More than 30,000 men volunteered — two-thirds of whom were recent British immigrants, off to fight for their homeland. Hughes armed them with elite weapons: the Ross rifle, a long-barrelled, Canadian-built gun designed for precision firing. It was a disastrous choice. The rifles jammed in mud and overheated when fired in quick succession. Thousands of Canadian boys died in vain trying to fire them. Hughes, stubborn to the end, refused to replace the rifles until the situation had reached scandalous levels. But none of that was known to the men who piled pell-mell onto ships, cheering and
...more
