Remembrance Day, as the
Canadian War Museum observes at its’ website, has gone through periods of both decline
and increased observation over the years of its existence.
The 50th anniversary of
the end of the Second World War in 1995, as well as Canada’s participation in
the Afghan wars, marked a noticeable upsurge of public interest, which has not
ebbed in recent years. Large ceremonies
are attended in major cities by tens of thousands. The ceremony at the National
War Memorial in Ottawa is nationally televised, while most media outlets,
including newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations, and internet
sources , run special features, interviews, or investigative reports on
military history or remembrance-related themes.
For some, Remembrance Day
is a federal statutory holiday, a paid day off work for federal employees and a
statutory holiday in some, but not all, of the provinces and territories.
For others, Remembrance Day is a yearly memorial day, observed in
many Commonwealth countries including Canada, to remember those who died in
military service, and honour those who served in wartime.
For veterans, Remembrance
Day has a long history. Canadians
memorialized fallen soldiers on Decoration Day and Paardeberg Day for many
years before Remembrance Day was first observed, as Armistice Day, in 1919.
Veterans have always led
the way in commemorating our war dead. It can be argued that, for Canadians,
Remembrance Day started in 1890 when veterans of the Battle of Ridgeway held a
protest at the Canadian Volunteers Monument at Queen’s Park, in Toronto, by
laying flowers at the foot of the monument on the 24th anniversary of the
battle.
The Battle of Ridgeway
was fought on the morning of 2 June 1866, near the village of Ridgeway and the
town of Fort Erie. That episode has always been muted in Canadian military
heritage and history, and the Canadian government has always been reluctant to
acknowledge the veterans of the battle.
In the skirmish that day
approximately 850 Canadian soldiers clashed with some 750 to 800 Fenians, Irish
American insurgents who had crossed the Niagara River from Buffalo, New York.
It was the first industrial-era battle to be fought by Canadians, the first to
be fought exclusively by Canadian troops and led entirely by Canadian officers.
The Canadian losses that
day were 9 killed in action (known today as the “The Ridgeway Nine) and 33
wounded, some severely enough to require amputation of their limbs. Four more
Canadian militia volunteers eventually died in the months following the battle,
either of wounds sustained or disease contracted at Ridgeway.
Fenian casualties are
more difficult to determine, but it is estimated that approximately 14 Fenians
were killed at Ridgeway and in Fort Erie.
While the Canadians were
well deployed and arrived in the vicinity of the Fenians within several hours
of their incursion they were no match for the Fenians, who were well-armed and
supplied Civil War veterans.
The Canadians were unable
to hold their positions and the Fenians took and briefly held the town of
Ridgeway. Then, expecting to be overwhelmed by British reinforcements, they
quickly turned back to Fort Erie where they fought a second battle against a
small but determined detachment of Canadians holding the town.
A tactical failure the
battle can be considered a strategic success as the Fenians ultimately withdrew
back to the United States.
In the aftermath of the
battle the inefficiency of the militia department under Canada West’s
attorney general and minister of militia, John A. McDonald was
whitewashed by military courts of inquiry who found that, notwithstanding the
facts that Canadian Forces were poorly trained and unprepared for combat with
scarce ammunition, no food or field kitchens, no proper maps, no provisions for
medical care, no canteens for water, no tools for the proper care of their
rifles and only half of the troops had previously practised firing their rifles
with live ammunition, the blame lay with
inexperienced frontline troops, who panicked and broke, and not with the
officers who led them or the government who undersupplied and undertrained
them.
That attitude toward
appropriate support for the military and responsibility for the consequences of
that support continue to set a standard to which generations of Canadian
politicians have aspired.
The Battle of Ridgeway
veterans’ protest became an annual memorial event known as Decoration Day. Graves
and monuments of Canadian soldiers were decorated in flowers and for the next
30 years, Decoration Day, commemorated on the weekend nearest to 2 June, was
one of Canada’s popular military memorial days. As well as remembering Canadians who died in the Battle
of Ridgeway soon expanded to those killed during the North-West Rebellion, the South African War and the First World War as
well.
The horror and mass
slaughter of the First World War changed Canadian perceptions of war. A Celebration
of victory was replaced by solemn commemoration, and a sense that the country
owed a collective national debt to the ordinary soldiers, mostly young men, who
had lost their lives in battle. It was felt that this debt could be paid, in
perpetuity by successive generations, by the simple act of remembering the
soldiers’ sacrifice.
In April 1919, after the
First World War ended a motion was introduced in the House of Commons to institute
an annual “Armistice Day “to be held on the second Monday of November each year
and in May 1921, an Act of Canada’s Parliament declared that an annual
Armistice Day would be held on the Monday of the week in which 11 November
fell. Oddly, the day was joined with the celebration of Thanksgiving Day, a day
featuring sports, turkey dinners and light recreation.
This incongruity, which
confused the public and angered veterans of the First World War, came to an end
on 18 March 1931, a motion to have Armistice Day observed on 11 November and
“on no other date” was approved.
Another veteran who sat
in parliament, C.W. Dickie, moved to change the name from Armistice Day to
Remembrance Day. This renaming placed the emphasis more upon the soldiers whose
deaths were being remembered. Parliament adopted these resolutions as an
amendment to the Armistice Day Act, and Canada held its first Remembrance Day
by that name on 11 November 1931.
In Canada, as the
Canadian Encyclopedia notes, Remembrance Day has become a flexible and enduring
observance. It has grown to include the remembrance of war dead from the Second
World War, the Korean War and the War in Afghanistan, as well as from
peacekeeping missions and other international military engagements. In all,
more than 1.6 million Canadians have served in Canada’s Armed Forces and more
than 118,000 have died in foreign conflicts.
However after the Armistice Day Act was
passed in 1931, the casualties of Ridgeway and the North-West Rebellion were no
longer found in national memorialization, limiting Remembrance Day to Canadian
casualties overseas, starting from the South African War.
Petitions to the federal government in 2013, from
the City of Toronto and from the Town of Fort Erie, to restore the Ridgeway
Nine to Canadian military memorial heritage by including them in national Books
of Remembrance in Ottawa, were not heeded.
On this Remembrance Day we
attempt to pay our debt by remembering the ‘Ridgeway Nine’ who died in the
Battle of Ridgeway on June 2, 1866.
Ensign Malcolm McEachren,
Sergeant Hugh Matheson,
Corporal Francis Lackey,
Lance Corporal Mark Defries,
Private Christopher
Alderson,
Private Malcolm McKenzie,
Private John Harriman
Mewburn,
Private William Smith,
Private William Fairbanks
Tempest.
“Their names liveth for evermore”
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow
old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
We will remember them.
