I got the opportunity to visit the Vimy Memorial twenty odd years ago. Unfortunately (for me, good for it I suppose) it was under scaffolds and tarps because it was being restored and cleaned at the time.
On that trip I walked the trench lines of the WW1 battle fields, Juno beach, Dieppe and Caen. There is an awful lot of history in a really small area.
Dominion Day
DITTO!!
Happy Canada Day!
Happy Dominion Day!… to the rest of you
When I watch the wasteful, self-destructive ways of our so-called leaders, I am ALWAYS reminded of so much sacrifice given for the rights and freedoms we fritter away. When confronted by yet more legislation from our governments that is designed to change our way of life, I can only imagine the outrage of those who gave everything to preserve our way of life.
Thank you ALL, past and current, who protect this awesome freaking nation! What’s still left of it, anyways.
Well, time to go hang the Maple Leaf on the front door. I only hope my grand-kids won’t be hanging a Chinese, Russian or Islamic flag on theirs.
One hundred years ago today, 100,000 British soldiers leapt from their trenches and attacked the German lines along the Somme. The next morning, only 40,000 answered the roll call. It was, and is still, the worst day in the history of the British Army.
Happy Memorial Day to all my fellow Newfs, as we celebrate 100 years since 801 of our citizens died at Beaumont-Hamel. CBC has The Trail of The Caribou documentary on tonight, with Mark Critch and Allan Doyle. The show outlines the involvement of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment in the battle of the Somme, and the devastating loss of life that happened there. I don’t watch much on CBC, but this one might tempt me.
The death toll was far less than that but it was a catastrophe nonetheless. Newfoundland essentially lost an entire generation of its leadership along with considerable treasure in the Great War. The repercussion of this was the collapse into insolvency and loss of nationhood in the 1930s. And were it not for that Newfoundland would either still be a dominion today or a state within the US.
Full disclosure: My grandfather was a Part of the Blue Puttees – the first five hundred to ship out of Nfld on the SS Florizel and he was at Beaumont Hamel but was not one of the ones who was part of the attack as he was in the transport part of the regiment – an ambulance driver – that day.
Yes, Happy Dominion Day.
Dominion Day? Canada Day?
What is really sad, not only about all those lives lost at the Somme, and countless other battles, and numerous wars, was that these soldiers joined for many reasons, but basically to fight for western liberal democratic values that they enjoyed, and now these values are being thrown overboard by our political establishment at an accelerated rate.
What with Trudeau as PM who just changed the National Anthem, Wynne doing her best to destroy Ontario and Notley doing the same in Alberta I won’t be celebrating Canada Day this year. Once upon a time Canada was a nation to be proud of but no longer.
It is too embarrassing to celebrate Canada with idiots in charge. No flags, beers or festivities are in order around here. The house needs scraping for painting, I’ll be working today instead.
That article on Beaumont Hamel is a good one. The loss is still felt.
A bittersweet Birthday for Canada. We have a proud history but a current ambivalence by
many towards Canadian sovereignty. Any celebration will be muted by the future prospects of
Canada willingly losing its desire to be a great Nation and replacing it as a cog in the Global wheel.
Re the picture:
War memorial for Newfoundland soldiers at Beaumont Hamel, France, during World War I.
This monument of a caribou at Beaumont Hamel, France, is dedicated to the Newfoundland soldiers who lost their lives on the first day of the Battle of the Somme: July 1st, 1916.
Below the caribou, which is draped in a British flag, stand a group of dignitaries. Included in this group are Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig (1861-1928) and French General, Marie Fayolle (1852-1928). The identity of the photographer is not clear, though it could be someone called ‘Biard’.
Although a number of war monuments were raised to honour soldiers from Newfoundland, the one at Beaumont Hamel, France, is the most famous. The memorial was designed by landscape architect, R.H.K. Cochius (the designer of Bowring Park in St. John’s), and cost approximately £1,000 to build. Even today, the first of July is still commemorated as Beaumont Hamel Day in Newfoundland
“The attack was a devastating failure. In a single morning, almost 20,000 British troops died, and another 37,000 were wounded. The Newfoundland Regiment had been almost wiped out. When roll call was taken, only 68 men answered their names – 324 were killed, or missing and presumed dead, and 386 were wounded.”
I did a bit of research on this earlier. 324 killed or one in 740 of the total population of Newfoundland killed, 368 or one in 650 wounded for a total of 692 killed and wounded or 1 in 350 people in all of Newfoundland. A truly horrific sacrifice.
If the day ever comes that such losses are not still felt, a much greater loss will have occurred.
If the day ever comes that the loss is not still felt, a different but greater loss will have occurred.
“It is too embarrassing to celebrate Canada with idiots in charge.” I agree with you. My heart is not in it now that we have been declared “the first post-national state”. What’s to celebrate? The globalists are steering Canada. Canada Day is just like hanging on to the trappings of a former (and once great) country. Now we stand for nothing. Celebrating UN Day would be more appropriate.
Ditto, Joe.
“What’s to celebrate? The globalists are steering Canada. Canada Day is just like hanging on to the trappings of a former (and once great) country. Now we stand for nothing.”
~LindaL
Yes. It’s a holiday, nothing more.
I visited Dieppe in the summer of ’94, about 50 years after my Dad. I’m sure glad he made it home.
Yes.My thoughts as well.
I have E-mailed the PM suggesting that we re-name July 1st as “Diversity Day” thus including all who don’t feel included in “Canada Day” or “Dominion Day”.
I expect my name should be on next year’s list for the Order of Canada.
To put a lock on the OoC, tell him you are a woman transing into a Muslim Imam. Oh……congratulations in advance.
Happy Dominion day to my brothers and sister out there now and always!! May God continue to bless us in this country.
Prior to the First World War there were:
1. No Income Taxes
2. No passport controls across the vast British Empire
3. No country in the world was under Communist Party rule
4. The British Empire observed a gold standard
5. No Federal Reserve
Thanks to the First Good War, we got saddled with income taxes, passport controls were enacted across the British Empire, the largest country in the world fell prey to a totalitarian cabal and the British Empire jettisoned the gold standard.
As for the Fed: “The Federal Reserve System virtually controls the nation’s monetary system, yet it is accountable to no one. It has no budget; it is subject to no audit; and no Congressional Committee knows of, or can truly supervise, its operations.”
Professor Murray N. Rothbard War, Big Government, and Lost Freedom
War and the End of Limited Government Liberalism
The First World War also brought about the end of the (classical) liberal epoch in modern Western civilization. For most of the 100 years before 1914, the Western world had moved in the direction of greater individual freedom and wider economic liberty.
All-powerful kings were replaced with representative democratic government or constitutionally limited monarchy. Expanding civil liberty brought about a more impartial equality before the law and the end of human slavery. http://fff.org/explore-freedom/article/war-big-government-and-lost-freedom/
Dominion Day.
yes… the words i was looking for
More “isolated attacks” in Dakar, Bangladesh, which clearly has nothing to do with religion or ideology, more like a criminal gang; can’t stop crime, right? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EpEB4068G8
Apparently there have been several other isolated attacks in Bangladesh. People seem to be missing the obvious – the US gun culture is causing terrorism domestically and therefore all over the world. All we have to do is love each other, while preventing a goon from pulling the pin. Remember what Quinnipac polling said: Hate wins. It only America had gun control then this wouldn’t have happened. (friggin right it’s sarc).
Hate wins? Works for me.
I hate to tell them we have to slaughter Islamist soldiers wherever we find them. Maybe the Dems could stage another sit in to escape culpability.
It is Dominion Day in this house and no bastardized version of Oh Canada either. Hope no one will be coming to take us away!
.Joe -while I share your feelings,I believe it is our duty to celebrate Canada Day because of the sacrifice of so many over the years so we can live in the as yet wonderful country we do. It does not lesson my consternation over the events taking place in our country. Vimy park changed to Perizeau Park. What’s next Canada day to Rene Leveque day ? We must fight hard . Those before us have shown the way .
Concerned: On Remembrance Day I reflect on Canada’s long and storied war history. On Canada Day I can’t get over the liberal morass that is reflected in parliament and the courts and this year I am not going to join any celebrations.
WW1 was a stupid war fought for stupid reasons. Unfortunately there are people today who would drag us into wars for equally stupid reasons.
We should be seeking allies with similar Christian value cultures to fight a common enemy; the muslime jihad. Instead we squabble among ourselves for more stupid reasons.
Joe, I agree. Liberal morass is right, although I might add to your listing in our educational system as well. This liberal morass is not the classical liberalism of the past that gave us our freedoms but a cow pie mixture with copious additions of cultural Marxism.
Gopher, well said.
Concerned, just be thankful that the Queen’s birthday has not been changed to Maude Barlow Day.
I’m sure that someone will blame it on any combination of the following:
– white privilege
– Confederate flags
– the NRA
– climate change
– washroom policy
– immigration policy
– conservatives/Republicans
– $15/hr minimum wage still being too low
– Trump
– Brexit
Anything but what it really is.
Watch the documentary http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/newfoundland_at_armageddon
and ask yourself: What did killing Newfoundland’s future really accomplish?
So many lives wasted, and for what? The glory of the Empire? To puff up the egos of foolish old men who sat far behind the lines and sent so many young men to their death? …and for what?
This was not WW2 with the righteous goal of stopping Hitler’s 3rd Reich. Without the stupidity of WW1, Hitler and the 3rd Reich would likely have never happened.
Don’t be so quick to send our children off to war for no good reasons.
I agree completely. I have often thought exactly that.
Nor probably would the Russian revolution and the sacrifice of 30 million to the establishment of the Marxist utopia.
The seeds of WW I were sown when Bismarck unified the independent German states into one nation with Prussia as the premier state. Britain and France could not stand an upstart country competing in the economic, colonial, or military power spheres, in other words a 3rd European world power. The next forty years were a buildup to the spark at Sarajevo.
“WW1 was a stupid war fought for stupid reasons.”
Perhaps so.
But here are some pertinent facts:
1. On 2 August 1914, the Germans invaded and occupied Luxembourg.
2. On 4 August, they invaded Belgium.
3. On 7 August, they attacked France (in the Alsace-Lorraine region) following up in force by 14 August.
3. On 12 August, Austria-Hungary invaded Serbia.
So, yes, it was probably “stupid”, as you say, for the British Empire, France and Russia to concern themselves over such actions. Obviously a German and Austro-Hungarian power grab in Central Europe – combined with an invasion of France – was really hardly anything to get upset about.
The Germans would have done a better job of running Europe and Hitler would not have risen to power. WW1 made things worse, and caused WW2.
I got the opportunity to visit the Vimy Memorial twenty odd years ago. Unfortunately (for me, good for it I suppose) it was under scaffolds and tarps because it was being restored and cleaned at the time.
On that trip I walked the trench lines of the WW1 battle fields, Juno beach, Dieppe and Caen. There is an awful lot of history in a really small area.
Dominion Day
DITTO!!
Happy Canada Day!
Happy Dominion Day!… to the rest of you
When I watch the wasteful, self-destructive ways of our so-called leaders, I am ALWAYS reminded of so much sacrifice given for the rights and freedoms we fritter away. When confronted by yet more legislation from our governments that is designed to change our way of life, I can only imagine the outrage of those who gave everything to preserve our way of life.
Thank you ALL, past and current, who protect this awesome freaking nation! What’s still left of it, anyways.
Well, time to go hang the Maple Leaf on the front door. I only hope my grand-kids won’t be hanging a Chinese, Russian or Islamic flag on theirs.
One hundred years ago today, 100,000 British soldiers leapt from their trenches and attacked the German lines along the Somme. The next morning, only 40,000 answered the roll call. It was, and is still, the worst day in the history of the British Army.
Happy Memorial Day to all my fellow Newfs, as we celebrate 100 years since 801 of our citizens died at Beaumont-Hamel. CBC has The Trail of The Caribou documentary on tonight, with Mark Critch and Allan Doyle. The show outlines the involvement of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment in the battle of the Somme, and the devastating loss of life that happened there. I don’t watch much on CBC, but this one might tempt me.
The death toll was far less than that but it was a catastrophe nonetheless. Newfoundland essentially lost an entire generation of its leadership along with considerable treasure in the Great War. The repercussion of this was the collapse into insolvency and loss of nationhood in the 1930s. And were it not for that Newfoundland would either still be a dominion today or a state within the US.
Full disclosure: My grandfather was a Part of the Blue Puttees – the first five hundred to ship out of Nfld on the SS Florizel and he was at Beaumont Hamel but was not one of the ones who was part of the attack as he was in the transport part of the regiment – an ambulance driver – that day.
Yes, Happy Dominion Day.
Dominion Day? Canada Day?
What is really sad, not only about all those lives lost at the Somme, and countless other battles, and numerous wars, was that these soldiers joined for many reasons, but basically to fight for western liberal democratic values that they enjoyed, and now these values are being thrown overboard by our political establishment at an accelerated rate.
What with Trudeau as PM who just changed the National Anthem, Wynne doing her best to destroy Ontario and Notley doing the same in Alberta I won’t be celebrating Canada Day this year. Once upon a time Canada was a nation to be proud of but no longer.
It is too embarrassing to celebrate Canada with idiots in charge. No flags, beers or festivities are in order around here. The house needs scraping for painting, I’ll be working today instead.
That article on Beaumont Hamel is a good one. The loss is still felt.
A bittersweet Birthday for Canada. We have a proud history but a current ambivalence by
many towards Canadian sovereignty. Any celebration will be muted by the future prospects of
Canada willingly losing its desire to be a great Nation and replacing it as a cog in the Global wheel.
Re the picture:
War memorial for Newfoundland soldiers at Beaumont Hamel, France, during World War I.
This monument of a caribou at Beaumont Hamel, France, is dedicated to the Newfoundland soldiers who lost their lives on the first day of the Battle of the Somme: July 1st, 1916.
Below the caribou, which is draped in a British flag, stand a group of dignitaries. Included in this group are Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig (1861-1928) and French General, Marie Fayolle (1852-1928). The identity of the photographer is not clear, though it could be someone called ‘Biard’.
Although a number of war monuments were raised to honour soldiers from Newfoundland, the one at Beaumont Hamel, France, is the most famous. The memorial was designed by landscape architect, R.H.K. Cochius (the designer of Bowring Park in St. John’s), and cost approximately £1,000 to build. Even today, the first of July is still commemorated as Beaumont Hamel Day in Newfoundland
“The attack was a devastating failure. In a single morning, almost 20,000 British troops died, and another 37,000 were wounded. The Newfoundland Regiment had been almost wiped out. When roll call was taken, only 68 men answered their names – 324 were killed, or missing and presumed dead, and 386 were wounded.”
I did a bit of research on this earlier. 324 killed or one in 740 of the total population of Newfoundland killed, 368 or one in 650 wounded for a total of 692 killed and wounded or 1 in 350 people in all of Newfoundland. A truly horrific sacrifice.
If the day ever comes that such losses are not still felt, a much greater loss will have occurred.
If the day ever comes that the loss is not still felt, a different but greater loss will have occurred.
“It is too embarrassing to celebrate Canada with idiots in charge.” I agree with you. My heart is not in it now that we have been declared “the first post-national state”. What’s to celebrate? The globalists are steering Canada. Canada Day is just like hanging on to the trappings of a former (and once great) country. Now we stand for nothing. Celebrating UN Day would be more appropriate.
Ditto, Joe.
“What’s to celebrate? The globalists are steering Canada. Canada Day is just like hanging on to the trappings of a former (and once great) country. Now we stand for nothing.”
~LindaL
Yes. It’s a holiday, nothing more.
I visited Dieppe in the summer of ’94, about 50 years after my Dad. I’m sure glad he made it home.
Yes.My thoughts as well.
I have E-mailed the PM suggesting that we re-name July 1st as “Diversity Day” thus including all who don’t feel included in “Canada Day” or “Dominion Day”.
I expect my name should be on next year’s list for the Order of Canada.
To put a lock on the OoC, tell him you are a woman transing into a Muslim Imam. Oh……congratulations in advance.
Happy Dominion day to my brothers and sister out there now and always!! May God continue to bless us in this country.
Prior to the First World War there were:
1. No Income Taxes
2. No passport controls across the vast British Empire
3. No country in the world was under Communist Party rule
4. The British Empire observed a gold standard
5. No Federal Reserve
Thanks to the First Good War, we got saddled with income taxes, passport controls were enacted across the British Empire, the largest country in the world fell prey to a totalitarian cabal and the British Empire jettisoned the gold standard.
As for the Fed: “The Federal Reserve System virtually controls the nation’s monetary system, yet it is accountable to no one. It has no budget; it is subject to no audit; and no Congressional Committee knows of, or can truly supervise, its operations.”
Professor Murray N. Rothbard
War, Big Government, and Lost Freedom
War and the End of Limited Government Liberalism
The First World War also brought about the end of the (classical) liberal epoch in modern Western civilization. For most of the 100 years before 1914, the Western world had moved in the direction of greater individual freedom and wider economic liberty.
All-powerful kings were replaced with representative democratic government or constitutionally limited monarchy. Expanding civil liberty brought about a more impartial equality before the law and the end of human slavery.
http://fff.org/explore-freedom/article/war-big-government-and-lost-freedom/
Dominion Day.
yes… the words i was looking for
More “isolated attacks” in Dakar, Bangladesh, which clearly has nothing to do with religion or ideology, more like a criminal gang; can’t stop crime, right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EpEB4068G8
Apparently there have been several other isolated attacks in Bangladesh. People seem to be missing the obvious – the US gun culture is causing terrorism domestically and therefore all over the world. All we have to do is love each other, while preventing a goon from pulling the pin. Remember what Quinnipac polling said: Hate wins. It only America had gun control then this wouldn’t have happened. (friggin right it’s sarc).
Hate wins? Works for me.
I hate to tell them we have to slaughter Islamist soldiers wherever we find them. Maybe the Dems could stage another sit in to escape culpability.
It is Dominion Day in this house and no bastardized version of Oh Canada either. Hope no one will be coming to take us away!
.Joe -while I share your feelings,I believe it is our duty to celebrate Canada Day because of the sacrifice of so many over the years so we can live in the as yet wonderful country we do. It does not lesson my consternation over the events taking place in our country. Vimy park changed to Perizeau Park. What’s next Canada day to Rene Leveque day ? We must fight hard . Those before us have shown the way .
Concerned: On Remembrance Day I reflect on Canada’s long and storied war history. On Canada Day I can’t get over the liberal morass that is reflected in parliament and the courts and this year I am not going to join any celebrations.
WW1 was a stupid war fought for stupid reasons. Unfortunately there are people today who would drag us into wars for equally stupid reasons.
We should be seeking allies with similar Christian value cultures to fight a common enemy; the muslime jihad. Instead we squabble among ourselves for more stupid reasons.
Before there was Beaumont Hamel there was Suvla Bay : http://www.heritage.nf.ca/first-world-war/articles/newfoundland-regiment-at-gallipoli.php
Note the photo of Dr. Cluny Macpherson in front of the Sphinx.
Joe, I agree. Liberal morass is right, although I might add to your listing in our educational system as well. This liberal morass is not the classical liberalism of the past that gave us our freedoms but a cow pie mixture with copious additions of cultural Marxism.
Gopher, well said.
Concerned, just be thankful that the Queen’s birthday has not been changed to Maude Barlow Day.
I’m sure that someone will blame it on any combination of the following:
– white privilege
– Confederate flags
– the NRA
– climate change
– washroom policy
– immigration policy
– conservatives/Republicans
– $15/hr minimum wage still being too low
– Trump
– Brexit
Anything but what it really is.
Watch the documentary
http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/newfoundland_at_armageddon
and ask yourself: What did killing Newfoundland’s future really accomplish?
So many lives wasted, and for what? The glory of the Empire? To puff up the egos of foolish old men who sat far behind the lines and sent so many young men to their death? …and for what?
This was not WW2 with the righteous goal of stopping Hitler’s 3rd Reich. Without the stupidity of WW1, Hitler and the 3rd Reich would likely have never happened.
Don’t be so quick to send our children off to war for no good reasons.
I agree completely. I have often thought exactly that.
Nor probably would the Russian revolution and the sacrifice of 30 million to the establishment of the Marxist utopia.
The seeds of WW I were sown when Bismarck unified the independent German states into one nation with Prussia as the premier state. Britain and France could not stand an upstart country competing in the economic, colonial, or military power spheres, in other words a 3rd European world power. The next forty years were a buildup to the spark at Sarajevo.
“WW1 was a stupid war fought for stupid reasons.”
Perhaps so.
But here are some pertinent facts:
1. On 2 August 1914, the Germans invaded and occupied Luxembourg.
2. On 4 August, they invaded Belgium.
3. On 7 August, they attacked France (in the Alsace-Lorraine region) following up in force by 14 August.
3. On 12 August, Austria-Hungary invaded Serbia.
So, yes, it was probably “stupid”, as you say, for the British Empire, France and Russia to concern themselves over such actions. Obviously a German and Austro-Hungarian power grab in Central Europe – combined with an invasion of France – was really hardly anything to get upset about.
The Germans would have done a better job of running Europe and Hitler would not have risen to power. WW1 made things worse, and caused WW2.