Lester B. Pearson

I've delayed writing this blog entry on Lester B. (I feel if we had met we'd be on a first name basis). It's not that I didn't want to, but I didn't quite know how to approach it. He's not the most shocking or interesting character; he didn't run up any major scandals, didn't say anything outrageous or divisive, and when you think of Canada's well known Prime Ministers of the past - which I believe exists to some extent, perhaps - he's not really one you think of. However, he completely deserves to be. If politics were sports, Pearson would be your stay-at-home defender; not particularly flashy, not one for hogging the limelight, but a reliable player that will quietly bring home the wins without much fanfare. In the wake of America's crazy politics, what we have here is what you really want out of a politician: someone who gets things done, moves the country forward, and does so without fighting every second person on the road to doing so. The best politics is probably a little dry. My father, upon recommending me Pearson's biography, told me he's his favourite P.M.. That means a lot coming from the guy who can sweep the board on our darn near impossible Canadian trivia board game we own. He's absolutely no fun to play with.

There is so much Prime Minister in this room right now I
literally can't even.

So, after that terrible introduction that must have scared away any would-be readers, it's probably best to talk about the man.

He, like many others, saw the first World War as a means of adventure and signed up the moment he turned eighteen. His post was rather easy, working as a quartermaster on the eastern front, and eventually managed to transfer to become a fighter pilot on the western side. Apparently a fortunate posting in at least the relative safety as a quartermaster role was something he saw as a negative, as it didn't really give that whole war "feel" that one, somehow, craves at that time period. The training for fighter pilots should be about a year, but the constraints of the war pressed it into a three-week span. (During that training, his commanding officer believed the name Lester not befitting a fighter pilot and renamed him "Mike" - a name that stuck for the rest of his life, and even became the title for his memoirs.) Subsequently, Pearson crashed his plane and as a result his nerves were a wreck, causing his release back home. While he did serve time oversees, Pearson never invoked his war record in later years in politics, believing he didn't really earn the same reputation others would have during the time as he wasn't close enough to the fighting.

Pearson, front right, showing those at Oxford there
is more to life than this "football" they play. He dominated
the British hockey players as he would use a stick rather than
his feet.

It wasn't the last time he was in Europe, though. After a long stretch of schooling in the University of Toronto and Oxford, as well as a stretch of sports in playing semi-professional baseball and playing on Oxford's hockey team (thus making him somehow more Canadian than he was before) he decided he'd try his hand at politics. He was given a job in London prior to World War II, and quickly realized that Canada was lacking a voice on the world stage. Pearson went through the admirable task of changing that, showing that Canada worked with Britain and not for Britain after the war officially broke out. Even though we were Britain's kid he felt it was time we became a big boy country, more than willing to fight our own battles. Well, sort of. Our then Prime Minister Mackenzie King was more accepting of a subordinate role, an ideal that irked Pearson.

Strong enough to handle Suez; cute
enough for a bow-tie.

Upon his return he was quickly shipped off again and stationed in America where he served to work for a different but quite similar idea. America at the time of World War II saw us as simply a part of the British union, and Britain saw us as their subordinate. Pearson sought to change that mentality, bringing more autonomy to our nation. That would be the hallmark of Pearson's pre-Prime Minister political life; pushing for Canadian recognition on a world stage. After the war he continued that fight while helping to rebuild Europe, spurring him on to become one of the most recognizable Canadians in the world - a title now belonging to, most likely, a Justin, Trudeau or Beiber.

In this motion Pearson was very successful. The early 1940s to the late '50s was said to be the golden age of Canadian diplomacy, and while that may be the least exciting golden age of all time, it did wonders for how the world saw us. He helped create NATO just prior to moving to elected office and becoming the Liberal party's Secretary of State for External Affairs for the following nine years. There, he would be the president of the UN for a year, participated in the Colombo Plan to help take the southern hemisphere out of poverty (a whole hemisphere!), worked in Korea to slow down the Americans that were maybe getting a little overeager, and as the icing on the diplomacy cake, came to a brilliant solution that appeased darn near everyone in the Suez Canal crisis. Lester Pearson was essentially a diplomatic rock star. His work for the Suez Canal ordeal won him a Nobel Peace Prize, placing a Canadian face amongst the other laureates, such as the unforgettable Elihu Root and Auguste Beernaert! And don't think I've forgotten about you, Ernesto Teodoro Moneta!

Pearson created our nation's symbol, giving us all something
to shed a patriotic tear over. *sniff* If you're not saluting
right now, shame on you.

Things went downhill afterwards (albeit briefly) when he tried to step up his political game and become Prime Minister. He took the leadership of the Liberals in 1958, and tried to push for a motion of non-confidence in the Diefenbaker Conservatives. The latter quickly moved to an election in which they crushed the Liberals, taking a record 208 seats. However, politics having more of a stick-to-your-man style back then, Pearson was allowed to stay as the leader of the Liberals until he was elected as P.M. on his third attempt in 1963. If his work was great outside of Canada before than, now was the time to turn it inwards.

Pearson spearheaded much of what makes Canada, Canada. The Canada Assistance Plan, the Canada Pension Plan, the Guaranteed Income Supplement and Medicare all came during Pearson's reign. He even helped to slow the tide of rising Quebec unrest (mind you, "rising Quebec unrest" has been happening since before Canada became a country). He gave Quebec some autonomy over their affairs, making them more willing to stay within Canada. Through that he also pushed for bilingualism, another cornerstone of Canadian life (otherwise, I would never have known that grapefruit in French is pamplemousse). I would argue his greatest achievement, and it couldn't have come under a different Prime Minister, was the creation of the flag. While many spoke against it claiming it was too far of a step away from the British, Pearson was all for a national symbol, and through him the the maple leaf was chosen. He did a tremendous amount, and it wasn't like he was in there for that long, either - a five year stretch and he did all this.

In our centennial year Pearson decided to leave politics and retire, passing the torch to Pierre Trudeau. He passed away in 1972 at the age of 75. If there's a better Prime Minister than him, let me know. That's a tough act to follow.

Canada in World War I: Bonus Factoids

I typically stray from long books for the purposes of this blog. A 250 page book that covers the necessary facts on someone's life, some military operation or otherwise without going into largely unnecessary detail that would otherwise bog down the few thousand words I write on any given topic works for me just fine. Tackling Canada in World War I was a much larger topic, however, and because of that I was willing to read the first of a two part series, "At the Sharp End: Canada in World War I". This and everything that happened prior is the first segment, and eventually I'll go through the admittedly rather daunting task of reading the lengthy part two. So if you're wondering why I'm leaving you thinking "wait a minute, he didn't tell us how World War I ended...", that's why. But I'll tell you now anyways. We won!

Anywho, here's a list of some interesting World War related tidbits, not necessarily related to Canada.

Battlefield Medicine:

Coincidentally, "Kultur vs. Humanity"
was the first case of the Judge Judy
series.

It perhaps seems better to be one of those that simply gets killed while going over the top running at another trench than being one of the poor souls that gets shot down but survives. Those wounded would have to lie in No Man's Land awaiting the stretcher bearers who were relatively few in number and not always well equipped. To help them out some soldiers would put a gun standing straight up in the mud to let them know there's a wounded man there, and if they're lucky, someone will cart them off and bring them back to the lines. They would have dressings with them for the wounds, and (hopefully) some morphine. If they ran out? Rum. Not enough rum, but rum. 

Just because someone got shot wouldn't mean he would get immediate medical care, either. The stretcher bearers had to make what must have been a brutal decision of splitting the men up into who needed immediate treatment, who would probably be OK to wait a bit (meaning the men often made the choice to crawl or limp back), and those that would be beyond saving. 

Worse yet, of all the places to get shot a muddy, manure filled farmer's field isn't one of them you want. Manure means bacteria and bacteria means infections, so slight wounds, if overlooked, could prove to be much larger problems than before. Without proper medical care as it is, often the most logical maneuver would be to simply amputate the limb.

I know we're not talking about gas masks yet, but
I love this picture. A bunch of British soldiers about
to play some soccer wearing their gas masks. If ever you needed
more proof the Brits love their football, this is exhibit one.

Physical pain wasn't the only issue either. Shell shocked soldiers, paired with the horrors of combat and sleep deprivation, were liable to break eventually. Some would stare blankly for hours on end, others wept uncontrollably, and others would fall prey to whatever other understandable mental issues that would creep along when dealing with facing death as your occupation. Frequently those men were sent back home as they were in no fit shape to continue fighting - but the problem is many men would fake it in an attempt to get home safe a little early. It came down to whether or not they could separate the actors from the truly shattered. 

Somehow, and this is really quite the surprise all told, 93% of those that managed to see doctors ended up surviving. 

Life in the Trenches:

It's fair to think that trench warfare was nothing but surviving shellfire and leaning over top a mound and firing wildly at approaching troops. But in truth, trench life was for the vast majority of the time simply unpleasant and boring. Sure, there would be moments of pants-crapping terror, but those would be few and far between; most of the time it was waiting around for those moments.

The days would begin at a half-hour before dawn because that was the most popular time to attack. The reason to attack then and not in the dead of night was because if the assault failed or if they succeeded and took the trench then any counter attacks would be in daylight, giving the advantage to the new defender. They would take a look across, see if any enemies were planning an assault (artillery barrages were usually a warning sign) and if not they would go back about their day. It would be time to clean their rifles, fix up their fortifications (there was always maintenance to be done on parapets and sand bag walls), or to clean themselves. Their living conditions were about as bad as you would imagine; being wet all the time led to the abhorrent "trench foot" in which feet essentially begin to rot on the still living person. (If you've lived your life without stumbling upon pictures of this, you're a lucky person. Don't let curiosity take that away from you.) There was even the "trench mouth" ailment, the symptoms being bloody lesions and bad breath that came from poor oral hygiene. This was for when trench foot just wasn't in style anymore. 

The only thing that seemed to be living happily in the trenches were nature's garbage animals; the rat and lice. First off, no one likes rats. Especially when they're those uncomfortably large ones. Even worse is when you see them feeding on the fallen. At first, men would shoot them but after a few too many incidents of friendly fire (probably the worst way to be sent home early as it's tough to describe yourself as a veteran when you say your buddy shot you while trying to pick off a nasty rat) meant that the bayonet became the preferred method of taking down the population. Cats and dogs became popular in the trenches as well, as they served as mascots, methods of comforting the soldiers, and a means of reducing the rat problem. However, just to make World War I that little bit sadder, there were occasions when they were ordered to be put down due to rabies outbreaks. sigh

Risk has told me that if you bunch up ten men or two horses
close enough, it turns into one of these.

Then there were lice. Men would take turns picking the lice off their cloths and killing them, working in teams to pass the time. Apparently, and I'm a little confused as to how this is true, that is the origin of the word "chatting". To "chat" would be to speak with each other while clearing out the abundance of lice that were causing them all sorts of grief. 

I suppose this should go without saying, but the food sucked, too. Biscuits and something called "bully beef" (alliteration never creates tasty food) were the main sources of food, and fresh fruits and vegetables were basically never around. Because of that, the men would develop skin problems and become rather... pimply. Jam would be one of the few sources of enjoyment, but the front line soldiers rarely saw the good flavours. The guys at the back (the guys manning the artillery, headquarters, and so forth) would take the strawberry leaving the front lines infantry with crap like plum. 

Further, and again this goes without saying, it stunk. Corpses, rat infestations and oftentimes few places to defecate leads to terrible, terrible smells and one of the few means they had to limit that problem was lighting up a cigarette now and then. It probably didn't go that well with trench mouth, however.

So Many Ways to Die:

You would think the main way to die in the trenches would be by a rifle. A man charges, shooting or stabbing, and either shots or stabs someone or gets shot or stabbed himself. However, the infantry were pretty much just a buffer zone to show they owned that territory. Artillery was the real killer, taking up 60% of Canadian deaths in the first three years of the war. For both sanitary reasons and to bury the fallen, often the men would have to clean up pieces of soldiers in sandbags due to the high power of the explosive shells. (I did say right at the beginning of this blog series that World War I was the worst war in history to fight in. I stand by that.)

A number of soldiers demonstrating gas masks used on both the
Eastern and Western fronts. It's Mad Max meets legitimately terrifying
Halloween costumes. Except for the one guy at the bottom. He didn't
get the memo I guess.

Perhaps the worst invention of wartime was the militarization of gas. Both sides hated it, and hated the men that put out the canisters, even if it helped their side. It was nothing you could combat; you can't vent your hatred and frustration by shooting at a cloud. It ate away at the morale of the troops, taking a brutal experience and making it that much worse. Further, the respirators never functioned as one would hope, fogging up and limiting the amount of oxygen coming through. To top it off, the Germans began to use gas that would cause the enemy to puke, meaning they would either have to wretch in their respirator or take off their mask and accept the terrible fate of breathing in the toxic fumes. It was, sadly, terribly effective. By 1918, a quarter of all shells contained gas in one form or another. 

To trick the snipers they often used
dummy heads. This particular dummy
received the Victoria Cross for bravery.

Then, of course, there were the snipers. They wouldn't have to do the typical daily chores as their one task was to pick off as many of the enemy as they could, which frequently meant staying in the same position for hours or even days at a time to lure out opposing sniper teams.  While the enemy would learn to keep their head down, the shots could go through sandbags, meaning a careless soldier walking with a shovel over their shoulder or a stirring of flies might just be enough to alert the snipers. 

Truces:

OK. I'll admit this was thoroughly depressing, so I'll end it on a lighter note. Occasionally, since the trenches were often within earshot of each other, the two sides would create temporary truces. The best of these is a story where the rain was pounding so heavily that it became impossible to dig a decent latrine. The soldiers had no choice but to crap in their very trenches, with both sides decided was a little terrible even for war. They decided that it was acceptable for a short time to stand above the trenches, allow your trousers to descend, and drop a few. 

Of course, the officers didn't like this and when one of them looked over across No Man's Land and saw a German soldier mooning him, he promptly shot him. That was typically the way a truce would end. But hey, it was fun while it lasted.