The Wartime Letters of Leslie and Cecil Frost, 1915–1919 (review)

An ongoing debate in Canadian historiography of the First World War revolves around the ordinary soldier’s experience of war and how it was represented to civilians on the home front. Historians such as Ian Miller have argued that the Canadian public was relatively well informed about war events, while others, notably Jeff Keshen, contend that propaganda and censorship distorted the true nature of the conflict in the eyes of Canadians. Both schools of thought are based on compelling evidence, so what exactly did Canadians understand about the war as it was happening? R.B. Fleming’s newly edited collection of Leslie and Cecil Frost’s wartime correspondence with their parents in Orillia, on, amplifies the complexities of this ongoing historical controversy.

No matter the age, rank, education, or ethnicity of the writer, virtually all surviving examples of soldiers’ diaries or correspondence share certain characteristics. We find many of these traits in the Frosts’ letters: concerns about the well-being of loved ones, worries over pocket money, grievances over the perceived misdeeds of superiors or subordinates, and curses for the Kaiser and his henchmen. Yet beyond these common denominators, each collection or diary is unique in its own way. As such, if we are to understand what Canadians learned of the war through letters from their soldier sons and husbands, it is practically necessary to consider each and every source on its own terms.

Leslie and Cecil exchanged information rather freely with their mother and father, although both brothers tended to omit military details that might upset their parents as well as the official censor. Yet it seems that the information they decided to include very much outweighed what was omitted. In particular, it is evident that the Frosts experienced the war very much within their own ‘hometown horizon,’ to borrow an expression from Robert Rutherdale’s study of Canadian communities at war. News travelled quickly for the Frosts, not only concerning their own affairs, but also those of their many friends and acquaintances from Orillia who had joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force. The transmission of information was accelerated by the practice of sharing letters with other readers beyond the original recipient. It is likely, for example, that the Frosts’ parents showed many of the boys’ letters to a third brother, Grenville Frost, who remained at home, as well as other relatives and family friends. Through such means, ‘virtual’ social networks flourished long before the advent of the digital age.

The Frost letters underscore just how instrumental the army postal service was to the Canadian war effort, not because official censors used mail to tailor the information passed to soldiers’ family and friends at home, but because the very medium itself helped to sustain the courage of young men who were away from their families for years on end. Although Fleming’s collection encompasses letters between two brothers and their parents, it is clear that both Leslie and Cecil also corresponded with several other friends and relatives throughout the war. As such, a significant part of their free time was spent with pen and paper. As the brothers repeated many times over in their letters, regular mail was the lifeblood of a soldier’s morale.

Several additional themes of interest to Canadian scholars of the First World War run throughout the collection. Notable among these is the concept of the soldier as tourist. In common with many other Canadians who served overseas, the Frost brothers took advantage of every opportunity for travel around the countryside of England or France. Both Leslie and Cecil were widely read and politically sensitive young men, and it showed in their leisure destinations, which ranged from the House of Commons to Ellen’s Isle, the home of Walter Scott’s Rob Roy. Both brothers were officers, but the diaries and letters of other Canadian soldiers confirm that travel and sightseeing were no less important to non-commissioned men.

The...