PPCLI set to mark century on duty
Celebration set for next August
The first Canadian military unit sent to war in 1914, the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry was financed by Andrew Hamilton Gault with a personal contribution of $100,000.
The PPCLI enlisted more than 1,000 soldiers, 238 of whom died within the first three months on the line.
The Patricias, as they’re commonly referred to, waged their most historic battle in 1915 at the Battle of Frezenberg. Clouds of poison gas shielded the enemy, who launched repeated assaults on the regiment. But the Patricias held their line and saved the position, at the cost of 175 men in a matter of hours.
The regiment’s unwavering service has persisted for nearly a century.
The Edmonton-based regiment — one of three regular force infantry regiments in the Canadian Army — is gearing up to celebrate its centennial next year, which coincides with the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.
“Personally, to me, it’s a very important event in Canadian history. It’s really a time when Canada came of age as a nation,” says Capt. David Peabody, who is overseeing the centennial celebrations.
The Patricias have deep ties to Alberta, says Peabody, with three out of its four battalions stationed in Edmonton. That’s why the commemoration will take place in Edmonton in August 2014.
The five-day event will centre on the Trooping of the Colours, where regimental colours will be paraded. Held in the highest regard by officers and soldiers, the colours are sacred and only used on rare occasions. It’s a fitting way, Peabody says, to honour the Patricias’ century of service.
“We’ve participated in every major conflict that Canada has been involved in, as well as all the peacekeeping missions, most recently Afghanistan.
For us, it’s a way of commemorating all the service, all the sacrifices that the regiment has made to the country,” he says, adding that commemorations will also be held in Ottawa and Frezenberg, Belgium, over the next two years.
Despite their devastating casualties in the Battle of Frezenberg, the Patricias soldiered on, helping Canada and the allies ultimately claim victory.
Especially important to that victory were the last 100 days of combat, which the Loyal Edmonton Regiment Museum chronicles in its recently opened exhibit, C100: Canada’s Last Hundred Days.
“Somebody suggested to me once that the last 100 days of the war would be a good idea for an exhibit,” says David Haas, the museum’s director of exhibits and a retired major in the infantry reserve unit. “And it was, but it was a hell of a lot to learn.”
Those 100 days, which began August 8 and ended November 11, 1918, exemplified the Canadian Corps’ military prowess. The allies went on the offensive, launching a series of strategic attacks that ultimately cracked the Germans.
The battle, however, resulted in a bloodbath, with the Canadians suffering one-fifth of their battle casualties during that period. Haas recalls one Remembrance Day when a veteran offered a striking description of the fighting.
“He was saying it was like a giant machine that was turned on and just grinding deeper and deeper into the mud and just wouldn’t turn off,” Haas says. “It was such a horrendous waste.”
The C100 exhibit includes weapons, uniforms and other artifacts that offer a sense of the Canadian contribution as the war neared its end.
A commemorative First World War exhibit is also in the works at the Royal Alberta Museum, but will have to wait until the museum’s new building opens downtown in 2016, says head of community relations Deborah Andrews.
“There will be a lot of space for these military artifacts once we get our new building,” Andrews says. “But because we only have so many staff members, basically our contributions to any of this is lending artifacts to any other museums who need them.”
Debate still lingers among historians about whether the First World War represented a turning point in Canadian history.
David Mills, a history professor at the University of Alberta, says the real question is what kind of country emerged at the end of the war.
“I think we begin to see through the First World War the emergence of modern Canada,” Mills says. “In terms of a more urban, more industrial country, the First World War stimulates that development. Canada after the First World War is a much different country than when it came into it.”
Following the war, Canada found a new identity, Mills says. The remnants of that identity linger today, he says, in the delicate relations between French and English Canadians and in a depth of regional discontent.
For retired major John Matthews, who serves on the Loyal Edmonton Regiment Museum’s board of directors, the First World War represents a seminal moment for Canada, one that should remain entrenched in our collective conscience.
“It was a major part of the national experience,” Matthews says. “It shows many features of the Canadian character. The fact that we are able to participate in such a major way and succeed — we should know about this.”