{"id":10214,"date":"2014-12-07T06:00:56","date_gmt":"2014-12-07T11:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.royalmontrealregiment.com\/?p=10214"},"modified":"2014-12-07T06:00:56","modified_gmt":"2014-12-07T11:00:56","slug":"the-rain-on-the-plain-fell-mainly-on-the-troops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/the-rain-on-the-plain-fell-mainly-on-the-troops\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rain on the Plain Fell Mainly&#8230; On the Troops"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Monday, December 7, 1914<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>In Camp, West Down South, Salisbury Plains<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">The Battalion War Diarist wrote for this day:<em> \u201cEntrenching work in afternoon.\u201d \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.royalmontrealregiment.com\/?p=9817&amp;preview=true#_edn1\" name=\"_ednref1\">[1]<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">THIS DAY IN RMR HISTORY: \u201cOn Salisbury Plain in the 123 days, from mid-October 1914 to mid-February 1915, rain fell on 89 days.\u00a0 The average precipitation for that period, over the preceding thirty-two years was 11.98 inches; this was almost exactly doubled, and there was widespread flooding in the river valleys.<\/p>\n<p>From 21<sup>st<\/sup> October, when the weather broke, and a quarter inch of rain fell, conditions in all camps grew progressively worse.\u00a0 An inch fell in the next five days; it was cold and raw, with occasional frosts at night, and there were no facilities for drying clothing.\u00a0 On 2<sup>nd<\/sup> November more than an inch of rain fell; in the high winds the light tents afforded little protection, and the number of blankets per man was increased from three to four.\u00a0 On the 11<sup>th<\/sup> a wind-storm blew down most of the marquees and all of the divisional tents but one.\u00a0 Rain, fog, frost and mud, from which there was no respite, made life miserable for men and horses.\u00a0 On 4<sup>th<\/sup> December, a sudden gale once more flattened much of the canvas, scattered beyond recovery correspondence in office tents, and blew away the treasury notes of a pay parade.\u00a0 Next day there was rain, hail and frost.<\/p>\n<p>It had been suggested to Lord Kitchener by Colonel Carson, as representative of the Minister of Militia, that the contingent should be moved for training to Egypt, where the Australian and New Zealand Contingents on their way to England had, to avoid duplication of the experiences of the Canadian Contingent, been put under canvas near Cairo.\u00a0 \u2026 Rumours of a possible move to Egypt reached the Canadians on Salisbury Plain and raised visions of dry blankets and cloudless skies, but nothing came of it.\u00a0 Evidently, if serious sick wastage was to be avoided, the troops must be moved.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 <a href=\"#_edn1\" name=\"_ednref1\">[2]<\/a><\/p>\n<pre>[1]\u00a0 <em>War Diary, 14<sup>th<\/sup> Canadian Battalion, The Royal Montreal Regiment,<\/em> Dec 7, 1914.\u00a0 Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/data2.collectionscanada.ca\/e\/e044\/e001089681.jpg\">http:\/\/data2.collectionscanada.ca\/e\/e044\/e001089681.jpg<\/a><\/pre>\n<pre><a href=\"#_ednref1\" name=\"_edn1\">[2]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 Col. A.F. Duguid, \u201c<em>Official History of the Canadian Forces in The Great War 1914-1919, Vol. 1<\/em>, <em>Part 1,<\/em> King\u2019s Printer, Ottawa, 1938, pp. 128-129.<\/pre>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Monday, December 7, 1914 In Camp, West Down South, Salisbury Plains The Battalion War Diarist wrote for this day: \u201cEntrenching work in afternoon.\u201d \u00a0[1] THIS DAY IN RMR HISTORY: \u201cOn<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-this-day-in-rmr-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}