We Lead, Others Follow: First Canadian Division, 1914–1918 (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: We Lead, Others Follow: First Canadian Division, 1914-1918 Mark Humphries We Lead, Others Follow: First Canadian Division, 1914–1918. Kenneth Radley. St Catharines: Vanwell, 2006. Pp. 415, illus., b&w, $49.95 cloth In the preface to We Lead, Others Follow, Kenneth Radley promises that his adapted PhD dissertation will be the first history of a Canadian division from either world war. While the subject holds much promise, the book falls short of its potential. [End Page 340] We Lead, Others Follow is not a history of the First Canadian Division, but rather a study of staff work, training, and leadership within the division. The book takes an anecdotal approach to explaining how battles are planned, how soldiers are created, and how people are led. While the book is thematically divided into studies of each of these three areas, Radley often deals with all three subjects at once, which would not normally be a significant problem if the book had an underlying narrative backbone that held the analysis together. Instead, the major events in the history of the division are accorded little space, making it difficult for all but the most experienced readers to connect the content of the book to the bigger picture of Canada's Great War experience. In all fairness, Radley's interest is not the forest: it is the trees, shrubs, and individual blades of grass that he wants to examine. The author lays out for the reader the fruits of his exhaustive archival research in 415 pages. Radley combed through endless boxes of administrative files, containing the millions of pages generated during the daily functioning of a division at war, and managed to extract the historically significant documents from the accounts of company messes and inventories of shirt buttons. While the book's evidentiary basis is impeccable, the author's analysis fails to penetrate its surface. 'The central idea of this book,' writes Radley, 'is that 1st Canadian Division became a good division. What made it a good one, that is to say what took it from raw militia to a good, professional fighting formation, was competent command and control, thorough staff work and sound training' (21). Aside from the fact that no historian has ever argued that First Canadian Division became a 'bad' division, and that it is difficult to make such an assessment without taking a comparative approach, such a simplistic argument devalues the very research that is the book's source of strength. Perhaps if the author had focused his study of one of the book's three themes (which, given the density of the book's content, would have been possible), a more complex, nuanced argument could have been constructed. Instead, the author is seemingly so concerned with squeezing every last bit of his research into the book, that interpretation takes a back seat to uncontextualized detail. This is not to say that the book is devoid of insightful analysis. Radley's discussions of the personalities of First Canadian Division, the place of the Canadian Corps within the British Expeditionary Force and the like between training and tactics are useful and at times revealing. That said, the author's observations remain largely [End Page 341] unconnected to one another, leaving the overall message unclear. The clarity of the author's interpretation is also, at times, impeded by his style of writing. Prose such as 'In July 1918 of the 28 Staff Officers in HQ 1st Division, only the AA & QMG (a Canadian) was p.s.c. In September 1916 two were p.s.c. (both British), and in December 1917 the AA & QMG (Canadian) and the GS01 (British) were staff trained' (185) does not help bring clarity to a complex subject. His book is, however, clearly aimed at the military specialist male reader and he makes no attempt to disguise this: 'For real excitement, combat must surely take precedence over everything else in a man's life . . . Only a man with experience can appreciate these sensations' (xiii). Despite its flaws, the book will prove useful to specialists of Canada's First World War and military aficionados alike. As a source of facts on the inner workings of the...