Canada at Gallipoli

Most information from Gord Jenkins of Canada

Canada took no part in the fighting at Gallipoli. They were fully occupied on the Western Front.

However, when the powers that be saw the huge numbers of casualties and illness cases coming from the Peninsular an urgent call went out to supply mobile military hospitals. 

Interestingly, these are referred to as "stationary hospitals".

Canada supplied a total of five such hospitals to the Eastern Mediterranean Theatre. They serviced the Gallipoli and Salonika Campaigns.

This is their story.

The Eastern Mediterranean ( from the Official History)

While no Canadian troops fought in the Eastern Mediterranean (Newfoundland was then not part of Canada), five Canadian hospitals operated in that theatre during the Gallipoli campaign and for some time afterwards. A total of some 450 officers (including nursing sisters) and about 1,000 men served during the period 1915-1917. The hospitals were dispatched by Major-General G. C. Jones, the Canadian Director of Medical Services, in response to an urgent request from the Director General of the [British] Army Medical Services.

The first units to go were Nos. 1 and 3 Canadian Stationary* Hospitals, which opened on the island of Lemnos during August 1915 for the treatment of patients from Gallipoli. After the evacuation of the Gallipoli peninsula four months later, both hospitals left Lemnos. No. 1 moved to Salonika in March 1916, where it remained until returning to England in August and September of the following year. No. 3 was transferred to France in April 1916. 

In the meantime two general hospitals had gone directly to Salonika: No. 4 (University of Toronto) General Hospital opened there in November 1915, while No.5 opened a month later. Both returned to England late in the summer of 1917. A fifth Canadian hospital, No.7 (Queen's University) General (which was sent out as No.5 Stationary), opened in Cairo during August 1915, with 400 beds. The following January it became a General Hospital with 1,040 beds. Three months later it left Egypt, to reopen in France in April 1916. 

It was at Mudros, on the island of Lemnos, that the greatest hardships were experienced. The site assigned to the two hospitals had been previously occupied by a camp of Egyptian labourers. It had primitive sanitary provisions and only a most precarious water supply. Dust and flies abounded; food was scarce and "unsuitable for the personnel, impossible for patients". By September, ninety five per cent of the hospital staff had developed acute enteritis, while the wards were crowded with cases of amoebic diseases from Gallipoli. With autumn came heavy rains and floods which caused extreme discomfort until tents were replaced by huts in October. 

The lack of fresh vegetables brought an outbreak of scurvy in November, while the intense cold at the end of that month led to frostbite -four hundred cases were admitted in one week. 

Nor was respite obtained after the move to Salonika, for there malaria hit sixty per cent of the unit, In these circumstances the Officer Commanding No. 1 Stationary Hospital requested in September 1916 that his unit be returned to the United Kingdom.

* Early in the war an infantry division was normally served by two general and two stationary hospitals. The latter were designed as "resting places on the lines for sick and wounded casualties on the way to the base". Later, as lines of communication shortened, stationary hospitals became small general hospitals. Bed capacities varied, general hospitals having about twice the capacity of stationary hospitals. Paradoxically the latter, being smaller, were more mobile.

His letter reached England at a time when the Canadian Medical Services were under fire from the Minister of Militia. A special Inspector General (Colonel H. A. Bruce), who had been appointed (in July 1916) by the Minister to make a tour of inspection of "all the Canadian Hospitals and Medical Institutions to which the Canadian Government in any way contributes", produced a report on 20 September which violently attacked the administration under Major General Jones. It proposed that the Medical Services be completely reorganized.  

One of the principal recommendations of the Bruce report was the segregation of Canadian sick and wounded in Canadian hospitals,  and particular mention was made "of the mistake in judgment" in sending No.4 General Hospital to the Mediterranean instead of acquiring buildings at Shorncliffe and staffing them with the personnel of the Canadian hospital. Bruce seems to have been unaware that at the time of the British request for the hospital, Shornc1iffe Military Hospital was in fact largely Canadian in personnel, both patients and staff.

The whole question of sending medical units into areas where no Canadian troops were engaged led to considerable controversy. At the time when the units were dispatched to the Mediterranean by Major-General Jones, General Carson had been informed of the move and in turn, the Minister of Militia and Defence.

Nevertheless, in December 1915, Colonel Hughes asked Carson, "Why has Jones sent so many Canadian doctors to Servia?"  And in a speech delivered in Toronto on 9 November 1916, only two days before his resignation the Minister made the unfounded allegation that "thousands of Canadians had lost months, and sometimes a year, in hospitals not under Canadian control, when they should have been back in the trenches". A letter written in September 1916 by the British Director General, Army Medical Service to General Jones amply vindicated the latter's actions:

I had not any hospitals at that moment ready, and I called upon you for assistance. You gave me ... Hospitals. As events proved, these saved the situation. They were good hospitals, containing good officers.... I shall always be indebted to you for the help you gave me at a time when I was very pressed. The only alternative was to send home wounded in transports, which might have been sent to the bottom of the sea ... if you had refused the help I asked...  You were quite entitled to refuse to send Canadian Hospitals where there were not Canadian Troops . I am very glad you did not."

In January 1917, the War Office acted on a recommendation by Colonel Bruce (who briefly replaced Major-General Jones as D.M.S.) that the hospitals should be withdrawn.  All three units were brought back to England during August and September 1917, their equipment being taken over by the British units which replaced them.  For the equipment of No.4 Canadian General Hospital, which had been provided by the University of Toronto, the British Government reimbursed the University. 

At the beginning of the war the form "Servia" was used more commonly than "Serbia". The Canadian hospitals to which Hughes alluded were, of course, at Salonika, in Greece.

Altogether eight Canadian General Hospitals and ten Stationary Hospitals (as well as three small Forestry Corps Hospitals) served overseas outside of the United Kingdom during the First World War.  

CHAPTER XXIII

VARIOUS DETAILS

IN FOREIGN PARTS--POISON GAS--RATIONS--PENSIONS--MEDICAL

MUSEUM AND DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE

Apart from the western front, the eastern Mediterranean and Siberia were the only areas in which Canadian medical units operated. No. 1,3 and 5 Stationary Hospitals sailed from Southampton August 1, 1915, on the Asturias, and by August 8 they arrived off Malta, where orders were received to proceed to Alexandria.

No.1 was transferred ,to the Delta, and sailed on August 14 for Lemnos, where it disembarked at West Mudros in lighters. War Office orders governing the whole movement were scant, delayed, or contradictory.

By August 23 the tented hospital was in operation. Within a week five hundred patients were under treatment for amoebic dysentery. This unit left Lemnos by the hospital ship Dover Castle on January 31, 1916, arriving at Alexandria February 2. It proceeded to Salonika on February 27, arriving March 3 and took over No.1 New Zealand Stationary Hospital at Lembet Camp.

On August 16, it was handed over to an English formation, and the first draft of the personnel sailed for England next day. The remainder followed on September 4. Upon arrival in England, this unit took over the Canadian Military Hospital at Hastings, where its name was changed to No. 13 Canadian General Hospital. It continued at Hastings with a bed capacity of 520 and returned to Canada as a unit, June 6, 1919.

The officers and other ranks of No. 3 Stationary Hospital sailed from Alexandria on August 14, 1915, on board the Afric and arrived at Mudros on August 16. The nursing sisters proceeded at the same time on board the Delta. The hospital operated at Mudros with a bed capacity of 720, until February 6, 1916, when the personnel embarked on the Delta, and arrived at Alexandria on the 8th. On March 24, the unit sailed for England, arriving at Southampton on April 7. At this port the personnel was transferred at once to the Anglo-Canadian, which proceeded to Le Havre, arriving there next day, and at Boulogne two days later, where it opened a tent hospital of 400 beds, expanding to 1,000 beds. This hospital was closed on November 2, and on the 10th proceeded to Doujens, arriving there next day.

The site assigned at Mudros to these hospitals had been occupied by a camp of Egyptian labourers; there was no sanitary provision; the water supply was precarious and depended on one borrowed cart; not even latrine pails were at hand; ordnance stores were on a ship in the roadstead only accessible in fine weather; food was scarce 'and unsuitable for the personnel, impossible for patients; dust and flies completed the distress.

These hospitals in the Levant encountered the full rigour of war in marked contrast with those on the western front where the conditions of supply were quite comparable with the facilities enjoyed in civil life. Indeed the misery of the personnel and the suffering of patients recall the events of Crimean days. They were six weeks' distant from the base, and communication was over dangerous seas; but the hardship was consequent upon the conception of the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign. 

The nursing sisters were in an impossible situation, themselves sick and a crowded hospital demanding their services. Of all the personnel ninety-five out of a hundred developed acute enteritis mainly of the amoebic variety. The officer commanding No. 1 and several of the staff were invalided to England.

By September 1 the disease was prevalent; there were 600 cases in the wards. There was yet but one water cart, and the well was failing. On September 8, there is a record in the diary: "Sickness among officers, nursing sisters, and men becoming prevalent. The fly menace is very great, also the dust; the poor food supply is very trying." With autumn came heavy rain and the flood poured through the tents. Early in October there was an increase of cases from Gallipoli of a most resistant type, 80 per cent being of the amoebic variety. In November, with the absence of vegetables and continued employment of preserved foods, scurvy began to show itself among the troops, and with this there appeared occasional cases of the closely allied condition, beriberi.

At the end of the month there was a period of intense cold, with snow and rain. As a result, in one week four hundred cases of frost-bite were admitted from the peninsula, twelve cases -so severe as to demand amputation of the foot. Orders were received to expand to one thousand beds, pending the evacuation of Suvla Bay and of the peninsula four weeks later. In addition to a large out-patient clinic, 6,300 cases were treated in the wards between August 23 and January 31, 1916, when No. 1 left Lemnos.

No. 5 Stationary Hospital arrived at Alexandria on August 11, 1915, and was ordered to proceed to Cairo on ,the 13th. The Cavalry Barracks at Abbassia were taken -over and converted into a hospital, which was opened or August 26, with a capacity of 400 beds. In two months this number was raised to 680. In January, 1916, the unit was changed to a general hospital. On April 10, the unit proceeded to England by Alexandria, arriving at Southampton on April 21, but proceeded directly to France, landing at Le Havre on April 22, and reached its destination, Le Touquet, April 24.

No.4 General Hospital with Colonel J. A. Roberts in command embarked at Devonport October 18, 1915 for Salonika, arriving at its destination November 9. A hospital with a capacity of 1,040 beds was erected on the Monastir Road, four miles outside of the city. In May, 1916, the hospital was transferred to the east side of the city to Kalmnaria site. In this position huts were provided, with a bed capacity of 1,040, which was increased to 1,540 in July, 1916, and to 2,000 in June, 1917. The unit operated until August 17, 1917, when it handed over ,to an English hospital, and proceeded in two sections to England. It reassembled at Basingstoke, on October 24, and took over the new hospital there, which became known .as No.4 Canadian General Hospital. 

The original bed capacity of this hospital was 1,040, which was raised !to 1,540 in September, 1918, and to 1,840 in October. The hospital closed June, 1919, and sailed for Canada July 2, 1919.

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Graveyards of Gallipoli:  a Tribute to the Men of all the Nations that took part in the Gallipoli Campaign of 1915