By Pierre Vennat
Unpublished text
October 7, 1940, while Canada was entering a second year of the war, the Minister of National Defence, JL Ralston, was that the militia of Canada ceased to exist. Now, we do talk more than "the Canadian army," which would consist of active troops and reservists.
" When they will visit military training centers, 9 October, young French Canadians will find officers nationality, who understand their mentality, their spirit. "
So said the Deputy Minister of War Services of Canada, Major General Leo Richer La Fleche, in a lecture delivered before the Chamber of Commerce Saint-Hyacinthe, a few days before the start of compulsory military training of some 30 000 young Canadians aged 21 to 24 inclusive, bachelors and widowers without children, for military training of 30 days. More than 6500 of these young people, mostly French, were particularly in Greater Montreal, Sherbrooke and Old capital.
Major General Leo Richer La Fleche
So in French as Quebec's young conscripts underwent basic military training in the various camps the province from October 8 to November 9, 1940. Eight of these camps were located in the region depending on the military district of Montreal or Valleyfield, Huntingdon, Sherbrooke, Farnham, Saint-Hyacinthe, Sorel, Joliette and Saint-Jérôme.
A month later, the recruits returned from training camps. Reported only one group of malcontents. Recruits Camp Huntingdon, indeed, complained about the food they were served. The military authorities of the District of Montreal recognized the seriousness of the problem and announced immediate steps to remedy them. Moreover, many of these recruits were demonstrating for the active army duty overseas.
The start of the second batch of conscripts in November 1940 differed from that already the previous month. Recruits, information by their predecessors in the camps, now knew exactly how they would received and what was expected of them.
Anyway, according to historians John Parizeau and Serge Bernier "French Canadians and Bilingualism in the Canadian armed forces, only half of basic training centers were actually bilingual, and that 'in New Brunswick where Francophones represented 34.5% of the population in 1940, Lieutenant-Colonel AJ Brooks and Major GFG Stanley, responsible for training recruits, did everything possible to try to educate and cause the French Acadians, to the astonishment of Staff General Thomas-Louis Tremblay, who visited these areas during a general inspection.
There are no official data on efforts to educate the Francos in their language-speaking Ontarians or the west. But some efforts were made to group them.
As proof, in December 1940, La Presse published a photo taken at training camp in Cornwall, Ontario, showing a squad composed entirely of French Canadians, commanded by Lieutenant J. O. A . Letellier. The training center of Cornwall was also commanded by a French Lieutenant-Colonel Rudolph Larose, Ottawa, a veteran of the First World Guerere and former commander of the Regiment de Hull.
Seven months later, in July 1941, we had to learn that the training center of Cornwall was the first of its kind in Canada where all the recruits raised under the Act on the mobilization of resources national enlisted in the military. Within days, 173 recruits had signed the necessary forms to become members of the military force overseas.
Center Cornwall received training recruits in French and English. There was also active duty recruits who were pursuing their basic training. Recruits received two languages, theoretically, the same treatment and followed the same program.
By ailleulrs in the military district of Quebec, ouovrit from February 1941, five trade schools, led by French and intended to form within the army of tradesmen. The courses were given to the Technical School of Quebec at Montreal Technical School, the School Arts and Crafts in Lauzon, Quebec Commercial Academy, school Brilliant Rimouski, workshops, International Harvester of Quebec, the military camp at Valcartier, and the Citadel.
No statistics available for the Military District of Montreal, but Parizeau and Bernier said they had good reason to believe that barely half of the trades courses offered by the army offered by the army of district were given in French.
We can therefore conclude that the known number of trainees trained in 2016 French in the military district of Quebec and the approximate number of 2000 in that of Montreal is only about 4% of the approximately 100 000 students who followed such technical courses in the Canadian army.
In these efforts, we must add those of translation agencies in the army. On 1st March 1944, Colonel JH Chaballe, bureau chief, Maj. Pierre Daviault, editor in chief and Captain Leopold Lamontagne had not translated into French moions than 359 books and treatises on military training.
In the text drafted in 1941 to announce the appointment of Colonel in the Chaballe head of translation office, Ottawa stated that they could choose the best candidate for this position. It is "a soldier and a journalist who may be writing, say without exaggeration that he saw all the colors."
During career, long and varied Chaballe, born in Belgium in 1876, was part of both armies. He commanded the Belgians, to blacks in the Belgian Congo, Amerindians, to Finns, to Russians, the British and Canadians. He lost an eye to the war and decorations earned three countries, including the Military Cross (MC). At 65, a former professor of physical education, he was still alert and vigorous.
After studying at the Ecole Militaire, Belgium, Chaballe served seven years as a professor at the Ecole Normale military gymnastics and fencing in Brussels. Then he spent three years in the Belgian Congo as a lieutenant in charge of a detachment of native whose only uniform field "is often their skin and their black belts of cartridges."
In 1903 Chaballe moved to Canada, where he worked as an accountant in Chicoutimi while teaching gymnastics Seminar in the same city. He enlisted as a soldier in the Saguenay Riflemen and was soon promoted to sergeant in a company composed mostly of mountains and Finnish immigrants. He must however wait to become a British citizen in 1907 for writ of lieutenant in the Canadian militia.
In 1910 Chaballe moved to Montreal, where he was named general manager of the fitness to the Commission scolaire de Montréal. He entered the regiment of Châteauguay, then joined the 22nd French-Canadian Battalion at the beginning of WWI.
At Vimy, 2 Jun 1917, Chaballe was seriously injured, the day of his 41st birthday. He lost his left eye, had his face burned by the gas and spent three months in hospital. Once recovered, he was appointed a member of the Canadian mission in France and the liaison officer at French front.
After the First World War, the Regiment reorganized Chaballe Châteauguay, which he commanded until 1926 .. That year he became the first major of brigade and commander of the 11th Infantry Brigade while activist in organizations veterans.
At the time of his appointment in the summer of 1941, Chaballe, aged 65, was still alert and vigorous. He is the biography of several of his comrades and the first "History of French-Canadian Battalion.
At the same time, his son, Captain F.-X. Chaballe, serving with the Corps of Engineers after completing a brilliant student at Royal Military College in Kingston.
No francophone brigade
If the drive recruits for homeland defense could be in French, at least in Quebec, but English regiments that our assets overseas would operate in practice at least in respect of any military activity of any importance.
In the summer of 1940, plans to form a brigade speaking for active service overseas, established in spring, when the authorities had entrusted to Brigadier General Leclerc PE command of the 5th Brigade was quickly set aside by the General Staff, responsible for assigning operational units.
In fact, this project nearly fell into the water from the beginning. The Royal 22nd Regiment had in fact already been sent overseas for several months as a unit of the 1st division. There was obviously no question of the recall in the country. It was therefore replaced by the Black Watch regiment in an English brigade which would have been "mostly" but not "exclusively" francophone.
Then, on 1 July 1940, it was decided that the Fusiliers Mont-Royal would be sent to Iceland where they remained until October 31 is then replaced them in the brigade of Brigadier General Leclerc by Calgary Highland. Designed to be an exclusively French Brigade, 5th Brigade then became predominantly English.
After their stay in Iceland, the Fusiliers Mont-Royal were allocated on arrival in England, at the 6th Brigade. Meanwhile, the Regiment de la Chaudiere, the 4th Battalion French-Canadian assets, dealing with recruitment problems, having lost its status as "battalion guns" had been converted into a battalion of infantry and paid the 8th Brigade of the 3rd Division.
addition to the four battalions cited (Fusiliers Mont-Royal, Royal 22nd Regiment, Regiment de Maisonneuve and Régiment de la Chaudière), a few other French or bilingual units were sent overseas, including the 4th Regiment means, and 82nd Battery grenades, the Three Rivers Regiment (also known as the 12th Armoured Regiment) and the Sherbrooke Fusiliers (also known as the 27th Armoured Regiment), 3rd Engineering Battalion and finally the 18th Field Ambulance .
All French units were working in higher education where everything was in English on the operational level, French is used more often than socially or in the course of committing only minor military battalion.
The four French infantry battalions called to fight in Europe were thus paid in four different squads, so they had to communicate in English with their respective headquarters and other units of their brigade, and of course with higher levels. So it was for the artillery and armor. In fact, even when three French Canadians were promoted to brigadier general (Allard, Bernatchez and Gauvreau), they necessarily had to order in English because the staffs and the majority of units under their command were almost all monolingual English speakers.
However, in what was still known until October 1940, the "militia," designed to collect or reserve troops for homeland defense, some brigades were formed only a majority of units Francophones. In September, Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Tellier was appointed commander of the 11th Infantry Brigade, composed elements of the Fusiliers Mont-Royal Regiment of Châteauguay, and the Regiment de Maisonneuve Joliette Regiment, as Lieutenant-Colonel Leopold Chevalier, he was promoted to command the 10th Infantry Brigade, which consisted of Fusiliers Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke Regiment of (English unit) and the regiment of Saint-Hyacinthe.
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