Book Review - Courage, Sacrifice and Betrayal: The Story of the Victoria Rifles of Canada, 60th Battalion, in the First World War - Richard Pyves

Reviewed by Major (Ret’d) Murray Robertson, retired Reserve Infantry Officer

Courage, Sacrifice and Betrayal offers a personal history of the officers and personnel who made up the 60th Battalion, Victoria Rifles, a Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) battalion of the Great War that was originally recruited in Montreal. It tells the story of the formation, training (including initial training in Canada), service and eventual disbandment of the unit.

Readers seeking a detailed description of the major battles that the unit participated in will have to look elsewhere. This study offers excellent descriptions of unit personnel, where they came from, how they joined, and how they were trained and deployed overseas. It details the unit’s training in England, its movement to France and Belgium, and its introduction to the trenches. The book also includes sketch maps that are helpful and add to the context.

Throughout the work, the individual experiences of those who belonged to the unit are powerfully conveyed. The author uses letters sent both to and from family members and includes photos of places, equipment and other memorabilia. Of particular interest are letters from Canada. While this reviewer has read many works that include letters from home and from soldiers at the front, opportunities to read those from families and friends are seldom found.

Indeed, Courage, Sacrifice and Betrayal is essentially a personal history of the officers and members who made up one of the fighting battalions of the CEF. It contains individual (and some group) pictures of well over 200 unit members, personalizing their experience in a manner that few contemporary works have succeeded in. It also contains short biographies of both notable and ordinary members of the unit, including the Commanding Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Gascoigne, Sergeant Edward Pyves (the author’s grandfather), and Private A.Y. Jackson—who later became one of the founding artists of the Group of Seven. The accounts of what happened to the unit members after the Great War may well represent the best part of the volume.

Equally excellent is Pyves’ inclusion of data on virtually every officer and soldier who served in the 60th Victoria Rifles. That includes name, rank achieved, date and place of birth, date and place of death, as well as the location of soldier graves (if known). It also includes any honours or awards received, date of wounds, and where battalion members were transferred to. The result is a work that allows readers to identify with the personal stories of the members to a degree that is unique.

Pyves’ account of the disbandment of the unit shortly after Vimy Ridge is equally notable. In fact, this event has rarely, if ever, been publicized, much less examined. Here, Pyves notes that it was decided after Vimy that the CEF featured too many units from Quebec and British Columbia and not enough from Ontario and Nova Scotia. That was because the Army made a concerted effort to maintain regional/provincial units with replacements from the same region/province. For various reasons, Quebec and British Columbia were initially overrepresented and, by 1917, their units could only be maintained with replacements from other provinces. This was doubtless a legacy of the somewhat chaotic recruiting process that the Canadian Army went through in 1914 and 1915. At the end of the day, it appears that the remaining provinces were unhappy that their significant roles were not recognized as fully as their sacrifices demanded. 

As usual in Canada, politics was pervasive, so a change was made. Notably, the official history mentions this only briefly, and other work such as that of Tim Curry is similarly short on detail. Reasoning aside, the serving soldiers in the disbanded units were transferred to other units at the front, with every effort made to ensure that soldiers went to their regional/provincial units. While the actual disbandments were undoubtedly trying and challenging for the soldiers involved, there were in fact sound political reasons why some units were replaced. That aside, it bears repeating that such decisions are often highly political in the Canadian context.

In all, Courage, Sacrifice and Betrayal is an excellent work. It provides a snapshot of a Canada that no longer exists as well as a fresh perspective on Canada and the Great War. Given the enormous impact that the First World War had on developments in Canada and Canadian society––an impact that continues to reverberate today––it is a book that all Canadians must read.

This article first appeared in the April, 2024 edition of Canadian Army Journal (20-2).