{"id":9724,"date":"2014-10-22T06:00:52","date_gmt":"2014-10-22T10:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.royalmontrealregiment.com\/?p=9724"},"modified":"2014-10-22T06:00:52","modified_gmt":"2014-10-22T10:00:52","slug":"rain-the-return-of-rmr-weather","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/rain-the-return-of-rmr-weather\/","title":{"rendered":"RAIN: The Return of &quot;RMR Weather&quot;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>THIS DAY IN RMR HISTORY, 22 October 1914 &#8211; From the 14<sup>th<\/sup> BATTALION (RMR) WAR DIARY:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Thursday, October 22, 1914<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Camp Salisbury Plain, West Down South<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">The Battalion diary for this date carries the notation:<em> \u201cRain all day. No work possible beyond necessary routine\u201d \u00a0<a href=\"#_edn1\" name=\"_ednref1\">[1]<\/a><\/em><a href=\"#_edn1\" name=\"_ednref1\"><\/a>\u00a0This was to be the first of many such reports in the days ahead.<\/p>\n<p><strong>RAIN<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.royalmontrealregiment.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/22-Oct-14.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-9579 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/www.royalmontrealregiment.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/22-Oct-14-300x220.jpg\" alt=\"22 Oct 14\" width=\"300\" height=\"220\" \/><\/a>\u201cBefore the last Canadian unit to disembark had reached Salisbury Plain the weather had broken.\u00a0 A quarter inch of rain fell on 21 October, and a full inch in the next five days.\u00a0 It was the beginning of a period of abnormally heavy precipitation which brought rain on 89 out of 123 days; the fall of 23.9 inches between mid-October and mid-February almost doubled the 32 year average.\u00a0 There was no escape from the ever pervading dampness, and conditions steadily deteriorated.\u00a0 Temperatures were unusually low, on some nights dropping below the freezing point.\u00a0 High winds pierced the light fabric of the unheated tents, and twice in three weeks gales flattened much of the Division\u2019s canvas.\u00a0 Mud was everywhere.\u00a0 An impervious layer of chalk a few inches below ground-level held in rain water at the surface, and wherever wheels rolled or men marched the \u201cexcellent\u201d turf quickly became a quagmire.\u00a0 All attempts at drainage were fruitless; scraping the mud from the roads only exposed the treacherously slippery chalk.\u201d\u00a0 <a href=\"#_edn1\" name=\"_ednref1\">[3]<\/a><\/p>\n<pre>[1]\u00a0\u00a0 <em>War Diary, 14<sup>th<\/sup> Canadian Battalion, The Royal Montreal Regiment<\/em>, Oct. 22, 1914.\u00a0 Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/data2.collectionscanada.ca\/e\/e044\/e001089670.jpg\">http:\/\/data2.collectionscanada.ca\/e\/e044\/e001089670.jpg<\/a><\/pre>\n<pre>[2]\u00a0\u00a0 Transports passing down a flooded country lane at Salisbury Camp. Canadian War Museum Photo archives; Image no.\u00a0 M.316;Control no. 19930003-384<\/pre>\n<pre><a href=\"#_ednref1\" name=\"_edn1\">[3]<\/a>\u00a0 Col. G.W.L. Nicholson, CD., <em>Official History of the Canadian Army in the First World War:<\/em> <em>Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914-1919,<\/em> Duhamel, Queens Printer, Ottawa, 1962<em>,<\/em>\u00a0 pg. 35.<\/pre>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>THIS DAY IN RMR HISTORY, 22 October 1914 &#8211; From the 14th BATTALION (RMR) WAR DIARY: Thursday, October 22, 1914 Camp Salisbury Plain, West Down South The Battalion diary for<\/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-9724","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\/9724","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=9724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9724\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}