They served God and their country
Chaplains helped raise spirits while coping with horrors of war themselves
Faith was likely never more tested than for chaplains who served alongside front-line soldiers in the First World War.
As Canada celebrates and remembers the heroics of Vimy Ridge this weekend, relatively few thoughts will turn toward those men of God who may well have had the toughest role in that seemingly senseless slaughter.
There was no respite for them. They saw first hand the carnage and then ministered hope when there was little left, even as they became casualties at the same high rate — about one in 10 — as the rest of the Canadian Corps.
Author David Love, a Calgarian who’s written extensively about the 1914-18 conflict and the ministers of different denominations who went to France and Flanders to be alongside young men in the field, said it was a traumatic experience for these men of God. It would break many of them.
“They were never off duty. They were always there and available to the young men at the front. These chaplains were more than preachers — they were confidants and, often, they were friends.
“Soldiers worried about an upcoming battle would go to the chaplain and say ‘I’m frightened,’ and they would talk through it and usually rekindle the resolve of the soldier,” said Love.
When the war broke out, the role of chaplains was an informal one. The Minister of Militia, Sam Hughes, hand-picked the first batch of 33 ministers who would go overseas — mostly Anglicans along with a half-dozen Catholics.
As the scale of Canadian involvement grew, the official Chaplain Service was established.
The chaplains who volunteered usually needed the approval of their denomination superior and congregation, and were required to have a separate medical, speak a second language and have an education to at least the degree level.
“They had to go through hoops that a normal enlisting recruit didn’t have to,” said Love.
On arrival overseas, the chaplains would be assigned to a camp, then moved to a clearing station before joining men at the front.
“At the time, putting them into a clearing station was seen as easing them into the death and destruction but, in reality, that’s where they saw the absolute horror of war, because all the badly wounded came there — a lot of chaplains never made it past those stations. They were traumatized and many broke down,” added Love.
Those who stayed would often end up beside men on the front lines. Those soldiers quickly gained remarkable respect for the men of faith.
“The regular fighting troops usually had a tremendous respect for a chaplain who would share the hardship and the danger with them, rather than meet them when they came back from the front and then preach at them,” said Love.
One such chaplain would be- come a legend to troops in the trenches — Honorary Lt.-Col., the Rev. Canon Frederick George Scott.
Scott went overseas with the First Canadian Contingent as a stowaway because, at 53, he was considered too old to serve. But he convinced military brass to let him stay, thereby becoming the oldest Canadian chaplain of the war.
A year later, his eldest son, Henry, was killed at the Somme. After travelling three days to reach the battlefield, in the dark of night Scott searched no man’s land for his son’s makeshift grave. Finding it, he dug until he retrieved the body.
While under direct fire, Scott conducted a proper burial service before reburying Henry beneath a proper marker.
Scott participated in every battle in which the First Division fought until being seriously wounded at the war’s close. Those battles in- cluded Vimy Ridge, Hill 70 and Passchendaele. The Military Museums in Calgary will feature Scott as part of its recently opened War Stories: 1917 exhibit.
Later surviving veterans wouldn’t forget Scott. At the first Canadian Corps reunion they made him honorary chairman. When he died in 1944, an estimated 250,000 people lined the Montreal funeral route in respect.
Canadian chaplains, though they served at the front, never bore arms. However, when they first went overseas they believed this was a just war and God was on their side. Those views often changed amid the blood and the slaughter.
“At first, most believed that this British war was just and that the Germans were the enemy. But many of them changed their minds after several years and they came back to Canada horrified at the death and destruction they’d witnessed,” said Love.