New exhibit at Royal Montreal Regiment Museum honours French Canadian WWI soldiers

What we've got today is a temporary exhibition that's made all about the French-Canadian participation, particularly in the Second Battle of Ypres, which is the most significant start of the Canadian participation in the First World War. The significance of the French Canadian participation is often overlooked. These two companies of French Canadian soldiers operating in the RMR were very unique and really paved the way to having actual French Canadian battalion at the front. They had their own officers, they had their own NCOs, they received all their instructions and all their orders in French, which went directly against the orders at the time because the minister of war at the time was a guy called Sam Hughes and the only thing he liked less than a French Canadian was a Roman Catholic. So They had two strikes against them. So a misconception is that the French-Canadians didn't fight in the war at the same level that the English did because they didn't feel as connected to who was fighting. However, that's not true. This comes from the idea that... There weren't any French regiments, but there were. These French Canadians, in their letters and quotes, we see that they were fighting for French Canada. They weren't fighting for France. They weren't fighting for England. They were fighting for their own French Canada that they knew and they loved and they had grown up in. Their first major battle was the Second Battle of Ypres, which happened in April 1915. We know this battle as the first battle where the Germans used poison gas. I saw the Germans hop over their trenches and put these cans in front. Late in the afternoon, a big green cloud comes up over the German trenches and starts floating down towards the Canadian, plus the French colonial troops on one side and British troops on the other side. What happened was that gas attack coming, which was chlorine gas, started to overwhelm all the soldiers. These soldiers were basically drowning. From the inside, it's one of the most horrible things possible. And in about a three or four day period, of the 17,000 Canadians in that division that were in the line, about 2,000 were dead. I tied a handkerchief over my nose and mouth, and that saved my life. Lester Stevens, 8th Battalion. Private Albert Leveillé, he wrote a whole bunch of letters while he was training, while he was on the boat to England. He would write to his parents and his brother about his excitement to fight for French Canada. But unfortunately, Albert lost his life at the Second Battle of Ypres. He was never found. Unfortunately, he doesn't have a grave. His name is on Menin Gate, which is a big memorial. What I think I want people to experience and leave with in particular is to be cognizant of the fact that the French Canadians did not shirk their duties, they did not avoid it, they volunteered in the same numbers if not greater in certain circumstances. For every Canadian out there who's wearing a poppy, there is a direct line to this Second Battle of Ypres, because that is where the poppies were growing right after the battle, after all the dirt had been knocked around by their artillery shells. We wear these poppies today. To remember the Canadians who fell.