King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra on 9 August 1902. First World War Promoted to brigadier general just after the outbreak of war on 29 September 1914, Turner was given command of the 3rd Brigade in the 1st Division of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. His Brigade Major was Colonel Garnet Hughes, son of Sam Hughes, the bombastic Minister of Militia and Defence in Robert Borden's government. The 1st Division spent the winter of 1914–15 training in England, and were sent to France in February 1915. After a period of indoctrination about the realities of trench warfare, they took control of a section of trench in the Ypres Salient on 17 April 1915. Only five days later, the Germans used poison gas for the first time on the Western Front, sending clouds of chlorine wafting over the Allied trenches. French colonial troops on the Canadians' left flank broke, leaving an enormous hole in the Allied line. In the chaos that followed, both Turner and Hughes sent erroneous messages back to Lieutenant General Edwin Alderson at divisional headquarters that their line had been broken and was in full retreat, when in fact the 3rd Brigade had not even been attacked yet. Turner was also responsible for sending two reserve battalions forward in a night-time attack on Kitcheners Wood, although he left the details to his subordinate Hughes. Much of the subsequent high casualty rate during the attack can be attributed to Hughes and his insistence on an immediate attack before proper reconnaissance could reveal the presence of enfilading machine gun nests. Although Turner demonstrated great personal bravery when his brigade headquarters came under direct small arms fire and suffered several near misses from artillery, he seemed unable to adequately cope with this new type of mechanized warfare nor with the demands of brigade-sized tactics. On the second day of the battle, Turner's brigade came under heavy attack, but was holding its position and repulsing the enemy despite losses from a second gas attack and heavy and accurate artillery fire. Alderson, believing that the Canadian division was capable of holding the line, ordered his brigade commanders to move reserves up to the front line to reinforce losses rather than withdraw. However, Turner made a sudden and unilateral decision to withdraw his brigade back to the General Headquarters (GHQ) line, several miles to the rear. Not only did Turner not inform Alderson, his commanding