From Falling Hands We Throw The Torch

Returning today to my visit at the War Museum. Following the South African War area, it is the First World War that takes up the larger portion of this section that focuses on imperial wars fought by Canadians on behalf of the British empire. A video screen introduces the visitor to the story, along with panels and artifacts on display.

The War Museum has a good many large scale paintings done by war artists in its collection. This is one of them, titled Canada's Answer, by Norman Wilkinson, showing the first sailing of ships across the Atlantic carrying Canadian soldiers in October 1914. This group of 32 000 would be the first of many Canadians to fight in Europe.

One of the Canadians who would serve and fight in the War was the doctor, officer, and poet John McCrae, author of In Flanders Fields, who died near war's end and is buried in France.

A display case here contains a porthole, medals, and memorial cards. These are all related to the sinking of the Lusitania by a German U-Boat in 1915. Many Canadians were aboard the ship.

During the Second Battle of Ypres, there was a rumour that circulated that a Canadian soldier was crucified on a barn door by German soldiers. The Germans said it was propaganda, but the story remained, and this sculpture is based on it, called Canada's Golgotha, by the British artist Francis Derwent Brown.

This is a model of a trench system; the horrors of the trenches were a hallmark of the First World War.

The first day of the Battle of the Somme on July 1st, 1916, is a day that still resonates today in Canadian history, though at the time, the Canadians who fought in it weren't actually part of Canadian confederation yet. The Newfoundland Regiment fought at Beaumont Hamel and was nearly wiped out.