{"id":11208,"date":"2015-05-09T05:00:32","date_gmt":"2015-05-09T09:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.royalmontrealregiment.com\/?p=11208"},"modified":"2015-05-09T05:00:32","modified_gmt":"2015-05-09T09:00:32","slug":"rmr-entrepreneur-spirit-in-1915","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/rmr-entrepreneur-spirit-in-1915\/","title":{"rendered":"RMR Entrepreneur Spirit in 1915…?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunday, May 9, 1915<\/i><\/p>\n

In billets, Bailleul (Le Nouveau Monde)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Battalion War Diarist wrote for this day: \u201c14th<\/sup> Bn. inspected by Lt.-Gen. E.A.H. Alderson who addressed the original men of the battalion and the new men separately.\u00a0 Congratulated the former on their splendid work, and told latter they would have to live up to the standard established by the battalion\u201d.\u00a0<\/em>[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

THIS DAY IN RMR HISTORY:\u00a0\u201cAt Bailleul equipment was issued to the men to replace losses of the previous fortnight, and the new officers strove to attain the high standards set by those who had become casualties.\u00a0 Similarly men of the new drafts worked to equal their brothers-in-arms, whose deeds at Ypres commanded their unstinted admiration.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

\"09<\/a>NOT SO FUNNY HI-JINKS:\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cA solace at the end of the day was a ration of rum, which offered some protection against the marrow-chilling cold. Another measure was a one pound cardboard container of anti-frostbite grease issued to each man. The substance was nowhere as popular as the rum, but two enterprising soldiers found a profitable way to dispose of it, though their business practices were deplorable by any standard. P. Palin(sic)* (14th Battalion) jokingly relates a story that his victims would not have found quite so amusing:<\/p>\n

\u2018We didn\u2019t use the stuff, so we got quite a stock on hand, so Mike Conroy he got an idea. Him and I volunteered to go out and bring in the officer\u2019s rations for B Company. Well we did it two nights running and we snaffled all this Hartley\u2019s Strawberry Jam in \u2026 jars and hid it. So we took all the anti-frostbite grease and we put in two inches of Hartley\u2019s Pure English Strawberry Jam, wiped it off, put the cover on top, put it in the sandbags.<\/p>\n

So that night we got out two sandbags apiece. We got over the bridge going into Armentieres and we got into a caf\u00e9 and I said \u2018Monsieur vous desirez acheter de confiture anglais?\u2019\u00a0\u2018Oh oui, oui, oui, come in the back.\u2019<\/em> So we go in the back and I had my spoon ready in my puttee. I opened up the sandbag and I take out one of these cartons, take off the cover, and take out my spoon and I said, \u2018Bien, Monsieur, gouttez ca. Premi\u00e9re classe.\u2019<\/em> Well we made quite a few francs in that load brother. I think it was around four hundred francs. Confiture Anglaise, anti-frostbite grease.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

* Note: This would have been Pte. Francis J. Palin, #25754 of the 14th Bn. He was a 22 year old Montrealer, an electrician by trade, who had enlisted initially with the Canadian Grenadier Guards, and had been transferred to the 14th and assigned to \u2018C\u2019 Coy. (Captain Richard Steacie). Palin signed his attestation paper on September 21st 1914 at Valcartier. He survived the War.<\/em><\/p>\n

[1] War Diary, 14th<\/sup> Canadian Battalion, The Royal Montreal Regiment<\/em>, May 9, 1915.\u00a0 Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa,\u00a0http:\/\/data2.collectionscanada.ca\/e\/e044\/e001089731.jpg<\/a><\/pre>\n
[2]\u00a0\u00a0 R.C. Featherstonhaugh, The Royal Montreal Regiment 14th<\/sup> Battalion C.E.F. 1914-1925<\/em>, Montreal, The Gazette Printing Co., Ltd., 1927, pg. 53.<\/pre>\n
[3]\u00a0\u00a0 Tommy\u2019s Pack Fillers; http:\/\/www.tommyspackfillers.com\/showitem.asp?itemRef=RL242<\/a><\/pre>\n
[4]\u00a0\u00a0 George H. Cassar, \u201cHell In Flanders Fields: Canadians at the Second Battle of Ypres,\u201d Toronto, Dundurn Press, 2010,\u00a0pp.66-67<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sunday, May 9, 1915 In billets, Bailleul (Le Nouveau Monde) The Battalion War Diarist wrote for this day: \u201c14th Bn. inspected by Lt.-Gen. E.A.H. Alderson who addressed the original men<\/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-11208","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\/11208","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=11208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11208\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}