CANADA HISTORY - War-WWI

To England

In the early days of the First World War, after the initial rush of volunteers filled the ranks of newly formed Canadian regiments, Valcartier, Quebec, became one of the key training centers where these raw recruits would undergo their initial transformation from civilians to soldiers. It was here that these young men, drawn from the farms, cities, and wildernesses of Canada, learned to obey orders, to march in step, and to behave with the discipline expected of soldiers bound for the front lines of a war unlike any the world had seen. The urgency for troops in Europe was palpable, and the call to arms was answered with such enthusiasm that there was little time for long, detailed training. The first Canadian units were ordered to prepare for departure as quickly as possible, and the great adventure—the largest military mobilization in Canadian history—began.

On the night of September 23-24, 1914, orders came for the 31,000 raw recruits at Valcartier to prepare for embarkation. The soldiers hastily packed their equipment and boarded trains bound for Quebec City, where 33 ocean liners waited to transport them across the Atlantic. The convoy, which would later be joined by warships for protection, assembled in the Gaspé Basin. This massive movement of troops was unprecedented in Canadian history, and as the men readied themselves for the unknown, there was a mixture of excitement and anxiety among them. Many of these soldiers had never left their home provinces, let alone their country, and now they were bound for Europe, a continent in the throes of war.

On October 3, 1914, the convoy set sail, led by a formidable escort of British warships: HMS Charybdis, HMS Diana, HMS Eclipse, flanked by HMS Glory and HMS Suffolk, with the cruiser HMS Talbot bringing up the rear. The powerful battlecruiser HMS Queen Mary was to join the convoy later, replacing HMS Suffolk to provide additional protection from potential German naval threats. As the convoy passed Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula, it was joined by the SS Florizel, a sealing ship carrying the Newfoundland Regiment, the proud contribution of Britain’s oldest colony.

This was only the third time that Canadian troops had embarked on a journey to fight abroad. The first had been a small force sent to Sudan in 1884, and the second, a larger contingent, had fought in the South African (Boer) War at the turn of the century. But the scale of the 1914 mobilization dwarfed these previous efforts—this was the largest contingent of soldiers Canada had ever sent overseas. It marked a new chapter in Canada’s relationship with the British Empire, as thousands of Canadians sailed into the unknown, uncertain of the fate that awaited them on the battlefields of Europe.

After ten days at sea, on October 14, 1914, the convoy arrived in the ports of Plymouth and Devonport on England's southern coast. Due to wartime secrecy and the ever-present threat of German submarines, the arrival of the Canadian troops had not been announced to the British public. When the soldiers disembarked, the surprise and joy of the local population were overwhelming. Crowds of cheering Britons lined the streets, waving flags and celebrating the arrival of reinforcements from across the Atlantic. For many in Britain, the arrival of the Canadians represented a vital lifeline of support from the Empire, proof that the Dominion was ready to stand shoulder to shoulder with Britain in its time of need.

From Plymouth and Devonport, the Canadians marched through the streets of the towns and cities, receiving a hero’s welcome from the British citizens, before making their way to the Salisbury Plain for further training. This ancient military training ground, dotted with camps and firing ranges, became their temporary home. The men were billeted in a series of tented camps, with names like Bustard, West Down South, West Down North, Pond Lake, Lark Hill, and Sling Plantation. The harsh conditions of the Plain, which was often plagued by rain and mud, would prepare them for the hardships they would soon face in France. It was a fitting prelude to the realities of trench warfare, where the combination of mud, cold, and exhaustion would become the norm.

The weather on the Salisbury Plain was notoriously bad that winter, and it tested the soldiers' endurance. Heavy rains turned the camps into quagmires, and many of the men fell ill. Diseases such as flu and spinal meningitis took their toll, and morale dipped as the men faced weeks of hard training in miserable conditions. Yet, despite the hardships, the soldiers persevered. They learned how to handle their weapons, how to march in formation, and how to follow orders from their officers. They trained for combat, practiced bayonet drills, and developed the skills they would need in the trenches of the Western Front.

More than just learning the mechanics of soldiering, these men began to develop a sense of camaraderie and national identity that had not existed in such a cohesive form before. Many of the soldiers came from different regions of Canada—English-speaking and French-speaking Canadians, farmers from the prairies, factory workers from Ontario, fishermen from the Maritimes—but on the Salisbury Plain, they became one unified force. This growing sense of Canadian nationalism, fostered by their shared experience, would serve them well in the battles to come. In these muddy fields, they were becoming a brotherhood—a force that would soon be regarded as among the most formidable in the British Expeditionary Force.

The men of the Canadian contingent were not alone in their training. They were visited and reviewed by British royalty and military leaders, including King George V and Queen Mary, as well as military icons such as Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War, and Field Marshal Lord Roberts, who had once commanded British forces during the Boer War. These visits were not merely ceremonial; they underscored the importance of the Canadian contribution to the war effort. Britain needed these men, and the Canadians understood that they were now a vital part of the global conflict.

Despite the grueling conditions, the training on the Salisbury Plain was relatively short. By December 1914, just a few months after their arrival in England, the orders came through for their deployment to France. The men, now hardened by their time on the Plain and bonded through their shared hardships, prepared for their next journey—the final leg that would take them to the battlefields of the Western Front. By the turn of the new year, they were on their way.

In many ways, the time spent at Valcartier and on the Salisbury Plain was a transformative period for the men of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. They had arrived as civilians, most of them untested and untrained. But by the time they left for France, they were soldiers, ready to face the horrors of modern warfare. What they did not know was that the months ahead would bring challenges they could scarcely imagine—battles where their courage and endurance would be tested to the limits. But they would also emerge as one of the most respected and feared fighting forces of the war, a testament to the resilience and strength of Canada’s citizen-soldiers.

This was the first chapter in Canada’s military story during the Great War, a story that would see the Canadian Corps rise to prominence on battlefields from Ypres to Vimy Ridge, from Passchendaele to Amiens. It was on the Salisbury Plain, in the mud and rain, that they took their first steps on the long road to becoming some of the finest troops of the First World War