Peace and War in the 20th Century
Random Highlights
The Christmas Truce of December 1914 has become the stuff of legend. In a savage war which dragged on for four long years and in which perhaps eight million people died, it seems almost inconceivable that groups of soldiers in the trenches, the declared enemies of one another, could have exchanged songs and cigarettes, even for a brief interlude. Gerald Blake was there.
For a young man from a large Hamilton family, the First World War must have represented the chance to see the world. An athlete, he adapted quickly to life as a machine gunner in training in England, and he was sent to the front in the spring of 1917.
The Canadian YMCA provided a wide variety of services – educational, social, spiritual, practical and even psychological – for Canadian troops serving overseas during the First World War. In a revealing and affectionate series of letters, William Fingland, an officer serving with the “Y”, provided vivid insights into his daily life to his sweetheart, waiting at home.
