"The Red Watch": With the First Canadian Division in Flanders — Inside the Classic

The Regimental Lens

The book's title, The Red Watch, refers to the 48th Highlanders, and Currie consistently writes from within that unit's frame. In the chapter on the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, he notes that the adjutant of the Royal Scots Battalion on his right came over to discuss the impending advance, and that he had been briefed by General Turner, V.C., the day before. This is not a panoramic view of the battle but a commander's local knowledge: he studies the map, identifies the Aubers Ridge as the key terrain, and calculates that a wedge there could cut the German line. The regimental history catalog subject is thus borne out not by a dry recitation of unit movements but by Currie's constant attention to what his own battalion saw and did.

Tactical Reasoning in the Field

Currie frequently presents his own tactical reasoning, often in the form of informal map exercises. He describes evenings when officers would gather around a map of Western Europe and "plan campaigns to drive the Germans out of Flanders," choosing two lines of advance: one via Lille and Ghent to Antwerp, another from the Somme along the plateau between the Sambre and Meuse. This habit of mind—treating the war as a problem to be solved with maps and mathematics—appears also in smaller incidents. When a German battery shells a decoy cart, Currie picks up the shrapnel fuse, notes the range (3,400 metres), uses a compass to locate the battery on the map, and sends a telephone message to his own guns. The personal narrative subject is thus enriched by a persistent analytical thread.

The Weight of History

Currie frames the Flanders campaign as the latest episode in a long history of warfare on the same ground. He writes that "over this ground fought Cæsar, Charlemagne, William the Silent, Marlborough, Napoleon and all the great captains of history." This historical consciousness is not mere ornament; it shapes his understanding of the strategic stakes. The catalog subject "World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- Western Front" is here given a temporal depth, as Currie sees the trenches as continuous with the battlefields of earlier centuries. Yet the excerpts do not show him drawing direct tactical lessons from those predecessors; rather, the historical references serve to magnify the significance of the present struggle, placing the Canadian Division within a lineage that stretches back to antiquity.

Readers should approach The Red Watch as a commander's account, not a staff history. Currie's perspective is necessarily limited to what his regiment experienced, and his strategic digressions are those of a field officer, not a general. The book's value lies in its concrete details—the price of eggs, the shape of a fuse, the feel of a Flemish cart—and in the way it shows a battalion commander thinking through the war in real time. The catalog subjects accurately describe the content, but the excerpts reveal a work that is more varied and particular than those labels might suggest.

Reading about the Red Watch’s mud-caked patience in the Salient made me think of my grandfather’s quiet talks about the sea-lanes, and how The Achievement of the British Navy in the World-War — Inside the Classic once gave me that same odd solace—the sense that endurance, not glory, is what history remembers. Both books feel less like war stories, more like rain on a window.