Shoestring Soldiers: The 1st Canadian Division at War, 1914–1915 (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Shoestring Soldiers: The 1st Canadian Division at War, 1914–1915 Stephanie Cousineau Shoestring Soldiers: The 1st Canadian Division at War, 1914–1915. Andrew Iarocci. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008. Pp. 384, $50.00 Andrew Iarocci's Shoestring Soldiers: The 1st Canadian Division at War, 1914–1915 is aptly described by its title. It examines the first year of the 1st Canadian Division in the First World War, through which Iarocci aims to challenge the old thesis explaining the Canadian Division's performance with the notion that it suffered material deficiencies – not training and experience deficiencies – and was thus fighting on a 'shoestring.' The book is developed from Iarocci's dissertation and joins a small number of books looking at how the Canadians fought the Great War. More specifically, outside of A.F. Duiguid's and G.W.L. Nicholson's official histories of 1938 and 1962 respectively, there has been a silence in operational histories of the Canadians at war. This silence has been answered in part quite recently with the small flurry of similarly focused books, including Kenneth Radley's We Lead, Others Follow: First Canadian Division, 1914–1918 (2006) and Tim Cook's At the Sharp End (2007). This speaks directly to the need for revised assessments of Canada's combat role in the First World War; Iarocci's part in that is to offer a fresh perspective on previously trod ground. Shoestring Soldiers is very much an operational history, exploring the first year of Canada's war in five phases: the four months of training in Britain; deployment to Armentières, Belgium; the gassing of Entente troops at Ypres; reinforcement and redeployment to Festubert and Givenchy; and finally, the 'lull' of active defence at Ploegsteert. [End Page 778] Iarocci's skills in battlefield history are illustrated in the telling of these stories, interspersed with vignettes of soldiers' experiences for a personal touch. Still, making such operational studies truly relevant and far-reaching remains a significant challenge. On the first, the author is more successful than the second: his thesis is valid and well founded, and has been taken up by other historians (namely Tim Cook in the above-mentioned text). It is therefore more the pity that it is developed in the denseness of operational terms, because even the numerous maps, photographs, and interludes of human interest do not make this an easily accessible study. Iarocci makes a plausible case in framing his argument, and even in suggesting how his main point has been overlooked in other studies. The traditional perspective on the significance of the First World War in Canadian history is that it served as a turning point in the state's development: Canada went to war tied to Britain's war effort but came out of it seeking greater autonomy within the empire, specifically in foreign, diplomatic, and military affairs. Iarocci moves beyond this 'colony-to-nation' focus, though arriving at his conclusion by using roughly the same sources. This could be either a strength or a weakness: on the one hand, it suggests the beneficial effect of returning to previously used documents with new eyes, from which the relatively small field of Canadian history has not always benefited. On the other hand, it risks being seen as 'old wine in new bottles.' The latter is likely too harsh, ultimately, for Iarocci is clear in his introduction that he has considered the myriad factors that contributed to the 1st Canadian Division's operational successes and failures, and agrees with the 'Canadians-as-shock-troops' perspective as the end point of the Canadian Corps' abilities. It is only in looking at the causes and consequences of the road to shock-troop status that he finds a new conclusion, which demonstrates that this is not just a new angle for a new angle's sake. Shoestring Soldiers is at its best when Iarocci integrates descriptions of terrain and geography into the battle narrative; one perhaps best understands battles after having walked the ground in question to see just what natural obstacles stood in the way of – or amplified – the chances of battlefield success. Iarocci brings foreign fields to life for the readers, capitalizing...