The unhappy warriors: Conflict and nationality among the Canadian troops during the South African war 1

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The unhappy warriors:Conflict and nationalityamong the Canadiantroops during the SouthAfrican warCarman Miller aa McGill University ,Published online: 01 Jul 2008.

To cite this article: Carman Miller (1995) The unhappy warriors: Conflictand nationality among the Canadian troops during the South African war ,The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 23:1, 77-104, DOI:10.1080/03086539508582945

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The Unhappy Warriors: Conflict andNationality among the Canadian Troops

during the South African War1

CARMAN MILLER

Canadian military service under British command has invariably raisedthe question of identity. And, as Desmond Morton has pointed out, theSouth African War 1899-1902 was no exception. Less than a monthafter the first Canadian volunteers landed in Cape Town, Canadiansoldiers began asking what it meant to be Canadian.2 Upon their arrivalin South Africa Canadians noted differences between themselves andthe other imperial troops, differences of accent and expression, prefer-ences for songs and games, attitudes and manners. The question ofidentity arose even more sharply in the context of conflicts with imperialauthorities, conflicts which usually had a complexity of causes but whichfrequently and conveniently were ascribed to national differences. Thisphenomenon, of course, was not confined to Canadian troops as the filmBreaker Morant and Australians' continuing debate on the Morant-Hancock executions dramatically demonstrate.3

Perhaps nothing illustrates this phenomenon better than the tangledconflict which racked the Canadian component of Baden-Powell's SouthAfrican Constabulary towards the end of the War. In that unit at least720 of the 1,208 Canadians constables who joined the South AfricanConstabulary returned to Canada before the expiry of their service, 133of them having been dismissed and the others 'persuaded' to resign - thealternative being dismissal; all were bitter and disillusioned, anddetermined 'that nothing in the world would tempt them to return to thelife they had recently led in South Africa'.4 Before the Canadians'premature departure, British attempts to break up the twelve troops ofCanadian constables and place them under British officers had pro-voked protests, petitions, withdrawal of service and behaviour peri-lously close to 'mutiny'. The Canadians' subsequent claim that they hadbeen victims of national prejudice and discrimination initiated a heatedpublic debate in Canada, followed by an official investigation. Thepurpose of this article is to examine these Canadian constables' sense ofnational identity as seen through the prism of this particular conflict, anexamination which suggests that the Canadian constables' national

The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Vol. 23, No. 1, pp.77-104PUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON

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78 THE JOURNAL OF IMPERIAL AND COMMONWEALTH HISTORY

definition was based upon social assumptions; and these social assump-tions differed markedly from the patrician nationalist definition pro-moted by Canada's 'imperialists'.5

The dearth of primary and secondary material on the history of theSouth African Constabulary makes difficult comparative and historio-graphical analysis of the Canadian constables' experiences. Apart fromautobiographical references to service in the Constabulary, mostsecondary accounts of the war, including L.S. Amery's monumental six-volume Times' History of the War in South Africa, pay scant attention tothis unit, owing perhaps to its hybrid, half-civilian character, and itscontinuance after the war.6 This deficiency is made even more difficultto remedy when many of the Constabulary's records listed in the PublicRecord Office's CO 439 series' two-volume Register of Correspondence,1902-08, appear to have been 'Destroyed by Statute'.7 The focus of thisarticle, therefore, is centred more narrowly on a well-documented,though neglected, incident and makes no effort at comparative analysis,except with other Canadian units which served in the South AfricanWar.

I

The Canadian constables' controversy arose partly from the confusinghybrid character of the South African Constabulary. Recruited betweenOctober 1900 and June 1901, the Constabulary was the mental creationof Lord Milner, the dynamic British High Commissioner to SouthAfrica. What Milner wanted was a permanent, local police force, undercivilian control, designed to maintain law, order, and public security inthe recently conquered Boer territory.8 At the same time, Milner sawthe Constabulary as an important instrument for his more comprehen-sive plan for the pacification, resettlement and reconstruction of SouthAfrica; in some ways what he wanted was a twentieth-century version ofJames I's 'final solution' settlement policy for Ireland.9

Volunteers for the Constabulary were required to sign a three-yearservice contract, renewable for two additional years (as opposed to theone-year term required by the three previous, strictly military, unitswhich Canada had sent to South Africa).10 The option of a landallotment, at the end of that period, was central to Milner's plan andwas designed to induce experienced policemen to settle in South Africawhere they were to serve 'as a great civilizing and uniting influence'11

and assist in its British reconstruction.12 According to Lord Kitchener,

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CANADIAN TROOPS DURING THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR 79

who became Commander-in-Chief of British forces in South Africa inOctober 1900, following Lord Roberts' departure, and who shared theHigh Commissioner's ideal, Milner's Constables, whether in or out ofthe force, were to serve as a muscular 'moral example'. They were to besporting, loyal and courageous missionaries of the British empire,charged by the 'new imperialism' with 'the great and noble task ofembodying in the Burghers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State thecharacter and behaviour of their British fellow subjects, of whom theymust be for some time the most conspicuous exponents'.13

What Milner originally had in mind was a force of about 6,000dependable, strong-armed 'missionaries' under his direct control, menof good character who were skilled horsemen and accurate shots. Noless important was his desire that his force be recruited from among thegentry. What he wanted were men whose character and behaviourexemplified the hierarchical, manly and genteel ideals of the newimperialism,14 men on whom Britain might depend to maintain itspower and influence in its far-flung empire, an ideal which the realitiesof subsequent recruitment modified considerably. Milner's suggestioncould not have been more timely.

After the British occupation of Pretoria in June 1900, Lord Roberts,then Commander-in-Chief of British Forces in South Africa, had spent agood deal of his time, energy and resources recruiting and establishingpolice forces to hold and administer what his Army had slowly andpainfully conquered, check the growing lawlessness between Boer andAfricans behind British lines and restore farms to White owners.15

Roberts, therefore, recognized immediately the economy, strength andimportance of Milner's proposal, except that he believed that Milnerrequired at least 10,000 men to accomplish the task. Unable to affordthis larger number, and unconvinced of their necessity, Milner agreed toincrease his force by 4,000 men, on the condition that the War Officewould pay the bill.16 In return for this expenditure, the War Officeinsisted that the constables, who it calculated would be cheaper thansoldiers, also serve 'as a military force in times of war'. This significantalteration of the Constabulary's character saddled the force with a dualfunction. More specifically, it gave the military an interest in, and oftena practical control over, its deployment and created the ambiguity whichcaused problems during and after the war. It also attracted men to itscolours who were interested only in the fighting and had no desire oraptitude for police work.

Roberts and Milner had no difficulty whatever agreeing on theConstabulary's Commanding Officer: Major-General Robert S.S.Baden-Powell, the ingenious, self-advertising, 44-year-old hero of

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Mafeking, then commanding a small field force (which included abattery of Canadian artillery) in the northern Transvaal. Thoroughlyenamoured of Milner's idea of the Constabulary, which he recognized asa great imperial endeavour and an opportunity to test some of his viewson scouting, pacification and training, a month after his appointment inAugust 1990, Baden-Powell had devised a detailed plan for therecruitment, organization, training, disposition and provisioning of hisConstabulary.

Although Baden-Powell's ideal for the force was closer to Milner'sthan Roberts', his preference for planning rather than 'day-to-dayadministration'17 and his 'leisurely',18 not to say idiosyncratic, methodsof training and administration left the Constabulary without a uniform,disciplined training or effective organization. From the start, Baden-Powell saw his constables as a distinct cut above the military; and intheir romantic, frontiersman dress, with their short-sleeve flannel shirts,soft collar, neckerchief, bandoleer, stetson and breeches,19 which hedesigned himself, and the 'short cut' training he prescribed, he sought tomake that distinction, between what he described as his 'intelligentyoung fellows' who could use their wits, and the common soldiers whohad 'been drilled into being soulless machines only to act under directorders'.20 Infatuated with the notion of creating a force which wouldunite his ideal of a democratic brotherhood of freedom-loving indivi-duals with military and police responsibilities, he was determined toorganize his Constabulary into a network of self-sufficent, autonomous,decentralized troops, capable of instant reaction, an organizationmodelled on the highly mobile Boer commandos. In his plan, each troopconsisting of 80 to 100 men would be divided into about 10 or morecombatant families or squads of six men and a corporal, who would beposted to blockhouses at some distance from one another; to thecorporals he would assign great responsibility, and they would earn theirpromotion through the ranks.21 Discipline, he thoughtlessly assumed,would come from within troops and from the experience, common senseand horse skills familiar to the gentry and frontiersmen from whom hewould recruit his men.22 Not only did his self-training plan fail toachieve its purpose, but the Troops' decentralized, autonomous struc-ture made supervision infrequent and remedy of deficiencies moredifficult.

Finding the number and quality of men Baden-Powell required for hisself-disciplined, hybrid, civilizing force, however, proved more trouble-some than the enthusiastic general had ever imagined, especially duringthe war.23 Although Lord Roberts had assured Baden-Powell initiallythat he could 'draw on the Army for officers, non-commissioned

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officers, and men, up to a certain percentage', the understanding beingthat he could draw up to twenty per cent, as well as for horses,transport, clothing, food, equipment and hospital supplies, when thetime came to redeem these promises, good soldiers could not be sparedand horses and material were in short supply. The Army also discour-aged Baden-Powell from competing for men and material in itstraditional recruitment and supply markets, more particularly in theBritish Isles. Despite these obstacles, the ebullient Baden-Powell wasconfident he could secure the requisite number of skilled, experiencedmen of breeding from 'all over the Empire': stock riders from Australia,farmers from New Zealand, North-West constables and cowboys fromCanada, planters from India and Ceylon, Royal Irish constables andyeomen from England.24 In short his expectations read like a story inthe Boys Own Paper\

While Baden-Powell may have wanted to draw his men from allcorners of the empire, and had representation from many, in the end theonly sizeable number of 'colonials' came from Canada.25 Contrary toTim Jeal's unsubstantiated assertion,26 Baden-Powell was particularlyanxious to recruit Canadians, and at one point was so confident of theavailability of suitable Canadian recruits that when the Constabulary'ssize was increased he believed that he could secure as many as 2,000men in Canada alone.27 Baden-Powell had a particularly good opinionof Canadian troops and hoped that C Battery (or one of the other twoBatteries in the Royal Canadian Field Force) which had helped to freeMafeking and subsequently had served in his small Field Force wouldjoin his Constabulary.28 He had also heard good reports of theStrathcona's Horse, and above all of its popular Commanding Officer,Colonel S.B. Steele, the 'famous head of the RNWMP', 29 whoseexperience seemed just what was needed, and to whom he offeredcommand of one of the Constabulary's four geographic Divisions.30 Fewof Canada's citizen-soldiers then in South Africa, however, wereanxious to prolong their service; fewer still wished to transfer to a policeunit, especially before the expiry of their existing contract. Meanwhile,recruitment began in Canada and elsewhere.31

Although at the time Canada had no troops in South Africa, andcontrary to Baden-Powell's expectation, the Canadian public was farless receptive to his force's terms of recruitment than he had antici-pated. Despite the public popularity of the force's leader, the hero ofMafeking, the Constabulary's competitive wage rates (5s or $1.21 perday for a trooper) and attractive benefits, including one month'svacation a year, a gratuity equivalent to one month's pay per year ofservice, and his prized land settlement plan, Canadians, otherwise

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disposed to assist the British in South Africa and even those pressing theCanadian government to offer more men, resented the Constabulary'sattempts to retain recruits and have them settle in South Africa. This ill-timed policy, which the Canadian Military Gazette angrily characterizedas 'virtual deportation', constituted a particular source of resentment ata time when the Canadian government was spending large sums ofmoney attempting to attract immigrants to Canada.32 Moreover thoseCanadians who volunteered were unlikely to be attracted to theConstabulary's land settlement plan, since they could have done as wellor better at this time in their own North West. (It should also beremembered that both the governments of Ontario and British Colum-bia offered Canada's South African war veterans 160 acres of land fortheir military service.) And contrary to British popular assumptions,Canada was not 'a riding and shooting country', as the Governor-General of Canada, Lord Minto, never tired of reminding Britishmilitary authorities.33

The bad press, however, did nothing to prevent the Constabulary'srecruiting agents from filling the 1,208 Canadian places, though porten-tously not with the well-bred, skilled horsemen and land-hungry settlersBaden-Powell and Milner had anticipated. About half the constableswere raised in Central and Eastern Canada, but largely from restless,young, urban, blue-collar workers. About 68 per cent of the recruitsfrom the Maritime provinces alone came from the city of Saint John,New Brunswick; M and perhaps as many as 70 per cent were native-bornCanadians. Most, however, were 'unaccustomed to horses and madepoor horsemasters, many of them having to learn to look after a horseafter reaching South Africa'.35 Large numbers of the Maritime recruitswere simply seeking employment, men who joined for the wages, thefighting and sense of adventure, but had no intention of settling in SouthAfrica and serving as 'missionaries' of empire. Significantly, most of thesubsequent difficulties came from the Eastern and Central Canadiantroops.

Among the western Canadian volunteers were large numbers ofSouth African war veterans (about 100 of whom had served withColonel Sam B. Steele in the Strathcona's Horse)36 'at least half ofwhom 'were from the old land, and had joined to have a look in at thewar'.37 (Similarly, of the thirty Canadian officers in the Constabulary,half were veterans, five of whom had been privates in previousCanadian units.) Many of the westerners, it seems, were adventurers,some wild, reckless and rowdy, men who had been recruited in the deadof winter and were anxious to join the fighting (at the time Canada hadno other units in or being recruited for service in South Africa), but had

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neither the inclination nor the interest in settling into the moresedentary life of a constable, much less that of a South African farmer.

II

The force that the Canadian constables joined on arrival in South Africain April 1901 was divided into four, self-contained, geographic Div-isions, identified by a letter and commanded by a colonel. 'A' Division,located in the Western Transvaal, had its headquarters ar Krugersdorp;'B' Division or the Northern Transvaal Division, had its headquartersfirst at Rustenburg then at Silverton, and was commanded by ColonelS.B. Steele; 'C Division controlled the Eastern Transvaal and Swazi-land, and had its headquarters at Standerton; 'E' Division (the letter 'D'having been reserved for the unit's general Headquarters in Pretoria)commanded the Orange River Colony from its headquarters at Eden-burg.

Although the precise national composition of the South AfricanConstabulary is difficult to determine, they were not all recruited inBritain, as Thomas Pakenham has asserted.38 No other colony, how-ever, seems to have recruited a full contingent of men as Canada had,though Baden-Powell had anticipated recruiting a comparable numberof Australians and had appointed an experienced Australian, Col. H.L.Pilkington, to the command his Orange River Division. Apart from the1,200 Canadian constables, at least 4,000 were raised in Britain (despitethe Army's attempt to discourage recruitment there), and another 2,000were recruited in South Africa from among the troops, some of whomhad completed their military service or had transferred from otherunits.39 From the start, then, the Canadians constituted a distinctivebody within the Constabulary, a distinction which Baden-Powell fearedmight create difficulties, and made efforts to remedy.

Much to the Canadian constables' chagrin, their twelve troops, eachcomposed of some 100 men, were not kept together as a single Canadiancontingent under Steele's command, as their recruiting agents hadpromised, but were distributed among three of the Constabulary's fourDivisions, none having been assigned to Steele's Northern Division.40

Although Baden-Powell blandly assured the Canadian constables, whowere unhappy with their division, that the distribution of their troopsamong the three Divisions was owing simply to the district officer'sdemand 'to have some Canadians with them', few men were deceived.Baden-Powell's real reason was his deliberate attempt 'to eliminatelocal feeling and create a distinct esprit de corps' in his unit.41 By mixingthe men he might also have hoped to refine some of the raw but

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educable Canadian recruits, in whom initially he had expressed suchgreat confidence. In fact, Baden-Powell had planned to go much furtherand split up the Troops themselves, but Steele had persuaded himagainst this 'folly'.42

Quite apart from any career or nationalistic consideration, Steele'straining methods differed greatly from those of Baden-Powell. Con-vinced of the importance of retaining and building on a recruit's pre-warpersonal and social ties, Steele had instructed his Canadian recruitingagents and company officers to make every effort to keep chumstogether and to assure as much as possible that 'men from one districtshall be squadded together',43 as he had done so successfully when hecommanded the Strathcona's Horse. He also insisted that officers bedrawn from the same districts as their men. Furthermore, Steele maynot have understood or taken too seriously Baden-Powell's desire tocreate a gentlemen's police corps.

Whatever Steele's reason, from Baden-Powell's perspective, theSteele compromise was probably the worst possible solution; at best itsimply bought time. Had the Canadian troops been kept together inSteele's Division, over time he might have instilled in them efficientwork habits and built loyalties which transcended the borders of theselocally raised troops; and had his training not worked out he would havebeen better placed to weed out the misfits and avoid the appearance ofnational bias. Steele's compromise, however, left Baden-Powell'sdecentralized, relatively autonomous troops intact, each under aCanadian captain and subalterns, some of whom were weak, and few ofwhom possessed the requisite number of experienced NCOs to providefirm leadership and direction. Since these troops were subject toinfrequent inspections and were often on patrol or service, far from thewatchful eye of superior officers, troops soon took on the colour andcharacter of their constituency. Furthermore, the compromise didnothing to dissipate the Canadians' unhappiness over their division; itsimply reinforced the defensive, 'clannish' character of the troops, andstiffened their resistance to change.

Although distant as some of their troops were from close regularinspection, long before the War ended many of the Constabulary'ssenior officers were painfully aware of their troops' deficiencies andagitated for a 'free hand in getting rid of the rotters'.44 Both the men'sdiscontent and the officers' desire to purge, however, were containedand restrained during the war: the men, by the opportunity for active,'independent' service, such as scouting, patrolling and the occasionalskirmish;45 and the senior officers, by the scarcity of good replacements.Peace not only removed both restraints, but forced the issue.

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On the termination of hostilities on 31 May 1902, the availability of alarge pool of willing, suitable recruits, and the War Office's promptnotice that funding for the additional 4,000 constables would cease by 31March 1903, enabled, indeed obliged, Baden-Powell to purge andremould his force; and he lost no time instructing his DivisionalCommanders to rid the force of all 'the rotters'. Many of the men, bothrotters and non-rotters, would have been only too happy to quit as soonas the war ended and they were reduced to the exclusive duties ofpeacetime constables. Few had any interest in settling into the decorouslife of a civilian constable in some Afrikaner town or village, where theiroccasional drunkenness and womanizing frequently made them theobject of suspicion and resentment. Restless and bored by that pro-spect, these men would have welcomed early discharge, had they themeans to afford it. But Baden-Powell's parsimonious refusal to offer hisrestless and undesirable constables a golden handshake or even anhonourable exit, to the extent of paying their return fare to Canadabefore their three-year contract expired, and his much more under-standable desire to control those who remained or left his force, madeconflict almost inevitable.

Obliged to reduce the force by 4,000 or more (the more to make placefor good disbanded soldiers) in ten months, divisional and districtofficers commanding began at once a rigorous assessment of their men,with an eye to weeding out all who were unlikely to prove suitable forpeacetime police work. For many of Baden-Powell's senior com-manders, who were unhappy with their chief's experimental, casualadministration, it was an opportunity to clean house, reorder andcentralize.46 In the post-war crusade to reconstruct South Africa alongBritish lines the Constabulary's civilizing mission resumed its initialimportance. To succeed in that task what the police authorities requiredwere those steady, able, educated men who would give no offence to theBoer population so 'easily offended by the slightest impropriety inlanguage or demeanour'.47

Moreover the police authorities' determination to monitor the men'sbehaviour, redefine their duties, enforce regulations and punishoffences more severely, with an eye to weeding out the worst, came at atime when the men were least amenable to discipline and restraint.During the ensuing months a disproportionate number of Canadianswere persuaded or compelled to leave the force. In doing so, theirtreatment was and often appeared perfunctory, arbitrary, and insensi-tive. Some men had the option of transferring to other troops; otherswere simply discharged, some without a defaulter's record. Still othersresigned in protest. Good men were obliged to purchase their discharge,

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while unsatisfactory men received their discharge free. Contrary to therecruiting agents' promises, their pay, vacation, gratuity and otherentitlements were calculated, not from the date of their recruitment inCanada, but from their arrival and discharge in South Africa.

All, however, were promptly despatched by rail to Cape Town, wherethey were then left on their own, most without the means or the moneyto secure a return passage to Canada. One group remained in CapeTown for five weeks, financially responsible for their own board andlodging, until the authorities consented to provide an indulgencepassage aboard a troopship bound for Southampton.48 There they wereobliged to pay for their two days' board until the War Office broughtthem to London and gave them a free passage home. By this time thenumber of discharged Canadian constables stranded in London hadbecome so large, and their protests so loud, that Canada's wealthy HighCommissioner in London, Lord Strathcona, had shamed the War Officeinto action by offering to pay the men's return passage from his ownpocket, in a vain effort to contain what was threatening to become apublic scandal.49

The arrival in Montreal on 30 March 1903 of one large consignment ofdisgruntled Canadian ex-constables turned into a public controversywhat until then had been largely an acrimonious private correspon-dence, pursued by their relatives' letters to Canadian and British publicauthorities, complaining of the 'spiteful and petty tyranny of Imperialofficers'.50 In a well-rehearsed, seventeen-point litany of complaints, theMontreal group's spokesmen explained to an attentive Montreal Starreporter that the Canadian constables had been victims of deception andsystematic discrimination. The Canadian constables' grief list beganwith Baden-Powell's failure to keep the Canadians together underCanadian officers who understood Canadian men and their conditions.In contrast to other Canadian contingents they had been obliged topurchase their own insurance or go without. In the distribution of food,kit, clothing and supplies, they alleged, Canadians had received lessthan British recruits, thereby obliging Canadians to purchase basicnecessities from their own pockets, often at exorbitant prices. English,and even Boer officers and NCOs, the charge continued, were pro-moted and systematically preferred to qualified Canadians. Trivialbreaches of discipline on the part of the Canadians were 'rigorouslypunished', whereas similar offences were ignored and tolerated inBritish troops. According to the unhappy warriors, when hostilitiesceased in May 1902 and the force was reduced, Canadians were harassedand forced to leave their unit upon pain of dismissal. Those who refused togo quietly were dismissed on 'trumped-up' charges. Defaulters' sheets

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were concocted containing information 'injurious to their characters andreputations'.51 Destitute, penurious and discredited, those who hadbeen purged from the Constabulary had been obliged to pay their returnpassage to Canada. Thus the Empire had rewarded them for theirservice and their patriotism.

The Montreal Star's report had not caught Canadians entirely bysurprise. Over a year before, several Canadian journals had carried aLondon correspondent's report of the great dissatisfaction amongCanadian recruits over 'being split up, making them half Canadian andhalf English'. According to this somewhat fanciful account, when Steelelearned of 'his contingent's' dispersal, he 'tendered his resignationrather than go away with unreliable recruits, instead of his reliableCanadians'.52 Inaccurate as the details of the news report were, itsdescription of strife had captured the growing spirit of dissention amongthe Canadian constables; and its prediction that a storm was brewingproved all too correct.

When the storm broke, however, the imperial authorities were notleft defenceless. Two days after the Star's report 'a Canadian Trooper'wrote to the Mail and Empire repudiating the Canadian constables''unmanly whining'. In this Canadian trooper's view, these unhappywarriors had been 'kicked out as unfit for service', and if they werepenniless 'the card game and the canteen were responsible for theirpoverty', not the imperial authorities. The cause of these 'victims of thebobtailed flush',53 however, was championed in the House of Commonsby the Conservative Member of Parliament for Elgin East, AndrewIngram, who questioned Sir Frederick Borden, the Minister of Militia,on the veracity of the Star's report.54 During the Commons' exchangeBorden simply agreed to ask Baden-Powell's replacement as Inspector-General of the Constabulary, Colonel J.S. Nicholson, for a report onthe seventeen charges contained in the Star's report.

Ill

Nicholson immediately ordered a full investigation, paying specialattention to Troops 14 and 17, where tensions had been most pro-nounced. An experienced and accomplished Canadian veteran of the2nd Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment of Infantry, the first Canadiancontingent to go to South Africa, and at the time of Nicholson's requesta Captain in the Constabulary, H.E. Burstall, was asked to investigatethe charges. To do so, Burstall sought and received detailed reportsfrom all of the officers who commanded Canadian men. Their reportsprovide a remarkable insight into the Canadian constables' character

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and the nature and dynamics of the conflict which precipitated theirdischarge.

None of the officers' reports questioned the Canadian constables'military prowess. All agreed that they had been excellent soldiers andhard-working and 'brave to foolhardiness in the field'.55 'In actualwarfare', one otherwise critical officer wrote, 'in which they took a keeninterest, they were most reliable, brave and tactful. On such occasions Iwould sooner be backed by a Canadian troop than any other',56 a claimstrongly supported by their record in the field. Some also noted thatthey performed best under Canadian officers. But all agreed, too, thatwhen the fighting ceased they soon lost interest in police work andadapted poorly to the more sedentary, monotonous life of a civilianpoliceman.

None the less, even before the prolonged military conflict draggedtowards its bitter end discipline had begun to deteriorate, as theopportunity for combat became more infrequent and men were con-fined to 'making and holding lines of blockhouses' in isolated areas 'toprevent the enemy from moving across certain tracts of country'.57

Housed in rudimentary shelter, poorly fed and with no literature,amusements or training routine, the men became careless, bored,restless and discontented. Drinking and fighting increased, morale fell,and men applied for transfer to other military units, especially to therecently formed 2nd regiment, Canadian Mounted Rifles, which arrivedin South Africa in March 1902.

Baden-Powell had realized, almost from the beginning, that hisCanadians were different, and during the war he had made severalefforts to find a remedy for their restlessness, short of dismissal. As hehad explained to the British military authorities on one occasion, theCanadians 'felt keenly being kept so long at blockhouse work', and wereconstantly seeking 'transfers to other corps'. Consequently, he hadsuggested that his 1,200 Canadians, whom he considered 'jolly good asscouts', ought to replace untrained British Yeomanry in the field. LordKitchener, who had succeeded Roberts as Commander-in-Chief ofBritish forces in South Africa, however, declined his offer, ostensibly onthe grounds that though the Canadians might 'make the most excellentmobile column, this is not their metier', and the experience would only'unsettle them for their own peculiar class of work'.58 At the end of thewar Baden-Powell, having failed to unload his Canadian constables onto the army, had few alternatives but to confront the problem directly.

The worst Troops appeared to be numbers 14 and 17, commanded byCaptains F.W.L. Moore and A.H. Powell respectively. Both wereeastern Canadian Troops, number 14 having been recruited largely in

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Saint John, and number 17 largely in Montreal.59 During successiveinspections, even before the war ended, Baden-Powell had complainedof the unsatisfactory conditions in Powell's Montreal Troop.60 More 'so-called crimes' were committed in this unit than in any other. Disciplinewas lax, the men were ignorant of orders and regulations; they lost andwere careless of equipment. On one occasion as many as twenty-threemen had been court-martialled for their refusal to move on orders,albeit under extraordinary circumstances, to be discussed below. Thingswere little better among Moore's Saint John Troop, where the men weredescribed as lacking initiative, and were 'mutinous, dishonest anddrunken', men who 'could not be trusted when away from anyresponsible men', and would work only when 'the work was agreeableto them'.61

In the more exigent post-war era of retrenchment and reform theseflagrant irregularities would be tolerated no longer. To improve disci-pline Moore, a PEI-born officer in the Royal Canadian Artillery whowas said to lack initiative, was removed from the command and replacedby a young Montreal-born subaltern, Frank T. St. George, whoimmediately recommended the discharge of 14 of his men. When thedivisional commander, Colonel Pilkington, an Australian, refused to acton St. George's recommendation until he had specified the men'scrimes, the latter responded, and in doing so added 11 more names tohis hit-list, altogether a quarter of his Troop! Of the 25 men he wished todismiss, 12 had been convicted, some several times, for drunkenness.Six were described as untrustworthy, one had been sentenced to sixmonths' hard labour for striking a superior officer, one had served threemonths for ill-treating a horse - government property - and one hadbeen charged with 'irregular conduct in warning certain prostitutes inthe town of Heidleberg of a police raid'. Three of the men on St.George's hit-list were NCOs.62

If things were unsettled in Moore's Troop, Powell's Montreal men,posted at Edenburg in the former Orange Free State, had an even morecolourful record. There things simmered slowly to a boil in the post-warsummer of 1902 when on 10 July 1902, the day following the date set forthe Constabulary to cease being a military force, the Riet River sub-divisional commander of the Orange River command, Major DalzellWalton, decided to post a British regular, Lieutenant Frances StewartMontague-Bates, to Powell's Montreal Troop to report on its deficien-cies. This 26-year-old subaltern from the East Surrey Regiment, whohad been commissioned from the ranks and whom his British superiorsconsidered an energetic, organized disciplinarian, the Canadians saw as

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a brittle, fussy, supercilious careerist who possessed an 'unfortunate wayof dealing with men'.63 The arrangement was almost designed toproduce trouble, which it did and at once.

Powell and his men resented Lieutenant Montague-Bates' missionand presence among them and went out of their way to offend him.Easily offended, Montague-Bates responded with a predictably devas-tating report to the sub-divisional commander, describing the scanda-lous state of Powell's Troop, its disorder, lack of discipline andmaladministration. According to Montague-Bates, equipment, includ-ing rifles, were lost, some having been sold illegally to local inhabitantswho desperately needed guns. In Montague-Bates' view the men werecompletely out of control. Drunken Canadian constables were oftenseen 'galloping wildly through the streets of the town', this offence andothers, he explained to his disapproving superiors, 'passed over byPowell without a reprimand'. Men whom Montague-Bates charged,Powell refused to try. Insubordination was allegedly rampant and thereappeared to be no respect or regard for rank. A first-class trooper hadbeen permitted to serve as paymaster, a task traditionally consigned tothe commissioned ranks. Altogether, Montague-Bates found the men'ssuperiors, including Powell himself, to be totally lacking in 'propersmartness'.64

On the receipt of Montague-Bates' scathing report, the sub-divisionalcommander, Major Walton, reprimanded Powell, curtly informing himthat 'the influences and standards maintained by you as O.C. either byact or omission render all authority rotten to the core'. Walton wasespecially concerned by the men's and NCOs' 'attitude and bearingbefore their superiors', and ordered Powell to take disciplinary actionand arrest specific men.65 When Powell failed to so, the sub-divisionalofficer commanding transferred Powell to another unit, and ill-advisedlyreplaced him with Montague-Bates, the hated inquisitor. (Almost a yearlater, although Powell's superiors reported that he had 'become' an'efficient officer', Powell himself insisted that the conduct of hisMontreal men had been very good prior to Montague-Bates' arrival.)66

The Montreal Troop's reaction was immediate and 'mutinous'. Toprotect the Troop's autonomy and integrity, defend their officercommanding's reputation and protest against Montague-Bates' appoint-ment, 67 men petitioned Baden-Powell, deploring Montague-Bates''troublesome interference', who together with Major Walton 'have triedto make this troop a troop of men without morals, ambition, or othercharacteristics which should be traits of every man to say nothing ofevery gentleman', the latter a distinct appeal to Baden-Powell's ideal.

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The petitioners reminded Baden-Powell that for the past three months,that is since their Edenburg posting, 'not one man had been on trial formisconduct in town', and requested that the petitioners be transferredwith Powell to some other sub-division.67 Meanwhile, 20 residents ofEdenburg and district, apparently 'without the knowledge of Powell',wrote to the divisional commander to testify to Powell's helpfulness, hisTroop's good behaviour and their 'popularity with all classes of theinhabitants'.68

When the Constabulary authorities insisted upon Powell's removal,the Troop's NCOs responded by requesting permission to revert to therank of a third-class trooper, or be discharged, avowing that they wouldnot serve 'under any but Canadian officers', who 'understand theCanadian disposition'. And when that threat failed, predictably, theTroop decided upon even more drastic action. On the day set forPowell's transfer and Montague-Bates' arrival, the majority of theconstables left their posts, without orders, and went into town, 'leavingthe district without police', and obliging the sub-divisional commander,Major Walton, to call men from other districts to replace them.69 MajorWalton rode at once to the Edenburg post and attempted to address themen at dinner and restore order. But the men were unmoved by hisorations, and he found their behaviour 'threatening'. They refused hisorder to fall in for rifle inspection, and as he was leaving 'shots werefired in the air'. At another post, the striking policeman shot agovernment Cap cart 'into matchwood'. Similarly, when the sub-divisional commander sent an experienced superintendent to restoreorder he was greeted at the railway station and 'publicly hooted' by thestriking Canadian constables. The sub-divisional commander hadclearly lost control of the situation.70

Unable to tame the 'mutiny' and fearing further trouble, Waltonappealed to the divisional commander, Colonel H.O. Pilkington, whointervened immediately. Nine of the Canadian constables, who weresuspected of taking 'a leading part in the disturbance', were arrested andsent to Bloemfontein for trial. A board of officers assembled there andattempted to take evidence. But evidence was difficult to extract fromthis tightly knit group, none willing to implicate the others. In the end itproved impossible to establish individual guilt and no charges were laid.None the less the divisional commander decided to discharge 24 of thesuspected prime movers. Ironically, since most of those he wished todischarge had no entry on their defaulter's sheets, the divisionalcommander was obliged to discharge them with a character of 'verygood'! The rest he determined to distribute among the other Troops.71

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At this point Baden-Powell intervened. After a discussion withColonel S.B. Steele, upon whom he came to depend for advice andsuggestions generally, Baden-Powell decided against the breakup ofTroops 14 and 17, perhaps because he feared political repercussionsarising out of charges of national bias. The offending two Troops weretransferred to Steele's Northern Division, the Saint John men toWarmbaths and the Montreal Troop to Waterberg. There they wereplaced under experienced, tactful Canadian officers. One, Captain A.E.Swift, a militia officer from Quebec City's 8th Royal Rifles, reportedthat the Montreal men were 'the worst he had ever seen or known'.72

Steele himself met the troops, paraded them and plied them withfatherly advice and stern admonition. Although he found among theirranks many good scouts and excellent soldiers, he soon realized thatmost were totally unsuited to police work. Too often they were slack,slovenly, restless, careless and uninterested in their work. After a fewweeks, and another change of subalterns, but no corresponding changein the constables' behaviour, Steele had no choice but to break up thetwo Troops and have a board of officers discharge those it consideredunfit for police work.73 This, then, was the state of affairs unearthed byBurstall's inquiry.

Given the overwhelming evidence placed before him, Captain Bur-stall had little choice but to conclude that he had found no evidencewhatever of discrimination against Canadian constables. In his point-by-point reply to each of their charges, Burstall concluded that all theconstables had been dismissed 'for good and sufficient' reasons andpromoted 'on fair and just lines'. None had been the object ofdiscrimination in the distribution of kit, supplies or comforts. Nor hadCanadians been singled out for disciplinary action. Burstall agreed thatmost had been excellent fighters, who had joined to fight and hadproven themselves during the war; and he concluded that men whomight make good soldiers did not necessarily make good policemen.74

During his investigation Burstall identified four categories of men:those of good character who were considered by their Troop officers asunsuitable for police work; those of indifferent character who wereconsidered unsuitable for police work; those dismissed for graveoffences against discipline; those discharged for their participation inthe Troop 17 disturbance. The constables in the first two categories weresaid to lack 'steadiness, education, ability' and propriety, however thatwas defined.75 Burstall might have added a fifth category, composed ofthose men who possessed the requisite personal and military attributes,but refused to remain in the force, and it seems there were plenty ofthese.76

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IV

The absence of firm evidence of national prejudice and the character ofthe Canadian Constabulary, at least half of whom were probablyBritish-born, makes it difficult to disagree with BurstalFs conclusion.Moreover, even their Canadian officers and some of their fellowconstables agreed that many of the men were totally miscast for policework.77 No one could deny, however, that the Constabulary authoritieshad been needlessly legalistic and niggardly in their refusal to date payand entitlements from the time of their Canadian enlistments, asrecruiting agents had promised, rather than from the date of theirarrival in South Africa; or their failure to pay discharged men theirpassage back to Canada. Furthermore, in their haste to reduce the forceand rid it of undesirables, the Constabulary authorities had often beenperfunctory, inconsistent and inconsiderate. Yet none of this consti-tuted national bias, and there is no evidence to suggest that the policeauthorities were more generous with non-Canadians, or were perfunc-tory, niggardly and inconsistent because they were dealing withCanadians.

Why then were the unhappy Canadian constables convinced that theyhad been singled out, and that they had been the victims of discrimi-nation? It is easy, of course, to dismiss the unhappy warriors' grievancesas the whining of incorrigibles, misfits and failures; and there wereplenty of these. But the objectors also included many constables whomtheir superiors judged to be good soldiers and desirable constableswho left the force of their own volition, against the wishes of theirsuperiors, and these men were no less vocal in their discontent;moreover, these men were likely to have played an important role informulating the Canadians' critique. After all, some 67 constables inTroop 17 had signed the petition to Baden-Powell, and all the Troop'sNCOs had asked to revert to the ranks rather than serve underMontague-Bates. What fired their discontent and desire to quit theforce, united the desirable and undesirable, and gave validity to theclaims of the disgruntled, were the Canadians' social assumptions as towhat constituted fitness 'for police work'. Moreover, all the unhappyCanadian constables appeared to agree on their preference forCanadian officers, the apparent discrimination in promotions, rewardsand punishments, and their discomfort in the presence of imperial menand officers.

That Canadian and British soldiers possessed differing social assump-tions, of course, was obvious to many observers. Even the Mail andEmpire's 'Canadian trooper' acknowledged that social tensions had

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troubled relations between Canadian and imperial authorities. Theproblem was, he perceptively explained, that many imperial officerstreated Canadians just as they would treat denizens of London, EC.'Londoners are used to it', he continued, but 'Canadians are not, nordoes the public opinion of this country demand that Canadians becomelackeys for English officers. A Canadian trooper is a fighting man, he isnot a soldier.'78 In other words, the tensions between Canadians andtheir imperial officers may have been based more on class and culturethan on nationality as such, a proposition backed by considerableevidence.

In contrast to those educated, soldier-settlers and public school boys,those 'young gentlemen, just down from university or members of theY.M.C.A., volunteer corps, or cycling and cricket clubs',79 whomBaden-Powell hoped would help to gentrify and assure the Britishcharacter of post-war South Africa, the Eastern and the CentralCanadian constables came from quite a different social class. TheseCanadians were largely 'shop and factory hands' from Halifax, SaintJohn and Montreal, with little education, some of whom were describedas illiterate. In the rush to press Canadian bodies into the Constabulary,'men were enlisted who, excellent as their behaviour on the fieldinvariably was, could never reach the standard required for Constabu-lary duties in peace time'.80 According to their own officers, only 'asmall percentage' of the Canadian constables 'had ever been accus-tomed to anything in the nature of discipline and the great majority hadnever been under control of any kind before'.81 Some, too, may havebeen what their officers described as 'social misfits' who belonged to the'city waster class',82 undisciplined, incorrigible men who 'had beenaddicted to the use of intoxicants, either before, or when they wererecruited'.83

Baden-Powell's success in obtaining about 2,000 public school men inBritain made the contrast and sometimes the conflict between them andthe Canadians almost visible. Anxious to retain the public school boys,Baden-Powell instructed divisional commanders to do everything 'tomake their surroundings more like what they were accustomed to, thanlet them come down to the usual barracks room standard'.84 In thoseTroops where men arid conditions permitted, their mess contained alibrary with books and English papers, organized picnics, lawn tennis,bridge and golf, as well as excursions to concerts and exhibits.85 Andthese were the men Milner and Baden-Powell hoped would remain toresettle and reconstruct South Africa. Consequently when it came topromotion, preference was given to those who might best fit into thisworld, including acquaintance with the 'right' people, 'a cursed social

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influence' which Steele found to be 'ten times worse than politicalinfluence',86 so often seen as the scourge of colonial militia forces.

Those who fell short of Baden-Powell's social ideal, as so many of theCanadians clearly did, were particularly vulnerable when the war'stermination required a drastic reduction of the force, a tightening of itsadministrative structures and a re-emphasis on its police function. ThoseCanadians who were retained, and many were, and who subsequentlymade a career in the force were men and officers such as GeorgeStephen Beer, the son of a Prince Edward Island doctor, who hadstudied at the Prince of Wales College, and then taken medicine for twoyears, or Charles C. Bennett, who had been educated privately beforespending three years at the University of Toronto, and men like HenryR. Pousette, a graduate of Upper Canada College, the Royal MilitaryCollege and the University of Toronto, or Frank T. St. George, the sonof an Anglican clergyman who had been educated at St. Johns School(later Lower Canada College) and McGill University.87 These were menof quite a different class, men whose national aspirations were morelikely to resemble those promoted by Canada's imperialists. These more'reliable and respectable'88 Canadian constables had little difficultysettling comfortably into the reformed force, more content now that 'thebad men and the useless had been discharged'.89 In all, probably fourhundred, or a third of the original number of Canadians, remained inSouth Africa, where they provided services similar to those provided bythe North West Mounted Police, upon whom they were increasinglymodelled. There they acted as magistrates, vetinarians, game wardens,census takers as well as law enforcement agents, tasks for which someeducation was required. And many of the Canadian constables who hadbeen considered unfit for police work were let go, as Steele pointed out,simply because they lacked the proper education.90

According to some of their officers, the disgruntled Canadianconstables' greatest difficulty was that they 'lacked a sufficient know-ledge of playing the game and its meaning'.91 In fact, they knew how toplay the game, but they played by rules more appropriate to a labourunion. Drawn from a fairly homogeneous social and regional base, thesemen, like those in other contingents, were bound together by a complexnetwork of pre-war relationships.92 As one of their officers explained,many of the constables had been 'pals at home and belonged to the samebaseball and lacrosse teams' and 'always appeared to place loyalty toeach other before all other principles. They might be termed extremelyclannish.'93 Or, in the more direct language of another of their officers,Captain Henry Remington Pousette: 'Their idea of duty appeared to beto stick to one another in all rows.' The Montreal Troop's resistance to

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Major Walton's attempt to reform their Troop demonstrated thatcharacteristic rather forcefully. Their strategy, solidarity, leadership andrelative success during that dramatic confrontation suggests that somemay have had trade union experience.

Their solidarity was reinforced by the social gap which separatedthem from many British recruits, and the lack of a uniform or rigoroustraining in South Africa. The Canadian constables, for example,displayed little deference to rank or hierarchy. Their commissioned andnon-commissioned officers, who frequently came from the same regionand social strata as their men, consulted their men on the best ways andmeans of performing their duties, and assigned them tasks such aspaymaster on the basis of competence rather than rank. The officers inthis and other Canadian units contended that Canadian soldiers workedbetter if they were treated as responsible persons, and were told thepurpose or reason for their mission. Those officers who 'condescendedto make clear the reason for a certain move' found their men morewilling to adapt to changing circumstances, to initiate and think theirway out of a difficult situation, a characteristic which some Britishgenerals, including Baden-Powell, professed to admire in colonialsoldiers.94

Ironically, the Canadian troops' ideal of a decentralized, democratic,self-disciplined fraternity resembled Baden-Powell's; and underscoredthe difficulty of squaring his ideal with reality (a difficulty whichsubsequently troubled his Boy Scout movement which was modelled onhis South African Constabulary)95 as his senior commanders readilyrealized. They chaffed at his orders that 'the rank and file were to befairly treated', that 'any trooper with a grievance could go over the headof his divisional commander and appeal to the Inspector General inperson', or that officers were to 'treat their men as reasoning youngEnglishmen and not as mindless boys to be ordered about'. They alsoresented his more lenient treatment of offenders and admonitions toshow men more encouragement and leniency.96 Nor did they seem toshare his confidence that even working-class men might be educated tomiddle-class values. Consequently, at the end of the war and Baden-Powell's subsequent departure, they welcomed the opportunity to putthings right.

Captain H.A. Machin, a South African veteran of the first Canadiancontingent serving with the Constabulary, while admitting that themajority of men lacked discipline, realized that they 'required a greatdeal of tactful handling by officers and NCOs who were familiar with thenature of the men under them, their habits and view of life generally',and worked best when 'under the eyes of their own officers'.97

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Montague-Bates and Walton, however, had been scandalized to learnthat the NCOs and subalterns appeared to have become the creatures oftheir unit and the effective chain of authority to have been subverted.To the Canadians, Montague-Bates and Walton mistook form forsubstance. In resisting Montague-Bates' and Walton's attempts toreduce their control and autonomy, therefore, the men were protectinga social culture.

Were the unhappy warriors' charges of national bias, then, simply aclever means of packaging social misunderstanding? Perhaps, on theother hand, their national self-definition may have been shaped bysocial assumptions which admitted no distinction between the two.After all, in post-Confederation Canada there were, as Joseph Levitthas pointed out, competing images, visions and definitions of Canada'scharacter and destiny,98 visions which predated and shaped Confedera-tion itself." While the dominant definition during the Boer War yearsappeared to have been the grand, patrician, deferential, idealistic,British vision constructed and proclaimed by Canada's imperialists, mensuch as George Grant, George Parkin, George T. Denison and others,and described so masterfully in Carl Berger's The Sense Of Power, therewas, as Alan Smith has reminded us, a competing New World vision,based upon different aspirations. These included more materialistic,individualistic, egalitarian goals and notions of progress, reinforced by aflood of literature from south of the border.100 These aspirations hadlong been at the heart of many a European's definition of America andwere a shared Canadian-American ideological heritage, though oneincreasingly appropriated by the United States. In contrast to thenationalist construction, defined and articulated by Canada's patrician,romantic imperialists of the time,101 who had formulated their nationalvision as a means of defining Canadians from Americans, the shophands' vision of their 'home of hope for all who toil',102 to quote a linefrom the second stanza of Canada's National Anthem, was a relativelyclassless, democratic fraternity, unencumbered by the rigidly hierarchi-cal, differential and paternalistic customs which appeared to definesocial relations in British military units and which Canadians believedhad stifled initiative and muffled industry in the Army and in Britaingenerally.

The shop hands' critique, of course, was not novel, even at the time;nor was it confined to factory hands.103 Other equally patrioticCanadians saw themselves as a democratic people, who 'dislike caste

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. . . abhor titular distinctions . . . and object to the introduction of classdiscriminations, patterned after the English plan'.104 Some even won-dered aloud if 'political influence would yield better results thandeference to social considerations'.105 The conviction that social rela-tions in Canada were less formal, less based on birth, breeding and rankthan in Britain, was also an ideal shared by many of the British-bornimmigrants who joined the Canadian Constabulary; and this convictionwas to gain even greater credence during the Great War, under similarcircumstances and for similar reasons.106

The constables' vision of Canadian society and the complaints whichfuelled it were not unique to this unit. As we know, such complaintswere a recurring theme in the letters, diaries and published accounts ofmen in other Canadian contingents. They, too, complained of pettydistinctions based on rank in the distribution of supplies and services,and in the reporting of casualties, where only the loss of officers wasreported. They considered it inhumane that ill and wounded soldierswere treated by order of rank rather than need,107 distinctions whichwere pursued to the grave, as privates were consigned to the earth inrough blankets, while titled men and officers were interred in leadcaskets. These invidious distinctions seemed particularly inappropriatein a force composed of citizen soldiers where military rank and civiliansocial status were often incongruous, and where personal friendshipstranscended rank.108

Canadians were also impatient with the ceremony, deference andcompliance which seemed to govern relations between British officersand their men - 'too much militarism and too little humanity' - andresented some Canadian officers' attempts to emulate them. Theyridiculed and parodied these Piccadilly Aristocrats and their 'fiveo'clock tea principles' of warfare, their humourless, joyless, stiff upperlip. Canadians were particularly critical of what they regarded as thearrogance and condescension of some imperial officers, and their slavishreliance on orders, instead of instruction and information, images whichCanadian authors would employ to entertain, instruct and defineCanadians in the post-Boer War era.

In contrast to the compliant, deferential and ceremonial habitsgoverning relations between imperial officers and men, some Canadiansenjoyed depicting themselves as 'tribes of shockingly hard-swearing,hard-fighting animals with whom it is neither fitting nor altogether safeto interfere'.109 They liked to recount stories of British officers' 'shock'at the informal relations between Canadian officers and men, asillustrated by the following alleged conversation in which a Britishofficer declared: 'I would hand him over to the guard immediately', to

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which a Canadian officer replied 'Oh you would, would you? Well, letme tell you that if you'd tried any of those high-handed ways with ourfellows, in South Africa, you'd have been lynched at the nearest tree orbulleted on the quiet at night.'110 Sam Hughes, the controversial SouthAfrican War veteran and later Minister of Defence, never ceasedwarning Canada's Permanent Force officers against emulating Britishofficers' exploded and obsolete 'lord and despot' attitude towards theirmen, instead of treating them as 'a comrade and a teacher'.111

Canadian officers had similar complaints. Throughout the warCanadian journals indignantly reported that British officers treatedcolonial officers as inferiors and made them 'feel that they were onlymembers of the mess by sufferance'.112 In fact, relations betweenregimental and colonial officers became so tense that Lord Roberts wasobliged to issue a confidential memorandum regretting the 'unfriendlyspirit of regimental officers to members of H.M. colonial forces . . .,more especially in the junior ranks', an order which Kitchener wasobliged to re-issue on 12 February 1902.113 While some Canadianofficers, such as Captain Agar Adamson, a well-born, Cambridge-educated Ottawa socialite and officer of the Governor-General's FootGuards, who served in the Strathcona's Horse and later in 6th CanadianMounted Rifles, had no difficulty whatever with the British officers,whom he preferred to his 'crude' and 'uncivilized' compatriots, manyother Canadian officers realized that, though they might be considered'good enough at the front, they were less welcome' at a Cape Townhotel, or 'in a London drawing room'.114 Those Canadian officers whoaped the imperials earned little respect from their men who declaredthey would rather serve under the real thing than their imitations.115

Since this conflict was one of perception rather than governance, ithad no perceptible immediate effect on Canada's constitutional rela-tions within the empire.116 But in their encounters with British troops itwas these social differences which Canadian soldiers believed set themapart from their British comrades, differences that writers such as RalphConnor, or cartoonists such as Arthur. G. Racey, did much topopularize during the following decade. Although imperialists hadhoped that Canadian participation in the South African war wouldsolidify the formal ties of empire, many Canadian soldiers returnedfrom the war, not as advocates of imperial integration, but 'Singing theirown Canadian war song', determined to fight only under Canadianofficers in any future war.117 Those who retained an imperial vision,seemed to concede their opponents' assumptions and worried aboutBritish 'race deterioration', convinced that an oppressive social struc-ture had stifled British initiative and self-reliance, and created an

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unquestioning dependence on and deference to their social betters. Incontrast to their opponents, however, these imperialists were anxiousthat Canada play an increasingly active, redemptive role in stemmingthe imperial decline. In this respect, Canadian participation in the SouthAfrican war helped to redefine Canadian nationalism, by reinforcing itssocial, democratic emphasis, forged as much from its New World socialand physical environment as from its British institutional heritage, adefinition which Canadian participation in the next great militaryconflict would validate and elevate to a national myth.

McGill University

NOTES

1. An earlier version of this paper was given at the ACSANZ conference, University ofNew England, N.S.W., July 1990, and at the Ottawa Historical Society, January1992.

2. Desmond Morton, Une histoire militaire du Canada 1608-1991, Septentrion (Sillery,1992), 16.

3. See Barry Bridges, 'Lord Kitchener and the Morant-Hancock Executions', Journalof the Royal Australian Historical Society, 73, 1 (June 1987), 24-40.

4. Montreal Star, 30 March 1903.5. See Carl Berger, The Sense of Power: Studies in the Ideas of Canadian Imperialism

1867-1914 (Toronto, 1970) for an incisive analysis of their ideas, in which he arguesthat their imperialist ideology was but another form of English Canadian national-ism.

6. See, for example, the six volumes of L.S. Amery (ed.), The Times' History of theWar in South Africa 1899-1902 (London, 1904); or, more recently, ThomasPakenham, The Boer War (London, 1979); even Tim Jeal's The Boy-Man: The Lifeof Lord Baden-Powell (New York, 1990), devotes only twelve pages to this aspect ofBaden-Powell's life and career.

7. Consequently the reconstruction of the experiences of this unit, and more particu-larly the Canadian component, has had to rely upon Baden-Powell's Papers in theNational Army Museum, London; the S.B. Steele Papers, at the Glenbow Museum,Calgary; and various newspapers and published memoirs.

8. Donald Denoon, A Grand Illusion (London, 1973), 22. The Colonial Office laterclaimed that the Constabulary was conceived as a 'temporary' force, Public RecordOffice (hereafter PRO), CO 527/7, Minute, Nov. 1906.

9. See Kent Fedorowich, 'Anglicization and the Politicization of British Immigration toSouth Africa, 1899-1929', Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, XIX, 2(1991), 222-46; and M. Streak, Lord Milner's Immigration Policy for the Transvaal,1897-1905 (Johannesburg, 1970).

10. Only the first two Canadian contingents were temporary units of the CanadianMilitia; the rest were temporary units of the British Army raised by the Canadiangovernment. For a fuller discusson of the legal status of Canadian troops in SouthAfrica see my Painting the Map Red: Canada and the South African War 1899-1902(Montreal, 1993), 51-2.

11. Joseph Chamberlain, cited in Jeal, 340.12. Militia Order 12, 15 Jan. 1901; and Militia Order 31 (1), 8 Feb. 1901.13. PRO, WO 108/104, Memorandum, Lord Kitchener, 17 June 1902.

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14. For a fuller discussion of the cultural characteristics of this 'new Imperialism' seeJ.A. Mangan, The Games Ethic and Imperialism:Aspects of the Diffusion of an Ideal(New York, 1985); and Brian Stoddard, 'Sport, Cultural Imperialism and ColonialResponses in the British Empire', Comparative Studies in Society and History, 30(1988), 649-73.

15. Peter Warwick, Black People and the South African War 1899-1902 (Cambridge,1983), 46, 48 and 49.

16. National Army Museum, Baden-Powell Papers, Diary, 31 Aug. 1900; also LordBaden-Powell of Gilwell, Lessons from the Varsity of Life (London, 1933), 215.

17. Jeal, 341.18. Amery, V, 83.19. Robert H. MacDonald, Sons of the Empire: The Frontier and the Boy Scout

Movement 1890-1918 (Toronto, 1993), 114.20. Baden-Powell, Lessons, 218-22.21. Jeal, 341.22. Baden-Powell, Lessons, 221.23. Ibid., 218-22.24. Ibid., 220.25. Amery, VI, 279.26. Jeal, 333.27. For a discussion of contemporary British views of Canada, see Patrick A. Dunae,

Gentlemen Immigrants: From the British public schools to the Canadian frontier(Vancouver, 1981); and R. G. Moyles and Douglas Owram, Imperial Dreams andColonial Realities: British views of Canada 1880-1914 (Toronto, 1988).

28. Baden-Powell Papers, Diary, 20 Nov. 1900.29. Baden-Powell, Lessons, 224.30. Contrary to Tim Jeal's assertion in The Boy-Man, 333, Steele was not 'foisted' on

Baden-Powell: see Glenbow Museum, S.B. Steele Papers, Steele to Strathcona, 26July and 19 Oct. 1900.

31. For more information on the recruitment, composition and experiences of theCanadian Constables, see Miller, Painting the Map Red, Ch 25.

32. Canadian Military Gazette, 19 Feb. 1901.33. National Library of Scotland, Minto Papers, Minto to Lorne, 13 Feb. 1900; Minto to

Gray, 14 Feb. 1900.34. Halifax Herald, 13 and 30 March 1901.35. CO 526/3/4, Captain Charles Beer to ADSO, E. Division, 30 June 1903.36. Gaston Labat, Le Livre D'Or (Montreal, 1901), 26.37. S.B. Steele, Forty Years In Canada (London, 1915), 369. Unfortunately no

Attestation Papers for the Constabulary appear to exist in Britain or Canada, but ifnativity followed the regional patterns for other Canadian units, about 50 per cent ofthe recruits raised in Western Canada would have been British born. See CarmanMiller, 'A Preliminary Analysis of the Socio-economic Composition of Canada'sSouth African War Contingents', Histoire SocialelSocial History, VII (Nov. 1975),219-37.

38. Pakenham, 496.39. Baden-Powell Papers, Diary, 28 Feb. 1901.40. Steele, 369.41. Castell Hopkins (ed.), Morgan's Annual Register (Toronto, 1902), 287.42. It may be of some interest to note that in a similar context New Zealand also

wanted to keep its men together. W.O. 108/117, R.H. Davies to Ian Hamilton, 6Feb. 1902.

43. McCord Museum Archives, E.S. Clouston Papers, Regimental Orders, LordStrathcona's Horse, Steele to Belcher, 8 Feb. 1900; Regimental Order 311, 11 April1900.

44. Baden-Powell Papers, Diary, 4 June 1901.

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45. See Miller, Painting the Map Red, 378-80, for more detailed information on theirwar service.

46. Baden-Powell had spent from September 1900 until May 1901 organizing his force,before returning to Britain for six months' sick leave. When he returned he left itsadministration to his subordinates, and spent his time visiting and inspecting thetroops. See, Jeal, 340-1.

47. CO 526/3/24, H. Pilkington to Chief Staff Officer, SAC, 24 July 1903.48. Baden Powell Papers, Baden-Powell to Steele, 27 Sept., 6 Nov., and 27 Nov. 1902;

Montreal Star, 30 March 1903.49. CO 526/3/24, Commanding Officer to Milner, 13 March 1903; CO 42/889, Strathcona

to Colonial Secretary, 8 and 17 Oct. 1902. Strathcona had previously been obliged todeal with cases of destitute Canadian veterans from other units in London, to whomhe or the High Commission had made payment. See Royal Canadian Regiment ofInfantry Museum, London, Ontario, C. H. Tweddell Papers, Diary, 30 Aug. 1900.

50. CO 526/3/24, Mrs H.S. Massiah to the King, 21 Oct. 1902.51. Montreal Star, 30 March 1903.52. Ottawa Journal, 3 Jan. 1902.53. Mail and Empire, Toronto, 11 April 1903.54. Canada, House of Commons, Debates, 16 April 1903, 1027.55. CO 526/3/24, Captain Charles Beer to ADSO, E Division, 30 June 1903.56. CO 526/3/24, Captain M.O. McCarthy to Assistant Staff Officer, E. Division, 26

June 1903.57. Baden-Powell, Lessons, 231.58. WO 108/17, Baden-Powell to Ian Hamilton, 15 March 1902; Hamilton to Baden-

Powell, 17 March 1902.59. Some 68 of the men in Troop 14 were recruited in Saint John, New Brunswick, and

44 of the men in Troop 17 were raised in Montreal; Montreal Gazette, 11 March 1901.60. Baden-Powell Papers, Diary, 27 Feb. and 26 April 1902.61. CO 526/3/4, Captain Edward Hilliam to Commandant, Northern Transvaal, 1 July

1902.62. CO 526/3/4, Lieutenant Frank T. St George to Staff Adjutant, E Division, 1 July

1903.63. CO 526/6, Colonial Service Application, 26 Nov. 1906; CO 526/3, petitioners to

Baden-Powell, n.d..64. CO 526/3/4, Major Walton to Captain Powell, 1 Sept. 1902.65. Ibid.66. CO 526/3/4, Col. H. Pilkington to Chief Staff Officer Commanding E Division, 8 July

1903.67. CO 526/3/4, Petition to General Baden-Powell, n.d..68. CO 526/3/4, Petition to Col. Pilkington, 30 Sept. 1902.69. Ibid.70. Ibid.71. Ibid.72. His own subsequent record was less than stellar; CO 526/5 Nicholson to Milner,

1 March 1905.73. CO 526/3/4, S.B. Steele to Chief Staff Officer, 13 July 1903.74. CO 526/3/4, Captain H.E. Burstall to Divisional Command, 18 May 1903.75. CO 526/3, Pilkington to Nicholson, 24 July 1903.76. Public Archives of Prince Edward Island, F. B. McRae Papers, McRae to Lizzie, 14

March 1903.77. Ibid., McRae to Sister, 7 Aug. 1903.78. Mail and Empire, Toronto, 3 April 1903.79. Jeal, 333.80. CO 526/3/4, Col. J.S. Nicholson to Military Secretary, 29 July 1903.

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81. CO 526/4/3, Captain H.A. Machin to Divisional Staff Officer, 13 July 1903.82. CO 526/3/4, Captain H.R. Pousette to DSO, Division, 9 July 1903.83. CO 526/3/4, Captain Charles Beer to ADSO, E Division, 30 June 1903.84. Baden-Powell Papers, Diary, 14 March 1901.85. F.B. McRae Papers, McRae to Sister, 22 April, 5 and 7 Aug. 1903.86. Steele, 372.87. CO 526/7, Applications for Colonial Service, Nov. 1907.88. Steele, 376.89. F.B. McRae Papers, F.B. McRae to Sister, 7 Aug. 1903.90. CO 42/889, Strathcona to Colonial Office, 8 Oct. 1902.91. CO 526/3/4, Captain H.R. Pousette to DSO, E Division, 9 July 1903.92. See Carman Miller, 'Chums In Arms: Comradeship Among Canada's South African

War Soldiers', Histoire Sociale/Social History, XVIII, 36 (Nov. 1985), 359-73.93. CO 526/3/4, M.O. McCarthy to Assistant Divisional Staff Officer, 26 June 1903.94. S.M. Brown, With The Royal Canadians (Toronto, 1900), 136.95. Robert H. MacDonald, Sons of the Empire, 113-14. Baden-Powell's favourite

'disobedience' story, cited in the preface to the Canadian Scout Handbook (1911),was that of an excellent Canadian scout in the South African War who lost his lifeowing to disobedience, MacDonald, 148.

96. Jeal, 339.97. CO 526/3/4, Captain H.A. Machin to Divisional Staff Officer, 13 July 1903.98. Joseph Levitt, A Vision Beyond Reach (Ottawa, 1982).99. See M. Brook Taylor, Promoters, Patriots and Partisans: Historiography in Nine-

teenth Century English Canada (Toronto, 1989), Ch IV.100. Allan Smith, 'The Continental Dimension in the Evolution of the English Canadian

Mind', International Journal, 31(3) 1976, 442-69; see, too, Smith 'American Cultureand the English Canadian Mind at the End of the Nineteenth Century', Journal ofPopular Culture, IV (Spring, 1971), 1045-51.

101. See Carl Berger's excellent study, The Sense of Power, passim.102. The English words, from which this is taken, were written in 1908 by Stanley Weir

(1858-1926), though the music and French words were composed in 1880.103. See Brook Taylor, Ch. IV.104. Edward Ferrer, quoted in Carman Cumming, Secret Craft: The Journalism Of

Edward Farrer (Toronto, 1992), 132.105. Telegram, Toronto, 12 March 1901.106. John Sweetenham, To Seize The Victory (Toronto, 1965), 26; Stephen John Harris,

Canadian Brass: The Making of a Professional Army (Toronto, 1988), 106.107. C.B. Keenan, 'Notes of a Regimental Doctor in a Mounted Infantry Corps',

Montreal Medical Journal, XXXI (1902), 390.108. See T.G. Marquis, Canada's Sons (Toronto, 1900); S.M. Brown, With The Royal

Canadians (Toronto, 1900); W. Hart McHarq, From Quebec To Pretoria, (Toronto,1902); E.W.B. Morrison, With The Guns (Hamilton/Ottawa, 1901); Russell Hubly,G Company (Montreal, 1901); and John McCrae, 'The Builders of Empire', McGillUniversity Magazine, 1 (Dec. 1901).

109. Morrison, 241.110. Labat, Le livre d'Or, 25.111. Halifax Herald, 18 April 1902.112. Globe, Toronto, 7 April 1902.113. WO 108/117, Confidential Memo. General Order 1329, 10 March 1902.114. Globe, 7 April 1902.115. Hart McHarq, 68.116. This is not to suggest that Canadian participation in the war had no effect on

Canadian constitutional development. After all, the first suggestion that Canada haveits own Department of External Affairs was made by W.S. Evans, The Canadian

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Contingents and Canadian Imperialism: A Story and A Study (Toronto, 1901), 312-24.

117. Morrison, 258, 290. Not all agreed; some claimed that Canadians served better underimperial officers, and best when they were separated from one another. MintoPapers, Lawless to Minto, 31 Aug. 1901.

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Documents

The unhappy warriors: Conflict and nationality among the Canadian troops during the South African war 1