{"id":10731,"date":"2015-02-26T06:00:05","date_gmt":"2015-02-26T11:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.royalmontrealregiment.com\/?p=10731"},"modified":"2015-02-26T06:00:05","modified_gmt":"2015-02-26T11:00:05","slug":"rmrs-love-affair-with-srd-begins-in-1915","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/rmrs-love-affair-with-srd-begins-in-1915\/","title":{"rendered":"RMR&#039;s love affair with SRD Begins in 1915"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Friday, February 26, 1915<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>In billets,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Armenti%C3%A8res\">Armenti\u00e8res<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">The Battalion War Diarist wrote for this day: <em>\u201cPlatoons in trenches again relieved.\u00a0 On call for volunteers for patrol in No-Man\u2019s-land, 4 French Canadians of No. 4 Coy. immediately offered themselves and were afterwards complimented by the Company Commander of the Rifle Brigade for their work.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <a href=\"#_edn1\" name=\"_ednref1\">[1]<\/a><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_10642\" class=\"thumbnail wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"width: 252px\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.royalmontrealregiment.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/26-Feb-15.png\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-10642 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/www.royalmontrealregiment.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/26-Feb-15-252x300.png\" alt=\"First World War Rum Jar\" width=\"252\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"caption wp-caption-text\">First World War Rum Jar<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">THIS DAY IN RMR HISTORY:\u00a0<strong>TOMMY\u2019S RUM \u2013 PART 2 &#8211;\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cOne of the most welcome sights in British [and Canadian] trenches during the First World War was an earthenware grey and brown coloured jar stamped with the initials \u201cS.R.D.\u201d\u00a0 This probably stood for \u201cSupply Reserve Depot,\u201d although sources differ.\u00a0 These initials were jocularly interpreted by soldiers as meaning \u201cSoon Runs Dry\u201d or \u201cSeldom Reaches Destination,\u201d the latter in reference to dark suspicions that rear area troops helped themselves to rum destined for the front line. *<\/p>\n<p>The rum tot had to be consumed there and then, in the presence of an officer, to prevent it being hoarded. Some very unpopular teetotal officers objected to issuing their men with alcohol and instead provided an innocuous substitute.\u00a0 Often rum was administered on a large spoon, or sometimes added to tea. The official ration was one sixteenth of a pint (30 millilitres), a quarter of a gill, but as historian Alan Weeks has pointed out, soldiers actually received roughly half this amount.\u00a0 Rum could give a soldier \u201cDutch courage.\u201d\u00a0 Opinions differ on how important alcohol was in maintaining morale and helping soldiers cope with the fear and stress of battle, but it certainly played a role.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 <a href=\"#_edn1\" name=\"_ednref1\">[3]<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>* It has often been written elsewhere that the troops would jokingly suggest the initials S.R.D stood for the any of the following:\u00a0 Services Rum Diluted;\u00a0 Service Ration Depot;\u00a0 Special Red Demerara; \u00a0Standard Rum Diluted; or Seldom or Rarely Delivered.<\/em><\/p>\n<pre>[1]\u00a0\u00a0 <em>War Diary, 14<sup>th<\/sup> Canadian Battalion, The Royal Montreal Regiment<\/em>, Feb 26, 1915.\u00a0 Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/data2.collectionscanada.ca\/e\/e044\/e001089695.jpg\">http:\/\/data2.collectionscanada.ca\/e\/e044\/e001089695.jpg<\/a><\/pre>\n<pre>[2]\u00a0\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diggerhistory.info\/pages-equip\/grog.htm\">http:\/\/www.diggerhistory.info\/pages-equip\/grog.htm<\/a><\/pre>\n<pre>[3]\u00a0\u00a0 Gary Sheffield, <em>The First World War in 100 Objects \u2013 The Story of The Great War Told Through The Objects That Shaped It<\/em>, London, Sevenoaks, Carlton Publishing, 2013, \u201cRum Jar,\u201d pp. 46-47.<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Friday, February 26, 1915 In billets,\u00a0Armenti\u00e8res\u00a0\u00a0 The Battalion War Diarist wrote for this day: \u201cPlatoons in trenches again relieved.\u00a0 On call for volunteers for patrol in No-Man\u2019s-land, 4 French Canadians<\/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-10731","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\/10731","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=10731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10731\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}