{"id":10310,"date":"2014-12-29T06:00:58","date_gmt":"2014-12-29T11:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.royalmontrealregiment.com\/?p=10310"},"modified":"2014-12-29T06:00:58","modified_gmt":"2014-12-29T11:00:58","slug":"feeding-the-1914-army-part-1-of-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/feeding-the-1914-army-part-1-of-2\/","title":{"rendered":"FEEDING THE 1914 ARMY \u2013 Part 1 of 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tuesday, December 29, 1914<\/em><\/p>\n

In Camp, Lark Hill, Salisbury Plains<\/em><\/p>\n

The Battalion War Diarist wrote for this day: \u201cAll available men on fatigues.\u00a0 No training.\u201d\u00a0[1]<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"29<\/a>THIS DAY IN RMR HISTORY:\u00a0\u201cThe poor Belgians in their trenches have gone hungry after many days of battle, because after the fall of Antwerp most of their organization was shattered in the general desolation of their country.\u00a0 The enemy too has not been exempt from hunger pains.\u00a0 At least his outposts have been captured as living skeletons with grass or oats in their haversacks.\u00a0 Many have surrendered for the sake of a meal.<\/p>\n

\u00a0But the British soldier has at least this in his favour. In spite of all the horrors of war which has put his manhood to the test, he gets his \u201cgrub\u201d with unfailing regularity, if there is any possible means of approach to him, and he gets enough and a bit more. It is impossible for him to grouse about that element in his life on the field.\u00a0 The French soldier envies him and says, as I have heard one of them say, \u201cMa Fou, Our comrades feed like princes, they even have jam with their bread, Jam!\u00a0 The smell of bacon comes from their trenches and twitches our nostrils with a most exquisite fragrance, more beautiful than the perfume of flowers.\u00a0 The English eat as well as they fight which is furiously.\u201d<\/p>\n

Divided into one man\u2019s share the following table shows exactly what the British Tommy is allowed each day:<\/p>\n

1 \u00bc lbs of fresh meat or 1 lb of preserved meat<\/p>\n

1 \u00bc lb of bread<\/p>\n

4 oz. of bacon<\/p>\n

3 oz. of cheese<\/p>\n

4 oz. of jam<\/p>\n

3 oz. of sugar<\/p>\n

\u00bd lb of fresh vegetables or 2 oz. of dried vegetables<\/p>\n

5\/8 oz. of tea, coffee, or cocoa<\/p>\n

2 oz. of tobacco per week or 60 cigarettes.<\/p>\n

There is more science in this menu than is imagined by the young man in khaki…\u00a0 The allowance per man has been set by scientific experts after a study of energy units, and other qualities of food.\u00a0 They calculate that 2,000 \u201ccalories\u201d (heat-giving and energy-making units) are required to keep a human being alive, if he is lying in bed, without any physical exertion.\u00a0 Four thousand five hundred \u201ccalories\u201d are required to keep a man\u2019s strength up to full pitch on active service reckoned at a 20 mile marching day. The British soldier\u2019s rations for one day provide him with 5,000 \u201ccalories\u201d so that he has 500 to spare for a pal, so to speak.\u201d\u00a0 [3]<\/a><\/p>\n

[1]\u00a0War Diary, 14th<\/sup> Canadian Battalion, The Royal Montreal Regiment<\/em>, Dec 29, 1914.\u00a0 Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa,\u00a0http:\/\/data2.collectionscanada.ca\/e\/e044\/e001089681.jpg<\/a><\/pre>\n
[2]\u00a0\u201cFeeding Army Masterpiece Of Organization,\u201d The Montreal Daily Mail<\/em>, Montreal, Quebec, Tuesday, December 29, 1914, pg. 5, col. 5.<\/pre>\n
[3]\u00a0Ibid<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tuesday, December 29, 1914 In Camp, Lark Hill, Salisbury Plains The Battalion War Diarist wrote for this day: \u201cAll available men on fatigues.\u00a0 No training.\u201d\u00a0[1] THIS DAY IN RMR HISTORY:\u00a0\u201cThe<\/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-10310","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\/10310","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=10310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10310\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}