Referenced Links

The Bystander: a British weekly illustrated magazine, published from 1903, mixing society pages, reviews, and topical cartoons. Its best-known wartime feature was Bruce Bairnsfather's "Fragments from France," starring the stoic, walrus-moustached "Old Bill": arguably the single most famous cartoon character to come out of the whole war.

The Sopwith Camel: a British single-seat fighter biplane, and one of the most successful Allied aircraft of the war, credited with more air-to-air victories than any other Allied fighter type.

James Oliver Curwood's 1914 wilderness novel, narrated from the point of view of a part-wolf sled dog torn between the human world and the wild: a hugely popular adventure story in its day.

The light railways built behind the British lines came in several gauges: 60 cm was most common in France, but this stretch, evidently, ran to a full metre.

"Napoleon," or simply "Nap": a popular trick-taking card game, well established in Britain by this point in the war. Its highest bid, "nap" (winning all five tricks in a hand), is also the origin of the modern phrase "to go nap": betting everything on one outcome.

William Harrison Ainsworth's 1841 historical novel of the Great Plague and Great Fire of London.

A hugely popular mail-order "mind training" course run by the Pelman Institute in London: memory and concentration exercises sold as a path to self-improvement, with hundreds of thousands of enrolled "Pelmanists" worldwide by this point, Herbert Asquith and Robert Baden-Powell among them.

Almost certainly one of the several posthumous collections of Artemus Ward (Charles Farrar Browne), the pioneering American humorist, probably "Artemus Ward: His Travels" (1865), the second of his books after "Artemus Ward: His Book" (1862), though the exact title isn't confirmed.

John Masefield's 1917 account of the Somme battlefield, written after his own visits in 1916–17, by a future Poet Laureate.

A Gilbert Parker novel (1896): tension inside a French-Canadian family in rural Quebec, when the youngest daughter's romance with an outsider sets off a small rebellion against her father and her village.

Stanley J. Weyman's 1895 historical novel, set against the French Revolution: a Royalist nobleman torn between his sympathies for the peasantry and his loyalty to his own class.

William J. Locke's 1917 novel: a home-front story of a small English town seen through a disabled Boer War veteran, published the same year and, per contemporary bestseller lists, the third-best-selling novel in the United States that year.

Alexandre Dumas's 1844 classic: no introduction needed even in 1918.

A 1918 novel by William Pett Ridge, published by Methuen that same year: Ridge specialized in comic, character-driven fiction about London's working class.

H.G. Wells's "War and the Future: Italy, France and Britain at War" (1917): a work of war reportage and propaganda drawn from Wells's own visits to the Italian and French fronts, arguing for renewed Allied resolve.

No. 16 Squadron, formed at Saint-Omer in 1915 for reconnaissance and artillery-observation work: it had supported the Canadian Corps at Vimy Ridge that April, flying from Camblain-l'Abbé, and was doing the same this same month for the Battle of Hill 70 near Lens.

The 22nd Battalion, a French-Canadian unit today remembered as the Royal 22e Régiment ("Van Doos"): celebrated, but with an early reputation as rowdy and undisciplined. Around this time, men of the battalion reportedly chased their quartermaster over a dispute about food at Sandling Camp, a few miles from Robertson's own.

A trick-taking card game, still popular in Canada and Australia today, played with a modified deck to 500 points.

The American Expeditionary Forces: the United States' army in Europe, still new to the front in early 1918 following America's entry into the war the previous April.

Assistant Provost Marshal: the officer, usually a captain or major, responsible for military police and discipline within a division.

The Amalgamated Society of Engineers, Britain's largest skilled engineering trade union: already behind the war's biggest strike so far, in May 1917, over the dilution of skilled labour, and heading for another major one that July over a government hiring embargo in Coventry and Birmingham.

The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders: whether this refers to someone from the British regiment or its like-named Canadian counterpart (the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada) isn't specified here.

A large variety and music hall theatre in London's Leicester Square, popular with soldiers on leave.

General Edmund Allenby's Egyptian Expeditionary Force had captured Jerusalem in December 1917 and was continuing operations into Palestine through the following year. This is almost certainly the same Murray mentioned in earlier letters as "chasing around Egypt with his Battery": Uncle Jim's Murray, a different relative from Robertson himself.

A West End theatre in London, still in operation today.

A French board game, patented in 1908 by Hermance Edan: two-player, pieces of different ranks trying to capture each other's flag. Directly ancestral to the much later, better-known Stratego.

Brigadier-General George Tuxford, commander of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Brigade.

Captain Bruce Bairnsfather, whose cartoons of the walrus-moustached old soldier "Old Bill" in the mud of the trenches were the most popular British humour of the war.

A battle fought June 2–13, 1916 near Ypres, in which German forces captured and the Canadian Corps recaptured a series of low ridges: costly fighting that cost the lives or freedom of the most senior Canadian officers lost in a single action during the war.

Fought April-May 1915 in Belgium: the first large-scale use of poison gas in the war. Canadian troops played a defining role holding the line near St. Julien.

A young English actress and dancer, a popular West End performer during the war.

"The Bing Boys Are Here," a revue that opened at the Alhambra in April 1916 and became the war's biggest London hit: the show that introduced "If You Were the Only Girl in the World."

A dramatic coastal ravine and long-running tourist attraction on the Isle of Wight, England.

Andrew Bonar Law, a senior British politician who at this time served as Colonial Secretary; he would go on to become Chancellor of the Exchequer and, briefly, Prime Minister in 1922-23.

Lieutenant-General Sir Julian Byng, commander of the Canadian Corps from 1916: the Byng whose name the Corps' men would soon proudly borrow ("the Byng Boys") after Vimy.

The Chinese Labour Corps: part of a workforce of roughly 140,000 Chinese labourers recruited by Britain from 1916 onward for manual work behind the lines, the same workforce referred to elsewhere in the diary as "roustabouts" and, in period slang, "celestials."

Canadian Mounted Rifles: Canadian units that served dismounted, as infantry, for most of the war.

Canadian Railway Troops: construction battalions that built and maintained the light and standard-gauge lines feeding the front. The 3rd Battalion, CRT (formed from the 239th Battalion), had arrived in France that March: not to be confused with the C.R.T.D., a different unit entirely.

Canadian Trench Mortar Battery: a unit operating trench mortars in direct support of the infantry.

A patience/solitaire card game, first recorded in England in 1891 as "Demon Patience": it picked up the name "Canfield" in the US after a (probably exaggerated) story that casino owner Richard Canfield turned it into a house gambling game. Evidently played socially among several officers here, rather than solo.

The senior Protestant chaplain of the 1st Canadian Division, well known and much loved by the men for his frequent visits to the front lines despite the danger.

A grand hotel in London popular with officers on leave; it stood until being damaged in the Blitz and later demolished.

The Champs-Élysées, Paris's grand central avenue running from the Place de la Concorde up to the Arc de Triomphe.

Charing Cross: a major railway station and area in central London, a common departure/arrival point mentioned repeatedly.

A branch of the fashionable Ciro's restaurant chain (its first location opened in Monte Carlo in 1897), operating in Paris from 1912 at 6-8 Rue Daunou, on the ground floor of the Hôtel Daunou: an elite bar and restaurant, exactly the kind of place an officer on leave might treat himself to.

The medieval Cloth Hall in Ypres, one of the war's most photographed ruins after being reduced to rubble by German shelling.

The Coldstream Guards: one of the five regiments of Foot Guards, and the oldest regiment in continuous active service in the British Army, tracing back to 1650.

A French military decoration for acts of heroism, awarded to soldiers of Allied nations as well as French ones: the rough French equivalent of the British Military Cross that Robertson himself would receive less than a year later.

Major-General Sir Arthur Currie, commander of the 1st Canadian Division: he would succeed Byng in command of the whole Canadian Corps in June 1917.

The Distinguished Conduct Medal, a decoration for gallantry awarded to non-commissioned officers and other ranks: roughly the equivalent, for enlisted men, of what the Military Cross was for officers.

The Distinguished Service Order: a British and Commonwealth military decoration, ranking above the Military Cross, awarded chiefly to officers for gallant and distinguished command in action. See the context box below for more on how it compared to Robertson's own M.C.

The Allied campaign to take the Dardanelles strait and knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war, launched in early 1915. This rumor that the strait had already been "taken" was premature: the campaign was in fact a long, costly failure that dragged on until early 1916.

A popular British cigarette brand of the period, named after the opera singers Jean and Édouard de Reszke.

Jean Webster's 1915 epistolary novel, a sequel to her better-known "Daddy-Long-Legs".

A French singer and actress who became hugely popular on the London stage during the war, especially in wartime revues.

Almost certainly the Grand Hôtel (today the InterContinental Paris Le Grand): Paris's grandest 19th-century hotel, opened in 1862 right beside the Palais Garnier opera house, which fits neatly with the opera trip the following night.

Canada's national holiday, marking the 1867 Confederation: celebrated as "Dominion Day" until the name was officially changed to Canada Day in 1982.

Most likely a Caudron G.4, a French twin-engine biplane in Allied service since late 1915, used for reconnaissance and light bombing: genuinely novel enough at this point in the war that a soldier on the ground would take note of its two engines. Not confirmed as the exact aircraft, but a strong fit for the description and the timing.

A class of battleship that made all earlier warships obsolete on its introduction in 1906, triggering a naval arms race between Britain and Germany that was itself one of the tensions leading into the war.

Constance, Duchess of Westminster, who personally funded and ran a military hospital at Le Touquet, France: one of several wealthy society women who put their own money and organizational skill into wartime medical care.

Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught: a son of Queen Victoria and a former Governor General of Canada (1911–16), a guest of honour at the 1918 Dominion Day sports.

The Expeditionary Force Canteens: the organization running canteens and refreshment stands for Canadian and British troops, the forerunner of what became the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes (N.A.A.F.I.) after the war.

The campaign in German East Africa (mainland Tanzania), where a small German force held out through guerrilla warfare until after the Armistice.

Egypt was a major British base and the starting point for the campaign against the Ottoman Empire in Sinai and Palestine.

By early 1916, Egypt had become a major staging ground for British and Commonwealth forces: defending the Suez Canal, absorbing troops evacuated from the failed Gallipoli campaign that January, and building toward the Sinai and Palestine Campaign against the Ottoman Empire. It's likely this buildup that put Uncle Jim's Murray there with his battery.

A popular English stage actress of the Edwardian era, known for starring roles in West End musical comedies.

Field Punishment No. 1: a common disciplinary punishment for minor offences, restraining the convicted man to a fixed object for up to two hours a day. Issued on over 60,000 occasions by the British Army during the war.

A leading English stage actress of the day (sister of the novelist Compton Mackenzie) then playing in the comedy "The Boomerang."

The Royal Aircraft Factory F.E.2b: a two-seat "pusher" biplane (propeller mounted behind the pilot, for an unobstructed forward field of fire), by 1918 outdated as a day fighter but still flying night bombing and reconnaissance sorties.

Locating enemy guns by observing their muzzle flashes from several points at once and triangulating the position. It worked alongside sound ranging under the Corps Survey Section.

Marshal Ferdinand Foch: appointed Allied Supreme Commander in March 1918, the first single command uniting French, British, and American forces, and made a Marshal of France that August once the tide had turned.

A famous Paris music hall and cabaret, opened in 1869 and still a major draw for entertainment-starved soldiers on leave decades later.

A field detachment of the Canadian Forestry Corps: non-combatant lumbermen supplying the huge quantities of sawn timber the war effort needed. Canadian foresters produced roughly 70% of the timber used by the Western Allies.

J.W. Fortescue's multi-volume "A History of the British Army": Volume I runs from the Norman Conquest up to Marlborough's last battle at Malplaquet in 1709, covering Blenheim, Ramillies, and Oudenarde along the way, and is almost certainly the volume Robertson means here.

A prominent British sheet-music publishing house of the era, one of the top sources for the popular songs of the day.

A fellow McGill man, born just sixteen days after Robertson in 1894: killed at the Second Battle of Ypres and posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross, the first Canadian of the war to receive it.

The Guards Division: formed August 1915 from battalions of the elite Foot Guards regiments, and fighting on the Western Front for the rest of the war, including at Passchendaele that same autumn.

A British artillery general; his son John Bagot Glubb would later become the celebrated "Glubb Pasha," commander of Jordan's Arab Legion.

A Royal Navy pre-dreadnought battleship, serving at this time as flagship of the North America and West Indies Station, based at Halifax.

A mild American and Canadian euphemism for "goddamn": one of the few places the diary's usually plain language turns folksy.

A 1917 American wartime hit song, reaching No. 1 that year: patriotic, upbeat, and exactly the kind of pop-culture shorthand for "France" that Robertson is teasing Doris about.

A German twin-engined heavy bomber, used for both long-range raids on England and night bombing behind the lines in France: "Gotha" became the generic name for any German bomber, regardless of the actual type.

The main British battle fleet of the Royal Navy, based at Scapa Flow: American destroyers had begun operating alongside it following the United States' entry into the war that April.

A Royal Navy armoured cruiser, part of the 4th Cruiser Squadron based at Halifax to escort troop convoys across the Atlantic: the same ship that led Robertson's own convoy out of Halifax harbor a few days later.

A wealthy Canadian who personally funded the founding of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry in 1914 and served with the regiment himself, despite being wounded multiple times.

A fellow Canadian Engineer officer, recurring from 1916 into 1918: dinner with Birkett in September 1916, frequently through late 1917 when he's slated to become C.R.E. of the 1st Division, and named in a January 1918 Times list of D.S.O. awards. Identified as Halfdan Fenton Harboe Hertzberg (1884-1959), later a Major-General: distinguished from his brother Charles S.L. Hertzberg, a different officer on the same wartime seniority list.

The pen name of John Hay Beith, whose "The First Hundred Thousand" (1915) was a hugely popular, lightly fictionalised account of raising and training one of Kitchener's New Army units.

A real and still-existing manufacturer, founded 1905, known for air compressors and rock drills: here powering an air-lift system to draw water from a deep well, the kind of heavy mechanical plant an E. & M. Company operated.

Les Invalides: a 17th-century complex of monuments and museums built as a veterans' hospital, and, since 1861, Napoleon's tomb.

The Alpine front between Italy and Austria-Hungary: a comparatively quiet stretch of the war by this point, though that would change dramatically with the Central Powers' breakthrough at Caporetto that same month.

The British philosopher and political economist (1806–1873): best known for "On Liberty" and "Utilitarianism." The diary doesn't say which of his books Robertson was reading.

The King's (Liverpool Regiment): Capt. Thomas, a dinner guest with firsthand stories of the Fifth Army's ordeal and Hangard Wood, belonged to its 12th Battalion.

The King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment, a British infantry regiment.

Keewatin, Ontario (Robertson's own birthplace) was home to the Lake of the Woods Milling Company, one of Canada's largest flour millers by this point in the war, producing the "Five Roses" and "Harvest Queen" brands from a mill on the Winnipeg River; by 1916 the Keewatin-Kenora area was calling itself the flour milling capital of Canada.

A make of heavy motor truck built by the Kelly-Springfield Motor Truck Company of Ohio; trucks of this type were used for military transport during the First World War.

Possibly Kenneth Stuart, a Canadian officer who went on to become one of Canada's most senior generals in the Second World War: identification uncertain.

King Constantine I of Greece, nicknamed "Tino": his contested neutrality and perceived pro-German sympathies made Greece's role in the war a major diplomatic flashpoint at the time.

Raphael Kirchner, an Austrian illustrator whose postcards of women (glamour art bordering on early pin-up) were hugely popular with soldiers on both sides, widely pinned up in trenches, huts, and messes throughout the war. Robertson picking some up here as mess decoration is an ordinary, of-its-time purchase; Kirchner himself had died less than a month earlier, on August 2, 1917.

Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne: a former Foreign Secretary, whose open letter published in the Daily Telegraph on 29 November 1917 calling for a negotiated peace caused a public sensation and was widely denounced as defeatist.

An American-born entertainer who became a popular star of London wartime revues.

France's highest order of merit, founded by Napoleon in 1802: awarded here to Rolston, a Canadian officer, as one of the honours France periodically extended to allied officers for service alongside French forces.

Lincolnshire, a county on England's east coast: home to Killingholme Air Station, mentioned here.

David Lloyd George: British Secretary of State for War in 1916 and Prime Minister from December 1916. The description of the conflict as "the engineer's war" is attributed to him.

George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston: a former Viceroy of India, at this point a senior member of the small War Cabinet under Lloyd George and Leader of the House of Lords.

Lt.-Col. William Griesbach, commanding the 49th Battalion (Edmonton): a former mayor of Edmonton, later a brigadier-general and senator.

A chain of large, affordable London restaurants run by J. Lyons & Co., well known for their size and their "Nippy" waitresses: a common stop for soldiers on leave.

Motor Machine Gun: the Canadian motor machine gun units, machine guns mounted on motor vehicles.

Military Police.

The Meritorious Service Medal: extended during the war to recognize valuable service by warrant officers and senior NCOs, regardless of length of service.

Mobile Veterinary Section: a field unit of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps responsible for treating sick and injured horses and mules near the front. No. 1 Canadian M.V.S. crossed to France in February 1915; No. 2 was organized at Shorncliffe that July.

A canned meat-and-vegetable stew that was a standard British Army field ration: famously unpopular with the men who had to eat it.

The Palais Garnier: Paris's ornate, gilded 19th-century opera house, and by 1918 already the city's primary opera venue for over forty years. "Magnificent" undersells it a little.

Almost certainly Major-General James Melville Babington, commanding the 23rd Division, which moved to the Shorncliffe area in March 1915: the same time and place as this inspection.

A Hungarian operetta, staged in London under the English title "The Marriage Market" during this period.

One of the many squat coastal defense towers built along the English coast in the early 1800s against a feared Napoleonic invasion: by 1915 just a scenic local landmark near the Kent training camps, evidently a decent spot for an afternoon nap.

Sir John Martin-Harvey, one of the last of the great English actor-managers, here appearing in Shakespeare's "Henry VIII."

Major-General Malcolm Mercer, commander of the Canadian 3rd Division, killed in action at Mont Sorrel in June 1916: the highest-ranking Canadian officer killed during the war.

Franz Lehár's hugely popular 1905 operetta, the kind of frothy, romantic musical comedy Robertson has in mind as emblematic of Paris's pre-war reputation for gaiety.

The British and Indian campaign against the Ottoman Empire in what is now Iraq, 1914–1918.

German for "mine launcher": a family of German trench mortars, feared for their heavy, slow-moving shells, nicknamed "minnies" by Allied troops.

Maurice Arthur Pope, M.C.: "Mk.III Pope," a McGill engineer (B.Sc. 1911) and son of Sir Joseph Pope; commissioned into the Canadian Engineers, he crossed to France with Robertson in January 1916. Later a lieutenant-general and Canadian ambassador.

A village near Folkestone, Kent, used as training ground by Canadian forces stationed in the area during the war.

A hill about 7km northwest of Bailleul, topped by a Trappist monastery: close enough to the front to be used for billets and rest areas, as here, while still offering a wide, quiet view over the surrounding countryside.

Mr. Wu began as a British stage melodrama, first performed in London in 1913 with Matheson Lang in the title role, and toured widely before being adapted into film versions in 1919 and 1927 (also starring Lang). The production Robertson saw at the Pleasure Gardens Theatre in 1915 would have been the touring stage play, well before either film existed.

The hill at the heart of Montreal that gives the city its name: Robertson's own hometown, and presumably a familiar ride or walk from before the war.

The largest naval battle of the war, fought May 31 – June 1, 1916 between the British and German fleets. Tactically inconclusive but strategically a British success, since the German fleet never again seriously challenged British control of the North Sea.

The corrugated-steel prefab shelter, designed in 1916 by Major Peter Nissen and used throughout the rest of the war (and long after) for billets, stores, and workshops: cheap, quick to erect, and endlessly reusable.

Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry: one of the first Canadian infantry regiments in France, in action well before most of the rest of the Canadian Expeditionary Force.

A paillasse: a cloth casing filled with straw or similar material and used as a simple mattress, common bedding in barracks and other institutional settings.

A trick-taking, points-based card game related to All Fours, popular in North America in this period: evidently Doris's favorite of the games she lists.

The April 1918 extension of Britain's Military Service Act, raising the upper age limit for conscription to 50 (with power to go as high as 56 if needed): a direct response to the manpower crisis exposed by the German Spring Offensive, and passed alongside the deeply controversial, never-implemented extension of conscription to Ireland.

Charles Dickens's first novel (1836-37), a loosely-plotted comic account of the Pickwick Club's misadventures around England: old, safe, undemanding reading, of the sort well suited to a lazy Sunday.

One of Paris's largest public squares, at the eastern end of the Champs-Élysées: the site of the guillotine during the Revolution, by 1918 simply one of the city's grand landmarks.

A theatre in Folkestone, a popular entertainment venue for troops stationed nearby throughout the war.

The Pont Alexandre III, an ornate Belle Époque bridge over the Seine, built for the 1900 Exposition Universelle and named for the Russian tsar.

The British name for the card game also known as Blackjack or Twenty-One, a common way for soldiers to pass idle time.

A stage comedy about two quarrelsome partners in the New York cloak-and-suit business, dramatized by Montague Glass and Charles Klein from Glass's magazine stories. It opened on Broadway in 1913 and in London in 1914.

President Woodrow Wilson, whose "latest note" here was a real April 18, 1916 ultimatum threatening to break diplomatic relations with Germany over unrestricted submarine attacks: the context box on the May 2, 1916 diary entry covers how it played out.

This rumor was false: the United States remained neutral for two more years, finally declaring war on Germany on April 6, 1917.

The Royal Artillery Band: Britain's oldest permanent military band, representing the Royal Regiment of Artillery: one of many army bands that toured behind the lines to entertain troops out of the line.

Royal Canadian Horse Artillery: Canada's regular field artillery force.

The Royal Canadian Regiment, one of Canada's oldest permanent infantry regiments, serving throughout the war as part of the Canadian Expeditionary Force.

The Royal Engineers, the British Army's engineering corps. Canadian engineer units like Robertson's own field companies worked closely within this same framework.

The Royal Aircraft Factory R.E.8 ("Harry Tate"): the standard two-seat corps reconnaissance aircraft of this stage of the war, and the type V Sqdn itself flew; see the context box on the diary's January 10, 1918 entry for more.

Royal Field Artillery: the British Army's mobile, close-support artillery arm, the largest branch of British artillery during the war.

The Royal Flying Corps, the aerial warfare branch of the British Army until 1918, when it merged with the Royal Naval Air Service to form the Royal Air Force.

The Royal Garrison Artillery: operating the army's heaviest guns and howitzers, as distinct from the lighter, more mobile Royal Field Artillery.

Sir Robert Borden, Prime Minister of Canada from 1911 to 1920, who led the country through the First World War.

Royal Naval Air Service: the air arm of the Royal Navy until 1918, when it merged with the Royal Flying Corps to form the RAF.

The 63rd (Royal Naval) Division: formed from Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve personnel not needed at sea, it fought at Gallipoli before moving to the Western Front. It entered the Second Battle of Passchendaele on October 26, 1917, matching the communiqué Robertson copies out here two days later.

The Royal Yacht Squadron: an exclusive British yacht club based at Cowes, on the Isle of Wight, since the early 19th century.

Heavy artillery pieces mounted on railway cars: able to fire shells far heavier than any horse- or tractor-drawn gun could manage, at the cost of being confined to wherever the rails ran.

A White Star Line ocean liner requisitioned as a troopship during WWI, carrying Canadian soldiers overseas to England.

The Allied front based on Salonika (Thessaloniki) in northern Greece, opened in 1915 against Bulgaria and its allies.

Sir Sam Hughes, Canada's Minister of Militia and Defence from 1911 to 1916: the driving force behind Canada's early war mobilization, though an increasingly controversial and disorganized one. Dismissed by Prime Minister Borden in November 1916.

The Basilica of Albert, France, whose gilded statue of the Virgin Mary was struck by a shell and left leaning at a dramatic angle for most of the war: one of the most photographed sights of the Western Front.

A 1905 adventure novel by Baroness Orczy, about an Englishman secretly rescuing French aristocrats from the guillotine during the Revolution: swashbuckling, escapist fiction, and a natural choice for killing time in bed on a snowed-in morning.

A prominent English actor, writer, and theatre manager; husband of Ellaline Terriss, with whom he frequently performed.

A famous traditional English restaurant on the Strand in London, still in operation today, known for its roast meats.

Field Marshal Sir William Robertson: Chief of the Imperial General Staff from December 1915 to February 1918, and the only man in British Army history to rise from private soldier to field marshal. No relation to the diarist, despite the shared surname.

A British-designed trench mortar, one of the first of its kind, used for high-angle indirect fire against enemy trenches at close range.

A Canadian officer of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, later well known for a public letter debating French-Canadian participation in the war. He was killed in action in 1917.

The evening bugle call signalling curfew: from Dutch "doe den tap toe" ("turn off the taps"), originally sounded to close garrison-town taverns and send soldiers back to barracks for the night.

A British musical comedy, music by Howard Talbot and Hugo Felix, which opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London in September 1913.

Tom Longboat (Cogwagee), an Onondaga runner from Six Nations of the Grand River, Ontario: one of the most famous distance runners in the world before the war, winner of the 1907 Boston Marathon. He served overseas with the Canadian Expeditionary Force as a dispatch runner.

A British musical comedy that opened in London in 1915, popular among soldiers on leave.

The transport section of the Prince of Wales's Own (West Yorkshire Regiment): a British infantry regiment that fielded 22 battalions on the Western Front over the course of the war.

A painful gum infection, formally acute necrotizing ulcerative gingivitis: nicknamed "trench mouth" for how common it became among soldiers living in the unsanitary, stressful conditions of trench warfare.

A famous restaurant and entertainment venue in London's Piccadilly Circus.

The Tuileries Garden, laid out in the 16th century between the Louvre and the Place de la Concorde: one of Paris's oldest and largest public gardens.

The British Fifth Army: badly battered by Operation Michael in March, when it bore the brunt of the German Spring Offensive's opening blow (see the context box on the diary's March 21, 1918 entry) and was pushed back well short of Amiens.

No. 5 Squadron (written "V Squadron" in RFC style): an artillery-observation squadron flying the R.E.8 by this point in the war, working closely with the Canadian Corps through to the end of the war. A Bethune-area neighbour Robertson visits repeatedly through the winter of 1917-18; see the context box on the diary's January 10, 1918 entry for Hamel, a Canadian officer serving with the squadron.

Voluntary Aid Detachment: a British organization providing volunteer nursing and medical support, largely staffed by women, that supplied a huge share of the nursing labor behind the front lines during the war.

A Red Star Line ocean liner requisitioned as a troopship, ferrying Canadian troops from Halifax to Liverpool in this period. Later in 1915 she was renamed Southland (to shed her German-sounding name) and was torpedoed in the Aegean Sea, though she survived and was repaired.

Two major world's fairs ran in California through 1915: the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, and the smaller Panama-California Exposition in San Diego: both marking the recent completion of the Panama Canal. Robertson had considered a trip to California himself before deciding, as he puts it, to "take a free trip to Europe instead."

A West End theatre in London, still in operation today.

The Battle of Verdun, February-December 1916: one of the longest and costliest battles of the war, fought almost entirely between French and German forces, and a byword for attritional slaughter.

French for "twenty-one": a gambling card game recorded in France since the 18th century (Napoleon Bonaparte among its noted players) and the direct ancestor of blackjack. Robertson and Sturt play it again a few days later, apparently spelling it by ear as "Vanty."

Members of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, formed in 1917 to free up men from non-combat roles (cooking, clerical work, driving) behind the lines.

Canada's domestic war-bond program: the first raised in November 1915, with the campaigns growing steadily larger and, from the fourth campaign that same month, officially rebranded "Victory Loan." Canadians would end up lending their own government over $1.7 billion over five domestic bond drives.

The 1914–16 campaigns that captured the German colonies of Togoland and Kamerun in West Africa.

A classic English trick-taking card game, popular for centuries before bridge eclipsed it: one of several card games Doris and Murray compare notes on in this exchange.

Brigadier-General Victor Williams, captured by German forces during the Battle of Mont Sorrel in June 1916.

Also known as a Bangalore torpedo: a long tube packed with explosive, pushed or thrown under barbed wire and detonated to blow a gap through it, letting troops advance without having to cut the wire by hand under fire.

Erecting the barbed-wire entanglements in front of the trench line: work done at night, by hand, and one of the standard engineer jobs in the line.

The Y.M.C.A., which ran rest huts, canteens, and recreation facilities for troops in transit at rail junctions and base camps like Étaples all along the Western Front.

A rigid airship used by Germany for reconnaissance and early bombing raids on Britain during the war: a genuinely novel and frightening threat at the time, since it was the first war in which civilians on the home front faced regular aerial attack.

A first cousin of the diarist's, serving with the 20th Canadian Battalion: visits and corresponds through the spring of 1918 and is wounded by shrapnel that April.

The diarist’s own Canadian Great War Project record.

Capt. Hugh Brabazon Boswell, a Permanent Force officer of the Canadian Engineers: a close friend and frequent companion from 1916 onward, who by October 1917 commanded the 2nd Army Troops Company.

Named in the June 3, 1916 entry among the casualties of Mount Sorrel, with Mercer and Williams missing and Hamilton Gault wounded. The linked page is his Canadian Great War Project record.

"Bell": Charles Austin Bell, M.C. and Bar, a Canadian Engineer officer (2nd, then 3rd Field Company, C.E.). Among the New Year 1917 list of Military Crosses, and badly wounded on the opening morning of the Battle of Amiens, August 8, 1918.

Captain W. L. L. Cassels: "W. Cassels," Sci. '13, a former Editor-in-Chief of the McGill Daily; a Canadian Engineers officer who crossed to France with Robertson's draft in January 1916 and was wounded that April.

Charley Allen, Robertson's first cousin, living and working in London, who hosts Robertson on his visits to the city.

Lieutenant Charles Ottly Fellowes, M.C. ("Charley" to Robertson): a Canadian Engineer signals officer, named in dinners and career moves through the spring of 1918.

Lieutenant James Curzon Morrow: "Cur" to Robertson, a close friend and roommate; a McGill man in the 3rd Field Company, Canadian Engineers, killed by a rifle grenade on 26 April 1916 while taking Robertson's turn in the line.

Lieutenant Edward Phillips Fetherstonhaugh, M.C.: "Fether," a University of Manitoba engineer who crossed to France with Robertson's draft in January 1916 and was decorated alongside him in 1917.

Lieutenant George Hager Gilchrist, M.C.: a McGill man who went overseas with the 24th Battalion's machine-gun section in 1915, was commissioned into the 2nd Canadian Tunnelling Company in July 1916, and won the Military Cross in 1917.

Lieut. Harold Lea Fetherstonhaugh, M.C.: an architect and artillery officer, the younger brother of the diary's "Fether," E. P. Fetherstonhaugh.

Hammond Johnson: "Ham," one of Robertson's closest friends and his 1915 bunkmate; a McGill man from Charlottetown who enlisted with him in February 1915, was commissioned in the artillery, and finished the war a captain with the Military Cross.

Heber William Dawson: a McGill man who reached Shorncliffe in late 1915; commissioned into the Canadian Engineers and served as a signals officer, finishing the war a captain.

A fellow Engineer officer: John David Calvin (born 1883), the elder of two Calvin brothers in the C.E. His captaincy, gazetted in May 1917, is the one that moves Robertson to "5th on the list." The "Calvin, J.D." of the Corps seniority list.

Ralph Lee Alexander Strathy, M.C.: "Lee Strathy," a McGill artillery observation officer, decorated for an action at his O.P. at Courcelette on 15 September 1916 in which his three telephonists were killed.

"Maj. Rolston" ("Rolly"), Captain (temporary Major) John Mitchell Rolston, Canadian Engineers: an officer of the 2nd Army Troops Company in 1916, then a major on the Divisional Engineers staff at Corps, forever half-promising Robertson a better posting. A land surveyor from Vancouver before the war; made a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur in 1917. By October 1918 he is a Lieutenant-Colonel commanding the 2nd Battalion, Canadian Engineers: on October 21 he thanks Robertson's unit for its bridging help in the advance (Canal de la Sensée).

Samuel Clifford Montgomery: a McGill Applied Science student who enlisted with Robertson in February 1915 and one of his 1915 roommates. Served as a gunner in the 6th Brigade, Canadian Field Artillery; reappears in the 1917 diary doing forward-observation work in the line.

Captain Ormond Montgomery Stitt, M.C.: "Ormie," a McGill man (Science 1908) and pre-war land surveyor, a friend of Robertson's; the Canadian Corps' water-supply engineer on Brig.-Gen. Lindsay's staff, died of wounds near Rosières on 16 August 1918, aged 34.

Robertson's company commander in the 3rd Field Company, Canadian Engineers, through 1916 and 1917 (Captain, then Major), awarded the D.S.O. in the New Year 1918 list and by October 1918 a Lieutenant-Colonel commanding the 3rd Battalion, Canadian Engineers.

William Pringle Seath: a McGill Applied Science student (Civil) from Montreal who enlisted with Robertson in February 1915; a gunner in the 6th Brigade, Canadian Field Artillery. A friend from the first days of the diary, through the Atlantic crossing and early training.

"Rex Calvin": Reginald Marsh Calvin (born 1889), the younger of two Calvin brothers in the C.E. and brother of Jack Calvin. In England for much of the war; back in France by March 1918.

Major Sydney Hamilton Fellowes, M.C. ("Sid" to Robertson): a Canadian Engineer officer commissioned into the 2nd Field Company in February 1915, wounded in October 1916, and awarded the Military Cross. Over for dinner in January 1916, days after Robertson reached France; the bare "Fellowes" of spring and summer 1917 is the captain commanding the Permanent Base Company (the company Robertson was posted to), whose September 1917 war diary he signs "S.H. Fellowes, Capt. C.E.", and he is the "Fellowes, S.H." of the Corps seniority list.

A Robertson cousin, son of Robertson's uncle James ("Uncle Jim") Robertson, who served as a Royal Field Artillery lieutenant in Egypt and Palestine, after an earlier enlistment in Canada.

Allan Gammell was the brother of Norman Gammell, commemorated at the linked memorial record: Norman would be killed in action in 1918.

Col. Buchanan of the 3rd Brigade, killed in September 1916: a commanding officer Robertson had known personally in Montreal before the war, and a different man from Capt. Buchanan of the 13th Battalion, who died that June. The linked page is his Canadian Virtual War Memorial record.

Philip Frederick Chidley (a second cousin of the diarist's through the Murray line) a Stratford, Ontario schoolteacher serving with the 2nd Canadian Battalion, killed in action at Hill 60 on 26 April 1916, the same day as Cur and Morrow.

Named in the April 20, 1916 entry as killed. The linked page is his record on the Canadian Virtual War Memorial.

A fellow Canadian soldier, commemorated on the Canadian Virtual War Memorial.

A fellow Canadian soldier and officer, and a recurring companion through 1915–1916; commemorated on the Canadian Virtual War Memorial.

A fellow Canadian soldier, commemorated on the Canadian Virtual War Memorial.

The official day-by-day operational record every unit was required to keep: administrative and factual, quite unlike Robertson's own personal diary this site is built from, though the timing here ("since organization") suggests he was catching his own unit's War Diary up to date after the recent reorganization. His unit's war diary survives for May 1918 to February 1919, held at Library and Archives Canada, and is largely in his own hand for the periods he commanded the unit.

The battalion the 3rd Field Company was formed into in October 1917, commanded by Lieut.-Col. E. Pepler, Robertson’s old company commander. Its October 1918 pages, with the brigade’s engineer instructions, are the source for the bridging at the Canal du Nord and the Scarpe front and for Pepler’s rank; digitized by Library and Archives Canada.

The official day-by-day record of the company Robertson served with at the engineers’ yard from May 1917 to June 1918, digitized by Library and Archives Canada. The September 1917 volume is signed by Capt. S.H. Fellowes; the April and May 1918 volumes are initialled “A.M.R.” down the margin, and are the source for the yard rows of the map in those months.

A 1910 travel-novel by the prolific English novelist Mrs. Humphry Ward, following an English brother and sister on a journey across Canada by the C.P.R., from Quebec to the Rockies: published in the U.S. under the title "Lady Merton, Colonist."

A real, well-known Parisian restaurant, with its most famous and long-running location opening in 1878 on the Avenue de l'Opéra: a fashionable dining spot for decades before Robertson's visit.

Lieutenant-Colonel John Leckie, commander of the 16th Battalion (Canadian Scottish).

A trench newspaper produced by Canadian soldiers during the war, now held by the Canadian War Museum.

A fortified position in the Wulverghem sector near Ypres, part of the trench network the Canadian Corps held in 1916.

Almost certainly the sequel published as "All in It: K(1) Carries On" (also released as "Carrying On — After the First Hundred Thousand"), continuing the story from Loos through the Somme. Murray's title for it doesn't exactly match either published title, but the description fits.

Arthur Conan Doyle's six-volume real-time history of the war, written and published as the fighting was still going on: Doyle took considerable pains to make it as accurate as he could, drawing on official dispatches and his own visits to the front.

Kitty Grey, an Edwardian musical comedy that toured British theatres through the 1900s and 1910s: the kind of light entertainment on offer at the Pleasure Gardens Theatre for soldiers on leave.

A well-known restaurant in Folkestone, a frequent meeting spot for soldiers stationed at the nearby camps.

The Manual of Military Law, the standard official War Office reference on courts-martial, military offences, and the laws of war: last substantially revised in 1914, so likely the edition on hand here too.

A fellow soldier, later wounded and pictured on a Canadian naval recruiting poster: see the linked article for his story.

A 1917 short-story collection by "Sapper" (H.C. McNeile), a British officer who wrote under that pen name because serving officers weren't permitted to publish under their own. His pseudonym comes from the same source as the military rank "sapper": a private soldier in the Royal Engineers, Robertson's own corps.

French for "shell": picked up, like a good deal of trench slang, from working alongside French troops and civilians, and used here interchangeably with the plain English word.

"Carry Me Back to Old Virginny," a sentimental 19th-century parlor song written by James A. Bland: this recording dates to 1914, close enough to the date of this diary entry that it's plausibly close to the actual version playing on Macdonald's gramophone.

A bestselling 1917 memoir by Arthur Guy Empey, an American who volunteered for the British Army before the U.S. entered the war. Written just weeks after the American declaration of war, it sold roughly a million copies and gave many readers back home their first vivid picture of trench life: free to read today via Project Gutenberg.

A cinema in Cheriton, near the Shorncliffe army camp in Kent, popular with soldiers stationed nearby.

Lieut.-Col. E. Pepler: Robertson's company commander in the 3rd Field Company, Canadian Engineers, through 1916 and 1917 (Captain, then Major), later commanding the 3rd Battalion, Canadian Engineers. The linked page is his service record on Lives of the First World War.

Major-General Sir Sam Steele: a famous frontier figure well before the war, having served with the North-West Mounted Police and in the Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush, as well as in the Boer War. In 1915 he commanded the 2nd Canadian Division in England; from September 1915 he took command of all Canadian and Imperial troops at Shorncliffe, making him a familiar figure at Robertson's own camp inspections.

"The First Seven Divisions," Lord Ernest Hamilton's 1916 account of the BEF's fighting from Mons to Ypres in the war's first months: published while the war was still going on, and evidently already in wide enough circulation to reach an officer's mess a year later.

Ian Hay's 1915 book following a unit of Kitchener's first wave of volunteers ('K(1)') from formation through their first major battle, at Loos: free to read today via Project Gutenberg.

A wheelwright's tool for shrinking a loosened steel wagon-wheel tyre (the iron band around the rim) back down so it grips the wooden wheel tightly again: clamping and squeezing a short section of the band edgewise to shorten its circumference.

The Vest Pocket Kodak, a small folding camera Eastman Kodak marketed directly to servicemen: compact enough to carry in the field, and popular enough with soldiers on all sides that it became known as "the soldier's camera." The "autograph equipment" let the owner scratch a brief note directly onto the film's edge to record where or when a photo was taken.

A 1916 comic novel by J.J. Bell, following his popular Scottish character Wee Macgreegor as he enlists: light wartime reading, freely available today via Project Gutenberg.