“Noblesse Oblige” is an intimate history of the families of Montreal’s once famous community of wealth and privilege, the "Square Mile". Using their own words and images, the book seeks to answer the question of why they lost their power and influence so quickly after the Great War.
We first meet our central characters in the summer of 1914. The great days of entrepreneurial adventure in Canada are over. A new generation of young men are taking over the reigns of leadership from their hard-driving new-immigrant fathers. They have inherited their fathers’ businesses and grand mansions. They have installed their wives as chatelaines. It’s a brilliant social life but, underneath the glamour, many of these men and the women want more meaning. Some, at the very top, had tried rebellion. But the powerful forces of conformity squeezed them back into the norms of Edwardian upper middle class life.
This deep sense of pre-war ennui explains the feelings of exultation that the declaration of warbrings. The young men sign up. Their women immediately book passage to Europe. 30,000 women, the same number as their menfolk, cross the Atlantic that fall. Their principal concern is not risk or death but that they might miss the adventure. None feel this concern more keenly than the rebels.
By mid May, 1915, everything changes.
At Ypres, on April 21- 23, 1915, the men face their first true test. Knowing nothing of soldiering, facing gas for the first time, the Canadians stand and die. Duty and honour demand this. The First Division, suffering a 40% casualty rate, sets the standard for how all the men of the Square Mile are to behave for the rest of the conflict. On May 7th, the Lusitania is sunk. Many of its victims are women and children of the Square Mile. In a tribal society, there is no greater crime. On May 8th, the men of the PPCLI are effectively wiped out. Only 153 officers and men are left out of the 1,000 that had sailed from Canada.Honour now demands that the men and the women of the Square Mile commit to “Total War”.
In the knowledge that their future was certain death, the younger brothers of the First Contingent continue to sign up for service. Many of their fathers join up. Badly wounded men return again and again to the front. Men, in safe staff jobs, return to their old units to die with their men. Like grim-faced Spartan matrons, the women of the Square Mile send their men off to die with honour. Chatelaines become CEO’s of war service organizations. Mothers return to work the day after they hear of their child’s death. Sisters of the dead drive ambulances at the front. Young women work themselves to death. Like the lairds of old, the men and the women of the Square Mile bring their servants to war. Master and servant give their lives for each other.
Love replaces adventure as the primary motivation. This love is not a romantic love. Nor can it be explained as friendship. It is the same primeval love that drives a mother to die for her child. The Greeks called this love ‘Philia’. It is this love that, in the face of death, can make a man feel overwhelmingly alive. This love is why some men discover that they love war itself, it’s addictive. Philia also sustains the women. As mothers lose their own children, they expand their concept of family, and so their hearts, to include all the children of the tribe.
Ultimately, at the front and at home, the heart can only take so much. The exceptionally close ties of the Square Mile mean that every individual family loss is felt as everyone’s loss. There is no limit to the pain. The few who survive the conflict lose most of their friends and they lose most of their family. They freeze inside and dare not love again.
By 1919, the finite capacity of love met the infinite capacity of industrial war to inflict pain. Other elites lost many sons. Other elites lost much of their wealth. The Square Mile’s tight social structure, and its implacable honour code, meant that it had also lost its spirit. Only ghosts remained.
Some of the People
Sir Montagu and Lady Allan. Their youngest daughters, Gwen and Anna, are killed on May 7, 1915. when the Lusitania is sunk. Marguerite goes on to finance and run a large hospital. Montagu sets up the pension scheme that becomes Veterans Affairs. Their only son, Hugh, is killed on his first mission with the RNAS on July 7, 1917. Their eldest daughter, Martha, dies, aged 47, in 1942 of pneumonia that she first contracted in 1916 while nursing her father’s best friend, Henry Yates. In her care, Yates dies of pneumonia in Jan 1916. He was 2nd in command of The McGill Hospital. His wife, Alice, then organizes hospitals with Marguerite Allan and Julia Drummond. Martha Allan and Emily Yates join their mothers as nurses. Martha had previously driven an ambulance at the front.
John McCrae, who serves at The McGill with Martha and Yates, dies of pneumonia in January 1918.
Julia, Lady Drummond. Her only surviving son, Guy, is killed April 22, 1915 at Ypres. His best friend, Trum Warren, is killed the day before. They are married to two sisters. Their youngest sister, Dorothy Braithwaite, is drowned on May 7 as she travels with Lady Allan to comfort them.
Julia Drummond organizes “The Information Service” and the Maple Leaf Clubs that look after the personal needs of all Canadian soldiers at war.
Hamilton Gault raises the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. He travels to Europe with his wife, Marguerite Stephens. Her mother, Frances, travelling with Lady Allan, dies on the Lusitania with Marguerite’s 18 month old nephew, John. Baby John’s father, Chattan, in the same regiment as Guy, dies in the flu epidemic in 1918.
Hartland Paterson, double first cousin of the Allans, loses a leg in 1918. His older brother Alex serves at the front, from February 1915 until September 1918, when he is badly gassed. Suffering from PTSD, he kills himself in 1956.
Some of their Staff
George Slingsby, valet, who cannot swim, gives his life jacket to his friend, Lady Allan and maybe saves her jewelry. Ray Appleton, Gault’s butler and batman, carries Gault for three miles back from the front and so saves Gault’s life. Herbert Cruikshank, McCrae’s batman and William Dodge, his replacement, defend McRae’s beloved horse, Bonfire, from his enemy, General Guy Carleton Jones. Caroline Milne, nurse, dies with her charge, baby John.
Some of their Institutions
McGill University sends the largest Canadian hospital of the war to France and provides the PPLCI, via Percival Molson, with their replacements. The Bank of Montreal in London serves all Canadian officers in Europe. 50% of BMO’s staff enlisted.
This is the Menin Gate at Ypres where the names of those whose bodies were never identified at the Salient in World War 1 are recorded. In 2014, I decided to write an ongoing history of the Great War, as it affected my family. I envisaged this project lasting the entire period of the war. But by late 2015, the facts and the fate of my central characters revealed much more to me than a simple narrative based on time.
What emerged for me was the answer to two questions that have puzzled me all my life. The first was a broad question, why did the elite in Montreal lose their position in Canada? The usual narrative is that the forces of ethnicity overwhelmed them. At one level this is of course correct. But as I understood the devastation that they suffered as a group in the war, I saw a new truth. By their devotion and their unique close ties to each other, the pain of their immense loss, destroyed them. It destroyed their spirit. What was left in Montreal was a vacuum.
The second question that was answered for me was a personal one. My own immediate family has suffered greatly since the end of the war. Now I understood why my grandfather killed himself 40 years after the armistice. Now I understood why my own father killed himself. Now I understand the curse that has visited our family ever since 1918. Now I understood the wound that the war gave us as a family.
I knew by the summer of 2015, that I did not need to follow the daily life of my characters for the rest of the war. The core of their experience took place in the spring of 1915. This is when they learned that war was not exciting. This was when they learned how to endure the unendurable. This was when they learned that their only choice was to soldier on. And when I say soldier on, I don't confine myself to the men. What bursts through is the courage and endurance of the women. They are Spartan figures who hold their men to the task while themselves giving their all to the cause.
And so by making just one book about love and loss, I hope that I have created a work that can help anyone. For whose family has not suffered?
I have therefore written a book from these posts. The task took me another three years. It was not simply a stitching together of my more immediate posting but a true narrative.
Called "Noblesse Oblige" I will offer it for free on this site soon in PDF and iBooks format.
This omnibus of 56 posts takes us from the outbreak of war to the closing of the 2nd Battle of Ypres. Please see them as my working notes. My sketch pad for the book that will be available soon.
No one signed up for this this kind of war or these losses in August 1914. They signed up for a different kind of war. They signed up for a war that would be over soon. They signed up for a war of glory and of adventure. They signed up for a war of movement. They signed up for a war where women and children would cheer from the sidelines.
By June 1, 1915 it was clear that this was going to be a new kind of war. None of the fantasies of 1914 would be the reality.
This war was a siege. The Germans built a long fortress in the west. So, there is no flank to turn. There is no simple front line to break. They plan to wait the allies out on the western front until they have defeated Russia. The allies will have to batter their way through or fail.
This trench map shows the depth of the German lines. It will be no easy matter to "batter" through these lines. In 1914, the British sent 120,000 men to France. The Canadians sent 32,000 to England. Confronting them is a German force of over 5 million men under arms.
Any chance of victory now requires massive amounts of men. For now in 1915, the Allies just don't have the manpower. The Allies need to field armies in the millions.
Billions of shells and millions of guns will need to be produced. A global supply system will have to be developed to provide the food to feed millions in the field, to supply enough uniforms to clothe millions of men. A global supply system will have to be created demanding the use of thousands of ships, millions of horses and thousands of vehicles.
To win this kind of war demands that the entire economy has to re-engineered to deal with "Total War".
This includes changing the role of women and making them part of the outside economy. To win this new war, women would have to leave the home where they had lived and worked for millennia and join the world of men.
They will drive ambulances under fire and look after the wounded. They will make the shells and the guns. They will run the buses and the trains. They will join men at work and at war.
And they and their children will also die. For they will be part of the conflict itself.
For this war was not restricted in its risk to the front.
The Germans will attack shipping and the Allies will blockade Germany. The object on both sides was to starve the populations.
No one in Europe was safe.
All of this in turn demanded a social and a cultural revolution. Women would take a decisive step into the world of men. After the war ends, they cannot be put back in the old box again.
This is why Martha Allan leaves her stricken parents and goes to the front. This is why millions of women start munitions work.
Lady Julia Drummond, shakes off the loss of her son and does not miss a beat in driving her support of the troops even harder. Her budget exceeds 10 million dollars as the war advances. That is what it cost to build a battleship then. Alice Yates buries Henry and gets on the boat, with her daughter Alice, and comes to England to help her friends Julia and Marguerite. Aunt Marguerite, buries her grief and joins them in setting up and running large hospitals.
The end of the heroic ideal for men in war demands a new kind of courage and commitment from men.
Older men step up to the challenge. Uncle Montagu and Uncle Jimmie sign up, even in their 50's. What pulls them in is a deeper sense of duty and obligation to those that have already died.
We see a new kind of heroism in the younger men. In Canada, men sign up in droves for the Second, Third and Fourth Divisions. They sign up not for glory but for their sense of duty.
In the front line, younger men, like my grandfather Alec, just put their heads down and get on with it.
It takes two years before the allies are ready to fight this new kind of war from an industrial perspective. It's only then that they have the guns and the shells in the summer of 1916.
But they still have not learned the right lessons of how to conduct the new war. This is the tragedy of the Somme.
Now winning this war demands the hardest task of all. It demands that the winner rethink how war is fought. What could be harder than that?
It is the Canadians that provide this leadership. It takes the Canadians, who cannot afford to take such losses and who have an army lead by amateurs, to learn new ways of fighting.
It is not until April 1917 that the opportunity arrives at Vimy to demonstrate this new knowledge. From that moment onwards, the Canadians are used as the spear point of the British Army on the Western Front. They will take Passchendaele. They will break out in the final offensive and they will cross the Canal du Nord and storm the Hindenburg Line.
But all of this is in the future.
I had intended to write a book for each year. But when I reached this point, I realized that the whole point had been made in 1915. It was in May of 1915, that the families of the Square Mile had to pull back or step up. They had no choice, their sense of Noblesse Oblige demanded that they give their all and they did.
The one book that sums their choice up is available for free here.
Think of Macbeth. Who starts the chain of events and why? It is Lady Macbeth. It is her desire to be somebody that drives the big decision. The tragedy, is not the death of King Duncan but in how Lady Macbeth is left behind once she initiates the project.
This is what I think is the story of the Gault's and the founding of the PPCLI. I think that this was her project. I think that like Lady Macbeth, she wanted more status. The tragedy is that once Hammie had enacted the project, the regiment took him away from her. Her reaction to this was to cause her to lose everything.
In this post we will explore this.
Here is Marguerite Stephens and Hammie before the war.
Before the war they spent their time on expeditions and on having a good time. He found business boring and sought excitement. If Hammie was known for anything it was that he was rich. He had served in the Boer War but this was more of an adventure than a serious career choice. He was a playboy. He was a playboy in the Scots and business-minded city of Montreal.
The Stephens had lots of money but Mrs Stephens had been the daughter of a carpenter who had married the widower of her dead sister. Marguerite was definitely not on the A list.
They were rich but on the outside. He did not seem to mind this. He was from old money. Everyone at the top accepted him as a peer. But this was now how people saw Marguerite. She was seen as a climber. As a woman, she could feel the subtle, and the not so subtle, put downs. In a small place like Montreal, she could not avoid feeling badly.
She needed status.
It was the arrival of the new Governor General in 1911 that changed everything for both of them and, especially, for Marguerite.
No one had more status in Canada than the Duke of Connaught and, by proxy, his daughter, Patricia.
The Connaughts would have met the Gault's first at Ravenscrag. Ravenscrag was the Connaught's home away from home in Montreal. The Duke had been a constant visitor there as a young man and had fallen in love with Uncle Montagu's sister Phoebe. Aunt Marguerite, Lady Allan, had hosted his son Prince Arthur on his visit to Canada in 1909. Montagu had arranged for the Prince, and his retinue of 300 people, to cross the Atlantic privately on one of his ships! Ravenscrag was a welcome relief from the boredom of Ottawa and the homely cottage that was Rideau Hall.
At first, Marguerite became good friends with his daughter Patricia. As the Princess's best girl friend, Marguerite Gault jumped into the A list. She was on her way.
Meanwhile, Hammie became captivated by Connaught's military staff. These were not just courtiers but men of great military achievement. I am sure that there was much talk of the possibility of war. And that, in Hammie's case, this talk ignited a dream of playing a significant role in the war that seemed inevitable.
Canada had a large militia but no unit that was really ready for war. There were however many British ex-regulars in Canada.
What if this regiment was to be comprised of the best veterans that were now living in Canada? What if this regiment could be made ready for war as soon as it was declared?What if Hammie paid for a regiment? What if this regiment was to be officered by the Duke' staff? What if the influence of the Governor General could swing this with the Canadian government? Such a plan had merit on its own.
But in spite of all of this military support, my feeling is that behind the scenes, in the early stages of the idea, it was Marguerite who pushed Hammie into this project. As with all big ideas, at first it would have been very fragile. As with many new big ideas, it would have been discussed late at night as the couple lay on the pillows of their bed. If she had been neutral, or against it, it might have been hard for Hammie to press. But if she was keen, he would have gone for it.
She had the motive. By doing this, she would no longer simply be the wife of a rich playboy who got on well with the Princess but a legitimate member of the inner Royal circle.
The Duke loved the idea.
The Duke had been a professional soldier for most of his adult life. Things military interested him. He immediately supported all aspects of the idea. With his support, and with the support and work of his staff, the project was well planned before war even broke out. This was due largely to the quality of the men on the Duke's staff and due also to their own enthusiasm for the idea.
The Duke's support and the connection between Farquhar and Sam Hughes, the mad minister for militia, ensured that it was given the green light.
Born in England in 1875. Educated at Eton College, he spoke French, Somali and Chinese. He served in South Africa 1899-1900 and Somaliland 1903-1904. Lieutenant Colonel Francis Farquhar was serving as Military Secretary to The Duke of Connaught in 1914. The role was much more than ceremonial. As the senior regular British officer in Canada, he was a respected and important link between the Imperial General Staff and the Canadian Army. It was the partnership and social connection between Farquhar and Gault that was the key to the formation of the regiment.
An officer of the elite Coldstream Guards with a superb record and Royal connections, there is little doubt that Farquahar could have commanded a battalion of his own regiment and would very likely have quickly risen to command a brigade. That he chose instead to help rally a regiment of former soldiers is testament to his commitment to duty above self.
He was to be the CO.
On Farquhar's death, the new CO was H C S Buller.
Herbert Cecil Buller was born in England in 1881, the son of a British Admiral. He joined the Rifle Brigade in 1900 and was promoted Captain in 1910. In August 1914, he was one of three British regular officers appointed to the Regiment from the personal staff of the Governor General (The Duke of Conaught).
He was initially appointed Adjutant to oversee the critical process of recruiting and selecting the original battalion. (Birth)
Buller was laid to rest in the same grave as Farquhar. Brothers to the end.
R T Pelly
Before the war he had served with the Royal North Lancashire Regiment. Appointed Major in August 1914, he assumed command in mid-May after the Battle of Frezenberg. Throughout the relatively quiet summer of 1915, Pelly was responsible for re-establishing the regiment and integrating the new arrivals from the University Companies with the old originals.
He gave up command in December 1915, with the return of Buller, recovered from his injuries at St Eloi. Pelly was struck off strength to command 8th Battalion Royal Irish Regiment. In August 1916, when Buller was killed at Sanctuary Wood, Pelly returned to command of Patricia’s once again. He remained in command through the Somme battles of the fall of 1916 and was then detached as an instructor for the Commanding Officers course at Aldershot.
Later in the war he was promoted Brigadier command the 91st Brigade on Western and Italian fronts. Decorations with PPCLI – DSO, Twice Mentioned in Despatches. Subsequent decorations – CB, CMG, Bar to DSO, Italian Croce di Guerra, five times Mentioned in Despatches. (Birth)
The official "mascot" and name of the regiment was Princess Patricia, Connaught's daughter and now friend of Marguerite (Stephens) Gault. She remained attached to the regiment until her death.
So what of Marguerite? The clue is in the cap badge.
In the centre of the badge is a flower. It is called a 'Marguerite'. Marguerite was the symbol of the regiment. The Princess gave the regiment her name. Marguerite gave it her soul. The use of the Marguerite was Gault's thank you to his wife for supporting him and this project.
She was the unit's totem. This vital aspect of the meaning of the badge explains why Gault moved heaven and earth to have the Marguerite removed after the war. He did this when all the men and all the families pushed back. They did not want to lose the symbol that they had died for. But lose it they did. Because, in Gault's mind, she had betrayed them all. The totem was now accursed.
This was all about honour.
Here she is on the ship coming to England with all the boys. To say that her presence was unusual is an understatement.
The only other wife on board was Lady Evelyn, Farquhar's wonderful wife, who was returning home to England. Lady Evelyn, the daughter of an Earl, was the ideal of the Colonel's wife. She made it her business to look out for all the men and for all their wives. She knew the score and made the regiment her job too.
But for Marguerite, the regiment was all about her. She does not have the capacity to give to it or even know that this is her role.
It's all about her.
From the moment the regiment arrives in England in October, the PPCLI starts to compete with her for Hammie's attention. She cannot see that the way out is to give to the regiment. It is not in her capacity. She is the one who needs attention.
Everything moves fast now.
The PPCLI moves to France in late December. Even while training in England, there was no time to see the wives. Once they are in France, and once Hammie has been in action and is wounded in February, she is cut off completely.
She is cut off not only by his physical absence but also by his emotional absence. Even though she sees him after he is wounded in February, she complains that he is not present. He is with the regiment in heart and in mind.
It is clear to her that Hammie's chances of surviving the war are slim to none. Hammie will be killed. Reeling from losses, that would have tested the strongest person, she is very vulnerable.
She realizes that soon she will be all alone.
In July 1915, Hammie is released from hospital. He and Marguerite are invited to go to stay and convalesce with Hammie's sister at her house in the country.
Also present is Hammie's mother. Strangely, another officer from the PPCLI, Bruce Bainsmith, the Machine Gun Officer of the PPCLI, who has also been badly wounded, has been invited too. Who invited him? Marguerite or Hammie?
It is here, in an English Country House, that Hammie comes down in the morning to find Marguerite and Bainsmith in a compromising position. No one will ever know what they were doing. But, in this context, even a kiss would be beyond acceptance.
In a scene that might be in Downton Abbey. Imagine it all. The entire house party gathers around the doomed couple. Bainsmith is expelled from the house. Marguerite leaves later that morning. She never again spends a night under the same roof as Hammie. Bainsmith makes it all worse by going around London telling everyone that Marguerite is leaving Hammie and will marry him. He too is banished from the regiment and has to join the RFC as a pilot. He survives the war.
In the terms of the time, Bainsmith is a "Cad". It would have been inconceivable to Gault that his wife might be taken advantage of by a brother officer. It would be inconceivable that his wife would be weak enough to fall for a brother officer.
This act is an act of total betrayal.
This is when the "Scottish Play" becomes the Iliad. Where the anger of betrayal consumes the main actors in the drama. Where the drama has to end in death.
If Gault could have killed Marguerite there and then, I think he would have done it. As it is, he will do what he knows will kill her in another way.
He chooses to wound her where she feels the most. He will destroy her name. He will make her socially a pariah.
He files for divorce as the injured party. No one in her class got divorced then. And if they did, the woman was never the injured party. Worse the process was intensely public. For, in Canada at the time, a divorce can only be made via an act of Parliament in the full glare of the press. Hammie takes the trouble, in the midst of the war, to return to Canada to go through with this. He fails and returns to France only to be wounded, even more badly, in June 1916.
All the time, in the typical British male fashion, neither he, or any of his officers, say a word to each other about this. He presents a cheerful face to all who meet him.
Finally, after the war, they do get a divorce in France. Marguerite then marries a professional gigolo. That marriage fails. She dies soon afterwards. Her mental health in ruins. She may have killed herself. The final indignity is that the Gigolo sues the family for support!
There is much more to tell of Hammie Gault during the war, looking ahead into peacetime for a moment, he will face more tragedy with another woman but will find his life partner later and be very happy. But that is later.
In 1917, he will return again to his boys. At the end of the war, he will bring what is left of his regiment back to Canada. Princess Patricia will renew the colours in his presence.
What did this all mean?
For the rest of his life he will never be described as rich but always as a hero who had given all he had for his country. For the rest of his life he always has a place with the regiment. He is acknowledged not as a rich man but as a man.
Marguerite, like Lady Macbeth, loses everything. She loses her name, her respect, her mind and then her life.
George Slingsby was one of our heroes during the sinking of the Lusitania - more here and here. What happened to him during and after the war?
He became one of the displaced.
Even before the May final crossing of the Lusitania, George had been trying to leave Orr-Lewis and join up. He had been accosted about why he, a young and fit man, was not in uniform. Orr-Lewis, like many of his class felt that he would be lost without George. He had never dressed himself in his life. He had never had to think about how his day would run. He pressed George to stay for one more trip. George agreed.
Why?
George was at the top of the mountain as far as service went. He had high status as a valet to an important and wealthy man. He also lived very well.
George had started work here.
This is Osberton Hall, the home of the Folijambe's. It is one of the great houses of Nottinghamshire My Great Great Granny's Grandson on the other side married the heiress. It is likely that Aunt Marguerite got to know young George here and it is likely that she recommended him to Frederick Orr-Lewis.
Here is the Orr-Lewis house. This is called Whitewebbs.
George lived very well here and he also would travel to Cannes where the Orr-Lewis's had another house and where Frederick is buried. Villa Valetta was one of the great houses near Cannes and had one of the finest gardens in France.
So George would give up a lot to join up. He would once more just be a private soldier at the bottom of the pile. If Orr-Lewis had served, it would have been different. Then George could have signed up as his servant.
The turning point was that George's brother, Arthur was determined to sign up himself. Arthur had followed George into service and had also worked at first at Osberton. He was a gardener. His last job was in the gardens at Park Hall, Mansfield Woodhouse. He had previously been employed at Osberton and at Rufford Abbey.
Arthur was accepted but George was not. George had broken his instep in the sinking and had a heart murmur. Arthur died a year later of pneumonia.
George is now lost. Orr-Lewis himself died in 1921. His son Duncan sold Whitewebbs after the early death of his wife and moved to Cannes. There was no loyalty between Duncan and his father's man. Lady Orr-Lewis had no say over her son's choices. Aunt Marguerite, who had always been very attached to George was herself homeless until 1921. Ravenscrag limped along after she moved back.
The day of the valet was over. By the wars's end, many of the great houses were retrenching or closing.
George, now with no "skills" joined the millions of demobbed men looking for work.
But being the man he was he found a way.
This is his house where he raised a family. (Thanks to Eric Sauder for the image)
These books are maybe not history as they are influenced by Nina's desire to put George in an even better light - but they offer us all a window into the time of Downton Abbey. They also demonstrate a daughter's love and pride in her father.
Thanks again to Eric Sauder, here is George's grave.
And here also are my family's blessing and thanks to George who too will always be a hero for us.
In this post we will explore the particular devotion that many in the medical field exhibited. We have already considered John McCrae. Today we look at "Uncle" Henry Yates and my Cousin Martha Allan.
In both world wars, medics, doctors and nurses, showed that they were often the bravest of the brave. The only double VC of WW1 was a doctor, Noel Chavasse. Many of Medal of Honor recipients were Corpsmen. Most of these were given posthumously. 53 Canadian Nurses died of illness or in action in World War 1.
Henry Yates and Jack McRae were to die serving the wounded in the same way. They died not in action but by working themselves to death. Cousin Martha came close to joining them.
Why?
Image from the Yates Family Collection
Yates was not a young man when he signed up. I am sure that he was keen but no more than many other men caught up in the fever of 1914. The loss and the anger, that drove him give his own life, was I think initially connected to the loss of the Allan girls?
The Allans were like a second family. Henry and Montagu talked every day for more than 20 years. The Allans had supported him, and his wife Alice, when the Yates lost their first son as a boy. His second son was named after Montagu. Gwen and Anna were like his own children.
Henry arrived in France in June of 1915. His exposure to the wounds and to the deaths of the soldiers had a cumulative effect on this anger. They were not nameless soldiers but sons of friends and colleagues. He would have know many of them. (Here is a full account of Ypres and the losses)
He might also have felt guilt.
At 50, and as a doctor, he could not take up arms. He might have asked himself, "How can they have given all and I not?" "How can I revenge myself upon the Germans?"
I think this reaction happened to many who served in the medical field.
The work was relentless. Hundreds of men would come through as a matter of routine and thousands after an engagement. Day or night, day by day, week by week, month by month and year by year, the work never stopped. From 1915-1918, the Number 3 admitted 143,762 sick and wounded patients, and performed 11,395 operations. Looking to November 1918, that is an average of 1,000 a week.
No chateaux for them either. They lived as badly as the men they served. The Number 3 was in tents from June 1915 until January 1916. Located a few miles from the front, it was a self-contained city of tents that had been donated by an Indian prince. Inside, the hospital housed 1,500 beds, about four times the capacity of the Montreal General at the time.
Here is what it was like there for a later unit.
It was a dump!
The winter in 1915 was very hard. Many doctors and nurses became ill as a result. McCrae's health broke down in late 1916. He was then in and out of hospital until he died in January 1918.
The Number 3 War Diary entry for November notes Henry's illness and the terrible conditions.
By Nov 11 1915, Henry Yates's health broke down completely and he was admitted to hospital. On November 22, he was sent to England. Here is where the Allans return to our story.
On November 24th he is discharged into the care of Hugh Allan.
In her official war record we find that "Nursing Sister" Martha Allan goes on leave from Number 3 on November 20th for 4 days. Then her leave is extended.
A coincidence?
It gets more interesting.
On December 22nd, she is transferred from leave in England to work at the hospital at Moore Barracks in Shorncliffe. This just happens to be yards away from Encombe where Henry Yates is now staying. This is her parents' house. Who could have arranged this? Col Birkett, the CO of Number 3.
Henry Yates remains with the Allans, Montagu, Marguerite, Hugh and Martha until Boxing day and then is admitted to another hospital near Margate where he finally dies on January 22nd 1916.
Then, Martha, herself, collapses with pneumonia. She is so ill that she needs 5 months to get well.
What happened really? What does a thoughtful review of the official record tell us?
Remember, Martha had tried to join the Number 3 before it had left Canada. But, aged 20 and with no qualifications, and even with all her family support, she was refused. She had travelled to England, not on the Metagama with the hospital, but separately on the Acadia as a private person in the company of Dr Todd who was also to join the Number 3. (More here) She did not know how she would do it but she was still determined to get into nursing. At that time a Canadian Nurse had to be over 22 and be a university graduate in nursing. She was 20 and untrained.
I think that her sisters' death changed everything.
She attests in London on May 24th and joins Number 3 just before they leave on June 15 for France. In her attestation she claims to be a Graduate Nurse.
This is not true. But it fulfils the bureaucratic rule and it stands in her records and in how they she is treated and counted from then on. Someone senior backed the lie. Col Birkett had to have been in the know. (Birkett was an honoured guest at my grandfather's wedding after the war with of course Aunt M and Uncle M)
I can see her begging her father to ask again. I can see Birkett, Yates, McCrae and Todd agreeing. (Todd was a close friend of McCrae's and had given him Bonfire to take to war. After Henry's death Todd leaves Number 3 and joins Uncle M to set up the Pensions System)
I can see her brother Hugh telling her to go and promising to stay with his parents. I can see nurses, like Nurse Gass, who was so against her joining, now agreeing and keeping the secret. (Nurse Clare Gass Below)
The loss of her sisters, the great affection for Henry Yates and the known connection to the Allans now explains to me the next part of this story.
We now understand the interconnection between Martha's leaves and new appointment and Henry's illness and being released to Hugh Allan.
Again the family fix is in. They cannot make it official. But they can beat the bureaucratic paper trail. In war, no one is special they all have to use the system as it is. But this did not happen to Henry Yates who was special to his unit and to my family.
This is what I think really happened. When Henry became deathly ill, Martha was assigned "unofficially" to look after him.
This is why Henry had been admitted "officially" into the care of Mr Hugh Allan on November 24th. Not into the care of Sir Montagu Allan. That might have raised a flag. As an ex banker, I can read the work arounds for getting your way in a bureaucracy.
Henry Yates spends his last Christmas with them and dies in their company.
But this care of the family friend carries with it a high price for the Allans.
Weakened by the stress of the loss of her sisters, weakened herself by the terrible living conditions of Number 3, weakened by the death of Uncle Henry and possibly infected by him, Martha comes down with pneumonia next month and nearly dies herself. There are no antibiotics then. She is sick for 5 months. She never fully recovers her health. She dies in 1942, aged 47, as a result of all of this. She joins all her three siblings as casualties of the Great War.
But that is in the future. What then for Martha in 1916?
If she had retuned to Number 3, her health would have certainly broken down again, as it did with Jack McCrae. A return would have been a death sentence. I can only imagine that her parents begged her to not do this. They had lost her two sisters and now they could not prevent Hugh from going to the front. I am sure that Birkett and Todd would have supported this too.
Martha choses life.
She resigns her commission and becomes a free agent. But she is not finished with the war. Here is how a commentator described her.
Immensely self-assured, forceful and resourceful, with all manner of charm yet determined to carry out her plans. She was a woman capable of bringing together a group, with varying degrees of talent, compatibility and dedication, and welding them into an effective, hard-working whole. She was many-gifted herself. Her powers of readiness and initiative were astonishing. Nothing daunted her.[1]
She returns to France on her own terms. This is when she buys her own ambulance and works as a freelance driver. She has enough control as a freelancer to to avoid illness. She can use her money to live in decent accommodation and to eat good food. Though the family story is that she is also wounded.
She also takes charge of her love life. She reconnects with Thierry Mallet. Thierry has a very distinguished war himself. Unusually for a French national, he receives the MC from the Duke of Connaught who had known him well in Canada when he had been the Governor General. He also receives the Croix de Guerre from France. He is wounded twice and for at least one of these woundings, Martha looks after him.
In February, 1917 they announce their engagement. But this great romance, begun before the war when she was only 16, ends in July 1917.
On July 6th 1917, Hugh, her brother, is killed.
Martha now chooses family over everything. She chooses family over war and over her heart. She breaks off the engagement with Thierry and returns to England to help her mother and Emily Yates, Henry's daughter, at the hospital, Moor Court, in Sidmouth Devon. She will end the war there also with my wounded grandfather Alec and his wounded brother Hartland. They are the shattered remnants of the family that had collectively lost so much. I think this is why aunt M's dearest wish was for Martha and Alec to marry. But it was not to be.
Bound even tighter by mutual loss, the close connection between the the Yates and the Allan families deepens as the war continues.
In 1915, Uncle Montagu arranged for Henry's body to be sent back to Canada. Policy was that all Canadians who died in Europe were to be buried there. Henry's body was the only sanctioned return that I know about. Montagu found a way around the rules for Henry in death as Henry had found a way around the rules for Martha in life.
Henry's death re- introduces another major actor in our story, Alice Yates.
Image from the Yates Family Collection
Alice Yates, who had stayed in Canada as Regent of the IODE, now packed her bags and crossed the Atlantic with her daughter Emily to join Marguerite Allan and Julia Drummond in organizing the support for the troops in Europe. She too has nothing to lose and will now give her all. But that is a story for later.
Here are the Yates family. All together at peace at last.
When I started this journey, I thought this story would be all about the men and the fighting. But it isn't and now I see that it never was. War affects us all. No one, man woman or child is outside its boundary.
I now feel that the hardest war was that served by the women and by the men who cared for those that fought.
Guy Drummond wrote this to his mother on morning of the day of his death as he thought about his sister in law's loss of his friend Trum Warren.
Indeed and truly it’s much harder for you women at home.
Little did he know that morning that his own wife, a sister of Trum's wife, and his mother would lose him by 6.30pm that night, April 22nd 1915.
On May the 18th, Gwen's body is found. She is labelled Body 218. A member of the family has to see it and confirm her identity. It can only have been Hugh or Martha, or maybe both, who looked upon the face of their dead sister. She had been in the water for days.
This is what it may have been like. (An unidentified woman)
Did he see them at night as he stared at the ceiling alone in his bed? Did he see them trapped in the wreckage of the Lusitania? Did he wonder about their last minutes?
Did he hear their voices? Did he remember them charging around Ravenscrag in Montreal? Did he remember them all together in those magic summers in Cacouna?
Now he knew for certain that he would never hear or see them again. How hard this is?
In one day, May 7th, Hugh's boyhood is over.
I recall the same feeling when my own father died unexpectedly aged 55. I was 31 and very much his son. He was in charge. Then he was gone. Suddenly the entire responsibility of my family fell upon me.
It would have been like that for Hugh.
His father is not in England yet. There is no telephone. His father will not be able to arrive for at least a week and even then, he too will be shaken by his loss and his fears for Aunt Marguerite. For now, Hugh is in charge. There is so much to do.
His mother is in a state of collapse. Not only is she badly injured in body but also in spirit. She has two nurses in attendance. But they can help only with her body. Who can help her in her grief? She needs her son.
There is so much to be done about daily living. Marguerite has lost all her clothes and possessions in the sinking. She has a new home to settle at Encombe. There is an endless list of things that have to be done. Emily and Annie, her maids, can only do so much and they too need emotional support. Someone has to be in charge.
Any of us who have settled a dead person's affairs know of the endless list of official things that have to be done. Not the least he had the immediate the care of the body of his dead sister and making the arrangements to send her home to Canada.
Then there is the vast Allan family. All need to be written to. Then there are the thousands of people, connected to the family. All need to be written to.
I am certain that Martha played her role here but there is no doubt in my mind who was ultimately responsible. For, days after the Number 3 Canadian General Hospital (McGill) arrive in Shorncliffe on May 15th, she is successful in joining the unit as a full Nursing Sister. She attests on May 24th and ships out on June 15 to France. There is little doubt in my mind that Col Birkett and Henry Yates, who had had to refuse her before the sinking as just another unqualified rich girl, were able to justify taking her on. We hear no more from Nurse Gasse about how awful Martha was.
More on Martha in another post.
Hugh, aged 18, is in charge.
But in spite of all this pressure to support the family, Hugh is also being pulled by another force. The call of the war pulled strongly on Hugh. This was more than a patriotic duty, it was a tribal call of honour.
After the the 2nd Battle of Ypres, it is clear that this war will not end soon. It is also clear that the price to be paid will be a steep one. Hugh has already lost two first cousins, MacKenzie's. He has lost his friend Guy Drummond. His other first cousin, Alec Paterson, has survived Ypres and is now in battle again at Festubert.
All his school friends at Eton, and all the young men of his class, are going to the front. His best friend, Victor Cazalet, has just signed up as has his elder brother Edward.
Nearly every Etonian who attended from 1890 onwards signs up. 5,650 Etonians will serve in WW1. 21% of them will die. The same is true for every Public School in England. It would be impossible to be a leader in any of these schools and hold back.
At Eton, as in Montreal, he was also a prince. He had been a member of "Pop". Pop is the elected body of the elite of the school. His best friend, Victor Cazalet, was President of Pop. In mid 1915, Victor was also about to sign up and join his elder brother Edward. Edward was to die. Victor lived to be killed in WW2.
Does he support his parents or does he go to the front?
There are mitigating circumstances. He and his parents have already lost two children. This is a choice that faces many young men with siblings that already were serving or had been killed.
The parents are torn as well. Who would not wish that one son may live? But at what price in honour could that life be saved? His first cousins the MacKenzie's in Toronto face the same issue. Their first two boys are killed but they cannot stop their third and last son from signing up. He survives.
In the end, the Allans reach a compromise. For 4 months, Hugh stays at Encombe, next to Shorncliffe Camp, and supports his mother and father. At the end of 1915, Hugh officially joins up in his father's regiment. His father also joins up at the same time!
Hugh stays on for a while as an instructor in a safe job. But as 1916 moves on, he cannot resist the call.
He joins the RNAS, The Royal Naval Air Service, as a pilot. The life expectancy of a second lieutenant in the infantry was 6 weeks. The life expectancy of a new pilot was a matter of days.
Why? Why does he sign up for certain death? How do his parents support this?
The answer is honour.
His mother can no longer put herself ahead of the mothers of so many of her friends who had already lost their own sons. How could she be in the same room as her friend Julia Drummond? Or meet with Caroline Kipling?
His father, the Colonel of the Royal Canadian Highlanders, Guys' unit, could not look himself in the face and spare his own son. He could not meet with his cousin Hammie Gault who was wounded again in 1916 and who will then lose a leg and who will still return to the front with a prosthesis.
And most of all, there had been the death of his parent's closest friend, Henry Yates. This I think clinched it.
Yates was the 2nd in Command of the Number 3 Canadian General Hospital (McGill). He was 50 years old. He had been living in a tent, close by to Jack McCrae, and had been working non-stop like McCrae. In late 1915, he collapsed with fatigue and a chest condition. He was invalided to the England. In November 1915, Hugh Allan picked him up from hospital and took him home to his parents.
My grandfather Alec was there too for 10 days on his first leave of the war. Alec spent most of his leaves with the Allans who treated him like a son. Hugh would surely have stayed up late talking with Alec about what war was really like. It must have been mildly embarrassing for him I think.
Yates spent that Christmas with the Allans. But, on Boxing Day December 26, he fell gravely ill again and had to return to hospital where he died 22nd of January 1916.
As Hugh had seen the face of his dead sister, he now saw the dead face of his father's best friend. Dr Yates had died for his country just as any solder killed by a weapon.
Yates and Uncle Montagu were very close. Yates younger son was Montagu's godson and was called Montagu. Yates himself had lost his eldest son from an illness when he served as a naval cadet.
How close can be seen by what happens to Yates after his death.
There are only 2 Canadians that died in service in WW1 whose bodies were returned to Canada. One was as a result of a devoted mother who had her son's grave in France robbed, the other was Henry Yates. Montagu arranged for Henry to go home on an Allan Line ship. That is how much the Allans loved Uncle Henry.
This was the final straw for Hugh and his parents. Honour demanded that Hugh take his place in the line of fire. In 1916, Hugh leaves the army and joins the Navy as a fighter pilot. In July 1917, he is killed on his first mission.
Hugh's response is so typical of most men at that time. It was better to die with your tribe and then to survive them. Worst of all, you could not be like the Chairman of the White Star Line, Bruce Ismay, and use your position to get in the lifeboat.
Hugh fulfilled his duty to his parents and to his class.
Today in our PC world when people scorn the very idea of honour, the hymn O Valiant Hearts is hardly ever sung anymore. Some people have tried to ban it. But when I hear these three verses, I know them to be true. Those who answered the call then and those parents who supported their sons, made this decision as Christ did in the Garden of Gethsemane. They wished it could be otherwise but they went all the same. They went as a junior officer knowing that death was the most likely outcome.
Long years ago, as earth lay dark and still, Rose a loud cry upon a lonely hill, While in the frailty of our human way, Christ, our Redeemer, passed the self same way.
Still stands His Cross from that dread hour to this, Like some bright star above the dark abyss; Still, through the veil, the Victor’s pitying eyes Look down to bless our lesser Calvaries.
These were His servants, in His steps they trod, Following through death the martyred Son of God: Victor, He rose; victorious too shall rise They who have drunk His cup of sacrifice
This was the metaphor that gave them meaning and hope. Maybe only the hope that they might be reunited after death.
It is clear to me, that most of the main female characters in our story talked with each other, shared their grief and then worked with each other. They worked to help others. They loved more and became ever more open hearted themselves.
Their overall response to their losses was to become even more generative.
It was only Marguerite Gault, who was the outsider, without a network, who focused on her own needs, who fell apart.
I see the issue of connection, or network, for the men as well. Those who could connect, coped better.
There was something more. We see, in some of the men, a desire to give all, even if that means that they know what they are going to die as a result. This desire, to give all, means that they deny their own family for what they see as a greater cause.
Lastly I see another response. Here, the man reaches his limit of loss and cannot allow himself to love again for fear of more loss.
We start today with a story much like many of the women that we have observed. This story is about how love and family triumph. Key to it, is I think, a great marriage, where the loss is shared between the two partners.
We look at the life and the reaction of the patriarch of my family, Uncle Montagu. Here is is at the peak of his happiness and power and position.
It is 1912. He has just been made Colonel in Chief of the Royal Highlanders of Canada, The Black Watch. He has been in charge of the business and the family for 11 years.
Here he is after the war.
He lives to be 91. All his children predecease him. He has given away his home. All the family businesses are gone. He lives in an apartment.
But it all looked so different before the war.
He is the third generation of a remarkable family, the Allans, who had created one of the great shipping lines of all time. His father, Sir Hugh Allan, was the driving force in the massive Allan enterprise. He had arrived in Montreal penniless as a teenager and started life in lodgings.
By the time of this picture, he was called the Prince of Ravenscrag and was the most powerful man in Canada.
What was it like to be this man's son? It was hard. It is always hard to be the son of a great man. There was little affection for the boys. He expected a lot from them. His eldest son, Alexander, failed to live up to the expectations and was banished to Brockville.
Uncle Montagu was the 8th of 12 children and the second son. He was expected to look after both the business and the family. 12 siblings were only the start of the family obligations.
Family was as important to the Allans as business. And what a family it was.
Just a few yards down the road from Ravenscrag was Ionouteh, the house of Uncle Montagu's uncle and Sir Hugh's brother, Andrew.
On Sir Hugh's death in 1882, Andrew took over the running of the business and the family. Montagu would inherit it all when Andrew died in 1901.
The Hugh Allans and the Andrew Allans were as one family.
Andrew had 8 children. Andrew and Hugh had themselves married sisters, Mathilda and Isabella Smith. So, each side of the family was linked at the first order on both sides.
In fact it was three families.
Aunt Marguerite, who marries Montagu, is a Mackenzie. Her uncle, we skip a generation too, Willie marries Nina, Andrew's second daughter. Nina is my great great granny and is my grandfather, Alec's, granny. She is also a contemporary and best friend of Aunt Marguerite who is her first cousin on both sides!
In fact it was four families.
Nina has a long affair with another man and has two children by him. Finally, they cannot bear the lie and elope. Outraged, Andrew has her arrested and jailed. The deal is that she gives up her two MacKenzie children and agrees never to see them again. She is banished to Winnipeg.
As a result, her daughter, Isobel, my great granny, grew up in Andrew's house with her aunt Brenda who is only 18 months older. Isobel is treated like a sister by the younger Hugh and Andrew Allans.
Are you confused? Even the family got confused. Uncle Montagu, had to change his name from Hugh to Montagu by deed poll to avoid confusion with his cousin Hugh Allan who was a son of Andrew.
Actually it was five families.
Also brought up in Andrew's care are the children of Adelaide Gault, Hammie's first cousin, who was herself deserted by Nina's brother John
This is why, in my story, everyone is "Uncle" this or "Aunt" that. That's what they all called each other.
And then, there were all the other close relations, such as the Patersons, who all lived less than a mile away from each other and who would spend most of their time with each other either at work or at play. In 1918 amid the wreckage of all their lives, the great wish of Aunt M and Uncle M was that my grandfather Alec would marry their surviving child, Martha.
I have only mentioned the Canadian side of the family. The Allans in Scotland were also a large tribe and were tightly linked to their Canadian cousins. Aunt M introduced uncle Jimmie to Rita Jolivet. The cousins looked after Hugh while he was at school in England. The Scots Allans looked after me in England when my parents went to Ghana.
This, then, is the context for Uncle Montagu and for our story.
How did Uncle Montagu react to the death of his two daughters?
I suspect at first he was simply stunned. He, like so many, saw the war as an adventure in 1914. An adventure that would not take long. He supported Aunt M going to help in England and I think saw this in the same light as his support for the Number 3 Canadian General Hospital McGill. The war and his family's part in it was a project that would end soon. He would have to look after the business in Canada. He would travel to see them but be based still in Canada. There was so much at stake at home.
The Allan line was being taken over by the CP but it was still in his control. Wars are very important for shipping. The Allan line fleet was fully mobilized for war and many key ships would be lost.
Here is the Hesparian. Uncle M arranged for Mrs Stephens' body to be put on the Hesparian to take her back to Canada. It was sunk by the same Captain and U boat as sunk the Lusitania.
The Merchants Bank was also exceptionally busy as the economy expanded as a result of the war.
He had vast estates to administer. Work had kept him in Canada.
He also had plans for his son Hugh. Hugh had just left Eton but he had also got a place at McGill and was due to arrive back in Canada in the fall of 1915 to start his degree. Montagu wanted to prepare Hugh as his heir to take all of this over.
The death of the girls and of several cousins in France changed everything for Montagu and as we will see for Hugh.
It must have been Hugh who had to identify his sister's body after 11 days in the water. He could never go home now. Montagu himself may have opened the coffin in Montreal. He could not stay home either.
It was now a matter of honour.
He put aside all of his businesses and all of his estates and came to England to support his wife and remaining children and to take his part, as a man, in the war. He arrived in England on the Cameronia, a troop ship, on May 21st 1915.
(The Cameronia had had a fight with a U Boat in June 1915 when the Cameronia tried to ram the sub. It was sunk in 1917 while carrying over 2,000 troops. Most survived. Also remarkable was that the Cameronia was due to sail also on May 1st 1915 but at the last moment all the passengers were put off. Over 30 joined the Lusitania. A fateful connection. (More here)
By September 1915, he has, aged 55, enlisted. But what job would there be for a man of his age?
He pulls his friend Dr John Todd out of the Number 3 Canadian General Hospital, McGill, and sets out to create and organize the pension system for the soldiers. This is the beginning of Veterans Affairs.
He also fully commits himself and the family fortune to Aunt Marguerite's work with wounded soldiers. This lead eventually to the 140 + bed hospital, Moor Court, in Sidmouth Devon. This hospital with operating theatres, X ray machines and staff was financed by the Allans.
He rents Ravenscrag to the Governor General as his Montreal residence and sells the rest of the Allan Line to CP in September 1917.
For, in July 1917, he loses Hugh and so any reason, in his own mind, to hang on to the Line.
He loses his interest in the business
From then on, like his wife, Aunt Marguerite, family is everything. And like Aunt M and Julia Drummond, he expands this idea of family to all the families of those who lose their sons. His work on Pensions continues. He does not return to Canada until well into 1919. He is not demobilized until 1920!
He is also now homeless as Ravenscrag is rented to the Governor General. Irony of ironies, Montagu and Aunt M are invited to a dinner at their own home, Ravenscrag, by the new Governor General, Lord Byng of Vimy.
His last great act of generosity is his work to help General Currie find a job after the war. Currie, like a Greek Hero of old, returns home to public and political rejection. While other Generals of half his ability in the UK are given money and titles, Currie is rejected by the establishment in Ottawa.
Uncle M, whose influence at McGill is unparalleled, backs Currie as the new president. Currie, like Robert E Lee, becomes a university president. The Allan's ensure that the Currie's find an honoured place in Montreal society.
In 1942, his daughter Martha dies. At this point Aunt M and Uncle M give Ravenscrag to McGill where it becomes the Allan Institute. They retire to an apartment in The Chateau.
Of all the men in our story, no one loses so much as Montagu. But he remains a sweet and loving man. He becomes a greater man for his losses. For, while he loses all his wealth and the trappings of power, he maintains the role he set himself on seeing his dead daughter's face. He makes family everything.
Why did he react this way? I think that part of this was his natural character.
Part of this was his secure marriage with Aunt M.Their losses brought them closer. They had the same response of generosity in loss.
Part of this was the vast and close connections of the family itself and the shared experience of so many of them.
And because of his losses, he meets every person as just another human. No one sees him as a Prince but instead as another father who had lost so much. And he welcomed all for, because his heart is broken, it is so open to love.
The Allan motto is Spero - "Hope" in Latin. I think he lived it. Don't you?
All the excitement of the war for the Canadians from Montreal had died in April and in May of 1915 . So many of the young men had been killed or wounded at Ypres and the sinking of the Lusitania had shown that not even children were safe.
There was not a family in the Square Mile in Montreal that was not affected.
How do you respond to the loss of a child? The leading women characters in our stories have to confront this question. Some will surprise us and themselves with their resilience. Others will descend into a form of hell. A hell that they will never escape from.
Let's start with my great aunt Marguerite who lost Gwen and Anna on the Lusitania.
Aunt M had jumped into the water holding Anna's hand. Her friend, Frederick Orr-Lewis, had done the same with Gwen. Both girls had died.
Aunt Marguerite had left Ireland on May 11th on a special train for survivors with her son Hugh and her eldest daughter Martha. Uncle Montagu was in Canada. The Allan Line's agent stayed on to search for the bodies of the girls. On May 16th, Gwen's body was identified. But Anna's was never found.
Her older children had taken her to her new home, Encombe. It is yards away from Shorncliffe Camp that would be the centre of the Canadian reinforcements for the war. Here is where she will live for the next 2 years. Here is where she recovers from the loss.
She had a broken collar bone and the insurance report says a fractured hip. I imagine that the pain in her body was nothing compared to the pain of the loss of her girls.
Will she see Gwen's body? I assume that she did. For they sent her body back to Canada to be buried in waiting for her parents. Imagine the circumstances of the viewing in England weeks after her death? But at least she had seen Gwen. She never sees Anna and can only think of her forever in the water.
Would she not ask herself why she had lived and not them? What guilt did she feel? Might she have been even bitter that Emily and Annie, her maids, had lived and not her girls? Might she have blamed Frederick for not holding onto Gwen?
We cannot ever know.
Our own losses tell us how impossible it is to understand sudden death. How can this person be gone? Often this sense of impossibility can be relieved by contact with their body. But what if there is no body?
This loss of a child is going to be the common experience of millions of mothers in the next 4 years. For Canadian mothers, whose boys are all buried, except 2, in France and the UK, none will never see their boy again. And for the many dead boys, who are pulverized in the Salient, no one at all will ever see them again. They have become the unknown dead who fertilize the soil for farmers to come. Only their names remain on the Menin Gate.
This loss is the great equalizer. None of her privilege has saved Marguerite from the loss that so many other Canadians, rich or poor will feel.
It is this common loss that starts to change Aunt M.
She, who had been the centre of "Society" in Montreal becomes a new woman. As she recovers in Encombe, she finds a new role. She will join up with her friends, Julia Drummond and later Alice Yates, in a crusade. It will be a crusade based on helping other mothers look after their boys, whether their boys be alive and fit, wounded, dead or captured. They will become the connection. They will invest all their energy and wealth into this work.
They will respond with transcendance.
Here is Guy as a boy. In London, Julia, Lady Drummond was absorbing his loss on April 22 at Ypres.
She also had in her care her two daughters in law, the Braithwaites, who had lost their husbands and now had lost their sister on the Lusitania. Both were pregnant. One of the questions that faced them was whether to stay in London alone as widows or return to Canada. Both their sons were born in Canada, we can assume that they braved the U-boats and made the journey home to have their babies with their mother as a help.
Far from causing her to collapse in grief, Guy's death polarized Julia's attention and her focus. Nothing, and no one, would get in her way in her mission to serve her "Boys". She was "well acquainted with grief." She was uniquely free to act.
This is a picture taken after death of her first born son, Julian. This may seem macabre to us today, but, when photographs were so rare, a photograph was often the only momento for a lost child.
Julia had also buried two husbands. Now, free from any other emotional tie, she committed herself to all the other boys.
As we will see in later posts, she was to take the Information Bureau to new heights. In particular she will make prisoners a priority. 1,500 Canadians had been taken prisoner in April/May. The Information Bureau set up a new department that identified who was a prisoner and then sent them regular parcels.
Here she is with Prime Minister Borden outside a Maple Leaf Club in London.
As Hammie Gault used his position in Montreal society to support the Pats, so Julia used her equally eminent position to bring the elite in both Canada and the UK to help her set up a series of "Hotels" for Canadians. Among her early supporters was Rudyard Kipling who was to lose his own son, John, in the fall of 1915 at the Battle of Loos. Here they at Loos after the war.
Mrs Caroline Kipling became the Chairwoman. She held this position for more than 3 years.
In Julia's and Caroline Kipling's response to tragedy, we see a new aspect of womanhood. Much has been said about how working in factories and in other male roles during the war helped change the role of women. But little has been said of the role of women in running very large organizations.
Julia, Mrs Alice Yates (Who will lose her husband Henry in 1916), Mrs Caroline Kipling and my aunt Marguerite Allan will channel their energy into becoming incomparable managers of large and complex organizations. Like General Currie, who had no formal education before the war and certainly no military education, these women discovered that they had the same kind of talent for organization that had been hidden from everyone, not the least from themselves.
But we are all different. Who knows how brave or resilient we really are until we have been tested like this?
We end our post today with the story of another of our characters who could not cope.
Almost worse, he had no time for her. All he wanted was to be back with his men.
He was back in England now. His wounds would take months to heal.
And then she met someone who seemed to care about her. Little did she know that Bainsmith was a total cad who had no real interest in her as a person but only as a trophy. Worse he was a junior officer in the Pats and so the betrayal was even worse.
No one, other than Hammie and Marguerite, knows what Hammie saw when he came into her room and found them both. But for Hammie, for whom duty and loyalty was everything, this was unbearable. Their breakup and later divorce was a huge scandal and a terrible drain on them both. Worse, she ended up in the arms of yet another predator. From this point on, her life will spiral down.
More later as these events unfold.
More also later on how the men in this story coped. For they too lost sisters, brothers and sons. All lost close friends.
Who is Uncle Montagu? Who is his son Hugh? Who is Henry Yates and how is he linked to Jack McCrae. Who is my grandfather, Alec? What does this loss mean to them? And what of our true hero on the Lusitania, George Slingsby? What of Frederick-Orr Lewis who never forgave himself for letting Gwen's hand go?
We will explore the first great loss for them next and as we do, we will also learn more about them. It's harder for them because the custom was to say nothing and not to comfort the other. They all came from the time of the "Stiff Upper Lip".
On May 7th 1915, the Lusitania sunk in 18 minutes. Over 1,000 people died. 4 of the dead were members of my family. Many more of my family and their friends and their staff were involved. This is their personal story.
These posts are part of a 4 year project of mine to tell the story of World War 1 through the lives of my large extended family. Concurrent with the Lusitania story is also the story of the arrival and the great test of the Canadians at the 2nd battle of Ypres. You can find more on that here.
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