The 24th Battalion, C.E.F., Victoria Rifles of Canada, 1914 - 1919. By R. C. Fetherstonhaugh (on CD)
Cat No.: CA0247: (See also product CA0247-DL for this "book" as a downloadable file and save the mailing cost.)
A well written and detailed history of this Montreal based military unit from its beginnings as a volunteer unit, during the 1812 invasions, through its recognition as a militia through the Fenian raids and a number of civil disorders to its conversion to a full time component of the C.E.F., including its contribution of a core of trained officers and men in the formation of the 14th Battalion, Royal Montreal Regiment.While these initial passages give the history as an outline the tone of the writing changes to provide a far more intimate account of the Battalions activities from the time of its embarkation for Europe to take part in the formation of the 2nd contingent of the C.E.F. in September of 1914. The account continues in detail throughout all the movements and actions it took part in, becoming something of a day-by-day activity diary of the battalion.
In addition to personal anecdotes the author also paints a clear picture of the strategic part played by the battalion through such well know actions as; the Somme, the battle of Arras, Vimy Ridge, Ypres, Passchendaele, Amiens and Cambrai. As might be expected the book concludes with accounts of the Battalion's victorious parade through London before an equally victorious return to Montreal for demobilization.
Throughout, the account is well illustrated with photographs, sketches and situation maps. An additional map of the Battle of Arras in June 1916 and June 1917 was slipped into the book by one of the previous owners so we have included it on the CD. The book's appendices contain an honour Roll as well as lists of earned honours, commissions and the Battalions battle statistics.
The particular copy of the book used to make this CD has been loaned to us by Chris White, a long time friend of Archive CD Books Canada who, together with his colleague Marc Leroux, operate the Canadian Great War Project web site at:
www.canadiangreatwarproject.com/
We encourage you to visit their site and to consider helping them out with their labor of love of ensuring that those who gave at least a part, if not all, of their lives in this great conflict are remembered.
The book has passed through a number of hands on its way to us and contains certain inscriptions and inclusions some relevant to the book’s contents and some just mementoes. In cases like this we generally edit these additions out of the reproduction but in this case we have included some of them where they are directly relevant and where we feel the originators would have wanted them to be preserved.
The Author:
This book was compiled and edited by R. C. Fetherstonhaugh (1892 - 1949). Anyone familiar with the literature recording the military histories of Canada during the Great War will recognize this name. While we do not know very much about the author as a person we do know that he was a member of a family well recognized for successful professionalism and for military service. Robert Collier was unable to enter the military himself (for medical reasons we believe) and appears to have compensated for this by undertaking the recounting of several Montreal based battalion and regimental histories as well as a number of other military related accounts. He has a nice clear writing style which makes reading his books a pleasure.
You will find a freely downloadable sampler made from selected pages from this book on our Downloads page. This will not only provide you with a chance to review the work but also to see the Table of Contents.
You can also reach the Sampler by clicking on the following link Sampler
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No. of CDs is: 1 ; Format is: PDF ; Searchable?: YES;
FastFind: Yes; ISBN No.: 978-1-897405-08-6 ;