1. Canada & The War Overseas
The Trenches + Battles

2. The Trenches

3. Trench Warfare: Standard Tactic
Trench warfare was the standard tactic in WWI.
The airplane was primitive and the tank had not yet been developed.
Although new technologies would “improve” WW1 strategies near the end of the war, trenches were the main method of battle.

4. Dimensions
Trenches were usually about 400 metres apart, 1.8 – 2.5 metres deep, there was a series of trenches behind the firing/front-line trench.
While some trenches were quite elaborate with burrowed rooms and raised wooden platforms (duckboards), others were primitive = no more than a muddy ditch filled with rotting victims of the war.

5. Protection Trenches offered protection from enemy fire (machine guns).
Yet soldier remained vulnerable to artillery (bomb) attacks and enemy raids.

11. Life in the Trenches: The Everyday
Wrote home to friends, family, wives/sweethearts = told them the truth and lies.
Ate & Slept = Froze in the snow and sleet, trenches would fill with icy water sometimes waste deep, would burrow into the side of trenches for dryness and to be out of the way of the other soldiers passing by.
Fought & Died = enough said.

12. Note from an Unknown Soldier
“Try and sleep with a belt full of ammunition around you, your rifle bolt biting into your ribs, entrenching tool handle sticking into the small of your back, with a tin hat for a pillow; feeling very damp and cold, with cooties (lice and other parasites) boring for oil in your armpits, and the air foul from the stench of grimy human bodies being whiffed into your nostril.”

13. Three Day Road Excerpts
Three Day Road takes readers deep into the horrors—physical, emotional and spiritual—of World War I via the Somme, Vimy Ridge, and Passchendaele.
The story is told through the voices of two Cree Natives – Xavier and Elijah.
Inspired in part by the life of Francis Pegahmagabow, the great First Nations sniper of World War I, Three Day Road is a compelling and viscerally powerful exploration of what war does to us and how we might heal from it.

14. Food Rations: British
The theoretical daily rations for a British soldier were:
20 ounces of bread
1/10 gill lime if vegetables not issued
16 ounces of flour instead of above
½ gill of rum
3 ounces of cheese
maximum of 20 ounces of tobacco
5/8 ounces of tea
1/3 chocolate – optional
4 ounces of jam
4 ounces of oatmeal instead of bread ½ ounce of salt
1 pint of porter instead of rum
1/36 ounce of pepper
4 ounces of dried fruit instead of jam
1/20 ounce of mustard
4 ounces of butter/margarine
8 ounces of fresh vegetables or
2 ounces of dried vegetables

15. Food Rations: Germans
The theoretical daily rations for a German soldier were:
26 ½ ounces of bread or
17 ½ of field biscuits or
14 ounces of egg biscuit
53 ounces of potatoes
4 ½ ounces vegetables
2 ounces dried vegetables

16. Life in the Trenches: The Horrors
Trench Foot = Rotting of the flesh between the toes; swollen, oozing puss, black feet.
Trench Mouth = Painful infection of the gums; rotting, decaying gums + teeth.

18. Trench Foot

19. Trench Mouth

20. Life in the Trenches: The Horrors
Body Lice = Lived in the mud-caked uniforms.
Rats = Fed off the garbage, human waste, and humans.
Men were shell-shocked = Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

21. Lice and Rats

22. Shell Shock/PTSD Shell Shock (1:32 minutes)
m/watch?v=SS1dO0JC2EE

23. No Man’s Land
“No Man’s Land” = Land between the trenches; certain death; barbed wire, craters, dead soldiers.
“Going Over the Top” = When officers ordered an advance into the land between enemy trenches; soldiers would be fully exposed to enemy fire.

28. The Christmas Truce of 1914
The Christmas Truce of 1914 was a series of widespread but unofficial ceasefires along the Western Front around Christmas 1914.
In the week leading up to the holiday, German and British soldiers crossed trenches to exchange seasonal greetings and talk.

29. The Christmas Truce of 1914
In areas, men from both sides ventured into no man's land on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to mingle and exchange food and souvenirs.
There were joint burial ceremonies and prisoner swaps, while several meetings ended in carol- singing.

30. The Christmas Truce of 1914
Men played games of football with one another, giving one of the most enduring images of the truce.
However, the peaceful behaviour was not ubiquitous; fighting continued in some sectors, while in others the sides settled on little more than arrangements to recover bodies.

31. The Christmas “Pause” of 1915
1915 Christmas Eve = Canadian and German soldiers sang Silent Night across No Man’s Land.
Such events never happened again for the duration of the rest of WWI.

33. The Battles in WW1

34. The Western Front
The Western Front was the name given to a theatre/location of war that was a series of trenches that ran 700 kilometres from the Belgian coast to the Swiss border.
These trenches were located in France, Belgium, Germany.

36. The Western Front
A series of battles were waged on this from between the Allies and the Central Powers from
Each side worked to advance on the front into occupied territory = it became a stalemate.

37. The Princess Patricia's: First Canadians on the Western Front

39. The Battle of Ypres, April 1915
Also known as the First Battle of Ypres (Flanders).
Where: Ypres, Belgium.
What/Who: French + Canadian Troops were defending Ypres when the Germans used chlorine gas against them (first use of poison gas in the history of warfare).

41. The Battle of Ypres, April 1915
Outcome/Result: The French + Canadian troops were forced to retreat although not pushed back completely, over 6, 000 Canadians lost their lives; Allied Victory.

42. The Battle of Ypres, April 1915
Significance: The first taste of trench warfare for Canadian troops; this was the first battle in which poison gas was used; over 6,000 Canadians were killed, missing, or wounded; Lieutenant-General Dr. John McCrae poem “In Flanders Fields”.

43. In Flanders Fields In Flanders fields, the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead, short days ago,
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields!
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands, we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

44. John McCrae

46. Battle of the Somme: A Slaughter July 1916
Where: Somme (River), France.
What/Who: Allied commanders tried to end trench warfare with a large attack on the German trenches at the Somme; Canadians, NFLD.
100,000 Allied troops directed to advance across no man’s land in broad daylight, in direct fire to get to German trenches.

47. Somme
River

48. Battle of the Somme: A Slaughter July 1916
Outcome/Result: Germans were not driven back and over 28,000 Canadian soldiers were killed; Newfoundland Regiment suffered 90% casualties.

49. Battle of the Somme: A Slaughter July 1916
Significance: Casualties for both reached million; tanks used for the first time; only a few miles of land gained; shell shock became apparent; 23 Canadian men were executed because they refused to return to the front.
It was a slaughter for the Allies and Central Powers.

51. The Battle of Vimy Ridge, April 1917
Where: Vimy, France (Between France and Belgium; near the Belgium border); part of the Battle of Arras.
Vimy was key high ground in Northern France = was important strategically because it was a strong natural fortress that was easy to defend and very dangerous to attack.

53. The Battle of Vimy Ridge, April 1917
What/Who: The ridge had fallen to German soldiers in 1914; Canadian troops tried to regain the ridge after the British and French troops had failed to effect a breakthrough.
Outcome/Result: Canadian were successful in taking “The Pimple”, although 3,000 Canadians were killed and 7,000 were injured.

54. The Battle of Vimy Ridge, April 1917
Significance (Part 1): First time that Canadian units fought together as one; this victory became a symbol of Canada’s independence – a nation-building moment; created an identity = Canadian . . .

55. The Battle of Vimy Ridge, April 1917
Significance (Part 2): as a result of the victory Canadian troops (Storm Troopers) were recognized as some of the best troops on the Western Front; Canadian troops led for the first by a Canadian = General Arthur Currie (before British – Douglas Haig & Julian Byng; Byng was still in command but Currie led the troops).

56. Arthur Currie

57. Canadian National Vimy Memorial,
Battlefield today
Canadian National Vimy Memorial,
Vimy , France,
1936, 2001

59. The Battle of Passchendaele, October 1917
Where: Passchendaele, Belgium.
Marshland in Belgium = use to be under the North Sea = British artillery had pockmarked the ground, destroying drainage = land became mud.
What/Who: Canadian troops were asked to attack the Germans; Currie fully in charge of Canadian troops (June 1917).

63. The Battle of Passchendaele, October 1917
Outcome/Result: Canadians gained 7km of land and held their positions until reinforcements arrived; however, the Germans soon gained back (in weeks) “their” lost land; 16,000 Canadians lost their lives; only 1 in 5 survived.

64. The Battle of Passchendaele, October 1917
Significance: The objection of Commander General Arthur Currie was overruled and his troops were forced into battle; many Canadian soldiers lost their lives.

65. Note: For All the Battles
If a soldier refused to follow any commands from their superior officer(s) or go AWOL they would be executed.

66. Note: For All the Battles
306 British and Commonwealth soldiers were executed for...desertion during World War I," records the Shot at Dawn Memorial.
Of these, 25 were Canadian, 22 Irishmen and five New Zealanders.

67. Note: For All the Battles
During the period between August 1914 and March more than 20,000 servicemen were convicted by courts-martial of offences which carried the death sentence.
Only 3,000 of those men were ordered to be put to death and of those just over 10 percent were executed.

69. Eastern Front
Theatre of war in Eastern Europe were the battles took place in Russia, Germany, Austria- Hungary, Rumania, Turkey.
Russia wanted access to the Dardanelles, a warm water port.

73. Canadian Deaths in War Boer War = 244 WWI = 66,655 WWII = 44,655
Korean War = 516
Peacekeepers = 121
Afghanistan = 158
ISIS Battle = 1

74. Next: The End of the Great War
Revolution, Treaties, and Reparations