{"id":10404,"date":"2015-01-04T06:00:03","date_gmt":"2015-01-04T11:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.royalmontrealregiment.com\/?p=10404"},"modified":"2015-01-04T06:00:03","modified_gmt":"2015-01-04T11:00:03","slug":"salisbury-camp-not-fit-for-training-in-1915","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/salisbury-camp-not-fit-for-training-in-1915\/","title":{"rendered":"SALISBURY CAMP NOT FIT FOR TRAINING IN 1915"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monday, January 4, 1915<\/em><\/p>\n

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

The Battalion War Diarist wrote for this day: \u201cDuty Battn.\u00a0 No parades.\u00a0 All men on fatigues.\u201d\u00a0[1]<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"04<\/a>THIS DAY IN RMR HISTORY:\u00a0\u201cSalisbury Plain, Jan. 4. \u2013 A welcome change is in sight for the whole of the Canadian artillery, cavalry and ammunition columns, numbering in all between 5,000 and 6,000 men who are to be billeted in the homes in the villages around the Plain.\u00a0 The change has come none too soon.\u00a0 The sick list in camp has reached proportions which are really disconcerting, causing a good deal of anxiety to the medical men, to say nothing of the discomfort of those who are brought low by violent coughs, colds, sore throats and other ailments due to the atrociously wet weather that has afflicted England ever since the Canadians have been here.<\/p>\n

According to the British Rainfall Association\u2019s records, the rainfall of 6.34 inches last month was three times as much as usual in this month, and one has to go back 57 years to find anything to equal it.\u00a0 Indeed, there are only three other months for which a higher figure can be found \u2013 June 1878, with 6.71 inches; August 1878, 6.72 inches; and June 1903, 6.47 inches.\u00a0 The average rainfall for December is 2.13 inches.\u00a0 With regard to the duration of the rain, the total hours in which rain fell during the month numbered 107.5 hours, the greatest ever recorded in the 34 years for which continuous records have been kept.\u00a0 The camps and camp roads almost beggar description, the seas of mud and water making anything like serious effective drill a sheer impossibility.\u00a0 Canadians at home who saw Valcartier Plain with its light porous soil can form no conception of the morasses through which their men have marched and counter marched.<\/p>\n

It would not be surprising if those who live at home remote from this land of training camps \u2013 for Britain today has become one vast school in which two millions of men are training for war \u2013 got impatient at the delay and the dull reports of dreary, ineffectual days of preparation here, to say nothing of the miseries of the men in camp.\u00a0 Whether all has been done that could be done to meet the needs of the situation is open to doubt.\u00a0 Britain finds herself with her hands full in every quarter of the globe, and right nobly she has set to work.\u00a0 Obviously,in such circumstances, responsibility has rested upon those in local commands, and some of us think that earlier efforts should have been made to billet the Canadian troops.\u00a0 In a word, that steps should have been taken to conserve their health and stamina, if nothing could be done to increase their military efficiency, for if possible the one is more important than the other.<\/p>\n

Whether our troops will really be fit to go to the front this month, as is generally supposed, is open to doubt.\u00a0 One officer who went through the South African War declares that more progress was made in the month at Valcartier than in three months here.\u00a0 At present all the troops have not received complete equipment.\u00a0 Some 15,000 pairs of British-made boots have just been procured, for many of the soldiers have not had dry feet since they came here.\u00a0 The only footwear that efficiently resists weather conditions on Salisbury Plain are rubber Wellingtons, which cost $5. per pair.\u201d\u00a0 [3]<\/a><\/p>\n

[1]\u00a0\u00a0 War Diary, 14th<\/sup> Canadian Battalion, The Royal Montreal Regiment<\/em>, Jan 4, 1915.\u00a0 Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa,\u00a0http:\/\/data2.collectionscanada.ca\/e\/e044\/e001089686.jpg<\/a><\/pre>\n
[2]\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cSalisbury Camp Not Fit Place For Training,\u201d The Gazette\u2019s Correspondent, The Gazette,<\/em> Montreal, Quebec, Monday, January 18, 1915, pg. 11, col. 1<\/pre>\n
[3]\u00a0 Ibid<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Monday, January 4, 1915 In Camp, Lark Hill, Salisbury Plains The Battalion War Diarist wrote for this day: \u201cDuty Battn.\u00a0 No parades.\u00a0 All men on fatigues.\u201d\u00a0[1] THIS DAY IN RMR<\/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-10404","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\/10404","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=10404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10404\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}