Canada Times Dec 2014 Final

THE CANADA TIMES

As it happened

Talbot Mercier Papineau Was an Unlikely Hero

Jeanie Johnston Educational Foundation Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jeruslem 155,du Buisson, Pierrefonds, P.Q.H8Y 2Z5 Tel.: 514-341-7777 Email: [email protected]

December 2014

The great grandson of Louis-Joseph Papineau, the Quebec patriot who led the 1837 Rebellion in Lower Canada, Talbot was a perfectly bilingual charismatic heartthrob, who attempted to stem the a rising

tide of Quebec separatism that swept through Quebec during the First World War. He was one of the first Quebecers to champion a pan-Canadian nationalism and might even have become Prime Minister if fate had not robbed him of the opportunity.

Talbot Mercier Papineau Was an Unlikely HeroAdapted by Leo Delaney and Alan Hustek

He was born on the family estate in the manor house at Montebello, on March 25, 1883. “There I was born, and there is where my heart is,” he often remarked. He was raised in an atmosphere of privilege. His mother, Caroline Rogers, was an American socialite from Philadelphia who insisted that Talbot be educated in English. He was sent to McGill University to study law and in 1905 won a Rhodes Scholarship to continue his studies in England. He returned from Oxford, opened a law office in Montreal, and quickly made his political ambitions known. In the 1911 general election, he campaigned for the liberals in the contest, which they lost. He went travelling around the world, and when war was declared in 1914 he immediately enlisted with the Princess Patricia’s

Light Infantry, not out of patriotic duty, but because, like many others, he believed “a good war” would enhance his credentials in the political arena.

He sailed for Europe in the fall of 1914, but in December, while he was still in England his tent caught fire and he was badly burned. He did not arrive in France until early 1915. He wrote vivid, often illustrated, letters to his mother in which he admitted that he was both a scared and inexperienced soldier. “My stomach seemed hollow,” he wrote in one of them. “My legs caught in barbed wire, but I stumbled through, somehow. I set my fuse and hurled my bomb ahead of me. From that moment on, all hell broke loose.” He was awarded a Military Cross, the British War Medal, and the Victory Medal for conspicuous gallantry at St. Eliot, on 28th February 1915, when he shot and killed two of the enemy then ran along “the German sap throwing bombs therein.” He came to national prominence back home when his “Dear Cousin” cousin, Henri Bourassa, who founded Le Devoir, opposed the war effort. Papineau’s reply to Bourassa’s editorials ran 10,000 words and was published in Le Devoir during the height of the 1916 conscription crisis.

“If you were truly a Nationalist – if you loved our great country and without narrow mindedness longed to see her become the home of a good and united people– surely…you would have felt that in the agony of her losses in Belgium and France that Canada was suffering the birth pangs of her national life. There, even more than in Canada herself, her citizens are being knit together into a new existence, because when men stand side by side and endure a soldier’s life, and face together a soldier’s death, they are united in bonds almost as strong as the closest of blood ties. My Dear Cousin, if you have arrogated yourself to the term of Nationalist, how can you not understand that if, without the sacrifice of the English soldiers we can never hope to become a nation ourselves. What matters not is not the whys and wherefores, or whether we are French or English… the one simple commanding fact is that Canada was at war, and Canada and Canadian values had to be protected. Could you have been here yourself to witness in all its horrible detail the cruelty of the war and seen your comrades struck down in death and naked at your side, even YOU would have

Manoir Papineau, family home of Louis-Joseph Papineau and grandson, Talbot Mercier Papineau

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The City of Ypres was of great importance as five battles occurred around that site.

In the first battle, the Allies halted the German forces and eventually surrounded the city on three sides, bombarding it throughout much of the war. The Second Battle of Ypres in 1915 was another attempt to capture the city. The Third Battle in 1917, commonly referred to as Passchendaele, was the most complex and was a five-month engagement. The fourth and fifth battles occurred in 1918.

British and Commonwealth soldiers often passed through the Menenpoort now known as the Menin Gate Memorial on their way to the front lines, with some 300,000 of them being killed in the Ypres Salient. Of these soldiers, 90,000 have no known graves.

failed to wish to visit punishment on those responsible. You too would wish to see every ounce of our united strength instantly and relentlessly directed to that end. If we are to preserve liberty we must recognize that we do not belong entirely unto ourselves, but to a mixed population, and we must rather to seek points of contact and of common interest than points of friction and separation. We must make certain concessions and certain sacrifices of our distinct individuality if we mean to live on amicable terms with our fellow citizens if we expect them to make similar concessions to us. The fact remains that the French Canadians have not responded in the same proportion as other Canadian citizens, and the unhappy impression has been created that French Canada is not bearing its fair share in this great Canadian enterprise. For this fact, and for this impression, you will be held largely responsible. You have brought (French Canadian nationalists) into a disrepute from which they may never recover. You have made the term Nationalist stink in the nostrils of our English fellow citizens. Wherever you go, you stir up strife and enmity; you bring dishonour to our race, so that whoever bears a French name in Canada will be an object of suspicion and possibly hatred. As I write, French and English are fighting and dying side by side. Is their sacrifice to go for nothing? Or will it not cement for a true Canadian nation, a Canadian nation independent in thought, independent in action, independent even in its political organization, but in spirit united for high international and humane purposes to the two motherlands – England and France?”

Talbot Papineau was killed at Passchendale on Oct. 30, 1917, hit in the stomach by a shell. What was left of his body was identified three weeks later by the puttees he had been wearing. Princess Patricia herself was the chief mourner at the memorial service in London. “Talbot Papineau became a symbol not only of Passchendale, but of all the golden promise cut down by the Great War,” Sandra Gwyn wrote in Tapestry of War. Had he lived, he may very well have succeeded Sir Wilfrid Laurier at the Liberal leadership convention in 1919 and gone on to become prime minister. Mackenzie King, who won the leadership, instead acknowledged Papineau as “the most brilliant man in Canada,” and said had Papineau lived, he (King) “would have been proud to have served in a cabinet with Talbot Papineau as Prime Minister.”

Justin Trudeau portrayed Talbot Papineau in a 2006 television documentary, The Great War. Trudeau said he took the role because he “could really relate to the character. Like me he had a certain heritage around the family name, he had an English-speaking mother, he believed in contributing to his country, and we were both talkers, with a similar energy … my sense of Canada as a peaceful country is tied directly to the fact that in order to be a peaceful country, we have a noble and glorious history in war, which we are forgetting.”

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It is the spring of 1963. I was in Ireland and I have done the usual things a tourist does on this beautiful island. I have looked at the Atlantic Ocean and Galway Bay from the Cliffs of Moher; driven the Ring of Kerry; had

tea and scones in Glenveagh Castle; lunched at the Ross Hotel in Killarney, and, of course, visited every pub I could find. I have never experienced the kind of warmth and hospitality that I found in this magical country.

I was born in the year 1898 on the outskirts of Hanover. I joined the German Youth Group in 1912 and two years later I found myself on the crew of a tugboat in the North Sea, loading hundreds of Mauser rifles onto a private sailing yacht called the Asgard. I remember that the rifles along with the boxes of ammunition completely filled the little yacht’s cabin. I was told the destination of this cargo was the little harbour of Howth in Ireland. Later that year, I joined a Panzer regiment and managed, somehow, to survive till the end of the war.

The highlight of my trip to Ireland took place in a crowded Dublin pub at lunchtime on Saint Patrick’s Day. The place was packed. I was about to head for the exit when I felt a tap on my elbow. A gentleman motioned me to take the second chair at his small table. He was a nicely dressed, handsome, elderly man, I guessed about my age, and I was pleased to join him. In front of him was a pint of Guinness and a whiskey chaser. I ordered the same.

Jack’s Story – The Great War of 1914-1918

The stranger introduced himself simply as Jack and for the next three and a half hours, we had the most extraordinary conversation I have ever had.

Jack asked me if this was my first visit to Ireland and if anything in particular had prompted the visit. I remembered the shipment of rifles and wondered if it might be a bad idea to mention it. I did anyway and he laughed. He said that as a youth he and some friends had taken some of those guns as they were unloaded from the yacht and could have got themselves into some serious trouble but for the fact that they had the wrong bullets. He told me that the shipment to Howth was in answer to much larger arms shipments made to the Ulster Volunteers in the north and that gun running played a very significant role in Irish history.

Jack joined the British army at a very early age, probably about fifteen. He was posted to England where he was enrolled in a course for wireless operators supervised by Marconi. This

DAS GLUCK DER IRELANDERBy Dieter Dortmunder

resulted in an unusually varied military career since wireless operators were in short supply in all branches of the British armed forces. He soon found himself with an infantry regiment in France. And here, on the front lines, his extraordinary adventures began. He experienced near starvation several times when supplies could not get through to the front. But he survived. A powerful enemy shell scored a direct hit on his dugout and killed all his mates, He was unconscious for several hours and certainly would not have survived had not a recovery team found him when they came only to retrieve the body of the regiment’s colonel.

When an artillery regiment needed a wireless operator at the front lines, Jack was transferred again. At this time, the regiment was at the site of a captured German gun emplacement where several horses, which had been used to haul heavy equipment, had been left to fend for themselves. Jack had never ridden a horse so

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during a lull in the proceedings, he was happy to give it a go. As soon as Jack was mounted, the horse decided to take the new rider as quickly as possible back to its stables behind the German lines. And off they went at full gallop. Not planning to attack the enemy yet, Jack slid down the side of the horse, landing in No Man’s Land uncomfortably close to the enemy lines. Out in the open, enemy snipers pinned down Jack. He waited until dark to crawl back to his unit. And he survived.

After a short leave back in Ireland, Jack was transferred to the Royal Flying Corps as an observer. This involved reporting the exact position of enemy gun emplacements from a balloon! Apparently, Jack was colour-blind and so was able to take fixes on enemy guns without the distraction of their camouflage. Even the most inexperienced enemy pilot would surely have little trouble shooting a big balloon out of the sky. Jack certainly had some “moments.” But he survived.

His next assignment was crew on Hanley Page bombers, again as an observer. British planes were relatively slow and thus were fairly easy prey to the faster German tri-planes that could fly at about twice the speed. German ace, Von Richtofen said the British aircraft were fairly easy to defeat as long as you didn’t fly underneath them. British pilots would often carry things like scrap metal that sometimes could be quite lethal when dropped from above onto an enemy plane. Von Richtofen reported that once ha had to crash land in a farmer’s field after his propeller was smashed to pieces by a flying toilet seat.

These bombers were constructed of very lightweight materials and hence were extremely frail and crashes were commonplace. Jack survived several. On one occasion, as his plane was taking off, the canvas floor he was sitting on, collapsed, dropping him out onto the runway. He was unhurt.

After the war, Jack married Mary Callow, daughter of a well-known Dublin family. They had two children, a boy and a girl. One evening, when returning from the theatre, Jack’s taxi was ploughed into by a truckload of drunken Black & Tans. His wife was quite severely injured. Jack was sent through the canvas roof of the taxi and landed on his feet more than twenty feet away. He was not injured.

Leaving the army, Jack joined the Irish post office as a clerk. When he retired, he had risen to the position of superintendent of all the postal services in Ireland.

There is a saying, I think it’s English – “A cat has nine lives.”

What about Jack?

No wonder they won the bloody war!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgxGxp6nQlQ

Check out this utube video (the trailer to The Great War) featuring Justin Trudeau

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We are working towards having the Battle of Chateauguay included in the curriculum for Quebec schools. That students are in ignorance of these historic times is very unfortunate. Former Premier, Jean Charest, has recommended a meeting with the Minister of Education to discuss this; we are awaiting a time and date.

The Minister of Public Affairs, Pierre Moreau, MNA, Chateauguay, has espoused our endeavours and written to M. Bolduc, Minister of Education.

We have also initiated a competition, for all schools across Canada awarding two prizes of $1000 each for the best power point presentation by a secondary student on the subjects “The Battle of the Chateauguay” and the “Battle of Queenston Heights.” LEARN, a division of Ministry of Education Quebec, and the Canada Education Agency, which covers all other Provinces, have agreed to finance the prize monies. We will require help in funding the research and web information which will enable students to compete.

Suggestions for new articles should be submitted to Alan Hustak, Editor. [email protected]

WEB SITES: click to view

www.irishfamine.ca – focusing on the effects of arrival of thousands of famine victims into Canada and the USA.

www.canadarailwaytimes.com – focusing on the building of the Victoria Bridge, the founding of the Grand Trunk railway and the effect of this on sports, entertainment, politics and education.

Did you know that the Victoria Bridge has only been closed for one day since it was built?

www.hospitaller.ca – focusing on the history and aims of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.

NEXT ISSUE:

We promise to tell you all about Voytek, the Soldier Bear, at Monte Casino and The Scots’ emigration to Poland

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This news letter is produced by the Jeanie Johnston Educational Foundation. In this issue, we feature Talbot Mercer Papineau, who was awarded the M.C. (Military Cross) one of the highest honours for bravery in the armed forces. He was the grandson of Louis-Joseph Papineau, one of French Canada’s most revered historical figures. He was also the first Canadian Rhodes Scholar and was educated at McGill University, Montreal. His letters to his cousin Henri Bourassa (Le Devoir) and to his mother were published widely, both in Canada and throughout the Commonwealth and are maintained in the Canadian Archives in Ottawa. It was thought, that if he had survived the war, his career in politics would have led to the Office of Prime Minister of Canada.

“May the Lord keep you in the palm of His hand and never close His fist too tight.”

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