The 13th Battalion Royal Highlanders of Canada, 1914 - 1919. by R. C. Fetherstonhaugh

Cat No.:   CA0280:

Anyone who has done any reading about the military units raised in the Montreal area of Quebec will probably be familiar with the author of this book. Robert Collier Fetherstonhaugh seems to have been unable to serve his country in the more conventional sense but he more than made up for this with the wonderful, factual unit histories and tales of valor he penned for a number of military units based in the Montreal area. Robert Collier’s special skill is in factually recounting all the infinite details of a military unit on the move and at war while making it an interesting story. He will switch from an explanation of campaign tactics to the exploit of “Jock” in the trench within a page but manages to do so without giving his reader mental “whiplash.”

This history starts with the raising of the 13th Battalion as an “active service” contingent of the 5th Royal Canadian Highlanders in response to Britain’s declaration of war in August 1914. Since the 5th was already an affiliate of the famous Black Watch regiment the affiliation naturally extended to the newly formed 13th.

Being formed from members of an active militia, little training was required and the Battalion was soon on its way to France by way of England. The names of the battles in which the 13th played an important part read like the history of the war itself; Ypres, Festubert, Givenchy, Messines, Mount Sorrel, Sanctuary Wood, The Somme, Passchendaele, Amiens and Arras are all recounted in all their horror and inhumanity. And yet in the midst of such a nightmare the author recounts moments of humor and of honor, not least of which was the granting of the right to mount the “Red Hackle.”

Within the context of the account the author provides the relevant numbers and facts but he then further consolidates and completes this all important information with a series of appendices giving a List of the Dead, Honors and Awards granted and a page of statistics.

Being a chronological account it is relatively easy, particularly with the help of the Table of Contents, to access the ample information contained in this book. However the search-ability features we have incorporated in this digital edition offer an alternate, fast and reliable, method of finding any mention of individuals and places. With the FastFind enhancement we have applied, searching for the results is virtually instantaneous.

We have placed a sampler of this book on our Downloads page.

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.

You can also reach the Sampler by clicking on the following link Sampler

You can return to this page by closing the Sampler Page when you are ready to purchase.

No. of CDs is:  1 ;   Format is:  PDF ;   Searchable?:  YES;

FastFind:  Yes;  ISBN No.:   978-1-897405-21-5 ;