tries to the manufacture of all necessary army equipment. Factories
all over the country immediately began turning out vast quantities of
khaki cloth, uniforms, boots, ammunition, harness, wagons, and the
thousand and one articles necessary for an army.

Before the end of September, 1914, the Canadian Expeditionary Force had
been roughly hewn into shape, battalions had been regrouped and
remodeled, officers transferred and re-transferred, intensive training
carried on, and all the necessary equipment assembled. On October 3,
1914, thirty-three Atlantic liners, carrying the contingent of 33,000
men, comprising infantry, artillery, cavalry, engineers, signalers,
medical corps, army service supply and ammunition columns, together with
horses, guns, ammunition, wagons, motor lorries and other essentials,
sailed from Gaspe basin on the Quebec seaboard to the battle-field of
Europe.

It was probably the largest convoy that had ever been gathered together.
This modern armada in three long lines, each line one and one-half miles
apart, led by cruisers and with battleships on the front, rear and
either flank, presented a thrilling spectacle. The voyage proved
uneventful, and on October 14th, the convoy steamed into Plymouth,
receiving an extraordinary ovation by the sober English people, who
seemed temporarily to have gone wild with enthusiasm. Back of that
demonstration was the conviction that blood had proved thicker than
water and that the apparently flimsy ties that bound the colonies to the
empire were bonds that were unbreakable. The German conviction that the
British colonies would fall away and the British Empire disintegrate
upon the outbreak of a great war had proved fallacious. It was,
moreover, a great demonstration of how the much-vaunted German navy had
already been swept from the seas and rendered impotent by the might of
Britain's fleet.

A few days later the Canadians had settled down on Salisbury Plain in
southern England for the further course of training necessary before
proceeding to France. There, for nearly four months in the cold and the
wet, in the fog and mud, in crowded, dripping tents and under constantly
dripping skies, they carried on and early gave evidence of their powers
of endurance and unquenchable spirit.

Lord Roberts made his last public appearance before this division and
addressing the men said in part: "Three months ago we found ourselves
involved in this war--a war not of our own see