The Great War As I Saw It | Page 2

was calling us,
we heard it oversea, The blood which thou didst give us, is the blood
we spill for thee.
Little did I think when I first saw him that he could possibly, at his time
of life, bear the rough and tumble of the heaviest fighting in history,
and come through with buoyancy of spirit younger men envied and
older men recognized as the sign and fruit of self-forgetfulness and the
inspiration and cheering of others.
Always in the thick of the fighting, bearing almost a charmed life,
ignoring any suggestion that he should be posted to a softer job "further
back," he held on to the very end.

The last time I saw him was in a hospital at Etaples badly wounded, yet
cheery as ever--having done his duty nobly.
All the Canadians in France knew him, and his devotion and
fearlessness were known all along the line, and his poems will, I am
bold to prophesy, last longer in the ages to come than most of the
histories of the war.
I feel sure that his book--if anything like himself--will interest and
inspire all who read it.
LLEWELLYN H. GWYNNE. Bishop of Khartoum, Deputy Chaplain
General to the C. of E. Chaplains in France.

PREFACE (p. 011)
It is with a feeling of great hesitation that I send out this account of my
personal experiences in the Great War. As I read it over, I am dismayed
at finding how feebly it suggests the bitterness and the greatness of the
sacrifice of our men. As the book is written from an entirely personal
point of view, the use of the first personal pronoun is of course
inevitable, but I trust that the narration of my experience has been used
only as a lens through which the great and glorious deeds of our men
may be seen by others. I have refrained, as far as possible, except
where circumstances seemed to demand it, from mentioning the names
of officers or the numbers of battalions.
I cannot let the book go out without thanking, for many acts of
kindness, Lieut.-General Sir Edwin Alderson, K.C.B., Lieut.-General
Sir Arthur Currie, G.C.M.G., K.C.B., and Major-General Sir Archibald
Macdonell, K.C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O., who were each in turn
Commanders of the First Canadian Division. In all the efforts the
chaplains made for the welfare of the Division, they always had the
backing of these true Christian Knights. Their kindness and
consideration at all times were unbounded, and the degree of liberty
which they allowed me was a privilege for which I cannot be too

thankful, and which I trust I did not abuse.
If, by these faulty and inadequate reminiscences, dug out of memories
which have blended together in emotions too deep and indefinable to
be expressed in words, I have reproduced something of the atmosphere
in which our glorious men played their part in the deliverance of the
world, I shall consider my task not in vain.
May the ears of Canada never grow deaf to the plea of widows and
orphans and our crippled men for care and support. May the eyes of
Canada never be blind to that glorious light which shines upon our
young national life from the deeds of those "Who counted not their
lives dear unto themselves," and may the lips of Canada never be dumb
to tell to future generations the tales of heroism which will kindle the
imagination and fire the patriotism of children that are yet unborn.

The Great War as I Saw It (p. 013)
CHAPTER I.
(p. 015)
HOW I GOT INTO THE WAR.
July to September, 1914.
It happened on this wise. It was on the evening of the 31st of July, 1914,
that I went down to a newspaper office in Quebec to stand amid the
crowd and watch the bulletins which were posted up every now and
then, and to hear the news of the war. One after another the reports
were given, and at last there flashed upon the board the words,
"General Hughes offers a force of twenty thousand men to England in
case war is declared against Germany." I turned to a friend and said,
"That means that I have got to go to the war." Cold shivers went up and
down my spine as I thought of it, and my friend replied, "Of course it
does not mean that you should go. You have a parish and duties at

home." I said, "No. I am a Chaplain of the 8th Royal Rifles. I must
volunteer, and if I am accepted, I will go." It was a queer sensation,
because I had never been to war before and I did not know how I
should be able to stand the shell fire. I had read in books