First Canadian contingent sails for England

On the afternoon of 3 October 1914 a great convoy set out for Europe from the bay off the town of Gaspé in Quebec. Some 30 transports (sources give between 30 and 32) carried the first contingent of the Canadian Expeditionary Force: according to various figures, between 31,000 and 33,000 soldiers and about 7,000 horses. It was the largest military convoy that had ever sailed from Canada.

From Valcartier to Quebec

When Britain declared war on Germany, Canada also found itself at war. The government of Prime Minister Robert Borden immediately offered London military assistance. The Minister of Militia and Defence, Sam Hughes, discarded the mobilisation plans prepared earlier and ordered volunteers to be sent to a new camp at Valcartier, north-west of Quebec City. The camp was built in a few weeks. In September it held more than 30,000 men, far more than had been planned. Hughes decided to send almost all of them to Europe.

At the end of September the soldiers, horses and equipment were taken to the port of Quebec and loaded onto ships. The loading was chaotic. The last-minute decision to send everyone fit for service wrecked the prepared plans, and units were loaded onto ships one after another as they came into port. The transports sailed down the St Lawrence River and assembled in Gaspé Bay, where British escort warships were waiting for them.

Across the Atlantic

The ships sailed in three columns, escorted by cruisers of the Royal Navy. The next day, off the coast of Newfoundland, they were joined by the steamer Florizel carrying the first contingent of the Newfoundland Regiment. On board were 537 volunteers, known as the “First Five Hundred” or the “Blue Puttees”, because for lack of khaki cloth they wore blue puttees.

The convoy was originally to put in at Southampton, but for fear of German submarines it was diverted to Plymouth. The ships arrived there on 14 October. The inhabitants welcomed the Canadians with great enthusiasm.

What happened next

The contingent spent the winter on Salisbury Plain, in tented camps flooded by almost incessant rain. At the beginning of 1915 it was formed into the 1st Canadian Division, which crossed to France in February. In April 1915 its soldiers had their baptism of fire in the Second Battle of Ypres, during the first great German gas attack on the Western Front.

The Newfoundlanders fought at Gallipoli in 1915. On 1 July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme, the regiment attacked at Beaumont-Hamel and in less than half an hour lost more than 700 of the roughly 800 men who went into the attack. The day is still observed in Newfoundland as a day of remembrance.