CEFRG asks, “Were Canadians Savages in the Great War?“
Savages
noun
- the quality of being fierce or cruel.
- (chiefly in historical or literary contexts) the condition of being primitive or uncivilized.
During the Great War, written Canadians earned a reputation for their savagery. This folklore may have been encouraged by the unfounded story of the Crucified Canadian. Whether true or not, war diaries and personal accounts do record this fact. When men entered the Ypres Salient for the first time, shown the spot where the alleged atrocity had taken place.
To kill them not for the sake of killing, but to save the world; to kill the good as well as the bad; to kill the young men as well as the old; to kill those who have shown kindness to our wounded as well as those fiends who crucified the Canadian sergeant…
AF Winnington-Ingram, Bishop of London in 1915
The Second Battle of Ypres Canada’s first significant engagement with German troops. A captured German soldier who understood English well, exclaimed, “You guys fight like hell”. The reputation endured right through to the end of the war. A German Colonel spoke with Canadian POW Fred Hamilton, shortly before the end of the war. A savage beating awaited Hamilton.
“I don’t care for the English, Scotch, French, Australians or Belgians. But, damn you Canadians, you take no prisoners and you kill our wounded”.
German Colonel to Canadian POW Fred Hamilton
Killing the enemy
Sir Arthur Currie took pride in the fact his troops prided themselves on killing the enemy. Wherever and whenever they could.
Perhaps Canadian troops more savage than soldiers of any other army. The reality though, they could not have been the only savages on the Western Front. Could they have been slightly more savage than the rest?
They were not prone to killing Prisoners of War. In fact, when Sir Arthur Currie took command of the Canadian Corps he gave strict orders not to be disobeyed. Prisoners to be treated humanely.
The reality
Without exception, the images captured by the Canadian Official War Photographers demonstrate this fact. Treatment of prisoners humane. Of course, had any photo shown otherwise, they would have been censored. But, the existing photographs do not lie.
These images captured on 15 September 1916 during the Battle of Flers-Courcelette. Any surprise revealed by the German soldiers in these images, is understandable. Canadians not the unpredictable savages that they had been told.
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