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he end of the Great War did not mark the beginning of an era T free from worries. The veterans of Flanders returned to Canada as the Spanish Influenza spread across the globe, taking more lives than the war itself. Meanwhile, the spectre of Bolshevism had reared its head. Lenin’s Bolsheviks toppled the Czar in 1917, removed Russia from the war, and unleashed a civil war in which some Canadians had fought on the side of the Whites. In 1919, the victorious Reds established a Communist International in Moscow to coordinate the worldwide revolution. Some thought the Winnipeg General Strike had been the work of Moscow, and, in 1921, the RCMP believed that another uprising was planned in Vancouver. In Ottawa, the Defence Committee – precursor to the Department of National Defence – directed each military district to prepare detailed plans of how they would counter such an uprising. The plan developed for Toronto was comprehensive. The city was part of Military District No.2, a large part of southern Ontario including Hamilton, St. Catharines, Brampton, Oshawa and the countryside stretching from the Niagara Peninsula up to Collingwood. Most of the soldiers in the district were part-timers of the Active Militia. In Toronto this was a sizeable force – more than 7,000 men – organized into seven infantry units, two mounted units, one machine gun unit and one artillery unit. The infantry units, from largest 48th to smallest, were the Regiment (Highlanders), the York Rangers, the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada, the Toronto Regiment, the Mississauga Regiment, the Royal Grenadiers, and the Irish Regiment. The cavalry units were the Ontario Mounted Rifles and the Governor General’s Body Guard (for their present equivalents, see Sources & Further Reading). This force had plenty of Lee Enfield rifles, eight machine guns, and between eight and twelve serviceable howitzers. It did not have any vehicles or horses of its own. Horses were rented for
14 The Fife and Drum July 2020
training, but the government rates were as a general staff officer before commanding generally too low to get good horses in 3rd a brigade of the Canadian Division at the city. the front. He was wounded and captured The full-time Permanent Force troops at the Battle of Mont Sorrel in 1916 and were mostly housed at the Stanley Barracks, spent nearly two years in German prisoneroften called the New Fort. This force of-war camps. included the infantry of “B” Company of Williams was an able administrator and the Royal Canadian Regiment, a squadron he was already worried about the danger of of cavalry of the Royal Canadian Dragoons, Bolsheviks when he received the Adjutant and a battery of machine guns from the General’s inquiry in the spring of 1921. He 1st still-independent Canadian Machine responded promptly to the correspondence, Gun Brigade. This force held seven trucks, providing his assessment of the security eight machine guns and 111 horses. Nearby situation in Military District No.2 and his Fort York (called the Old Fort) was still plan to counter an uprising. home to ordinance stores, some of the Williams reported that he had been necessary support troops, and a few married concerned about the Bolsheviks in Toronto quarters. The soldiers of the New Fort for some time. He had learned that they were the only standing force anywhere in had planned an uprising in Toronto the Military District No.2. previous winter. The Reds were to set small Major-General Victor Arthur Seymour fires around the city, occupying the police Williams commanded the district in and fire services, at which time they would 1921. Williams had begun his career in attack the armouries and seize weapons and the North-West Mounted Police but ammunition. Once armed, they planned to soon transferred to the militia. He had take City Hall and Queen’s Park and declare commanded a squadron of mounted the establishment of a soviet. rifles in the Boer War, served as Canada’s The Bolsheviks in Military District No.2, Inspector of Cavalry in peacetime, and Williams wrote, were well organized in commanded Valcartier Camp during the Toronto, Hamilton, St. Catharines, Thorold, Oshawa, Brantford, Collingwood and Port hurried mobilization at the beginning of Colborne. The Reds were too weak in the the Great War. Williams went on to serve
Royal Canadian Dragoons are inspected on parade outside the west block of the Stanley Barracks in late November 1922. The men of this cavalry regiment would have been among the first to confront any Bolshevik uprising in Toronto. These barracks were built in 1841 and torn down in 1951 after a late career as post-war emergency housing. Photo by James & Son for the Globe, courtesy Toronto Public Library (Baldwin Room) X 65-172
This 1916 map of Greater Toronto and Suburbs shows the city A Grand Trunk B Canadian that Major-General Williams was determined to defend. The Harbour D Old Fort E University Commission building was still across the street from the water (see p. 11) and the Bloor Viaduct spanning the Don Valley was still being built. The G Water Reservoir H Canadian grid lines are half a mile apart. Commercially produced by the Map J Grand Trunk Company, Toronto, courtesy University of Toronto Map Library
Pacific and Grand Trunk C New Fort Avenue Armouries F New Toronto Station Pacific I Canadian Northern Ontario (both)
The University Avenue Armouries in 1931. Only a third of its vast length is visible here. Opened in 1894, this was the headquarters of Military District No.2 and many of the city’s regiments. Although this magnificent building was torn down in 1963, its medieval towers are still visible on the crest of the district’s successor, 32 Canadian Brigade Group. Photo courtesy Toronto Public Library (Baldwin Room) E 5-8a
Major-General Victor A.S. Williams was a career soldier who had fought in the Boer War and on the Western Front. After leaving the army in 1922, Williams became the Commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police. Photo courtesy Toronto Archives F1266 It19217
smaller communities to be of much trouble on their own, but should an uprising occur in Toronto and Hamilton, where they were strongest, the smaller communities would likely follow suit. Williams considered the Reds to be especially dangerous in Toronto, which was home to their headquarters, describing them as “very powerful,” “well supplied with funds” and having “a large and dangerous following.” Besides those already following the banner of Marx and Lenin, Williams was also concerned with the “disloyal” citizens of Toronto and environs who might join their cause when trouble began. Williams There was no hard intelligence to substantiate Williams’ guess
There was no hard intelligence to substantiate Williams’ guess
was well aware that ex-servicemen had played a role among both the strikers and the auxiliary police during the Winnipeg General Strike, but he believed most of Toronto’s veterans would act in support of the government. He argued that “the large majority of the people in M.D. 2 are loyal and it is only the foreigners, Jews, Sinn Feiners, and a certain element of returned men (men who were always wasters and always will be) who are disloyal.” Given the number of “disloyal” people and unemployed workers in the city, Williams thought that a large number of them might flock to the Bolshevik banner once an uprising began. He saw an insurrection of up to 20-30,000 workers as a possibility. At its most pessimistic interpretation, this meant that Williams thought that as many as one out of every eighteen Torontonians might join the uprising. There was no hard intelligence to substantiate Williams’ guess, so the assertion mostly speaks to how he viewed Toronto’s precarity. In the event of such an uprising in Toronto, Williams proposed the following scheme of manoeuvre. First, the Permanent Force soldiers at Stanley Barracks would secure their facilities, the nearby Exhibition Grounds, government installations as required, and weapons and ammunition throughout the city. Meanwhile, the Active Militia would be called out. Williams was confident that the militia “would turn out 16 The Fife and Drum July 2020
and fight if they were required to down Williams cautioned his superiors Bolshevism.” If need be, Williams would against pulling soldiers out of Hamilton also tap into the University of Toronto’s and Toronto. Should an uprising occur Canadian Officers’ Training Corps and the in another military district, he warned, different veterans’ organizations around the soldiers should not be taken from Ontario’s city. He estimated that he could get 400 industrial centres. The main garrisons had people from the COTC and 570 from to be maintained, or the Bolsheviks would among the navy veterans. The Great War seize the opportunity to run amuck. If Veterans’ Association had estimated they troops were required elsewhere, Williams could muster 2000 auxiliaries during the proposed that he keep his city units in affairs the previous winter. Toronto and Hamilton while calling out The Active Militia soldiers, and any the infantry regiments of rural counties auxiliaries called out, would immediately as necessary. secure the armouries and their equipment. The plans for dealing with an insurrection The Queen’s Own Rifles would secure the in Toronto were never put into operation, University Avenue Armouries, from which although it seemed a near sure thing on they could protect City Hall and provide at least one occasion. During the summer a secure rallying point for the police. The of 1930, by which time Major-General Irish Regiment was tasked with securing Williams had retired from military service the College Street Armoury, a former girls’ and become the Commissioner of the school (and more recently, a convalescent Ontario Provincial Police, authorities again hospital for veterans) also known as feared a Bolshevik uprising. The Great Wickham Lodge. The York Rangers would Depression was in full swing and rumours secure the Rosedale Huts, from which they swirled of Reds drilling with weapons in could protect the city’s waterworks, the rail the Don River Valley. The Permanent line entering the city from the east, and the Force garrison secured Stanley Barracks, residences of the affluent neighbourhood the ordinance stores at Fort York, and the (including the official home of Ontario’s Exhibition Grounds, but the plan went lieutenant governor). The remaining units no further. The anticipated uprising did would move to the Exhibition Grounds, not occur. Fortunately, there never was an make camp, and prepare for operations in altercation of any kind between the Toronto support of the police, or on their own, as garrison and the much-feared Bolsheviks. required. Williams’ plan had to account for the Tyler Wentzell is an independent scholar and possibility that his garrison would be too lawyer based in Toronto. A graduate of the small to deal with an uprising in Toronto. Royal Military College of Canada, he is also He expected that necessary reinforcements a serving infantry officer and a member of the would arrive by rail from the west (M.D. board of The Friends of Fort York. No.1 in London, with “C” Company of the Royal Canadian Regiment) or the Sources & east (M.D. No.3 in Kingston, with three batteries of artillery). Securing the rail line Further Reading to the west would be easy enough – the bulk of Williams’ forces would be located at he files of M.D. No.2 containing nearby Stanley Barracks and the Exhibition T the counter-insurrection plans are Grounds. at Library & Archives Canada in RG24, However, if the rebels interfered with Volume 2656. the rail line in the vicinity of Mimico, Readers interested in the state of the Williams intended to detrain the troops army between the two world wars might in Port Credit and have them march to consult Chapter 5 of Jack Granatstein’s the Long Branch Rifle Range. The rail standard work, Canada’s Army: Waging line to the east, protected only by the York War and Keeping the Peace (UTP 2002). Rangers, was more vulnerable. If that rail George Stanley, in his more congenial line was cut, Williams would have his 3rd Canada’s Soldiers (Macmillan 1974, Ed), reinforcements detrain in Scarborough and march to Rosedale. also devotes a chapter to this sad period
smaller communities to be of much trouble on their own, but should an uprising occur in Toronto and Hamilton, where they were strongest, the smaller communities would likely follow suit. Williams considered the Reds to be especially dangerous in Toronto, which was home to their headquarters, describing them as “very powerful,” “well supplied with funds” and having “a large and dangerous following.” Besides those already following the banner of Marx and Lenin, Williams was also concerned with the “disloyal” citizens of Toronto and environs who might join their cause when trouble began. Williams
of the army’s life. The story of the New More conventional works are Lita-Rose and there Fort is well covered by Aldona Sendzikas, Betcherman, The Little Band: The Clashes garrison’s 7th Stanley Barracks: Toronto’s Military Legacy between the Communists and the Canadian Toronto (Dundurn 2011). The regimental histories Establishment, 1928-1932 (Deneau 1982) Artillery, of most of the units involved also treat the and William Rodney, Soldiers of The period but, of course, say nothing about an International: A History of the Communist operation that never happened. Party of Canada, 1919-1929 (UTP 1968). For conditions in the city and Canada as Two other substantial books focus on a whole just after the war, see the Sources the work of the security services: Gregory note with the CNE story in this issue. Kealey, Spying on Canadians: The Royal 100th The anniversary of the Winnipeg Canadian Mounted Police Security Service General Strike prompted a small surge of and the Origins of the Long Cold War (UTP interest, notably a work from David Lester 2017), and – weighing in at 720 pages – and The Graphic History Collective: 1919: there’s Whitaker, Kealey and Parnaby: Secret a graphic history of the Winnipeg General Service: Political Policing in Canada From Strike (Between the Lines 2019). The the Fenians to Fortress America (UTP 2012). view from the top down is in Reinhold Modern units perpetuate most of Kramer’s When the state trembled: how regiments involved in Williams’ plan. The 2nd A.J. Andrews and the Citizens’ Committee Irish Regiment is now the Bn, Irish broke the Winnipeg General Strike (UTP Regiment of Canada in Sudbury. The York 2010). A standard work on the subject Rangers are now the Queen’s York Rangers, remains David J. Bercuson, Confrontation a reconnaissance unit. The Mississauga at Winnipeg: Labour, Industrial Relations, Regiment is now the Toronto Scottish and the General Strike (MQUP 1974). Regiment, while The Royal Grenadiers and There’s a wide variety of books on the Toronto Regiment merged to become 48th the early development of Communist the Royal Regiment of Canada. The 48th organizations in Canada and the state’s Regiment (Highlanders) are now the interest in them (and anyone else thought Highlanders of Canada, and the Queen’s to be radical). Starting on the left, consider Own Rifles of Canada has not changed Ian Angus, Canadian Bolsheviks: The in name or role. The Ontario Mounted Early Years of the Communist Party of Rifles and the Governor General’s Body 2nd Canada (Trafford 2004 Ed) and Ian Guard merged into the Governor General’s McKay, Reasoning Otherwise: Leftists Horse Guard as the cavalry evolved into and the People’s Enlightenment in Canada, the armoured corps. Machine gun units 1890-1920 (Between the Lines, 2008). were absorbed back into the infantry corps
is no direct lineage between the artillery in 1921 and the modern Regiment, Royal Canadian founded in 1931.
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