Editorially speaking...
Coincidental to another anniversary of Vimy Ridge that has just come and gone, I’m reading The Madman and the Butcher by award-winning historical writer Tim Cook.
It’s the story of the feud between Minister of Militia Sam Hughes, the infamous federal cabinet minister in charge of Canada’s war effort for the first two years of the First World War, and General Sir Arthur Currie that ended in a vicious libel suit after Hughes publicly charged Currie with having needlessly sent his men to their deaths on the last day of the war.
General Sir Arthur William Currie, GCMC, KCB. —Wikipedia
My fascination for the subject is Currie, a Victoria realtor and militiaman—”a so-called weekend warrior”—who went on to take charge of the Canadian army that captured Vimy Ridge after failed attempts by the French and British. Vimy Ridge is considered to be not just a battle among battles but a seminal moment in Canadian history, a pivotal stepping-stone on the road to nationhood.
It’s long been legend that British Prime Minister Lloyd George had Currie in mind for top command of both the British and the Canadian armies; only the unexpected Armistice proved otherwise.
Think of it: a Victoria real estate salesman by trade, a part-time militiaman by choice, who rose to the highest level of command during the Great War. A self-taught soldier whose men—Canadians—proved to be among the most effective of the Allied armies during five years of the bloodiest fighting in history to that time.
Sam Hughes is a study in himself but it’s Currie who has always intrigued me, perhaps because he’s been all but forgotten—officially and intentionally ignored over the years. Yes, he was knighted back then, by the British. But where’s his statue? What has Canada done to honour him?
The federal government has been dithering for years whether to go so far as to name an armoury after him. Even if they do, big deal.
No, Currie wasn’t perfect. A butcher? I haven’t come to where Cook deals with the controversial Battle of Mons at war’s end that sparked Hughes’s assault on Currie’s character and integrity. When I do, I’m hoping that I’ll finally learn the full story of Mons with its bitter aftermath in the House of Commons then a Canadian courtroom.
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Contrarily, while speaking of famous generals and statues, Robert E. Lee, the commander-in-chief of the Confederate Army during the American Civil War who has long been regarded as having been a great soldier and a gentleman, has had statues erected in his honour.
Now, across southern American states, they’re coming down and going into storage. Lee wasn’t just a Confederate general he was a slave owner and on that point he’ no longer being awarded legendary status.
How times—and viewpoints—change.
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There’s an interesting sidebar in this month’s Cowichan Historical Society newsletter: “Visitors to the Old Stone Church are not aware that nearby is a spot known as ‘Hangman’s Oak,’ where a B.C. premier was saved by [sic] an Indian bullet by the chance failure of a rifle, whose owner met summary justice.”
Sorry, CHS, but, typo aside, my research on the famous ‘Hanging Tree’ of Quamichan indicates this to be pure bunkum. Yes, there was a shooting and a hanging, one of the few cases of a tree being used, officially, as a scaffold in provincial history.
Readers shall learn the real story in a forthcoming Chronicle...
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