Month: March 2022

The Cashiered

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Lieutenant Colonel Tancrède Pagnuelo
206th (Canadien-Français) Battalion
Pagnuelo

I know I deserve to be punished for a breach of discipline, but all I ask from you, gentlemen, is not to be prevented from doing what I wanted to do, namely, going to the Front. If you dismiss me from the service it will be quite impossible for a commanding officer to join the ranks as a private.

(Court martial of Lt. Col. Pagnuelo, Dec 1916)

Born in 1870, Tancrède Pagnuelo was a Montreal barrister and Conservative Party activist. He had unsuccessfully contested the riding of St. James in the 1900 federal election. A reserve officer with the 85th Regiment, Pagnuelo was appointed to raise the 206th Battalion from the districts of Beauharnois, Laprairie and Terrebonne in early 1916. He would prove to be one of the more unfortunate choices.

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The Social Drinker

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Lieutenant Colonel J. C. L. Bott
2nd Canadian Mounted RiflesBott

I was not drunk on the 3rd of Oct 1916 … I had nothing to drink since 12:30pm on that day. I had a drink in the morning with Major Laws and I had three more … I brought a bottle of whiskey on the morning in question … As a rule I take about five drinks a day. Spread out through the day. I never have a drink alone.

(Lt. Col. Bott, general court martial, 7 Nov 1916)

Born in Marden, Wiltshire, England on 24 August 1872, John Cecil Latham Bott was a professional British soldier and cavalryman. He was a member of the 20th Hussars from 1895 to 1909, and served in Egypt and South Africa. He immigrated to Vernon, British Columbia some years after the Boer War and helped to organize the 30th Horse, which he commanded at the outbreak of the First World War.

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Lt. Col. Rose

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Lieutenant Colonel Hugh A. Rose
98th (Lincoln & Welland) Battalion
Rose

This is a great and inspiring cause, that of fostering peace and goodwill between two great nations, and will serve as an example to all the countries of the world. No better time could have been chosen for the launching of such a movement. The Kellogg Peace Pact has lately been ratified and confirmed by the leading powers of the world.

 (Rose’s speech on International Peace, Gardener’s Chronicle of America, 1929, 363)

Hugh Alexander Rose was born on 12 April 1881 in Welland, Ontario. He joined the 44th Regiment in 1897, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel. After the outbreak of the Great War, Rose and his militiamen were tasked with guarding the Welland Canal. In November 1915, he was authorized to organize the 98th Battalion. Continue reading →

Lt. Col. McPhee

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Lieutenant Colonel Jack McPhee
177th (Simcoe Foresters) Battalion

Knowing the Colonel slightly, we were affected by that indefinable quality of true manliness which he radiated. The affection was contagious. Doubtless it affected thousands.

(Northern Advance, 7 Dec 1922, 2)

After returning home in March 1916 from one year in the trenches, Captain John Bingham McPhee married Eva Hamlin Harrison. Instead of a honeymoon, he organized the 177th Battalion from Simcoe County. Born in Barrie, Canada West on 26 March 1865, McPhee was an accountant with twenty-two years’ experience in the 35th Regiment. He had enlisted as a paymaster with J.A.W. Allan’s 20th Battalion and served on the front until he was recalled to command the new battalion.

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Lt. Col. Ralston

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Lieutenant Colonel J.L. Ralston
85th (Nova Scotia Highlanders) Battalion
Ralston

An extremely reliable and determined Officer. He is cheerful, conscientious and tactful, with plenty of energy and drive. Well-balanced and a man of the World with plenty of ability. He learns readily, and is good at imparting knowledge. He has imagination and initiative and handles troops well.

(Senior Officer’s Course, 6 Mar 1918)

Born in Amherst on 27 September 1881, James Layton Ralston was a law graduate from Dalhousie University and Liberal member of the Nova Scotia House of Assembly (1911–1920). He enlisted as a lieutenant in Allison Hart Borden’s 85th Battalion, and twice commanded the unit in the field during summer 1917 and the latter half of 1918. Multiple times wounded in action, Ralston won the Distinguished Service Order and Bar for great pluck and leadership.

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The Executioner

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Lieutenant Colonel A.J. McCausland
74th (Peel & York) Battalion

The accused No. 1 Fuehrer Adolf Schicklegruber, alias Adolf Hitler, Elite Guard, Berlin, Germany, a soldier of the Third Reich, is charged with: Murder, rape, theft and sadistic crimes against humanity … The accused was tried before the court of public opinion on this 28th day of April, 1945. The court found the accused guilty of all charges and sentenced him to be taken out and hanged until he is dead and may God have mercy on his soul.

-Maj. A.J. McCausland

(Brantford Expositor, 1 May 1945, 5)

A Toronto native, Alan Joseph McCausland was born on 9 June 1887. He enlisted as a private in the Queen’s Own Rifles in 1903, and at the outbreak of the war was a militia captain with the 36th Peel Regiment. At the age of twenty-eight, he was one of the youngest men appointed to battalion command when authorized to raise the 74th from Peel and York counties. He sailed overseas in March 1916, and his unit provided reinforcements for Ontario battalions at the front.

At the end of the Second World War, McCausland had the distinction of announcing the death sentence for an effigy of Adolf Hitler in Brantford, Ontario just days before the real Hitler killed himself. Continue reading →

Lt. Col. Sparling

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Lieutenant Colonel H.C. Sparling
73rd (Royal Highlanders of Canada) Battalion
Sparling

The dissolution of the battalion caused the greatest regret and depression among all ranks, and the officers, who had witness the splendid work of the men in the Bn. during the last four months, could only express the highest admiration for the way all N.C.O’s and men carried out their duties during that time, with the knowledge of the possible dissolution of the battalion.

(Sparling, 73rd War Diary, 19 Apr 1917, 36)

Herbert Cosford Sparling was born in Kerrwood, Ontario on 6 February 1880. Previously a member of the Mississauga Horse, Sparling had moved to Ottawa shortly before the First World War. He enlisted as senior major in Peers Davidson’s 73rd Battalion, which deployed to France in March 1916 as part of the 12th Infantry Brigade, 4th Division. Sparling assumed command in December 1916, but the battalion was removed from the line on 9 April 1917 just before the battle of Vimy Ridge. Continue reading →

Lt. Col. Towers

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Lieutenant Colonel Robert I. Towers
70th (London) Battalion
Towers

Lieut.-Col. Robert I. Towers, K.C., a member of the legal firm of Galt, Gooderham & Towers, died by his own hand in a room in a downtown hotel last night. With a bullet wound through the head the lifeless body of Col. Towers was found in the bathroom by the house detective. With one emptied chamber, a .22 calibre revolver lay at the colonel’s side.

(Toronto Star, 11 April 1930, 13)

A native of Sarnia, Robert Irwin Towers was born on 29 October 1876. He was one of the foremost lawyers in western Ontario, particularly concerning mining, admiralty and maritime law. As the retired commanding officer of the 27th (St. Clair Borderers) Regiment, Towers was appointed to raise the 70th Battalion from Essex, Kent, Lambton and Middlesex counties in summer 1915. Continue reading →

Lt. Col. Ross

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Lieutenant Colonel Lorne Ross, D.S.O.
67th (Western Scots) Battalion
Ross

He followed Duty’s guidance/ O’er wide continent and sea,
To the blood-stained fields of France/ Where men battled to be free.

Amid the ruin and carnage,/ The thunder of gun and shell.
Facing grim death with courage./ Fearless he fought and fell.

There where night’s benediction/ Breathes quiet o’er the silent sod.
Waiting the bless’d resurrection/ He rests in peace with his God.

(Lorne Ross, Canada in Khaki, 178)

Born on 26 November 1878 in Montreal, Quebec, Lorne Ross was a banker in Victoria, British and had served for over thirteen years in several militia regiments including the 13th, the 22nd and the 29th. In 1913, he joined the 50th Gordon Highlanders as a major under the command of Colonel Arthur W. Currie. In September 1914, Ross enlisted at Valcartier and sailed with the CEF overseas.

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Lt. Col. Montgomery-Campbell

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Lieutenant Colonel H. Montgomery-Campbell
64th (New Brunswick) Battalion
Montgomery-Campbell

I do not want to make any invidious distinctions, but they take a man out of an office and make him a colonel. What does he know about war? His intentions may be good but that does not make him an eminent soldier; that does not make him fit to meet the enemy in the field.

(Col. Domville, Senate Debates, 4 May 1916,  413)

Born in Fredericton, New Brunswick on 24 September 1859, Henry Montgomery-Campbell was a Sussex farmer and commanding officer of the 8th (Princess Louise Hussars) Regiment. His younger brother Herbert Montgomery-Campbell (1861—1937), a graduate of the Royal Military College and a Boer War veteran, served as a brigadier-general in British Army artillery during the First World War. Henry meanwhile raised the 64th Battalion from the three Maritime Provinces. They were sons of George Montgomery-Campbell, a professor of classics at the University of New Brunswick.

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