Young Canada was an annual publication for boys which stressed amongst other things, manly virtues and the prominence of the British Empire. The following illustrations and stories are taken from the annual for 1918, published while the war was still raging in Europe.
THE EDITOR TO HIS READERS
AGAIN, with very great satisfaction, we are able to put before our readers a new Volume-another in the long series which, year after year, has been eagerly looked for by British boys in these home islands and in those “Britains beyond the Seas” which have been drawn so much nearer to us during these last four critical years.
The Volume is leaner than its peace-time predecessors. That was inevitable, for the simple reason that the full supply of paper had become unobtainable, and what was available could only be got at an almost prohibitive price. The wonder is, not that our Annual this year should be of reduced size, but that it should have been possible to produce it at all.
When once that fact has been realised, we think our readers will have nothing but praise for the treasure-store of good reading and beautiful illustrations which our contributors have enabled us to bring together. Some of the latter-drawings by Stanley L. Wood, Algernon Black, John Campbell, etc., picturing various features of the War-are exceptionally striking.
In our last year’s introductory words we expressed the hope that before another Volume was completed the end of the present tremendous conflict would be in sight. That hope has not yet been fulfilled. At the time we write (the early summer of 1918) great issues seem impending, but fleets and armies are still arrayed against one another, and the great objects for which Britain went to war have not yet been attained.
Our readers, therefore, will not expect aught but a war-time Volume: one that will properly reflect what is going on in the various spheres of fighting. In this they will not be disappointed. Sometimes in story form and sometimes in ably written articles, and occasionally in graphic pictures by specialists, they will find much of intense interest concerning our glorious Navy and navy- men, the sturdy courage of our mercantile marine refusing to be daunted by the new terrors which strew the seas today, the intrepid patrol men and mine-sweepers, and the watchers of our coasts whose obscure services call for such endurance and patience. They will learn of the things accomplished by our Naval Pigeon Post, and the help it has rendered in saving lives in peril; of the wonderful deeds of our airmen, who have achieved the same superiority in sky fighting and scouting as our sailors attained a century ago on the seas. They will read, too, of the truly wonderful daring-never surpassed even in the old Peninsular and Waterloo days-displayed by officers and men in the huge armies which Britain has put into the field, and the equally valuable stubborness of defense and resistance which they have opposed to the enemy, even when he has attacked with overwhelming numbers.
Along with these stories will be found others concerning the splendid men who have come across the seas in thousands from Australia and New Zealand and Canada and South Africa and many a far-off island and settlement. Right valiantly have they assisted us, making an immortal name for themselves as first-class fighting men, and proving to all the world that the home islands and the widely separated Dominions stand or fall together.
But our readers will find in this Volume much that is independent of the War. Stories of adventures romantic tales from History, scenes of travel, Nature studies, indoor hobbies-all are represented here And so with the great games, too. Lord Hawke, President of the M.C.C., talks of boys’ chances of getting into “big cricket”; footfall is dealt with by two or three prominent exponents, who give most useful advice. One of these Talks is by a front-rank player who has since given his life for the Empire in naval operations in the North Sea.
And so we commend this, our Thirty-ninth Annual Volume, with its record and suggestion of glorious hardihood and fidelity and devotion, to those who will be the men of tomorrow; and largely for whose safety and well-being their fathers and elder brothers are making so tremendous a sacrifice .
THE EDITOR.
How a Scout Died For France
In a letter found on the body of a dead German on the Western Front was the following account-an enemy account, of course-of a captured Boy Scout. ” A traitor has just been shot-a little French lad belonging to one of those gymnastic societies which wear tricolour ribbons (the Eclaireurs, or Boy Scouts), a poor young fellow who in his infatuation wanted to be a hero. The German column was passing along a wooded defile, and he was caught and asked whether the French were about. He refused to give information. “
Fifty yards further on there was fire from the cover of a wood. The prisoner was asked in French if he had known that the enemy was in the forest, and he did not deny it. He went with a firm step to a telegraph post and stood up against it. with the green vineyard at his back, and received the volley of the firing party with a proud smile on his face. Infatuated wretch! It was a pity to see such wasted courage. “
“ Is such courage wasted when it acts as an inspiration to the great brotherhood of boys? ” was the comment of General Sir Robert Baden-Powell, who read the letter at a meeting in the Guildhall in May last.
Timber For The Trenches
A PEEP AT A CANADIAN LUMBER CAMP IN ENGLAND
By L.F. Stockwell
EVERY boy enjoys reading stories of life in the lumber camps of Canada, or seeing pictures or the wild North-West at the cinema, but it would he a great surprise to many to come upon a real Canadian lumber camp in the heart of our English woods.
Yet today, if we happen to stroll through a forest, ” somewhere in England ‘ we may do so, for in one district alone there are five such camps, four entirely worked by men who have learned their trade in the famous timber camps of Canada, the fifth worked by our oldest allies, the Portuguese who are said to be the best lumber-men in the world.
At first sight of the Canadian camp we rub our eyes, and can scarcely believe we are in old England, so strange and foreign looking is this picturesque town of brown wooden huts that has sprung up within a few months, and is being constantly added to. On either side of the white winding road are irregular rows of huts with sharply-pointed roofs and fronts tastefully ornamented with unbarked pine wood in diamond devices. These are the men’s living quarters, the officers’ being distinguished by an overhanging roof that forms a verandah, with three fir trees in pots before the door. When, in summer, the poles are twined with bright nasturtiums the effect is very pretty.
There are, besides a large lofty stable for the powerful horses that draw the timber waggons, a big shed where the saw-mill is ever at work turning the rough tree trunks into neatly sawn planks, sheds for stores and the various motor vehicles, a tiny church, a Y.M.C.A. hut, or a hospital.
The workers, who have come from the utmost parts or the Empire to help, are under military discipline, though they are not actual soldiers, but correspond to the labour batallions.. They wear a loose comfortable uniform suited to the heavy work of handling logs, consisting of khaki shirts, blue slacks, slouch hats, or bright yellow oilskin sou’-westers, which make a cheerful patch of colour among the brown of the woods.
Many of the lumber-men are fine strong young Colonials of pure British blood, others are French Canadians who can speak little or no English, anti there are, besides, Indians and half-breeds who have left their far homes to do their bit in the world war.
But a short time ago these forest solitudes were given up to the foxes, the badgers and the birds. Now the sun shines down upon a busy scene, while over all the red flag of Canada floats proudly in the breeze. With a -ideal hoot a little engine appears from behind the trees, bringing rough timber to feed the sawmill, while, on a second light railway running down to another clearing the trucks are drawn by a horse harnessed to the first. The wood is sawn into planks of equal size, then neatly piled cross-wise in tall stacks till ready to be taken to the railway on huge motor lorries. These neat piles of timber remind us of the teak yards of Rangoon where the wood is piled by the clever elephant ” lumbermen.”
All day lone the work goes steadily forward without hustle or the noise and shouting we generally associate with timber work. An officer in khaki goes round supervising, accompanied by a lame retriever and a bull terrier – two faithful friends who bear him company in exile. The planks are chiefly used for building the huts needed to shelter our millions of’ soldiers, the round tree tops serve for trench props and similar purposes. Thus, as in days of old the yew trees of this forest provided bows for the archers of Crecy, and the oaks supplied timber for our wooden ships, so today the pine woods are making their war-offering, and the Overseas men who have come to cut the timber are linking up the chain of our great Empire.
Heroes of the Somme
Every boy should beg. borrow or buy a copy of Dr. Conan Doyle’s history of ‘ The British Campaign in France and Flanders, 1916.” For it gives in graphic de tail what most of us have only known in general -the wonderful story of British valour in the Battle of the Somme.
In one sense it is too big for us to grasp, too magnificent to realise. For it was not like Waterloo a compact combat on a limited scale, begun and ended in a single day, but a series of fights continuing day after day -” a battle which opened,” as one reviewer has said, ” with an attack by 230,000 British troops on a twenty-mile front, a battle in which, from first to last, nearly three million men were engaged, and in which the total casualties were at least three- quarters of a million. ”
As a sample of Dr. Conan Doyle’s clear, direct style- we should like to quote his account of how Montauban was taken by the Thirteenth Corps under General Congreve on the first day of the battle:
The hardest fighting of any fell to the lot of the 55th Brigade upon the right. The advance was made with the 8th East Surrey and 8th Queen’s Surrey in front, the latter to the left. The 7th Buffs were in support and the 7th West Kents in reserve. No sooner had the troops come out from cover than they were met by a staggering fire which held them up in the Breslau Trench. The supports had soon to be pushed up to thicken the ranks of the East Surrey – a battalion which, with the ineradicable sporting instinct and light-heartedness of the Londoner, had dribbled footballs, one for each platoon, across No Man’s Land and shot their goal in the front-line trench.
A crater had been formed by a mine explosion, forming a gap in the German front, and round this crater a fierce fight raged for some time, the Germans rushing down a side sap which brought them up to the fray. Into this side sap sprang an officer and a sergeant of the Buffs, and killed twelve of the Germans, cutting oh their flow of reinforcements, while half a company of the same battalion cleared up the crater and captured a machine-gun which had fought to the last cartridge.
It is worth recording that in the case of one of these machineguns the gunner was actually found with a four-foot chain attaching him to the tripod. Being badly wounded and unable to disengage himself, the wretched man had dragged himself, his wound, and his tripod for some distance before being captured by the British. The fact was duly established by a sworn inquiry.
The brigade was winning its way forward but the hard resistance of the Germans had delayed it to such a point that there was a danger that it would not be in its place so as to cover the left flank of the 90th Brigade, who were due to attack Montauban at 10 a.m. Such a failure might make the difference between victory and defeat. At this critical moment the officer commanding the East Surreys dashed to the front, reformed his own men with all whom he could collect and led them onwards. Captain Neville was killed in gallantly leading the rush, but the wave went forward.
There was check after check, but the point had to be won and the Suffolks of the 53rd Brigade were brought round to strengthen the attack, while the West Kents were pushed forward to the fighting line. By midday two platoons of West Kents were into Montauban Alley, and had seized two houses at the western end of Montauban, which were rapidly fortified by a section of the 92nd Field Company. The flank of the 90th was assured. A South African officer led the first group of Surrey men who seized Montauban. He is said during the action to have slain seventeen of the enemy.”
U-Boat Victims
IS it and wonder that the British mercantile marine has vowed a solemn vow to have no dealings with German seamen for a period of years after the present war ends, in the face of such outrages as these two stories disclose. Only the plain facts (as reported in May of the present year) are here given, and they are officially proved.
A British passenger steamer, carrying seventy-seven passengers and a crew of 217, had been torpedoed without warning, and had at once taken a list to starboard. She was 140 miles from land, the time being 11 o’clock at night.
Boats were lowered as quickly as possible, passengers and crew abandoning ship, while the Germans launched a second torpedo at the vessel. The submarine then came to the surface, wished the boats’ companies goodnight, and disappeared in the darkness.
One of the lifeboats had been considerably damaged before getting clear, and every wave washed over the boat’s company
Their sufferings were deplorable. About two hours after leaving the ship a passenger succumbed to exposure. Then lady died, but her daughter continued to support the dead body, thinking her mother was still alive. An hour later the daughter herself passed away. A coloured sailor now succumbed; then a fireman, sitting on a thwart, allowed his head to sink into the water and was drowned.
A male passenger was now seen to be dead, and a lady who was his friend became hysterical, so they pretended he had fainted and kept his body in the boat. Fifteen minutes afterwards a fireman lurched overboard and was drowned.
But by this time help was at hand, and the boat was picked up at 9 o’clock next morning. The survivors from another British steamer, torpedoed without warning 320 miles from land, went through even more terrible experiences. They were adrift in a boat containing thirty-one people, including two women and a baby four months old.
The steamer was sunk on a Monday, and during that night the boat lost touch with the others. They lay-to, keeping head on to the enormous seas that were running. By Wednesday the chief officer had gone mad, and he died during the day. That night the storekeeper went mad and had to be lashed down; he died at noon on Thursday.
On Friday the weather moderated. Agonies of thirst were being endured, and during that day a seaman expired. On Saturday a fireman was found dead in the bottom of the boat. They drifted with sail down through the night of Saturday, there being no stars to steer by. On Sunday a cattleman jumped overboard, his companions being too weak to rescue him. The last tot of water was served out, a mouthful apiece, after which they tried to collect a little moisture from occasional showers.
They sighted land at 3 p.m. on Monday, but the weather prevented them from attempting to put in until Tuesday morning, when they were too weak to make the shore. However, a couple of fishing boats came to their assistance and towed them in.
The linen-keeper died as he was being lifted ashore; two seamen, who had gone mad, had to be dragged from the boat, which they refused to leave. A trimmer died of gangrene a fortnight later in hospital, where the baby also succumbed, after surviving all the horrors of that terrible journey.