Of the 33,000 men assembled at Valcartier, the great majority were civilians without any previous training in warfare. About 7,000 Canadians had taken part in the South African war, fifteen years before, and some of these, together with a few ex-regulars who had seen active service, were formed into the Princess Patricia’s Light Infantry. Otherwise, with the exception of the 3,000 regulars that formed the standing army of Canada, the men and most of the officers were amateurs. It was therefore a feat that the Canadian people could well afford to be proud of, that in the great crisis they were able, through their aggressive Minister of Militia, not only to gather up these forces so quickly but that they willingly and without delay converted their industries to the manufacture of all necessary army equipment. Factories all over the country immediately began turning out vast quantities of khaki cloth, uniforms, boots, ammunition, harness, wagons, and the thousand and one articles necessary for an army. Before the end of September, 1914, the Canadian Expeditionary Force had been roughly hewn into shape, battalions had been regrouped and remodeled, officers transferred and re-transferred, intensive training carried on, and all the necessary equipment assembled. On October 8, 1914, thirty-three Atlantic liners, carrying the contingent of 33,000 men, comprising infantry, artillery, cavalry, engineers, signalers, medical corps, army service supply and ammunition columns, together with horses, guns, ammunition, wagons, motor lorries and other essentials, sailed from Gaspé basin on the Quebec seaboard to the battlefield of Europe. It was probably the largest convoy that had ever been gathered together. This modern armada in three long lines, each line one and one-half miles apart, led by cruisers and with battleships on the front, rear and either flank, presented a thrilling spectacle. The voyage proved uneventful, and on October 14th, the convoy steamed into Plymouth, receiving an extraordinary ovation by the sober English people, who seemed temporarily to have gone wild with enthusiasm. Back of that demonstration was the conviction that blood had proved thicker than water and that the apparently flimsy ties that bound the colonies to the empire were bonds that were unbreakable. The German conviction that the British colonies would fall away and the British Empire disintegrate upon the outbreak of a great war had proved fallacious. It was, moreover, a great demonstration of how the much-vaunted German navy had already been swept from the seas and rendered impotent by the might of Britain’s fleet.