World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- Western Front; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, Canadian
The British Empire is in this fight. Canada is doing her share of it, and
nothing more than her share. We were not asked to send men over. We
declared war upon Germany ourselves, because we are an independent
dominion. We have had on the battle-field at one time some one hundred and
ten thousand men--that is the greatest number at any one time, though of
course nearly five hundred thousand are in khaki. At Vimy Ridge we held the
longest portion of trenches that we have ever held before or since--five
miles. To right and left of us there were Imperial troops, Anzacs,
Africans, and they held over fifty-five miles of line. We advanced four
miles, and papers on this continent blazed with the news. The English
advanced nine miles on the same day, and there was not so much as a
paragraph about it on this side of the Atlantic.
For every overseas soldier wounded on the western front there are six of
the Imperial troops wounded. This is true except at Lens, where the
overseas casualties were considerably heavier.
All this about Canada being in front is a German "terminological
inexactitude" which is so despicable that we in Canada are ashamed that it
should be said of us. It will injure us after the war; it will injure our
prestige in the empire, which is now higher than ever before. We are not
boasters and egotists, we are fighters. We are fighting men who live
straight and who are proud to fight straight, and who are disgusted at lies
such as this.
The British, the Imperial troops, have done magnificently. They have done
more than their share. The original agreement with France was to place
fifty thousand men in that country should Germany ever attack. The British
have five million troops under arms, of which only one-fifth are overseas.
They have some five hundred thousand more men in France than have the
French themselves.
The British are fighting on many fronts. They are not fighting one war;
they are fighting in German West Africa, they are in German East Africa. It
was English troops who fought in the Cameroons. They are fighting in
Mesopotamia and in Egypt. They have an army at Saloniki and in the Holy
Land, and they have, of necessity, a large army in India, because the
borders of that empire must be protected.
And then we hear that the English are not doing anything! The English are
feeding their own prisoners in Germany, because the Germans were starving
them. They have been keeping some of their Allies in munitions and money.
They have been sheltering refugees from every nation that has been
devastated and overrun by the mad Huns. They have Belgians and French and
Serbians and Poles--a vast concourse of all nations is sheltered on the
little island which is the Motherland. It would be a poor thing if the
dominions could not protect themselves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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