OUR MILITARY EFFORT.
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THE army of the Dominion has hitherto been quite an exceptional one
amongst those of civilized nations. It has been without an intendance,
or nearly so. When the present “ rebellion” arose, and after the
unfortunate engagement at Duck Lake, an immediate cry for “troops” was
sent to Eastern Canada. “Help us, or we perish,” was the message from
the unfortunate settlers along the North Saskatchewan, hundreds of miles
from the line of railway, and surrounded by excited savages bent on
plunder and rapine. With commendable zeal the militia regiments of
Eastern Canada answered the call with promptness and enthusiasm.
Regiment after regiment was mustered and despatched on its way to the
scene of the disturbance. Some of them underwent great hardship in being
transferred across the gaps in the line of railway along the north shore
of Lake Superior, and bore it like brave soldiers without murmuring. It
soon becomes evident, however, that an army is not like a self-binding
reaping machine which can be dispatched to a given point and guaranteed
to do its work as soon as it arrives. Soldiers must be carefully
equipped in the first instance, they must be protected from the weather
to a certain extent, food and forage, pay, ammunition and medical
attendance have to be provided. In the case of the Dominion Army those
important departments have to be expanded or improvized on the spur of
the moment, and it is needless to say considerable confusion results.
The sage advice “Make haste slowly” has not been acted on. The part of
the North-West Territory through which the troops have to pass produces
almost nothing for their subsistence. Everything they require must be
sent from a distance. At the present moment (April 25th) General
Middleton is on his way north towards Prince Albert in command of about
nine hundred men, with some three hundred on his line of communications,
Col. Otter marching on to Battleford with between five and six hundred,
and General Strange is making a dash towards Edmonton with some one
hundred and twenty infantry and about the same number of scouts. To keep
those forces supplied with necessities severely taxes the energies of the
few zealous gentlemen who have been nominated supply officers at the
stations on the line of the Pacific Railway, which forms the base.
Patriotic settlers in the North-West do not estimate their own services
or those of their teams at a low rate -— eight to twelve dollars a day is
their modest computation of their combined value, food and forage in the
same ratio. The hay delivered to the General's column at Humboldt was
found to cost there $120 a ton, and the greater part of it was consumed
by the teams themselves in transit, so that only two hundredweight of the
load they had started with was delivered when they reached their
destination. The difficulties of keeping even the small column that
advanced from Qu'Appelle supplied with rations and forage were found to
be so great, owing to the badness of the trail road, and the
impossibility of despatching a sufficient number of teams along it with
any chance of their delivering their loads at their destination within a
reasonable time, that a change of base to Swift Current was made. From
this point it is hoped that the steamers on the South branch of the
Saskatchewan may be utilized as means of transport, and regular
communication kept up.
The medical service of the campaign has been so far ludicrous. In
a healthy climate like the North-West there appears to be but little
chance of epidemic disease breaking out. Dysentery, typhus, malarial
fevers, which are the scourge of armies in the field, are not likely to
occur. No “engagement,” in the usual sense of the term, is likely to
take place with the Indians, and even the Half-breeds will scarcely offer
organized resistance to regular troops; so one of the terrible calamities
of modern warfare in the shape of a sudden influx of a number of wounded
men is not likely to occur. Yet the number of medical men sent to the
North-West in connection with the Expedition would suffice for a bloody
campaign in an unhealthy district. A medical “Director-General” was
appointed at Ottawa, who suddenly developed a remarkable talent for army
medical organization. He excised from the equipment ordered by the
surgeon who was going in charge of the field hospital such ordinary
appliances as pocket dressing-cases, clinical thermometers and hypodermic
syringes, so that when an assistant-surgeon, who was accompanying a
mounted party, required these articles they were not forthcoming. But it
was in providing the “personnel” of the field hospital that he shone
chiefly. “First they came by ones and twos, and then they came by
swarms,” said an Irish gentleman describing the friends who came to drink
with him on a race course, and such was the advent of the doctors and
dressers who joined the field hospital on its way to the front. Without
consulting the surgeon in charge or the principal medical officer of the
force, it was ordained from headquarters that the field hospital staff
was to be composed of one surgeon-major, five surgeons, one apothecary,
one steward, one captain of orderlies, one hospital sergeant-major, ten
dressers, six ward orderlies, one superintendent of nurses, and ten
privates as helpers! How transport and tents were to be provided for
this hospital, where it was to be placed, and how many patients might
require treatment, were matters of secondary consideration.
In addition to this field hospital, nearly every regiment had its
surgeon and assistant-surgeon, the regimental system of hospitals (which
is long obsolete in the armies of all civilized nations) being still
retained, and these regimental medical officers asked for and obtained
such equipment as they indented for. Some of these requisitions deserve
to be chronicled. One regiment applied for, and it is said, on good
authority, obtained a stone and a-half of violet powder; which, as an
article of military outfit, should be handed down in the annals of
campaigning.
For the number of men under arms sent forward, and the duration of
the campaign, it is probable that the present Canadian expedition to the
North-West will prove one of the costliest of modern times. That it will
soon achieve its object is hoped for by every Canadian of whatever party.
Whether the Government will take the lesson to heart, carefully examine
into and re-model the military organization of the Dominion, is another
question. It would do well to remember the motto, Si vis pacem, para
bellum.
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