A trove of Canadian First World War artifacts on display at Montreal centre

The diary is one of the nearly 5,000 First World War artifacts collected over nearly three decades by Montreal businessman Mark Cahill.

Some of the massive collection is on public display, tucked away on the second floor of Cahill’s company’s offices in a refurbished factory.

The collection — about 90 per cent of the display is made up of Canadian items — includes everything from pins, medals and helmets to uniforms, weaponry, personal effects and letters.

“At the end of the day, it’s not about a war, it’s about all our families, all our friends, a common experience,” Cahill said. “It’s what we try to do here, we try to tell the individual story — the story of the common people and the experiences they had.”

Cahill’s interest in war is personal — his grandfather was a First World War vet, a member of the U.S. army. His father served in the Second World War.

“I come from a family that’s always been interested in anything related to the war — and a long line of veterans involved in wars going back to the American Civil War,” he said.

Cahill said he started wondering what to do with the growing collection and agreed with Bailey there were so many Canadian First World War stories that could be told.

One yarn is from Booth’s diary, which contains entries from his enlistment in 1915 until mid-1916, when the writing abruptly stopped following the private’s hospitalization for severe shell shock. He would survive the war.

“When you read it, it’s a very clear picture of someone who was very excited about a very big adventure that was coming,” said Bailey. “And when he got to where it was going and realized it wasn’t quite what he thought it was going to be, it becomes increasingly sad and despondent.”

Storytelling is increasingly popular as a way to teach history as people are always interested in the lives of other people, Bailey noted.

“The way the First World War remains relevant to us today is that remembering all of the numbers everybody spouts — each one of those was an individual person,” Bailey said. “One who had a story, who had a life, who achieved something and who came back (from the war) or didn’t.”

One of Bailey’s favourite tales is that of Arsene Belanger, who enlisted in 1914 as a member of the Royal 22nd Regiment, known as the Van Doos.

“He ended up being accidentally shot in the foot, which at the time was considered the easiest way to give yourself a self-inflicted wound,” Bailey said. “Because you couldn’t march, you’d be out of the war, so all foot wounds were investigated for being self-inflicted.”

Belanger, a native of Rimouski, Que., was placed in a special isolation hospital and brought before a military tribunal where it was determined he’d been struck by a stray bullet.

He was quickly dispatched back to the front to fight for three more years.

Belanger’s story is a typical one — offering a snapshot of his time in the war. The fuller story remains unknown, but he survived the war and returned to Rimouski where his relatives still live.

“He went, things happened to him and he came back and had to get back into his life the best way that he could,” Bailey said.

The entire story may never be known for other items, such as the box respirator carried by an unknown infantryman in a satchel on which were scrawled the words “My Pal.”

It was worn around the neck after 1915 and was the only tool soldiers had at their disposal to fend off chlorine gas attacks.

“His buddies probably didn’t actually ever see this (the words) because it was kept against his chest the whole time,” Bailey said. “Maybe it saved his life so it is his ‘pal’ in some way.”

Bailey is hoping for a larger space in Montreal to be able to fully display all of the items.

“We’d like to be known (as a place where) if you have a story about the First World War, this is the place to come,” she said.

On the web: https://greatwarcentre.com/

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Sidhartha Banerjee, The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

A trove of Canadian First World War artifacts on display at Montreal centre

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