"The Canadian Army on Salisbury Plain" by T. S. Crawford

[Moonraker]

I returned from a modest book-signing for Wiltshire and the Great War in Salisbury to find that copies of my second book had arrived, and it's officially on sale from tomorrow. It's The Canadian Army on Salisbury Plain: The First Canadian Contingent October 1914-February 1915.

The Contingent became the First Canadian Division, which won an enviable record that is well documented, as is the recruitment and initial training in Canada. But not much has been written in one place about its time in England, starting with its arrival in Plymouth and training of sorts on the Plain, no one apparently having researched the local newspapers in any depth.

The winter of 1914-15 was one of the wettest on record and the Canadians (and Newfoundlanders who were with them for a few weeks) had a tough time under canvas, and moving into huts (which they had helped build themselves, at the expense of training) didn't help much. In January the sick-rolls were extensive and several manor houses and Netheravon Cavalry School were turned into hospitals.

Nearly all the Canadians' equipment had to be replaced with British kit, which caused a fuss back home, with the the bombastic Minister of Militia, Sam Hughes, getting very indignant. Sensitivities remain, as I found out when this was discussed on the Canadian Expeditionary Force Study Group Forum, and I'm a little uneasy what some of the experts on it will have to say about the book. (One raised his eyebrows at the title, as during the war the CEF wasn't officially known as the "Canadian Army".)

Published by Halsgrove, it's a hardback of A4 size with 160 pages and some 90 illustrations, some of which are rare. ISBN 978-0-85704-155-5, price £19.99. Google the title for outlets, but please consider buying via the Amazon link on this website - this gives the Forum some money.

Moonraker

[centurion]

I have a limited edition book published in 1915 on the Canadian 1st Contingent with photos showing just how miserable it was. Just to make it even more miserable Hughes put all the surrounding villages out of bounds so the men couldn't even sit round the fire in a local pub. Hughes was forced by the Canadians' co to allow a wet canteen - a single tent only open for a very limited time so there was no social drinking in camp.

It seems probable that he got some financial benefit from the equipment. Certainly the Canadian rights for the combined entrenching tool/sniper shield were owned by his secretary/mistress.

[Moonraker]

It's not always easy to defend Hughes but here Centurion is being a bit unfair on him. As soon as the Canadians arrived they descended on village pubs, with a minority causing problems with drunkenness. The local authorities and Southern Command were already concerned about British soldiers and camp-construction workers getting drunk, but it is true that the initial absence of wet canteens exacerbated the Canadians' situation. And there were perhaps a dozen small villages with, let us say, a couple of dozen pubs, within easy reach of the Canadian camps, hardly sufficient for some 30,000 men!

Within three days of the first Canadians arriving on the Plain, their British CO, Lt-Gen Alderson, was receiving serious complaints from the local authorities, and it was probably his decision to put the villages out of bounds. He telegraphed Southern Command to stress the need for wet canteens, and very quickly indeed these were allowed. Late in November Alderson reassured Hughes that trouble in the villages had "practically ceased", but problems continued in Salisbury, where the authorities were unsure how to handle drunken officers, and in London and other large towns where the Canadians spent their leave.

With the Canadians spread around several camps, there was more than one wet canteen.

Alderson, by the way, had his headquarters in the Bustard Inn... And Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry - perhaps the best of the Canadians units - were lucky in that they had trained separately from the rest of the Contingent in Canada and were not officially part of it, and from the start they had a wet canteen at Bustard Camp.

Moonraker

[centurion]

Well letters from Canadian soldiers certainly show that they blamed Hughes.

[Moonraker]

I guess that the top man ends up with the blame, even when others are at fault, and the Contingent might have expected Hughes to be looking after their interests. In fact he got too much involved in detail, over-riding standing arrangements for the mobilisation of an expedtionary force, allowing political considerations to affect the granting of contracts, and changing the disembarkation arrangements from Canada (adding to the inevitable confusion). Centurion refers to the MacAdam shovel/shield, named after his secretary/mistress, which was too heavy for a soldier to carry; it may be that he had a personal interest in it being used, but it turned out to be only any good for scrap.

Soldiers referred to their poor boots as "Sham Shoes" (after "Sam Hughes"), and such was the feeling about them that a public enquiry was held later in the war, with Hughes being exonerated because their design had been approved by his predecessor.

On September 28, 1914, Canada's Governor-General wrote to Kitchener about "the peculiar manner in which the selection of this Force had been made by the Minister ... who would do everything himself and who would not listen to any advice". He described Hughes as "an arrogant and conceited barrister who would commit any folly if there were not someone to keep him straight".

I imagine that the views of Canadian and British officers were not dissimilar and would have found their way down the ranks.

Moonraker

[Moonraker]

Only just realised, courtesy of a member of the Canadian Expeditionary Force Study Group, that you can peek inside the book

here

Moonraker

[Moonraker]

Flippin' heck. From time to time we've mentioned the hugely optimistic prices quoted on some websites for out-of-print books, sometimes ten times their real worth, but a French dealer is asking £45.62 for a copy of my book, the cover price of which is £19.19. Several other on-line dealers are offering a reasonable discount off this.

Moonraker

[Ken S.]

I once obtained a book and searched around on various sites for what it was going for and could only find one copy available listed for about $1,300. It's possible that the vendor simply had it priced that high simply as a "placeholder," which is a common practice. I put mine up on amazon for $75 and sold it within a month or so.

[Moonraker]

Even more ridiculous: two Canadian on-line dealers are asking $2,474 and $1,979 for used copies. With $1 = 60p, that's a heck of a lot of money. Even with high postage costs to Canada anyone could get a brand new copy from the UK for £30 or so.

Moonraker