Galloper Jack and the Canadian Cavalry Brigade (Part 4)

Brigadier general Jack Seely first met his Canadian contingent on February 1^st, 1915, at Pond Farm Camp, Salisbury Plain. Conditions under incessant rain were so bad that in order to reach the regiments, he had to abandon first his automobile, then his horse, and plod through the mud on foot. Within weeks he had moved the brigade to drier quarters; swapped the Ross rifle for the Lee-Enfield; witnessed his men volunteering to go into the trenches along with the Canadians already there, leaving their horses behind; and endeared himself to the troopers by stopping a particularly harsh form of discipline.
Galloper Jack led his brigade ashore at Boulogne on May 5^th, 1915. They were almost immediately into the trenches, which they were to occupy more or less continuously until late 1917, although they again became “mounted” in 1916. Seely’s greatest test was still ahead of him.