Director of Veterinary Services DVS+R Director of Veterinary Services and Remounts GHQ General Headquarters GOC General Officer Commanding IDP Intra-Dermal Palpebral Mallein Test MO Medical Officer MP Member of Parliament MVC Montreal Veterinary College MVS Mobile Veterinary Section NCO Non-Commissioned Officer OC Officer Commanding OMFC Ministry of the Overseas Military Forces of Canada OVC Ontario Veterinary College OR Other Rank PF Permanent Force PVO Principal Veterinary Officer QMG Quartermaster-General RAVC Royal Army Veterinary Corps RCAVC Royal Canadian Army Veterinary Corps RCD Royal Canadian Dragoons RCHA Royal Canadian Horse Artillery RFA Royal Field Artillery SAA Small Arms Ammunition TF Territorial Force VO Veterinary Officer

xi Epigraph

The duty will devolve on you of seeing, in the first place, that your horses are well fed and in condition to stand their work, since a horse which cannot endure fatigue will clearly be unable to overhaul the foeman or effect escape; and in the second place, you will have to see to it that the animals are tractable, since, clearly again, a horse that will not obey is only fighting for the enemy and not his friends…Lastly, you must pay attention to the horses’ feet, and see that they will stand being ridden over rough ground. A horse, one knows, is practically useless where he cannot be galloped without suffering.

And now, supposing that your horses are all that they ought to be, like pains must be applied to train the men themselves.1

-Xenophon 365 BCE

The horse could neither speak for himself nor help himself, patient and ready to do his work in the misery of rain and slime, under the sudden pain of wounds looked to the man for everything, and the man, as well as he could, provided the need.2

-General Sir Arthur Currie 1932 CE

1 Xenophon, The Works of Xenophon Vol. III – Part II: Three Essays: On the Duties of a Cavalry General, On Horsemanship, and On Hunting, trans. H.G. Dakyns, (London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1897), 1-2. 2 A.W. Currie, “Foreward,” in David Tamblyn, The Horse in War, and Famous Canadian War Horses, (Kingston: The Jackson Press, n.d.), 5. xii

Introduction

In July 1918, the Great War on the Western Front entered its final phase. Imperial

Germany’s final bid for a decisive victory, the Spring Offensives, penetrated to within 56 miles of

Paris. However, they failed to defeat Allied forces of France, the United States, and the British

Empire, at a cost of 1,000,000 dead, wounded, and missing personnel. By mid-month, these Allies prepared to launch counterattacks to beat the Imperial German Army back from its high-water mark.3 A key formation for these counterattacks was Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Currie’s

Canadian Corps. Four divisions strong and hardened by three years of battle, the Canadian Corps would play an important role in the forthcoming counteroffensives.

Over 20,000 horses and mules kept the Canadian Corps mobile.4 In a conflict that witnessed the first widespread use of poison gas, submarines, aeroplanes, tanks, and motor transport vehicles, horses and mules still provided the overwhelming bulk of draught power to units in the field. They pulled field artillery pieces, ambulances, General Service supply wagons, packed ammunition towards the front lines, provided riding mounts for officers, and chargers for cavalrymen. The British Expeditionary Force alone deployed 400,000 animals to work on, and behind, the Western Front.5 The task of overseeing the health, safety, and working efficiency of this truly living logistical system fell to just a handful of officers and Other Ranks (OR) of the

3 Chapter Nine will discuss these events in greater detail. Holger H. Herwig, The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary, 1914-1918, (London: Arnold, 1997), 415-419 and Shane Schreiber, Shock Army of the British Empire: The Canadian Corps in the Last 100 Days of the Great War, (Westport: Praeger, 1997), 8-9. 4 “Excluding Cavalry – Weekly Divisional Strength – Horses – France, 1918.” LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3363 Folder A-2-45. 5 War Cabinet Memorandum 391, 15 April 1918, 3. National Archives War Office (NA WO) CAB 23/6. 1

military veterinary services. A mere 43 Veterinary Officers (VO) and 208 OR of the Canadian

Army Veterinary Corps (CAVC) maintained Canada’s 20,000 horsepower engine of war.6

However, just over a month before the Canadian Corps took to the offensive, Currie received notification that he was to have even fewer veterinary officers on hand. Lieutenant-

General Sir Travers Clarke, Quartermaster-General of the BEF, suggested Currie reduce the existing complement of nine VOs per division to five, to better reflect the depleted veterinary strength of British divisions at this stage of the war.7 Currie disagreed. He replied to Clarke, “from the point of view of maintaining the mobility of the Corps as a fighting formation, it is most undesirable to reduce the veterinary establishment except under the most urgent necessity and I hope that this will not arise.”8 Clarke respected Currie’s wishes, and the Canadian Corps retained its full establishment of Veterinary Officers for the offensives to come.

Currie’s sentiments on veterinary personnel reflects their tremendous contribution to combat operations in the First World War. Units in the field – infantry, artillery, logistic, cavalry, and medical – relied upon their horses and mules for mobility. Depleted animal establishments compromised the ability of these formations to move supplies, ammunition, and guns forward into battle. Sickness, wounds, insufficient feed, exposure to the elements, excessive work without rest, poor grooming, or poor shoeing could put a horse or mule out of action. Some wounds or diseases could be treated immediately in the field, some required lengthy hospital convalescence, some killed the animals outright, and some necessitated their destruction. In every instance, a lost horse

6 Colonel C.E. Edgett, “Report of the Director of Veterinary Services on the Department of Veterinary Services and Remounts,” 30 June 1919, 8. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3389 Folder R-156-45. 7 See Colonel G.W.L. Nicholson, Official History of the Canadian Army in the First World War: Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919, (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1962), 362-363. 8 Quartermaster-General Sir Travers Clarke to Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Currie, 3 July 1918, and Lieutenant- General Sir Arthur Currie to Quartermaster-General Sir Travers Clark, 6 July 1918. Libraries and Archives Canada (LAC) RG 9, III-B-1, Volume 941, Folder E-76-3. 2

or mule compromised mobility to units in the field. It fell to the veterinary services to prevent such animal wastage as much as possible.

Between 1914 and 1918, 71,635 horses and mules served under Canadian command. A total of 13,049 (18.2%) died, were destroyed, went missing, or were sold as unfit for further service.9 Of the 47,805 horses that survived their initial afflictions and reached veterinary sick lines, 41,365 (86.5%) survived as either cured in the field or evacuated to veterinary hospitals.

Only 5,303 animals (11%) that survived to reach treatment died or were destroyed.10 This survival rate of salvageable cases illustrates the indispensable value of veterinary personnel throughout the

Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF). In November 1918, the service comprised of just 84 officers and 918 OR in France and England.11 These men cured as many animals as they could save, evacuated those requiring extensive treatment to hospitals, and destroyed those beyond hope of recovery. Their unrelenting efforts to keep animals as healthy as possible ensured that units on the front lines had the horsepower to perform their jobs. Indeed, the 1st Canadian Division’s General

Officer Commanding (GOC), Major-General Sir Archibald Macdonnell, readily echoed Xenophon by stating “no shoe, no foot; no foot, no horse; no horse, no transport; no transport, no battalion!”12

Historiography

However, both horses and their veterinary caretakers remain conspicuously absent from the prevailing literature on Canada’s Great War. That they are is curious. Horses and mules

9 “1914-1918 – Canadian Remount and Evacuation Statistics,” LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3363, Folder A-2-45. 10 “Yearly Wastage Percentage of Canadian Animals in France, 1915-1918,” LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3363 Folder A-4-45. 11 Edgett, “Report of the Director of Veterinary Services on the Department of Veterinary Services and Remounts,” 7. 12 Quoted in Tamblyn, The Horse in War, 24. 3

regularly feature in official reports, combat memoirs, war fiction, historic overviews, or popular culture conceptions of the First World War.13 However, the actual tasks of buying, transporting, grooming, stabling, saddling, driving, evacuating, healing, destroying, and disposing of horses remains the purview of only a handful of historical works. Since 1914, only three dedicated monographs, and a few journal articles, investigate the history of Canadian horses and veterinarians in the Great War. This small, if focused, body of literature provides sorely needed historical analyses of the CEF’s horses and veterinarians, but it leaves considerable room for further inquiry. There are major facets of the Great War experience that it does not address, and some of its conclusions require significant revision.

The earliest of these works was Lieutenant-Colonel David Tamblyn’s The Horse in War, and Famous Canadian War Horses (1932). Tamblyn was arguably the most successful, and certainly the highest decorated, Canadian veterinarian to serve in the Great War. His book is a short, largely anthropomorphised, anecdotal history interwoven with his personal reminiscences.

He provides general thematic detail on affairs ranging from remount (replacement military horse) shipment to hospital statistics, along with anecdotes on some major battles of the war. Tamblyn’s acquaintance with prominent cavalry, veterinary, and general officers in the war grants his book with a broad array of personal experiences and the exploits of their individual horses. His book, while presenting a useful repository of anecdotal information, is not a thoroughly researched work of historical analysis. His episodic narrative of the war is effectively constrained to events where he was an immediate participant and leaves out other perspectives and events he did not participate

13 For representations of horses in popular culture fiction, see Michael Morpurgo, War Horse, (London: Edgemont, 1982), A Bear Named Winnie, Directed by John Kent Harrison, DVD, (Toronto: Canadian Broadcast Corporation, 2004), Timothy Findley, The Wars, (Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2005), and War Horse, Directed by Steven Spielberg, DVD, (Burbank: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2011). 4

in. His book is as much a memoir as it is a work of history, and leaves numerous opportunities for further investigation on a pre-war context, broader connection to the British Empire, and indeed, the course of the war itself.

Margaret Derry’s Horses in Society (2006), on the other hand, is an ambitious and recent scholarly analysis of horses in British, American, and Canadian societies from 1800 to 1920. Her work investigates the rise and fall of demand for horses, the evolutionary nature of breeding practices, and veterinary professional growth. She devotes a considerable portion of her book to remount markets in Britain, the United States, and Canada. Of particular interest is her Chapter 7,

“Canada’s Equine War Effort,” which comprises the only extant scholarship on Canadian remount markets in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Approaching the material from a farmer and breeder’s perspective, she charts the largely unrealized potential of the Dominion of

Canada’s military horse supply from the 1870s to the First World War.

Her chapter is valuable in this regard, but nevertheless contains a number of problematic assertions and conclusions on the size and scope of the Canadian remount story. Her complete reliance upon farmers’ periodicals and a few published government documents for source material denies agency to the military establishments buying these Canadian horses. Consequently, much of her analysis treats armies and governments as faceless monoliths, when they, too, possessed their own motivations and desires when buying Canadians horses for war. She claims, furthermore,

“surprisingly little material has been written on horses in war…partly because data available on the subject are often unreliable” – a considerable oversimplification in the Canadian context.

Libraries and Archives Canada houses a multitude of quantitative data reports that grant a comprehensive portrait of the CEF’s horse strength virtually every week of the war. By her own concession, too, Derry does not “attempt to understand the complex structures put in place to

transport horses and equine supplies to places of combat.”14 Horses in Society is thus a ground- breaking study in the history of Canada’s remounts. It nevertheless leaves considerable opportunity for further investigation into the military’s perspective on domestic remount procurement, and how horses were transported to, and functioned in, the combat zone.

In the late twentieth century, too, a number of articles published in historical and veterinary professional journal alike explored different facets of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps and

Canadian war horses. Andrew Iarocci published a thoroughly researched study of Canadian horses in 2009 that surveyed their roles in both the logistical network, and more intently on cavalry actions, on the Western Front.15 Lorraine Jordens, too, wrote articles in The Canadian Veterinary

Journal and Alberta History exploring diaries and reminiscences of Canadian veterinary officers in the war. G.J. Stortz, and Thomas Dukes and John Prescott, similarly authored short biographical sketches in The Canadian Veterinary Journal on individual veterinary officers that gave further insight into their background, personal lives, and experiences in the war. In 2012, Hugh Halliday explored the war art of Algernon Talmage, a British artist who painted a number of pieces on the

CAVC units. One of these, his 1919 oil on canvas A Mobile Veterinary Unit in France, hangs in the Canadian Senate Chamber.16 The CAVC similarly receives incidental attention from books

14 Margaret Derry, Horses in Society: A Story of Animal Breeding and Marketing Culture, 1800-1920, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006), xvi. 15 This article briefly discusses animal logistics at the Second Battle of Ypres and the Battle of the Somme, but devots the bulk of its operational analysis to cavalry actions. 16 Andrew Iarocci, “Engines of War: Horsepower in the Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914-18,” Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 87 (2009): 59-83, Lorraine Jordens, “Diary of a World War One Veterinary Officer,” The Canadian Veterinary Journal 28, no. 5 (May 1987): 275-279, and “Veterinarians in World War One: Horses and Mules: the Forgotten Soldiers,” Alberta History 41, no. 2 (Spring 1993): 20-26, G.J. Stortz, “A Canadian Veterinarian Overseas in the First World War,” The Canadian Veterinary Journal 23, no. 6 (June 1982): 183-186, Thomas Dukes and John Prescott, “Theodore Augustus Girling (1876-1919): Canadian veterinarian and Great War poet,” The Canadian Veterinary Journal 32, no. 11 (November 1991): 694-699, and Hugh A. Halliday, “Algernon Mayow Talmage (1871-1939): Official Canadian War Artist,” Canadian Military History 21, No. 3 (Summer 2012): 59-63. 6

and articles on the children’s book character, Winnie-the-Pooh. The original bear cub was rescued by Lieutenant Harry Colebourne, Veterinary Officer to the 34th Fort Garry Horse, while en route from Winnipeg to Valcartier Camp shortly after the outbreak of war in 1914.17 Taken together, these articles provide sorely-needed historical attention on the CAVC and offer insight into the tremendous variety of individuals’ war experiences. None of them, however, significantly explores the development of veterinary services before 1914, remount procurement, or how veterinary medicine and horsed transport directly impacted battlefield operations throughout the conflict.

Captain Cecil French’s A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great

World War, 1914-1919 (1999) is undoubtedly the most important single work to this study. French served as a Veterinary Officer in the CEF, and undertook the enormous effort of writing a service history of the CAVC before the war concluded.18 He researched an array of unit histories, personal accounts, correspondence, and quantitative data, all of which is evident in his work. He provides an enormous amount of detail on the CAVC’s numerous responsibilities in the conflict, ranging from daily life and work at Nos. 1 and 2 Canadian Veterinary Hospitals (at Havre and Shorncliffe, respectively), the duties of VOs in the field, VOs attached to general staffs at the divisional and corps level, Mobile Veterinary Sections, the Directorate of Veterinary Services and Remounts, animal hygiene, and infectious diseases. He also later authored a serialized article in The Canadian

Veterinary Journal on humane societies’ generous financial and material support to the veterinary services, later re-published in his History.19

17 Ted Weatherhead, “In Which Pooh joins the Army and lands in the Zoo,” The Beaver 69 (Oct/Nov 1969): 35-38, and Val Shushkewich, The Real Winnie: A One-Of-A-Kind Bear, (Toronto: Natural Heritage Books, 2003). 18 For a detailed discussion on the genesis, preparation, and stillbirth of Cecil French’s de facto official history, see C.A.V. and Ian K. Barker’s preface to French’s book. Cecil French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War 1914-1919, eds. C.A.V. and Ian K. Barker, (Guelph: Crest Books, 1999), xiv-xviii. 19 Captain Cecil French, “Reminiscences of the Great War: The Aid Extended by Humane and Kindred Societies to the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps, Part I” The Canadian Veterinary Journal III, no. 3 (September 1922): 149- 7

French intended to publish his book as the official history of the CAVC in the Great War but it did not attract much praise. During the interwar years, Tamblyn, who for a period served as

Officer Administrating the service, drafted pointed criticisms of French’s work. He derided both

French’s lack of significant frontline service, and his excessively charitable attitude towards senior officers in the “so credited History.”20 A fellow officer, Captain Alfred Savage, bluntly considered

French’s efforts “fairly rotten.”21 Canada’s Official Historian, Colonel Arthur Duguid, evidently disliked French’s work as well. Duguid blocked its publication along with similar histories of other service branches during the interwar period.22 French’s unpublished manuscript remained in

Libraries and Archives Canada until 1999, when the father-son team of C.A.V. and Ian K. Barker published it, heavily annotated with a wealth of footnotes. The Barkers’ editorial efforts were quite obviously a labour of love. Both were faculty members at the Ontario Veterinary College and conducted extensive research at LAC, in veterinary journals, and in government civil service files to flesh out the careers and experiences of CAVC officers. Their detailed supplements to his work, providing invaluable insights and background information, were largely motivated by their conviction that “there is unlikely to be another major publication on the C.A.V.C.”23

French’s book remains a thematic, highly detailed, but chronologically deficient work. In approaching the content thematically, French does not convey the changing and evolving nature

158, “Reminiscences of the Great War: The Aid Extended by Humane and Kindred Societies to the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps, Part II” The Canadian Veterinary Journal III, no. 4 (December 1922): 213-218, and “Reminiscences of the Great War: The Aid Extended by Humane and Kindred Societies to the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps, Part III” The Canadian Veterinary Journal IV, no. 2 (March-May 1923): 106-109. 20 See Tamblyn Comments on Chapter 1. He notes French’s work exhibited “the hold [Brigadier-General W.J.] Neill, [Colonel C.E.] Edgett, and [Captain A.E.] Frape held over French.” Tamblyn derisively continued that “French saw little service in France or elsewhere.” Tamblyn Notes, French Chapter 1. LAC MG 30 E14 Vol. 2. 21 Captain Alfred Savage Diary, 13 November 1918. LAC MG 24 E1 Vol. 26. 22 Tim Cook, Clio’s Warriors: Canadian Historians and the Writing of the World Wars, (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2006), 45. 23 French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War 1914-1919, xviii. 8

of veterinary work, nor how the veterinary services (and their equine counterparts) participated in combat operations on the Western Front. Indeed, he gives little sense of how the veterinary services actually functioned within the Canadian Corps over the course of the war. He makes only a few anecdotal references to significant engagements such as the Second Battle of Ypres, the Battle of

Vimy Ridge, or the Hundred Days Campaign. Horses and veterinary personnel played critical, decisive roles in these events that merit far closer examination and attention to military context than French’s book affords.

More broadly speaking, too, his work pays only cursory attention to the thorough integration of the CAVC within British (or, “Imperial”) veterinary services before and during the

First World War. The effective General Officer Commanding (GOC) CAVC personnel in France and Flanders was the British Expeditionary Force’s (BEF) Director of Veterinary Services (DVS),

Major-General John Moore. Below Moore, the Deputy Directors of Veterinary Services for each field army in the BEF coordinated veterinary activities for Canadian units and other British

Imperial forces. These senior British officers played critical roles in all facets of Canadian veterinary and remount activities in the First World War, yet, they remain minor characters in

French’s work. Ultimately, Captain Cecil French’s History remains an informative and invaluable work on the CAVC. Its thematic structure and isolation from broader military and Imperial contexts, however, leaves enormous room for further analysis on the history of Canadian veterinary and remount services.

These characteristics of French’s work – insular national examination, thematic approach, lack of significant attention to combat operations – are broadly indicative of the first generation

British Imperial military veterinary historiography as well. In the years following the war, serving veterinary officers published a wave of books and articles describing the essential functions and

duties of veterinary services throughout the Empire. Some of the most prominent veterinary officers of the early twentieth century, including two former Directors General of the Army

Veterinary Service (Sir Frederick Smith and Sir Layton Blenkinsop) as well as the DVS BEF, Sir

John Moore, produced both official and unofficial historical examinations of the veterinary services in war. They focused overwhelmingly on the British Army Veterinary Corps (AVC), with only cursory references to the Dominion services in the period.24 Like French, their works convey an enormous volume of quantitative and qualitative data, but their thematic approach effectively precludes discussing those military events where horses and veterinarians were key participants.

Indeed, as the British Official History Veterinary Services claims in its Western Front chapter, “it would be obviously impossible, in the limited space available…to give a complete history of the veterinary administration in the field throughout the war.” “Consequently,” the authors continued,

“this section is limited to a description of the more important veterinary difficulties that arose, and the means that were taken to deal with them.”25

On the other hand, a wave of new scholarship by British Commonwealth scholars approaches veterinary affairs in a chronological manner. Ian Parsonson’s Vets at War (2005) and

Michael Tyquin’s Forgotten Men (2011), for example, interweave their histories of the Australian

Army Veterinary Corps (AAVC) within the war’s broader context in Western Europe and

24 See Major-General Sir John Moore, Army Veterinary Service in War, (London: H&W Brown, 1921), Major- General Sir L.J. Blenkinsop and Major J.W. Rainey, eds, History of the Great War Based on Official Documents: Veterinary Services, (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1925), Major General Sir Frederick Smith, A History of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, 1796-1919, (London: Ballière, Tindall and Cox, 1927), Lieutenant-Colonel Max Henry, “Veterinary Services in the Field,” Australian Veterinary Journal 4, no. 1 (March 1928): 3-10, and Henry, “Notes of a Veterinary Officer with the A.I.F. (1914-19), Australian Veterinary Journal 5, no. 4 (December 1929): 149-154. 25 Blenkinsop and Rainey, Veterinary Services, 73. John Singleton reflected many of these themes in a 1992 article in Past and Present, where he surveys the British Army’s remount apparatus, exploring how its use of animals necessitated considerable logistic problem-solving with respect to fodder, and to developing veterinary services to care for the animals’ health. See Singleton, “Britain’s Military Use of Horses 1914-1918,” Past & present 139 (May 1993): 178-203. 10

Palestine. Their analyses, understandably, focus predominately on the AAVC during its pre-war developmental phase and its service in the First and Second World Wars. Tyquin’s work in particular maintains a broader awareness of how the AAVC fit into the British Expeditionary

Force, making repeated references to other Dominion services throughout his work.26 Another recent monograph of considerable importance is Graham Winton’s Theirs Not to Reason Why

(2013), a comprehensive study of the British Army’s veterinary and remount services from 1875 to 1925. Winton’s ambitious work examines how the British Army procured, deployed, treated, and disposed of its horses before, during, and after two major conflicts: the Second Anglo-Boer

War of 1899-1902, and the Great War of 1914-18. Like Parsonson and Tyquin, he maintains a keen sense of chronology throughout his work and how veterinary and remount affairs changed over time. However, his broad focus on the British Army’s global campaigning means he seldom refers to the Canadian veterinary services, formations, and animals throughout his work.27 Such recent works by Parsonson, Tyquin, and Winton thus convey a growing trend towards writing the history of the veterinary services, animal procurement, and their relation to military operations.

However, like the immediate post-war generation of literature, the Canadian Army Veterinary

Corps and the horses it cared for receive only incidental mention.

There exists, therefore, a discrete body of work discussing both veterinary services and remounts from both Canadian and British Imperial perspectives. These works admirably highlight the crucial presence of military veterinarians and draught animals in the Great War period. The

Canadian literature, however, remains deficient in its sense of chronology, military operations, and

26 Ian M. Parsonson, Vets at War: A History of the Australian Army Veterinary Corps, 1909-1946, (Canberra: Australian Army History Unit, 2005), and Michael Tyquin, Forgotten Men: The Australian Army Veterinary Corps 1909-1946, (Newport: Big Sky Publishing, 2011). 27 Graham Winton, Theirs Not to Reason Why: Horsing the British Army, 1875-1925, (Solihull: Helion & Company Limited, 2013). 11

the broader connection to participating in a British Empire’s war effort. This is not to malign such works, but to exhibit the enormous field of historical inquiry on the experiences of veterinarians, horses, and mules that remains to be adequately explored.

Beyond this field of military veterinary historiography, analysis of draught animals and veterinary personnel remains woefully lacking in broader Canadian Great War literature. A rich field of scholarship on the experience of women, soldiers’ families, case studies on individual

Canadian cities, the changing political environment, French-English relations, and conscription, create a truly comprehensive mosaic of the human experience of Canada’s Great War. Horses and veterinarians, too, were important extensions of Canadian society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that remain all but absent from these histories. Their place in civil life, their military mobilization, and the war’s impact on their future, are key components of the Canadian

Great War experience that remains to be explored by any such works.28

Most conspicuously, Canadian military histories typically ignore the crucial role these horses and their veterinary caretakers played on the Western Front. Such works highlight the role of cutting-edge technology, tactical doctrine, training, senior command, military professionalism,

28 The following is far from an exhaustive list of Canadian Great War social and political literature, but it represents some of the salient works of their respective themes. See Robert Craig Brown and Ramsay Cook, Canada 1896- 1921: A Nation Transformed, (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1974), John English, The Decline of Politics: The Conservatives and the Party System, 1901-1920, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), J.L. Granatstein and J.M. Hitsman, Broken Promises: A History of Conscription in Canada, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), John Herd Thompson, The Harvests of War: The Prairie West, 1914-1918, (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1978), Desmond Morton and Glenn Wright, Winning the Second Battle: Canadian Veterans and the Return to Civilian Life, 1915-1930, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987), Ian Miller, Our Glory and Our Grief: Torontonians and the Great War, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), Robert Rutherdale, Hometown Horizons: Local Responses to Canada’s Great War, (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2004), Desmond Morton, Fight or Pay: Soldiers’ Families in the Great War, (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2004), James M. Pitsula, For All We Have and Are: Regina and the Experience of the Great War, (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2008), Amy J. Shaw, Crisis of Conscience: Conscientious Objection in Canada during the First World War, (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2009), and the essays collected in Sarah Glassford and Amy J. Shaw, eds, A Sisterhood of Suffering and Sacrifice: Women and Girls of Canada and Newfoundland During the First World War, (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2012). 12

operations, strategy, and the frontline experience when investigating Canadian military history from 1914-18.29 Certainly, some secondary works occasionally mention horses, usually in connection to cavalry operations, which occupy a hugely disproportionate volume of attention on horsed services in the Great War.30

29 Colonel A. Fortescue Duguid, Official History of the Canadian Forces in the Great War 1914-1919 General Series Volume I: From the Outbreak of War to the Formation of the Canadian Corps, August 1914 – September 1915, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1938), Colonel G.W.L Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914-1919, (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1962), Nicholson, The Gunners of Canada: The History of the Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery, Volume I: 1534-1919, (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1967), Nicholson, The Gunners of Canada: The History of the Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery, Volume II: 1919-1967, (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1972), Daniel Dancocks, Spearhead To Victory: Canada and the Great War, (Edmonton: Hurtig, 1987), Daniel Dancocks, Welcome to Flanders Fields, (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart Limited, 1988), Stephen J. Harris, Canadian Brass: The Making of a Professional Army, 1860-1939, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988), Desmond Morton, When Your Number’s Up: The Canadian Soldier in the First World War, (Toronto: Random House, 1993), Schreiber, Shock Army of the British Empire, James McWilliams and R. James Steel, Amiens: Dawn of Victory, (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2001), Kenneth Radley, We Lead, Others Follow: First Canadian Division 1914-1918, (St. Catharine’s: Vanwell Publishing Limited, 2006), Chapters 2 and 4-14 in Vimy Ridge: A Canadian Reassessment. Edited by Geoffrey Hayes, Andrew Iarocci, Mike Bechthold, (Waterloo: Laurier Centre for Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies and Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2007), Tim Cook, At the Sharp End: Canadians Fighting the Great War, 1914-1916 Volume One, (Toronto: Viking Canada, 2007), Tim Cook, Shock Troops: Canadians Fighting the Great War Volume Two, 1917-1918, (Toronto: Viking Canada, 2008), Andrew Iarocci, Shoestring Soldiers: The 1st Canadian Division at War, 1914-1915, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), James Wood, Militia Myths: Ideas of the Canadian Citizen Soldier, 1896-1921, (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010), the essays collected in Andrew B. Godefroy, ed., Great War Commands: Historical Perspectives on Canadian Army Leadership, 1914-1918, (Kingston: Canadian Defence Academy Press, 2010), J.L. Granatstein, Canada’s Army: Waging War and Keeping the Peace, Second Edition, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011), Kenneth Radley, Get Tough, Stay Tough: Shaping the Canadian Corps, 1914-1918, (Solihull: Helion & Company, 2014), Bill Rawling, Surviving Trench Warfare: Technology and the Canadian Corps, 1914-1918, Second Edition, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014), and J.L. Granatstein, The Greatest Victory: Canada’s One Hundred Days, 1918, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). Furthermore, a considerable array of articles in Canadian Military History, The Canadian Army Journal, The Journal of Military History, and a number of other publications, explore these themes. 30 Some of these works lend at least cursory attention to veterinary and remount affairs. For example, The Marquess of Anglesey’s A History of the British Cavalry devotes one of his eleven chapters on the Western Front to how these cavalry mounts were fed, replenished, and kept in working condition by veterinary personnel. His attention to the veterinary services appears to be the exception rather than the rule, however. Marquess of Anglesey, A History of the British Cavalry 1816 to 1919, Volume 8: The Western Front, 1915-1918; Epilogue, 1919-1939, (London: Leo Cooper, 1997), Chapter 11. Also see John R. Grodzinski and Michael R. McNorgan. “‘It’s a charge, boys, it’s a charge!’ Cavalry Action at Moreuil Wood, 30 March 1918,” in Fighting for Canada: Seven Battles, 1758-1945, (Toronto: Robin Brass Studio, 2000), Stephen Badsey, Doctrine and Reform in the British Cavalry, 1880-1918. (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2008), Roman Jarymowycz, Cavalry: From Hoof to Track, (Westport: Praeger, 2008), Chapters 10 and 11, David Kenyon, Horsemen in No Man’s Land: British Cavalry and Trench Warfare, 1914-1918, (Barnsley: Pen & Sword Military, 2011), Stephanie E. Potter, “‘Smile and Carry On: Canadian Cavalry on the Western Front, 1914-1918,” (Ph.D. Dissertation: University of Western Ontario, 2013). 13

A central concept underwriting such analyses of Canada’s Western Front combat record is the idea of the “learning curve.” This notion posits that Canadian soldiers began the war as inexperienced, undertrained colonial soldiers who learned through battlefield experience to become consummate professionals by the summer of 1918. Indeed, “the Canadian Corps was less a glorious institution of soldiery” by the end of the war, writes historian Bill Rawling, “than a gathering of technicians.”31 Its direct implication of Canadian inefficiency and amateurism at the outbreak of war lay at the crux of the controversy, and the “learning curve” remains contentions in the historiography. Historians such as, but not limited to, Tim Cook, Bill Rawling, Andrew

Iarocci, and Mark Osborne Humphries, variously explore this notion through their interlocking analyses of the above themes.32

Once again, few such works substantially investigate the role of horses and mules in providing mobility of these units accomplishing their great feats of arms. They hauled forward the guns that supported each attack, the ammunition fired by gunners and soldiers, the rations these personnel ate, every manner of supplies for their daily life, and hauled the ambulances that

31 Rawling, Surviving Trench Warfare, 222. 32 In addition to the above literature on Canadian military history, see Tim Travers, How the War Was Won: Command and Technology in the British Army, 1917-1918, (London: Routledge, 1992), Ian Malcolm Brown. British Logistics on the Western Front, 1914-1919, (Westport: Praeger, 1998), G.D. Sheffield, “How Even was the Learning Curve? Reflections on the British and Dominion Armies on the Western Front, 1916-1918,” and Patrick Brennan and Thomas Leppard, “How the Lessons Were Learned: Senior Commanders and the Moulding of the Canadian Corps after the Somme,” in Yves Tremblay, ed., Canadian Military History Since the 17th Century: Proceedings of the Canadian Military History Conference, Ottawa, 5-9 May 2000, (Ottawa: Department of National Defence, 2001), 125-144, Mark Osborne Humphries, “The Myth of the Learning Curve: Tactics and Training in the 12th Canadian Infantry Brigade, 1916-1918,” Canadian Military History 14, No. 4 (Autumn 2005): 15-30, Tim Cook, No Place to Run: The Canadian Corps and Gas Warfare in the First World War, (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1999), Paddy Griffith, Battle Tactics of the Western Front: The British Army’s Art of Attack 1916-18, (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1994), Christopher Pugsley, The Anzac Experience: New Zealand, Australia and Empire in the First World War, (Auckland: Reed Publishing, 2004), and Richard Holt, “An Administrative Learning Curve: Casualty Rehabilitation in the Canadian Expeditionary Force,” Canadian Military History 24, no. 1 (Winter/Spring 2015): 319-337. 14

evacuated them to hospital. Even rarer is any acknowledgement of the veterinary services’ ceaseless efforts to keep animal-based transport on its legs.

Historian Tim Cook could very well have identified the source of this issue when he considered the veterinary services among the “duller, if essential, functions” of the CEF – a

“mundane part of war [that] required experts to run it efficiently.” At the same time, he echoes

Currie’s assessment of the CAVC, “for without supplies and ammunition” such services provided,

“the fighting units would have ground to a halt.”33 Captain Cecil French might have well agreed with Cook. He prefaced his history with a disclaimer that “of the glamour and heroic side of warfare the reader will find in the succeeding pages scarcely a trace.” Indeed, French argues, the

CAVC’s duty of “helping to maintain the mobility of the combatant units and to repair some of the ravages of the battlefield,” far to the rear, meant its “lot was to endure everlasting drudgery.”34

It would be too presumptuous to claim this study will systematically refute any perceived boredom or mundanity of the subject matter. It endeavours nevertheless to exhibit how the history of veterinary services and animal transport fits within these more “glamorous” narratives of the war, and even possessed a heroism and drama of its own. The ensuing chapters convey enough triumphs, failures, controversies, and tragedies, to help convey what historian John Keegan termed

“the sensations and emotions with which the participants are grappling.”35 For the overworked veterinary officer, having spent all day in the saddle and inspecting hundreds of sick or wounded animals late into the night, treating those he could save, and humanely shooting those he could not, “everlasting drudgery” would have been a very relative term indeed.

33 Cook, At the Sharp End, 306. 34 French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War 1914-1919, xxii. 35 John Keegan, The Face of Battle, (London: Pimlico, 1991), 18. 15

Structure

This dissertation endeavours to situate animal transport and veterinary medicine within

Canada’s Great War experience, and explore how they changed over time. To this end, it expands its scope beyond the geographic, temporal, and nationalistic confines of the CEF on the Western

Front. It examines the roots of horses and veterinarians in Canadian social and military affairs before 1914. This pre-war context remains essential to understating how the Dominion of Canada was able to field both horses and military veterinarians for such a major conflict. Then, it explores mobilization of horses and veterinarians for war, their movement overseas, their service on the

Western Front, and their fate after the war’s conclusion. Throughout, it strives to place the

Canadian experience firmly within the broader context of the British Empire’s influence and direction in peace and war. Its argument, thus, is that the quantity and quality of horses, and veterinary efforts to optimize both, exerted a direct impact on Canadian combat operations in the

Great War. To understand this contribution properly, it is necessary to explore these affairs in their broader social, military, and imperial context.

This study integrates its analysis into the prevailing themes, arguments, and controversies of Canadian Great War historiography. A central tenet of this dissertation is that, instead of a

“learning curve” per se, veterinary personnel underwent a “learning process.” Rather than begin the war with rudimentary skills and finish it as skilled experts, the veterinary services began the war with a solid base of expertise and skills that continually improved throughout the war. The foundations for this knowledge lay, ultimately, in the years before the Great War. Disastrous experiences in South Africa, where British Imperial forces suffered annual animal wastage rates in excess of 120%, imparted the indispensable utility of independent veterinary services for future conflicts. This hard-won lesson connecting professional veterinary expertise to battlefield

efficiency was well in hand by 1914. Further changes in unit and command structure, infectious disease control, casualty treatment and evacuation protocol, and remount replenishment, certainly changed over the course of the war. This was, however, a perpetually ongoing process, rather than one with discrete beginning and end points in 1914 and 1918.

Another central theme of this dissertation is its British Imperial context. The Canadian

Veterinary and Remount services in the Great War, particularly those on the Western Front, integrated within British command hierarchies. Though Canadian in personnel, they were British in organization, structure, and functionality. Efforts to form a discrete veterinary service before the Great War mimicked British reforms, Canadian remounts came from British sources for most of the war, and CAVC personnel served under overall British command in France and Flanders.

Thus, this dissertation pays close attention to British military veterinary affairs, for they directly influenced subsequent Canadian activities throughout the period.

In this sense, it breaks the mold of conventional military histories of Canada in the Great

War. The above works typically isolate the young Dominion’s experiences from the broader context that was critical for its war experience. However, this study emphasizes the thorough integration of Canada’s war effort within the British Empire, both at home and on the battlefield.

The market for Canadian military animals, the rank structure of Canadian veterinary services, and the overall command of Canadian veterinary personnel in the Great War, were all determined overwhelmingly by British requirements for horses, the pattern of British veterinary services, and the centralized command of Imperial veterinary personnel in the BEF. This thoroughly Imperial character is an indispensable facet of Canada’s Great War experience that historians too seldom grant adequate recognition, and is one this study strives to illustrate.

A third objective of this study is to situate the veterinary and remount services within a broader context of Canadian society before, during, and after the Great War. Neither Canada’s war horses nor military veterinarians emerged from a vacuum, for both played distinct and crucial roles in pre-war Canadian society. Mobilizing them for war represented a significant component of the

Canadian military, social, and political effort, and the war itself carried significant implications for them after its conclusion. To properly understand the Canadian remount market’s disappointing returns in the Great War, for example, it is necessary to explore the uncertain future of horses in pre-war Canadian society, the repeated disappointments in military interest from 1899 and 1914, and the British Government’s perceptions of what the Dominion of Canada had to offer.

Furthermore, the First World War witnessed a militarization of the civilian veterinary profession. One third of Canada’s veterinary surgeons served in uniform, though most of these individuals originally pursued their education for careers in domestic practice or in the Department of Agriculture. This study contends it is imperative to understand the nature of the civilian profession, for it provided a critical foundation of veterinary experience for military tasks throughout the war. Indeed, without this corpus of trained civilian experts, and their keenly guarded professional ethos, the military veterinary services would not exist.

Chapters One and Two of this study explore these prevailing conditions for horses and veterinarians – no mules from Canada went overseas – in social and military contexts before 1914.

They examine the growing crisis over the role of horses and horse doctors in a Canadian society experiencing growing urbanization and incipient mechanization. These chapters also examine the contributions of Canada’s horses and veterinary surgeons to the Second Anglo-Boer War, a conflict entirely dependent upon horses for mobility across the South African hinterland. This conflict profoundly shaped how British, and by extension Canadian, military establishments

anticipated using horses and veterinary practitioners on both Militia exercises and in future conflicts. The South African War demonstrated the clear utility of military veterinary services, but disappointing interest from British remount agents in Canadian horses formed an inauspicious precedent for the future.

Chapter Three examines the outbreak of the Great War and the chaotic mobilization of horses and veterinarians in 1914. It explores the controversial procurement process of these animals, their shipment overseas, and the winter spent training for war on Salisbury Plain in southern England. Chapter Four continues with its themes of animal procurement and explores the

Canadian remount market in the Great War from 1914-17. Overwhelmingly, this facet of the Great

War experience was characterized by resentment among Canadian breeders and politicians over the overt favourtism exhibited by the British Remount Commission to horses from the United

States – a repeat of circumstance from the Boer War. These chapters ultimately chart the largest mobilization of horses in Canadian history, some 65,000 animals, which nevertheless left

Canadians bitter and resentful over missed opportunities for greater sales.

Chapters Five to Nine examine learning process experienced by Canadian veterinary and horse management personnel on the Western Front. Chapter Five examines the inaugural months spent in France and Belgium. It illustrates that pre-war Militia experience and Salisbury training alike provided a critical basis of military veterinary medicine and animal management to sustain

Canadian personnel through their “baptism of fire” at the Second Battle of Ypres. Chapter Six investigates crucial lessons learned in the prevention and treatment of dangerous infectious diseases on the Western Front – namely mange and glanders, both of which will be discussed at length. It explores the crucial intellectual exchange between British, French, and Canadian

personnel on the best means of controlling these diseases in 1915-16, critical lessons that provided templates on disease management for the rest of the war.

Chapter Seven follows the CEF’s horses, mules, and veterinarians through sustained combat operations on the Somme and at Vimy Ridge. Throughout the pace of these battles, horses and mules struggled through thick mud, inclement weather, and incessant work to keep the guns well-stocked with ammunition. Animals exhausted by their labours on the Somme from September to November 1916, however, enjoyed little rest or respite before again working in appalling conditions at Vimy Ridge from March to May 1917. Concerns among veterinary officers that parasitic mange could spread among these animals prompted thousands to be clipped of their long winter coats, leaving them terribly exposed to the elements. Losses from sickness, exhaustion, and exposure – debility – threatened to paralyze the Canadian Corps’ field mobility. Only the onset of warm weather and end of the relentless work in May staved off disaster.

Chapter Eight examines how these lessons in animal management absorbed throughout the

CAVC in late 1917. Again confronting deep mud, inclement weather, and heavy work during the

Passchendaele Offensive in October-November 1917, veterinary personnel nevertheless learned lessons from the previous spring and minimized animal wastage through debility and disease. They proved far more effective in maintaining animal health during some of the worst field conditions of the Great War, at Passchendaele, than on the Somme or at Vimy Ridge.

Chapter Nine explores the immense challenges posed by the German Spring Offensives and Hundred Days Offensives in 1918. In contrast to the prevailing conditions of siege warfare, the battles of 1918 occurred over far greater distances and witnessed horses, mules, and veterinary personnel performing their duties under the most intense combat of the conflict. The Canadian

Corps suffered its worst animal casualties of the war, but veterinary personnel ensured the remaining horses and mules remained in optimal health and efficiency until the end of the war.

Chapter Ten discusses the demobilization of horses, mules, and veterinarians from the

Canadian Expeditionary Force. It exhibits how Canadian authorities successfully sold off the entirety of the CEF’s healthy animals within a short timeframe, maximizing profits through public and private sales alike. This chapter further examines the fate of horses and veterinarians in postwar Canadian society, which witnessed a resumption of the crisis explored in Chapters One and Two. Horses steadily disappeared from ubiquitous civil and military affairs, whereas the civil veterinary profession adapted to other sources of business besides equine medicine. Senior veterinary officers, however, proved unable or unwilling to adjust their service accordingly. The

Royal Canadian Army Veterinary Corps, within days of its thirtieth birthday in 1940, was disbanded in the early stages of the Second World War.

This dissertation thus explores a broad range of themes in Canadian social, military, and veterinary history. It does, however, impose some limitations. The history of military horses and military veterinary medicine – both written and unwritten – is truly expansive. This study devotes its space and energies to those areas most conspicuously in need of revision, or those areas with no historiographical basis at all. Consequently, there are a number of important units, forces, and historical episodes, that this dissertation does not investigate in any great detail.

For example, although featuring their own veterinary establishments, this study does not examine the Canadian Cavalry Brigade or Siberian Expeditionary Force (SEF) in any great depth.

Cavalry on the Western Front is a well-covered topic, and although indeed necessitating veterinary care and careful maintenance, the number of horses in the Cavalry Brigade (2,616 averaged in

1918) paled in comparison to the volume of horses and mules (21,291 averaged in 1918) pulling

the Canadian Corps forward into battle.36 The SEF, too, featured a small veterinary staff and a

Mobile Veterinary Section, but this study will not explore their services in the interests of focusing more intently on those with the Canadian Corps.37

Furthermore, this dissertation only makes cursory references to Nos. 1 and 2 Canadian

Veterinary Hospitals, and the Canadian Remount Depot. These Hospitals rendered critical service in France and England, respectively, and served as effective training centres for officers and enlisted men rotating forward and back from the front lines. However, these personnel considerations were their only direct contribution to veterinary activities in the Canadian Corps.

Given the tightly integrated nature of veterinary hospital administration throughout the BEF, few, if any, horses evacuated from the Canadian Corps received treatment at No. 1 CVH in Havre.38

Similarly, the short-lived Canadian Remount Depot at Dieppe issued only 75 horses to Canadian units, all on a single occasion, before it was disbanded in November 1915.39 Both No. 1 CVH and the Remount Depot functioned as components of the thoroughly integrated BEF veterinary and remount apparatus, and thus, experienced little direct contact with Canadian units at the front.

Cecil French’s work provides considerable detail on both hospitals and a brief overview of the depot, and readers wishing to learn more about the nature of life and work in these hospitals are well advised to consult his Chapters 5, 6, and 13. Furthermore, French devotes considerable attention to the kindness, sympathy, and tremendous support presented by Humane and Anti-

Cruelty Societies to the Canadian Expeditionary Force, which consequently will not feature as prominent subjects of discussion in this study.

36 “Gross Wastage – France – 1918.” LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3363 Folder A-1-45. 37 French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War, 1914-1919, 62 and 98. 38 French claims “no horse of actual Canadian ownership entered its portals.” Ibid., 30. 39 War Diary (WD), Canadian Remount Depot, 23 July 1915. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5045 Reel T-10936. 22

Lastly, this study does not endeavour to be a complete logistical history of the Canadian

Expeditionary Force. It does not approach the history of shipping, rail transport, motor transport, or infantry-borne transport except insofar as they affected horses or the veterinary services at various junctures. As of July 2016, Andrew Iarocci is undertaking a study of Canadian motor transport – a service branch experiencing its own learning process, service at the front, and invaluable contribution to the future of Canadian military affairs.40 His work, when published, will doubtless present a fascinating and well-researched glimpse into the broader logistical network.

This study, however, concerns itself only with examining animal-based transport and the veterinary medicine that sustained it.

Sources

This dissertation approaches the history of Canada’s horses, mules, and veterinary services predominately from a veterinary medical perspective. The Directorate of Veterinary Services and

Remounts, the central coordinating bureau for Canada’s war horses and military veterinarians, presided over all 71,635 horses and mules that passed through Canadian command in the war.

Although these animals served throughout the CEF, the veterinary services furnished the most detailed and reliable qualitative and quantitative information on their health and working efficiency. The immense financial value attached to these animals – £56 per head – necessitated regular accounting on each horse or mule’s transfer in or out of the CEF. The CAVC’s holdings in Record Group 9 at Libraries and Archives Canada thus contain an extraordinary wealth of

40 Iarocci explores these themes in “Dangerous Curves: Canadian Drivers and Mechanical Transport in Two World Wars,” in Geoffrey Hayes, Mike Bechthold, and Matt Symes, eds, Canada and the Second World War: Essays in Honour of Terry Copp, (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2012). 23

quantitative information on the state of the CEF’s animal strength at any given time. Without these veterinary files and a veterinary perspective, the only available sources on the CEF’s animal strength would be disconnected data imparted by individual units of other service branches. The veterinary services presided over animal health in infantry, artillery, cavalry, logistic, and service corps units, rendering them the ideal organization to frame an analysis on Canada’s war horses.

A key wartime document produced by CAVC personnel, and utilized by this study, was the A.2000 Form – a standardized weekly report on the state of animal health in any given unit.

These forms contained entry fields on a number of infectious diseases, injuries, and wounds, that veterinary officers filled after their routine unit inspections. These forms grant clear quantitative data on the animal strength of each unit every week of the war, and illustrate the scope of any disease outbreak, injury, or battle losses impacting animal health and working efficiency. These aggregated A.2000 Forms, passed up all the way to the DVS, formed the fundamental basis for statistical data on horses and mules throughout the British Expeditionary Force. Similarly, virtually all data sets on animal strength housed at Libraries and Archives Canada are based on officers compiling these weekly animal censuses during the war.

The single most important sources informing these chapters are the official war diaries kept by veterinary officers over the course of the Great War. These documents offer a daily account of life in CEF units overseas and thus provide unrivalled glimpses into the state of animal health, treatment of disease, losses in battle, and replenishment of casualties, on any given day of the war.

They are also notoriously fickle, for their value is entirely contingent on the attention to detail of each author. Some war diaries lend only the most cursory detail and condense an entire months’

activities to a single page.41 Other, more verbose, or more conscientious, officers recorded lengthy entries granting comprehensive portraits on animal health throughout the war. Indeed, this study is particularly fortunate that the senior CAVC officer in the field, Captain (later Lieutenant-

Colonel) Ashton B. Cutcliffe, was an inveterate diarist. His detailed daily accounts help tie together the most sparse, and the most abundant, details of veterinary and animal work in the Canadian

Corps. This study thus owes very much to the detailed records kept Canadian veterinary personnel, even those stingy with their diaries, throughout the conflict.

In conjunction with these war diaries, correspondence, memoranda, and historical studies housed at LAC provides further quantitative and qualitative evidence to support these crucial documents throughout the succeeding chapters. Similarly, the University of Guelph’s Archival and

Special Collections contains an enormous volume of contemporary documentation on the Ontario

Veterinary College and veterinary medicine at the turn of the twentieth century that illustrate the changing nature of the profession throughout the period.

This study also relies heavily on sources from the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons

Archive, the Army Medical Services Museum Archive, and the National Archives of the United

Kingdom. A similar array of memoranda, correspondence, quantitative reports, and studies on remount procurement provide the essential broader Imperial context that the Canadian experience was indelibly part of. This dissertation also relies considerably on British war diaries, most notably from the Deputy Directors of Veterinary Services of field armies, and the DVS for the BEF.

Major-General John Moore maintained an exceptionally detailed war diary throughout the conflict

41 Lieutenant C.H. Hastings, an officer on staff of the Canadian War Records Office, wrote the CAVC war diaries French had to contend with were “very bad indeed, and do not give him nearly sufficient material to do his work.” Lieutenant C.H. Hastings to Lord Beaverbrook, 12 April 1918. LAC RG 9 III-D-1 Vol. 4717 Folder 112 File 1. 25

on virtually every disease outbreak, combat operation, medical innovation, and health crisis experienced by the BEF. His writings provide the crucial broader daily context Canadian veterinary affairs integrated within.

This study also explores a broad range of published primary material from Canadian and

British sources to further flesh out these archival resources. Parliamentary debates, annual reports of the Minister of Agriculture and Minister of Militia and Defence, Militia and Civil Service Lists,

Royal Commission reports, as well as pamphlets on infectious diseases, convey invaluable quantitative and qualitative data on a broad range of civil and military affairs during the period.

Similarly, public periodicals including newspapers, farmers’ weekly publications, and medical and veterinary journals, provide social perspectives on these affairs.

Together, these primary sources weave a narrative of how horses and veterinarians functioned within Canadian society and how they integrated into military efforts when that society went to war. Their contribution forms a critical facet of the Canadian war experience, and was no less impressive than soldiers marching off to the front, or civilians at home producing war materials. This period would ultimately witness a tremendous shift in Canadian social, military, and cultural history, for it saw the greatest, and last, mobilization of horses for warfare. In the words of Robert Craig Brown and Ramsay Cook, this period left Canada “a nation transformed.”42

For horses and veterinarians, this was particularly the case.

42 Brown and Cook, Canada 1896-1921: A Nation Transformed. 26

Chapter One – A “Horseless Age”? Horses in Peace and War, 1886-1914

“That branch of stock-raising has seen its worst day. The scarcity of good horses for all purposes is very much felt in all populous centres and large cities”43

-Dr. Duncan McEachran, Chief Veterinary Inspector, On the status of horse breeding in Canada, 1898

“I think that the events of the war now going on in South Africa have demonstrated beyond question that mounted soldiers are the soldiers of the future”44

-Mr. Frederick Borden, Minister of Militia and Defence 12 February 1900

The three decades leading to the outbreak of the First World War witnessed a crisis over the role of horses in Canadian society. They were well suited to a variety of agricultural, industrial, urban, and rural tasks, all of which saw their numbers expand into the twentieth century. They could be used for ploughing on farms, transportation of goods, draught power for omnibuses, and local means of conveyance. And yet, attractive new technologies such as the automobile, bicycle, electric streetcar, and steam tractor made them appear increasingly redundant in each of these roles.45 Despite boasting a population of 2.59 million horses against 7.2 million humans in 1911, the future of the horse in Canadian society was uncertain on the eve of the Great War.

At the same time, their military utility was clear. The centrality of horses to military operations did not appear to be any less obvious to soldiers, breeders, and politicians in 1887 than

43 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended 31st October 1898, (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1899), 65. 44 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Debates, 8th Parliament, 5th Session, Vol. 1, (12 February 1900), 285. 45 For works examining this transition, see Juliet Clutton-Brock, Horse Power: A History of the Horse and Donkey in Human Societies, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), Mike Filey and Victor Russell. From Horse Power to Horsepower: Toronto: 1890-1930, (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1993), Clay McShane, Clay and Joel A. Tarr, The Horse in the City: Living Machines in the Nineteenth Century, (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), Derry, Horses in Society, and Ann Norton Greene, Horses at Work: Harnessing Power in Industrial America, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008). 27

it was throughout previous centuries of conflict. Horses specifically bred for military purposes presented a tantalizing market for civilian breeders. However, tension with fickle military purchasing commissions hounded Canadian breeding efforts. Several abortive attempts to reproduce premium breeds of horses suited to military purposes fell flat when a viable market failed to materialize. Given the comparatively small size of the Canadian Permanent Force and

Non-Permanent Active Militia, such breeders almost without exception lay their eyes on the

British Army – itself only requiring a small number of horses on annual basis – as the most desirable recurring market for their stock.

This frustrating state of affairs was briefly interrupted by the Second Anglo-Boer War of

1899-1902. The cross-country mobility horses provided to mounted infantry, cavalry, and horse artillery demonstrated to military and civilian officials alike that future wars would pivot upon significant mobilization of horse strength. Thousands of Canadian-bred horses performed admirably in both British and Canadian units throughout the conflict. While these events did not necessarily ensure the survival of Canada’s horse industry prior to 1914, they provided impetus behind maintaining a quality breeding stock should war break out in the future.

This chapter will ultimately demonstrate that the future of horses in Canada was ambiguous at the outbreak of the Great War. Their civilian use appeared to be on the decline due to the emergence of modern transportation technology. However, they would clearly be central to military operations into the twentieth century. The conundrum of a declining civilian market and an emergency-dependent military market would define the Canadian horse industry.

Horses and Humans to 1887

Horses are ideally suited to domestication and exploitation. Their capability to work willingly alongside humans, combined with a strong draught capacity, made them prime candidates for a variety of agricultural, industrial, and military tasks. They are herd animals which will accept humans as superiors in the “pecking order” of their social hierarchy.46 As Paul

McGreevy’s book Equine Behaviour notes, the horse is “a social herbivore that capitalizes on companions for added safety, [and] is a creature that is likely to feel insecure when isolated.”47

Indeed, the horse’s principal loyalty was to its social group – the “harem” – rather than to a fixed parcel of territory. These harems were rigidly hierarchical and dominated by an alpha stallion.

Assertive humans, adopting this role, could easily command the attention and obedience of an entire group of horses.48 Horses are thus animals that easily form bonds with humans and can learn the voice, mannerisms, and appearance of certain individuals, rendering them especially suitable to performing tasks under human direction. Similarly, they are capable of pulling significant loads over large distances at a brisk pace. Their digestive tract enables them to consume and process fodder quickly, meaning they are used to eating and moving constantly. However, the limited absorption of nutrients and subsistence on low-protein grasses makes them reliant on large amounts of feed every day.49 Despite requiring substantial volumes of fodder to maintain their energy, horses are thus animals accustomed to constant movement over long distances. However, they needed to be reared and worked for three to four years before they could grow capable of strenuous military work.

46 Greene, Horses at Work, 22. 47 Paul McGreevy, Equine Behaviour: A Guide for Veterinarians and Equine Scientists, (Elsevier Limited, 2004), 1. 48 Horse Power 22. 49 McGreevy, Equine Behaviour, 2, and Greene, Horses at Work, 20. 29

Another highly prized draught animal was the mule. Mules were the offspring of a female horse (mare) and a male donkey (jack).50 Mules combined the intelligence of the horse with the hardiness of the donkey and were thus keenly sought after for draught and pack purposes. They were incredibly resilient animals that were more resistant to infectious disease, could survive exposure to harsher elements, and needed only three quarters the volume of feed as did horses.51

They were born sterile and thus impossible to breed together, but they would continue to play an important, if less glamorous, transport role alongside horses in the Great War.

Horse Breeds and Roles in Canada

By the late nineteenth century, the role of horses in civilian society became increasingly specialized. Humans began to mould horses to more specific roles as a greater awareness of pedigree and inherited traits permeated western breeding industries. Breeding from individual sires to preserve desirable traits through subsequent generations emerged as standard practice amongst the more sought-after horse breeds. Larger urban populations required greater production from farms, and this heavier agricultural demand further pushed forward pure breeding practices.52

Expanded public transportation networks and other urban haulage needs also drove up demand for heavy draught horses.

By the end of the nineteenth century, “breed” came to denote a specific type of horse descended from an identifiable group of sires with a set of discrete characteristics.53 Heavy draught horses used for urban work included Clydesdales (Scotland), Shires (England), and Percherons

50 The inverse of this relationship, between a male horse (stallion) and female donkey (jennet) was called a hinny. 51 Greene, Horses at Work, 29 and John M. Kistler, Animals in the Military: From Hannibal’s Elephants to the Dolphins of the US Navy, (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2011), 284 and 298. 52 Derry, Horses in Society, 29. 53 Greene, Horses at Work, 85. 30

(France). These were typically the largest horses on the market, ranging from 1,200 to 1,500 pounds and were used to pull omnibuses or delivery wagons.54 Distinctions between these breeds were sometimes more imagined than real, as cross breeding between Clydesdales and Shires obscured purity between the two breeds. Similarly, ‘Percherons’ exported from France were sometimes generic heavy draught horses and passed off under the pedigree since purebred specimens were quite expensive.55 Horses for light haulage or road use fell under an array of different breeds – Standardbreds, Thoroughbreds, Hackneys, and Cobs, for example.56

Such horses were widely employed in a variety of urban roles. In Toronto, the first horse- drawn streetcar service began in 1885, while horses also pulled ambulances, taxicabs, equipment for the Toronto Fire Department, and delivery wagons for the T. Eaton Company.57 By the 1890s, however, they were already beginning to disappear from many of these roles. Light draught horses especially suffered a rapid decline in value across North America due to the popularity of bicycles and electric streetcars. On 13 February 1899, for example, the Toronto Globe reported that ten electric “horseless carriages” were ordered by a nascent electric cab company from the Canadian

General Electric Company’s factory in Peterborough.58 Public interest in electric “horseless” transportation quickly took off. The Globe reported in February 1907 that the Canadian General

Electric Company sold nearly 1,000 electric street car motors to “every town and city having a street railway service between Halifax and Vancouver.”59

54 Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended 31st October 1898, 65. 55 Derry, Horses in Society, 48 and 74. 56 For more extensive discussion of these horse breeds, see Ibid., 30-38. 57 Filey and Russell, From Horse Power to Horsepower, 42-78. 58 “Horseless Cabs to Operate on Our Streets Canadians Have Secured Control of a Business That May Grow to Vast Dimensions,” The Globe, 13 February 1899. 59 “Origin of Electric Roads,” The Globe, 28 February 1907. 31

The decline in demand for light draught horses created a glut on the market that was difficult to resolve. There were simply too many horses of varying quality which could not adequately fill the roles for which they were needed. A deep sense of apprehension began to permeate Canadian horse breeders. Farming magazine commented, for example, that “dull sales and low prices curtailed the breeding of horses.”60 Dr. Duncan McEachran, Veterinary Director-

General and Chief Livestock Inspector for the Dominion of Canada, argued for the resuscitation of this industry. He asserted that the farmer “who raises carriage, saddle and draught horses of good quality and breeding, with size, bone, and action will have no difficulty in realizing handsome profits,” but also noted that “the breeds which will be found most profitable are thoroughbred crosses, and heavy-draught.”61 He acknowledged the stagnation of the light draught market, since

“medium sized draught horses do not pay as well,” but encouraged farmers to “breed the best, nothing but the best.” He stressed the continual appeal of heavy draughts like Clydesdales and

Shires, which “will pay best.” He noted that there was considerable demand in the United Kingdom for such horses in London, Liverpool, and Glasgow, which would be “largely used in omnibuses and vans for goods delivery.”62 Similarly, Farming magazine reassured horse breeders in April

1899 that “for many years to come…the useful horse will be needed in carrying on the general business of our large towns and cities.” Due difficulties experienced by “horseless carriages” and

“auto-trucks” stranded by heavy snowfall, Farming’s editors argued “it will be many a year before they will entirely replace the horse for general utility as a means of locomotion.”63

60 “The Kind of Horse to Breed,” Farming Vol XVI No. 33 (18 April 1899): 616. 61 Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended 31st October 1898, 65. 62 Ibid. 63 “Electricity vs. the Horse,” Farming Vol. XVI No. 33 (18 April 1899): 615-616. 32

Nevertheless, the situation was no better by 1901. McEachran’s assessment of the horse breeding industry was even bleaker than when he had considered its “worst day” bygone in 1898.

He lamented that “during the past five years horse-breeding as a special effort has almost entirely been given up.” His reasoning for the industry’s rapid decline is revealing into the equine crisis in the early twentieth century:

The introduction of electric and other motors some years ago led to the idea being widely entertained that we had entered on a ‘horseless age,’ and that henceforth horse-breeding would become a thing of the past – and to a certain extent the bicycle craze, the motor carriage, but more especially the application of electricity to motor power, in some measure justifies this scare, for such it proved to be.64

His emphasis on the “bicycle craze” and shift from “electricity to motor power” succinctly encapsulates the conundrum over continued use of the horse. In a contrast to such modern technologies, horses were regarded as pollutants of the urban environment. They produced 25 to

50 pounds of manure and a gallon of urine per day, most of which ended on the street. Their carcasses were sometimes also left to rot in the gutter – significant risks to public health. Carcasses and piles of manure were breeding grounds for flies and greatly facilitated the spread of infectious disease.65 By contrast, electric streetcars were cleaner and far more modern. The Globe reported on 10 October 1895 that residents of London, Ontario, were incensed when the City Engineer ordered electric streetcar service suspended until paving along the route was complete. The Globe noted that “the order was at once obeyed and travel by the bob-tails [horses] resumed, much to the disgust of citizens in general.”66

64 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended October 31 1901 (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1902), 67. 65 Greene, Horses at Work, 174. 66 “Horse-Cars for London,” The Globe, 10 October 1895. 33

Furthermore, horse breeding simply was not as profitable an industry as other agricultural pursuits. Despite McEachran’s desperate pleas for farmers to “breed the best only, and obtain the highest market price and a ready sale for our stock because of its superior quality,” the fiscal value of horses paled in the grand scheme of Canadian agricultural industry. In 1897, for example, total agricultural exports from the Dominion of Canada were $55,533,592. Of this total, $9,937,723 came from livestock exports. Horses accounted for $1,710,922 of this livestock trade, roughly 17%

(3% of the gross agricultural total). By contrast, cattle exports amounted to $7,159,365, or 72% of livestock export value (12.8% of the gross agricultural total).67

This agricultural trade was indispensable for the Canadian economy in the late nineteenth century. Fully 45% of the population was employed in “agricultural pursuits,” and 25% of railroad shipping and 33% of canal shipping were devoted to agricultural production. Canada’s merchant marine fleet depended upon agricultural produce to ship abroad, and ultimately the Department of

Agriculture estimated that “more than one half of the total exports are agricultural products.”68

Given these estimates, Canada’s equine industry in 1897 accounted for roughly 1.5% of national export value. By contrast, the high demand for beef abroad kept the numbers of cattle continually high during these years.

Despite all of these problems, Canada’s horse population continued to grow. As Table 1.1 demonstrates, the equine population of Canada nearly doubled between 1891 and 1913:

67 Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended October 31 1901, 106. 68 Ibid. 34

Table 1.1: Horse Population of Canada, 1891-191369

Year Number of Horses 1891 1,470,872 1901* 1,617,959* 1907 1,923090 1908 2,118,165 1909 2,132,489 1910 2,213,199 1911 2,595,912 1912 2,692,357 1913 2,866,008

Unmonitored or unfocused breeding were largely responsible for this continued growth in the face of declining demand. Farming magazine, for example, counselled its readers to practice “careful breeding” and selectivity when producing livestock. It encouraged farmers to “stick to a certain type of horse” and focus upon breeding “draft, coach and hunter horses.” The magazine’s editors further warned that “to jump around from one line of breeding to another without any definite plan or system…is only to court failure.” The editors ascribed the abundance of “scrub” horses “for which there is practically no market to-day” to widespread unfocused and inattentive breeding.70

Repeated admonitions from McEachran and other officials over quality breeding similarly conveys frustration borne from little attention to detail in horse reproduction. Such unfocused breeding diluted the overall quality of the horse supply, and conversely drove up prices and demand for

69 *“There being no census of animals for the Dominion taken since 1891…to these probably 10 per cent may be added to represent figures of this date.” See Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended October 31 1901, 106, Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended March 31 1911, 37, Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended March 31 1912, 43, Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended March 31 1913, 43, Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended March 31 1914, 43. (Ottawa, King’s Printer: 1902, 1911, 1912, 1913, 1914). 70 “Continuity in Horse Breeding,” Farming Vol XVI No. 33 (18 April 1899): 617. 35

pure-bred stock. Pure-bred horses for draught or riding work became increasingly difficult to obtain, and expensive, due to a general decline amongst farmers breeding for specific tasks.71

The federal Department of Agriculture undertook measures to address these issues in 1911.

Owners of Thoroughbreds interested in breeding for “saddle and harness use” became eligible for a $250 government grant. Minister of Agriculture Martin Burrell commented that keeping

Thoroughbreds was “less and less…a paying proposition,” and this grant would ideally encourage owners to retain their breeding studs with a view towards “improving the light horse stock of the country.” 72 In 1913 the Department of Agriculture further endeavoured to improve the quality of heavy draught stock throughout the country by purchasing purebred stallions and loaning them, for a fee, to various farmers’ associations and breeding clubs. In 1913 five such horses were loaned, the following year there were 97. However, of these there were only four Hackneys, one

Standardbred, and one Thoroughbred loaned out for light horse breeding. The rest consisted of heavy draught horses like Clydesdales, Percherons, and French Canadians.73 Such public assistance to horse breeding would steadily grow until the number of government-owned purebred stallions peaked at 158 in 1916, when the program concluded and the horses were sold off.74

These measures illustrate that the federal government was indeed sincere in its efforts to stimulate the quality of Canadian animal stock and was not limited to simply voicing concerns without taking action. It sought to provide some incentives to farmers to practice quality breeding whilst automobiles and electric streetcars continued to grow in number. However, the trickle-down

71 “The Kind of Horse to Breed,” Farming Vol XVI No. 33 (18 April 1899): 616. 72 Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended March 31 1912, 20. 73 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended March 31 1915, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1915), 22. 74 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended March 31 1917, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1917), 21. 36

effects from this breeding assistance would take years to determine. Given that horses bred for military purposes typically needed to be three or four years old before they were acceptable for service, these federal initiatives would not have markedly influenced the quality of Canadian equine stock mobilized for the Great War.75

Military Horse Breeding, 1886-1899

While these discussions persisted on the future of the horse in Canadian civil life, their military utility was as strong as ever. Horses were used in virtually every military campaign for millennia.76 Evolving military technologies and increasing reliance on railways failed to dislodge the horse and mule from their central role in military operations. Millions were employed in the

American Civil War; between 1 and 1.4 million perished.77 They were also employed in the

Dominion of Canada’s earliest conflict, as 1,791 horses were dispatched to serve with government units in the North-west Rebellion in 1885.78 However, the ebb and flow of Canadian military interest was contingent on crisis scenarios, and the fluctuating size of the Militia – along with the tiny Permanent Force – meant that the Canadian military was by no means a stable market for horseflesh.79 The British Army on the other hand, with its global commitments and a considerable budget, would be at the fore of military animal purchasing throughout the late nineteenth century.

75 Commenting on a similar scheme to stimulate horsebreeding through financial incentives in the United Kingdom, a British Board of Agriculture and Fisheries Committee Report dated 3 August 1915 wrote that the scheme “has been in existence only for a little over four years, and it is therefore premature to expect any marked improvement in the horsebreeding industry as the result of it.” “Report of the Committee on the Supply of Horses for Military Purposes (England and Wales),” 5. British National Archives (NA) War Office (WO) 107/27. 76 Horse-drawn chariots, for example, first emerged around 1700 BCE. Christon I. Archer, John R. Ferris, Holger H. Herwig and Timothy E. Travers, World History of Warfare, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002), 11. 77 Derry, Horses in Society, 121, and Elaine Walker, Horse (London: Reaktion Books, 2008), 134. 78 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Debates, 8th Parliament, 5th Session, Vol. 3, (25 June 1900), 8222. Also see Granatstein, Canada’s Army, 28-32. 79 For a cogent discussion on “public apathy” and Canadian Militia affairs, see James Wood, Militia Myths: Ideas of the Canadian Citizen Soldier, 1896-1921, (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010), 27-28. 37

The British War Office increasingly appreciated that major Continental European horse markets would be closed in the event of a war, and thus explored contingency plans for procuring remounts in wartime.80 As a young country firmly ensconced within the British Empire, the

Dominion of Canada was a logical market to investigate for supplies of remounts. In 1886, a British commission consisting of Colonel Frederick Ravenhill of the Royal Artillery, Colonel G. Phillips,

Colonel Goldie, and Veterinary Surgeon Thomas Matthews of the Royal Horse Guards toured

Canada to assess the quality of Canadian livestock for British military remount purposes. It spent

167 days travelling 14,755 miles across Canada and examined 7,674 different horses.81

Their visit triggered a flurry of activity amongst horse breeders. Ranchers in the North- west Territories (NWT) thought that massive purchases of Canadian horses for the British Army were imminent and were particularly excited by Ravenhill’s tour. According to Dr. J.G.

Rutherford, McEachran’s successor as Live Stock Commissioner, “a considerable number of

Thoroughbred stallions of the best and most fashionable blood in Britain and America were purchased and placed on the ranches” with news of Ravenhill’s visit. One of these ranches went to the considerable length of importing 300 Irish mares “with the view of producing high class military horses.”82

Such optimism was premature, for only 83 specimens were purchased. Simply put, most of the Canadian horses Ravenhill’s commission examined were unacceptable for strenuous military use. He wrote that “indifferent animals” were sent by farmers for consideration, and thus

80 Winton, Theirs Not to Reason Why, 45. 81 Colonel Frederick Ravenhill, “Horse Breeding in Canada,” 16 March 1887, (Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions, 1981), 5. 82 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended October 31 1904, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1905), 183. 38

“it was not possible for us to…even purchase anything.”83 The War Office had a strict set of criteria for horses destined to serve in the cavalry, Royal Engineers or Royal Artillery, and would not indiscriminately purchase horses. Ravenhill stressed that any horse “with one decidedly weak or bad point he must be refused”, for “the greatest strength of a horse is limited by his worst point.”84

Poor breeding was widely blamed for the shortcomings of Canadian stock. One major problem Ravenhill observed was overworking horses whilst too young, rendering them “unsound or blemished” for military work. “Faulty and unsound” stallions, combined with mares with undesirable characteristics, were also blamed for an inferior cross section of horseflesh.85 Dr.

Rutherford echoed Ravenhill’s observations, lamenting that “the too extensive and indiscriminate use of the American trotter for stud purposes,” since this type of horses possess “poor straight shoulders, a long back, and short and drooping hind quarters, the latter being a serious objection in the case of a mounted soldier carrying his kit behind the saddle.”86

Farmers attempting to pawn off inferior stock also caused such minuscule purchases. The

Globe commented in April 1887 that “slow-motioned, narrow-loined, ragged-hipped, flat-footed horses…[with] short, flabby muscles” would attract little attention from remount commissions. It also noted sarcastically that “could the farmers only induce the British officers to believe that undersized ‘vanners’ [urban light draught horses] would make good cavalry or artillery horses,

Col. Goldie would have little difficulty in securing 75 or 100 horses in Toronto alone.” 87

This was not to suggest that the entire Canadian horse stock was unacceptable for military purposes. Typically horses sired from Thoroughbreds and possessing the physical characteristics

83 Ravenhill, “Horse Breeding in Canada,” 4. 84 Ibid., 14, 16. 85 Ibid.,” 5. 86 Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended October 31 1904, 184. 87 “Canadian Horses for the British Army,” The Globe, 16 April 1887. 39

keenly sought by the War Office could readily “realise more money for them than the prices offered by agents of the Imperial Government” according to the Globe.88 Indeed, Ravenhill “had the greatest difficulty” in convincing owners of prime specimens to consider selling them for even higher prices than initially considered.89 He suggested employing a Dominion inspector of horse breeding to ensure that the best mares were not purchased by American buyers and in order to provide financial incentives for farmers to retain prime breeding stock.90

These remount commissions could afford to be picky. The British War Office required only

2,500 remounts per year during peacetime.91 Budgetary restrictions on stabling, equipment, and unit size all meant that only the best-suited horses need be purchased. Only horses four to seven years old were acceptable. Even an animal’s colour influenced its military desirability. Black horses were in high demand for the Household Cavalry, while greys were only used in a few specialty units and thus not in very high demand. Browns and bays were widely used, but parti- coloured horses were rejected. Geldings were preferable to mares, though the latter was acceptable.92 Ravenhill was clear, however, about the continued utility of the light draught horse in the age where Shires and Clydesdales fetched better prices. He encouraged continued attention to the “lighter, better bred, general purpose horse which is required for army purposes,” with an overt preference for an infusion of English Thoroughbred blood.93 He also advised farmers to breed

88 Canadian Horses for the British Army.” 89 Ravenhill, “Horse Breeding in Canada,” 4 90 Ibid., 6. 91 “Proposed System of Obtaining Remounts from Canada,” Committee of Imperial Defence, July 1905, B2. NA CAB 38/9/56 92 Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended October 31 1904, 185. 93 Ravenhill, “Horse Breeding in Canada,” 6. 40

horses for hunting purposes. If they were not entirely successful in that task, such horses could easily be used for mounted troops, thus ensuring a high quality selection of stock.94

The Second Anglo-Boer War, 1899-1902

The exigencies of wartime overrode Ravenhill’s inhibitions. The outbreak of war between the British Empire and the Orange Free State and the Transvaal Republic in October 1899 created an immediate demand for suitable military horses wherever they could be procured.95 Within four months the annual remount intake for the British Army was dwarfed by an insatiable appetite for horses. By January 1900, 13,000 horses were dispatched to South Africa; a figure which would increase to 80,000 that June.96 This demand did not slacken, for horses were central to operations for both the British Empire and Boer armies throughout the conflict.97 Indeed, Graham Winton notes the War Office ultimately procured 620,000 horses, mules and donkeys from 1899 to 1902.98

Given that the great expanses of the South African veldt were especially suited to mounted infantry and horse artillery, most Canadian contributions to the war effort pivoted around horses.99

The first contingent of Canadian soldiers comprised the 2nd (Special Service) Battalion, Royal

Canadian Regiment (RCR); an infantry battalion sent with just five horses.100 The RCRs served

94 Ravenhill, “Horse Breeding in Canada,” 25. 95 For information on the outbreak of war in South Africa, see Brian A. Reid, Our Little Army in the Field: The Canadians in South Africa, 1899-1902, (St. Catharine’s: Vanwell Publishing Limited, 1996), 9-12. 96 United Kingdom. Parliament. House of Commons. Debates, Volume 102, (31 January 1902), 106. 97 For the influences of the British Army’s mounted infantry doctrine in South Africa, see Stephen Badsey, “The Boer War (1899-1902) and British Cavalry Doctrine: A Re-Evaluation,” The Journal of Military History 71, no. 1 (January 2007): 75-97. 98 Winton, Theirs Not to Reason Why, 111. 99 Reid, Our Little Army in the Field, 16-19. For detail on Canadian decision-making processes on going to war in South Africa, see C.P. Stacey, Canada and the Age of Conflict Volume I: 1867-1921, (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1977), 57-74. 100 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended 31st October 1900, (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1901), 75. Also see Desmond Morton, A Military History of 41

admirably, but would be the only Canadian regiment of foot sent to South Africa. A Second

Contingent of cavalry and mounted infantry units dispatched in January 1900 consisted of 1,172 horses.101 A further 429 horses were allocated to three batteries and staff of the Canadian Field

Artillery (CFA), grouped together as a “Brigade Division.” The Royal Canadian Dragoons (RCD) was dispatched with 426 horses, while its counterpart the 1st Regiment of Canadian Mounted Rifles

(CMR) was sent with 317 horses. That March, the privately-raised Strathcona’s Horse departed for South Africa with 599 horses.102 The 2nd Regiment, CMR, was dispatched with 934 horses in

March 1902, while that May another 2,238 horses accompanied the 3rd through 6th Regiments.103

All told, 4,948 horses were shipped from Canada to serve with Canadian units.

Given the mounted nature of such formations the overwhelming majority of these horses were for riding. The CFA accounted for the bulk of draught animals to haul its guns, but most of the horses sent to fight in the Boer War with Canadian troops were riding mounts. They were acquired from across Canada. Notably, the Strathconas were mounted on “cow-horses” used for range work in the NWT and thus preserved the western flavour of the regiment.104 However, the majority of Canadian horses from the Boer War – both for Canadian units and as British-bought

Canada, 5th Ed, (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart Ltd, 2007), 113-118, Granatstein, Canada’s Army, 36-45, and Reid, Our Little Army in the Field, Chapter 3. 101 See Reid, Our Little Army in the Field, Chapter 4. 102 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Supplementary Report: Organization, Equipment, Despatch and Service of the Canadian Contingents During the War in South Africa, 1899-1900, (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1901), 159 103 The 2nd CMR was a far larger unit than its predecessors, at six squadrons instead of two. The 3rd through 6th CMRs would ultimately serve in South African less than a month, as they arrived immediately before hostilities ceased. Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Further Supplementary Report: Organization, Equipment, Despatch and Service of the Canadian Contingents During the War in South Africa, 1899-1902, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1902), 29 and 74. 104 Samuel B. Steele. Forty Years in Canada: Reminiscences of the Great North-west with some Account of his Service in South Africa, (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited, 1972), 340. 42

remounts – would be drawn from Ontario and Quebec.105 No mules were purchased in Canada for service in South Africa.

These animals experienced life-threatening situations virtually from the moment they were purchased. The oceanic journey to South Africa presented one of the first causes of wastage.

Horses dispatched from Halifax – or Southampton and New Orleans, for that matter – were often shipped in vessels improperly suited for transporting livestock. Ships pitching and rolling in rough seas caused broken legs and bruising amongst improperly secured animals. As an anonymous

British “Horse Soldier” wrote The Times in December 1899, the animals’ “sufferings were probably as intense and excruciating as on any battlefield,” and could be easily avoided with more secure fittings and a faster journey. He wrote bitterly that “whoever is responsible for the chartering and the fittings of some transports which have conveyed cavalry and artillery horses to South

Africa has committed what is almost a crime.”106 Major W.G. Hurdman, Officer Commanding

(OC) “D” Battery CFA, remarked that “the horses were so crowded, especially on the lower deck, that it told very greatly against their health.”107 Pneumonia and influenza quickly spread through the holds of transport ships and caused considerable loss. On board the SS Monterey in March

1900, Trooper Charlie Brooke of the Strathconas wrote to his mother that “the mortality among the horses has been frightful, over 60 being dead up to date with a likelihood of the number being over 100 when we reach the Cape.”108 Similarly, Lieutenant-Colonel Sam Steele, OC Strathcona

Horse, recalled that “after a few days one of the horses developed pneumonia, and from day to day

105 Parliament. House of Commons. Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended 31st October 1901, (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1902), 64. 106 A Horse Soldier, “Horses in War,” The Times, 8 December 1899. 107 Supplementary Report: Organization, Equipment, Despatch and Service of the Canadian Contingents During the War in South Africa, 1899-1900, 138. 108 Charlie Brooke to Mother, 26 March 1900. The Canadian Letters and Images Project, 2004. Accessed 31 March 2014. http://www.canadianletters.ca/letters.php?letterid=264&warid=2&docid=1&collectionid=96 43

many went to feed the sharks.” This grisly disposal method was a hallmark of the transatlantic voyage, for Steele further wrote that “it was a pitiful sight to see so many exceptionally fine animals thrown overboard.”109 In all, 176 Strathcona mounts died before they reached Cape

Town.110

Upon arrival in South Africa the full scope of the problems surrounding animal health became clear. The animals arrived sick and disoriented in the brutal heat of a South African summer. Trooper Bert Brooke wrote that the Strathconas were prevented from heading directly to the front because the regiment’s horses were quarantined for illness.111 Such units had to top up their horse strength at Imperial remount depots in Cape Town, and horses too sick or exhausted to continue were left behind. Both men and animals were badly needed for the front lines and were shipped via rail to the interior of South Africa without any period of rest or acclimatization. These animals arrived at the hot and dusty interior regions overheated, exhausted, and malnourished.

They were immediately put to work. Canadian mounted battalions integrated into British brigades and set on brutal cross-country marches across the veldt. The pursuit of Boer forces to

Pretoria, and hunting guerrillas in the later stages of the conflict, meant that mounted troops were almost always on the move.112 To maintain the mobility of these formations, horses were more or less expected to live off the land with the exception of small quantities of wheat and chaff, “and very little of that,” according to Major Hurdman.113 Such an approach worked well for the Boers,

109 Steele, Forty Years in Canada, 340 110 Supplementary Report: Organization, Equipment, Despatch and Service of the Canadian Contingents During the War in South Africa, 1899-1900, 161. 111 Bert Brooke, to Mother, 14 April 1900. The Canadian Letters and Images Project, 2004. Accessed 31 March 2014. http://www.canadianletters.ca/letters.php?letterid=266&warid=2&docid=1&collectionid=96 112 See Reid, Our Little Army in the Field, Chapters 8-13. 113 Supplementary Report: Organization, Equipment, Despatch and Service of the Canadian Contingents During the War in South Africa, 1899-1900, 138 44

whose local ponies were unfazed by the parched climate and could easily subsist on the thin grasses of the veldt. These factors greatly enhanced the mobility of Boer flying columns, which were unencumbered by large volumes of fodder and could operate in all conditions.114

In contrast, Canadian horses suffered terribly. The native grasses were too thin to adequately feed horses accustomed to richer fodder and more frequent access to water. Lieutenant-

Colonel J.A.G. Hudon, OC “C” Battery CFA, commented that “many of the horses were sick and required much attention, the roads were extremely rough and difficult and water very scarce.”

Major Hurdman wrote further that when the horses of “D” Battery finished a long forced march across the Karoo desert “a number gave out and had to be shot, and the greater portion were so reduced in strength that they could barely carry their harness when De Aar was reached.”115 Horses which could not keep pace with the column were typically shot or abandoned, for those left in the care of local farmers tended to be absorbed by Boer forces. A general order was issued necessitating the destruction of all animals too exhausted or sick to continue “to prevent them from falling into the enemies’ hands.”116 Even still, wastage rates for these artillery units varied between

40-50%; on the light side for most units in the Boer War.

Mounted infantry units suffered far greater. Given the faster pace expected from riding mounts as opposed to draught horses, these units were pushed harder and faster on forced marches.

The RCD, for example, suffered 40 dead at sea, 194 of exhaustion or enemy action, with 123

“rendered unfit for duty and left behind at different stations.” Only 18 out of the authorized strength of 375 animals (4.8%) remained healthy enough for sale to Imperial units at the end of the

114 “The Boer and His Pony,” The Globe, 26 December 1900. 115 Supplementary Report: Organization, Equipment, Despatch and Service of the Canadian Contingents During the War in South Africa, 1899-1900, 129 and 139. 116 “Report of the Operations of the Remount Staff in South Africa, Oct 1899 – June 1902,” 57. NA WO 32/8761. 45

regiment’s service. Similarly, the 1st CMR only had 33 of its original horses still on strength by the time of its departure for Canada in December 1900.117

It was clear that the excessive animal wastage was overwhelmingly caused by preventable environmental factors. The simple fact of the matter was that more humane treatment, fodder, and rest would have mitigated these shocking wastage rates. Lieutenant-Colonel T.D.B. Evans, OC 1st

CMR, wrote after he returned home that “if the horses of the Battalion had been given a fighting chance, they would have made a splendid record.” He affirmed that “had the horses been given a month’s rest at Cape Town, I am convinced that, at least, 75 per cent would have been with the battalion at the end of its service.”118 Few, if any, of these horses would return to Canada. The survivors were sold off either to British remount depots or directly to British Army units before the Canadian officers and men returned as celebrated heroes back home.

Despite such high losses, the horses were held in comparatively high regard throughout the conflict. Lieutenant-Colonel Steele wrote to Dr. McEachran that Canadian-bred horses “are the best that have been imported into the country, and outside of the native bred pony best fitted for the work.”119 This nationalistic pride was not entirely unjustified. Lord Stanley, Financial

Secretary to the British War Office, remarked that “English and Irish horses were considered best, the American and Canadian next best.”120 Indeed, Field Marshal Lord Roberts, Commander-in-

117 Enemy action certainly accounted for some of these animal casualties. Boer rifle fire and artillery killed horses in virtually every engagement. The 2nd CMR suffered one of the heaviest combat losses of animals at Boschbult on 31 March 1902, where 121 horses and 22 mules were killed, destroyed, or lost. After Paardeberg in February 1900 this was the deadliest day for Canadian soldiers in the Boer War as well, with eight killed, 42 wounded and seven missing. Supplementary Report: Organization, Equipment, Despatch and Service of the Canadian Contingents During the War in South Africa, 1899-1902, and Supplementary Report: Organization, Equipment, Despatch and Service of the Canadian Contingents During the War in South Africa, 1899-1900, 99 and 111. 118 Ibid., 111. 119 Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended 31st October 1900, (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1901), 76 120 United Kingdom. Parliament. House of Commons. Debates, Volume 89, (22 February 1901), 846. 46

Chief of the forces in South Africa, cabled the War Office in December 1900 that “Canadian,

American, Irish, and Australian cobs are preferred.”121

Even with such quality mounts, the British Army in South Africa suffered terrible animal wastage. Sir Frederick Smith, a veterinary officer in South Africa and later Director-General of the Army Veterinary Service, claimed there was general inexperience and lethargic interest into veterinary and remount affairs before the war. Consequently, the War Office was ill-prepared to anticipate the enormous numbers of animals required for the war, or indeed, the shocking losses it would suffer in South Africa.122 Indeed, the harsh oceanic voyage, lack of acclimatization, brutal heat, insufficient forage, and rampant disease caused appalling animal suffering. Wastage rates throughout British forces peaked at 120% per year.123 The brutal pace of forced marches rapidly wasted entire formations of horses to emaciated skeletons. The United States Consul at Kimberley,

Gardner T. Williams, remarked

One of the most pitiable sights I ever saw…was the British cavalry horses after General French’s relief of Kimberley. Literally, their bellies met their backs. Fine English and Irish horses, which in their own country could distance any horse that ever ran, were used up and made good for nothing by [General Sir John] French’s forced marches.124

In 1901, the British Army was losing over 10,000 horses per month. Lord Roberts wrote the War

Office that “success campaign materially depends on mounted troops being efficient,” and placed a heavy emphasis on continuing replenishment of “good serviceable horses.”125 The tremendous waste of animal life and public funds was not missed by the War Office. It cabled General Sir

121 “The Remounts For South Africa,” The Times, 4 March 1902. 122 Major-General F. Smith, A Veterinary History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902, (London: H & W Brown, 1919), 2. 123 “Court of Inquiry on the Administration of the Army Remount Department since January 1899,” 20 February 1902, 19. NA WO 32/8759 124 “The Boer and His Pony,” The Globe, 26 December 1900. 125 “The Remounts for South Africa,” The Times, 4 March 1902. 47

Herbert Kitchener on 26 November 1901 that “columns must rest till horses are in proper condition. We cannot continue indefinitely to send 10,000 to 12,000 remounts per month to be used up by Column Commanders in a few days.”126 Nevertheless, the War Office cabled him a month later that it wound send 40,000 horses between December 1901 and February 1902, though it was “desirable to reduce numbers as soon as possible.”127 Overall, 326,073 horses (67%) and

51,399 mules (35%) in British service died between 1899 and 1902.128 Smith wrote acidly after the war that “never in the history of any British War has there been such a deliberate sacrifice of animal life and of public money.”129

Remount Purchases in Canada

Given these shocking wastage rates, remount commissions around the world were kept busy. British remount agents purchased upwards of 620,000 animals in the United Kingdom,

Australia, Russia, Austria-Hungary, and North America to try to keep units at the front as replenished as possible. Thousands came from Canada. In early 1900, Lieutenant-Colonel H.S.

Dent was sent to Canada to purchase remounts as an agent of the British government. The Globe reported on 22 May 1900 that Dent’s arrival, combined with rumours of a British remount depot in Canada, “certainly speaks well for Canadian breeders, the demand being entirely unexpected.”

It enthused that “the war in South Africa has opened a valuable market for Canadian horses, a market that will be continuous if sufficient care be taken to supply the demand.”130 Dent was busy

126 “The Remounts for South Africa.” 127 Ibid.. 128 Robert H. Dunlop and David J. Williams, Veterinary Medicine: An Illustrated History, (St. Louis: Mosby, 1996), 472. 129 Smith, A History of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, 1796-1919, 203. 130 “A Market for Horses,” The Globe, 22 May 1900. 48

over the course of the war. He travelled through Eastern Canada, the Prairies, and British

Columbia. By February 1902, Dent purchased 12,098 horses throughout Canada to serve as remounts for the British Army. The bulk of these animals were light riding horses to replenish depleted stocks amongst the mounted units.131

However, these 12,098 horses were dwarfed by the volume of animals purchased from the

United States (US). By the same period, 73,000 mules and 97,217 horses were bought in the US by British remount commissions.132 These horses were purchased in the Midwestern states and were shipped via New Orleans and Newport News directly to South Africa.133 John S. Bratton, a noted Missouri horse breeder, did an especially brisk business throughout the war. He claimed that the British Remount Department was especially keen to purchase in Missouri due to the abundance of Thoroughbred-infused horses bred for racing purposes. Bratton claims that he personally sold the British Government 18,000 horses “in less than two years” – more than all military purchases in Canada over the entire conflict.134

This predilection for American horses gave rise to several controversies, particularly amongst Western parliamentarians and farmers. Any anonymous “Reformer” from High River,

Alberta, commented bitterly in March 1902 that “if the purchasing had been carried out in a proper businesslike manner we should have sold at least double the number of horses.” “Reformer” denounced an excessive pickiness amongst British remount authorities searching for “an animal

131 “Court of Inquiry on the Administration of the Army Remount Department since January 1899,” 20 February 1902, 11. 132 Ibid., 10. 133 Winton, Theirs Not To Reason Why, 86. 134 “The Thoroughbred is the Army Horse Sire,” The Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine Vol XL No. 653 (29 March 1905): 481. 49

perfect in symmetry,” and derided that “incompetency has been markedly displayed in the purchase, or non-purchase, of remounts in Canada.”135

The Westerners’ grievances were further exacerbated by disproportionate favouritism towards Eastern Canadian horse markets. In 1901, for example Dent dispatched 5,147 horses from

Ontario and Quebec against 786 purchased in the NWT.136 Mr. Alphonse LaRivière, Member of

Parliament (MP) for Provencher (Manitoba), derided lack of interest by the War Office in horses from Manitoba and the NWT. He stated that the absence of a stable market exerted “a most baneful influence upon the development of the horse industry here, as it effectually discourages breeding operations.” He called for guarantees from both the War Office and Canadian government to purchase horses on a yearly basis to stimulate the western industry.137 Similarly, Nathaniel Boyd,

MP for Macdonald (Manitoba), assured the House of Commons that

we can, in fact, grow any kind of horses that are needed for any purpose. We have an enormous territory, and can raise any amount of them; and it is quite evident that the British army, benefiting from past experience, will require a very large number of these animals in the future.138

T.O. David, MP for Saskatchewan, reinforced LaRivière’s position, stating that due to a lack of concrete interest, “prices dropped so low that it did not pay to breed these horses, and the ranchers were obliged to turn their attention to the raising of cattle.”139 Frank Oliver, MP for Alberta, similarly derided the “hundreds of thousands of dollars” spent in Alberta forming ranches and preparing for a military market which never completely materialized. He summed up the

135 “More Army Horses Should Have Been Purchased in Canada,” The Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine Vol XXXVII No. 546 (20 March 1902): 208. 136 Alberta, Saskatchewan, and parts of present-day Manitoba comprised the NWT at this point. The Minister’s report, however, does not indicate whether horses from the province of Manitoba were part of this tally. Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended 31st October 1901, 64. 137 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Debates, 9th Parliament, 1st Session, Vol. 1, (25 March 1901), 1995. 138 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Debates, 9th Parliament, 1st Session, Vol. 2 (14 May 1901), 5155. 139 Ibid., 5157. 50

frustrating position of his constituents succinctly, for it seemed reasonable “that if Canada can supply the men Canada can supply the horses.”140 In May 1901 Minister Fisher promised to look into the issue and press British authorities to purchase more extensively in western Canada on a more regular basis. However, by April 1902, the Minister of Militia and Defence, Frederick

Borden, conceded “up to this date nothing has been done.”141

The discrepancy of purchasing between Canada and the United States was due to a number of different factors. Margaret Derry, in her work Horses in Society, suggests that the British remount agents were seen as potential means for Canadian farmers to dump off their misfit stock,142 and this indeed appears to have been the case over the course of the war. Farmer’s

Advocate editor “WHIP” claimed the war granted “an opportunity for horse owners to dispose of, at a fair price, a larger number of horses that are not valuable for other purposes.”143 Furthermore,

Mr. Boyd conceded that “the horses we sent to South Africa were not by any means the best we raise.” Lieutenant-Colonel Dent, too, echoed Colonel Ravenhill’s observations on the importance of “doing away with the American trotting sire.”144

However, these problems appear to have been part of the general military procurement process throughout the Empire, and the extent to which it impeded substantial Canadian horse purchases is unclear. Lord Stanley commented that some animals assembled for inspection at

Aldridge’s Horse Repository in London were “unusually bad,” attributing these horses to total lack of examination prior to purchase.145 A survey on animal quality taken from senior British officers

140 Debates, 14 May 1901, 5160. 141 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Debates, 9th Parliament, 2nd Session, Vol. 2, (10 April 1902), 2560. 142 Derry, Horses in Society, 142. 143 “Army Horses,” The Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine Vol. XXXVII No. 541 (6 January 1902): 9. 144 House of Commons, Debates, (14 May 1901), 5155, and Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended 31st October 1900, 75. 145 United Kingdom. Parliament. House of Commons. Debates, Volume 89, (22 February 1901), 847. 51

by the War Office similarly exhibits a comparable degree of praise and criticism for both Canadian and British stock. Horses from both countries had different desirable and unsatisfactory attributes, but British animals were not enormously better regarded.146 Attempting to pawn off inferior stock onto military purchasing agents simply appears part of the remount acquisition process in wartime.

If quality was not necessarily the cause of lethargic purchasing, then infrastructural difficulties certainly were to blame. In the House of Lords on 13 February 1902, the Marquess of

Lansdowne, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, remarked “there was a very great risk in sending horses out in the middle of the Canadian winter…to the climate of South Africa, and for that reason it was not desirable to resort to Canadian sources of supply to the extent which might have been desired.”147 A Court of Enquiry into the Army Remount Department similarly found that the 2,264 mile rail journey from Calgary to Montreal, combined with considerable costs in rail shipping fees and wages to supervisory personnel, presented “a serious concern.” While horses from the NWT averaged $40-$50 cheaper than their Eastern counterparts, these savings were negated by the considerable cost of shipping them from the West.148 By contrast, substantial numbers of horses could be bought in the American Midwest for $85-$125 per head and then shipped from Kansas City to New Orleans without undue difficulty. Arrangements were made with American authorities at both junctures for establishing large holding areas that “left nothing to be desired” for assembling huge numbers of horses and mules.149

Margaret Derry also argues that competition between British and Canadian purchasing commissions frustrated Dent’s efforts. As the protestations of Western Canadian MPs illustrate,

146 “Report on Canadian Horses and Cobs,” 12 February 1902. NA WO 33/242 147 United Kingdom. Parliament. House of Lords. Debates, Volume 102, (13 February 1902), 1222. 148 “Court of Inquiry on the Administration of the Army Remount Department since January 1899,” 20 February 1902, 11. 149 Ibid. 52

however, there was ample opportunity for both parties to purchase whichever horses were available. The most likely explanation for the discrepancy in purchases was the immediate availability of substantial numbers of suitable horses, existing shipping infrastructure, and shorted distance from purchase market to point of embarkation in the United States. Indeed, historian

Graham Winton considered that “the purchasing commission to the USA became the largest horse and mule purchasing business the world has ever seen.”150 The insatiable demand of horses for the front lines often meant that the most expedient solution was to purchase horses from the US and worry about placating Canadian interests later. Ultimately, notwithstanding a call from the Earl of

Rosebury for “a little practical Imperialism…with regard to horses,” the United States was clearly the preferred North American source for military horseflesh.151

In any case, the sale of Canadian-bred horses to the War Office was by no means small.

The United States boasted 21,216,888 horses in 1900; in Canada the following year there were just

1,167,959.152 Given the numbers of Canadian and American horses dispatched to fight in the Boer

War by 1902 (17,036 and 97,217 respectively), proportionately three times as many Canadian horses served with British Empire forces. While this number was far from the massive commitment sought by Western ranchers, it was nevertheless a notable contribution to the Imperial war effort.153

150 Winton, Theirs Not To Reason Why, 86. 151 United Kingdom. Parliament. House of Lords. Debates, Volume 102, (13 February 1902), 1213. 152 United States. Census Office. Census Reports Volume V: Agriculture, Part I: Farms, Live Stock, and Animal Products, (Washington: United States Census Office, 1902), clxxxvii. 153 When considering the 8,732 volunteers against the Canadian human population of 5,371,000, proportionately eight times as many horses served as humans. 53

Canadian Military Horses, 1902-1914

The Boer War imparted several lessons on horses in war. The most important was that they would find continuing utility in military operations into the twentieth century. The British Army’s substantial animal purchases and ubiquitous employment on the front lines emphasized rapid animal acquisition in times of crisis.154 It also demonstrated the significant potential of Canadian ranges as the breeding ground for Imperial animal strength. The period of 1902-1914 was spent digesting these lessons and beginning preparations for future conflicts.

Horses became increasingly important to the Militia for its annual training exercises after the war in South Africa. Historian Jack Granatstein notes that a growing atmosphere of militarism permeated Canadian society after the Boer War, driving the size and capabilities of the Militia to unprecedented heights.155 The number of horses required for training Militia units correspondingly increased in the early twentieth century.156 The Dominion of Canada’s geographic expanse meant that mounted infantry were the prime arm for home defence in the event of an invasion,157 and so the bulk of Canadian military animals immediately prior to the Great War were allocated to Militia

154 Winton, Theirs Not To Reason Why, 154. 155 Granatstein, Canada’s Army, 47-48. Also see Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 7-13. 156 It is not immediately clear how many horses were required for the Permanent Force on an annual basis. In contrast to detailed figures available for Militia exercises, annual reports from the Militia Council do not indicate the yearly animal strength of Permanent Force units. This is curious, given the prominent role of several “horsed” units in the Permanent Force – the Royal Canadian Dragoons, Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadians), Royal Canadian Horse Artillery, and Canadian Permanent Army Service Corps for example. Nevertheless, for the year ending 31 March 1910, total expenditure on remounts amounted to $19,050 out of $376,494.59 spent on “Provisions and Supplies.” British remount officers typically spent an average of $150 per head – widely seen as a low price by breeders – which would translate into 127 horses if purchased for that price by the Permanent Force in 1910. Higher prices for horses would have resulted in even lower numbers of horses purchased. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of the Militia Council for the Dominion of Canada, for the Fiscal Year Ending March 31 1910, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1910), 41, and “British Army Horses in Canada,” The Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine Vol. XL No. 638 (5 July 1905): 993. 157 See William Stewart, “The Barrier and the Damage Done: Converting the Canadian Mounted Rifles to Infantry, December 1915,” Canadian Military History 24, No. 1 (Winter/Spring 2015): 286-290, and James Wood, Militia Myths, 82-83, 88, 124-125. 54

cavalry units. In 1910, the established peacetime animal strength of the Canadian Militia was

13,912 horses, but in the event of war the provisional horse strength expanded to 30,671:

Table 1.2: Horses Required for Canadian Militia, 1910158

Branch of Service Peace Establishments War Establishment – Existing Authorized Units Cavalry 7,636 14,336 Artillery 1,992 (Field) 7,259 1,414 (Garrison) Engineers 244 598 Corps of Guides 200 400 Infantry 509 5,664 Army Service Corps 1,259 1,050 Army Medical Corps 658 1,364 TOTAL 13,912 30,671

Each year during Militia training exercises, civilian owners leased horses for $1.00 per diem and these animals “trained” alongside officers and men of the various branches. The years leading to the Great War saw successively more horses “trained” in summer camps – from 6,713 horses in

1909, to 9,004 in 1911, and 12,271 horses in 1913.159 Militia and Defence reports do not denote, however, whether the same animals appeared each year as part of these exercises. They merely note the number of animals “trained” alongside the men, and thus it is difficult to determine which of these animals were familiar with military environments as opposed to those appearing only once

158 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report By General Sir John French, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1910), 38. 159 Report of the Militia Council for the Dominion of Canada, for the Fiscal Year Ending March 31 1910, 32-33, 107, and Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of The Militia Council for the Dominion of Canada for the Fiscal Year Ending March 31 1912, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1912), 33, and Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of The Militia Council for the Dominion of Canada for the Fiscal Year Ending March 31 1914, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1915), 38. For a discussion on the rapid expansion of the Canadian Militia between 1902 and 1914 see Wood, Militia Myths, 115-116. 55

or twice on exercise.160 The Permanent Force kept only 684 horses on strength – a small number but equal in proportion to the volume of Militia horses required for summer exercises. These horses were distributed mostly between artillery branches (horse and field) and cavalry regiments, the

Royal Canadian Dragoons and Lord Strathcona’s Horse.161

Horses participated in maneuvers for cavalry, artillery, and support units. Militiamen developed their technical skills and learned the proper tactical deployments of horses on these exercises. Cavalry units in 1909 performed mounted drill at the troop, squadron, and regimental level, with emphasis placed upon “attack and defence,” “information and reconnaissance,” “orders, field messages and reports,” and “marches and protection.”162 Similarly, in 1912 artillery units at

Petawawa drilled with their horses and guns in “tactical situations on service conditions, and

[learned] the importance of co-operation with other arms.”163 In both service branches, Militiamen had to learn how to saddle, harness, ride, drive, and tend to the animals in their units. A continuous state of development in saddlery, harness, trooper gear, and field guns for artillery meant working with these animals was a constant learning process. In 1911, for example, the Field Artillery received the new 18-pounder field artillery piece to replace the obsolete 12-pounder. This new gun entailed an expansion of gun teams from four to six horses per gun, requiring gunners to drive larger teams and tend to more horses in each battery.164 Practicing how to harness horses, drive

160 J.L. Granatstein notes that, among soldiers at least, there was a “huge annual turnover” of new recruits entering Militia camps each year – a major problem for unit cohesion and ensuring those skillsets remained within the Militia instead of dispersed each year. Granatstein, Canada’s Army, 48. 161 See Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919, 12. 162 Report of the Militia Council for the Dominion of Canada, for the Fiscal Year Ending March 31 1910, 97 and 107. 163 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Repot of the Militia Council for the Dominion of Canada for the Fiscal Year Ending March 31 1913, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1914), 99. 164 Report of the Militia Council for the Dominion of Canada, for the Fiscal Year Ending March 31 1910, 117, and Report of The Militia Council for the Dominion of Canada for the Fiscal Year Ending March 31 1912, 28-29. 56

gun teams, unlimber artillery pieces, and manage these animals were central components of training on these exercises, alongside artillery practice or musketry.

However, these Militia exercises were often marred by poor standards of animal care and negligence on the part of Militiamen. Recurrent complaints from successive Inspectors-General highlighted poor quality of care for saddlery and harness, cavalrymen riding horses too hard, and generally failing to look after the horses in active service conditions.165 There was also a recurring tendency for poor quality animals to be leased by farmers for Militia service, in keeping with the general trend of farmers withholding their best stock from military customers. These trends of poor animal quality and a lax standard of care will be explored in Chapter Two’s discussion of efforts to curb animal sickness and injury through the formation of a Canadian Army Veterinary Corps.

In tandem with these military exercises were efforts to prepare for the significant mobilization of Canadian animal strength in the event of a major war. These provisions came none too soon. In 1909, Inspector-General Sir John French toured Canada to inspect the state of military preparedness throughout the Dominion. His visit highlighted familiar problems of animal reserves and inadequate preparations for mobilization of military animals. He wrote that it was “quite clear to me that satisfactory arrangements for the adequate supply of horses for war do not exist throughout the Dominion.” He noted that 33,000 horses would be necessary upon mobilization to keep Canadian troops mounted for the first three months of a war, but obtaining such numbers would be “impossible, for no machinery exists for such a purpose.” He recommended “more government help and encouragement” to horse breeders.166 French also called for a national system of horse registration similar to that employed in the United Kingdom, which kept a list of healthy

165 Repot of the Militia Council for the Dominion of Canada for the Fiscal Year Ending March 31 1913, 98-99. 166 Sir John French, Report By General Sir John French, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1910), 22. 57

and suitable privately-owed horses which could be appropriated upon mobilization.167 Such a scheme was often called for by British officers and would have provided for a detailed index of horses trained in Militia exercises and capable of strenuous active service. However, then-Colonel

(Temporary Major-General) William D. Otter commented in 1912 that “a record of all available horses fit for military purposes is supposed to be in operation,” but that “I have been unable to find such in the course of my inspections.” The generally inadequate state of planning for mass acquisition of military animals meant that “in the case of mobilization we would at once face a dilemma regarding the provision of horses.”168

Nevertheless, by 1913 Colonel Willoughby Gwatkin drafted a “comprehensive” mobilization plan that included instructions on the provision of horses.169 These remount purchasing plans were heavily decentralized. In the event of a conflict, horses were to be obtained

“partly by units and partly by [military] Districts.”170 The ultimate authority for the inspection and purchase of animals on mobilization would fall to a committee located in each of Canada’s six

Divisional Areas and three Military Districts.171 These were to consist of an officer of the Army

Service Corps, a veterinarian from the Army Veterinary Corps, and another officer appointed by the District Officer Commanding.172 These committees would theoretically inspect prospective remounts for infectious disease, undesirable physical traits or injuries, and generally ensure that they were capable of strenuous tasks before purchasing them for active service.

167 See Chapter Four. 168 Report of The Militia Council for the Dominion of Canada for the Fiscal Year Ending March 31 1912,108. 169 Report of The Militia Council for the Dominion of Canada for the Fiscal Year Ending March 31 1914, 84. 170 Canadian Militia. Mobilization Regulations (Provisional), 1913, (Ottawa: Government Printing Bureau, 1912), 11. LAC RG 24 Vol. 6550 Folder H.Q. 688-1-16. 171 1st Division encompassed southwestern Ontario, 2nd Division central Ontario, 3rd Division eastern Ontario, 4th Division Montreal, 5th Division Quebec City, 6th Division the Maritimes. Military District No. 10 was headquartered in Winnipeg, No. 11 in Victoria, and No. 13 encompassed Alberta. Repot of the Militia Council for the Dominion of Canada for the Fiscal Year Ending March 31 1913, 21-22. 172 Mobilization Regulations (Provisional), 1913, 11. 58

In 1912, too, a Remount Committee was created and staffed by two Honourary Colonels:

Clifford Sifton, former Minister of the Interior, and Adam Beck, Chairman of the Ontario Hydro-

Electric Commission. Both men were prominent owners of prize-winning Thoroughbred show jumpers, and their task was ostensibly to consult the Minister of Militia and Defence on remount affairs. They were joined in 1913 by Hon. Colonel J.W. Allison and Hon. Lieutenant-Colonel J.B.

Hall. This Remount Commission appears intended an advisory body on procuring type and quality of animals for the military than a full service branch of the Militia. However, information on its activities is scarce and it is not entirely clear what the Remount Committee achieved before the

Great War. Indeed, a summary report drafted in the 1920s claimed the Committee “does not appear…to have very active after its creation,” with no records available to prove otherwise.173

The effectiveness of these mobilization and procurement schemes ultimately remained to be seen. Major-General W.H. Cotton, Inspector-General of the Militia, remarked in early 1914 that the scheme required “a test and demonstration of its practical application” in order to detect any

“shortcomings” in the mobilization plans.174 But even if they were not tested, they at least provided a framework for the acquisition of horses in the event of war. Indeed, through increased numbers of horses “trained” on exercises and the firmer mobilization plans, the Department of Militia and

Defence was better equipped in early 1914 than any previous period to quickly assemble and dispatch a substantial number of horses for an expeditionary force.175

173 See “The Remount Committee,” 1. LAC RG 24 Col. 1869 Folder 75, Canada. Militia Council. The Quarterly Militia List of the Dominion of Canada (Corrected to 1st July, 1913), (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1913), 7, and Brown and Cook, Canada 1896-1921, 54 and 106. Details for Sifton and Beck’s horse ownership may be found in “Saddlers, Hunters, Jumpers,” The Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine Vol. XLV No. 925 (16 June 1910): 991, “Show Jumpers,” The Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine Vol. XLV No. 935 (25 August 1910): 1358. 174 Report of The Militia Council for the Dominion of Canada for the Fiscal Year Ending March 31 1914, 84. 175 Colonel G.W.L. Nicholson, Official Historian for Canadian Forces in the Great War, similarly considered that an “outburst of activity” hallmarked Militia affairs that were “progressing under the direction of an enthusiastic Militia Department” before 1914. See Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919, 12-13. James Wood, however, notes a “cooling of Canadian martial enthusiasm” developed in early 1914, due in large part to an 59

To acquire a large number of horses in the event of a conflict, however, there needed to exist a substantial enough pool of remounts for a mobilized force to draw upon. The years following the Boer War saw Canadian governmental officials urging for the development of animals capable of military service, predominately looking to British Army requirements. The

Militia, although clearly requiring thousands of horses per year, represented more a temporary customer than a regular source of business for the horse industry, and so the British Army remained at the forefront of the remount breeding conversation.

In a 1902 address entitled “The Breeding in Canada of Horses for Army Use,” Dr. J.G.

Rutherford conveyed official sentiments on military animal use in the immediate aftermath of the

Boer War. He assured breeders that “there is no room for doubt, that the general demand for horses suitable for army purposes will be much greater in the future than in the past.” He stressed that

Canada held the unique position of being a dependable market for Imperial forces in times when

“it might be impossible to procure them in foreign countries.” Mounted infantry horses were especially desirable, for they were smaller, cheaper, and in far higher demand given the mobile character of the fighting in South Africa.176 Rutherford also warned that a resumption of peacetime pickiness was to be expected in terms of colour, age, and features. He nevertheless conveyed the importance of wartime pragmatism, for “purchasing officers may overlook many minor defects, provided the animals offered are sound and serviceable.” Indeed, the overall lesson Rutherford encouraged was the breeding of horses adequate for military use. Horses adaptable to military

emerging financial depression, but also that “Canadian militarism made it through the winter” and was still strong in the early summer of 1914. Crucially, for the purposes of this study, the preceding decades of reforms and preparation established infrastructure (even if it was largely theoretical) for mobilization of horseflesh in the event of war. See Wood, Milita Myths, 205-206. 176 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended 31st October 1902, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1903), 153. 60

purposes were the most practicable to raise, for while “really superior animals” would fetch high prices, horses that were not “misfits” or “non-descript” could “find ready sale for army use as well as for other purposes.”177 Two years later, he reiterated it was “better to breed quality horses which might one day be useful to the military men than breed shoddy horses of little use or value.”178 He also expressed hope that Imperial remount depots could be established in Canada and used this potential source of revenue as leverage to encourage breeders to breed high class light horses

“suitable for hunters, saddle horses or harness work.”179 Such depots could ensure a dependable market for quality horses and provide sufficient incentive to keep breeding quality stock.

Procuring horses within the Empire was the preferable contingency for a future war, but these plans remained more theoretical than practical. The Empire presented an obvious and apparently reliable source of horses for the British Army regardless of the shifting geopolitical environment. Given that Australia was “far too distant” from the United Kingdom for regular shipments of horses, Canada was evidently “the most important colony to us in this respect.”180 A

May 1905 letter from the Army Council to the Treasury decreed that the “possibilities and resources of [Canada] were immense,” but also noted that the lack of a discrete military breeding infrastructure would render “very great difficulties” in an emergency mobilization.181 Multiple proposals were sent forth to firmly commit to annual purchases of some 500 horses to keep the

Canadian industry interested in the British Army as a customer. A gesture of sincerity for this plan was extended in 1905, when a purchasing commission under a Colonel Bridge and Major Dradge

177 Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended 31st October 1902, 154 178 Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended October 31 1904, 186. 179 Ibid. 180 Report of the Committee on the Supply of Remounts,” ii, and “Letter addressed by the Army Council to the Treasury,” 31 May 1905, NA CAB 38/9/56. 181 “Letter addressed by the Army Council to the Treasury,” 31 May 1905, NA CAB 38/9/56. 61

was dispatched to Canada and purchased 500 horses from Alberta and Manitoba.182 Nevertheless, the War Office ultimately considered the “financial and practical objections” too strong to establish a British Army remount depot in Canada.183

Indeed, the War Office already experienced sufficient difficulties encouraging breeders in the United Kingdom to keep military breeding in mind after 1902. In the House of Lords on 6 July

1908, the Earl of Erroll articulated the circular nature of the issue in Britain:

it is quite impossible to separate the two problems, the civil and the military. Unless we can get the farmer to produce the horse, the Army, of course, cannot get it, and, conversely, if the breeder cannot get a market other than the normal market of the Army it will not pay him to breed.184

In order to placate domestic breeders, the War Office deemed it “expedient in an average year to obtain the great bulk of the annual requirements within the United Kingdom,” but also appreciated that demand would explode in the event of another major war.185

The regular annual purchases of 500 Canadian remounts would thus not be forthcoming.

Aside from promising words and Bridge’s commission, the British Government did not undertake significant action to stimulate or nurture the Canadian remount industry. Canada was clearly a valued asset, and its vast potential as the horse breeding ground for the Empire was not lost on

British authorities. Indeed, Sir John French considered in 1909 that “the Dominion might, in time, become the chief source of horse supply for the Empire.”186 Ultimately, however, such promises did not translate into the sought-after remount depots in Canada. Peacetime budgetary restrictions won over the “practical Imperialism” called for by the Earl of Rosebury during the Boer War.

182 “Army Horses,” The Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine Vol XL No 638 (3 May 1905): 652, and “Canadian Horses for Imperial Army,” Ibid., 653. 183 “Letter addressed by the Army Council to the Treasury,” 31 May 1905. 184 United Kingdom. Parliament. House of Lords. Debates, Volume 191, (6 July 1908), 1173. 185 “Report of the Committee on the Supply of Remounts,” i. NA WO 32/8756. 186 Report By General Sir John French, 38. 62

For their part, breeders appear to have remained apprehensive of the high-level deliberations on remount breeding. Small peacetime purchases by various Remount Commissions and the apparently perfunctory interest in Canadian remounts during the Boer War made breeders and farmers skeptical of the British Army as a dependable market for the future. Even during the

Boer War, “WHIP” wrote in the Farmer’s Advocate that “it would be very unwise for breeders to endeavour to produce [military] animals.” His editorial from January 1902 claimed that the war

“in all probability…will be ended years before the present or future crop of colts will be fit for service.” “WHIP” further noted that “if England should be unfortunate enough to be at war with another nation” in the future, “it is probable that another class of horse will be required to suit the peculiarities of the country” at war.187 Similarly, in response to Bridge’s purchasing tour, the

Farmer’s Advocate commented in May 1905 that the type of horses required by the British Army

are the types that one cannot breed with any certainty, they not conforming to the size and types of any of the pure breeds. The army officer do no particular harm in visiting Canada and looking over our horse supply, but we do not need take their suggestions seriously with regard to establishing remount stations, nor need we make any special effort to breed horses of the army type for so limited a market and fraught with so certain a loss, due to misfits in trying to get the proper type.188

Breeders were understandably skeptical of military horse purchases in the future. It was impossible to predict whether, or when, a war would break out, as well as both the volume and type of horses required for such a hypothetical conflict. These editorials ultimately do not dismiss the importance

(or necessity) of wartime military horse purchasing, but they illustrate both the uncertainty, and the unreliability, of the British Army as a consistent source of revenue for breeders.

187 “Army Horses,” The Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine, Vol. XXXVII No. 541 (6 January 1902): 9. 188 “Army Horses,” The Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine Vol XL No 638 (3 May 1905): 652. 63

The aftermath of the Boer War thus highlighted the largely unfulfilled potential of

Canadian military animal strength. On the one hand, the increasing importance of horses to Militia exercises and interest from the British War Office demonstrate the centrality of horses to military operations by 1914. On the other, Sir John French’s comments illustrate significant problems of an underdeveloped capability of exploiting Canada’s existing horse reserves in the event of a war.

Horses were clearly valued by the British Government, as was encouraging – if not stimulating –

Canadian breeding capabilities. Words were ultimately not enough, however, and it is evident that the same problems plagued the Canadian military breeding industry in 1910 as had in 1887.

A “Horseless Age”?

The period prior to the Great War witnessed an uncertain future for the role of horses in

Canada. The transition from peace to war to peace exhibited several fundamental precepts of horse acquisition, breeding, and military utility. At the same time, bicycles, electric streetcars, and gasoline-powered transport methods threatened to supplant horses in all of their roles in Canadian society. The light draught horse in particular faced an uncertain future and appeared doomed to redundancy. Conversely, military demands for horses in a variety of roles – heavy draught, light draught, riding, and pack – suggested that breeding for military purposes would be a potential source of revenue for breeders.

The discouraging findings of the Ravenhill Commission indicated that such a market would not be immediately forthcoming. Nevertheless, experiences of the Boer War demonstrated how important a solid foundation of good horseflesh was for emergency situations. Almost 5,000 animals served with Canadian units in the Boer War, and over 12,000 were bought to serve as remounts for the British Army. These animals hardly represented the best horses Canada had to

offer, but they were sufficient for the British War Office. Indeed, the massive purchases in the

United States and Canada demonstrated that only marginal improvements in breeding practices were truly necessary. The good horses would likely be unobtainable to begin with, while the misfits would equally be ignored. The ubiquitous “light draught horse” satisfactorily served in mounted infantry units – a role that seemed to be the future of military operations.

The demands of Canadian parliamentarians for continuous purchases, however, appeared increasingly untenable given the paltry annual horse requirements of the peacetime British Army.

Indeed, it was plainly evident that Canada held the potential to be the breeding ground for the

Empire, and the British appear to have taken the Dominion seriously as a source of remount supply.

However, peacetime budgetary restrictions, coupled with a small yearly requirement for horses, meant few actions were taken upon these words. Wishful thinking and false starts to military breeding programmes effectively turned over the same earth time and again. But, crucially, if the

Canadian horse market did not thrive, it did not perish either.

The period of 1887-1914 is essential for an understanding of the experience of Canadian horses in the Great War. This period witnessed the first large scale deployment of Canadian military horses abroad as well as the first major purchases of Canadian horses by the British government. The terrible suffering experienced by British and Canadian horses during the Boer

War caused considerable anxiety from both humane and practical considerations. Major reforms were necessary in order to prevent such a repetitious decimation of military animal strength. The resultant efforts will be the focus of the next chapter.

Chapter Two – “A Decided Benefit to the Service:” Canadian Military Veterinary Reforms, 1899-1914

“When there exists behind the fighting line a capable and organized department to which the care of all inefficient animals can be confided…it will enable the troops to send back all casualties which hamper mobility, feeling confident that they will be skillfully attended to, and rendered fit for duty in the shortest possible time.”189

-Regimental Standing Orders Canadian Permanent Army Veterinary Corps 1912

“To commit such a delicate mechanism as a horse to unskilled hands, is like allowing a child to play with a chronometer.”190

- Major-General Frederick Smith Director-General of the Army Veterinary Service March 1909

Experiences in the Second Anglo-Boer War exemplified the importance of efficient military veterinary services. From a purely practical standpoint, the excessive animal wastage incurred from improper care, infectious disease, overwork, and combat, directly threatened unit mobility. Such catastrophic animal losses were also hugely expensive. Preventative care and effective treatment regimens could ensure that casualties were returned to their units and thus help mitigate purchasing, shipping, and transportation costs for new animals. The British Army learned from its mistakes and undertook a considerable overhaul of its veterinary care and remount apparatus to avoid such grievous inefficiency and wastage in the future.

The Department of Militia and Defence in Ottawa similarly appreciated the importance of focusing more attention on animal management and care. The growth of a Canadian military

189 Regimental Standing Orders of the Canadian Permanent Army Veterinary Corps and C.A.V.C, (Ottawa: Government Printing Bureau, 1912), 6-7. LAC RG 24 Vol. 22,021. 190 “Memorandum by the Director General, Army Veterinary Service,” 6 March 1909. NA WO 32/6545. 66

veterinary service followed closely on the heels of British veterinary reforms, albeit in the circumscribed manner characteristic of Canadian defence matters. After nearly a decade of revisions and contemplation, a Canadian Army Veterinary Corps (CAVC) was officially formed in 1910. This skeletal structure of the pre-war CAVC, and a cadre of personnel, would prove useful for the rapid expansion of the Canadian military upon the outbreak of a major war.

Central to these developments was the rise of professional veterinary standards into the twentieth century. The late nineteenth century witnessed considerable growth in both the quality and quantity of educated veterinarians in Canadian society. These professionals were essential for maintaining the health and well-being of draught animals and livestock. Their trade pivoted upon treating injuries amongst individual animals and combatting infectious disease outbreaks amongst tens of thousands. These professional skills would be readily useful for any military endeavour.

This chapter will provide an overview on the state of Canadian military veterinary services before 1914. It places the developmental process of the CAVC within the context of both the civilian profession and the state of affairs in the British Army. Both exerted a decisive influence on the shape and capabilities of the Canadian military veterinary services in the early twentieth century. Fortuitously, these developments ensured that the Department of Militia and Defence’s capabilities to treat animal sickness and injury reached their height of preparation immediately before the outbreak of the Great War.

Canadian Veterinary Profession, 1862-1911

The very idea of a veterinary profession is intrinsically tied to military affairs. Given the centrality of animals to military operations, care for them was always integral to successful campaigning. Farriers, who shod and cared for horses’ hooves, were the first animal care

specialists. Prior to the mid-eighteenth century, farriers and other animal care practitioners typically learned through trial-and error experience – a process pejoratively referred to as

“empiricism.”191 The need for standardized and professionalized care gradually became apparent, however, considering the expense of procuring and maintaining high-quality cavalry mounts. The first major veterinary school was thus established at Lyons in 1761 to provide care to the French

Army’s mounts. Thirty years later the London Veterinary College opened its doors as the United

Kingdom followed France’s example.192 Throughout the nineteenth century, the broad utility of these professionals became readily apparent for civilian as well as for military applications.

Veterinary expertise was essential for mitigating infectious disease, performing surgical operations, and for ensuring quality breeding stock for farm animals.

The first accredited veterinarians to practice in Canada did not arrive until the 1840s. They were graduates of the Royal (Dick) Veterinary College, founded in Edinburgh 1823. Rising incidences of pleuro-pneumonia, rinderpest, and foot-and-mouth disease throughout the British

Empire, however, demanded domestic professional expertise rather than total reliance upon external veterinary colleges.193 Farriers and other empirics simply did not possess the requisite foundations in veterinary science and infectious disease control needed to protect the young

Dominion’s growing livestock industry. Canadian exports of horses, cattle, sheep and pigs rose from 297,000 animals worth $2.2 million in 1874 to 401,000 animal exports worth $10.3 million

191 In other cases, animal care would be undertaken by human doctors plying their trade on animals. McShane and Tarr, The Horse in the City, 157. 192 Kistler, Animals in the Military, 141 and “The Army Veterinary Department,” 1. Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons Archives (RCVS) Sir Frederick Smith Papers, Cabinet 39. 193 Duncan McEachran, “Veterinary Sanitary Science: A Brief Historical Sketch of the Early History of Live Stock Quarantine in Canada,” Page 2. Dominion of Canada Department of Agriculture, n.d. University of Guelph Archival and Special Collections (UG) RE1 OVC A0292 Box 5 File 3. 68

in 1895.194 This rising tide of profitability – and of vulnerability to disease – provided a major impetus behind a domestic Canadian veterinary profession. As a Department of Agriculture bulletin later noted, “our live stock trade, foreign and domestic, cannot flourish save on a basis of freedom from disease.”195

The first major developments occurred shortly before Confederation. On 8 March 1859, the Board of Agriculture of Upper Canada ruled that “the establishment of a Veterinary School in

Canada would be attended with great benefit to the Agricultural and general population.”196 In

1861, a series of informal lectures on veterinary care delivered by Dr. Andrew Smith – an

Edinburgh graduate – in Toronto marked the birth of Canadian professional education.197 The

Globe expressed hope on 17 March 1862 that Smith’s lectures “will raise the present low standard of professional veterinary knowledge in this Province, and impart a large amount of useful and interesting information to a number of young and enquiring farmers.”198 1862 marked the generally accepted birthdate for what would become the Ontario Veterinary College (OVC), the oldest and most successful veterinary college in Canada. The first class graduated from their two-year program in 1866; by 1873 the college’s 100 graduates prompted the Globe to declare it “the most successful veterinary school on the continent.”199 The value of such educated professionals quickly became apparent. In 1879, the Ontario Commissioner of Agriculture claimed their expertise guarded against “infectious diseases which have proved so disastrous in many countries of the old

194 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended October 31 1895, (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1896), xi. 195 Canada. Department of Agriculture. Heath of Animals Branch. Bulletin No. 12. Mange in Horses and Cattle. (Ottawa: Authority of the Minister of Agriculture, 1911), 3. 196 Quoted in F. Eugene Gattinger, A Century of Challenge: A History of the Ontario Veterinary College, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962), 2. 197 C.A.V. Barker and T.A. Crowley, One Voice: A History of the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association, (St. Jacobs, Canadian Veterinary Medical Association, 1989), 2. 198 “Instruction to Young Men in the Veterinary Art,” The Globe, 17 March 1862, p. 2. 199 “Ontario Veterinary College,” The Globe, 18 April 1873, p. 1. 69

world.” He continued, “it is some satisfaction to know that should such dangers unfortunately arise in the future, we have a body of practitioners that will be prepared to grapple with the evil.”200

However, a number of problems dogged OVC in its early history. Personal animosity between Smith and OVC’s first appointed professor, Dr. Duncan McEachran, prompted the latter to break with OVC and establish the Montreal Veterinary College (MVC) in 1866. McEachran was an esteemed Scottish-born veterinarian who pushed for better quality of education in Canada and bristled at the two-year program in place at OVC. He felt this was simply not enough time to impart the requisite knowledge to produce high-class veterinarians and so imposed a three year program. Veterinary historians J. Brian Derbyshire, T.A. Crowley and Clifford Barker lauded

MVC – later integrated into McGill University as the Faculty of Comparative Medicine and

Veterinary Science in 1889 – as the best Anglophone veterinary school in the world.201 The combination of high admission requirements, rigorous examinations, and the three year degree produced exceptional veterinarians. However, because of these very reasons, MVC/McGill experienced low student enrollment and only graduated 312 veterinarians upon the faculty’s closure in 1903.202 OVC, by comparison, was notorious for low admission requirements, lax standards, and for its two year program. Nevertheless, it boasted 3,144 graduates by October 1907 and enjoyed the highest enrollment of any veterinary college in North America.203

200 Ontario Commission of Agriculture, Annual Report on Agriculture and Arts for 1879, xvii. UG RE1 OVC A0292, Box 1 File 3. 201 J. Brian Derbyshire, An Introduction to Canadian Veterinary History, (Guelph: Department of Pathobiology, Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph, 2000), 34, and Barker and Crowley, One Voice, 2-3. 202 Ibid.. The francophone component of McEachran’s school survived, however, and survives to the present day as the Faculté de Médecine vétérinaire de l'Université de Montréal. 203 Ontario Veterinary College Annual Announcement Session 1907-1908, 23-70. UG RE1 OVC A0024, and Derbyshire, An Introduction to Canadian Veterinary History, 27. A considerable proportion of these graduates – as high as 40% in the years leading up to the Great War – were born in the United States, with an undetermined number returning after their studies at OVC concluded. 70

Concomitant with the growth of the profession and the McGill-OVC rivalry were efforts by veterinarians to consolidate control over the animal health industry. Provincial veterinary associations began to emerge from 1874 and sought to assert that only graduates of recognized colleges possessing the requisite skills and credentials would be allowed to brand themselves as veterinary surgeons.204 They attempted to both regulate and control the animal welfare business in response to “empiricism and quackery” in the livestock industry.205 Empirics posed a considerable danger to animals through their uneven training and lack of comprehensive education on treatment of disease and injury. OVC’s Annual Announcements for the 1898-99 school year noted that “it should be our grand aim to so train and qualify our students that they may be known as lacking nothing,” and be “fully capable of over-topping and surpassing, beyond successful competition, the pretentious quack.”206 This ardent desire to protect the status of the profession against

“quackery” ensured that veterinarians – not farriers – would be the sole claimants to expertise on animal health care into the twentieth century. Indeed, the Ontario Legislative Assembly passed

“An Act respecting Veterinary Surgeons” in April 1895 which forbade persons without accredited diplomas or degrees to assume the title “veterinary surgeon” lest they face a hefty fine.207

204 Clifford Barker and T.A. Crowley provide an extensive discussion of the fitful starts of these professional associations in the late nineteenth century. A major obstacle to a nation-wide veterinary association – which would not be created until after the Great War – was the Smith-McEachran feud over divergent standards of education between OVC and McGill. OVC graduates experienced difficulty after first obtaining membership in non-Ontarian associations due to the perceived deficiencies in their education. Barker and Crowley, One Voice, 4-5. 205 Report of the Ontario Veterinary College, 1914, (Toronto: Ontario Department of Agriculture, 1915), 33. UG RE1 OVC A0009. 206 Ontario Veterinary College, Annual Announcement Session 1898-1899, (Toronto: Methodist Book and Publishing House, 1898), 8. UG RE1 OVC A0024. 207 Legislature of Ontario, Statutes of the Province of Ontario, 1st Session, 8th Legislature, (Toronto: Queen’s Printer, 1895), 181-182. Similar efforts to protect the designation “veterinary surgeon” were underway in the United Kingdom fifty years before this Act was passed in Ontario. The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons received Royal Charter in 1844 and fought throughout the rest of the nineteenth century to protect the professional status of veterinarians in Britain. Robert H. Dunlop and David J. Williams, Veterinary Medicine: An Illustrated History, (St. Louis: Mosby, 1996), 645-646. 71

Upon Principal Andrew Smith’s retirement in 1908, the Ontario Provincial Government assumed control over the heretofore privately-controlled OVC and affiliated it with the University of Toronto.208 Beginning in 1907, OVC introduced a three year program to produce graduates with a Bachelor of Veterinary Science degree (BVSc). This expanded course of study was designed to better integrate veterinary medicine within the broader context of health sciences. Such newer courses, on bacteriology for example, were essential to adequately comprehend the origins, transmission, and eradication of infectious diseases. Similarly, instruction in botany was necessary to understand the correlation between plant toxicity and animal sickness. Indeed, OVC’s College

Calendar for 1914-15 justified the expanded curriculum because “outbreaks of mysterious disease” had to be dealt with “by an intelligent manner by men specially trained in a variety of sciences.”209

Courses of instruction became progressively more specialized from a student’s first to third year. First year subjects included anatomy, embryology, biology, minor surgery, histology, zoology, chemistry, and botany. Second year classes involved bacteriology, physiology, contagious diseases, obstetrics, autopsy, cattle diseases, and material medica. The third year featured the most specialized subjects, which ranged from meat and milk inspection to livestock breeding, canine and feline diseases, stock judging, foods and feeding, hygiene, and dentistry.210

Classroom lectures, demonstrations, and laboratory exercises were variously used to impart knowledge and skill from each of these courses. Before being awarded a BVSc, candidates were required to pass sixteen examinations on subjects ranging from surgery to sporadic diseases of

208 Report of the Ontario Veterinary College, 1908, (Toronto: Ontario Department of Agriculture, 1909), 9-10. UG RE1 OVC A0009. 209 The Ontario Veterinary College Calendar, 1914-1915, 13. UG RE 1 OVC A0024. 210 The Ontario Veterinary College Calendar, 1909-1910, 12. UG RE 1 OVC A0024. 72

horses to meat inspection.211 Practical experience was also valued, as students were required to have “practised with a qualified Veterinarian for a period of at least five months” prior to graduation.212 Some of these students, such as Reginald Timmis, who attended OVC from 1909 to

1911 before joining the Royal Canadian Dragoons, only worked under the direction of practitioners for a month before setting out to take house calls by themselves.213 These apprenticing opportunities presented steep learning curves to be sure, but they nonetheless imparted invaluable experience to the young students prior to graduation.

This far more comprehensive curriculum was instrumental for improving OVC’s respectability. Members of the Ontario Horse Breeder’s Association passed a resolution on 1

February 1910 expressing their “hearty appreciation on the action of the Government of the

Province in assuming control of the Ontario Veterinary College.” The members evidently felt such efforts “to elevate the standard of veterinary education” though an expanded and more detailed curriculum was “a matter of vital importance to the live-stock industry.”214 Minister of Agriculture

Sydney Fisher echoed these sentiments, writing

the higher standard of education now insisted on at the Ontario Veterinary College is…of great value to the department, furnishing as it does an annual draft of capable young veterinarians to fill vacancies and to supply the new officers needed to enable the service to keep pace with the marvelous growth of the west.215

211 The Ontario Veterinary College Calendar, 1909-1910, 19-20. The total list of subjects includes: Veterinary Surgery, Sporadic Diseases of Horses and their treatment, Contagious Diseases of Animals, Sporadic Diseases of Cattle, Canine and Feline Diseases, Meat Inspection, Milk Inspection, Veterinary Hygiene, Anatomy, Pathology, Bacteriology, Botany, Materia Medica, Foods and Feeding, Breeds and Breeding, and Stock Judging. 212 The Ontario Veterinary College Calendar, 1909-1910, 19. UG RE 1 OVC A0024. 213 “On O.V.C. early days, by Col. R.S. Timmis,” UG RE1 OVC A0296 Box 3, File 3. 214 “Ontario Horse-breeders’ Association,” The Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine Vol. XLV No. 907 (10 February 1910): 217. 215 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended March 31 1910, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1910), 38. 73

Indeed, the Farmer’s Advocate further applauded the quality of OVC graduates in August 1910.

The expanded curriculum helped produce “men of scientific knowledge and excellent training,” who were “playing a role of great and growing importance in our national life,” as “their services

[were] becoming more extended each year.”216 OVC would ultimately furnish the overwhelming bulk of the CAVC’s officer corps in the Great War. Fully two thirds of the veterinary officers to serve in the CAVC from 1914-18 graduated from OVC.217

By 1911, there were 1,150 professional veterinarians working in the Dominion of Canada.

Almost exactly half of these veterinarians – 580 – worked in Ontario, while 347 worked in the

Western Provinces, 163 in Quebec and only 60 in the Maritimes.218 Growth of the profession slowed to an uneven pace, however, following the initial boom in veterinary surgeons during the late nineteenth century:

Table 2.1: Veterinary Surgeons in Dominion of Canada, 1881-1921219

1881 364 1891 854 1901 884 1911 1,150 1921 1,306

A primary cause of this fluctuating professional growth was the decline of horses in Canadian civil society detailed in Chapter One. The veterinary profession was heavily reliant upon treating urban draught horses as principal sources of revenue. Indeed, as Derbyshire notes, urban practice

216 “Ontario Veterinarians Still Lead,” The Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine Vol. XLV No. 933 (11 August 1910): 1302. 217 “List of Officers: Canadian Army Veterinary Corps – Overseas Military Forces of Canada.” LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3389 Folder R-155-45. 218 Canada. Department of Trade and Commerce, Census and Statistics Office. Fifth Census of Canada, 1911 Volume VI: Occupations of the People, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1915), 68, 90, 112, 134, 156, 178, 200, 222, 244. 219 Canada. Department of Trade and Commerce. Dominion Bureau of Statistics. Sixth Census of Canada, 1921 Volume IV – Occupations, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1929), 6-7. 74

represented “the life blood of the veterinary profession.” 220 With the slow disappearance of horses from their urban ubiquity in the nineteenth century, veterinarians were forced to look elsewhere for means of employment. Indeed, by 1911 veterinary practice was a predominately rural pursuit.

The Canada Census of from 1911 only lists 219 veterinary surgeons – 19% of the total – working in cities and towns over 10,000 people – 28% of the total population.221 This decline of the horse amounted to a professional crisis that would both precede and succeed the Great War, which

Chapter Ten will explore in greater detail.

Rural pursuits still offered a number of opportunities for employment in large animal medicine. Education on surgery, pharmacy, proper shoeing, and obstetrics, along with the mandatory five months’ apprenticeship, helped to prepare graduates for careers in general practice treating a number of different species. Sometimes, if not wishing to pay for certified veterinarians, farmers could treat minor injuries or ailments themselves. Others opted for cheaper quacks, empirics, or “handy-men” to attend to animal sickness and injury.222 Nevertheless, the enormous array of problems ranging from dental problems, punctured feet, lameness, tumors, or infectious diseases such as mange, glanders, and tuberculosis all necessitated veterinary expertise if the animal were to be treated properly. Commenting on indigestion and colic in May 1914, the

Farmer’s Advocate counselled its readers that

it is wise to send for a veterinarian, as the fact that the symptoms are continuing despite treatment given, indicates that the disease is serious and requires prompt and skillful treatment. Give your veterinarian a chance, do not wait, or treat yourself until the disease has reached that stage that renders successful treatment improbable or possibly impossible and then send for him. This is often done, and the

220 Derbyshire, An Introduction to Canadian Veterinary History, 75. 221 Ibid., 258, 272, 282, 292, 302, 314, 322, 330, 340, 348, 356, 364, 372, 380, 394, 410, 452, 460, 466, and Canada. Department of Trade and Commerce, Census and Statistics Office. Fifth Census of Canada, 1911 Volume I : Areas and Population by Provinces, Districts, and Subdistricts (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1912), v. 222 “Attend To Your Horse’s Teeth,” The Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine Vol. XL No. 671 (2 August 1905): 1182. 75

practitioner is blamed and said to be incompetent, because he failed to cure an animal that was practically dead before he saw him.223

Indeed, the pace of work for a veterinary practitioner could be very busy. In 1962, Reginald

Timmis recalled that “in those days a Vet would attend more horses in a week than most would attend in a year now.” He noted that during his time apprenticing in Brandon, Manitoba, “horses and cattle were our chief work. Up to 30 a day at times. Very many in the city and not too far out in the country. Colic and some Azoturia often kept us busy; and injuries from accidents were common.”224 Diagnosing these problems was a challenging enough task in and of itself. H. Kirk, an English graduate of the Royal Veterinary College in 1912, could very well have spoken for his

Canadian counterparts when he recalled that it was

rather a frightening experience to be ultimately launched into General Practics [sic], quite soon realizing how very little one knew as yet when faced with the problems of diseases in dumb animals, who, of course, can impart nothing of their feelings nor give any evidence of what is amiss. It is only by long clinical experience that one begins to apprehend the nature and location of diseases by observation.225

These skills were intellectually demanding, but they were also could ensure a brisk business.

Michael Sparrow, OVC Class of 1912, joined a practice in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, and made house calls castrating colts. He recalled that “in those days, everybody was raising [horses], you’d go to a farmer and you might castrate 8 or 10 or 15.” This service appears to have been in high demand, for Sparrow boasted that he earned the practice $1,800 in a single month by charging

223 “Indigestion in Horses,” The Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine Vol XL No. 1130 (21 May 1914): 993. 224 “On O.V.C. early days, by Col. R.S. Timmis,” UG RE1 OVC A0296 Box 3, File 3. Colic is a violent and painful contraction of a horse’s intestinal muscles which is sometimes fatal and resulted from change in feed, or food or cold water after strenuous exercise. Azoturia is a condition which effected partial paralysis of the hind limbs amongst horses which were worked strenuously, rested, fed, then immediately brought back to work. Andrew Smith, Veterinary Notes on the Causes, Symptoms, and Treatment of the Diseases of Domestic Animals, (Toronto: J.A. Carveth & Co., 1885), 179-180 and 233. 225 Memoir of H. Kirk, P. 21. Imperial War Museum (IWM) 74/8/1, Major H. Kirk Papers. 76

between $3 and $5 per castration.226 He later relocated to Vancouver and bought a practice in a livery stable that housed upwards of 200 horses.227

The early twentieth century also witnessed a dramatic rise in the quantity and responsibilities of veterinarians in government employment. Veterinary surgeons were utilized extensively by the Department of Agriculture and Royal North-West Mounted Police (RNWMP) to oversee the health of Canadian livestock. The same concerns over external infectious diseases that engendered domestic veterinary education opened opportunities for college graduates as government meat and livestock inspectors. Until the early twentieth century, these inspectors simply joined the civil service by appointment. In 1910, however, the Department of Agriculture required candidates to “pass a special qualifying examination in professional subjects,” which was considered “instrumental in securing for the service a better type of inspector.”228 Veterinarians employed by the RNWMP or the Department of Agriculture’s Health of Animals Branch inspected livestock for infectious disease at border posts across the Dominion. In 1900, there were 19 veterinary surgeons employed by the federal Department of Agriculture and the RNWMP. Twelve years later there were 216 veterinary surgeons in federal employ. Of these, 123 served with the

Health of Animals Branch, Contagious Diseases Division, while another 86 worked in the Meat

Inspection Division.229

These veterinarians were persistently kept active by the threat of rampant infectious disease on a national scale. Veterinary inspection was crucial in detecting diseases such as glanders,

226 Interview of M. Sparrow by Gordon Davis and Willard Persson, 22 January 1974, P. 5-6. UG RE1 OVC A0296 Box 2, File 1. 227 Ibid., P. 9. 228 Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended March 31 1910, 38. 229 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. The Civil Service List of Canada, 1912, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1912), 332-353. 77

tuberculosis, and mange. Glanders – a bacterial infection caused by the Burkholderia mallei bacillus – caused perhaps the greatest anxiety amongst government veterinarians in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.230 Its characteristic symptoms involved muco-purulent nasal discharge and swollen submaxillary glands (hence its English name). In its acute, pulmonary form, glanders caused lesions and ulcers discharging pus in the nostrils, larynx, and lungs, with post-mortem surgery exhibiting tuberculosis-like nodules.231 According to Andrew Smith, an animal stricken with acute glanders “falls off in condition, becomes emaciated, hide-bound; the skin seems to be attached to the flesh; gradually pines away, and dies a lingering death.”232 Animals with chronic glanders, however, could survive a number of years while suffering recurrent attacks of the disease, thus serving as active carriers for infection.233 The bacillus transmitted via its purulent nasal discharge, which spread freely among horses and mules sharing communal watering troughs and feeding racks.234 It could survive in damp conditions up to fifteen days independent of a host, though direct sunlight typically killed any exposed cultures.235 Incubating cases could not be detected with visual inspection, and so the method of detection centred on the mallein diagnostic test. Mallein was a mixture of glycerine and bacillus mallei cultures that was injected into the suspected animal’s neck. An allergic reaction involving significantly elevated temperature

230 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended October 31 1904, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1905), 129. 231 Duncan McEachran, Glanders in Horses, (Ottawa: Government Printing Bureau, 1901), 4. 232 Andrew Smith, Veterinary Notes on the Causes, Symptoms, and Treatment of the Diseases of Domestic Animals, (Toronto: J.A. Carveth & Co., 1885), 73. 233 D. McEachran, “Report on the Cattle Quarantines in Canada, From November 1, 1899, to October 31, 1900,” in Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada for the Year Ended 31st October 1900, (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1901), 77-78. 234 McEachran, Glanders, 4-5. 235 John McFadyean, “An Authority on Glanders,” The Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine Vol XL No 642 (11 January 1905): 42, and McEachran, Glanders in Horses, 5. 78

after six to eight hours, and “hot painful swelling at the point of injection,” indicated a positive case.236 If an animal tested positive it was immediately destroyed and its body buried or cremated.

Glanders never reached epizootic proportions in Canada but it made recurrent appearances.

Outbreaks were frequently blamed on imported livestock from the United States, where it spread during and after the American Civil War.237 Vigilant administration of the mallien test at border crossing posts by RNWMP personnel limited the influx to some extent, but it was evident that glanders still entered Canada steadily through ponies and horses illegally smuggled in from the

United States. In 1900, veterinary inspectors and RNWMP constables destroyed 91 glandered horses in Manitoba and the North-West Territories; the next year the total would rise to 647. Dr.

Duncan McEachran considered these recurrences “a serious menace to the horse breeding industry in the west.”238 Marked progress in curtailing recurrent glanders outbreaks was only made with increased compensation payments to owners of destroyed livestock by the federal government.

This willingness to reimburse for destroyed stock helped earn the trust of stock owners who otherwise might have kept silent about suspicious cases.239 Destroyed cases decreased from a peak of 2,113 horses in 1904-05 to 626 in 1909-10, and 350 in 1913-14. The Minister of Agriculture

236 W. Hunting and J. M’Fadyean. “Mallein as an aid to the Diagnosis of Glanders.” Journal of Comparative Pathology and Therapeutics 5 (January 1892): 316-338, and Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended October 31 1898, (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1899), 81. 237 See G. Terry Sharrer, “The Great Glanders Epizootic, 1861-1866: A Civil War Legacy.” Agricultural History 69, no. 1 (Winter 1995): 79-97. 238 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended October 31 1901, (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1902), 69. 239 . Brian Derbyshire, “The eradication of glanders in Canada,” Canadian Veterinary Journal 43, No. 9 (September 2002): 724. 79

ultimately considered that this gradual control over glanders was principally owed to “the most strenuous exertion on the part of our veterinary inspectors.”240

Mange, a parasitic skin infection which attacked sheep, cattle, and horses was another enormous problem from the late 1890s to the early 1930s. Mange is a parasitic infectious disease that irritates an animal’s hide to such an extent that it is unable to sleep, eat, or perform working tasks. If untreated, infected cases wasted away and perished in the winter. The microscopic parasites – or acari – belong to the natural family Sarcoptidae, of which there were two principal genera, Psoroptes and Sarcoptes. Psoroptic acari afflicted superficial areas of the skin, while

Sarcoptic acari burrowed deep into the dermis. According to a Department of Agriculture bulletin, the itch principally came from “a poisonous secretion or saliva which it introduces into the tissues.”241 Sarcoptic mites burrowed deep into an animals’ hide and survived the superficial chemical scrubbing that would otherwise eliminate Psoroptic mange.

The disease thrived in cold, wet conditions, with hard winters notorious for outbreaks.

Long winter coats on animals made superficial examinations difficult, while close contact between animals for warmth easily facilitated transmission of the mites.242 Mange acari could survive in fence posts, trees, stables, or any other surface afflicted animals scratched themselves upon. They could also survive in harnesses and saddles. They were thus easily transmitted in a compromised environment until equipment could be sterilized with Creosol and the surrounding structures

240 Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended March 31 1910, 38, and Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended March 31 1914, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1914), 44. 241 Mange in Horses and Cattle, 3-4. 242 Ibid, 5. 80

whitewashed with lime. Two weeks typically passed from contact and evident symptoms, meaning that an apparently healthy animal could be incubating a case of mange.243

Chemical dipping tanks presented its most effective treatment. These were long, narrow trenches dug into the earth filled with sulphur, quicklime (calcium sulphide), and heated water from a nearby river or lake. The United States Bureau of Animal Industry originally conceived the design to combat cattle ticks in Texas, and granted the design to its Canadian counterparts.244 Cattle afflicted with mange would be led into the entrance of the tank, with its floor sharply dropping off.

The animal was thus briefly immersed in the caustic solution and forced to swim the length of the tank, which graded evenly to ground level at its exit. Two or three dippings 10-15 days apart were usually sufficient to kill all the mites on the animal.245

From the initial stages of this outbreak in 1898-99, veterinarians employed by the

Department of Agriculture and the RNWMP spearheaded efforts to control the disease. They inspected herds of livestock, oversaw treatment regimens, and consulted ranchers on means of combatting infection. The Dominion Government granted them considerable discretionary power to limit mange’s spread. An Order-in-Council of July 1899 decreed that veterinary inspectors could unilaterally quarantine parcels of territory suspected of infestation with the parasites.246 This led to the quarantining of much of southern Alberta and southwestern Saskatchewan for almost thirty years. This so-called “Mange Area” extended from Calgary, Alberta to Antelope, Saskatchewan a

243 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended October 31 1900, (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1901), 63. 244 Ibid., 64. 245 Ibid. 246 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended October 31 1899, (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1900), 115. 81

small community east of Swift Current.247 In 1905 alone, federal veterinarians supervised a round- up of 547,705 cattle for calcium sulphide treatment in these areas of Alberta and Saskatchewan.248

Some cattle ranchers, perhaps understandably, came to loathe veterinarians for imposing restrictive quarantines and ordering expensive treatment regimens. In 1919, for example, ranchers who felt

“persistently oppressed and persecuted by persons employed in these Provinces by the Dominion

Veterinary Department” formed the Cattlemen’s Protective Association of Western Canada.249

H.C. Storey, a Health of Animals Branch veterinarian, also remembered farmers threatening his colleagues “with shot guns or axes and even the women in some cases attempting to throw boiling water on them.”250 Nevertheless, federal veterinarians continued to play a leading role in the fight against mange until they effectively brought it under control by 1927.

Other diseases such as bovine tuberculosis, hog cholera, maladie du coit, and anthrax also commanded the attentions of federal veterinarians in the early twentieth century.251 Nevertheless, the fights against mange and glanders serve as key case studies into the nature of infectious disease control. Veterinarians spearheaded quarantine and treatment regimens on a grand scale, applying their professional knowledge to contain and eradicate outbreaks as swiftly as possible. These treatment methods depended heavily upon the consent and participation of individual livestock owners, and so cultivating cooperation was placed at a high premium. Crucially, mange and

247 “The ‘Mange Area’ – Let’s Wipe it Out.” Glenbow Archives (GA) M-2452-66, Western Stock Growers’ Association Fonds. 248 Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended October 31 1905, lxiv. 249 “What We Are Organized For.” GA M-2452- 64. 250 H.C. Storey, “A Review of the Work of the Health of Animals Branch in Alberta,” Canadian Veterinary Journal 24 (1983): 93. 251 For more information on efforts to combat these diseases, see Storey, “A Review of the Work of the Health of Animals Branch in Alberta,” 92-98, Thomas Dukes and Norman McAninch, “Health of Animals Branch, Agriculture Canada: A look at the past,” Canadian Veterinary Journal 33 (January 1992): 58-64, Derbyshire, An Introduction to Canadian Veterinary History, 63-72, and Lisa M. Cox, “‘Reasonable Tract and Diplomacy’: Disease Management and Bovine Tuberculosis in North America: 1890-1950,” (Unpublished PhD. Dissertation, University of Guelph Department of History, 2013). 82

glanders would prove to be the most troublesome animal diseases confronting British Imperial forces in both South Africa and the First World War. The hard-won civilian expertise in fighting these diseases amongst Canadian livestock would be readily exploited in the latter conflict. A total of 17 civil service veterinarians served in the CAVC in the Great War – three of whom would eventually reach positions of high command.252

This brief overview on the state of the Canadian veterinary profession before 1914 illustrates the broad utility of college-educated veterinarians for Canadian society. Despite the professional crisis over the decline of horse-related business in civil society, these veterinarians were capable of multiple avenues of employment. Graduates of OVC and other veterinary colleges left school with a broad array of skills on treatment of sickness and injury, judging animals for soundness and quality, and ensuring proper feeding and shoeing. They were suited for employment as practitioners, meat inspectors, and infectious disease specialists. As will be demonstrated below, these skills would prove eminently suited to martial purposes as well.

British and Canadian Military Veterinary Services, 1872-1902

The Canadian veterinary profession’s quantitative and qualitative growth was a necessary but not sufficient precondition for the birth of a Canadian military veterinary service. Both the

British and Canadian services experienced fitful and drawn-out consolidation processes that lasted for decades. Their value and utility was not necessarily self-evident, and the onus for change would

252 Lieutenant-Colonel T.C. Evans, Deputy Assistant Director of Veterinary Services (DADVS) 2nd Canadian Division, worked as a pathologist in the Department of Agriculture, while Lieutenant-Colonel D.S. Tamblyn, DADVS 3rd Canadian Division, worked as Chief inspector for Saskatchewan in the Contagious Diseases Division, and Colonel C.E. Edgett, DADVS 4th Canadian Division and later Director of Veterinary Services and Remounts, worked in the Meat Inspection Division. Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. The Civil Service List of Canada, 1912, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1912), 52, 332-334, and 342-353. 83

come more from campaign experiences than from proactive initiatives during peacetime. In both cases, marked progress was only due to harsh lessons of the South African War.

What would eventually become the Royal Army Veterinary Corps traces its lineage to

1796. Animal care was previously left to farriers, but the founding of the London Veterinary

College in 1792 opened possibilities for young veterinarians with inclinations to military service.

In 1796, graduates of the College could be appointed to any cavalry unit by its colonel and serve as junior officers with the rank of Veterinary-Surgeon.253 This system of attaching individual

Veterinary Surgeons to different units – the “regimental system” – prevailed through most of the nineteenth century. A consolidated Army Veterinary Department (AVD) was not established until

1881, at which point these individual Veterinary-Surgeons from cavalry and artillery units were coalesced into a distinct department with its own uniforms, seniority list, and ranks.254 Into the

Second Boer War, these veterinary officers occupied a peculiar position within the British regimental hierarchy. Their specific veterinary ranks – such as Veterinary-Lieutenant or

Veterinary-Captain – technically set them on the same footing as their regimental counterparts but simultaneously made them outsiders. Frederick Smith, an ambitious young officer who later rose to be the Director-General of the Army Veterinary Corps in 1907, recalled mixed feelings over the formation of the AVD. He wrote in his autobiography “the Regimental system had its attractions.

The officer had a home; he was part and parcel of the regiment and wore its uniform. In the

Departmental system he was nobody’s child and was sent from pillar to post often at a moment’s notice.” Indeed, although the AVD was “a first step towards a complete service,” it only encompassed veterinary officers. Farriers and Shoeing-Smiths, who Smith considered the “nurses”

253 “The Army Veterinary Department,” P. 1-6. RCVS Smith Papers, Cabinet 39. 254 Ibid. 84

of a regiment’s animals, still belonged within the regimental hierarchy and did not belong to the

AVD. This in itself was a major problem since these Other Ranks were the men who enjoyed immediate access to horses on a daily basis. Unfortunately to Smith, they could be transferred to different posts within the regiment “at the whim of the commanding officer.”255

In contrast, the earliest appearance of veterinary personnel in the Canadian Non-Permanent

Active Militia dates to 1870. Identical to the British model, veterinary surgeons with degrees from recognized institutions attached to Militia cavalry regiments and artillery batteries for the annual sixteen days of paid training exercises.256 Three Militia Veterinary-Surgeons accompanied the

Field Force in suppression of the North-West Rebellion in 1885.257 Two years later the first

Veterinary-Surgeons were posted to Permanent Force (PF) artillery batteries, William Hall, MVC

Class of 1877, and James Massie, OVC Class of 1879.258 This antiquated system of regimental appointment persisted through the concurrent phase of reforms in the British Army. There was no centralized command nucleus for a Canadian veterinary service with the outbreak of the South

African War in 1899, though there were three Veterinary-Lieutenants serving in the Permanent

Force and 28 veterinary-officers listed for service in the Militia.259

255 Autobiography of Sir Frederick Smith, transcribed by J.W. Barber-Lomax, P. 28. RCVS Smith Papers Cabinet 39. 256 French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War 1914-1919, 248, and Granatstein, Canada’s Army, 24-27. 257 Canada. Department of Militia and Defence. Report of Lieutenant-Colonel W.H. Jackson, On Matters In Connection with the Suppression of the Rebellion in the North-West Territories, in 1885, (Ottawa: MacLean, Roger & Co., 1887), 17. 258 H.H. Curson, “The Volunteer Veterinary Services of the Empire and the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902),” The Veterinary Record XIII, No. 34 (August 1933): 832. Found in UG RE1 OVC A0296 Box 3, File 1. 259 Veterinary-Lieutenants William Hall and James Massie were kept on strength in the Permanent Force, but also held commissions as Veterinary-Majors in the Militia, making the Militia strength technically 30 veterinary officers. Canada. Militia Council. The Quarterly Militia List of the Dominion of Canada, Corrected to 1st October 1899, (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1899), 28, 175-176. 85

The Second Anglo-Boer War would prove to be a decisive turning point in the future of military veterinary services throughout the British Empire. The catastrophic wastage in animal life detailed in Chapter One stemmed from a number of environmental factors which could have been mitigated with more authority to AVD officers. In late 1899, the AVD was 21% below its peacetime establishment and experienced enormous difficulties procuring officers for South

Africa.260 Most of the officers on official strength were scattered with their regiments across the

British Empire and there was virtually no reserve of officers in the UK. To make good the shortfall, civilian practitioners were hurriedly dispatched to the forces in South Africa. Over the course of the conflict, 283 civilian veterinarians were hired to supplement the 61 regular AVD officers, 30

Imperial Yeomanry veterinarians, and approximately 55 Dominion veterinarians.261 The use of civilians was plainly a desperate stopgap measure, for they routinely experienced friction with career officers reluctant to submit to civilian authority.262

Such veterinary personnel were subordinated to the Army’s Remount Department, nominally concerned with furnishing replacements for animal casualties and preparing patients for return to frontline service.263 The desperate shortage of veterinary officers meant there were no qualified experts on animal health care on the Remount Service’s staff in the early stages of the war. Mange and glanders savaged Remount Depots when horses stricken with these illnesses were sent by “laymen” to recuperate amongst healthy bodies of animals.264 To make matters worse there were no provisions for large-capacity veterinary hospitals in South Africa when the war broke out.

Equipment, personnel, and expertise for four veterinary hospitals had to be borrowed from the

260 “The Army Veterinary Service,” The Times, 16 November 1904, p. 4. 261 Smith, A Veterinary History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902, 306-308. 262 Ibid., 309. 263 Winton, Theirs Not to Reason Why, 68-69. 264 Smith, A Veterinary History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902, vii. 86

Indian Army.265 According to Major-General Henry Thomson, the Director-General of the Army

Veterinary Service from 1902 to 1907, this scrambling for trained personnel barely “saved us from a practical collapse.”266 Proactive changes belatedly began in April 1901, when the permanent

AVD strength elevated from 70 to 110 officers. Further plans were made to establish three veterinary hospitals that could be attached to an expeditionary force in the future.267 These were steps in the right direction, but much of the damage in South Africa had already been done.

The Canadian veterinary officers dispatched to South Africa served at the regimental level and were absent from such administrative problems. They were typically junior in rank and served on regimental staffs. Each of the mounted infantry regiments dispatched to South Africa had a veterinary officer on strength.268 The 2nd Regiment Canadian Mounted Rifles (CMR) featured two extra squadrons when it was dispatched in 1902 and so received an additional veterinarian on staff.269 A single Farrier Sergeant, four Shoeing-Smiths, and a Saddler comprised the animal care specialists attached to each squadron of 149 horses.270 The three batteries and headquarters staff of the of the Canadian Field Artillery “Brigade Division” featured a horse establishment comparable to mounted infantry regiments and had a veterinary officer attached to its headquarters staff. Similar to the mounted squadrons, Farrier Sergeants and Shoeing-Smiths were attached to batteries for immediate knowledge on basic animal care. In 1901 the veterinary complement was

265 Memorandum by Adjutant-General Sir Evelyn Wood, 17 April 1902. NA WO 32/6031. 266 Major-General H. Thompson Memorandum, 24 April 1906. NA WO 32/6669. 267 Memorandum by Adjutant-General Sir Evelyn Wood, 17 April 1902. 268 Supplementary Report (1901), 69. 269 Further Supplementary Report (1902), 23. 270 Ibid., 24. 87

further expanded so that each battery had its own veterinarian.271 Ultimately, twelve veterinary officers accompanied Canadian units throughout the course of the South African War.272

In their dispatches to the Adjutant General, the Officers Commanding (OC) these units conveyed sparse details on veterinary activities, but a few officers received specific mention.

Lieutenant-Colonel T.D.B. Evans, OC 1st Regiment CMR, ascribed a low loss rate of animals on the voyage to South Africa to “the very excellent management of Vet-Lieut Riddell.”273

Lieutenant-Colonel Victor Williams, OC 3rd Regiment CMR, evidently appreciated the

“thoroughly well trained and up to date” skills of Veterinary-Captain W.J. Neill, who would later rise to command Canadian veterinary services in the Great War.274 Lieutenant-Colonel T.L.

Boulanger, OC 4th Regiment CMR, similarly praised “the excellent and untiring work of my veterinary officer, Captain A.D. Harrington.”275 These vague statements of praise do not afford much insight into Canadian veterinary activities in South Africa, but they do illustrate that commanding officers evidently appreciated veterinary expertise in such trying circumstances.

Ultimately, the heavy losses amongst mounted and artillery units detailed in the preceding chapter were entirely outside of the control of Canadian veterinary personnel. Their junior rank meant they would have negligible impact on the state of overall animal health outside of their regiments. Given the heavy losses due to forced marches, lack of rest, rampant disease, and lack of forage, it is unclear to what extent these veterinary officers could have stemmed the enormous

271 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Department of Militia and Defence for the Dominion of Canada, Report for the Year Ended December 1901, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1902), 35. 272 Supplementary Report (1901), 73 and 77 273 Supplementary Report (1901),106. 274 Department of Militia and Defence for the Dominion of Canada, Report for the Year Ended December 1901, 76. 275 Ibid., 79. 88

animal wastage amongst Canadian units. It was abundantly clear, however, that significant changes were necessary to avoid repeating such mistakes in future conflicts.

British Military Veterinary Services, 1903-1914

The decade following the conclusion of the war in South Africa witnessed sweeping changes to veterinary services in the British Empire.276 In tandem with the broader Army reforms instituted by Secretary of State for War Richard Haldane, the British Army’s veterinary services were overhauled and expanded. The Army had not acquitted itself terribly well against the elusive and highly-motivated Boers, and it was clear that major reforms were necessary lest the British be embarrassed in another conflict.277 From the AVD’s perspective, the most pressing problem to address was the generally ancillary role occupied by veterinary officers in animal welfare concerns. In October 1903, a Royal Warrant, later published as Army Order 180, removed the compound rank of veterinary officers so that they ceased to be “Veterinary-Captains.” Along with increased rates of pay and retirement allowances, these revisions thus put veterinary officers on equal footing with their counterparts in other branches.278 This order also created a new Army

Veterinary Corps (AVC) – an organization which encompassed all Non-Commissioned Officers

(NCO) and men employed by the Army Veterinary Services.279

276 Winton, Theirs Not To Reason Why, 134. Graham Winton’s work provides an exceptionally well-researched look at these developments, reforms, and affairs from a British perspective. However, for the purposes of this dissertation, it is necessary to briefly examine veterinary reforms in the British Army to illustrate the pattern Canadian services would similarly follow between 1903 and 1914. 277 Winton, Theirs Not To Reason Why, 127-129. 278 Major-General H. Thompson Memorandum, 15 March 1905, NA WO 32/6668., and Major General Sir Frederick Smith, A History of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, 1796-1919, (London: Ballière, Tindall and Cox, 1927), 209. 279 Ibid. 89

Major-General Thomson wrote in 1905 that amalgamating these two distinct organizations would be “an improvement on the present system, would tend to further efficiency, would improve the general status of the veterinary services and lastly, would have no financial effect.”280 On 16

February 1906, Secretary Haldane signed Army Order 48, which consolidated officers below the rank of colonel along with personnel into the AVC. Senior officers were separated into the Army

Veterinary Staff, a high command administrative arm of the veterinary services.281 These reforms eliminated the antiquated regimental system for veterinary services and, according to Thomson,

“rendered the service capable of infinite enlargement.”282 For the time being, the Director-General of the AVC (DG AVC) reported to the Director of Remounts, but these revisions were nevertheless important steps towards placing responsibility for animal care more completely within the hands of educated professionals. A clear chain of command delineated responsibilities for the AVC and ensured that expert advice on animal health care was available at all levels of Army command.

Below the DG AVC, Assistant Directors of Veterinary Services (ADVS) were attached to the headquarters of regional commands, and Executive Veterinary Officers were placed in charge of hospitals or attached to staffs of lower formations.283

Throughout this process, senior veterinarians called on the service to be modelled closely on the Royal Army Medical Corps both in terms of its organization and in recognition of their status as health care professionals. At a talk held by the Church Society for the Prevention of

Cruelty to Animals on 3 May 1905, Colonel Joshua Nunn, Deputy-Director of the AVC, declared that “it was indisputable that the appliances of a properly-equipped hospital and the services of a

280 Major-General H. Thomson Memorandum, 15 March 1905. 281 “Royal Warrant – Army Veterinary Services.” NA WO 32/6668. 282 “Animals in War and the Geneva Convention,” The Times, 4 May 1905, 10. 283 Regulations for Army Veterinary Services, 1906, (London: King’s Printer, 1914), 6-7. LAC RG 24 Vol. 22,021. 90

properly-qualified attendant were as necessary for a disabled animal as for a disabled man.” He vociferously attacked any notions that horses and mules were “machines and contraband of war,” for “if a hospital were provided for wounded men, the same should be found for wounded animals.”284 Similarly, Thomson’s vision for an expanded AVC would be modelled “on lines similar to the Army Medical Services.”285

The debilitating manpower shortages experienced by the AVD officer corps in South

Africa were intrinsic to these problems of animal mismanagement and suffering. Thomson criticized the chaotic efforts to utilize “unemployed or semi-employed veterinary surgeons” in

South Africa and of “offering to fill the depleted ranks of the AVD by selection without examination.” He further regretted that the peacetime establishment of the AVC was “only just sufficient for peace requirements,” with totally unsatisfactory preparations for an expeditionary force should the need arise in the future. Thomson pushed for a reserve of 150 officers to ensure that the veterinary services would not again be caught off guard by the outbreak of war.286

Not all members of the Army Council were receptive to these ideas. General Sir William

Nicholson, Quartermaster-General (QMG) to the Forces, was skeptical of the need to expand the existing AVC officer corps with no war immediately on the horizon. He claimed there was

a great difference between the medical and veterinary professions. If a soldier is seriously ill and not likely to recover for a long time, if he is badly wounded…every effort has to be made to save his life…But it is not the same thing with horses and transport animals. No doubt, horses like men are subject to epidemics which, if unchecked, may prove fatal; and in regard to such diseases prophylactic measures have to be taken. But even here there is a difference, for if a man, in spite of such measures, catches the disease he has to be treated and if possible cured, whereas in the case of a horse, especially on field service, it may often be advisable to destroy it…ordinary veterinary practice especially in

284 “Animals in War and the Geneva Convention.” 285 “Royal Warrant – Army Veterinary Services.” 286 Major-General H. Thompson Memorandum, 24 April 1906. NA WO 32/6669. 91

war time is a much simpler matter than medicine and surgery and does not call for such a highly trained staff.287

Nicholson’s rebuke highlights a number of the issues that frustrated truly comprehensive peacetime veterinary preparations in peacetime. The expansion of the AVC certainly made important steps towards humane care for animals wounded by war, but its fundamental mandate lay in a more utilitarian spirit akin to repairing a piece of broken machinery than altruistically healing an injured animal. Prevention of animal suffering was more incidental to these duties than their central purpose, and Nicholson’s letter reveals that efforts to equate veterinary with medical services would be repeatedly resisted. Thomson himself had to concede that “our work on service is limited by purely utilitarian considerations,”288 and the 1906 AVC Regulations simply noted its duty was to ensure “the health and efficiency of the animals of the Army or mitigate or prevent infectious disease among them.”289 Major-General Smith, who succeeded Thomson as DG AVC in 1907, considered that the lesser value placed on animal life would continually drain the AVC of esteem and funds in peacetime. He wrote in 1910 that “unfortunately throughout the civilized world all business relations connected with animals are placed on a very low plane” and bitterly stated in his autobiography that “as long as the Service exists, the attempts to replace the expert by the dangerous amateur will be made.”290

Smith’s bitterness was well earned, for both he and Thomson would find their efforts to develop an AVC Territorial Force (TF) Reserve resisted up to the Great War. One of the most pressing concerns after South Africa was the absence of a ready reserve for an expeditionary force.

287 General Sir William Nicholson Memorandum, 14 May 1906. NA WO 32/6669. 288 Major-General H. Thomson Memorandum, 19 May 1906. NA WO 32/6669. 289 Regulations for Army Veterinary Services, 1906, 1. 290 Major-General Frederick Smith Circular, October 1910. “History of the Army Veterinary Corps,” RCVS Smith Papers, Cabinet 39, and Autobiography of Sir Frederick Smith, 91. 92

Central to these concerns, too, was an apparent lack of horsemanship amongst the ranks of the

Army. Smith wrote in 1909 that “only a trifling fraction of the population of this country knows anything about the care and management of horses.” To Smith, the woeful lack of animal care knowledge throughout the Army, and the several years required to attain that knowledge, should have been evidence in and of itself for a substantial investment into veterinarians for the TF.291

Nevertheless, Smith bitterly remarked that the QMG seemed intent on “rejecting every scheme which cost money.”292 He further lamented that “it takes a five years apprenticeship in a good battery of artillery to learn horsemastership, yet we put officers and men of the Territorial Force in charge of animals, for which duty they have neither training nor experience.”293

In the midst of these frustrating developments, successive DGs AVC resolved to push the professional standards of their service harder and harder in order to demonstrate the utility of a veterinary service. Thomson wrote to Nicholson that caring for animal patients that “cannot say what they feel, or given any voluntary indication as to what is the matter,” by definition, “requires a high degree of training and skill” that only educated veterinary officers could provide.294

Similarly, Smith would push time and again for higher standards of education and professionalism during his three year stint as Director-General. Smith felt that in order to keep officers “stimulated to keep up their studies” they “should be examined at intervals and without warning…on any subject military or scientific connected with their work.”295 He similarly encouraged his subordinates to keep abreast of new literature on surgery and infectious disease control.296

291 “Memorandum by the Director-General, Army Veterinary Service,” 6 March 1909, 2. NA WO 32/6545. 292 Autobiography of Sir Frederick Smith, 95. 293 “Memorandum by the Director-General, Army Veterinary Service,” 6 March 1909, 2. 294 Major-General H. Thomson Minute Sheet, 19 May 1906. NA WO 32/6669. 295 “Copy of a letter from the Director-General, Army Veterinary Services, to Principal Veterinary Officers,” in “History of the Army Veterinary Corps,” RCVS Smith Papers. 296 Ibid. 93

These efforts were not in vain. By 1914 the hard work done by successive DGs AVC began to bear fruit. The AVC finally gained institutional independence from the Remount Department by 1914, gaining full status as an administrative branch of the Army.297 Establishments for veterinary hospitals, equipment depots, and Mobile Veterinary Sections (MVS) – which will be discussed extensively in subsequent chapters – were similarly completed by 1914. A Veterinary

Staff Exercise at Aldershot in May 1914 tested the “possibilities and limitations of the authorized

Veterinary organization,” specifically the coordination between divisional veterinarians and

General Headquarters. This exercise found that “the Executive Officers [of each division] had a good grasp of the work that was intended of them.”298

The AVC would ultimately begin the Great War with an organization suited to meet the demands of the front. When the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) mobilized in August 1914, 122

Officers and 797 Other Ranks prepared to sail for the Continent. These men staffed eleven MVS, six nuclei of veterinary hospitals, two stores depots, as well as serving on the staffs of higher command formations throughout the BEF. 299 Major-General Smith recalled in the 1920s – with the considerable benefit of hindsight – “it was the entire reorganization of the Army Veterinary

Service as the result of the War in South Africa, that rendered the Veterinary Service in the Great

War so conspicuous a success.”300

297 Winton, Theirs Not to Reason Why, 136. 298 “Report of Veterinary Staff Exercises Held at Aldershot, May, 1914,” Introduction and Remarks by Directing Staff on work 16th May. NA WO 279/586. 299 History of the Organization and Development of the Army Veterinary Service with the British Expeditionary Force, France, August 1914 to April 1919, (Simla: Government Press, 1919), Introduction. NA WO 106-388A. 300 Autobiography of Sir Frederick Smith, 103. 94

Canadian Military Veterinary Services, 1903-1914

The developmental process of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps mirrored that of the

AVC but over a longer timeframe and involving far fewer personnel.301 Revisions to the Canadian veterinary services typically followed years behind British reforms, and the influence of the British

Army’s system of organization is evident from the beginning. On 14 October 1902 Veterinary-

Major James Massie drafted a short memorandum to Colonel Charles Drury, OC of the Royal

Canadian Field Artillery, calling for a Canadian Army Veterinary Department. Massie noted that despite the formation of the Canadian Army Medical Corps (CAMC) and Canadian Army Service

Corps (CASC),302 there was “at present no organization of or head in the Canadian Veterinary

Service.” He argued that “we believe it to be in the interests of the service, and the Veterinary

Profession, to have a Canadian Army Veterinary Department,” and that such a Department should be “established on lines as closely following the Imperial Veterinary Regulations as practicable.”303 The AVD’s influence is readily apparent, for Massie pushed for the Canadian service to share the same structure of a Director-General, administrative staff, and Executive

Veterinary Officers. He would also later insist “the blue serge uniform of the Imperial Veterinary

Service…be adopted” for a Canadian Veterinary Department.304 Betraying the same fiscal concerns which hounded Major-Generals Thomson and Smith, Massie claimed that the formation

301 Brian Reid considered that “the war in South Africa had provided a long-overdose of reality to the Canadian defence establishment,” prompting the formation of support service branches which laid “the foundation for a modern army.” Reid, Our Little Army in the Field, 173. 302 James Wood also notes that Canadian militia officers appreciated the need for efficient service and medical corps following the conspicuous absence of both and the ensuing “chaos” and “deficiencies” marking the United States military’s mobilization against Spain in 1898. See Wood, Militia Myths, 63-64. 303 Veterinary-Major James Massie to Colonel Charles Drury, 14 October 1902. LAC RG 24 Vol. 6532, Folder H-Q 621-1 Vol. 1. 304 Veterinary-Major James Massie, “With a View to the Organization of a Canadian Militia Veterinary Department 15.” LAC RG 24 Vol. 6532, Folder H-Q 621-1 Vol. 1. 95

of a Canadian Veterinary Department would “not entail any additional expense to the

Government” except for administrative fees incurred by examining incoming candidates.305

Massie’s proposal, which he claimed was “on behalf and by request” of his fellow Militia veterinary officers, found immediate support. Colonel Drury noted on 21 October that Massie’s memorandum should be “forwarded and strongly recommended,” as “the organization of a

Veterinary Department should be a decided benefit to the service.”306 Little more than a week later the Earl of Dundonald, GOC Canadian Militia, similarly approved Massie’s proposal and immediately requested a detailed breakdown of how such a service would be organized.307

In November 1902, Massie drafted and circulated his envisaged organization for a Militia

Veterinary Department – patterned largely after the 1900 Regulations for the British Army

Veterinary Service.308 Massie noted that a DG should be attached to the Headquarters Staff for

GOC Militia and “advise the [GOC] on all matters pertaining to the Veterinary Service.” The DG would also oversee that his subordinates, officers and men included, maintained a high educational and professional standard. Massie wrote that the formation of a training school for Farriers and

Shoeing-Smiths would serve “great good to the horse interests of Canada,” for proper training would save “our horses much suffering, and their owners from great pecuniary loss.”309

The veterinary officers who comprised the bulk of the Department’s officer corps still attached to individual cavalry and artillery regiments. Massie’s draft regulations stipulated “the

305 Massie to Drury, 14 October 1902. 306 Massie, “With a View to the Organization of a Canadian Militia Veterinary Department,” 15. 307 Adjutant General to Colonel Charles Drury, 29 October 1902. LAC RG 24 Vol. 6532, Folder H-Q 621-1 Vol. 1. Massie’s proposed development fortuitously reached Dundonald as he began the process of overhauling the Militia’s structure in the wake of the South African War. Indeed, the expansion of various non-combatant branches such as signals, engineer, medical, and army service corps units meant that proposed reforms for a veterinary service found a fertile environment ready for improvement to the Militia. Granatstein, Canada’s Army, 45. 308 Massie, “With a View to the Organization of a Canadian Militia Veterinary Department,” 1. 309 Ibid.,14. 96

first duty of a Veterinary Officer on joining a unit…is to make himself acquainted generally with the regimental system” and familiarize himself with all of the horses under his care.310 These

Executive Veterinary Officers were responsible to both the District Veterinary Officer as well as the regimental OC. They would have “complete professional charge of all sick and lame horses in the hospital stables or sick lines;” a stipulation reflecting the firm intention to retain executive control on animal health by educated veterinarians. Ultimately, Massie considered

the most important duty of a Veterinary Officer is to prevent disease, by the avoidance or removal of predisposing causes, and by the adoption of the most approved modern sanitary and prophylactic means, the chief of which are proper ventilation, drainage, and stable management.311

Peacetime requirements remained the prime focus for these draft regulations. They delineate tasks and responsibilities exclusively for Militia exercises and camps with no provisional wartime instructions. This does not belittle the value of veterinarians on Militia exercises, but demonstrates that the nascent veterinary services were envisaged to meet the demands of “service in time of peace.” Although it had yet to take official form, the Canadian Army’s Veterinary Department fell under the Quartermaster-General’s purview alongside the CASC and other supply units.312

It did not take long for this organizational process to slow down. In the years following

1902, the proposed Canadian Veterinary Department was discussed only in the most abstract sense.

More ink was spilled on expressing hope for the formation of such a service than vigorous action taken. For example, Dundonald wrote in his 1903 report to Sir Frederick Borden that “in view of the large increase to the Cavalry and Artillery, it is very desirable to establish an Army Veterinary

310 Massie, “With a View to the Organization of a Canadian Militia Veterinary Department,” 6. 311 Ibid. 312 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Department of Militia and Defence for the Dominion of Canada, Report for the Year Ended December 31 1903, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1904), 9. 97

Department.”313 Dundonald again wrote to Borden on 19 March 1904 “it is essential that a

Canadian Militia Veterinary Department be established.”314 A little less than a year later these organizational tasks still had yet to be completed. The Quartermaster General, Colonel Donald

McDonald, wrote in March 1905 that “no steps were taken” the previous year to officially form the Veterinary Department. However, he revised its incipient organization by proposing its headquarters consist of three PVOs for Quebec, Eastern Ontario and Western Ontario.315

The Militia Council officially endorsed this scheme on 17 April 1905. Major Massie was to be appointed PVO for Eastern Ontario, Major William Hall for Western Ontario, and Major

M.A. Piché for Quebec.316 In his annual report for 1905, Minister Borden wrote the Veterinary

Department “has been put on a better basis” by such appointments. With a consolidated command structure, “a marked improvement in this branch of the service may be looked for."317 By New

Year’s Day 1906, two veterinarians served in the Permanent Force and 32 in Militia units.318

Veterinarians in the Militia left their practices and government positions for roughly two weeks each summer for annual field exercises. The utility of an organized veterinary service became more and more apparent with the increase of horses “trained” in Militia exercises each

313 Department of Militia and Defence for the Dominion of Canada, Report for the Year Ended December 31 1903, 40. 314 The five regions were: 1 - Maritime Provinces, 2 – Province of Quebec, 3 – Eastern Ontario, 4 – Western Ontario, 5- Manitoba, North West Territories & British Columbia. Major-General the Earl of Dundonald to Minister of Militia, 19 March 1904. LAC RG 24 Vol. 6532, Folder H-Q 621-1 Vol. 1. 315 “Canadian Militia Veterinary Services,” March 1905. LAC RG 24 Vol. 6532, Folder H-Q 621-1 Vol. 1. 316 Hall and Massie were promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in May 1905 in recognition of their “long, faithful and efficient services.” Lieutenant-Colonel J. Lyons Biggar to The Accountant, Militia and Defence, 14 June 1905, and Lieutenant-Colonel J. Lyons Biggar to Adjutant General, 17 April 1905. LAC RG 24 Vol. 6532, Folder H-Q 621-1 Vol. 1. 317 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Annual Report of the Militia Council for the Dominion of Canada for the Year Ending December 31 1905, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1906), 26. 318 Canada. Militia Council. The Quarterly Militia List of the Dominion of Canada, Corrected to 1st January 1906, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1906), 16, 54, 81-110. The accelerated pace of these reforms was part-and-parcel with broader enthusiasm for the Militia and Sir Frederick Borden’s efforts to expand the Militia’s size and capabilities after 1902. See Wood, Militia Myths, 115-116. 98

year. In 1900, 2,610 horses were “trained” in Militia camps; by 1909 6,722 horses were brought on summer exercises.319 They were leased from civilian owners for $1.00 per diem and an assurance for financial recompense if the animal was injured from military activity.320 Regardless, veterinarians inspected all of these animals each year for their military suitability before they arrived in camp. They also treated injuries and suppressed disease outbreaks while animals remained in military custody. Kicks and rope burn accounted for the bulk of injuries on exercise, while influenza, colds, and pneumonia were among the more numerous infectious diseases.321

These introductions to military veterinary medicine could be challenging. Annual reports from Militia and Defence on summer exercises conveyed frustration over a somewhat lax standard of veterinary inspection in camp. In November 1904, the Earl of Dundonald noted that horses he inspected at some Militia camps “were not of as high a standard as they should have been.” He conceded that owners of good horses were not as likely to loan their quality stock for Militia exercises, but nevertheless insisted “it is the duty of the veterinary-officers to see that the horses brought to camp are fit to take the field and do the work expected of them.”322 Similarly, Borden wrote in 1905 that “occasionally horses are accepted and passed by veterinary officers as ‘fit’ that could not stand one day’s hard work under service conditions.” Again, the problem appears linked to poor quality animal specimens. Borden echoed Dundonald’s frustration with owners of valuable horses who “will not risk them in a camp where they are well aware there is not stable

319 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Department of Militia and Defence for the Dominion of Canada, Report for the Year Ended December 1900, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1901), 59, and Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of the Militia Council for the Dominion of Canada, for the Fiscal Year Ending March 31 1910, 100. 320 Ibid., 107. 321 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Annual Report of The Militia Council for the Dominion of Canada, for the Year Ending December 31, 1906, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1907), 21 322 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Department of Militia and Defence for the Dominion of Canada, Report for the Year Ended December 31 1904, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1905), 36. 99

accommodation.” Such owners consequently selected “comparatively worthless animals for training.”323 These problems were not easily resolved. Major-General Percy Lake, Inspector-

General of the Militia in 1910, again noted “the veterinary inspection of horses brought to camp is not as strict as it should be” and that “there ought to be far more rejections.”324

Such problems are not terribly surprising, for there was a considerable gulf between civilian and military veterinary medicine. Although the essential principles of large animal medicine and infectious disease control were gleaned through college education and civilian experience, newly-minted veterinary officers evidently could be swamped by inspecting hundreds of animals and assessing which ones were fit for summer exercises. Even still, it is apparent that sufficient good quality horses were difficult to secure, and Militia units needed some animals to bring artillery and cavalry units as close to establishment as possible. These veterinary officers were evidently caught between Scylla and Charybdis over which animals to reject and which ones to accept for training, though the regular criticisms from ranking officers suggests that some veterinary officers were not as diligent in their duties as they could be.

The transition between these working conditions was an invaluable part of Militia experience, however, and it is equally evident that the Veterinary Department was learning from its teething process. Borden claimed in 1906 that “the appointments of principal veterinary officers to Commands has worked well and produced very satisfactory results, both in reducing unfounded claims for damage to horses, and in conducing to the more rapid settlement of valid claims.”325

323 Annual Report of the Militia Council for the Dominion of Canada for the Year Ending December 31 1905, 40. 324 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of the Militia Council for the Dominion of Canada for the Fiscal Year Ending March 31 1910, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1910), 107. 325 Annual Report of The Militia Council for the Dominion of Canada, for the Year Ending December 31, 1906, 21. 100

Indeed, the Commandant of Coburg Camp reported in September 1906 that “the veterinary arrangements were good, few accidents and very little sickness among the horses in Camp.”326

By 1910, the Veterinary Department began to undergo further revisions to full Corps status.

This transition would transform the existing Canadian veterinary services from their tenuous state of organization to keep pace with the expanding Canadian Militia and more closely resemble the

AVC. Borden wrote in 1910 that “it is hoped soon to organize a Veterinary Corps for Canada” and that “the establishment of such a Corps will be most beneficial.”327 General Order 151 of

November 1910 formally authorized the Canadian Army Veterinary Service, but full details on this organized Veterinary Corps were not immediately forthcoming. Borden’s successor as

Minister of Militia and Defence, Sam Hughes, simply noted that a nucleus for both Permanent and

Militia Veterinary Services had “been organized” by March 1911.328

Full details on the structure and duties of the reformed veterinary service emerged in 1912.

That year, the Canadian Permanent Army Veterinary Corps (CPAVC) was officially brought on strength with a staff of four officers and four NCOs and Men.329 This new CPAVC was tiny but effectively served as the command staff for the Militia’s branch – the Canadian Army Veterinary

Corps. The senior CPAVC officer was responsible for administration of both the CPAVC and

CAVC, with a nominal strength of 100 officers and 250 Other Ranks.330 This organization fell short of introducing a Director-General post and continued to rely on PVOs as the main

326 Major W. Gwatkin, “Veterinary Arrangements in Camps of Instruction,” 29 June 1906. LAC RG 24 Vol. 6532, Folder H-Q 621-1 Vol. 1. 327 Report of the Militia Council for the Dominion of Canada for the Fiscal Year Ending March 31 1910, 22. 328 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of The Militia Council for the Dominion of Canada for the Year Ending March 31 1911, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1911), 12. 329 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of The Militia Council for the Dominion of Canada for the Fiscal Year Ending March 31 1912, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1912), 20. 330 Regimental Standing Orders of the Canadian Permanent Army Veterinary Corps and C.A.V.C, (Ottawa: Government Printing Bureau, 1912), 6-7. LAC RG 24 Vol. 22,021, and French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War 1914-1919, 250. 101

administrative officers. Nevertheless, the elevation to Corps status began the process of forming discrete veterinary units for the Militia. The antiquated regimental system was not immediately abolished, but within a few years it was effectively phased out by disallowing future regimental appointments.331 CAVC Sections were attached to Military Districts and Divisional command –

No. 1 through 6 Sections attached to the 1st through 6th Divisions and No. 10, 11, and 13 Sections for the corresponding Military Districts.332

The 1912 Regulations and Standing Orders for the CPAVC – which extended to the CAVC as well – were more geared towards wartime contingency than Massie’s draft regulations of 1902.

The Standing Orders stipulated that the CPAVC’s ultimate duty was to oversee “the treatment of all sick and injured animals, during peace and war, on such a methodical basis that the efficiency of the army may be thereby increased.”333 They noted that a “capable and organized department” was essential to care for sick and injured animals both in training camp and on campaign. The

Regulations stipulated that Executive Veterinary Officers were in charge of all veterinary hospital buildings, supplies, and sick horses while in camp. They were to liaise with Militia OCs to inspect all of a given unit’s animals and to search for any signs of infectious disease, and were specifically charged with administering mallein tests for all animals entering camp. The Regulations insisted that every officer be “a graduate of a recognized veterinary college,” and that they undergo a qualifying exam on routine duties and military law within a year of joining the Militia. Approved

331 Regulations for the Canadian Army Veterinary Service, (Ottawa: Government Printing Bureau, 1912), 3. LAC RG 24 Vol. 6532, Folder H-Q 621-3-7 Vol I. 332 1st Division encompassed southwestern Ontario, 2nd Division central Ontario, 3rd Division eastern Ontario, 4th Division Montreal, 5th Division Quebec City, 6th Division the Maritimes. Military District No. 10 was headquartered in Winnipeg, No. 11 in Victoria, and No. 13 encompassed Alberta. Repot of the Militia Council for the Dominion of Canada for the Fiscal Year Ending March 31 1913, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1914), 21-22. 333 Regimental Standing Orders of the Canadian Permanent Army Veterinary Corps and C.A.V.C, 5. 102

candidates were commissioned as Lieutenants, with promotion to Captain ineligible for five years, and another ten years to be promoted to Major.334

These Regulations and Standing Orders also placed a heavy emphasis on its officers to train and educate NCOs and Men on the practical aspects of animal care. Training syllabi in matters ranging from stable care, to bandaging wounds, to clerical methods were published in the Standing

Orders. They insisted that a batman, clerk, or storekeeper “must have been so trained that he is capable of taking his place as a nurse or a dresser in a veterinary hospital, and of rendering aid in cases of emergency.”335 Sergeant Farriers, the senior NCOs in charge of animal care, were similarly instructed on the fundamental principles of caring for sick horses, binding wounds, and proper shoeing techniques.336

These high standards of professionalism and efficiency were badly needed. Horsemanship

– knowledge on proper handling and care of horses – appears generally poor throughout the Militia in the early twentieth century. Major-General R. H. Haly, OC Canadian Militia in 1900, commented that at a Militia camp in Sussex, New Brunswick, he saw cavalry and artillery horses

“standing for forty-eight hours with saturated blankets and sleeping in pools of water.” He linked this maltreatment to the problems of securing high quality horses, noting that it “deters farmers from hiring their horses or bringing them to Camp.”337 Subsequent reports from Dundonald and

Borden similarly convey that misuse and “carelessness” were principal causes behind animal injuries and the expensive compensation payments to their owners.

334 Regulations for the Canadian Army Veterinary Service, 6-12, and 33. 335 Regimental Standing Orders of the Canadian Permanent Army Veterinary Corps and C.A.V.C, 6. 336 Regulations for the Canadian Army Veterinary Service, 31. 337 Department of Militia and Defence for the Dominion of Canada, Report for the Year Ended December 1900, 36. 103

The most scathing indictment of the Militia’s qualities came from the Inspector-General of the Militia in 1912, Major-General William Otter. Militia exercises for the summer of 1912 were the largest yet undertaken in Canada, with 48,213 All Ranks and 9,781 horses “trained” in camps.338 These sheer numbers highlighted a number of the endemic problems throughout the

Militia. In his November 1912 report to the Militia Council, Otter noted that training standards across the Militia were deficient, that “the number of totally unqualified officers in the force is large,” and that any “practical test” of martial skills was met by “humiliating ignorance.” Otter repeatedly denounced the “lack of horsemanship” amongst mounted officers, and that

“carelessness ruled in many camps, for the percentage of claims for [animal] disability was excessive.” Such careless acts involved wearing out horses by trotting and galloping “when the walk would suffice,” and cavalrymen remaining mounted on their horses for excessive periods of time. He further noted that many of the regimental farriers were “totally unqualified for the work,” and that “little attention has so far been paid” to their training.339

Otter was not so harshly critical of the CAVC but noted there was considerable room for improvement. Pursuant to the above observations on lax standards of horsemanship, Otter questioned “whether there is full appreciation of their duties by Veterinary Officers.” This rhetorical question was a fairly generalized criticism and was ultimately more a reference to quantitative rather than qualitative problems within the CAVC. Later in his report, Otter noted that

“apparent trouble arises in obtaining officers to complete the establishment, and many units in camp were therefore without veterinary aid.”340 Central to this deficiency of personnel was the

338 Repot of the Militia Council for the Dominion of Canada for the Fiscal Year Ending March 31 1913, 91. 339 Ibid., 95-98. 340Ibid., 104. 104

prolonged organization of the veterinary services. Despite the decade of planning and preparation for Canadian veterinary services, Otter noted that the CPAVC was still “in a state of organization,” and that organization of the Militia branch “has been somewhat tardy.” These remarks were not necessarily cause for anxiety, as Otter acknowledged that “the change from old to new conditions naturally presents difficulties which require careful consideration.”341

Otter’s assessment does not denigrate the professional qualities or capabilities of veterinary officers, but it does convey that the CAVC was still a work in progress. Obtaining sufficient numbers of veterinarians to serve in the Militia was evidently a recurring problem that was not completely resolved. In April 1912, there were only four officers in the CPAVC and 29 in the

CAVC, far below the authorized establishment of 100 officers.342 However, as of 30 June 1914 – two days after Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary was assassinated in Sarajevo – the

CAVC was closer to its nominal establishment. All told, 84 officers were on strength of the CAVC, the bulk being Lieutenants who only joined the Militia since 1912. However, only three such officers joined the Militia in 1914, and thus the overwhelming majority experienced at least two years’ worth of summer exercises.343

Senior leadership of the CAVC, on the other hand, underwent significant transformations immediately before the Great War. The original professional veterinary officers and grand old men of the service, Lieutenant-Colonels Hall and Massie, both retired on New Year’s Eve 1913.344

Their successor as PVO was Major W.J. Neill, a 1902 OVC graduate who only received his

341 Repot of the Militia Council for the Dominion of Canada for the Fiscal Year Ending March 31 1913, 104. 342 Canada. Militia Council. The Quarterly Militia List of the Dominion of Canada (Corrected to 1st April, 1912), (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1912), 110 and 302. 343 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. The Quarterly Militia List of the Dominion of Canada (Corrected to 30th June, 1914), (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1914), 118 and 322-323. 344 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of the Militia Council for the Dominion of Canada for the Fiscal Year Ending March 31 1914, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1915), 29-30. 105

Permanent Force commission on 1 January 1914.345 Neill was an old Militia acquaintance of the mercurial Minister of Militia and Defence, Sam Hughes, from their shared time in Ontario’s 45th

(West Durham) Battalion in the 1890s. Although Neill indeed possessed active service experience as VO to the 3rd Regiment CMR in South Africa, he did not serve again in the Canadian military until January 1914. His appointment was thus owed more to political connections than to the long seniority and experience mandated by CPAVC/CAVC Regulations.346 Neill’s inexperience in leadership and unfamiliarity with field service conditions, in contrast to many of his subordinates with experience on summer exercises, would become apparent over the course of the Great War.

In the summer of 1914, then, the CAVC’s state of organization was complete – even if its complement of officers was not fully up to establishment. Its “tardy” growth meant that the bulk of the officer corps was relatively new to military life just before the Great War. Although college education and civil employment would have equipped these officers with essential skills and knowledge, there was evidently still a difficult learning process in becoming truly effective military veterinarians.347 It was nevertheless crucial that the CAVC reached the apogee of its size and strength just as the July Crisis was unfolding. Service in the Militia provided an essential primer on military life for these part-time soldiers on everything from daily inspections of sick lines to sanitary requirements, bookkeeping, transportation, the proper chain of command, and inspection of animals leased for field exercises. The steadily increasing volume of veterinary

345 Ontario Veterinary College, Annual Announcement Session 1907-1908, 54. UG RE1 OVC A0024, and Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. The Quarterly Militia List of the Dominion of Canada (Corrected to 30th June, 1914), (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1914), 118. 346 Such appointments were symptomatic of Minister Sam Hughes’ repeated interference with personnel and administration in both the Permanent Force and Militia. See French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War 1914-1919, 99 and 262 n. 1, and Harris, Canadian Brass, Chapter 5. 347 These newly-minted Militia Lieutenants witnessed the first generational succession of their service, for the old original Veterinary-Surgeons, Lieutenant-Colonels Hall and Massie, both retired on New Year’s Eve 1913. Report of the Militia Council for the Dominion of Canada for the Fiscal Year Ending March 31 1914, 29-30. 106

officers – and a clear organizational structure – meant that the Department of Militia and Defence was better prepared to care for animals wounded by war in July 1914 than any previous period in

Canadian history. This peacetime organizational process and the lessons learned on militia exercises provided a number of officers with crucial military experience before they were thrust into the pressure of wartime service. Ultimately, all of the veterinary officers to receive high command postings at the divisional level and above in the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) served in the Militia or Permanent Force before June 1914.348

“A Decided Benefit to the Service”

When the Dominion of Canada went to war in August 1914, its provisions for military veterinary care reached their peak of preparation. Though barely established in time, there was indeed a “capable and organized department to which the care of all inefficient animals can be confided” that CPAVC Standing Orders mandated.349 This chapter demonstrated that this institutional consolidation grew from a number of overlapping factors.

Principal among these was a firm foundation in the civilian veterinary profession. The decades leading up to the Great War witnessed the steady growth of the Canadian veterinary profession and a maturation of domestic veterinary colleges. Graduates of Canadian veterinary colleges emerged capable of working both as practitioners of large animal medicine and as civil servants overseeing animal health on a grand scale. Although difficulties evidently arose amongst

348 The Quarterly Militia List of the Dominion of Canada (Corrected to 30th June, 1914), 118, 322-323, and “Nominal Roll. Officers. C.A.V.C. & Remount Department. Overseas Military Forces of Canada.” LAC RG 9 III-B- 1 Volume 3390 Folder R-191-45. 349 Regimental Standing Orders of the Canadian Permanent Army Veterinary Corps and C.A.V.C, 5. 107

some inexperienced veterinary officers on Militia exercises, their base of knowledge and expertise were essential preconditions for the formation of a competent Veterinary Corps.

Even with a growing pool of educated professionals to draw from, veterinary services in the British Empire did not receive major attention until after the South African War. The shocking animal wastage suffered by British Empire units largely stemmed from the inadequate veterinary complement of the British Army. The British themselves were caught totally off guard by the demands of animal care in a modern war, and the costly mistakes instigated a period of revision and reform in military animal care. Despite encountering difficulties in the consolidation process, the AVC was sufficiently prepared to accompany an expeditionary force overseas in August 1914.

The organization of what would be the CPAVC and CAVC mimicked the British experience, albeit on a smaller scale. For nearly a decade, the establishment of an independent

Canadian Veterinary Department was an exercise in abstract bureaucracy with little tangible gains to be shown for the eagerness and willingness to form a consolidated veterinary service.

Throughout this process of organization, veterinarians serving on Militia exercises received a fair amount of criticism for failing to weed out poor quality horses. Even still, these observations reflected more on horse owners’ reluctance to loan their quality stock – and a streak of carelessness by militiamen – than it did on the veterinarians themselves. The utility of effective veterinary services was evident at virtually every level of command, and by 1914, a practical foundation for such wartime services was established. What remained to be seen, ultimately, was whether the

CAVC would be able to adequately perform its duties in the midst of a war which rapidly spiralled out of control from the late summer of 1914 onward.

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Chapter Three – “Kindly Rush The Work:” Mobilization and Dispatch of the First Canadian Contingent, 1914 –15

“As a general thing remount horses selected at war time are not the best horses in the country, but they are almost invariably animals which are capable of doing a great amount of work.”350

-The Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine 13 August 1914

“In closing the month I cannot help commenting on the discouraging state of affairs, which finds us at the end of nearly four months of mobilization. Without having yet received the most necessary articles of our equipment, and with some of the articles which we have received so utterly useless for the work in hand. Poor horses, worse waggons, ill-fitting clothing boots of inferior quality, and many things besides too numerous to mention.”351

-Major Charles Adams Officer Commanding No. 1 Reserve Park 30 November 1914

The outbreak of the Great War in August 1914 immediately put the Dominion of Canada’s military animal capabilities to a stern test. The Department of Militia and Defence confronted the enormous task of procuring and managing thousands of horses as part of its overall effort to furnish a Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF). The decline of horses in civil society appeared momentarily stalled by the prospect of a limitless interest into Canadian remounts. The CAVC, too, received a new sense importance as it became responsible for thousands of animals’ health.

The CEF’s rapid mobilization in 1914 would readily expose the relative strengths – and weaknesses – of pre-war experiences in procuring, managing, and caring for military animals.

The significance of this period remains contentious among Canadian historians of the Great

War. Desmond Morton, Bill Rawling, and Kenneth Radley, for example, contend the 1st Canadian

350 “Horses May Be Needed,” The Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine Vol. XLIX No. 1142 (13 August 1914): 1455. 351 WD, No. 1 Reserve Park, Canadian Army Service Corps (CASC), 30 November 1914. LAC RG 9 III-D-3, Vol. 5023, Reel T-10908. 109

Division was “by no means well-trained” following its mobilization and subsequent training regimen from August 1914 to February 1915.352 Later works by Tim Cook and Andrew Iarocci argue, however, this period afforded vital opportunities for veteran Canadian personnel to build upon their pre-war experiences in South Africa or the Militia, or for the others to learn military skills for the first time. The Canadians were, in Cook’s words, “not starting at the bottom of the learning curve” by February 1915 following their mobilization and training.353

These months similarly proved crucial foundations of organizational and practical experience for the CAVC and its equine charges. Both immediately came to the fore of the mobilization process. Hasty efforts to equip an expeditionary force with sufficient draught, artillery, and riding horses placed enormous pressure on veterinary and remount personnel to procure, transport, and care for these animals within an exceedingly tight timeframe. The results, as will be illustrated below, were successful quantitatively but not always qualitatively. A necessity of fixed prices and hard deadlines proved volatile alongside unscrupulous horse dealers, and scandals erupted over some exceptionally poor horses bought for the CEF. Despite these problems, the First Contingent of the CEF dispatched to England in October 1914 disembarked with a full complement of animals that proved mostly suitable for military tasks. Aside from a few passages in Colonel Arthur Duguid’s Official History, and minor detail from Cecil French, this episode of

Canada’s remount history in the Great War remains noticeably unexamined by historians.354

352 Radley, We Lead, Others Follow, 69, Morton, When Your Number’s Up, 31, Rawling, Surviving Trench Warfare, 23, and Paul Dickson, “The End of the Beginning: The Canadian Corps in 1917,” in Geoffrey Hayes, Andrew Iarocci, Mike Bechthold, eds, Vimy Ridge: A Canadian Reassessment, (Waterloo: Laurier Centre for Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies and Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2007), 38. 353 Cook, At the Sharp End, 87-93, Iarocci, Shoestring Soldiers, 55. 354 Duguid, From the Outbreak of War to the Formation of the Canadian Corps, August 1914 – September 1915, 80- 83, and French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War 1914-1919, 4-6. Margaret Derry makes no reference to this significant mobilization of Canadian animals for the CEF at the outbreak of war. 110

The period of October 1914 to February 1915 was spent training in the sodden Salisbury

Plain of southern England. This time afforded invaluable experience for gunners, cavalrymen, supply personnel, and the high command to practice managing and caring for military animals under their charge. Similarly, the winter at Salisbury allowed for a critical period of reorganization and training for CAVC personnel before their skills would be tested on the front lines. By the time the 1st Canadian Division prepared to sail for France in February 1915, it was equipped with animals capable of strenuous service, practical knowledge of horse management, and the requisite infrastructure to properly care for animals in the field.

This chapter will illustrate that the mobilization and dispatch of the First Contingent of the

Canadian Expeditionary Force was a hectic – even chaotic – process of procuring, transporting, and training military animals. It nevertheless concurs with Cook and Iarocci’s claims to argue this period provided crucial learning, drilling, organization, and preparation for active service on the front lines. The experiences of both soldiers and veterinary personnel in the Militia detailed in previous chapters provided a crucial foundation of knowledge for dealing with such tasks.

However, extensive training would still prove necessary martial experience before Canadian forces were ready for combat.

CEF Mobilization

Canada’s entry into the Great War on 4 August 1914 caught the country by surprise. Prime

Minster Sir Robert Borden was enjoying a leisurely vacation in Muskoka, Ontario, as tensions between the European Great Powers boiled over into war on 28 July. He stated in his memoirs that news of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary by a Bosnian Serb on

28 June “had been alarming,” but that “none, I imagine, believed that the situation would develop,

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with such startling suddenness, into a war.” 355 The course of the July Crisis continues to receive significant historical attention and need not be fully repeated here.356 Suffice it to say that alliances between Austria-Hungary and Germany, France and Russia, and Great Britain’s defence of

Belgian neutrality, pulled these powers into conflict in late July and early August. Without an independent foreign policy of its own, the Dominion of Canada automatically followed Great

Britain into war against Germany and Austria-Hungary on 4 August.357

Dispatch of Canadian troops to assist Britain was being contemplated even before war was formally declared. On 1 August Governor-General Prince Arthur, the Duke of Connaught, cabled

Lewis Harcourt, Secretary of State for the Colonies, that “my Advisors are anxiously considering the most effective means of rendering every possible aid.” By 6 August, Harcourt wrote back that

“His Majesty’s Government gratefully accept offer of your Ministers to send expeditionary force,” and it would be much appreciated “if it could be despatched as soon as possible.” The next day

Harcourt claimed “one division would be suitable composition of an expeditionary force.” 358 An

Order in Council of 10 August 1914, conforming to pre-existing plans for such an expeditionary force, set the strength at 25,000 men – including 136 officers and men of the CAVC.359

355 Sir Robert Borden, Robert Laird Borden: His Memories, Volume I, ed. Henry Borden (Toronto: The Macmillan Company of Canada Limited, 1938), 450-451. 356 The years leading up to July 2014 produced a number of works on the July Crisis by prominent historians. Sean McMeekin’s July 1914: Countdown to War, (New York: Basic Books, 2013) offers a kinetic – if popular – overview of the diplomatic machinations behind the unfolding crisis and imparts the importance of human agency in the chain of events which precipitated a diplomatic crisis into a global conflict. Other recent works include Margaret MacMillan, The War that Ended Peace: The Road to 1914 (New York: Random House, 2013), which takes a broader scope to look at diplomatic relations in the years leading up to the Great War, and Michael Neiberg, Dance of the Furies: Europe and the Outbreak of World War I, (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2011) which examines popular reactions amongst European states to both the July Crisis and the outbreak of war. 357 Stacey, Canada and the Age of Conflict, 172-177. 358 Prince Arthur to Lewis Harcourt, 1 August 1914, Harcourt to Prince Arthur, 6 August 1914, in Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Documents Relative to the European War Comprising Orders in Council, Cablegrams, Correspondence, and Speeches Delivered in Imperial House of Commons, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1914), 41-44. 359 Documents Relative to the European War, 26, and Duguid, From the Outbreak of War to the Formation of the Canadian Corps, August 1914 – September 1915, 3 and 23. 112

However, little of the subsequent assembly and formation of this Canadian Expeditionary

Force would proceed according to plan. Minister of Militia and Defence Colonel Sam Hughes infamously ignored the existing mobilization scheme for a 25,000-man expeditionary force as drafted by Colonel Willoughby Gwatkin in 1911. This scheme delegated recruitment responsibility to each of Canada’s military districts and divisional areas.360 Horses for such an expeditionary force – 5,030 for an infantry division plus 2,234 for additional cavalry and support units – were to similarly be purchased by committees in each of these districts and divisional areas. Divisional

Officers Commanding were responsible for appointing and coordinating these committees, which were to be done partially by the Militia units and partially by the District command itself.361 On 6

August, Hughes bypassed these regional commands and issued mobilization orders directly to 226

Militia unit commanders to begin recruitment without regard to the 1911 scheme.362

Existing plans to procure horses for the expeditionary force were likewise discarded for an entirely new approach. Rather than rest upon a decentralized scheme for buying horses, authority would rest predominately upon one figure: Major William J. Neill, who had only served for eight months in his billet as Principal Veterinary Officer to both the CPAVC and CAVC. Nevertheless, he was appointed both the Director of Veterinary Services and chief remount purchasing officer for the CEF with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.363 In a stark contrast to the decentralized structure

360 Stephen Harris conveys that this decentralized approach held several advantages. Regiments and batteries raised from localities across the country would conceivably benefit from a more focused recruitment and procurement process whereby units “could rely upon friends, families, and local suppliers for some of their necessaries until the general procurement system was in order.” Furthermore, local district commanders knew their subordinates well from annual militia exercises and could help direct training when all of these disparate units gathered at Camp Petawawa. See Harris, Canadian Brass, 94-95 and Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 14. 361 Mobilization Regulations (Provisional), 1913, 11. 362 Duguid, From the Outbreak of War to the Formation of the Canadian Corps, August 1914 – September 1915, 20- 21. 363 “Report on the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps,” 7 June 1919, Page 1. LAC RG 9 III-B-1, Vol. 3389, Folder R- 156-45, Duguid, From the Outbreak of War to the Formation of the Canadian Corps, August 1914 – September 1915, 81, and French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War 1914-1919, 99. 113

of the pre-war mobilization scheme, Neill would thus centrally direct procurement of remounts for the CEF from the Department of Militia and Defence Headquarters in Ottawa.

He faced a mammoth task and a hard deadline. Neill mandated that all of the roughly 7,500 horses required for the expeditionary force be in, or at least en route, to the marshalling area at

Valcartier Camp by 28 August.364 Not every horse would have to be purchased, as some units arrived in Valcartier with at least a portion of their animals as part of existing unit establishments.

For example, the officers, men, and guns of the Permanent Force’s Royal Canadian Horse Artillery

(RCHA) arrived at Valcartier along with 178 of their horses.365 A further 220 horses that would eventually be dispatched overseas with the First Contingent would be drawn from other Permanent

Force units, for a gross total of 398 federally-owned horses.366 Colonel Arthur Duguid’s Official

History also notes that some Militia artillery units purchased horses at their point of mobilization and brought them to Valcartier. However, he does not state which units proceeded, or how many horses were purchased, in this fashion.367 The Department of Militia and Defence, however, possessed only this tiny reserve of animals. Virtually all of the remaining horses required for this expeditionary force had to be found, bought, and shipped to Valcartier quickly. For as Adjutant-

364 Lt. Colonel W.J. Neill to Principal Veterinary Officer 1st Division, 21 August 1914. UG RE1 OVC A0296 Box 4 File 4. 365 There appears to be considerable confusion on this figure. Colonel T.D.R. Hemming, OC 3rd Divisional Area, initially reported that the RCHA arrived in Valcartier with a full complement of 442 horses. However, in his testimony to the Public Accounts Committee in 1915, Major E.E. Clarke, the Assistant Director of Supply and Transport, commented of the RCHA that “they never had 442 horses in their history” and arrived at Valcartier with only 175 horses. However, Appendix 82 in the 1938 Official History lists the RCHA as arriving with 178 horses. It is unclear why this discrepancy exists, and with no other sources to corroborate Clarke’s testimony, the Official History’s tally will be given in this account. See Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Evidence Taken Before the Public Accounts Committee During the Session 1915, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1915), 546, and Appendix 82: “First Arrivals, Valcartier Camp, 1914,” in Official History of the Canadian Forces in the Great War 1914-1919 General Series Volume I: From the Outbreak of War to the Formation of the Canadian Corps, August 1914 – September 1915, Chronology, Appendices and Maps, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1938), 48. 366 Evidence Taken Before the Public Accounts Committee During the Session 1915, 546. 367 Duguid, From the Outbreak of War to the Formation of the Canadian Corps, August 1914 – September 1915, 81. 114

General Colonel Victor Williams stated in general mobilization orders of 17 August, “units which do not receive their horses at places of assembly will receive them at Valcartier.”368

Neill set to work quickly. He appointed small committees comprised of a purchasing officer and veterinary officer from the Militia. In the event of a CAVC officer being unavailable, civil veterinary surgeons could be employed for $1 per visit.369 Duguid notes that a total of fifty

Militia officers and five civilians comprised these committees, formed in all regions of the country.370 They inspected animals for soundness, physical deficiencies, age, or other factors that might hinder their performance on active service. Posters advertising buying locations and the dates of the committee’s visit to different localities were posted in each district:

MILITARY HORSES WANTED

1. Riding Horses Age 5 to 8 years, height 15 to 16 hands, weight 1,000 to 1,150 pounds.

2. Artillery Horses Age 5 to 8 years, height 15 to 16 hands, weight 1,050 to 1,250 pounds

3. Draught Horses. Age 5 to 8 years, height 15-2 to 16 hands, weight 1,250 to 1,400 pounds.

Colours. Bays, browns, black, chestnuts, roans (no greys or whites)

All horses must be sound and of good conformation, free from blemishes and broken to harness or saddle.”

Horses will be inspected at ______on ______

By Authority of Lt.-Colonel W.J. Neill

368 Appendix 60: Colonel Victor Williams, “Administrative Staff: No. 372 – Mobilization for Overseas Service,” 17 August 1914, in From the Outbreak of War to the Formation of the Canadian Corps, August 1914 – September 1915, Chronology, Appendices and Maps, 44. 369 Sir Charles Davidson, Report of the Commissioner on Purchase of Horses in Nova Scotia for First Canadian Contingent, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1917), 8. 370 Duguid, From the Outbreak of War to the Formation of the Canadian Corps, August 1914 – September 1915, 81. 115

Remount Officer371

In order to keep track of the pace of procurement, Neill ordered each of these committees to dispatch daily reports by wire on the number of horses they bought to the Remount Department in

Ottawa. On 21 August he ordered them to ensure their total purchases remained under an average price limit of $175.00 per head. This price ceiling immediately became public knowledge and was reported in the press that same day. 372 Mr. John Fraser, Auditor General of Canada, described how the overall funding process worked for Eastern Canada:

the Militia Department placed an account in the Bank of Montreal from time to time large sums, $100,000, and they had some arrangement with the bank…whereby all these parties mentioned in this list…as purchasers could draw cheques all against the one account…I understand they were all to be signed by the purchaser and by the veterinary surgeon.373

Horses in Western Canada – “Winnipeg and other Western points” – were paid for directly by Pay

Department funds.374 Neill dispatched these chequebooks from Ottawa to the various heads of regional purchasing commissions, who in turn distributed them to individual remount purchasing agents. These cheques – issued for as many horses purchased in a transaction, whether one or thirty

– formed the only records of transaction for these animal purchases.375

The initial phase of purchasing involved officers canvassing their districts for suitable remounts. Some of these officers immediately sought to re-establish connections with sources of

371 Italics in each of these cases are from the original. Davidson, Report of the Commissioner on Purchase of Horses in Nova Scotia for First Canadian Contingent, 14. 372 Davidson, Report of the Commissioner on Purchase of Horses in Nova Scotia for First Canadian Contingent, 8, Lt. Colonel W.J. Neill to Principal Veterinary Officer 1st Division, 21 August 1914. UG RE1 OVC A0296 Box 4 File 4, and “War Horses Cost $175: Maximum Price Offered,” The Globe, 21 August 1914, Page 5. 373 Evidence Taken Before the Public Accounts Committee During the Session 1915, 423. 374 Lieut-Col Neill to Major E. Clarke, 26 September 1914, “Horses General Correspondence Valcartier Camp.” LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3377, Folder H-128-45. 375 Evidence Taken Before the Public Accounts Committee During the Session 1915, 417. 116

supply from the Boer War. Lieutenant-Colonel A.B. Petrie, Officer Commanding (OC) the

Militia’s 1st Brigade, Canadian Field Artillery (CFA) wrote from Guelph, Ontario, on 7 August that “I was only able to-day to get in touch with the man who bought most of the horses” for the

South African war. He further noted that this buyer “can guarantee 300 Horses suitable for Military

Purposes in 2 weeks time.”376 Similarly, Lieutenant W.F. Clark, VO to the 31st Battery CFA, wrote from Goderich, Ontario, on 19 August that after “looking into this horse business very closely this

[sic] last few days…I find we have quite a number workable for military purposes.” Clark added that “we supplied quite a number [of horses] from this Section for South Africa some years ago &

I think we could supply some good ones now.”377

Initial reactions in the press to the prospective remount purchasing activities were likewise positive – even excited – based largely upon memories of the Boer War. The Globe reported as early as 4 August that “arrangements are being made to collect 30,000 horses in Canada should

England have need of them in the war.” It noted that horses capable of serving as cavalry remounts,

“produced by farmers and small breeders all over Canada,” were presently “in great demand.”378

Indeed, as in the Boer War, the chief expectation amongst members of the press and farmers alike was that the British Army would provide the chief source of business for remount purchasing for the expanding conflict. The Bellevue Times reported on 21 August 1914 that “Alberta, as happened during the Boer War, will be able to supply Britain with several thousand remounts of the hardiest type.”379 Such excitement over the activities of the British Remount Commission – which will be

376 Lt-Col. AB Petrie Note, 7 August 1914. UG RE1 OVC A0296 Box 4 File 4. 377 Lieut W.F. Clark to Col. Hodgens, 19 August 1914. UG RE1 OVC A0296 Box 4 File 4. It is unclear how many horses were purchased using such connections from 1899-1902, but memories of these business relationships were not always positive. As will be discussed shortly, Neill was reluctant to appoint local authorities to purchase remounts in Nova Scotia apparently because of friction encountered with local dealers in the Boer War. 378 “Cavalry Remounts Available in Canada,” The Globe, 4 August 1914, Page 1. 379 “Alberta Has Best Remounts,” The Bellevue Times, 21 August 1914, Page 1. 117

discussed in Chapter Four – was premature, for the Commission did not officially open its headquarters in Toronto until 27 August.380 Indeed, the Farmer’s Advocate noted on 20 August that “our officials are only authorized to buy…to fill the requirements of the Canadian contingent which is to be sent to the front.” It reassured its readers that “good but not extravagant prices will be paid” by the Government as Canadian remount officers began to search for suitable remounts.381

However, these initial activities proceeded too slowly for Neill. He wrote in a circular letter to remount committees on 21 August that “the number of horses being purchased per day has not reached the average number per day that are required.” He insisted that “the work of purchasing must be rushed, as it is required that all mounted units be on their way to Valcartier by the 28th instant.”382 Indeed, it appears that despite enthusiastic newspaper reports the first few days of remount purchasing proceeded sluggishly, even in major livestock exchanges. The Farmer’s

Advocate noted on 20 August that “there was absolutely nothing of any consequence doing on the horse market” at the Toronto Stock Yards. Similarly, in Montreal, horse dealers declared “they have not experienced any demand for the remounts referred to in the newspapers,” although they anticipated busy activities soon.383 Neill’s tactic was to appoint more purchasing and veterinary officials – either civil or military – to make good the shortfall by the deadline. The additional personnel were to “canvass outlying districts for horses” and to travel as much as possible to

380 “Buying Up Horses For War Service,” The Globe, 27 August 1914, Page 7. 381 “Horses for the War,” The Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine Vol XLIX No. 1143 (20 August 1914), 1494. 382 Lt. Colonel W.J. Neill to Principal Veterinary Officer 1st Division, 21 August 1914. UG RE1 OVC A0296 Box 4 File 4. 383 “Toronto Horse Market” and “Montreal,” The Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine Vol XLIX No. 1143 (20 August 1914), 1495. 118

maximize contact with interested sellers.384 He requested of Colonel W.E. Hodgins, OC 1st

Divisional Area, to “kindly rush the work” of appointing such officials on 22 August.385

The tempo of purchasing of remounts for the CEF dramatically increased thereafter. These commissions managed to procure a significant number of animals for the force gathering at

Valcartier within an exceedingly tight timeframe. Some of them involved relatively small numbers of horses. Lieutenant-Colonel H.F. McLeod of the Militia’s 71st York Regiment based in

Fredericton, New Brunswick, purchased 77 horses for $44,012. This averaged to $225.70 per animal – greatly exceeding the $175 limit set by Neill.386 Generally speaking, larger horses required for heavy draught work such as Shires or Percherons entailed far higher prices. They could fetch $275 to $325 per head, while smaller mixed-breed light draught specimens generally garnered $125 to $175 per head. 387 An overabundance of heavy draught animals could conceivably drive up the price in such a small sample group as McLeod’s purchases. At the same time, larger- scale purchasing operations generally worked within the price constraints, oftentimes with the average being balanced out by an abundance of light draught horses. For example, Major-General

Francois-Louis Lessard, the General Officer Commanding (GOC) 2nd Divisional Area (Central

Ontario) and decorated commander of the Royal Canadian Dragoons (RCD) in South Africa, purchased 850 horses in Toronto for $145,551 - slightly below the limit at $171.24 on average.388

The ceiling on prices proved to be a source of frustration for purchasing officers and horse dealers alike. Purchasing officers were allowed to exceed the limit for desirable individual specimens, but there was considerable pressure to keep the average under the price cap of $175.

384 Davidson, Report of the Commissioner on Purchase of Horses in Nova Scotia for First Canadian Contingent, 9. 385 Lt. Colonel W.J. Neill to Colonel W.E. Hodgins, 22 August 1914. UG RE1 OVC A0296 Box 4 File 4. 386 Evidence Taken Before the Public Accounts Committee During the Session 1915, 418. 387 “Montreal,” The Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine Vol XLIX No 1145 (3 September 1914), 1575. 388 Evidence Taken Before the Public Accounts Committee During the Session 1915, 418-419. 119

The Globe commented on 21 August that $175 would “exclude animals of high quality.”

Nevertheless it affirmed that such a price would “provide for the acquisition of horses well above the average.”389 The Globe’s reporting in this regard was optimistic but ultimately not indicative of prevailing sentiments amongst dealers. This price was broadly considered to be the lower end for decent-quality work horses, and although thousands of animals were certainly procured for the

CEF during these few weeks, dealers were often reluctant to part with their best stock for such mediocre prices. The Farmer’s Advocate wrote on 27 August that dealers at the Montreal Stock

Yards “understood that orders were received from the Canadian Government not to pay more [than

$175] for any kind of horse.” Consequently, the Advocate commented, “a number of dealers paid no further attention to the matter” of remounts for the CEF. Such dealers broadly considered $200 per head to be a more reasonable price and evidently withheld their prime stock from Canadian purchasing agents.390 The Advocate again reported on 3 September that although Canadian remount purchasers in Montreal “were able to obtain quite a few horses,” the “dealers are of the opinion that they could not have been of very good quality at the price mentioned.”391

This combination of a tight deadline and a comparatively low ceiling on average prices meant that poor quality animals almost inevitably slipped through the screening process. There was very little oversight on each of these individual operations outside of the authority of the purchasing officer and accompanying veterinarian. Neill’s urgent insistence on quotas being met exacted significant pressure on these committees to meet their designated target numbers of horses, and a number of shortcuts were taken to achieve these ends.

389 “War Horses Cost $175: Maximum Price Offered,” The Globe, 21 August 1914, Page 5. 390 “Montreal,” The Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine Vol XLIX No 1144 (27 August 1914), 1526. 391 “Montreal,” 1575. 120

The most notorious purchasing operation in this regard – and well-documented for reasons which will shortly become apparent – was the procurement of remounts in Nova Scotia. On 26

August Neill telephoned Mr. Arthur de Witt Foster, Member of Parliament (MP) for King’s

County (Nova Scotia) and asked him help purchase roughly 800 horses from Nova Scotia.392 A day before his official appointment, Foster wrote to Neill and succinctly articulated the crux of the problems which would plague the purchase of remounts in the province:

In the first place, the time is far too short, and the price, which must not exceed $172 on the average, is entirely too low, considering the fact that we will have to purchase as nearly as we can heavy draught horses, which command a high price in Nova Scotia, and also artillery horses, which I do not anticipate can be purchased for the average price you mention.

Nevertheless, Foster accepted his position with the understanding of “no remuneration of any kind or nature” for his services and that the work would “in no wise affect my standing as a member of

Parliament.”393 Neill also appointed several private businessmen to work under Foster to perform the principal work of inspecting and purchasing remounts at various locales.394 One of the key veterinary officials accompanying these activities was Lieutenant G.R. Chipman. He graduated from OVC in 1913, was VO to the 14th King’s Canadian Hussars, and a civil veterinary practitioner in Kentville, Nova Scotia when war broke out.395

392 Davidson, Report of the Commissioner on Purchase of Horses in Nova Scotia for First Canadian Contingent, 4- 6. 393 Davidson, Report of the Commissioner on Purchase of Horses in Nova Scotia for First Canadian Contingent, 5. 394 War Contract Scandals as Investigated by the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons Ottawa, 1915, (Ottawa: Central Information Office of the Canadian Liberal Party, 1915). Ley and Lois Smith War, Memory and Popular Culture Research Collection, Western University, London, Ontario, 8-9, and Davidson, Report of the Commissioner on Purchase of Horses in Nova Scotia for First Canadian Contingent, 4-6. 395 Ontario Veterinary College, The Ontario Veterinary College Calendar, 1915-1916, 55. UG RE1 OVC A0024, and The Quarterly Militia List of the Dominion of Canada (Corrected to 30th June, 1914), 134 and Davidson, Report of the Commissioner on Purchase of Horses in Nova Scotia for First Canadian Contingent, 5. 121

Between 31 August and 5 September a total of 428 horses were purchased across Nova

Scotia – 218 Riding, 120 Artillery, and 90 Draught horses.396 This brisk pace of work meant that rigorous inspection of horses proved exceptionally difficult. Inspecting horses for age, soundness, eyesight, broken wind, and physical deficiencies such as bone spavins or sprung knees, could ostensibly take as long as 24 hours under peacetime conditions. Chipman later estimated that “if I was examining 5 or 6 in an hour I was working pretty fast,” and one day claimed to examine between 70 and 80 horses in just six to seven hours.397 Each horse Chipman cleared for service was paid for by Government cheque and shipped off to Valcartier.

With such a fast pace of work, some unacceptable specimens were bound to slip through the loose screening process. Even still, it appears that there were several instances of active duplicity on the part of unscrupulous dealers. Such dealers aware of the critical needs of the CEF, the short time constraints, and the $175 price ceiling imposed by the Government, saw these purchasing committees as perfect opportunities to dispense of their poor quality stock at a handsome profit. For example in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Mr. J.H. Whitman sold the Government a horse for $160 – approved by Chipman – that was previously rejected for service in the South

African War. By 1914, it was nineteen years old, more than twice the acceptable age limit imposed by Neill. In Halifax Mr. Charles N. Butcher similarly managed to sell a nineteen-year-old horse for $100, ironically sold off by the military as unfit for service during the Boer War.398

Perhaps the most unscrupulous of these dealers was Mr. A.B. Harvey of King’s County,

Nova Scotia. Harvey was a civilian butcher with a part-time interest in horse dealing and

396 Evidence Taken Before the Public Accounts Committee During the Session 1915, 847. 397 Ibid., 825-826. 398 Davidson, Report of the Commissioner on Purchase of Horses in Nova Scotia for First Canadian Contingent, 23. 122

committed some of the most blatant cases of duplicity by a horse dealer in the First World War.

One horse he sold the Government was barely able to walk – “crawling along” when marketed to the remount officials – and was approximately twenty years old. Harvey sold the animal as a remount for $130. When pressed by a Public Accounts Committee investigation in April 1915,

Harvey conceded that he did not think the animal was worth $75.399 Harvey made a tidy profit on another animal sold for $90 which he had previously traded for a drake and two ducks.400 Perhaps the worst of the animals sold by Mr. Harvey was an animal he knew to be at least thirty years old that fetched $90. When asked by Mr. Edgar Nelson Rhodes, Conservative MP for Cumberland

(Nova Scotia), whether Harvey “sold them knowing mens’ lives could depend on them,” Harvey replied that “they would not depend on them for very long.” Harvey’s reasoning was that the horses

“would not get very far” in their military careers and agreed to Rhodes’s claim that “they were so defective…they were not suited for military purposes.”401 A brief exchange between Mr. Rhodes and Mr. Harvey on 7 April 1915 illustrates the rationale behind such underhanded transactions:

Rhodes: “What do you say, knowing that the ages were mentioned in that poster, and the horses which you sold were very many years over the age named in that poster, don’t you think your action in selling these horses was reprehensible, to say the least of it, when they were not sound and in condition?”

Harvey: “What are you picking me out for? That is the kind they bought from everybody.”402

Harvey’s testimony before the Public Accounts Committee’s War Appropriation Expenditure investigation caused a considerable stir. Mr. William Nickle, MP for Kingston (Ontario) remarked that “the whole country has been astounded by Mr. Harvey’s evidence.”403 A Liberal Party

399 Evidence Taken Before the Public Accounts Committee During the Session 1915, 590-592. 400 Ibid., 601. 401 Ibid., 600. 402 Ibid., 593. 403 Ibid., 897. 123

publication on “War Contract Scandals” committed by the Conservative Government pivoted upon

Harvey’s actions as evidence of extreme mismanagement in the procurement of war materials.404

Mr. Frank Carvell, MP for Carleton (New Brunswick), remarked to Arthur Foster – a fellow MP

– that such activities were “the most contemptible steal ever put on in Canada.”405

The Public Accounts Committee investigation found the above activities to be “of such an unsatisfactory character that further investigation and action are necessary.” 406 A Royal

Commission under Sir Charles Davidson was appointed to investigate them extensively. In 1917

Davidson’s report Purchase of Horses in Nova Scotia for First Canadian Contingent was published and offered revealing insights into how such shocking transgressions could occur.

Davidson’s investigation concluded that of the 428 horses ostensibly bought by Foster’s subordinates, cheques for only 383 animals could be verified. Of these, 60 were over the age of twelve and “ought to have been rejected for unsoundness.”407 Davidson ruled out bribery or horse- switching – swapping out good quality mounts for the old or infirm after purchase – as being responsible for the inability of veterinarians like Chipman to weed out such horses.

Davidson placed the onus of the blame on unscrupulous dealers and the immense time pressures of delivering remounts for the CEF with less than a week. Indeed, in explaining his controversial actions, Harvey claimed that “the veterinary…knows his business…if he says he will take [the horse] for so much money he takes him.”408 The Commissioner concluded that Chipman

“was not guilty of taking a bribe” in passing such terribly unfit horses, and that “he was not strong

404 War Contract Scandals as Investigated by the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons Ottawa, 1915, 9-13. 405 Evidence Taken Before the Public Accounts Committee During the Session 1915, 854. 406 Ibid., 911. 407 Davidson, Report of the Commissioner on Purchase of Horses in Nova Scotia for First Canadian Contingent, 21. 408 Evidence Taken Before the Public Accounts Committee During the Session 1915, 597. 124

enough in resolution to resist the influences of neighbourhood and the devices of unscrupulous vendors.” “It is fair to add,” Davidson continued, “that he was under great pressure as to time.”409

Sterner judgment was reserved for financial accounting. Two men who purchased a number of these animals, Messers Todd Woodworth and F.B. Keever, were found to have discrepancies of

$2,224 and $2,968 respectively. Davidson let the matter sit as a financial discrepancy rather than tangible instances of corruption. He considered that Foster, as chief remount officer for Nova

Scotia, was “weak in administration and grievously so in financial supervision and methods.”410

Shortly after the Public Affairs Committee investigation, Prime Minister Borden expelled Foster from Conservative Party Caucus – one of only two MPs to be so punished for inappropriate procurement activities. On 28 April 1915, Foster resigned his seat in Parliament.411

The case of purchasing in Nova Scotia was not the biggest remount procurement operation in Canada during August-September 1914 but it was certainly the most notorious. It was easily the best-documented due to the numerous improprieties and brazen instances of war profiteering on the part of horse dealers. When asking Mr. Spurgeon Selfridge to assess the qualities of his associate Mr. Harvey – in an exchange that grew increasingly strained as Selfridge refused to impugn Harvey – Nickle asked whether Selfridge was speaking “as a horse man or an honest man?”412 This dichotomy is not necessarily broadly representative, for there were far more cases of honest dealing than deliberate attempts to cheat the Government. However, it does help illustrate how the term “horse trading” continues to connote dishonest and underhanded business transitions.

409 Davidson, Report of the Commissioner on Purchase of Horses in Nova Scotia for First Canadian Contingent, 33. 410 Ibid., 33. 411 Brown and Cook, Canada 1896-1921, 234-235, and War Contract Scandals as Investigated by the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons Ottawa, 1915, 8. 412 Evidence Taken Before the Public Accounts Committee During the Session 1915, 897. 125

These horses from Nova Scotia would not be the only poor-quality specimens purchased for the CEF. Between mid-August 1914 and the embarkation of the First Contingent in late

September, 8,562 horses were shipped to Valcartier Camp – 8,164 of them purchased by these committees.413 A Board of Officers investigation of 19 September 1914 at Valcartier chaired by

Lieutenant-Colonel H.A. Panet of the RCHA found that 291 horses were unfit for active service due to “a) Under age, b) Over age, c) Permanent defects and injuries.”414 By the time the First

Contingent sailed for England in late September, 481 horses purchased for service in the CEF

(5.6% of the gross total) were sold at auction in Quebec for an average price of $53.74 per head – a net loss of $57,100. Combined with another 151 horses that were unable to be accounted for after the departure of the First Contingent, financial difficulties of remount purchasing cost the

Canadian public $83,139.415

Such improprieties, oversights, and mismanagement were unfortunately part of the overall mobilization process. The procurement of remounts was only one example of necessary war materiél procurement that was marred by controversy. Better-known cases of war misappropriations were the MacAdam Shield-Shovel with a rifle loophole in the blade, poor quality boots that disintegrated in mud, and ill-fitting Oliver harness equipment.416 Similarly, the jam-prone Ross Rifle – championed by Hughes – caused lingering controversy both on and off the battlefield for almost two years.417 The purchasing of remounts for the First Contingent was

413 Evidence Taken Before the Public Accounts Committee During the Session 1915, 546. 414 Board of Officers Proceedings at Remount Depot, Valcartier, 19 September 1914. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3377, Folder H-128-45. 415 War Contract Scandals as Investigated by the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons Ottawa, 1915, 8. These figures are corroborated by Major-General Sam Hughes’ testimony in Parliament on 22 February 1915. Debates, 12th Parliament, 5th Session, Vol. 1 (22 February 1915), 315. 416 See Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 26-27. 417 Granatstein, Canada’s Army, 60, Duguid, From the Outbreak of War to the Formation of the Canadian Corps, August 1914 – September 1915, 497-98, and Cook, At the Sharp End, 50-52, 312-314. 126

certainly scandalous, but was part and parcel with other equally egregious cases of patronage and borderline corruption.

The fact remains that Neill’s purchasing committees were able to procure and assemble the largest number of horses for a single overseas force to that point in Canadian history. Writing on

Hughes and William Price’s organization of Valcartier Camp, historian Terry Copp considered that “it is impossible not to be impressed with what…[was] accomplished in just seven weeks.”418

Copp’s statement could just as easily apply to the hasty mobilization of Canadian horseflesh for the war effort in the summer of 1914. Indeed, that Neill and other remount officials orchestrated the purchase of 8,164 animals from across the country and concentrated them at Valcartier over the span of just a few weeks – without regard to the pre-existing mobilization framework – was a truly remarkable feat. The necessity of purchasing so many horses over such a small timeframe with little advanced preparation created a situation in which unsuitable horses were bound to slip through a loose screening process.

The overwhelming bulk of the horses bought for the First Contingent were at least satisfactory for the working tasks required of them. An investigation into the state of Canadian remounts conducted by Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Duncan McRae – a Vancouver real estate millionaire and director of remount purchasing in Western Canada from December 1914 onwards419 – found the quality of remounts amongst the First Contingent to be adequate. He wrote to Hughes in July 1915 that the horses dispatched the previous October were “open to criticism as not being quite heavy enough for the work required.” Nevertheless, they “stood exposure better”

418 Terry Copp, “The Military Effort, 1914-1918,” in David Mackenzie, ed., Canada and the First World War: Essays in Honour of Robert Craig Brown, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 37. 419 Betty O’Keefe and Ian Macdonald, Merchant Prince: The Story of Alexander Duncan McRae, (Surrey: Heritage House Publishing Company, 2001), 88 and 92. 127

than a number of English heavy draught horses and experienced “less wastage.” He found these original horses to be kept “in excellent condition” and the front and concluded that “every

Canadian unit in the service wants Canadian horses.”420 McRae’s report illustrates that while the stock purchased in August-September 1914 was not optimal for military working tasks – and far from the best Canada had to offer – they were apparently serviceable for use in active operations.

Ultimately, units of the First Contingent had to make do with the remounts they received.

The urgent pace of mobilization and the $175 price ceiling meant that quantity evidently trumped high quality to flesh out unit establishments before their voyage overseas. The purchasing committees were under considerable pressure to deliver quotas to meet this end, and it is unclear whether they could have performed appreciably better with such tight time and monetary constraints. Unlike the United Kingdom, where animal impressment was a central facet of mobilization procedure, Canadian officials could not force an animal to be sold.421 If dealers wanted to withhold their prime stock there was little remount purchasers could do aside from securing the best possible animals and ship them to Quebec, where they were essential to the gathering First Contingent.

Valcartier Camp

What would become the 1st Canadian Division and Canadian Cavalry Brigade began to take shape at Valcartier Camp in August-September 1914. The construction of Valcartier Camp is another infamous episode from Canada’s Great War that again exemplifies the chaotic and

420 Lt.-Col. A.D. McRae, “Report on Remounts ‘Overseas,’” 4 July 1915, 18. LAC RG 9 III-B-1, Vol. 3387, Folder R-68-45. 421 “Mobilization on National Emergency: Payment for Horses on Impressment.” NA WO 32/9132. Chapter Four will explore British horse impressment plans in greater detail. 128

idiosyncratic nature of Canadian mobilization in 1914. Rather than assemble the nascent expeditionary force at the well-established and well-equipped Camp Petawawa in the Ottawa

Valley, Minister Hughes selected an empty expanse near the Jacques Cartier River at Valcartier,

Quebec. Valcartier had little infrastructure in the way of military encampments to speak of before the outbreak of war, but it was close to the port of Quebec City, which would expedite dispatch of the expeditionary force overseas.422 After a furious pace of work, Valcartier was provided with electricity, running water, and rifle ranges. Recruits steadily poured in to the marshalling point from mid to late August. By 8 September 1914, 32,665 officers and men lived and trained inside the 12,428 acre camp.423 The first horses began to arrive in Valcartier the week before, with 20 horses arriving alongside two officers and 40 Other Ranks (ORs) of No. 10 Company, Canadian

Army Service Corps (CASC) on 13 August. By 19 August, 659 horses and 1,541 officers and men arrived at Valcartier.424

Over the next six weeks, the basic structure of the CEF began to take shape as men, horses, and equipment continued to arrive. The CEF would be technically distinct from existing Militia and Permanent Force units, being raised specially for overseas service and featuring new numbered battalions and artillery batteries.425 Similarly, officers and men serving in either the Permanent

Force or Militia enlisted separately into the CEF with its own rank structure independent from the peacetime forces.426 The artillery was perhaps the best-organized branch of service arriving at

422 Cook, At the Sharp End, 33. 423 Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 20. 424 Appendix 82: “First Arrivals, Valcartier Camp, 1914,” From the Outbreak of War to the Formation of the Canadian Corps, August 1914 – September 1915, Chronology, Appendices and Maps, 48. 425 Wood, Militia Myths, 219. 426 A notable exception was Sam Hughes’ decision to dispatch the Permanent Force’s only infantry unit, the Royal Canadian Regiment (RCR), for garrison duty in Bermuda. Hughes’ banishment of the RCR to a distant outpost, which historian J.L. Granatstein considered “utter stupidity,” owed to the Minister’s oft-cited distaste of the Permanent Force in general and his vaunting of the Militia’s citizen-soldiers. In effect this deprived the First 129

Valcartier, having mobilized at their local headquarters and drawing uniforms and supplies before heading to Quebec.427 Although some units arrived in Valcartier with at least part of their animal complement filled, as noted above, most units had to flesh out their establishments after their arrival. Consequently, the men of No. 5 Company, CASC built and staffed a temporary remount depot with a capacity for 2,000 head.428

The basic shape of an infantry division along with supplemental cavalry units began to coalesce. The First Contingent consisted of four infantry brigades, three brigades of Canadian Field

Artillery (CFA) – each with its own ammunition column – a Divisional Train, Divisional

Ammunition Column, Heavy Artillery Battery, and additional support units. The guns of the First

Contingent were organized into eleven batteries of horse and field artillery. Each battery was comprised of six guns, though in December 1914 the Field Artillery batteries would be reduced to four guns to allow for surplus depot batteries.429 Horse artillery batteries were armed with 13- pounders, with 18-pounders for the field artillery, and four 60-pounder pieces for the heavy battery.430 Each field artillery battery was afforded roughly 170 horses, while the horse artillery was detailed 240 horses.431 Horses not only drew the guns but also drew the supply wagons that kept them fed with ammunition. Each four-horse wagon team of Nos. 1, 2 and 3 Sections of the 1st

Canadian Divisional Ammunition Column (DAC) were capable of carrying 30,000 rounds of .303

Contingent of a valuable cadre of South African combat veterans and infantry instructors. See Granatstein, Canada’s Army, 59. 427 Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 22. 428 Duguid, From the Outbreak of War to the Formation of the Canadian Corps, August 1914 – September 1915, 82. 429 WD 1st Divisional Ammunition Column (DAC), 11 December 1914. LAC RG 9 III-D-3, Vol. 4977, Reel T- 10806. 430 Appendix 98: “Statement issued to the Press by the Right Hon. Sir Robert Borden and published 23rd September, 1914,” in From the Outbreak of War to the Formation of the Canadian Corps, August 1914 – September 1915, Chronology, Appendices and Maps 64, and Duguid, From the Outbreak of War to the Formation of the Canadian Corps, August 1914 – September 1915, 76. 431 “Report: Department of Canadian Remount Services Overseas, Oct 1st-14 to Sept. 30th-15,” Page 2. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3383 Folder R-18-45 Vol. 2. 130

Small Arms Ammunition (SAA) or 80 rounds 18-pounder artillery shells, with the six-horse wagon teams of No. 4 Section each carrying 40 rounds of 60-pounder ammunition.432 Two PF cavalry regiments, the Royal Canadian Dragoons and Lord Strathcona’s Horse (LSH) would also accompany the Division overseas.433

Figure 3.1: Artillery Crossing Pontoon Bridge, Valcartier Camp, 1914434

The following table depicts the animal strength of each of the units of this First Contingent as they arrived in England in October 1914. As will be discussed below, additional horses were sent as remounts for the Contingent, and others died after arrival. Nevertheless, this table exhibits

432 WD, 1st DAC, 1 December 1914. 433 “Report: Department of Canadian Remount Services Overseas, Oct 1st-14 to Sept. 30th-15,” Page 2. 434 Note the early use of six-horse gun teams and the drivers riding on the left-hand horse rather than on the gun limber. Canada. Department of National Defence/Library and Archives Canada. “Artillery Crossing pontoon Bridge at Valcartier, Quebec.” LAC Online Reproduction from: http://collectionscanada.gc.ca/pam_archives/index.php?fuseaction=genitem.displayItem&lang=eng&rec_nbr=34043 66 (Accessed 24 July 2015). 131

the distribution of horses across different units in the CEF as it was dispatched overseas after initial training and organization at Valcartier concluded:

Table 3.1: Horses Arriving on Transports with 1st Canadian Contingent435

Unit Horse Strength Divisional Headquarters 73 1st Canadian Infantry Brigade 271 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade 284 3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade 285 4th Canadian Infantry Brigade 271 Headquarters, Divisional Train 151 Nos. 2, 3, 4 Coys CASC 203 1st Brigade, Canadian Field Artillery 689 Ammunition Column 196 2nd Brigade Canadian Field Artillery 751 3rd Brigade Canadian Field Artillery 711 Divisional Signal Coy 64 Divisional Cavalry 186 Divisional Ammunition Column 614 Heavy Battery + Ammunition Column 137 Remount Depot 111 Divisional Engineers 154 Nos. 1, 2, 3 Field Ambulance 217 Reserve Park 354 Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry 70 Royal Canadian Dragoons 653 Lord Strathcona’s Horse 583 Royal Canadian Horse Artillery 488 TOTAL 7550436

Note the preponderance of the horses attached to artillery units in divisional artillery units, with each artillery brigade comprising roughly 10% of the Contingent’s animal strength. With the

435 “Report: Department of Canadian Remount Services Overseas, Oct 1st-14 to Sept. 30th-15,” Page 2. 436 This list is inexplicably 34 animals short, given that the tally and the stated total from the report do not match, however there was no animal figure for No. 3 Field Company RCE, so presumably that is where the missing animals are located. 132

exception of officers’ chargers and cavalry mounts for the RCD, LSH, and Divisional Cavalry, the remainder of these horses were light draught (LD), heavy draught (HD) and pack classes.437

Equipment for these units considerably varied in its quality. Colonel G.W.L. Nicholson notes that farm wagons for horse-drawn transport had to be hurriedly purchased and shipped to

Valcartier – some 455 heavy and 398 wagons of eight different patterns.438 The War Diary (WD) for the DAC in November 1914 stated that “There are ‘Port Arthur,’ ‘Adams,’ ‘Bain,’ and ‘Ottawa

Car’” wagons issued to the unit. However, it notes, “no part of one wagon, except the wheel, will fit the wagon of another persons manufacture. This is fatal so far as interchangeability goes.”439

Saddlery and harness for the over 8,000 animals likewise was hurriedly bought and shipped to

Valcartier.440 Similar to the wagons, much of this harness was procured from local supplies. Full complements of standardized military harness would not be available until February 1915.

The first veterinary personnel to arrive at Valcartier were three officers and twenty-four

Other Ranks of No. 10 Section, CAVC, under Major H.D. Smith, the Principal Veterinary Officer for No. 10 District. They departed Winnipeg via rail on 23 August and were taken on strength at

Valcartier four days later.441 During a pause in their journey in White River, Ontario, on 24 August,

Lieutenant Harry Colebourne purchased a small black bear cub from a hunter that killed the bear’s

437 I have not located any files which distinguish between classes of horses at Valcartier, but unit establishments from February 1915 onwards are available and lend an impression as to the distribution of animal classes in most units. For example, the Divisional Train arrived in France in late February 1915 with 25 riding horses and 155 draught horses, the Divisional Heavy Battery and its Ammunition Column featured a horse strength of 31 riding horses and 117 draught horses, and the DAC arrived with 41 riding, 495 light draught, 32 heavy draught, and 17 mules on strength. Other units, such as the Divisional Cavalry Squadron, had more riding mounts than draught horses, with 158 riding, 10 light draught, 2 heavy draught, and 2 pack animals. “Reference 1 to 41. Horse Strength etc. Arriving France 1st Division.” LAC RG 9 III-C-11 Vol. 4580, Folder 5 File 1. 438 Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 26. 439 WD, 1st DAC, 30 November 1914. 440 Duguid, From the Outbreak of War to the Formation of the Canadian Corps, August 1914 – September 1915, 73. 441 The Quarterly Militia List of the Dominion of Canada (Corrected to 30th June, 1914), 322 and Nominal Roll – No. 10 Section, Canadian Army Veterinary Corps, “Mobilization, CAVC.” LAC Dept. of National Defence. Military District No. 10, Vol. 10, Folder 20-2-29. 133

mother for $20. Colbourne, OVC Class of 1911, was a veterinary inspector in the Department of

Agriculture’s Meat Inspection Division and VO to the 34th Fort Garry Horse, but entrained with

No. 10 Section for the trip to Valcartier.442 The cub, which Colebourne named “Winnie,” accompanied him to Valcartier and thence to Salisbury Plain. Knowing the bear would be unable to accompany him to France, Colebourne turned over Winnie to the London Zoo for safekeeping in December 1914. Regularly visited by a young Christopher Robin Milne, Winnie served as inspiration for popular Winnie-the-Pooh books, written by the boy’s father, A.A. Milne.443

No. 10 Section would provide the core cadre of veterinary personnel for the First

Contingent. Individual CAVC Militia officers were successively posted as VO’s to infantry and artillery brigades, cavalry regiments, and logistics units as they arrived at Valcartier throughout late August and early September.444 Of the 24 Veterinary Officers to accompany the First

Contingent, three served in the PF and 14 in the Militia.445 The expertise such officers gleaned both in veterinary school and on Militia exercises would prove useful as they set down to work immediately upon arrival at Valcartier. The remaining Veterinary Officers, however, had to rely upon their education and clinical experience as they experienced military life for the first time. In accordance with the Veterinary Manual (War), VOs posted to different unit headquarters were

“responsible for the treatment of all sick and injured animals within that unit.” They were to regularly inspect animals for sickness and disease and advise Officers Commanding on matters pertaining to “the health and condition, or affect wastage of the animals under his professional

442 The Ontario Veterinary College Calendar, 1915-1916, 56, The Quarterly Militia List of the Dominion of Canada (Corrected to 30th June, 1914), 323, and Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. The Civil Service List of Canada, 1912, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1912), 349. 443 Ted Weatherhead, “In Which Pooh joins the Army and lands in the Zoo,” The Beaver 69 (Oct/Nov 1989): 35-36. 444 “Report on the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps,” Page 1. 445 “Army List Imperial.” LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3364, Folder A-47-45 and The Quarterly Militia List of the Dominion of Canada (Corrected to 30th June, 1914), 118 and 322-323. 134

care.”446 These officers all answered to Lieutenant-Colonel Neill, the Assistant Director of

Veterinary Services (ADVS) for the 1st Canadian Division and thus at the apex of its command structure. As ADVS he served on divisional staff advising the General Officer Commanding

(GOC) 1st Canadian Division “on all technical matters appertaining to the veterinary service.” Neill would only exercise direct command authority over subordinate veterinary personnel, however, and any directives on animal treatment and management were to be “communicated to commanders of brigades and units.”447

No. 10 Section faced considerable challenges caring for sick and injured animals in this recently constructed camp. The previously empty expanse of sandy fields beside the Jacques

Cartier River did not enjoy permanent stabling facilities or horse lines, and thus temporary lines had to be built quickly for the thousands of animals pouring into camp.448 Similarly, before sufficient water piping was fully installed, horses had to be led down to the river several times a day to drink.449 Duguid wrote that to compensate for the lack of picketing gear horses were simply kept in enormous open corrals “fenced with stakes cut from the bush on the camp site.”450 These open corrals were indicative of the hastily-built infrastructure at Valcartier and horses stampeded out of them twice over the span of a few days, with a handful drowning in the Jacques Cartier

River and others roaming as far as thirty miles away before their recapture. Specialized stables were built thereafter to quarter horses.451

446 Veterinary Manual (War), 1915, (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1915), 5. LAC RG 24 Vol 22,021. 447 Ibid., 4. 448 “Narrative on Organization and Administration of the Army Veterinary Services and Remounts,” Page 9. LAC MG 30 E14, Vol. 1, Folder 4. 449 “Narrative on Organization and Administration of the Army Veterinary Services and Remounts,” Page 10. 450 Duguid, From the Outbreak of War to the Formation of the Canadian Corps, August 1914 – September 1915, 82. 451 French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War 1914-1919, 5 and Evidence Taken Before the Public Accounts Committee During the Session 1915, 522. 135

All cases of sickness and injury were treated at a field veterinary hospital staffed by the personnel of No. 10 Section supplemented with five additional CAVC officers drawn from other units.452 The value of their Militia training became readily apparent when they were called upon to treat cases of sickness and injury amongst the animals pouring into camp. Kicks and broken legs proved to be the most regular causes of injury and incapacitation. These injuries ranged in severity from minor bruising, to more serious damage necessitating lengthy periods of convalescence, to destruction of the animal in rare cases.453 Indeed, as one camp administrator commented, “if 6,000

[horses] are put together, tied up to posts, many will be injured and have broken legs.”454 Perhaps most serious threats to animals at Valcartier were nascent outbreaks of influenza and strangles that manifested after a period of stormy weather. A 1918 “Narrative on Organization and

Administration” for the CAVC commented veterinary personnel successfully contained these outbreaks “but only after nights and days of hard work and constant attention.”455

Fortunately, none of the animals entering Valcartier were stricken with glanders – a major concern with any large concentration of horseflesh – despite the lack of extensive testing by CAVC personnel. The “Narrative” states “it was the intention” to administer mallein tests to all remounts entering Valcartier. However, this crucial test was not conducted, ostensibly because of “continued bad weather.” Neill was nevertheless able to report to Hughes “with pleasure” that “not a single case of glanders developed through the period of training.”456 At an unspecified point before their

452 French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War 1914-1919, 4. 453 Mr. Louis Parent, a chauffeur based out of Quebec City, travelled to Valcartier Camp about four times a day in September 1914. He claimed to have seen three horses shot and another two carcasses, destroyed ostensibly because the horses “were sick,” but did not elaborate further on the reason behind their destruction. He observed a total of 11 carcasses that were taken to Quebec by a Mr. Marquis, who owned a glue factory. Evidence Taken Before the Public Accounts Committee During the Session 1915, 437-438. 454 Ibid., 522. 455 “Narrative on Organization and Administration of the Army Veterinary Services and Remounts,” 10. 456 Ibid., 11. 136

departure for England, veterinarians from the Department of Agriculture administered mallein tests and declared Canadian remounts free from glanders.457

An oft-repeated sentiment on the state of veterinary services in the initial period of mobilization is an overwhelming sense of unpreparedness and inexperience. The 1918 Narrative comments that out of the entire CAVC, only No. 10 Section was “in a state of organization sufficiently complete to be regarded as of value at a time when efficiency counted for so much.”458

Similarly, Captain Cecil French holds No. 10 Section as one of two veterinary units “in a state approaching anything like organization.”459 He noted further that “the majority of the officers of the corps lacked military experience,” and that CAVC personnel arriving at Valcartier were at a level of readiness “that fitted them to attend training camps but it can scarcely be said that they were in a condition enabling them to take the field.”460 Lieutenant-Colonel David Tamblyn seconded French’s statements in the 1930s. He considered that “there is no doubt that the

Veterinary Services at the outbreak of the Great War, [were] hopelessly disorganized.” Tamblyn ascribed pervasive “chaos” to the “selection of officers for senior appointments to the Corps by political intervention rather than seniority and qualification.”461

However damaging these statements appear – notably all made by CAVC Great War personnel – they do not reflect a situation terribly unique at Valcartier. As Chapters One and Two demonstrated, most branches of the Militia were inexperienced and deficient in training, equipment, and horsemanship immediately before the Great War. Just as Militia infantrymen and gunners required additional drilling and practice before they were combat ready, so too would the

457 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 21 October 1914. LAC RG 9 III-D-3, Vol. 5042, Reel T-10933-10934. 458 “Narrative on Organization and Administration of the Army Veterinary Services and Remounts,” Page 7. 459 French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War 1914-1919, 4. 460 Ibid. 461 Tamblyn Notes on French Chapter 5 Draft, LAC MG 30 E14 Vol. 2. 137

CAVC and other personnel interacting with horses need additional experience before they were ready for active service conditions. The collection of remounts at Valcartier was the largest concentration of military animals ever gathered in one location in Canada; that there might be such teething problems in properly caring for animals is not terribly surprising.

Similarly, political patronage and alliances, for better or for worse, were central to the initial organization of the CEF under Sam Hughes. For example, all four of Canada’s infantry brigade commanders owed their positions to political appointments. One of them, Lieutenant-

Colonel Arthur Currie, would rise to become Canada’s pre-eminent field commander in the Great

War.462 Lieutenant-Colonel Neill presented a prime example of an officer rising due to political connections rather than merit or seniority. Neill was certainly no Currie and would have his personal and professional weaknesses borne out in the war, but he nevertheless proved a competent figure who presided over the most significant mobilization of horseflesh in Canadian history. Even

Tamblyn’s condemnation of “chaos” is not an especially alarming characterization of “the early stages” of veterinary activities in the Great War. Successive generations of historians described the entire mobilization process in the late summer of 1914 as chaotic – Colonel G.W.L. Nicholson wrote “chaos reigned supreme,” J.L. Granatstein considered that “the first thing the world saw was chaos,” and Tim Cook considered the whole affair “Controlled Chaos.”463 The entire mobilization process was problematic and idiosyncratic, and veterinary personnel do not appear to have been any worse prepared for their duties than other branches of the CEF.

462 Granatstein, Canada’s Army, 58. 463 Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 29, Granatstein, Canada’s Army, 55, and Cook, At the Sharp End, 35. 138

Indeed, their service at Valcartier ultimately does not illustrate total inexperience. Out of the 8,562 horses brought to Valcartier only 164 (1.9%) died, were irrecoverably injured, or lost.464

With such a small complement of veterinary personnel, large volume of animals, and regular injuries, this low wastage rate does not convey incompetence or alarming inexperience by the veterinary services. Indeed, the immediate establishment of a veterinary hospital and sick lines to process injured and infirm animals illustrates a degree of competency and efficiency amongst both the officers and enlisted personnel of the CAVC. Their Militia training, along with veterinary expertise gleaned from the officers’ college education, evidently provided a sufficient foundation for CAVC personnel to begin their duties right away.

It is equally evident that these veterinary personnel were confronted with tough tasks as soon as they set up at Valcartier. The severely over-aged, infirm, and unsuitable horses forwarded by purchasing committees almost invariably became sick or injured after undertaking strenuous working tasks. Indeed, Mr. Archibald McCoig, Liberal MP for Kent West (Ontario), attested in

Parliament that “one of the horses was 30 years of age and died on [Valcartier] camp ground after…only a few days.” This animal was very possibly Mr. Harvey’s aged specimen, which gained a certain notoriety after the Public Expenditures Committee investigation.465 That such animals regularly contributed to the overall wastage rate is more a reflection on the chaos of purchasing operations rather than on inexperience of CAVC personnel. As will be demonstrated below, horses unable to withstand the strains of military life continued to appear for the next several months, regardless of their level of veterinary care. Ultimately, for all units of the CEF, far more extensive organization and training was necessary before they were fit to “take the field” in

464 Evidence Taken Before the Public Accounts Committee During the Session 1915, 550. 465 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Debates, 12th Parliament, 5th Session, Vol. 1 (3 March 1915), 626. 139

combat operations. Accordingly, the CEF First Contingent would be dispatched not directly to the battlefields of France, but to Southern England for an extensive period of training before they would be ready for action.

Transit to England

Embarkation of the First Contingent at Quebec City began on 23 September. Mounted units rode from Valcartier Camp to Quebec, and were followed by remounts and artillery. Captain

Reginald Timmis, OC “B” Squadron RCD, recalled that the ride from Valcartier to Quebec took five hours on 23 September, fortunately in “hot and fine” weather.466 However, the Edmonton

Bulletin reported on 1 October that “desultory” rains and passage of heavy guns caused the roads to be “little better than plowed fields.” Indeed, the work of driving horses and guns twenty-five kilometres from Valcartier to Quebec “was no simple operation,” and the men arrived caked in mud.467 Not all of the horses brought to Valcartier accompanied the First Contingent overseas; 481 were sold in Quebec and 382 remained behind in Camp, with 7,636 sailing to England.468

Duguid notes that horses were loaded on board fourteen transport ships by use of a railway ferry-boat with a “mechanically adjustable deck.”469 Embarking these animals, along with troops, guns, and other equipment for the CEF, proceeded over the course of a week. Timmis wrote that loading the 620 horses of the RCD was conducted from 1400 hours until midnight on 23

September, and then from 0630 to 1000 hours the following day.470 Neill commented on 26

466 “On O.V.C. early days, by Col. R.S. Timmis,” UG RE1 OVC A0296 Box 3, File 3. 467 “Embarkment Of Troops At Valcartier Described,” The Edmonton Bulletin, 1 October 1914, Page 1. 468 Evidence Taken Before the Public Accounts Committee During the Session 1915, 421. 469 Duguid, From the Outbreak of War to the Formation of the Canadian Corps, August 1914 – September 1915, 91, and “Balance Statement, Canadian Remounts, From October 1st 1914 to December 31st 1915,” Page 1. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3383 Folder R-18-45 Vol. 2. 470 “On O.V.C. early days, by Col. R.S. Timmis.” 140

September that “we are working pretty well day and night just now, in connection with our embarkation.”471 Fortunately all animals sailing with the First Contingent were loaded without casualty when embarkation was completed on 30 September. 472 In the interests of sailing together as a large convoy, the ships conducting the First Contingent on its twelve-day transatlantic voyage did not sail from the rendezvous point at Gaspé Bay until 3 October.473

Lessons preventing animal injury and suffering from the Boer War were apparent in reformed efforts to improve animal management on both land and at sea. Official Regulations for the Admiralty’s Transport Service of 1908 mandated several provisions to ensure adequate stabling, rations, and standards of cleanliness on seaborne transports to minimize wastage from sickness and injury during transit. These Regulations noted that decks for horse stabling should be no less than six feet six inches in height, stables at least eight feet long, and that “sufficient space to exercise the horses must always be left clear of stalls on the upper deck both forward and aft.”474

To prevent suffocation below decks, transport ships were to similarly be fitted with special ventilation fans to circulate fresh air.475 During the voyage, horses were to be watered “as much as they will drink” four times a day and fed three times per day. The usual ration consisted of five pounds of oats, five pounds of bran, and twelve pounds of hay per horse per day. Additional rations per 100 horses included seventy-five pounds of carrots, one pound of oatmeal, two pounds linseed, and six pounds rock salt – though oatmeal and linseed were reserved for sick animals.476

471 Lieut-Col Neill to Mrs. Davidson, 26 September 1914. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3377, Folder H-128-45. 472 “Narrative on Organization and Administration of the Army Veterinary Services and Remounts,” Pages 11-12. 473 WD, 3rd Brigade Canadian Field Artillery (CFA), 3 October 1914. LAC RG9 III-D-3, Volume 4966, Reel T- 10786-10787. 474 Regulations for His Majesty’s Transport Service (With Specifications for Fitting) to be Observed in Respect of All Ships Employed By The Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty as Transports, or Freight Ships, (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1908), 31 and 161. LAC RG 24 Vol 22,021. 475 Regulations for His Majesty’s Transport Service, 44. 476 Ibid., 108-109. 141

However, these regulations were not necessarily always followed to the letter. Captain

Timmis recalled that uncleanliness and sickness – particularly amongst the “raw remounts” taken on strength at Valcartier – were pervasive on the SS Lakonia. His two years spent at OVC between

1909 and 1911 gave him a keen eye for animal sickness and injury, much of which he witnessed on the transatlantic voyage. He claimed that “at least 100 cases of strangles” broke out amongst

“young unconditioned horses,” but that spread of the disease was successfully contained. Timmis noted that the pre-war mounts of the RCD were “prepared” for a sea voyage. Though he does not elaborate on what such preparation entailed, he noted that all horses lost on the Lakonia were new remounts.477 It appears that most of these losses were due to pneumonia. Few horses perished, but the “very sick horses were shot, if we felt they would die.” These destroyed animals were “dragged out with a cable on a windlass and slung into the sea.”478 Despite the above regulations insisting on ventilation fans, Timmis noted that in the lower decks “heat was dreadful and ventilation likewise.” He further commented that the ship was loaded with an overabundance of oats, but not enough bran, salt, or hay. Mucking stalls out properly was evidently a difficulty on the Lakonia, and consequently manure piled up and flies proliferated. Timmis generally disparaged the stage of cleanliness of the ship, which was previously used to transport cattle, and upon arrival at Salisbury

Plain 100 cases of ringworm were discovered amongst RCD mounts. He ultimately considered the conditions on board ship to be “criminal.”479

As awful as these conditions appear, the transatlantic voyage proceeded with remarkably few casualties. The SS Lakonia experienced the highest incidence of animal wastage on the

477 “On O.V.C. early days, by Col. R.S. Timmis.” 478 Ibid. 479 Ibid. 142

journey, with twelve lost out of a total complement of 631 horses. Other ships fared better; the SS

Montezuma lost six horses out of 973, and the SS Montreal six out of 819. Ultimately, 86 out of

7,636 (1.1%) horses lost their lives on the twelve-day voyage in October 1914.480 Compared with shipping conditions in the Boer War, where the Strathcona Horse alone lost 176 out of 599 animals

(29.4%) to influenza between Halifax and Cape Town, the 1.1% wastage rate of October 1914 represents a comparatively small loss of animal life indeed during sea transit. 481 The successful containment of the strangles outbreak, as well as other potentially devastating infectious diseases, illustrates the vital importance attached to both diligent veterinary care and attentive animal management on overseas voyages. Indeed, Captain Cecil French – who earlier considered CAVC personnel “scarcely…fit to take the field” – also commented “the attention bestowed on the infected horses by the veterinary officers reduced the losses…to a minimum.”482

Salisbury Plain

The convoy of transport ships reached its final destination at Devonport on 14 October.483

Neill went ashore on 16 October and immediately met with a General Hamilton, the Officer in charge of Transport, and “strongly advised that [horses] be debarked at once.” Ventilation on the lower decks of ships, which as Timmis noted was inconsistent even on the voyage over, was “very bad” when the stationary ships rode at anchor in harbour.484 Although units began to disembark horses by 16 October, it would be several days before all of the horses, men, and equipment of the

480 “Balance Statement, Canadian Remounts, From October 1st 1914 to December 31st 1915,” Page 1. 481 Supplementary Report: Organization, Equipment, Despatch and Service of the Canadian Contingents During the War in South Africa, 1899-1900, 159 and 161. 482 French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War, 1914-1919, 5. 483 WD, No. 1 Reserve Park CASC, 14 October 1914. 484 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 16 October 1914. 143

First Contingent offloaded. Neill later noted that the poor ventilation on stationary ships caused considerable respiratory problems amongst horses the longer they remained on board, namely catarrhal inflammation and pneumonia.485 The 3rd Brigade CFA lost five horses between 17 and

20 October while waiting to disembark from the SS Grampion, on which only eight horses died during the transatlantic voyage.486

Some units disembarked without incident. The RCHA briskly unloaded all of its horses between 11:30 am and 6 pm on 17 October without loss.487 Similarly, Lieutenant-Colonel E.W.B.

Morrison, OC 1st Brigade CFA, wrote that the entire brigade disembarked from the SS Saxonia and Sicilian by 19 October “without casualties of any sort.”488 Other units were less fortunate. The

2nd Brigade CFA was not able to disembark its horses from the SS Ivernia until 20 October. Two horses died during offloading and another found to be “unfit to proceed further” was ordered shot by an inspecting veterinary officer.489 The voyage continued to exert a lingering effect on horses sickened or weakened by their time on board ship. A total of 40 sick horses were left in Devonport to recuperate, eleven died or were destroyed after disembarkation, and a further ten died when the

First Contingent reached its final destination at the Salisbury Plain Camps.490 Indeed, the 660 horses of the DAC arrived at Salisbury “in very poor condition,” with the unit having lost seventeen horses in transit and five destroyed at Devonport.491

485 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 31 October 1914. 486 WD, 3rd Brigade CFA, 17-20 October 1914. 487 WD, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery (RCHA) Brigade, 17 October 1914. LAC RG9 III-D-3 Vol. 4972 reel T- 10798. 488 WD, 1st Brigade CFA, 17-19 October 1914. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 4964, Reel T-10784. 489 WD 2nd Brigade CFA, 20 October 1914. LAC RG 9 III-D-3, Vol. 4964, Reel T-10784-10785. 490 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 31 October 1914. 491 WD, 1st DAC, 18-20 October 1914. 144

Other horses were lost due to human mischief. Neill described an incident in which horses being offloaded by British Territorial Force personnel that were “not accustomed to handling horses” lost control of several animals which “broke away” and escaped into Plymouth. Evidently some unscrupulous Canadian personnel took advantage of the confusion and sold a few remounts to the local citizenry. “A number” of these horses branded with Canadian markings turned up in mid-November at the British Remount Department in Plymouth, but others were unrecovered and ultimately reported as stolen.492

As units disembarked from ships at Devonport they marched the five miles to Plymouth

Friary rail station and thence entrained for the journey to Amesbury, near the historical site of

Stonehedge. From Amesbury units marched to the various camps they would be quartered in at

Salisbury Plain. This journey generally took twenty-four hours, depending when units completed disembarkation.493 The First Contingent would spend the next four months living and training in these Salisbury Plain camps before they were ready for active combat operations on the Western

Front. Andrew Iarocci argues that regular training and drilling exercises, with and without troops from the platoon level up, were buttressed with training syllabi “predicated on the most up-to-date literature available.” Tim Cook similarly notes this period allowed Canadian units “the necessary time to learn the basic principles of warfare,” hardening the men “both physically and mentally.”494

Integral to this training and preparation was properly learning how to manage, utilize, and care for the animals of the First Contingent. The months spent at Salisbury Plain afforded many opportunities for officers and men alike of artillery, logistics, cavalry, and veterinary units to train

492 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 31 October and 13 November 1914. 493 WD, 3rd Brigade CFA, 20-21 October 1914. 494 Iarocci, Shoestring Soldiers, 55-56, and Cook, At the Sharp End, 91-93. 145

alongside their horses and learn the complexities of animal management on active service conditions. Much the same as human soldiers, horses required regular feeding, watering, grooming, and adequate protection from the elements. A British Army “Notes on Care of Horses and Stable Management” claimed efficient commanders ensured:

1) Good and sufficient food and water. 2) Scrupulous cleanliness and sanitation. 3) Plenty of air, but protection from cold and draughts. 4) Plenty of well-regulated exercise.495

The limited absorption of nutrients in a horse’s digestive tract means it is biologically attuned to eating almost constantly. Thus, troopers and drivers needed to feed their animals five times a day.

British Army field rations included ten pounds oats, twelve pounds hay, eight pounds straw, and a selection of bran, linseed, or carrots – each of which had to be properly prepared and free of any pollutants.496 In addition to maintaining a proper feeding schedule, these soldiers also had to learn important elements of equine behaviour. A Blue Cross Fund handbook advised drivers to “always guard against a horse stealing his neighbour’s food.” They were to immediately report any horse which would not take to his feed, which could indicate a number of dental or digestive problems.

Drivers and troopers also needed to let their animals drink as much water as they desired, though it as imperative that “the watering of horses should be conducted in absolute silence,” as “some nervous horses are easily ‘put off’ drinking by noises such as men shouting.”497

495 Notes on Care of Horses and Stable Management, (Aldershot: Gale & Polden, 1914), 9. LAC RG 24 Vol 22,021. 496 Remount Regulations: 1913. (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1913), 39. LAC RG 24 Vol 22,021. These Remount Regulations denote a feeding and grooming schedule based upon transport ship conditions, but they nevertheless help illustrate the necessity of regular feeding and watering. Also see Notes on Care of Horses and Stable Management, 9. 497 The Drivers’, Gunners’ and Mounted Soldiers Handbook, etc, to Management and Care of Horses and Harness, (London: “Our Dumb Friends’ League”/Blue Cross Fund, 1915), 6-7. LAC RG 24 Vol 22,021. 146

Regular cumulative exercise was also essential to keeping the animals in peak physical condition.498 The horrendous animal casualties suffered in South Africa demonstrated the dangers of thrusting unconditioned and weak horses immediately into field service, and such conditioning was a key way of forestalling unnecessary casualties from exhaustion and debility. It was equally essential for troopers and drivers to groom their horses several times a day, namely picking dirt and mud out of the hooves and brushing down the entire animal.499 Ungroomed and dirty horses were susceptible to a variety of preventable diseases, and grooming would prove common sources of frustration for veterinary officers throughout the war. Similarly, troopers and drivers needed to learn the proper means of fitting harness and saddlery on horses. The proper placement of the saddle and blanket, the proper tightness of the girth, the proper pressure to exert on the bit, and indeed the proper maintenance of all of this gear, were central to maximizing the animal’s working capacity.500 The Blue Cross handbook decreed that drivers or troopers who minded their animals’ welfare “will find that his horses will always be quiet and handy, and when required to perform some abnormal task…he will be able to get them to do what he wants with comparative ease.”501

Unless a soldier worked as a farmer or stable hand before the war, none of these skills would have necessarily been intuitive. They were all central foundations to ensuring animals were healthy enough to perform their tasks and needed to be developed before both the soldiers and the horses were ready for active service. Indeed, for Militiamen whose primary interaction with military animals before August 1914 was during two-week summer exercises, the time spent training with horses on Salisbury Plain allowed them to build upon previous experiences. For other

498 Notes on Care of Horses and Stable Management, 15. 499 The Drivers’, Gunners’ and Mounted Soldiers Handbook, etc, to Management and Care of Horses and Harness, 5. 500 Ibid., 10-13. 501 Ibid., 3. 147

officers and enlisted personnel whose military careers began in August 1914, Salisbury would be an extended introduction to how to live and work alongside military animals on a grand scale.

Even before all units arrived at their billets on Salisbury, there was frantic activity to receive animals. As at Valcartier, much of the work in the early days of the First Contingent’s stay was haphazard to say the least. Lieutenant-Colonel Neill found that the positions designated for horse picketing lines were “satisfactory” at West Down South and Bustard Camps, but due to a shortage of head ropes and picketing ropes, “animals had to be tied to vehicles by whatever loose straps of rope were at hand.” Neill made regular inspections of each of the camps on Salisbury

Plain containing significant numbers of horses and arranged for the establishment of a Veterinary

Hospital for sick and injured cases on 19 October.502 A crucial first step for the animals – in stark contrast to the experience in South Africa – was to ensure the horses were sufficiently rested and well fed to recover from the transatlantic journey. The DAC War Diary notes that on 20 October, a “fine and warm” day, the horses were “being nursed back to life.” Two days later they were

“coming along nicely.”503 Similarly, after a few days spent shoeing and exercising the horses of the 1st Brigade CFA on short route marches, Lieutenant-Colonel Morrison remarked that “a marked improvement is shown in the condition of the horses” by 23 October.504

Proper handling and management of horses were central components of training regimens throughout the First Contingent. A Syllabus of Training issued by 1st Canadian Division GOC

Lieutenant-General Edwin Alderson on 6 November 1914 ordered Cavalry Squadrons train in

“equitation and handling of weapons…mounted” along with “pistol shooting mounted” and

502 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 17-19 October 1914. 503 WD, 1st DAC, 20-22 October 1914. 504 WD, 1st Brigade CFA, 23 October. 148

“manoeuvring led horses.” Alongside practicing laying and firing their guns, units of the

Divisional Artillery were similarly to practice “Equitation and Driving…Mounted Drill…March and March Discipline.”505 A subsequent syllabus issued 14 November elaborated upon the contents of Equitation and Driving. This included “Standard required for men and horses,” “Horse

Mastership,” “Fitting Saddlery,” “Leading horses,” “Securing horses,” “Revolver shooting mounted,” “Driving,” “Refractory draught horses and Vice,”506 “Care and disposal of harness,” and “Care and loading of wagons.”507 These tasks would form regular components of training syllabi for all horsed units in the Division from November 1914 to the end of January 1915.508

Indeed, it is evident through various unit War Diaries that training with horses occupied a considerable amount of time for the 1st Canadian Division as it developed its martial abilities. Such training started off lightly; Major Charles Long, Adjutant of the DAC, wrote on 26 October that

“horses being given slow training in collar and saddle work.”509 Lieutenant-Colonel Morrison wrote that the 1st Brigade CFA spent 16 November in “Mounted drill, marching order, during morning. Gun laying, fire discipline etc for gunners. Driving, harness etc for drivers in afternoon.”

On 25 November, Morrison’s brigade spent the morning in mounted drills and were lectured on proper stable duties by the brigade VO, Captain E.W. Dixon – a graduate of the Royal Veterinary

505 “Orders by Lieutenant-General E.A.H. Alderson, C.B., Commanding First Canadian Contingent,” 6 November 1914, Page 1. WD, 1st Canadian Division, General Staff, November 1914, Appendix 3. LAC RG 9 III-D-3, Vol. 4823, Reel T-7182. 506 “Vice” in this equine context refers to destructive or harmful behaviour exhibited by animals in stable, ranging from “weaving” (constant rocking back-and-forth), “windsucking” (drawing in too much air), biting (either humans or other horses), kicking, and even eating their own dung. Such behaviour was generally detrimental to the animal’s health and preventative measures had to be undertaken to restrict the movement of horses inside stable. See Animal Management: Prepared in the Veterinary Department of the War Office, (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1933), 77-80. 507 “Orders by Lieutenant-General E.A.H. Alderson, C.B., Commanding First Canadian Contingent,” 14 November 1914, Page 3. WD, 1st Canadian Division, General Staff, November 1914, Appendix 8. 508 “Syllabus Of Training To Be Carried Out Up To Week Ending 9th January 1914 [sic].” WD, 1st Canadian Division, General Staff, January 1915, Appendix 5. 509 WD, 1st DAC, 26 October 1914. 149

College, London, and veteran of the Boer War.510 Similarly, officers and men of the DAC participated in “equitation” and “driving drill” training virtually every day throughout November

1914. By 9 December 1914, its War Diary noted that “the men are doing very well in riding and driving,” and still the following day the DAC practiced “equitation and driving drill all day.”511

Underlying these months of constant drilling with military animals was brutally wet and cold weather that constantly threatened to interrupt field exercises due to both animal health and poor working conditions. Captain Timmis recalled that 18 October, the date of the RCD’s arrival at Pond Farm, was “one of the few fine days we had on the Plain.”512 Most of the winter at

Salisbury would be rainy, windy, and cold, resulting in regular sickness amongst soldiers as they drilled and trained on the Plains.513 This weather would also cause considerable obstacles to both training exercises and generally maintaining animal health. The absence of sufficient stabling during the first months at Salisbury meant that horses were picketed in the open. Blankets provided some protection from the cold and wet, but the soil of horse picket lines degenerated into “pulp within a few hours” even with regular relocation to undisturbed ground.514 Furthermore, Neill would repeatedly lament poor states of grooming throughout horses in the First Contingent. He complained on 21 November that horses in the Remount Depot at West Down South Camp had

“not been groomed since arrival,” and on 29 November that “grooming [is] neglected” amongst horses at Sling Plantation Camp.515

510 WD, 1st Brigade CFA, 16 and 25 November 1914, and French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War, 1914-1919, 203. 511 WD, 1st DAC, 9-10 December 1914. 512 “On O.V.C. early days, by Col. R.S. Timmis.” 513 Cook, At the Sharp End, 74. 514 WD, No. 1 Reserve Park CASC, 30 November 1914. 515 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 21 and 29 November 1914. 150

Inadequate shoeing further exacerbated these problems. Neill wrote on 6 November that unshod horses were lamed working on macadam roads that “wore their hoofs down very quickly.”

As late as 30 November Neill commented that “a great deal of trouble had been found with the horses feet owing to not being shod,” all the while the horses stood in mud.”516 Fortunately, incidences of contagious disease were absent from the horses in camp thus far, but cold weather continued to exact a toll on both the animals themselves and overall equitation training.517 Writing that “horses beginning to feel effect of cold weather” on 3 December, Morrison noted a week later that “heavy ground, and condition of horses necessitate discontinuance of much training.”518 The

War Diary of the 2nd Brigade CFA notes that as of 9 December “orders issued that no horses may henceforward go out in draught, no horses may move at a faster pace than a walk [and] that route marches are to be discontinued.” This did not mean that training ceased completely, for the Brigade performed “exercise rides” every day from 14 to 18 December.519

However, these difficulties in grooming and shoeing were effected as much by insufficient supplies as by inattentiveness on the part of personnel. Major Charles Long, Adjutant for the DAC, wrote on 29 October that “fault was held with some of our horses, which were badly groomed.”

However, the degree to which better grooming could have been conduct was difficult, as “our horse kits have not yet turned up.” Long resolved that on future moves and maneuvers, “the horse brushes will be carried in the mens kits.”520 Similarly, Major Charles Adams, OC No. 1 Reserve

Park CASC, noted on 7 November that the absence of grooming kits meant that “horses continued to look poor,” and lamented on 23 November that “seems no likeliehood that we shall get any

516 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 6 and 30 November 1914. 517 Ibid., 30 November 1914. 518 WD, 1st Brigade CFA, 3 and 10 December 1914. 519 WD, 2nd Brigade CFA, 9, 14-18 December 1914, and 5 January 1915. 520 WD, 1st DAC, 29 October 1914. 151

decent equipment for a long time.”521 Furthermore, rugs and blankets to protect horses from cold, wet weather were in short supply until mid-November; the shortfall was only made up by purchasing horse blankets from local sources.522 The 2nd Brigade CFA’s training suffered in

January 1915 when up to 50% of the Brigade’s horses were “not fit to go on the road due to lack of shoeing,” and that upon being granted authority to privately purchase shoes, nails, and tar,

“conditions should quickly improve.”523 Furthermore, the DAC only began to receive the standard- issue Pole Draught Harness in mid-November in replacement of Canadian civilian harness initially issued at Valcartier. This standardized harness allowed horses to be more quickly unhitched from gun or wagon teams if they were killed or wounded; a skill wagon drivers practiced as the standard issue harness became more available.524 However, as of 15 December, the DAC only received 100 of the 653 allotted sets of harness and would ultimately not receive its full complement of wagons and harness until 5 February – only five days before it sailed for France.525

Such equipment shortages and terrible weather afforded ample opportunity for CAVC personnel to hone their skills on Salisbury Plain. The initial stages of disorganization and ostensible inexperience discussed above were replaced with a clearer organization of responsibilities by veterinary personnel and more extensive training vis-à-vis other Divisional units. Veterinary officers attached to the headquarters of different units made their routine inspections and looked for cases of sick or injured horses to be evacuated to hospital, or destroyed cases too sick to recover.526 Other time was spent offering lectures on proper animal management

521 WD, No. 1 Reserve Park CASC, 7 and 23 November 1914. 522 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 28 November 1914. 523 WD, 2nd Brigade CFA, 5 January 1915. 524 WD, 1st DAC, 16 November 1914, also see Lee Windsor and Roger Sarty, “New Brunswick’s Artillery Goes to War, 1914-1915,” Canadian Military History 24, No. 1 (Winter/Spring 2015): 116. 525 WD, 1st DAC, 15 December 1914 and 5 February 1915. 526 Ibid., 25 November 1914. 152

and stable duties to their subordinate units. As of 1 January 1915, routine orders mandated that

VOs deliver lectures at least twice a week to the officers and men of their attached units on a variety of animal management, care, and health subjects.527 No. 10 Section CAVC was shortly overwhelmed by the demands of processing sick and injured horses of the Canadian Division by itself, and was reinforced by Nos. 3 and 4 Sections CAVC newly arrived from Canada, for a total of 500 additional all ranks of the CAVC.528

Beginning in mid-November these Militia CAVC units were reorganized into distinct CEF units tailored for specific tasks. Winnipeg’s No. 10 Section CAVC was divided into subordinate units reinforced by the influx of additional veterinary personnel. November 1914 saw the creation of a Base Depot Veterinary Stores and Nos. 1 and 2 Mobile Sections, each with an establishment of one VO, twelve ORs, and 15 horses.529 At the same time, the Militia’s Nos. 3 and 4 Sections were eventually sorted into Nos. 1 and 2 Canadian Veterinary Hospitals (CVH).530 On active service, such hospitals were placed on the Lines of Communication and were receiving institutions for sick and injured animals, which were then turned over to Remount Depots when they were cured of their ailments.531 At Salisbury Plain, hospitals were posted to camps at Netheravon and

Keeper’s Farm – the former possessing well-established stables of a Cavalry School and the latter occupying cattle barns and the surrounding muddy fields. Despite these varying conditions, both hospitals were commended for their efficient processing of sick and wounded animals for the

527 WD, 1st Brigade CFA, 25 November. Cecil French notes these included: “management of animals on the march, in camp and on shipboard, feeding, watering, grooming, proper methods o securing animals in stables and in camp, especially with regard to picketing, selection of ground for picketing lines, fitting of saddlery and harness, shoeing and care of feet, and first aid to sick and injured animals.” French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War, 1914-1919, 21. 528 “Report on the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps,” 7 June 1919, Page 1. 529 List of Officers and Men Serving in the First Canadian Contingent of the British Expeditionary Force, 1914, (London: Pay and Record Office, Canadian Contingent, n.d.), 347-348. 530 French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War 1914-1919, 8. 531 Veterinary Manual (War), 1915, 7. 153

duration of the cold and wet winter.532 A Remount Depot was also established under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel William Hendrie, a fifty-two year old retired Militia infantry officer. The

Depot at Salisbury acted as a receiving station for recovered or cured horses and issued remounts to nearby British and Canadian units in need of animals to complete their establishments. With a complement of ten officers and ninety-five ORs, the Depot accommodated 637 horses by the end of January 1915 and would eventually proceed to France in four months later. 533

By 20 January 1915, No. 1 Mobile Section was renamed No. 1 [Canadian] Mobile

Veterinary Section (MVS) under Captain Maurice O’Gogarty, a 1912 OVC graduate. Although

O’Gogarty did not serve in the Canadian Militia, he had extensive military experience in the Royal

Scots Fusiliers, Ceylon Mounted Infantry, and South African Constabulary.534 Mobile Veterinary

Sections were units newly devised by the British Army and were first tested in combat at the Battle of Mons in late August 1914.535 One was allotted per infantry division and one per cavalry brigade.

According to the Veterinary Manual (War), their function was to “take charge of sick and injured animals sent to them under proper authority and convey them to veterinary hospitals.” They were technically under command of the ADVS but their movements were commanded by the Divisional

GOC. While not in combat, the MVS was to act as a “temporary hospital” for lightly injured or sick cases which might recover after a short convalescence.536

532 Major-General F. Smith, DDVS Southern Command, to DG-AVS, 25 January 1915. LAC RG 9 III-B-1, Vol. 3379 Folder J-3-45, and French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War 1914- 1919, 7. 533 The Quarterly Militia List of the Dominion of Canada (Corrected to 30th June, 1914), 344, List of Officers and Men Serving in the First Canadian Contingent of the British Expeditionary Force, 1914, 348, “1st Canadian Contingent – Changes in horse strength,” 7, and WD, Canadian Remount Depot, 16 May 1915. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5045, Reel T-10936. 534 The Ontario Veterinary College Calendar, 1915-1916, 60, and Attestation Paper: Maurice Gordon O’Gogarty. LAC RG 150 Accession 1992-93/166 Box 7431-37 No. 546451. 535 History of the Organization and Development of the Army Veterinary Service with the British Expeditionary Force, France, August 1914 to April 1919, (Simla: Government Press, 1919), Introduction. NA WO 106/388A. 536 Veterinary Manual (War), 1915, 6-7. 154

Throughout each stage of these units’ organization, they performed veterinary tasks to ensure horses of the First Contingent remained healthy as possible to continue training with combat and support units. Adverse weather conditions and the problems of securing sufficient shoeing and grooming equipment detailed above continually threatened to undermine the animal strength of each unit at Salisbury. Infectious diseases were fortunately kept to a minimum; there were no outbreaks of mange or glanders. The intermittent outbreaks of pneumonia, strangles, or influenza were contained through quarantine – and the destruction if necessary – of infected animals.537

However, epidermal afflictions would constantly beset Canadian animals throughout the cold, wet, and muddy winter at Salisbury. Ringworm thrived in the perpetually wet conditions, and its presence was exacerbated by the lack of sufficient grooming equipment throughout the winter of 1914-15. It was an easily communicable fungal affliction, thought in the early twentieth century to be caused by parasites, and spread via direct contact between animals as well as contaminated stabling or grooming equipment. It could rapidly manifest itself amongst a large number of animals; on 25 November 1914, 43 cases of ringworm broke out amongst the horses of the division’s Heavy Battery alone.538 Neill wrote that occurrences of the disease were especially prevalent in November 1914 due to the continued absence of sufficient grooming gear, but the disease never reached epizootic proportions.539 Contemporary treatments involved with application of “sweet oil” and tincture of iodine, and combined with proper grooming as equipment

537 Major-General F. Smith to Major General i/c Administration Southern Command, 24 January 1915. LAC RG 9 III-B-1, Vol. 3379 Folder J-3-45, and WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 30 November 1914. 538 WD, 1st Canadian Divisional Artillery, 25 November 1914. 539 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 30 November 1914. 155

became more readily available throughout the winter, ringworm cases was effectively managed amongst horses of the First Contingent.540

Similarly, cases of cracked heels recurred throughout the winter. Horses picketed fetlock- deep in cold, wet mud polluted with urine developed ulcerated cracks on their heels. This condition was again owed to inadequate grooming and irregular repositioning of horse lines away from trampled, contaminated areas. The condition in itself was not necessarily fatal, though festering ulcers could result in septicaemia and necessitate the animals’ destruction. In January 1915, over

100 horses of the 3rd Brigade CFA’s Ammunition Column were temporarily incapacitated due to cracked heels.541 Similarly, the aforementioned training difficulties experienced by the 2nd Brigade

CFA were exacerbated by cracked heels.542 There was no easy solution for this affliction aside from careful grooming and relocation of horse picket lines, and it would prove common amongst

CEF horses on the Western Front.

Ultimately, these veterinary personnel were able to stave off significant threats to the 1st

Canadian Division’s animals as it trained at Salisbury. Between 1 November 1914 and 28 February

1915, 105 Canadian horses died and 29 were destroyed.543 During this same period, the veterinary sections/hospitals at Keeper’s Farm and Netheravon admitted a total of 314 horses, of which 25 died, ten were destroyed, 44 were cured and transferred, and 235 still under treatment as of 31

January.544 Such a high figure of retained cases attests to the severity of both ringworm and cracked heels as afflictions that could debilitate large numbers of horses for a significant period. During

540 “Ringworm,” The Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine Vol. XLIX No. 1086 (22 January 1914), 160, and Smith to Major General i/c Administration Southern Command, 24 January 1915. 541 Smith to Major General i/c Administration Southern Command, 24 January 1915. 542 WD 2nd Brigade CFA, 5 January 1915. 543 “Balance Statement, Canadian Remounts, From October 1st 1914 to December 31st 1915,” 2-5. LAC RG 9 III-B- 1 Vol. 3383 Folder R-18-45 Vol. 2 544 “1st Canadian Contingent – Changes in horse strength,” 3-4. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3383 Folder R-18-45 Vol. 2 156

this period as well, British Remount Depots issued 1,178 remounts to the CEF.545 Notwithstanding above casualties, and taking into account the 7,550 horses that survived the transatlantic journey,

8,728 horses passed through CEF control in England from October 1914 to February 1915.546

Thus, the 134 CEF animals that died during this period amounted to 1.5% of the total horses to pass under Canadian control. Such a low gross wastage rate again illustrates a growing capacity amongst both the CAVC and CEF personnel in forestalling fatal sickness and treating injury as much as the difficult circumstances at Salisbury could allow.

By late January 1915, the period of training at Salisbury began to draw to a close. The months of training in driving, equitation, and horsemanship developed animal management skills of the thousands of former Militiamen and new CEF recruits. Major-General Frederick Smith, the outspoken and retired Director-General of the British AVC, assessed and evaluated these skills.

Smith volunteered his services early in the Great War and was appointed Deputy-Director

Veterinary Services (DDVS) for Southern Command. Between 15 and 21 January 1915, Smith conducted an inspection of all horses of the First Contingent and its veterinary establishments as it prepared to embark for France.547 By his own admission, the inspection was limited to visual assessment of the animals’ condition rather than extended observation of their working capabilities. Still, his report offers key insight into both Canadian soldiers’ capacity to work alongside military animals and how effective the months of training were in shaping these skills.

The most-lauded branch of service in Smith’s inspection were the officers, men, and units of the CAVC. On 24 January he wrote to Major-General Layton Blenkinsop, DG-AVS, that the

545 “Balance Statement, Canadian Remounts, From October 1st 1914 to December 31st 1915,” 2-5. 546 “1st Canadian Contingent – Summary of Strength, October 15th, 1914 to February 15th, 1915,” 2. LAC RG 9 III- B-1 Vol. 3383 Folder R-18-45 Vol. 2. 547 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 16-21 January 1915. 157

officers in command of both veterinary hospitals and both mobile sections “are well trained, and their methods of treatment modern.” He praised the uniform quality of veterinary care despite the wide range of conditions varying between deep mud and clean stables across the various camps at

Salisbury. Smith considered that “Veterinary advice was followed and encouraged,” and that

Officers Commanding horsed units were widely receptive to such advice.548 He also considered

Lieutenant-Colonel Neill as ADVS “to be a capable Officer, with a good grip of service requirements.” Smith complimented Neill’s “organizing and training” of the CAVC units, and considered that he was “well-supported by his Officers.” He concluded, “I have every reason to regard the Veterinary Services of the 1st Canadian Division as fit to take the field.”549

Smith’s remarks – particularly those with reference to Neill – were somewhat qualified after the war by David Tamblyn. Tamblyn wrote a number of highly critical statements regarding

Neill during the postwar period, whom he considered to be an ineffective political bureaucrat rather than an efficient serving officer. He wrote that Smith’s kind words “came to the assistance of Neill none too soon,” and that his praise of Neill “is only an indication of the former’s modesty.”550

Tamblyn’s criticisms were not necessarily misguided, for Neill indeed served in France only briefly before being posted to London, where he served as an administrator with a lacklustre record until March 1918. Nevertheless, his statements do not detract from Smith’s commentary with regard to the state of preparation for the CAVC in the 1st Canadian Division. That Neill could be an effective trainer and organizer was not disputed by Tamblyn, and Smith further noted that “the closest attention was paid” to training both officers and ORs in their veterinary duties.551 Indeed,

548 Smith to Major General i/c Administration Southern Command, 24 January 1915. 549 Major-General F. Smith, DDVS Southern Command, to DG-AVS, 25 January 1915. LAC RG 9 III-B-1, Vol. 3379 Folder J-3-45. 550 Tamblyn Commentary on Cecil French Draft Chapter 5, LAC MG 30 E14 Vol. 2. 551 Smith to Major General i/c Administration Southern Command, 24 January 1915. 158

Smith considered that in veterinary units the “practical training…reflected itself in the condition of the animals,” all of which Smith found to be satisfactory.552 As Chapter Two illustrated, Smith approached his veterinary duties with a grave seriousness. He was not averse to criticizing perceived shortcomings or failures of performance in veterinary affairs throughout the British

Army. Even with Tamblyn’s insistence on Smith’s “modesty,” the latter had little reason to make false statements on the state of veterinary preparations simply to protect the reputation of a distant subordinate.

Smith’s assessment of the broader 1st Canadian Division was more complex. He encountered inconsistent levels of animal care throughout various units, and it is evident that states of horsemanship varied not only between brigades but also between individual squadrons, batteries, and companies. Smith ranked each of the units he assessed on a scale of five degrees of condition for horses: “Excellent,” “Very Good,” “Good,” “Moderate,” and “Bad.” Among the

“Condition Excellent” units were transport for the 1st CIB, No. 2 Company Divisional Train, RCD

Signallers, No. 3 Field Ambulance, and No. 1 Canadian Mobile Veterinary Section. Smith commented of these “Excellent” units that

It is doubtful whether a civilian horsemaster would credit the fact that these horses had been in the open for weeks, during the weather experienced this winter on Salisbury Plains. This group would compare favourably with the stabled horses, and proves conclusively, if such were needed, that it is the horsemastership and not the weather which has to be taken into account.553

Crucially, with the exception of the RCD Signallers, these “Excellent” units were comprised of both former Militia and newly-raised CEF units. Standards of expertise in animal care were evidently imparted during the months of training since mobilization, and were not necessarily tied

552 Smith to Major General i/c Administration Southern Command, 24 January 1915 553 Ibid. 159

to professional military service. Indeed, some of the Permanent Force units did not measure up especially well to Smith’s keen eye. The draught horses for both the RCD and LSH were considered “Very Good,” with “B” Battery RCHA and “B” and “C” Squadrons LSH ranking as

“Good,” but Smith noted that the remainder of the PF horsed units were only “Moderate” in their standards of animal care. Only a handful of units ranked as “Condition Bad:” draught animals for the 2nd Field Ambulance, Depot Battery for the 3rd Brigade CFA, and the entire 2nd Brigade CFA excepting its 8th Battery, which Smith evaluated at “Condition Good.” In such units, Smith commented “horsemastership fell short of what was necessary,” as “the condition of the horses told its own tale.” He ultimately judged that the poor condition of the horses pivoted upon the degree of officers’ supervision, for “nothing can take its place” in ensuring adequate animal care.554

Smith’s assessment, however, reflected the general trend of insufficient supplies of shoes and grooming gear in determining the relative quality of animal care throughout the First

Contingent. He acknowledged “there was a general complaint of the difficulty in obtaining shoes” as a causation for the numerous difficulties experienced by units in training detailed above.

Similarly, he noted that “body-brushes were reported by many units as difficult to obtain” – one of the underlying causes behind the recurrence of ringworm amongst horses of the division. Smith commented that prevalence of cracked heels was effectively limited to units ranking as “Moderate” or “Bad,” and thus that “the whole question is largely one of horsemanship.”555 However, the maligned 2nd Brigade CFA noted in its War Diary on 5 January, only ten days before Smith’s inspection, that up to 50% of its horses were unfit for training exercises due to cracked heels and lack of shoes. These issues were closely tied to the worrying absence of available grooming and

554 Smith to Major General i/c Administration Southern Command, 24 January 1915. 555 Ibid. 160

cleaning materials. Regarding Smith’s inspection on 15 January, the diarist commented that “the early hour of the inspection and the necessity of exercising previous to the inspection” meant that

“many did have not much chance of being well groomed” – no doubt a key consideration for their poor scoring.556 Ultimately, Smith considered that despite the “notable exceptions” of the

“Condition Excellent” units, “horsemastership was not a strong point in this force.”557

Such suggestions for improvement reflect the broader process of learning and professionalism throughout the CEF. The lack of sufficient gear – grooming equipment, shoes, nails, and harness – and weather conditions at Salisbury evidently worked against some units at the time of Smith’s inspection, and it was clear that proper animal care amongst units of the First

Contingent was a constantly evolving skill. Major-General E.A. Altham, writing to the Secretary,

War Office, on behalf of GOC Southern Command on 29 January 1915, commented that “taking all circumstances of the case into consideration, the present condition of the horses of the

Contingent is not unsatisfactory.” Upon receiving Smith’s report, Altham requested the GOC “take immediate steps to remedy the defects in shoeing” in the Division by requesting shoes from the

Chief Ordnance Office at Tidworth. Ultimately, Altham evaluated, “that there should be still a certain weakness in horsemastership is not surprising in newly raised units.”558

Thus, as the First Contingent prepared for deployment to France in late January and early

February 1915, significant advances were evidently made in developing skill in animal management and care. Equally clear was the need for further improvement. The bulk of the units

Smith investigated were split in the “Condition Good” and “Condition Moderate” range,

556 WD, 2nd Brigade CFA, 5 and 15 January 1915. 557 Smith to Major General i/c Administration Southern Command, 24 January 1915. 558 Major-General E.A. Altham, for GOC Southern Command, to Secretary, War Office, 29 January 1915. LAC RG 9 III-B-1, Vol. 3379 Folder J-3-45. 161

reinforcing Altham’s assessment that the standard of animal quality was “not unsatisfactory.”

There was thus a considerable disparity in the attention paid by CEF personnel to ensuring that the vital animal strength of cavalry, artillery, and logistics units were kept to their maximum. As will be demonstrated in subsequent chapters, these skills would be constantly tested, challenged, and developed over the course of the Great War.

Journey to France

By early February, the 1st Canadian Division and additional units of the First Contingent prepared to ship out for France. Units received as much equipment, personnel, and horses as possible to ensure they were up to nominal establishments before they would be committed to active combat operations. Duguid’s Official History notes that equipment ranging from bicycles to entrenching tools to motor trucks were still being issued to Canadian units into February 1915 in a frantic effort to approximate standardized equipment throughout the division.559 Indeed, as noted above, the DAC only received its full complement of wagons and harness by 5 February.

Similarly, units drew as many remounts as possible – and exchanged sick or unfit horses – to bring them up to establishment before the move to France. The DAC drew 118 horses from the Remount

Depot and exchanged 48 animals unfit to proceed overseas. This brought the animal strength of the DAC close to its nominal establishment but still lacking “many articles of stores, and a few horses.”560 In contrast, the 2nd Brigade CFA received its full complement of horses, supplemented with draught mules to replace some horses which were deemed unsuitable.561 This period marked

559 Duguid, From the Outbreak of War to the Formation of the Canadian Corps, August 1914 – September 1915, 138-139. 560 WD, 1st DAC, 5 and 10 February 1915. 561 WD, 2nd Brigade CFA, 5 February 1915. 162

the first use of mules in the 1st Canadian Division – animals which were not shipped from Canada but were nevertheless issued for pack or light draught work. As subsequent chapters will illustrate, these hardy animals would at times comprise up to a quarter of the animal strength of Canadian divisions on the Western Front.

Indeed, a number of the horses which spent the winter training with Canadian units were eventually found to be unsuitable for military service before the Division embarked for France.

Several hundred horses were already sold (or “cast” in military parlance) that were demonstrably unsuited to strenuous active service conditions. These animals served as a lingering vestige of the hectic procurement and mobilization process the previous summer. On 2 February Neill presided over the sale of 103 of these horses to local buyers at Salisbury, for an average price of £21.20.0 per head.562 Other horses, normally fine and expensive specimens for peacetime purchasers, were also found to be ill suited for wartime conditions. Units drawing purebred heavy draught horses – particularly Shires – reported higher incidences of animal sickness than units drawing mixed-breed light draught horses. Neill inspected twenty-five Shires of the 2nd CIB stricken with influenza and pleuro-pneumonia and ordered them evacuated to the hospital at Netheravon immediately, with one of the horses dying en route. He wrote that “although these were fine looking horses,” they were far too susceptible to illness in the cold and wet conditions prevalent at Salisbury, and consequently “over 60% were left behind” at hospital when the Division shipped out for France.563

Ultimately, of the 8,409 healthy horses under Canadian command in February 1915, 5,153 would be transferred to units in the 1st Canadian Division for its service on the Western Front. A further 248 followed with the Reserve Park in April. In late January, a Canadian Cavalry Brigade

562 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 2 February 1915. 563 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 3-5 February 1915. 163

was officially formed with Colonel the Honourable J.E.B Seely assuming command on 1

February.564 The brigade consisted of the RCD, LSH, RCHA, and the 2nd King Edward’s Horse – later replaced with the Fort Garry Horse. The Canadian Cavalry Brigade would continue training in England until May 1915, when it embarked for France, where it would serve as a dismounted infantry brigade for the rest of 1915.565 The remainder of the First Contingent horses were retained in England: 278 horses went to the Canadian Training Division at Shorncliffe, 1,270 to British

Yeomanry and Field Ambulance units, and 829 to other Imperial Units.566 Table 3.2 illustrates the distribution of animals across the 1st Canadian Division shortly after it arrived in France:

Table 3.2: Animal Strength of 1st Canadian Division, 26 February 1915567

Unit Horse Strength Divisional Headquarters and Attached Units 371 1st Canadian Infantry Brigade 298 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade 330 3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade 360 1st Brigade Canadian Field Artillery 752 2nd Brigade Canadian Field Artillery 717 3rd Brigade Canadian Field Artillery 708 Divisional Ammunition Column 578 Heavy Battery Column 145 Divisional Train 427 Field Ambulance 160 Field Engineers 231 Signals Companies 24 No. 1 Mobile Veterinary Section 26 TOTAL 5114568

564 Duguid, From the Outbreak of War to the Formation of the Canadian Corps, August 1914 – September 1915, 151. 565 Stephanie E. Potter, “‘Smile and Carry On:’ Canadian Cavalry on the Western Front, 1914-1918,” (Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Western Ontario Department of History, 2013), 76. Chapter 3 of Potter’s dissertation illustrates that cavalry units continued to train in mounted combat roles throughout the winter and spring of 1915, and indeed embarked for France to ultimately serve in a dismounted role without any specialized infantry training. 566 “1st Canadian Contingent – Summary of Strength, October 15th, 1914 to February 15th, 1915,” 2. 567 “1st Canadian Division – Strength of Horses upon departure from England and arrival in France, at various dates from February 11th to 26th, 1915,” 11-12. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3383 Folder R-18-45 Vol. 2. 568 As with Table 3.1, the stated total inexplicably does not correlate to the tally of numbers (4,927) provided. 164

Units began to depart by rail to Avonmouth on 7 February, among them No. 1 Canadian MVS, with Neill leaving Salisbury the following day.569 Neill supervised loading remounts on board the

HMT City of Benares on 9 February and observed that the work was concluded without casualty.

Prior to embarkation he inspected the ship, finding the conditions “good,” but noted that air chutes had to be rigged to provide ventilation to areas of the lower deck. The City of Benares spent all day 11 February at sea and reached the final destination at St. Nazaire at 11 pm. Neill noted that disembarkation from his ship proceeded without incident, and made arrangements with local Army

Veterinary Corps officers to take over all horses either sick or unfit to travel further after the voyage.570 Duguid states that passengers on board City of Benares were perhaps the most fortunate on the brief journey to St. Nazaire, as other ships were delayed in transit and had to weather fierce storms in the Bay of Biscay before they moored in port. During the roughly two weeks the 1st

Canadian Division was in transit between Salisbury and its final destination at Hazebrouck, 20 horses died, 12 were left behind at various junctures, and one went missing.571 Not all of these casualties were suffered on board ship. Captain Ashton Cutcliffe, OVC Class of 1892 and VO to the Divisional Engineers, wrote that the 2nd Field Company lost one horse in transit on board the

City of Benares, and two during the rail journey from St. Nazaire to Hazebrouck.572 The rail journey from St. Nazaire took approximately 43 hours, on the ubiquitous 8 chevaux 40 hommes rail cars, with regular stops for horses to be fed and watered.573 Upon arrival the 1st Canadian

569 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 7-8 February 1915. 570 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 9-12 February 1915. 571 “1st Canadian Division – Strength of Horses upon departure from England and arrival in France, at various dates from February 11th to 26th, 1915,” 11-12. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3383 Folder R-18-45 Vol. 2. 572 Ontario Veterinary College, Annual Announcement Session 1907-1908, 33, and Veterinary Officer, Divisional Engineers to Assistant Director of Veterinary Services, 1st Canadian Contingent, 19 February 1915. LAC RG 9 III- C-1 Vol. 4580, Folder 5 File 1. 573 Nicholson, The Gunners of Canada, 207. 165

Division attached to III British Corps, Second Army, for rotation into the front lines. The soldiers

– and horses – of the Division were to finally begin active combat service on the Western Front.574

“Kindly Rush the Work”

The mobilization, organization, and training of the First Canadian Contingent from August

1914 through February 1915 proved an incredibly hectic, even chaotic, episode in Canada’s Great

War. Within six weeks of war being declared, the young Dominion dispatched the largest military force ever to leave Canada, some 31,000 all ranks and 7,500 horses. This force required a considerable period of organization and training before it could be committed to combat.

Historians such as Tim Cook and Andrew Iarocci emphasize the influence of this period in shaping the CEF from an array of Permanent Force professionals, part-time Militia veterans, and raw recruits, into effective fighting formations and support units. Such studies revise the claims from

Desmond Morton, Bill Rawling, and Kenneth Radley, that the 1st Canadian Division was a half- trained and poorly prepared formation when it first arrived on the Western Front. As this chapter demonstrated, this period indeed provided vital opportunities to develop skills related to procuring, managing and caring for military working animals.

The purchase of 8,164 horses for the First Contingent within the span of a few weeks proved frantic and was marred by controversy. Lieutenant-Colonel William Neill orchestrated an unprecedented mobilization of Canadian horseflesh and secured enough riding and draught animals for the First Contingent. This achievement is all the more remarkable when considering that Colonel Sam Hughes discarded any pre-existing plans, and the numerous problems stemming

574 WD, 1st Canadian Division General Staff, February 1915, Appendix 6. 166

from overworked veterinary inspectors and unscrupulous horse dealers. Despite the tremendous importance and lasting controversies of this episode, it remains unexamined in the broader

Canadian literature aside from works by Arthur Duguid, and to a lesser extent, Cecil French.

Similarly, reforms to the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps received a new sense of importance with the outbreak of war in August 1914. The CAVC was called upon to immediately furnish personnel to mitigate sickness and injury amongst the thousands of animals at Valcartier

Camp, in transit to England, and during a brutally cold and wet winter on Salisbury Plain. Despite postwar criticisms of inexperience and inadequacy, these veterinary personnel effectively combatted infectious disease and injuries in the midst of trying circumstances. Experience gleaned from training in Militia camps – and the college education of VOs – enabled these personnel to begin work immediately from Valcartier onwards. Still, August 1914 to February 1915 afforded a critical period of organization and practice in military veterinary medicine before the rigors of combat. As Major-General Frederick Smith quipped, these personnel were indeed “fit to take the field” by late January 1915.

Also vital during this mobilization period were the opportunities for soldiers of all units to train alongside horses. For erstwhile Militiamen such training buttressed existing knowledge on how to harness, ride, control, groom, and manage horses. For newly-minted soldiers, this period provided a crucial introduction to working alongside – and indeed living with – their four-legged counterparts. Though Smith was unimpressed with the overall state of horsemanship in the First

Contingent, Major-General Altham’s assessment that such deficiencies were “not surprising in newly raised units” illustrates that there would be continual avenues for improvement as the 1st

Canadian Division matured as a fighting formation.

167

By February 1915, then, the 1st Canadian Division was ready for its commitment to combat operations on the Western Front, while in Canada a Second Contingent of equivalent size was training and preparing to sail for England.575 Concurrent with the combat record of the Canadian

Division, and of the future Canadian Corps, however, were developments in Canada, which irrevocably shaped the future of both horses and veterinarians in Canadian society. Before embarking upon an analysis of the performance of Canadian animals and the CAVC on the

Western Front, Chapter Four will examine the Canadian remount industry throughout the rest of the conflict. It will seek to assess the degree to which the young Dominion became a horse depot for the British Empire – as so many breeders and politicians hoped during pre-war years.

575 Granatstein, Canada’s Army, 71. 168

Chapter Four – “Give Canada a Chance:” The Canadian Remount Market, 1914-17

“Thirteen years ago, Canadian horses were tried in the fire of the veldt and were not found wanting in either speed or in endurance. It was natural, then, that the motherland should turn in the Empire’s hour of trial for as many as possible of the horses that would render British cavalry and artillery decisive factors in the struggle for Europe’s liberty. The Empire’s need is at once Canada’s opportunity both to serve and to prosper.”576

-Mr. George Pepper The Globe 23 December 1914

“Is there any reason in the world why an industry in which the farmers and the stock breeders of the country are so deeply interested should not find a market if the Government would only interest themselves in securing it? But they seem to have done nothing; they have simply destroyed the horse trade in this country.”577

-Mr. James Joseph Hughes MP for King’s (Prince Edward Island) 25 February 1916

The First World War presented a tremendous opportunity for Canadian horse breeders.

The immense demands of a global conflict on an unprecedented scale appeared to fulfill the preceding decades of anticipation, eagerness, and expectations of “practical imperialism” for the

Canadian remount market. By 1917, British Imperial forces were committed to ground campaigns ranging from France to Greece, Palestine, and Mesopotamia. The British War Office bought

1,126,057 remounts from around the world to serve on all fronts over the course of the conflict. 578

Canadian horse breeders and politicians alike were anxious that Canada might yet fulfill its role as the de facto remount depot for the Empire in the midst of this “Great War.”

576 “Developing Remount Industry In Canada,” The Globe, 23 December 1914, Page 11. 577 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Debates, 12th Parliament, 6th Session: Vol. 2 (25 February 1916), 1125. 578 United Kingdom. War Office. Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire During the Great War, 1914- 1920, (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1922), 860. 169

However, these aspirations would not bear out. In a situation that was all too familiar to

Canadian breeders, the neutral United States once again furnished the British Empire with a staggering volume of horses and mules. British purchasing authorities bought almost twenty times the number of military animals in the United States than they did in Canada. Canada did not serve as the remount depot for the British Empire from 1914-18 any more than it had from 1899-1902.

This chapter investigates the declining fortunes of Canada’s remount industry from 1914 to 1917. It exhibits that the Canadian remount market suffered from a myriad of problems.

Throughout the war, mutual frustrations over the price of animals from British remount officers and horse breeders alike did little to entice the former from conducting extensive business in

Canada. The remount market further suffered from government parsimony. The Canadian

Government withdrew from remount purchasing in mid-1915 in the interests of streamlining costs.

Thereafter, foreign governments entirely controlled the demand for Canadian military animals.

This market finally fell victim to international financial relations. In the summer of 1917, the

British Government experienced a significant financial crisis over its inability to continue extensive military purchasing in both the US and Canada. The War Office simply stopped buying remounts in Canada altogether, and the Canadian remount market died a sudden and unexpected death in August 1917. These events collectively illustrated the sharp limitations of a “practical imperialism…with regard to horses” that Canadian breeders sought so dearly after the Boer War.

British Mobilization, 1914

Great Britain was far better prepared to mobilize its horseflesh than the Canadian

Government was in August 1914. Its preparations for war revolved around immediate dispatch of an expeditionary force consisting of six regular army infantry divisions and a cavalry division,

170

followed after roughly six months by the fourteen infantry divisions of the Territorial Force.579

Rapid domestic acquisition of domestic horses was central to the War Office’s extensive pre-war planning to equip and commit these forces to any conflict worldwide. The wartime animal establishments of such a “first line” expeditionary force was 54,987 animals, with an additional

82,226 animals for Territorial Force units, and 17,803 for reserve units, meaning that 135,695 animals were required upon mobilization. However, only 19,321 of these horses were permanently on establishment for regular British units.580

British authorities prepared a comprehensive framework for cataloguing and indexing virtually all horses capable of military service in the United Kingdom to fill these requirements rapidly. Such plans pivoted upon Section 114 of the Army Act of 1911, which granted the British

Government considerable legal authority to conscript – or “impress” – horses for war. A crucial first step for British animal mobilization was canvassing military command districts for suitable horses. Section 114 authorized British constables to “enter any premises for the purpose of enumerating and classifying horses” such as would be required for general military mobilization.581 A military horse census conducted in 1912-13 located 589,401 animals suitable for military mobilization across the United Kingdom.582 To streamline the mobilization process,

British authorities encouraged horse owners, large firms, and individual farmers alike to register their animals with each military district command in exchange for a small subsidy. Horse owners were under no compulsion to register their horses with the government, but not registering animals

579 Brigadier-General J.E. Edmonds, Military Operations, France and Belgium, 1914: Mons, the Retreat to the Seine, The Marne and The Aisne, August-October 1914, Third Revised Edition, (London: Imperial War Museum Department of Printed Books, 1996), 6-11. 580 “Remount Statement 1914-15: Being the Detailed Requirements of the Army in Horses, on Mobilization, and Instructions Therein,” 83. NA WO 106/49B/8. 581 “Scheme for Classification and Supply of Horses on Mobilization.” NA WO 32/9129. 582 “Remount Statement 1914-15,” 101. 171

was a risky venture. Horse owners who did register could select which animals were eligible for impressment and enter into a fixed agreement with the British Government. Only those horses mutually agreed upon by both parties could be impressed upon mobilization. Those firms and owners which did not register in peacetime – and thus enter into this firm agreement with the

Government – faced the prospect of British constables picking and choosing up to half the animal reserves of any given body of horses.583 In the event of war, these owners could appeal the impressment of animals in court, and were entitled to proper payment in exchange for the animal, but they had no legal recourse to obstruct the animal’s impressment.584

Upon the British Government’s declaration of war on 4 August, these horses became eligible for impressment under the terms of the Army Act. This process worked remarkably smoothly. Within two weeks of the outbreak of war on 4 August, 120,000 military-grade animals were secured from across the United Kingdom.585 A quarter of the 468,323 British-bred horses that served in the Great War thus entered the British Army within this first month.586 When the

British Expeditionary Force (BEF) sailed for France in August 1914, it left with a full complement of pre-selected animals capable of immediate military service – a notable contrast to the chaos and inefficiency that marked the mobilization of the CEF.587

These animals were necessary but not nearly sufficient for the unfolding conflict. The opening months of the war witnessed vicious, desperate rearguard actions fought by the BEF as it fought alongside the French Army to slow the Imperial German Army’s push towards Paris in late

583 Major William Wynn to Messrs. Carter Paterson & Co., 17 February 1912. NA RAIL 1130/67. 584 “Mobilization on National Emergency. Payment for Horses on Impressment. 1912.” NA WO 32/6671. 585 “Minutes of Evidence Taken Before the Committee on the Supply of Horses for Military Purposes,” 6 August 1915, 2. NA MAF 52/2. 586 Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire, 396. 587 Winton, Theirs Not to Reason Why, 278. 172

August and early September. The fast pace of open warfare, in which BEF units retreated under fire and in the open, meant that animal gun and wagon teams were regularly exposed to heavy combat at Mons, Le Cateau, and the counterattack on the Marne.588 Between the BEF’s first commitment to combat operations at Mons on 23 August and the midst of the Battle of the Aisne on 21 September, the BEF (excepting the 1st Cavalry Division) suffered 777 animals dead, 1,213 destroyed, 1,504 missing, 3,692 evacuated to hospital, and 1,388 under treatment with their host units. These casualties represented 15.6% of the Expeditionary Force’s war establishment – an unsustainable wastage rate over a long term.589

By the end of the First Battle of Ypres in November 1914, the Western Front began to consolidate into a stable, continuous front extending from the English Channel to the Swiss Border.

The BEF was considerably larger than it was in August. It grew to four cavalry divisions, one cavalry brigade, ten infantry divisions, and “other field units,” with a total animal strength of

97,956 horses and mules.590 With the Imperial German Army holding significant swathes of

French territory, it was clear that the war would continue at least into 1915. British Secretary of

State for War, Field Marshal Horatio Kitchener, appreciated the likelihood of a protracted war of attrition and resolved to build a so-called “New Army” to fight the war. 591 There would be an immense demand for military horses from abroad to field these units and replenish animal wastage.

588 See John Keegan, The First World War, (Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2000), 97-123. 589 Casualty returns for the 1st Cavalry Division were not yet received by the BEF Director of Veterinary Services, Brigadier-General John Moore, when this report was drafted. Given the hectic pace of the BEF’s combat operations over the preceding four weeks, unit casualty returns often arrived inconsistently (if at all), and such an absence of quantitative data is not terribly surprising. See Return of Casualties in Horses - British Expeditionary Force. 21 September 1914. NA WO 95/65. A 1915 report on remounts conducted by Lieutenant-Colonel A.D. McRae claimed that a 10% wastage rate was the maximum sustainable for prolonged periods of time in active service conditions. See Lt. Col. A.D. McRae, “Report on Remounts ‘Overseas,” 15. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3387, Folder R-68-45. 590 Return of Casualties in Horses – Week Ending 18 December 1914. NA WO 95/65. 591 William Philpott, War of Attrition: Fighting the First World War, (New York: The Overlook Press, 2015), 66-69. 173

Although the United Kingdom would furnish almost 470,000 remounts from 1914-18, the British

Isles could not possibly provide all the animals necessary for this expanding global conflict.

Canadian and British Remount Purchasing, 1914-15

Virtually from the moment war broke out, the British Government anticipated exploiting

North America as a source of remounts should the nascent conflict continue. Experiences from the

Boer War illustrated the ultimate prize market was the United States, not Canada. A January 1903 study prepared by Colonel Ulick de Burgh, Assistant Inspector of Remounts, found that it was

“necessary” to conduct business in the US “because it is the largest horse market in the world, without which prolonged operations…could not be carried through without dangerous delay.” De

Burgh’s report effectively considered Canada valuable to remount purchasing operations insofar as it formed a convenient conduit for animals in their journey from the United States to Great

Britain. Canada was undoubtedly a useful asset, but principally as a base of formal operations should a neutral US Government balk at extensive procurement activities conducted by a foreign belligerent. This prescient report concluded: “in general, remount operations can, with reasonable preparation, be efficiently carried on through Canada, tapping the United States for supply.”592 De

Burgh’s suggestions proved influential, and ultimately laid out how North American remount operations would function from 1914-18.

In August 1914, the War Office steadily dispatched officers to Canada to form a British

Remount Commission under the command of Major-General Sir Frederick William Benson.

Benson was an ideal candidate to organize a Remount Commission in North America due to both

592 Colonel Ulick de Burgh, “General Notes on Horse Purchase in the United States of America,” 4-5 and 23. NA WO 33/275. 174

his military experience and Canadian heritage. He was born in St. Catharine’s, Canada West, in

1849. He joined the Canadian Militia’s 19th Regiment in St. Catharine’s, and while a student at

Upper Canada College in 1866, fought against Fenian raiders at the Battle of Ridgeway.

Thereafter, he pursued a military career in the British Army, attending Royal Military Academy

Sandhurst and rose through the ranks in India as a cavalry officer. In South Africa, he served as a staff officer, and was appointed the Army’s Director of Transport and Remounts from 1904-07.593

The War Office dispatched Benson to Canada within days of the outbreak of war to investigate the state of the remount market, and he arrived in Ottawa on 18 August.594 Four days later, he established the headquarters of the British Remount Commission for North America in Toronto.

Nine fellow British Army officers joined him on 26 August.595 The headquarters moved to

Montreal in November 1914, where it would remain for the duration of the conflict.596

Predictably, arrival of this British Remount Commission in Toronto caused considerable excitement among Canadian breeders and horse dealers. In contrast to the purchasing operations for the CEF, which involved a few thousand horses, these Canadians expected the War Office to purchase tens of thousands horses in the immediate future. The Canadian horse market was in the midst of a depression in early 1914, and so the prospect of immediate, heavy demand for remounts appeared a boon for the equine economy.597 The Globe reported on 4 August that “arrangements are being made to collect 30,000 horses” for the British Army, “should England have need of them

593 “Major-Gen. Benson Dies at Montreal,” The Globe, 21 August 1916, Page 5. 594 Duguid, From the Outbreak of War to the Formation of the Canadian Corps, August 1914 – September 1915, Chronology, Appendices and Maps, 187. 595 “Remount Purchases To Be Made Here,” The Globe, 22 August 1914, Page 6, and “Remount Commissioners Are Now All in Canada,” The Globe, 26 August 1914, Page 14. 596 Brigadier-General Sir Charles V. Gunning, Report on the Purchase of Horses and Mules by the British Remount Commission in Canada and the United States of America from August, 1914, to February, 1919, 7. Army Medical Services Museum (AMSM) Archives. 597 “The Horse Must Take the Place of Horse,” The Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine Vol XLIX No 1144 (27 August 1914): 1517. 175

in the war.”598 This figure of 30,000 remounts was widely disseminated in the press – the Farmer’s

Advocate also reported on 13 August that “bulletins are being posted throughout the country that

30,000 remount horses would be needed from Canada by Great Britain.”599 This anticipated number steadily dwindled, however. The Globe later reported that the War Office authorized

Benson authorized to purchase 21,000 remounts for the British Army, and the Advocate reported in early September that Benson’s commission would purchase “at least 6,000 or 7,000” animals.600

Even with such significant anticipated figures for British remount purchases, it does not appear that Canadian breeders significantly adjusted their breeding practices for military markets.

Although eager to sell surplus stock and enjoy the subsequent rise in prices, horse breeders resisted producing horses specifically for military tasks, in large measure because of the “short war” illusion that pervaded Canadian society in 1914.601 The Farmer’s Advocate, for example, anticipated a short European war that would absorb surplus Canadian stock, but would not last long enough for farmers to adjust their breeding practices to meet military demand. “The war will be over before next summer’s colts are ready for the harness,” the Advocate commented on 27

August. Rather than specifically breeding cavalry or light draught artillery horses, breeding heavy draught horses for farm work will be “the future of horse-breeding.”602 Indeed, horses suitable for light draught or cavalry work seldom attracted high prices or high demand for farm work, and so their value depended exclusively on the war itself.603 In contrast to the mediocre prices offered for

598 “Cavalry Remounts Available in Canada,” The Globe, 4 August 1914, Page 1. 599 “Horses May Be Needed,” The Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine Vol XLIX No 1142 (13 August 1914): 1455. 600 “Thousands of Horses Wanted,” The Globe, 26 August 1914, Page 6 and “News of the Week,” The Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine Vol XLIX No 1145 (3 September 1914): 1581. 601 “Horses May Be Needed,” The Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine Vol XLIX No 1142 (13 August 1914): 1455. Also see Wood, Militia Myths, 213-215, and Morton, A Military History of Canada, 131. 602 “The Horse Must Take the Place of Horse,” 1517. 603 “What Horse Will the Future Demand?” The Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine XLIX No. 1150 (8 October 1914): 1759. 176

light draught and cavalry remounts, breeding for heavy draught horses “pays the farmer” almost twice as much, and should be their primary focus.604 Horses for heavy draught farm work thus remained the most valuable for Canadian horse breeders in August 1914. Regardless of the growing sentiments of solidarity, service, and sacrifice among English-Canadians on behalf of the

British Empire,605 Canadian horse dealers do not appear to have broadly exuded a sacrificial spirit of for the war effort.

If breeders were anticipating a short war, they also were expecting business competition with their neighbours to the south. Canadian farmers and breeders were keenly aware of the enormous preference shown to the United States during the Boer War and expected more of the same. The Globe, for example, noted on 26 August that “it is likely that the majority” of Benson’s quota of 21,000 horses “will come from the United States.”606 Into early September, it became increasingly obvious that the commission headquartered in Toronto was conducting the majority of its business in the US. The Advocate reported on 17 September that “it is reported that large numbers of horses are being bought in the United States for the British army,” and the Globe entreated the War Office to “Give Canada a Chance” to furnish horses before sources in the United

States were heavily exploited.607

These early press reports were essentially accurate. Benson’s commission, although headquartered in Canada, conducted business predominately in the United States. British remount

604 “The Horse Situation in Canada,” The Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine Vol XLIX No 1151 (15 October 1914): 1615. These appraisals ultimately proved accurate – British and Canadian insistences on a minimum age of four years meant horses bred in 1914 would still be too young for service in late 1918. 605 Rutherdale, Hometown Horizons, 34-42, Miller, Our Glory and Our Grief, 15-33, and Pitsula, For All We Have and Are, 21-44. 606 “Thousands of Horses Wanted,” The Globe, 26 August 1914, Page 6. 607 “The Horse,” The Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine Vol XLIX No. 1147 (17 September 1914): 1651 and “Bryan Was Baffled: ‘Bye-Bye,’ Quoth He,” The Globe, 12 September 1914, Page 6. 177

officers travelled throughout the United States to re-establish business contacts from the Boer War and assess whether the political climate was suitable for extensive British purchasing operations.

Benson proceeded cautiously within the first months of the war, focusing most of his efforts on the enormous stockyards of Kansas City, Missouri. By October 1914, British remount officials purchased 17,000 remounts in North America, the bulk of which came from Kansas City and its environs.608 By the end of 1914, when it was clear that the US Government would not obstruct

British purchasing activities, the British Remount Commission expanded throughout the

Midwestern States. It purchased 38,195 remounts in 1914 from the United States alone.609

This extensive activity in the United States did not mean that Canada was devoid of remount business. Once the Canadian Government secured sufficient remounts for the First

Contingent in October 1914, as discussed in Chapter Three, the next phase of remount purchasing operations began in earnest. There was considerable demand for all types of horses: light draught, artillery, and cavalry horses to fill establishments for logistics formations, artillery units, and newly raised Canadian Mounted Rifles battalions.610 The Canadian Government purchased extensively to furnish remounts for a Second Contingent of the CEF,611 while the British Remount Commission bought thousands of animals for the New Armies forming in Britain. There was underlying competition between these different committees, as both governments offered roughly similar

608 Report on the Purchase of Horses and Mules by the British Remount Commission, 1919, 6. 609 Ibid., 48, 55-77. 610 Lieutenant-Colonel A.D. McRae, chief remount purchasing officer for Western Canada, stated in late December 1914 that “for the second contingent we were require three times as many riding horses as artillery horses.” See “To Buy Remounts For Canadian Militia,” The Edmonton Bulletin, 24 December 1914, Page 1. 611 Colonel A.F. Duguid notes that the Second Contingent was to consist of 20,000 troops: 14,000 in dismounted roles and 6,000 mounted troops. Duguid, From the Outbreak of War to the Formation of the Canadian Corps, August 1914-September 1915, 152. William Stewart furthermore notes that the Canadian Government authorized nine mounted rifle battalions upon the Ottoman Empire’s declaration of war on the Entente powers, and were conceived for mounted service in Egypt. These units, however, were disbanded for reinforcements shortly after their arrival in England. See Stewart, “The Barrier and the Damage Done,” 291. 178

prices and sought fundamentally similar stock in terms of size, weight, and age restrictions. There was also cooperation and overlap between their efforts. For example, Major-General François-

Louis Lessard, who bought 850 remounts in Toronto for the First Contingent, secured an additional

1,220 remounts for the War Office later in 1914. Similarly, Sir Adam Beck, while concurrently advising the Department of Militia and Defence on its own remount procurement, purchased 436 horses for the War Office in 1914.612

Late 1914 indeed proved a period of brisk business in the remount market. The Farmer’s

Advocate reported on 3 September 1914 that purchasing at the Union Stock Yards in Toronto “has shown more activity in several years past,” and that “several thousand are wanted immediately.”613

This business catered exclusively to horses, as Canada furnished no mules for any remount commission in the Great War. By December 1914, the British Remount Commission secured

14,184 remounts from across Canada. Of these, the Government of Saskatchewan purchased 1,280 horses and presented them as a gift to the War Office. British and assisting Canadian agents purchased the bulk of these animals at major stockyards in Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, and

Montreal.614 When tallied with the 8,164 horses purchased for the First Contingent, it is evident that the last five months of 1914 proved to be the busiest period for the Canadian remount market in the Great War – accounting for over a third of all remounts purchased in Canada.

The first shipment of North American remounts for the British Army consisted of 50 of these artillery horses and 675 cavalry remounts on board the SS Etonian, which embarked from

Halifax for England on 9 October 1914. Similar shipments of horses left from Halifax, Montreal,

612 Report on the Purchase of Horses and Mules by the British Remount Commission, 1919, 48. 613 “Toronto Horse Market,” The Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine Vol XLIX No 1145 (3 September 1914): 1574. 614 Report on the Purchase of Horses and Mules by the British Remount Commission, 1919, 49-50. 179

and Saint John – later to be joined by Newport News, New Orleans, Boston, and Portland, Maine

– virtually every day for the rest of the war.615 The overwhelming majority of these remounts were bound for Great Britain. Throughout the war, it was exceptionally rare for remounts to be shipped to France or the Mediterranean without first disembarking in the United Kingdom. Animals disembarked worn out from their lengthy rail, ship, and road journey from North America to

England. They required an extensive period of rest, good feed, acclimatization, and intensive exercise before they were prepared for active service conditions.616

In December, the Canadian Government revised its approach to remount procurement and brought British operations to an abrupt halt. In the interests of securing sufficient remounts for the growing Second Contingent, and wary of excessive competition, Prime Minister Borden requested that the War Office briefly suspend remount purchasing operations in Canada. Benson acquiesced and shifted all of his agents to the United States.617 This in itself was no great hardship for the

British Commission. An abundance of animals in the United States, which boasted 19,833,113 horses and 4,315,467 mules, burros, and asses in 1910, meant that suspension of Canadian markets did not appreciably slow their pace of remount procurement.618 Furthermore, British officers also grew increasingly reluctant to purchase Canadian animals from the late autumn until early spring each year. The necessity of keeping animals in open-air standings and long cross-country journey along the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) meant that Canadian winters were extremely adverse to remount health compared to milder climates in the US.619 This long shipping distance from

615 Report on the Purchase of Horses and Mules by the British Remount Commission, 1919, 55-77. 616 McRae, “Report on Remounts ‘Overseas,” 19. 617 Report on the Purchase of Horses and Mules by the British Remount Commission, 1919, 7. 618 United States. Bureau of the Census. Thirteenth Census of the United States, Taken in the Year 1910, (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1913), 322. 619 House of Commons, Debates, 12th Parliament, 7th Session, Vol. 1 (5 February 1917), 453. 180

prospective markets in Calgary or Winnipeg to ports of Halifax or Montreal, up to 3,600 kilometers, took a severe toll on animal health. Horses died of illness, exposure, exhaustion, or required extensive rest before they were ready to embark overseas. In contrast, horses shipped from Kansas City, St. Louis, or Chicago, travelled less than half the rail distance in year-round suitable weather.620 For this reason, too, the British Remount Commission conducted the majority of its Canadian business at stockyards in Montreal and Toronto, which each almost accounted for a third of Canadian remounts purchased by the British Government.621 British purchasing operations in Canada thus regularly ceased between November and April, regardless of whether at the behest of the Canadian Government or winter weather.

Canadian politicians, breeders, and members of the press were not so sanguine with

Borden’s decision, as the War Office was their most desired customer. The CEF’s animal requirements were unreliable, inconsistent, and far smaller than the seemingly limitless interest in remounts for the British Army. The Globe lamented that this request stifled competition, “deprived

[farmers] of their rightful outlet to Britain,” and benefitted horse breeders in the neutral United

States while limiting options for Canadians.622 It further reported that Canadian breeders were “not at all satisfied” with the exclusion of British purchasing and hoped “these unsatisfactory and faulty conditions will be remedied shortly.”623

The Conservative Government’s request for British purchasing pause further elicited a severe backlash in the House of Commons. Mr. David Neely, Liberal MP for Humboldt

(Saskatchewan), claimed Government’s underlying motivations were primarily to “monopolize

620 Report on the Purchase of Horses and Mules by the British Remount Commission, 36 and Map Appendix. 621 Ibid., 48-50. 622 “Dominion Crowds Out Imperial Horse Buyer,” The Globe, 18 December 1914, Page 6. 623 “Horses for the War,” The Globe, 2 January 1915, Page 10. 181

the market for themselves” and thereby save money on purchasing remounts for the Second

Contingent. He decried that “this Government is guilty of malicious, almost criminal, injury to the horse breeders of this country.” Referring to the Department of Agriculture’s efforts to stimulate

Canadian horse breeding by loaning out purebred stallions, he asked, “what is the use of spending money for the purpose of improving the live stock business of this country if the Government do not assist stock breeders to secure a market?” He concluded that the Government smothered an opportunity for livestock breeders and farmers to “get rid of a surplus of animals.” The War

Office’s brief suspension of activities created “a woeful dearth in the demand for cavalry and artillery horses.”624 Indeed, Mr. Frank Oliver, Liberal MP for Edmonton (Alberta), further claimed there was “a superabundance of horses in Canada and an underabundance of money.” It was,

Oliver continued, the Government’s duty to “make strong and urgent representations to the

Imperial Government that we had for sale in Canada horses that would be suitable for war purposes and which we would be very glad to sell.”625

The Government simply deferred to wartime secrecy and neglected to address these criticisms directly. Mr. Richard Bennett, Conservative MP for Calgary (Alberta), claimed that every “action which the Government has taken is in harmony with the imperial responsibilities of

Canada,” but conceded that “the government…was not in a position to disclose to me or to his

House everything that might be connected with military operations.”626 Indeed, Prime Minister

Borden attested that he was “not at the moment free to disclose” details on remount purchasing to the House of Commons. He shrugged off Neely’s persistent criticisms as treading on affairs that

624 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Debates, 12th Parliament, 5th Session, Vol. 3, (6 April 1915), 2095. 625 Ibid., 2102. 626 Ibid., 2097. 182

“are not only of a confidential, but to a certain extent of a very complicated character.” Borden allowed, however, that “at some future day I may be able to explain it to the House.”627

Despite these simmering tensions and escalating disappointments, CEF purchasing officers were not sitting idle. After securing its brief monopoly on remounts, the Canadian Government revised its own approach to purchasing operations. It discarded the centralized direction of remount purchasing as conducted by Lieutenant-Colonel Neill for the First Contingent and instead partitioned the country into two spheres of responsibility – East and West. Sir Adam Beck, newly appointed to the substantive rank of full colonel, became chief remount purchasing officer for

Ontario eastwards, and Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander McRae for Manitoba westwards.628 The

Department of Militia and Defence directed them to purchase animals directly from farmers instead of dealers and speculators. The Globe noted that such a policy allowed “the purchase money [to] go directly to the horse raisers” and avoid significant mark-up costs by middlemen.629

McRae appointed a number of remount committees in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta travelled across the provinces and inspected prospective remounts brought by individual farmers.

In Winnipeg on 24 December 1914, he noted that “these purchasing committees will cover their districts very thoroughly and will hold sale days at sufficient points so as to relieve the farmer or horse owner from the necessity of taking his horse further than 12 to 15 miles to a sales point.”630

Similarly, Beck dispatched fifteen committees to Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritimes with an ultimate goal of securing 8,000 to 10,000 remounts over the winter of 1914-15.631

627 Debates, 6 April 1915, 2098. 628 “Buying Horses Direct From The Farmers,” The Globe, 4 December 1914, Page 9. 629 Ibid. 630 To Buy Remounts For Canadian Militia,” The Edmonton Bulletin, 24 December 1914, Page 1. 631 “Remount Commission For Eastern Canada,” The Globe, 9 December 1914, Page 8. 183

These purchasing committees kept busy and bought 17,320 animals between October 1914 and July 1915.632 Between March and June 1915, the Canadian Government relayed 7,930 of these remounts to the United Kingdom on ten transatlantic voyages. Of these animals, 170 (2.1%) died en route, leaving 7,760 alive upon arrival in England. Eastern Canadian remounts comprised a slightly higher proportion of animals dispatched in 1915, at 4,174 horses against 3,456 from

Western Canada. However, the Western Canadian remounts proved hardier than their eastern counterparts and suffered a 0.98% wastage rate en route as opposed to an alarming 3.04% loss rate among Eastern Canadian remounts.633

These figures were evidently not available to the public during the war, for another minor controversy erupted over a perceived discrimination against western Canadian remounts. Mr.

Neely complained “there seems to be a very strong suspicion” that the volume of remounts procured from Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta “is far and away below the number they might naturally expect to sell under present conditions.” Mr. Bennett rebutted, “perhaps Alberta is the greatest horse-producing part of Canada” – which was not necessarily the case – but “it requires months and years of training to make a cavalry horse.” For Bennett, western breeders had to be patient, train their animals for military working tasks, and “faint not” that “our horses will command the highest possible price.”634 However, the number of Western Canadian animals purchased (with the exception of those for the First Contingent) slightly outweighed those from

632 “Statement of Horses Purchased, Shipped Overseas, Remaining & Disposed of in Canada, from August 1914 to End of War.” LAC RG 24 Fol. 1869 Folder 75. 633 “Report on Remounts – Canadian Expeditionary Force,” 38. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3387 Folder R-68-45. 634 House of Commons, Debates, 12th Parliament, 5th Session, Vol. 3, (6 April 1915), 2095-97. 184

Eastern Canada, with the Eastern Remount Commission securing 8,445 animals as against 8,875 from the Western Commission.635

By July 1915, the Canadian Government landed 18,791 remounts in England – 7,636 for the First Contingent and the remaining 11,155 handed to Imperial authorities as remounts.636 An additional 4,900 remounts remained in Canada, either earmarked for the 2nd Canadian Division or awaiting transportation.637 The British Remount Commission also re-entered the Canadian remount market in the spring of 1915 and resumed its own operations. By November 1915, when it suspended purchasing operations for the duration of the winter, it secured a further 9,258 remounts from Canadian markets. The same year it bought 20,405 remounts in the US.638

The summer of 1915 witnessed a sequence of events, however, which transformed the future of the Canadian remount market. Minister of Militia and Defence Sir Sam Hughes removed

Lieutenant-Colonel McRae from his position in Western Canada and dispatched him to conduct a comprehensive survey of the remount situation in the CEF overseas. McRae investigated the remount network from point of purchase, overseas transit, holding in England, and service in

France. He drafted a report to Hughes, dated 4 July 1915, that carried significant implications for

Canada’s remount markets. McRae found that North American remounts were best suited for draught and artillery work – riding horses being “too weedy, too long in the back and too light in the bone, and not a good riding horse.” He noted an overt preference for the “Western Canadian cow-horse,” which, “when properly mannered is just what is wanted” for draught purposes. He also noted, based upon interviews with personnel in England and France, that “every Canadian

635 “Statement of Horses Purchased, Shipped Overseas, Remaining & Disposed of in Canada, from August 1914 to End of War.” 636 “Canadian Remount and Evacuation Statistics, 1914-1918.” LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3363 Folder A-1-45. 637 McRae, “Report on Remounts ‘Overseas,” 44. 638 Report on the Purchase of Horses and Mules by the British Remount Commission, 48-51. 185

unit in the service wants Canadian horses.” He furthermore claimed “there is no reason why any

Canadian who has a horse up to requirements should not have an opportunity during the year to sell it either to the Canadian or British Government.”639

He did not shy away from criticisms. He noted that British remount officers lamented excessive purchases of “weedy, long-backed, poorly ribbed up horses” and animals “not suitable either for riding or draft.” He counselled that “more care should be exercised in purchasing remounts in America,” which is done “far too rapidly.” McRae noted that “with the large number of horses available in America and with the price which the Imperial Government is paying for them there is no reason why such a large number of unsuitable horses should be shipped over.”640

Too many remounts incapable of strenuous work led, in some cases, to larger gun teams of six animals rather than the prescribed four. These additional animals entailed extra fodder, extra stabling, and extra road space per gun. Indeed, each of these animals represented a continually draining cost on both the Dominion and Imperial Governments for fodder, shelter, harness, and veterinary care. These costs quickly aggregated and almost doubled the cost of the animal itself.

For example, a light draught horse purchased for $190 (approximately £42) entailed additional stabling expenses in North America, freight costs, stabling and feed in England. Allowing for additional contingencies, each remount cost £80 in real terms even before it deployed on active service.641 Given that McRae estimated approximately 70% of the initial purchases remained efficient at any given time, significant streamlining was necessary to ensure only the best animals reached the front lines.642

639 McRae, “Report on Remounts ‘Overseas,” 18-19. 640 Ibid., 19-20. 641 “Estimated cost of Animals issued in France,” in “Report of the Director of Veterinary Services on the Department of Veterinary Services and Remounts.” LAC RG 9 III-B-1, Vol. 3389, Folder R-156-45. 642 McRae, “Report on Remounts ‘Overseas,” 22. 186

McRae proposed to resolve these fiscal issues by removing the Canadian Government from the process entirely. The sentimental attachment of Canadian units to Canadian-bred horses would ultimately entail an extensive, and expensive, separate system of remount transport. Existing arrangements with the 1st Canadian Division in France called for wastage replacements to be met by whichever nearest British Imperial remount depot could furnish remounts. These dispensed horses were then debited against the Canadian Government’s credit. Given the highly integrated nature of remount and veterinary services in the BEF, keeping sick and wounded animals with specific national contingents was almost impossible to maintain. On the other hand, turning over all responsibilities (and costs) for purchasing, feeding, transporting, and issuing remounts to the

War Office “may well be looked upon with favour.” McRae succinctly rationalized the removal of the Canadian Government from remount affairs:

It would seem strongly advisable that you discontinue your Remount Department in Canada and leave to the Imperial Government the buying of all Remounts in the Dominion. With their organisation and shipping facilities it would hardly seem worth while so long as Canada was not supplying the horses she purchased direct to her own troops, do her to do any purchasing at all. Furthermore it could hardly be expected that Canada with her Remount Organisation would purchase horses satisfactory to the Imperial Government and disputes as to the acceptability of the horses would surely arise, and if you are to abandon any idea of a Remount Department overseas there would seem to be no good reason for maintaining the purchasing department at home. Get rid of all the trouble at once.643

Hughes readily endorsed these recommendations.644 From August 1915 onwards, the Canadian

Government ceased its entire remount purchasing operation in Canada and sold 3,619 animals it

643 McRae, “Report on Remounts ‘Overseas,” 27. 644 Immediately after McRae submitted this report, in August 1915, he was promoted to full colonel and appointed Director of Supply & Transport for the Overseas Military Forces of Canada. Upon Lieutenant-General Sir Richard Turner’s appointment as General Officer Commanding (GOC) Canadian Forces in England in December 1916, McRae was again promoted to Brigadier-General and served as Quartermaster-General for Turner’s command. “Summary of Procedure and Operations of the Department of the Chief Purchasing Officer, Overseas Military Forces of Canada,” 1. LAC RG 9 III-A-1 Vol. 104. 187

already purchased to the British Remount Commission.645 The 24,672 horses bought by the

Canadian Government by July 1915 were thus among the final remounts purchased by Canadians in the Great War.646 Excepting some 1,600 remounts purchased for service in the Siberian

Expeditionary Force in 1918, the British Remount Commission thenceforward shouldered the task of procuring remounts for the CEF as well as for the British War Office.

Canadian remounts already shipped to Britain and France formed a pool of remounts that the War Office credited to the Canadian Government. As the CEF steadily grew in size, and units needed to draw remounts both to equip their units and to replace wastage in the field, this credit steadily dwindled. By March 1916, it was gone. Colonel W.J. Neill, then CEF Director of

Veterinary Services and Remounts, briefly considered resuming remount purchasing operations in

Canada, but instead opted to continue working through the War Office. He wrote to Lieutenant-

Colonel Thomas Bate, the British Assistant Director of Remounts, on 6 March 1916 that “the diliveries [sic] of Remounts has been prompt and of good quality, and, if the same arrangements can be maintained with reference to the issue of horses as at present, I think it will prove to the mutual advantage of all concerned.”647 He inquired whether CEF Headquarters could simply buy remounts directly from the War Office, which Bate readily assented. Bate replied that British and

Canadian authorities alike “are satisfied with the arrangements which are made for their Mounting

645 Documents Relative to the European War Comprising Orders in Council, Cablegrams, Correspondence, and Speeches Delivered in Imperial House of Commons, 187, and Report on the Purchase of Horses and Mules by the British Remount Commission, 49-50. 646 Sir Sam Hughes gave this precise figure in the House of Commons on 3 February 1916. The figure of 18,791 horses dispatched overseas is another precise figure reflected in other accounts, but McRae’s notation of 4,900 remounts available in Canada is, by his own admission, an approximate figure. This account thus uses the Minister of Militia’s figure, lest there be other purchased, lost, or transferred horses not covered by McRae’s report that Hughes knew about. House of Commons, Debates, 12th Parliament, 6th Session, Vol. 1 (3 February 1916), 543. 647 Colonel W.J. Neill to Lieutenant-Colonel T. Bate, 6 March 1916. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3363, Folder A-30-45. 188

and Remounting at present,” and that resumption of Canadian purchasing would be “most prejudicial to the efficient working of the [remount] department.”648

A meeting held on 23 March 1916 in Whitehall solidified these matters. Colonel Neill entered into an informal agreement with Major-General Sir W.H. Birkbeck, the British Director of

Remounts, whereby the Canadian Government paid a flat rate of £56 per new remount required.

Neill emphatically insisted “the Canadian people expect that the wastage in the Canadian Army

Corps should be supplied from Canada;” a condition which Birkbeck was “in entire agreement.”

Birkbeck was to instruct Major-General Benson to maintain a purchasing pace of at least 900 horses monthly from Canada to replace combat wastage of units in France.649 However, that

August Benson died of heart failure in Montreal and was buried in St. Catharine’s with full honours.650 Brigadier-General Sir Charles Gunning replaced him as GOC British Remount

Commission for the remainder of the Great War. It is unclear whether Gunning fulfilled this pledge to remount Canadian units with Canadian animals for the rest of the war. It is at least evident that this promise to purchase 900 horses a month – 10,800 per year – certainly did not happen.651

This policy of paying for remounts in the theatre of operations, rather than replenishing losses with remounts direct from Canada, endured through the rest of the war. Friction eventually developed between CEF Headquarters and the War Office in early 1917 over price discrepancies.

British authorities insisted that Neill did not enter into a formal written agreement and tried to increase the price per head to £62.5.0 to better reflect the aggregate cost of shipping and maintaining remounts.652 Neill balked at the price hike, claiming that it was violation of a common

648 Colonel T. Bate to Colonel W.J. Neill, 14 March 1916. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3363, Folder A-30-45. 649 Memorandum – Director of Remounts Meeting, 23 March 1916. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3363, Folder A-30-45. 650 “Major-Gen. Benson Dies at Montreal,” The Globe, 21 August 1916, Page 5. 651 See Report on the Purchase of Horses and Mules by the British Remount Commission, 1919, 48-50. 652 War Office Circular, 24 January 1917. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3363, Folder A-30-45. 189

understanding, but the War Office insisted it had no record of a written agreement.653 There does not appear to have been a firm decision on the matter, as a report drafted in June 1919 noted that this price discrepancy “has been under negotiation,” and “no definite decision has been arrived at regarding the price to be paid for Remounts after the first quarter of 1917.”654

By the end of the war, the CEF received 64,083 remounts from the War Office.655 Due to a convoluted accounting process whereby the Canadian Government received payment for remounts entering British veterinary hospitals, and from animals sold off at the end of the conflict, the net cost of fielding remounts for the CEF only amounted to £582,772.6.0.656 Captain Cecil

French estimated that McRae’s endorsed scheme saved the Canadian Government £1,094,266.12.8

($5,325,430.94) for the rest of the war.657

Due to these cost-saving initiatives, the Canadian Government relinquished all control over the remount market in Canada. It was up to the British Remount Commission to determine how many remounts would be procured in Canada, or in the United States. It soon became clear that an

Imperial Government fighting a devastating war on a global scale had little time, or inclination, to curry favour among horse breeders from Alberta or Ontario. It would continue to secure the greatest number of horses for the lowest cost – which increasingly meant more business for the

United States and less for the Dominion of Canada.

653 Memorandum - Walter Gow, Deputy Minister, Overseas Military Forces of Canada, 1 March 1917. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3363, Folder A-30-45. 654 “Report on the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps,” 14. LAC RG 9 III-B-1, Vol. 3389, Folder R-156-45. 655 “1914-1918: Canadian Remount and Evacuation Statistics.” LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3363 Folder A-1-45. 656 “Summary of Dr. and Cr. Balance with Imperial Government for Remounts and Evacuations with the Canadian Forces – France and England 1915 to 1919.” LAC RG 9 III-B-1, Vol. 3389, Folder R-156-45. 657 French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War, 1914-19, 132. 190

External Governments and Canadian Remounts, 1915-16

Between August 1914 and November 1915, the British Remount Commission purchased

23,442 animals in Canada. Although this volume was not the staggering quantity anticipated by

Canadian horse breeders at the outbreak of war, it was almost double the number of remounts purchased by the British Army over the entire South African War. However, even without an excessive level of competition from the Canadian and French Governments, British remount purchases from Canada steadily declined. Many of the principal factors were detailed above – more and cheaper horses from the US, favourable weather twelve months of the year, and shorter rail distance between purchasing and embarkation.

In 1916, the British Remount Commission purchased only 6,079 remounts in Canada. The same year, it shipped a total of 125,667 horses and mules from North America to the United

Kingdom, Egypt, and Salonika.658 Sir Henry Babington Smith, a British Treasury official, asserted in a War Cabinet memorandum that “North America” continued to be “the largest source of supply for horses and mules” for the British war effort. In such official correspondence, however, “North

America” meant the “United States” in practice – rarely were “the United States and Canada” ever officially separated as sources of remount supply. Although prominently connected with remount affairs in official dispatches and memoranda, “Canada” increasingly received only lip service as a significant provider of remounts.659

Canada’s principal value to the British Remount Commission was ultimately in providing real estate and shipping facilities to move remounts to the United Kingdom. Depots at Toronto,

658 Report on the Purchase of Horses and Mules by the British Remount Commission, 49-50, and Sir. H. Babington Smith, “War Cabinet – Consumption of Grain by Horses,” 27 February 1917, NA CAB 24/6. 659 Babington Smith, “War Cabinet – Consumption of Grain by Horses,” 27 February 1917. 191

Montreal, and Halifax proved useful for holding remounts from the US before they relayed to the

UK. At the beginning of the war, the War Office remained wary of the political climate in the neutral United States and moved its American-bought horses through Canada before it secured permission to build substantial depots in the US. The most important Canadian facility in this regard was the Lachine Remount Depot, approximately twelve miles from Montreal. The territory surrounding Lachine was donated free of charge by a Mr. Ironsides, and the British Remount

Commission constructed an open-air remount depot with a capacity for 4,000 animals. Its location close to both the Grand Trunk and Canadian Pacific Railway lines, and the port of Montreal, made

Lachine an ideal depot to collect remounts from across North America. Montreal itself served as the most important Canadian port of embarkation throughout the war, though its routine closure from November to May due ice on the St. Lawrence River meant American ports handled most winter shipping. Over the course of the Great War 150,190 animals passed through the Lachine

Depot, making it the second most heavily-used Embarkation Depot after Newport News,

Virginia.660 Similarly, the Union Stock Yards at Toronto proved the most heavily-used Collection

Depot in North America, processing 239,670 remounts requiring feed and accommodation from the US to Montreal, Halifax, or Saint John.661

Remounts flowed freely across the international border between Canada and the United

States, almost without interruption, between 1914 and 1918. Historian Margaret Derry considered the North American remount market essentially a “continental economy.”662 This was true only to a degree, for the flow of horses was almost entirely one-way from the US to Canada. On 7

660 Report on the Purchase of Horses and Mules by the British Remount Commission, 1919, 8, 38-39. 661 Ibid., 40. 662 Derry, Horses in Society, 148. 192

August 1914, a Canadian Order in Council decreed that “saddle, draught and pack animals, suitable for war” were prohibited “to be exported to any places other than the United Kingdom or any

British possessions.”663 This Order in Council also forbade export of other war materials such as explosives, gun mountings, and petroleum. The British Government requested this embargo’s imposition in the interests of retaining the bulk of war materials within Imperial control. Prime

Minister Borden indeed attested in the House of Commons that “we have carried out the view which [the Imperial Government] thought would be essential for the welfare of the Empire and the maintenance of our strength for the great conflict in which we are engaged.”664

Borden authorized this Order in Council as a gesture of Imperial solidarity, but it effectively paralyzed Canada’s international horse trade. Canada was long a net importer of horses from the US, but the trade imbalance was slowly starting to even out. For the year ending 31 March

1914, for example, Canada exported 5,444 horses while importing 6,421 from the US.665 Mr.

William Pugsley, MP for St. John (New Brunswick) attested in Parliament that this embargo of horses “is a very serious matter to the farmers of this country.” Holding back livestock entailed continuing stabling and feeding costs, as well as difficulties selling them domestically, which put farmers “at a very serious disadvantage.”666 The Edmonton Bulletin similarly reported on 16

January 1915 that this embargo cost Albertan farmers $1.69 million and “turned this sum into pockets of [the] American farmer just at time it is most needed in Alberta.”667 It appeared to horse

663 Privy Council (PC) Order in Council 2087, 7 August 1914. In Documents Relative to the European War Comprising Orders in Council, Cablegrams, Correspondence, and Speeches Delivered in Imperial House of Commons, 22. 664 House of Commons, Debates, 12th Parliament, 5th Session, Vol. 3, (6 April 1915), 2099. 665 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of the Department of Trade and Commerce for the Fiscal Year Ended March 31 1914, Part II: Canadian Trade With France, Germany, United Kingdom, United States, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1914), 113 and 186. 666 House of Commons, Debates, 12th Parliament, 5th Session, Vol. 2 (18 March 1915), 1230. 667 “Embargo Has Cost Farmers of this Province $1,692,000,” The Edmonton Bulletin, 16 January 1915, Page 4. 193

breeders that Prime Minister Borden was doing little to promote, protect, or even preserve the

Canadian equine industry.

Simultaneously, there was escalating bitterness over the continued heavy remount purchasing in the United States while purchasing in Canada declined. The Globe commented the existing Canadian remount business absorbed some of the surplus light draught horses, but, until considerably more animals were purchased, “the effect upon the Canadian market…will not be very decisive.”668 The newspaper further noted on 17 August 1916 that “conditions on Toronto horse markets are very quiet at present, and army buyers are securing only small numbers of horses for remount purposes.” It claimed that 2,500 to 3,500 horses from the American Midwest arrived at the Union Stock Yards en route to Atlantic seaports, and that “these represent practically the entire horse receipts at the two live stock markets.”669

Canadian parliamentarians further lambasted Prime Minister Borden for the continuing, overt interest in remounts from the United States. Mr. James Joseph Hughes, MP for King’s

(Prince Edward Island) claimed that the Canadian Government “seem[s] to have done nothing; they have simply destroyed the horse trade in this country.”670 In March 1916, Mr. Frank Oliver similarly enquired whether, rather than “buying the horses that are required for Canadian service from Canadian farmers,” the Government was “buying horses that have been bought by the British

Government from the United States?” Minister of Militia Sir Sam Hughes replied “the British are buying, and have bought, in Canada, many more horses than we will ever need.”671 Sir Sam,

668 “Breeders Criticize War Horse Purchases,” The Globe, 4 February 1916, Page 9. 669 “Horse Purchases Light,” The Globe, 17 August 1916, Page 12. 670 House of Commons, Debates, 12th Parliament, 6th Session, Vol. 2, (25 February 1916), 1125. 671 House of Commons, Debates, 12th Parliament, 6th Session, Vol. 2, (2 March 1916), 1379. 194

usually remembered for his bombast and bluster,672 was partially correct on this issue. The existing system of remount replenishment worked adequately for CEF units in England and France, and was undoubtedly the most fiscally responsible move by the Government. At the same time, these requirements were predominately filled by non-Canadian sources, for the rate of British purchasing in Canada did not keep up with wastage rates experienced by units on active service.

The debate continued to heat up. Mr. Hughes accused the Government of “a dereliction of duty for which there is no reasonable excuse,” with Sir Sam characteristically rebutting “it is no part of the government policy to buy up all the horses any more than to buy up all the hens in this country.”673 Once again the ardent patriot, he claimed Canadian horses were “infinitely superior to horse[s] purchased in any other parts of the world.” Squeezing in a last word, Mr. Hughes claimed “the Government should be ashamed of the way this business has been handled.”674

For his part, Borden appears to have addressed these issues to the War Office “on a great many occasions” throughout the war. He claimed in February 1917 that “the Government has on repeated occasions brought to the attention of the British Government, and also of the British remount commission, the opportunity that exists in Canada to purchase horses suitable for military purposes.”675 There was little Borden could do aside from lodge formal grievances every now and then at the disparity of purchases between the US and Canada. After effectively surrendering control over the Canadian remount market to the War Office, he was limited to complaints and requests rather than decisive action in response to the above criticisms. British officials were not

672 See Tim Cook, The Madman and the Butcher: The Sensational Wars of Sam Hughes and Genera Arthur Currie, (Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2010), Chapters 4 and 6. 673 House of Commons, Debates, 12th Parliament, 6th Session, Vol. 2, (2 March 1916), 1381. 674 Ibid., 1383. 675 House of Commons, Debates, 12th Parliament, 6th Session, Vol. 3, (13 April 1916), 2841, and House of Commons, Debates, 12th Parliament, 7th Session, Vol. 1, (2 March 1916), 453. 195

entirely deaf to these entreaties, and made a few gestures to improve the remount business in

Canada in early 1917, as will be discussed below. Nevertheless, the sheer scope of the war and its constant demand for remounts meant that such officials had more pressing concerns than placating

Canadian horse breeders.

Indeed, there was plenty of blame to go around for the dissatisfying state of the Canadian remount market. It is evident that Canadian breeders themselves contributed to this increasingly disappointing situation. Prevailing market prices for remounts were higher on average in Canada

– $225 for Heavy Artillery, $210 for Field Artillery, and $185 for Cavalry remounts – than in the

United States, where animals respectively averaged $220, $200, and $185.676 These prices, combined with the enormous animal population of the United States, granted British purchasing agents considerable flexibility in Canada. In a contrast with Canadian agents, under pressure to furnish thousands of remounts for the First and Second Contingents, British remount officers could afford to pass on any Canadian animals that were not up to standard. They did not have to buy unsuitable or overly expensive animals to fill unit establishments. The Farmer’s Advocate reported in early September 1914, for example, that British Army officers surveying remounts in Montreal

“will not be able to pick up a very large number” of remounts for an average of $175. At the same time, Canadian remount officers “were able to obtain quite a few horses,” though the Advocate opined that “they could not have been of very good quality at the price mentioned.”677 The Globe similarly commented on 18 August that “exorbitant prices” of $250 to $450 per head confronted remount officers upon the outbreak of war. If they could not secure enough suitable remounts at

676 These figures are in U.S. dollars. Report on the Purchase of Horses and Mules by the British Remount Commission, 13. 677 “Montreal,” The Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine Vol XLIX No 1145 (3 September 1914): 1575. 196

“a fair market price,” the Globe warned, horses “will be sought elsewhere.”678 A.M. Shaw further wrote in the Farmer’s Advocate on 31 December 1914 “the prices paid for war horses…are invariably too low to secure the best animals of any of our recognizable types.”679 As Chapter

Three indeed illustrated, Canadian remount officers purchased substantial numbers of misfit or unsuitable remounts in their hasty efforts to mount the First Contingent in August-September 1914.

Breeders’ reluctance to part with their stock for anything less than premium prices further helped to bottleneck remount purchasing in Canada. British or Canadian purchasers could only access a comparatively small cross section of Canada’s horse population – those that could serve efficiently on a gun team and cost around $175. Indeed, a report drafted by Brigadier-General

Gunning noted that higher Canadian prices created difficulties for British purchasing agents. He noted that, from the outset, “horses from Canada of the right type are few and far between.” “There are some good animals of the right type for Army purposes,” Gunning continued, “but the prices asked are considerably higher than those for similar animals in the United States.”680 As late as

July 1917, Brigadier-General W.J. Neill noted that outside of Ontario, which possessed a number of “good and very serviceable” remounts, suitable horses across the country were “scarce” at government prices.681 Indeed, Lieutenant-Colonel Reginald Timmis of the Royal Canadian

Dragoons noted in 1921 that “there were not a great many…suitable [cavalry and artillery] horses in Canada.” Timmis claimed “all kinds had to be taken, and large sums were paid for many,” which ultimately proved “terrible misfits,” notorious for their “unsuitability to carry weight.”682

678 “Exorbitant Prices Asked for Horses,” The Globe, 18 August 1914, Page 9. 679 A.M. Shaw, “Drafting of Horses for War,” The Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine Vol XLIX No. 1162 (31 December 1914): 2239. 680 Report on the Purchase of Horses and Mules by the British Remount Commission, 30. 681 French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War, 1914-1919, 133. 682 Major R.S. Timmis, “The Light Horse Breeding Industry,” The Canadian Veterinary Record Vol. II, No. 3 (September 1921): 21. 197

Although the Dominion of Canada boasted 2,947,738 horses in 1914, it is thus evident that the proportion of acceptable military horses was not very large.683 There were certainly large numbers of excellent quality animals, but breeders remained wary of parting with their breeding stallions and best brood mares for the prices offered by the War Office or Department of Militia.684

Margaret Derry’s Horses in Society, the only examination of these events, describes these breeders’ frustrations with both the War Office and Canadian Government, but does not consider their own contributions to this quixotic situation.685 It is nevertheless evident that breeders themselves contributed to this dissatisfying state of affairs. They lamented their inability to patriotically sell horses to the British Government, yet they refused to lower their prices to better accommodate the strict price limits imposed by these purchasing commissions. The ubiquitous light draught horse offered by these breeders was desirable if it met all essential military criteria, but it appears that there were just not enough horses at the right price matching these exact circumstances that the Canadian remount market needed to thrive. Indeed, breeders’ reticence to breed specifically for military purposes – borne from apprehension of this interest disappearing with the resumption of peace – limited the number of truly acceptable animals that British remount officers could secure. The remount market thus presented a complex set of conflicting motivations.

It is clear that government desires to minimize overall costs on the one hand, and private desire to profit off war purchases on the other, did not work out favourably for Canadian horse breeders.

These escalating controversies were symptomatic of a broader British pragmatism in their war materials acquisition process. Frustrated horse breeders found ready company for their

683 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada for the Year Ended March 31 1915, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1915), 59. 684 “Canada Is Being Drained Of Its Breeding Horses,” The Globe, 17 November 1915, Page 13. 685 See Derry, Horses in Society, 141-153. 198

discontent over limited deference from the metropole. Canadian munitions, shipbuilding, and other manufacturing industries suffered similarly from the overt British preference for dealing with the neutral, enormously wealthy, United States. For example, Canadian Vickers, a shipbuilding firm established in specific anticipation of warship contracts from the Royal Navy, found its hopes for fruitful contracts immediately frustrated. Lucrative War Office shipbuilding contracts went to firms in the US, not Canada. Prime Minister Borden, upset at the growing requests for recruits from the War Office without reciprocating war materials contracts, infamously protested that “a very painful and bitter feeling is being aroused throughout the Dominion. Men are going without bread in Canada while those across the line are receiving good wages for work that could be done as efficiently and cheaply in this country.”686 These expectations for Imperial deference went largely ignored. Following a tour of the UK, Mr. Charles Cahan, Conservative MP for

Maisonneuve (Quebec), informed Prime Minister Borden that “the ruling classes in England” were

“quite disinclined to devote time and consideration to the question of more efficient imperial organization.” Their prime concern would only extend “in so far as such an organization may assure larger contributions of men and money to meet the military and naval necessities of the

British Government.”687 Pragmatism, not preferential treatment, was evidently the British

Government’s governing principle in war materials acquisition.

Exacerbating these smouldering frustrations with the British Government’s apparent favourtism towards the US, and inextricably tied with its continentalist approach towards remounts, was the spectre of epizootic infectious animal disease. The effective integration of North

686 Michael L. Hadley and Roger Sarty. Tin Pots and Pirate Ships: Canadian Naval Forces and German Sea Raiders, 1880-1918, (Montreal & Kingston: McGill Queen’s University Press, 1991), 99-101, Brown and Cook, Canada 1896-1921, 132. 687 Roy McLaren, Commissions High: Canada in London, 1870-1971, (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006), 170. 199

America as a gigantic remount market and shipping facility carried enormous risks of spreading infectious animal diseases into Canada. Due to the generally smaller size of the Canadian livestock population and tight border control and quarantine regimens, devastating infectious diseases like foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) and pleuropneumonia were previously barred from entering the country. Outbreaks of other diseases, such as glanders, were kept to a minimum. Shortly after war broke out, however, veterinarians in the US discovered FMD in the Midwest. The Canadian

Department of Agriculture forbade entry of “all domestic animals, their parts and products, as well as all materials that might in any way…have brought the malady to Canada.”688 Similarly, under peacetime conditions, the Health of Animals Branch quarantined all animals entering Canada from border crossings and administered the mallein test to detect any incubating cases of glanders.

However, with the unceasing flow of hundreds of thousands of animals from the United

States to Toronto, Lachine, and Halifax, measures to prevent these diseases were difficult to implement. Minister of Agriculture Martin Burrell noted that “the importance…of securing horses for the British Army made a modification of the restrictions imperative.” As a result, “horses obtained by the British Remount Commission were allowed entry under certain definite conditions.”689 These conditions involved stringent quarantine and inspection regimens conducted by officers of the Health of Animals Branch. This office safeguarded Canadian livestock against

FMD despite experiencing reduced ranks when a number of its veterinary inspectors took leaves of absence to join the AVC or CAVC.690 Burrell commented in March 1916 that “special measures

688 Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada for the Year Ended March 31 1915, 59. 689 Ibid., 59. 690 The Civil Service List of 1918 notes that 16 Department of Agriculture veterinarians were on military leave against a total veterinary establishment of 250 veterinarians spread across the NWMP, Department of Agriculture head office, and the Health of Animals Branch’s Contagious Diseases Division and Meat Inspection Division. Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Canada: Civil Service List 1918, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1919), 1-3, 13- 22, 445-46. 200

were taken to guard against” FMD, but in the interests of facilitating British and French remount activities, remounts were allowed entry to Canada and effectively quarantined in “special yards” under the supervision of Health of Animals Branch personnel. Similarly, all rail cars conveying at-risk livestock were disinfected, all forage was burned at the border, and special foot baths cleansed horses’ hooves. These efforts were essential to preventing “one of the most serious diseases of live stock,” an outbreak of which “would result in enormous wastage in live stock and would also cripple the live stock industry for an unlimited period.”691

Other diseases made their way into the country, however. Glanders recurrently spread to

Canadian remount depots via remounts from the Midwestern US, where it was epizootic. British

Remount Commission agents and veterinarians did not conduct mallein tests for glanders until after the animals arrived in England, so there was no definitive means of detecting the disease among remounts until after they already disembarked.692 The Lachine Depot witnessed several alarming outbreaks of glanders over the course of the war, notably in November 1915, the winter of 1918, and September 1918. These outbreaks immediately caught the attention of the Remount

Commission when incubating cases manifested glanders in the United Kingdom. Ultimately, stringent mallein testing conducted on all remounts – including a “double dose” in the September

1918 outbreak – allowed veterinarians to isolate and eliminate these outbreaks before they spread further beyond the confines of the depots.693 Another common affliction among remounts throughout the war was “Shipping Fever” – a highly contagious bacterial infection that eventually progressed into pneumonia. Even after the war, British Remount Commission veterinarians did

691 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada for the Year Ended March 31 1916, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1916), 56. 692 McRae, “Report on Remounts ‘Overseas,” 16. 693 Report on the Purchase of Horses and Mules by the British Remount Commission, 12, 24, and 27. 201

not completely understand the causes and transmission modes of “Shipping Fever.” It nevertheless caused heavy wastage among animals and, although not always fatal, afflicted virtually every remount to pass through North America in the Great War.694

The British Remount Commission, not the CAVC, assumed responsibility for veterinary care in North America. Over the course of the war, the Remount Commission employed 34 British civil and military veterinarians, and 30 Canadian and American civil practitioners, to preside over the health of its remounts from their point of purchase to their embarkation overseas.695 In a contrast to the heavy emphasis placed upon regular veterinary inspection and care on active service, it appears that adequate veterinary care in North America was a lower priority to the War

Office. Similar to the dissatisfying state of affairs in South Africa, veterinary officials were subordinated to remount command and did not possess executive authority over remount health.

Animals picketed in the open air without sufficient overhead cover, muddy standings, “grossly infected and unsanitary depots,” and “careless” feeding all resulted in shocking wastage rates among remounts prior to their embarkation overseas. Indeed, the British Veterinary Official

History notes that British Remount Commission Depots were sadly mismanaged and unsanitary compared to civilian stockyards, while wastage among animals in North America were almost triple the rate among remounts on the Western Front.696 Animal wastage in Canadian depots was higher on average than depots in the United States, as longer periods of colder weather created harsher conditions for remounts picketed in open-air depots. The wastage rates at the depots surrounding Montreal – Lachine, Rosemount, and the Montreal Stock Yards – ranged between

694 Blenkinsop and Rainey, Veterinary Services, 477-482 and Report on the Purchase of Horses and Mules by the British Remount Commission, 6. 695 Report on the Purchase of Horses and Mules by the British Remount Commission, 94. 696 Blenkinsop and Rainey, Veterinary Services, 450-62. 202

2.84% and 2.14% dead wastage and were among the highest of any depots in North America.

Similarly, the depot at Windsor, Ontario only housed remounts for a brief period. In 1915, its only year of operation, 1,151 horses perished at Windsor.697 Local citizens routinely complained of seeing “numbers of dead horses lying about the field unburied,” and the Commission staff closed the depot after only a few months.698

This situation was only remedied in 1917. Lieutenant-Colonel A. Olver of the AVC was appointed Deputy Director of Veterinary Services (DDVS) on the headquarters staff of the

Commission and held executive control over the health of animals. Olver overhauled the entire feeding, shelter, and sanitation apparatus among depots across the continent. Improved standings and overhead cover helped reduce incidences of gangrenous dermatitis, which flourished among horses standing in cold, wet mud. These depots underwent renovations, expansions, and thorough cleanings throughout 1917 and 1918. Similarly, additional civil veterinarians and AVC personnel were allocated to oversee the health of animals at all depots, regardless of their capacity.699

Veterinary staff of the Remount Commission continued to grapple with pneumonia and “Shipping

Fever” though to the end of the war, but the improved conditions helped ensure more animals could survive these illnesses.700 Over the course of the war, 36,782 horses (7.65%) and 2,272 mules

(1.55%) purchased by the British Remount Commission died in North America.701 As subsequent chapters will illustrate, these repeated struggles for veterinary authority and adequate sanitation stood in a stark contrast with the high premium placed on animal health on active service in

England and France.

697 Report on the Purchase of Horses and Mules by the British Remount Commission, 1919, 38 and 78. 698 “Windsor Remount Depot Will Be Closed,” The Globe, 14 July 1915, Page 7. 699 Blenkinsop and Rainey, Veterinary Services, 450-62. 700 Ibid., 450-62. 701 Report on the Purchase of Horses and Mules by the British Remount Commission, 79 and 85. 203

Although not conducting purchasing operations on the same scale as the British Remount

Commission, a smaller French Remount Commission nevertheless travelled throughout Canada from 1915 onwards to buy remounts for the French Army. French officials travelled to the United

States immediately after the outbreak of war and began securing remounts from Midwestern states by the end of 1914.702 French remount officers began purchasing in earnest in Canada in the middle of 1915 when Prime Minister Borden granted the French Government exemption from the horse embargo.703 They encountered mixed success. The Edmonton Bulletin noted on 19 October 1915 that French efforts to secure good quality remounts in Canada “has met with very indifferent success,” due in large measure to lukewarm interest from breeders. The Bulletin noted that their tour of western Canada was poorly advertised to farmers and breeders, and consequently, their stated aims to secure 5,000 remounts were frustrated. The Bulletin further claimed that western breeders soured on the remount industry by October 1915, after being unable to sell their own stock to British or Canadian purchasers earlier in the war.704 French officers conducted the bulk of their business in the summer of 1916, touring extensively in Ontario and western Canada to purchase remounts.705 The Globe claimed on 7 June 1916 that French officers purchased 8,000 remounts in Canada since the war began, but this figure is not verifiable with other sources.706 This purchasing activity continued to a limited degree through the spring and summer of 1917, with fewer than a hundred horses acquired during weeks of comparatively brisk business.707

702 “The Horse,” The Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine Vol XLIX No. 1147 (17 September 1914): 1651, and A.M. Shaw, “Drafting of Horses for War.” 703 House of Commons, Debates, 12th Parliament, 6th Session, Vol. 1 (3 February 1916), 542. 704 “French Buyers in West to Get 5,000 Remounts,” The Edmonton Bulletin, 19 October 1915, Page 9. 705 “French Remount Men Buy Horses,” The Edmonton Bulletin, 21 August 1916, Page 5. 706 “Horse Buying in Canada,” The Globe, 7 June 1916, Page 14. 707 “Week’s Horse Trade in Toronto,” The Globe, 9 June 1917, Page 24. 204

A “bone of contention” originally arose between British and French authorities given the higher prices offered for animals considered substandard by British officials. Brigadier-General

Gunning noted after the war, however, that there was eventually fruitful cooperation between

British and French commissions in North America. The lower acceptable standards for French

Army remounts meant that civilian horse dealers could sell off remounts rejected by British officers. They thus materially assisted the British by providing extra incentive to farmers and dealers to bring an array of remounts that could be sold to either commission.708 Indeed, Gunning noted that the French Army’s abrupt withdrawal from the market in August 1917 eliminated this market for subpar horses and resulted in fewer dealers approaching remount sales opportunities attended by British officers.709

The final tally of French Remount Commission purchases in Canada is not entirely clear.

No Canadian primary sources definitively state the volume of remounts purchased by the French

Remount Commission in the war. Graham Winton’s Theirs Not to Reason Why, probably the most comprehensively researched work on British Imperial remount activities in the Great War, considers that French officials purchased “about 10,000” Canadian remounts through the war.710

Margaret Derry gives a figure of 14,000 remounts, and Captain Cecil French claims 15,000.711

However, the source material for these claims is unverifiable. Neither Winton nor French expressly identify where they located their final tallies for French Army purchases. Derry’s sourcing is more definitive but also problematic. She derived her figure from Trade and Commerce statistics from after the Great War, but these do not correlate to figures for remounts. These 14,000 horses include

708 Report on the Purchase of Horses and Mules by the British Remount Commission, 9 and 13. 709 Ibid., 20. 710 Winton, Theirs Not to Reason Why, 359. 711 Derry, Horses in Society, 153, and French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War 1914-1919, 134. 205

all horses exported from Canada to France from 1914 to 1918 and are not divided between remounts and civilian horses. Similarly, she cites 22,000 Canadian remounts purchased by the

United Kingdom in 1916 (the figure given of horses exported to the UK), when the official report from the British Remount Commission only notes 6,079 remounts purchased that year in

Canada.712 Inferring that all of the animals exported to a given country were remounts was an error on Derry’s part, and the only safe conclusion is that the French Remount Commission purchased several thousand remounts in Canada in the Great War – between 8,000 and 15,000.

The End of Remount Purchasing in Canada, 1917

The fourth calendar year of the Great War proved decisive to the history of Canadian military animals. The battles of 1917 witnessed some of the toughest trials for Canadian remounts on the Great War. Subsequent chapters will exhibit that the Battle of Arras of April-May and the

Passchendaele Campaign of October-November presented some of the sternest tests to CAVC personnel in the field, and highest rates of animal combat wastage. The year also witnessed the death of Canada’s remount market. Although British Remount Commission purchases declined precipitously from 1914-16, the Canadian remount market was still a potential – if not heavily exploited – source of remounts for the War Office. However, a variety of circumstances both on the front lines and in diplomatic circles heralded the demise of remount purchasing in Canada.

One of the key issues behind such declining purchasing was an abundance of remounts in both the United Kingdom and France. By February 1917 the War Office owned 809,000 horses

712 See Derry, 153, 272 n71, Canada. Department of Trade and Commerce. Dominion Bureau of Statistics. Trade of Canada, Fiscal Year Ended March 31, 1920, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1921), 1076-77, and Report on the Purchase of Horses and Mules by the British Remount Commission, 49-50. 206

and mules across the world – 148,000 in the UK, 419,000 with the BEF in France, 106,000 in

Salonika, 59,000 in Egypt, and 77,000 in Mesopotamia. These animals required 152,000 tons of fodder per month. The weight in grain required for remounts in France and England alone could feed a country of 14 million people.713 These fodder requirements placed an enormous strain on

British supply lines. Already by May 1916, the Shipping Control Committee beseeched the War

Office to markedly reduce the horse establishment in the BEF. The “large amount of tonnage already required for the transport of oats and forage” contributed materially to a “severe” shortage in shipping.714 This enormous burden of purchasing and shipping oats, bran, and hay for remounts in theatres across the world prompted the Secretary of State for War, the Earl of Derby, to contemplate reducing British Army remount establishments by 25 to 50%. Terminating remount purchasing in the US was not an option for Derby, however, who claimed that remounts “of the required stamp, cannot be procured in the United Kingdom in sufficient qualities.” Thus, “the

Army Council are…strongly averse to cutting off that source of supply altogether.”715 The demand for draught and artillery horses remained steady, as motor transport was not available in sufficient quantities to present a viable alternative. On the other hand, the absence of significant cavalry actions on the Western Front rendered the BEF’s Cavalry Corps a prime target for reduced establishments.716 Simply put, the War Office had too many horses on its hands by May 1917.

A complicating factor from a British perspective, too, was an escalating trade imbalance with the United States. From the beginning of the war, the War Office looked to American firms to furnish munitions, food, and war materials. By November 1916, 40% of British war purchases

713 Babington Smith, “War Cabinet – Consumption of Grain by Horses,” 27 February 1917. 714 Shipping Control Committee, “Merchant Shipping,” 1 November 1916. NA CAB 24/2. 715 Secretary of State for War, the Earl of Derby, “War Cabinet – Reduction of Horses,” 8 May 1917. NA CAB 24/12. 716 Secretary of State for War, the Earl of Derby, “War Cabinet – Reduction of Horses.” 207

were expended in North America.717 In April 1917 the Ministry of Munitions, Royal Commission on Wheat Supplies, and Board of Trade spent $83 million a week in the United States. It became increasingly difficult to secure funds for these purchases. American firms insisted on receiving US dollars as payment, which British financiers had to purchase with high-interest loans.718 British

Treasury officials grew more and more desperate to secure the necessary funds to continue purchasing war materials in the US. American loans were conditional upon spending the loaned sums within the United States. This afforded the British breathing room in the US but strictly limited these funds’ utility for other markets.719 Historian Kathleen Burk notes that, by early 1917,

“the point had been reached where Britain no longer had control over her external financial affairs, but was at the mercy of events and the American government.”720

This growing trade imbalance carried severe implications for the Canadian war economy.

The Canadian munitions industry was the focal point of this unfolding crisis. Canadian munitions production experienced a rough beginning – inefficiency, war profiteering, and abysmal quality control marred early production efforts by the Shell Committee.721 A streamlined Imperial

Munitions Board (IMB) chaired by meatpacking magnate Sir Joseph Flavelle expunged corruption and patronage and coordinated munitions industries across the country within a single, gigantic, crown corporation.722 Although the IMB grew better at producing shells, the British were experiencing more and more difficulty paying for its orders. The production programme for

January-June 1917 called for $250 million worth of orders placed in Canada, with no assurance

717 Kathleen Burk, Britain, America and the Sinews of War, 1914-1918, (Boston: George Allen & Unwin, 1985), 5. 718 Burk, Britain, America and the Sinews of War, 1914-1918, 6-7, 77. 719 War Cabinet Minutes, 5 July 1917, 2. NA CAB 23/3. 720 Burk, Britain, America and the Sinews of War, 94. 721 See Morton, A Military History of Canada, 133. 722 Robert Bothwell, Ian Drummond, and John English, Canada, 1900-1945 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987), 177. 208

from the British Treasury to furnish the necessary funds.723 Victory Loans raised by the Canadian

Government helped provide some of the money, but the British were unable to lend assistance. A

British War Cabinet meeting of 5 July 1917 concluded that “if Canada wanted orders, Canada must be provide more dollars.” The meeting minutes continued, “if funds were not forthcoming in

Canada, all orders after September would have to cease.”724 In June 1917, the IMB was barely able to meet its monthly expenditure of $50 million: $10 million came from the Imperial Treasury, $25 million from the Canadian Government, and the remained “scraped together…by means of temporary borrowing from the Banks.”725 Historian Michael Bliss notes that by this point “there was no more British money to buy munitions in Canada.”726 In September 1917, munitions plants began to close due to a dearth of funds, and Secretary of State for the Colonies Walter Long worried that “Canada is faced with financial collapse that might “throw Canada into the arms of the United States” in desperation for financial salvation.727 Long’s worries were not misplaced.

Canada ultimately staved off financial collapse, and the IMB continued to produce munitions on a reduced scale, owing to loans and munitions orders placed by the United States.728

This financial context is essential for comprehending the final demise of Canada’s remount market. In addition to the prevailing difficulties over adequate Canadian supply and declining

British demand, there simply was no money left to buy horses in Canada. Over the course of 1917 the British Remount Commission significantly scaled back its purchases in Canada, buying only

723 Michael Bliss, A Canadian Millionaire: The Life and Times of Sir Joseph Flavelle, Bart., 1858-1939, (Toronto: Macmillan, 1978), 315. 724 War Cabinet Minutes, 5 July 1917, 2. 725 Minister of Munitions Christopher Addison, “The Financial Position in Canada,” 3 July 1917. NA CAB 24/18. 726 Bliss, A Canadian Millionaire, 363. 727 Secretary of State for the Colonies Walter Long, “Financial Situation in Canada,” 13 September 1917. CAB 24/26. 728 Bliss, A Canadian Millionaire, 364-371. 209

3,136 remounts, most of which came from Toronto.729 Even still, the Globe reported on 12 May

1917, for example, that French and British remount purchasing “was of very limited proportions in Toronto.” A month later, British remount officers only purchased 32 horses out of 160 presented by horse breeders.730

In the midst of these developments, the War Office made a last gesture of support for its

Dominion ally. In May 1917, it dispatched Brigadier-General Neill to Canada to reassess the

Canadian remount market and reinvigorate British purchasing activities. Canadian attendees at the

Imperial War Conferences held in the spring of 1917 impressed the grievances of Canadian horse breeders that “were not being given the chance of disposing of their horses to the British

Government,” and furthermore “that preference was being given to the United States market, to the prejudice of the Canadian.”731 The War Office was receptive to these criticisms to a degree, and dispatching Neill was its way of exhibiting due diligence. Neill travelled the breadth of the country in May-June and was generally disappointed with the state of the Canadian remount market. The animals, either unsuitable for military draught work or demanding higher prices that

Neill could afford, were not promising specimens for a significant reinvigoration of Canadian remount purchases. Only Ontario dealers offered horses that were broadly suitable for the right price.732 Nevertheless, the Globe reported on 9 July 1917 that Neill “plans to ship 3,000 horses overseas monthly.”733

729 Report on the Purchase of Horses and Mules by the British Remount Commission, 49-50. 730 “Week’s Horse Trade in Toronto,” The Globe, 12 May 1917, Page 23, and “Week’s Horse Trade in Toronto,” The Globe, 9 June 1917, Page 24. 731 Report on the Purchase of Horses and Mules by the British Remount Commission, 18. 732 French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War, 1914-1919, 133. 733 “Opposition is Exaggerated,” The Globe, 9 July 1917, Page 3. 210

By the summer of 1917, the unfolding financial crises, coupled with a declining interest in remounts, proved the final blow for Canadian military horse markets. The War Office cabled

Brigadier-General A.D. McRae, the Quartermaster-General for the Overseas Military Forces of

Canada (OMFC) on 14 August 1917:

In accordance with instructions from the treasury all purchase of horses in Canada by the British Remount Commission has ceased. Under the circumstances we can no longer carry out our undertaking to make purchases in Canada at least equivalent to the number of animals issued to the Canadian Army. If under these circumstances you desire to buy horses yourselves and after specially marking them turn them into the British Army Depots in America, I am to say that every care will be taken to deliver them to your troops.734

McRae was shocked. Not only would this effectively kill Canada’s remount industry, it represented a betrayal of Imperial solidarity when thousands of Canadians fought and died on behalf of the

British Empire. A week later, he insisted “there must be some misunderstanding.” He protested

In view of the anxiety of the Canadian Horse Breeders to dispose of their remounts and the much discussed policy of keeping trade within the Empire, it would hardly appear quite fair that the Canadian horses should be discriminated against by the British Remount Commission making all its purchases in the United States.735

The War Office replied simply that cessation of all purchasing in Canada was “due to the financial position in Canada” without further elaboration. “The Dominion Government is well aware of the circumstances,” with War Office insisted.736 Historiographically, this vague “financial situation” forms the proverbial “end of the line” for literature on Canadian remounts in the Great War. Both

Captain Cecil French and Graham Winton cite “financial reasons” as the cause for truncated British

734 War Office to Quartermaster-General, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 14 August 1917. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3381 Folder P-41-45. 735 Brig-Gen A.D. McRae to War Office, 21 August 1917. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3381 Folder P-41-45. 736 Lieut-Col E.C. Sanders to QMG Canadian Forces, 28 August 1917. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3381 Folder P-41- 45. 211

purchases without any further explanation.737 Margaret Derry fails to note these events whatsoever, and erroneously states that the British Remount Commission purchased 9,500 Canadian remounts in 1917.738 It is abundantly clear, however, that this prevailing financial situation was critical to the demise of the Canadian remount industry. These fiscal considerations, combined with the War

Office’s decreased demand for remounts, are essential to consider to fully appreciate the disappointing closure of Canadian remount markets in the First World War.

That August 1917 would mark the end of purchasing Canadian remounts for the British

Empire was not immediately apparent to contemporaries. The War Office suggested that the

Canadian Government could purchase animals independently and turn them over to the British

Remount Commission, so that “a market for Canadian horses might be provided.”739 Brigadier-

General Neill hoped to attempt such a scheme. He wrote to the OMFC Chief Paymaster on 7

September that “the Remount Department is now ready to carry on operation in Canada.” “It is very urgent that this matter receive immediate attention,” Neill continued “otherwise we will lose touch with the organization of dealers which now exists.”740 However, these plans did not come to fruition. Mr. John F. Ryan, a prominent Montreal racehorse owner, lamented to Neill on 28

September that “there is nothing doing in the remount business in Canada at the present time.”

Ryan informed Neill that “if there is anything you can do…it will be a good thing for Canadian owners and breeders.”741 Neill replied “the whole Remount question is under consideration,” but assured Ryan that “I feel sure that the market will be opened again for the purchase of horses in

737 French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War, 1914-1919, 133, and Winton, Theirs Not to Reason Why, 367. 738 Derry, Horses in Society, 153. 739 Lieut-Col. DM Hogarth to GOC Canadians, 31 August 1917. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3381 Folder P-41-45. 740 Brigadier-Genral W.J. Neill to Chief Paymaster, OMFC, 7 September 1917. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3381 Folder P-41-45. 741 J.F. Ryan to Brig. General Neill, 28 September 1917. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3381 Folder P-41-45. 212

Canada in the near future.”742 As late as January 1918, Neill expected “we shall be purchasing in

Canada by the Spring.” He continued, “I am almost sure that if the class of horses are good, purchasing will re-commence.”743

These hopes did not bear out. The British Government purchased no more remounts from

Canada during the Great War. These circumstances appear broadly acknowledged by Canadian press outlets, which evidently ceased voicing substantial criticisms long after August 1917.

Nevertheless, still resentful over the failures of Borden’s Government, Mr. Duncan Ross, MP for

Middlesex (Ontario) and one of the few Laurier Liberals in the province, vented simmering frustrations over the remount debacle. In the House of Commons on 6 May 1918 he decried that

“our horses are known to be the best in the world.” Borden’s administration, which nominally

“pretends to look after the interests of the farmers and of production…seems to have only trifled with the horse industry in Canada.”744

A final gasp of remount activity occurred in September-October 1918, when Western

Canadian press outlets reported that Alberta would furnish all remounts for the Siberian

Expeditionary Force (SEF).745 “Canadian horse breeders want to furnish all the horses used by the

Canadian army,” The Edmonton Bulletin reported on 12 September.746 This indeed proved the case

– the Canadian Government purchased some 1,632 remounts for service with the SEF. However, only 291 actually accompanied the force overseas due to lack of shipping capacity and SEF units supplemented their animal strength in Siberia with small, native Russian horses.747 With the

742 Brigadier-General Neill to J.F. Ryan, 14 November 1917. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3381 Folder P-41-45. 743 Brigadier-General W.J. Neill to J.F. Ryan, 12 January 1918. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3381 Folder P-41-45. 744 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Debates, 13th Parliament, 1st Session, Vol. 2, (6 May 1918), 1495. 745 “Will Buy Here Horses For The Siberia Force,” The Edmonton Bulletin, 1 October 1918, Page 2. 746 “Horse Breeders Would Furnish All Horses For Army,” The Edmonton Bulletin, 13 September 1918, Page 1. 747 French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War, 1914-1919, 98. Benjamin Isitt, on the other hand, notes that 287 horses accompanied the force overseas. It is unclear why this discrepancy 213

exception of these relatively small remaining purchases, however, the Canadian remount market effectively closed on 14 August 1917. Table 4.1 illustrates how the British Remount Commission’s activities ultimately unfolded in each region of the country throughout the war.

Table 4.1: Canadian Remounts Purchased and Received by the British Government748

Province 1914 1915 1916 1917 TOTAL Maritime 82 82

Provinces Quebec 3,769 3,427 4,509 44 11,749 Ontario 4,825 1,702 1,333 2,805 10,665 Manitoba 1,748 272 237 147 2,404 Saskatchewan 112 112 Alberta 2,415 202 11 2,628

British 60 17 77 Columbia Gift Horses 1,285* 36 1,321 Canadian 3,619 3,619 Government TOTAL 14,184 9,258 6,079 3,136 32,657

British purchasing operations continued to decline in the United States as well. Tensions arose between the United States and British Governments over procuring remounts for the

American Expeditionary Force (AEF) in 1917. Akin to Borden’s Government in 1914, the US

Government requested the British Remount Commission suspend its operations and thus provide a domestic remount monopoly. Unlike the Canadian experience, however, British officials were

“strongly opposed” to such cessation. They negotiated firmly for continued purchasing, if at a more limited pace.749 However, due to the continued burden of fodder upon British logistics routes,

exists, but the lower figure could conceivably account for wastage on the trip to Siberia. See Bejnamin Isitt, From Victoria to Vladivostok: Canada’s Siberian Expedition, 1917-19, (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010), 85. 748 *1,280 of these were gifts from the Provincial Government of Saskatchewan. Report on the Purchase of Horses and Mules by the British Remount Commission, 48-51. 749 Report on the Purchase of Horses and Mules by the British Remount Commission, 20. 214

and apparently possessing sufficient reserves for the present, the War Office ceased all purchasing in the United States in February 1918. This pause was short-lived. The Imperial German Army’s launch of Operation Michael and the subsequent military crisis wrought by the Spring Offensives of March-May 1918 inaugurated a hasty resumption of remount purchasing to replace wastage at the front.750 British remount orders in early April 1918 called for 8,000 animals per month.751

Purchasing and shipment steadily continued until the Armistice of 11 November 1918, when the

War Office again ordered immediate suspension of purchasing operations. At the Armistice, the

British Remount Commission possessed 15,977 horses and mules in North America, 7,586 of which remained in Canadian Remount Depots.752 Chapter Ten discusses the fate of these animals.

Between 4 August 1914 and 11 November 1918, the British War Office purchased

1,126,057 remounts from around the world.753 During this period, the British Remount

Commission purchased 484,636 horses and 146,308 mules in North America. Of these, 32,657 came from Canada.754 The Government of Canada purchased 26,304 animals (of which the British

Government bought back 3,619 in 1915) and the French Government roughly 10,000. Therefore, approximately 65,342 Canadian-bred horses served in the Great War – 2.22% of the 1914 horse population. This was considerably higher than the proportion of Canadian remounts (1.46%) that served in the South African War. Still, the Canadian remounts purchased for service in the British

Empire – 55,342 – comprised only 4.43% of the remounts bought by the Imperial Government in

750 Chapter Nine will explore the Spring Offensives in greater detail. 751 Secretary of State for War, the Earl of Derby, “Shipment of remounts from America,” 10 April 1918. NA CAB 24/47. 752 Report on the Purchase of Horses and Mules by the British Remount Commission, 28. 753 Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire During the Great War, 860. 754 Report on the Purchase of Horses and Mules by the British Remount Commission, 48-51, 83. 215

the Great War. Clearly, Canada did not serve as the remount depot of the British Empire in the

Great War. The United States did.

“Give Canada a Chance”

The history of Canadian remounts in the Great War is one of suspicion, blame, frustration, and disappointment. The British, French, and Canadian Governments certainly purchased tens of thousands of animals. The market was briefly stimulated, and prices rose. However, the gargantuan purchasing operations in the then-neutral United States overshadowed this entire period. From the outbreak of war, Canadian politicians, press outlets, and horse breeders alike lamented the overt favourtism exhibited to US horse markets without a corresponding interest in the horses of this

Imperial Dominion. Yet, it is equally clear that British options were somewhat limited. American horses were cheaper, more abundant, and thus easier to secure in the quantities necessary for its global war effort. The British Government grappled with a global conflict on an unprecedented scale and it used every method possible to win that conflict. Canada was merely a component of this overall war effort. Fighting and winning the war – not placating sensitive horse breeders in

Alberta or Ontario – remained the War Office’s principal goal.

This chapter demonstrated that a variety of circumstances contributed to the downfall of the Canadian remount market in the Great War. Other historical works by Margaret Derry, Cecil

French, and Graham Winton, examine these issues from different perspectives. None of them illustrates how the confluence of martial affairs, diplomacy, fiscal considerations, domestic politics, and the agency of civilian breeders, accounted for this dissatisfying situation. Breeders were largely reluctant to sell their best animals for military prices. Remount officers could not buy substandard stock simply because farmers tried to sell them. The Canadian Government was more

216

interested in saving money than it was in providing a secure customer base for civilian horse dealers. The British Remount Commission exploited the abundant animal reserves in the US and slowly turned away from Canadian markets. When confronted with an alarming financial crisis in

1917, it shut down operations in Canada entirely. Clearly, it is essential to consider each of these circumstances to fully understand the Great War’s limited impact on Canada’s equine economy.

Underwriting all of these affairs in Canada was the unfolding war in Western Europe. The

1st Canadian Division entered combat for the first time in February 1915. Its efforts to maintain the health and efficiency of its remounts was put to the test by the strains of trench warfare on the

Western Front. As the above figures on British remount purchasing illustrate, the Great War had a voracious appetite for animal life. Chapter Five will delve into war experiences on the Western

Front itself, and shift focus from the home front to the “sharp end” of battle.

217

Chapter Five – “Gamely Stand To Their Horses:” Initiation to the Western Front, February-June 1915

“In the afternoon accompanied Brig-General Currie on his inspection of 2nd Infantry Bde, found all horses in first class condition. All showed the effects of care and grooming. V.O. apparently doing good service.”755

-Captain Ashton Cutcliffe ADVS 1st Canadian Division 1 April 1915

“Our wagons and horses have been kept going since the night of the 22nd instant and it is only by care [sic] that the horses are kept from losing condition.”756

-Major Charles Long Adjutant, 1st Canadian DAC 25 April 1915

February to June 1915 marked pivotal phase in the history of the CEF. During these months the 1st Canadian Division experienced its inaugural apprenticeship on the Western Front, its

“baptism of fire” during the Second Battle of Ypres in April, and fought in the costly battles of

Festubert and Givenchy in May and June.757 The 1st Division sustained enormous losses, particularly among its infantry units. By June 1915, it cemented its status as a capable division that showed its mettle under difficult circumstances on the Western Front.

The relative levels of preparedness, tactical skill, and combat effectiveness demonstrated by Canadian soldiers in 1915 continues to elicit a brisk debate among historians. This period undoubtedly remains one of the most contentious in Canadian historiography of the Great War.

Historians such as Desmond Morton, Bill Rawling, and Kenneth Radley argued that the 1st

755 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 1 April 1915. 756 WD, 1st DAC, 25 April 1915. 757 This phrase is often used to describe the Canadian defence of Ypres in April 1915, and formed the title for Nathan Greenfield’s popular history of the battle, Baptism of Fire: The Second Battle of Ypres and the Forging of Canada, April 1915, (Toronto: Harper Collins, 2007). 218

Canadian Division was “woefully unready” for combat in February 1915. Despite “only rudimentary tactical skills,” such historians contend, Canadian soldiers persevered through grit and determination.758 Conversely, works by Tim Cook and Andrew Iarocci contend that “skill and training,” not just raw courage, marked Canadian combat operations during this period. Iarocci’s study contends the 1st Canadian Division, after such extensive preparation at Salisbury, was “an effective combat formation” for its tenacious defence of Ypres in April-May 1915.759

This period similarly marked an important chapter in the history of Canadian horses and veterinary personnel. February to June 1915 witnessed the first large scale commitment of

Canadian military animals to battle and the first major combat test of its veterinary services.

Historians, however, have yet to explore how these months tried soldiers’ skills in animal management and care that preceding chapters of this study discussed in depth. The Second Battle of Ypres caused alarming losses to the 1st Canadian Division’s animal strength, but the battle nevertheless illustrated the value of training for managing, treating, and evacuating animals in intense combat scenarios. Evidence presented by unit war diaries conveys a generally competent management of animals in the field by artillery, logistics, and veterinary personnel, all of whom maintained the mobility of Canadian units despite heavy casualties among both men and horses.

This chapter investigates the Canadians’ inaugural experiences on the Western Front. It details the overall rank structure, system of evacuation, and system of remount replenishment employed by all veterinary services in the BEF to which Canadian veterinary personnel had to adapt. It also provides an overview of the new challenges confronting Canadian personnel on the

758 Morton, When Your Number’s Up, 31, 45-46, Rawling, Surviving Trench Warfare, 30-35, Radley, We Lead, Others Follow, 86. 759 Cook, At the Sharp End, 116-166, and Iarocci, Shoestring Soldiers, 6-12. 219

front lines. Although Salisbury Plain provided critical training, more experience in active combat scenarios was necessary before these troops and horses could perform their military tasks at maximum effectiveness. This chapter then assesses how all of these considerations came to the fore during the desperate fighting at Ypres, during which Canadian personnel successfully took care of their horses in the midst of horrific losses.

Routine on the Western Front: February-April 1915

When the 1st Canadian Division reached the Western Front in early February 1915 it was integrated within III British Corps, Second Army, under the overall command of General Sir

Horace Smith-Dorrien. During the first weeks of their time in the trenches, units of the 1st Division were attached to veteran British formations so that Canadian units could learn standard operating procedures at the front lines. This period of “instructional purposes” lasted from 16 February to 2

March and saw all arms of the division alternately attached to the 4th and 6th British Divisions – veteran units which saw action on the Marne and the First Battle of Ypres. These apprenticeship orders began with the private soldier. Each Canadian infantryman would pair with a British veteran in the front lines “who is to teach him all he knows.” Section, Platoon, Company, and Battalion commanders attached themselves to their British counterparts to “learn the many details of…administration in trench warfare.” 760

Similarly, artillerymen learned how to register their pieces on active targets, and Forward

Observation Officers (FOO) how to call in barrages on enemy positions.761 They also learned how

760 Brigadier-General George F. Milne, “Attachment – Canadian Division,” 15 February 1915. WD, 1st Canadian Division General Staff, February 1915, Appendix 3. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 4823 Reel T-7182. 761 See Duguid, From the Outbreak of War to the Formation of the Canadian Corps, August 1914 – September 1915, 166-173, Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 49, Iarocci, Shoestring Soldiers, 56-79, and Windsor and Sarty, “New Brunswick’s Artillery Goes to War, 1914-1915,” 117-121. 220

to position and protect their horses near the front lines. Captain Charles Hanson, a staff officer with the 2nd Brigade Canadian Field Artillery (CFA), visited the horse lines and ammunition column of the 14th Brigade Royal Field Artillery (RFA) on 23 February. He found that “the column is well to the rear and is well placed regarding both cover and facility for supplying ammunition.”

The day before the Other Ranks (OR) of the 2nd Brigade “were attached to men doing the same duties and learning all possible from the experienced soldiers.” By 24 February, the brigade resumed its training and conditioning the horses though “exercise rides, [and] section gun drill” from its time at Salisbury.762

Logistics personnel also further honed their skills with on-the-job training. The officers, men, and 484 horses of the 1st Canadian DAC resumed their training while supplying the division with ammunition. Major Charles Long, the DAC Adjutant, wrote this training included practice for Shoeing-Smiths in fitting spare shoes, “50 per cent of which are to be carried in the shoe cases and the balance in our wagons.” At the same time, “drivers are being trained to harness and hook in quickly,” and wagons were “kept parked and ready for action.” Reflecting the broader apprenticeship scheme employed by other Divisional units, small rotating groups officers, usually consisting of one captain and two lieutenants, attached to the 4th and 6th British DAC to attend “a course of instruction…in the actual supply of ammunition in the field.” Similarly, the DAC’s

Officer Commanding (OC), Lieutenant-Colonel John Penhale, accompanied the 4th British DAC on replenishment trips and observed that such British DACs combined motor and horse transport sections to provide a direct link between the railhead and brigade ammunition columns. Long considered this period of apprenticeship and exchange was “an excellent idea.”763

762 WD, 2nd Brigade CFA, 22-24 February 1915. 763 WD, 1st Canadian DAC, 19-25 February 1915. 221

This on-the-job training was vital in demonstrating how units in forward areas received supplies and ammunition. Supply networks in the forward areas divided into three “echelons.”

Third-line transport consisted of the division’s motorized Supply Column, which featured an establishment of 44 “Heavy Lorries” and 14 “Light Lorries” for transport.764 Second-line transport comprised the DAC and Divisional Train, which collected supplies from rear-area dumps and conveyed them to forward dumps. Thenceforward first-line transport, brigade ammunition columns and other logistics trained operated by field units themselves, carried ammunition and supplies to units in the line.765 Similarly, artillery units were echeloned approximately 2,500 yards behind the front lines. Wagon supply lines were generally held two miles behind these gun positions, and brigade ammunition columns a further three miles behind.766 Excepting the 134 lorries in the 1st Division’s Supply Column and Ammunition Sub-Park, horses performed the overwhelming bulk of the transport work.767 Virtually all of the 5,114 horses attached to the 1st

Canadian Division – excepting the divisional cavalry and other riding mounts – were earmarked for transportation purposes.768 Whether they pulled artillery pieces, supply wagons, or ambulances,

764 Appendix 212: “Report on Mechanical Transport,” 19 January 1915, in From the Outbreak of War to the Formation of the Canadian Corps, August 1914 – September 1915, Chronology, Appendices and Maps, 151. Motor Transport (MT) comprised a crucial link in the logistics network that faced similar challenges of equipment procurement, personnel, and developing skills and training for work in the field as did horsed service branches. Andrew Iarocci notes, for example, that “each of Canada’s four overseas divisions arrived in England and embarked for France badly short of AMT equipment.” He further notes that MT services faced numerous challenged throughout the war finding skilled drivers for lorries. See Iarocci, “Dangerous Curves,” 116-124. 765 Iarocci, Shoestring Soldiers, 31. 766 Duguid, From the Outbreak of War to the Formation of the Canadian Corps, August 1914 – September 1915, 173. 767 Graham Winton notes that five 3-ton motor lorries could carry the same volume of ammunition as the six gun limbers and twelve ammunition wagons of a field artillery battery. However, simple lack of motor lorries in sufficient numbers over the course of the war meant that motorized transport did not supplant horses until after the Great War. See Winton, Theirs Not to Reason Why, 209, and “Report on Mechanical Transport,” 151. 768 “1st Canadian Division – Strength of Horses upon departure from England and arrival in France, at various dates from February 11th to 26th, 1915,” 11-12. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3383 Folder R-18-45 Vol. 2. 222

these animals ensured the fighting units of the 1st Canadian Division could do their jobs by being kept stocked with ammunition, supplies, and with close artillery support.

Veterinary personnel similarly embarked upon brief exchanges to learn routine in active service conditions. On 20-21 February, Lieutenant-Colonel Neill, as Assistant Director of

Veterinary Services for the division, visited the headquarters of 4th and 6th British Divisions. He inspected horses from both divisions, inspected horse shelter stables with brick flooring (necessary to keep animals out of cold and wet mud), and observed how No. 6 Mobile Veterinary Section

(MVS) entrained evacuating cases at a local railway station. Two days earlier Neill inspected No.

1 Canadian MVS and gave its OC, Captain O’Gogarty, “instructions in connection with the system to be carried out by his section,” who attached to No. 5 MVS to learn its routine.769

During this period, Neill also consulted with superior officers within the veterinary hierarchy of the British Expeditionary Force to ascertain the nature of his duties. The 1st Canadian

Division was a unique colonial contingent within the BEF, but it was still subordinate to its overall command structure and General Headquarters (GHQ). As Chapter Three noted, Neill’s chief responsibility as ADVS was to administer all CAVC personnel within the division and serve as a

“responsible advisor” on animal health to the GOC, Lieutenant-General Alderson.770 At the same time, however, he answered to superior veterinary officers at the Army and GHQ level. The

Director of Veterinary Services (DVS) of the BEF was Brigadier-General John Moore, a long serving AVC professional officer with extensive service in India, Sudan, and South Africa.771

Moore’s nominal task, according to the Veterinary Manual (War), was to advise BEF GOC Field

769 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 19-21 February 1915 and WD, DDVS Second Army, 19 February 1915. 770 Veterinary Manual (War), 1915, (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1915), 4. LAC RG 24 Vol 22,021 771 Winton, Theirs Not to Reason Why, 444. 223

Marshal Sir John French “on all technical matters,” and to control “all arrangements in connection with the Veterinary Service.” Indeed, the Manual noted, the DVS “commands and is responsible for the distribution and co-ordinat[ion]…of the veterinary personnel with the force.”772

These responsibilities were enormous. Moore was in charge of veterinary personnel throughout the entire BEF, whether they served in a combat division or in a veterinary hospital on the Lines of Communication, the interconnected road and train transportation network far to the rear. By extension, he was thus also tasked with overseeing the health and efficiency of all animals in the BEF. By 25 February 1915, when the 1st Canadian Division animals formally entered BEF weekly animal returns, 129,611 horses and mules worked in various units, including 5,088 horses of the 1st Canadian Division.773 Simultaneously, 11,256 of these animals remained under treatment in across ten veterinary hospitals scattered between Marseilles and Abbeville, and one

Convalescent Horse Depot at Gournay-en-Bras.774 Neill reported to Moore at Abbeville on 17

February, where the two “discussed the question of the organization of the Canadian Veterinary

Service and received instructions as to how I should carry on while in France.”775 Given Moore’s breadth of responsibility, however, he seldom interjected in the daily routine of Canadian veterinary and remount affairs.

The immediate superior officers governing the veterinary and animal requirements of the

1st Canadian Division (and later the Canadian Corps) were the various Deputy-Directors

Veterinary Services (DDsVS) of each Army in the BEF.776 For most of 1915, when the Canadians served in British Second Army, Major F.W. Wilson held this posting. Wilson served previously

772 Veterinary Manual (War), 1915, 3. 773 Return of Casualties in Horses – Week Ending 25th February 1915. NA WO 95/66. 774 Weekly State of Veterinary Hospitals, L. of C. – Week Ending 25/2/15. NA WO 95/66. 775 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 17 February 1915. 776 A corps-level veterinary officer post would not be created until the summer of 1917. 224

as ADVS to 1st British Division since the outbreak of war and was promoted to DDVS Second

Army in early February 1915.777 Although Neill technically outranked Wilson, this professional

British officer with continuous combat experience since the Battle of Mons was nevertheless his direct superior. On 15 February, Major Wilson visited Neill, who “received instructions from him as to routine” conducted by BEF veterinary services.778

Neill did not impress Wilson. The regular AVC officer imparted some biting criticisms of

Neill and other Canadian officers in the DDVS War Diary, none of whom apparently made good first impressions. Wilson complained that the “preliminary instructions” he offered to Neill were those “which I should have thought he would have learnt while on Salisbury Plain.” Similarly, when the 1st Canadian Division transferred to First Army command for its small diversionary role in the Battle of Neuve Chapelle in early March,779 Wilson lamented that “the Veterinary Officers of this Division are of a poor professional standard.” He continued, “it would have been a great advantage if some more training of the ADVS Divsn and OC Mobile Vety Section could have been arranged, they knew practically nothing of our organisation or routine.” 780

Wilson’s criticisms, as damning as they appear, must be viewed within the context of the

Canadians’ apprenticeship experience. All levels of command from divisional headquarters down to individual infantry sections required additional periods of acclimatization, training, and practical experience before they were ready to operate independently. The veterinary services were no

777 WD, DDVS Second Army, 4 February 1915. NA WO 95/289. 778 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 779 This engagement was a significant offensive effort by General Sir Douglas Haig’s First Army to break through German lines at Neuve Chapelle from 10-15 March. The offensive witnessed significant initial territorial gains, but slowed to a halt when German reinforcements contained the British advance. The 1st Canadian Division only played a limited supporting role in the battle, with infantry and artillery firing on German positions as a diversion but remained in their own lines. See Duguid, From the Outbreak of War to the Formation of the Canadian Corps, August 1914 – September 1915, 179-184, Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919, 50-55, and Iarocci, Shoestring Soldiers, 68-72. 780 WD, DDVS Second Army, 19 February and 1 March 1915. 225

different. Learning the nuances of routine and organisation as they prevailed on the Western Front, rather than Salisbury Plain, was simply part of the gradual introduction process for integrating novice divisions into the violence of the trenches. Major-General Frederick Smith’s appraisal of the division and its CAVC complement the month before was more measured in its assessment of a unit that had yet to be committed to combat.781 On the other hand, Wilson’s critical eye evaluated these same personnel based on standards of organization and combat readiness demonstrated by

British regulars, as Wilson was himself. Wilson’s criticisms exhibit that Neill, O’Gogarty, and other CAVC officers had much to learn before they could be held to the same professional standard of the British Regular Army, but it would be erroneous to interpret his criticisms as a universal condemnation of the training at Salisbury.

In the event, Wilson’s criticisms of Neill’s capabilities in the field could never be fully borne out. On 11 March, with just under a month of frontline experience, Neill received orders to report to England to assume the newly created post of Director of Veterinary Services “for all the

Canadian Contingents proceeding to England.”782 Canadian veterinary sections and unattached veterinary officers steadily arrived in England throughout 1915 and the War Office evidently found it necessary to establish a DVS headquarters to coordinate all CAVC activities within a centralized office.783 However, this post was to hold little practical authority with the daily affairs of veterinary and remount affairs in France and Flanders. Efforts to control infectious disease, disseminating information on new practices, and control of hospitals on the Lines of Communication all fell to

781 See Chapter Three. 782 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 11 March 1915. 783 French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War 1914-1919, 99. 226

Brigadier-General Moore at GHQ, not Lieutenant-Colonel Neill in London. Neill’s posting and the controversies it entailed, of which there were many, will be discussed in Chapter Six.

Following Neill’s departure, Captain Ashton B. Cutcliffe, VO to the division’s engineers, was promoted to ADVS. Cutcliffe was an 1892 OVC graduate, worked as a veterinary surgeon in

Brantford, Ontario in civil life, and served in the Militia as VO to the 25th Brantford Dragoons since April 1909.784 Cutcliffe was not, as Cecil French claims, the most senior officer in the division at this point. Other officers could claim longer periods of seniority in the Militia prior to the outbreak of war, but Cutcliffe still received appointment as ADVS for reasons that are not entirely clear. French considered him “a very good administrator of the slow, plodding type, methodical and interested in his work.” He further described Cutcliffe as “over conscientious” – not necessarily an undesirable trait for an officer holding a billet where a keen administrative capabilities and veterinary skill were critical.785 Despite French’s only lukewarm assessment of his capabilities, Cutcliffe would ultimately prove himself a competent ADVS who served with distinction throughout the rest of the war at the apex of Canadian veterinary services in the field.

The CAVC’s efforts to oversee animal health and efficiency were considerably facilitated by proficient animal management throughout the 1st Division.786 Soldiers’ Militia experiences and the training at Valcartier and Salisbury evidently paid dividends when they finally took to the field with their horses. Neill inspected the horses of the 1st Canadian Infantry Brigade (CIB) on 27

784 Ontario Veterinary College, Annual Announcement Session 1907-1908, 33, The Quarterly Militia List of the Dominion of Canada (Corrected to 30th June, 1914), 323, and Attestation Paper: Ashton Bluett Cutcliffe, LAC RG 150 Accession 1992/93/166, Box 2246-37 No. 131348. 785 French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War 1914-1919, 55. 786 The VOs of 1st Canadian Division in April-May 1915 were: ADVS Captain A.B. Cutcliffe; Divisional Train Captain J.L. Wood; 1st Brigade CFA Captain A.M. Dixon; 2nd Brigade CFA Captain A. Coulombe; 3rd Brigade CFA Captain C.G. Saunders; Heavy Battery Captain L. Grignon; CAD Captain A. Gaudry; 1st CIB Captain F. Walsh; 2nd CIB Captain H. Colebourne; 3rd CIB Captain C.E. Edgett; 118th Brigade RFA Lieutenant G.K. Hobson. A.2000 Form 1st Canadian Division – Week Ending 1 April 1915. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3386 Folder R-57-45. 227

February and judged that they were “in good condition and showing that they had been properly cared for.” Similarly, horses of the 1st CIB, 1st Field Ambulance, 1st Company Canadian Field

Engineers (CFE), and 2nd Signal Section that Neill inspected on 4 March were “all in splendid condition.” On 8-9 March Neill inspected the horses of all three field artillery brigades, concluding the 1st Brigade CFA animals were in “good condition generally,” the 2nd Brigade horses were only

“condition fair,” and 3rd Brigade horses were “condition good.”787

Despite Major Wilson’s misgivings over the “poor professional standard” of CAVC officers, these soldiers’ ability to care for their horses also impressed him. The DDVS Second

Army remarked on 3 April that 1st Canadian Division horses were “in excellent condition [and] appeared well cared for.” Three days later he inspected a “2nd group of Canadians,” whose “horses

[were] looking very well.”788 Similarly, Lieutenant-Colonel H. Palmer, the Second Army Deputy

Director Remounts (DDR), inspected DAC horses on 12 April and “said their condition was very good.”789 Canadian personnel evidently appreciated the high premium placed on keeping their animals healthy, fit, and capable of strenuous work they learned over the past months of training.

Indeed, Gunner Fred Fish of the 3rd Brigade CFA recalled, in an oft-repeated sentiment throughout the Great War, that these “lovely animals” were “taken care of better than the men.”790

Such high standards were critical. These animals were essential for working tasks and continued to haul guns and deliver supplies and ammunition without interruption, even during quiet periods on the line. For example the 3rd Brigade CFA war diary for 14 March remarked that for a “quiet day on the whole” its guns still fired 86 rounds – each of which had to be hauled to the

787 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 24 February to 9 March. 788 WD, DDVS Second Army, 3-6 April 1915. 789 WD, 1st CAD, 12 April 1915. 790 Fred Fish Interview, 2 October 1963, Tape 1. LAC RG 41 B-III-1 Vol. 21, 4th Division Artillery, and Attestation Paper: Frederick Merriott Fish, LAC RG 150, Accession 1992-93/166 Box 3101-4 No. 391472. 228

front lines by its horses.791 Just over a week before the DAC issued 145,000 rounds of .303 Small

Arms Ammunition (SAA) and 152 rounds of Quick Firing (QF) 18-pounder shrapnel shells, a heavy but unexceptional delivery during March.792 DAC animals were also routinely loaned out to other units requiring additional horses or supply wagons. On 1 April Major Long recorded that

“3 of our wagons, 4 horses per wagon, and 6 drivers are doing duty with the Canadian Artillery

Brigades.”793 This sort of loaning and exchange was common, and indeed, speaks to the efficacy of training and working alongside horses that these personnel could be so readily shuffled between units and tasks and still work efficiently.

At the same time soldiers honed these skills, they were learning important new lessons on how to manage their horses in relation to the local population. The Western Front slashed across flat Flanders farmland, industrial and coal-mining villages in Artois, and the gently rolling hills and ridges of Picardy, all of which were inhabited by French and Belgians of all vocations and social classes. Although fighting to liberate France and Belgium from their occupation by Imperial

German forces, the British Empire’s troops themselves formed an occupying force of a kind.794

Hundreds of thousands of men and tens of thousands of horses crammed within a relatively small geographic area, and it behooved GHQ to maintain as cordial relations with the local population as possible – both in the role as allies and effective occupying authorities.

Aside from soldiers themselves – who more than just occasionally got into trouble over drink and fraternization with the local populace795 – the horses themselves too could cause

791 WD, 3rd Brigade CFA, 14 March 1915. 792 WD, 1st DAC, 5 March 1915. 793 WD, 1st DAC, 1 April 1915. 794 See Cook, At the Sharp End, 390. 795 Morton, When Your Number’s Up, 200-202, Tim Cook, “‘More a medicine than a beverage:’ ‘Demon Rum’ and the Canadian Trench Soldier of the First World War,” Canadian Military History 9, No. 1 (Winter 2000): 6-22, and Cook, At the Sharp End, 386-391. 229

problems that personnel had to keep a keen eye on. Fruit trees, for example, were at considerable risk from horses “barking.” If soldiers tethered horses directly to trees the bored animals tended to chew the bark off and thus kill the tree. Divisional routine orders of 19 February thus stipulated that “under no circumstances are horses to be tied to trees,” but to picket lines strung between trees, or tethered to wagons while on the march.796 Farmers’ fields were similarly at risk from hungry horses. Brigade Order No. 14 by the 3rd Brigade CFA ordered battery commanders to

“restrict the grazing of animals to the fields in which horse and mule lines are,” and that “no other grass fields are to be used for exercising animals” or grazing.797

However, the presence of these armies on French and Belgian soil was not completely detrimental to the local population. The persistent threat of infectious diseases such as mange, glanders, and foot-and-mouth disease often required VOs to lend veterinary assistance and advice to local farmers. Lieutenant-Colonel E.E. Martin, ADVS for the Cavalry Corps, wrote to Moore in August 1915 that since “almost all their Veterinary Surgeons are away,” presumably serving in the French Army, diseases such as mange flourished among local horses. He therefore recommended that “permission might be given” to AVC officers “to treat such cases” among the civil population.798 Similarly, DDVS Second Army Wilson sought out “interchange” with the Chef du Service Vétérinaire at Dunkirk “regarding control of Foot [and] Mouth Disease in French

[Army] area and in France generally.” BEF VOs were to “cooperate with French veterinarians” to help isolate and eradicate outbreaks of FMD, to the mutual benefit of civil and military authorities.799 Summertime likewise proved some of the more fruitful contributions among

796 1st Canadian Division Routine Orders, 19 February 1915. Appendix 8.2, WD, 1st Canadian Division General Staff, February 1915, and WD, 1st DAC, 2 March 1915. 797 Brigade Order No. 14, 19 April 1915, WD, 3rd Brigade CFA. 798 Lieutenant-Colonel E.E. Martin to DVS, 9 August 1915. NA WO 95/68. 799 WD, DDVS Second Army, 13-14 August 1915. 230

Canadian soldiers to local farmers, who were especially in need of extra hands during harvest season. Major Long of the DAC wrote on 12 August that “men, wagons, and horses of all sections are assisting farmers” by “bringing in their harvest.”800

Horses also contributed inadvertently to farm work. Each horse in the BEF expelled roughly 50 pounds of manure per day, meaning that by August 1915, the BEF’s 243,867 horses on feeding strength produced approximately 12,193,350 pounds of manure every day.801 This buildup of waste presented a considerable health risk for veterinary, medical, and sanitary officers alike to contend with and was furthermore an enormous logistical problem. Generally speaking, units in the field carted manure to centralized dumps and covered these piles with earth to keep flies to a minimum. In some cases, these unit personnel dried the dung by raking it over an open area and burned it in the summertime.802 Regardless of these disposal methods there was always more than enough manure for farmers wishing to fertilize their fields. Major Long commented on

18 August that the Second Army Deputy Director of Medical Service (DDMS) “complained…of the disposition of manure from the horse lines.” This was not a major concern for very long, however, for “now that the harvest is being taken in, manure from the horse lines is being carted into the fields.”803 Similarly, farms surrounding rear area veterinary hospitals enjoyed access to a virtually uninterrupted source of free manure, even through the winter months. Moore lamented in

January 1915 that at least thirteen tons of manure per diem produced from every veterinary hospital, and that the Rouen Remount Depot had to contend with a manure pile of 1,000 tons, or

800 WD, 1st DAC, 18 August 1915. 801 Greene, Horses at Work, 174, and “Statement Shewing Provision of Winter Accommodation Arranged For Up To Date,” 9 August 1915. NA WO 95/68. 802 French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War 1914-1919, 151. 803 WD, 1st DAC, 18 August 1915. 231

two million pounds. While “neighbouring farmers would be glad to get the manure,” Moore wrote, was simply no way they could keep up with the enormous output from the hospitals and depots.804

Throughout this entire period of training and acclimatization there was a slow but steady drain on the 1st Division’s animal strength. Even though Canadian forces did not participate in sustained combat operations until late April, and despite the commendable standards of animal management, a steady stream of horses died, were destroyed, or required evacuation to rear area hospitals. Even on a comparative day of “all quiet on the Western Front,” animals were still horribly mutilated by shells, broke legs, and contracted deadly illnesses. In February 1915, during the period of apprenticeship and integration into the Western Front, the 1st Canadian Division lost

41 horses dead and 6 destroyed, and the next month 32 died, 10 were destroyed, and 31 were evacuated to rear areas hospitals.805 These losses principally involved injuries animals caused among themselves – bruises, kicks, and sprains. Respiratory tract infections such as pneumonia and strangles also appeared in isolated cases but there were no serious outbreaks in February-April.

Given that horses and mules largely remained picketed in the open, such illnesses were impossible to prevent completely, though they gradually declined with spring weather.806 Fortunately, those most worrisome diseases, mange and glanders, were almost totally absent. Only a few suspected mange cases attracted the attention of VOs, with microscopic skin tests yielding negative results.807

Under normal circumstances, animals too sick or wounded to be saved were only destroyed at the VO’s recommendation. Non-veterinary personnel could also perform the task if the animal suffered from a fractured leg or projectile wound.808 For this duty, VOs initially received Greener

804 WD, DVS, 6 January 1915. 805 “Balance Statement, Canadian Remounts, From October 1st 1914 to December 31st 1915,” 5-6. 806 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 9 April 1915. 807 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 19-21 March 1915. 808 French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War 1914-1919, 76, 124. 232

Cattle Killers, an early precursor to captive bolt pistols used in abattoirs in Europe and North

America.809 By April 1915, VOs in France and Britain were increasingly issued with surplus Mark

VI Webley revolvers, “for veterinary purposes only.” Neill noted that the Webleys were “much more satisfactory than the humane cattle killer,” though each MVS kept Greeners on hand at least until August 1917.810 Dead and destroyed horses were typically buried in adjoining fields.811

This heartbreaking but necessary task was never undertaken lightly. Gunner Fish recalled

“it was pretty tragic to see them shot in the end for thrush, glanders and so on.”812 Indeed, DVS

Moore may well have spoken for all VOs when he asked that his readers

will not mark down the Veterinary Service and myself as butchers, instead of a community of experts whose mission it is to cure and not to kill. I can safely say that the act of destruction is distasteful to the Veterinary Officer, but some of his Corps must do the deed, and the responsibility for the execution of it in a proper and humane manner devolved on the Veterinary Officer.813

From a purely economic perspective, it behooved VOs to save as many animal lives as possible and not destroy them without just cause. As preceding chapters demonstrated, each remount represented a significant investment, and each horse died or destroyed represented a net loss of government expenditure. Indeed, Cutcliffe visited the Divisional Train on 8 June 1915 to examine

809 The Greener loosely resembled a collapsed telescope, with a mallet-activated trigger at one of the eight inch barrel, and the other a bell-shaped muzzle which was supposed to sit flush between the animal’s eyes. It fired a .30 calibre pistol cartridge when the user struck the trigger, ideally killing the animal quickly and humanely through destruction of brain tissue and the spinal cord. Neill wrote in April 1916 that these instruments were “cumbersome,” as they required both hands to use and only fired a single-shot before reloading. Ian MacLachlan, “Coup de Grace: Humane Cattle Slaughter in Nineteenth Century Britain,” Food & History 3, No. 2 (2006): 163-164. 810 Veterinary Officers also used Colt Automatic pistols later in the war, though it is unclear whether these were government issue or privately purchased sidearms. Major J.H. Wilson to Chief Paymaster, CEF, 27 April 1915, Colonel W.J. Neill to Officer i/c Accounts, Record Office CEF, Colonel W.J. Neill to Chief Ordnance Officer, 5 April 1916, LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3390 Folder R-202-45. Also see AB Cutcliffe to DDVS First Army, 14 August 1917, LAC RG 9 III-C-1 Vol. 4579 Folder 1 File 16. 811 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 28 June 1915, and WD, ADVS 2nd Canadian Division, 23 September 1915. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5042 Reel T-10934. 812 Fred Fish Interview, 2 October 1963, Tape 1. 813 Major-General Sir John Moore, Army Veterinary Service in War, (London: H&W Brown, 1921), 163. 233

a horse which was “was very badly injured in a runaway,” and advised the VO, Captain T.Z.

Woods, to “[keep] the animal for a few days in the hope of saving her” from destruction.814 Several

Courts of Enquiry held throughout the Great War similarly investigated careless causes of animal death, ranging from accidental discharge of a rifle to improper shoeing causing fractured legs.815

In rare circumstances, horses could be destroyed if they were too incorrigible and uncooperative. In September 1915 Major Charles Adams, OC No. 1 Reserve Park, shot a horse which “seriously hurt” a driver. This was apparently the twelfth recorded incident of this particular animal causing “serious harm to men of this unit.” The horse was “utterly vicious,” and was “quite useless[,] never having pulled a load notwithstanding all efforts to make him of some use.” 816

Other horses were similarly destroyed over the course of the war if they bolted repeatedly at the first sound of gunfire,817 but military authorities preferred to sell live animals to local farmers or butchers to recoup some of the transportation and feeding costs.

Horses that were too sick or injured to remain with their units, but not so severely wounded as to necessitate destruction, could be evacuated to No. 1 Canadian Mobile Veterinary Section by the unit VO. The MVS fell under divisional command and was ideally placed in a centralized, well-advertised position so that personnel conveying evacuated animals could locate the units easily. They were also tasked with collecting stray remounts in the rear areas and recouping those horses left behind under the care of a local farmer – “billeted” – if they were too sick, injured, or

814 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 8 June 1915. 815 Court of Inquiry – “Inquiring into the circumstances of the shooting of horse (No. 3691) belonging to the Canadian Corps Cavalry Regiment,” 25 February 1917. LAC RG 9 III-C-1 Vol. 3386 Folder 41 File 7, and WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 28 August 1915. 816 WD, No. 1 Reserve Park CASC, 23 September 1915. 817 “Interview of Dr. McLellan, 16 July 1981,” Page 13. UG RE1 OVC A0296 Box 2 File 1, and WD, DVS, 16 February 1915. 234

exhausted to move when a division changed positions.818 Given these were Mobile Veterinary

Sections, all of the unit’s tack, rations, tents, shovels, cooking equipment, horse rugs, horse clippers, blankets, and entrenching equipment had to be carried in one G.S. wagon. The animal establishment of 20 riding horses and four light draught horses (two for the GS wagon, two for a civilian cart impressed into service as an ambulance) for the total complement of one officer and

27 ORs illustrates the high premium placed on its mobility.819 For treatment of sick and wounded cases, each VO in the field was issued with a Field Veterinary Chest, which contained drugs, gauze, hypodermic needles, a microscope, glass slides, and a saline infusion apparatus. With these instruments, the VOs attached to any given unit could perform immediate treatment to a sick or wounded animal, though their primary duty lay in evacuating such cases to the rear rather than conducting all treatments themselves. The MVS carried additional Veterinary Unit Chests which contained more drugs and bandages for treatment of emergency cases.820 They thus possessed the capability to provide immediate treatment for superficial wounds requiring only light bandaging and disinfection with iodine before the casualty was fit for duty. Similarly, during sedentary periods in the line, these sections could serve as small rest stations for animals exhausted from working too hard and needing only a brief period of respite and extra feed.821

The ADVS had to approve any cases earmarked for evacuation before they embarked for hospitals. Evacuation procedure usually involved a small detachment of MVS personnel under the command of a sergeant or corporal leading evacuated cases to the railhead where they would be

818 French or Belgian farmers were paid one franc, seventy-five centimes per day per animal they fed and looked after. “Document to be given to the person with whom an animal of the British Army is left for care.” NA WO 95/289. 819 “History of No. 2 Canadian Mobile Veterinary Section. 2nd Canadian Division,” 1. LAC MG 30 E14, and “Load Tables for G.S. Limbered Wagons.” NA WO 95/66. 820 French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War 1914-1919, 69-70. 821 Ibid, 85. 235

loaded on trains for transport to base hospitals.822 This system of evacuation was admittedly inefficient. Purpose-built horse ambulances were not yet part of an MVS establishment, and so horses too badly wounded to walk – but salvageable – “otherwise die for want of facilities for treating, or they have to be destroyed,” according to Cutcliffe.823 Similarly, the necessity for conducting parties deprived the MVS of critical personnel, as round trips ferrying casualties to the railhead could sometimes last an entire day or more.

No. 1 Canadian MVS was kept busy during this period of apprenticeship on the Western

Front. Virtually every day it received casualties, evacuated cases to base hospitals, reissued cured cases to units in the line, and destroyed animals too fargone to be saved. Its activities on 12 March are revealing into the nature of its functions. O’Gogarty wrote there were “12 sick horses evacuated to Base Veterinary Hospital.” The Section also “paid for keep of 3 horses abandoned at farms, left

1 at No. 5 Mobile Veterinary Section, Bailleul and brought in 2. Issued 8 cured. 2 died.”824

Sometimes unit VOs may have been too hasty to evacuate animals. The DDVS First Army

“expressed his opinion” to Cutcliffe on 22 March that the MVS was “receiving too many horses from units that the Veterinary Officers could attend.”825 The decision on whether to evacuate an animal or keep it in lines was essentially a judgment call by the VO. According to field regulations, these officers were supposed to evacuate any animals they considered inefficient,826 but on the other hand, excessive evacuations could overwhelm the MVS and deprive frontline units of animals still capable of work. Such decisions would ultimately have to be based upon extensive

822 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 5 April 1915, and Veterinary Manual (War), 1915, 6. 823 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 30 June 1915. 824 WD, No. 1 Canadian Mobile Veterinary Section (MVS), 12 March 1915. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5043 Reel T- 10935. 825 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 22 March 1915. 826 Veterinary Manual (War), 1915, 5. 236

experience. The question of whether to evacuate a sick animal or keep it working in the line in a reduced capacity was simply one of the daily dilemmas confronting VOs in the Great War.

The 1st Canadian Division received a more or less steady stream of remounts to replace these casualties and evacuations as much as possible. The rate of animals returned cured, although important in keeping overall wastage rates down, almost never kept even pace with the continual drain of sick and wounded animals. Canadian units simply received all of their remounts from whichever British Advanced Remount Depot was closest.827 Even when a Canadian Remount

Depot opened in Dieppe in May 1915, it catered predominately to nearby British units, and only a handful of its distributed animals reached the 1st Canadian Division.828 Indeed, just as the Canadian veterinary services integrated into the BEF command structure, so too were Canadian remount requests furnished by British units. On 26 February, as part of the apprenticeship process, 1st

Canadian Divisional Headquarters received Lieutenant-Colonel H. Palmer, DDR Second Army.

Palmer explained “the method of supplying Remounts [and] the Depot system” to the Canadian headquarters staff.829 Similar to the veterinary services, the BEF employed a distinct hierarchy of its remount services with a Director of Remounts, Brigadier-General H. Garratt, at its head. These remount personnel were not trained veterinarians but their principal task lay in distributing remount drafts to each division that requested additional animals to bring their establishments up to strength.830 CASC personnel typically assumed responsibility for remount distribution as soon

827 Remount Manual (War), (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1913), 7. LAC RG 24 Vol 22,021. 828 WD, Canadian Remount Depot, 23 July 1915. 829 WD, DDR Second Army, 26 February 1915. NA WO95/289. 830 Cecil French notes that “at one point” the MVS served as a conduit between the Remount Department and units in the field, but “the Remount Department made distribution direct” for most of the war. He does not specify when this transition occurred, but as Captain O’Gogarty’s war diary makes no reference whatsoever to receiving or distributing remounts, it does not appear that No. 1 Canadian MVS performed remount duties in early 1915. French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War 1914-1919, 86. 237

as the animals detrained at the railhead.831 Between 4 and 18 April, for example, the division took on 200 remounts from British depots.832

The ADVS had to inspect these animals and sign receipts for them before they could be distributed to units. They often ranged widely in their appearance and condition upon reaching the

1st Division. For example, Cutcliffe inspected a group of remounts on 2 April that “had been very lousy,” and “were all very dirty.” Commenting on this same draft, officers from the 1st CIB complained the “remounts received…were poor and unsuitable.” At the opposite end of the quality spectrum, the draft of 130 remounts Cutcliffe inspected on 18 April were “in splendid condition,” with 58 heavy draught horses “exceptionally good.”833

By early April 1915 the 1st Canadian Division was more or less acclimatized to life on the

Western Front. Though the division had yet to experience a significant battle, its personnel nevertheless became accustomed to trench routine, artillery registration, and the logistics system.

These weeks from February to April also provided a valuable period for veterinary personnel and other soldiers interacting with horses to build upon their Salisbury Plain training on active service.

CAVC officers learned the routine expected of them within the broader BEF veterinary services.

VOs inspected animals for sickness, evacuated casualties which could be saved, and destroyed those which could not. Remounts arrived and were distributed to units requiring supplements to their animal establishments. The 1st Canadian Division and its horses were not veterans, but neither were they totally inexperienced in active service conditions.

831 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 18 April 1915. 832 Chapter Four discussed this policy and the fiscal relations between British and Canadian Governments in terms of remount charges. “Confidential Report on France and England Remount Account – 1915,” Sheet No. 1-2. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Volume 3363, Folder R-2-45. 833 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 3, 11, and 18 April 1915. 238

The Second Battle of Ypres: April-May 1915

In mid-April 1915 the 1st Canadian Division, having rejoined Second Army as part of

Lieutenant-General Sir Herbert Plumer’s V Corps, deployed to the Ypres Salient.834 The

Canadians took over a length of the line previously occupied by French troops, notorious for their poor standards of sanitation and fortification, and so Canadian infantry and engineers kept busy straightening up their positions.835 Similarly, the division’s artillery brigades occupied their positions behind the front lines, situated their guns under as much concealment as possible, and registered their pieces onto German trenches opposite No Man’s Land.836 The strength of the division at this point was 5,271 horses and 159 mules. The increased strength since the division landed in France was owed to the 118th Brigade (Howitzer) RFA, a British unit that provided two batteries (458th and 459th) of 4.5 inch howitzers which the division was previously lacking.837 Its total artillery thus consisted of 32 18-pounder field pieces and the eight 4.5-inch howitzers of the

118th Brigade RFA. The battery wagon lines and brigade ammunition columns were situated between 1,000 and 3,000 yards in the rear of the guns. The DAC established an ammunition resupply depot at Breilen, northwest of Ypres, while the supply railhead was at Vlamertinghe, about two and a half miles due west of the city.838

The DAC, which arrived in the salient earlier than most units, undertook extensive supply runs for shells and SAA as infantry and artillery brigades filtered into their positions. The DAC’s

834 Philpott, War of Attrition, 64. 835 For the strategic context of Ypres in early 1915, see Duguid, From the Outbreak of War to the Formation of the Canadian Corps, August 1914 – September 1915, 190-221, Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 55-61 and Iarocci, Shoestring Soldiers, 81-90. 836 Windsor and Sarty, “New Brunswick’s Artillery Goes to War, 1914-1915,” 124. 837 The 118th Brigade served with the 1st Canadian Divisional Artillery from its attachment on 13 March 1915 until July 1916. A.2000 Form 1st Canadian Division – Week Ending 18 April 1915, and Duguid, From the Outbreak of War to the Formation of the Canadian Corps, August 1914 – September 1915, 187. 838 Duguid, From the Outbreak of War to the Formation of the Canadian Corps, August 1914 – September 1915, 200-211. 239

work was frustrated from the outset by a shortage of shells and ammunition in the salient. However, this state of affairs owed more to production failures in the United Kingdom than to any sort of deficiencies on the part of personnel to move ammunition and supplies forward.839 Indeed, Duguid notes that the daily ammunition allowances to Canadian artillery (three rounds per gun per day) could be fired in under a minute if necessary.840

Nevertheless, the DAC and logistics personnel endeavoured to keep forward units as well stocked with ammunition as they could manage. The accomplishments of Lieutenant Hugh Dunlop of No. 4 Section, 1st DAC, serve as an instructive example into the value of Salisbury Plain training and skill of Canadian personnel as they took up positions around Ypres. Dunlop commanded a detachment of 10 GS wagons (each hauled by two horses) based out of Steenvoorde, far to the west of Ypres. On 14 April he conducted 300,000 rounds .303 for the 2nd CIB, depositing the ammunition in trenches near their positions, travelled back to Poperinghe to refill his wagons with

400,000 rounds .303, dropped them off near Ypres, returned back to Poperinghe again, refilled with another 320,000 rounds .303, and then returned back to Steenvoorde. Dunlop covered 60 miles of nearly continuous supply runs between 14 and 16 April but he nevertheless “brought his horses and men in looking very fit.”841 The months of conditioning and training in animal management evidently paid dividends in enabling Dunlop and his conducting party to accomplish such a notable feat of logistics and keep their horses in top shape.

Veterinary personnel took up their positions in the salient as well. ADVS Cutcliffe billeted near the supply depot at Breilen, not far from division GOC Lieutenant-General Edwin Alderson’s

839 See Brown. British Logistics on the Western Front, 90-97. 840 Duguid, From the Outbreak of War to the Formation of the Canadian Corps, August 1914 – September 1915, 209. 841 WD, 1st DAC, 16 April 1915. 240

Headquarters.842 Captain O’Gogarty and No. 1 Canadian MVS were positioned at Elverdinghe, approximately one and a half miles northwest of Breilen, and thus among the rearmost Canadian units. By virtue of the three-sided envelopment of the salient, however, the MVS was directly to the rear of the 87th (Territorial) Division.843

Although the Ypres Salient had not yet earned its well-deserved reputation as the graveyard of armies by April 1915, it became increasingly apparent to Canadian personnel that the environs of the city were a dangerous place to be. German forces held the high ground – a series of low- running ridges – to the north of the city and regularly bombarded Canadian positions from the moment they took over their position.844 The 3rd Brigade CFA war diary commented, for example, that “battery positions shelled more or less heavily every day.”845 The 118th Brigade RFA similarly reported its headquarters and the 458th Battery billet at Fortuin, close to Brigadier-General Arthur

Currie’s 2nd CIB headquarters at Pond Farm, was “shelled [and] burned out” on 21 April.846

Veterinary units, far to the rear, also experienced several near-misses. Cutcliffe inspected

No. 1 MVS on 21 April at near Elverdinghe with Lieutenant-Colonel Neill, who returned to visit the 1st Division in early April and would be present throughout the ensuing events. Cutcliffe observed that “their [MVS] location is rather dangerous owing to shells from enemy dropping near.” The next morning Cutcliffe and Neill searched for a new billet for the MVS but they were

“unable to find any safer or more suitable place.”847 Still, with shells dropping intermittently around their positions Captain O’Gogarty and his men continued to process sick and wounded

842 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 21 April 1915, and Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, Map 1. 843 WD, No. 1 Canadian MVS, 21 April 1915, and Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, Map 1. 844 Iarocci, Shoestring Soldiers, 79-81. 845 WD, 3rd Brigade CFA, 20 April 1915. 846 WD, 118th Brigade RFA, 21 April 1915. 847 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 21-22 April 1915. 241

horses evacuated from the front lines. On 20 April, the MVS received three sick horses that coincidentally represented the units holding the line to the north – one Canadian animal, one

Algerian, and one from a Zouave unit. It also billeted out one animal too sick to travel.848

This desultory shelling would prove to be the last period of comparative quiet for Canadian personnel and horses for almost a month. The German High Command wanted to launch major offensives against the Russian Empire, but nevertheless wished to keep the British and French preoccupied on the Western Front.849 A large-scale offensive raid on Ypres would thus keep the

British and French occupied, as well as provide an opportunity to experiment with a new weapon, poison gas, on a large scale.850 General Erich von Falkenhayn, Chief of the General Staff, assigned

6,000 canisters of chlorine for the ominously entitled Operation Disinfection, with no specific directives other than “capture of the Yser Canal, including Ypres.” The attack was originally scheduled for 6:45 am on 22 April, but the prevailing winds were not suitable for the gas attack until late afternoon.851

German artillery fire noticeably quickened into the afternoon of 22 April. Lieutenant-

Colonel James Mitchell, OC 3rd Brigade CFA, noted that “the shelling became intense, a continuous rain of shells being thrown on St. Julien.”852 At 5 pm Lieutenant Harold Lancaster, the

10th Battery’s FOO, reported clouds of green gas being released from German trenches towards

848 WD, No. 1 Canadian MVS, 20-21 April 1915. 849 Mark Osborne Humphries and John Maker, eds, Germany’s Western Front: Translations from the German Official History of the Great War, Volume II: 1915, (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2010), 155-158. 850 German chemists, among them future Nobel Laureate Fritz Haber, developed weaponized forms of poison gas in late 1914 and early 1915. They found that, in the absence of reliable projectile delivery methods (the failed T-shell), chlorine gas diffused from buried canisters by a prevailing wind presented an ideal means of unleashing the chemicals. Chlorine ravaged the upper respiratory tract and was an ideal offensive weapon in that it left no appreciable residue to poison follow-up troops and was heavier than air. It would settle into trenches where enemy forces would try to stand their ground, and also killed those wounded unable to escape the gas. For the physiological effects of chlorine gas see Cook, No Place to Run, 21. 851 Maker and Humphries, Germany’s Western Front, 158-161. 852 “War Diary – H.Q. 3rd Canadian Artillery Bde,,” 1. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 4966 Reel T-10786-10787. 242

French positions on his immediate left followed immediately by a “terrific rifle and shell fire…from German lines.” Major William King, the 10th Battery OC, wrote that fifteen minutes later “a thick smoke rolled down on the Battery causing a smarting and running of the eyes.” 853

By 5:30, he could see that French infantry caught directly by the gas “commenced retiring” and were “streaming through the Battery.”854 The abrupt retirement of French forces left the 1st

Canadian Division’s flank open. King’s battery, which that morning was well to the rear of the

Canadian front line, was suddenly one of the foremost units resisting the German attack.855

The enormous gap in the Allied line, and the terrific German bombardment, meant that rear echelon units normally far behind the firing line were suddenly thrown in the midst of the battle.

The 118th Howitzer Brigade caught the German attack head on. Its 4.5-inch howitzers opened fire on German positions at 6:30, but German infantry “rushed” the defenceless 459th Battery’s wagon lines. During this attack, the brigade’s ammunition column lost four gun limbers, one GS wagon, one water cart, 35 men, and 77 horses killed.856

Still, the 1st Division’s artillery kept up a steady fire on German troops who, perhaps not anticipating the success of the chlorine attack, began to entrench short of Ypres.857 At 8:10 pm the

DAC received orders from Brigadier-General Henry Burstall, GOC Divisional Artillery, to “send up lots of ammunition.” Half an hour later, 2,800 18-pounder shells, 200 Lyddite (high explosive)

853 Major W.B. King to O.C. 3rd Canadian Artillery Bde, 1. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 4966 Reel T-10786-10787. 854 Ibid. 855 The legality on the use of poison gas often features prominently in scholarly treatments of the Second Battle of Ypres and need not be repeated here. Most Canadian works condemn the Fourth Army’s use of chlorine at Ypres as directly violating the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 which forbade the use of poison gas in warfare. However the translated German Official History offers a spirited – if convoluted and tenuous – justification for the employment of chlorine. It states that in fact, the use of gas on 22 April did not “contravene any existing conventions of international law.” See Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914-1919, 59, Cook, No Place to Run, 14-17, Cook, At the Sharp End, 112, Iarocci, Shoestring Soldiers, 91-92, and Maker and Humphries, Germany’s Western Front, 158-159. 856 WD, 118th Brigade RFA, 22 April 1915. 857 Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914-1919, 64. 243

4.5-inch shells, and 600,000 rounds of .303 “were on the road to the repelling front.” Major Long recorded that the horses and drivers “were kept going during the night in the supply of ammunition,” and in the process two DAC horses were wounded by a bursting shell.858 Captain

William McKee, OC 3rd Brigade CFA Ammunition Column, moved his wagons and horses under shelter behind some houses when the heavy shelling began. Nevertheless, the horses and drivers under McKee’s command were “able to keep up a supply of 18 pdr and SAA and met all demands” of the 3rd Brigade.859

The animal management skills of artillerymen and wagon drivers were sternly tested when the batteries received orders to withdraw, under fire, to new positions just north of Ypres. Captain

Harry Crerar of the 11th Battery noted that, despite heavy shelling in the battery’s wagon lines, the gun teams “are brought up under fire.” Despite presenting a “difficult operation,” the withdrawal was “successfully carried out” in “an orderly manner.”860 Gunner Fred Fish, serving in Crerar’s battery, recalled the difficulties hitching teams up and withdrawing under heavy fire:

We got the guns out, and in the excitement of getting the teams out, they put the wrong horse in draft. All the rear horses are stocky little fellows you can wheel round, the centers are a little taller and the leaders are the only ones that give it a nice swing around, you see, and they must have had their own spot. They put a great big man-eating horse that’s pretty well useless in draft and he was in the wheel and started kicking the floor boards of the limber to pieces, wouldn’t budge and the Germans weren’t far off. I picked up a log which I normally couldn’t carry and I hit this horse across his rump and off he went and the valise that Captain Crerar…gave me to look after fell off and my mate and I left it behind which was rather unfortunate because we weren’t so very far away from Fritz.861

858 WD, 1st DAC, 22 April 1915. 859 Captain W.A. McKee to O.C. 3rd Canadian Artillery Bde, 1. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 4966 Reel T-10786-10787. 860 “War Diary – 11th Battery,” 1. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 4966 Reel T-10786-10787. 861 Fred Fish Interview, 2 October 1963, Tape 1. 244

Despite experiencing “heavy rifle, machine gun and shrapnel fire,” the 11th Battery withdrew successfully to new positions and resumed “firing all night.”862 Similarly, the 12th Battery managed to withdraw to its new positions, thanks in large measure to the “prompt and excellent way in which limbers and teams were brought up by Lieut. Scandrett.” “How the battery escaped with so few casualties,” its OC, Major E.W. Leonard, wrote “is difficult to explain.”863 What is abundantly clear is that the long weeks practicing hitching wagons, driving teams, and executing quick marches on Salisbury Plain provided these personnel with the skills necessary to complete such a difficult maneuver under heavy fire and with little protective cover. The skills in animal management and care enabled these artillerymen to cooly hitch their horses to guns, limbers, and wagons, and immediately redeploy them to a new position, where the guns could resume firing in support of the desperate attempts to stem the enemy advance.

Other units were not so fortunate. Major King’s 10th Battery, terribly exposed and firing over open sights on the entrenching German troops, received orders to withdraw at 8:00 pm. His battery was already running short of ammunition, the wagon horse teams having been killed by rifle and machine gun fire. King “sent for the horses to pull away guns,” but none arrived for two hours. Enlisting the practical skills of hitching wagon teams to gun limbers, King “secured two teams from my first line wagons” and managed to extricate two of his guns. When no more horses had arrived by 10:45 pm, King’s gunners hooked the guns to their limbers and started to drag them away by hand. However, additional horses arrived fifteen minutes later and “we got all guns and wagons away from the position.” With the horse teams killed, he had to leave behind the full

862 “War Diary – 11th Battery,” 1. 863 Major E.W. Leonard to O.C. 3rd Canadian Artillery Bde, 1-2. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 4966 Reel T-10786- 10787.. 245

ammunition wagons, and “the supply of ammunition was kept by carrying it by hand from the spot the teams were shot to the firing battery.”864 Captain McKee, the brigade’s ammunition column

OC, heard of the 10th Battery’s critical losses in its horse strength. He dispatched an empty wagon team “and recovered all the 18 pdr ammunition from one wagon too badly dumped to be moved.”

With another team of six horses, he “was able to recover the other wagon.”865 McKee’s unit continued to haul ammunition directly from the DAC dump at Vlamertinghe direct to the brigade,

“a very long haul from where the batteries were in position.” However, in their efforts to keep the brigade ammunition stocks from running dry, the ammunition column suffered twelve casualties among horses, including the teams of two GS wagons killed by a single shell.866

The 10th Battery continued firing in support of Allied counterattacks at Ypres until it was sent into reserve on 5 May. During this period, with the most intense fighting experienced on 22

April, 70 horses “were either killed or so badly wounded they had to be destroyed.” These were catastrophic losses for a battery which only had 116 animals on strength when it landed in

France.867 In contrast, the Battery’s gunners suffered 38 wounded, of whom two later died. The experiences of King’s 10th Battery at Second Ypres readily demonstrates the critical importance of horses to providing unit mobility under heavy fire. The battery’s animals and personnel served admirably during the battle, and the unit’s ability to reposition its guns was significantly threatened only when so many of its horses were killed or horribly wounded that the battery was effectively stranded. None of the horses bolted or panicked; they continued to perform their tasks until they were either killed, or until the battery successfully withdrew. Indeed, the quick reallocation of

864 Major W.B. King to O.C. 3rd Canadian Artillery Bde, 2. 865 Captain W.A. McKee to O.C. 3rd Canadian Artillery Bde, 1. 866 Captain W.A. McKee to O.C. 3rd Canadian Artillery Bde, 2. 867 Major W.B. King to O.C. 3rd Canadian Artillery Bde, 3, and “Report: Department of Canadian Remount Services Overseas, Oct 1st-14 to Sept. 30th-15,” 12. 246

horses and drivers from hauling wagons to repositioning artillery, and of the quick work by

McKee’s men and horses in retrieving the lost ammunition, attest to the tremendous skill in animal management demonstrated by Canadian soldiers in early 1915.

Far to the rear of the Canadians, but directly south of the gassed French 87th (Territorial)

Division, the 1st Canadian Division’s CAVC personnel struggled to understand the unfolding battle. Cutcliffe wrote that, following the gas attack, he “had books etc packed and put on transport.” He remained in his billet until the early morning of 23 April but “after being shelled…all night” he relocated to a new billet along with the division’s engineers. On 23 April,

Cutcliffe recorded “in action so far one horse killed and one wounded in the division,” but also noted “we have not received any other reports.”868 Cutcliffe’s initial casualty report was obviously far off, but in his defence, overall Canadian animal casualties on 22 April are difficult to assess.

The A.2000 Form for Week Ending 22 April notes that 17 horses died from injuries that week but does not specify which date these deaths occurred.869

Cutcliffe’s lack of information is not terribly surprising. The intense German shelling regularly severed telephone lines and throughout the battle senior commanders at the brigade and divisional levels were often left with incomplete, or even erroneous, information.870 Indeed,

Cutcliffe noted on 24 April he was “unable to get in touch with VOs owing to wires being cut,” as pressing communications occupying all functioning telephones or couriers.871 The recently promoted Lieutenant-Colonel Wilson, DDVS Second Army, observed that Cutcliffe neglected to inform his VOs of the MVS’s location, but given the immense difficulties in communication, it is

868 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 22-23 April 1915. 869 A.2000 Form 1st Canadian Division – Week Ending 22 April 1915. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3386 Folder R-57-45. 870 See Cook, At the Sharp End, 151, 164-165. 871 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 24-25 April 1915. 247

difficult to imagine how this could have been accomplished.872 Casualty figures somehow trickled in, and the scale of the animal losses slowly became apparent. Wilson noted that the 1st Brigade

CFA lost 6 killed, the 2nd Brigade 45 killed, the DAC 30 killed, and the 118th Brigade 90 killed –

171 total, not counting the 3rd Brigade’s heavy losses discussed above. The neighbouring 27th

British Division also suffered heavy losses in its animal strength, with “120 approx killed.”873

If Cutcliffe played little role in the opening days of the battle, No. 1 Canadian MVS was no different. Captain O’Gogarty recorded it was “shelled out of billet” in the evening of 22 April and withdrew to the Poperinghe-Vlamertinghe road. O’Gogarty’s war diary, never blessed with an abundance of detail, simply noted that the MVS received one sick horse and issued one cured on

22 April. The next day the MVS waited in its new position for orders to move without commenting on any animal casualties.874 On 25 April, in accordance with the general practice throughout the

Second Army, O’Gogarty established a small advanced collecting post to receive casualties. These parties consisted of one sergeant, one corporal, and five troopers whose duty was to remain in position while the MVS withdrew further back.875 They received animal casualties evacuated by unit VOs conveyed them to the “main body of the section,” who would then provide additional treatment and evacuate them if necessary.876 Lieutenant-Colonel Wilson described how this procedure worked for all MVS in the Second Army:

The establishment of an advanced Vety Collecting Station has under certain circumstances answered very well – the patients being taken to its Mobile Vety Sections by short cross country tracks thereby avoiding the congested roads, [and] put on rail the next day. By this means close touch with units has been maintained. The nearest Supply Railhead had been used by Mobile Vety Sections in the area of

872 Coincidentally, Wilson was gazetted with the local rank of lieutenant-colonel the day the battle began. WD, DDVS Second Army, 22-25 April 1915. 873 WD, DDVS Second Army, 25 April 1915. 874 WD, No. 1 Canadian MVS, 22-23 April 1915. 875 The CAVC shared its rank nomenclature with the cavalry, and thus its privates were “troopers.” 876 WD, No. 1 Canadian MVS, 25 April 1915. 248

active operations for entrainment irrespective of whether it was the Supply Railhead of the Division and sick horses have been assembled there, rested watered [and] fed [and] entrained at 4.0 pm [and] railed straight away to the Receiving Vety Hospital on LofC at which was due by 11.0 am next morning.877

The first human casualty suffered by the CAVC in the Great War occurred during one of these evacuations. Private W. Miller of No. 1 Canadian MVS suffered a shrapnel wound in the arm on

29 April while “coming back with wounded horses collected from units in the firing line” and was evacuated to a rear area hospital.878 Between 25 April and 14 May, No. 1 Canadian MVS received

151 sick and wounded horses, evacuated 119, cured two, destroyed two, and lost one dead.879

However, on 4 May, Captain O’Gogarty committed a nearly unforgivable breach of regulations. Evidently encountering difficulties finding water for his horses, O’Gogarty left his post without orders. He surprised Cutcliffe with an unannounced visit the next morning. An appalled Cutcliffe discussed this offence with Lieutenant-Colonel Wilson. At Cutcliffe’s own request, the two officers warned O’Gogarty “not to repeat the offence.”880 While appearing a novice mistake, one warranting severe reprimand or removal from his post, it is worth remembering that officers far more senior than Captain O’Gogarty, such as Brigadier-General

Arthur Currie, committed similar offences but escaped significant punishment after the battle.881

Despite O’Gogarty’s major error, CAVC personnel on the whole appear to have performed competently during the Second Battle of Ypres. The ferocity of the German assaults and the violence of their artillery barrages created such grievous wounds to the 1st Canadian Division’s horses that fatalities outnumbered the wounded. Indeed, during the chaotic opening days of the

877 WD, DDVS Second Army, 3 May 1915. 878 WD, DDVS Second Army, 30 April 1915. 879 WD, No. 1 Canadian MVS, 25 April to 14 May 1915. 880 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division 4-7 May 1915. 881 See Cook, At the Sharp End, 155-156, 165, and Cook, The Madman and the Butcher, 90-97. 249

battle, it often fell to the gunners, drivers, and officers to tend to their animals as best they could, and destroy them if too badly wounded. For such personnel, who lived and trained alongside their animals since August 1914, this was a necessary duty that was nevertheless devastating, even in the midst of such awful human casualties.882 As Gunner Fish recalled, “it was awfully tragic when you had to shoot them in action.”883 Even with the heavy losses suffered on 22 April, however, the

Second Battle of Ypres was far from over.

Desperate Canadian counterattacks against German positions in Kitchener’s Wood and

Mauser Ridge briefly stalled the German advance at a heavy cost to infantry battalions over the night of 22/23 April. Others, grimly holding on in the face of a second chlorine gas attack on 24

April at St. Julien, were almost completely wiped out.884 These valiant stands by Canadian soldiers in the face of terrible violence feature prominently in national memories of the Great War, and for good reason.885 Human casualties in the 1st Division fell disproportionately on the infantry, who bore the brunt of German rifle and machine gun fire, and gas attacks.

The reverse was true for horses, for the overwhelming majority of casualties fell on artillery units. All three artillery brigades reported having to contend with relentless fire from heavy calibre

German guns, all of which was highly accurate due to aeroplane observation.886 Indeed, the 1st

Brigade CFA reported on 24 April that its positions “received heavy shelling…from 17” guns

[and] 5” howitzers.” Four days later, still, the brigade’s horse lines and ammunition column

882 For the importance of human-animal bonding in the First World War, see Andrew McEwen, “‘He Took Care of Me:’ The Human-Animal Bond in Canada’s Great War,” in Susan Nance, ed., The Historical Animal, (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2015). 883 Fred Fish Interview, 2 October 1963, Tape 1. 884 See Cook, At the Sharp End, 123-159 and Iarocci, Shoestring Soldiers, 113-163. 885 For a detailed examination on commemoration of the Second Battle of Ypres from 1915 to 2015, see Ryan Flavelle, “The Second Battle of Ypres and 100 Years of Remembrance,” Canadian Military History 24, No. 1 (Winter/Spring 2015): 209-245. 886 Iarocci notes that the BEF lacked sufficient anti-aircraft artillery batteries in the Ypres sector and consequently “enemy aircraft buzzed through the skies with near impunity.” Iarocci, Shoestring Soldiers, 98. 250

suffered “almost constant heavy shelling.” The brigade war diary lamented the numerical superiority of German heavy artillery that continuously assailed its positions, aided with spotter aircraft, while the Canadian field guns “have no means of locating their batteries.”887 The 118th

Brigade, having lost almost half of its horses on 22 April, lost another nine killed on 23 April, and another six the day after.888 Despite the intensity of the action, Canadian drivers and artillerymen took care of their horses and ensured they were ready to move at a moment’s notice. Captain Crerar noted on 26 April that “heavy shelling” fell on gun positions and the wagon line, and “several horses were shot.” Nevertheless, he observed the men “gamely stand to their horses.”889

Veterinary personnel tried to stem the tide of animal casualties and treat whatever wounded cases they could. Wilson noted that the general policy towards animal casualties during the battle was that they “are dressed, watered [and] fed [and] rested until the evening when they are seen by the [unit] OC and marched to the MVS by unfrequented roads across country.”890 Captain Cutcliffe personally “attended four wounded horses” on 24 April, and visited horses throughout the divisional artillery to render whatever assistance possible. Although as ADVS, Cutcliffe’s nominal duties lay in administration, he was still a well-trained military veterinarian with years of experience as a civil practitioner, and so lent immediate assistance wherever he could. Cutcliffe observed that shrapnel and shell splinters caused the bulk of wounds, which were “generally found near elbow or stifle joints or in head.” In order to keep as many animals in service as possible,

Cutcliffe noted that “when possible shrapnel is removed from wounds and iodine applied” to disinfect the wound. He kept active throughout the battle, either attending to casualties himself,

887 WD, 1st Brigade CFA, 24-29 April 1915. 888 WD, 118th Brigade RFA, 23-24 April 1915. 889 “War Diary – 11th Battery,” 1. 890 WD, DDVS Second Army, 25 April 1915. 251

inspecting horse lines of different units, or consulting with his superior officers. However, the battle exacted a severe strain. On 4 May, after almost two weeks of continuous activity, German artillery shelled him out of his billet yet again and forced to sleep in an open field. A party of engineers awoke him at 3:45 am to inspect a horse with a leg broken from a kick. Cutcliffe “shot the horse,” but, evidently numbed by the weeks of carnage, was more upset because “it was raining and my blankets were wet.”891

German fire continued so intense throughout the battle that Canadian artillery units were practically unable to move, lest all of their horses be killed. Major Ewan MacDougall, OC 9th

Battery, reported that his guns continued firing all day on 23 April “and suffered heavy casualties.”

He received orders to withdraw, but “it was impossible” to do so during daylight “without suffering further heavy casualties of men and horses.” The battery had to wait for nightfall before redeploying.892 Similarly, horses and drivers from Major Leonard’s 12th Battery managed to extricate one gun under heavy fire on 24 April but “all efforts to get the other two out failed on account of the heavy shell fire…whenever the teams tried to approach.” Leonard, without any remaining options, ordered these guns removed by the gunners themselves.893

Logistics personnel doggedly tried to keep the infantry stocked with SAA and the gunners replenished with ammunition during the uninterrupted fighting. The officers, men, and horses of the DAC worked in twenty-four hour shifts to keep moving ammunition towards the front lines.

In some cases, the DAC teams delivered ammunition directly to batteries themselves instead of brigade dumps. Horses of the 118th Brigade, for example, were “much too crippled” to haul enough

891 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 24 April – 4 May 1915. 892 Major E.A. MacDougall to O.C., 3rd Canadian Artillery Bde, 2. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 4966 Reel T-10786- 10787. 893 Major E.W. Leonard to O.C. 3rd Canadian Artillery Bde, 23 April 1915. 252

ammunition and so the DAC picked up the slack.894 The unrelenting efforts of the horses and drivers of DAC to keep artillery batteries sufficiently stocked with ammunition was critical to the overall course of the battle – a factor which historians have only recently started to address.895 By noon on 25 April the DAC delivered 352 18-pounder High Explosive (HE), 4,545 18-pounder shrapnel, 760 4.5-inch Lyddite, 80 4.5-inch shrapnel shells, and 2,371,000 rounds of .303. It was only through the utmost “care that the horses are kept from losing condition” after working continuously since 22 April. 896 By 8 May, the DAC issued a further 3,162 18-pounder HE, 19,580

18-pounder shrapnel, 5,456 4.5-inch Lyddite, 100 4.5-inch shrapnel, and 1,987,000 rounds .303.897

Similarly, wagon teams of Lieutenant-Colonel W.A. Simson’s 1st Canadian Divisional

Train resolved to “keep in touch with [batteries] at all costs” to deliver rations to hungry gunners and infantrymen. It lost a few horses killed from shellfire while bringing rations forward and returning with wounded “packed up…in our waggons.” In an understatement, Simson wrote on 2

May, “it is not much fun driving hand grenades under shell fire.”898

It is evident, however, that pervasive ammunition shortages still plagued these efforts. The

2nd Brigade CFA repeatedly ran out of shells on 24 April and had to redistribute ammunition to its foremost batteries. It received three GS wagons full of shells at 5:05 pm, but by 7:30 pm all of these stocks were expended and the brigade’s batteries withdrew further under heavy fire.899 The

1st Brigade CFA war diary noted on 8 May that some shells “being issued dated 1905.” Its guns

894 WD, 1st DAC, 24 April 1915. 895 Iarocci, Shoestring Soldiers, 178, and Windsor and Sarty, “New Brunswick’s Artillery Goes to War, 1914-1915,” 124-133. 896 WD, 1st DAC, 25 April 1915. 897 WD, 1st DAC, 26 April to 8 May 1915. 898 WD, 1st Canadian Divisional Train, 22-25 April and 1 May 1915. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5019 Reel T-10903. 899 WD, 2nd Brigade CFA, 24 April 1915. 253

slowly went out of action with broke springs pneumatic recoil buffers. By 9 May, when it finally withdrew from the battle, the diary noted blankly “men and horses very much exhausted.”900

These ammunition shortcomings were due in no part to derelictions in duty from logistics personnel and their horses, who braved the same dangers as the artillerymen trying to haul ammunition and rations forward. Captain Alan McEwen,901 an officer with the 3rd Brigade ammunition column, scouted out new positions for ammunition wagons to retire to west of Ypres.

Whilst overseeing the movement of wagons though the city a shell burst nearby, killing McEwen’s riding mount and wounding “a number of other horses and several men” nearby.902 Indeed, the city itself shortly became a graveyard for horses from all unit of all nationalities. Captain Crerar noted that the 11th Battery redeployed to the west of Ypres on 24 April, galloping through the city at fifty yard intervals. He observed the city strewn with “bodies of dead soldiers and civilians, dead horses and dogs,” while “shattered buildings and ripped up roads meet the eye on every side.”903

Dead horses slowly accumulated in the streets of the city. On 1 May, the Divisional Train dispatched six horses and three driver to haul dead horses out of Ypres, a “rotten job.” The next day more horses and drivers went to perform this grisly task with six more horses from the DAC.904

The A.2000 Forms from the Second Battle of Ypres reveal its full cost upon the 1st

Canadian Division’s animals. Between 16 April and 13 May 1915, the division sustained 765 animal casualties from shellfire, or 14.1% of its strength at the beginning of that period. Of these,

365 died, 13 were destroyed, and 16 were missing , a total of 394 animals lost in less than a month.

900 WD, 1st Brigade CFA, 8-9 May 1915. 901 Although sharing the same family name spelling, a rare occurrence, Captain McEwen is of no relation to the present author. 902 Major E.W. Leonard to O.C. 3rd Canadian Artillery Bde, 24 April 1915. 903 “War Diary – 11th Battery,” 1. 904 WD, 1st Divisional Train, 1-2 May 1915 and WD, 1st DAC, 2 May 1915. 254

The desperate fighting of 22 to 29 April claimed most of these animals, when 263 died and 80 were wounded.905 That the overall proportion of dead and missing was slightly higher than the wounded (371) illustrates the ferocity of the artillery bombardments and the grievous wounds suffered by horses in the battle. However, of the remaining injured, VOs cured 195 (52.5%), and returned them to duty. Such a proportion equally attests to the skill of veterinary personnel curing as many animals as possible and returning them to their units, all the while under heavy fire. The

1st Division’s animal losses ultimately represented 60% of the combat deaths in Second Army from 22 to 29 April despite representing less than 10% of its strength.906 These losses in horses surpassed even those suffered by its soldiers. The division lost 5,975 soldiers killed, wounded, and missing during the battle, of whom 1,000 died.907 Given these figures, proportionately more

Canadian horses (7.2%) than Canadian soldiers (5.5%) died in the Second Battle of Ypres.908

By the end of April, after a week of continuous fighting, remounts finally began to arrive for the exhausted fighting units. The BEF Director of Remounts received a phone message from

Lieutenant-Colonel Palmer, DDR Second Army, on 25 April that the “Canadian Division had lost several gun horses in action,” and thus prepared to send 150 remounts forward.909 The next day

Palmer visited 1st Canadian Division headquarters to “enquire about their casualties among horses.” Two days later, he secured a shipment of remounts to the beleaguered units in Second

Army – 194 for the 27th Division, 217 for the 28th Division, and 160 for the 1st Canadian Division.

905 A.2000 Forms – 1st Canadian Division, Week Ending 22 April, 29 April, 6 May, and 13 May 1915. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3386 Folder R-57-45. 906 In the week ending 29 April, Second Army suffered 265 dead and 205 destroyed, out of which 362 were due to shell fire. The 1st Canadian Division constituted only 9.4% of its 54,028 animals. “Table of Wastage During Month of April ’15,” WD, DDVS Second Army, April 1915. 907 Rawling, Surviving Trench Warfare, 35. 908 The animal dead wastage of 394 out of a pre-battle strength of 5,430 (7.2%) exceeded the human death rate, at roughly 1,000 killed out of 18,000 All Ranks (5.5%). 909 WD, Director of Remounts, 25 April 1915. NA WO 95/69. 255

After another two days, Palmer forwarded a further 290 remounts to the Canadians – 24 chargers,

264 light draught, and two mules.910 In April and May, the British Remount Department issued

5,460 remounts to Second Army.911 Of these, 837 went to the 1st Canadian Division.912

Cutcliffe inspected these remounts in the combat zone and allocated them evenly among the artillery brigades, the hardest-hit units in the division. In order to ensure that each unit received its share of remounts Cutcliffe simply assigned them to the DAC, which in turn ferried the horses, wagons, and drivers to each of the brigades needing reinforcements. Already the DAC was detaching its own personnel to furnish emergency reinforcements to these units, as it briefly attached 54 of its own horses to the 3rd Brigade CFA ammunition column.913 However, the arrival of remounts from Second Army limited such emergency exchanges. The DAC received the draft of 160 remounts on 29 April, 141 of which were forwarded to artillery units by the next day. The larger draft of 290 remounts arrived steadily throughout early May and the DAC similarly distributed them among units earmarked for remount replenishment.914 The overall animal strength of the division varied considerably as units attached and detached to it throughout the course of the battle. By 6 May, for example, the 1st Division held 5,212 horses and 210 mules on establishment but these figures dropped to 4,648 horses and 208 mules a week later.915

The Canadian role in the Second Battle of Ypres did not truly end the 1st Division’s artillery finally withdrew from the salient on 18 May. The day before, Canadian infantry battalions, only partially recovered from their ordeal at Ypres, launched a series of attacks at Festubert that cost

910 WD, DDR Second Army, 25 April – 1 May 1915. 911 WD, DDR Second Army, 30 April and 31 May 1915. 912 “Confidential Report on France and England Remount Account – 1915,” Sheet No. 2. 913 WD, 1st DAC, 27 April 1915. 914 WD, 1st DAC, 1-13 May 1915. 915 A.2000 Forms – 1st Canadian Division, Week Ending 6 May and 13 May 1915. 256

2,323 casualties. A further 1,537 were killed, wounded, or missing at Givenchy in June.916

However these battles pivoted largely around infantry unit attacks, and thus horse casualties were more limited. In May, aside from the losses sustained during Second Ypres, only five horses died and ten were destroyed with the 1st Division. In June, these figures were 11 and 15, respectively.917

What were the lessons of Ypres? One of the most pressing from a veterinary perspective was the importance of advanced veterinary collecting stations to receive casualties and convey them to the MVS during periods of intense battle. The small collecting party, in accordance with general practice throughout Second Army, ensured that a group of trained personnel remained at a fixed position to receive casualties while the MVS itself frequently relocated. Indeed, DDVS

Wilson noted this newly developed field expedient “answered very well” to the circumstances.

They ensured that units evacuating casualties could still maintain contact with a small detachment devoted exclusively to facilitating evacuation of sick and wounded animals off the battlefield. 918

Such evolving veterinary tactics illustrate that Mobile Veterinary Sections were works in perpetual progress. Originally conceived as small units of only one officer and ten men, both the size and responsibility of these sections changed dramatically since August 1914.919 They were still a work in progress in April 1915, and would continue to be so throughout the war. Still, Second

Ypres witnessed important adjustments in their standard operating procedure to streamline the casualty evacuation process. Captain O’Gogarty did not acquit himself either especially strongly or poorly in the battle. The only available evidence on his performance lay in Cutcliffe’s criticisms

916 Iarocci, Shoestring Soldiers, 475 and 496. 917 “Balance Statement, Canadian Remounts, From October 1st 1914 to December 31st 1915,” 8-9. 918 WD, DDVS Second Army, 3 May 1915. 919 Lieutenant-General R.C. Maxwell to Adjutant General, General Headquarters, 28 October 1914. NA WO 95/65, and History of the Organization and Development of the Army Veterinary Service with the British Expeditionary Force, France, August 1914 to April 1919, 6-7. 257

of his unauthorized absence from his post, and the quantitative evidence indicating he successfully evacuated almost 80% of received casualties to hospital.

Captain Cutcliffe himself is another officer whose overall assessment is only partially clear.

The preceding pages demonstrated that Cutcliffe attempted to grasp the unfolding situation as best he could despite being far down the list of priorities for access to the existing communication networks. He lost contact with VOs several times throughout the battle but this was hardly his fault. The weight of evidence suggests he was constantly on the move throughout the battle, cured animal casualties himself when he could, and ensured that units needing remounts received whatever horses were available. Having only become ADVS five weeks before the battle began,

Cutcliffe still managed to execute his duties as well as the difficult, often chaotic, situation allowed.

Lieutenant-Colonel Wilson, so critical of Neill and O’Gogarty in February, expressed no comparable condemnation or criticisms of Cutcliffe.

An opportunity for Wilson to remove Cutcliffe from command, should it have been necessary, arrived in September 1915. Major Ernest Thurston, McGill Class of 1896 and an officer with two years’ Militia seniority on Cutcliffe, arrived in Second Army as VO to “A” Battery

RCHA during a period of administrative reshuffling in the CAVC.920 Although Thurston was senior to Cutcliffe, Wilson still opted not to appoint the latter officer purely because of seniority.921

Wilson claimed in his war diary on 13 September 1915 that, despite Thurston’s seniority, “I do not consider…any administrative change desirable.” Wilson also wrote he did not find Thurston

920 The RCHA, stationed in England and then in GHQ reserve, finally saw action for the first time when it was attached to 1st Division in early September 1915. See Duguid, From the Outbreak of War to the Formation of the Canadian Corps, August 1914 – September 1915, 509-510. 921 “Seniority List – Officers. C.A.V.C.” LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3390 Folder R-190-45, and McGill University, Annual Calendar of the Faculty of Comparative Medicine and Veterinary Science, (Montreal: The Gazette Printing Company, 1902), 31. UG RE1 OVC A0292 Box 5 File 2. 258

“suitable” for the role of ADVS 1st Canadian Division but crossed that sentiment out. Five days later, Wilson again wrote that Thurston was “not fitted for an administrative appointment.”922

Wilson evidently carried some degree of confidence in Cutcliffe’s capabilities and elected not to base his appointments purely on the basis of seniority, as Cecil French later claimed.923 For

Cutcliffe, ability and proven experience surpassed seniority, and he remained as ADVS.

More broadly speaking, VOs performed their duties well during the Second Battle of

Ypres. Although the Veterinary Manual (War) stipulated that VOs attached to the various brigade headquarters primarily acted in an advisory capacity, and not the role of a veterinary surgeon, they still evidently rendered valuable service in April-May 1915.924 Indeed, the A.2000 Forms from the battle reveal that 195 out of 371 wounded casualties were “cured” and returned to duty, only two of which No. 1 Canadian MVS recorded as curing. It thus becomes clear that the rest of the “cured” cases had their wounds cleaned and bandaged by unit VOs and returned back to their units. The fact that these VOs managed to return over half of the wounded cases to their units, even under relentless shelling and an uninterrupted stream of casualties, illustrates the tremendous utility of their education, civil work experience, and indeed their military training. The division’s CAVC establishment, the product of more than a decade of reformative efforts before 1914, was tried in the largest battle in Canadian military history to date and were not found wanting. They demonstrated considerable skill and capability in the face of enormous adversity.

Such may be said for personnel throughout the 1st Division. Officers, gunners, and wagon drivers, demonstrated their sharpened skills on animal management time and again throughout the

922 Major Thurston ultimately spent most of the war in England as Senior Veterinary Officer in Bramshott Area. “Nominal Roll. Officers. C.A.V.C. & Remount Department. Overseas Military Forces of Canada,” Sheet 3. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3390 Folder R-191-45, WD, DDVS Second Army, 13-18 September 1915. 923 French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War 1914-1919, 54. 924 Veterinary Manual (War), 1915, 5. 259

Second Battle of Ypres. From hitching gun teams in the midst of a rain of shells, to swapping teams out to replace casualties, to simply keeping their horses moving throughout entire days of continuous combat, speaks volumes to the animal care and horsemastership throughout the 1st

Division. As previous chapters illustrated, these skills took time to develop, but by April 1915, they were well-honed. The smooth functioning of the 1st Canadian Division’s animal strength in

April-May 1915, despite enormous casualties, clearly demonstrates the value of such training in preparing personnel and horses for intense combat.

Other lessons applied less directly to horses. Perhaps the most obvious lesson from the

Second Battle of Ypres was that poison gas was a viable, effective weapon that would certainly be used again in the future. The chlorine gas attacks at Ypres evidently caused significant casualties.

However, as Tim Cook notes, “it is impossible to determine how many Canadians were affected and succumbed to the chlorine gas at 2nd Ypres,” as many of the dead also suffered shrapnel and bullet wounds.925 Shortly after the battle, soldiers received primitive gas masks made from chemically soaked cotton pads tied around their mouths, but were later issued “P-Helmets” or

“Hypo Helmets” that fully covered their heads.926 Cook’s study on gas warfare, No Place to Run, features isolated examination on the effects of various gases on horses, notably on the Somme in

1916 and at Vimy Ridge and Hill 70 in 1917, and notes that the “first horse respirators were issued to the Canadian Corps in May 1917.”927

In fact, the first horse respirators were developed two years earlier, in the immediate aftermath of Second Ypres. Wishing to protect horses and mules against the debilitating effects of

925 Cook, No Place to Run, 31-32. 926 Ibid., 39-42. 927 Ibid., 133. 260

poison gas, Lieutenant-Colonel Wilson began experimenting with masks of his own design in mid-

June. These masks were essentially regular issue horse nose feeding bags affixed to the animal’s muzzle, which featured a cotton pad treated with “antidotal fluid” neutralizing agent for the horse to breathe in. He tested these masks on horses both without and with the presence of poison gas and found it “acquitted itself best in the experiments” and forwarded his results to Moore.928

The DVS, however, was not impressed. He abhorred the idea of experimenting on horses with poison gas, considering such trials “cruelty to animals.” More important, however, was the dearth of evidence suggesting such masks were even necessary. Moore wrote that “no report reached me” on any animal gas casualties as of 17 June, and wished “to know the extent to which animals have suffered from gas” before approving trials.929 Furthermore, Major F.C. O’Rorke, an

AVC staff officer, reported on 14 July that “up to the present no deaths have been reported in horses from gas poisoning.”930 Indeed, no animal casualties from poison gas were reported by any unit in the 1st Canadian Division for the Second Battle of Ypres, despite repeated exposure of the gas to artillery and wagon horses. However, neither Cutcliffe nor O’Gogarty nor the A.2000 Forms comment on any detrimental effects of poison gas on the division’s animal strength.

Nevertheless, O’Rorke, along with a Professor Watson, experimented further with these masks, and an alternate “smoke helmet” design which covered the animals’ entire head, in case

“gas attacks become more frequent or severe.” These experiments, conducted at first in the open without gas, and then in an enclosed space filled with 0.05% concentration of chlorine, are revealing into the effects of gas on horses in 1915. Throughout the trials, O’Rorke measured the

928 WD, DDVS Second Army, 15 and 21 June 1915, and Major F.C. O’Rorke, “Report on Protecting Horses Against Poisonous Gases,” 14 July 1915. NA WO 95/66. 929 WD, DVS, 17 June 1915. 930 “Report on Protecting Horses Against Poisonous Gases.” 261

animal’s pulse and vital signs and saw no marked signs of distress in the saturated environment.

Similarly, although chlorine gas caused human eyes to weep profusely, there was no comparable reaction among horses.931 O’Rorke proposed field trials with brigade ammunition columns before large numbers would be manufactured. Moore concurred, authorizing distribution of masks to 10% of the horses in infantry and cavalry divisions.932 On 17 August, No. 1 Canadian MVS received

610 of the “smoke helmets” for trial and Cutcliffe issued them along with “instructions as to their use” to unit VOs.933 While there is no documentation on the efficacy or use of these masks in 1915, they became more broadly issued and utilized with the advent of reliable artillery delivery methods and a broader array of poison gases later in the war. What these gas masks nevertheless represent was continuous experimentation by combatant nations in the Great War with increasingly deadlier and creative forms of killing men and horses alike. Simultaneously, they convey the earnest efforts of veterinary personnel to mitigate such awful casualties as possible among the horses and mules that shared the same dangers as their caretakers near the front lines.

“Gamely Stand to Their Horses”

The period of February to June 1915 is critical for the history of Canadian horses and military veterinarians in the Great War. These months witnessed the 1st Canadian Division’s initiation to combat operations on the Western Front. They also saw the first significant battle endured by the men and horses of the 1st Division in the Great War, and in terms of overall proportion, was one of the worst for combat casualties in the entire war. The skills in driving, horse

931 O’Rorke, “Report on Protecting Horses Against Poisonous Gases.” 932 WD, DVS, 14 July 1915. 933 Undated marginal note, WD, No. 1 Canadian MVS, August 1915, and WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 23 August 1915. 262

management, and care that artillerymen and logistics personnel practiced so thoroughly on

Salisbury Plain – and, for those in Militia, in their summer camps – were tried under combat conditions for the first time. Similarly, the long efforts to create an army veterinary service in the years before the war, and the refinement of skills on Salisbury, proved a critical foundation for

CAVC personnel to perform their duties on active service conditions. The Second Battle of Ypres presented a stern test to all of these skills. However, as this chapter demonstrated, they were not found wanting among either men or horses.

This chapter addressed one of the most pressing historiographical controversies in

Canada’s Great War: that Canadian troops were untrained, barely skilled, and only persevered at

Ypres through courage and pure determination. Historians such as Desmond Morton, Bill Rawling, and Kenneth Radley furthered these views. Other historians such as Tim Cook and Andrew Iarocci refute them, arguing these soldiers demonstrated considerable skill in their efforts to contain the

German assaults of April-May 1915. This chapter concurs with the latter historians, and argues that Salisbury Plain training indeed provided a critical foundation for Canadian soldiers to manage their horses effectively under heavy fire.

This study also expounds on the ever-developing historiography of Canada and the Great

War by demonstrating the critical impact horses exerted on this battle. Logistics personnel in general have only begun to receive their due attention in Canadian military historiography, and by extension, historians only occasionally mention horses in their discussion of the battle. Tim Cook, focusing the majority of his combat narrative on infantry units in At the Sharp End, noted simply that “the drivers, horses, and mules that hauled ammunition forward throughout the battle had also played an essential, if forgotten, role in ensuring that the Canadians were not overrun for lack of

263

ammunition.”934 Andrew Iarocci touched on a number of themes listed above in his overall narrative, noting that the “hours of drill helped the gunners to keep their pieces in action” and were able to move “swiftly about the battlefield despite horse casualties and wrecked transport.” He also noted that “the highest degree of care permitted the overtaxed horses to remain in constant service from 22 to 25 April.”935 Similarly, an article by Lee Windsor and Roger Sarty on the role of New

Brunswick artillery in the battle makes note of significant animal casualties among units and the ensuing difficulties ensuing in resupply and battlefield mobility.936

What none of these Canadian works, all produced within the last decade, note, however, is the role of the veterinary services in this battle. None of them provides a comprehensive discussion on how many total animal casualties occurred, how, when, where, and why they occurred, and how wounded animals were evacuated. As this chapter demonstrated, VOs and the MVS evacuated casualties and cured lightly wounded cases, thus ensuring combat and logistics units retained as many animals as possible Their total absence from historical examinations of the Second Battle of

Ypres is a notable, and unfortunate, omission by the prevailing historiography. At the same time, historical works of horses and the veterinary services totally neglect the Second Battle of Ypres in favour of analyzing battle casualties from July 1916 onwards.937

However, this chapter illustrated that the Second Battle of Ypres presents a key case study into the mechanisms of animal transport and veterinary services. The battle witnessed heavy

934 Cook, At the Sharp End, 164. 935 Iarocci, Shoestring Soldiers,, 118 and 178. 936 Windsor and Sarty, “New Brunswick’s Artillery Goes to War, 1914-1915, 126-133. 937 History of the Organization and Development of the Army Veterinary Service with the British Expeditionary Force, France: August 1914 to April 1919, 17. See also Moore, Army Veterinary Service in War, 66, and Blenkinsop and Rainey, 73-84. Graham Winton devotes considerable discussion on the opening combat experienced by the BEF in 1914, but he does not consider the Second Battle of Ypres at all. Winton, Theirs Not to Reason Why, Chapters 7 and 9. 264

casualties, among the heaviest proportionate combat losses suffered by any Canadian division in the war. The battle also saw frequent redeployment of artillery batteries and unceasing resupply runs by logistics formations. Horses were central to this entire process. In cases where too many were killed or wounded to render assistance to their two-legged comrades, their parent units were left almost totally immobile and exposed. These horses, most of whom were bought in Canada in

August-September 1914, performed their working tasks well.

Following the Battle of Givenchy in June 1915 the 1st Division settled into a well- deserved break from sustained offensive operations. This does not mean, however, Canadian horses and soldiers were idle. The 1st Division occupied lengths of the Western Front more or less without interruption for the rest of 1915. The prevailing siege conditions on the Western

Front issued their own threats to animal health, and challenges to Canadian personnel endeavour to stave off these threats as ardently as possible. The experience of these soldiers and their horses in trench warfare from 1915 to 1916 will be the focus of the next chapter.

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Chapter Six – “All Necessary Precautions:” Veterinary Administration and Innovation, July 1915 - August 1916

“I have watched the treatment of mange cases as carried out at No. 5 Veterinary Hospital by Lieut. Perry…and I am now convinced of its efficacy. After seeing Calcium Sulphide in England I was sceptical as to its curative power, but from what I have since observed I believe that a freshly prepared solution applied hot is a reliable curative agent when the treatment is thoroughly carried out.”938

-Colonel E.R.C. Butler DDVS, Southern Command 9 October 1915

“Without a shadow of a doubt the Intra-dermal palpebral method has come to stay…As an initial quick eliminator of diseased animals it is splendid: used in conjunction with the subcutaneous cervical method as a control in doubtful cases we have a two handed sword of combat which will overcome anything which Glanders can array before us.”939

-Brigadier-General John Moore DVS, British Expeditionary Force 18 April 1916

Canadian historians of the Great War consider July 1915 to September 1916 to be a notable period of continued learning and command reorganization in the CEF. During these months, the

Canadian Corps of three divisions took shape and eventually received a new commander,

Lieutenant-General Sir Julian Byng. Its personnel experimented with a range of new weapons and tactics better suited to the harsh conditions on the Western Front. A combat doctrine defined by detailed staff planning and greater coordination between infantry and artillery increasingly emerged through a winter of trench raiding in Flanders, the embarrassing defeat at St. Eloi in

March-April 1916, and the hard-fought victory at Mount Sorrel in June.940 By the time the

938 Colonel E.R.C. Butler to DVS, 9 October 1915. NA WO 95/66. 939 Brigadier-General Moore to Director-General, Army Veterinary Service, 18 April 1916. NA WO 95/67. 940 New weapons included the introduction of the Lewis Gun, grenades (bombs), trench mortars, and the replacement of the much-maligned Ross Rifle with the far more reliable Short Magazine Lee Enfield as the standard infantry arm. Similarly, Tim Cook considered that growing infantry-artillery cooperation demonstrated during the counterattacks at Mount Sorrel was an early, and effective, employment of ‘bite and hold’ tactics by the Canadian 266

Canadian Corps redeployed to the Somme sector in September 1916, it demonstrated itself as a reliable combat formation staffed by competent professionals at all levels of command.941

Throughout the pace of these battles, as costly as they were to human lives, infectious disease and environmental problems caused far greater concerns for the CEF's horseflesh. Battle casualties remained comparatively low, even during the pace of active combat operations.942 This period thus afforded vital opportunities for professional learning and intellectual exchange among veterinary personnel throughout the entire BEF. Mange and glanders – those great causes of anxiety among civil service veterinarians before the war – came starkly to the forefront of the

BEF's veterinary concerns. The professional expertise of veterinary officers in British, French, and

Canadian forces, however, helped introduce innovative methods of combatting these diseases.

This chapter investigates CAVC activities and learning processes from July 1915 to

September 1916. It briefly discusses the Directorate of Veterinary Services and Remounts

(DVS+R), which coordinated personnel recruitment, training, and veterinary arrangements in

England. It then examines the critical process of intellectual exchange and methodological development among veterinary officers throughout the BEF. This period imparted essential lessons

Corps See Rawling, Surviving Trench Warfare, Chapter 2, and Cook, At the Sharp End, 377. Also see Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, Chapters IV-V, Morton, When Your Number’s Up, Chapters 6-7, Tim Cook, “The Blind Leading the Blind: The Battle of the St. Eloi Craters,” Canadian Military History 5, no. 2 (1996): 24-36, Cook, At the Sharp End, Chapters 21-28, Iarocci, Shoestring Soldiers, 234-267, Granatstein, Canada’s Army, Chapter Three, and Colin Garnett, “The Art of Minor Operations: Canadian Trench Raiding, 1915-1918,” Canadian Military History 24, No. 1 (Winter/Spring 2015): 249-282. 941 Granatstein, Canada’s Army, 93-95. 942 The most intense period of combat operations, insofar as animals are concerned, was during the Battle of Mount Sorrel. The ferocious German artillery bombardments which pulverised the frontline trenches held by the 8th CIB also appear to have inflicted considerable animal casualties. Over the two weeks of battle, for example, the 3rd Canadian Division suffered 100 combat wounds (lacerations, shrapnel, gunshot), and the 1st Division 52 combat wounds. These casualties, although by no means inconsiderable, paled in comparison with the 1st Division’s combat losses during the Second Battle of Ypres, both in gross terms and in proportion to the number of animals engaged. See A 2000 Form 1st Canadian Division – Week Ending 8 June and 15 June 1916, LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3386 Folder R-57-45, and A-2000 Form 3rd Canadian Division – Week Ending 8 June and 15 June 1916, LAC RG 9 III- B-1 Vol. 3385 Folder R-53-45. 267

on the identification, isolation, and eradication of infectious diseases. Veterinary Officers’ prior experiences helped shape these lessons, which in turn influenced veterinary medicine for the rest of the Great War.

The Directorate of Veterinary Services and Remounts, CEF

Between March 1915 and June 1916, a distinct Directorate of Veterinary Services and

Remounts emerged with Colonel William Neill as its Director. It ostensibly presided over all veterinary and remount affairs in the Canadian Expeditionary Force.943 By June 1916, these included veterinary complements and horses for three full combat divisions, a Canadian Training

Division (CTD), two Canadian Veterinary Hospitals, a Base Depot for supplies, a Veterinary and

Farriery Training School, and a Canadian Remount Depot.

Neill served as DVS+R from March 1915 until his resignation in March 1918. His direct command responsibilities predominately extended to Canadian veterinary services in England. In this capacity, he directed efforts to combat infectious diseases, coordinated personnel and equipment for No. 2 Canadian Veterinary Hospital (CVH) at Shorncliffe, veterinary arrangements with the CTD, and other units preparing to sail for France.944 By May 1916, too, the Veterinary and Farriery Training School opened near Shorncliffe under Neill’s authority. This school ensured a steady stream of Farriers, Shoeing-Smiths, and Veterinary Sergeants for the CEF.945

These veterinary activities in England were most important in the first two years of the war. Successive waves of units from Canada settled into southern England to train and prepare for

943 Veterinary and remount affairs were under different administrative offices until July 1915, when they amalgamated under Neill’s direction. See “Report on the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps,” 12. 944 Cecil French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War 1914-1919, 101-102. 945 “Report of the Director of Veterinary Services on the Department of Veterinary Services and Remounts,”3. Also see French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War 1914-1919, 20-28. 268

their deployment to the Western Front. The numbers of Canadian-owned horses in England thus fluctuated tremendously based upon the arrival and departure of Canadian units. For example, on

1 July 1915, 6,749 horses in Canadian units were stationed across southern England as against

5,743 in France.946 Following the departure of the 2nd Canadian Division and Canadian Cavalry

Brigade that fall, however, total numbers in England fell to 3,531 with the CTD and another 484 at Bramshott Camp.947 Similarly, 6,417 Canadian animals stationed in England in January 1917, but these numbers fell to 2,646 by August.948 At the Armistice of 11 November 1918, only 1,692

Canadian animals remained in England as against 24,169 on the Continent.949 Indeed, by February

1918, Cecil French considered that Canadian veterinary activities in England “dwindled to insignificant proportions.”950

This considerable number of horses in transit required dedicated veterinary arrangements in its own right. Canadian veterinary establishments in England fluctuated as personnel and horses arrived and departed with their units. During their time in England, they formed a sort of itinerant veterinary service, as treating sick and wounded horses constituted an intrinsic part of their training.951 A permanent staff stationed in southern England nevertheless ensured a dedicated framework of veterinary care for units in training and transition. By 13 March 1917, the permanent

946 McRae, “Report on Remounts ‘Overseas,” 43. 947 “Balance Statement, Canadian Remounts, From October 1st 1914 to December 31st 1915,” 16. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3383 Folder R-18-45 Vol. 2. 948 “Comparative Strength Return Horses Canadians. England. 1917.” LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3390 Folder R-171- 45. 949 “Canadian Animal Disposition. England. 11th November 1918 – 31st May 1919.” LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3363 Folder A-3-45, and “Canadian Animal Disposition. France. 11th November 1918 to 31st May 1919.” LAC RG 9 III- B-1 Vol. 3363 Folder A-1-45. 950 This is within the context of the decision to disband the 5th Canadian Division, with its CAVC complement either accompanying the intact units (5th Division Artillery) or redistributed to other postings. French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War 1914-1919, 107. 951 Captain J.G. Harvey, “Short Veterinary History of the 2nd Canadian Divisional Ammunition Column,” 1. LAC MG 30 E14 Vol. 1. 269

CAVC establishment in Southern England consisted of No. 2 CVH and the Canadian Veterinary

School, staffed by seven officers and 198 Other Ranks, all under the command of an ADVS.952

Routine veterinary duties in England were essentially similar to those on the Western Front. They included ensuring clean stabling, adequate forage, proper grooming, and inspecting units to ensure they upheld standards of animal management.953 Similarly, No. 2 CVH processed cases of animal sickness and injury among Canadian units training in Southern England. As of 2 November 1915, it received 533 animal patients and cured 419, with 101 remaining under treatment lost 53 died.954

The largest number of animals under care at any one time was 800, in January 1916, although such a large volume was the exception rather than the rule.955

Despite being far removed from the firing line, animals still died at a regular – albeit reduced – rate in England. In July 1915, Colonel A.D. McRae estimated that at any given time upwards of 10% of military animals in the United Kingdom were under treatment in hospital.956

Some of these causes of wastage were common to both England and France. Fractured legs and colic, those perennial causes of horse and mule death, occurred regardless of location. Similarly, respiratory ailments such as influenza and pneumonia took a regular toll on animals during the winter months.957 Glanders caused continuous anxiety to veterinarians in England, who nevertheless kept it in check through repeated mallein testing. Out of the approximately 300,000

952 “Appendix to Headquarters Canadians Routine Order No. 794 of 13th March 1917.” LAC RG 9 III-D-1 Vol. 4717 Folder 112 File 11. 953 Lt.Col. J.H. Wilson to Colonel W.J. Neill, 2 November 1915. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3363 Folder A-37-45. 954 Ibid. 955 French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War 1914-1919, 13. Cecil French devotes an entire chapter of his work on veterinary and remount functions in England and readers interested in the daily life of the personnel and more extensive discussion on the character of CAVC functions in southern England should consult his Chapter 5. 956 McRae, “Report on Remounts ‘Overseas,” 21. 957 Major J.H. Wilson to Colonel W.J. Neill, 10 April 1915. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3363 Folder A-37-45. 270

horses that passed through the Imperial Government’s control by July 1915, only 14 positive glanderous cases reacted to the test in England.958

Mange also proved increasingly worrisome in the CTD over the winter of 1915-16. It was a recurring problem at Shorncliffe since before the Canadians’ arrival, and prophylactic measures such as clipping horses and disinfecting gear and stabling failed to slow the disease’s spread. Neill commented on 4 January 1916 that “the seriousness of this condition cannot be overestimated,” but efforts to contain the spread of mange ran into several obstacles.959 The Shorncliffe ADVS,

Lieutenant-Colonel John Wilson, applied for funds to erect a calcium sulphide dipping bath – which will be discussed in detail below – to treat all horses in the CTD. However, the Director of

Fortifications and Works rebuffed this request, claiming the “small number of horses to be dealt with at Shorncliffe does not justify the expenditure.” Wilson was thus left to contend with the disease by disinfecting gear and isolating “every animal showing the slightest sign of skin trouble.”960 Neill further directed personnel to clip all suspected animals, burn the clippings, wash the animals with soap and water, and apply a treatment salve of sulphur, oil of tar, and linseed oil by hand – the latter a laborious, sluggish, and ultimately dated method of treating mange.961

Other causes of wastage were perhaps more common in England than in France. A recurring issue among Canadian personnel in Southern England was their tendency to ride horses too hard and wear out their hooves. Throughout the winter of 1915-16, Neill and Colonel A.D.

McRae observed that officers and men alike rode their horses too fast over country roads, to such

958 McRae, “Report on Remounts ‘Overseas,” 16. 959 DVS+R Circular, 4 January 1916. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3368 Folder C-30-45. 960 Colonel S.D. Cleeve to Major General i/c Administration, Central Force and Eastern Command, 11 March 1916, and Lieutenant-Colonel J.H. Wilson Letter, 25 May 1916. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3374 Folder E-36-45. 961 This rather lethargic and parsimonious approach to the disease contrasted starkly with treatment of mange in the BEF, which this chapter will discuss in detail below. Colonel W.J. Neill, “Treatment for Mange,” 6 July 1916. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3368 Folder C-30-45. 271

an extent that No. 2 CVH “is full of lame horses.”962 This partially attested to poor horsemanship among Canadian personnel, who might not have recognized signs of lameness and rode at full gallop instead of walking. In other cases, Neill observed, “they are in the habit of riding out with

Lady friends, using these horses to attend social functions at night…often leaving the animals standing around for hours at a time in the care of a groom or tied to a post.” Neill complained to the CTD Provost Marshal that “this is a serious offence and must be stopped,” but frequent correspondence over improper use of government horses suggests it continued to be a problem for some time across southern England.963

The most pressing concern that preoccupied DVS + R throughout the war, however, was personnel recruitment, particularly of veterinary officers. The mass procurement of horses and mules by the British War Office necessitated a concomitant mobilization of professional veterinarians to oversee their health and working efficiency. A manpower crisis quickly began to develop alongside the rapid expansion of the British New Armies and their growing commitments to campaigns ranging from France to Mesopotamia. Each British army, corps, division, veterinary hospital, and remount depot required trained veterinary staff. The War Office was unable to secure sufficient British veterinary surgeons to fill out the full complements for these new units, simply because there were no more to recruit in the United Kingdom.964 It was so desperate to fill the

962 Colonel W.J. Neill to AA&QMG, September 1915. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3379 Folder H-192-45. 963 Colonel W.J. Neill to Major Snow, 30 January 1916, Major H.W. Hambro to Director of Remounts, War Office, 30 January 1916, Colonel A.D. McRae to AA&QMG Canadian Training Division, 14 April 1916, and Colonel W.J. Neill to DAA&QMG Shorncliffe Command, 4 July 1916. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3379 Folder H-192-45. 964 As of 1 July 1918 the Register of Veterinary Surgeons in the United Kingdom listed some 3,350 members, of whom 1,200 were employed on active service with the AVC. When accounting for veterinarians practicing outside the UK, those over 60 years of age, and those working in other professions, the remaining pool of veterinary surgeons fell to 1,200. Of these, only 120 fell within the ideal age limit of below 40 years of age. In the interests of not completely stripping the country bare of civil practitioners, however, they were granted exemptions from military service on grounds of “national importance of their work.” The UK was thus effectively drained of all of its veterinary surgeons capable of serving in the war effort. See Blenkinsop and Rainey, Veterinary Services, 24-26. 272

ranks of the AVC’s rapid expansion that it offered commissions to veterinary students in their final year of studies but had not yet officially graduated.965

The only means of ensuring an equitable distribution of veterinary officers for its various theatres of operation was to dilute the veterinary complement for combat divisions and veterinary hospitals. By 1916, British and Australian divisions on the Western Front could field only seven veterinary officers, as against eleven for divisions of the Canadian Corps.966 Under such arrangements, British VOs (with the exception of the ADVS and OC MVS) received no specific unit posting and instead attended to a division’s animal strength as best they could.967 When confronted with the prospect of even further reductions personnel in January 1916, Moore warned

“the efficiency of the Veterinary Service will be entirely destroyed,” for “to bare us in personnel leaves us powerless to meet the torrent of sickness and injuries” from future battles.968

An effective, if not ideal, stopgap was to create a special NCO posting, the “Sergeant,

Army Veterinary Corps” or “Veterinary Sergeant.” These were NCOs specially trained in the nature and treatment of wounds and infectious diseases.969 Their principal task was to “prevent disease and render first aid treatment” in the units under their charge by inspecting for proper standards of animal cleanliness, dressing lightly wounded casualties, and reporting any suspected incidences of disease.970 In order to “establish a complete chain of veterinary representation in

965 Blenkinsop and Rainey, Veterinary Services, 25-26. 966 By 1918 these totals fell further – five VOs for a British division and nine for a Canadian division. See Major- General C.T. Dawkins to Secretary, War Office, 19 October 1916. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3374 Folder E-40-45. 967 History of the Organization and Development of the Army Veterinary Service with the British Expeditionary Force, France, 3. 968 Brigadier-General J. Moore to Headquarters I.G.C., 10 January 1916. NA WO 95/67. 969 Before confirming their rank these Sergeants wrote exams on diagnosis and treatment of diseases, wounds, and other maladies afflicting horses on active service. Some sample questions for Sergeants CAVC included: “What are the main points in diagnosing Disease?” “How would you treat a nail puncture of the frog?” “What would you do for a horse reported ‘off feed’ and Debilitated?” “How would you treat a case of Ruptured Tendon, with Head Pain and Swelling?” LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3373 Folder E-6-45. 970 Brigadier-General J. Moore, Draft Duties – Sergeants AVC, 20 July 1916. NA WO 95/67. 273

units,” a Sergeant AVC served in each infantry brigade, artillery battery, brigade ammunition column, and section of a divisional ammunition column.971 These NCOs proved an “undoubted success” to the AVC on the Western Front and readily fulfilled their nominal duty of connecting individual units in the field with the BEF veterinary structure.972

As useful as Sergeants AVC proved they were not complete replacements for Veterinary

Officers. The professional veterinary expertise imparted at veterinary college as discussed in

Chapter Two was a necessary precondition for commissioned service as a VO in either the CAVC or the AVC. In this respect, the Dominion of Canada was a tremendous asset to the War Office.

The Canadian veterinary college system, modelled closely after English and Scottish patterns, furnished veterinarians with the essential skills and knowledge the AVC needed for its officer corps. The War Office thus effused an insatiable interest in Canadian veterinarians throughout the war – a notable contrast to its rather lackadaisical approach to Canadian remounts.

Active recruitment of Canadian veterinarians for Imperial service began shortly after war broke out, with the first commission granted on 14 August 1914.973 Candidates included serving

Militia officers, government veterinarians, and civil practitioners alike. The AVC accepted most applicants provided they were British subjects, under 50 years of age, and possessed a British or

Canadian degree.974 Prior military service was not a prerequisite. Just as in the UK, too, the War

971 Sergeants CAVC similarly entered Canadian service not long following their introduction into British formations. Brigadier-General J. Moore, “Circular Memo. No. 51,” 7 September 1915. NA WO 95/66. 972 History of the Organization and Development of the Army Veterinary Service with the British Expeditionary Force, France. August 1914 to April 1919, 32. 973 “Veterinary Surgeons for Overseas Active Service Imperial Army,” LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3371 Folder C-190- 45. 974 The conditions of service for the Army Veterinary Corps mandated that applicants “must be fully qualified, British or Canadian Degrees…must be British subjects under fifty years, good horsemen and passed medically fit.” However, twelve graduates of American veterinary colleges served in the CAVC in the Great War. The issue of institutional nationality does not seem to have been either clearly articulated or cleanly resolved over the course of the war. See District Staff Adjutant, Military District 10 Circular, 17 November 1914, LAC Dept. of National 274

Office also accepted OVC students who had not yet graduated.975 Still, the AVC rigorously upheld its professional standards throughout the war. Some officers possessing “quack” degrees from correspondence colleges – the “Ontario Veterinary College, London Ontario” or the “Veterinary

Science Association” – were cashiered from the service when their “education” became apparent.976 Between August 1914 and May 1915, the War Office recruited 127 Canadian VOs for service in the British Army.977 Over the course of the conflict, 203 Canadian VOs served in the

AVC – its most significant source of non-British officers.978

Such eager recruitment of Canadian veterinarians for the AVC siphoned off a valuable source of VOs for the CAVC. Doubtless one of the greater appeals for service in the British Army was its considerably better pay – an AVC lieutenant earned more ($1,936.93 per year) than a

CAVC captain ($1,733.75 per year).979 CAVC officers deeply resented this financial imbalance.

In March 1916, the VOs in the 1st Canadian Division (excepting ADVS Major Cutcliffe) formally protested their lost earning opportunities to Neill. These officers cited the financial difficulties incurred by sacrificing their practices for the war effort, and sought equal pay.980 Neill was keenly aware of, and partially responsible for, this situation. He noted the discrepancy in pay was “an oversight on my part,” for he “never intended” for AVC VOs to “compare notes in regard to the

Defence Military District No. 10 Folder 20-2-29, and “List of Officers – Canadian Army Veterinary Corps – Overseas Military Forces of Canada,” LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3389 Folder R-155-45. 975 French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War 1914-1919, 112. 976 WD, DVS, 13 June and 22 August 1916. 977 “Veterinary Surgeons for Overseas Active Service Imperial Army.” 978 French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War 1914-1919, 209 and Blenkinsop and Rainey, Veterinary Services, 26. 979 “Differences in Pay of Respective Ranks Between the Canadian and Imperial Army Veterinary Services.” LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3381 Folder P-36-45. 980 In contrast, they claimed, veterinarians employed by the Department of Agriculture could rely on both their civil service and their military salary. See Petition signed by Capt. SA Richards, Capt FG Liddle, Capt JF Durkin, Capt JH Burnet, Capt TZ Woods, Capt AE Coulombe, Capt LM Grignon, Capt P Souaillard, Capt WG Stedman, Capt EM Dixon, Capt CG Saunders, Capt H Colebourn, Capt FA Daigneault, and Capt CL Edwards, LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3381 Folder P-36-45. 275

amount of pay they received” their CAVC counterparts.981 Neill tried to rectify this dissatisfying situation, noting to CEF HQ “the Imperial AVC will take all the CAVC officers available.” He was concerned the considerably higher pay offered for British Army veterinarians rendered it “very difficult to supply reinforcements to the C.E.F.”982 Despite his efforts, the pay imbalance never rectified. It remained a point of bitterness among CAVC officers, a number of whom applied for transfers to the AVC. Such officers claimed “the rate of pay is higher in the AVC” while “the work is practically the same,” but Neill rejected their transfer requests.983

Nevertheless, other officers readily volunteered to serve in the CAVC. Some of the most capable, talented, and experienced officers to serve in the CAVC volunteered in the months following August 1914 rather than immediately upon the outbreak of war. Lieutenant David

Tamblyn, for example, was the Department of Agriculture’s Veterinary Inspector in Charge of

Saskatchewan when war broke out. He excelled in his studies at McGill, where he scored among the top of his class in Cattle Pathology and Veterinary Medicine and Surgery. He served with distinction in South Africa, rising to Captain in the Imperial Light Horse, and joined the Militia in

1909.984 Tamblyn declined an invitation to join the AVC in 1914, stating that he was “quite satisfied to wait” for an opportunity in the CAVC and “[did] not feel disposed” to joining the

British service as a lieutenant.985 Tamblyn indeed joined the CAVC shortly, proceeding overseas

981 Colonel W.J. Neill to Colonel G.P. Murphy, 30 March 1916. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3381 Folder P-36-45. 982 Colonel W.J. Neill to The Secretary, H.Q. C.E.F., 9 January 1917. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3381 Folder P-36-45. 983 Lieutenant L.E.L. Taylor to DVS and R, 3 February 1917, and Captain V.C. Best to Colonel W.J. Neill, 17 February 1917. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3381 Folder P-36-45. Also see French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War 1914-1919, 113-116. 984 Canada. Department of Militia and Defence. The Quarterly Militia List of the Dominion of Canada (Corrected to 1st July 1913), (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1913), 335, McGill University, Annual Calendar of the Faculty of Comparative Medicine and Veterinary Science, Thirty-Sixth Session, 1902-1902, (Montreal: The Gazette Printing Company, 1901), 25, UG RE1 OVC A0292 Box 5, and D.S. Tamblyn to Sir F. Borden, 8 September 1904. UG RE1 OVC A0296 Box 5 File 3. 985 Lieut. D. Tamblyn to District Staff Adjutant, ND No. 10, 20 November 1914. LAC Dept. of National Defence. Military District No. 10, Vol. 10, Folder 20-2-29. 276

as VO to the 1st Canadian Mounted Rifles and later to the 7th CIB.986 Similarly, Lieutenant A.E.

Cameron, who also worked in the Health of Animals Branch and served in South Africa, delayed his enlistment in the CEF until January 1915. He experienced difficulty securing leave from the

Department of Agriculture, but eventually made it overseas as VO to the 6th CIB.987 By September

1916, 61 veterinarians volunteered for service in the CAVC – less than half the number of

Canadian VOs serving in the AVC a year before.988

By mid-1916, however, there were no more such officers available to enlist. Most of the eager, able-bodied, experienced applicants had already obtained commissions in either the British or Canadian militaries. The prerequisites for service constantly lowered to ensure a trickle of replacements arrived to fill vacancies left by officers killed in action, retired on medical grounds, or cashiered for drunkenness or incompetence.989 The Acting Quartermaster General in the United

Kingdom, Colonel George Murphy wrote to Ottawa on 17 July 1916 that VOs were “urgently required.” He noted it was “absolutely necessary [they] have at least three or four years service as veterinary surgeons,” adding “men who have just graduated from College no use.”990 However,

Brigadier-General A.D. McRae, Murphy’s successor, later informed Neill it was “impossible” to

986 During the interwar period, Colonel David Tamblyn served as Officer Administrating, Royal Canadian Army Veterinary Corps. As subsequent chapters will demonstrate, Tamblyn ended the conflict as the highest-decorated, and arguably most capable, officer in the CAVC. 987 Cameron eventually ascended to Veterinary Director-General in the Department of Agriculture after the war. Lieut. A.E. Cameron to Major H.D. Smith, 7 January 1915. LAC Dept. of National Defence. Military District No. 10, Vol. 10, Folder 20-2-29. 988 “Seniority List – Officers CAVC.” LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3390 Folder R-190-45. 989 Alcohol abuse appears to have been a leading cause for disciplinary action and dismissal of officers in the BEF veterinary services. Of the 15 Canadian Veterinary Officers whose commissions in the AVC were terminated by March 1917, 13 of them were due to drunkenness. Moore notes a number of cases in the DVS war diary and was sufficiently concerned about its impact on personnel that he ordered the DDsVS Southern and Northern Command to “compare charges of drunkenness in AVC with other branches of the Army.” He was relieved to note “from a comparative point of view this crime is less prevalent in our units,” though it would recur throughout the war. See “Canadian Veterinary Surgeons Whose Temporary Commissions in the Imperial Army Veterinary Corps Have Been Terminated,” LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3372 Folder D-16-45, and WD, DVS, 24 January 1916. 990 Colonel G. Murphy to Colonel W.J. Neill, 18 July 1916. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3380 Folder D-17-45. 277

secure sufficient veterinary surgeons with the requisite experience, for there were “only recent graduates available.”991 Confronted with a deficiency of 13 officers needed to complete establishments, and left with no other source for such officers, Neill had no choice to accept.992

Despite Neill’s reluctance, the Ontario Veterinary College supplied the CAVC with recent graduates for the rest of the war. They formed a considerable proportion of the CAVC officer corps late in the war. Upwards of 20 percent of CAVC officers on active service in 1918 graduated from

OVC between 1914 and 1918. Some recent graduates performed poorly in their duties, while others finished the war highly decorated for their service. These wartime graduates ultimately enabled the CAVC to operate with a small surplus of officers by the end of the war – a luxury never afforded the overtaxed and understaffed AVC.993 Altogether, 148 VOs served in the CEF

CAVC over the course of the conflict. Between the two of them, the AVC and the CAVC recruited roughly a third of all veterinarians under 65 years of age in Canada.994

If the DVS+R played an active role recruiting officers and overseeing veterinary arrangements in England, its authority in France was practically nonexistent. The BEF’s Director of Veterinary Services, and Director of Remounts, assumed overall command of CAVC personnel once they arrived on the Continent. Whether due to misunderstandings, forgetfulness, or willful ignorance, Neill repeatedly clashed with this parallel command structure. He developed a notorious habit of bypassing DVS Moore and communicating directly with CAVC officers over

991 Brigadier-General A.D. McRae to D.V.S.&R., 22 December 1916. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3380 Folder D-17-45. 992 Colonel W.J. Neill to Quartermaster-General, 8 March 1917. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3380 Folder D-17-45. 993 For a lengthier discussion on the changes to the OVC curriculum (including the introduction of mandatory Canadian Officer Training Corps service) and the service records of some of these recent graduates in the war, see Andrew McEwen, “‘Only Recent Graduates Available:’ Ontario Veterinary College Graduates and the Great War,” Western Humanities Review 69, No. 3 (Fall 2015): 234-266. 994 French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War 1914-1919, 209 and Fifth Census of Canada, 1911 Volume VI: Occupations of the People, 8-9 and 44-45. 278

personnel affairs.995 On 17 December 1915, for example, Moore commented, “it has frequently occurred” that Neill would “correspond direct with Canadian Units in [France].” Neill’s conduct was “entirely wrong,” and Moore had to ask the Director General of the Army Veterinary Service to admonish the DVS+R.996 Similarly, at times Neill made unannounced inspections of Canadian units in the field without previously establishing contact with the DVS or Army DDVS.997 Neill was indeed overstepping his boundaries in such cases. Wartime regulations specifically mandated the DVS for a field force “commands and is responsible for…veterinary personnel with the force,” and thus CAVC personnel serving in the BEF fell outside Neill’s authority.998

This does not suggest Neill was entirely removed from decision-making processes, and

Moore consulted with him on a number of different occasions. The two officers collaborated on plans to expand No. 1 CVH at Havre from a small 500 patient hospital to a fully-fledged 1,250 patient veterinary hospital with all the additional personnel, stabling, and equipment the expansion entailed.999 Similarly, Moore accompanied Neill on inspections of frontline Canadian units throughout the summer of 1916. Nevertheless, in August-September 1916, Moore became sufficiently irritated with Neill that he lodged a formal complaint with the War Office. He noted that Neill, who recently asked Cutcliffe to suggest a potential candidate as ADVS 4th Canadian

Division, “adopts the procedure of communicating direct with the Canadian Divisions.”

995 WD, DVS, 29 July 1915. French, as might be expected, sides with Neill on these issues and criticizes the Imperial authorities for being too intransigent on personnel affairs within the BEF. However, given the multinational character of the force (in which Moore was responsible to British, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, French, Belgian, and later, American authorities) and the multitude of responsibilities, it is difficult to excessively condemn DVS Moore for insisting on proper protocol and total control over his command. French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War 1914-1919, 104-106. 996 WD, DVS, 17 December 1915. 997 WD, DDVS Second Army, 26-27 July 1916. 998 Veterinary Manual (War), 1915, 3. 999 WD, DVS, 6 January, 12 January, 25 January 1915. 279

“Obviously recommendations for Administrative Veterinary appointments should be made through me,” Moore wrote, and the War Office directed CEF HQ to remind Neill as such.1000

Neill’s subordinates in the CAVC likewise chafed at his directives. As Chapter Two illustrated, he received his appointment as PVO CPAVC in January 1914 from Militia Minister

Sam Hughes despite possessing little in the way of military experience over the previous decade.

During the war itself, Neill earned the contempt of his junior officers by repeatedly issuing orders from the safety of his various headquarters in Folkestone and London while Canadian VOs toiled in France. For example, Captain Alfred Savage, a surgeon at No. 1 CVH, remarked harshly that

Neill was a “technical ignoramus.”1001 David Tamblyn similarly commented after the war that

Neill demonstrated “ignorance and inability to administer the service he commanded” and “was a politician, who flouted those in authority, for his own end.”1002 Reflecting the prevailing opinion that DVS+R was an inert office, Tamblyn further wrote Neill’s position was “not justified in view of the amount of work,” for “the DVS had no command in France or Belgium.”1003 C.A.V. and Ian

K. Barker furthermore implicated Neill for embezzling funds donated by humane societies for his personal expenditures. Diagnosed with neurasthenia and evidently in declining mental health, Neill relinquished his post in March 1918. 1004 Colonel Charles Edgett, ADVS 4th Canadian Division and one of the “old originals” who arrived at Valcartier in August 1914, succeeded him as DVS+R.

This brief overview on the activities of the DVS+R office illustrates both its comparatively limited scope and its principal concerns throughout the war. The Directorate fulfilled a useful

1000 WD DVS, 1 September 1916. NA WO 95/67. 1001 Alfred Savage Diary, 4 February 1918. LAC MG 24 E1 Vol. 26. 1002 Tamblyn Comments on French Draft. LAC MG 30 E14 Vol. 2 Folder 6. 1003 Colonel David Tamblyn Commentary on French Chapter 5, LAC MG 30 E14 Vol. 2. 1004 For C.A.V. and Ian K. Barker’s assessment of Neill’s financial irresponsibility and his diagnosis for neurasthenia in October 1917 and subsequent resignation in March 1918, see C.A.V. and Ian K. Barker, Chapter 10 Note 1, in French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War 1914-1919, 262-263. 280

function in that it coordinated Canadian veterinary activities throughout southern England and

CAVC personnel arriving from Canada. Recruiting sufficient officers to keep the CEF up to its veterinary establishment evidently proved a recurring challenge. Nevertheless, the CAVC remained better staffed than the AVC throughout the war, and Canadian units readily benefitted from these additional VOs in the field. Ultimately, the Directorate of Veterinary Services and

Remounts was an office that reflected the ambition of the young Dominion to field as large a force of veterinarians and horses as it could muster in the Great War. However, with the parallel command structure on the Continent and the short life of Canadian remount operations detailed in

Chapter Four, it could only have limited authority in practice.

For the historian, however, the office’s most important contribution was the enormous volume of quantitative data Neill insisted on collecting each week from veterinary units in the field. The nature of the British-Canadian remount agreement, as discussed in Chapter Four, called for detailed accounting of each transfer of horses between the two governments. The necessity of furnishing such regular reports engendered resentment among the already overworked VOs and

ADsVS in the field, but Neill’s insistence on detailed bookkeeping left an extraordinary wealth of quantitative data on the CEF’s horseflesh from 1914 to 1918.1005 Cecil French was indeed correct when he surmised that Neill’s “most important” duties involved “the compilation of remount returns,” and this study is deeply indebted to Neill’s detailed accounting.1006

1005 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 24 February 1916. 1006 French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War 1914-1919, 102. 281

Disease and Innovation, 1915-16

Neill’s efforts to secure sufficient VOs for field service are particularly critical to consider at this juncture. Control of infectious diseases was a highly technical process that depended upon professional skills of VOs. Ensuring a regular – if small – stream of replacements for officer casualties was necessary for maintaining the requisite expertise to diagnose and eradicate disease outbreaks. Although not witnessing a marked increase of animal casualties, this period nevertheless saw a steady rate of VO wastage through sickness, injury, or wounds. For example, the ADVS 1st Canadian Division, Major Cutcliffe, spent nearly a month in hospital after his horse reared up and fell on him while he prepared to ride out on inspection.1007 On 6 April 1916, shrapnel grievously wounded Captain T.Z. Woods, VO to the 2nd CIB, while he was inspecting horse lines.

He died of his wounds three days later, one of the few combat fatalities suffered among CAVC personnel in the Great War.1008 Each killed, injured, or cashiered officer was exceedingly difficult to replace, and meant that the already limited personnel reserve became even thinner.

These concerns came to a head in 1915-16. The rapid expansion of the BEF in 1915 with the introduction of Territorial Force, New Army, and Dominion forces, exposed the deficiencies of its veterinary complement. Between March 1915 and May 1916, the total BEF feeding strength increased nearly 300%, from 127,978 to 370,868 horses and mules.1009 The CEF likewise witnessed its animal strength significantly increase over this period. By June 1916, horses of the

1007 Ironically, horses appear to have inflicted a significant proportion of injuries to veterinary personnel. Riding accidents, broken legs from horse kicks, and hemorrhoids from long periods in the saddle commonly occurred among the veterinary services. WD, DDVS Second Army, 3 November 1915. 1008 In attendance for Woods’ funeral were ADVS Cutcliffe and 1st Division General Officer Commanding, Major- General Arthur Currie. WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 6-9 April 1916, and WD, DDVS Second Army, 6-9 April 1916. 1009 “Return of Casualties in Horses – Week Ending 4th March 1915,” NA WO 95/66, and “Return of Quittors Etc in Veterinary Hospital,” NA WO 95/67. 282

three combat divisions in the field alone totalled 16,385, up from 4,856 the previous May.1010 This dramatic increase of animals, and the inability of the War Office to increase its veterinary strength proportionally, rendered inspection of units more onerous and facilitated the spread of disease.

The onset of winter months typically engendered a rise in infectious disease on the Western

Front. The animals’ longer winter coats became caked with mud and prevented easy inspection for skin diseases. Wet weather further caused escalating incidences of respiratory illness, particularly pneumonia. Similarly, immersion in cold, wet mud softened horses’ hooves – a condition known as “quittor” – and made them more vulnerable to nail puncture wounds, cracked heels, dermatitis, and “mud fever.” Lieutenant-Colonel H.D. Smith, ADVS 2nd Canadian Division, estimated that upwards of 75% of animals on sick lines in December 1915 were due to “mud infection.”1011

Canadian personnel were able to partially spare their horses prolonged immersion in the mud by building secure standings for horses out of broken brick and sand repurposed from destroyed buildings – a trick learned from the British 6th Division during their period of initiation to the

Western Front.1012 Cutcliffe noted that such brick standings, although not completely negating the problems imposed by winter mud, were “of great benefit in preventing diseases of legs.”1013

In spite of all of these efforts, veterinary personnel could do little to protect against Picked-

Up Nail. This was arguably the most frustrating cause of animal wastage on the Western Front and was entirely due to soldiers’ negligence. Soldiers trying to keep warm burned broken up wooden ammunition packing crates in camp stoves, most of which still had their packing nails in the boards.

1010 A. 2000 Form 1st Canadian Division – Week Ending 13 May 1915 and 8 June 1916, A. 2000 Form 2nd Canadian Division – Week Ending 8 June 1916, LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3385 Folder R-55-45, A-2000 Form 3rd Canadian Division – Week Ending 8 June 1916. 1011 WD, ADVS 2nd Canadian Division, 31 December 1915. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5042 Reel T-10934. 1012 WD, DDVS Second Army, 20-21 February 1915. 1013 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 31 December 1915 and 13 May 1916. 283

When these fires burned down, the soldiers had an unfortunate tendency to simply dump the ashes, pregnant with nails, wherever was convenient. All too often, this meant directly onto high-traffic roadways or near horse picket lines.1014 During the winter, these nails sank into the mud and remained hidden until an unfortunate horse trod on them with hooves already softened by quittor.

These puncture wounds immediately rendered the horse incapable of further work, and carried a high risk of driving in microorganisms from the soil and developing gangrene.1015 In a single week in February 1916, 430 horses were evacuated due to nail punctures alone throughout the BEF.1016

Special patrols of enlisted personnel to carefully inspect roadways for nails and providing nail disposal boxes helped reduce incidences of nail punctures somewhat. Over the winter of 1917-

18, Canadian units also received special metal plates to affix to horses’ hooves. These plates proved enormously successful against punctures but still lamed some horses by either bending inwards when the horse stepped on a stubborn stone, or trapping smaller stones between the soft

“frog” of the hoof and the steel plate. Still, Moore appreciated their protection against nails and ordered their manufacture for up to a third of a division’s animal complement.1017 Despite such efforts, PUN, ultimately, would remain a recurrent and frustrating problem throughout the conflict.

One of the most notable advances in military veterinary medicine made during this period involved new means of detecting glanders. This highly communicable and fatal respiratory tract infection caused perennial anxiety to veterinarians of all armies. Its lack of visible symptoms and

1014 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 25 October 1915. 1015 Colonel E.R.C. Butler to D.V.S., 4 February 1915. WO 95/66. 1016 WD, DVS, 1 March 1916. 1017 Lieutenant-Colonel Ashton Cutcliffe, “Report on utility of Metal Plates for prevention of P.U.N.,” 25 January 1918, and Major-General J. Moore, Note on Hoof Plates, 9 February 1918. LAC RG 9 III-C-11 Vol. 4579 Folder 1 File 16. 284

its high mortality granted it enormous destructive potential.1018 It was a particularly difficult disease for military veterinarians to guard against. It spread easily through watering troughs and shared feed, and thus could spread through an entire unit before the initial case began to manifest symptoms. Previous chapters of this study noted the importance of administering the mallein test to horses at various junctures of their transit. This diagnostic agent – a mixture of sterilized bacillus mallei cultures and glycerine – was the only means of detecting glanders in equids. Destroying all positive reactors to the test, and vigorously disinfecting all surrounding stabling and riding gear, were the “all necessary precautions” Moore mandated to contain outbreaks.1019

However, the existing test method had certain limitations. The prevalent means of conducting the mallein test, used by the military and Department of Agriculture alike, called for the veterinarian to inject mallein into the animal’s neck. They had to record the animal’s temperature before administering the test and regularly take its temperature for several hours afterwards to detect whether there was a sharp rise – one of the key indicators of a positive case.

Similarly, they had to monitor the injection site for evidence of swelling, the other defining characteristic of a positive reaction, and record the maximum size of any such swelling.1020 The necessity of closely monitoring temperature and the injection site rendered this “subcutaneous cervical” method very time consuming. This in itself was a major drawback for VOs attempting to test hundreds of animals at any given time, and was especially frustrating given the growing shortage of these experts in the BEF. Its heavy reliance on measuring temperature potentially caused false positives, particularly if the animal demonstrated elevated temperatures through

1018 G. Terry Sharrer notes that glanders caused tremendous havoc in the American Civil War. He claims that a single Union Army remount depot at Giesboro lost 17,000 dead remounts between January 1864 and April 1865, predominately from glanders. Sharrer,“The Great Glanders Epizootic, 1861-1866: A Civil War Legacy,” 80. 1019 WD, DVS, 27 May 1915. 1020 J.G. Rutherford, Special Report on Glanders (Canada: Department of Agriculture, September 1906), 14-15. 285

fever.1021 The subcutaneous cervical method was undoubtedly better than nothing, but it was both time consuming and somewhat unreliable.

The solution to this problem came from the French Army. Glanders was seldom seen in

France before the Great War, but outbreaks nevertheless occurred in late 1914. A likely source of infection was horses of the Imperial German Army, which had to contend with glanders outbreaks in its animals throughout the war.1022 Military veterinarians scrambled to contain these outbreaks but faced a number of obstacles, namely a shortage of mallein (due to infrequent incidences of glanders) and the necessity of testing thousands of horses in a short time. The Vétérinaire

Inspecteur au Ministère de la Guerre sponsored extensive experimentation into other diagnostic tests. French veterinarians discovered the merits of the intra-dermal palpebral (IDP) method, “at the time still little known,” but one that addressed virtually all of the shortcomings of the subcutaneous cervical method.1023 The IDP method called for the veterinarian to inject mallein into a horse’s eyelid rather than its neck. Positive cases of glanders demonstrated purulent discharge at the injection site within 24 to 36 hours. In cases where the animal exhibited an inconclusive reaction, the veterinarian could re-test the animal’s opposite eyelid within 48 hours.

The advantages of this test were enormous. It required smaller doses of mallein, no thermometer, no close observation, unambiguously demonstrated the presence of glanders, and still allowed for the cervical subcutaneous method as a control if necessary.1024 The speed, reliability, and

1021 Le Vétérinaire Principal Rohr, “Measures which were taken to check a glanders outbreak,” 2. NA WO 95/66. 1022 Both the horses themselves, and the stabling facilities they infected, represented perennial sources of concern for Allied veterinarians. Troops were instructed to segregate any captured German mounts immediately so they could be tested for glanders, and to avoid (or disinfect) all former German stabling facilities in the event of a successful advance. Major J.W. Wilson, DDVS Second Army Circular, 15 February 1915. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3368 Folder C-31-45. 1023 Le Vétérinaire Principal Rohr, “Measures which were taken to check a glanders outbreak,” 2. 1024 “Circular authorising the Intra-dermo palpebral Mallein Test as a diagnostic Method for Glanders.” NA WO 95/66. 286

affordability of this test led Le Vétérinaire Principal Rohr of the Sixth French Army, to remark confidently that veterinary personnel could “prevent entirely from any glanders outbreak the numerous cavalry of our Armies, at the Front and on [Lines of Communication].”1025

The French Army readily shared these discoveries with the BEF. The Vétérinaire en

Premier of the French Eighth Army, a M. Douville, demonstrated the IDP method on animal patients at No. 5 Veterinary Hospital in early July 1915. DVS Moore and other senior veterinary officers observed to assess whether the technique was viable for use in the BEF. At least one of the horses Douville tested was a suspect case that previously exhibited inconclusive reactions to the subcutaneous cervical method. It reacted clearly to the new test and was destroyed. Postmortem examination yielded signs of lesions on the lungs – a positive indication of glanders.1026 The clear success of this test warranted immediate trials and the AVC shortly thereafter officially adopted the IDP as its first test for glanders.

One of the officers attending these initial trials was Lieutenant Frederick Hobday, an officer whose junior rank belied vast expertise in veterinary medicine. Hobday was 45 years old in July 1915 and was already an accomplished veterinary surgeon in the United Kingdom. He served as a professor at the Royal Veterinary College by the time he turned thirty, pioneered the use of chlorofom anaesthesia in surgical operations, and authored several veterinary textbooks.1027

Hobday played a critical role in disseminating information he gathered during Douville’s

1025 Le Vétérinaire Principal Rohr, “Measures which were taken to check a glanders outbreak,” 2. NA WO 95/66. 1026 WD, No. 5 Veterinary Hospital, 8 July 1915. NA WO 95/4156/4. 1027 Hobday’s enlistment in the AVC elicited excitement from all of the officers who met him in the service. Moore, for example, lauded his decision to “put aside his private interests to serve his country,” and Captain T.C. Evans, a CAVC officer on exchange at No. 5 Veterinary Hospital, remarked “it was my privilege to assist him in many major operations on horses.” He was later knighted in 1933 and served as Honourary Veterinary Surgeon to King George V, King Edward VIII, and King George VI, before dying in June 1939. See WD, DVS, 10 July 1915. And T.C. Evans to Cecil French, 13 February 1919, 5. LAC MG 30 E 14 Vol. 1, Sir Frederick Hobday Obituary, Nature Vol. 144 (29 July 1939): 184, and Frederick Hobday, Canine and Feline Surgery, (New York: William R. Jenkins, 1900), Preface. 287

demonstration to the rest of the BEF. Within a week of the initial trials of this test, Hobday travelled to veterinary units throughout the BEF and performed the IDP test with ADsVS in close attendance. Major Cutcliffe, for example, attended one of Hobday’s demonstrations with No. 23

Mobile Veterinary Section three weeks after Douville’s initial demonstrations.1028 Following close observation of the technique, these senior officers then re-demonstrated the test to their subordinates, and knowledge of the IDP quickly spread throughout the BEF.

This fruitful intellectual exchange among allies came at an ideal time. VOs reported worrying instances of animals exhibiting clinical signs of glanders but not reacting to the subcutaneous cervical method. For example, Captain M.G. O’Gogarty, OC No. 1 Canadian MVS, reported animals entering his sick lines with increasing flow of nasal discharge, a classic symptom of glanders, but the existing mallein tests proved negative.1029 Indeed, Moore reported that more cases of glanders were appearing through IDP testing than appeared with regular subcutaneous cervical testing. Considering glanders “is not a disease to be played with,” Moore began organizing a massive, simultaneous IDP testing regimen for all animals in the BEF. He requested the Institute

Pasteur, the principal source of mallein for the French Armies, furnish 300,000 doses of the diagnostic agent to test the BEF’s 278,407 animals in December 1915.1030

By 11 December, these orders were fully underway. Cutcliffe received orders to test all

6,300 horses in the 1st Canadian Division within two weeks.1031 He remarked the testing came at

“an opportune time,” for bad roads meant “horses to be worked harder and relieved more

1028 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 24 July 1915. 1029 WD, No. 1 Canadian MVS, Marginal Note, August 1915. 1030 WD, DVS, 3 December 1915, and Brigadier-General J. Moore, Circular Memo. No. 70, 11 December 1915. NA WO 95/66. Also see “Return of Casualties in Horses – Week Ending 30th December 1915.” NA WO 95/67. 1031 “Return of Casualties in Horses – Week Ending 30th December 1915.” 288

often.”1032 VOs could thus test the animals without interrupting the flow of supplies to the front.

Similarly, the malleinization of the 2nd Division’s 6,145 horses and 130 mules began on 27

December. Its ADVS, Lieutenant-Colonel H.D. Smith, wrote that artillery batteries loaned horses to infantry brigades while animals of the latter were being tested to ensure their supply lines kept moving.1033 The value of such ubiquitous testing quickly became apparent. Two horses of No. 1

Canadian MVS reacted to the test that appeared entirely above suspicion, as “both horses were in splendid condition, one exceptionally so.” Both of these horses, although exhibiting no evident symptoms of the disease, nevertheless reacted exactly as the test intended: painful swelling of the injected eyelid and purulent discharge. Postmortem surgical examination yielded lesions on the lungs, definite indicators for the glanders infection. Cutcliffe then “saw that nose bags, kits, water buckets, halters, rugs, etc used by these two horses were destroyed and harness, stalls, etc disinfected.”1034 This extensive testing regimen yielded far more productive results than any mallein screening process thus far in the war. Of the 9,908 horses and 271 mules of the 1st Canadian

Division and its attached units, five horses and no mules reacted. In the 2nd Canadian Division, two horses and no mules reacted.1035 Ultimately, of the 297,822 animals tested in the BEF, 167 horses and 6 mules reacted.1036 “Of the necessity for the Test to be carried out there was no doubt,”

Moore commented, and with the widely adopted IDP method, “we know exactly how and where we stand with regard to the disease.”1037

1032 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 11-15 December 1915. 1033 WD, ADVS 2nd Canadian Division, 31 January 1916. 1034 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 26-31 December 1915. 1035 Lieutenant-Colonel F.W. Wilson, “Report on Mallein Testing – Second Army,” 23 March 1916. NA WO 95/67. 1036 Brigadier-General Moore, “Report on Mallein Testing of the British Expeditionary Force, France, 2. NA WO 95/67. 1037 Brigadier-General Moore to Director-General, Army Veterinary Service, 18 April 1916. 289

Glanders was not totally eradicated, but integrating the IDP method as a standard practice was undoubtedly the most important step in that direction. It provided a reliable means of diagnosing glanders, and in the absence of any cure or reliable prophylaxis, it proved a major asset to the BEF’s veterinary personnel. In 1917, only 85 animals reacted to mallein testing, and only

36 in 1918.1038 In the IDP test, BEF VOs had a reliable, fast, easy, and cheap method of testing animals. When the only means of identifying and eradicating glanders outbreaks rested upon frequent testing, these attributes were decisive. Indeed, Moore remarked “without such a test…the disease could not have been kept so well in check.”1039 After the war, Moore considered that “an old enemy had been defeated” through liberal use of the IDP method.1040

Aside from glanders, the perennial cause for anxiety during the winter months was mange.

This parasitic skin disease flourished in cold, wet months under animals’ long winter coats. As

Chapter Two discussed, mange presented a significant concern to Department of Agriculture veterinarians on the Canadian prairies and to military veterinary personnel in South Africa.

However, it was only a minor concern at the beginning of the Great War. By December 1914, the

BEF only had to contend with 117 confirmed cases of mange and 13 “suspicious” cases.1041

Nevertheless, DVS Moore issued a warning order on 10 November 1914 for all AVC personnel to keep vigilant on the watch for mange, which he considered “the worst of all animal scourges of war.” As a preventative measure, Moore recommended clipping animals of their long winter coats in order to both deny the parasites a fertile environment for growth and make inspection easier.

Moore granted that clipping removed animals’ natural source of protection from inclement

1038 Moore, Army Veterinary Service in War, 73. 1039 WD, DVS, 19 April 1916. 1040 Moore, Army Veterinary Service in War, 73. 1041 “Mange – List of Cases Up To & Including 17th Dec. 1914,” NA WO 95/65. 290

weather, but these benefits did not outweigh the significant risks of mange spreading. He considered blankets or rugs adequate substitutes.1042

Mange evidently concerned Moore enough in the winter of 1914-15 that he designated No.

10 Veterinary Hospital at Neufchatel as a dedicated installation for mange and skin cases in early

January 1915.1043 Less than a month later, the OC No. 1 Veterinary Hospital forwarded Moore a

“description of a dipping tank as used in Canada by the Government” in its efforts to control mange on the prairies. However, Moore was skeptical of the calcium sulphide dipping tank. He claimed experiences from South Africa suggested dipping animals in winter months caused high mortality, and that the Canadian treatment method “has not come out of the tests very well.” He concluded,

“I do not consider that the method of trying it by means of a bath is likely to produce better results” than other treatments.1044 Other senior AVC officers echoed Moore’s disparagement of calcium sulphide. Colonel E. Butler, DDVS Southern, noted he was “skeptical to its curative power,” and

Wilson claimed – erroneously – that the baths were “a means of distributing [mange].”1045

This conviction against calcium sulphide did not mean other methods were any more reliable. Indeed, alternative methods of treating mange in mid-1915 ranged from unreliable to outright hazardous. Most of these involved clipping the animals and scrubbing in a variety of chemical dressings over several weeks, but none presented an especially promising solution to the problem. Nicotine-based solutions, although effective against lice, evaporated too soon to kill deep-burrowing sarcoptic mites and ultimately proved “an unreliable method of killing the parasites.” Ammoniated mercury proved a more successful treatment of the superficial psoroptic

1042 Brigadier-General Moore, “Prevention of Disease,” 10 November 1914. NA WO 95/65. 1043 WD, DVS, 9 January 1915. NA WO 95/66. 1044 WD, DVS, 14 February 1915. 1045 Colonel E.E. Butler to DVS, 9 October 1915, NA WO 95/66, and WD, DDVS Second Army, 9 January 1916. 291

mites but also proved sufficiently unreliable against sarcoptic mange that the Army Veterinary

Department (AVD) could “not…justify recommendation…for universal employment.” One of the ubiquitous, and more effective, means of treating both variants of mange was a scrub based upon a mixture of hydrocarbon oil and sulphur.1046 However, its required materials were expensive, it was time consuming to apply and scrub off, and proved as damaging to the animals’ health as the disease itself. It frequently caused extensive skin blistering and necessitated extensive hospital recuperation for the animal to be able to recover from this cure.1047 Oil-based dressings caused such distress that animals “treated” exhibited the same damaged skin indicative of mange cases.1048

Ultimately, the AVD concluded in October 1915, “there exists considerable confusion of ideas with regard to the most suitable dressing and procedure for treatment of Mange.”1049

The BEF’s early freedom from the parasites would not last for long. Mange remained a persistent problem among the local population, which as Chapter Five noted, was essentially denuded of veterinary practitioners for the French and Belgian Armies. Lieutenant-Colonel E.E.

Martin, ADVS Cavalry Corps, wrote to Moore on 9 August 1915 that he diagnosed a French civilian horse in the advanced stages of a mange infestation – especially easy to tell if the animal had numerous bald patches on its skin. Martin complained “the villagers are ignorant…so in the majority of cases they do nothing and the disease gradually spreads.” Mange parasites remained alive in infested civilian stabling facilities, which in turn became flashpoints of outbreaks among military animals. There was no easy solution to this problem. These villages remained necessary

1046 Primary documents alternately describe “coal oil,” “creoline,” “creosote,” “paraffin,” and kerosene, all of which essentially fulfilled the same purpose in the chemical dressings to cure mange. 1047 For notes on these various forms of treatment, see “Report on treatment of Mange by a Solution of Calcium Sulphide,” 6 January 1916. NA WO 95/67, and “Observations on the Treatment of Mange and Instructions for a Universal Form of Procedure,” September 1915. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3368 Folder C-30-45. 1048 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 6 March 1916. 1049 “Observations on the Treatment of Mange and Instructions for a Universal Form of Procedure,” 1. 292

sources of stables and billets, but it was impossible for VOs to inspect, diagnose, and treat every civilian animal or stable as a prophylactic measure.1050 Local military units also hosted the disease.

For example the 7th Regiment of Belgian Artillery, attached to the Second Army and eventually to the Canadian Corps, was rife with mange. Throughout the winter of 1915-16, DDVS Wilson noted recurrences of mange in this unit that doubtless spread to Allied forces. In February 1916, he lamented their VOs were “untrained [and] indifferent to the necessity for precautionary measures,” and Canadian VOs similarly noted the unit was a hotbed of mange in the summer of 1916.1051

The summer of 1915 witnessed the first serious appearance of mange in BEF units.

Cutcliffe only noted two suspect cases of the disease – one an infected remount and the other an

“in-contact” in June 1915.1052 Similarly, DDVS Second Army Lieutenant-Colonel Wilson and

DVS Moore only reported intermittently on incidences of mange throughout the summer.

However, it is evident that more and more cases continued to emerge. No. 5 Veterinary Hospital at Abbeville, one of the major collection centres for skin disease, steadily received patients stricken with mange throughout June 1915. Its OC, Major E.L. Wadley, recorded on 21 June that “mange cases have been coming in very fast,” having received 264 cases in only a few days.1053 Mange steadily spread among BEF units until it became a major concern in the winter of 1915-16. The animals’ long winter coats precluded easy grooming and inspection, and the parasites flourished.

By 6 January 1916, 13% of the animals in BEF veterinary hospitals – 2,803 out of 21,000 – were mange cases.1054

1050 Wilson even claimed subversive agents in the local populace circulated infected horses among BEF mounts, but such paranoia rarely bore out to actual cases of sabotage. See Lieutenant-Colonel E.E. Martin to DVS, 9 August 1915 and WD, DDVS Second Army, 4 February 1916. 1051 WD, DDVS Second Army, 8 February 1916 and WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 10 May 1916. 1052 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 15 June 1915. 1053 WD, No. 5 Veterinary Hospital, 21 June 1915. 1054 WD, DVS, 6 January 1916. 293

In the midst of these escalating incidences, Canadian veterinarians worked hard to convince senior officers of the calcium sulphide method’s merits. They endeavoured to share their professional expertise combatting mange and apply their pre-war experiences to solve wartime problems. The most important officer in this respect was Lieutenant Francis “Frank” Perry from

Estevan, Saskatchewan. Perry was a veteran of the RNWMP with service in the 1885 Northwest

Rebellion, the South African War, and was a 1902 graduate of OVC. He worked as a veterinary surgeon in the RNWMP and the Department of Agriculture in Wood Mountain, Saskatchewan.

This was immediately outside the “Mange Area” quarantine zone imposed by the Dominion

Government to contain its spread among cattle stock. He was thus very familiar with diagnosis and treatment of mange, particularly with the calcium sulphide solution standardly employed to cure mange among cattle.1055 Perry was among the first Canadian veterinary surgeons to volunteer for the AVC and received his commission as a VO on 19 October 1914.1056

Upon arriving in France, Perry received a posting to No. 5 Veterinary Hospital, which by

June 1915 was treating its mange cases with a scrub dressing based on sulphur and lard. Major

Wadley commented that hand scrubbing in this solution was a “very laborious business” and required “a tremendous amount of material.”1057 Perry presented him a viable alternative. On 6

July, Wadley noted that Perry, who had “a great deal of experience” with mange, was “very anxious to demonstrate the value of freshly prepared Hot calcium sulphide.” The ingredients for this solution were: 10 pounds sulphur, 22.5 pounds unslaked lime, and 20 gallons of water. These

1055 The “Mange Area” quarantine zone ended just east of Wood Mountain, but it is nevertheless evident that Perry was well acquainted with treating the disease during his time as a federal veterinarian. “The ‘Mange Area’ – Let’s Wipe it Out,” GA M-2452-66. 1056 Frank Perry NWMP Service File. LAC RG 18 Vol. 10040 Item Number 51381, Ontario Veterinary College Annual Announcement Session 1907-1908, 56, and “Veterinary Surgeons for Overseas Active Service Imperial Army.” 1057 WD, No. 5 Veterinary Hospital, 11-21 June 1915. 294

materials were mixed together, brought to a rolling boil, and diluted to a strength of one part solution and three parts water.1058 Perry was “so confident of its efficacy” that Wadley granted him

250 patients to demonstrate his method. AVC personnel were to clip the patients of their hair, scrub the heated solution into the animals’ hide, wash it off after seven days, and reapply it as before. Perry estimated that three or four rounds of treatment would cure the animal of mange.1059

After a month of experimentation, Perry’s horses “improved tremendously in condition and their coat carrie[d] quite a shine…[without] a trace of blistering.” Wadley commented Perry personally oversaw preparation of the calcium sulphide solution, was “most conscientious about his cases,” and was “‘out’ to prove that the dressing is a good one.” On 7 August, Moore visited the hospital and “appeared very satisfied with the results.”1060

Perry’s experimental treatment, based on his thorough pre-war experience treating mange, revolutionized treatment methods in the BEF.1061 By October 1915, senior officers such as DVS

Moore and DDVS Butler completely shed their previous skepticism on calcium sulphide and embraced the Canadian technique for treating the BEF’s mange cases.1062 Along with the assistance of Captain T.C. Evans, another Canadian VO temporarily attached for duty at No. 5

Veterinary Hospital, Perry furthermore convinced these senior British officers to invest in a

1058 “The Preparation and Use of Calcium Sulphide for the Treatment of Mange,” 1. NA WO 95/66. 1059 WD, No. 5 Veterinary Hospital, 6 July 1915. 1060 WD, No. 5 Veterinary Hospital, 7 August 1915. 1061 Perry received historical acknowledgements of his contributions, whether by name or by insinuation. For example, Blenkinsop and Rainey’s Official History notes “the plan of a Canadian veterinary officer” at No. 5 Veterinary Hospital was proved the genesis of the BEF mange dipping tank design, while Cecil French’s history specifically identifies him as the individual responsible for this innovation. His military career did not end well, however. In January 1918, a General Court Martial tried him on a charge of drunkenness, and he was “found guilty and severely reprimanded.” Moore commented that, as a result of the conviction, “he will be called upon to submit an application to resign his Commission.” He later retired to Guernsey in the Channel Islands and died in March 1943. See Frank Perry NWMP Service File, WD, DVS, 30 January 1918, NA WO 95/68, Blenkinsop and Rainey, Veterinary Services, 522, and French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War, 1914-1919, 122. 1062 Colonel E.R.C. Butler to DVS, 9 October 1915. 295

dipping tank. These tanks were long, narrow, deep troughs with a capacity for 3,300 gallons of heated water mixed with solution. When led into the tanks, the animals could be totally immersed in the calcium sulphide solution to ensure they were immediately, and completely, saturated.

Captain Evans described the procedure in October 1915:

Specification calls for the sides to be brick, and the bottom concrete. The bath is graded on one side with a steep incline, which would be completed with a smooth finish, so that a horse would slide in. He is kept in the dip as long as required, by means of the slip gate, which latter is so arranged that after the animal has been immersed for a sufficient time, it is raised, allowing the animal to obtain a foothold on the easy grade at the other end.1063

These tanks were expensive to build, but easily offset parts and labour costs. Lime, sulphur, and water were far cheaper ingredients than any other methods to treat mange.1064 They also represented considerably more effective use of personnel labour, as they spared AVC ORs the laborious and time-consuming process of brushing in the solution to horses one at a time. They also effectively negated calcium sulphide’s principal drawback. The slightly caustic solution caused mens’ fingers to get sore with repeated contact when brushing it into the animals’ hide.

Dressers could only work for two days at a time before requiring a period away from the work, but immersing animals in the tanks obviated this risk.1065 This dipping method was effective for all variants of mange except the deep-burrowing sarcoptic mites, with such cases having to be treated by hand scrubbing rather than dipping. Otherwise, all other mange cases could be reliably cured within a twenty-day treatment regimen. All that remained, Wadley commented, was “to clean,

1063 Captain T.C. Evans to DDVS Southern Command, 6 October 1915. NA WO 95/66. 1064 “Report on treatment of Mange by a Solution of Calcium Sulphide,” 6 January 1916. NA WO 95/67. 1065 Major E.L. Wadley to DDVS Southern, 5 October 1915. NA WO 95/66. 296

fatten, and condition the animal before discharge.” By July 1916, 10,000 animals underwent successful treatment for mange at No. 5 Veterinary Hospital alone.1066

Figure 6.1 - Calcium Sulphide Mange Dipping Tanks Hand Hills, Alberta, 1908, and No. 1 Canadian Veterinary Hospital, Havre, 19171067

1066 Major E.L. Wadley, “No. 5 Veterinary Hospital – Extracts From Hospital Case Book Showing Treatment of Mange.” NA WO 95/67. 1067 Reynolds and Unwin, Stettler, Alberta. “Cattle swimming through mange dip, Hand Hills, Alberta,” GA NA- 3929-6. Glenbow Archives Online Reproduction from http://ww2.glenbow.org/search/archivesPhotosResults.aspx?AC=GET_RECORD&XC=/search/archivesPhotosResu lts.aspx&BU=&TN=IMAGEBAN&SN=AUTO12797&SE=722&RN=4&MR=10&TR=0&TX=1000&ES=0&CS=0 &XP=&RF=WebResults&EF=&DF=WebResultsDetails&RL=0&EL=0&DL=0&NP=255&ID=&MF=WPEngMsg. ini&MQ=&TI=0&DT=&ST=0&IR=64518&NR=0&NB=1&SV=0&BG=&FG=&QS=ArchivesPhotosSearch&OEX =ISO-8859-1&OEH=ISO-8859-1 (Accessed 6 April 2016), and Canada. Department of National Defence/Library and Archives Canada. “Horses going through a bath containing liquid which prevents skin disease. September, 1917.” LAC Online Reproduction from: http://collectionscanada.gc.ca/pam_archives/index.php?fuseaction=genitem.displayItem&lang=eng&rec_nbr=33952 95 (Accessed 6 April 2016). 297

Moore embraced this new method with gusto. In January 1916, he wrote “there is no doubt” that the “method of preparation…in the Government Dipping Baths in Canada” “is the readiest and most efficacious dressing where large numbers of animals have to be treated.”1068 He proposed construction of another bath at No. 12 Veterinary Hospital and one to be shared by Nos. 6, 19, and

Indian Veterinary Hospitals at Rouen.1069 Some units in the field, such as No. 1 Canadian MVS, experimented treating animals in the field with a calcium sulphide scrubbed in by hand, but Moore ultimately ruled that evacuation to hospital proved the best means to ensure complete treatment.1070

Introduction and gradual acceptance of this treatment regimen could not have come at a better time, for mange outbreaks reached a crisis point by July 1916. In the spring and summer of

1916, artillery units throughout the BEF underwent reorganization and reallocation of personnel and horses. Brigade ammunition columns were abolished and the surplus horses redistributed to other units.1071 This redistribution and intermingling was responsible, according to DDVS Wilson, for mange’s “spread from infected to clean units.”1072 By 3 June 1916, 3,037 skin cases remained under treatment in hospital, and three weeks later these numbers increased to 3,977 cases.1073

Despite the adoption of the reliable dipping tank method, veterinary hospitals were unable to keep up with the steady influx of mange cases. The number of cases in hospitals peaked at 5,785 in late

August.1074 Despite the beginning of the Battle of the Somme on 1 July 1916, a campaign that would eventually see enormous animal wastage, mange remained Moore’s overriding concern.

1068 “Report on treatment of Mange by a Solution of Calcium Sulphide,” 6 January 1916. 1069 WD, DVS, 15 March 1916. 1070 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 3-5 February 1916 and WD, DVS, 1 June 1916. 1071 WD, DVS, 3 June 1916. Colonel G.W.L. Nicholson further notes that all brigade ammunition columns folded into divisional columns, and artillery batteries reorganized to include three 18-pounders and one 4.5-inch howitzer. See Colonel G.W.L. Nicholson, The Gunners of Canada: The History of the Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery, Volume I: 1534-1919, (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1967), 251. 1072 WD, DDVS Second Army, 6 July 1916. 1073 WD, DVS, 3 and 24 June 1916. 1074 WD, DVS, 8 September 1916. 298

The Canadian Corps was at the epicentre of this outbreak, with the 1st and 3rd Divisions the hardest hit. In mid-July, Cutcliffe recorded sudden appearances of mange in units throughout the

1st Division. In just one week, 3-10 August 1916, his division lost 84 evacuated cases to mange.1075

Moore placed the blame largely on lax inspection by Veterinary Officers. Some sarcoptic cases sent to hospital exhibited signs of prolonged, severe, inspection that should have drawn the attention of VOs weeks before. Moore noted such cases “reflect very seriously on [the Veterinary

Service], and that such negligence “can only be dealt with by disciplinary action.” The high incidences of mange in Canadian units especially disappointed him, for they enjoyed larger veterinary establishments than the rest of the BEF fighting formations, and “supervision ought to have been better."1076 Moore also blamed poor standards in animal management for the spread of the disease. On 30 July 1916, accompanied by Colonel Neill, he inspected 198 cases evacuated due to mange from the 1st and 2nd Canadian Divisions. He found “the majority were very dirty and bore little evidence of having been properly groomed and cleaned.” He furthermore noted some advanced cases of mange “should have been discovered and evacuated much earlier,” and were

“instances of neglected Veterinary attendance.”1077 Cutcliffe concurred; he noted that mange cases occurred mainly “in Units where stable management was poor.”1078

Previous chapters of this study demonstrated competent levels of animal management among Canadian units, particularly in the 1st Division, and it is unclear why grooming and stable management was so lax in the summer of 1916. One possible explanation on the uneven quality of animal care is the character of individual commanding officers. Typically, conscientious and

1075 A. 2000 Form 1st Canadian Division – Week Ending 10 August 1916. 1076 WD, DVS, 8 July 1918. 1077 WD, DVS, 30 July 1916. 1078 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 6 August 1916. 299

observant officers insisted on high standards of animal care and management that reflected well on their units. Other officers, for whatever reason, were less concerned with proper grooming. For example, on 23 July 1916, Cutcliffe observed that horses of the 1st DAC “showed neglect in grooming [and] stable management generally,” whereas horses of the 3rd CIB “were in excellent condition [and] well groomed.”1079 Animal management was in constant flux among the combat arms. It could be either a credit to, or indicate lax discipline in, units of all service branches.

Indeed, mange appeared less prevalent in the 3rd Canadian Division, and its personnel able to retain control over the outbreaks fairly effectively. Between late June and early August, 100 animals from the 3rd Division were evacuated as suspected mange cases.1080 The ADVS, Captain

F. Walsh, successfully isolated and treated cases as they emerged. The plurality of cases apparently developed in horses of the Lahore Divisional Artillery, then attached to the 3rd Division. In his summary report for July, Walsh commented the mange situation was “very satisfactory [and] I think the threatened outbreak has been completely eradicated.”1081

Field dipping tanks proved to be the most direct means of trying to contain the spread of the disease.1082 In late July, Cutcliffe received permission, funds, and engineering assistance to build a dipping tank to treat the 1st Division’s mange cases without having to evacuate them to the increasingly overfilled hospitals. By 7 August, the dipping tank was almost complete and ready to process mange cases. Although Cutcliffe gives no indication of the numbers processed, incidences

1079 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 23 July 1916. 1080 A. 2000 Form 3rd Canadian Division – Week Ending 29 June to 3 August 1916. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3385 Folder R-53-45. 1081 WD, ADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 31 July 1916. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5042 Reel T-10934. 1082 A historical summary of No. 2 Canadian MVS housed in Libraries and Archives Canada claims the section built a dipping tank in the spring/summer of 1916 that processed 4,000 skin cases, but no war diaries or other documents substantiate this claim. See “History of No. 2 Canadian Mobile Veterinary Section, 2nd Canadian Division,” 2. LAC MG 30 E14. 300

of mange steadily decreased in the division. By 24 August 1916, only seven cases of mange were evacuated, down from 24 the week before, and the outbreak was effectively contained.1083

Cutcliffe ascribed these successes to “better grooming” and closer inspection.1084 Even still, the calcium sulphide dipping tank in the immediate vicinity doubtless proved decisive in nearly eradicating mange in the division within just a few weeks.

The major lesson DVS Moore derived from these experiences were that clipping and dipping animals were the only dependable means of stymying spread of mange. He was sufficiently wary of the disease that he continually pushed for pre-emptive clipping of all remounts sent from England to France, even during the deep winter months. He felt “the best preventative is to remove the cover under which the parasites…propagate” and overruled objections by other veterinary officers who opposed such a practice.1085 Indeed, Cutcliffe observed that animals kept in the open with full coats survived the winter in the best condition. He commented in late March

1916 that “the horses that were not clipped, were not rugged [and] had no shelter, but stood on brick standings, have done best this winter.” On the other hand, animals “that had rugs on [and] a shelter over them are lousy [and] generally dirty.”1086 Similarly, Lieutenant-Colonel Smith observed “the natural protection [from the weather] afforded by Nature proves highly preventative” to debility, but Moore evidently found the risk of mange higher than the risk of exposure to the elements.1087 This outbreak would not be the largest incidence of mange in the

Great War, but it worried Moore to such an extent that he would value preventative clipping and

1083 A. 2000 Form 1st Canadian Division – Week Ending 17 and 24 August 1916. 1084 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 20 August 1916. 1085 WD, DVS 6 January and 6 February 1916. 1086 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 22 March 1916. 1087 WD, ADVS 2nd Canadian Division, 31 December 1915. 301

grooming virtually above all other animal health concerns for the rest of the war. His onus on close clipping, even in the winter, would have disastrous consequences the next year.

“All Necessary Precautions”

The period of July 1915 to September 1916 was one of learning, intellectual exchange, and experimentation in the BEF. Canadian historians such as Andrew Iarocci, Bill Rawling, and Tim

Cook accentuate the valuable learning experiences among the combatant arms that experimented with trench raiding, new weapons, and new offensive tactics. This period similarly proved critical in shaping the veterinary services’ capabilities to combat infectious animal disease in the BEF.

Animal wastage from combat operations was light, and this comparative inactivity afforded crucial opportunities for experimentation and innovation in military veterinary medicine.

This chapter began by briefly discussing administrative functions of the CEF’s Directorate of Veterinary Services and Remounts. It explored how DVS+R oversaw the health and working efficiency of CEF animals and veterinary personnel stationed in England, and recruitment of veterinary officers, but also how it exerted little real authority over the service in France and

Flanders. It furthermore discussed how educated veterinarians remained in exceptionally high demand for both the Canadian and British Army Veterinary Corps, and the two directly competed for these crucial experts throughout the conflict. Although the CAVC drew a lower gross total of

VOs than the AVC, the smaller overall requirements for the CEF ensured it could operate with higher veterinary establishments than other forces of the British Empire.

This chapter further demonstrated how these VOs played key roles in minimizing the risks associated with infectious animal disease. Close collaboration between French and BEF veterinarians enabled the latter to embrace the intra-dermal palpebral method of administering the

302

mallein diagnostic test for glanders. The newer method equipped veterinary services with the most effective technique to guard animals against the “old enemy” for the rest of the Great War. These months also witnessed the introduction, and widespread adoption, of the calcium sulphide dipping tank for treating mange. This reliable, cheap, and relatively fast method of killing the skin parasites saw heavy, regular use until the end of the Great War. It was the brainchild of an experienced

Canadian veterinarian working in an environment receptive to innovation for treating infectious disease. The summertime outbreak of 1916 was the largest appearance of mange thus far in the

BEF and caused considerable alarm at the apex of its veterinary hierarchy. DVS Moore expected mange to cause trouble in the winter given the animals’ long winter coats, but such a widespread outbreak in the peak of summer illustrated the need for perpetual vigilance in grooming, inspection, and readiness to treat the disease.

These efforts to discover and adopt new means of combatting infectious disease came at an appropriate time. In September 1916, the Canadian Corps redeployed to the Somme sector, where it would be heavily engaged in offensive operations until November. Throughout the winter of 1916-17, it further prepared for its epic feat of arms in the capture of Vimy Ridge the following April. Mange would again come to the forefront of BEF veterinary concerns during these sustained operations and precipitated the gravest crisis in animal health for the BEF in the

Great War.

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Chapter Seven – “Just Worked To Death:” The Somme and Vimy Ridge, September 1916- May 1917

“All horses are showing the effects of the continuous adverse weather conditions, and unless a change takes place the loss in animal flesh will be enormous.”1088

-Lieutenant-Colonel David Tamblyn ADVS 3rd Canadian Division 3 April 1917

“I know the military situation may require the sacrifice of horses, but the point I want to bring out now is, that they must be replaced and at once, otherwise our ability to move forward will be very much less than it should be.”1089

Major-General Arthur Currie GOC 1st Canadian Division 13 April 1917

The period of September 1916 to May 1917 is pregnant with symbolism and significance in the history of Canada’s Great War. During these months, the Canadian Corps undertook bloody offensive operations on the Somme, spent the winter of 1916-17 digesting lessons from its successes and failures, and captured the daunting German-held redoubt of Vimy Ridge on 9-12

April 1917. Canadian historians of the Great War ascribe enormous significance to this period, largely due to the tremendous nationalistic appeal of the Battle of Vimy Ridge and the important developments to combat tactics and doctrine during the preparatory phase of the battle. Heavy casualties and mixed successes during attacks on Courcelette, Thiepval Ridge, and the Ancre

Heights on the Somme delivered key lessons in the value of decentralized infantry platoon tactics,

“creeping barrages,” and detailed rehearsals before launching their attack.1090 The Battle of Vimy

1088 WD, ADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 3 April 1917. 1089 Major-General A.W. Currie to Canadian Corps Headquarters, 13 April 1917. LAC RG 9 III-C-1 Vol. 3888 Folder 41 File 2. 1090 This period also witnessed the debut of a key weapon that would largely obviate horses on the battlefield: the tank. Six British Mark I Tanks accompanied infantry of the 2nd Canadian Division for its attack on Courcelette on 15 September 1916. Two of them contributed materially to the infantry’s assault, while the other four broke down or 304

Ridge witnessed the fruitful execution of all of these hard-won lessons, and although certainly not the most decisive Canadian engagement of the Great War, it endures in popular memories as a defining moment of Canadian nationalism.1091

For Canada’s horses and veterinary services, however, this period is decidedly less glamorous. The Somme and Vimy Ridge effectively formed a prolonged eight-month campaign involving the heaviest work, and the worst environmental conditions, yet experienced by animals on the Western Front. To exacerbate the terrible conditions and almost unrelenting pace of work, mange reappeared in unprecedented levels. Drawing on the lessons of the previous summer, DVS

Brigadier-General John Moore and other senior officers elected to clip animals of their long winter coats and treat cases with calcium sulphide dips and scrubs just as winter weather reached its nadir.

The results were disastrous. March 1917 witnessed the highest incidences of mange experienced by the BEF, and April saw debilitating losses in horseflesh through exposure and exhaustion. Only

were disabled. In time, tanks (along with armoured cars) would replace horses as the “mounts” for British and Canadian cavalry regiments, particularly during the Second World War. See Andrew McEwen, “‘A useful accessory to the infantry, but nothing more:’ Tanks at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette, September 1916,” Canadian Military History 20, no. 4 (Autumn 2011): 7-22. For tactical and technological innovations following the Somme, see Nicholson, The Gunners of Canada, Chapter IX, Griffith, Battle Tactics of the Western Front, Chapter 4, Rawling, Surviving Trench Warfare, Chapters 3-5, Dickson, “The End of the Beginning,” Mark Osborne Humphries, “‘Old Wine in New Bottles’: A Comparison of British and Canadian Preparations for the Battle of Arras,” Patrick Brennan, “Julian Byng and Leadership in the Canadian Corps,” and Tim Cook, “The Gunners of Vimy: ‘We are Hammering Fritz to Pieces,’” in Geoffrey Hayes, Andrew Iarocci, Mike Bechthold, eds, Vimy Ridge: A Canadian Reassessment, (Waterloo: Laurier Centre for Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies and Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2007), and Cook, Shock Troops, Chapters 1-4. 1091 For example, Canadian popular historian Pierre Berton claimed through the victory and sacrifices at Vimy, “Canada came of age…a country found its manhood.” Such treacly nationalism regularly manifests each April with the approach of the battle’s anniversary; National Post reporter Joe O’Connor claimed on 8 April 2013 that Vimy Ridge, “an all-Canadian gig,” was “a beginning for Canada the Proud. The Canada we know today that begins whenever we win a major international hockey game and bows its head whenever one of our soldiers serving overseas in a contemporary conflict comes home in a hearse.” However, such flowery diction indeed has a grounding in contemporary imaginations of the battle. Historian Jonathan Vance notes that the underpinnings of this Vimy Myth began shortly after the battle through wide commemoration in verse by a “legion of poets who…transformed a little known crease of land” into a national myth. See Pierre Berton, Vimy, (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1986), 307-308, Joe O’Connor, “How Vimy Ridge made Canada into a country of heroes,” National Post, 8 April 2013, A.10, and Jonathan Vance, “Battle Verse: Poetry and Nationalism after Vimy Ridge,” in Vimy Ridge: A Canadian Reassessment, 275. 305

the slowed pace of combat operations in May, the onset of warmer weather, and availability of green forage, saved the BEF’s animal transport system from catastrophe.

This chapter examines the period extending from the Canadian Corps’ deployment to the

Somme sector in September 1916 to the end of the BEF’s offensives around Arras in May 1917.

It illustrates that, contrary to the conclusions of the prevailing historiography, applied lessons did not always translate into more effective battlefield practice. The lessons surrounding mange’s virulence and its most efficient treatment methods directly contributed to the grievous animal wastage through debility and exhaustion. Combined with the heavy pace of combat operations on the Somme, and the absence of sufficient rest and recuperation, these factors nearly paralyzed the

Canadian Corps’ animal-based transport in early 1917.

The Battle of the Somme, September-November 1916

By the time the Canadian Corps deployed to the Somme battlefield in September 1916, the

Picardy countryside was a graveyard for British Empire, French, and German forces alike. The

Battle of the Somme, which began on 1 July 1916 with a massive frontal assault by novice British

“Kitchener’s Army” formations, already exacted a horrific cost.1092 The BEF sustained over

158,000 killed and wounded soldiers in exchange for only eight square kilometres of German-held ground by late August.1093 General Sir Douglas Haig, however, optimistically wished to continue the offensive to achieve his much-desired break through the deadlock of the trenches. The

1092 French and British strategists originally conceived of a massive coordinated assault on the Western Front in May-June 1916, but the German offensive against Verdun in February disrupted these plans. Instead, General Sir Douglas Haig’s BEF, in conjunction with French forces, was to try and effect a decisive breakthrough in Picardy, both as a means of relieving pressure on Verdun and to end the stalemate on the Western Front. See Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson, The Somme, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), 15-50. 1093 Cook, At the Sharp End, 414-416. 306

Canadian Corps, now attached to General Sir Hubert Gough’s Reserve Army, committed major offensives at Courcelette (15-22 September), Thiepval Ridge, (26-28 September) and the Ancre

Heights (1 October-18 November). It suffered heavy human casualties during these assaults, particularly in the repeated efforts to capture Regina Trench in October-November. By 18

November 1916, 24,000 Canadian soldiers were killed or wounded on the Somme.1094

Battle casualties similarly exacted a toll on the horses and mules. The Somme marked the first significant losses in BEF horseflesh from combat wounds on the Western Front. From 1 July to 31 December 1916, the BEF suffered 3,974 animals killed or destroyed from enemy action and

6,415 wounded, for a total of 10,389 animals – 2.4% of the 430,000 animals on feeding strength in the BEF.1095 Long-distance shellfire on the lines of communication and horse picket lines caused the bulk of these casualties. On 23 September, for example, Cutcliffe wrote that a single German shell killed or fatally wounded 28 artillery draught horses.1096 The noise and violence caused by these frequent barrages further strained the nerves of the surviving animals. Cutcliffe commented on 26 September that horses in the forward areas “are failing in condition due to nervousness caused by bursting shells [and] noise of gun fire.” Much like humans, who suffered from “shell-

1094 The Canadian Official History by Colonel G.W.L. Nicholson, notes that German casualties (660-680,000) roughly matched the Allied casualties (623,907), and killed off some of the Imperial German Army’s “best trained and stoutest-hearted officers, non-commissioned officers and men.” He ultimately considered that, on the Somme, “German military prestige had been struck a severe psychological blow from which it was not to recover.” Fifty years later, William Philpott essentially agreed with this assessment, arguing that the battles of 1916 formed the underpinnings for the eventual Allied attritional victory in the First World War. Tim Travers, however, contends that these heavy casualties were as much the product of inflexibility and lack of imagination among Haig and his staff at General Headquarters (GHQ) as it was a deliberate battle of attrition with an eye to future victory. See Canadian Expeditionary Force, 198-200, Philpott, War of Attrition, 252-253, and Tim Travers, The Killing Ground: The British Army, the Western Front and the Emergence of Modern Warfare, 1900-1918, (Barnsley: Pen & Sword Military Classics, 2003), 189-190. 1095 History of the Organization and Development of the Army Veterinary Service with the British Expeditionary Force, France. August 1914 to April 1919, 17, and Brigadier-General J. Moore, “Veterinary Hospitals and Convalescent Horse Depots. British Expeditionary Force, France,” 2. NA WO 95/67. 1096 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 23-26 September 1916. 307

shock” or “neurasthenia” from the stress of combat, the animals “do not drink enough water [and] do not rest properly” if continually under shell fire.1097

Similarly, Picked-Up Nails, those perennial causes of frustration among veterinary personnel, reached alarming levels on the Somme. The week ending 14 September 1916, for example, witnessed 681 horses in the BEF temporarily incapacitated due to nail punctures of their hooves.1098 Moore proposed a variety of solutions: collection boxes, closer supervision by officers, work parties to comb the ground, shields for animals’ hooves, and even a giant electromagnet pulled behind a team of horses to seek out nails embedded in the earth. None of these solutions proved satisfactory, however, for Moore wrote testily on 10 November that PUN “is becoming daily more urgent,” with the roads “literally strewn with nails.”1099

Throughout these battles and constant barrages, Canada’s horses and veterinarians laboured to keep the Corps supplied with ammunition to feed the pace of the offensive. As in most battles of the Western Front, the Somme witnessed a heavy expenditure of shells, with some

10,833,398 rounds of all calibres fired by BEF artillery pieces in the last quarter of 1916. Official

Historian Colonel G.W.L. Nicholson later assessed the Somme as “essentially an artillery battle,” with bombardments attempting to pulverize the enemy’s barbed wire, trenches, and opposing batteries.1100 During the first assault on Regina Trench on 1 October, for example, field guns of

1097 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 23-26 September 1916. “Shell shock” and “neurasthenia,” which now would be termed “combat stress reaction” or “post traumatic stress disorder” continues to elicit considerable attention among historians of the First World War. For relatively recent Canadian studies on the subject, see Mark Osborne Humphries and Kellen Kurchinski, “Rest, Relax and Get Well: A Re-Conceptualisation of Great War Shell Shock Treatment,” War & Society 27, no. 2, (Oct 2008):89-110, and Mark Humphries, "War's Long Shadow: Masculinity, Medicine and the Gendered Politics of Trauma, 1914-1939," Canadian Historical Review 91, no. 3 (2010): 503-531. 1098 Brigadier-General J. Moore, “Estimate of Financial Loss Attributable to Picked-Up-Nail Amongst Animals of the British Expeditionary Force France,” 28 September 1916. NA WO 95/67. 1099 Moore ultimately judged that the electromagnet, although a novel solution, would be ineffective in collecting nails deeply immersed in the thick Picardy mud. WD, DVS, 5 September, 23 September, and 10 November 1916. 1100 Nicholson, The Gunners of Canada, 272-273. 308

the 2nd and 3rd Canadian Divisional Artillery fired two rounds per minute, their 4.5-inch Howitzers fired “at an intense rate,” and the heavy 60-pounders fired alternately between “rapid” and “slow” rates.1101 Four-legged transport hauled the overwhelming majority of these shells forward.

Gasoline-powered locomotives were not yet introduced on light rail cars in the Canadian sector, and so horses and mules pulled light rail cars towards the front lines, in addition to packing ammunition and hauling wagons.1102 From September to November 1916, the horses and drivers of the 1st DAC alone issued 329,069 18-pounder shells, 57,060 4.5” Howitzer shells, and 469,000 rounds SAA – a total of 5,454 tons of ammunition.1103 Continued operations on the Somme thus rested entirely upon the horses of each unit to be able to keep feeding the battle with ammunition, rations, and supplies.1104

At the beginning of September, horses of the Canadian Corps were relatively healthy and working fit for these tasks. The summer of comparative inactivity, notwithstanding the mange outbreak in July, meant these horses and mules were in good condition and capable of heavy work.

Captain F. Walsh, ADVS 3rd Canadian Division, remarked for example that animal transports for the 7th CIB “are in good shape and continue to show the results of being well looked after.”1105 For the horses of the 3rd Canadian Field Ambulance, the initial pace of hard work in early September

1101 “Artillery Instructions No. 35 by G.O.C.R.A., Canadian Corps,” 1 October 1916. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 4957, Reels T-10773-10774. 1102 Captain J.G. Harvey, “Short Veterinary History of the 2nd Canadian Divisional Ammunition Column,” 5-6. 1103 To grant a sense of scale for this workload, it would take a single pack horse loaded with the maximum burden of 200 pounds 54,540 trips to deliver the ammunition. WD, 1st DAC, 30 September, 31 October, and 31 November 1916. 1104 Troops themselves carried supplies such as wire, ammunition, and rations into the trenches. One of the unique Canadian innovations in this logistical system, first used extensively on the Somme, was a “tump line.” This was a method of carrying supplies on the soldier’s back with a strap connected to their forehead, originally adapted from hunters and fishermen portaging supplies in the Quebec bush. See F.R. Phelan, “Army Supplies in the Forward Area and the Tumpline System: A First World War Canadian Logistical Innovation,” Canadian Military History 9, no. 1 (Winter 2000): 31-45. 1105 WD, ADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 14 September 1916. 309

meant they were “not as fat as they were four months ago,” but nevertheless “are in better condition to stand work.”1106 Indeed, it did not take long for the exertion of heavy work to manifest itself on the animals’ condition. Horses and mules hauling ammunition forward to supply shells for the 1st

Canadian Division during its attacks on Pozières Ridge on 9-11 September quickly began losing whatever fat reserves they put on during the summer. Cutcliffe remarked the horses were “showing the effects of extra work” and “forage of inferior quality, especially hay.”1107

Into October, autumn rains began to fall and the weather itself formed a significant obstacle to animal health. Successive months of heavy fighting over small parcels of territory pulverized the Somme battlefield into a series of ridges and fields heavily churned by shellfire. Rain transformed this thoroughly shell-plowed earth into thick, cloying muck, especially viscous in

Picardy’s chalky soil. The animals’ heavy work of pulling loads of ammunition forward to the guns, with two or even three twelve-mile trips in a single day, became all the more difficult. Each step forward required increasing exertion from the animal without an accompanying increase in rations or period of rest to compensate for the heavy labour. Furthermore, the sticky mud clung to the wagons, and to the animals themselves, thus increasing their already heavy loads.1108 At night, they remained picketed in the open, without any shelter or standings to keep them out of the deep mud. Immersion in the cold, wet mud caused a steady stream of evacuations from cracked heels, quittor, gangrenous dermatitis, laminitis, and necrosis of the skin.1109 Indeed, “no harder and more

1106 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 7 and 26 September 1916. 1107 See Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 165-167. 1108 Major C.E. Edgett to DDVS Reserve Army, 31 October 1916. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5043 Reel T-10934. 1109 A.2000 Form 3rd Canadian Division – Week Ending 9 November 1916. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3385 Folder R- 53-45. 310

trying conditions for men and animals can be imagined” as those on the Somme, wrote Captain

J.G. Harvey, later VO to the 2nd Divisional Ammunition Column. 1110

VOs referred to this general condition of underfed, exhausted, cold, and wet animals as

“debility,” and it increasingly manifested as the Somme operations ground on. Cutcliffe remarked on 5 October, for example, that field ambulance horses were “rough owing to rough weather and mud.” Less than a week later, he observed horses of the 1st and 3rd Brigades CFA to be “losing flesh” and “failing fast,” “owing to hard work carrying ammunition to guns.” Despite the ongoing maelstrom of battle as Canadian infantry struggled time and again to capture Regina Trench, debility, rather than combat wounds, remained the major cause for evacuation.1111 From 2 to 16

November, for example, the 3rd Canadian Division suffered 255 casualties through debility as against 63 from combat-related injuries.1112 In the 56th British Divisional Artillery, then attached to the 1st Canadian Division, 300 animals similarly required attention due to debility in early

November.1113 Moore noted that uneven distribution of work among ammunition columns, too, exacerbated these conditions and resulted in some animals “getting an undue proportion of work.”1114 Indeed, “it is a wonder,” wrote Major Charles Edgett, ADVS 4th Canadian Division,

“that the percentage of evacuations through Debility is not much higher.”1115

There was little veterinary personnel could do to mitigate animal losses in these circumstances. They were too few in number and did not have sufficient authority to order any marked changes in the employment of these animals outside of their capacity to advise unit

1110 Harvey, “Short Veterinary History of the 2nd Canadian Divisional Ammunition Column,” 5-6. 1111 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 10-13 October 1916. 1112 A.2000 Form 3rd Canadian Division, Week Ending 9 November and 16 November 1916. 1113 WD, ADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 8 November 1916. 1114 WD, DVS, 24 September 1916. 1115 Edgett to DDVS Reserve Army, 31 October 1916. 311

commanders on the state of animal health. Their most important contribution to maintaining animal efficiency was through evacuating animals on the verge of physical breakdown and overseeing, as much as possible, that units in the field maintained a high standard of animal care.

Indeed, timely evacuation to the Mobile Veterinary Sections appears to have been critical in mitigating excessive losses among animals on the Somme. Units of the 3rd Canadian Division, for example, lost 1,256 animals through evacuation, and another 54 dead and 42 destroyed between

September and November. However, veterinary personnel cured 515 of these cases and returned them to duty, and removed 716 to rear area hospitals.1116 Similarly, the 1st Canadian Division suffered 61 dead and 29 destroyed animals, but veterinary personnel admitted 995 sick and wounded, cured 607, and evacuated 381 to the rear.1117

The latter concern – animal management – perhaps proved the most critical in minimizing the risks of debility. The attention to detail paid by exhausted and strained soldiers to grooming, feeding, and generally caring for their animals in the field paid dividends. Keeping animals as clean, well-fed, and worked responsibly as the situation allowed preserved the animals for continued labour, and remained a telling symptom of good leadership and firm discipline. For example, the Royal Canadian Regiment attracted the praise and attention of 3rd Division GOC

Major-General Louis Lipsett for its “high state of efficiency of [its] transport.” Similarly, Captain

David Tamblyn, promoted to ADVS 3rd Canadian Division when Captain Walsh broke his leg in an automobile accident, noted the animals of the 8th CIB were “in good condition, [with] shoeing

1116 “3rd Canadian Division – France – 1916,” LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3363 Folder A-4-45. 1117 These totals do not add up evenly because some animals remained under treatment with divisional veterinary personnel both before and after this period. See A.2000 Forms 1st Canadian Division – Week Ending 7 September to 2 November 1916. 312

good, [and] grooming fair. He was especially laudatory of the 10th Field Ambulance, with its horses

“in excellent condition, especially in view of the fact that they were…exposed to bad weather.”1118

On the other hand, units demonstrating substandard grooming and animal care were almost paralyzed by debility. In mid-September Moore noted that animals of the 29th Divisional

Ammunition Column, engaged on the Somme since 1 July, were “found to be in a very debilitated condition.” He noted “defective stable management was evident,” with the “ravenously hungry” animals kept in the line “with a view of getting them into condition” instead of evacuating them to the rear, and consequently, “the general condition of the remainder has been adversely affected.”1119 Although not a sole factor for animal wastage, the variable quality of animal management could indeed prove decisive in determining if an animal remained capable of work or required evacuation.

In the midst of these cold, wet conditions, mange threatened to return to the Canadian

Corps. Tamblyn discovered a case of mange in the 49th Battalion lines on 26 October and “issued instructions for all pack animals to be isolated and clipped and treated with Mange dressing.” He furthermore reminded VOs in his division of the “necessity of practicing Veterinary Preventative

Medicine” through vigorous treatment of all suspected animals and contact matter, rather than simply evacuating definitive cases.1120 However, incidences of the disease remained relatively few.

Between September and November veterinary personnel evacuated twelve cases of mange in the

1st Division and seven in the 3rd Division.1121

1118 Walsh briefly returned to the 3rd Division in November 1916, but his return was short-lived before he received another posting, and Tamblyn remained ADVS 3rd Canadian Division for the remainder of the war. WD, ADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 18 October and 2 November 1916. 1119 WD, DVS, 21-23 September 1916. 1120 WD, ADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 26 October and 5 November 1916. 1121 Incidences of mange in the other two divisions are unclear due to problems with the primary material. The A.2000 Forms for the 2nd Canadian Division only note the total cases for “skin diseases” and do not differentiate 313

Nevertheless, throughout this period, Brigadier-General Moore’s anxieties over mange deepened considerably. Canadian veterinary officers managed to check the worrisome outbreaks of June-July 1916, but the disease persisted throughout the BEF. On 8 September, for example,

5,417 mange cases remained under treatment in BEF veterinary hospitals, making Moore “rather anxious for the future.”1122 With winter months looming, when “the trouble is usually at its worst,”

Moore planned to clip most, if not all, of the BEF’s animals in late October and early November.

He argued that through clipping animals of their coats in the late autumn, excepting their legs, “the cover for the operation of the parasites is removed, and prospects of invasion reduced.” “When the real winter was on,” Moore concluded, “there would be a sufficiently protective coat to carry through the rest of the winter.”1123 Moore furthermore proposed a significant expansion of the

BEF’s calcium sulphide dipping tank network, with a dipping bath to be constructed for each corps district. With dipping tanks available in the field, not just in veterinary hospitals, clipped animals could immediately be dipped for mange as many times as necessary in forward areas.1124 These baths were to remain permanent fixtures of army and corps districts; Mobile Veterinary Section personnel would assume control whenever their attached unit deployed to the area.1125 However, the ongoing pace of combat operations on the Somme delayed these plans. Moore commented on

23 October that construction of tanks in the Fourth and Reserve Armies “will be very difficult,” for “so many other engineering works are in course of construction.”1126

from mange cases, and the forms for the 4th Canadian Division for November and December 1916 are missing at Libraries and Archives Canada. See A.2000 Form 1st Canadian Division – Week Ending 7 September to 2 November 1916, and A.2000 Form 3rd Canadian Division – Week Ending 14 September to 16 November 1916. 1122 WD, DVS, 8 September 1916, and “Proposals for the Control of Mange,” 1. NA WO 95/67. 1123 “Proposals for the Control of Mange,” 1. 1124 Ibid., 2. 1125 WD, DVS, 27 September 1916. 1126 WD, DVS, 23 October 1916. 314

When the exhausted and decimated 4th Canadian Division captured Desire Trench on 18

November 1916, the Battle of the Somme was effectively over. Persistent autumn rains further inundated the mucky battlefield and compelled General Haig to call off further attacks.1127

Assessing the campaign’s quantitative impact on Canadian animal strength is ultimately difficult due to inconsistencies in the primary source material. Entire sheaves of critical A.2000 Forms are missing from Libraries and Archives Canada, thus obscuring a complete picture on animal casualties for the entire offensive. However the 1st and 3rd Division forms, which are complete, illustrate a relatively low death toll among their animals, suggesting that combat casualties were far less numerous on the Somme than other engagements like the Second Battle of Ypres. Indeed, when considering the BEF total of 10,389 animal combat casualties (as against 419,654 BEF human casualties), it becomes evident that the campaign was far more costly to humans than the animals, in both proportionate and gross terms.1128

Experiences on the Somme nevertheless demonstrated, again, the critical need of sufficient feed, proper grooming, and timely evacuation of animal casualties. Particularly troubling were the rising incidences of debility with the onset of autumn rains and continued heavy expenditure of ammunition – a situation that could only be remedied by grooming, rest, and feed. Indeed, Moore noted on 24 December 1916 that 16,074 horses remained under treatment in veterinary hospitals and convalescent horse depots for debility alone. He observed, however, “it is surprising how quickly the majority pull round given rest, liberal diet, and plenty of water.”1129 Ultimately, after

1127 Cook, At the Sharp End, 519. 1128 Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 199. 1129 WD, DVS, 24 December 1916. 315

such prolonged, strenuous work, all of the animals of the Canadian Corps required ample feed, covered standings to protect against winter weather, and a period of recuperation.

The Battle of Vimy Ridge, December 1916 – May 1917

However, they would be afforded little, if any, of these essential preconditions to fully recover from their labours on the Somme. In December 1916, Field Marshal Haig and General

Robert Nivelle, Commander-in-Chief of the French Army, agreed to launch coordinated offensives in Artois and in the Aisne.1130 The BEF’s assault, of the First, Third, and Fifth Armies, was to begin 9 April around Arras, followed a week later by French attacks on the Chemin des Dames

Ridge. Lieutenant-General Sir Julian Byng’s Canadian Corps received the task of protecting the left flank of the main Third Army drive by capturing Vimy Ridge. The ridge formed one of the most significant German bastions on the Western Front, commanding clear views of the entire district. Indeed, G.W.L. Nicholson considered it “one of the most important features on the entire

Western Front.”1131

During the autumn and winter of 1916-17, the Canadian Corps redeployed from the Somme sector to Artois, in the trenches directly opposite Vimy Ridge. Although infantry units began to filter in to the sector by late October, the bulk of the Corps’ artillery units – and thus its horses – remained in action on the Somme until Haig called off the offensive in mid-November.1132 These

1130 Haig received a promotion to Field Marshal on 1 January 1917. For a detailed strategic overview of Franco- British offensive intentions in early 1917, see Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 234-247, Philpott, War of Attrition, 255-266. 1131 Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 244. Indeed, Michael Boire notes that capturing Vimy Ridge and breaking out on to the open Douai Plain beyond remained central to the French Commander-in-Chief, General Joseph Joffre’s, vision for breaking the deadlock of the trenches prior to the Canadians’ arrival. From October 1914 to December 1916, French, German, and British forces tenaciously fought for control of Vimy Ridge, at a cost of 300,000 casualties on all sides. See Michael Boire, “Vimy Ridge: The Battlefield Before the Canadians, 1914- 1916,” in Vimy Ridge: A Canadian Reassessment, 51-61. 1132 Nicholson, The Gunners of Canada, 272. 316

animals generally arrived in Artois filthy, malnourished, and exhausted. Cutcliffe observed that animals of the 2nd and 12th Brigades CFA arrived dirty and in poor grooming condition “from the

Somme [where] conditions were very bad.”1133 Similarly, Tamblyn noted there were a “large number of debilitated animals” of the 56th Divisional Artillery “who have just joined this division, from the Somme area.”1134

These animals were badly in need of rest and a respite from the mud. Throughout

November 1916, Canadian personnel laboured to build proper covered standings to keep the animals out of the mud and protect from inclement weather, but the absence of sufficient building materials delayed their efforts.1135 Indeed, with the exception of a few units that managed to construct satisfactory shelter and standings for their animals, winter accommodation for animals in the Vimy sector was poor. At a conference of ADsVS on 5 November 1916, Tamblyn mentioned the “unsatisfactory condition of horse standings.” They were “built too far from a hard road thus causing a dirty and muddy condition between the road and the standing,” with little to no apparent consultation with Veterinary Officers before being built.1136 Indeed, Tamblyn and Cutcliffe repeatedly observed that artillery batteries especially neglected to provide adequate protection for their animals from winter weather. Without proper footing to keep out of the mud or overhead shelter, the animals were exposed to wind, rain, and snow throughout the winter of 1916-17.

There certainly were many exceptions to this general state of affairs. It is evident once again that the state of animal care and management ranged tremendously between, and within,

1133 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 28 December 1916. 1134 WD, ADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 6 November 1916. 1135 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 11-13 November 1916. 1136 WD, ADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 5 November 1916. 317

batteries and brigades in the field. Tamblyn’s inspection of the 11th Brigade CFA on 13 December

1916 is revealing into just how uneven the quality of animal care was:

Animals of the 46th Battery appear very poor and show lack of attention, standings also poor and apparently very little interest has been taken to improve same. Pointed out to Officer in charge the unsatisfactory conditions existing…Horses of 41st Battery in good condition and show that a great deal of attention has been paid to them. Horses of the 44th Battery also show that a keen interest has been taken in their management.1137

Such inconsistencies and deficiencies in animal management were similarly evident throughout the broader BEF in 1916-17. Moore observed that the high incidences of debility on the Somme pointed to a woeful dearth of Horse Mastership in the “Kitchener’s Army” formations experiencing combat for the first time. This was particularly marked among the Royal Artillery, for some 9,000 out of the 16,000 cases under treatment for debility were light draught artillery horses. He noted an “ignorance of even the most elementary details” of proper animal management pervaded these personnel and thus “arranged for classes of instruction in this subject to be given in every

Division.”1138 However, these classes would not be instituted until the summer, and horse management would remain a significant cause of disagreement among veterinary officers and officers commanding field units for the next several months.

Even still, respite from the heavy pace of work on the Somme helped to rehabilitate animals of the Canadian Corps. Major Edgett wrote on 31 December that, following a month of comparative inactivity, horses of the 4th Division showed “a marked improvement since leaving

Somme area,” and the “general health of horses [was] good.”1139 Cutcliffe similarly observed animals of the attached 108th Battery RFA remained in the open with only partially completed

1137 WD, ADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 13 December 1916. 1138 WD, DVS, 24 December 1916. 1139 WD, ADVS 4th Canadian Division, 31 December 1916. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 4957, Reels T-10773-10774. 318

standings, but nevertheless that “horses are generally in good condition.”1140 Condition and cleanliness, however, were not one in the same. Cutcliffe noted horses of the 1st Divisional

Ammunition Column were “generally…in good condition” but at the same were “very dirty,” with

“heads manes and docks not groomed.”1141

Dirtiness indeed posed an increasing cause for concern over the winter of 1916-17.

Thousands of animals marching from the Somme to Vimy Ridge arrived caked in thick mud that held in clumps to their long winter coats. These long coats, and the dried mud, rendered close skin inspection nearly impossible. Parasitic mange soon reappeared among horses throughout the

Canadian Corps. Canadian units first began to seriously encounter mange while en route between the Somme battlefield and their redeployment to the Vimy sector in November-December 1916.

Cutcliffe wrote that horses of the 1st Division on the line of march from Picardy to Artois were

“billeted in the open,” for the local stables were “infected with mange [and] Glanders.”1142 The exceptional virulence of the disease, and difficulties of inspection, meant that outbreaks rapidly manifested. Tamblyn reported three cases of suspected mange in the 3rd Division for the week ending 14 December 1916. By the week ending 4 January 1917 there were 11 suspected cases, and two weeks later there were 87 cases.1143 Similarly, veterinary personnel of the 4th Division identified 83 suspected mange cases in January, and 95 cases in February.1144

Such outbreaks broadly appeared throughout other BEF units as well. The problems of exhausted animals with dirty coats appeared in British formations just as in Canadian units, and it

1140 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 12-15 November 1916. 1141 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 31 December 1916. 1142 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 23 October 1916. 1143 A.2000 Form 3rd Canadian Division – Week Ending 14 December 1916, 4 January 1917, and 18 January 1917. 1144 A.2000 Form 4th Canadian Division – Month of January and February 1917. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3385 Folder R-51-45. 319

appears that this was simply the state of affairs throughout the First Army in early 1917. The

DDVS First Army, Colonel E.E. Martin, commented for example “grooming and exercise are not being well carried out” in the D/5th and 94th Batteries of Reserve Artillery.1145 Martin also observed animals of the 21st Divisional Artillery were “far from satisfactory,” with “a distinct falling off in condition” and “a number of cases of mange.”1146 Similarly, on 18 March he noted the animals of the 282nd Brigade RFA “have mange and are very lousy.”1147 In the midst of these conditions, mange steadily climbed throughout the BEF. From a low point of affecting 1.1% of all animals in mid-December 1916, it jumped to 2.7% a month later. By 8 March 1917 3.8% of all BEF animals

(16,624) remained under treatment for the disease – its highest incidence in the Great War.1148

To combat these outbreaks that threatened to escalate beyond control, VOs drew from the lessons of the previous summer for the most efficacious treatment: clipping followed by calcium sulphide solution. Tamblyn ordered all “incontacts” – animals without symptoms of mange but “in contact” with positive cases – thoroughly groomed and dressed with calcium sulphide. On 1

January 1917, he inspected the 2nd Reserve Park and “found some symptoms of susp. Mange and ordered that these be dressed with Calcium Sulphide Solution.” Furthermore, he “suggested that all animals be clipped and all contacts dressed, also the disinfection of all contact matter.”1149

Orders to retain these cases within the units themselves came directly from DVS Moore.

He lamented on 18 January that veterinary officers were evacuating too many animals to the rear and thereby inundating rear area hospitals “for insufficient reasons.” Moore attributed this to

1145 WD, DDVS First Army, 15 January 1917. NA WO 95/201. 1146 WD, DDVS First Army, 15 January 1917. 1147 WD, DDVS First Army, 18 March 1917. 1148 “Veterinary Service B.E.F. Mange Chart (Horses and Mules Combined),” LAC RG 9 III-C-1 Vol. 4579 Folder 2 File 1, and History of the Organization and Development of the Army Veterinary Service with the British Expeditionary Force, France, 14. 1149 WD, ADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 1 January 1917. 320

nervousness among VOs, eagerness among personnel to be rid of difficult animals, or “insufficient care in diagnosis,” and ordered “greater care and more animals are to be retained for treatment at the front.” “Furthermore,” he added, “cases of Suspected Mange are to be retained until a definite diagnosis is arrived at.”1150 These orders thus effectively ensured that veterinary personnel at the front would have to shoulder the burden of containing these outbreaks. Definitive diagnosis entailed the VO taking a skin sample and forwarding it to laboratories for microscopic examination.1151 By the time the diagnosis could be confirmed, the “suspect” animal was infectious and more often than not spread the disease to its neighbours.

The only direct means of trying to contain the disease, then, was to clip all animals and scrub or dip them with calcium sulphide. In practice, VOs only dipped or scrubbed animals with clipped hides. Dipping animals with long dirty coats was almost pointless since the caustic solution was most effective in killing the parasites when applied directly against the animals’ skin. Moore had earlier noted the importance of completing all clipping by late November to allow animals a chance to re-grow winter coats before the onset of deep winter. However, delayed issue of clipping knives and electric clipping machines meant this process did not begin in earnest until mid-

December.1152 Units in the field, rather than veterinary personnel, received clipping machines to use at their discretion. They were to clip animals nominally under veterinary supervision, but the enormous number of horses and small number of veterinary personnel limited VOs to regular inspections rather than close observation of the process. Tamblyn later claimed that “depots were recommended [presumably by him] so that animals and machines would be concentrated and the

1150 WD, DVS, 18 January 1917. 1151 Major C.E. Edgett to C.R.A., Reserve Artillery, 22 February 1917. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5043 Reel T-10934. 1152 WD, ADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 9 December 1916. 321

work done under proper supervision,” which ultimately did not come to pass.1153 VOs in the field shortly discovered that this clipping was a laborious, frustrating process. Thick mud caked to animals’ long hides rapidly dulled the blades of clipping knives and machines. These broken and dulled blades required frequent sharpening or replacement, to such an extent that Cutcliffe remarked on 11 January it was “impossible to proceed with any speed with clipping horses.”1154

Nevertheless, VOs received considerable pressure from their superiors to expedite this process.

DDVS Martin wrote on 30 January that “very little clipping has been done” among batteries of the

1st Canadian Divisional Artillery, and “in view of the prevalence of mange it will be necessary to accelerate this.”1155

Engineers began to construct calcium sulphide dipping tanks based nominally on the pattern introduced at No. 5 Veterinary Hospital by Lieutenant Perry in 1915. Tamblyn, himself familiar with mange while a Department of Agriculture veterinarian in Saskatchewan, similarly drafted schematics for field dipping tanks that could process 120 animals per hour.1156 The 1st

Division’s dipping tank was ready for use on 3 February, and Cutcliffe recorded 119 horses and mules were dipped in calcium sulphide that first day. He observed that, despite cold February weather, “no bad results have been noticed so far from the effects of cold after dipping.” Over the next few days, the 1st Division’s clipped animals filtered through the tank. Cutcliffe commented on 8 February that 699 animals were dipped “under difficulties,” because water pipes feeding into the tank froze and burst overnight. Nevertheless, “no effects of cold have been noticed” by

Cutcliffe and other VOs, prompting the ADVS to remark on 14 February that “dipping is having

1153 Lieutenant-Colonel David Tamblyn, “The History of the C.A.V.C. Third Canadian Division, B.E.F.,” 3-4. LAC MG 30 E14 Vol. 1 Folder 2. 1154 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 11 January 1917. 1155 WD, DDVS First Army, 30 January 1917. 1156 WD, ADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 31 May 1917. 322

a very beneficial effect in stamping out mange.” 1157 The 3rd and 4th Divisions similarly shared a dipping tank operated by the 3rd Canadian MVS at Barlin. ADVS Edgett wrote “all the animals will be dipped” when the tank became operational, and Tamblyn recorded that “dipping of the whole 3rd Div Artillery” began on 21 March.1158 In less than a week, 21 to 26 March, the dip processed 2,131 horses.1159 This treatment method indeed appears to have contained mange within the Canadian Corps. Cutcliffe observed on 15 February that “there are very few cases of mange in horses of the Division.”1160 Tamblyn similarly remarked mange was “appreciably decreased and eventually eradicated by having all ‘affected’ and ‘contact’ animals passed through the Dip periodically.”1161

By the time veterinary officers began to finally oversee widespread clipping and dipping of mange cases, preparations for the assault to capture Vimy Ridge were fully underway.

Experiences on the Somme demonstrated the need for a lengthy preliminary bombardment to destroy defences and cut barbed wire, a creeping barrage to support infantry on the attack, and counter-battery fire to knock out German artillery pieces. Tim Cook notes that the artillery plan for the forthcoming battle involved three phases, the first beginning on 20 March with a bombardment targeted on enemy dugouts and trenches. The second began on 2 April with a dramatically intensified pace of barrages intended to disrupt the flow of all supplies and reinforcements to German lines – the so-called “Week of Suffering” experienced by German soldiers occupying the ridge. The third phase was to cover the actual assault on 9 April with

1157 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 3-14 February 1917. 1158 Edgett to C.R.A., Reserve Artillery, 22 February 1917, and WD, ADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 19 March 1917. 1159 WD, No. 3 Canadian Mobile Veterinary Section, 21-26 March 1917. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5044 Reel T- 10936. 1160 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 15 February 1917. 1161 WD, ADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 31 May 1917. 323

carefully timed creeping barrages. Some 983 artillery pieces of all calibres were allocated 1.6 million shells to fire throughout these phases.1162

To feed the pace of this battle, Canadian engineers developed a truly comprehensive system of infrastructure behind the front lines. Bill Rawling notes that engineers laid 45 miles of pipe lines, 24 piping installations, and dug 16 reservoirs just to provide the Corps’ animals and soldiers with sufficient water, roughly 600,000 gallons per day.1163 Engineers similarly built 25 miles of roadway and 20 miles of tramway lines for motor lorries, gasoline-powered rail engines, or most frequently, horses and mules to haul supplies and ammunition forward. Captain J.G. Harvey wrote that “teams of 8 and 10 mules would be hitched one in front of another” on the rail lines – “very severe work for the animals” with casualties resulting from hooves caught in the rails or the ties.1164

Ultimately, G.W.L. Nicholson states that 800 tons “or more of ammunition, rations and engineer stores” went up the line every day. The task of bringing them from dumps in the rear to the front lines fell heavily on the 31,522 animals of the four Canadian divisions (and attached British units) in the Canadian Corps.1165

Indeed, animals worked practically without rest and ensured that the combat arms could be kept topped up with supplies and ammunition. Private James Robert Johnston, a horse driver in the 14th Canadian Machine Gun Company, describes the logistical environment in the weeks leading up to the commencement of the offensive on 9 April:

1162 Cook, “The Gunners of Vimy,” 112-115. 1163 Bill Rawling, “The Sappers of Vimy: Specialized Support for the Assault of 9 April 1917,” Vimy Ridge: A Canadian Reassessment, 128. 1164 Harvey, “Short Veterinary History of the 2nd Canadian Divisional Ammunition Column,” 8. 1165 Tim Cook acknowledges the immense contribution of these animals to ensuring the continuous flow of supplies to the front lines, noting “the logistical system never faltered, with drivers leading their four-legged friends back and forth through sleet and shell fire.” See Cook, “The Gunners of Vimy,” 133. Also see Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 249. For the animal strength of the Canadian Corps, see “Return of Casualties in Field Units B.E.F. 1917.” LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3371 Folder C-185-45. 324

The roads were plugged with all kinds of traffic imaginable. Horses, guns, trucks and troops going in all directions, but not too fast. The only time it seemed that we would move at all was when a big shell fell in the road, and then there would be a lot of rushing around for a few minutes and then things would die down again. After a couple of hours of this it would be dark and things would get really confusing. These trips, which we took almost each night until April 9, would last almost always from three or four in the afternoon until three or four next morning, and believe me that is a long time to stay in a saddle, if we had a team, or if we had a pack horse we would walk and ride the horse back.1166

Each day of hauling ammunition proved arduous work for these animals. Major Edgett noted that some transport teams of the 4th Division had to march in excess of 16 miles per day over these busy, increasingly rutted roadways to pick up ammunition in rear dumps and haul it to forward areas. Sometimes, teamsters neglected to bring along sufficient forage or water for the animals if they did not receive notification of their final destination until they were already en route.

Consequently, such animals had to perform their working tasks while being without forage or water for eight to ten hours.1167

This heavy labour was made all the more difficult with unfavourable environmental conditions. Northern France was beset by cold winds, snow, and icy sleet in March-April 1917.1168

This snow and cold, heavy rain chilled horses and men alike to the bone and turned roadways into muddy, slushy laneways continually gouged by the passage of horses, men, and vehicles. Much like on the Somme, the appalling conditions of the roadways required increased exertion from animals to pull loads forward and entailed prolonged times for working tasks. Even at rest, the animals remained “in deep mud, without shelter of any kind,” according to Major-General Arthur

Currie.1169 Indeed, horses regularly became mired in the mud to such an extent that they were

1166 James Robert Johnston, Riding Into War: The Memoir of a Horse Transport Driver, 1916-1919, (Fredericton: Goose Lane Editions and The New Brunswick Military Heritage Project, 2004), 37. 1167 Major C.E. Edgett to 4th Division “Q,” 27 March 1917. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5043 Reel T-10934. 1168 WD, DDVS First Army, 11 April 1917. 1169 Currie to Canadian Corps Headquarters, 13 April 1917. 325

unable to move at all and had to be dug out by teamsters and veterinary personnel to keep them from remaining planted in the ground.1170

Figure 7.1: Pack Animals of 20th Battery CFA, Neuville-Saint-Vaast, April 19171171

Despite the unrelenting, exhausting pace of their work, animals throughout the BEF had to subsist on reduced forage rations. The BEF Directorate of Supplies experienced tremendous difficulty securing enough bulk forage from overseas to feed all of its animals in the winter of

1170 WD, ADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 16 April 1917. 1171 Neuville-Saint-Vaast is a small community east of Vimy Ridge near Canadian front line positions in spring 1917. Note the “trace high” clipping leaving the animals’ leg coats intact while trimming down the upper body. Also note the wet, muddy condition of the road. Canada. Department of National Defence/Library and Archives Canada. “Pack horses taking up ammunition to guns of 20th Bty. C.F.A., Neuville St. Vaast, April 1917.” LAC Online Reproduction from: http://collectionscanada.gc.ca/pam_archives/index.php?fuseaction=genitem.displayItem&lang=eng&rec_nbr=31947 97 (Accessed 13 May 2016). 326

1916-17. The Director of Supplies, Brigadier-General E.E. Carter, noted on 1 February that “the failure of Oat ships to arrive on the dates which they were expected” created a “very acute” situation. The Quartermaster General reduced oat rations to three-quarters of a pound “until further notice,” when peacetime regulations stipulated ten pounds of oats per animal per day.1172 Carter struggled to ensure animals could receive enough hay and oats to fill out a balanced, if reduced ration, and later increased oats to eight pounds a day. However, repeated sinking of ships conveying oats by German U-Boats confounded his efforts.1173 On 24 March 1917, for example,

U-Boats torpedoed the SS French Prince and sent 4,600 tons of oats to the bottom of the Atlantic

Ocean. Two days later, U-Boats sunk two ships conveying oats for the Belgian Army, and the

British War Office was “quite prepare to help the Belgians to tide over their difficulties” by sharing rations.1174 Due to these difficulties, animals of the BEF had to function on three-quarters of their normal rations during the winter of 1917.1175 Cutcliffe would later comment “it is utterly impossible for the horses to live and do the work under the present conditions of roads and weather with that amount of bulky food.”1176

Perhaps the most damaging condition to animal health – when combined with the heavy work, cold and wet weather, cloying mud, and reduced rations – were their clipped coats. The same measures Veterinary Officers undertook to protect the Canadian Corps’ animals against

1172 WD, Director of Supplies, 1-2 February 1917. NA WO 95/77, and Notes on Care of Horses and Stable Management, 9. 1173 The loss of these ships was the direct result of the Imperial German Navy’s policy of unrestricted submarine warfare on the high seas. William Philpott notes this practice of torpedoing any neutral or hostile merchant vessel was “devastatingly effective” in its early stages, resulting in 369,000 tons sunk in January 1917 up to a peak of 881,000 tons in April 1917. Indeed, Holger Herwig notes that Chief of the Admiralty Staff, Admiral Conrad von Holtzendorff, felt that a sustained pace of sinking 600,000 tons per month for six months would force Great Britain out of the war. See Philpott, War of Attrition, 273, and Herwig, The First World War, 312-325. 1174 WD, Director of Supplies, 24-26 March 1917. 1175 WD, Director of Supplies, 19 April 1917. 1176 Major A.B. Cutcliffe Circular Letter, 7 April 1917. LAC RG 9 III-C-1 Vol. 3888 Folder 41 File 2. 327

mange spelled disaster for clipped animals. Having been clipped in March in some cases, the animals had no chance to re-grow their thick winter coats to provide natural protection and warmth against the inclement weather. Moore’s confidence from previous years that rugs or blankets could provide adequate substitutes did not bear out. Currie remarked blankets and rugs “were always wet” and simply kept the animals chilled.1177 Clipped coats would indeed be critical in determining which animals survived or perished in the forthcoming weeks. Cutcliffe observed on 22 March that “all unclipped animals standing work & weather fairly well. Clipped ones suffering from storms [and] failing fast.” He added, “weather cold.”1178

Indeed, debility – that scourge of animals on the Somme – rapidly wasted away horses of the Canadian Corps in March and April.1179 The continued pace of heavy work, insufficient fodder, and little protection from the weather meant that horses simply died while hauling ammunition forward. Veterinary Sergeant Chester Barteaux, attached to the 20th Battery CFA, observed that

“animals not equal to the task toiled night and day until reduced to a state of exhaustion that very many had to be left by the wayside totally incapacitated.”1180 Cutcliffe similarly wrote on 5 April that the animals “are in such a poor condition that they drop in harness unable to go on.”1181 Indeed,

Veterinary Sergeant G.A. McDonald, attached to the 81st Battery CFA, reflected after the war that

“in those days just before the Battle of Vimy Ridge it was quite a common occurrence to see a number of horses lying along the road…just worked to death.”1182

1177 Moore, “Prevention of Disease,” 10 November 1914, and Currie to Canadian Corps Headquarters, 13 April 1917. 1178 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 22 March 1917. 1179 Tim Cook also acknowledges the immense suffering experienced by animals at Vimy Ridge. In Shock Troops, he describes how “horse and mule teams braved the steady intercession of fire the Germans laid down,” but also that “in the fight for survival, horses were worked to death” to feed the pace of battle.” Cook, Shock Troops, 80. 1180 “Sergt. C.C. Barteaux. 20th Battery. C.F.A.,” 1. LAC MG 30 E14 Vol. 3. 1181 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 5 April 1917. 1182 “Sergt. G.A. McDonald, 18th Battery, C.F.A.,” 1. LAC MG 30 E14 Vol. 3. 328

These animals’ strained internal organs simply shut down. Tamblyn posited that the overwork and exposure caused fatal “organic heart trouble” among exhausted animals.1183 On the other hand, Cutcliffe argued “it is all due to congestion of liver [and] kidneys,” for post-mortem examination of deceased animals revealing “congested kidneys [and] liver,” with “bowels very anemic.” Indeed, animals dropped dead even while resting between trips hauling ammunition. A rain and snow storm on 2 April – the day Phase II of the barrage plan began – “showed the effects among the horses,” wrote Cutcliffe. “A large number died [and] a large number had to be destroyed from cold and exhaustion.”1184 In a single week, 29 March to 5 April, the 4th Division and its attached units lost 386 animals to debility. The 3rd Division lost 681.1185

An additional, more preventative (and thus more frustrating) cause of animal wastage during this period was simple ignorance among non-veterinary personnel. Edgett recalled repeated instances in the 4th Division where “lack of judgment in many cases at Battalion Orderly Room” resulted in serious mistakes over destinations and forage allotments for a daily journey, thus exacerbating the animals’ hunger and exhaustion.1186 Cutcliffe, too, noted the “causes of condition among horses is aggravated by slight knowledge a great many of the men have of horses [and] also poor supervision by officers.”1187 Tamblyn imparted a particularly revealing anecdote that conveys how detrimental such inattentiveness could be for animal welfare:

My attention was drawn to the load being carried by a small pack mule. This animal had nearly 300 lbs of a load and was in an exhausted condition. I made them man in charge of the animal unload it and took the matter up with his Commanding officer pointing out that the regulation load for a pack animal was – Horse, 200 lbs, mule 160 lbs. I also took the matter up with Divisional Headquarters and pointed

1183 WD, ADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 12 April 1917. 1184 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 3 April 1917. 1185 A.2000 Form 4th Canadian Division – Week Ending 5 April 1917 and A.2000 Form 3rd Canadian Division – Week Ending 5 April 1917. 1186 Edgett to 4th Division “Q,” 27 March 1917. 1187 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 5 April 1917. 329

out to them that the present physical condition of the animals and the bad state of the roads made it absolutely impossible to expect a pack animal to do any work if it were overloaded.1188

Although not the sole cause of animal wastage, such negligence and ignorance on the part of the animals’ handlers greatly exacerbated cases of debility. Inattentiveness could very well be the difference between an animal surviving the ordeal or being one of those “just worked to death.”

Veterinary personnel did what they could to minimize the escalating losses before the

Canadian Corps lost a catastrophic number of animals. Detachments of Other Ranks led by

Veterinary Sergeants patrolled heavily used roads to seek out exhausted and wounded animals and bring them to the MVS.1189 VOs similarly endeavoured to find animals that appeared on the verge of death and remove them from the working line to help them recover. Tamblyn, for example, identified 29 horses of the attached 63rd British Division that were “physically unfit for work.” He ordered them “to be placed on a separate line, not worked, and specially fed and groomed until further orders.”1190 The best means of salvaging debilitated casualties, however, was to evacuate them for extensive recuperation at a hospital or convalescent horse depot. Even still, Cutcliffe wrote on 7 April, “it is a hard question to decide which animals will live and stand the journey to the base, so quickly do they give in.”1191

Mobile Veterinary Sections throughout the Corps shortly became inundated with such evacuations and struggled to keep up with the pace of evacuations.1192 The men of No. 3 Canadian

1188 WD, ADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 15 April 1917. 1189 Tamblyn, “The History of the C.A.V.C. Third Canadian Division, B.E.F.,” 4. 1190 WD, ADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 8 April 1917. 1191 Cutcliffe Circular Letter, 7 April 1917. 1192 Ted Barris wrote one of the few works that links the veterinary services in the field with the trying period of animals at Vimy Ridge. Although not providing an extensive discussion, he does note that four “mobile sections of the Veterinary Corps” stood by behind the lines to receive animal casualties at Vimy. Ted Barris, Victory at Vimy, (Toronto: Thomas Allen Publishers, 2007), 64-67. 330

MVS, for example, admitted 813 casualties between 27 March and 8 April, and evacuated 654 to rear area hospitals. On a single day, 2 April, they admitted 180 animals. Three days later, they evacuated 202 animals to hospital and admitted a further 64.1193 These sections remained critically over-worked and undermanned through accepting casualties, performing triage, rendering what veterinary care they could, and conveying cases to railheads. As Cutcliffe remarked, “when [the]

Conducting Party leave[s], only two men will be left to attend patients on line.”1194

Even if the animals arrived at the MVS they were not necessarily through their ordeal.

Edgett inspected No. 4 Canadian MVS on 5 April to find that “a great many animals died shortly after their arrival.”1195 Similarly, Moore commented that the “deplorable condition” of debility cases upon reaching hospitals still meant that upwards of 20% died or had to be destroyed even after reaching rehabilitation centres in the rear.1196 Adding on to the MVS workload (and the mens’ own growing exhaustion) thus was the unfortunate duty of burying those horses that died after reaching the MVS.1197 The men could not accomplish miracles, however, and horse carcasses steadily built up around the various MVS until after the battle ended.1198

Canadian infantry went “over the top” in the early morning hours of 9 April 1917 to begin the assault on Vimy Ridge. The horses and mules of artillery units stood by to move up the guns as far as possible to extend their range to help defend against German counterattacks. These artillery and transport units suffered few animal combat casualties during the course of the actual

1193 WD, No. 3 Canadian MVS, 27 March to 8 April 1917. 1194 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 11 April 1917. 1195 WD, ADVS 4th Canadian Division, 5 April 1917. 1196 WD, DVS, 17 April 1917. 1197 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 18 April 1917. 1198 In contrast, Moore, observed, those animals that survived to reach hospitals but died after arrival were simply “buried in manure dumps, and [they] practically disappear in little over a fortnight.” See WD, DDVS First Army, 21 April 1917, WD, DVS, 17 April 1917, and WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 22 April 1917. 331

attack, although they certainly drew fire. Between 5 and 12 April, for example, the 4th Division suffered ten shellfire wounds and two gunshot wounds.1199 The deep mud of Vimy which caused such horrendous working conditions for animals may have inadvertently saved some of their lives during the battle itself. High explosive shells set to burst on contact with the earth buried deep in the mud before exploding and lost much of their deadly force. On 9 April, a German shell burst in the middle of a 1st Division horse shelter containing 70 animals but only wounded three animals.

Indeed, Cutcliffe observed “the casualties from Gunshot Wounds among horses are generally less during a battle than at any other time, if the enemy does not succeed in advancing.”1200

Still, losses from debility steadily continued throughout the battle. Horses and mules worked hard to haul guns as far forward as possible to extend the range of field batteries and thereby help defend the newly captured ridge. However, the same intense, prolonged bombardments that smashed German defences on the ridge in preparation for the offensive churned its soil to such an extent that it was virtually impossible to haul guns forward beyond the previous

German front lines.1201 Indeed, Private Johnston recalled trying to drive his team forward on 10

April, but “it was quite a mess.”1202 On 12 April, the final day of battle, Tamblyn wrote the horses

“are showing very markedly the effects of the unfavourable climatic conditions,” and “combined with the state of the roads which entails an enormous amount of extra work is causing a very heavy wastage of horse flesh.”1203 The same day, Cutcliffe observed that “horses are dying [and] being evacuated faster than remounts are being supplied.” Continued bad weather over the next week,

1199 A.2000 Form 4th Canadian Division – Week Ending 12 April 1917. 1200 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 9 April 1917. 1201 Nicholson, The Gunners of Canada, 285, and Cook, “The Gunners of Vimy,” 119. 1202 Johnston, Riding Into War, 46. 1203 WD, ADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 12 April 1917. 332

with rain, hail, and snow continued to assail the animals and personnel alike, with evacuations steadily continuing until 21 April.1204

The sum total of these enormous losses are evident in Table 7.1. Combined wastage rates

(died, destroyed, evacuated) in March and April – 7,983 animals – exceeded 25% of the average strength of the Canadian Corps during the pace of combat operations.

Table 7.1: “Return of Casualties in Field Units B.E.F. 1917”1205

B.E.F. Canadian Date Strength Wastage % of Strength Wastage % of Wastage Wastage January 359,176 19,468 5.42 22,396 687 3.06 February 363,221 8,971 2.46 23,250 795 3.41 March 373,266 19,032 5.09 31,355 2,429 7.74 April 360,225 31,837 8.83 31,522 5,554 17.61 May 372,332 14,025 3.76 23,103 1,433 6.20 June 384,912 9,608 2.49 26,248 570 2.17

These losses directly threatened the continued mobility of units in the field. As Cutcliffe claimed, horses were dying faster than their replacements could arrive. Currie wrote to Canadian Corps

Headquarters on 13 April that “the horses are not being replaced quickly enough,” and furthermore that “the remounts cannot be put into hard work at once.” He continued, “this throws a very great strain on the horses that we have,” which were “getting worse each day notwithstanding the increased care.” Indeed, with such alarming losses in the 1st Division’s horse strength, “our ability to move forward will be very much less than it should be.”1206

However, remounts were not immediately forthcoming. Evacuations for debility throughout the BEF rose dramatically throughout the preparatory and offensive stages of the Battle

1204 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 12-21 April 1917. 1205 “Return of Casualties in Field Units B.E.F. 1917.” 1206 Currie to Canadian Corps Headquarters, 13 April 1917. 333

of Arras – from 5,317 in February, to 9,427 in March, and 20,319 in April 1917.1207 To help offset these losses, Brigadier-General H. Garratt, the BEF Director of Remounts, recorded issuing 17,301 animals to the front in March and another 21,179 animals in April.1208 As Table 7.1 demonstrates, however, there was still a deficiency of almost 10,000 animals badly needed to replace the casualties from exhaustion and combat wounds in April. Indeed, DDsVS from each of the Armies sought thousands of remounts to replenish such losses, and there simply were not enough to satisfy all their demands.1209 This dearth of remounts seriously threatened to paralyze the mobility of units in the field. On 28 April 1917, Major-General Henry Burstall, GOC 2nd Canadian Division, wrote to Corps Headquarters that “no remounts are notified as leaving depots for this Division at present” for a total of 404 remounts that were first requested two weeks before. Consequently, “extra work is being thrown onto the remaining horses,” which would simply result in “further evacuations.”1210 Currie, similarly frustrated by having to wait a week on 700 additional remounts, wrote to Headquarters on 27 April that such deficiencies compromised “the state of the mobility of the Artillery of this Division in case is should be ordered to move away.”1211

By late April, however, the crisis subsided. By 19 April the heaviest pace of operations were over, rains and snow relented, and the ground began to dry out.1212 Debilitated and exhausted

1207 History of the Organization and Development of the Army Veterinary Service with the British Expeditionary Force, France, 19. 1208 WD, Director of Remounts, 31 March and 30 April 1917. NA WO 95/70. 1209 WD, DVS, 30 March to 20 April 1917. 1210 Major-General H. Burstall to Canadian Corps Headquarters, 28 April 1917. LAC RG 9 III-C-1 Vol. 3888 Folder 41 File 3. 1211 Major-General A.W. Currie to Canadian Corps Headquarters, 27 April 1917. LAC RG 9 III-C-1 Vol. 3888 Folder 41 File 2. 1212 Although achieving remarkable territorial gains on 9 April, the BEF advance at Arras began to stall by 12 April, and the offensive degenerated into another grinding battle of attrition. Nevertheless, continued offensives advanced the Allied lines before effectively ceasing on 17 May. In these attacks, Canadian Corps suffered another 2,000 human casualties at Arleux-en-Gohelle on 28 April and Fresnoy on 3 May. General Nivelle’s offensives on the Chemin des Dames, however, met with disaster after suffering 134,000 casualties and triggering a wave of mutinous behaviour throughout the French Army. See Gary Sheffield, “Vimy Ridge and the Battle of Arras: A British 334

animals were able to rest on firm, dry ground without having to perform the daily heavy working tasks of the previous month. Within a few days, Cutcliffe observed that animals evacuated to the

1st Division MVS were “in better condition.” Furthermore, Moore impressed the urgent necessity of restoring full rations to animals on the front lines to help rehabilitate their condition after an entire winter on reduced fodder.1213 Similarly, the onset of spring allowed for fresh grazing opportunities on new green grass behind the lines. The restored rations, rest, and warm weather shortly restored the surviving animals of the Canadian Corps after their ordeal at Vimy Ridge.

Edgett wrote on 28 April that “a marked improvement is being shown every day now,” as a result of the “fine weather and fresh grass.”1214 By 25 May 1917, Cutcliffe observed “the condition of the horses is again approaching normal,” with “no sickness among them.”1215

The truly shocking losses among the BEF’s animals in the Battle of Arras imparted several crucially important lessons. The unprecedented wastage through debility owed to a number of different circumstances, all of which required addressing to avoid a future collapse of the animal transport system. The most pressing lesson learned, and readily apparent to all observers, was that clipping animals so late in winter was a major error. As reports from ADVS Cutcliffe and other

VOs attested, animals with unclipped coats withstood the same horrific working conditions better than those with clipped coats, and this factor was the most decisive in determining whether an animal lived or perished. Indeed, this mistake was readily apparent well before the battle even began. At a conference of DDsVS held on 27 March, “it was suggested,” Moore wrote, “that if due attention was paid to clipping at the proper time of the year animals would not be so liable to

Perspective,” Mike Bechthold, “In the Shadow of Vimy Ridge: The Canadian Corps in April and May 1917,” 239,” in Vimy Ridge: A Canadian Reassessment, and Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 243-244. 1213 WD, DVS, 13 April 1917. 1214 WD, ADVS 4th Canadian Division, 28 April 1917. 1215 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 25 May 1917. 335

suffer from the effects of inclement weather.”1216 Cutcliffe also attended a conference with DDVS

Martin on 1 April, where “the question of clipping horses in cold weather was discussed.” He noted the “majority of the opinion that clipping in cold weather was wrong. I am of the opinion that it is very dangerous under conditions as met in active service.”1217 Indeed, Currie wrote to Sir

Julian Byng on 13 April that “one of the primary causes for this state of affairs was the clipping of horses mid-winter” before thrusting them into heavy working tasks in harsh weather.1218

Clipping, nevertheless, proved critical in treating the serious mange outbreak of December-

March. Clipping remained critical for protecting animals from mange, but VOs apparently received criticism and blame for their actions from unknown sources.1219 The most direct solution to addressing the problems of both mange and exposure, then, was simply to ensure clipping was complete by mid-November. The conference Moore attended on 27 March indeed concluded that proper clipping and “good grooming” were central to defeating mange in the field.1220 Statistics from the 4th Canadian Division supported Moore’s assertions. Edgett noted that in his division,

“out of every 4 horses with Mange[,] 3 were unclipped and 1 was clipped prior to November 30th.”

Clipping animals earlier denied mange a fertile environment in long coats, made veterinary inspection easier, and still afforded a chance for the coat to grow back before deep winter

1216 WD, DVS, 27 March 1917. 1217 WD, ADVS 1st Canadian Division, 1 April 1917. 1218 Currie to Canadian Corps Headquarters, 13 April 1917. 1219 After the war Moore stated “the Veterinary Service was greatly blamed for its advocacy” of clipping. Tamblyn similarly remarked in August 1917 that “I am aware there is considerable opposition to clipping, there is no doubt that a great amount of this is due to ignorance or not being acquainted with the true facts.” After the war, too, “Biscum” from Medicine Hat – likely a pseudonym for Tamblyn – wrote “much criticism was put forth…and Veterinary Officers were assailed for the policy adopted re clipping.” However, neither officer identified where this blame or opposition came from. See Moore, Army Veterinary Service in War, 54, Lieutenant-Colonel D. Tamblyn, Undated Circular to 3rd Division, August 1917. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5042 Reel T-10934, and “Biscum,” “Instructional Value of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps,” The Canadian Veterinary Record II, no. 4 (December 1921): 27. 1220 WD, DVS, 27 March 1917. 336

conditions. Indeed, wrote Edgett, “I am firmly of the opinion that had it been possible to clip all horses before the middle of November, very little mange would have resulted.”1221 Clipping in the early autumn, then, was inarguably the most important lesson from the experiences at Arras.

Closely tied to clipping, too, was proper grooming and animal management. Frequent observations by VOs of dirty, muddy, ungroomed animals arriving from the Somme exhibited that human error largely contributed to this environment ripe for outbreaks of mange. Indeed, the better-groomed and better-maintained units experienced fewer incidences of the disease, thus decreasing the necessity for clipping, and therefore causing less wastage through debility. As

Moore noted, “good grooming” was “one of the most effective” precautions against mange, and was a factor that sorely needed improvement throughout the BEF. Following the Battle of Arras,

Moore followed through with his earlier pledge to develop “courses of instruction” on proper

Horse Mastership and animal management. Beginning in June 1917, Officers Commanding five different Veterinary Hospitals held ten-day courses, for classes of ten officers and fifty NCOs.

Through a combination of lectures and practical demonstrations, these officers taught:

1) Animals in Health; Signs of Sickness or Inefficiency; Condition; Work; Exercise in relation to Health. 2) Stable Routine; Water and Watering; Food and Feeding; Grazing. 3) Grooming; Clothing; Clipping; Winter Conditions. 4) Picketing Lines; Cover; Standings. 5) Saddles and Harness; Sore Backs and Galls. 6) Shoeing.1222

By May 1918, eleven months after these classes began, 850 officers and 4,000 NCOs completed the course and returned to their units with refreshed (or new) knowledge in animal management

1221 Major C.E. Edgett to DDVS First Army, 30 March 1917. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5043 Reel T-10934. 1222 History of the Organization and Development of the Army Veterinary Service with the British Expeditionary Force, France. August 1914 to April 1919, 22. 337

and disease prevention.1223 Chapter Eight will explore how such courses and revisions on animal management translated to field practices in 1917-18.

Other factors contributing to the heavy wastage in early 1917 were more difficult to remedy. The shortage of bulk forage was a key factor in the sharp increase of debility, but this was something veterinary personnel held little control over. The growing efficiency of German U-Boat attacks, and the inability of the Directorate of Supplies to secure sufficient fodder, resulted in the reduced rations throughout the winter. Indeed, as Chapter Four explored, such difficulties over securing sufficient fodder prompted the British War Office to scale back its remount purchasing in May 1917. The Secretary of State for War, the Earl of Derby, repeatedly sought to reduce the

BEF’s animal strength by as much as 50% because of such difficulties importing fodder.1224 He preferred to rely heavily on motor transport in forward areas, but towards the end of the war, the numbers of trucks (20,965) in the BEF paled to the number of horses (400,000).1225 Forage supplies, ultimately, would remain problematic for the duration of the war.1226

The aftermath of the Battle of Arras also witnessed important revisions to the veterinary structure of the BEF. The battle reaffirmed the critical importance of the veterinary services in the field that sought to keep the animal transport network from collapsing. Indeed, Major-General

Currie noted, “generally speaking, I consider that the Veterinary Service and [Officers

Commanding] Units have done their best to keep their horses in condition.” He concluded, “it has

1223 History of the Organization and Development of the Army Veterinary Service with the British Expeditionary Force, France. August 1914 to April 1919, 22. 1224 Derby, “War Cabinet – Reduction of Horses,” 8 May 1917. For broader concerns over British shipping and the U-Boat menace, see Ian Malcolm Brown, British Logistics on the Western Front 1914-1919, (Westport: Praeger, 1998), 181-182 1225 “Fifth Army Notes on Directors’ Services, 6th November 1918,” 736. NA WO 95/536, and War Cabinet Memorandum 391, 15 April 1918, 3. NA CAB 23/6. 1226 For a discussion on both the British Government’s deliberations over mechanization, and on the immense difficulties of shipping fodder, see Singleton, “Britain’s Use of Military Horses,” 194-198. 338

been an utter impossibility to keep the animals of this Division in good form in the past and present conditions.”1227 Similarly, Sergeant Barteaux lamented losing “many of our best animals…in spite of all the care and attention that the exigencies of the campaign permitted.”1228

Still, it was clear that there was room to improve the services’ functions, both in the field and their higher administration. The heavy work placed on Mobile Veterinary Sections, some of which evacuated casualties from multiple divisions over the course of the battle, demonstrated the importance of more units and personnel devoted to evacuating animals quickly to the rear. Indeed, the appalling losses through debility, and lengthy recovery period for surviving animals, illustrated the necessity of evacuation as soon as they exhibited signs of worsening exhaustion. Animals recuperating in their own units’ picket lines or the MVS sick lines evidently did not recover quickly enough, or at all, and thus required quicker removal to hospitals.1229 Similarly, Moore increasingly appreciated the importance of the corps as a cohesive unit in the field. They required their own dedicated veterinary staff to manage the significant number of animals that could move in and out of corps command, as individual divisions attached and detached for specific operations. Chapter

Eight will explore these subsequent revisions to administration and field practice, direct lessons from the Battle of Arras, in the summer of 1917.

“Just Worked to Death”

September 1916 to May 1917 was the most arduous period for Canadian Corps’ horses and veterinary personnel in the Great War. During these months, horses and mules hauled shells and

1227 Currie to Canadian Corps Headquarters, 30 March 1917. 1228 Sergt. C.C. Barteaux. 20th Battery. C.F.A.,” 1. 1229 History of the Organization and Development of the Army Veterinary Service with the British Expeditionary Force, France. August 1914 to April 1919, 19-20. 339

ammunition forward to feed the guns in the Battle of the Somme, spent a cold and wet winter in front of Vimy Ridge, and again hauled supplies forward to assist in its capture. Historians of the

Great War such as G.W.L. Nicholson, Bill Rawling, and Tim Cook, all highlight the lessons learned in platoon infantry tactics, artillery doctrine, and detailed rehearsals for offensive operations during this period. The Somme imparted such lessons, which were digested throughout the winter, and used to great effect to capture Vimy Ridge.

However, as this chapter demonstrated, this period witnessed some of the worst setbacks experienced by veterinary personnel in the war – setbacks influenced by their own ongoing learning process. Experiences on the Somme clearly demonstrated the immense dangers posed by debility during sustained combat operations. The thick mud of shell-blasted Picardy and the unrelenting pace of heavy work caused the greatest incidences of debility yet seen by the CAVC in the Great War. Following the battle, animals of the Canadian Corps clearly needed an extensive period of rest and recuperation out of the mud on dry standings. This, however, was not to be the case. The animals arrived dirty and exhausted in the Vimy sector during the winter of 1916-17.

Their long winter coats, caked with mud, provided an ideal breeding ground for parasitic mange.

Drawing on previous experiences with clipping and calcium sulphide treatments, VOs presided over extensive clipping and dipping of all affected and “incontact” animals. They effectively brought mange under control through their efforts. However, the preparatory bombardments of

Vimy Ridge beginning in late March gave the animals no respite from heavy work. A combination of their clipped coats, reduced forage rations, inclement weather, and exhausting work decimated

Canadian animals. Veterinary personnel worked tirelessly to evacuate and save as many animals as possible. For many horses and mules, however, the strain was too great to survive, and 7,983

340

died or were evacuated to the rear. Only the reduced pace of operations, return of warm weather, and restored forage rations saved the animal transport network from collapse in April 1917.

This period thus highlighted several important lessons for the veterinary services into the future, among them an increased need for horse management supervision, and assurance that animals would not be clipped in deep winter again. These months also reiterated the critical contributions of the veterinary personnel at the “sharp end” of battle who struggled to spare as many animals as possible from being worked to death. The months following the Battle of Vimy

Ridge witnessed further revisions to veterinary protocol and command structure in efforts to better protect the BEF’s animals from such grievous repetitious wastage of animal life. June to December

1917 would ultimately witness efforts to expand the veterinary command structure, and the units in the field. They also saw heavy casualties at Hill 70, and another battle fought in appalling conditions at Passchendaele. Chapter Eight will discuss how the lessons of the Somme and Vimy

Ridge manifested in the much more successful efforts to protect the Canadian Corps’ animal transport from sickness and injury during the rest of 1917.

341

Chapter Eight – “Have Done Their Work Faithfully:” Hill 70 and Passchendaele, June 1917 to February 1918

“We are now approaching a season when the horses of the Corps must inevitably suffer heavy casualties…I want very close watch to be kept on the horses by all Veterinary Officers.”1230

-Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Currie GOC Canadian Corps 16 October 1917

“The condition of animals is quite satisfactory. The past month has been very trying. Most of the animals were clipped and all well stabled in the old area, then came the complete change eg: exposure to cold wet weather. Changing stable conditions when on the march and hard work and no cover at all and standing in the mud to the hocks; in many cases water which they would not drink until forced to by thirst resulted in no sickness, only a decrease in flesh more noticeable in the unclipped animals.”1231

-Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Edgett DADVS 4th Canadian Division 1 November 1917

June 1917 to February 1918 witnessed some of the bitterest fighting of Canada’s Great

War. In August 1917, the Canadian Corps fought a vicious battle at Hill 70 and nearby Lens, both inflicting and sustaining thousands of casualties in an archetypal battle of attrition. In October

1917, too, Field Marshal Haig called on the Corps to capture the shell-blasted village of

Passchendaele – a bittersweet victory that ended the costly Third Battle of Ypres.1232 Canadian personnel continued to learn from previous experiences while preparing, and executing, these offensives. Detailed rehearsal, close artillery cooperation, and effective employment of a “bite and

1230 Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Currie to A.D.V.S. Canadian Corps, 16 October 1917. LAC RG 9 III-C-11 Vol. 4579 Folder 1 File 9. 1231 Lieutenant-Colonel C.E. Edgett to 4th Division “Q,” 1 November 1917. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5043 Reel T- 10934. 1232 At Hill 70 in August 1917 the Corps suffered 9,198 casualties. However the attack’s deliberately attritional objectives – killing German reserves through artillery fire – were largely successful, with Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Currie estimating 25,000 German casualties. At Passchendaele in October-November, however, the Corps sustained a further 16,041 killed and wounded soldiers. Rawling, Surviving Trench Warfare, 142 and 165, and Cook, Shock Troops, 305. 342

hold” doctrine saw the Canadian Corps successfully capture its objectives, albeit with heavy casualties.1233 The Corps increasingly refined its reputation as “shock troops” of the BEF.1234

These months would also present some of the finest triumphs for the CAVC on the Western

Front. Over the summer, its personnel fought yet again against “the worst of all animal scourges of war”– mange – and stopped another incipient outbreak. The Passchendaele Campaign of

October-November 1917 presented some of the most difficult working conditions to humans and animals alike – reminiscent of the worst mud and weather of the Somme or Vimy Ridge. However, having learned their lessons of the previous winter, veterinary personnel were adequately prepared to minimize wastage through sickness and debility. German artillery fire inflicted heavy casualties during the campaign, but the health of the animals was nevertheless remarkably robust in the mud and rain of Flanders. The contrast from the previous year could not be more marked.

This chapter examines the horses and veterinarians of the Canadian Corps from June 1917 to February 1918. It illustrates how, by learning from previous experiences, CAVC personnel kept their animals healthy and working fit in the worst field conditions of the Great War. By the end of

1233 Ian Malcolm Brown characterized the methodical, rehearsed offensives involving close cooperation between infantry and artillery when capturing objectives, and defence against inevitable German counterattacks, as a “not glamorous, but effective” doctrine for winning battles. Bill Rawling similarly notes that “the tactics of the Canadian Corps, adopted prior to Vimy Ridge and developed in the battles of 1917, were effective in cutting through static positions and greater depth, but casualties were still high.” On the other hand, as Geoff Jackson points out, the Canadian Corps suffered a defeat in its attack on Lens subsequent to its capture of Hill 70 in August 1917. The reliable “set piece” attack did not translate well into urban warfare environments. The Corps suffered an unambiguous defeat, he contends, with heavy losses. See Ian Malcolm Brown, “Not Glamorous, But Effective: The Canadian Corps and the Set-Piece Attack, 1917-1918,” The Journal of Military History 58, no. 3 (July 1994): 421- 444, Rawling, Surviving Trench Warfare, 165, and Geoff Jackson: “‘Anything but Lovely:’ The Canadian Corps at Lens in the summer of 1917,” Canadian Military History 17, no. 1 (Winter 2008): 5-20. For other examinations of the tactical and operational developments of this period, also see Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, Chapters IX-X, Cook, Shock Troops, Chapters 16-23, and Matthew Walthert, “Neglected Victory: The Canadian Corps at Hill 70,” Canadian Military History 19, no. 1 (2010): 21-36. 1234 Paddy Griffith, for example, numbers the four Canadian divisions as “elite” formations ranking among the best of the British Empire’s divisions on the Western Front. Indeed, he notes for the successive attacks at Broodseinde and Passchendaele in October-November 1917, “it was surely no accident that out of a total of seventeen divisions involved in this notoriously tricky attack, all but two were drawn from our list of ‘elite’ formations.” Griffith, Battle Tactics of the Western Front, 79-83. 343

the Passchendaele Campaign, the officers and men of the CAVC demonstrated the highly proficient skills in animal management and disease prevention that would serve the Canadian

Corps exceptionally well for the remainder of the conflict.

Rank Structure and Personnel, 1917-18

For Canadian veterinary personnel, just as in combat branches, the summer of 1917 was spent digesting important lessons from the Battle of Vimy Ridge and integrating them into standard operating procedures. Chapter Seven discussed the root issues behind these lessons: proper clipping timing and technique, proper animal management skills, restructuring the veterinary command hierarchy. Throughout the summer of 1917, veterinary personnel learned from their experiences of the previous winter to avoid repeating the grave animal losses.

One of the immediate functional changes to veterinary structure and procedure was creation of a veterinary posting to each army corps. Experiences on the Somme demonstrated “the increasing importance of [the] Corps from an administrative point of view,” according to Moore, who proposed “that an administrative Officer should be attached to Corps Headquarters, the same as in other Services.”1235 The frequent attachment and detachment of artillery brigades, or entire divisions, to different headquarters meant there was little consistent supervision over animal health within each corps as a whole. Indeed, Moore was anxious about escalating incidences of mange circulating among itinerant Royal Field Artillery brigades frequently moving among various commands. With the ADVS focused on their own division, and occasionally given responsibility over attached units, these artillery units had “no careful supervision as they should have done.”1236

1235 WD, DVS, 10 January 1917. 1236 WD, DVS, 26 June 1917. 344

Moore thus formally proposed a new posting, the Assistant Director of Veterinary Services for each corps, with the new designation of Deputy Assistant Director of Veterinary Services

(DADVS) for each division. He proposed such a billet on 27 February, before the Battle of Arras, however formal authorization did not arrive from the Army Council until 16 June. Thereafter, the

ADVS Corps was an integral component of veterinary hierarchy in the BEF.

The ADVS Canadian Corps remained a busy billet through the rest of the war. This officer was immediately responsible for inspecting and overseeing the health and working efficiency of all horses in Canadian Corps Troops in the same way a DADVS presided over animal health in their division. Corps Engineers, Signals, Canadian Garrison Artillery, the 5th Divisional Artillery, and the Canadian Light Horse remained their purview.1237 They were also directly responsible for veterinary arrangements in any Royal Field Artillery brigades and British divisions attached to the

Canadian Corps at any given time. The numbers of animals under their charge thus ranged considerably. During the Battle of Hill 70, for example, Corps Troops and attached units (not counting the four Canadian divisions) amounted to 15,000 animals under charge of the ADVS. In early October 1917, these numbers fell to 7,457 animals.1238 They furthermore remained responsible for coordinating disease control and health initiatives in, but not directly supervising,

1237 The 5th Canadian Division’s artillery of two field brigades and four mortar batteries arrived on the Western Front in September 1917 and served with the Canadian Corps for the duration of the war. The Division itself would be broken up, however, with Currie’s preference to reinforce existing units in the field. Indeed, following heavy losses in the Third Battle of Ypres, Field Marshal Haig reduced British infantry brigades from four battalions to three. Currie, presented with an option of following this trend and diluting Canadian brigades and eventually forming a Canadian Army of two corps of three divisions each, preferred to maintain the existing Corps structure. The changes would have required an additional new headquarters staffs for six brigades, two divisions, a corps, and an army. With extra infantry reinforcements drawn from the disbanded 5th Division, as well as its artillery and engineering units, a Canadian division averaged roughly 21,000 all ranks, as opposed to 15,000 for a British division. Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 230-232 and 315. 1238 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 19 August and 7 October 1917. For a complete breakdown of the Canadian Corps Troops as of November 1918, see Appendix A: Canadian Corps Order of Battle, November 1918, in Rawling, Surviving Trench Warfare, 228-231. 345

all four Canadian divisions.1239 On 17 August 1917, for example, the ADVS was broadly responsible for the health of all 29,635 horses and mules of Canadian and attached British units at the beginning of the Battle of Hill 70.1240 They thus effectively served as the main advocate for animal health on the Canadian Corps Headquarters Staff. Simultaneously, they were integral to the veterinary chain of command between the Deputy Director of Veterinary Services at the army level and the Deputy Assistant Director of Veterinary Services at the divisional level.

Selecting the appropriate officer to hold this office was a contentious and somewhat controversial process. The CEF DVS+R, Colonel Neill, recommended Lieutenant-Colonel Charles

Edgett as “the most eligible and available” candidate for the position.1241 Edgett was certainly a capable and experienced officer. He was among the first Veterinary Officers to arrive at Valcartier in August 1914, having graduated from OVC in 1906 and joining the Militia the same year. He served on the Western Front since February 1915, eventually ascending to ADVS 4th Canadian

Division in 1916.1242 Indeed, Colonel E.E. Martin, DDVS First Army, congratulated Edgett’s administrative skills in organizing the ADVS office “on very sound lines.”1243

However, Neill’s appointment of Edgett proved yet another example of his tendency to exceed authority and meddle with affairs in France. Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Currie, recently

1239 Brigadier-General J. Moore, “Circular Memo No. 175 – Administration of Units Not Belonging To, But Attached, To Divisions,” 24 August 1917. NA WO 95/68. 1240 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 17 August 1917. 1241 Colonel W.J. Neill to H.Q, O.M.F. of C., 30 April 1917. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3364 Folder A-57-45. 1242 Cecil French, in a display of excessive flattery, noted “for once, the corps was congratulating itself that a promotion has been made on the ground of merit.” French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War 1914-1919, 60-61. Also see Ontario Veterinary College Annual Announcement Session 1907- 1908, 35, The Quarterly Militia List of the Dominion of Canada (Corrected to 30th June, 1914), 323, and Nominal Rolle – No. 10 Sec. Canadian Army Veterinary Corps, 23-27 August 1914. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 941 Folder 20- 2-29. 1243 Colonel E.E. Martin to Canadian Corps Headquarters, 8 August 1917. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5043 Reel T- 10934. 346

knighted and promoted to GOC Canadian Corps in June 1917,1244 bristled at this usurpation of authority. On 4 July, Currie requested a meeting with Martin, asking “how appointment of Lt. Col.

Edgett was made,” and “if there was anything against Lt.Col. Cutcliffe” for the position.1245

According to postwar comments from David Tamblyn, Edgett secured the position simply by arriving at Canadian Corps Headquarters “without any intimation” and assumed command over the Corps’ veterinary personnel.1246 Currie, evidently resentful of being cut out of the decision making process, wrote on 5 July that “I do not recommend” Edgett for the position, as Lieutenant-

Colonel Cutcliffe “is at present Senior Veterinary officer in the Canadian Corps and has performed his duties satisfactorily.”1247 Cutcliffe was undeniably the senior officer, having served as ADVS

1st Canadian Division from March 1915 through to July 1917.1248 In this capacity, Cutcliffe and

Currie collaborated frequently, and productively, on animal health in the 1st Division. Currie evidently wished to both respect Cutcliffe’s seniority and retain his expertise on Canadian Corps headquarters staff. On 7 August 1917, Edgett relinquished duties as ADVS Canadian Corps and returned to the 4th Division, leaving Cutcliffe as the senior veterinary officer in the Corps for the duration of the war.1249 Cutcliffe’s successor as DADVS 1st Canadian Division throughout the rest

1244 See Cook, Shock Troops, 257-262. 1245 WD, DDVS First Army, 4 August 1917. 1246 Tamblyn Notes, French Chapter 7 Page 14. LAC MG 30 E14 Vol. 2. 1247 Major-General Arthur Currie [sic] to Military Secretary, General Headquarters, 5 July 1917. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3364 Folder A-57-45. 1248 Indeed, Cutcliffe was Edgett’s direct superior for a time. While ADVS 1st Canadian Division in April 1915, Edgett was his subordinate, as VO to the 3rd CIB. A.2000 Form 1st Canadian Division – Week Ending 1 April 1915. 1249 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 7 August 1917. Tamblyn deeply resented Edgett’s apparent political maneuvering to obtain the position. He condemned Edgett’s “back door channel of Political and semi-political methods,” and applauded Currie as “a man who stood for efficiency and loyalty.” Indeed, Currie successfully resisted other, more serious attempts to infringe on his authority as GOC Canadian Corps. He refused to accept Major-General Garnet Hughes, the son of former Minister of Militia and Defence Sam Hughes, as his successor for the 1st Division. He considered Archibald Macdonell to be a far more suitable candidate for divisional command, and his perceived snubbing of Hughes began a lifelong feud with both father and son. See Tamblyn Notes, French Chapter 7 Page 14, and Cook, The Madman and the Butcher, 190-193. 347

of the war was Major C.G. Saunders – erstwhile OC of No. 1 CVH who Moore felt performed

“exceptionally good professional work.”1250

Throughout the summer of 1917, Cutcliffe worked hard to introduce a Corps Evacuating

Detachment for the Canadian Corps. The immense strain placed upon the Mobile Veterinary

Sections during the Somme and Vimy Ridge imparted the necessity of forming another unit at the corps level to facilitate casualty evacuation to the rear. Units of the Second Army employed such

Corps detachments as key links in the casualty evacuation chain during the preparatory phases to the Battle of Messines in early June.1251 During his brief stint as ADVS Canadian Corps, Edgett proposed abolishing Mobile Veterinary Sections entirely and consolidating their personnel into a centralized Veterinary Field Hospital. Such a Field Hospital would serve concomitantly as a triage centre, operating theatre, and rest station for debilitated animals, making it “able to deal more effectively with the work of this branch of the service.”1252 Edgett’s proposals reflect the general tenor among senior officers wishing to centralize veterinary care more completely under corps administration but they ultimately did not bear out. Shortly after Cutcliffe replaced Edgett as

ADVS, he wrote he “was not in sympathy with the opinion to do away with Divisional MVS,” and the Sections ultimately remained permanent fixtures for the rest of the war.1253

1250 Saunders graduated from OVC in 1907 and also served in the Militia, as VO to the peacetime 2nd Brigade CFA. As OC No. 1 CVH, he allowed discipline at the hospital to slacken tremendously. An NCO under his command sold off a government-owned horse to a private local buyer, and he himself preferred to spend his nights “out of his Camp at the house of a lady,” setting a poor example as an officer commanding. Nevertheless, Moore’s confidence in his capabilities resulted in a transfer to the front rather than disciplinary action, and he served competently as DADVS 1st Canadian Division for the rest of the conflict. Ontario Veterinary College Annual Announcement Session 1907-1908, 60, The Quarterly Militia List of the Dominion of Canada (Corrected to 30th June, 1914), 322, WD, DVS, 31 July 1917, and Brigadier-General H. Nicholson to Headquarters, L of C. Area, 29 July 1917. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3372 Folder C-197-45. 1251 WD, DVS, 14 August 1917. 1252 Lieutenant-Colonel C.E. Edgett to D.D.V.S. First Army, 23 July 1917. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5042 Reel T- 10933. 1253 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 18 August 1917. 348

Cutcliffe laboured to find enough personnel to staff this Canadian Corps Mobile Veterinary

Detachment. The Detachment took shape in mid-September, staffed by three men and one NCO drawn from each MVS.1254 It shortly became a focal point for treating mange cases. Indeed,

Cutcliffe proposed the idea to DDVS Martin as an “advanced hospital for treatment of slight mange cases only,” and the Detachment presided over construction of a centralized calcium sulphide dipping tank.1255 However, the Detachment was to be a short-lived experiment. Its very existence depended on drawing personnel away from the MVS – already chronically undermanned units. By

9 October, Cutcliffe “pointed out that the efficiency of Divisional MVS was impaired” by the

Corps Detachment, and he ordered it disbanded the following day.1256

Indeed, personnel deficiencies, both quantitative and qualitative, confounded these efforts to expand the CAVC’s field operations. Throughout early 1917, the CAVC experienced difficulties securing enough officers and men to flesh out its existing establishments, let alone additional field units. In March 1917, the CAVC in France was eight officers short of its full strength – three for No. 1 CVH at Le Havre, two for the Canadian Cavalry Brigade, and one each for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Divisions. Moore’s proposed solution, time and again, was to reduce the

CAVC’s establishment of nine VOs per division to five, and thus better reflect complements of

British divisions.1257 However, Neill was loathe to accept the idea of such significantly reduced establishments. Perhaps against his better judgment, he accepted a draft of 14 VOs freshly graduated from OVC for immediate service in April 1917.1258 Chapter Six noted Neill’s reticence

1254 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 12 September 1917. 1255 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 9 to 12 August 1917. 1256 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 9-10 October 1917. 1257 WD, DVS, 13 February, 2 March, 11 March 1917, and History of the Organization and Development of the Army Veterinary Service with the British Expeditionary Force, France, 4. 1258 Captain A.E. Frape to A.D.V.S. Canadians, Shorncliffe, 9 April 1917. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3380 Folder D- 17-45. 349

to employ recent OVC graduates without sufficient civilian work experience, but these officers were nevertheless badly needed to fill out the CAVC’s nominal strength.1259 This itself was a notable luxury, especially considering the steady reduction of British VOs “has carried below the point of efficiency” over disease control and supervising animal health in the winter.1260

Equally problematic, however, was a growing manpower crisis amongst enlisted personnel. Heavy casualties in the brutal war of attrition on the Western Front, as well as costly campaigns in other theatres, created serious manpower deficiencies in the British Army despite passage of conscription in 1916.1261 Jay Winter notes that by July 1917, Minister of National

Service Auckland Geddes sought to replace fit young men working in munitions factories with older workers and thereby free them up for service at the front.1262 Such efforts to comb out men fit for frontline military service – Category “A” men – extended to the BEF veterinary services as well. In the British and Canadian forces, Category “A” encompassed personnel who Medical

Officers [MO] considered physically and mentally fit for strenuous service in the infantry, cavalry, or artillery. Category “B” men, on the other hand, consisted of wounded, older, or otherwise less physically capable men unsuited for frontline service but able to serve in non-combat branches.1263

Moore received instructions on 11 June that he might “be called upon shortly to exchange class

1259 They enjoyed mixed successes at the front – one of them, Captain R. Hanagan, served as VO to the 1st CIB in June 1916 and only lasted at his post before washing out and being rotated to a less intensive position at No. 1 CVH in September. His successor, Captain W.F. Towill was a classmate from OVC and part of this same draft of newly- minted officers. Towill served as VO to 1st CIB from September 1917 through to the end of the war with a tremendous record, and was both Mentioned in Despatches and awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his meritorious service. See McEwen, “Only Recent Graduates Available,” 249-257. 1260 WD, DVS, 13 September 1917. 1261 See Philpott, War of Attrition, 120-125, 310. 1262 J.M. Winter, The Great War and the British People, (Houndmills: Macmillan, 1986), 41-44. 1263 There were other categories as well: “C” men were only fit to serve in Canada, “D” men were temporarily unfit for service due to ongoing medical treatment, and “E” men were those awaiting to be discharged or reclassified into other categories. See Nic Clarke, Unwanted Warriors: The Rejected Volunteers of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2015), 28-29. 350

‘A’ men for class ‘B’ for Artillery purposes.” On 25 July he received orders that these Category

“A” men “should be returned ...for transfer to combatant Units” – 1,250 of whom transferred out of the AVC by late August.1264 Moore noted, however, that men over 39 years old and “N.C.O.s over the grade of Lance Corporal, and artificers, have not been compulsorily transferred,” thus retaining the experienced Veterinary Sergeants and other NCOs within the AVC.1265

Under the auspices of this scheme, MOs inspected ORs in Canadian veterinary units and determined which men would be eligible for transfer to combat branches.1266 Not only did these inspections effectively denude the CAVC of its healthiest and most vigorous enlisted personnel, it dispersed such men with years of experience in animal management and veterinary care. No. 1

CVH, for example, faced losing 100 Category “A” men – over a third of its strength – to be replaced by wholly inexperienced personnel.1267 Indeed, Cecil French wrote, “the efficiency of the corps was necessarily impaired” by substitution of “men trained in its special line of work” with

“less vigorous and withal untrained novices.”1268 Inexperience was only part of the problem, for these untrained replacements were seldom physically fit for service. The CAVC received lesser priority for the more capable Category “B” men from other branches and rarely obtained the best quality replacements available. The Canadian Army Service Corps (CASC), for example,

1264 WD, DVS, 11 June, 25 July, 26 August 1917. 1265 WD, DVS, 2 August 1917. 1266 Throughout this personnel redistribution process, the Dominion of Canada grappled with its own conscription crisis. Following a visit to France in May 1917, seeing the casualties of the Somme and Vimy Ridge, and confronted with declining voluntary enlistment, Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden felt compelled to enact conscription in Canada. Following Borden’s Union Government victory in December 1917, Parliament passed the Military Service Act and imposed conscription. By the Armistice of 11 November 1918, 99,651 conscripts were on strength of the CEF – 47,500 of whom were overseas, with 24,132 on strength of units in France. J.L. Granatstein, “Conscription in the Great War,” in Canada and the First World War: Essays in Honour of Robert Craig Brown, 67-70. 1267 Brigadier-General W.J. Neill to Adjutant General, H.Q. O.M.F.of C., 18 March 1918. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3374 Folder E-33-45. 1268 French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War, 1914-1919, 3. 351

officially received precedence over the CAVC in personnel selection, meaning “they take all the men that are available,” leaving only those that “were in a poor state of efficiency.”1269

Indeed, some of these “low category” men utterly failed to serve as adequate replacements for those Class “A” men siphoned for service at the front. Captain A.E. Frape, the Assistant

Director of Remounts, wrote to the Adjutant-General, OMFC on 11 January 1918 that, not only

“the numbers received are inadequate to meet requirements,” but “in many instances men handed over…have, on being re-medically examined, been declared by the [Medical Officer] as unfit for duty Overseas.”1270 In other cases, drafts of these Category “B” men reduced considerably after medical re-examination deemed them fit as Category “A” men, and then promptly received reassignment to front line combatant arms. For example, out of a draft of 25 ORs preparing to embark for France in January 1918, six men were re-designated Category “A,” eleven were

“declared unfit for overseas,” and three others returned to the general reinforcement depot as unfit.

Only five of the original 25 remained to reinforce the CAVC in the BEF.1271 These personnel reassignments meant that vigorous enlisted men were seldom, if ever, available to the CAVC for the duration of the Great War. Previous chapters of this study exhibited the immense physical strain involved in work both on the front lines and in veterinary hospitals. The tasks of inspecting, grooming, feeding, dressing, evacuating, and burying animals fell only to a handful of enlisted personnel, who for the rest of the war would be less physically fit and available in fewer numbers.

The Somme and Arras thus demonstrated the urgent need for expanded veterinary services at the front, both in administrative positions and field units. Critical shortages of trained personnel,

1269 Lieutenant-Colonel F. Walsh to D.V.S. & R, 21 November 1917. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3374 Folder E-33-45. 1270 Captain A.E. Frape to Adjutant-General, O.M.F. of C., 11 January 1918. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3374 Folder E- 33-45. 1271 Brigadier-General W.J. Neill to Quartermaster-General, 7 January 1918. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3374 Folder E- 33-45. 352

officers and men alike, however, frustrated these pressing revisions. Still, the CEF, with its insulated recruitment of VOs, would at least be able to retain a full complement of VOs for the rest of the war, even if some of them were not ideal candidates. In losing so many vigorous, trained enlisted personnel to combatant branches, however, the CAVC would have to perform its critical tasks without the requisite manpower to adequately staff Mobile Veterinary Sections, Veterinary

Hospitals, or a Corps Detachment. The summer and autumn of 1917 would ultimately witness several difficulties directly stemming from these quantitative and qualitative personnel issues.

The Western Front, June to October 1917

From May 1917 onwards, draught animals of the Canadian Corps continued to rest and gather their strength after the ordeals on the Somme and Vimy Ridge. Lieutenant-Colonel Tamblyn observed on 1 June that animals throughout the 3rd Division “found to be in good condition benefitting greatly from the continued fine weather.”1272 Indeed, with a period of comparative inactivity, VOs endeavoured to improve animal management skills amongst other branches of the

Canadian Corps through lectures and practical demonstrations – key lessons of the previous winter.

Captain J.G. Harvey, VO to the 2nd DAC, recalled holding “classes on equitation and lectures on animal management” to officers and enlisted personnel alike.1273 Similarly, Tamblyn recorded holding lectures in late September on “Management of horses in the open and Stable management,” and on “Veterinary Preventative Medicine.” Such lectures covered “erection of standings,” “over-head hay net line,” “feeding,” “watering,” “shoeing,” “grooming,” clipping,”

1272 WD, DADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 1 June 1917. 1273 Harvey, “Short Veterinary History of the 2nd Canadian Divisional Ammunition Column,” 9. 353

“evacuations,” sanitation of horse lines,” and a variety of other subjects.1274 It is unclear how effective these lessons were, since proper grooming remained a major issue of complaint among

VOs in the following winter. Nevertheless, they represent sincere efforts among VOs to decrease animal wastage through preventable causes and human error as far as possible.

Throughout the summer, too, VOs began to inspect for, and evacuate, animals that were too old to withstand the continued strain of service on the front lines. Debility cases continued to manifest in all four divisions despite good weather, grazing opportunities, and lighter workload.1275

Some of the older horses in the Canadian Corps evidently never recovered from the “severe campaign of the previous winter” and could not keep up with the pace of work.1276 Cutcliffe, for example, inspected the 1st CIB on 1 July and found “a number of very old horses” that were “thin

[and] unfit for further service.”1277 Throughout the summer these older horses – some of which were supplied as remounts – continued to wear down in condition and required removal to hospital when they were unable to keep up with even reduced workloads.1278 However, as Cutcliffe observed on 23 August, “all except old animals are in good condition.”1279 Indeed, by 2 September,

Edgett observed in the 4th Division, the animals were “in splendid shape for the winter,” with “the older animals having been got rid of through evacuation.”1280

1274 WD, DADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 30 September 1917. 1275 In the month of June, for example, when the Canadian Corps was not engaged in any offensive operations, the 4th Division suffered 39 debility admissions, and the 1st Division lost 55. A.2000 Form 4th Canadian Division – Week Ending 7 June to 28 June 1917, and A.2000 Form 1st Canadian Division – Week Ending to 7 June to 28 June 1917. 1276 WD, DADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 27 August 1917. 1277 WD, DADVS 1st Canadian Division, 5 July 1917. 1278 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 29 August and 31 August 1917. 1279 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 23 August 1917. 1280 Lieutenant-Colonel C.E. Edgett to 4th Division “Q,” 2 September 1917. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5043 Reel T- 10934. 354

The working capabilities of these animals were once again put to the test in August 1917.

The Fifth Army undertook a major offensive at Ypres on 31 July 1917 as part of Field Marshal Sir

Douglas Haig’s ostensible effort to break out of the Ypres Salient and clear Belgian ports on the

English Channel serving as bases for German U-Boats.1281 This “Third Battle of Ypres” began to founder, however, and the Canadian Corps received the task of drawing German forces away from the Salient through a limited attack at Lens. Currie later modified the plan to capture the nearby

Hill 70, the dominating geographic feature.1282 Currie’s battle plan hinged on artillery fire shredding German counterattacks against Canadian infantry dug-in on Hill 70.1283 The Canadian

Corps thus received several additional British field artillery batteries, two additional artillery brigades, and the 46th Divisional Artillery – bringing its animal strength temporarily to 29,635 horses and mules.1284 G.W.L. Nicholson notes there was “no shortage of ammunition” for the battle, with 422,000 rounds of all gun calibres allocated to the Canadian Corps.1285 Horses and mules of the artillery and logistics units thus worked heavily to feed the preparatory bombardments, and keep the guns supplied with ammunition to support Canadian infantry as they fought viciously on Hill 70 and in the suburbs of Lens from 15 to 25 August.1286

Animal casualties during the Battle of Hill 70 were not particularly heavy, however.

Gunshot and shrapnel wounds exacted a toll on animals hauling supplies forward of the 1st, 2nd, and 4th Divisions (with the 3rd held in reserve), but wounds did not prove to be a significant cause

1281 For discussions on the confusion in BEF high command over the immediate objectives of the Third Battle of Ypres, see Travers, How the War Was Won, 12-15, and Travers, The Killing Ground, Chapter 8. 1282 Cook, Shock Troops, 255-265, and Walthert, “Neglected Victory: The Canadian Corps at Hill 70,” 23. 1283 G.W.L. Nicholson, quoting future First Canadian Army GOC Andrew McNaughton, considered the plan for Hill 70 called for a “killing by artillery.” Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 287. 1284 Nicholson, The Gunners of Canada, 294, and WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 17 August 1917. 1285 Nicholson, The Gunners of Canada, 296. 1286 See Cook, Shock Troops, Chapters 17-19. 355

of wastage during the battle. During the month of August, for example, these divisions collectively suffered 162 casualties through gunshot and shell wounds, including 60 dead or destroyed.1287

Effective British and Canadian counter-battery fire suppressed German artillery during the attack, with subsequent barrages largely targeting infantry rather than lines of communication.1288

Although not nearly as numerous as gunshot or shell wounds, poison gas also harassed animals hauling supplies forward. Hill 70 marked the broadest exposure of poison gas Canadian animals yet faced in the conflict.1289 Phosgene – first introduced by the German Army in December

1915 – produced the most marked reaction among animals.1290 It irritated the animals’ respiratory tract to such an extent that profuse discharge of fluid effectively made the animals drown in their own lungs.1291 Increased physical exertion critically exacerbated these cases, with the most effective treatment simply being “absolute rest,” with and ample forage to allow the animals’ lungs to recover.1292 Mustard gas, a blistering agent among humans, made horses “listless and dull,” with signs of “depression varying in degree” accompanying mucous discharge and salivation, but the above treatment methods cured the overwhelming majority of affected animals.1293 Chemically treated anti-gas horse respirators were carried to offer some defence against respiratory gases, and artillery and logistics units carried these respirators “at Alert position” in case of attack.1294

1287 A. 2000 Form 1st Canadian Division – Week Ending 2-30 August 1917, A. 2000 Form 2nd Canadian Division – Week Ending 2-30 August 1917, A. 2000 Form 4th Canadian Division – Week Ending 2-30 August 1917. 1288 Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 288-297. 1289 See Chapter Five for a discussion on chlorine gas at Ypres. 1290 For a discussion on the characteristics and first deployment of phosgene, see Cook, No Place to Run, 57-61. 1291 “Report on Test of Anti-Gas Respirators for Horses Carried Out at Headquarters, IGC, on August 1st 1916.” NA WO 95/67. 1292 WD, DVS, 20 June 1917. 1293 WD, DVS, 8 August 1917. 1294 The “Alert” position meant the respirator, a chemically treated canvas bag, was tightly folded up attached to the horses’ bridle, where personnel could quickly access it to affix it over the animals’ mouth during a gas attack. By November 1917, Cutcliffe considered 1,500 masks per division and 1,500 for Canadian Corps Troops “was sufficient.” See Brigadier-General J. Moore, “Directions for the Use of Anti-Gas Horse Respirator,” 1 June 1917. 356

Generally speaking, however, gas at this stage was an ineffective weapon against animals.

In the majority of cases, it only caused temporary incapacitation rather than long-term health damage. The Battle of Messines in June 1917, for example, witnessed some of the highest incidences of animal casualties from phosgene gas attack, but few animals perished. Moore observed on 13 June that logistics units in the Second Army were “subjected to very heavy shelling by Gas shells” that afflicted 212 animals, five of which died and one was destroyed. Indeed, by the end of the battle, “the majority” of 342 gas cases “have already recovered.”1295 Ultimately, between 1 May 1917 and 11 November 1918, 1,868 animals in the BEF would be “wounded” by gas, with 178 dead.1296

The most effective tactic to minimize animal gas casualties was for teamsters to simply push their animals through the barrage and escape the “gas zone” immediately. Stopping teams in the midst of a barrage to don animal respirators simply prolonged exposure, with terrified animals often refusing to allow the masks to be secured while shells burst around them. Moore observed that “one team stopped to put respirators on for men and horses with the result that most of the team was killed by fragment of shell, and the men gassed.” On the other hand, “another team galloped out of the shell areas and escaped any ill results.”1297 Indeed, he commented, “the better procedure appears to have been to gallop out of the zone as quickly as possible.”1298

LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3364 Folder C-2-45. Lieutenant-Colonel D. Tamblyn to A.D.V.S. Canadian Corps, 27 October 1917. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5042 Reel T-10934, and WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 9 November 1917. 1295 WD, DVS, 13-15 June 1917. 1296 History of the Organization and Development of the Army Veterinary Service with the British Expeditionary Force, France, 18. 1297 Brigadier-General J. Moore, “Gas Poisoning During the Operations of Wytschaete-Messines. June 1st to 7th, 1917,” July 1917. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3364 Folder C-2-45. 1298 WD, DVS, 9 July 1917. 357

Canadian personnel similarly discovered this tactic at Hill 70. Tim Cook notes that German artillerymen inundated the battlefield with mustard gas and diphosgene on Canadian infantry and artillerymen alike.1299 Cutcliffe recorded on 1 September that there were three cases of gas poisoning in the 1st Division and six in the 2nd Division; all but one quickly recovered. Indeed, in this case, escape from the gas was more from accident that by design. Cutcliffe claimed “no gas respirators were used as the drivers were wounded and the horses got away [from the gas zone] before the gas respirators were able to be put on.” He noted “welling of eyelids,” “dullness,” and

“water blisters” in the animals’ mouths, but treatment of “antiseptic dressings and soft feed” helped them recover.1300 Captain T. Thomson, VO to the attached 230th Brigade RFA, similarly treated six mustard gas cases on 22 August 1917. Five “rapidly improved” with rest and feed, but the sixth

– exposed to the greatest concentration of gas – died following a declining temperature and no appetite. The same shellburst, however, sufficiently poisoned four men nearby that they were evacuated to Hospital.1301 Captain W.E.S. West, VO to the 11th CIB, also observed on 14 August that a mustard gas shell “seriously affected” five men, but “the animals revealed no symptoms beyond a very slight dullness.” “They continued work,” West noticed, “without showing the slightest alteration in health.”1302 Tim Cook’s claim that gas was “an effective killer of transport animals and could thereby render the logistics system inoperable for significant periods” thus does match up with veterinary evidence from the battle.1303 The greatest risk to the logistical network

1299 Cook, No Place To Run, 130. 1300 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 1 September 1917. 1301 Captain T. Thomson, “Report on Horses of ‘C’ Battery, 230th Brigade, R.F.A. Affected with Mustard Gas Poisoning on August 22nd 1917.” LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5042 Teel T-10934. 1302 Captain W.E.S. West to D.A.D.V.S. 4th Canadian Division, 14 August 1917. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5043 Reel T-10934. 1303 Cook, No Place To Run, 133. 358

was in human casualties from gas, and indeed, the best policy was simply for teamsters to don their own masks and drive their teams out of the gas zone as quickly as possible.

Animals were not completely immune to the effects of mustard gas, however. One of its more insidious effects was polluting water and grazing fields long after the gas shells burst, and regularly caused casualties in the aftermath of a major battle.1304 The DDVS Fifth Army wrote to

Moore on 16 August that three animals came down with gas poisoning as grazing “on ground which had been contaminated by the new ‘Mustard’ gas.”1305 Similarly, Edgett observed that providing animals with water collected from shell holes “should be avoided” because contamination from gases “seriously affect digestion.”1306

Despite these regular barrages of shrapnel, high explosive, and gas shells, the largest single cause of animal incapacitation at Hill 70 was debility, with 186 animals evacuated throughout

August.1307 Lessons learned at Vimy Ridge, however, ensured that these losses were kept as minimal as possible. Ensuring sufficient forage, less intense pace of work, and timely evacuation of debilitated animals combined with hot weather and dry roads to minimize losses through debility. ADVS Cutcliffe’s inspection of the 1st CIB on 20 August 1917 – in the midst of the battle

– is particularly revealing into the increased efficiency of animal transport:

Horses are doing regular work with normal issue of forage and are in very good condition. A number of debilitated animals noted in last inspection have been sent to Hospital and remount arrived in place. All animals show evidence of good care and grooming. The Transport Officers are taking more interest in welfare of horses and a systematic routine of work has been organized through the Brigade.1308

1304 Cook, No Place To Run, 120. 1305 WD, DVS, 16 August 1917. 1306 Lieutenant-Colonel C.E. Edgett to Transport Officers & Transport Sergeants, 28 October 1917. LAC RG 9 III- D-3 Vol. 5043 Reel T-10934. 1307 A. 2000 Form 1st Canadian Division – Week Ending 2-30 August 1917, A. 2000 Form 2nd Canadian Division – Week Ending 2-30 August 1917, A. 2000 Form 4th Canadian Division – Week Ending 2-30 August 1917. 1308 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 20 August 1917. 359

Indeed, he again noted on 23 August that animals throughout the Corps “are working regular with normal amount of forage and all except old animals are in good condition.”1309 With the heavy pace of work, it was virtually impossible to eliminate debility entirely as a cause of animal wastage.

It is nevertheless evident that veterinary, logistics, and artillery personnel learned their lessons of

Vimy Ridge and minimized debility as far as they could by working animals more responsibly and paying closer attention to their welfare.

Before, during, and after the Battle of Hill 70, mange once again assailed the Canadian

Corps. During the battle itself, 160 suspect and confirmed cases emerged in the 1st, 2nd, and 4th

Divisions – more numerous than battle wounds, and almost as many as debility.1310 Although veterinary personnel managed to get mange under control in the Canadian Corps with the winter clipping and dipping regimen, it never truly disappeared. In June, for example, VOs identified 40 suspected mange cases in the 3rd Division, and 18 in the 1st Division.1311 A.2000 Forms from all four Canadian divisions similarly yield a weekly presence of mange from June to September.1312

Indeed, by 5 August, the DADVS 2nd Canadian Division, Major T.C. Evans, remarked mange

“appears more widely than last year or the year before,” with “a few cases appearing in every formation.”1313 VOs regularly blamed these recurrent outbreaks on infected remounts. Evans observed on 20 July that “number of remounts received…have distinct evidence of being affected

1309 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 23 August 1917. 1310 A. 2000 Form 1st Canadian Division – Week Ending 2-30 August 1917, A. 2000 Form 2nd Canadian Division – Week Ending 2-30 August 1917, A. 2000 Form 4th Canadian Division – Week Ending 2-30 August 1917. 1311 A.2000 Form 3rd Canadian Division – Week Ending 7 June to 28 June 1917 and A.2000 Form 1st Canadian Division – Week Ending 7 June to 28 June 1917. 1312 For example, the 2nd Division had no mange cases for the first part of June, but by 14 June it had one case, the next week nine cases, and the following week (5 July) there were 21 animals afflicted with the disease in the division. The following week there was only one case, but two weeks after that there were 20. These greatly varying tallies help illustrate how the incubation phase for the infection rendered it nearly impossible for VOs to identify all animals afflicted with mange before it reappeared a week or two later. See A.2000 Form 2nd Canadian Division, Week Ending 7 June to 26 July 1917. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3385 Folder R-55-45. 1313 WD, DADVS 2nd Canadian Division, 5 August 1917. 360

with mange.”1314 Edgett similarly remarked on 2 September that “it is difficult enough to keep this disease in hand without having it introduced from Remounts.”1315

Figure 8.1: Calcium Sulphide Scrub, No. 2 Canadian MVS, August 19171316

Mange indeed remained problematic throughout the BEF. Although subsiding from its peak of 3.8% infection rate in March, it still affected 3.5% of all animals in the BEF from April to

July.1317 By 1 July 1917, 14,000 animals remained under treatment in veterinary hospitals for skin disease alone. DVS Moore wrote that “this serious state of affairs cannot go on,” with “very

1314 WD, DADVS 2nd Canadian Division, 20 July 1917. 1315 Edgett to 4th Division “Q,” 2 September 1917. 1316 Canada. Department of National Defence/Libraries and Archives Canada. “A mule with skin disease being treated at a Canadian Mobile Veterinary Section in France. August, 1917.” LAC Online Reproduction from: http://collectionscanada.gc.ca/pam_archives/index.php?fuseaction=genitem.displayItem&lang=eng&rec_nbr=33975 72 (Accessed 13 June 2016). 1317 “Veterinary Service B.E.F. Mange Chart (Horses and Mules Combined).” 361

stringent action” necessary to minimize the volume of animal incapacitated by mange. Betraying his frustration, Moore recommended “disciplinary action in instance to neglect or failure to notify”

VOs of the disease, or alternately, “stoppage of leave of Officers and N.C.Os A.V.C. when disease exists in their Units.” He further ordered “systematic inspection of all Units by A.D.V.S. Corps,” as well as “systematic inspection weekly by D.A.D.V.S. Division.” He also order dipping baths for each Corps district to again provide principal treatment in forward areas.1318

Administrative VOs at corps and divisional headquarters, however, disagreed with

Moore’s tack. A conference of ADsVS First Army chaired by its DDVS, Colonel Martin, on 17

July raised “unanimous opinion” on Moore’s directives. These officers – including Egdett – protested “it is inadvisable to attempt cases of treatment at the front.” Martin noted “the most promising way of reducing” mange was detection early in the stages of infection, and “immediate evacuation of any [animal] shewing the slightest symptoms.” Furthermore, Martin observed, “half the Mange at the Front was introduced by Remounts,” namely recurrent cases from veterinary hospitals. These officers, too, felt it was “impossible to carry out a thorough inspection of all Units weekly,” for it took roughly two weeks for a DADVS to inspect all of the animals under his charge.

Indeed, “one thorough inspection,” Martin wrote, “was far more likely to yield good results than a number of hurried ones.” As for Moore’s insistence on coercive discipline, Martin wrote “it was not understood against whom disciplinary action should be taken,” with cancelled leave only acceptable “when there has been neglect or failure to report cases” among veterinary personnel.1319

1318 Moore also insisted on Mange Charts being kept by VOs in the field, an aggregate copy of which is filed at Library and Archives Canada and grants valuable insight into how incidences of the disease changed over time throughout the BEF. See Brigadier-General J. Moore Circular, 1 July 1917. LAC RG 9 III-C-1 Vol. 4579 Folder 2 File 1. 1319 Colonel E.E. Martin, “Proceedings of Conference of A.D’s V.S. First Army,” 20 July 1917. LAC RG 9 III-C-1 Vol. 4579 Folder 2 File 1. 362

To buttress his increasingly pointed directives, DVS Moore also ordered experiments with other treatment methods. The calcium sulphide method introduced by Canadian veterinarians in

1915 was cheap and reliable, but the persistent outbreaks of mange created an unending, urgent need for other solutions to this most pressing problem. One alternative treatment method was

“Cooper’s Improved Cattle Dip,” which involved concentrations of arsenic and was “entirely satisfactory” in killing mange parasites. Enormous difficulties imposed by disposing of massive quantities of the highly toxic solution, however, prevented its widespread adoption in the BEF.1320

In yet another example of intellectual exchange with French Veterinary Services, Moore visited a French Army convalescent horse depot at Contre on 1 July “to witness experiments…in the treatment of Mange by Sulphurous Acid Gas.” This method called for the animal to stand in a sealed chamber filled with 3% concentration of sulphur dioxide (SO2). An oiled cloth collar fixed around the animal’s upper neck with its head sticking out of the chamber allowed it to breathe.

French veterinarians claimed a 100% cure rate among animals exposed to the gas for two hours, a claim Moore thought “too good to be true,” but nevertheless ordered experimental trials.1321 Rising difficulties securing sulphur from the United Kingdom made this method was especially appealing.

On 18 August, Moore noted that sulphur supplies in England were “extremely limited,” and he contemplated replacing the reliable calcium sulphide with experimental SO2 due to material shortages.1322 The gas, however, did not prove an adequate substitute. In one experiment, parasites survived on an animal “after 4 exposures,” and in another, there was difficulty in producing a

1320 WD, DVS, 30 September 1917. 1321 WD, DVS, 1 July 1917, and Vétérinaire aide-major L. Lépinay, “Le gaz sulfureux,” 7. LAC RG 9 III-C-1 Vol. 4579 Folder 2 File 1. 1322 WD, DVS, 18 August 1917. 363

“sufficiently high percentage of gas in a short time.”1323 By 13 October sulphur supplies returned to adequate levels and the question of alternative treatment fell by the wayside.1324

Indeed, the increasingly ubiquitous dipping tanks once again proved the principal means of combatting the disease. Despite Martin’s earlier objections, veterinary personnel in the field again shouldered the burden of fighting mange in the Canadian Corps. By late August, engineers completed building two dipping tanks that Cutcliffe argued “will no doubt help greatly to eradicate mange in the Canadian Corps.”1325 VOs remained constantly on the watch for means to improve the efficacy of these dipping baths, too. For example, Evans – one of the earliest advocates for calcium sulphide – proposed adding a foot basin to wash mud off horses’ legs before they entered the bath, thereby making regular cleaning easier. Similarly, he proposed adding a “cement dipping stand” for the animals to dry off on, allowing excess solution to drip back into the bath and minimize wastefulness.1326 However, difficulties in securing boilers to heat the solution meant that the dips were not operational until late September. Within a week, 1,500 animals in the 1st

Divisional Artillery received treatment for mange.1327 The short-lived Corps Veterinary

Detachment, too, dipped 2,500 clipped animals.1328 Indeed, calcium sulphide dipping in the forward areas was again instrumental in scaling back mange in the Canadian Corps. With only nine cases over two months, Tamblyn wrote “mange nil” on 27 October.1329

1323 WD, DVS, 20 August and 7 October 1917. 1324 WD, DVS, 13 October 1917. 1325 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 28 August 1917. 1326 WD, DADVS 2nd Canadian Division, 15 August 1917. 1327 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 30 September 1917. 1328 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 10 October 1917. 1329 A.2000 Form 3rd Canadian Division – Week Ending 6 September to 6 November 1917, and Lieutenant-Colonel D. Tamblyn to A.D.V.S. Canadian Corps, 27 October 1917. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5042 Reel T-10934. 364

Central to stifling yet another mange outbreak was clipping. In the summer of 1917, VOs remained acutely aware of the catastrophic impact of clipping late in the previous winter. “In view of our experience last winter,” Moore wrote in late August, “it has been thought necessary to modify somewhat the policy” of clipping to both prevent mange and afford animals protection from winter weather. “It is decided,” he continued “every effort must be made to complete clipping before November 30th.” Moore ruled that mules were not to be clipped “unless for Veterinary reasons,” for those hardy animals remained remarkably resistant to mange infections.1330 Indeed, a conference of DADsVS in the Canadian Corps on 15 September concluded “it was best to have all clipping completed by November 1st.”1331 Clipping was fully underway by the end of the month.

One of the most prominent advocates for early, completed clipping was Lieutenant-Colonel

Tamblyn. He reflected, “clipping so late did not improve conditions” at Vimy Ridge, and

“difference of opinion of those responsible” was responsible for the heavy animal wastage. In

August, he proposed forming three centralized clipping depots for the 3rd Division. They consolidated clipping machines and were staffed by experienced personnel. Indeed, he claimed, with “men known to be experienced in clipping” working under supervision of a Veterinary

Sergeant, “more work may be accomplished and in less time and the clipping will be more thorough.”1332 Tamblyn employed this system to great effect in the 3rd Division, which Egdett also utilized in the 4th Division. 1333 VOs commanded three clipping stations manned by veterinary

1330 Moore claimed that mules were “much hardier and more able to stand the hardships of campaigning.” He further noted the mule “is 4 times less prone to Mange and skin disease than the horse, and less subject to Debility.” WD, DVS,18 June and 29 August 1917. 1331 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 15 September 1917. 1332 Tamblyn, Undated Circular to 3rd Division, August 1917, and Lieutenant-Colonel D. Tamblyn to 3rd Canadian Division “Q,” 12 August 1917. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5042 Reel T-10934. 1333 WD, DADVS 4th Canadian Division and Captain W.A. Robertson to 4th Canadian Division “Q,” 1 October 1917. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5043 Reel T-10934. 365

personnel that could clip 30 animals per day. Each station handled a different group of units; the first clipped artillery horses, the second clipped the divisional train, engineers, and field ambulances, and the third clipped infantry brigades and machine-gun companies.1334

On the first day of clipping, 26 September, Tamblyn remarked, “very satisfactory progress has been made” and observed, “this system of arranging the clipping of animals appear to be a great improvement of that of the previous winter.”1335 He noted these centralized stations avoided delays, afforded close supervision, allowed VOs to inspect each animal thoroughly for any signs of mange, and personnel to better maintain the clipping machines.1336 By 18 October, Tamblyn claimed, “with the exception of the Artilley,” “clipping operations within the Division are now completed.”1337 Captain W.A. Robertson, Acting DADVS 4th Division with Edgett on leave, similarly remarked “very good work is being done,” with no incidences of mange yet reported.1338

Indeed, Robertson observed on 1 October, “at this rate horses should all be clipped before very cold weather sets in.”1339 Further important preparation involved construction of proper standings to shield animals from inclement weather. Due to their prolonged stay around Vimy in the summer and early autumn, Canadian personnel built “exceptionally good” horse standings. Robertson observed “both horses and transport men should be very comfortable for the coming winter.”1340

However, this was not to be the case. The abrupt redeployment of the Canadian Corps from their positions in the Vimy sector to the Ypres Salient interrupted this good work. Consequently,

1334 Lieutenant-Colonel D. Tamblyn to 3rd Canadian Division “Q,” 22 September 1917. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5042 Reel T-10934. 1335 WD, DADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 26 September 1917. 1336 WD, DADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 30 September 1917. 1337 WD, DADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 18 October 1917. 1338 Robertson to 4th Canadian Division “Q,” 1 October 1917. 1339 WD, DADVS 4th Canadian Division, 1 October 1917. 1340 Robertson to 4th Canadian Division “Q,” 1 October 1917. 366

and mindful of the previous year, DADsVS in the Canadian Corps unanimously agreed “it was unwise to do any more clipping…at this time of the year while animals are living in the open and exposed to wind and rain.” Indeed, Edgett noted, “the preservation of vitality is the big thing now

[1 November] and this can only be done by keeping the animals warm.”1341

Nevertheless, animals of the Canadian Corps about to enter battle in the Ypres Salient were in prime condition. Departing for Ypres on 21 October 1917, Evans wrote “horses of [the 2nd

Canadian] Division are all in good condition…as far as animals go we are 100% efficient.”1342

Robertson similarly claimed animals of the 4th Division were “on the whole…very good” in early

October.1343 Tamblyn, too, noted animals of the 3rd Division were “generally physically good” on

27 October.1344 The months of recuperation, care, and clipping following Vimy Ridge paid dividends in the autumn of 1917. The animals were fresh, healthy, and largely free of infectious disease – a testament to the crucial lessons learned by veterinary, artillery, and logistics personnel.

The Battle of Passchendaele, October-November 1917

In early October, Field Marshal Haig decided to employ the Canadian Corps to capture the village and ridge of Passchendaele – revised final objectives of the Third Battle of Ypres.1345 By summer 1917, the countryside of the Ypres Salient was obliterated by shell holes from the previous years of fighting. Commencement of the Third Battle of Ypres on 31 July 1917 further blasted the ruined landscape. Throughout the offensive, German forces poured heavy fire on lines of

1341 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 27 October 1917, and Edgett to 4th Division “Q,” 1 November 1917. 1342 WD, DADVS 2nd Canadian Division, 21 October 1917. 1343 Robertson to 4th Canadian Division “Q,” 1 October 1917. 1344 Tamblyn to A.D.V.S. Canadian Corps, 27 October 1917. 1345 G.W.L. Nicholson notes that the first month of fighting alone, 31 July to 31 August, cost the BEF 68,000 killed and wounded. Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 308-312. 367

communication and transport lanes feeding the pace of battle with a mixture of artillery and aeroplanes. Moore wrote on 9 August, ten days into the offensive, that the Fifth Army sustained

“very heavy casualties from shell fire,” with “a large number...from aerial bombs.”1346 Indeed, during the operations around Ypres from 1 May to 27 October 1917, the BEF suffered 10,590 animals killed and 22,258 wounded by gunshot wounds, shells, and airplane bombs.1347

When the Canadian Corps entered the line attached to the Second Army, they were confronted with this shell-blasted landscape with lines of communication under close observation and persistent bombardments. Lieutenant H.L. Sheppard, then serving in the 3rd DAC, remembered the countryside around Ypres as “an awful, awful hole…you were just in a sea of mud.” He further recalled “you couldn’t find a road to save your soul… there were drowned men and drowned horses in pretty near every shell hole.”1348

Once again, horses and mules played a critical role in the battle by hauling shells, supplies, and guns forward into the battle zone. Once again, too, extensive artillery barrages remained critical to infantry battalions capturing, and holding, these positions – the “bite and hold” doctrine.

Successive attacks on 26 October, 30 October, and 6 November steadily advanced the Corps forward to capture the pulverized village and Passchendaele Ridge. A further attack on 10

November captured high ground just beyond the village, with historians collectively considering these attacks the Second Battle of Passchendaele.1349 Ian Brown notes that between 17 October

1346 WD, DVS, 9 August 1917. Moore claimed after the war that “From records of casualties the zenith of German aerial power would appear to have been reached in August and September 1917 when bomb casualties in animals amounted to about 400 per week.” Moore, Army Veterinary Service in War, 67. 1347 This total includes casualties from both the Battle of Messines and the Third Battle of Ypres. History of the Organization and Development of the Army Veterinary Service with the British Expeditionary Force, France, 18. 1348 Interview with Lieutenant H.L. Sheppard, LAC RG 41 B-III-1 Vol. 21, “3rd Division Artillery,” Oral Histories of the First World War: Veterans 1914-1918. 1349 Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 318- 368

and 16 November 1917, Canadian artillery fired 1,453,056 shells of all calibres – 40,908 tons of ammunition – in support of these “bite and hold” attacks.1350

Hauling these shells and supplies forward was an unceasing, exhausting, dangerous task for human and animal alike. Private Johnston, the driver in the 14th Machine Gun Company, recounted the dangers horses, mules, and logistics personnel routinely endured at Passchendaele:

The continuous exposure to all kinds of fire at Passchendaele was really nerve wracking, and each time a German plane came over or they put up an observation balloon we would look for shelling, as we were all like sitting ducks. The roads, as they were, had to be followed on account of the mud and, of course, the Germans well knew this and this was when the heavy shelling was done. Mule and pack horses could not be used at night…because if one got off the beaten track and slipped too much it was goodbye.1351

Indeed, Tamblyn observed that animal teams straying past the centre of the “facine” roads built for heavy traffic frequently slipped into the viscous mud.1352 “Once an animal steps off the facines to the side,” Tamblyn wrote, “he becomes mired and is in a great many cases eventually destroyed.” Without careful attention to detail bringing animals forward at Passchendaele, the animals, their saddlery, and their ammunition could be swallowed up by the watery mud.1353 Just as on the Somme and at Vimy, the animals and their human caretakers were filthy, with little opportunity for either to keep clean on the swampy battlefield.

In the midst of these conditions, personnel in charge of animals looked to their equine charges for emotional support. Johnston, dazed by a bursting shell, remembered “it cheered me up

1350 Brown, “Not Glamorous, But Effective,” 428. 1351 Johnston, Riding Into War, 58-59. 1352 Tamblyn noted that these “facines,” essentially bundles of sticks tied together, made poor roads for horses and mules. He observed that animals would snag their legs on the sharp ends of the broken sticks, with gangrene and necrotic dermatitis developing in these open sores while the animals stood picketed for long periods of time in the mud polluted by decaying corpses and poison gas. Lieutenant-Colonel D. Tamblyn to A.D.V.S. Canadian Corps, 21 November 1917. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5042 Reel T-10934. 1353 Tamblyn to A.D.V.S. Canadian Corps, 21 November 1917. 369

considerably when I saw my horse was OK.”1354 Indeed, Johnston claimed his horse “took care of me” during his time in the trenches through a sense of security and attachment in the midst of such horrific surroundings.1355 Animal companionship indeed offered soldiers a temporary respite – however brief – from the misery and mud through mutual bonding.1356 Anthropomorphic perceptions of their stoic devotion to duty resonated strongly with personnel serving alongside animals at Passchendaele. In the words of Captain Theodore Girling, VO to the 9th CIB, the “dumb heroes of Britain” are “true and they’re brave to / the very grave.”1357 On 29 October, Tamblyn also observed a remarkable incident that was later recounted throughout the Canadian Corps:

While proceeding down the Ypres-Vlamertinghe road I witnessed a splendid incident of ‘Horse Sagacity.’ A bomb was dropped from an aeroplane on this road in front of an Officers’ Mess Cart of the 9th Bde C.F.A. drawn by two L.D. Horses. The bomb killed the driver and wounded both animals, one fatally, the animals proceeded down the road…and turned into the 9th Bde C.F.A. H.Q. Waggon Lines some 800 yards distant. The point I wish to emphasize is the remarkable judgment of these dumb animals in returning to their lines, one being pitifully wounded and necessitated being destroyed, the driver being dead in the cart. This I think is a remarkable incident of ‘animal’ intelligence.1358

Private Johnston indeed recalled a similar incident, possibly the same animal, that “came as far as the dressing station opposite our horse lines and stood there until he had to be shot.” Reflecting

Tamblyn’s sense of wonder, Johnston believed “that mule knew in some way…it would get help there.” “Things like this are hard to understand,” he continued, “but I cannot change my mind.”1359

1354 Johnston, Riding Into War, 58. 1355 Johnston, Riding Into War, 55. 1356 For an examination of the psychological benefits of human-animal bonding among military personnel in the Great War, see McEwen, “‘He Took Care of Me: Human-Animal Bonding in Canada’s Great War,” 272-288. 1357 Captain T.A. Girling, “Dumb Heroes,” in The Salient, and Other Poems, (London: Cecil Palmer & Hayward, 1918), 11-13. 1358 WD, DADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 29 October 1917. 1359 Johnston, Riding Into War, 55. 370

Animal combat casualties were indeed heavy at Passchendaele. Long-distance German artillery fire caused the bulk of the losses among animals hauling ammunition and supplies forward on the lines of communication. On 15 November, for example, Lieutenant-Colonel W.G.

Hurdman, OC 3rd DAC, observed “enemy shelled vicinity of horse lines, one shell killing 5 mules…[and] another hit in R.F.A. line across road killing some men [and] animals.”1360

Aeroplane bombs, too, exacted a grim toll, reflecting a broader tactical trend where German aircraft bombed horse picket lines and supply routes to interrupt the logistical network. Major

Evans of the 2nd Division indeed remarked on 4 November that “bombing almost every night accounts for considerable casualties in the animals.”1361 Over the course of operations in the Ypres

Salient from 18 October to 22 November 1917, the four Canadian divisions collectively suffered

1,198 casualties through gunshot wounds, of which 643 died.1362 These were the worst battle casualties experienced by Canadian units thus far in the Great War.1363

In a notable contrast to the Battle of Arras, however, these casualties were replaced almost immediately. There does not appear to have been the same critical shortage of remounts afflicting the BEF with a simultaneous, massive wastage of animals as in April 1917. Consequently,

Canadian units did not have their mobility compromised with deficient strengths. Tamblyn

1360 WD, 3rd Canadian Division Ammunition Column, 15 November 1917. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 4979 Reel T- 10807-10808. 1361 WD, DADVS 2nd Canadian Division, 4 November 1917. 1362 A.2000 Form 1st Canadian Division – Week Ending 18 October to 22 November 1917, A.2000 Form 2nd Canadian Division – Week Ending 18 October to 22 November 1917, A.2000 Form 3rd Canadian Division – Week Ending 18 October to 22 November 1917, A.2000 Form 4th Canadian Division – Week Ending 18 October to 22 November 1917. 1363 Veterinary personnel, normally far to the rear of the fighting, similar endured the constant risk of violent demise from enemy fire at Passchendaele. An errant shell blew a sleeping Veterinary Sergeant Richard Moisan out of his tent one night that also killed or fatally wounded seventeen horses picketed nearby and awaiting evacuation to hospital. Similarly, Captain L.E.L. Taylor suffered a bad concussion when a shell burst beside him on 14 November and was evacuated to England for “shell shock.” Harvey, “Short Veterinary History of the 2nd Canadian Divisional Ammunition Column,” 10-11, and WD, DADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 15 November 1917. 371

reported, for example, that “no unit within the Division or the 3rd Canadian Division artillery left the Second Army area with a less number of animals than they brought into it.” Indeed, he reported,

“casualties were replaced from time to time almost immediately.”1364 Similarly, Edgett observed that remounts received on 7 November were “an exceptionally fine lot.”1365

Despite the rising combat casualties and nightmarish working conditions, Canadian personnel by and large appear to have kept their animals in fit working shape. The working conditions – hauling heavy loads through mucky, rutted roads, picketed in the open and covered with mud – were reminiscent of the Somme or Vimy. Yet, in contrast to the previous winter, debility was a relatively minor cause of animal wastage at Passchendaele. Throughout the four

Canadian divisions between 18 October and 22 November 1917, only 53 animals required evacuation and treatment for debility.1366 Such a remarkable decline in debility cases, during a campaign with atrocious working conditions, illustrates the far higher standard of animal management, feeding, and clipping practices Canadian personnel learned from the previous year.

Tamblyn noted that “this past month has clearly demonstrated” animals clipped in October

“withstood the hard work…far better than those which were not clipped,” furthermore leaving them in better condition “for the coming severe winter.”1367 Edgett echoed these observations, noting “only a decrease in flesh is more noticeable in unclipped animals.”1368 Cutcliffe observed

1364 Lieutenant-Colonel D. Tamblyn to A.D.V.S. Canadian Corps, 21 November 1917. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5042 Reel T-10934. 1365 WD, DADVS 4th Canadian Division, 7 November 1917. 1366 A.2000 Form 1st Canadian Division – Week Ending 18 October to 22 November 1917, A.2000 Form 2nd Canadian Division – Week Ending 18 October to 22 November 1917, A.2000 Form 3rd Canadian Division – Week Ending 18 October to 22 November 1917, A.2000 Form 4th Canadian Division – Week Ending 18 October to 22 November 1917. 1367 Tamblyn to A.D.V.S. Canadian Corps, 21 November 1917. 1368 Edgett to 4th Division “Q,” 1 November 1917. 372

on 24 November, even after enduring the ordeals of Passchendaele, “the general health of the animals is good and they are in good condition.”1369

Reflecting on the battle, Tamblyn wrote “as whole a marked increase in efficiency has been brought about within the Artillery Wagon lines.” “Credit is due,” he continued, “to the officers and men concerned, especially when one considers the trying conditions under which they have had to work.”1370 Indeed, on 28 October, just as the battle began in earnest, Edgett reminded transport officers and sergeants that “the care and attention of the Driver is told by the condition of the animals.”1371 It is evident that, with animals emerging in such good condition from the mud of Passchendaele, the drivers acquitted themselves well.

However much the Second Battle of Passchendaele illustrated improved standards of animal care, it equally demonstrated deficiencies in the casualty evacuation process. The critical qualitative and quantitative deficiencies in enlisted personnel meant that Mobile Veterinary

Sections were all but overwhelmed triaging, treating, and evacuating casualties off the battlefield.

The case of No. 4 Canadian MVS is particularly revealing into veterinary work during the battle.

Upon reaching its position on 21 October it assumed custody over 81 wounded Australian and

Imperial horses; by 3 November it received another 119, and evacuated 92 to hospital.1372 Captain

R.M. Lee,1373 its OC, recalled “the majority of the animals were suffering from Gunshot [Wounds], and a great difficulty was found to keep these in a healthy state.” Only sixteen men, including Lee,

1369 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 24 November 1917. 1370 WD, DADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 28 November 1917. 1371 Lieutenant-Colonel C.E. Edgett to Transport Officers & Transport Sergeants, 28 October 1917. LAC RG 9 III- D-3 Vol. 5043 Reel T-10934. 1372 WD, No. 4 Canadian Mobile Veterinary Section, 21 October to 3 November 1917. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5044 Reel T-10936. 1373 Ironically Lee, who would command No. 4 Canadian MVS effectively throughout the Great War, was one of the recent OVC graduates whom Neill was loathe to accept in the CAVC, but nevertheless rendered exceptional service for the rest of the conflict. See McEwen, “Only Recent Graduates Available,” 253-254. 373

manned the Section. Four “were kept constantly dressing wounds from morning till night,” who also administered Anti-Tetanus Serum and Polyvalent Vaccines to protect against microbial infections. An Advanced Post of one NCO and one private conveyed ambulance cases from the

MVS to railhead constantly during the battle, covering fourteen miles per day. One night, the entire

Section save its Staff Sergeant and two privates was occupied with other tasks, leaving these three men to feed and water 100 animals. Using limited surgical resources, Lee and his men extracted shell splinters and bandaged casualties, ultimately curing sixteen sufficiently they could be returned to duty.1374 Their case was hardly unique, however, for Tamblyn similarly observed that

No. 3 Canadian MVS evacuated 726 animals during the battle.1375

Lee’s report highlights just how dangerously undermanned these crucial links in the evacuating process were at Passchendaele. Cutcliffe wrote on 25 October “ten additional men would not be too many to be added to each MVS,” along with critically needed motor horse ambulances.1376 However, neither would be forthcoming. “Under existing conditions,” and despite

“doing their very best under the circumstances,” Cutcliffe wrote on 27 October that veterinary personnel “cannot do the work required creditably” without supplemental manpower.1377

Similarly, the horse-drawn ambulances and floats available to the MVS were too heavy to bring patients to the railhead through the watery, muddy roadways.1378 The only practicable solution, to the personnel issue at least, was to pull veterinary personnel who just left the line for a period of rest and attach them to units in the field. Cutcliffe remarked that arriving No. 1 Canadian MVS to

1374 Captain R.M. Lee, “Report on the Work of the 4th C.M.V.S., October 21st 1917 to November 3rd 1917.” LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5044 Reel T-10936. 1375 Tamblyn to A.D.V.S. Canadian Corps, 21 November 1917. 1376 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 25 October 1917. 1377 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 27 October 1917. 1378 Tamblyn to A.D.V.S. Canadian Corps, 27 October 1917. 374

work alongside No. 3 Canadian MVS and reinforced with men borrowed from No. 2 Canadian

MVS “has been of great benefit in clearing sick animals” off the battlefield.1379

The broader system of casualty evacuation enforced in the Second Army was also decidedly inefficient. In October-November, each MVS throughout the Second Army would take turns marching all sick and wounded animals by road to the railhead. What this central collecting practice meant, however, was that MVS in the forward areas retained their own casualties and tried to treat them as best they could. Evans observed that “badly wounded horses should not have to remain at MVS for a longer period than 48 hours,” for “the personnel is much too small to permit of any elaborate surgical work being done.”1380 Indeed, this evacuation scheme exacerbated the understaffed units’ difficulties by having to tend to extra animals without the proper equipment or facilities. Consequently, Cutcliffe observed, “many valuable animals are thus lost through not receiving proper surgical and medical treatment.”1381 Evans was even more direct, stating “it was found necessary to destroy some cases after a period of 3 or 4 days at the MVS.”1382

Colonel Martin, DDVS First Army, expressed his concern and worked with Cutcliffe and

Canadian DADsVS to find a more satisfactory casualty evacuation protocol following the battle.

On 4 December, he recorded meeting with Cutcliffe, who attested to the “congestion of Mobile

Veterinary Sections and [British] Corps Mobile Detachments” during the Third Battle of Ypres.1383

At first Cutcliffe proposed an entirely new section of veterinary personnel drawn from veterinary hospitals and stationed near the railhead to provide “conducting parties with sick animals to

1379 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 29 October-1 November 1917. 1380 WD, DADVS 2nd Canadian Division, 6 November 1917. 1381 WD, ADVS Canadian Corp, 15 November 1917. 1382 WD, DADVS 2nd Canadian Division, 6 November 1917. 1383 WD, DDVS First Army, 4 December 1917. 375

Base.”1384 Similarly, Tamblyn proposed “an Advanced Veterinary Hospital” nearer the railhead to bring “surgical cases under treatment with the least possible delay.”1385 However, these propositions did not happen. Cutcliffe considered that a compromise solution, involving a fully staffed MVS “to act as a Casualty Clearing Station” near the railhead, was “the most successful method” to evacuate animals.1386 Moore similarly conferred with DDsVS on 12 December on formally adding a Casualty Clearing Station to each corps – “an ideal scheme but one which I fear would be impossible at the present time.”1387 Ultimately, it would take another significant military crisis in the spring of 1918 to elicit permanent revisions to casualty evacuation protocol.

The Last Wartime Winter, December 1917 to February 1918

When the Canadian Corps returned to the First Army at Vimy Ridge in late November, it arrived battered and bloodied by the experiences at Passchendaele. Its horses, although relatively healthy and working fit, increasingly showed the signs of neglected grooming over the course of the battle. Cutcliffe observed that animals clipped in early October “had a very heavy, thick coat” that protected them against inclement weather, but also became caked with mud after the month spent picketed in the open at Ypres.1388 Given the hard work, muddy conditions, and heavy human casualties, poor grooming was not terribly surprising. Indeed, “after taking into consideration the long hours and enormous work performed by their animals under very trying conditions,” Tamblyn wrote, “the standard maintained by other units [with decent grooming] cannot be expected of the

1384 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 4 and 17 December 1917. 1385 Tamblyn to A.D.V.S. Canadian Corps, 21 November 1917. 1386 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 4 and 17 December 1917. 1387 WD, DVS, 12 December 1917. 1388 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 29 November 1917. 376

Artillery.”1389 With the onset of winter weather, however, Edgett advised against continuing the widespread clipping regimen, for “animals clipped now will lose condition very rapidly.”1390

Perhaps predictably, mange, the “scourge of winter” again manifested among Canadian animals with these long, thick coats.1391 Moore noted on 3 January that “there is usually a rise in the incidence of the disease at this time of year,” and mange indeed climbed from afflicting 1.0% of BEF animals in October 1917, to 2.2% in early January 1918, and peaking again at 3.1% by mid-February.1392 There was little VOs could do aside from treating these outbreaks and ensuring better grooming. Cutcliffe noted “no reason for the outbreak is known,” for “it is found that Mange has developed in clipped as well as unclipped animals; also animals in open have developed the disease and others in civilian stables have not.”1393 He ultimately blamed “infestation from standings evacuated” by previous units, as well as civilian horses spreading the infection to stables and military animals.1394 Poor grooming, too, was a prime cause for the outbreak continuing into

1918. DADsVS from each division noted a generally poor state of grooming, which units blamed on “shortage of men” but Edgett felt better reflected “lack of supervision by those in charge.”1395

The CAVC thus ended 1917 just as they began it: fighting against mange. The venerable dipping tank method once again served as the main weapon against the menace. The Canadian

Corps, having returned to its sector of the previous fall, enjoyed ready access to the dipping

1389 Tamblyn to A.D.V.S. Canadian Corps, 21 November 1917. 1390 Lieutenant-Colonel C.E. Edgett to 4th Canadian Division “Q,” 1 December 1917. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5043 Reel T-10934. 1391 Lieutenant-Colonel C.E. Edgett to 4th Canadian Division “Q,” 1 January 1918. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5043 Reel T-10934. Moore lent mange this sobriquet after the war. See Moore, Army Veterinary Service in War, 54. 1392 WD, DVS, 3 January 1918, and “Veterinary Service B.E.F. Mange Chart (Horses and Mules Combined).” 1393 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 14-15 December 1917. 1394 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 31 December 1917 and 25 January 1918. 1395 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 1 February 1918, WD, DADVS 1st Canadian Division, 7 February 1918, WD, DADVS 2nd Canadian Division, 3 February 1918, WD, DADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 10 January 1918, and Lieutenant-Colonel C.E. Edgett to 4th Canadian Division “Q,” 2 February 1918. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5043 Reel T-10934. 377

infrastructure it built a few months prior. Cutcliffe wrote on 15 December that “subject to weather conditions it is better to continue dipping,” and ordered Tamblyn to “dip all animals of his Division with slight attack of Mange and all contact animals.”1396 The 3rd Division appears hardest hit by this mange outbreak; rising from three cases on 6 December to 20 cases two weeks later and spiking at 46 suspected cases on 31 January.1397 Tamblyn – recently awarded the Distinguished

Service Order (DSO) – ordered VOs to “make free use of the Dipping Vat at Barlin,” clip suspect or incontact animals, and oversee “thorough disinfection of all contact matter.”1398 Throughout

February, such “liberal use” of the clipping and dipping regimen scaled back mange. By 22

February, Tamblyn observed there were “no Mange cases to get alarmed over” in units heavily infested in the weeks prior.1399

Notwithstanding this latest mange outbreak, the horses and men of the Canadian Corps settled into less intensive routine than the previous winter. With sedentary positions once again in the Vimy sector, Canadian personnel built solid, well-constructed standings for their animals out of whatever materials they could find – planks, bricks, and sand from derelict German pillboxes.1400 In their unending struggle to convince non-veterinary personnel of proper grooming and feeding, too, VO’s resumed their lecture series for units throughout the Canadian Corps.

Edgett, for example, prepared a syllabus and prepared lecture content on animal management for

1396 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 26 December 1917. 1397 A.2000 Form 3rd Canadian Division – Week Ending 6 December, 20 December 1917, and 31 January 1918. 1398 WD, DADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 2-3 January 1918. 1399 WD, DADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 22 February 1918. 1400 Captain W.A. Robertson to 4th Canadian Division “Q,” 28 February 1918. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5043 Reel T- 10934. 378

his VOs to deliver to their respective units in early January.1401 Tamblyn similarly wrote that he delivered lectures himself on proper stable management to artillerymen from 11-13 February.1402

Cutcliffe’s assessment of February 1918 reveals the accomplishments, and quiet triumphs, of the CAVC during the winter:

The animals in Canadian Corps are all in good flesh and healthy. No epidemic has occurred during the month. All animals are in good shelters and condition to withstand the changeable and cold weather that may be expected during next month and if no epidemic occurs should be in better shape than at any previous time during the present war to do hard work. The C.A.V.C. personnel have done their work faithfully over the past month.1403

Indeed, the contrast to the previous February could not have been starker.

“Have Done Their Work Faithfully”

June 1917 to February 1918 was a pivotal period in the history of Canada’s Great War.

During these months, the Canadian Corps fought bloody battles of attrition at Hill 70 and

Passchendaele. The reliable “bite and hold” doctrine of Canadian infantry and artillery saw these objectives captured, but with heavy casualties. Indeed, Bill Rawling, Ian Brown, and Tim Cook illustrate that these tough victories cemented the Canadian Corps’ status as an elite formation within the British Expeditionary Force.

This period also witnessed the CAVC record some of its finest accomplishments on the

Western Front. From June 1917 to February 1918, its personnel defeated two significant outbreaks of mange, oversaw preventative clipping at an appropriate time, and successfully prepared animals to endure another winter in Northern France. The Third Battle of Ypres presented similar threats

1401 WD, DADVS 4th Canadian Division, 1 January 1918. 1402 WD, DADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 11-13 February 1918. 1403 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 28 February 1918 379

to animal health as the Somme or Vimy Ridge: inclement weather, thick mud, and heavy work hauling ammunition and supplies forward. However, due to the dogged efforts of veterinary and non-veterinary personnel alike – informed by the harsh lessons of the previous winter – there were no similar losses through exhaustion, debility, and disease.

By February 1918, the horses and mules of the Canadian Corps remained healthy, fleshy, and prepared to do heavy work. It did not appear that the conflict would conclude in the immediate future – British strategists in the War Cabinet and the Imperial General Staff contemplated possible victory later in 1918, or even 1919.1404 The succeeding months, however, would witness a dramatic departure from the tenor of trench warfare. Massive assaults by the Imperial German Army broke the deadlock of the trenches and marked a return to semi-open warfare for the duration of the conflict. Chapter Nine will investigate the immense challenges veterinary personnel confronted in the battles of 1918 and how they struggled to preserve the animal strength of the Canadian Corps during its bloodiest fighting of the First World War.

1404 Travers, How the War Was Won, 7-9. 380

Chapter Nine – “On The Go All The Time:” The Spring Offensives and Hundred Days, March-November 1918

“A Battery sick line in open warfare represents anything from a case shoe driven into the wall of some old ruin, stumps of trees, derelict wagons, to the sables of some luxurious chateau, no matter, so long as the sick or wounded animals were secured and tended to for the night…For a period of four months our average stay in any one place was fifty hours. To keep the pace set by any advance, caring for a string of wounded horses is no simple task.”1405

-Veterinary Sergeant Chester Barteaux 20th Brigade CFA 1919

“In a war of movement, so as we now have high casualties, under such conditions must be expected, but I hope that those who are responsible for…bringing their animals into places where such heavy losses have been sustained, take these risks with the full knowledge that the supply of horses and mules is not inexhaustible.”1406

-Deputy Director of Veterinary Services British Third Army October 1918

March to November 1918 were the most decisive months of the Great War on the Western

Front. Successive attacks by the Imperial German Army beginning in March indelibly broke the deadlock of trench warfare. However, these “Spring Offensives” failed in their ultimate goal of defeating Franco-British forces before the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) could arrive in sufficient numbers. Allied forces seized the initiative and, beginning in July 1918, launched a series of offensives until the German Empire collapsed in November. Movement – rather than siege warfare – characterized these battles fought over greater distances than the preceding years on the Western Front.

1405 “49369 Sergt. C.C. Barteaux. 20th Battery C.F.A,” 4. LAC MG 30 E 14 Vol. 1. 1406 WD, DVS, 7 October 1918. 381

A lively debate exists among British and Canadian historians over this period, particularly over the so-called “Hundred Days Offensive” of August to November 1918.1407 Canadian historians such as Shane Schreiber and J.L. Granatstein consider the Canadian Corps’ attacks of

August-November its “greatest victory,” firmly demonstrating the Canadians’ reputation as the

“shock army of the British Empire.” Such historians characterize the successes of the Hundred

Days as the culmination of the lessons learned in set-piece attacks, small unit tactics, and a

“combined arms doctrine” over the preceding years of conflict.1408 This latter point continues to engender debate among British Commonwealth historians, particularly over the potential – both realized and unrealized – for newer weapons technologies to have influenced the course of these offensives. Tanks, most notably, continue to elicit scholarly attention for their contentious roles in the “mechanical warfare” counteroffensives of 1918.1409

1407 Despite a wealth of scholarly examination, and a broad agreement on the period’s importance, historians continue to regard this period of the war as a ‘forgotten victory.’ For example, John Terraine remarked in 1978 that the Hundred Days of 1918 was “virtually an unknown story.” Nick Lloyd similarly observed in 2013 that “the campaign of 1918 remains one of the most important, yet least understood, periods of the war,” and J.L. Granatstein remarked in 2014 “scarcely one Canadian in a hundred has heard of” the Hundred Days battles – the most balanced of such sweeping statements. Such arguments often rest on a perceived over-emphasis on the Somme and Ypres, though the enormous volume off academic discourse on the end of the war would suggest this period was far from “unknown.” See Terraine, To Win a War: 1919, The Year of Victory, (London: Papermac, 1986), 13, Nick Lloyd, Hundred Days: The End of the Great War, (London: Viking, 2013), xxx, and J.L. Granatstein, The Greatest Victory: Canada’s One Hundred Days, 1918, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), xi. 1408 See Brown, “Not Glamorous, But Effective,” Shane Schreiber, Shock Army of the British Empire: The Canadian Corps in the Last 100 Days of the Great War, Granatstein, The Greatest Victory, Cook, Shock Troops, Chapters 24- 37, and Rawling, Surviving Trench Warfare, Chapters 7 and 8. Also see Pugsley, The ANZAC Experience, Chapters 8 and 11. 1409 This debate extends back to shortly after the Great War. Key advocates for the tank’s combat effectiveness on the battlefield, such as E.D. Swinton, J.F.C. Fuller, and Basil Liddell Hart, lamented lost opportunities to employ armoured vehicles more broadly on the Western Front. These views, particularly with regard to Sir Douglas Haig’s “premature disclosure” of tanks in 1916, were furthered by Tim Travers. He contended that more liberal use of tanks – “mechanical warfare” – could have saved more lives than the “traditional” infantry/artillery set piece battles that ultimately characterized the Hundred Days. Other historians such as Paddy Griffith, J.P. Harris, John Terraine, and Peter Hart cast doubt on tanks’ decisiveness, however, given their heavy casualties at the Battle of Amiens, and the ultimate success of “traditional” attacks in defeating the Imperial German Army on the Western Front. See J.F.C. Fuller, Tanks in the Great War, 1914-1918, (New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1920), E.D. Swinton, Eyewitness, (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran & Company Inc., 1933), B.H. Liddell Hart, History of the First World War, (London: Pan Books Ltd., 1972), Travers, How the War Was Won, Terraine, To Win a War, Paddy Griffith, Battle Tactics of the Western Front, J.P. Harris, Men, ideas and tanks: British military thought and armoured forces, 1903- 382

Nevertheless, it once again fell to those trusted pre-industrial assets, horses and mules, to maintain the pace of such ostensibly high-technology battles. Throughout both the Spring

Offensives and the Hundred Days, animal transport played a pivotal role hauling artillery pieces, ammunition, supplies, and charging cavalrymen into battle. Indeed, as Veterinary Sergeant G.A.

McDonald recalled, horses and veterinary personnel alike were “on the go all the time” throughout the final months of the war.1410 The long advances and unrelenting work presented difficulties heretofore unexperienced by CAVC veterinary personnel. Nevertheless, they readily adapted to these immense challenges and maintained unit animal strengths in the field as far as possible.

Throughout the pace of these battles, typically characterized as “mechanical,” horses, mules, and veterinarians remained critical to successful advances. Having learned their lessons in animal health and casualty evacuation during previous years of warfare, the CAVC successfully maintained the Canadian Corps’ indispensable animal transport during its most mobile – and bloody – period of the conflict.

Restructuring and Resizing, February-March 1918

March 1918 for the Canadian Corps proved to be yet another routine wintery month on the

Western Front. The incipient mange outbreak of the previous months was well under control, and the animals largely remained healthy. On his routine inspections of 3rd Canadian Division units,

Tamblyn observed, for example, “generally speaking, all animals were in fair physical condition and grooming and shoeing satisfactory.”1411 Edgett similarly noted “the health of the animals is

1939, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995), and Peter Hart, 1918: A Very British Victory, (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2008). 1410 Account of Sergeant G.A. McDonald, 18th Battery C.F.A., 1. LAC MG 30 E 14 Vol. 1. 1411 WD, DADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 10 March 1918. 383

excellent” at the end of March, with “very little cause for complaint” in grooming throughout the

4th Division.1412 As a testament to the keen animal management practiced in some units, particularly the infantry, Cutcliffe noted that horses in one battalion of the 1st CIB “were the original ones that left Canada in 1914 and have been in active service for 3 ½ years.” These animals were “working every day,” “in comfortable surroundings” and were ultimately “in first class condition.”1413 This did not mean the months were totally devoid of loss, however, for throughout

March, 29 animals died and 326 were evacuated to base hospitals.1414

Lowered rations, more than disease or wounds, proved most worrisome factor confronting veterinary personnel during this period, however. The War Office ordered a reduction of rations by two pounds (from twelve to ten) of grain for all horses throughout the BEF. DVS Moore protested this decision, noting such a reduced ration “will increase the number of cases of debility and exhaustion particularly is operations become more active, or if severer weather supervenes.”1415

This reduction of grain rations owed to the ongoing difficulties experienced by the Ministry of Shipping. The Shipping Controller, Lord William Pirrie, repeatedly sought the War Office to reduce both the overall grain ration and the animal establishment of the BEF to alleviate the burden of shipping fodder. Lord George Curzon of the War Cabinet noted, however, “it is not desirable to reduce the proposed average ration…without impairing seriously [the animals’] efficiency and working capacity.” At the same time, he claimed, “the object desired by the Shipping Controller will be materially assisted by the great reductions in horses…both in France and the United

1412 Lieutenant-Colonel C.E. Edgett to 4th Canadian Division “Q,” 31 March 1918. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5043 Reel T-10934. 1413 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 18 March 1918. 1414 “Wastage Statistics Excluding Cavalry. Horses – France – 1918.” LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3363 Folder A-2-45. 1415 WD, DVS, 25 January 1918. 384

Kingdom.” Stoppage of purchasing from America, as discussed in Chapter Four, worked toward this end.1416 Similarly, the 4th and 5th Cavalry Divisions were disbanded, their horses redistributed as remounts, and their units reorganized as machine gun battalions.1417 Thus, by 15 April 1918, the BEF feeding strength fell from 458,000 to 400,000 horses and mules.1418

A further source of diverted British horseflesh was the American Expeditionary Force. The

AEF steadily grew in size throughout 1918, from 667,000 men in May 1918, to two million in

November.1419 Its animal strength similarly peaked at 173,000 horses and mules.1420 Most of these animals came from the French Army, so that the bulk of American shipping could be devoted to soldiers rather than horses. By October 1918, the French delivered 136,800 horses and mules to

US forces.1421 The BEF, too, contributed horses and veterinary expertise to the AEF. Moore noted that six US Army divisions attached to the British First and Second Armies “for instructional purposes,” with roughly 18,000 remounts handed over to these units.1422 He met with senior officers of the US Army Veterinary Corps (US AVC) in February to “explain the organisation of the Army Veterinary Service in France.” Moore also transferred 500 Veterinary Chests to

American units, and noted American VOs would visit British formations “from time to time.”1423

1416 Lord Curzon, “Oats Ration for British Army Horses,” 1 March 1918. NA CAB 24/43. 1417 WD, DVS, 7 February, 5 and 26 March 1918. 1418 War Cabinet Memorandum 391, 15 April 1918, 3. NA CAB 23/6. 1419 Mark Grotelueschen, The AEF Way of War: The American Army and Combat in World War I, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 26. 1420 Louis A. Merillat and Delwin M. Campbell. Veterinary Military History of the United States Volume II, (Kansas City: The Haver-Glover Laboratories, 1935), 627. 1421 Still, the AEF remained woefully under establishment late in the war. General Tasker H. Bliss, American Permanent Representative, Supreme War Council, noted that the AEF was still 130,000 animals under establishment by late October 1918, and consequently, “we have artillery brigades trained, armed and ready to function that are immobilised from lack of horses and we have divisions that are immobile for the same reason.” War Cabinet Memorandum, “Inter-Allied Programme for the Importation of Horses,” 28 October 1918, 5-10. 1422 WD, DVS, 18 March 1918, and Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire During the Great War, 862. 1423 WD, DVS, 5 February, 22 March, and 5 April 1918. 385

Despite these exchanges, the US AVC was not a terribly efficient or effective service in the Great War. Like other branches of the AEF, its AVC retained a dated organization that did not adequately address the challenges of the Western Front.1424 Reminiscent of the British system in

South Africa, the AEF Chief Veterinarian was a subordinate of the Remount Department, with no independent command structure or authority over animal health.1425 The US Army did not learn the long, painful lessons of the Boer War in animal management and preventative veterinary medicine, and the results were telling. Brigadier-General Cyril Wagstaff, Head of the British

Mission to the AEF, remarked the US AVC was “not actually responsible for the prevention of disease, but only seems [to be] called in when casualties occur.” He claimed seeing mange frequently throughout AEF horses, which personnel considered “a thing of little consequence.”1426

Indeed, Graham Winton notes that by August 1918, 70% of animals in the AEF suffered from sickness, as opposed to 7% in the BEF.1427 During its relatively brief tenure on the Western Front, the AEF ultimately lost 23,000 animals. These pitfalls of the US AVC remain instructive into the tremendous value of British and Canadian veterinary reforms from 1902-14. For, without effective veterinary care, sickness and injury critically compromised animal transport capabilities.1428

These months also witnessed key administrative changes in the BEF. Confronted with dwindling manpower reserves after the attritional campaigns of 1917, the War Office was compelled to dilute the overall manpower size of British divisions in France. It disbanded one infantry battalion per brigade and redistributed the extra personnel as reinforcements. Thus, each

1424 See Grotelueschen, The AEF Way of War, Chapter I. 1425 “Regulations for the Veterinary Service of the American Expeditionary Forces,” 1. NA WO 106/482. 1426 Brigaider-General C. Wagstaff to War Office, 29 May 1918. NA WO 106/482. 1427 For more detail on the BEF’s equine relations with the AEF, see Winton, Theirs Not to Reason Why, 333-338. 1428 Brigadier J. Clabby, author of the (British) AVC history’s second volume, indeed noted the AEF’s experiences in the war illustrate “what might have occurred if an Army Veterinary Corps had not been formed.” Brigadier J. Clabby, The History of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, 1919-1961, (London: J. A. Allen & Co., 1963), 18. 386

British division on the Western Front fell from twelve to nine battalions.1429 The War Office pressured Lieutenant-General Currie to similarly dilute Canadian brigades, which if combined with the 5th Canadian Division in England, would allow for a Canadian Army with two corps of three divisions each. Currie refused, however, preferring an oversized Corps to an overstretched

Army. By remaining with the existing structure, and disbanding infantry battalions of the 5th

Division, Currie retained a ready supply of casualty replacements that would prove crucial in the costly fighting of 1918.1430 Already, the 5th Division’s artillery (13th and 14th Batteries CFA) that joined the Corps in 1917 granted it considerable supplementary firepower for the “bite and hold” attacks of the previous year, and would continue to do so throughout 1918.1431

These revisions do not appear to have affected horse strength for British divisions, however. Transport animals from each disbanded battalion were simply redistributed to other units in the division, and animal establishments remained largely the same.1432 The Canadian Corps’ animal strength thus remained essentially comparable to its British counterparts. During their advance on the Scheldt in October 1918, for example, the three divisions and attached units of I

British Corps numbered 15,313 animals. In III British Corps, 9,525 animals served in its two divisions and attached troops.1433 In late October, too, the Canadian Corps of four divisions and attached troops consisted of 20,920 horses and mules.1434 The Corps thus benefitted from a

1429 Schreiber, Shock Army of the British Empire, 19-22. 1430 Cook, The Madman and The Butcher, 232-234. 1431 Rawling, Appendix A, “November 1918: Canadian Corps Order of Battle,” in Surviving Trench Warfare, 228- 236. 1432 WD, DVS, 7 February 1918. 1433 The composition of these corps and their operations in October 1918 may be found in Brigadier-General Sir James E. Edmonds and Lieut-Colonel R. Maxwell-Hyslop, Military Operations France and Belgium, 1918 Volume V: 26th September – 11th November, The Advance to Victory, (London and Nashville: Imperial War Museum and The Battery Press, 1947), Chapter XXVI, their animal strengths are in “Veterinary Report – Week Ending 28th October, 1918,” in Fifth Army Notes on Directors’ Services, 6th November 1918. NA WO 95/536. 1434 “Wastage Statistics Excluding Cavalry. Horses – France – 1918.” 387

considerable number of horses and mules in 1918, but its proportionate animal size was not markedly larger than other British formations.1435

It continued, however, to enjoy an enlarged veterinary establishment to care for these animals. Previous chapters of this study noted the immense personnel difficulties experienced by

British and Canadian veterinary services in both commissioned officers and capable enlisted men.

Throughout the conflict, the Canadian Corps retained a higher proportion of officers, with nine

VOs (and 37 ORs) per Canadian division instead of five per British division – a total of 43 VOs and 201 ORs in the Corps.1436 In July 1918, this manpower disparity again came to the attention of GHQ. The BEF’s Quartermaster-General, Lieutenant-General Sir Travers Clarke, recommended “that the Establishment of Veterinary Officers with a Canadian Division be reduced to that of a British Division.” In reducing the complements of VOs to five per division, “the total saving for the Canadian Corps would 16 [Canadian Army] Veterinary Officers” that could be used as reinforcements in the event of casualties. Currie, however, refused Clarke’s suggestion. “From the point of view of maintaining the mobility of the Corps as a fighting formation,” Currie wrote,

“it is most undesirable to reduce the veterinary establishment except under the most urgent necessity and I hope that this will not arise.”1437 The Canadian Corps thus retained its full establishment of 43 VOs. They would remain critical for monitoring, treating, and evacuating

1435 Shane Schreiber’s claim that “a Canadian division in fact resembled a British corps” was thus not the case with respect to animal establishments, at least. Schreiber, Shock Army of the British Empire, 20. 1436 This total included four VOs in the Canadian Corps Headquarters, nine per infantry division, and three in the 5th Division Artillery and DAC. “Nominal Roll of Officers, Canadian Army Veterinary Corps, 14th January 1919,” and “Total Veterinary Personnel,” 28 November 1918. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3380 Folder P-1-45. 1437 Quartermaster-General Sir Travers Clarke to Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Currie, 3 July 1918, and Lieutenant- General Sir Arthur Currie to Quartermaster-General Sir Travers Clark, 6 July 1918. Libraries and Archives Canada (LAC) RG 9, III-B-1, Volume 941, Folder E-76-3. 388

battlefield casualties during the most costly fighting experienced by Canadian personnel in the

Great War.1438

The Spring Offensives, March-July 1918

Beginning in mid-March, animal battle casualties slowly increased in the BEF despite the absence of major combat operations. On 5 March, Moore noted “a considerable increase” in combat wounds stemming principally from German air raids, with 290 animals killed and wounded. Ten days later, he again observed bomb casualties “generally increasing” among the

Fifth Army. Its DDVS reported that mud walls at least five feet high necessary to protect horses from air raids, and concentrations of animals were increasingly dispersed to minimize overall damage.1439 These raids reflected a growing tendency of the Luftstreitkräfte during previous summer and fall to target horse picket lines to interrupt Allied logistics in the forward areas.1440

At 4 a.m. on 21 March 1918, the Imperial German Army launched a massive attack against the Fifth Army. Holger Herwig notes that Quartermaster-General Eric Ludendorff, the de facto

German field commander, marshalled 6,608 guns and 1,386,177 soldiers for this “last card,” codenamed Operation Michael. Ludendorff intended this offensive, and following attacks, to crush

1438 The small surplus also allowed inefficient or incompetent officers to be removed from command and rotated to the rear. For example, Captain J.F. Boswell, another of the OVC wartime graduates (Class of 1917), served as VO to 2nd Canadian Divisional Train for only a short period of time. In March 1918 he directly contravened standing orders and clipped 100 animals under his charge without first obtaining permission from Major Evans, the DADVS 2nd Division. He was rotated back to No. 1 CVH at Le Havre in favour of another officer, Captain A.T. McLean, erstwhile OC of No. 5 Canadian MVS, and thus one of the surplus Veterinary Officers generated by the disbandment of the 5th Canadian Division. See WD, DADVS 2nd Canadian Division, 6 March and 4 May 1918, and McEwen, “Only Recent Graduates Available,” 253. 1439 WD, DVS, 5 and 15 March 1918. 1440 Graham Winton notes the Germans “adopted a definite policy of searching out and bombing horse lines” in January 1918, but as Chapter Eight demonstrated, these air raids already caused considerable damage the previous October-November to the Canadian Corps’ animals. Winton, Theirs Not to Reason Why, 339. 389

BEF armies in France and force the Allies to sue for peace in 1918.1441 His widespread employment of elite “Assault Battalions” inflicted heavy losses and made significant gains against British and

French forces. Operation Michael alone killed, wounded, or captured 302,000 Allied personnel.1442

When Michael began, Moore was attending a conference with VOs of the Second Army.

Confusion over the scale and intent of the attack prevailed at first; he wrote on 21 March that “the situation is at present obscure,” but “it would appear that this attack is developing into an offensive on a very large scale.” 1443 The DADVS 18th British Division, caught in the centre of the attack, wrote the wagon lines of 83rd Brigade RFA “were heavily shelled, many horses killed” and surviving animals stampeded. Within a few days, the division suffered 61 killed and 16 destroyed through gunshot wounds.1444 However, “very little information is yet available regarding the casualties that have been sustained amongst animals,” Moore wrote on 25 March, “but it is feared that they are heavy.” He also observed that negative effects of the reduced forage rations “are becoming evident.” Generally speaking, however, “the general health and condition of the animals continues to be very satisfactory” as the besieged Fifth and Third Armies staged a steady fighting withdrawal to blunt the hammering German attacks.1445

On the retreat, these British forces destroyed any fodder stocks they could not withdraw, critically exacerbating the growing logistical difficulties experienced by advancing German

1441 Herwig notes that 21 March was the bloodiest single day of the war for the Imperial German Army, with 78,000 men killed and wounded. Herwig, The First World War, 392-403. 1442 Bruce Gudmundsson claims these attacks rendered the Fifth Army “entirely worthless as a military formation.” See Gudmundsson, Stormtroop Tactics: Innovation in the German Army, 1914-1918, (Westport: Praeger, 1989), 151-168. 1443 WD, DVS, 21 March 1918. 1444 WD, DADVS 18th Division, 31 March 1918. NA WO 95/2023/3. 1445 WD, DVS, 25-30 March 1918. One of the more celebrated episodes of these attacks, from a Canadian perspective, was the charge of the Lord Strathcona’s Horse at Moreuil Wood on 30 March, in which 800 cavalry mounts were killed or wounded. See John R. Grodzinski, and Michael R. McNorgan, “‘It’s a charge, boys, it’s a charge!’ Cavalry Action at Moreuil Wood, 30 March 1918,” in Fighting for Canada: Seven Battles, 1758-1945, (Toronto: Robin Brass Studio, 2000), 269. 390

forces.1446 Throughout 1918, the Imperial German Army had tremendous problems feeding its animals. Roger Chickering notes that a “scarcity of fodder” in Germany gradually emerged, with domestic grain harvests down by 30% from prewar levels.1447 With only 50% of their diet coming from “hard fodder” such as hay and oats, German horses received potatoes, molasses, heather, thistles, or even young tree bark as ration supplements when green fodder was unavailable. The

Oberquartiermeister of the Seventeenth Army indeed remarked in May 1918 that providing sufficient fodder was “confronted with the greatest difficulties.”1448 The consequences of this malnourishment were telling. Upon capturing a number of German horses at the Battle of Amiens in August, Lieutenant-Colonel Max Henry, Acting ADVS Australian Corps, observed the animals were “mostly in poor condition and general speaking of an uncared-for appearance.”1449 Similarly

Brigadier-General Francis Garratt, BEF Director of Remounts, observed in late September that captured animals “were a poor, weedy, light class of animal” performing work beyond their size and strength capacities.1450

Heavy casualties added to these logistical difficulties. David Stevenson claims that the

Imperial German Army lost 29,000 horses during Operation Michael alone – more than the BEF’s losses in killed and wounded for the entirety of the Spring Offensives.1451 A Seventeenth Army report claimed unit strengths peaked at 92% of their establishments, and consequently, officers’ mounts were increasingly replaced with bicycles.1452 By 1 November, Moore observed the

1446 David Stevenson, With Our Backs to the Wall: Victory and Defeat in 1918, (London: Allen Lane, 2011), 61. 1447 See Chickering, Imperial Germany and the Great War, 140. 1448 Oberquartiermeiser Seventeeth Army, “Care of Horses and Cattle,” 6 May 1918. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3364 Folder C-2-45. 1449 Lieutenant-Colonel Max Henry, “Veterinary Report for Week Ending 8.8.18,” 1. Australian War Memorial (AWM)4 27/3/14. 1450 WD, Director of Remounts, 29 September 1918. 1451 David Stevenson, With Our Backs to the Wall: Victory and Defeat in 1918, (London: Allen Lane, 2011), 61. 1452 This report was discussed in WD, DVS, 9 October 1918. 391

Germans “appear to be encountering grave difficulties of transport owing to their shortage of horses.” Indeed, “in many cases the enemy has been reported to drawing his guns with mixed teams of horses and oxen, and in other cases by German Soldiers and Prisoners of War.”1453

If the Imperial German Army suffered depleted horse strengths, however, it also inflicted heavy losses on the BEF. By 10 April, 2,057 BEF animals were killed and 1,540 wounded.1454

Successive offensives following Michael struck at Allied positions in Flanders and the Aisne, pushing within 56 miles of Paris, and inflicting further losses.1455 From 17 March to 14 July, the

BEF sustained 14,122 animal deaths and 13,154 wounded through enemy fire.1456 The sheer number of deaths, in excess of the wounded, attests to the ferocity of these battles. However, at a cost of one million personnel, Ludendorff failed to secure a decisive victory.1457 The Allies seized the initiative with a massive Franco-American counterattack on 18 July, and under Generalissimo

Ferdinand Foch, began to force the Imperial German Army back from its high-water mark.1458

The heavy animal losses sustained in the Spring Offensives engendered a crisis in remount reserves for the BEF. The War Office evidently did not anticipate such heavy fighting and grievous

1453 WD, DVS, 1 November 1918. These deficiencies are curious, for a 1919 War Office study found that “there was not a serious shortage of horses in Germany” at the end of the war. German remount agents procured the bulk of their animals from abroad: their allies (Turkey), neutrals (Holland and Denmark) and most abundantly, from their occupied territories. In what Roger Chickering characterized as “plunder,” German occupation of France and Belgium, as well as their victories over Romania and Russia, ensured a steady stream of confiscated horses. Indeed, the War Office claimed, in Romania, “all the horses are said to have been requisitioned on the conclusion of peace.” War Office, “German Horses,” 11 July 1919. NA MUN 4/5851 and Roger Chickering, Imperial Germany and the Great War, 1914-1918, Second Edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 84. For detail on the draconian peace terms imposed by the German Empire on its vanquished adversaries, see Hew Strachan, The First World War, (New York: Penguin, 2003), 269-271 1454 WD, DVS, 10 April 1918. 1455 Operation Georgette beginning 9 April attacked British positions in southern Flanders, Operation Blücher-Yorck against French positions towards Paris on 27 May, Operation Gneisenau on 9 June towards Compiègne. See Stevenson, With Our Backs to the Wall, 68-98, and Herwig, The First World War, 415. 1456 History of the Organization and Development of the Army Veterinary Service with the British Expeditionary Force, France, 18. 1457 Schreiber, Shock Army of the British Empire, 8-9. 1458 See Herwig, The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary, 392-419. 392

casualties immediately after it ceased purchasing animals from the US. In the week ending 27

April, the Remount Department issued 8,054 animals to the front and only received 3,247 cured from Hospitals – a negative balance of 4,807 animals.1459 War Cabinet minutes from 15 April indeed note “the heavy losses which had occurred during the recent battle” caused “very low” reserves of remounts, which “were insufficient for prospective needs, and required replenishing.”

The War Office thus resumed its purchasing in the US at a rate of 8,000 animals per month.1460

The Canadian Corps, however, remained largely absent from this heavy fighting. Holding the bastion of Vimy Ridge, the Corps did not experience any significant attacks, though it did contend with artillery barrages and trench raids throughout the spring. The 2nd Canadian Division, too, was attached to VI Corps command until 1 July. Currie resisted Field Marshal Haig’s repeated efforts to break the rest of the Corps up and deploy the divisions piecemeal into battle. He argued the Corps would be more effective fighting as a cohesive entity, rather than under different corps commands with no sense of national unity or purpose.1461 Haig was not impressed. He lamented

Currie “wishes only to fight as a ‘Canadian Corps’ and got his Canadian representative in London to write and urge me to arrange it.” “As a result,” Haig continued, “the Canadians are holding a wide front near Arras, but they have not yet been in the battle!”1462

Throughout the late spring and early summer, BEF and French forces alike digested what lessons they could and prepared their troops for the forthcoming counteroffensives. The Canadian

Corps, anticipating a major role in the attacks to come, trained in maneuver warfare tactics. It practiced a “combined arms” approach integrating infantry, artillery, tanks, and aircraft. Infantry

1459 “Issues and Receipts – Week Ending 27/4/18.” NA WO 95/70. 1460 War Cabinet Memorandum 391, 15 April 1918, 3. 1461 Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 379-381. 1462 Douglas Haig Diary Entry 18 April 1918, in Douglas Haig, War Diaries and Letters, 1914-1918, edited by Gary Sheffield and John Bourne, (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005), 405. 393

rehearsed attacking over open ground at the platoon level, and practised these tactics in conjunction with tanks. The bulk of Canadian training, however, focused upon rehearsing the venerable “bite and hold” tactic of infantry assaults supported by heavy artillery barrages.1463 Indeed, as Currie noted, these maneuvers practised “how sections of Field Artillery could best carry out an advance in close support of attacking infantry.”1464 Batteries experienced initial difficulties adapting to this new style of warfare, which required them to redeploy frequently and re-register their guns to support the infantry. It was a sharp contrast to the preceding years of firing predominately from static positions to support limited advances.1465 Logistics personnel, too, practiced bringing munitions forward to the infantry and artillery on their “tactical manoeuvres.”1466 The 2nd Canadian

DAC’s training on 11 July, for example, is indicative of its training regimen for the week: “10-11

Riding School, 2-400 Driving and manoeuvre, 5-6 Lectures to Officer by Capt. Harvey VO on horse shoeing. Exercise rides for one hour daily are being carried out.”1467

CAVC personnel carefully monitored the health and working efficiency of these animals as they trained for battle, and their war diaries illustrate that horses steadily grew into better shape and harder condition. Indeed, the winter of 1917-18 at Vimy Ridge under covered standings and with light workload meant the animals were somewhat fattened up. Egdett observed, for example, the 4th Division’s animals slowly grew “soft” through “lack of work and proper exercise.”1468

However, with the intense training regimen of the late spring, these horses again grew ready for strenuous work under combat conditions. Cutcliffe noted “all animals were given good stiff route

1463 Rawling, Surviving Trench Warfare, 182-187, Cook, Shock Troops, 405. 1464 Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Currie, “Operations of the Canadian Corps, 1918,” in Report of the Ministry: Overseas Military Forces of Canada, 1918, (London: Ministry, Overseas Military Forces of Canada, 1919), 124. 1465 Nicholson, The Gunners of Canada, 332-333. 1466 WD, 3rd DAC, 1-6 June 1918. 1467 WD, 2nd Canadian Division Ammunition Column, 11 July 1918. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 4979 Reel T-10807. 1468 Edgett to 4th Canadian Division “Q,” 2 February 1918. 394

marches each day” throughout April and May. During the period of intense training in May and

June, “they have not lost flesh like animals in other formations that only had ordinary exercise.”1469

Indeed, he observed on 13 June that the Canadian Corps’ horses and mules “are in far better condition for hard work than previously.”1470

One of the most apparent revisions to veterinary procedure during this period was official formation of Veterinary Evacuating Stations (VES) for each corps. The VES consolidated animal casualties evacuated from the MVS, provided additional treatment, and then escorted them to railheads for removal to hospital. Moore commented on 3 April that Operation Michael “clearly demonstrated the necessity” for the VES, with provisional ones already in place for V and VII

British Corps.1471 Based on proposed establishments in the preceding months, these VES consisted of one VO and 38 Other Ranks, all of whom were to be drawn from veterinary hospitals and Mobile

Veterinary Sections. With one VES per corps, there would be eighteen in total for the BEF.1472 By the end of the war, too, these sections received Motor Horse Ambulances donated by the Royal

Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) that could accommodate two animal patients. Moore noted these vehicles proved “of inestimable value” in quickly collecting grievously wounded animals from MVS and conveying them to the railheads.1473

The Canadian Corps Veterinary Evacuating Station (CCVES) thus emerged in April. Its personnel came from each MVS in the Canadian Corps, and its OC, Captain F.A. Daigneault, was

1469 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 30 May 1918. 1470 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 13 June 1918. 1471 WD, DVS, 3 April 1918. 1472 Included in these totals were Casualty Evacuating Stations for sixteen British corps, the Australian Corps, and the Canadian Corps. WD, DVS, 9 February 1918. 1473 History of the Organization and Development of the Army Veterinary Service with the British Expeditionary Force, France, 8, and WD, DVS, 6 November 1918. 395

formerly OC No. 2 Canadian MVS.1474 Its establishment included Daigneault, two Staff or

Veterinary Sergeants, and 36 “rank and file.” Immediately after its activation, CCVES personnel assumed control over a significant number of sick and wounded animals. Within two days of its formal establishment, on 18 April, it became responsible for 180 horses and 23 mules.1475

Consolidating these personnel, however, further weakened the undermanned MVS. Reflecting on the heavy work of August to November, Captain R.G. Vickers, the new OC No. 2 Canadian MVS, wrote “we realised a great mistake had been made in reducing the personnel.”1476

This period of training was not wholly devoid of casualties, however. Horses continued to die from bone fractures, indigestion, and colic.1477 Enemy fire, too, exacted a toll, even behind the lines. On 26 June, for example, No. 3 Company of the 4th Canadian DAC suffered 17 animals killed and 12 wounded by a single aeroplane bomb.1478 Indeed, although spared direct attacks during the Spring Offensives and having spent weeks training behind the line, the Canadian Corps still suffered 359 animals dead/destroyed and another 1,079 evacuated from April to July 1918.1479

Critically, few of these evacuations and losses were from contagious diseases. Mange, that persistent scourge of the BEF’s veterinary services, fell largely under control during the spring and summer of 1918. Cases remaining under treatment fell from 3.3% of all BEF animals in the third week of March to 2.2% a month later, and only 1.2% by the end of June.1480 This steady decline

1474 Captain R.G. Vickers, formerly VO to 6th Brigade CFA, replaced Daigneault as OC No. 2 Canadian MVS. Vickers’ replacement in the 6th Brigade was Captain Cecil French, author of A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War, 1914-1919. WD, DADVS 2nd Canadian Division, 27 April 1918. 1475 WD, Canadian Corps Veterinary Evacuating Station (CCVES), 16-18 April 1918. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5044 Reel T-10936. 1476 Captain R.G. Vickers, “No. 2 Canadian Mobile Veterinary Section, Veterinary History, 4. LAC MG 30 E14 Folder 1. 1477 “Digestive” ailments appear to have been a regular cause for animal death. In the 2nd Canadian Division See A.2000 Form 2nd Canadian Division [???] to Week Ending 13 June and 25 July1918. 1478 WD, DADVS 4th Canadian Division, 26 June 1918. 1479 “Wastage Statistics Excluding Cavalry. Horses – France – 1918.” 1480 “Veterinary Service B.E.F. Mange Chart (Horses and Mules Combined).” 396

of the disease is all the more remarkable given the loss of dipping tanks in the forward areas to the

German attacks of March-July. On 22 May, Moore praised both the Canadian-invented calcium sulphide dipping tanks (in uncaptured areas) and “energetic action” of VOs for ensuring mange incidences were “being well maintained,” and “most satisfactory.”1481 By 17 October, only 1,700 animals remained under treatment for mange, and three weeks later, Moore commented “the Force has never before had such a low percentage of ineffectives” from skin disease.1482 The incipient outbreak of January-February was thus the last significant incidence of mange in the Great War.

Cutcliffe indeed commented in June the disease was “practically eliminated.” He foresaw no recurrences of mange, provided “the same care and supervision was taken in other Corps.”1483

The critical importance of this freedom from infectious diseases in the summer of 1918 cannot be overstated. As Moore noted in October, “no better proof of efficiency is required than the small percentage of sickness which the Force enjoys as a whole. It is something to be proud of.”1484 Indeed, it reflected tremendously on the skill and learned lessons by veterinary and non- veterinary personnel alike into on animal management and prevention of disease. Over the next months, as the Canadian Corps fought battle after battle, its horses and mules would remain free of the diseases that threatened its animal strength in previous summers and winters. By 3 August animals were, according to Tamblyn, “in very good physical condition.”1485 Indeed, Cutcliffe

1481 WD, DVS, 22 May and 14 August 1918. 1482 WD, DVS, 26 October and 9 November 1918. 1483 Also at the beginning of June 1918 a slew of CAVC officers received awards as part of the King’s Birthday Honours. Cutcliffe, Edgett, and Major C.G. Saunders all received the Distinguished Service Order, while Captain M.P. Kennedy, VO to 5th CIB, received the Military Cross. WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 3 June 1918 and 31 May 1918, and “Honours and Awards – King’s Birthday 1918.” LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3364 Folder C-2-45. 1484 Major-General J. Moore Circular Memo No. 260, 1 October 1918. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3364 Folder C-2-45. 1485 WD, DADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 3 August 1918. 397

observed, CAVC personnel “have done their work in a very satisfactory manner.” “It is no doubt due to their efforts,” he continued, “that contagious diseases are prevented to a large extent.”1486

The Hundred Days’ Offensives, August-November 1918

In July 1918, Lieutenant-General Currie received orders that the Canadian Corps would participate in an offensive with the British Fourth and French First Armies.1487 Critical to the success of this offensive, intended to strike east of Amiens, was complete suppression of Canadian involvement. An abrupt redeployment of the Canadian Corps to a new sector would have heralded the imminence of major offensive operations, so they redeployed from Arras to Amiens by road, rail, and bus in total secrecy.1488 As Currie later wrote, “this necessitated a forced march of upwards of 30 kilometers [18.6 miles] for all horsed transport before rejoining their Units in the concentration area,” with all movement taking place at night to avoid detection from German reconnaissance aircraft.1489 Private Johnston recalled the convergence of Canadian units near

Amiens “the largest assembly of horses, guns, etc. I had seen at any one spot.”1490 Lorries and horse and mule teams hauled ammunition into forward dumps at night: 200,000 18-pounder and

4.5 inch howitzer shells (600 and 500 rounds per gun type, respectively), and 91,000 rounds for the heavy/siege artillery.1491 To assist in the break-in phase of the battle, too, three battalions of the 4th Tank Brigade were assigned to the Canadian Corps.1492 Due to the rapid movement of the

1486 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 31 May 1918. 1487 For strategic context and the decision-making processes shaped the Battle of Amiens, see James McWilliams and R. James Steel, Amiens: Dawn of Victory, (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2001), 16-21. 1488 Granatstein, The Greatest Victory, 19-27. 1489 Currie, “Operations of the Canadian Corps, 1918,” 131. 1490 Johnston, Riding Into War, 82. 1491 Nicholson, The Gunners of Canada, 338. 1492 For an examination on the role of tanks during the offensive, see Andrew McEwen, “‘Our Steel Comrades:’ Canadians, Australians and Tanks at the Battle of Amiens.” The Canadian Army Journal 13, No. 2 (Summer 2010): 99-119. 398

Canadian Corps to the battle zone, however, the CCVES was not able to join up with the rest of the formation until the battle was already underway. Thus, an amalgamation of British and

Canadian units – the 4th Canadian MVS reinforced with British personnel and the IX Corps VES

– formed a makeshift evacuating station for the offensive.1493 To reach the new battle zone and assume this responsibility, No. 4 Canadian MVS force-marched its personnel and horses 87 miles in just three days.1494

When the infantry and tanks went “over the top” in the early morning hours of 8 August

1918 to begin the Battle of Amiens they were shortly followed by pack animals, and later, by artillery and logistics units.1495 G.W.L. Nicholson notes that three CFA brigades accompanied the assaulting infantry forward to extend the reach of supporting artillery. Upon reaching their positions and supporting the ongoing Canadian attacks, the other brigades similarly limbered their guns to horse teams and moved forward. Lieutenant-Colonel F.T. Coghlan, OC 9th Brigade CFA, recalled “I shall always remember the atmosphere of excitement and great exultation that came from the gunners, drivers, the horses and the rumble of the guns and wagons” on 8 August.1496

Indeed, the great success of the Battle of Amiens was the enormous ground captured by the British

Fourth and French First Armies on 8 August. The Canadian Corps advanced eight miles – its maximum single-day advance in any action of the war. The Australian Corps, attacking on its left flank, advanced seven miles, while the French on their right advanced five miles.1497 The advance continued until 18 August, when these forces ran into increasingly stiff resistance and Haig called

1493 WD, Deputy Director Veterinary Services Fourth Army, 8-9 August 1918. NA WO 95/453, and WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 11 August 1918. 1494 WD, No. 4 Canadian Mobile Veterinary Section, 3-5 August 1918. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5044 Reel T-10936 1495 Tamblyn, “The History of the C.A.V.C. Third Canadian Division, B.E.F.,” 2. 1496 Quoted in Nicholson, The Gunners of Canada, 340-343. 1497 Dean Chappelle, “The Canadian Attack at Amiens, 8-11 August 1918,” Canadian Military History 2, no. 2 (1993): 89. 399

off further attacks.1498 Ultimately, the Canadian Corps advanced some 14 miles at its greatest depth, capturing 9,131 prisoners and 190 guns at a cost of 11,362 killed and wounded soldiers.1499

The Canadian Corps’ horse and mules laboured under heavy fire to haul guns and ammunition forward to supply troops “at the sharp end” of these long advances. From the beginning of the battle, these animals sustained mounting casualties from gunshot wounds, shell wounds, and aeroplane bombs. Veterinary Sergeant G.A. McDonald recalled “as it was open country, Fritz could use open [artillery] sights and caused quite a few casualties to horses and men.”1500 The bulk of the casualties collected by CAVC personnel early in the battle were mounts of the Cavalry Corps, committed to help keep the momentum of the attack up in the early afternoon of 8 August. The Canadian Cavalry Brigade of the 3rd Cavalry Division led the charge – the first time Canadian cavalry and infantry fought alongside each other in the Great War.1501 German machine-gunners exacted a terrible toll on the mounts. Moore recorded that between 8 and 10

August, the Cavalry Corps suffered 993 killed, wounded, and missing.1502

As the battle continued, Canadian units similarly suffered mounting casualties. From 1 to

22 August, the 3rd Canadian Division suffered 296 total casualties – 194 died/destroyed from shells and bombs, and 102 evacuated.1503 Similarly, the 4th Canadian Division suffered 223 animal casualties from shell fragments and 23 from bombs.1504 Bomb wounds typically occurred during nighttime air raids when German aircraft targeted horse picket lines to interrupt the flow of

1498 Ian Malcom Brown notes “there is where the 1918 strategy of the BEF differed markedly from that of the Germans:” a willingness to cease continuing attacks in the face of heavy resistance, disengaging, and resuming the offensive elsewhere. Brown,“Not Glamorous, But Effective,” 436-437. 1499 Currie, “Operations of the Canadian Corps, 1918,” 141. 1500 Account of Sergeant G.A. McDonald, 18th Battery C.F.A., 1. LAC MG 30 E 14 Vol. 1. 1501 McWilliams and Steel, Amiens, 158-169. 1502 WD, Director of Veterinary Services, 11 August 1918. NA WO 95/68. 1503 WD, DADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 21 August 1918. 1504 4th Canadian Division A.2000 Form for Week Ending 2, 15, and 22 August 1918. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3385 Folder R-51-45. 400

supplies and ammunition to the front. Such planes dropped “razor” bombs that “cut like a scythe would grass,” and mutilate the animals’ legs and abdominal areas. During the night of 10/11

August, sustained bombing raids killed 110 animals in the 3rd Division Ammunition Column alone.

Tamblyn noted, however, such bombing would “seldom stampede animals,” which “seem to be more stupid from fright” than inclined to bolt.1505

Treating and evacuating these casualties was exhausting, frustrating, and heartbreaking work. Veterinary Sergeant Chester Barteaux, attached to the 20th Battery CFA, accompanied his battery forward “through an intense barrage of enemy fire” on 8 August. “Assisted by the drivers under heavy shell fire,” he wrote, “we sorted out the wounded and killed and re-arranged the teams with all possible speed.” Barteaux remained with the wounded animals while the battery continued forward, but with severed communication, “clean water to sterilize the wounds of the animals was out of the question.” While tending to his patients the next night, he recalled seeing “‘Hun’ planes hovering overhead in search of a suitable target,” which “unloaded their deathly cargo” on

Barteaux’s patients. These bombs “killed instantaneously every one of my patients.”1506

Illustrating his frustration with these air raids, too, Major C.G. Saunders, DADVS 1st Canadian

Division, claimed he “fired a clip” at a low-flying German aircraft. His shooting met with

“apparently good results,” for the pilot circled back and fired (ineffectually) upon Saunders with his machine guns.1507

Indeed, this combination of direct gun fire, shellfire, and frequent air raids made the Battle of Amiens the most dangerous operation experienced by Canadian veterinary personnel in the war.

1505 WD, DADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 11 August 1918 and Tamblyn, “The History of the C.A.V.C. Third Canadian Division, B.E.F.,” 1-3. 1506 “49369 Sergt. C.C. Barteaux. 20th Battery C.F.A,” 3. 1507 WD, DADVS 1st Canadian Division, 15 August 1918. 401

Tamblyn noted, “it mattered not whether they were in their temporary Lines or on the road, each was equally bad, the latter being the most terrifying.”1508 A citation for bravery for Veterinary

Sergeant George Black, who was awarded the Military Medal for his work tending to animals of the 6th Battery CFA, lends further insight into veterinary work in the battle:

The Battery Horse Lines were subjected to very heavy shell fire. This NCO remained with the horses under his charge and rescued many from dangerous positions. During the bombardment he remained in the Lines and assisted wounded animals thereby saving many horses which would otherwise have been lost for further service. By his coolness and conduct under trying circumstances he set a splendid example to the drivers.1509

Similarly, Captain L.E.L. Taylor, OC No. 3 Canadian MVS, was wounded in the arm by a shell burst on 14 August while supervising evacuation of animal casualties from a number of different

British and Canadian divisions. Taylor received the Military Cross for his “coolness and presence of mind:” the only direct award for battlefield leadership won in the CAVC.1510

The long advance at Amiens, too, provided significant challenges to veterinary personnel.

Captain G. Harvey, VO to the 2nd DAC, wrote “the VO and [Sergeants] CAVC were kept riding almost the entire time trying to keep in touch with the animals and render necessary attention.”1511

No. 3 Canadian MVS also “continued to move forward daily,” with its personnel evacuating animals “continually under fire of enemy field and long range guns.”1512 No. 2 Canadian MVS, too, set up immediately behind the 8 August front line at Cachy on 8 August, moved to the village of Marcelcave at 4 a.m. on 9 August, and then to a chalk pit at Caix, near the limit of the first day’s advance, on 11 August. This chalk pit provided “excellent protection for the horses” awaiting

1508 Tamblyn, “The History of the C.A.V.C. Third Canadian Division, B.E.F.,” 1. 1509 Award Citation, Sergeant George Lane Black. LAC RG 9 III-B1 Vol. 3364 Folder C-6-45. 1510 WD, DADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 14 August 1918, and Tamblyn, “The History of the C.A.V.C. Third Canadian Division, B.E.F.,” 1. 1511 Harvey, “Short Veterinary History of the 2nd Canadian Divisional Ammunition Column,” 12. 1512 Tamblyn, “The History of the C.A.V.C. Third Canadian Division, B.E.F.,” 1. 402

evacuation against shells and bombs. The makeshift Canadian/British VES, however, occupied a centralized location roughly 12 miles to the rear, at Saleux, and then moving forward to Boves. Its

OC, Captain Vickers, recalled “this [round] trip required about two days to accomplish,” and denuded the MVS of critical personnel conveying casualties to the rear.1513

This Veterinary Evacuating Station consisting of IX Corps personnel and No. 4 Canadian

MVS remained exceptionally busy throughout the battle. It settled into its position at 1 a.m. on 8

August – just over three hours before the battle began. Within a day, it received 258 animals and evacuated 104 to Base Hospital. Lee and his British-Canadian team, constantly under strength with men evacuating animals to the railhead, worked around the clock to receive and evacuate casualties. Over the next 24 hours, it received another 258 animals – the majority being cavalry mounts suffering from gunshot wounds – and evacuated another 144. Ultimately, between 8 and

12 August, it received 928 animals and successfully evacuated 917 (98.8%) to the rear. They lost five dead, destroyed five, and transferred one back to the front. Lee believed his men performed

“a record for a MVS in France,” or, “if not, it can only be equalled by a few.”1514 Indeed, Cutcliffe wrote that “great credit must be given to these men” for their dogged devotion to duty evacuating wounded animals without “grumbling” or “complaint.”1515

The Canadian Corps VES finally arrived in the battle zone on 11 August and relieved Lee’s men, who then rejoined the 4th Division. Captain Daigneault’s men assumed control over the existing sick and wounded patients – 183 horses and 12 mules. The next day, 13 ORs of the

CCVES evacuated 179 of these animals to Hospital. Between 12 and 19 August, the CCVES

1513 Vickers, “No. 2 Canadian Mobile Veterinary Section, Veterinary History,” 4-5 and WD, No. 2 Canadian MVS, 9-15 August 1918. 1514 WD, No. 4 Canadian MVS, 8-11 August 1918. 1515 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 9 August 1918. 403

evacuated a total of 684 horses and mules.1516 Considering the battle, Cutcliffe wrote “the despatch and methods adopted in clearing the battle fields of all wounded animals reflects great credit on the [CAVC] and the [AVC].”1517

Although successfully evacuating hundreds of casualties, veterinary personnel primarily endeavoured to treat wounds and return animals to the front. Cutcliffe, for example, recorded 1,371 animal casualties for the week ending 15 August, the most intense period of combat for animals.

Of these, 616 died or were destroyed (598 due to enemy fire), 242 cured and returned to units, 363 evacuated, and 597 were remaining under treatment. When subtracting the cases killed outright or too grievously wounded to survive, it becomes evident that veterinary personnel cured 20% of the casualties immediately and returned them to the front.1518 Ultimately, 754 Canadian Corps animals died or were destroyed, and 638 were evacuated between 1-22 August.1519 These casualties, although heavy, were by no means unique at Amiens. The Australian Corps similarly suffered

1,130 animals killed and wounded in the week ending 15 August alone.1520

The well-oiled BEF remount organization nevertheless ensured that remounts arrived as quickly as possible to replace losses and maintain the mobility of units in the field. Cutcliffe remained in regular contact with the Fourth Army Deputy Director of Remounts, Colonel J.W.

Yardley, to arrange “urgent demands to replace casualties.”1521 Yardley endeavoured to meet these requests and ship forward remounts as soon as possible. From 14 to 18 August, 933 remounts arrived by “special train” to replenish losses suffered by just the Canadian Corps.1522 These

1516 WD, CCVES, 12 -19 August 1918. 1517 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 31 August 1918. 1518 “Gross Wastage – France – 1918.” 1519 “Wastage Statistics Excluding Cavalry. Horses – France – 1918.” 1520 Lieutenant-Colonel Max Henry, “Veterinary Report for Week Ending 15. 8. 18.,” 2. AWM4 27/3/14 1521 WD, Deputy Director Remounts Fourth Army, 10-14 August 1918. NA WO 95/453. 1522 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 14-18 August 1918. 404

remounts proved adequate replacements for the conditioned and fit animals killed or wounded in action. Tamblyn observed, for example, that remounts arriving to replace the grievous bomb casualties suffered by the 3rd DAC were “of very good quality.”1523 Together, this system of veterinary care, timely evacuation, and remount replenishment, meant that units in the field did not have to suffer excessively depleted animal establishments before, during, or after the battle:

Table 9.1: Canadian Corps Animal Strength, Battle of Amiens1524

Week Corps 1st Division 2nd Division 3rd Division 4th Division Canadian Ending Troops* Corps 1 August 743 4,068 4,186 4,080 4,122 17,199 8 August 6,541 4,062 4,165 4,063 4,114 22,945 15 August 7,138 4,015 4,010 3,851 4,030 23,044 22 August 3,762 4,029 4,090 4,128 4,054 20,063

Increasing numbers of these remounts came in the form of mules rather than horses – a growing trend throughout the war. When the 1st Canadian Division took to the field in February

1915, for example, its 185 mules comprised only 3.6% of the division’s 5,088 animals. By the end of the war, its 957 mules accounted for 23.6% of its 4,049 animals.1525 Some personnel evidently resented this influx of mules. Major Evans, DADVS 2nd Canadian Division, complained in April that “all [Light Draught] animals were mules,” while an “Imperial Artillery unit…off-loading from the same train, invariably had LD horses.”1526 Private Johnston similarly recalled he “certainly did not want to drive mules,” for “we considered a mule driver as being about being the lowest kind of character in the army.”1527

1523 WD, DADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 15 August 1918. 1524 * This total includes troops and units attaching/detaching from Canadian Corps command, thus explaining the tremendous fluctuation in animal numbers through the period. “Excluding Cavalry – Weekly Divisional Strength – HORSES – France, 1918.” LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3363 Folder A-2-45. 1525 A.2000 Form 1st Canadian Division – Week Ending 28 February 1915 and 14 November 1918. 1526 WD, DADVS 2nd Canadian Division, 23 April 1918. 1527 Johnston, Riding Into War, 80. 405

Mules were superior to horses, however, in almost every way as draught animals. Moore commented in June 1917 on “the great success which the North American mule has proved to be.”

He noted the mule “has many advantages over the horse, being much hardier and more able to stand the hardships of campaigning,” and was “4 times less prone to Mange and skin disease than the horse, and less subject to Debility.” Indeed, as of 24 May 1918, 9.81% of BEF horses remained under treatment for sickness, as against 5.23% of mules. Some officers so highly prized these robust animals that the GOC 2nd Australian Division ordered all light draught horses in his infantry brigades swapped for mules in August 1918.1528 Although perhaps less glamorous than horses, mules thus represented exceptionally hardy, healthy, and dependable draught animals.

Overall, the health of these horses and mules remained remarkably robust in early and mid-

August. Their freedom from infectious diseases and hard condition from summer training exercises was excellent preparation for the forced marches to the battlefield and the days of unrelenting, hard work feeding the pace of the battle. Captain Vickers noted that the constant movement and relocation of 8 August represented “a very hard [days’] work for horses, but they stood the journey well.”1529 Tamblyn similarly observed on 12 August that animals of the 7th CIB were “all of good physique and standing to the strain and heavy work very satisfactorily.”1530

One of the biggest concerns, aside from enemy fire, was poor forage and watering opportunities. The ongoing difficulties supplying forage into the forward areas meant rations were further reduced to nine pounds of oats and hay per day – three quarters the ideal total.1531

Lieutenant-Colonel Henry noted the Australian Corps’ animals only retained their good condition

1528 WD, DVS, 22 May, 18 June, and 22 August 1918. 1529 WD, No. 2 Canadian MVS, 8 August 1918. 1530 WD, DADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 12 August 1918. 1531 WD, DVS, 12 August 1918. 406

through ample grazing in the newly seized territory.1532 Cutcliffe further observed on 16 August that in some cases, animals had “to be watered at dirty ponds and shell holes.” Indeed, he noted the older animals’ condition was failing “due to lack of good water and hay, heavy work in hot weather, and old age.”1533

However, these animals would have little chance of rest as they did after previous battles.

Haig next ordered the Canadian Corps to force its way through the Drocourt-Quéant Line (D-Q

Line), a branch of the principal German fortifications in France – the Hindenburg Line. After breaching the D-Q Line they were to continue the advance towards the Canal du Nord, yet unfinished but still a formidable defensive obstacle, before reaching the city of Cambrai. This entire operation promised incredible difficulty, for deep German defences in the Canadians’ direction of attack meant there would be little chance of surprise or maneuver. To help effect the breakthrough the Canadian Corps received an addition twenty brigades of British field artillery and eight of British heavy artillery – 741 guns and howitzer of all calibres.1534

The abrupt redeployment from the Fourth Army at Amiens to the First Army at Arras caused further strain on these weary animals. Tamblyn wrote on 23 August that “the animals had travelled 20 miles daily for four days and the [Heavy Draught’s] were in an exhausted condition.”

He thus ordered a 24-hour rest “in order to recuperate” the animals. Although few cases manifested during the Battle of Amiens, debility increasingly appeared among animals of the Canadian Corps with the constant pace of work. Tamblyn noted 110 animals from the 9th and 10th Brigades CFA required evacuation for debility “as soon as remounts arrive” to replace them.1535 Typically,

1532 Henry, “Veterinary Report for Week Ending 15.8.18,” 1. 1533 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 16 and 20 August 1918. 1534 Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 426, Dancocks, Spearhead to Victory, 92, and Nicholson, The Gunners of Canada, 352. 1535 WD, DADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 23-27 August 1918. 407

however, veterinary officers tried to evacuate severely debilitated animals whenever possible and avoid working them to death – another key lesson from March-April 1917.

The Canadian Corps’ assault at Arras began on 26 August, with heavy fighting even as the

Corps approached the D-Q Line.1536 Between 26 August and 2 September, it battered its way through five miles of German defences at a cost of 11,423 casualties. British and Canadian guns fired 847,000 rounds of all calibres and “leapfrogged” forward across captured territory to assist the assaulting infantry. Tim Cook notes that, for all the vaunted power of the “combined arms warfare,” attacks against the D-Q Line were often haphazard and improvised, relying on “brute force rather than careful planning.”1537

This battle inflicted further heavy casualties to the animals of the Canadian Corps. Intense

German shellfire against both the attacking troops and their lines of communication exacted a steady toll on the horses and mules struggling to feed the advance with supplies and ammunition.

Between 23 August and 5 September, for example, the 2nd Division suffered 91 animals died/destroyed and 181 wounded, mostly through shell fragments rather than bombs.1538 It received 120 remounts to help replace casualties on 29 August, but these reinforcements were not enough. On 2 September, Captain E.M. Dixon, Acting DADVS, noted “remounts urgently needed.

4th and 5th [CIBs], Engineers and [Machine Gun] Units practically immobile.” He noted, too “no contagious disease” present in the division, but as of 5 September, “most of the Units are under strength through casualties [and] evacuations.”1539 Veterinary Sergeant Barteaux recalled the

1536 Schreiber, Shock Army of the British Empire, 72-73. 1537 Schreiber, Shock Army of the British Empire, 79-80, Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 440, and Cook, Shock Troops, 498. For a detailed examination on the strategic context and nature of this bitter fighting, see Cook, Shock Troops, Chapters 30-32. 1538 A.2000 Forms 2nd Canadian Division – Week Ending 29 August and 5 September 1918. 1539 WD, DADVS 2nd Canadian Division, 29 August to 5 September 1918. 408

“temporary chaos” caused by a simultaneous “torrential rain of enemy shell fire” and bombing run by a German aircraft in late August. He remembered:

Frightened and wounded horses were freed from the wire entanglements nearby and overturned wagons readjusted. The darkness of the night added to our already multitudinous troubles. The question of whether a horse was fit for the road was certainly a delicate one. Bad cases were shot, and the remaining wounded led to a place of safety.1540

Indeed, German artillery barrages caused considerable animal losses during the operations east of

Arras. Tamblyn commented it was “impossible at present to provide Bomb proof protection at present owing to constant moves of the transports and necessity of resting the men.” In the initial stages of this Battle of Arras, the week ending 29 August, the Canadian Corps suffered 135 dead/destroyed and lost 172 through evacuations. 1541

In yet another testament to the quality of veterinary care and animal management during the Hundred Days Offensives, Cutcliffe remarked “the general health continues good and the animals are keeping in fair condition despite [hard] work and short hay ration” on 1 September.

Indeed, Tamblyn noted the 7th CIB animals’ “condition is very satisfactory in spite of the strenuous work they have accomplished recently.” The next week, during the most intense period of combat as the Corps smashed through the D-Q Line, it suffered a further 403 died/destroyed and 250 evacuated. The hard work evidently took a toll on artillery horses hauling guns across the battlefield, with Cutcliffe observing they “have lost flesh during the last six weeks owing to hard work, small amount of forage and lack of water.”1542

1540 “49369 Sergt. C.C. Barteaux. 20th Battery C.F.A,” 3-4. 1541 WD, DADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 1 September 1918, and “Wastage Statistics Excluding Cavalry. Horses – France – 1918.” 1542 “Wastage Statistics Excluding Cavalry. Horses – France – 1918,” WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 1-9 September 1918, and WD, DADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 28 August 1918. 409

Mobile Veterinary Sections endeavoured to both keep pace with the advance at Arras and keep in touch with the CCVES to the rear. Tamblyn commented on 1 September for example that

No. 3 Canadian MVS was “well forward amongst advanced transport lines and is receiving a large number of wounded and debilitated animals.” Set up near the village of Vis-en-Artois in the centre of the battlefield, the MVS “carried on but not without difficulty,” as it was “continually under heavy shell-fire from enemy guns” and had to convey animals twelve miles to CCVES.1543 No. 2

Canadian MVS, too, followed the 2nd Division’s attack and established an Advanced Collecting

Post at Wancourt on 1 September. This Post served as the primary point of contact for the 2nd

Division’s sick and wounded animals, which were then conveyed to the MVS near Wailly, and thence to the CCVES at Écoivres. Once again, moving these casualties involved great distances and few personnel – the CCVES being posted roughly nine miles away. Captain Vickers commented the MVS itself would have moved closer to the front sooner, but the greater distance to the CCVES was “too far for wounded animals to walk.” Instead, he noted, the Advanced

Collecting Post “collects [and] received the animals from the forward area and brings them to the

Section Lines here every evening.” He rested the animals for a night before conveying them to

CCVES, either by walking or via horse ambulance for the more grievously wounded cases. “This procedure means handling the same animals twice,” he noted, “but it seems the best way until the evacuating station moves forward.”1544 Once again, the CCVES remained incredibly busy processing animal casualties from the battle. Between 25 August and 10 September, it admitted

1,001 animals and evacuated 922 to hospital. To help further supplement the manpower of the

1543 WD, DADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 1 September 1918 and Tamblyn, “The History of the C.A.V.C. Third Canadian Division, B.E.F.,” 4. 1544 WD, No. 2 Canadian MVS, 1-7 September 1918 and Vickers, “No. 2 Canadian Mobile Veterinary Section, Veterinary History,” 4-5. 410

CCVES, Colonel E.W. Larnder, DDVS First Army, ordered a further fifteen ORs to its establishment, bringing its total strength to 51 All Ranks.1545

During and after the battle remounts steadily arrived to replenish these losses suffered by

Canadian units. This period proved costly for the BEF as a whole, which suffered 2,773 battle casualties for the week ending 3 September.1546

Figure 9.1: Royal Field Artillery team killed by shellfire, Cléry, 1 September 19181547

Tamblyn wrote that 120 remounts for the 3rd Canadian Division arrived on 3 September, and another 114 on 14 September. The first lot comprised a number of “excellent ‘GUN’ type of animal[s],” though riding remounts in the second draft were “poor throughout.”1548 Similarly,

Major W.G. Stedman, DADVS 4th Canadian Division, noted that the 120 remounts received on 10

1545 WD, CCVES, 25 August to 10 September 1918 and WD, DDVS First Army, 4 September 1918. 1546 WD, DVS, 3 September 1918. 1547 Australian War Memorial. “Unideitified soldiers inspect three dead horses of a team of a British Artillery limber which was struck by a German 5.9 inch shell near Clery, when the battle of Mont St Quentin was continuing.” AWM E03155. 1548 WD, DADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 3 and 14 September 1918. 411

September were “in fair condition but not up to the usual standard.”1549 These demands for remounts do not appear excessive for BEF units in September 1918. The Director of Remounts,

Brigadier-General Garratt, observed on 3 September that “casualties amongst horses [and] mules are increasing daily, now that three armies are engaged.” Indeed, for the week ending 7 September, his Department issued 5,287 horses and mules to units in the field. The Remount Department never completely ran out of animals, but its reserves fell dangerously low. By 27 September, “owing to very few [remount] ships having arrived,” the total number of horses and mules in remount depots fell to 13,720 animals. Indeed, it only received 11,549 animals discharged from hospital and 8,112 from overseas. Throughout the month, BEF units received 21,083 animals, with an outstanding balance of some 4,375 animals needed to fill out all unit establishments.1550 Although receiving drafts of these remounts helped replace some losses, the animal strength of Canadian divisions slowly declined:

Table 9.2: Canadian Corps Animal Strength, Battle of Arras (1918)1551

Week Ending Corps 1st Division 2nd Division 3rd Division 4th Division Canadian Troops Corps 29 August 6,597 3,888 4,005 4,154 3,991 22,635 5 September 7,876 3,810 4,048 4,134 3,835 23,703 12 September 7,479 3,755 4,007 4,056 3,895 23,192 19 September 7,636 3,723 3,948 4,072 3,881 23,260

1549 Lieutenant-Colonel Edgett received notification he was to assume the position of Director of Veterinary Services upon the resignation of Brigadier-General Neill in April 1918. Major W.G. Stedman, formerly DADVS 5th Canadian Division, succeeded him in the 4th Division. French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War 1914-1919, 107-108. WD, DADVS 4th Canadian Division 10 September 1918. 1550 WD, Director of Remounts, 3 and 29 September 1918, “Issues & Receipts. Week Ending Sept. 7th 1918, Week Ending 14th September, 1918, Week Ending 21/9/18, and Week ending 28/9/18,” and “Issues and Receipts. End September, 1918.” NA WO 95/70. 1551 “Excluding Cavalry – Weekly Divisional Strength – HORSES – France, 1918.” 412

After breaking through the D-Q Line the Canadian Corps confronted the Canal du Nord.

Currie considered the unfinished canal “a serious obstacle…strongly defended by machine guns” and protected by enfilade artillery fire.1552 He planned to attack across a narrow 2,600-yard stretch of the canal that remained dry. Once through this narrow gap, the Canadian Corps could fan out on a broader front to advance on the critical road and rail junction of Cambrai. It spent the rest of

September entrenched on the western side of the Canal, which as Tim Cook notes, continued to receive heavy machine-gun fire, artillery barrages, and nearly uninterrupted gas attacks. 1553

Indeed, although a relatively “quiet” period with no active combat operations, the Canadian

Corps still suffered 451 animals killed/destroyed and 753 evacuated – 1,204 casualties sustained over three weeks with no major offensive operations.1554 Still, this pause proved critical for recovering animal condition after breaching the D-Q Line. Ample grazing and better watering opportunities proved critical assets in helping animals recover from the hard work of active combat. If these resources “had not been available,” Cutcliffe wrote on 9 September, “the animals would not have been able to continue doing the work required of them.”1555 Indeed, Major

Saunders remarked the 2nd Brigade CFA’s horses were “in good condition and show their grooming and good care” by its gunners and drivers.1556 Also reflecting the tremendous service in maintaining the working efficiency of these animals, VOs again uniformly reported “no contagious disease” in their divisions before, during, or after the battle.1557

1552 Sir Arthur Currie Diary Entry, 4 September 1918, in Mark Osborne Humphries, ed., The Selected Papers of Sir Arthur Currie: Diaries Letters, and Report to the Ministry, 1917-1933, (Waterloo: LCMSDS Press of Wilfrid Laurier University, 2008), 116. 1553 David Borys, “Crossing the Canal: Combined Arms Operations at the Canal du Nord, September-October 1918,” Canadian Military History 20, no. 4 (Autumn 2011): 23-26, and Cook, Shock Troops, 501-504. 1554 “Wastage Statistics Excluding Cavalry. Horses – France – 1918.” 1555 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 9 September 1918. 1556 WD, DADVS 1st Canadian Division, 9 September 1918. 1557 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 23 September 1918, WD, DADVS 2nd Canadian Division, 5 and 12 September 1918, WD, DADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 6 September 1918. 413

Through this brief interlude, VOs continuously inspected their units for any signs of sickness, debility, or malnutrition. The Canadian Corps’ animals continued to remain free from contagious diseases through their vigilance.1558 At a conference on 21 September, the DADsVS discussed clipping their animals as a safeguard against mange for the forthcoming winter.

Repeating the successful model of the previous year, centralized clipping depots staffed by experienced personnel would undertake all of the work. These officers resolved “all clipping should be completed by November 15th and rugs should be [used] as soon as animals are clipped.”1559 Indeed, Moore and other senior AVC officers reached the same conclusion as

Tamblyn and Edgett the year before – that centralized clipping stations and pooled resources

“enable a saving to be effected in the number of [clipping] machines.”1560 Likely (but not expressly) referencing the Canadian’ clipping regimen in late 1917, Moore claimed the centralized approach ensured clipping “can be most expeditiously and economically carried out.”1561

The First Army offensive resumed on 27 September when the Canadian Corps assaulted across the Canal du Nord while other BEF formations attacked southern portions of the

Hindenburg Line.1562 Integral to success in the battle was swift advance of field artillery batteries in the wake of the attacking 4th Canadian Division, with Currie writing “the batteries were compelled to move forward into captured ground and continue firing the barrage from these new positions” [Figure 9.2]. “Provision was made,” he added, “for the advance of a number of batteries with their Echelons to the Canal line and beyond whilst the attack was in progress.”1563 To enable

1558 WD, DADVS 2nd Canadian Division, 26 September 1918. 1559 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 17 July and 21 September 1918. 1560 WD, DVS, 9-14 July 1918. 1561 WD, DVS, 26 July 1918. 1562 See Lloyd, Hundred Days, Chapter 10. 1563 Currie, “Operations of the Canadian Corps, 1918,” 158. 414

their move across the steep banks of the dry canal, Canadian Engineers built seven bridges for infantry and ten for artillery to cross.1564 Historians uniformly consider the Canadians’ attack across the Canal du Nord a masterpiece of planning and execution, with the Corps breaching this daunting obstacle and advancing up to five miles.1565

Figure 9.2: 18-Pounder Gun Team, Canal du Nord, September 19181566

Commenting on the efficacy of the barrage, Tamblyn noticed “enemies lying dead all round with large numbers of animal and Motor Transport wagons blown apart by our Artillery.”1567 Once across the Canal, Canadian units fought bitterly in and around Cambrai before capturing the city

1564 Borys, “Crossing the Canal,” 32. 1565 Shane Schreiber considered this attack Currie’s “magnum opus,” Nick Lloyd, “his masterpiece,” and J.L. Granatstein, “the finest example of [the Canadians’] professionalism in the Great War.” Schreiber, Shock Army of the British Empire, 95-103, Lloyd, Hundred Days, 170, and Granatstein, The Greatest Victory, 137. 1566 Second Lieutenant David McLellan (Photographer). “Horse team of the Royal Field Artillery pulling an 18 pounder field gun up the slope of a cutting through the bank of the Canal du Nord near Moeuvres, 27 September 1918.” © IWM Q 9347. Online Reproduction from http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205216623 (Accessed 26 June 2016). 1567 Tamblyn, “The History of the C.A.V.C. Third Canadian Division, B.E.F.,” 4. 415

on 9 October. These attacks beginning from 26 August brought the Canadian Corps forward some

23 miles, capturing 18,585 prisoners. They were also exceptionally costly, with 30,806 killed, wounded, and missing personnel.1568

These long advances and heavy fighting also exacted a severe toll on the Canadian Corps’ horses and mules which, as in most battles of the Great War, historians have neglected to consider.

Crossing the Canal du Nord and the subsequent battles outside of Cambrai represented the costliest single week in Canadian animal lives in the First World War. In the week ending 3 October 1918,

586 animals were killed/destroyed, and another 279 evacuated. Such an enormous disparity between dead wastage and evacuated casualties attests to the ferocity of the fighting and terrible damage wrought on the animal transport network by German machine-gun and artillery fire. The following week, another 328 animals lost their lives and 410 were evacuated. The animal losses for the Battles of Arras-Cambrai, then, were 1,903 died/destroyed and 1,864 evacuated.1569 Late

September and early October similarly accounted for an enormous number of the BEF’s animal casualties. Between 24 September and 7 October, it suffered 7,357 animals dead and wounded –

“exceptionally heavy” losses according to Moore.1570

To help mitigate these losses, Tamblyn proposed novel methods of exploiting local terrain to shield horses from enemy fire. He designed the “Tamblyn Equine Dug-Out,” a captured trench covered with corrugated iron and earth to serve as horse standings and protection from enemy fire.

1568 Currie, “Canadian Corps Operations, 1918,” 168. 1569 “Wastage Statistics Excluding Cavalry. Horses – France – 1918.” 1570 WD, DVS, 7 October 1918. Despite these heavy losses the BEF’s overall logistic network continued to function exceptionally well, furnishing frontline units with their requisite ammunition for each successive attack. Indeed, according to Ian Brown, that “British supply lines proved capable of simultaneously supplying multiple armies with the means to carry out” their attacks with heavy shell expenditure, was direct evidence of “British and Allied administrative superiority.” Brown, British Logistics on the Western Front, 198. For details on the nature of the fighting in August-September 1918, see Lloyd, Hundred Days, Chapters 9-12. 416

He furthermore noted that squaring circular shell craters could be a “quick means of finding cover for animals from Bomb and Shell fragments,” and with only room for two animals per crater, would minimize losses from direct hits.1571 It is unclear how extensively troops employed these methods in the field, but these proposals nevertheless represent a keen effort by senior veterinary personnel to reduce the shocking animal wastage sustained during such ferocious battles.

In addition to battle casualties, animals continued to suffer from reduced forage rations.

Their pared-down forage allocations fell to 8.5 pounds per day, supplemented by whatever nearby green forage was available. “This is not sufficient,” Cutcliffe warned, “to keep animals in condition when at hard work.”1572 Two days before the assault across the Canal, on 25 September, the DDVS

First Army observed “many horses” in “poor condition” in the Canadian Corps, resolving to allocate extra forage to these units. However, seeing the infantry transport and Divisional Train of the 1st Canadian Division crossing the Canal on 27 September, he noted most animals were “in good condition.”1573 Tamblyn claimed animals of the 9th CIB and 9th Brigade CFA were “in good condition but a few thin cases.” The “small issue of Hay and poor quality” similarly rendered 7th

CIB animals “very thin,” though “the whole appear to be maintaining their condition.”1574 Indeed, on 6 October, Cutcliffe observed “the animals are working hard and losing flesh.” However, with

“no mange” or other diseases, “the general health of the animals continues excellent.”1575

Reflecting the general practice throughout these offensives, veterinary personnel struggled to evacuate wounded or debilitated animals, render first aid in the field, and keep the animal

1571 Lieutenant-Colonel D. Tamblyn Circular Messages, 6 October and 9 October 1918. LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5042 Reel T-10934. 1572 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 6 October 1918. 1573 WD, DDVS First Army, 24-27 September. 1574 WD, DADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 30 September and 8 October 1918. 1575 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 6 October 1918. 417

logistic network on its legs. Captain Harvey recalled veterinary personnel in the 2nd DAC were

“worked very hard indeed,” while animal likes “were shelled on and off” throughout 29

September. A Veterinary Sergeant Nattrass “did splendid work” at the Canal, tending “to many other animals outside of his own Section, and worked steadily all the time to dress the wounded or destroy those too badly wounded to save.”1576 No. 2 Canadian MVS similarly deployed an

Advanced Collecting Post west of the Canal on 27 September, and crossing it to follow up the attacking forces the next morning.1577 Captain Vickers noted the Section received a detachment of six infantrymen to assist in its evacuation work temporarily, for “we were unable with our small personnel to cope with the work thrown upon us.” He claimed “we were very busy” evacuating casualties, “giving the animals a rest overnight at our lines, where the wounds receive dressing

[and] attention as much as our small personnel will allow.” Between 26 September and 10 October, it admitted 337 animals and evacuated 315 to CCVES, which at one point was 17 miles away.1578

On 1 October, the CCVES moved forward, evacuating all of its remaining patients, and did not accept new ones until advancing forward to Quéant. During the Canal du Nord and Cambrai, the CCVES became severely overtaxed. It was, Cutcliffe complained, “evacuating for four [MVS} belonging to other Corps” in addition to the four Canadian MVS, “and the personnel is hardly sufficient to carry on.”1579 Between 26 September and 10 October, with 52 All Ranks, the CCVES admitted 1,379 animals and evacuated 1,238 to hospital.1580 Critical to the successful evacuation of these casualties, too, was the RSPCA Motor Horse Ambulance that arrived on 13 September.

1576 Harvey, “Short Veterinary History of the 2nd Canadian Divisional Ammunition Column,” 13. 1577 WD, DADVS 2nd Canadian Division, 28 September 1918. 1578 Vickers, “No. 2 Canadian Mobile Veterinary Section, Veterinary History,” 5, and WD, No. 2 Canadian MVS, 26 September to 10 October 1918. 1579 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 7 October 1918. 1580 WD, CCVES, 26 September to 10 October 1918. 418

Cutcliffe wrote the ambulance “has been of great service in collecting sick and wounded animals,”

and crucially, “relieved the strain on the [horse-drawn] Ambulances” of each MVS.1581

Reflecting the smooth working of the Remount Department, too, replacement animals

swiftly arrived to replace the grievous animal losses suffered at the Canal du Nord and Cambrai.

On 10 October, Major Stedman received 228 remounts for the 4th Canadian Division: “condition

fair with exception of [Heavy Draught] which were very poor.” Between 10 September and 22

October, the division received 814 remounts – approximately 20% its animal strength.1582 The 3rd

Division likewise received 219 remounts on 5 October. They were “all very good type generally

speaking, physical condition good,” Tamblyn considered, with “a few thin.”1583

Table 9.3: Canadian Corps Animal Strength, Battle of Canal du Nord and Cambrai1584

Week Ending Corps 1st Division 2nd Division 3rd Division 4th Division Canadian Troops Corps 26 September 7,403 3,815 4,048 4,038 4,082 23,386 3 October 8,351 3,787 4,007 3,984 4,098 24,383 10 October 5,666 3,988 3,948 4,176 3,984 21,897 17 October 5,035 3,934 4,048 4,140 4,166 21,384

Once again, too, these casualties severely taxed the Directorate of Remounts. October 1918 saw

the highest volume of remounts distributed throughout the year, with 24,528 animals issued to

frontline units. Throughout the month, the BEF received 12,096 animals from overseas and a

1581 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 13 September and 31 October 1918. 1582 WD, DADVS 4th Canadian Division, 10 September to 22 October 1918. 1583 WD, DADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 5 October 1918. 1584 “Excluding Cavalry – Weekly Divisional Strength – HORSES – France, 1918.” 419

further 12,391 discharged from veterinary hospitals – barely accounting for the heavy demand at the front without allowing any surplus to accrue.1585

After capturing Cambrai, the Canadian Corps prepared to launch further offensives against the Imperial German Army, which began to steadily fall back toward the Belgian border. “The

Canadian Corps, although tired and in depleted numbers,” Currie wrote, “began to push forward” to pursue the retreating Germans.1586 This advance, though witnessing marked progress, also saw a steady stream of casualties as German rear-guard units tenaciously fought delaying actions all along the Western Front. The last major set-piece battle fought by the Canadian Corps in the Great

War took place outside Valenciennes, with the 10th CIB assaulting the German-held high ground of Mount Houy. Tim Cook notes that 250 field guns fired 4,820 tonnes of ammunition to saturate the battlefield with shells in order to spare as many Canadian infantrymen as possible. It was, according to Brigadier-General Andrew McNaughton, Corps Heavy Artillery GOC, a victory paid for “in shells, not in life.”1587 Following its capture of Valenciennes, the Canadian Corps resumed its advance towards the Belgian city of Mons, with each day’s advance seldom proceeding less than a mile.1588 Indeed, between 11 October and 11 November, the Corps’ horses, mules, and soldiers advanced 52 miles across destroyed roads, bridges, and flooded fields that Currie considered were ostensibly “to further impede our progress.”1589

This constant pace of movement threatened to paralyze the Canadian Corps’ exhausted animal transport. The advance through the Canal du Nord to Cambrai and Valenciennes afforded

1585 “Issues & Receipts. End of October, 1918,” and “Issues & Receipts. Week Ending 5/10/18, 12th October 1918, 19th October 1918, and 26/10/18.” NA WO 95/70. 1586 Dancocks, Spearhead to Victory, 180-181 and Currie, “Canadian Corps Operations, 1918,” 169. 1587 Tim Cook, Shock Troops, 551-568 and quoted in Nicholson, The Gunners of Canada, 370. 1588 Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 476. 1589 Currie, “Canadian Corps Operations, 1918,” 183. 420

little opportunity for a lengthy respite necessary for the animals to fully recover from the months of unceasing work and heavy battle. Inspecting the 4th Canadian Divisional Artillery, Colonel T.W.

Rudd, DDVS First Army, claimed “there are many animals practically worn out.” “All have had extremely hard work to perform during the recent rapid advance,” he explained, “and have lost in condition owing to this and very inclement weather.”1590 Debility, which caused such extreme concern during the Battle of Vimy Ridge, manifested in increasing numbers. The 2nd Division, for example, suffered a spike in debility cases at the end of October, with 90 cases between 18 and 31

October. During those two weeks, too, the 3rd Division suffered 82 cases.1591 Indeed, Cutcliffe observed on 21 October that “50% of [the] animals received at V.E.S. are now debility cases.” He attributed the animals’ declining condition to “long hours of work, bad roads, lack of forage and inability to water regularly, no shelter or standings.”1592 A few days’ worth of rest as of 24 October, along with whatever captured forage and open grazing became available, helped some animals make a “marked improvement in [their] condition,” but at the end of the month, debility remained a principal cause for concern. Indeed, having inspected the 4th Canadian Division’s artillery and

DAC on 9 November, Cutcliffe observed a number of thin and debilitated cases. However,

“considering the work and long hours in harness that the animals have done since July last,” he wrote, “their condition is all that could be expected.”1593 This constant advance proved a drain on the rest of the BEF’s animals as well. Moore noted on 9 November that 1,208 animals entered sick lines for debility, with 8,027 in veterinary hospitals for this condition alone.1594

1590 WD, DDVS First Army, 9 November 1918. 1591 A.2000 Forms 2nd Canadian Division – Week Ending 24 and 31 October 1918 and A.2000 Forms 3rd Canadian Division – Week Ending 24 and 31 October 1918. 1592 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 21 October 1918. 1593 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 24-31 October and 9 November 1918. 1594 WD, DVS, 9 November 1918. Overall, these final advances caused “serious logistic strain” throughout the BEF as advancing forces began to outstrip ammunition dumps. Brown, British Logistics on the Western Front, 202. 421

Despite their thin condition, the animals otherwise continued to remain otherwise healthy.

Contagious diseases continued to remain essentially in check throughout these weeks, with mange,

glanders, and opthalmia all but absent from A.2000 Forms. Indeed, the 2nd Division suffered only

two cases of mange throughout the entirety of the Hundred Days – one in the week ending 8 August

and another in the week ending 17 October. The 4th Division similarly experienced five cases in

the same timeframe.1595 This freedom from disease had a telling effect on animal health.

Lieutenant-Colonel T.C. Evans, once again DADVS 2nd Canadian Division, commented “horse

management good and animals in good condition” in the 2nd Machine Gun Battalion on 2

November.1596 Major Stedman further claimed animals of the 4th DAC were “in excellent

condition.”1597 Greatly assisting in this regard, too, was that the Canadian Corps advanced into

territories with abundant grazing – one of the inadvertent benefits of the harsh German occupation.

Having pillaged so many horses and cattle from Belgium, horses and mules of the Canadian Corps

could graze on fields virtually untouched by livestock. Cutcliffe noted this fresh fodder, with

abundant water and frequent rests, “has been of immense benefit,” with animals “picking up in

flesh rapidly.”1598

Table 9.4: Canadian Corps Animal Strength, Pursuit to Mons, 19181599

Week Ending Corps 1st Division 2nd Division 3rd Division 4th Division Canadian Troops Corps 24 October 5,148 3,935 4,119 4,198 4,219 21,619

1595 A.2000 Forms 2nd Canadian Division – Week Ending 8 August to 14 November 1918 and .2000 Forms 4th Canadian Division – Week Ending 8 August to 14 November 1918 1596 WD, DADVS 2nd Canadian Division, 2 November 1918. 1597 WD, DADVS 4th Canadian Division, 9 November 1918. 1598 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 10 November 1918. 1599 “Wastage Statistics Excluding Cavalry. Horses – France – 1918,” A.2000 Form 1st Canadian Division – Week Ending 24 October to 14 November 1918, A.2000 Form 2nd Canadian Division – Week Ending 24 October to 14 November 1918, , A.2000 Form 3rd Canadian Division – Week Ending 24 October to 14 November 1918, , A.2000 Form 4th Canadian Division – Week Ending 24 October to 14 November 1918, and A.2000 Forms Canadian Corps Troops – Week Ending 24 October to 14 November 1918. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3386 Folder R-62-45. 422

31 October 4,311 926 4,229 4,175 4,144 20,920 (Mules)* 7 November 4,328 4,066 4,209 4,359 4,220 21,273 14 November 5,097 4,049 4,123 3,089 4,102 21,703 (Horses)* *Only returns for horses or mules available for these weeks. There is also as inexplicable discrepancies between the totals listed in the A.2000 Forms (Corps Troops + 4 Divisions) and the full Corps strength detailed in the last column for the week ending 7 November 1918.

Remounts arriving to these units increasingly showed evidence of malnutrition and

unpreparedness for hard work, though they appear to have been serviceable animals. Cutcliffe

noted repeatedly through October that “remounts arriving are in soft condition and rapidly lose

flesh when put to work.”1600 Tamblyn claimed that 251 remounts arriving for the 3rd Division on

2 November were, “with the exception of a few thin…in good physical condition.”1601 Indeed,

Cutcliffe conceded, “considering all circumstances [the remounts] were as good as could be

expected.”1602 Between 5 October and 16 November, Remounts distributed 35,447 animals to units

in France, receiving 19,457 discharged from hospital and 23,309 animals from Overseas.1603

This steady influx of remounts remained critical, for fighting continued until immediately

before the Armistice. The Canadian Corps continued its pursuit of reeling German forces, with

heavy skirmishing taking place even as the cease-fire became imminent. Although steadily falling

back, heavy German artillery fire against the lines of communication continued to inflict casualties

on the Canadian Corps’ animals. Between 17 October and 14 November, during which the Corps

fought its sole major operation at Valenciennes, it suffered another 511 died/destroyed and 999

evacuated – 1,510 total casualties.1604 Indeed, Cutcliffe recorded that 104 animals dying from

1600 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 6 and 31 October 1918. 1601 WD, DADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 2 November 1918. 1602 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 2 November 1918. 1603 “Issues & Receipts – Week ending 5/10/18, 12th October 1918, 19th October 1918, 26/10/18, 2/11/18, 9/11/18, and 16/11/18,” and “Issues & Receipts – End of October 1918 and End of November 1918.” NA WO 95/70. 1604 “Wastage Statistics Excluding Cavalry. Horses – France – 1918.” 423

enemy fire as late as 10 and 11 November.1605 These last weeks similarly proved costly for the broader BEF in its continuous pace of advance. In the week ending 18 October, 5,174 animals were killed and wounded, and another 3,410 the following week.1606

The loss of these animals continued to elicit deep sadness from their veterinary caretakers.

Veterinary Sergeant Barteaux, for example, recalled a single bomb killed 20 animals and wounded

22 on the night of 10/11 November. Shortly after these animals died, Belgian civilians rushed out with knives to butcher the carcasses. As Chickering notes, unfettered German requisitions of crops and livestock very nearly caused famine in Belgium, and only United States food aid “helped avert the…catastrophe.”1607 Indeed, Barteaux observed, “the Civil population had seen little to no meat for the past three years.” “The sight of those Civilians coming from many miles around, hacking and butchering the carcasses,” he reflected, “was a spectacle never to be forgotten.”1608

By 10 November, the 3rd Canadian Division reached the outskirts of Mons – site of the first heavy fighting between the BEF and the Imperial German Army in August 1914.1609 Lieutenant-

Colonel David Tamblyn followed closely behind the front lines of the advance. Tamblyn was undoubtedly a brave man. While a Civil Veterinary Surgeon in South Africa, he accompanied a relief column in March 1902 that came under heavy enemy fire. “Bearing a charmed life,” Sir

Frederick Smith wrote, he “made several trips with boxes of ammunition…and distributed [them] along the bullet-swept line.” 1610 At Mons on 10 November, he almost pushed that luck too far.

Tamblyn remembered he “decided to ride on into Mons” while the Princess Patricia’s Canadian

1605 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 17 November 1918. 1606 WD, DVS, 18 and 24 October 1918. 1607 Chickering, Imperial Germany and the Great War, 84. 1608 “49369 Sergt. C.C. Barteaux. 20th Battery C.F.A,” 4. 1609 Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 480-481. 1610 Smith, A Veterinary History of the War in South Africa, 213. 424

Light Infantry, Royal Canadian Regiment, and 42nd Battalion of the 7th CIB prepared to push into the city. “I did so by walking my horse over a small foot bridge close to the Main Bridge,” but before long, “I found the main road into Mons being heavily shelled.” Tamblyn continued towards the city until he encountered a section of the PPCLI withdrawing in the face of heavy machine- gun fire. “At this point I thought it best to beat a retreat myself,” he claimed, for “to get captured or wounded at this junction and a Veterinary Officer at that, would be too huge of a joke.”1611

Nevertheless, the next day, Tamblyn was once again close behind the 7th CIB battalions when they captured Mons. Heavy skirmishing between Canadian infantry and stubborn German personnel took place until moments before the armistice was due to take effect at 11:00 am on 11

November.1612 The DADVS nevertheless made his way to the city centre, and in the presence of

Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Currie and 3rd Canadian Division GOC Major-General Frederick

Loomis, “signed the Golden Book of Mons.” “This I thought was a very appropriate thing for me to do,” he concluded, “especially in view of the fact that I was the first mounted Officer to enter the City.”1613 The Great War on the Western Front was over.

The three months of the “Hundred Days Campaign” were the bloodiest for Canadian animals, and Canadian soldiers, in the First World War. From 8 August to 11 November 1918,

45,830 soldiers were killed or wounded, almost one-fifth of the CEF’s casualties for the entire conflict.1614 During these months, too, 3,146 animals in the Canadian Corps died or were destroyed

– the overwhelming bulk due to enemy fire. A further 3,453 were sufficiently wounded, injured, or sick that they were evacuated to veterinary hospitals in the rear. These dead and evacuated –

1611 Tamblyn, “The History of the C.A.V.C. Third Canadian Division, B.E.F.,” 5-6. 1612 The last British Empire soldier of the Great War, Private George Lawrence Price, was shot and killed by a sniper at 10:58 am just outside Mons. Dancocks, Spearhead to Victory, 205. 1613 Tamblyn, “The History of the C.A.V.C. Third Canadian Division, B.E.F.,” 6. 1614 Schreiber, Shock Army of the British Empire, 131. 425

which does not count those wounded animals cured and returned to duty – amounted to 6,599 horses and mules, or 30% of the Canadian Corps’ horse strength at the signing of the Armistice.

Ultimately, one-quarter of the 13,049 Canadian animals to die in the Great War perished between the beginning of the Battle of Amiens on 8 August and the capture of Mons on 11 November.1615

These Canadian horses and mules died far out of proportion to the overall animal strength of the BEF. Between 15 July and 11 November, 22,526 horses were killed and 23,497 wounded throughout the BEF – 46,023 total animal casualties.1616 Thus, although the 21,173 horses and mules in the Canadian Corps comprised 5.29% of the roughly 400,000 animals in the BEF, their deaths represented 15.3% of the animals killed in the Hundred Days. This disproportionate death rate again illustrates the unrelenting intensity of the Corps’ offensives at the end of the war.

Veterinary personnel endeavoured, and largely succeeded, in mitigating this detrimental impact to the logistical system as far as their resources and capabilities allowed. Over the course of 1918, 17,575 animals of the four Canadian Divisions and Corps Troops fell sick, were wounded, or died from all causes. Of these, 2,686 died, 1,110 were destroyed, and 5,865 were evacuated to veterinary hospitals. The remaining 7,914 sick and wounded animals that received treatment in the field were cured in the field and returned to their units. CAVC personnel thus immediately cured

45% of the surviving casualties and retained them within the forward areas.1617

A passage written by Captain Harvey, 2nd DAC VO, encapsulates the contributions of both animals and their veterinary caretakers during the unforgiving pace of these battles:

All during the fall of 1918 the animals remained constantly in the open and were worked very hard, still due to the splendid condition in which they commenced this

1615 “Wastage Statistics Excluding Cavalry. Horses – France – 1918” and “1914-1918 – Canadian Remount and Evacuation Statistics.” 1616 History of the Organization and Development of the Army Veterinary Service with the British Expeditionary Force, France, 18. 1617 “Gross Wastage – France – 1918.” LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3363 Folder A-2-45. 426

period of the war and the care which drivers took of them they remained in good condition and except for wounds very few evacuations took place.

At no time during the war did the men appear to work with better heart and do almost prohibitive hours of work in order to keep their animals in shape and supply the large amount of ammunition needed by the Batteries. This work was kept up by both animals and men till the signing of the Armistice.1618

Repeating this same sentiment, Tamblyn claimed “our only thought was to give” the infantry and artillery “every support possible in the way of supplies and ammunition and thus enable them to reach their objective.”1619 They thus ensured that artillery, logistics, and infantry units did not have to rely upon delayed replenishment of their animal strengths from remounts. They upheld Currie’s conviction that they were indeed central to “maintaining the mobility of the Corps.”

“On the Go All the Time”

The Hundred Days’ Campaign remains the focus of considerable scholarly examination that shows little sign of abating. The battles of 1918, featuring long advances, widespread employment of weapons technology, and eventual defeat of the German Empire, stand in stark contrast to the preceding years of trench warfare on the Western Front. Prevailing historical analyses from John Terraine, Tim Travers, J.P. Harris, and Bill Rawling, focus on technology such as tanks and aircraft – two weapons that shaped the next global conflict – and their contentious roles in the Allied victories of 1918. Indeed, as Rawling claimed, “technology in all its forms had turned combat into a three dimensional enterprise requiring literally an army of specialist technicians to handle them.”1620

1618 Harvey, “Short History of the 2nd Canadian Divisional Ammunition Column,” 15. 1619 Tamblyn, “The History of the C.A.V.C. Third Canadian Division, B.E.F.,” 1. 1620 Rawling, Surviving Trench Warfare, 223. 427

However, as this chapter demonstrated, humanity’s oldest transportation technology – the equid – remained critical to the success of these high-technology battles. Throughout the Spring

Offensives and Hundred Days, transport animals continued to maintain unit maneuverability by hauling guns, ammunition, and supplies across the battlefield. They suffered terrible casualties in the process – mitigated as far as they could by veterinary personnel. Indeed, the officers and men of the CAVC, aided tremendously by high standards of animal management amongst non- veterinary personnel, worked tirelessly to treat wounds, evacuate casualties, and ensure the animals continued to be capable of the heavy working tasks required of them.

Undoubtedly, their greatest triumph in this period – perhaps the entire war – was in effectively defeating infectious diseases before the commencement of the offensive. Previous chapters of this study exhibited the terrible impact of disease, particularly mange, on the animal transport system both in and outside of combat. However, in suppressing mange and ensuring the animals remained remarkably healthy throughout this period, CAVC personnel cleared an enormous hurdle for the Canadian Corps’ logistics. Their work in treating wounds, too, proved an exhausting, heartbreaking, relentless task until the last shots of the war fired. Nevertheless, they managed to return almost half of the animals with survivable wounds to their units in the field, and ensured they would not have to suffer debilitating animal losses while active operations continued.

Even with the fighting over, the work of these veterinary personnel did not cease. The threat of infectious disease continued to linger, and they would thus remain busy for the weeks and months after the Armistice. Pressing questions, too, on how to deal with the massive number of military animals in Europe immediately drew attention from all levels of the high command.

Chapter Ten will examine the immediate aftermath and demobilization of the Great War, as well as the fate of Canadian horses and veterinarians in Canadian military with the resumption of peace.

428

Chapter Ten – “No Longer Practical:” Demobilizing Horses and Veterinarians, 1918-1940

“Horse casualties in wars of the future no doubt will very much increase, and also distance travelled, consequently necessitating the evacuation of more sick and injured animals from the field to Mobile Veterinary Sections and Veterinary Evacuating Stations…a Motor Truck, as suggested, is thought to be the most economical and effective means of removing sick and injured animals from the field, in modern warfare.”1621

-Lieutenant-Colonel David Tamblyn Officer Administering, Royal Canadian Army Veterinary Corps 6 October 1930

“About the only article of which stocks are held is harness, and this is practically useless. The composition of a modern land force will include very little horsed transport.”1622

-Major-General Andrew McNaughton Chief of the General Staff 28 May 1935.

The Armistice of 11 November 1918 ended the fighting on the Western Front, but it did not effect a permanent peace settlement. The victors and vanquished spent January to June 1919 in Paris negotiating the treaties to end the conflict officially.1623 The months following the

Armistice thus witnessed elements of the Canadian Corps occupying positions in Germany to guard against resumed hostilities during these deliberations. Even without a formal peace settlement, however, the victorious powers wasted little time demobilizing their forces. The longer horses, mules, and men, and motor vehicles remained on active service, the more they cost in fodder, food, and fuel.

This chapter examines the fate of horses and veterinarians in the aftermath of the Great

War. It briefly discusses Canadian occupation duties after the Armistice and the continued

1621 Lieutenant-Colonel D.S. Tamblyn to Quartermaster-General, Department of National Defence, 6 October 1930. LAC RG 24 Vol. 6542 Folder H.Q. 621-3-7 Vol. 2. 1622 Quoted in Colonel C.P. Stacey, Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War, Volume I: Six Years of War: The Army in Canada, Britain and the Pacific, (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1955), 6. 1623 See Margaret Macmillan, Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World, (New York: Random House, 2001). 429

challenges experienced by CAVC personnel after the guns fell silent. It then explores demobilization of the CEF’s horses and mules – a process overwhelmingly dictated by time constraints and a rush to realize maximum profits from sale of these animals. It concludes with the resumed crisis over horses and veterinarians in Canadian social and military affairs during the postwar era of growing mechanization.

This chapter will demonstrate that the Armistice of 1918 effectively stopped the learning process for the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps. By the end of the Great War, the CAVC became a highly proficient organization overseeing the health of animal-based logistics. It remained fixed in this mindset, however, through years of restricted peacetime budgets and the ascendancy of motorized transport. Despite frequent claims to the contrary from horse enthusiasts in military, government, and social circles, the equid steadily declined in utility by the mid-twentieth century.1624 Thus, although the CAVC attained a high level of professionalism in animal management and combat veterinary medicine by 1918, neither of these critical skills would remain important to Canadian military operations into the mid twentieth century and beyond.

After the Armistice

Under the Armistice terms, Allied forces planned to occupy the western bank of the Rhine

River in Germany as well as bridgeheads on the opposite side – a deterrent against resumed hostilities while peace negotiations proceeded in Paris. The Canadian Corps, attached to British

Second Army, was to garrison a stretch of territory between Düsseldorf and Bonn. The Corps,

1624 See Filey and Russell, From Horse Power to Horsepower, 12-13, Derry, Horses in Society, Chapters 2 and 4, McShane and Tarr, The Horse in the City, Chapter 8 and Epilogue, Greene, Horses at Work, Chapter 7. 430

however, would only consist of the 1st and 2nd Divisions along with Corps Troops. The remaining divisions and attached artillery formations were to remain in Belgium until demobilized.1625

In anticipation of a long march to the occupation zones, and mindful of the enormous strain of the October-November advances, DVS Moore ordered all divisions of the occupation force to evacuate their animal debility cases. Hospital admissions consequently spiked. By 23 November,

8,871 animals were under treatment for debility in veterinary hospitals – 30% of all hospital cases.1626 Canadian evacuation of such cases began the day after the Armistice. Lieutenant-

Colonel Cutcliffe noted “debilitated animals are being sent to MVS from all Units” of the Canadian

Corps, with “every endeavour made to secure Remounts to replace them.”1627 Between 12 and 18

November, the CCVES admitted 467 animals and evacuated 259 to base hospitals. Such a large volume of debilitated animals inundated the CCVES, which struggled to maintain contact with both Mobile Veterinary Sections and the nearest railheads. As of 19 November, it held 250 animals awaiting evacuation to the railhead some 25 miles away.1628 With evacuation of these debilitated cases to CCVES and a few days’ rest, however, Cutcliffe observed “the animals of Infantry, Field

Ambulances, Engineers etc, are in good condition. Those of Artillery are fair.”1629 Indeed, Moore noted on 30 November “the general health of the animals continues satisfactory,” and “the increase in Skin Disease which is expected at this time of year” – mange – “has not yet occurred.”1630

1625 Cook, Shock Troops, Chapter 38, and Chris Hyland, “The Canadian Corps’ Long March: Logistics, Discipline, and the Occupation of the Rhineland,” Canadian Military History 21, no. 2 (Spring 2012): 5-6. 1626 WD, DVS, 14-23 November 1918. 1627 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 15 November 1918. 1628 Four days later, 89 patients capable of walking marched the distance back to the railhead. WD, CCVES, 12-23 November 1918, and WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 19-23 November 1918. 1629 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 15 November 1918. 1630 WD, DVS, 30 November 1918. 431

Lieutenant-General Currie noted the Canadian Corps’ march to the Rhine, beginning on 18

November and ending 12 December, was fraught with logistical problems. The nearest railhead supplying the Corps was at Valenciennes, meaning supplies and rations had to be hauled over one hundred miles to the troops at the fore of the advance.1631 The march to Bonn took the Canadian

Corps 250 miles from its positions on 11 November, with some units covering over twenty miles per day.1632 In addition to hauling guns, ammunition, and supplies towards Germany, Canadian units extended aid to displaced Belgians returning to their homes. Each waggon with spare room loaded civilians’ belongings, and consequently, Cutcliffe noted, “transport animals on Main roads are doing double work.”1633 Veterinary personnel further rendered what aid they could to Belgian farmers and public officials contending with outbreaks of mange and foot-and-mouth disease.1634

Along this “arduous march to Germany,” units left any animals that fell sick, lame, or debilitated behind with local farmers, which the CCVES in turn were responsible for collecting and administering treatment.1635 Major Saunders commented “roads bad [and] slippery,” which made

“hard going for horses.”1636 Captain G. Harvey, attached to 2nd DAC, similarly recalled this month- long trek “took the Unit over very hilly country as they passed through the northern part of the

Ardennes.” He noted that he and his Sergeants CAVC “made daily inspections for any trouble which might arise,” and as a result, “very few [animals] had to be left en route.”1637

1631 Currie, “Canadian Corps Operations, 1918,” 185-191. For a discussion on the tremendous logistical difficulties experienced by the Canadian Corps during its march to the Rhine, see Hyland, “The Canadian Corps’ Long March,” 5-20. 1632 Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 525-526. Ian Brown notes that, with the Armistice taking effect and civilians returning to control rail shipping lines in France and Belgium, GHQ’s highly efficient logistical control “came apart,” engendering terrific difficulties for the occupying forces on their march to the Rhineland. Brown, British Logistics on the Western Front, Chapter 8. 1633 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 16 November 1918. 1634 WD, DADVS 4th Canadian Division, 28 November 1918. 1635 Vickers – “No. 2 Canadian Mobile Veterinary Section, Veterinary History” 6. 1636 WD, DADVS 1st Canadian Division, 18 November 1918. 1637 Harvey, “Short Veterinary History of the 2nd Canadian Divisional Ammunition Column,” 16. 432

The long hours marching each day exacted a toll on the personnel as well. Lieutenant-

Colonel Evans observed drivers in the 2nd Division arrived “greatly fatigued” at their nightly destinations, often well after dark, and consequently, the animals “have suffered from lack of attention.” He noted on 30 November the “condition of animals remaining fair,” but warned they were “bound to fail unless they receive maximum attention before being left for the night.”1638

Indeed, while crossing the Rhine at Bonn under Sir Arthur Currie’s salute on 12 December,

Captain Vickers remarked No. 2 Canadian MVS was “unable to present an appearance of at least equal to our usual standard of turning out.” “We has three or four very severe long marches,”

Vickers explained, “including the day we crossed the Rhine,” itself conducted under a hard rain.1639

Upon reaching their positions in Germany, animals and men of the Canadian Corps settled into billets for the winter. During these first months of peace, there were numerous opportunities for Canadian personnel to assist their transition to civilian life with free education from the Khaki

University of Canada.1640 As part of the general educational scheme, veterinary officers delivered lectures on animal management, infectious diseases, and animal-based agriculture. Captain R.G.

Matthew, the Acting DADVS 3rd Division while Tamblyn was on leave, delivered lectures on

“Contagious and Infectious Disease” and another on “General Diseases” throughout the division.

Similarly, Captain Harvey held daily “educational classes for all those who wished to take advantage of them,” ranging from “Breeds and Breeding, Feeds and Feeding, and other agricultural work.1641 Veterinarians could also pursue educational opportunities once the war ended. Moore

1638 WD, DADVS 2nd Canadian Division, 30 November and 2 December 1918. 1639 Vickers, “No. 2 Canadian Mobile Veterinary Section, Veterinary History,” 6. 1640 See “The Khaki University of Canada,” in Report of the Ministry: Overseas Military Forces of Canada, 1918, 473-482. 1641 WD, DADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 22 December 1918 and Harvey, “Short Veterinary History of the 2nd Canadian Divisional Ammunition Column,” 17. 433

obtained permission for veterinary college students then serving throughout the BEF to attend courses and demonstrations at Veterinary Hospitals “where they would have the opportunity of obtaining knowledge and experiences which would be most useful to them in their future careers.”1642 Serving veterinary officers, too, strengthened their professional qualifications by attending post-graduate courses at the Royal Veterinary College, London. As of June 1919, five

CAVC officers delayed their return to Canada until December to complete the courses.1643

While waiting to return home, however, a number of Canadian units exhibited worsening discipline in horse management. Tamblyn noted a number of batteries throughout the 3rd Division, for example, neglecting to blanket their animals in the cold, wet autumn weather. In many such cases, the rugs lay in the mud “being trampled upon by men.” He also noted poor grooming throughout units of the division, particularly in the 10th Brigade CFA, with two of its batteries

“very poorly groomed.” Tamblyn attributed such lax horse management to “no proper supervision,” and responsible officers’ leave was cancelled until grooming improved. Lazy grooming provided ideal conditions for the return of mange, which remained endemic through the local animal population.1644 Consequently, CAVC personnel clipped most of the 3rd Division’s animals throughout November, and no significant outbreaks of the disease manifested.1645

During occupation duty in Germany, Canadian horses received billets in old warehouses and factories, where they spent a far more comfortable winter than previous years on the Western

Front. Evans noted the billet for No. 2 Canadian MVS was in a munitions factory at Siegburg with capacity for a thousand animals. He observed that the facilities were “in a filthy condition with

1642 WD, DVS, 19 November 1918. 1643 Edgett, “Report of the Director of Veterinary Services on the Department of Veterinary Services and Remounts,” 8. 1644 WD, DVS, 1 February 1919. 1645 WD, DADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 13 November to 18 December 1918. 434

tons of old horse manure lying around,” and enlisted the Burgomaster to find local labour to clean up the mess. By 31 December, he noted “all animals now comfortably stabled and excellent facilities for putting in condition.”1646 Indeed, Cutcliffe observed these animals were “nearly all under shelter,” receiving regular exercise to keep in condition during the sedentary winter.1647

The arduous march to the Rhine, however, caused a slow but steady influx of debilitated cases, especially among older animals suffering effects of continued exhaustion. Scarcity of forage, particularly hay, meant some units’ animals remained thin throughout the winter.1648

Indeed, Cutcliffe noted on 3 January 1919 that of the 197 animals awaiting evacuation at CCVES,

“the majority were cases of Debility.” These animals were principally older and “lost flesh from hardships on march to this Front.”1649 Animals continued to die, too, at a slow pace throughout the occupation. In January 1919, for example, the 1st Division suffered 26 dead and 19 destroyed from an array of causes: fractured tibias, ruptured intestines, colic and pneumonia. Accidental deaths were similarly routine. During the month, 19 animals died and one was destroyed from “metallic poisoning.” These animals were picketed in a factory too close to a lead smelter, and toxic fumes from the furnace killed all these animals. Throughout the week ending 6 January, too, 13 animals died from “electric shock” when a live wire accidentally contacted an iron bar anchoring their picket lines.1650

Canadian animals nevertheless remained generally in good health throughout the winter of

1918-19. Evans noted animals of the 5th Brigade CFA were “condition very fair although grooming

1646 WD, DADVS 2nd Canadian Division, 17 and 31 December 1918. 1647 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 27 December 1918. 1648 WD, DADVS 2nd Canadian Division, 31 December 1918 to 6 January 1919. 1649 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 3-7 January 1919. 1650 “Died and Destroyed During the Month of January, 1919.” LAC RG 9 III-D-3 Vol. 5042 Reel T-10933-10934 and WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 6 and 20 January 1919. 435

could be much better.” Similarly, Tamblyn noted in the 8th Brigade CFA, “physical condition of animals very good throughout,” though “grooming could be improved” in December. In early

January the occupation forces steadily withdrew from the Rhineland to Belgium, “every horse and mule moved by rail,” to rejoin the rest of the Canadian Corps.1651

Demobilization

Throughout this winter of occupation duties, the scheme for disposing the Canadian

Expeditionary Force’s animals swiftly took shape. On 11 November 1918, 1,692 CEF animals remained in England and 24,134 served with units throughout France and Belgium – a total of

25,826 horses and mules. Transport of these animals to Canada was out of the question. The

Canadian Government owned more than enough military-grade horses in Canada for its peacetime military requirements, so there was little to gain by shipping 25,000 across the Atlantic. Indeed,

“the expense involved would have been all out of proportion to the benefits obtained,” wrote

Colonel Charles Edgett, then DVS CEF. Consequently, he noted, “the question of repatriating all our animals to Canada was not considered.”1652

“Repatriation,” too, was something of a misnomer. The overwhelming bulk of these 25,000 animals came from British remount depots over the course of the conflict. Without any concerted effort to track the national origin of the BEF’s 404,000 horses and mules, it would be impossible to establish precisely which Canadian-owned horses were Canadian-bred.1653 Only a handful of these animals were indeed identifiable at the end of the conflict – officers’ mounts and the ‘old

1651 Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 530, and WD, DADVS 2nd Canadian Division, 29 January 1919. 1652 Edgett, “Report of the Director of Veterinary Services on the Department of Veterinary Services and Remounts,” 16-18. 1653 Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire During the Great War, 877. 436

originals’ brought to France 1915. Typically, animals that survived wounds, debility, and illness in the First and Second Canadian Contingents, which brought their horses directly from Canada, remained with their units throughout the war. As of 19 February 1919, for example, the 2nd

Canadian Division retained 606 of the 2,352 horses it first brought to France in September

1915.1654 These draught animals, however, did not receive any orders to return to Canada in 1919, and would share the same fate as the rest of the CEF’s horses and mules.

Senior officers’ chargers were ultimately the only animals repatriated to Canada. This decision came direct from Lieutenant-General Currie, who Edgett noted, “expressed himself strongly” that senior officers “should retain their horses for repatriation to Canada.”1655 The

Canadian public bore the cost of feeding, maintaining, and shipping these animals – along with their grooms – from France to remount depots in England, and thence to Canada.1656 Officers were allotted different numbers of chargers based on their seniority. Currie, for example, brought four of his horses – “Lady Nicholas,” “Paddy,” “Brock,” and “Teddy” – back to Canada. The divisional

GOCs, Major-Generals Archibald Macdonnell, Henry Burstall, Frederick Loomis, and David

Watson, also repatriated three of their mounts each. Although general officers received the largest allotment of animals, some colonels and lieutenant-colonels also managed to bring their animals home.1657 Ultimately, 110 of these chargers were the only horses returned to Canada after the Great

1654 Captain R.J. Vickers, “Original Horses Brought by Units of the 2nd Canadian Division from England to France, Still on Strength,” 19 February 1919. LAC MG 30 E14 Vol. 1 Folder 1. 1655 Edgett to Quartermaster-General, Headquarters, O.M.F. of C., 11 February 1919. 1656 Colonel C.E. Edgett to Canadian Section, General Headquarters, 30 December 1918, and Brigadier-General J.F.L. Embrun Circular, 27 January 1919. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3372 Folder D-2-45. 1657 One of these animals was “Dandy,” the mount of Lieutenant-Colonel I.R. Snider, OC 27th Battalion, which served in both South Africa and on the Western Front with Snider. The only CAVC officer to bring their mount back was “Viola,” mount for Lieutenant-Colonel T.C. Evans. “Officers’ Chargers for Repatriation to Canada: Authority – Ministry Council Decision No. 333,” 30 April 1919, “Officers’ Chargers for Repatriation to Canada: No Authority at Present,” LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3373 Folder H-2-45, Tamblyn, The Horse in War, 97, and “Officers chargers transferred to the Base for Canada.” LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3373 Folder H-1-45. 437

War. They represented only a tiny fraction (0.002%) of the Canadian-bred horses sent overseas to serve in British and Canadian forces.

The CEF’s remaining horses in England and on the Continent were disposed of separately.

Edgett noted “arrangements were made, as soon as the Armistice was signed” to sell the 1,692

Canadian-owned animals in England on the open market as quickly as possible. Public sale of these animals so soon after the Armistice ensured Canadian animals hit the auction block before the majority of British Army’s horses could be demobilized. They consequently fetched a decent price, at an average of £42.10.0 per head. British horses trickling into the increasingly flooded market, by comparison, fetched £20.0.0 per head in the ensuing months. By 30 June 1919,

1,461Canadian animals sold at auctions, the majority in London. The remaining balance consisted of animals transferred to Imperial control, evacuated to hospital, or awaiting repatriation. Sales of the final 120 surplus animals were to take place on 2 and 5 July 1919.1658

Edgett similarly undertook disposal of the CEF’s animals immediately. On 11 November

1918, Armistice Day, he cabled the Belgian Military Mission in London enquiring “whether it would be possible…for the Belgian Government to purchase from the Canadian Government” some 24,300 animals “at a cost to be determined.” The next day, he sent an identical enquiry to the French Military Attaché in London.1659 Also on 12 November, British authorities announced they would not purchase any Canadian horses for their own use, for they already possessed their own massive surplus.1660 However, they offered to include Canadian horses and mules into a

1658 Edgett, “Report of the Director of Veterinary Services on the Department of Veterinary Services and Remounts,” 16-17, and “Overseas Disposal Board,” 1. LAC RG 24 Vol. 1846 Folder GAQ 11-41. 1659 Colonel C.E. Edgett to Belgium Military Mission, 11 November 1918, and Colonel C.E. Edgett to French Military Attaché, Knightsbrigde, 12 November 1918. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3372 Folder D-2-45. 1660 “Overseas Disposal Board,” 1. 438

“General Animal Pool” alongside British, Australian, and New Zealand horses for auction on the open market, with the Canadian Government granted its share of the average sale price.1661

The French declined, but the Belgians expressed considerable interest, and so Canadian authorities declined the British proposal. A week after the original enquiry, the Chief of the Belgian

Military Mission cabled Edgett that the Belgian Minister of War “intends to avail himself of your offer.”1662 At first, the Belgian Ministry of War presented the principal contact point for Canadian authorities, but by January 1919, the Minister of Agriculture also joined in the negotiations for the purchase of these animals. Lieutenant-Colonel David Tamblyn served as the principal Canadian agent for these deliberations. He transferred from 3rd Division in mid-December to serve as

DADVS Canadian Section, GHQ, where he served in Brussels as the primary Canadian authority negotiating the sale. Currie later appointed Brigadier-General H. Panet, formerly GOCRA 3rd

Canadian Divisional Artillery, as Tamblyn’s supervisor.1663

Throughout December and January, these Canadian and Belgian officials discussed the best means of payment, method, place, and time of transfer. The central thrust of the deal was that the Belgian Government agreed to purchase all the CEF’s 12,000 draft horses, 7,000 cavalry horses, and 5,000 mules on the Continent, excepting General Officers’ chargers, for a flat fee of

£40.0.0 per head. Ownership of these animals constituted a loan from the Canadian Government, to be paid back within ten years at 5% annual interest. By 3 January 1919, Colonel K.C. Folger of the OMFC informed the Secretary, War Office, that “negotiations have been completed” with the

1661 Edgett, “Report of the Director of Veterinary Services on the Department of Veterinary Services and Remounts,” 16-18. 1662 Major General ADC to the King, Chief of the Belgian Military Mission to Colonel C.E. Edgett, 18 November 1918. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3372 Folder D-2-45. 1663 Lieutenant-Colonel Wifred Bovey to Hon the Minister, Overseas Military Forces of Canada, July 1919, 12. LAC RG 9 III-A-1 Vol. 104 Folder 339. 439

Belgians. He stated the transfer should proceed “with as little delay as possible when they are no longer required for military purposes.”1664

This Canadian deal directly competed with a similar War Office scheme. It separately brokered a contract with the Belgian Government to accept some 50,000 animals directly from the

BEF. In mid-January, Brigadier-General Garatt, BEF Director of Remounts, thought the Belgians might accept a further 60,000 animals at a flat rate of £50.0.0 per head.1665 However, the prospect of absorbing a minimum of 75,000 animals overwhelmed the Belgians. The Ministries of War and

Agriculture experienced difficulty finding enough farmers, who were not yet beginning spring planting, or enough military grooms, who needed to look after the horses until their reassignment, and enough forage, of which there was a chronic deficiency. Lieutenant-Colonel Wilfred Bovey,

Deputy Assistant Adjutant General Canadian Corps, claimed in his comprehensive report on demobilization that “no coordination existed between the Belgian Government…and the local

Committees of different Provinces” for accepting control of these horses.1666

A conference on 1 February 1919 attended by the Minister of Agriculture, Provincial

Governors, British Army representatives, Edgett, and Tamblyn sorted out these issues. Egdett noted the Belgian authorities were “not at all satisfied with the class of animal being turned over by Imperial Authorities.” At the same time, the slow absorption tested the patience of British officers, who wished to break the contract so they could expedite their demobilization process. On

1664 W. Guff to Colonel Edgett, 16 December 1918, Mr. F. Gitney to Secretary, Belgian Mission, Canada House, 18 December 1918, Delegate of the Belgian Government to Mr. D. Gibson, (Assistant Deputy Minister OMFC) 24 December 1918, and Colonel K.C. Folger to Secretary, War Office, 3 January 1919. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3372 Folder D-2-45. 1665 WD, Director of Remounts, 15 January 1919, and B.B. Cubitt to Field Marshal Haig, 11 January 1919. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3372 Folder D-2-45. 1666 Bovey to Minister, Overseas Military Forces of Canada, 12-13., and Colonel C.E. Edgett to Quartermaster- General, Headquarters, O.M.F. of C., 11 February 1919. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3372 Folder D-2-45. 440

the other hand, Tamblyn later noted, “so physically fit and free from disease were our horses and mules that not one was rejected by the representatives of Belgium.” Indeed, the Belgian officials attending the meeting “expressed themselves as satisfied with the Canadian Agreement,” which they evidently considered “fair and of a helping nature.” As a compromise solution, Belgian authorities allowed British officers to auction their horses on the open market to the southern part of the country, thus affording the major urban centres of Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent, and Bruges as destinations for Canadian animals. In order to remedy any deficiencies in forage and equipment, too, Canadian authorities sold four days of forage, along with halters and nosebags for each horse or mule.1667 The same day as this meeting, the Ministry of Agriculture arranged for the first shipment of 400 Canadian horses and mules to be shipped to Ghent on 6 February.1668

Canadian junior officers and enlisted personnel were not afforded the opportunity to purchase these animals themselves, however. The animals that proved such crucial companions to drivers, artillerymen, and cavalrymen were lumped en masse into the horses for the Belgian

Government, as only senior officers’ chargers were exempted from the general transfer. This state of affairs particularly attracted the ire of Captain R.G. Vickers, recent recipient of the Military

Cross. Vickers wrote after the war that “it is the consensus of opinion of the whole [2nd] Division” that “not granting the option to men [and] officers to purchase [and] take back to Canada their horses or mules” by the “Powers that Be” was “the dirtiest deal of the war.”1669

1667 Edgett to Quartermaster-General, Headquarters, O.M.F. of C., 11 February 1919, and Tamblyn, The Horse in War, 70. 1668 Vte d’Hendecourt, (for Minister of Agriculture) to G.O.C. Canadian Section, G.H.Q., 1 February 1919. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3372 Folder D-2-45. 1669 Underlined emphasis in original. R.G. Vickers to Captain Cecil French, n.d. LAC MG 30 E14 Vol. 1, Brigadier- General J.F.L. Embrun to The Secretary (QMG), Headquarters, OMFC, 4 February 1919, LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3372 Folder D-2-45, and WD, DADVS 2nd Canadian Division, 8 January 1919. 441

Despite any ill feelings about the impending transfer, veterinary personnel inspected and categorized all horses and mules under their command according to age and work capacity. VOs throughout the BEF classified animals according to four principal categories: “A,” which were

“practically sound and between ages of 5 and 8 years,” “B,” animals “practically sound and between ages of 9 and 12 years,” “C,” those “permanently unsound but fit for work, or over 12 years of age,” and “D,” horses and mules “fit only for destruction.”1670 This was a very time- consuming task. Major C.G. Saunders, for example, spent every day from 15 January to 8 February

“classifying [1st Division] animals for demobilization.”1671 Similarly, Captain R.G. Matthew,

A/DADVS 3rd Division, spent 10 to 28 January categorizing animals. He further supervised mallein testing of all animals in the division prior to their transfer to the Belgian Government.1672

In effectively divorcing itself from the broader BEF’s demobilization process, however, the CEF could no longer access British veterinary hospitals. Moore wrote on 11 February that since “the Canadian Government have made arrangements…independent of the British Veterinary

Service,” therefore “Canadian units will no longer evacuate their animals to British Veterinary units.”1673 Although Canadian horses would shortly be transferred from Canadian ownership, this embargo nevertheless caused anxiety among VOs. Cutcliffe noted a slow increase in mange cases throughout Canadian animals that contracted the disease from infected local animals – its spread facilitated by the fact most Canadian units remained unclipped. Consequently, Cutcliffe claimed, it would be “exceedingly difficult to control the disease.” At the same time the CCVES, which perhaps could have functioned as a temporary field hospital for Canadian cases, was totally

1670 WD, DVS, 20 December 1918. 1671 WD, DADVS 1st Canadian Division, 1672 WD, DADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 10 January to 4 February 1919. 1673 WD, DVS, 11 February 1919. 442

preoccupied with selling “D” Class British Army horses to local butchers until early April. Thus, to free up space at Mobile Veterinary Sections and the CCVES, increasing number of lame or blind animals belonging to Canadian units were sold directly to local butchers.1674

Following the 1 February conference, disposal of the CEF’s animals proceeded remarkably smoothly. The first Canadian unit to demobilize its horses was the 3rd Division. Its first shipment of 400 horses reached Ghent on 6 February, with similar shipments heading for Auedenarde,

Renaix, Tournai, and other destinations virtually every successive day. The Belgians furnished receipts for every animal they accepted under their charge, which were then forwarded to each division’s DADVS for record keeping. By 22 February, barely two weeks after the first shipment, the 3rd Division transferred its 3,136 horses and 1,241 mules to the Belgian Government. Bovey noted “a certain point of difficulty was encountered in disposing of our Mules” due to local farmers’ unfamiliarity with the animals, though urban buyers prized their capacity for “light work in the city.” At the same time, Heavy Draught animals (and a “large proportion” of Light Draught the Belgians “luckily” accepted as Heavies) were “greatly in demand.”1675

Other units shortly followed the 3rd Division’s example. The 1st Division began transferring its animals on 18 February with a shipment of 200 horses and mules to Louvain; its final shipment of 130 animals reached Tongres on 25 March – the last of its 4,326 horses and mules. The Canadian

Cavalry Brigade similarly transferred its 2,360 animals between 3 and 14 March. The remaining

CEF units followed the same pattern from February to April. By 30 April, the last shipment of 56

1674 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 22 February to 7 April 1919. 1675 Bovey to Minister, Overseas Military Forces of Canada, 14, and “Disposition of 4377 Animals Transferred From 3rd Canadian Division Horse Demobilization Camp to the Belgian Government.” LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3374 Folder H-1-45. 443

horses and mules from the 4th Division reached a M. De Baets in Brussels – the last of the 23,184 horses and mules from the CEF transferred to Belgian owners.1676

Table 10.1: Animals and Gear Sold to Belgian Government, 19191677

Disposed Assets Quantity Individual Price Total Price Animals 23,184 £40.0.0 £927,360 Leather Halters 9,591 Fr. 7.00 Fr. 67,137 Web Halters 13,593 None Listed None Listed Nose Bags 23,174 Fr. 3.50 Fr. 81,109 Oat Sacks 9,635 Fr. 3.00 Fr. 28,905 Oats 428,166 kg Fr. 59.00/kg Fr. 252,618 Hay 371,181 kg Fr. 278.00/kg Fr. 103,188 TOTAL £927,360 and Fr. 532,957

Bovey observed this overall scheme, which saw all surplus Canadian animals transferred within three months, was “most satisfactory and gratifying.” Similar to the disposal of animals in Britain,

Canadian authorities managed to undercut the War Office before it could flood the market.

Between November 1918 and May 1919, the War Office indeed disposed of 122,061 animals in

France and 43,237 in Belgium. This diluted the market considerably, with additional expenses of feeding, rail transport, and caretaker personnel cutting British profits 20% off the total revenue.1678

Ultimately, Bovey considered that £40 per head “was the most economic disposition which could have been considered.”1679 For his services in brokering this deal, Lieutenant-Colonel David

1676 “Disposition of Animals Transferred to Belgian Government by Canadian Corps Troops,” “Disposition of Animals Transferred to Belgian Government by Canadian Cavalry Brigade,” “Disposition of Animals Transferred to Belgian Government by 1st Canadian Division,” “Disposition of Animals Transferred to Belgian Government by 2nd Canadian Division,” “Disposition of Animals Transferred to Belgian Government by 5th Can Divl Arty,” “Disposition of Animals Transferred to Belgian Government by 4th Canadian Division.” LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3374 Folder H-1-45. 1677 “Recapitulation of Animals, Leather Halters, Web Halters, Grain Sacks and Forage Transferred to the Belgian Government.” LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3374 Folder H-1-45. 1678 Bovey notes that the average price realized in France was Fr. 1,125 per head and Fr. 1,100 in Belgium. He does not, however, provide a conversation rate to compare these prices to the Canadian prices in sterling, and thus it is difficulty to compare the two directly. 1679 Bovey to Minister, Overseas Military Forces of Canada, 15-16. 444

Tamblyn received both the Order of the British Empire and the Chevalier d’Ordre de Leopold avec

Croix de Guerre from King Albert of Belgium. These awards, in addition to his Distinguished

Service Order and four Mentions in Despatches made Tamblyn the highest-decorated service member in the history of the CAVC.1680

Demobilized Canadian horses transferred to a variety of different new owners: the Ministry of Agriculture, government veterinary inspectors, the Belgian Cavalry, the Ghent Abattoir, and an array of private owners. With transfer to these authorities, however, their story abruptly ends. “Few even know at this time,” Tamblyn wrote in 1932, “what happened to the majority of Canadian horses and mules.” Reflecting an underrunning suspicion that most went directly to the abattoir, he remarked, “many statements have been made as to their disposal, but I can assure my readers that most of them found fitting homes.”1681 Indeed, Canadian records note that 1,245 of the 23,184 demobilized animals (5.4%) went directly to the Director de l’Abattoir de Ghent.1682 Thus, the overwhelming majority did not immediately end up at the slaughterhouse, though their fate after transfer remains unclear beyond a few anecdotes. Bovey notes, for example, “the Belgian Cavalry took over a large number of our Riding animals with which they were very well satisfied.”

Tamblyn, too, claimed the animals “were made use of on farms, around mines, and in industrial work generally” to assist in “the re-establishment of Belgium.”1683

Tamblyn’s reassurances, and implicit concern, were well justified. Selling animals unfit for further service (but not afflicted with any zoonotic disease) to butchers was a common method

1680 Tamblyn Obituary, Canadian Journal of Comparative Medicine VII, no. 1 (January 1943): 22. 1681 Tamblyn, The Horse in War, 70. 1682 “Disposition of Animals Transferred to Belgian Government,” 1st Canadian Division, 2nd Canadian Division, 3rd Canadian Division, 4th Canadian Division, 5th Canadian Divisional Artillery, Canadian Corps Troops, and Canadian Cavalry Brigade. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3374 Folder H-1-45. 1683 Bovey to Minister, Overseas Military Forces of Canada, 15, and Tamblyn, The Horse in War, 70. 445

of disposal throughout the war. The BEF Quartermaster’s Branch readily capitalized on the general hunger and taste for horseflesh among French, and to a lesser extent Belgian, populations, and conducted brisk business with abattoirs.1684 As early as January 1918, Moore anticipated slaughterhouses accepting up to 25% of the projected 212,500 animals requiring disposal in the event of peace. “If horse meat is accepted as a food for the population of England,” too, he claimed,

“it could only assist greatly in getting over the difficulty of disposal of many of the animals.”1685

Butchers indeed proved an invaluable customer for surplus animals. From 11 November 1918 to

31 March 1920, 40,638 British animals were sold for meat in France and Flanders – some 17% of animals demobilized on the Continent.1686

Horses also served as war reparations for the victorious Allies. As the War Office claimed, the Imperial German Army relied upon “ruthless and persistent” requisitions for remounts from

France and Belgium. Officials from both of these countries demanded recompense for these seizures. As part of the Treaty of Versailles,1687 the German Reich was to furnish 5,000 stallions and 30,000 fillies and mares to France, and 200 stallions, 5,000 mares, and 5,000 fillies to Belgium.

These 40,700 animals were to be delivered in equal monthly installments over the first three months of peace, and the War Office observed their loss would be “felt somewhat acutely.” These horses had to come “from stock of good quality and in good condition,” animals that could be “ill spared” given the broadly poor state of German horseflesh in the immediate postwar period.1688

1684 See WD, DVS, 16 February 1915. 1685 WD, DVS, 22-23 January, 14 June 1918. 1686 Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire During the Great War, 396-397. 1687 See Chickering, Imperial Germany and the Great War, 200-201. 1688 “German Horses.” NA MUN 4/5851. For detail on the German Empire’s administration of its occupied territories, see Chickering, Imperial Germany and the Great War, 82-87. 446

The end of the conflict ultimately left the British Government with an enormous number of horses across the world. At the Armistice, the War Office’s feeding strength was 895,770 animals ranging from horses to camels to oxen. Although requiring a cadre for the peacetime military in the United Kingdom, the Army of the Rhine, the Army of the Black Sea, and garrisons in Egypt and Palestine, the War Office had little use for most of these animals. Between 11

November 1918 and 31 March 1920, it disposed of 499,161 for work and 61,232 to butchers –

560,393 animals in total. Among the BEF’s horses and mules, 197,181 were sold for work as against 40,638 to abattoirs. Still, the War Office retained a considerable number of animals for its global commitments. In March 1920, it owned 110,708 horses and mules around the world –

42,378 in Mesopotamia, 25,742 in Egypt, 25,204 in the UK, 1,719 in France, 3,769 on the Rhine, and 5,801 on the Black Sea.1689

At the cessation of hostilities, the War Office also owned 15,977 animals in North

American depots, of which 7,093 horses and 493 mules remained in Canada. On 12 November, the British Remount Commission received orders to cease all of its purchasing activities, and nine days later to “dispose” of its remaining animals. Acting Canadian Prime Minister Sir Thomas

White and Minister of Agriculture Thomas Crerar negotiated disposal of these surplus animals, causing considerable anxiety among breeders.1690 A meeting of the Standard, Percheron,

Clydesdale, Shire, and Thoroughbred Horse Societies in Toronto on 29 November 1918 “most seriously protest[ed]” British remount sales in Canada. The Farmer’s Advocate reported “the dumping of thousands of mares of mixed breeding in this country would have a most disastrous effect on the horse industry of the Dominion,” and furthermore, “would undo the greater part of

1689 Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire During the Great War, 396-397, 403, 877. 1690 Report on the Purchase of Horses and Mules by the British Remount Commission, 28-29. 447

the good work which has been done in the past fifty years.”1691 Nevertheless, Canadian authorities proposed “if the British Government would take over all the animals of the [CEF] then in France, the Canadian Government would be prepared to do the same with those of the Imperial

Government” in Canada. Beyond this flat exchange, White and Crerar also wanted the War Office to buy the remaining CEF animals in France at £60.0.0 per head. Brigadier-General Sir Charles

Gunning, the Commission’s head, noted bluntly this proposal “was definitely vetoed by the War

Office.” The Remount Commission thus had to withdraw all horses fit for travel to the US.1692

In the end, a few British-owned animals indeed were sold in Canada, but not nearly the quantity causing such consternation to breeders. Reflecting their suspicions, historian Margaret

Derry claims “dumping of American horses in Canada occurred” throughout the war, diluting the

Canadian market through sale of roughly 25,000 unfit horses.1693 Evidence from the British

Remount Commission indicates, however, that only 3,202 British-owned horses were cast and sold in Canada throughout the war. After the Armistice, British agents sold a further 707 surplus animals in Canada.1694 Such a low volume of animals hardly saturated Canadian market, though they evidently sold briskly. The Globe preached on 16 December that demobilized British remounts were “the best types of horses procurable in Ontario,” with a clearance sale on 14 January

1919 marking “the final disposal of these horses.”1695 Ultimately, the British Remount

Commission sold 154 surplus animals in Toronto, and a further 553 in Montreal, with the last

1691 “Horsemen Protest to the Government,” The Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine LIII No. 1367 (5 December 1918): 1962. 1692 Report on the Purchase of Horses and Mules by the British Remount Commission, 28-29, and Edgett, Report of the Director of Veterinary Services on the Department of Veterinary Services and Remounts,” 18. 1693 Derry, Horses in Society, 149. 1694 Report on the Purchase of Horses and Mules by the British Remount Commission, 81-82. 1695 “Auction Sales of Horses,” The Globe, 16 December 1918, Page 11, and “Closing Out Sale of Horse,” The Globe, 11 January 1919, Page 21. 448

British-owned horse in North America sold at Montreal on 4 February 1919. The Commission headquarters spent the remainder of the month tending to clerical work before closing and returning to England.1696

The Canadian Government’s sale of its own domestic animals proceeded along similar lines. As of January 1919, it owned 2,610 military horses in Canada. Of these, 560 would be retained for service in the Permanent Force, leaving 891 draught and 1,107 riding horses to be sold. The bulk of these mounts, 1,194 riding and draught, were originally purchased for the

Siberian Expeditionary Force, but remained in Alberta and British Columbia due to lack of shipping space. Private auctioneers off these surplus animals across the country throughout

1919.1697

With Canada’s war horses sold off, their veterinary caretakers prepared to return to civilian life. At the end of the war, there were 152,000 men and women of the CEF serving in France and

Belgium and another 130,000 in England.1698 Included in these personnel were the CAVC’s 73 officers and 780 Other Ranks in France, and another eleven officers and 130 OR in England.1699

The general demobilization plan endorsed by Currie was for Canadian personnel to return home as part of their units, rather than according to an individual’s length of service.1700 CAVC personnel, according to this scheme, continued administering veterinary aid to their units until all animals horses transferred to Belgian ownership. Thereafter, they proceeded to England, and then

1696 Report on the Purchase of Horses and Mules by the British Remount Commission, 28-29, 82. 1697 “Disposal of horses surplus to requirements,” 14 January 1919, Memorandum: Disposal of horses. C.E.F. in Canada, 31 January 1919, “Horses in Canada. February 6th, 1919.” LAC RG 24 Vol. 903 Folder H.Q. 54-21-19-15. 1698 By this point, 60,000 perished, 168,000 were discharged, and 38,000 dependents awaited transportation to Canada. “General Demobilization – C.E.F., 1919.” LAC RG 24 Vol. 1846 Folder GAQ 11-43A. 1699 “Total Veterinary Personnel,” 28 November 1918, and Edgett, “Report of the Director of Veterinary Services on the Department of Veterinary Services and Remounts,” 7. 1700 This demobilization process did not proceed smoothly for some CEF personnel, as restive veterans awaiting repatriation in England staged violent protests and destructive riots, most famously at Kinmel Park in March 1919, until they embarked ships for home. Cook, Shock Troops, 590-596. 449

to Canada, with their attached units.1701 Before closing their offices and embarking for home, the

DADsVS deposited all of their records with the DVS Office in London.1702 The CAVC CEF dwindled from a strength of 80 officers and 733 OR on 28 February 1919 to 40 Officers and 375

OR a month later. By 30 June 1919, 15 officers and 18 OR remained, with all but three of these officers due to retire in England or return to Canada by the end of July.1703

In early March, Major-General Moore – about to be knighted for wartime service1704 – issued a message of “sincerest thanks” to the officers and men of the Canadian Army Veterinary

Corps. His farewell message, lauding their accomplishments and service, neatly encapsulates the central tenets of this dissertation:

Organized on parallel lines to the Imperial Veterinary Service, and tempered by the experience gained by hard Warfare in the Field, the Canadian Army Veterinary Service has reached a high degree of efficiency which not only reflects the greatest credit on all concerned, but is one which the Dominion Overseas Forces cannot fail to be justly proud of. Contagious animal Diseases, always troublesome in War, on the whole have been kept satisfactorily in subjection, sick animals have been well cared for, and treatment scientifically carried out…

It has been a source of personal pride and pleasure to have had the Canadian Veterinary Service associated with me in the Expeditionary Force in France, and I wish it every success in after years. There is no doubt that it is now equal to any demands of War.1705

By the end of the Great War, the CAVC indeed attained its highest standard of expertise, professionalism, and efficiency in the history of the service. This point marked the apex of its

1701 “Memorandum of Conference held at the Ministry of Overseas Military Forces of Canada,” 8 and 13 January 1919. LAC RG 24 Vol. 1846 Folder GAQ 11-43. 1702 WD, DADVS 3rd Canadian Division, 17 March 1919. 1703 Edgett, “Report of the Director of Veterinary Services on the Department of Veterinary Services and Remounts,” 7. 1704 Moore was appointed Knight Commander in the Order of St. Michael and St. George in the King’s 1919 Birthday Honours List. Supplement to the London Gazette, (15 July, 1919), 8983. 1705 Major-General J. Moore Circular, 6 March 1919. LAC RG 9 III-B-1 Vol. 3364 Folder C-6-45. 450

relevance and contribution to Canadian military affairs, which would steadily decline over the succeeding decades.

Challenges to Horses and Veterinarians, 1919-40

The years following the Great War witnessed significant changes in the fortunes of both horses and veterinarians in Canadian society. The crises over where horses, and horse doctors, fit in that society resumed with the onset of peace.1706 Some observers interpreted the enormous numerical superiority of draught animals – with 895,770 animals as against 34,863 motor vehicles in the British Army on 11 November – as cementing the horse’s place in society for years to come.1707 Although the roughly 65,000 Canadian horses purchased for overseas service may have fallen short of some breeders’ and politicians’ expectations, they nevertheless represented substantial business for horseflesh in transportation purposes. A December 1918 editorial in the

Farmer’s Advocate proclaimed, for example, “man has not yet, neither do we think he ever will, invent anything that moves on the ground, water or in the air, that will fill the place of the saddle horse.” Despite the onset of peace, this editorial noted thoroughbred-infused animals “will be in demand for military purposes in numbers greater than the supply, at least for some years.”1708 A series of articles in the Canadian Veterinary Record published in the early 1920s likewise sought to convince readers “there are still many uses to which the horse can be better applied than motor

1706 See Chapters One and Two. 1707 This includes lorries, tractors, cars, vans, ambulances, and motor cycles. Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire During the Great War, 877. 1708 “WHIP,” “The Light Horse and His Future,” The Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine LII No. 1368 (12 December 1918): 2001. 451

or steam power.” Another article claimed, “the novelty of the motor transport and tractor has been waning,” for “the pendulum has swung…back to the horse.”1709

Throughout these discussions, the horse population of Canada continued its steady increase. In 1914, there were 2,947,738 in Canada. By 1921, the population reached its apex at

3,813,921 horses.1710 Minister of Agriculture Thomas Crear was pessimistic over their utility, remarking in 1919 they “were the kind for which there is no demand and not likely ever to be a remunerative market.” Bred for no specific purpose, these animals were “a liability rather than an asset to the country,” consuming fodder that could be more profitably fed to sheep or cattle.1711

Shortly thereafter, demand for farm work slowly increased and appeared to uphold the optimistic profiles in the Farmer’s Advocate and Canadian Veterinary Record. Crerar’s later successor,

William Motherwell, noted in 1922 “the horse is slowly returning to favour.” His eventual successor, James Gardiner, similarly observed in 1937 that a “shortage of horses for farm work” left the “horse industry of the Dominion of Canada in a prosperous condition.”1712

A rising tide of mechanization in the 1920s, however, threatened to eclipse this resurgent interest in horses. Proliferation of automobiles, trucks, tractors, and combines gradually forced horses out of their previously entrenched roles.1713 Canada’s automotive industry grew considerably, with production of 69,801 cars and 7,319 trucks and buses in 1918, to 188,721 and

1709 “The Horse Still Thrives,” Canadian Veterinary Record II, no. 2 (June 1921): 41 and H.L. Hare, “An Economic Comparison of the Horse Vs Motor,” Canadian Veterinary Record IV, no. 1 (January-February 1923): 11-17. 1710 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended March 31 1915, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1915), 59, and Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended March 31 1922, (Ottawa: King’s Printer: 1922), 9. 1711 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended March 31 1919, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1919), 29, and Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended March 31 1922, 9. 1712 Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended March 31 1922, 69. 1713 See Derry, Horses in Society, Chapters 2 and 4. 452

50,293, respectively, in 1929.1714 Sales of combines in Saskatchewan similarly hit 2,356 machines in 1928, and, tractors increased from 19,243 in 1921 to 43,308 in 1931. As Bill Waiser notes, this tide of mechanization amount to a “revolution in Saskatchewan farming.” It expedited planting and harvesting, enabling more land to be tilled with less human (and animal) labour.1715

The onset of the Great Depression of 1929-39 slowed mechanization for a time. Drought, heat, dust storms, plagues of grasshoppers, and the consequent declining crop yields ravaged the prairie agricultural economy. Tractor sales in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta fell from

17,100 in 1928 to 787 in 1931. The Canadian automotive industry similarly slumped, with production in Ontario falling from 128,496 cars and 25,762 trucks and busses in 1929 to 30,606 and 6,062, respectively, in 1933.1716 With this evident decline in mechanization, Gardiner reiterated in 1938 “the prosperous condition of the horse industry continued.”1717

The Second World War decisively reversed this situation, however. The automotive industry, already recovering by 1937, played a crucial role in producing aircraft, munitions, and motor vehicles during the Second World War. Similarly, government subsidies, rising wheat production, and diversification into other crops and livestock, recovered slumping prairie agriculture. In the Prairie Provinces alone, 10,029 tractors and 3,605 combines were purchased from 1939-44.1718 Indeed, Gardiner claimed in 1941 that “farm mechanization,” namely “a 50 per cent increase in the number of tractors sold” the year before, effected a “lowering [of] interest in

1714 Drummond, Bothwell, and English, Canada, 1900-1945, 217. 1715 Bill Waiser, Saskatchewan: A New History, (Calgary: Fifth House Ltd., 2005), 272-273. 1716 Bothwell, Drummond, and English, Canada, 1900-1945, 216, 251. 1717 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended March 31 1938, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1938), 74. 1718 Bothwell, Drummond, and English, Canada, 1900-1945, 352-353, 370-371. 453

horse breeding on farms.”1719 Concerted horse breeding thus declined in the midst of the slackening demand, and Canada’s horse population dwindled. It fell precipitously during the Second World

War, from 2,881,450 horses in 1941 to 1,979,500 in 1947.1720 As of 2011, only 392,340 horses

(and ponies) lived in Canada – a 90% reduction in population compared to a century before.1721

This decline of horses in working roles resumed the pre-war professional crisis in veterinary medicine. As Chapter Six noted, the 351 veterinarians serving in both the AVC and

CAVC represented a third of the approximately 1,150 veterinary surgeons working in the

Dominion of Canada. The Ontario Veterinary College furnished the majority of these personnel: eleven faculty, 269 graduates, and 29 undergraduates served in the British Army and CEF.

Wartime service, however, was no guarantor of the profession’s future. The pressures of wartime enlistment, coupled with growing perceptions of the veterinarian’s obsolescence, plummeted student enrollment. In 1919-20, only 77 students studied at OVC, as against 270 in 1913-14.1722

As J. Brian Derbyshire notes, “the number of veterinarians in practice declined sharply,” with postwar college enrollment “at an all-time low during the 1920s and early 1930s.”1723

However, this crisis did not sound the death knell for the profession. Horses certainly represented a major source of business, but did not exclusively dominate veterinary medicine. A

1719 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended March 31 1941, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1941), 59 and 118. 1720 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended March 31 1942, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1942), 10, and Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended March 31 1948, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1948), 10. 1721 Canada. Statistics Canada. Table 004-0224 - Census of Agriculture, other livestock on census day every 5 years, CANSIM, (Accessed 27 June 2016), http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/cansim/a26?lang=eng&retrLang=eng&id=0040224&pattern=004-0200..004- 0242&tabMode=dataTable&srchLan=-1&p1=-1&p2=31. 1722 McEwen, “Only Recent Graduates Available,” 257-258, Ontario Veterinary College. The Ontario Veterinary College Calendar: 1914-1915, (Toronto: Department of Agriculture of Ontario, 1914), 58-59, Ontario Veterinary College. The Calendar of the Ontario Veterinary College: Session 1919-1920, (Toronto: Department of Agriculture of Ontario, 1919), 23-24. UG RE1 OVC A0024. 1723 Derbyshire, An Introduction to Canadian Veterinary History, 75. 454

paper read before the Ontario Veterinary Association by Lieutenant-Colonel R.L. Mundhenk in

January 1921, for example, illustrated the numerous possibilities available for careers in veterinary science. “It is no longer practical to teach our students any of the branches of veterinary science largely on an equine base,” he commented. “Porcine and bovine or perhaps…canine and feline work” would dominate their practices, for “the day of the cow, hog, sheep, goat, dog, cat, rabbit and chicken are here.” He concluded, “the future looms far brighter than the past” if veterinarians only embraced food livestock, disease control, and companion animal medicine.1724

OVC undertook a major effort to revise its raison d’être in response to these challenges and new possibilities. Its Principal, Dr. Charles McGilvary, recognized the implications of this decisive shift in transportation modes and determined to adapt OVC accordingly.1725 In 1921, the

College published a lengthy pamphlet entitled “Opportunities for Graduates in Veterinary Science” that illustrates such major efforts to transform itself. Among the new career directions were

“splendid opportunities” with the Department of Agriculture’s Health of Animals Branch, public health positions in municipal government, pharmaceutical industries, and private veterinary practice.1726 In 1923, OVC relocated from downtown Toronto to the agricultural city of Guelph,

Ontario, already site of the Ontario Agricultural College. The OVC Calendar for 1923-24 noted this “new institution at a new location” with “greater expansion and wider facilities” away from a bustling city centre afforded “closer contact with agriculture and animal industry.” OVC’s administrations presciently illustrated the future of the profession into the mid-twentieth century:

Veterinary education, training and practice, though concerned as before with the horse, is confronted with additional demands and increasing obligations in

1724 Lieutenant-Colonel R.L. Mundhenk, “For the Betterment of the Profession,” Canadian Veterinary Record II, no. 2 (June 1921): 14-18. 1725 Gattinger, Century of Challenge, 79-83. 1726 University of Toronto. Opportunities for Graduates in Veterinary Science, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1921-22), 1-6. UG RE1 OVC A0024. 455

connection with general live stock problems, in conserving the health of animals, controlling disease, safeguarding the public health against unwholesome food supplies, and the maintenance of a sanitary service to enable an export trade to be continued in live stock, meats, and allied food products.

Indeed, they emphasized, “the live stock industry is the corner-stone of agricultural development and the veterinary profession is its greatest safeguard.” 1727

Such statements readily bore out, for veterinary surgeons indeed played an ongoing role in safeguarding animal population health. McGilvary wrote in 1922 that robust health and freedom from disease enjoyed by Canadian livestock “has not been accidental.” He claimed “the well- directed effort of the veterinary profession in co-operation with live stock owners” ensured both the livestock export trade, and domestic consumption of meat and milk, continued with as little interference from disease as possible.1728 Throughout the twentieth century, diseases such as brucellosis, rabies, tainted meat, and especially bovine tuberculosis commanded the attention of the Health of Animals Branch. As of 1964, it employed 550 full-time and 800 part-time veterinarians that safeguarded animal and human health into the late twentieth century.1729

Of particular interest to this study were glanders and mange – those familiar diseases of the Western Front and Canadian prairies alike. Department of Agriculture and Royal Canadian

Mounted Police (RCMP) veterinarians gradually scaled back glanders in Canada by employing the same rigorous mallein testing as BEF VOs. By 1918, only 118 positive reactors for glanders were destroyed in Canada, and 59 in 1921. Minister of Agriculture William Motherwell remarked

1727 Italics in original. Ontario Veterinary College. The Calendar of the Ontario Veterinary College, Session 1923- 1924, (Guelph: Department of Agriculture of Ontario), 5-11. UG RE1 OVC A0024. 1728 C.D. McGilvary, “What the Veterinary Profession Means to the Live Stock Industry,” Canadian Veterinary Record III, no. 1 (March 1922): 14-15. 1729 K.F. Wells, “The Role of the Health of Animals Branch in Zoonosis,” Canadian Journal of Public Health 55, no. 3 (March 1964): 93-99, and Thomas Dukes and Norman McAninch, “Health of Animals Branch, Agriculture Canada: A look at the past.” Canadian Veterinary Journal 33 (January 1992): 58-64. 456

“the strict enforcement of our policy of slaughtering all animals reacting to mallein” allowed veterinarians “to practically exterminate this dangerous disease.” It would not be until 1938, however, that glanders was totally eradicated in Canada.1730 Mange proved more difficult to exterminate due to both its ubiquity and difficulties experienced by federal authorities in rounding up all infected stock for dipping tanks. Threats of prosecution against reticent ranchers, however, evidently produced favourable results. By March 1929, William Motherwell commented “the number of cattle quarantined for treatment is less than in former years.”1731 In 1938 only two outbreaks of mange occurred on the prairies: one in Alberta and one in Saskatchewan.1732 The disease would periodically reappear as late as the 1980s, but would never again threaten Canadian livestock as it did from 1899 to 1927.1733

By the late twentieth century, however, veterinary medicine once again became an urban profession. A dramatic growth of Canada’s pet population created a concomitant demand for companion animal clinics.1734 A survey of 655 Western Canadian veterinary practices in 2006, for example, found 77% of the 1,636 respondent practitioners devoted their attention to small animals.1735 The veterinary profession continues to thrive because of this business, with five

Canadian veterinary colleges operating as of 2016.1736 In both proportionate and gross terms, too,

1730 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada for the Year Ending March 31, 1921, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1921), 60-61, Derbyshire, “The eradication of glanders in Canada,” 722. 1731 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended March 31 1929, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1929), 46. 1732 Report of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, Year Ended March 31 1938, 64. 1733 “The H of A’s Three Major Disease Eradication Accomplishments,” n.d. GA M-8658. John Hargrave Fonds. 1734 Derbyshire, An Introduction to Canadian Veterinary History, 73-80. 1735 Murray D. Jelinski and Katrina K. Barth, “Survey of western Canadian veterinary practices: A demographic profile,” Canadian Veterinary Journal 56, no. 12 (December 2015): 1245. 1736 These are: Atlantic Veterinary College (University of Prince Edward Island), Faculté de Médicine Vétérinaire (Université de Montréal), Ontario Veterinary College (University of Guelph), Western College of Veterinary Medicine (University of Saskatchewan) and the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine (University of Calgary). Canadian 457

there were more veterinary practitioners in Canada in 2011 than a century before. The 2011 Census lists 9,230 “Veterinarians” – almost twice the proportion to the general population as in 1911.1737

This decline of the horse in favour of motor transport, and of the veterinary professional reorientation, carried profound implications for Canadian martial affairs into the mid twentieth century. Shortly after the conclusion of the Great War, the Canadian military reverted to its pre- war division between Permanent Force and the Militia. CEF units disbanded and folded into Militia regiments, much to the chagrin of veterans.1738 In recognition of its invaluable service in the war, the Canadian Permanent Army Veterinary Corps received royal honours and rebranded as the

Royal Canadian Army Veterinary Corps (RCAVC). This important gesture acknowledged the veterinary services’ critical service in the war, but was slightly ironic, given that the vast majority of VOs to serve in the pre-war military were Militia, not Permanent Force, personnel.1739

After the war, however, the broader Canadian public had little appetite for further military spending. Prime Minister W.L.M. King’s Liberal Government slashed defence expenditure in the early 1920s, and this financial apathy deepened with the prolonged Great Depression.1740 As J.L.

Veterinary Medical Association. “Veterinary Colleges.” https://www.canadianveterinarians.net/resources/colleges (Accessed 27 June 2016). 1737 The 1,150 veterinary surgeons listed on the 1911 Census of Canada represented 0.0001596% of the 7,206,643 people in Canada. On the other hand, the 9,230 veterinarians listed in the 2011 census constitute 0.0002757% of the 33,476,688 people in Canada. Canada. Statistics Canada. 2011 National Household Survey: Data Tables, “Occupation – National Occupation Classification (NOC) 2011 (691), Class of Worker (5), Age Groups (13B) and Sex (3) for the Employed Labour Force Aged 15 Years and Over, in Private Households in Canada, Provinces, Territories, Census Metropolitan Areas and Census Agglomerations, 2011 National Household Survey,” Catalogue Number 99-012-X2011033, (Accessed 27 June 2016), http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/dp-pd/dt-td/Rp- eng.cfm?LANG=E&APATH=3&DETAIL=0&DIM=0&FL=A&FREE=0&GC=0&GID=0&GK=0&GRP=0&PID= 105897&PRID=0&PTYPE=105277&S=0&SHOWALL=1&SUB=0&Temporal=2013&THEME=96&VID=0&VN AMEE=&VNAMEF. 1738 Exceptions were PPCLI and the French-Canadian Royal 22e Regiment, which as of 2016 remain as regular units in the Canadian Army. Granatstein, Canada’s Army, 156-159 1739 The Militia branch would similarly received the “Royal” designation roughly a decade later. For a thoroughly researched and detailed examination of the interwar RCAVC, see C.A.V. and Ian K. Barker’s Chapter 17 in French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War, 1914-1919. 1740 Morton, A Military History of Canada, 170-177. 458

Granatstein remarked, constricted establishments and obsolescent equipment meant the Canadian

Army, at least, “largely calcified at the point it had reached in 1918.”1741

Such was the case in the RCAVC. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the veterinary services retained a similar system of rank, structure, and function as they did in the lead-up to the Great

War. The immediate post-war CAVC held an establishment of 140 officers, 49 sergeants, and 211

OR – a total of 400 All Ranks.1742 Veterinary Officers, if not serving as part of a Mobile Veterinary

Section or CAVC Section, received formal appointments to individual Militia cavalry or artillery regiments.1743 In the event of a war, the service would be virtually identical to its 1918 self. In

1930, Lieutenant-Colonel Tamblyn, then Officer Administering RCAVC, proposed veterinary personnel for six divisions, six Mobile Veterinary Sections, three Veterinary Hospitals, and two

Veterinary Evacuating Stations – all key facets of the CEF CAVC.1744 As late as 1939, immediately before the outbreak of the Second World War, the RCAVC’s nominal duties remained:

to promote animal efficiency and reduce wastage, amongst the animals of the Miltia, and in the Field... (a) By preventing the introduction and spread of Contagious Disease (b) By providing for the prompt care of all sick and injured animals (c ) By giving Professional advice regarding the feeding and maintenance of health of all animals (d) By the collection of sick wounded and injured animals.

1741 Granatstein, Canada’s Army, 148. 1742 The Militia CAVC enjoyed considerable access to a number of the veteran officers who wished to stay on as part-time soldiers, with individuals as Lieutenant-Colonel Ashton Cutcliffe remaining as VO to the 10th Brant Dragoons. Quartermaster-General to Minister in Militia Council, 18 November 1920. LAC RG 24 Vol. 6542 Folder H-Q 621-1-4 Vol. 1. 1743 Major F. Walsh to Lieutenant W. Spearman, 30 January 1922. LAC RG 24 Vol. 4454 Folder K-50-1-2 Vol. 1. 1744 Tamblyn to Quartermaster-General, 6 October 1930. 459

Mange and glanders, causes of such anxiety during the Great War, similarly remained among the most worrisome infectious diseases for military veterinarians in 1939 as they were in 1914.1745 The future of Canadian veterinary services into the mid-twentieth century thus remained wedded to the cavalry mount and artillery draught horse. There was little, if any, acceptance of the enormous potential contributions military veterinarians could render in zoonotic disease control or meat and milk inspection. C.A.V. and Ian K. Barker indeed note that senior RCAVC officers’ “lack of vision” failed to illustrate the potential diversity of their service into the future.1746

A growing spirit of mechanization pervaded military thought after the Great War. The

British Army provided a leading example in the trend towards mechanization, beginning a concerted effort to phase horses out of its cavalry regiments in 1936.1747 There was considerable resistance to this shift, particularly over the sentimental attachment to its storied cavalry regiments.

The OC Royal Scots Greys, Lieutenant-Colonel C.G. St. Laurence, circulated a letter to Scottish

MPs that “to do away with the grey horses robs the Scottish people of something which they own and cherish.” Despite the Army Council’s “severe displeasure” with his methods, the Royal Scots

Greys, along with 1st The Royal Dragoons, would remain horsed until their final conversion to armoured cars in 1942.1748 Nevertheless, the remainder of the cavalry and field artillery exchanged their horses for trucks, armoured cars, or tanks in the late 1930s. The Marquess of Anglesey, in his

History of the British Cavalry, argues the British Army “could claim to have a greater proportion of its transport mechanized than that of any other considerable country” in September 1939.1749

1745 Regulations for the Canadian Army Veterinary Services, 1939, (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1939), 1-23. LAC RG 24 Vol. 6542 Folder H.Q. 621-3-7 Vol. 3. 1746 Barker and Barker, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War, 1914-1919, 185. 1747 Marquess of Anglesey, A History of the British Cavalry, Volume 8, 335-342. 1748 Lt. Colonel C.G. St. Laurence Circular Letter, 14 October 1937 and Leslie Hore-Belisha to Sir Alexander Hardinghe, 9 November 1937. NA WO 32/4633. 1749 Marquess of Anglesey, A History of the British Cavalry, Volume 8, 335-342. 460

This broader mechanized spirit began to permeate through the Permanent Force and

Militia, as the British Army’s doctrine continued to exert a major influence on Canadian military thought. For example, Major E.L.M. Burns, future commander of I Canadian Corps in 1944, authored a series of noted articles in Canadian Defence Quarterly in the 1920s and 1930s championing trucks and tanks, rather than draught horses and cavalry mounts, to provide mobility on the battlefield.1750 Beginning in 1925, too, the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery began to experiment with tractors and trucks on field exercises at Camp Petawawa. Five years later, “A” and “B” Batteries of the RCHA received orders to turn in their horses in exchange for motor vehicles. Although it would be another five years before “C” Battery received sufficient tractors to be considered “mechanized,” the RCHA’s transition to a motorized spirit was complete. G.W.L.

Nicholson notes an immense sadness permeated the horse artillerymen, not unlike the Scots Greys’ attachment to their mounts. Swapping horses for trucks, Nicholson claimed, “meant goodbye to the physical challenge and excitement of many a hard ride in the training field.”1751

In preparation for a future conflict, too, the Department of National Defence courted relations with major automotive manufacturers such as the Ford Motor Company and General

Motors. Andrew Iarocci notes that senior National Defence Headquarters officers initiated “pilot projects” with these manufacturers in 1936 to prepare vehicles based on singular interchangeable designs from the British War Office. Over the course of the Second World War, Canadian factories would produce 800,000 military vehicles of all types for the Allies.1752

1750 See Harris, Canadian Brass, Chapter 10, and David Moule, “The Burns-Simonds Debate Revisited: The Canadian Defence Quarterly and the Principles of Mechanized Warfare in the 1930s,” Canadian Military History 22, no. 1 (Winter 2013): 18. 1751 Colonel G.W.L. Nicholson, The Gunners of Canada: The History of the Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery, Volume II: 1919-1967, (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1972), 11-17. . 1752 Iarocci, Dangerous Curves, 124-126. 461

Even the RCAVC began to embrace this shift towards mechanization. In October 1930,

Tamblyn stressed the importance of mechanical transport as a critical asset to veterinary work in the field. He noted that “a Motor Truck” was “thought to be the most economical and effective means of removing sick and injured animals from the field in modern warfare,” and wished for full MT allotments for veterinary units of an expeditionary force. Indeed, he claimed, “horse casualties in wars of the future no doubt will very much increase,” necessitating mechanized casualty evacuation methods to save as many animal lives as possible.1753

Budgetary constraints rendered most such proposals theoretical rather than practical.

Major-General E.C. Ashton, Chief of the General Staff, complained in June 1935 “we possess no tanks or service armoured cars,” and “no provision has been made for the supply of mechanical transport for war purposes.”1754 Due in large measure to these fiscal, political, and military problems, horses thus continued to play a role in the peacetime Canadian military. By 1938, 354 horses remained on official establishments for the Permanent Force, and 4,844 for the Militia.

Major-General Andrew McNaughton, Ashton’s predecessor, lamented “about the only article of which stocks are held is harness, and this is practically useless,” for “a modern land force will include very little horsed transport.”1755

The outbreak of war with Nazi Germany in September 1939 ultimately hastened the

RCAVC’s demise. The Canadian Army of 1939 retained no horses in its artillery establishments, and those in its cavalry regiments were shortly phased out completely.1756 Lieutenant-Colonel T.C.

Evans, who succeeded Tamblyn as Officer Administering RCAVC in 1937, wrote a belated appeal

1753 Tamblyn to Quartermaster-General, 6 October 1930. 1754 Quoted in Stacey, Six Years of War, 8. 1755 Ibid, 6-8, 19. 1756 Ibid, 19. 462

to the services’ multifaceted utility in wartime. He claimed VOs could fulfill a crucial role in meat and milk inspection, as well as combatting the threat posed by infectious diseases among livestock

(civilian and enemy) in combat zones. However, his reasoning did not find a receptive audience.

On 17 October 1940, Governor-General the Earl of Athlone approved a recommendation from the

Treasury Board that the Royal Canadian Army Veterinary Corps be disbanded. On 1 November

1940, the Canadian veterinary services ceased to exist – saving $10,334.1757

This decision received bitter condemnation in professional circles. The Canadian Journal of Comparative Medicine and Veterinary Science lamented “the Canadian veterinarian is placed in circumstances where he is unable to make a professional contribution to our armed cause.” The

Journal decried that those areas of expertise Evans accentuated – meat inspection, sanitation, zoonotic disease control – were now deprived from the military in its long, costly war with Nazi

Germany. “Does it not seem remarkable,” its editors rhetorically asked, “that the Canadian Army can dispense with the service of men who play an important role in civilian health organization?”1758 A following editorial in October 1943 pointedly attacked the “muddle headedness” of “persons of antiquated views” by emphasizing the critical functions of US AVC personnel accompanying US troops to garrison duty in Newfoundland and Iceland. Its author bluntly stated “our country thought [Canadian soldiers] required the aid of no veterinarian” on these foreign postings, and yet, the US AVC vigilantly ensured milk remained free of tuberculosis and American soldiers consumed “a scientifically protected food supply.”1759

1757 Barker and Barker, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War, 1914-1919, 196- 200. 1758 “Canadian Army Veterinary Corps Disbanded,” Canadian Journal of Comparative Medicine and Veterinary Science V, no. 1 (January 1941): 4. 1759 “Canadian Army Veterinary Corps,” Canadian Journal of Comparative Medicine and Veterinary Science VII, no. 10 (October 1943): 290. 463

The Royal Army Veterinary Corps, by point of comparison, maintained its relevance in the mechanical era. By March 1920, the RAVC retained 131 officers and 1,231 Other Ranks on establishment – a third of the officers and only 5% of the ORs in the AVC in August 1918.1760

Throughout the interwar period, RAVC personnel accompanied British military expeditions to

Ireland, Palestine, Turkey, and China to maintain health of riding mounts and transport animals still utilized in these campaigns.1761 From 1939-45, too, British Commonwealth troops in Palestine,

Eritrea, Greece, North Africa, India-Burma, and New Guinea relied on pack animals for transport, with some 31,000 bought by war’s end. By 1942, as well, the RAVC received responsibility for the British Army’s meat inspection duties.1762 From 1939-45, 3,839 officers and men served in the RAVC tending to these responsibilities thoroughly interlinked by animal health.1763

Canadian personnel, although bereft of their own veterinary services, also relied upon four- legged transport in the Second World War. While training in Scotland for its eventual deployment to the Mediterranean Theatre, personnel of the 1st Canadian Infantry Division received one hundred mule saddles in anticipation of requisitioning local horses, donkeys, or mules.1764 The rugged mountainous terrain of Sicily and Italy, through which the 1st Division would fight for nearly two years, created enormous difficulties for mechanized transport, sometimes unable to travel through the step valleys and hills. Locally procured mules provided critical stopgaps in the logistical system by packing wireless radio sets, rations, ammunition, 3-inch mortars, and Vickers

1760 Based on a figure of 1,043 officers and 24,915 OR in the Great War. Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire During the Great War, 189. 1761 Clabby, The History of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, 1919-1961, 19. 1762 G. Lapage, “Work of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps,” Nature, no. 3924 (13 January 1945): 60-61. 1763 Clabby, The History of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, 1919-1961, 34-40. 1764 Lt-Colonel G.W.L. Nicholson, Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War, Volume II: The Canadians in Italy, 1943-1945, (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1956), 36-37. 464

machine guns over terrain impassable to wheeled or tracked vehicles in 1943-44.1765 With no

RCAVC personnel to oversee these animals’ health, Canadian units had to rely on whatever RAVC detachments were nearby – imposing a “major burden” according to Barker and Barker.1766

Other forces in the Second World War relied upon horses on a far grander scale. The

Imperial Japanese Army utilized as many as 300,000 horses in China, and 75,000 in the Pacific islands, for cavalry and draught roles.1767 The German military, the Wehrmacht, also retained

509,000 horses on establishment for its invasion of Poland in September 1939. Once again, captured territories proved a significant source of German horseflesh. Heavy draught animals requisitioned from France, Holland, and Belgium contributed to the 625,000 animals marshalled for Operation BARBAROSSA, the June 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union. German infantry divisions required anywhere between 4,077 to 6,033 animals to haul their transport – similar establishments to Canadian divisions from 1915-18. Combat, exposure, and malnutrition exacted an appalling toll on these animals. During the frigid winter of 1941-42 alone, 179,132 German horses died from the cold and malnutrition. From 1939-1945, it lost 1.5 million of the total 2.75 million (54.5%) animals in its service throughout the war. The Soviet Red Army fighting against the Japanese and Germans, too, utilized 3.5 million animals in cavalry, mounted infantry, and draught roles in both Mongolia in 1939 and on the Eastern Front from 1941-45.1768

1765 Nicholson The Canadians in Italy, 1943-1945, 140-141, 154 and William Pratt, “Mechanization, Mountains and Mules: A Reassessment of Canadian Participation in the Italian Campaign,” in Christine Leppard and Abraham M. Roof, eds, Calgary Papers in Military and Strategic Studies Occasional Paper Number 6, 2012: New Perspectives on Canada in the Second World War, (Calgary: Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, 2012), 97-98. 1766 Barker and Barker, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War, 1914-1919, 200. 1767 Kistler, Animals in the Military, 213. 1768 R.L. DiNardo and Austin Bay, “Horse-Drawn Transport in the German Army,” Journal of Contemporary History 23, no. 1 (January 1988): 129-142, Walter Scott Dunn, The Soviet Economy and the Red Army, 1930-1945, (Westport: Praeger, 1995), 225- 231, and Jarymowycz, Cavalry From Hoof to Track, 166-167. 465

As of 2016, the RAVC continues as an active service branch of the British Army. It provides veterinary medical care to the 1st Military Working Dog Regiment, ceremonial horses of the Household Cavalry and Royal Horse Artillery, and “advice on zoonotic disease and environmental health matters.”1769 The US AVC, too, endures as a branch of the US Army Medical

Department, with an expansive mandate to further “veterinary public health capabilities through veterinary medical and surgical care, food safety and defense, and biomedical research and development.”1770 In 2012 Major Andrew G. Morrison, a Canadian Army Reserve Intelligence

Officer and civil veterinary surgeon, argued pointedly for a resurgent RCAVC built along these lines. Morrison contended the RCAVC could fulfill a crucial role in civil reconstruction projects and disaster relief areas by rendering veterinary medical assistance and milk/meat inspection to local populations.1771 Nevertheless, as of 2016, the Canadian Army does not have a dedicated veterinary service.

“No Longer Practical”

After the guns fell silent in November 1918, the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps remained vigilant in maintaining animal health throughout the Canadian Corps. The occupation of

Germany and successful post-war demobilization again demonstrated the CAVC’s adeptness and proficiency. It is indeed a testament to their skill that Belgian authorities were wholly satisfied by the quality of all Canadian animals they received. These animals, excepting the 110 returning to

1769 British Army. “Royal Army Veterinary Corps.” http://www.army.mod.uk/medical-services/veterinary.aspx (Accessed 27 June 2016). 1770 United States Army. “What Is the Veterinary Corps?” http://www.goarmy.com/amedd/veterinarian/corps.html (Accessed 27 June 2016). 1771 Andrew G. Morrison, “The Case for Reactivating the Royal Canadian Army Veterinary Corps (RCAVC), Canadian Military Journal 12, no, 2 (Spring 2012): 28-36. 466

Canada, provided invaluable assistance to Belgian reconstruction in urban, rural, and military work, and in some cases, feeding the hungry population. November 1918 to April 1919 was, however, the last time such proficiencies would be demonstrated on active campaign.

The decades following the Great War resumed the pressing quandaries of where horses and veterinarians fit into Canadian society. Although horses were far more critical to the overall war effort than motor transport, the growth in quality, quantity, and capability of internal-combustion engine technology after 1918 saw motor vehicles steadily permeate agricultural, urban, and military spheres. Horses continued to enjoy some utility in rural draught roles, but their superiority over motor vehicles steadily faded, as did their population in Canada.

Confronted with this existential crisis, the civil veterinary profession adapted. It gradually shifted away from an emphasis on care for horses to pursue companion animal medicine, livestock health, meat and milk inspection, and public health. To its doom, however, the military veterinary service only belatedly appreciated such a multitude of possibilities. It remained wedded to maintaining health of the draught horse and cavalry mount as its major contribution to military affairs. Consequently, when trucks superseded horses for the artillery and logistics, and tanks and armoured cars in the cavalry, the RCAVC appeared superfluous. Military veterinary services endure in the British and United States Armies, but they do not in the Canadian Army. The end of the Great War thus witnessed the last significant use of horses and veterinarians in Canadian military history.

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Epilogue – “An Enduring Partnership:” In Memoriam, 2012

A short walk from the House of Commons in Ottawa, Ontario, sits the Canadian National

War Memorial. Unveiled by King George VI in May 1939, it features bronze statues of marching service members from all branches of the Canadian military in 1914-18. In their midst are two light draught artillery horses, riders mounted, pulling an 18-pounder field piece forward [Figure

E.1].1772 A bronze plaque affixed to the National War Memorial at its unveiling acknowledged various corps of the Canadian Expeditionary Force that rendered valuable service in the war. The

Canadian Army Veterinary Corps, conspicuously, was not among them.1773 The only physical commemoration of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps serves as an incidental tribute to the service and is far from Ottawa. A statue of Winnie the Bear alongside her rescuer, Lieutenant

Harry Colebourne, Veterinary Officer to the 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade, was dedicated in

Winnipeg Zoo in 1992 [Figure E.2]. The statue does not commemorate the CAVC, however, as much as it memorializes the historical origins of the famous anthropomorphic bear. As of 2016, it stands in Assiniboine Park, Winnipeg.1774

In the early twenty-first century, British and Canadian military animals received dedicated commemorative sites. The overwhelming theme of these memorials is of animal nobility, stoicism, and a sense of sadness. There even lies a hint of human guilt over inflicting such privation and suffering on creatures that could not understand the conflicts they served and died in. On 24

November 2004 Anne, Princess Royal, unveiled the “Animals in War” Memorial in Hyde Park,

1772 In May 2000, an unidentified Canadian soldier from Cabaret Rouge Cemetery near Vimy Ridge was reinterred at the base of the memorial – the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Jonathan F. Vance, Death So Noble: Memory, Meaning, and the First World War, (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1997), 207, and Cook, Shock Troops, 645. For a detailed examination of memories, commemorations, and imaginations of Canada’s Great War by its contemporaries, see Vance, Death So Noble. 1773 Gattinger, A Century of Challenge, 78. 1774 “Winnie the Bear statue skips to the playground,” Winnipeg Free Press, 8 October 2012, A.9. 468

London. The memorial depicts a semi-circular bas-relief of animals ranging from elephants to horses to goats that served in English and British conflicts over the centuries [Figure E.3]. In the centre of the memorial is a pack train of brass animals led by a stout Heavy Draught horse.

Following behind are two trusty pack mules, their muzzles burnished to a bright gold by passers- by. The epitaph for “Animals in War” is powerful in its brevity: “They Had No Choice.”

A similar memorial, also entitled “Animals in War,” unveiled in Confederation Park

Ottawa, on 3 November 2012. It sits a few blocks away from the National War Memorial, and, appropriately enough, adjacent to the South African War Memorial. The Canadian “Animals in

War” features three limestone blocks affixed with brass plaques. A brass statue of a military working dog, too, watches over a series of horseshoe prints embedded into the concrete that leads visitors towards the memorial [Figure E.4]. The first tablet reads:

For centuries, animals have demonstrated an enduring partnership with humans in times of war. They have served as means of transportation, beasts of burden, messengers, protectors and mascots. Still today, dogs use their unique, sharply tuned instincts to detect mine clusters, and conduct search and rescue operations. We remember the contribution and sacrifice of all animals.

The bulk of the memorial commemorates Canada’s animals of the First World War. The centre panel depicts an anonymous mule train labouring to pull supplies through a muddy, rutted road, which could easily represent conditions on the Somme, at Vimy Ridge, or at Passchendaele [Figure

E.5]. Evoking Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae’s Poem “In Flanders Fields,” an exaltation of larks, “still bravely singing, fly,” scarce noticed amid the pulverized villages, sunken guns, and labouring men and animals below.1775 The panel’s caption reads, “Relentless shelling in the First

World War (1914-1918) left huge craters of mud and sewage. Horses and mules could best

1775 Vance, Death So Noble, 198. 469

navigate these conditions to supply the front and evacuate the wounded.” The final, emotional panel depicts a bronze relief clearly patterned on Fortunino Matania’s 1916 painting, Good-bye

Old Man.1776 Amidst bursting shells, a horse driver kisses a fatally wounded mount on the nose while a comrade up the road beckons him to escape the danger. This panel reads, “Horses carried soldiers, and pulled gun carriages, supply wagons and ambulances.” It concludes with an apt statement on these animals that Canadian Army Veterinary Corps personnel would doubtless have agreed with: “many paid the ultimate price and their loss was mourned by those they served.”

1776 See McEwen, “He Took Care of Me,” 274. 470

Figure E.1: Canadian National War Memorial, Confederation Square, Ottawa (Left)1777

Figure E.2: Winnie-the-Bear Statue, Assiniboine Park, Winnipeg (Right)1778

1777 Author’s Collection, December 2009. 1778 Author’s Collection, 19 June 2015. 471

Figure E.3: Animals in War Memorial, Hyde Park, London1779

Figure E.4: Animals in War Memorial, Confederation Park, Ottawa1780

1779 Author’s Collection, 27 April 2014. 1780 Author’s Collection, 18 April 2016. 472

Figure E.5: Animal in War, Ottawa, Panels Two and Three1781

1781 Author’s Collection, 18 April 2016. 473

Conclusion

On New Year’s Eve 1917, Lieutenant-Colonel Ashton Cutcliffe reflected back on the months since he became the Assistant Director of Veterinary Services, Canadian Corps. Since

August, Canadian veterinary personnel combatted the effects of poison gas and debility at Hill 70, stifled an incipient mange outbreak in September, maintained the animals’ health and working efficiency at Passchendaele in October-November, and ended the year confronting yet another recurrence of mange. Despite such critical contributions to Canadian military operations, Cutcliffe felt strongly that veterinary personnel did not receive due credit. “The CAVC has not been recognized during this war as it should have been,” he wrote. “It is hoped in the future,” he continued, “some evidence of recognition will be given to overcome the feeling that exists.”1782

Cutcliffe was not alone in these sentiments. Fellow officers and enlisted men alike expressed concern that the horses and mules propelling the Canadian Corps into battle, and their own efforts to maintain these animals’ health, would pass unrecognized and unappreciated.1783

The Canadian Army Veterinary Corps was not a forgotten service, but was, and is, a largely overlooked one. There exists a small body of work devoted the CAVC and military animals, though it remains overwhelmingly isolated from the prevailing military and social historiography of the Great War period. David Tamblyn’s semi-autobiographical history, The Horse in War, presented an array of useful anecdotes and qualitative information on the CAVC, but its scope was effectively limited to his personal experiences. Captain Cecil French’s History of the Canadian

Army Veterinary Corps and the accompanying notes from C.A.V. and Ian K. Barker, provided a

1782 WD, ADVS Canadian Corps, 31 December 1917. 1783 French, A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War, 1914-1919, xxii, Account of Sergeant G.A. McDonald, 18th Battery C.F.A., 1, Tamblyn, “The History of the C.A.V.C. Third Canadian Division, B.E.F.,” 2. 474

broad array of information on the veterinary services across the CEF. However, it lacked that closer connection to how the services actually functioned within the chronology of the war itself, a critical factor in understanding how the CAVC changed over time. A series of articles similarly highlighted different facets of the veterinarians’ and horses’ war contributions, though they lacked the comprehensive scope necessary to illustrate the full military, social, and Imperial context they served within. Margaret Derry’s Horses in Society considerably fleshes out the deficiencies in deeper social context to these issues. Its neglect of military authorities in Canada, however, means her chapter explores only part of the conflicting desires, motivations, and disappointments between civil and military figures that shaped Canadian remount markets. Taken together, this body of literature ensured the CAVC and its equine charges at least received a voice in historical discourse.

There nevertheless remained considerable room for further exploration into how these services actually functioned on the battlefield, how they operated within the BEF, and how they arose from

Canadian society.

Outside of these works, the combination of veterinary services and horse-drawn transport remains effectively absent from Canadian historical inquiry. This is despite the robust, and growing, field of scholarship on Canadian society at war, with facets ranging from gender to politics, economics, families, French-English relations, veterans’ health, and regionalism.

However, with the exception of Derry’s chapter, the functions, controversies, and consequences of mobilizing horses from that society remains unexamined. As this study exhibited, Canada’s war horses and veterinarians represented clear extensions of everyday Canadian life. These horses were bred for civil use, and veterinarians overwhelmingly pursued their vocations to meet demand for their care in that society. Both remain key facets of the Canadian Great War experience, and they merit more attention in social and cultural literature.

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Conspicuous, too, is their absence from Canadian military analyses. Historians devote their energies to a myriad of affairs ranging from combat operations, tactical doctrine, high command, weapons technologies, and the personal experience of war. The debate focusing on the ostensible

“learning curve” encompasses these factors, too, and continues to engender discussion. However, such works seldom have, in any more than a cursory fashion, investigated the horses and mules that facilitated the pace of battle. Nor have they considered the CAVC personnel that maintained these crucial facets of the transport system.

This study nevertheless argues that animal quantity, quality, and the veterinary efforts to optimize both, critically impacted Canadian military operations in the Great War. Horses and mules pulled the guns, supply wagons, and ambulances in the forward areas, and served as riding mounts and pack animals. Veterinary personnel served as advocates for their welfare, defended against devastating infectious diseases, treated injuries and wounds, and destroyed those unfortunate animals too sick or wounded to survive. Both the veterinary services and the remount system integrated tightly within the British Expeditionary Force, all of which worked together to sustain British and Dominion transportation in the field. Indeed, Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur

Currie’s insistence the CAVC remained essential for “maintaining the mobility of the Corps as a fighting formation” was a statement of the obvious when it came to their contribution to war on the Western Front.

Before the Great War, horses occupied an ambiguous position in Canadian society. The steady encroachment of electric streetcars, bicycles, and automobiles threatened to supplant the horse as the prime mover of urban transportation. At the same time, their military utility was clear.

British Imperial forces fighting in the Second Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 depended heavily on horses and mules for mobility in the field. Canadian breeders saw the conflict as crucial evidence

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for the continued utility of horses in military operations into the twentieth century. Although the

British War Office evidently favoured horses from the United States over the senior Dominion,

Canadians nevertheless remained hopeful that future wars would furnish lucrative business.

The Canadian veterinary profession grew in this environment. Providing trained expertise to the Dominion’s farmers and breeders, veterinarians carved a place in Canadian society by the late nineteenth century. Their emphasis on equine medicine threatened to tie their fate to the horse, though they rendered increasingly valuable service as government inspectors to help protect

Canadian livestock against infectious diseases of foreign and domestic origin. Indeed, experiences among Department of Agriculture and RNWMP veterinarians detecting and eliminating glanders outbreaks, and combatting mange on the prairies, granted them considerable expertise on how to control these diseases for their future wartime service in the AVC and CAVC.

Furthermore, the South African War, where 326,073 horses and 51,399 mules died, illustrated the devastating consequences of insufficient veterinary care on campaign. The years following 1902 witnessed British and Canadian authorities developing independent veterinary services charged with animal health and working efficiency in the field. A Canadian Army

Veterinary Corps, based on a British template, arose by 1910. Several summers’ worth of military exercises highlighted both the merits and deficiencies of the young service. These Militia trials and errors nevertheless proved crucial military experience for officers who rose to high command in the Great War.

When war came, the Dominion of Canada was thus in a position to field thousands of animals, and maintain their health, in support of the British Empire. Its mobilization process proved chaotic to say the least. With Minister Sam Hughes ordering existing mobilization plans discarded, horses for the Canadian Expeditionary Force had to be inspected, purchased, and

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shipped to Valcartier Camp within a month. Quantitatively these efforts proved successful. The

First Canadian Contingent carried a full complement of 7,636 horses for an infantry division, cavalry brigade, and supplementary remounts, to England in September 1914. These animals’ quality ranged tremendously, however, and their acquisition precipitated a major scandal. When arriving in England, the animals and their veterinary caretakers spent a cold, wet winter training in the mud of Salisbury Plain. These months built upon existing skills of animal management and veterinary care that Militiamen in the CEF practiced over their summer exercises. When preparing to embark for France in 1915, the horses and men of the 1st Canadian Division had much to learn in fighting modern war, but they were far from untrained novices.

The Dominion of Canada further proved a significant source of remounts for both British and Canadian war efforts in the conflict’s early stages. A third of all Canadian animals bought during the war were purchased during its first five months. Canadian breeders remained hopeful that the War Office would continue to rely on the Dominion to supply its military animal needs for the duration of the war, but this was not to be the case. The United States, with its far larger reserves of horses and mules, and the requisite transportation infrastructure to move both to port, provided the remount depot for the Empire. The Government of Canada, although purchasing over

24,000 horses, withdrew from the market in 1915, and could do little to influence this situation. A worsening financial imbalance with the United States in 1917 closed this market off entirely, and

August 1917 witnessed the demise of the Canadian remount market.

Meanwhile, the 1st Canadian Division’s horses, mules, and veterinary personnel entered active combat duty on the Western Front. Their first major engagement at the Second Battle of

Ypres sternly tested the skills in animal management and field veterinary practice learned at

Salisbury, Valcartier, and on Militia exercises. Despite considerable battle casualties, the animal-

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based logistic network did not collapse. Canadian veterinary personnel endeavoured to cure as many animals of their wounds as possible, sometimes under heavy fire, and keep them with fighting units. The CAVC passed its first test of active combat operations.

These combat losses of April-May 1915 would not be surpassed for over two years. For the rest of 1915 and early 1916, as Chapter Six investigated, the principal enemy confronting veterinary personnel was infectious disease, not enemy fire. To help fight these plagues, Canadian personnel serving in both the CAVC and AVC applied their considerable pre-war expertise in civil practice and government service. Mange, that most persistent of infectious diseases, first rose to alarming levels in 1915. Canadian personnel with service in the RNWMP or Department of

Agriculture played a critical role in determining how the BEF would fight the disease for the rest of the war. Lieutenant F.V. Perry, an OVC graduate and RNWMP veterinarian, successfully convinced his superiors – and the skeptical DVS Moore – of calcium sulphide’s efficacy as a cheap and effective method of combatting the parasites. Canadian recipes for calcium sulphide scrubs, and Canadian patterns for dipping baths, proliferated throughout the BEF from 1915 onwards.

They proved critical in the BEF’s veterinary services eventually gaining control this “worst of all animal scourges of war” by 1918.

These months, too, proved a vital period in the fight against glanders. The low incidences of this disease in the BEF belied its enormous threat to the health of animals. Only extraordinary vigilance from veterinary personnel kept it in check. Indeed, the fast and reliable intra-dermal- palpebral mallein test method learned from French Army veterinarians allowed their BEF counterparts to conduct massive tests and ensure glanders remained a minimal threat.

September 1916 witnessed the beginning of sustained, costly, and exhausting combat operations for the Canadian Corps’ draught animals and veterinary personnel. The Battle of the

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Somme witnessed animals’ heavy labour hauling guns, ammunition, and supplies through thick mud. Debility – a combination of exhaustion, exposure, and malnourishment – first appeared in alarming numbers. After the Somme, the Canadian Corps settled into a cold, wet winter in front of Vimy Ridge. The animals arrived from the Somme dirty and ungroomed, and thus in prime condition for mange outbreaks. The veterinary high command, having learned both the destructive potential of the disease and its most effective treatment, ordered thousands of BEF animals clipped of their coats and treated with calcium sulphide. This was a certain cure for the parasitic infection, but it left the animals terribly exposed to harsh winter weather. Preparations for the Battle of Vimy

Ridge entailed exceptionally heavy work in mud and snow, exacerbated by its unrelenting pace and reduced fodder. March and April 1917 witnessed the Canadian Corps losing almost a quarter of its animal strength, severely compromising its logistics and artillery mobility. This was the most dangerous crisis confronting veterinary personnel in the war. Respite only came with warm weather, green forage, and the end of the battle. These experiences, however, imparted veterinary personnel with unforgettable lessons in animal management and infectious disease control for the duration of the conflict.

Throughout the rest of 1917, the CAVC surmounted successive challenges to animal health and exhibited their steadily growing standards of efficiency. Successive mange outbreaks flared up and were suppressed. Debility cases at Hill 70, too, did not seriously impact the fighting capabilities of the Corps. Their greatest triumph up to that point in the war, however, was their preservation of Canadian animal health during the bloody Passchendaele Campaign of October-

November 1917. Despite witnessing the worst combat casualties since the Second Battle of Ypres and appalling battlefield conditions reminiscent of the Somme or Vimy Ridge, the CAVC managed to keep losses from mange, debility, and enemy fire to a minimum. Integral to this success was the

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centralized clipping regimen imposed by officers such as David Tamblyn and Charles Edgett in the early autumn. Their revised method simultaneously prevented against mange, allowed the animals’ coats to grow back before deep winter, and afforded close veterinary supervision. So successful was this CAVC method at avoiding the dreadful wastage of March-April 1917 that

Moore endorsed its adoption throughout the BEF the following year.

The last year of the Great War, 1918, proved the most violent for the CEF’s animals. The

German Spring Offensives and the subsequent Hundred Days Offensives inflicted the worst animal battle casualties experienced by the BEF in the Great War. The Canadian Corps’ sustained combat operations from August to November required a healthy and robust animal transport network to maintain its mobility in the field. CAVC personnel, once again, endeavoured to keep these animals free from disease, cured of their wounds, and as protected from debility as possible. Heavy casualties and the exhausting pace of work exacted a toll on humans and animals alike.

Nevertheless, veterinary personnel and the BEF’s remount system ensured the Canadian Corps was never immobilized for want of horses or mules during its final offensives of the war.

With the Armistice of 11 November 1918, the fighting on the Western Front was over.

However, the work of the CAVC did not end. The Canadian Corps performed occupation duty in the Rhineland after a long, exhausting march from western Belgium. Veterinary personnel nevertheless ensured these animals remained healthy throughout the winter as they awaited demobilization. Canadian-owned horses sold on the open marked in England and Canada, realizing fair returns for their auction. The en bloc transfer to the Belgian Government of nearly 24,000 horses on the Continent, too, represented a real coup for the Canadian veterinary personnel ensuring animals remained at such a high standard of health. By July 1919, virtually all the CEF’s horses were sold off, and its veterinary personnel returned home.

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The aftermath of the Great War witnessed a resumption of the crises over where horses and veterinarians fit into Canadian social and military affairs. Horses, for one, enjoyed a brief resurgence in utility after the Great War. However, the rising tide of motorized transport for urban and rural tasks effected their steady decline by the mid-twentieth century. Veterinarians appreciated this tremendous challenge to their raison d’être and, over time, reoriented the profession to embrace meat and milk inspection, livestock health, public health, and companion animal medicine. The Royal Canadian Army Veterinary Corps, however, proved itself unable to react effectively to either of these developments. Its senior leadership remained fixated in a 1918 mindset and believed the RCAVC’s purview should remain the health of draught animals and cavalry mounts. With a rising trend of mechanization in the 1920s and 30s, the service appeared increasingly obsolete, and it was disbanded during the Second World War. Senior officers ultimately failed to learn the RCAVC’s enormous potential as a protector of human and animal health until it was too late to convince higher authorities otherwise.

The (Royal) Canadian Army Veterinary Corps thus only lived for thirty years, from 1910 to 1940. It nevertheless exerted a decisive impact on Canadian military affairs as a corps of educated experts devoted to preserving animal health and working efficiency in the field. Clear examples from South Africa in 1899-1902, and the AEF in 1918, illustrated how costly military expeditions without adequate veterinary medical care were from humane, financial, and operational standpoints. The CAVC effectively enabled the Dominion of Canada to dispatch, and maintain, the animal transport required for the Canadian Expeditionary Force.

Indeed, a central finding of this study was that animal health correlated directly to military operations in the Great War. Throughout the CEF’s campaigns, there was a clear link between animal health, transport efficiency, and operational success. When too many horses were killed by

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enemy fire at Ypres, or by debility at Vimy, the field mobility of artillery and supply units became severely strained. It never completely failed, though their reduced movement capabilities created difficulties in delivering ammunition at Ypres, or hauling guns up the shell-blasted slope of Vimy

Ridge. Conversely, healthy animals ensured that the Corps’ transport capacity remained fully functional in the grueling Passchendaele Campaign, or costly Hundred Days’ Offensive. Despite heavy animal battle losses in these operations, the Canadian Corps’ indispensable animal transport remained effective. Horses and mules truly formed a 20,000 horsepower engine of war that drove the CEF to its great feats of arms throughout the Great War.

That the animal transport network never collapsed attests to the indispensable learning process the CAVC underwent in conjunction with its British counterparts from 1899 to 1918. The

War Office and the Department of Militia and Defence learned the critical contributions of professional veterinary expertise following the destructive experiences of the Boer War. These lessons directly influenced the interwar exercises and bureaucratic revisions that provided key foundations of structure and military experience for a cadre of veterinary personnel. With the outbreak of war in 1914, British and Canadian forces enjoyed a higher degree of veterinary preparation than either could claim before any of their previous conflicts. This learning process continued throughout the war, as British and Canadian personnel modified their deployment of units in the field, proper procedure for evacuating casualties, and suppressing such dangerous infectious diseases as mange and glanders. The CAVC ended the Great War as consummate professionals in military veterinary medicine, equal to any service members of the British Empire.

Their endeavours ensured the CEF’s animal wastage rate from 1915-18, at 18.2% dead, destroyed,

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or cast, remained below the average of the BEF during the same period, which sat at 20.29%.1784

Both the CAVC and AVC exhibited a marked improvement from South Africa, with its 67% dead wastage rate of horses from 1899-1902. The veterinary services thus steadily grew more proficient between the Second Anglo Boer War and the end of the Great War – an ongoing learning process, rather than a discrete learning curve set within the confines of 1914-18.

Intrinsically connected to their military service was the experiences learned from education and civilian careers. Throughout the Great War, 351 Canadian veterinarians served in the British and Canadian services – a third of all veterinary surgeons in the Dominion. They almost entirely staffed the CAVC, and provided the largest source of non-British officers for the AVC. Their expertise and skill was fundamentally rooted in their college education, which imparted the essential principles of animal health, disease, nutrition, surgery, and injury treatment to provide the necessary basis for military veterinary medicine. This education was a prerequisite for a veterinary officers’ commission throughout this period, and ensured that animal care in both peace and war was based on scientific knowledge rather than empiricism. Some veterinary college graduates sought careers in the Department of Agriculture or RNWMP, where they gained further knowledge on infectious animal diseases such as mange and glanders on a grand scale. The expertise gained fighting these diseases in Canada provided practical experience for infectious disease control on a similarly large scale in France and Flanders. Militarization of their unique proficiency and skill, grounded in their professional training, proved critical to both the CAVC and the AVC from 1914-18.

1784 Easily the worst theatre of the Great War for proportionate animal wastage was East Africa. Protozoan infections spread by tsetse flies inflicted massive losses on British Imperial horse strengths, which in 1916 alone suffered a 289.5% dead wastage rate. Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire During the Great War, 879-880 and 1914-1918 – Canadian Remount and Evacuation Statistics.” 484

Canada’s horses, too, were mobilized to serve the British Empire in both the South African and First World Wars. The experiences of their mobilization were disappointing. From 1899-1902,

17,036 Canadian animals went overseas to fight in South Africa, and approximately 65,000 from

1914-18 for Canadian, British, and French Governments. Raising and selling these animals for military purposes ultimately proved a source of continuous frustration and anxiety among

Canadian breeders and their parliamentary representatives. From Colonel Ravenhill’s visit in 1886 until the end of the Great War in 1918, Canadians expected to serve as the remount depot for the

British Empire. In both conflicts, however, its (predominately) neutral neighbour, the United

States, fulfilled this role. This dissatisfying state of affairs had less to do with Canadian animal quality per se than to the larger availability, shipping infrastructure, and warmer winter climate in the United States. The War Office pragmatically kept this invaluable horse supply open and receptive to British interests by ensuring it continued business. It demonstrated no similar compulsion to court the Canadian remount market.

The domestic experience of Canada’s history of war horses, then, can only be described as disappointment over perceived missed opportunities. The 768,414 British-bought horses from the

United States in these two wars totally eclipsed the 72,378 Canadian horses bought by British and

Canadian governments. These animals represented a major mobilization of Canada’s horse population, on a scale never to be repeated. Nevertheless, they were not enough to convince

Canadian breeders that they received sufficient deference from the Empire while embroiled in wars on its behalf. This disappointing situation did not kill the Canadian horse industry, but neither did it provide the salvation breeders so earnestly craved.

These issues nevertheless exemplify the thorough Imperial character of Canada’s Great

War experience. Too often, Canadian secondary literature on both the military effort and home

485

front neglects to adequately explore the deep connections between the Dominon and the broader

British Empire. This study, however, emphasized the critical importance of this transnational experience. The British War Office clearly exerted tremendous influence on the Canadian remount market and Canadian military veterinary structure in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Similarly, Canadian veterinary personnel fell under overall British command while serving on the Western Front. Without such a transnational approach, it would be impossible to fully appreciate the multifaceted nature of Canada’s horses and veterinarians in the Great War.

This study’s broader Imperial theme thus strives to be less parochial than conventional Canadian histories on the Great War period. It illustrates the need for more thorough investigation into how the Dominion of Canada functioned within the broader British Empire’s military efforts.

All of these interwoven factors, ultimately, illustrate the incredible importance of both draught animals and veterinary medicine in the Great War period of Canadian history. Reflecting on the war, General Currie wrote an “age old partnership of horse and man” fed the pace of battles. This relationship was maintained overwhelmingly by “a real love for the dumb friends who served their masters so bravely and so well.”1785 The Great War was not the end of this crucial partnership in Canadian history, but it was the beginning of the end. As Robert Craig

Brown and Ramsay Cook argued, Canada was indeed “a nation transformed” between 1896 and

1921. So, too, was Canadian military history. Neither the “age old” draught horse, nor the military veterinarian, would again see combat service in the Canadian Army after the guns fell silent on 11 November 1918.

1785 Currie, “Preface,” The Horse in War, 5. 486

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Films

A Bear Named Winnie. Directed by John Kent Harrison. DVD. Toronto: Canadian Broadcast Corporation, 2004.

War Horse. Directed by Steven Spielberg. DVD. Burbank: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2011.

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