Michel Litalien
Historian

Front-line soldiers cannot fight effectively unless they are fed, clothed and equipped properly and have sufficient ammunition and gear to face the enemy. And they cannot hold their lines for long if they are not supported by solid military logistics.

Canadian military logistics is a dimension of the history of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) that is often overlooked. Yet just a few days after Canada’s entry into the First World War, it was obvious that there was no way of ignoring it. When huge numbers of military and civilian volunteers showed up at Valcartier, near Quebec City, in August 1914, logistical support services, which had only recently been established, were soon put to the test. Clothing and equipping the members of the first contingent turned out to be a real headache. Manufacturers had to be found and contracts drawn up in a hurry for the production of uniforms, boots, belts, weapons, vehicles and so on. From a logistical standpoint, mobilizing the first contingent destined for Europe was a nightmare.

Throughout the Great War, the Canadian Expeditionary Force’s logistical support system was an immense, complex operation. Of all the support services, the Canadian Army Service Corps (CASC) was the most diversified. Its main responsibilities were transporting combat troops, delivering equipment and materials, and providing the troops with fresh supplies. In addition to these essential tasks, the CASC also evacuated the wounded (ambulance drivers belonged to the corps), salvaged equipment that had been captured from the enemy or left behind on the battlefield and delivered mail. The CASC worked closely with the Canadian Ordnance Corps, the Canadian Army Medical Corps, and the Canadian Artillery Corps for the transportation of specialized ordnance.

The CASC operated from seaports located hundreds of kilometres from the battlefield, all the way to just behind the front lines. Its replenishment system could supply not only small groups of just a few men but also formations the size of an infantry battalion (approximately 1,000 men).

Resupplying front-line units was a multistep process. From ports and depots, supplies were first taken by railway to railheads. From there, CASC units were responsible for moving the supplies by truck or light railway to supply dumps. These operations took place in the third line of supply. Thanks to their small size, light railways could run and reach areas closer to the front lines more easily. It was also harder for enemy artillery to pinpoint them. The administrative area behind the front lines was crisscrossed by light rail lines that were built and maintained by Canadian railway troops.

From the supply dumps, the CASC’s divisional train and ammunition supply column, both of which were horse-drawn, were responsible for bringing supplies closer to the front lines, to their respective divisions or individual units. This was the second line of supply.

Lastly, operations to supply front-line units constituted the first line of supply. These units had to come back to the rear to get their own supplies of gear, ammunition, weapons, technical and communications equipment, water, medication and food. These supply expeditions were carried out chiefly at night so that the soldiers could not be seen by the enemy. But assigning combat troops to this task meant that a battalion’s defensive positions at the front would be short of manpower for a time and so vulnerable to enemy attack.

Toward the end of the war, however, a Canadian officer from Montreal proposed using the tumpline system — the method that Canada’s aboriginal people and coureurs de bois had used to carry large loads on foot. Before the introduction of this system, infantryman had to carry supplies in their arms, thus limiting the quantity of materials due to their size and weight. The tumpline system, which involved the use of a head strap, allowed the soldiers to carry more weight and freed up their arms, thus giving them more freedom of movement. With this system, each soldier was able to transport a greater quantity of supplies and so fewer men were required for the job, leaving more troops to ensure the defence of the front lines.

Besides regularly providing drivers and vehicles to other units, the CASC also maintained and repaired its vehicles. It also had to make sure that the troops were fed, which meant that fresh and hard rations had to be allocated and distributed properly; its military cooks oversaw the operation of field bakeries and butcheries.

The CASC was not the only logistical support corps to play a key role in the CEF. The Canadian Ordnance Corps was responsible for procuring, storing and distributing uniforms, boots, equipment, weapons, ammunition and shells to combat troops. Specialized supply depots, located in the second line of supply, helped ensure more effective distribution.

The Canadian Ordnance Corps’ other major role was to maintain equipment in the field. The repairmen in the specialized ordnance mobile workshops could get closer to the deployed units and repair their weapons, both light and heavy, as well as their equipment. If the mobile workshops were not able to do the repairs on site, the weapons and equipment were shipped to heavy or stationary workshops at the rear, where virtually anything could be reassembled or rebuilt. The small detachments of the Ordnance Corps worked closely with the various units of the Army Service Corps.

Despite the gradual mechanization of the war, horses remained a vital component of the CEF. The cavalry, the artillery and, of course, the Army Service Corps used huge numbers of horses right up to the end of the war. At one point, Canadians were using as many as 24,000 horses and mules in their overseas operations. Horses could often manage in places where motorized vehicles could make no headway! Inevitably, some horses suffered injuries or fell ill. The Canadian Veterinary Corps operated mobile sections to take care of horses; it also ran veterinary hospitals for horses, advanced remount depots and specialized basic provisions depots.

Other logistical support services also played a crucial role in enabling combat troops to get on with their job. The Canadian Postal Corps, for instance, helped maintain the morale of soldiers at the front, at the rear and also those convalescing in hospitals. Army chaplains, who constituted the smallest organized support group, provided religious services to Canadian soldiers of different faiths and offered moral support at difficult times. Lastly, despite the enemy’s efforts to maintain a naval blockade by submarines, the Canadian Forestry Corps ensured that Great Britain, France and the Canadian Expeditionary Force obtained all the timber they needed to carry out their military operations.

Thousands of men served in these various organizations. The Army Service Corps, for example, counted over 17,000 officers and non-commissioned soldiers in its organization. Even if these units were not combat troops, many of them, including the Army Service Corps, played important roles in all military actions. One hundred and four members of the CASC were killed, and 363 were wounded.


Selected Bibliography

Brown, Ian Malcolm. British Logistics on the Western Front, 1914-1919. Westport: Praeger Publishers, 1998.

Canadian Army Service Corps, 2nd Divisional Train: Record of Service of Officers, 1914-1919. Brian Pontifex, comp. Toronto: Carswell, 1920.

Davies, W.J.K. Light Railways of the First World War: A History of Tactical Rail Communications on the British Fronts, 1914-18. Newton Abbot, UK: David & Charles, 1967.

French, Cecil. A History of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps in the Great World War, 1914-1919. C.A.V. Barker and Ian K. Barker, eds. Guelph: Crest Books, 1999.

Jackson, H.M. The 127th Battalion, CEF; 2nd Battalion, Canadian Railway Troops. Montreal: Industrial Shops for the Deaf, 1957?.

Johnston, James Robert. Riding into War: The Memoir of a Horse Transport Driver, 1916-1919. Fredericton: Goose Lane Editions and The New Brunswick Military Heritage Project, 2004.

Love, David W. “A Call to Arms”: The Organization and Administration of Canada’s Military in World War One. Calgary: Bunker To Bunker Books, 1999.

Phelan, Frederick Ross. “Army Supplies in the Forward Area and the Tumpline System: A First World War Canadian Logistical Innovation.” Canadian Military History 9, no 1 (Winter 2000): 31-45 [reprinted from the article published in the Canadian Defence Quarterly in October 1928].

To the Thunderer his Arms: The Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps. William F. Rannie, ed. Lincoln, ON: W.F. Rannie, 1984.

Warren, Arnold. Wait for the Waggon: The Story of the Royal Canadian Army Service Corps. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1961.

Bill Rawling
Historian, Department of National Defence

To study battlefield communications in the 1914-1918 conflict, it is first necessary to understand the chain of command, for the main purpose of having specialized signallers was to ensure headquarters at each level could keep in touch with its counterparts below and above it in the military hierarchy. For our purposes, the Canadian Corps was the top of the pyramid and at its peak strength was made up of four divisions. Each division had three brigades with four battalions each, which were further subdivided into companies, platoons and sections. The means of communication depended on one’s position in this pyramid.

Battlefield communications were a mix of old and new. The Western Front benefited from the most technologically advanced artillery, where the guns could call on wireless-equipped aircraft to correct fall of shot. The communications technology available to the infantry was far less advanced, however; in late 1914 and early 1915, the Canadians in England who would be responsible for sending and receiving messages from the front were trained on flag drill and lamps.

The Telephone

The telephone, the most convenient means of communication then available, was the responsibility of brigade and division signallers, who, although farther back from the front line, faced an almost impossible task. When laid on the ground, wire was easily destroyed by shelling, and the Germans did not lack for artillery. Stringing it up on poles increased its endurance only slightly, so the only recourse left to signallers was to bury it. Finding labour for such a task when infantry units, who normally provided work parties, were busy digging their own trenches and dugouts was not easy, and a wire shortage made matters worse.

By July 1916, cable laying was somewhat faster, but only because an entire battalion worked on the project at any given time, and soldiers digging trenches for telephone lines were subjected to shelling and machine gun fire as they worked through the night. Wireless telegraphy, which as its name implies did away with wire, was in the early years of the war available only in small numbers, reflecting limited manufacturing resources. Heavy reliance on the telephone, then, could not be avoided, though something had to be done about wires and cables that were continually being cut by artillery and the movements of one’s own vehicles. A possible solution was soon forthcoming—laddering—a technique of laying parallel cables about 60 yards apart connected by lateral lines. To shut down communications, artillery would have to cut both main cables between cross-pieces.

Reliance on runners

Still, keeping in touch with the troops who were fighting their way into enemy trenches was an almost insoluble problem. After an attack on November 17, 1916, the 5th Brigade reported that its battalions had kept in touch with the front line with visual signals, but such ease of communication was uncommon, and even the formation in question mentioned that it also relied on runners. Forward of battalion headquarters the most common means of sending information was to have men hand-carry messages through shelling and, occasionally, machine gun fire. After two months of fighting on the Somme in the fall of 1916, commanders simply assumed that runners would be the only way to get messages across no man's land and planned accordingly.

Contact patrols

An added possibility was contact patrols—aircraft that were supposed to advise commanders of what they could see by dropping messages or using wireless telegraphy, but the system was still experimental in 1916. The 78th Battalion suggested that, for troops in an advance, “Communication to contact airplanes is best maintained by flares,” but such techniques required perfect timing to ensure the signals were lit while the aircraft was in position to see them. Such synchronization was difficult to achieve when men were fighting for their lives.

Rather than solve the problem of communications on the battlefield, each new development was simply added to existing methods. At Vimy Ridge in April 1917, the Canadian Corps sought to maintain communications by exploiting every means available: runners, flags, pigeons and telephones. A little later, on August 15, the Canadian Corps assaulted and captured Hill 70, and here wireless played an important role, as the Canadians relied on their gunners to break up the inevitable German counterattacks. Signallers could send back quick corrections to an artillery exchange, which then passed on the information to the guns by telephone.

Until the end of the war, forward of brigade headquarters (which kept in touch with its flanks and higher formations with telephone or wireless), the most common and effective means of communication remained the runner, who carried written messages through enemy and friendly fire to keep commanders appraised of the situation so they could allocate reserves or artillery support accordingly.

Near the end of the war

In 1918, the war entered a more mobile phase. Headquarters had to move often in spite of their heavy reliance on the telephone, pushing signallers almost to the breaking point to keep messages moving. The tendency to multiply methods of communication, as at Vimy Ridge, continued. Telephones, visual signalling, pigeons, message-carrying rockets, wireless, runners and contact patrols were all available in the final battles of the war.

In the Canadian Corps' last set-piece attack at Valenciennes on November 1 and 2, there was no time to lay cable, and all messages from brigade to higher headquarters were sent through wireless stations. Communications between aircraft and troops on the ground, however, had not improved. Infantry devised a new system for signalling contact patrols: troops waved a white cloth with a metal disk sewn on the inside flap of the gas mask when they were called; and though the Royal Air Force found the devices very useful in determining the infantry's position, air-ground communications in the last Hundred Days were essentially the same as those of 1917, and remained so until the Armistice was declared on November11.

The First World War did see the development of aircraft, submarines and tanks as weapons of warfare, tactics underwent drastic changes as fire and movement replaced wave attacks, and scientific gunnery proved ever more capable of supporting infantry battalions as they struggled to survive in one of the most hostile environments our species has yet devised. However, in the realm of communications, the revolutionary developments of previous decades—especially the telephone and wireless telegraph—were only partially applied to the information problems of the modern battlefield. In fact, the runner remained an important link between the front line and headquarters until the very last days of the conflict.

Selected Bibliography

Moir, John S., ed. History of the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals, 1903-1961. Ottawa: Royal Canadian Corps of Signals, Corps Committee, 1962.

Rawling, Bill. Surviving Trench Warfare : Technology and the Canadian Corps, 1914-1918. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992.

When Sir Robert Borden, Prime Minister of Canada, offered the services of Canada’s forces to Great Britain for its war against Germany on August 1, 1914, approximately 300 men volunteered from the Black Watch of Canada (the Royal Highlanders). By the end of August, the regiment numbered over 1,000 men. As numbers grew, the volunteers were incorporated into the 13th Battalion. Over 60% of the initial recruits were of British origin, many of them former British soldiers who had immigrated to Canada at the turn of the century.

In April 1915, the battalion was used to reinforce British and Canadian lines in Ypres sector, the site of the first use of poison gas during the war. For the remainder of 1915 and 1916, the battalion fought in many locations, including Festubert, Messines, Bailleul, Givenchy, Flanders and the Somme. On April 9, the battalion went over the top in the Battle of Vimy Ridge. In 1918, the 13th participated in battles around Amiens, Chaulnes, and Roye. In August 1918, they attacked the German forces outside Hangar Wood and two soldiers won Victoria Crosses for their courageous actions, Private J. B. Croak and Corporal H. J. Good. Croak attacked and captured a machine-gun nest single-handedly and despite being badly wounded, proceeded with the aid of other members of his unit, to attack another German strongpoint, silence three machine guns, bayoneting or capturing their crews. Croak was wounded again and died just after the last resistance was overcome. Good’s act of courage involved the destruction of three machine guns and their crews, and with the aid of three soldiers, successfully assaulted and captured a German battery of 5.9 inch guns and their entire crews. During the course of the war, the 13th suffered 5,881 casualties, of which 1,105 were fatalities.

Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry was quickly assembled after Sam Hughes, the Minister of Militia and Defence, accepted an offer of a regiment by Hamilton Gault, a Montreal industrialist and veteran of the South African War, but with the stipulation that it be a cavalry regiment. The battalion was named after Her Royal Highness, the daughter of the Governor General, Duke of Connaught. Its first commanding officer was Francis Farquhar, military secretary to the duke. The regiment included many veterans, especially of South Africa.

The PPCLI, the first Canadian unit to arrive at the war front, was integrated with the British 27th Division and suffered terrible losses. During 1915, a reserve infantry battalion provided the PPCLI with reinforcements. On December 22, 1915, under the command of Brig.-Gen. A. C. MacDonell, the PPCLI joined with the 42nd and 49th battalions to form the 7th Brigade. During the Battle of Passchendaele, before the start of the main attack on the night of October 30, 1917, the PPCLI captured “Snipe Hall,” an obstacle pillbox for the 9th Brigade on October 26. Struggling forward through the mire to their intermediate objective, a storm of enemy fire bombarded the battalion causing heavy casualties including most of their junior officers. The main accomplishment of the PPCLI on October 30 was the storming of the heavily guarded position on the Meetcheele crossroads due mainly to the courageous actions of two men. Lt. Hugh Mackenzie, DCM (a Patricia officer serving with the 7th Machine Gun Company), and Sgt. G. H. Mullin, MM, a regimental sniper, led an attack on the enemy’s machine-gun pillbox site that was creating an obstacle to the battalion’s left company’s ascent of the ridge. Mackenzie was killed by enemy fire but Mullin successfully captured the pillbox single-handedly. With his revolver, he killed its two machine gunners and forced the garrison of ten to surrender.