Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights Part 47

Up until 1867 Canada had been the scene of bitter strife between the French and British. At that time the provinces were brought quite closely together, and commenced a new era of prosperity. The foundation was then laid for a wonderfully prosperous country, one filled with almost limitless possibilities.

The confederation of Canada had its birth in a meeting of delegates from all over British North America, which was held in 1864, and these delegates, after deliberating for nearly three weeks, pa.s.sed a large number of resolutions which formed the basis of what eventually became the Act of Union. In the following January these resolutions were submitted to the Legislature of Canada and after due debate there was pa.s.sed in both chambers of Parliament a measure for the purpose of uniting the provinces in accordance with the provisions of the Quebec resolutions. The meeting was in Quebec.

PLAN OF UNION Pa.s.sED.

A number of difficulties were encountered, so that it was 1867 before the plan of union was submitted to the Imperial Parliament, where it was warmly received and pa.s.sed without alteration of any description within a few days. The royal a.s.sent was given on March 29, and the act const.i.tuting the new Canada went into effect on July 1, which day has since become known as Dominion Day, and is the chief of all Canadian holidays.

The federal Const.i.tution of Canada is contained in an Imperial Act of Parliament, known as the British North America Act, and it is based very largely upon that of the mother country. The ministry of the day holds office at the pleasure of the House of Commons, the members of which are elected by the people. At the head of the affairs is a Governor-General, who is appointed by the Crown and paid by the people of Canada. As is the case with the British sovereigns, he acts with and on the advice of the ministers for the time being, and also like the King, he can dissolve the Parliament.

The number of members of the House of Commons is regulated by the following clauses of the act: "On the completion of the census in the year 1871, and of each subsequent decennial census, the representation of the four provinces shall be readjusted by such authority in such a manner, and from such time as the Parliament of Canada from time to time provides."

Previous to the pa.s.sing of the British North America Act, the great Dominion had consisted of a conglomeration of provinces, some of them of almost fabulous extent, into which the white man from the West had penetrated. Tradition has it that some thousand years ago a Norseman, by name Leif Ericson, coming in his great beaked galley, through the northern seas, from Greenland, was the first white man to stand on Canadian soil.

Another five centuries were, however, to pa.s.s before John Cabot, sailing from Bristol, in the days of Henry Bolingbroke, brought the first British s.h.i.+p into a Canadian port. After him the fishermen of Europe came in increasing numbers to the great banks, with the result that little by little, as their tiny vessels touched the American sh.o.r.es, the great continent began to be known to the people of Europe.

DOMINION'S FOUNDATIONS LAID.

It was not really, however, until the year 1534 that the foundations of the Dominion may be said to have been sunk. In that year Jacques Cartier sailed from the port of St. Malo, with two little s.h.i.+ps, intending to attempt the northwest pa.s.sage to j.a.pan. Francis the First was then ruling in Paris, and there was great adventure in the air of France.

Cartier did not make the northwest pa.s.sage, but he did touch the coast of Canada, or, to be more exact, the coasts of Labrador and Newfoundland. It was then the 10th of May, and having sailed around the island, he steered south, and crossing the gulf entered the bay which, by reason of the great heats of midsummer, he named Des Chaleurs.

Holding along the coast, he came to the little inlet of Gaspe, and here, at the entrance to the harbor, he erected a huge cross surmounted by the arms and lilies of France. He could find no pa.s.sage, however, to the northwest, and so he turned his s.h.i.+p, and sailed back to St. Malo.

The Court in Paris heard his story with interest. His cause was taken up by the King; and, as a result, in the succeeding May, he sailed again to the new world with three well found s.h.i.+ps. On the day of Saint Lawrence he entered the great bay, to which he at once gave the name of the Saint, and pa.s.sing on came, in September, to anchor in the Isle of Orleans.

REAL FOUNDER OF CANADA.

The man, however, with whose name the early history of Canada is most fully connected, had not as yet been born. Nor was it until the year 1567 that, at Brouage in Saintonge, Samuel de Champlain came upon the scene. In the year 1603, when Elizabeth was ruling in England, and Henry of Navarre in France, Champlain came to Canada. He had been a soldier of le Bearnais, in the great wars with the League, an officer of marine, and a man with no little knowledge of natural science, as knowledge was then accounted. He came now in command of an expedition, fitted out by the merchants of Rouen, with the idea of forming a Canada company, as England had her Barbary Company, her Eastland Company, her Muscovie Company, or her Turkey Company. And in this way the French came into Canada.

Thus there began those American wars between the two countries, divided at home only by the English Channel, which went on century by century, largely through the employment of the Indian tribes, until that September night when Wolfe's boats drifted in, from the fleet to the sh.o.r.e, and the battle on the Plains of Abraham permanently settled the question of domination in favor of the British.

The British conquest of Canada did not, however, mean the cessation of fighting. There came, presently, the war between Great Britain and the American colonies, one of the most amazing exploits of which was the marvelous march of Arnold and Montgomery through the forests of Maine to the St. Lawrence, ending in the wonderful siege, of the year 1775, and the heroic failure to storm the defenses by scaling the rocks from the river bed. Eventually the boundary between the United States and the British possessions was settled by the Treaty of Paris, in 1783, just twenty years after an earlier Treaty of Paris had recorded the surrender of Canada by France to Great Britain.

CANADA, FROM COLONY TO DOMINION.

For the last century and a half the story of Canada has been the story first of a British colony and then of a British Dominion. A great flood of new colonists had come into the country after the victory of the States in the War of Independence, when many of the royalists of New England crossed the border. As a result, there had grown up the two new provinces of Upper Canada, now known as Ontario, and New Brunswick. The relations between all the provinces were, however, far from harmonious, with the result that what between quarrels among themselves and risings against the British authority, the condition of Canada was anything but promising, when, after the Rebellion of 1837, Lord Durham was sent over to try to evolve order out of chaos.

He found the "habitant" still unreconciled to the British rule; he found a condition of many little Pontiacs, all very much as was that famous village on the summer evening when Valmond threw the hot pennies to the children, as the auctioneer and monsieur le cure came down the street; he found another Canada of British colonists with so little sympathy for the habitant, that, he declared, the two never met save in the jury box, and there only to obstruct justice.

It was then that Lord Durham, by a great stroke of statesmans.h.i.+p, brought peace to Canada. A democratic form of representative government was bestowed on the people. The division of Quebec into two provinces, which the habitant had desired when they were one, and resented when they were two, was annulled, with the result that the ground was prepared for the union which was to come just thirty years later.

Lord Durham made history and made a nation, for the confederation, when it came, was the inevitable superstructure built upon the foundations of his laying, but he ruined a reputation. His contempt for the conventions of politics, the radicalism of his methods, his failure to make any obeisance to the governmental deities, official or ex-official, combined with his almost superhuman tactlessness, gave his enemies every opportunity they could desire.

He was viciously attacked, and finally throwing up his mission, returned to England and gave up politics.

REPORT NOT TO BE DISPOSED OF.

The good, however, men do lives after them. Lord Durham's report, drafted for him by two master hands, those of Charles Buller and Edward Wakefield, could not be disposed of by perfervid orators or ill-informed editors. It pa.s.ses into the category of historic and illuminating state papers. And, though Lord Durham fell, when, on the first of July, 1867, the British North America Act became operative, it was the handle of his trowel that struck that great cornerstone of liberty and empire, and declared it well and truly laid: the first of the Dominions, now having a population of approximately 8,000,000.

Thrown upon their own resources, when Great Britain began to draw in its loans of 1911-12, the people of Canada were temporarily at a loss as to how to meet the situation; the hards.h.i.+ps which followed, however, prepared them to meet, with resolute determination, the greater problems that crowded upon them in 1915-16. Canada, through all the past, had been a dependent and a debtor nation; the war made it self-reliant, spurred its people on to the development of natural resources, and a.s.sured them, not only that the Dominion could stand alone, but that, throughout all the future, it can be a pillar of strength to the Empire and to democracy.

There were times when she was threatened by more than the ordinary difficulties which come to a nation, as when it became necessary in 1917 to pa.s.s a Conscription Act, the Province of Quebec threatened to secede.

Quebec is a French territory, and it was a matter of world-wide comment that the volunteer enlistments for the Canadian army from the province were insignificant.

While the French Canadians were proud of France and their cousins across the seas, they were opposed to being compelled to fight for England, and the proposal to secede was largely advocated by the French-Canadian clergy.

RECIPIENTS OF UNSTINTED HONORS.

Among the heroic troops that faced the Germans in Flanders none was more honored in all Canada and England than the Princess Patricia's Light Infantry. Out of this battalion, which sailed away from Canada's sh.o.r.es with the first expeditionary force, scarcely one-fourth of the proud number lived through the terrible campaigns of Flanders, in which the Dominion forces partic.i.p.ated.

The battalion const.i.tuted what was regarded as one of the most efficient military units in Canada, and in August, 1914, had been presented with colors wrought by the hand of Princess Patricia, daughter of the Governor General of Canada, the Duke of Connaught. The Princess, standing beside her mother, the d.u.c.h.ess of Connaught, in Lansdowne Park, Ottawa, presented the colors to the little force, wis.h.i.+ng them a safe return, while thousands applauded and the spirit of patriotism ran high.

The "Princess Pats," as they came to be known, had within the organization a large portion of men of military experience who had seen service in South Africa and elsewhere, and consequently when they landed in France they were the first to be sent into the trenches and to action. In the winter and spring of 1914-15 they had some bitter experiences and partic.i.p.ated in several desperate attacks and defenses, but it was not until the campaign at Ypres that the organization was almost annihilated, when it faced one of the most terrific bombardments of the war, and fought in a section largely cut off from the main line.

Here Lieutenant-Colonel Farquhar, commander of the battalion, lost his life and nearly all of the officers were wounded.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE HEROIC ANZAC.

FORCES THAT STIRRED THE WORLD IN THE GALLIPOLI CAMPAIGNS--FAMOUS AS SAPPERS--THE BLASTING OF MESSINES RIDGE--TWO YEARS TUNNELING--30,000 GERMANS BLOWN TO ATOMS--1,000,000 POUNDS OF EXPLOSIVES USED--TROOPS THAT WERE TRANSPORTED 11,000 MILES.

When the final history of the war is written, and the years have pa.s.sed into ages, the story of the Anzac will form a brilliant pa.s.sage in the book of nations. The Anzac in the campaigns at Gallipoli, the Dardanelles, and in Flanders served England with a loyalty and heroism not excelled by any other force. And what were the Anzacs? They were the soldiers of Australia and New Zealand. Let A represent Australia, N.Z., New Zealand, and A.C., army corps, and you have the basis of the word Anzac.

Generally in the news dispatches, the Anzacs have been referred to as Australians. They are described as fearless, daring and fierce fighters, whose presence added pep to every engagement in which they partic.i.p.ated.

No more picturesque group has ever been written into the history of armies. Composed of men who were bushrangers, cattlemen, miners and hardy outdoor workers, many of whom served in Egypt, India and wherever the British flag floats, their character is indicated by the fact that they have been at times called the "Ragtime Army."

The description of the landing of these troops at the Dardanelles, where in a rain of artillery fire, they dashed into the Turkish trenches, is one of the most thrilling of the war. With the sh.e.l.ls from the s.h.i.+ps falling upon the Turkish forces the Anzacs chased the Turks step by step inland, engaging in the most desperate hand-to-hand encounters.

Perhaps the story of that first battle might have been different had not Turkish reinforcements appeared upon the scene. As it was the British men of Anzac were temporarily driven back, retiring with terrible loss.

For hours the Australians engaged in solid fighting through a broken and hilly country, digging at night to establish entrenchments, with a renewal of the defense at daybreak, and then repeating the program. This is what the Australians and New Zealanders did, living upon short rations the while.

In all of the campaigns in which the Anzacs have partic.i.p.ated their work as sappers has been a feature. Sappers, by the way, are those men who, in modern warfare, burrow in the earth, planting mines, digging trenches, dugouts and fortifications. The Australians are fitted for this work for a large percentage of them had civil experience in the mines, and on extensive contract and excavation work.

AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND SAPPERS.

Probably one of the most effective attacks of the English against a German stronghold in Belgium was made possible through the work of the Australian and New Zealand sappers. That was the blowing up of the Messines Ridge in June, 1917. In this action the Anzac shone in a manner that can never be forgotten.

On June 7, 1917, the British, with one terrible stroke, tore asunder the strong German position south of Ypres. This stroke was in a little corner of Belgium, where the armies of the Allies had successfully outgeneralled the enemy for two and a half years.