When it comes to playing the tourist in the north east of France, there are some places that seem better ignored than visited.
One is Auberchicourt, close to heavy industry, a collection of small brown brick buildings with a sullen, poor feel to them.
Another is larger, Valenciennes, which among its charms has a curious sub-culture of face piercings and badly-done body tattoos. During peak traffic hours the highway that wraps around Valenciennes is desperately congested.
And a few miles away is Cambrai, an equally drab place, in my book.
Yet these towns, in October and November of 1918, were considered so important that thousands of Canadian soldiers died in and around them.
They were objectives in Canada’s “100 days,” – the period between Aug 8 in Amiens and Nov. 11 in Mons during which Canadian shock troops spearheaded the Allied push to end the German invasion of Belgium and France.
That last day of the war, Nov. 11, 1918, was a tough one for Canadian troops, and a decade later the events of that day became the subject of a huge libel trial that pitted the former commander of the Canadian Corps, Sir Arthur Currie, against a small Ontario newspaper. The Port Hope Evening Guide had published an editorial slamming Currie’s decision to keep his soldiers fighting even though he knew an armistice had been signed.
The editorial included the following: “There was much waste of human life during the war, enormous loss of lives which should never have taken place. But it is doubtful whether in any case there was a more deliberate and useless waste of human life than in the so-called capture of Mons. Veterans who had passed through the whole four years of war lie buried in Belgian cemeteries as the result of the “glories of Mons.'”
The editorial stated that when Currie and the officers of his staff arrived in the Mons town square on the afternoon of Nov. 11, there were Canadian soldiers prepared to shoot them.
The newspaper editorial wasn’t the first time Currie’s actions on the last day of the war had been criticized. They had come under question before in Canada’s parliament under protection of privilege. However, when Currie read the article in the Port Hope Evening Guide he decided to take a stand and sue for his reputation.
Currie argued that he was simply obeying orders to push the Germans right up until the 11 a.m. armistice deadline. But it came out in court that it had been left up to individual brigade commanders to decide whether to push into Mons. Some did, some didn’t.
Mons had much symbolic value for the Allies, as it had been the spot where the British Army was first fired upon on August 21, 1914 and they had lost the town. A Canadian recapture of Mons definitely had symbolic meaning – that the British recaptured on the last day the town they had first lost.
At the centre of the libel case though was the editorial’s claim that several Canadians had been killed in the attack on Mons.
Currie and his crack legal team went argued during that case that no Canadian soldier had died in combat on Nov. 11. They accepted that several had died of wounds on that day and that on Nov. 10 eight officers and 49 regulars were killed in combat.
However, during the trial, Currie conceded that a Private George Price had been shot and killed just outside Mons a few minutes before 11 a.m. on Nov. 11. He is considered officially to be the only Canadian to die in combat on Nov. 11.
But several former soldiers came forward during the trial to say they saw between three and a dozen Canadian soldiers dead in Mons on the last day of the war. But their testimony was considered hearsay and didn’t back the official record. It was not accepted as evidence in the trial.
But two pieces of information presented during the libel trial but rejected as hearsay can no longer be ignored.
First, there was a letter sent to the family of a Pte. Frederick William Joyce, 20th Canadian Battalion, from the battalion chaplain.
Joyce, of Toronto, joined up in March 1915 and had served through the Somme in 1916, Passchendaele and Vimy in 1917 and the push from Amiens to Mons in 1918.
The chaplain’s description of Joyce’s burial included “it was so sad that he was killed the last day of the fighting. He was quite conscious when he was brought in and I talked and prayed with him. Of course it was with difficulty that he spoke as he had been wounded in the jaw.”
In addition, the next witness, Cpl. Joseph Smith, who had joined up with Joyce in Toronto, stated outright that he was with Joyce at 3:30 a.m. on Nov. 11 moving in on Mons.
Smith said “there were lots of machine gun bullets flying around … because we was all ducking for them.”
He next saw Joyce between 10 a. m. and 11 a.m. that same day in a dressing station.
“It was 13 machine gun bullets Joyce had in him,” Smith told the court.
“He was hit in the face and mostly from the stomach up, the chest. I asked how he was feeling and he said ‘No good’, he was dying.”
However, Smith did not see Joyce actually die. That information came in the chaplain’s letter.
Regardless, both pieces of evidence were dismissed, as were descriptions of the burial of several Canadian soldiers in Mons on Nov. 13, 1918.
Currie won his libel case and was awarded $500 in damages.
Joyce is buried in the Auberchicourt British Cemetery on the outskirts of Douai, near Valenciennes. It is very difficult cemetery to find, but has had recent visitors who arrive mostly to see the grave of Sgt. Hugh Cairns of the 46th Battalion who died on Nov. 2, 1918, aged 21, having won a Victoria Cross.
I went to Auberchicourt in July of 2012 to pay recognition to Joyce and to write in the visitor book that I believe a piece of Canadian history needs to be rewritten.
Two Canadians died in combat on Nov. 11., not none, as the commanders originally stated, and not one, as was later upon.
Two men. Last day. And there were probably more.
For more, go to davidcarrigg.ca.