Charlie's War: The Diary and Letters of a Canadian Corporal

Duty calls

On 24 October 1915 Charlie Ross Francis, a 26-year-old insurance adjuster, joined the 90th Canadian Infantry Battalion in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Like nearly 55 per cent of his fellow Canadian soldiers, he was born in Canada, not Britain. In fact, on his mother's side he was descended from fur traders and native Indians. His father, however, was born in Kent and he had numerous relatives still living in Britain.

Charlie never questioned why he should join up; it was simply his duty to go to France and fight in World War One. Throughout his service, Charlie kept a diary as well as writing frequent letters to his 'Dearest Mother' and other family members back in Manitoba. The following extracts are taken from both sources.

6 September 1916 (letter from England): 'The news that you have no doubt been expecting is that I am going over to France... I feel great and am looking forward to it.'

15 September 1916 in France (diary): 'We have had a number of lectures from the various NCOs and officers and they are very blood-thirsty... have no mercy at all on the enemy, but kill every German that is possible. It is a teaching which we will no doubt put to a practical use in the near future, but at the present stage I really do not feel as if I could run a man through with a bayonet in cold blood. It is a good preparation for what is coming tho' and seems to inspire the men or perhaps rather it gets them more familiar with the thought of it, and they speak quite callously of killing men or "gouging their eyes out".'

26 September 1916 (diary): 'We are at least 12 miles [about 19km] from the firing line and perhaps more, but last night we could clearly see the shrapnel and the star shells flaring in the horizon, and being the first sight of the actual war I stood some time and watched it.'

29 September 1916, the Somme (diary): 'The 8th Battalion passed on their way out of the trenches. They were badly smashed up but had had a successful innings in the trenches.'

Charlie later learned that the 8th Battalion had just lost 525 of 750 men who had gone into action the day before he was meant to join them.

Baptism of fire

Canadian troops going over the top in 1916  © 7 October 1916 (diary): 'This night I received my baptism of fire. We were on a working party and it was our duty to carry bales of wire up to the second line of trenches. Never, I think, shall I forget that carry. The bales weighed about 180lbs [about 81kg] and were carried by two, through slippery trenches, in and out shell holes, over broken wires, all making the worst roads possible. I thought my back would break many a time. Add to this the sight of dead bodies seen in the half light, shells falling, which although not close were near enough to green men, it was, to say the least, not a pleasant night.'

9-17 October 1916 (diary): 'After a few hours rest we went on a working party digging a communication trench... We had little or no water brought to us in the front line and only about half a pint when we got back and it was mostly petrol as it had been brought up in petrol tins. My mouth dried up and I couldn't swallow. I chewed a little tea and it helped temporarily but it was awful. Our work finished about 2am and we returned to the trenches... A hot supper (or breakfast) was served to us... I picked up the first utensil I could set my hands on which happened to be the common mess tin. I don't know what it had been used for, I scraped as much of it out with my fingers as possible and got my tea in it and a chunk of cold ham and never did anything taste so good. I could feel the slime on my lips but it didn't matter, it was alright...

'About noon we began to get some heavy shells put over at us. About the second one got a direct hit on the trench, lighting in a dug-out. It blew one of our boys to pieces, wounded another and temporarily buried two others. That was the first casualty in our company; in fact Kennedy, who was killed, was on my section. Shells were dropping all around us and a number of fellows had their dug-outs cave in and were buried but they were rescued. We could hear the shells coming for miles, and when they were within a few hundred yards I could actually see them drop. They were falling on all sides of me and I really expected to have one drop beside me. I resigned myself to death at that time...'

While experiencing the 'nerve-wracking wait for the next shell' in his dug-out, Charlie wrote what he thought would be his final letter home. He said how thankful he was to have 'the best mother in the world', which he was afraid he hadn't shown enough. Then, after apologising for the awful state of the letter, he finished with, 'You would laugh if I walked into the house plastered from head to feet with mud and with a three-days' beard on. I am a funny sight, I know, but there's no one to see...'

Charlie's company was fortunately relieved the following day, then spent a brief period in the reserve trenches before returning to the front line, this time near Vimy Ridge.

A direct hit

27 November 1916 (diary): 'This evening was the most exciting of any since I came over... we were told that a mine on our left would be set off that night. Presently on the given time... we heard a dull thud, felt the ground shake, and with a noise more like a hiss than anything, a great sheet of white flame poured towards the sky, accompanied by smoke and great volumes of earth which seemed to rise 300 feet [about 90 metres] in the air. It lasted only a few seconds, but before it subsided our batteries opened up in all force. The noise was awful, nothing seemed coherent, it seemed to me our heavy and light artillery, trench mortars, stokes guns and machine guns made a ceiling of rushing steel above our heads. Flares of all sorts were thrown up, making with the various explosions a strange and weird light.

'The enemy did not return fire for some minutes, but when they did the tumult increased and above all could be heard the crash of the explosions of their 'Minnies'. They somehow got a direct hit on one of our explosive dumps which exploded with a detonation louder than anything I ever heard. It seemed to rock the very earth and we thought that Fritz had set off a counter-mine almost under us. Debris of all kinds fell about us and on us, but none near me was hit, tho' when Mr Mitchell, our acting OC was killed, he was just up the trench a short piece. The bombardment lasted about 40 minutes and ceased and things resumed the semi-activity of previous nights.

1 December 1916 (diary): 'While in the dug-out I felt and heard a shell or Minnie light close by and on coming out to go back to my post I found it had struck just outside the officers' cook house and killed two batmen. They were badly smashed up and the sight of them was not nice and made me feel shaky going back on duty.'

Nice one, Charlie

3 December 1916 (diary): 'I am getting pretty well all in, four days in the front line with little or no sleep is no joke. I have no hesitation in taking the rum these days and I feel it is quite necessary under the nervous strain, sleeplessness, cold and dampness.'

This proved to be Charlie's final spell in the trenches. In January 1917 Charlie lost his corporal stripes for 'neglect of duty' as he'd failed to arrest three men for being drunk on his watch. As a private again he applied for and was offered the job of a clerk at the 1st Canadian Division HQ. He was told to report for duty on 8 April 1917. The next day his former battalion took part in the attack on Vimy Ridge, Canada's largest and bloodiest battle of the war. The degree of his relief at being out of the trenches and disillusionment towards the nature of the war comes through in the following letters:

6 May 1917 (letter to his mother): 'You mentioned one time that you hoped I'd get my stripes back again soon. Please don't wish anything like that on me for I am far better here as a private than a corporal with the battalion. The corporal who took my place was killed...'

21 June 1917 (letter to his sister Etta): 'It may seem strange but in spite of the fact that I spent about seven months in the trenches I haven't shot off my rifle yet. That's modern warfare. The artillery do it all, or nearly all, the infantry are just the targets.'

Charlie survived the war unhurt, although he lost many relatives and close friends. Before being demobbed and returning to his family in February 1919, he was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal by the Prince of Wales, who told him, 'Nice work, Charlie'.

Over 650,000 Canadians served in World War One; of these, close to 200,000 were wounded and 68,000 killed.

Find out more

Books

Our Bravest and Our Best: The Stories of Canada's Victoria Cross Winners by William Arthur Bishop (McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited, 1995)

Our Glory and Our Grief: Torontonians and the Great War by Ian Hugh MacLean (Miller University of Toronto Press, 2001)

The Central Powers in the Adriatic, 1914-1918 by Charles W Koburger Jr (Praeger Publishers, 2001)

Links

Biography of Charlie Ross Francis Includes links to the complete diary.

The Provincial Archives of Manitoba, Canada This site gives access to the archives holding Charlie's letters and diaries.

For King and CountryA site dedicated to Canadian soldiers who served in World War One.

The National Archives of Canada A site providing information on the 600,000 Canadians who enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF).

About the author

Alex Francis is the grandson of Charlie Francis, subject of the article, and works in feature film development, as well as doing freelance writing and research work. Originally from Canada, he has been living and working in London since 1989.