Brave Battalion (46 page)

Most of the men simply trailed off at that point down the Winnipeg streets while just sixty officers and men remained in formation. These were men from British Columbia, who boarded a train the next day and headed “via Prince George, Prince Rupert and Vancouver to Victoria, men dropping off as they reached their homes. This group was hailed with honour as returning conquerors at all of the points mentioned.

“Reaching Victoria, the few still left of the group dispersed to their homes. The career of the 16
^th
Battalion (The Canadian Scottish), Canadian Expeditionary Force, in the flesh, was at an end.”
⁴²

There is a postscript to this story. Within weeks of its disbandment, various officers and men began quietly corresponding and occasionally meeting. They had a single objective. “The Battalion must not die” was their watchword. Several of the most outspoken and influential lived in Victoria, which had two regiments—the 50
^th
Gordon Highlanders and the 88
^th
Battalion. By 1920 these two regiments had been convinced that the Canadian Scottish legacy—the 50
^th
Gordons having furnished many of the battalion's originals and several reinforcement drafts thereafter—could be preserved as a single Victoria regiment. On March 15 of that year, General Order No. 30 reorganized the two militia regiments into the Canadian Scottish Regiment. Precisely seven years later the regiment became allied, per Canadian militia tradition, with a British regiment—the Royal Scots (The Royal Regiment). Then on April 24, 1930, Princess Mary was appointed her Colonel-in-Chief and it was formally designated the Canadian Scottish Regiment (Princess Mary's).

And so it remains today, one of only a small number of World War I battalions whose identities were preserved. During World War II, the Canadian Scottish was in the leading wave of troops to storm ashore on June 6, 1944, at Juno Beach. It served with distinction through the remainder of the war, gathering up one battle honour after another. As a reserve regiment, the Canadian Scottish has since provided personnel for service on most army overseas deployments. The young men and women who serve in its ranks today are acutely aware of the regiment's historical roots and remain faithful to its motto:
Deas Gu Cath
(Ready for the Fray).

1
H. M. Urquhart,
The History of the 16
^th
Battalion (The Canadian Scottish) Canadian Expeditionary Force in the Great War, 1914-1919
(Toronto: The MacMillan Company of Canada, 1932), 367-68.

2
G. W. L. Nicholson,
Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919
(Queen's Printer: Ottawa, 1964), 5.

3
Ibid, 6.

4
Urquhart,
16th Battalion,
369.

1
H. M. Urquhart,
The History of the 16
^th
Battalion (The Canadian Scottish) Canadian Expeditionary Force in the Great War, 1914-1919
(Toronto: The MacMillan Company of Canada, 1932), 370.

2
G. W. L. Nicholson,
Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919
(Queen's Printer: Ottawa, 1964), 18.

3
Urquhart,
16
^th
Battalion,
6.

4
Nicholson, 21.

5
Urquhart,
16
^th
Battalion,
9.

6
Ibid, 84.

7
Ibid, 14.

8
Kenneth Radley,
We Lead Others Follow: First Canadian Division, 1914-1918
(St. Catharines, ON: Vanwell Publishing Limited, 2006), 46.

9
J. L. Granatstein,
Canada's Army: Waging War and Keeping the Peace
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), 57.

10
Urquhart,
16
^th
Battalion,
14.

11
Ibid, 15.

12
Nicholson, 25.

13
Ibid, 24.

14
Urquhart,
16
^th
Battalion,
17-18.

15
Ibid, 24-25.

16
Ibid, 25-26.

17
Ibid, 25.

18
Ibid, 32.

19
Nicholson, 35-36.

20
16
^th
Infantry Battalion War Diary, December 1914, Library and Archives Canada, 1.

21
16th Infantry Battalion War Diary, January 1914, Library and Archives Canada, 2.

22
Ibid

23
Urquhart,
16
^th
Battalion,
30.

24
Ibid

25
16
^th
Infantry Battalion War Diary, December 1914, 2.

26
Nicholson, 38-39.

27
Ibid, 27-28.

28
Tim Cook,
At the Sharp End: Canadians Fighting The Great War, 1914-1918
(Toronto, Viking Canada, 2007), 78.

29
Nicholson, 27-28.

30
Urquhart,
16
^th
Battalion,
40.

1
16
^th
Infantry Battalion War Diary, February 1914, Library and Archives Canada, 2-3.

2
H. M. Urquhart,
The History of the 16
^th
Battalion (The Canadian Scottish) Canadian Expeditionary Force in the Great War, 1914-1919
(Toronto: The MacMillan Company of Canada, 1932), 41.

3
Ibid, 41.

4
16
^th
Infantry Battalion War Diary, February 1914, 3.

5
H. M. Urquhart personal diary, University of Victoria Special Collections, 60.

6
16
^th
Infantry Battalion War Diary, February 1914, 4.

7
Urquhart, diary, 60.

8
G. W. L. Nicholson,
Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919
(Queen's Printer: Ottawa, 1964), 45-46.

9
16
^th
Infantry Battalion War Diary, February 1914, 4.

10
Ibid, 5.

11
Urquhart, diary, 56.

12
Urquhart,
16
^th
Battalion
, 96.

13
Urquhart, diary, 62.

14
Urquhart,
16
^th
Battalion
, 44.

15
Nicholson, 49.

16
Urquhart,
16
^th
Battalion
, 45.

17
Urquhart, diary, 64-65.

18
Urquhart,
16
^th
Battalion
, 45.

19
16
^th
Infantry Battalion War Diary, February 1915, 7.

20
Urquhart,
16
^th
Battalion
, 46-47.

21
16
^th
Infantry Battalion War Diary, March 1915, n.p.

22
Urquhart,
16
^th
Battalion
, 48.

23
Urquhart, diary, 70.

24
Nicholson, 51.

25
Urquhart,
16
^th
Battalion
, 49.

26
Nicholson, 51.

27
Urquhart,
16
^th
Battalion
, 47.

28
Nicholson, 53.

29
Urquhart,
16
^th
Battalion
, 49.

30
Urquhart, diary, 72.

31
Urquhart,
16
^th
Battalion
, 50.

32
Ibid, 405.

33
Urquhart, diary, 77.

34
Urquhart,
16
^th
Battalion
, 50.

35
Nicholson, 54-55.

36
Urquhart, diary, 80.

37
Ibid, 83-84.

38
Ibid, 83-85.

39
Urquhart, diary, 85.

40
Nicholson, 56-57.

41
Urquhart,
16
^th
Battalion
, 55.

1
G. W. L. Nicholson,
Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919
(Queen's Printer: Ottawa, 1964), 58.

2
Daniel G. Dancocks,
Welcome to Flanders Fields: The First Canadian Battle of the Great War: Ypres, 1915
(Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1988), 107.

3
Nicholson, 60-61.

4
Ibid, 56.

5
3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade War Diary, April-May 1915, Appendix A, Library and Archives Canada, 8.

6
H. M. Urquhart,
The History of the 16
^th
Battalion (The Canadian Scottish) Canadian Expeditionary Force in the Great War, 1914- 1919
(Toronto: The MacMillan Company of Canada, 1932), 55.

7
H. M. Urquhart personal diary, University of Victoria Special Collections, 86.

8
Urquhart,
16
^th
Battalion
, 55.

9
16
^th
Battalion War Diary, April 1915, Library and Archives Canada, n.p.

10
3rd Brigade War Diary, April-May 1915, 8.

11
Lyn Macdonald,
1915: The Death of Innocence
(London: Penguin Books, 1997), 193.

12
Nicholson, 61-62.

13
Macdonald, 195.

14
Urquhart, diary, 86.

15
Urquhart,
16
^th
Battalion
, 56.

16
Urquhart, diary, 86-87.

17
16
^th
Infantry War Diary, April 1915, n.p.

18
Nicholson, 64.

19
Ibid, 63.

20
Dancocks, 122.

21
16
^th
Battalion War Diary, April 1915, n.p.

22
Dancocks, 125.

23
Urquhart, 16
^th
Battalion, 57-58.

24
Urquhart, diary, 87.

25
William Rae, “Letter to Mother, April 28, 1915,” Col. H. M. Urquhart Fonds, Correspondence-1915-1980, Box 22, File 18, University of Victoria, Special Collections, 3.

26
Urquhart, diary, 87.

27
Rae, 3.

28
Urquhart,
16
^th
Battalion
, 58-59.

29
Rae, 3-4.

30
Urquhart,
16
^th
Battalion
, 59.

31
Urquhart, diary, 86-87.

32
Urquhart,
16
^th
Battalion
, 60.

33
Urquhart, diary, 87.

34
Dancocks, 130.

35
Urquhart, diary, 88.

36
16
^th
Battalion War Diary, April 1915, n.p.

37
Urquhart,
16
^th
Battalion
, 61.

38
Ibid, 61.

39
Ibid, 62-63.

40
Urquhart, diary, 88.

41
Urquhart,
16
^th
Battalion
, 64-65.

42
Nicholson, 92.

43
Rae, 1.

44
Urquhart, diary, 89-90.

45
Ibid, 92.

46
Urquhart,
16
^th
Battalion
, 84.

47
Ibid, 405.

1
H. M. Urquhart,
The History of the 16
^th
Battalion (The Canadian Scottish) Canadian Expeditionary Force in the Great War, 1914- 1919
(Toronto: The MacMillan Company of Canada, 1932), 73.

2
G. W. L. Nicholson,
Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919
(Queen's Printer: Ottawa, 1964), 93-96.

3
Ibid, 97.

4
Ibid, 97-98.

5
H. M. Urquhart personal diary, University of Victoria Special Collections, [as of May 6, 1915, Urquhart started numbering his pages from one forward again without explanation of the reason], 5.

6
Urquhart,
16
^th
Battalion
, 75.

7
Ibid, 76.