The Little Black Devils of Canada
HOSTI ACIE NOMINATI
‘The Little Black Devils of Canada’, 8th Canadian Infantry Battalion (90th Winnipeg Rifles). The black devil carries a trident and offers a chalice. Preserves the legend that during the North-West Rebellion soldiers referred to by the opposing forces as ‘little black devils’.
Because of their almost black (dark rifle green) uniforms. Hence, the adoption of the regiment’s motto ‘HOSTI ACIE NOMINATI’. Which means ‘named by the enemy force’.
Organization
The Little Black Devils organized in Valcartier Camp in accordance with Camp Order 24 September 1914. Composed of recruits from Winnipeg and from the 96th Lake Superior Regt. of the Active Militia. Commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Louis James Lipsett.
The Little Black Devils embarked Quebec City on 1 October 1914 aboard FRANCONIA. Disembarked England 14 October 1914. Strength: 47 officers, 1106 other ranks.
At Avonmouth the Battalion embarked on 10 February 1915, for its momentous journey to France. Disembarked in France 13 February 1915. The cattle boat, Archimedes, left much to be desired by way of comfort and accommodation. But, men becoming inured to hardships. After an uneventful voyage, St. Nazaire reached and the troops disembarked on 13 February.
Early Days in the Trenches
The Battalion left Strazeele, where they had detrained, on the 21 February. Marched, via Bailleul to Chateau D’Ostroove, a large building behind the front-line trenches of Ploegsteert Wood. Along with other Battalions of the CEF, attached to Imperial Battalions for instruction in the phases of trench work. The 8th allotted to the First Rifle Brigade and the Somerset Light Infantry. A platoon at a time sent in for a day in the trenches.
On 2 March, the Little Black Devils moved into the front line in front of the village of La Boutillerie, southeast of Fleurbaix. Here they took over a section of the line from the 2nd Wiltshires. A quiet section. And, for the next three weeks the Battalion learned general trench routine in the school of practical experience.
The Battle of Neuve Chapelle
The Battle of Neuve Chapelle on 10 March 1915 did not engage the infantry of the Division. But, the 8th profited by the experience in keeping the attention of the enemy opposite them. Then, a rest in billets at Estaires. And, a further period of training at Steenvoorde preceded the order of 14 April 1915 to move to the Ypres salient. This unit, as every other unit of the Division, to pass through an ordeal by shell and gas.
The Second Battle of Ypres
A journey by bus to Vlamertinghe and a march through stately Ypres, brought the Little Black Devils into the trenches. Near St. Julien on the evening of 14 April 1915, they relieved the French, and, in the words of General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, the enemy was always truculent.
On the left of the 2nd Brigade was the 3rd Brigade, and on the right was the 28th British Division. The trenches in poor condition, traverses non-existent, parapets no protection except from view, and in many places no parados at all. For three days and three nights all ranks laboured to improve their defences. Then came the disturbing news on the night of 22 April 1915. The French on the left of the 3rd Brigade forced out of their trenches by an enemy gas attack.
Chlorine Gas
Through the gap poured the Germans in their thousands. It became immediately necessary for the 3rd Brigade, with its left in the air, greatly to extend its line and throw back its left flank southward to protect its rear. The 8th Battalion left at the spearhead of a dangerous salient. For four days the Little Black Devils endured a rain of shells from front, flank and rear.
Second Gas Attacks
At four o’clock on the morning of Saturday, 24 April 1915, a blue-green-yellowish cloud seen rolling over No-Man’s Land towards the Battalion trenches. The second enemy gas attack and in a few moments the 8th had its first experience of this ghastly new weapon of modern warfare. The effect was paralyzing. Half the Little Black Devils succumbed to the poisonous fumes.
The battalion on the left obliged to retire and the 8th found itself in danger of being surrounded. But they held on, maintaining their proud record of never having lost a trench. While support battalions preparing new defences in their rear, the men of the Little Black Devils kept up a withering fire on the enemy, drove off an attack on their front and withstood a fearful enfilade fire from left and right.
The 90th can hold its bit
At this particular juncture when exhausted men fought against weariness, shell, gas and an enemy outnumbering the little garrison five to one, that a query came from HQ, asking how the 8th faring and if the position could be maintained. Colonel Lipsett consulted his Company Commanders. Saw his battalion standing to arms, eyes heavy, lips cracked, bodies racked but with spirits unconquerable. He sent back his reply: The 90th can hold its bit. And hold it, they did!
Durham Light Infantry
With the early morning of the 25 April 1915 came relieving troops from the Durham Light Infantry, but only for three companies of the Battalion. No. 4 Company, on the right, under Captain George Northwood, saw their relief start forward and then turn back. As the day wore on and the battle continued in intensity the Durhams seen gradually falling back. By six o’clock, no troops left in the front line except No. 4 Company and the Machine Gun Section of the Battalion. A letter from Major Munro at the time tells of the final act of that terrific engagement.
George Northwood stuck it out at the trenches until the last and fought like a tiger, as did Owen, Bell and young Andrews, all of whom we believe are captured.
Aftermath
The battle was over, but at what a cost! Major William Aird Munro‘s letter tells the story. Only the Colonel, McAleans, Morley, Scott, McLeod and myself in the line-up with two hundred and thirty-one other ranks on Tuesday evening when we reassembled at Wieltje. Of that battle, of which the 8th is prouder than of any other of its battle honours, John Buchan, English war historian wrote: Colonel Lipsett’s battalion, which held the pivotal point on Gravenstafel Ridge, did not move an inch.
After the war David Lloyd George paid the Battalion this tribute: The 8th, by steadiness under strain, was in saving the channel ports and removing the danger to England’s invasion.
In its description of the Second Battle of Ypres, the Times History carries lines that can also be recalled with pride: It is invidious to single out any battalion for special mention among troops, all of whom did so well. The 8th Battalion, the Winnipeg Rifles won special distinction at the second battle of Ypres for being the one regiment able to hold its trenches firmly although heavily gassed.
Rest
Two weeks in support followed their strenuous tunes at Ypres, and on 6 May 1915 the Little Black Devils moved back to Baileul for rest and reorganization. There followed in quick succession the battles of Festubert and Givenchy.
Battle of Festubert
On the 19 May 1915 the 8th entered the trenches at Festubert, and for three days severely tested. Pride of Regiment and a fighting spirit alone prevented them from forfeiting their claim to never having lost a trench. It was during the terrific bombardment at Festubert that CSM John M. Hay, now Major Hay and second in command of the Regiment, won his DCM for steadying his men under fire.
Battle of Givenchy
Before the close of this battle more than ninety per cent of the original strength of the 8th Battalion had become casualties. Only three of the original officers had escaped either death or wounds. A rest at Essars preceded the Battle of Givenchy – the next encounter in which the Battalion seriously engaged. The battle fought during the first week in June, and again the Little Black Devils covered themselves with honour. Succeeding tours of duty in the trenches at Givenchy alternated with rests at Bethune until the end of June, when they moved to Ploegsteert.
All Quiet on the Western Front
For a long weary period of nearly twelve months, trench warfare dragged its monotonous course. Throughout the entire period the Little Black Devils in the “Plug Street’ sector, taking its turn in front line, support, reserve and rest billets with the other battalions of the Division. Billets at Poperinghe and Meteren became familiar places. Working parties and casualties persisted. Trench raids initiated, and the losses they occasioned on the enemy increased their dislike for the verdamnt Canadians.
Were Canadians Savages in the Great War?
Ross Rifle
In June, 1915, the short Lee-Enfield substituted for the Ross rifle which had been found not adapted to the rigours of active service. It may be said, without prejudice, that the discarded rifles provided excellent material for constructing dug-outs and other trench accommodations.
Lieutenant-Colonel Lipsett, C.M.G. Colonel Lipsett’s promotion to the command of the Second Infantry Brigade in September, 1915, was a well-deserved tribute to a splendid leader, but a decided loss to the Battalion. He it was who had led them through Ypres, Festubert and Givenchy. Respected and admired by officers and men.
Following his command of the Second Brigade, Lipsett given the command as Major General of the Third Canadian Division. Lipsett killed in action on 13 September 1918.
Battle of St. Eloi
The Battle of St. Eloi mainly a story of 2nd Division tenacity, and the Battle of Sanctuary Wood, in its initial stages, a 3rd Division show. Both battles, however, ultimately engaged the entire Corps and the 8th Battalion suffered along with the others.
Mount Sorrel
The reverses endured in these battles. The 1st Division called on to prepare for a counter attack. The attack took place around Mount Sorrel on June 13th, and by nightfall all the lost trenches had been won back and the high ground around Hooge, Sanctuary Wood and Mount Sorrel was once again in the possession of the Canadians.
Three hundred casualties the price paid by the 8th in this battle, one of them being their commander Colonel Harold Halford Matthews. Many of the wounded Little Black Devils waited for two days before picked up.
Lieutenant Colonel H. H. Matthews, D.S.O.
Matthews commanded the 8th through the action at Mont Sorrel. While Matthews and his headquarters staff conferred with Lieutenant Colonel Frank Creighton of the 1st Battalion, the dugout was hit by a heavy German shell. Creighton and two 8th Battalion officers were killed while four more were injured. Matthews suffered wounds to his head and back. With Matthews invalided to England, command of the 8th passed to Major Kenneth Campbell Bedson.
The Somme
The Battle of the Somme had run its extravagant course for two months when the men of the Ninetieth arrived at Albert on 2 September 1916. A week later found them in the support trenches at La Boiselle. From that time until December the place names of the Somme battlefield became as familiar to the Ninetieth as Fish Creek and Batoche had been to an earlier generation. Warloy and Bouzancourt, the Brickfields and the Chalk pits, Thiepval and Mouquet Farm. All these came to know the badge with the rampant devil.
Battle of Flers-Courcelette
On 25 September 1916 the Battalion in the trenches east of Courcelette. The following day they engaged in the attack on the Zollern Redoubt and the Hessian and Regina Trenches. These and a hundred other places of lesser or greater importance will always be associated with Canadian valour. The four months fighting in the Somme at least threw off the pressure on the French at Verdun and paved the way for the successes of 1917.
The Battalion left Bruay on January 18th and moved up into the Lens area, arriving in Brigade support at Bully Grenay on 24 January 1917. They became acquainted with Fosse 10 and Houdain, Ecoivres and Angres, and experienced the hardships of a severe winter with continuous frost and snow.
The Battle of Vimy Ridge
Then for a week in April the name of the Canadians filled the reports from the Western front by their gallant work at Vimy Ridge. In a blinding snow storm they carried on to achieve Impossible victory. But they pressed on and m the face of withering artillery fire they held the Ridge on whose tragic slopes lay the bones of one hundred and fifty thousand French soldiers who died in vain efforts to carry it.
Food and water could be taken up only with the utmost difficulty and the decimation of pack trains and ration parties. In exploiting the Battle of Vimy, the Battalion called upon to undertake the capture of the village of Arleux. It was not an easy job, and the credit for this capture belongs almost exclusively to the men of the 8th. It was at the attack on the Arleux loop that Major John Percival MacKenzie, D.S.O., a very gallant soldier, was in temporary command of the Battalion.
In quick succession came the Battles of Fresnoy, Lens and the capture of Hill 70.
Passchendaele
A summer of hard, intensive and almost continuous fighting culminated in November. In that horrid of mud and blood called the Battle of Passchendaele. In those three days and three nights of maddening misery, no men died with more glory than the men of the 8th, yet many died and there was much glory. Passchendaele, key position to the enemy line on that end of the British front, wrested from the enemy.
Another Christmas at Bruay
The news that the Battalion allowed to spend Christmas again at Bruay received with cheers by very weary soldiers. It was a real home-coming, and for three weeks Les Petits Diables Noir enjoyed the hospitality of old friends. Many faces strange to the villagers, and there were those who looked in vain for their Canadian friends of a year ago. But it had been a hard year and the price of war must be paid.
1918 and Victory
Rumours of an impending enemy drive, were realized to the full when the Germans, in March, started their attack on the Fifth Army at Amiens. It came, it spent itself and it rolled back. The Ninetieth, along with the 1st Canadian Division, rushed to the Somme to help in the counter attack. During May and June they chafed in retirement and intensive training, as part of General Foch’s reserve waiting for the coming offensive.
The Battle of Amiens
Then came the orders for the secret concentration at Amiens, and at 4.20 a.m., on 8 August 1918 there began the most decisive battle of the whole war, the Battle of Amiens. The 8th had its full share m this significant engagement and particularly on the second day in cleaning out machine-gun nests from Hatchett Wood and capturing the village of Warvillers.
It was in this battle that Colonel Thomas Head Raddall, D.S.O., succeeded Colonel John Mervyn Prower in the command, killed leading his Battalion into action. His last act before succumbing to his wounds was to summon his orderly. Find Major Saunders, he said, and tell him to take command of the Regiment at once.
Sir Robert Borden
The action of the 9 August 1918 struck a terrible toll on officers and men from the 8th Battalion, in addition to the great loss it sustained also the death of its leader. When the tide of battle had passed on, the Chaplain of the Regiment, Captain the Reverend James Whillans, organized a burial party from the unit, and all fallen members of the Regiment brought in and buried together in a beautiful spit surrounded by trees.
As soon as it was possible the Padre got the necessary permission to have this hallowed ground as a cemetery, and it became known as Manitoba Cemetery because of the number of the men of the Ninetieth who were buried there.
Manitoba Cemetery
It is now a permanent Cemetery under the Imperial War Graves Commission.
The Battle of Arras
A hurried journey by tactical train to Arras followed the Battle of Cambrai. On 28 August 1918 the Battle of Arras involved the 8th and the other units of the 1st Division. The purpose of this engagement was to turn the right flank of the Hindenburg Line and pave the way for the assault on Cambrai.
On 31 August 1918 the Battalion completed the work on the Fresnes-Rouvroy line, broken by the 1st Brigade, and took part in the attack on the Drocourt-Queant switch line, an outwork of the Hindenburg line.
Canal du Nord
To the 8th and l0th Battalions given the honour of being the first to cross the Canal du Nord.
The Battle of Cambrai
Not until 27 September 1918, when the Battle of Cambrai opened, that the Battalion again engaged. A breach made in the Hindenburg Line, and the Pursuit to Mons commenced. Constant action and heavy fighting were the lot of the Ninetieth during this whole period, and they paid the full price in casualties and hard work.
The last action of the Battalion was the capture by “A” Company, under Captain C. B. Smith, of the village of Alasny and at the same time “C” Company under Captain Guilford Francis Dudley, the present Officer Commanding the Regiment, captured Auberchicourt. The last man of the 8th Battalion killed in the war a member of “C” Company, and the last enemy soldier to be killed by the 8th, killed by an “A” Company man.
It was at Auberchicourt where the Battalion received news on 11 November 1918. An armistice declared and at last the war ended.
The March to the Rhine
There followed the march to Germany. The Regiment crossed the Rhine with the band playing the old Regimental March. Pork, Beans and Hard-tack. And occupied the village of Porz am Rhein on the right bank of the Rhine near Cologne.
Home Again
A month’s stay in Belgium, awaiting orders for the return to Canada, spent at Les Waffles and Huy. On the 27th of March, 1919, the Battalion embarked at Le Havre for Weymouth.
The following month, 26 April 1919, they left England in the Empress of Britain. Arrived at Quebec on the 4th of May, 1919.
On Tuesday, 6 May 1919, welcomed back in Winnipeg. At their head was Lieutenant-Colonel Alex Laurence Saunders, D.S.O., M.C, a man who had enlisted as a private in 1914. He had gone to France early in 1915 and had risen rapidly from rank to rank. Until on the 8 August 1918, made commander of the Battalion on the death of Colonel Thomas Head Raddall.
Legacy
Casualties: 1,633 killed.
The highest credit belongs to those entrusted, during these years, with the responsibility of maintaining the life and traditions of the 90th. Difficult and, very often, heart-breaking work. Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur William Morley, confirmed in his command of the Regiment on the reorganization of the Canadian Militia on 15 September 1920. It was at this time that the Regiment lost its designation of “90th”. And became The Winnipeg Rifles, the numerical system of designation discontinued in the Canadian Militia. Colonel Morley rendered valuable service through these years, as did Colonel Cuthbert Cole Wansbrough, D.S.O., who succeeded him in 1924.
Valour Road
Pine Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Frederick William Hall, Leo Clarke and Robert Shankland all lived on Pine Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. It is believed to be the only street in the world to have three Victoria Cross recipients living on the same street.
The city of Winnipeg later renamed it Valour Road in honour of the men. A bronze plaque is mounted on a street lamp at the corner of Portage Avenue and Valour Road to tell this story.
Baron Byng of Vimy
In September 1919, the Regiment providing a Guard for the Prince of Wales on his visit to Winnipeg. Interesting to note that on this Guard of Honour there were two members of the Regiment with the Victoria Cross. Sergeant Alexander Brereton, V.C., and Sergeant Frederick George Coppins, V.C.
Another Guard of Honour the Regiment provided for His Excellency’ Baron Byng of Vimy. Governor-General of Canada and leader of the Canadian Corps in France prior to General Sir Arthur Currie.
Perpetuated by The Royal Winnipeg Rifles.
A beautiful memorial window in the chancel of All Saints Church, Winnipeg, dedicated to the memory of General Lipsett, erected by his comrades of the 8th Battalion, the 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade, and the 3rd Canadian Division. Each year, on the anniversary of his death, the 8th Battalion Association holds a Memorial Church Parade.
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