New Brunswick

Lt. Col. Kirkpatrick

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Lieutenant Colonel J.R. Kirkpatrick
55th (New Brunswick and P.E.I.) Battalion
Kirkpatrick

I know lots of men who would go, but they are not prepared to serve under mushroom officers who don’t know their duty. An officer, to be a good officer, must be trained not picked up politically or otherwise because he has an uncle or an aunt or somebody connected with the titled people we have around. I am speaking now more particularly of my own province.

(Senator James Domville, Debates, 4 May 1916, 413)

Born on 18 December 1863 in Debec Junction, New Brunswick, James Renfrew Kirkpatrick was a farmer and long-time militiaman. He had served for nearly thirty years in the 67th (Carleton Light Infantry). As commanding officer of regiment, he travelled to Valcartier in August 1914 during the formation of the First Contingent.

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Lt. Col. D’Aigle

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Lieutenant Colonel L.C. D’Aigle
165th (French Arcadian) Battalion

De son côté il a promis de former un bataillon acadien sous le commandement d’officers acadiens et francais. Nous avons la certitude qu’il s’en tiendra à côte promesse. De l’autre côté les Acadiens influents de toute l’acadie ont approuve et votés la formation du 165e. Chacun devrait maintenant faire sa part pour assurer le succes du battalion. Nous constations mieux plus tard la valeur d’un succes complet.

(L’Acadien, 14 juil 1916, 1)

Born on 15 December 1869 in Saint-Louis-de-Kent, New Brunswick, Louis-Cyriaque D’Aigle was an agronomist and dairy farming magnate. Although he did not have any military or militia experience, D’Aigle was appointed commander of the 165th Battalion based in Moncton.

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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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Lt. Col. Mersereau

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Lieutenant Colonel G.W. Mersereau
132nd (North Shore) Battalion
Mersereau

At no time since the 132nd Battalion began to recruit have there been any disturbances of any nature whatsoever, and to say that there has been rioting or other similar disturbances is an utter absurdity and a grave injustice to the young men whom we all should honour.

 (Campbellton Mayor A. A. Andrews to MP Charles Marcil, 16 Feb 1916)

George William Mersereau was a graduate of the University of New Brunswick, an educator for thirty years and provincial inspector of public schools since 1884. He was born in Blackville on 9 July 1852. He had belonged to the 73rd Regiment for twenty-five years until his retirement several years before the First World War. In November 1915, Mersereau was appointed to command the 132nd Battalion mobilized from Chatham.

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The Spy

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Lieutenant Colonel Rhys Davies, D.S.O.
44th (New Brunswick) BattalionDavies

Women are good as spies because men will talk to women. Men under tremendous strain and responsibility want an outlet and the finest and strongest willed of them like to boast to some woman.

(Davies, “Spies in War and Peace,” Milwaukee Sentinel, 12 Dec 1938)

Perhaps fittingly for a self-described British secret agent, much of Reginald Danbury Rhys Davies’ early life is ambiguous. He was born in England on 9 July 1882. According to one account, he was a veteran of the Boer War and member of the Special Intelligence Branch in Egypt and Sudan. Another claimed he had served in India during the Chitral Expedition and gathered intelligence while stationed on the German-Dutch at the outbreak of the Great War.

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The Old-Fashioned

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Lieutenant Colonel F. V. Wedderburn
115th (Wedderburn’s Warriors) BattalionWedderburn

On the other hand the tactics of his enemy, Col Wedderburn, were considered by military experts at the front as decidedly clever. A less practical and inexperienced man could not have given Col. McLean the fight he did.

It was evident that Col. Wedderburn had laid his plans well, but the fact that he had burned Moncton and that if victorious he might mete out the same treatment to St. John and the other surrounding towns, field the hearts of the defending soldiers with one determination—to win or die.

(St. John Daily Sun, 8 Jul 1905)

Frederick Vernon Wedderburn was a New Brunswick barrister and militiaman born in St. John on 16 April 1861. After graduating with a law degree from the University of New York in 1882, he joined the 8th Princess Louise Hussars.

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The Silent Member

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Colonel Harry McLeod, M.P.
12th Battalion
McLeod

Colonel Harry McLeod has also been taken away since last we met here.

His interests were perhaps, as much in the military field as in the political field. He was a student of military tactics and military matters generally, and attended manoeuvres in this and in other countries for purposes of study—and, indeed, in the late war served in the fields of Europe.

(PM Meighen, Debates, 15 Feb 1921, 4)

Born on 17 September 1871, Harry Fulton McLeod was a New Brunswick lawyer, member of Orange Lodge No. 20 and Conservative politician. He was mayor of Fredericton (1907—1908), member of the legislature (1908—1913), and federal MP for York (1913—1917) and York—Sunbury (1917—1921). As colonel of the 71st (York) Regiment, he was appointed to take the 12th Battalion overseas when the First Contingent assembled at Valcartier in August 1914.

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The Superhuman

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Lieutenant Colonel A. E. G. McKenzie, D.S.O. †
26th (New Brunswick) BattalionMcKenzie

…he followed the immediate centre of his Battalion, and seeing his men held up by most destructive fire of all kinds, he pushed forward to personally lead them and was killed while so doing. On the way, prior to his death, he showed an extreme coolness and an almost superhuman courage.

(Capt. McGillivray to 5th Brigade O.C., 26th Bn. War Diary, Aug 1918, 32)

Archibald Ernest Graham McKenzie was a New Brunswick lawyer, Liberal Party campaigner and militia officer. He was born 21 January 1878 in Campbellton, McKenzie served as second-in-command with the 26th Battalion when it arrived in France in September 1915. By May 1916, he had replaced an ill Lieutenant Colonel James L. McAvity as commander of the battalion.

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The Americanist

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Lieutenant Colonel P. A. Guthrie, M.P.P.
236th (Sir Sam’s Own) BattalionGuthrie

I do confess to be a Christian, but I must confess that when the time comes and we have the chance to even up old scores, I want to see their [German] towns leveled with the earth; I want to see their farmhouses in smoke; I want to see their land laid waste and desolate; and I want to see them fleeing before fire, sword and hate…

If I can but see this and help it on its way I will be happy to fall in the rush of victory…

(Boston Globe, 6 Jan 1918, 15)

Born on 20 June 1884 in Oromocto, New Brunswick, Percy Albert Guthrie was an Orangeman and Conservative member of the provincial legislature. He was one of the first volunteers to join the Canadian Expeditionary Force and sailed to England with Lieutenant Colonel Harry McLeod’s 12th Battalion. He fought with the 10th Battalion at Second Ypres and was seriously wounded by a shell explosion at Festubert on 25 May 1915.

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The Marksman

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Lieutenant Colonel W. E. Forbes
145th (Kent—Westmorland) Battalion
Forbes

Shooting constituted one department in which the 145th Infantry Battalion excelled. Its subsequent success in sniping derived largely from the painstaking effort of Lt. Col. Forbes, who was—as has been noted earlier—a notable marksman, and twice a member of Canada’s Bisley Rifle Team.

So Lt. Col. Forbes offered his Battalion the benefit of more experience in musketry than the average Officer Commanding possessed.

(Pte. V.E. Goodwin , Memories of the Forgotten War, 1988, 34)

Born on 8 August 1868 in Richibucto, New Brunswick, William Ellis Forbes was a merchant and farmer with seventeen years’ experience in the 73rd Regiment. In national and international rifle contests he demonstrated excellent marksmanship abilities and competed at the Bisley shooting ranges in England.

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