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Sons of Our Empire Episode 4
The Film
Running Time
08 min 30 s
Topical Film Company
Preparations in the Somme offensive leading to the Canadian capture of Courcelette, Western Front, autumn 1916.
The moment of the attack. The heavy bombardment by various guns and howitzers continues. A Mk I Male tank in position. 'The day...the hour...three minutes more then...the minute, and for God, King and Empire the Canadians swept forward." The Canadian troops go over the top. Vickers machineguns give covering fire. Distant views across no man's land, including a German surrender. A Mk I Male tank damaged, with part of its steering wheels missing. 56th Division rear areas, with wiring parties going forward. An officer controlling an 18-pounder battery's fire with a megaphone. More views of no man's land. A heliograph team signals to the guns. The 18-pounders continue to tire and ammunition is brought up to them.
Pieces of History
German Prisoners of War
Jonathan F. Vance
Professor and Canada Research Chair in Conflict and Culture, Department of History, University of Western Ontario
The emotion of fear probably came first since the moment of capture was the most dangerous time for a prisoner. It was a reality of the First World War that the protection given to prisoners under the 1907 Hague Convention was not always observed in the front lines. Throwing aside one's rifle and yelling "Kamarad" was no guarantee that the plea for mercy would be heeded, particularly if the approaching soldier had seen his unit decimated by enemy fire. By the same token, a platoon that was weakened by casualties and struggling to hold a hard-won position sometimes could not spare a couple of infantrymen to escort prisoners to the rear areas. In such cases, soldiers implicitly understood that the safest option for their unit was to shoot the prisoners and keep it to themselves.
And then there were the rumours that circulated through both sides of no man's land about a particular battalion that never took prisoners, or about captives who were killed rather than being sent to the safety of a prison camp. A soldier who had been fired up by such stories might well wave aside his enemy's pleas and pull the trigger instead. The faces you see in these films, then, represent the lucky ones, the soldiers who actually survived to become prisoners.
We should also be aware that there did exist a degree of sympathy between soldiers. Atrocities were committed on both sides, but often the sight of a cowering enemy soldier elicited a feeling of pity in the attacking soldier. This is not the demonic Hun depicted by the propagandists, he might think; this is a man like me, with a family, perhaps a wife and children. We are both caught in a war that is not our doing; I will treat him as I hope he would treat me, with kindness and consideration.
The exhausted Canadian sharing coffee and hardtack with a captured German became a stock propaganda image, as a way to demonstrate the kindness of our Canadian boys overseas. But just because they were propagandized does not mean such situations did not take place. On the contrary, many a soldier would share with his prisoner a water bottle, a packet of rations or a cigarette, because the fact that he was a fellow soldier was now more important than the fact that he was an enemy. There is genuine good humour in the image of the captor clowning with the captive by putting on his cap and pulling a face.
Once the new prisoner made it through the moment of capture and reached relative safety, his experiences in captivity became more typical. The First World War was a very labour-intensive conflict. It was the first truly mechanized war, but much of the heavy work was still done the old-fashioned way – by tens of thousands of men digging, carrying, lifting and moving. Neither side had any scruples about using prisoners as forced labour in or directly behind the front lines. We know that German units used their POWs to dig trenches, move ammunition and carry supplies – all tasks forbidden under international law – and Canadians may well have done the same. But such scenes would never have made it onto film. Instead, a much more common image is of German soldiers acting as stretcher bearers, bringing the wounded, Canadian and German alike, to safety. For the captors, this had the advantage of freeing up infantrymen who had been temporarily co-opted as stretcher bearers – every German prisoner who could carry a stretcher meant that one Canadian could go back to the firing line. But it also had value for the prisoners themselves. Many contemporary accounts tell of new prisoners who were almost pathetically keen to prove themselves useful by helping with the wounded. Carrying a stretcher, after all, was much better than being shot.
Prisoners were also a valuable source of information. They were searched for maps, papers or anything else that could have intelligence value (or even monetary value – Canadian soldiers were known as tireless souvenir hunters, and quickly stripped any item that could be sold to non-combatant troops in the rear areas. Rifles, canteens and other military equipment were confiscated and sent to salvage dumps. Then, German-speaking officers questioned the men about their unit and the defences on their side of the line. Probably, few POWs were as helpful as some of those who were filmed (including the one who is evidently hard of hearing, likely from artillery bombardment), but the evidence suggests that prisoners were actually forthcoming with information about what was going on in their own trenches.
Finally, the symbolic significance of prisoners should not be underestimated. It was important to depict German prisoners on film because they were very visible signs of success on the battlefield. In the bloodbaths of 1916 and 1917, when success was measured in yards of pulverized earth, scenes of a few bedraggled German soldiers proved that something concrete had been achieved. The Battle of the Somme, for example, was a notorious example of horrific casualties sustained for very little territorial gain, but footage of prisoners being marched away from the battlefield in this clip at least proved that there were a few enemy infantrymen who would never again fire on Canadian soldiers.
In the open campaigns that began in the summer of 1918, prisoners became even more dramatic evidence of success. Now, it was possible to show to Canadians images of long lines of Germans soldiers captured in battle as the Canadian Expeditionary Force swept across northern France. Scenes of POWs being marched away from the battle for Bourlon Wood in 1918, often combined with pictures of rows of captured artillery pieces, confirmed to people at home that the tide had finally turned. The Allies had the Germans on the run, and such images seemed to prove that they were just as happy to surrender as fight.
Statistics on German POWs captured by Canadian troops are far from complete. We know that over 4000 were captured at Vimy Ridge in April 1917; over 5000 on August 8, 1918, the first day of the Battle of Amiens; and roughly 6000 in the three-day battle for the Drocourt-Quéant line in September 1918. But these are only three of dozens of engagements fought by the Canadian divisions, and the total number of prisoners taken may never be known. In any case, the cold statistics tell us less about the experience of captivity than these moving images. The men we see remain nameless, but their faces speak volumes about the impact of war on the individual.
Selective bibliography :
Cochet, François. "Le traitement des prisonniers de guerre en 1914-1918 : le rčgne de la réciprocité ?", in 14-18, le Magazine de la Grande Guerre, n° 23, Décembre 2003 - Janvier 2004.
Jackson, Robert. The Prisoners, 1914-18. New York: Routledge, 1989.
Morton, Desmond. Silent battle : Canadian prisoners of war in Germany, 1914-1919. Toronto : Lester Pub., 1992.
Moynihan, Michael, ed. Black Bread and Barbed Wire: Prisoners in the First World War. London: Leo Cooper, 1978.
Speed, Richard. Prisoners, Diplomats and the Great War: A Study in the Diplomacy of Captivity. New York: Greenwood Press, 1990.
Vance, Jonathan F., ed. Encyclopedia of Prisoners of War and Internment. Denver, CO: ABC-Clio, 2000.
Vance, Jonathan F. Objects of Concern: Canadian Prisoners of War Through the Twentieth Century. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1994.
Williamson, Samuel R. and Peter Pastor, eds. Essays on World War I: Origins and Prisoners of War. NY: Brooklyn Coll, 1983.
Life in the Trenches
Tim Cook
Historian, Canadian War Museum
From Switzerland to the North Sea, some 500 kilometres long, soldiers on both sides carved out ditches in the ground that, over time, were expanded in complexity and depth. By 1915, vast underground cities housed the soldiers, as the opposing armies faced off against each other across no man's land. Along this continuous line of trenches, offensive operations degenerated into frontal assaults, which were usually stopped dead by concentrated fire.
The Western Front, as it was called, consisted of a series of trench systems in depth. The front lines were held in strength, but behind them, joined by a series of communication trenches that ran perpendicular to the front, were support and rear trenches. Deep protective dugouts were situated along the front and rear trenches to provide some degree of safety against all but direct hits from artillery fire. Saps and listening posts were pushed into no man's land, where soldiers were positioned to provide advance warnings of enemy attacks.
Despite the unsanitary nature of front line trenches, they were areas of safety. The trenches protected against small arms fire, shrapnel bursts and high explosive bombardments. Every day and night soldiers shored up the crumbling walls, filled sandbags, and rebuilt sections that had been damaged by artillery fire. It was not only a war of the machine gun and rifle, but also of the shovel.
Life in the trenches was filled with long periods of boredom interspersed with terror. Much of the time was spent in routine duty. At half an hour before dawn, the infantry was roused from their dugouts or funk holes (small spaces carved into the trench walls) and ordered to 'Stand-To.' At the alert, they waited for a possible attack with bayonet fixed. If nothing occurred, and it rarely did, since the infantry of both sides were always at their most prepared at this time, officers inspected the men. Rifles were examined for rust; feet were prodded to ensure that dry socks had been worn to protect against trench foot. The latter being a type of frostbite that occurred from prolonged standing in cold, slushy water, and could, in severe cases, require the amputation of toes or feet. After inspection, soldiers were often rewarded with a small dose of rum, which was much appreciated by the men, who saw it as a form of medicine to help withstand the daily deprivations.
Breakfast, like most meals, usually consisted of canned beef, jam and biscuits. It was a monotonous diet, but soldiers rarely went hungry. For lunch or dinner, soup or stew was brought up from rear areas to offer some variety and warmth. Care packages from home, filled with cheese, bread and sweets, augmented the bland food. During the day, though, the goal of most privates was to avoid the sergeant who assigned trench chores. Most were unsuccessful, with soldiers spending much of their time rebuilding the trenches or standing sentry.
Despite these duties, soldiers had much free time, during which they dreamed of home and of loved ones left behind; worried about children who were growing up without a father; of ailing parents with no caregivers; or of a wife who was trying to feed a family with insufficient funds. Literate soldiers might spend a few hours scribbling letters. Return mail from home was a welcomed treat, with letters read and reread. These exchanges back and forth remained an important life-line to Canada from the trenches. And while they were usually subject to two levels of censorship, by officers at the front and officials in England, soldiers nonetheless tried to share their thoughts with those at home. Civilians could not understand everything, nor could soldiers often capture the full range of their strange experiences in words, but letters remained an important avenue of expression.
Boredom could be kept at bay through gambling, and there was always some rake with dice or cards to fleece his mates. If a soldier had no money, he at least had cigarettes. Soldiers smoked all day long, and cigarettes, which were issued by the army, bought in rear areas, and begged from those at home, were a useful distraction. They helped to calm the nerves, or so soldiers said, and they certainly helped to mask the stench of unwashed bodies.
There were no baths in the front lines and, most soldiers went at least a week, usually longer, without changing their clothes. Dirt and mud were a part of life and, during the winter, helped to insulate soldiers. Far more trying was the infestation of parasitic body lice. The lice lived in the seams of clothing where they feasted on human blood. Soldiers scratched themselves raw to get at their infernal enemies. They learned to defeat their insect adversaries, at least for a time, by taking off their shirts and running a candle over the seams. This drew out the lice that were then squashed satisfactorily between finger and thumb. While soldiers did this, they would sit around, talk, complain and gossip. It was known as 'chatting,' and it is just one of many wartime phrases that would enter the English lexicon. But the lice always came back, tormenting the soldiers day and night.
Rats, too, were a constant plague, and because they lived off corpses, they could grow as big as cats. They bit soldiers and scurried over their faces while they slept. The rats were hunted by soldiers and their trench pets, usually fierce terrier dogs, but the rodents lived in and outside of the trenches and were always multiplying. Their squealing movement could be heard throughout the battlefield.
Amidst the mud and slush in the winter, or heat and flies in the summer, soldiers developed their own trench culture. New words sprang up, slang like 'napoo' for being killed, or 'blighty' that referred to England or home. Artistic soldiers could take spent ammunition and shape it into art. Some soldiers tried their hand at poetry. While most were not as skilled as John McCrae, Wilfrid Owen or Siegfried Sassoon, to name the best-known war poets, the trench poetry or doggerel provided much insight into the soldiers' front-line experiences. At the group level, some battalions printed trench newspapers. Drawing from their own soldiers in the ranks—men who in civilian life had been editors, journalists and cartoonists—these crude newspapers contained rough humour and wry commentary on the strange, subterranean world of the trenches.
But just as a soldier might be penning a letter or staring at the blue sky above, the crash of an artillery shell could bring sudden death. The enemy was always there to kill or maim. Snipers skulked into no man's land, camouflaged and ready to put a bullet through a man's head should it rise, even for a second, above the safety of the trench parapet. Poison gas was released in the form of gas clouds and artillery shells, and soldiers who could not put on their respirator quickly faced a lingering death as chemicals corrupted and ravaged lungs.
Machine-gun bullets raked the front lines day and night. Yet artillery shells were the greatest killer in the war, accounting for more than half of all deaths. High explosive shells blew deep holes in the ground or wrecked trenches; soldiers were atomized by direct hits. Equally deadly, shrapnel artillery shells rained hundreds of metal balls and jagged steel down on soldiers, shredding through flesh and bone. Steel helmets, introduced in early 1916, helped to reduce casualties, but a unit's tour in the front lines almost always resulted in a steady hemorrhage of casualties. It was clinically called wastage, and impersonal charts showed that each month the infantry would lose approximately 10% of its strength, even in quiet areas where no operations were carried out. While the snipers and artillerymen did their dirty work, the soldiers could look around and see their best friends killed and maimed.
Yet the soldiers struck back in the form of nighttime raids. Changing into dark clothes, equipping themselves with revolvers, grenades, daggers and clubs, small groups of men snuck past their wire and into no man's land. Raids were a form of organized mugging, and the goal was to gather intelligence, kill the enemy and grab a prisoner. Enemy sentries were usually the target, but sometimes large groups of raiders slipped into the opposite trenches to wreck mayhem. While Canadian troops acquired a reputation as fierce raiders, these operations were dangerous affairs, and in the confusion of night fighting, casualties were often heavy.
To help relieve the unending pressure on soldiers, they were rotated in and out of the front line. On roughly four- to six-day tours, filthy, verminous, exhausted soldiers passed from front to secondary lines and finally to the reserves. This rotation helped to relieve the strain, but soldiers always knew they would return to the trenches in this maddening cycle.
Endurance was the key to survival and soldiers learned to cope with the inhuman conditions. Some developed fatalistic attitudes, believing they would be killed 'when their number was up'; others lived in terror all the time; a few hoped for a blighty wound, a bullet through the hand or leg that would take them away from the horror and back to a clean hospital in England. Thousands suffered mental breakdowns, known as shell shock, but hundreds of thousands more of the 'poor bloody infantry,' as the soldiers liked to call themselves, learned to withstand the strain of the trenches. And it was these survivors who, after four years of bitter fighting, would finally break the static warfare on the Western Front and defeat the German forces.
Selected Bibliography
Bird, Will R. Ghosts Have Warm Hands: A Memoir of the Great War, 1916-1919. Ottawa: CEF Books, 1997 (1968).
Black, Ernest Garson. I Want One Volunteer. Toronto: Ryerson, 1965.
Canadian Bank of Commerce. Letters from the Front : Being a Partial Record of the Part Played by Officers of the Bank in the Great European War. 11 v. Toronto: Canadian Bank of Commerce, 1915-1919.
Cook, Tim. "`More a Medicine than a Beverage': 'Demon Rum' and the Canadian Trench Soldier of the First World War." Canadian Military History 9, 1 (Winter 2000) : 6-22.
Fraser, Donald. The Journal of Private Fraser, 1914-1918, Canadian Expeditionary Force. Reginald H. Roy, ed. Nepean, ON: CEF Books, 1998 (1985).
Granatstein, J.L. Hell's Corner: An Illustrated History of Canada's Great War, 1914-1918. Toronto: Douglas and McIntyre, 2004.
Litalien, Michel et Stéphane Thibault, Tranchées : le quotidien de la guerre 1914-1918, Outremont, Québec, Athena éditions, 2004.
Morrison, J. Clinton. Hell upon Earth: A Personal Account of Prince Edward Island Soldiers in the Great War, 1914-1918. Summerside, PEI.: J.C. Morrison, 1995.
Morton, Desmond. "A Canadian Soldier in the Great War: The Experience of Frank Maheux." Canadian Military History 1, nos 1 & 2 (1992) : 79-89.
---. When Your Number's Up: The Canadian Soldier in the First World War. Toronto: Random House, 1993.
Morton, Desmond and J.L. Granatstein. Marching to Armageddon: Canadians and the Great War, 1914- 1919. Toronto: Lester & Orpen, Dennys, 1989.
Winter, Denis. Death's Men: Soldiers of the Great War. Markam, ON: Penguin Books, 1985.
Battlefield Communications
Bill Rawling
Historian, Department of National Defence
Battlefield communications were a mix of old and new. The Western Front benefited from the most technologically advanced artillery, where the guns could call on wireless-equipped aircraft to correct fall of shot. The communications technology available to the infantry was far less advanced, however; in late 1914 and early 1915, the Canadians in England who would be responsible for sending and receiving messages from the front were trained on flag drill and lamps.
The Telephone
The telephone, the most convenient means of communication then available, was the responsibility of brigade and division signallers, who, although farther back from the front line, faced an almost impossible task. When laid on the ground, wire was easily destroyed by shelling, and the Germans did not lack for artillery. Stringing it up on poles increased its endurance only slightly, so the only recourse left to signallers was to bury it. Finding labour for such a task when infantry units, who normally provided work parties, were busy digging their own trenches and dugouts was not easy, and a wire shortage made matters worse.
By July 1916, cable laying was somewhat faster, but only because an entire battalion worked on the project at any given time, and soldiers digging trenches for telephone lines were subjected to shelling and machine gun fire as they worked through the night. Wireless telegraphy, which as its name implies did away with wire, was in the early years of the war available only in small numbers, reflecting limited manufacturing resources. Heavy reliance on the telephone, then, could not be avoided, though something had to be done about wires and cables that were continually being cut by artillery and the movements of one's own vehicles. A possible solution was soon forthcoming—laddering—a technique of laying parallel cables about 60 yards apart connected by lateral lines. To shut down communications, artillery would have to cut both main cables between cross-pieces.
Reliance on runners
Still, keeping in touch with the troops who were fighting their way into enemy trenches was an almost insoluble problem. After an attack on November 17, 1916, the 5th Brigade reported that its battalions had kept in touch with the front line with visual signals, but such ease of communication was uncommon, and even the formation in question mentioned that it also relied on runners. Forward of battalion headquarters the most common means of sending information was to have men hand-carry messages through shelling and, occasionally, machine gun fire. After two months of fighting on the Somme in the fall of 1916, commanders simply assumed that runners would be the only way to get messages across no man's land and planned accordingly.
Contact patrols
An added possibility was contact patrols—aircraft that were supposed to advise commanders of what they could see by dropping messages or using wireless telegraphy, but the system was still experimental in 1916. The 78th Battalion suggested that, for troops in an advance, "Communication to contact airplanes is best maintained by flares," but such techniques required perfect timing to ensure the signals were lit while the aircraft was in position to see them. Such synchronization was difficult to achieve when men were fighting for their lives.
Rather than solve the problem of communications on the battlefield, each new development was simply added to existing methods. At Vimy Ridge in April 1917, the Canadian Corps sought to maintain communications by exploiting every means available: runners, flags, pigeons and telephones. A little later, on August 15, the Canadian Corps assaulted and captured Hill 70, and here wireless played an important role, as the Canadians relied on their gunners to break up the inevitable German counterattacks. Signallers could send back quick corrections to an artillery exchange, which then passed on the information to the guns by telephone.
Until the end of the war, forward of brigade headquarters (which kept in touch with its flanks and higher formations with telephone or wireless), the most common and effective means of communication remained the runner, who carried written messages through enemy and friendly fire to keep commanders appraised of the situation so they could allocate reserves or artillery support accordingly.
Near the end of the war
In 1918, the war entered a more mobile phase. Headquarters had to move often in spite of their heavy reliance on the telephone, pushing signallers almost to the breaking point to keep messages moving. The tendency to multiply methods of communication, as at Vimy Ridge, continued. Telephones, visual signalling, pigeons, message-carrying rockets, wireless, runners and contact patrols were all available in the final battles of the war.
In the Canadian Corps' last set-piece attack at Valenciennes on November 1 and 2, there was no time to lay cable, and all messages from brigade to higher headquarters were sent through wireless stations. Communications between aircraft and troops on the ground, however, had not improved. Infantry devised a new system for signalling contact patrols: troops waved a white cloth with a metal disk sewn on the inside flap of the gas mask when they were called; and though the Royal Air Force found the devices very useful in determining the infantry's position, air-ground communications in the last Hundred Days were essentially the same as those of 1917, and remained so until the Armistice was declared on November11.
The First World War did see the development of aircraft, submarines and tanks as weapons of warfare, tactics underwent drastic changes as fire and movement replaced wave attacks, and scientific gunnery proved ever more capable of supporting infantry battalions as they struggled to survive in one of the most hostile environments our species has yet devised. However, in the realm of communications, the revolutionary developments of previous decades—especially the telephone and wireless telegraph—were only partially applied to the information problems of the modern battlefield. In fact, the runner remained an important link between the front line and headquarters until the very last days of the conflict.
Selected Bibliography
Moir, John S., ed. History of the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals, 1903-1961. Ottawa: Royal Canadian Corps of Signals, Corps Committee, 1962.
Rawling, Bill. Surviving Trench Warfare : Technology and the Canadian Corps, 1914-1918. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992.
Canadian Small Arms of the First World War
Phil White
Historian, Canadian War Museum
Although the carnage of the First World War was unprecedented, there was nothing truly new about the small arms used during the fighting. The story behind these weapons and their terrible efficiency stem from the tremendous advances in science and technology made throughout the late 19th century.
By 1850, arms factories in Europe and the United States were making the most of advances in metallurgy and mass production, and were capable of manufacturing hundreds of rifles daily. Repeating rifles, which could fire several shots before being re-loaded, were used extensively during the American Civil War (1861-65), as were the first simple multi-barrelled machine guns. More powerful ammunition was available in the 1870s. The American inventor Hiram Maxim introduced the first true machine gun, capable of firing 450 rounds per minute, in 1884. The water-cooled barrel gave Maxim's machine gun the ability to fire for hours without stopping. By the turn of the century, most European and North American soldiers carried high-powered rifles that could fire 15 shots per minute at an effective range of 800 metres. The days of reloading a single-shot rifle, in the open, five or six times a minute, were long gone. The stage was set for the killing fields that were to come.
Two Rifles
Two late-19th-century inventions, the Lee-Enfield rifle and the Ross rifle, the first Canadian-made military rifle, are central to this story.
In the late 1870s, the British Army accepted Scottish-born Canadian James Paris Lee's rifle design for trials, ultimately resulting in the adoption of the Lee-Metford rifle, then later the Lee Enfield Mk 1 rifle. It was purchased by Canada and used in the South African War.
Sir Charles Ross designed his straight-pull bolt-action rifle and patented the design in 1897. The bolt mechanism, based on the Austrian Mannlicher rifle, also included Ross's own innovations. In theory, this type of bolt-action was very easy to use and could be reloaded very quickly. The more quickly a rifle can be re-loaded, the more firepower it provides. Its drawback was a complicated manufacturing process and its fragile loading mechanism. Ross revised his design, introducing it as the Model 1900, then later with an improved bolt mechanism in 1901, both of which were submitted to American trials as a potential service rifle.
After the South African War, Sir Fredrick Borden, Canada's Minister of Militia and Defence, lobbied unsuccessfully to have the Lee-Enfield rifle built by a British firm in Canada. When the British turned down Borden's request, the Canadian government turned to Ross and his rifle. After a series of modifications, Canada accepted the design, Ross built a factory at the Citadel in Quebec, and the rifle went into production. In 1904, the Royal North West Mounted Police received 1,000 rifles, the Department of Marine and Fisheries another 500. In the coming years, the rifle underwent continual modifications and developments to suit various requirements, including target shooting by the Canadian team at Bisley, where the Ross excelled. In August 1905, the militia received its first order of 1,000 Ross Mk 2 rifles. By 1911, the Mk 3 had been accepted and was being manufactured for the militia.
Britain tested the Ross rifle between 1900 and 1912, rejecting it because of problems with the design, including a propensity to jam.
The British Army continued to use the Lee-Enfield and in 1903, introduced the Short Magazine Lee-Enfield (S.M.L.E.) into service. The S.M.L.E., a shortened version of the Lee-Enfield Mk I, had been developed as a result of experience gained during the South African War. The design and construction were simple, if not crude, but also robust, functioning under less than ideal conditions.
Ross continued to develop and fine-tune his design, resulting in dozens of variations. Between 1903 and 1915, 419,130 Ross rifles were manufactured, with most going to Canadian troops, and some to Newfoundland and Britain.
The Canadian forces entered the First World War with the Ross rifle, Mk 2, Mk 3, and its subsequent variations. Almost immediately, its shortcomings became evident.
On March 10, 1915 the 1st Canadian Division went into battle at Neuve Chapelle, France. The Canadians were heavily engaged and, to the horror of the soldiers, their Ross rifles began to jam. The reasons for this were numerous: the ammunition provided was often inconsistent in size; muddy conditions allowed dirt to build up in the complicated loading mechanism, and the heat generated by rapid-firing caused the closely machined parts to expand and seize. A design flaw also made the bolt difficult to lock, if it had been assembled improperly, and some bolts were said to have blown back into the user's face. Canadian soldiers soon began discarding the Ross in favour of the British S.M.L.E. Mk 3*, when they could find them in the field. General E.A.H. Alderson, commander of the 1st Canadian Division, was forced to issue an order banning the use of the S.M.L.E by Canadian troops.
When the Canadians fought at the Second Battle of Ypres, in late April 1915, the Ross failed again. Outnumbered and facing the first gas attack of the war, the Canadians found their rifles jamming. Some reports had them "Clubbing furiously at their seized bolts with trenching tools and boot heels." By the end of the battle, hundreds had discarded their Ross rifles in favour of the trusted S.M.L.E.
By June 1915, British Field Marshal Sir John French ordered the Canadians under his command to be re-armed with the S.M.L.E. However, the 2nd and 3rd Canadian Divisions that soon arrived in Europe still carried the Ross.
In May 1916, a study into the Ross's problems confirmed the jamming and recommended modifications to the rifle's bolt-stops. Earlier tests had reported the Ross worked well with Canadian ammunition made at Dominion Arsenals in Quebec, but this ammunition was in short supply. New, poorly fitted stocks made from improperly seasoned birch were also causing problems as the wood warped and pressed against the metal frames. In light of the report, a few rifles were re-built with 26-inch barrels, trimmed stocks and larger bolt-stops. Although the rifles were reported to have worked "superbly," soldiers had lost all confidence in them. In mid July, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig re-armed Canadians with the S.M.L.E. and the Ross was officially withdrawn from front line service by the end of that year.
By this time Sir Charles Ross was running into other problems. Skilled labourers were finding better work in the United States, machinery ordered in 1914 had yet to arrive, and supplies were increasingly difficult to secure. Ross won a $22,500,000 contract to make one million rifles for Russia, but had to let it go to the United States due to inability to meet his deadline. A second order from Russia was cancelled after the Mk 3 was withdrawn from Canadian service. On March 28, 1917, the Canadian Government expropriated the Ross Rifle Company. Canada's first and only national rifle had failed as a battlefield weapon.
The Machine Gun
In 1912, the British Army adopted the water-cooled Vickers Mk 1machine gun, an improvement over the 1884 Maxim design, as its standard machine gun. The slightly lighter Vickers, like the Maxim, made use of an ammunition belt, and could fire 450 rounds per minute. Its water-cooled barrel could sustain this fire over very long periods of time, often for hours. Classified as a medium machine gun, the Vickers Mk 1 was used primarily on a tripod from defensive positions. It could be fired directly at a visible target, or indirectly, like artillery, at targets or positions at long range or behind obstacles.
In response to the need to provide quick-moving infantry with machine gun support, light machine guns appeared on the battlefield in 1914. The Lewis, the first light machine gun used by the British and Canadian forces, had been introduced into service with the Belgian army in 1913. It weighed about 18 kg and could be carried "over the top" like a rifle, to give advancing troops added firepower.
Due to a shortage of light machine guns, the British and Canadians also adopted the Hotchkiss machine gun in 1916. The Hotchkiss was based on the French medium machine gun the Mitrailleur Mle. 09, modified for use as a light machine gun. Although lighter than the Lewis, the Hotchkiss was more complicated and was used mainly by the cavalry. The Hotckhkiss remained in service for training and home guard use after the First World War and was not declared obsolete until 1946.
The decisions regarding when and how to deploy, or advance against small arms fire relate to the concept of the 'beaten zone' or 'killing zone' that existed between the lines, and the time-versus-lead equations; the idea that a storm of bullets and/or artillery shells poured into a given area made the task of 'advancing to contact' extremely difficult, if not impossible. This led to obvious challenges: crossing the zone more quickly (tanks) or by stealth (surprise attack, often without pre-shelling); better tactics to bypass resistance (storm troops, combined arms warfare); and heavier bombardments to keep enemy heads down, destroy obstacles, etc; and in the meantime, drove troops into the ground (trenches) to escape slaughter.
Close Combat
Most of the casualties during the war were inflicted by artillery or small arms fire coming from a distance. However, there was still some close and brutal fighting, often as part of larger operations, but particularly during trench raids.
All rifles were fitted with bayonets, which took the form of a long knife or spike that could be attached to the muzzle of the rifle, effectively forming a spear. By the First World War, British, and Canadian soldiers had been training to use bayonets for 200 years and were very efficient in its use. The bayonet also had an enormous psychological impact. Hundreds or thousands of enemy troops running towards you firing their rifles, screaming and brandishing long blades or spikes, was a terrifying and demoralizing sight. Despite the psychological advantage, many officers considered the bayonet perfectly useless, even in the 19th century. Firepower and broken terrain could keep cavalry at bay from c1860 onwards in most battles, thereby removing the bayonet's one real advantage – warding off cavalry. When fighting in the confined spaces of the trenches, the length of a bayonet fixed to the muzzle of a rifle could be a great disadvantage. To this end, many soldiers equipped themselves with other weapons, both standard and non-standard issue. These weapons were especially important for trench raids.
Usually conducted at night, trench raiding was extremely brutal, tending to resemble medieval warfare. Soldiers made use of pistols, grenades, clubs, axes, morning stars, knives and even sharpened shovels. As a defensive measure, body armour was brought back into use and worn openly by infantry for the first time since the 17th century.
Pistols were issued officially to officers and NCOs exclusively, but they were also occasionally picked up or traded by soldiers and used for close fighting.
At the beginning of the First World War, Sam Hughes, Minister of Militia and Defence, ordered 5,000 semi-automatic .45 ACP calibre Colt model 1911 (Government Model) pistols through one of his "Honorary Colonels," causing a short-lived political scandal. The pistols were issued to non-commissioned officers and made available to officers for purchase, along with some older Colt revolvers left over from the South African War. Canadian officers serving with the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery, or other units assigned to British formations, were issued with Webley revolvers of various marks.
With the forces rapid expansion, the military needed more pistols by mid 1915. Due to shortcomings found with the Colt Model 1911, the government purchased 1,500 Smith & Wesson .455 Hand Ejector Second Model revolvers on August 21, with later orders for 13,000 between 1915 and 1917. Revolvers were considered more reliable in harsh conditions.
Immediately after the ceasefire of November 11, 1918, many First World War small arms developments were shelved. Advances had been made in designing lighter, more efficient machine guns and submachine guns, but, in the debt-ridden postwar years the last thing most governments wanted to spend money on was small arms.
The Department of Militia and Defence was now faced with the disposal of the unwanted Ross rifles. Some 120,000 Mk 2 and Mk 3 rifles were taken overseas and turned over to the British, and 20,000 were sold to the United States for training. Of the rifles sent overseas, 9,334 were later returned to Canada. The Ross continued in use as a sniper rifle throughout the war, and well into the Second World War, making use of its initial design as a sporting and target rifle. Many Ross rifles were also re-issued during the Second World War for training and Home Guard use and eventually made their way into the hands of the armies of China, Chile, the Baltic states, Spain, New Zealand, Holland, India, Indonesia and the Soviet Union.
The S.M.L.E. remained in service well into the Second World War and was replaced in 1942 by the Lee-Enfield No. 4. James Paris Lee's basic rifle design is still in limited service with the Canadian Forces in the 21st century with the Canadian Rangers and Cadets.
The machine gun continues to be a vital part of the arsenals of all armies. The Vickers machine gun was used in the Second World War, the Korean War, and was not officially declared obsolete until the 1960s. The Lewis gun saw limited service in the Canadian Army during the Second World War, notably at Hong Kong.
The bayonet is stilled issued and used as a standard attachment to most military rifles worldwide.
The small arms designs that were rooted in the late 19th century and used during the First World War evolved very little throughout the first half of the 20th century. Although infantry tactics evolved considerably and the casualty figures of the First World War seem incomprehensible today, killing over open sights remains the foot soldier's basic role.
Selected Bibliography
Edgecombe, David W. Defending the Dominion, Canadian Military Rifles 1855-1955. Ottawa: Service Publications, 2003.
---. Small Arms of the World: A Basic Manual of Small Arms. 12th rev. ed. Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1983.
Ezell, Edward C. Handguns of the World: Military Revolvers and Self-Loaders from 1870-1945. Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1981.
Hogg, Ian V. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Firearms. London: New Burlington Books, 1978.
---. Military Small Arms of the 20th Century. 7th ed. Iola: Krause Publications, 2000.
Law, Clive M. Canadian Military Handguns, 1855-1985. Bloomfield, ON: Museum Restoration Services, 1994.
---. Without Warning: Canadian Sniper Equipment in the 20th Century. Ottawa: Service Publications, 2004.
Maze, Robert J. Howdah to High Power: A Century of British Breechloading Service Pistols (1867-1967). Tucson: Excalibur Publications, 2002.
Meek, John F. Over the Top: The Canadian Infantry in the First World War. Orangeville, ON: John F. Meek, 1971.
Morton, Desmond. A Military History of Canada. Edmonton: Hurtig Publishers, 1985
Nelson, Thomas B. The World's Submachine Guns. Cologne, Germany: International Small Arms Publishers, 1963.
Phillips, Roger. The Ross Rifle Story. Sydney, NS: John A. Chadwick, 1984.
Rawling, Bill. Surviving Trench Warfare: Technology and the Canadian Corps 1914-1918. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992.
Saunders, Anthony. Weapons of the Trench War, 1914-1918. Phoenix Mill: Alan Sutton, 1999
Skennerton, Ian D. The British Service Lee, Lee-Metford and Lee-Enfield Rifles and Carbines 1880-1980. London: Arms and Armour Press, 1982.
---. The Lee-Enfield Story. Piqua: I.D.S.A. Books, 1993.
Artillery: The Great Killer
Tim Cook
Historian, Canadian War Museum
In 1914 and 1915, artillery proved it was the great killer. For those caught in the open, shrapnel and high explosive shells wreacked havoc. Thousands were left rotting on the battlefields. However, artillery guns were vulnerable to small arms fire, and they could be driven away from the front. But the guns were soon firing indirectly from hidden positions several kilometeres to the rear, still causing terrible damage. Soldiers were forced to find safety in trenches, digging beneath the ground to escape the murderous fire.
As trenches were strengthened with barbed wire, deep dugouts, and machine -guns, an enormous weight of fire was needed to smash the enemy defences and support the infantry. But there were not always enough shells in the early years to feed the guns. And so the infantry were killed in the tens of thousands as they attacked undamaged enemy trenches in frontal assaults. As the war lengthened, artillerymen received nearly unlimited supplies of shells through the enormous production of munitions factories. New tactics were also developed to improve the accuracy of the guns.
Artillery shells contained high explosives, shrapnel, and, later in the war, poison gas and smoke. Both the high explosive and shrapnel shells were timed to detonate in the air above a target. High explosive shells blasted holes in the trenches and the concussion alone could kill, as lungs collapsed under the force of the explosion. Shrapnel shells were equally deadly, consisting of more than 300 rounded metal balls that exploded downward in a cone-shaped rain of whirling metal. As well, the casing of the shell was designed to explode outward, creating jagged, uneven shards of steel that tore through flesh.
By 1916, commanders believed that massive artillery shoots, involving hundreds of thousands of shells, would annihilate the enemy defenders. This would allow the infantry to punch a hole through enemy lines and restore mobility on the Western Front.
However, it was often hard to hit, and then destroy, the narrow and well-fortified trenches. The problem also lay in the shell fuses. Earlier types were not sensitive enough to explode on contact, especially with shells tasked to clear barbed wire. As a result, many of the shells exploded in the ground, killing very few of the enemy, leaving the infantry to fight their way through defences-in-depth. By the end of 1916, newer, sensitive fuses that exploded on the slightest contact harnessed the destructive power of the artillery and, equally important to the infantry, cleared barbed wire from in front of enemy trenches.
Tactics again changed during the later phases of the bloody battles of the Somme in the last half of 1916. The gunners would never be able to destroy all of the German defences, and even one machine -gunner could kill hundreds of attacking infantry. Instead, the artillery sought to suppress enemy fire through a "creeping barrage," and give their own attacking infantry enough time to cross the killing zone of nNo Mman's Lland.
Gunners fired their shells to create a "creeping" wall of fire that slowly moved forward over the enemy lines at fixed intervals: 50 yards (46 m) every couple of minutes, less for muddy ground, more for open warfare. In effect, it was a screen of fire and explosives. As this moving wall of shrapnel and high explosives chewed up the ground in its path, the infantry were told to "lean into the barrage" and stay as close as possible. Although friendly fire was expected and occurred, the casualties would still be lighter than if the creeping barrage moved off and allowed German machine -gunners, waiting in the safety of deep dugouts, to get to the top of their trenches before the infantry crossed nNo Mman's lLand.
At the Battle of Vimy Ridge in April 1917, the gunners had perfected the creeping barrage. Yet enemy gunners still took a fearful toll as they laid down their own counter-barrages to catch the follow-on waves of infantry. The enemy guns had to be stopped, or slowed, but it was exceedingly difficult to identify, target, and destroy camouflaged guns several kilometeres away.
Accurate intelligence was essential, and new and refined forms of science aided the gunners. The Canadian Corps was lucky to have Brigadier-General Andrew McNaughton, commander of the counter-battery office for much of the war, who embraced new technology and tactics. A prewar professor at McGill University, he turned to science to save his soldiers lives.
The Canadian Counter Battery Office (CCBO), established in February 1917, gathered intelligence and processed information on the enemy to assist in knocking out his guns. Aerial reconnaissance from the Royal Flying Corps (later Royal Air Force) was of great assistance as airmen photographed the front from great heights. Later in the war, observation aircraft circled the battlefield, passing real-time information to the gunners through letter drops and primitive wireless radio.
As the CCBO developed after April 1917, this information-gathering and target-selection became more sophisticated, with new technology, like sound-ranging and flash-spotting, assisting gunners to find and destroy enemy targets.
Flash-spotting involved the coordination of observers. At least three posts were needed, usually spread out along several kilometeres. When an enemy gun position was spotted by the revealing flash as the shell left the barrel, the observers were telephoned by headquarters to turn their attention to that spot. After studying the flash of the gun, the observers would hit a key that was connected to a lamp at headquarters. From the observers' bearings, and by triangulating their estimates, enemy guns could be located with high precision.
Sound-ranging worked on a similar principle. Listeners sat two kilometeres behind the line with their microphones. Additional posts were manned well ahead of these positions. As long as there was not more than one shell per second being fired, on hearing the crash of an enemy gun, the forward listening post pressed a key that started an oscillograph, an instrument that recorded on film the sound of the shell in flight as it reached each microphone in turn. The time-intervals between the microphones allowed the CCBO to analyse the information and, if conditions were optimal, pinpoint enemy guns to within twenty-five 25 yards (23 m). All available counter-battery guns would be aimed on that spot to deliver a destructive shoot of 50-100 shells. Chemical shells were also used to kill or force the enemy gunners to wear debilitating respirators that severely affected the rate of fire.
In the last year of the war, artillery had perfected the creeping barrage and was steadily improving its counter-battery work. Further tactical refinement allowed gunners to fire more complicated barrages, like a box barrage. The box barrages set up a wall of fire and explosives around an enemy position —-- usually a trench —-- which effectively isolated it from reinforcements. It allowed assaulting Canadian infantrymen to capture and consolidate a position without fear of immediate counterattack.
By war's end, 43,914 gunners had served in the Canadian artillery, and 2,565 had lost their lives from disease, injury, and battlefield wounds. They had fired tens of millions of shells, reducing the landscape to a desolate wasteland, and an estimated 60% of all wounds were inflicted by shell fire. The First World War was indeed a gunner's war.
Selected Bibliography
Cook, Tim. No Place to Run: The Canadian Corps and Gas Warfare in the First World War. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1999.
McNaughton, A.G.L. "Counter-Battery Work." Canadian Defence Quarterly 3, 4 (July, 1926).
McNaughton, A.G.L. "The Development of Artillery in the Great War." Canadian Defence Quarterly 4, 2 (January, 1929).
Nicholson, G.W.L. The Gunners of Canada: The History of the Royal Regiment of the Canadian Artillery, Vol. 1: 1534-1919 Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1967.
Rawling, William. Surviving Trench Warfare: Technology and the Canadian Corps, 1914-1918. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992.
Swettenham, John. McNaughton, Volume I. Toronto: The Ryerson Press, 1968.
Other Materials
The Ross Rifle and other Small Arms in World War I
Sir Sam Hughes, the future minister of militia and member of the 1901 militia committee, was a supporter of the Ross rifle. The Mark 1 Ross rifle was not delivered until 1905 and 1000 units were supplied to the RNWMP but various problems plagued this model of rifle and it was eventually recalled in 1906. Changes were made to the production model until 1910 when the various models of the Mark 2 were produced. Great Britain at that time was strongly urging Canada to adopt the Lee-Enfield rifle for its armed forces so as to have consistency within the Empire regarding weaponry, and because Canada refused to halt production of the Ross rifle, strains developed over imperial defence. The Mark 2 rifle was adopted by the Canadian armed forces in 1911, and in that year work was begun on the Mark 3, although few were produced before 1914. In the first years of WWI the Ross rifle received a bad reputation. It was seen as unsuitable for the "trench-and-charge" tactics employed during that war because of its weight, 9 lbs 14 ozs (c 4.5 kg), its overall length, 60˝ inches (c 1.5 m) with bayonet fixed, and the continual jamming problem plus the occasional "blowback." The cause of the jamming was eventually corrected but came too late for the rifle to maintain its use. In the summer of 1916 the rifle was withdrawn from service and by mid-Sept Canadian troops had been rearmed with the British-made Lee-Enfield. The Canadian government expropriated the Ross Rifle Co in March 1917 after paying Ross $2 million. The total production of the Ross rifle was approximately 420,000 with 342,040 units being purchased by the British. During WWII, the Mark 3 Ross rifle was given to the Royal Canadian Navy, the Veteran's Guard of Canada, coastal units, training depôts, the British Home Guard and the Soviets.
Reproduced with permission from The Canadian Encyclopaedia, Historica Foundation of Canada
Letter from Geoff Redman, Sept. 25, 1916
Sept. 25, 1916
My Dear Sis
It is time I was dropping you a line to let you know that I am still living. I would write more than I do but I have nothing much to say except that which would be censored so a card is just as good to let you know that I am still alive and well.
I have received your photo and several bundles of papers for which I cannot thank you enough especially this last week as it has been so wet, we have put in an awful wet week wet every day and no place to dry. But to day is a beauty could not wish for better. [Enis?] was here yesterday when I received your last letter so I told his [sic] what you said about the photo so I expect he will write you he is looking well but is sick of soldiering and will be glad when it is all over. I am in the hope of seeing Russell any day as the Canadians are [censored]. I do not know of much that you can send me unless it is socks but do not send me more than two pair at once as we have no where to put them. A small close knit sweater coat not to thick would be a good thing to send and a few of them camphor balls put them in a little sack so I can hang them around my neck. It is no use sending us a lot of stuff as it is only a bother enough is all we want even that is two [sic] much sometimes. If Mr. Smith is still in the hospital give him my kind regards also any of the rest that you may happen to see in Brandon. Now I will close hoping that by the time I write you again that I can say I have seen Russell. Hoping this will find you well.
Your loving Bro,
Geoff Redman
Canadians at the Somme
It was General Sir Douglas Haig's wish that the Canadians should have a chance to settle in before taking part in an offensive. A G.H.Q. directive on August 19 had announced the Commander-in-Chief's intention to deliver a strong attack about the middle of September using "fresh forces and all available resources". This was the role to which the Canadian Corps had been summoned. While the 2nd and 3rd Canadian Divisions prepared for the battle, the 1st Division held the whole of the Corps front - three thousand yards of battered trenches running westward along the Pozičres ridge from the boundary with the Fourth Army (just east of Pozičres) to a point 700 yards west of Mouquet Farm, a stronghold in the German Second Position based on a nest of deep dug-outs which six bitter Australian assaults had failed to capture. As we shall see, the Division's tour of duty was not as uneventful as Sir Douglas Haig had intended it should be.
The Australians' final attempt to capture Mouquet Farm was made on September 3 by their 13th Brigade, which had the 13th Battalion, of the relieving 3rd Canadian Brigade, temporarily under command. The attack, while failing to secure the farm, gained 300 yards of Fabeck Graben, a German trench running north-eastward towards Courcelette. In attempting to extend this holding two companies of the Canadian battalion suffered 322 casualties. The relief of the Australians was completed on the morning of the 5th, and for three more days the 3rd Canadian Brigade continued to hold under heavy fire and frequent counter- attack more than two thousand yards of line, including the captured portion of Fabeck Graben. The brigade's 970 casualties in this period gave it good reason to remember its first tour of duty at the Somme. Early on September 8, during a relief by the 2nd Brigade, the Germans regained the now almost obliterated section of Fabeck Graben.
Next day the Canadians slightly improved their positions, when the 2nd Canadian Battalion captured a portion of a German trench about 500 yards long south of the Cambrai road. In gaining and retaining its objective (and thereby earning the congratulations of the Commander-in-Chief) the battalion owed much to the valour of one of its junior N.C.Os.-Corporal Leo Clarke. While clearing a continuation of the newly-captured trench during the construction of a permanent block on the battalion flank, most of the members of his small bombing party were killed or wounded and their supply of grenades was exhausted. Clarke was building a temporary barricade when an enemy party of twenty, led by two officers, counter-attacked down the trench. Coolly the corporal fought them off. Twice he emptied into the Germans his own revolver, and then two abandoned enemy rifles. He shot and killed an officer who had bayoneted him in the legs and he is credited with having killed or wounded at least sixteen enemy before the rest turned in flight. Then he shot down four more of the fleeing Germans, and captured a fifth - the sole enemy survivor. His courageous action brought Corporal Clarke the first of two Victoria Crosses to be won by his battalion. He was killed five weeks later, before the award was announced.
Adapted and used with permission from Nicholson, G. W. L., Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914-1919. Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1964, p.148-149.


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PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania baseball team made a clear statement to the rest of the Ivy League on Saturday, taking two from prohibitive Rolfe Division favorite Dartmouth to open league play. Behind the strong pitching of starters Connor Cuff and Jeff McGarry, the Quakers came up with just enough offense to pick up a pair of 3-2 wins over the Big Green. Penn ups its record to 15-7 (2-0 Ivy), while Dartmouth drops to 12-3 (0-2 Ivy).
Game One – Penn 3, Dartmouth 2
Box Score
With Cuff and his counterpart on the mound, Dartmouth's Cole Sulser, locked in a duel through the early innings of the seven-inning opener, it looked like Cuff's one mistake was all it was going to take to give the Big Green the win. In the top of the second inning, Cuff elevated a pitch for Dartmouth designated hitter Joe Purritano and he crushed it over the wall in right-center, staking the Big Green to a 1-0 lead.
For awhile, that looked to be enough. Sulser cruised through the first three innings, only giving up baserunners on two occasions, thanks to errors from his defense. Beyond that, the Quakers had managed nothing. That all changed on the very first pitch in the bottom of the fourth inning, as Ryan Deitrich was looking fastball and got it, blasting his third home run of the season into left-center, tying the game up at 1-1.
The tie between the teams wouldn't last long, as Jeff Keller led off the top of the fifth with a double to left and scored with one away off a Nick Ruppert single.
Trailing 2-1, Penn's two-out offense struck again and gave the Quakers their first lead of the day. Gary Tesch kept the fifth inning alive with a single into right field and he advanced onto second after Brandon Engelhardt was hit by a pitch. The two moved up on a balk by the suddenly shaken Sulser, and Mike Vilardo scored them both with a double to right field, making it a 3-2 contest.
Cuff buckled down on Dartmouth from there. He struck out two in the sixth inning and left a runner stranded. Looking to close it out for a complete game victory in the seventh, he sandwiched a single from Keller with two strikeouts. In desperate need of a spark, Keller was able to steal second, but a routine fly to Deitrich in right ended the threat and gave Penn the confidence-boosting win. The sophomore ended his day with seven strikeouts to just a single walk, improving to 4-1 on the year.
Game Two – Penn 3, Dartmouth 2
Box Score
Jeff McGarry took his cues from Cuff and kept the Dartmouth offense in check in the day's second game, but a bumpy start nearly derailed him before the game was yet an inning old.
With runners on first and second and one away in the top of the first, a slow roller to Ryan Mincher at shortstop left him with no choice but to throw to Mitch Montaldo at third for what appeared to be a force out, however the runner was ruled safe and the Big Green were in business with the bases loaded. The next batter, Nick Lombardi, had a full count and took a pitch that seemed to find a good amount of the plate, but the umpire allowed Lombardi to trot down to first, bringing Trent Goodrich into score. Just as it looked like Dartmouth was going to try to blow the game open before Penn even got to the plate, McGarry ended the side with a 4-6-3 double play to keep the Quakers in it.
Penn evened the game up in the bottom of the second. Spencer Branigan led off with a double into the right-center gap, then moved to third as Austin Bossart grounded out to short. One batter later, Montaldo hit a fly ball deep into center field, allowing Branigan to jog home and knot it at 1-1.
The tension mounted as the game moved along. Both McGarry and Dartmouth's Kyle Hunter flew through the middle innings, barely breaking a sweat. The Big Green threatened in the top of the seventh inning with two men aboard and one out, forcing John Beasley into action in McGarry's place. The senior reliever needed all of one pitch to get Jeff Selzer to bounce into an inning-ending 6-4-3 double play to get out of the jam.
Consecutive doubles in the bottom of the seventh finally saw Penn break out in front. Branigan led off with his second double of the contest down into the right field corner. Bossart immediately followed him with a double of his own, off the wall in center field to stake the Quakers to a 2-1 lead.
Dartmouth hadn't put together its 12-1 record entering the day without fighting through some adversity and it showed in the top of the eighth as the Big Green responded immediately to tie the game once more at 2-2. A Keller double scored Purritano from first, but Beasley escaped the inning by getting Ruppert to pop out weakly to first base.
The teams couldn't manage anything in either the bottom of the eighth or the top of the ninth, setting the stage for some late-game theatrics from the Penn offense. Though there was some action in the Dartmouth pen, Hunter remained in the game throughout and led off the ninth with a walk to Deitrich. He was then able to move into scoring position as a high fastball to Branigan popped out of the glove of catcher Matt MacDowell. Branigan followed that up with a ground ball to second base for the first out of the inning, but he was able to move Deitrich to third on the play.
After a lengthy discussion on the mound, Hunter continued to work as Bossart was the next man up. With the defense drawn well in to try to hold Deitrich where he was, Bossart got the pitch he was looking for on the very first offering, sending the right fielder Keller back deep to make a play for the second out. With Deitrich tagging the whole way, Keller was in no position to make an accurate throw home and Penn was able to walk away with its second 3-2 win on the day.
Branigan and Vilardo led the Quakers with two hits apiece in the Saturday finale. McGarry and Beasley combined to hold Dartmouth to seven hits in the game, four of which came from Ennis Coble. Beasley earned the win on the afternoon and moved to 1-0 on the season.
Penn is back at Meiklejohn Stadium tomorrow, taking on Harvard (3-17) in a doubleheader. With the possibility of afternoon showers in the forecast, the start time for first pitch has been moved up to 11 a.m.
Download: Game One.pdf


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Hay fever (allergic rhinitis) involves an allergic reaction to pollen. A virtually identical reaction occurs with allergy to mold, animal dander, dust, and similar inhaled allergens. The pollens that cause hay fever vary from person to person and from region to region. Pollens that are carried by bees from plant to plant are seldom responsible for hay fever because the grains are large and have a waxy coating. Tiny, hard-to-see pollens carried by the wind are more often the cause of hay fever.
Examples of plants commonly responsible for hay fever include:
In addition to individual sensitivity and geographic differences in local plant populations, the amount of pollen in the air can be a factor in whether hay fever symptoms develop. Hot, dry, windy days are more likely to have increased amounts of pollen in the air than cool, damp, rainy days where pollen is washed to the ground.
When an allergen such as pollen or dust is inhaled by a person with a sensitized immune system, it triggers antibody production; these antibodies bind to cells that contain histamine. Histamine (and other chemicals) are released by these cells when the antibodies are stimulated by allergens. This causes itching, swelling of affected tissues, mucus production, muscle spasms, hives, rashes, and other symptoms. Symptoms vary in severity from person to person.
The patient's history is important in diagnosing hay fever, including whether the symptoms vary according to time of day, the season, exposure to pets, diet changes, or other sources of potential allergens.
Skin testing is the most common method of allergy testing. This may include scratch, prick, or intradermal tests. Occasionally, the suspected allergen is dissolved and dropped onto the lower eyelid (conjunctiva) of the eye as a means of testing for allergies.
There are specific blood tests that can be used to diagnose hay fever, but they are less helpful than skin tests.
The best "treatment" is to avoid what causes your allergies in the first place. It may be impossible to completely avoid everything you are allergic to, but you can often take steps to reduce your exposure.
Medication options include the following:
Allergy shots (immunotherapy) are occasionally recommended if the allergen cannot be avoided and symptoms are hard to control with medication. It includes injections once or twice a week of the allergen, given in increasing doses (each dose is slightly larger than the previous one) that may help the body adjust to the antigen. Allergy shots demand a significant time commitment. It can take 6 - 8 months to reach the most effective (monthly) "maintenance dose," depending on how well the buildup to that does is tolerated in the patient over time.
Symptoms may sometimes be prevented by avoiding known allergens. Most trees produce pollen in the spring, grasses usually produce pollen during the summer, and ragweed and other late-blooming plants produce pollen during late summer and early autumn. During the pollen-producing times (pollen season), people with hay fever may prefer to remain indoors in an air conditioned-atmosphere whenever possible. For people that are sensitive to certain indoor allergens, dust mite covers for mattresses and pillowcases are recommended, as well as avoidance of culprit pets or other triggers.
Golden DB, Moffitt J, Nicklas RA, et al. Stinging insect hypersensitivity: A practice parameter update 2011. J Allergy Clinical Immunology. April 2011;127(4):852-854.e23.


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Sheer with Wire Edge is available in 1 1/2" and 2 1/2" Widths on a 25 yard spool in assorted colors.
General Shipment Timing GuidelineThis product takes about 3 weeks before we are ready to ship not including ship time to your area from JKM's facility.
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WND columnist Erik Rush: Obama a narcissist, like O.J. Simpson
From Erik Rush's September 3 WorldNetDaily column [1]:
Football legend and actor O.J. Simpson was a truly beloved American icon. The quintessential American success story, he projected an amicable, wholesome, larger-than-life figure. His triumphs were even more noteworthy because he was a black man who had risen to fame and fortune during the Civil Rights Movement era.
In 1995, Simpson was put on trial for the murders of Nicole Brown (his second ex-wife) and a male friend. As a result, authorities and the press were able to delve into his affairs as no one had previously done. Only then did Americans learn that he was a beast and a brute, an obsessively controlling, chronic wife beater, emotional abuser and philanderer. In short, he was a pathological narcissist for whom whimsy, pleasure and image were paramount. Worse, his behavior had been validated and reinforced by the fact that he had been catered to by those around him, personally and professionally, for decades. After beating the murder rap, Simpson continued to manipulate and bully those around him. Twelve years later, his capricious conduct earned him a lengthy prison sentence for numerous firearms charges, robbery, burglary, assault and kidnapping.
Many Americans, and even a few trained in behavioral science, have identified President Obama as a deeply pathological narcissist. He has also managed to masterfully control his environment. While his detractors contend that his façade has been maintained by a complicit press, this may only be partially true. According to experts, the profoundly narcissistic frequently astonish casual observers when the extent of control they have been able to maintain over their environment (primarily, people close to them) is finally revealed ... Given the determination with which our president has hidden certain other personal information, it is probable that there are a few aspects thereof that he perceives might damage him politically, if not personally or even legally.
Rush has also likened Obama to a "cellblock rapist [2]" and called Attorney General Eric Holder "another floatie in the septic tank that is the Obama administration [3]."
(h/t Right Wing Watch [4])
- Network/Outlet
- WorldNetDaily [5]
- Person
- Erik Rush [6]
- Stories/Interests
- Attacks on Barack Obama [7]


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Nashville, Tenn. • Call this one Music City Mayhem.
The Tennessee Titans are winless no more after an unforgettable overtime victory over Detroit featuring an endless stream of big plays, some suspect officiating and a huge mistake by the Lions on the final play.
Rob Bironas kicked a 26-yard field goal in overtime, and the Titans stopped backup quarterback Shaun Hill on fourth-and-1 at the Tennessee 7 to finally pull out a 44-41 win Sunday where the Lions messed up trying to draw the defense offside.
"Obviously, there was a miscommunication, or I don't know what you call it, from an enforcement standpoint," coach Jim Schwartz said.
The Titans (1-2) blew a 20-9 halftime lead in a game featuring wild scoring swings. They became the first NFL team to score five touchdowns of 60 yards or longer in a single game.
"Piece of cake," Titans quarterback Jake Locker said with a smile.
Detroit scored 18 straight points, then Tennessee answered with 21 points before the Lions scored the final 14 of regulation in a span of 18 seconds the first team to do that and force overtime in league history.
The touchdown that forced overtime came on a tipped desperation pass after Detroit recovered an onside kick and got an assist from the replacement officials who did not review a possible turnover.
"Both of us looked at each other and said, 'We've never been through something like this in our lives,' " Titans coach Mike Munchak said of Detroit coach Jim Schwartz, a former colleague in Nashville. "It's hard to put in words what to say about that. We both could've won in so many ways."
Schwartz's Lions picked up the nickname Comeback Cats last season with four rallies for victory from 13 points or more down.
"I've never been around one like that," Schwartz said.
A total of 46 points came in the fourth period. Then in overtime, Bironas' third field goal put Tennessee ahead to stay after a drive that got its own boost from the officials.
They announced a replay review had overturned their ruling of a catch by Tennessee tight end Craig Stevens, with the ball hitting the ground as he rolled after being hit helmet to helmet by Lions linebacker Stephen Tulloch.
After spending several minutes discussing where to place the ball, they put it at the Lions 29, giving the Titans 27 yards. The penalty apparently was marched off from the Detroit 44 instead of the Tennessee 44, where the play started.
The Lions (1-2) lost their second straight when Schwartz decided not to let Jason Hanson kick his fifth field goal. Hill, in for injured Matthew Stafford, was stopped by defensive tackles Jurrell Casey and Sen'Derrick Marks on his sneak, and Tennessee escaped, celebrating wildly even as an official stood over the ball before a replay review was announced.
"I'm very exhausted right now," Casey said.
The Titans had stopped Mikel Leshoure for a 7-yard reception about a foot short on third down. Schwartz said he was preparing to call a timeout to kick the field goal and wanted first to try getting the Titans to jump offside.
"The crowd was loud," Schwartz said. "If they didn't jump, we were just going to take the timeout. The ball ended up getting snapped. We needed that, obviously, to make sure all 11 guys get the calls right there and be able to play it."
Hill took the blame.
"It's up to the quarterback to get all 11 on the same page, for sure," Hill said. "I'll just leave it at that. It was on me."
Players from both teams met in the middle of the field talking and shaking hands before an official finally announced the game that lasted 3 hours, 51 minutes was over.
The game featured six plays of 46 yards or longer, with the Titans having five of those all 61 or longer. The Titans even had three of those 71 yards or longer.
Hill's 46-yard TD pass to Titus Young off a ball Titans linebacker Akeem Ayers tried to knock down at the end of regulation tied the game only after some more confusing officiating.
"The guy came out of nowhere and caught the ball," Ayers said.
After Hill tossed a 3-yard TD pass to Calvin Johnson with 18 seconds left, Amari Spievey recovered Detroit's onside kick. Hill threw a short pass to the sideline to Nate Burleson who took at least a step before losing the ball when hit by Titans cornerback Jason McCourty.
An official threw down his bean bag, indicating a change of possession. Titans cornerback Alterraun Verner picked up the ball and started to run to the end zone before another official ran up and called it incomplete.
Because it was in the final 2 minutes, a review is left up to the officials and coaches cannot challenge. No replay review was done.
Officials had other issues in this game, including twice announcing the offense would replay third down when it was obvious the defense wanted to decline a penalty to force fourth down.
"I may not agree with some of the things but ultimately, I thought they had control," Munchak said.
Early on came shades of the most famous play in Titans history, the Music City Miracle to lift them past Buffalo in a January 2000 playoff game. Tommie Campbell caught a lateral from Darius Reynaud on a punt return and ran it 65 yards for a TD in the first quarter for Tennessee.
Reynaud had never thrown a pass in a game going back to high school.
"D-Rey had to make sure that he didn't throw it over my head," Campbell said. "Then after that, everything else worked out."
Jared Cook caught a 61-yard TD pass from Locker in the second period as the Titans went up 20-9 at halftime.
Reynaud also set a Tennessee record returning a kickoff 105 yards to tie it at 27. Ayers then sacked Stafford, forcing the Lions to punt, and Locker found Nate Washington, who plucked the ball from behind cornerback Jacob Lacey's back and ran 71 yards for the go-ahead TD with 3:11 left.
Verner grabbed the ball from Lions tight end Brandon Pettigrew and ran it 72 yards on the play Stafford pulled up limping as he chased the cornerback. That seemed like the clinching TD with 1:16 left in regulation and only wound up setting the scene for more chaos.
Locker finished 29 for 42 for 378 yards and two TDs. Stafford went 33 of 42 for 277 yards and a touchdown.
Notes: Leshoure ran for 100 yards in his NFL debut. The Lions running back missed his rookie season with an Achilles' tendon injury and was suspended for the first two games of this season. ... Campbell got his second career TD off a kick or punt return he did not field. He scored on a reverse off a kickoff last season as a rookie. ... With his third field goal, Hanson passed Matt Stover for fourth all-time with 472s. ... Bironas kicked a 38-yard field goal at the end of the first half to tie the franchise record with his 20th straight kick. He missed a chance to have the record alone when a 41-yarder was wide left in the third quarter. Bironas missed another field goal in the third, the first time he's missed two in a game since Sept. 10, 2009.
Online: http://pro32.ap.org/poll and http://twitter.com/APNFL
Lions-Titans Stats
Detroit 6 3 7 25 0 41
Tennessee 10 10 0 21 3 44
First Quarter
Det • FG Hanson 47, 11:38.
Det • FG Hanson 53, 6:36.
Ten • FG Bironas 31, 2:02.
Ten • Campbell 65 punt return (Bironas kick), :33.
Second Quarter
Ten • Cook 61 pass from Locker (Bironas kick), 13:00.
Det • FG Hanson 33, 6:30.
Ten • FG Bironas 38, :00.
Third Quarter
Det • LeShoure 1 run (Hanson kick), 6:36.
Fourth Quarter
Det • FG Hanson 26, 12:39.
Det • Burleson 3 pass from Stafford (Burleson pass from Stafford), 6:53.
Ten • Reynaud 105 kickoff return (Bironas kick), 6:41.
Ten • Washington 71 pass from Locker (Bironas kick), 3:11.
Ten • Verner 72 fumble return (Bironas kick), 1:16.
Det • Johnson 3 pass from Sh.Hill (Hanson kick), :18.
Det • T.Young 46 pass from Sh.Hill (Hanson kick), :00.
Ten • FG Bironas 26, 10:36.
Attendance • 69,143.
Det Ten
First downs 36 21
Total Net Yards 583 437
Rushes-yards 36-141 19-59
Passing 442 378
Punt Returns 0-0 3-73
Kickoff Returns 2-42 4-174
Interceptions Ret. 0-0 0-0
Comp-Att-Int 43-55-0 29-42-0
Sacked-Yards Lost 1-8 0-0
Punts 4-39.0 1-41.0
Fumbles-Lost 1-1 2-2
Penalties-yards 10-91 6-32
Time of Possession 40:36 27:49
Individual Statistics
Rushing • Detroit, LeShoure 26-100, Bell 5-23, Stafford 2-12, Burleson 2-7, Sh.Hill 1-(minus 1). Tennessee, Locker 4-35, C.Johnson 14-24, Reynaud 1-0.
Passing • Detroit, Stafford 33-42-0-278, Sh.Hill 10-13-0-172. Tennessee, Locker 29-42-0-378.
Receiving • Detroit, Johnson 10-164, Burleson 10-69, Pettigrew 8-61, T.Young 6-75, Bell 4-44, LeShoure 4-34, Logan 1-3. Tennessee, Wright 7-41, Britt 6-55, Stevens 5-63, Cook 4-77, Washington 3-112, Williams 2-20, C.Johnson 1-5, Q.Johnson 1-5.
Missed Field Goals • Tennessee, Bironas 41 (WL), 48 (WL).


text:
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Canadian Centre for Pollution Prevention: Energy. Links to major Energy sites, e.g. Canadian Renewable Fuels Association, Office of Energy Efficiency, CREST - Center for Renewable Energy Sustainable Technology, IPPSO - Independent Power Producers' Society of Ontario, and others. See also Government of Canada - What is Sustainable Development?
Clean Air & Energy: Energy, Global Warming, Clean Water & Oceans, Toxic Chemicals & Health, Nuclear Weapons & Waste, Cities & Green Living, U.S. Law & Policy, International Issues, and other topics from Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
Clean Energy Basics from NREL - National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Provides answers to these questions: What is renewable energy? Why is it important? Why is energy efficiency important? (Environmental benefits, jobs and the economy). What does clean energy have to do with me as a homeowner, a small business owner, a student, a teacher, an inventor?
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Environmental History Timeline is partly based on original archival research in U.S. federal and industrial archives as well as the generally untapped mass media record.
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Nuclear Power: News. Consolidated News: Nuclear Power, Nuclear Energy and Nuclear Electricity.
Odysen Renewable Energy Portal. Renewable energy calculators, directory, events, games, news archive, and location specific information for U.S. as well as International locations in Africa, Asia, Central America, Europe, Middle East, North America, Oceania, and South America. Use the calculators to estimate a renewable energy system.
Peak Oil News. Consolidated News: Production Theory about the Peak Oil Crisis and Peak Oil Survival. Includes links to numerous articles from past months, e.g. :
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Renewable Energy from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Renewable Energy Fact Sheets from Texas State Energy Conservation Office. Potential and benefits of renewable energy e.g. solar, wind, and biomass power.
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Renewable Energy News from SourceGuides.com. Latest renewable energy news from over 4000 news sources worldwide.
Renewable Energy Source from renewable-energy-source.info. Brief information on various topics: Solar Energy, Wind Energy, Hydropower, Wave Power, Tidal Power, Biofuel, Salinity Gradient Power, Geothermal Power, Fuel Cell, Energy Conservation, Green Energy, plus Article: Affordable Renewable Energy for Everyone.
Residential Energy Factsheets. Publications in PDF. Includes Fuel Calculators, Energy Solutions, and more.
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U.S. Department of Energy. Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE): Site map. Information on Renewable Energy sources include: Bioenergy, Geothermal, Hydrogen, Hydropower, Ocean, Solar, and Wind.
Why is Fuel Economy Important? Topics: Protect the Environment, Global Warming, Oil Spills, Air Pollution, Conserve Resources for Future Generations, Reduce Oil Imports, from U.S. Department of Energy.


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text:
Could somebody please help me on this please. I have created a navigation bar http://cre8tivesource.co.uk/test/
I have tested this on Chrome, Firefox 15 and it looks good to me (WIndows 7)
My client is saying that the last navigation item (Sejours Linguistiques) is dropping onto a second line. She is viewing the site on a PC using Firefox 15 on XP.
Is anyone else seeing this problem, and could it be a problem regarding the fact that she is running XP?
If so is their some kind of fix I could use for this?
Hope someone can help me, much appreciated.
Many Thanks
Hm, if the browser is set to zoom text only and you bump it up one notch, the last item drops. Because you've fitted everything to the exact pixel, with no room to breathe, this is a ikely scenario, depending on browser settings and how each browser calculates pixel and so on. I try to avoid making menus so tight for space because of this.
Maybe you could try the method mentioned here, where the last list item is set to fill the available space:
This looks like (yet another) Firefox issue. I have viewed your link with FF under Windows 7 and XP. The same thing happens. If you zoom in and out (using CTRL and mouse wheel) the top bar keeps changing from the first to second row. This does not happen in IE.
As Ralph says, for the list items to fit on one line requires the text to displayed at exactly the same size across all browsers and platforms, which cannot be relied upon. If a user employs the text-only zoom function available in some browsers (e.g. Firefox, Safari), or the browser renders the font slightly wider, or the browser displays a different and larger font, then list items will drop to the next line.
Many thanks for the responses, but I am having trouble implementing this in my CSS code http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/show...navigation-bar when I make changes it reflects the drop down menus as well.
Could someone give me some direction?
Really appreciate it.
Thanks again
Something like this:
.menu li,.menu li a{float:left}
.menu li.eight,.menu li.eight a {
.menu li.eight a{
padding:8px 0;
(The above is additional code to follow at the end of the css)
If you don't want IE7 and under support you could probably just use display:table instead.
.menu li{
.menu li a{
padding:8px 0;
Of course you would then need to reset the styles for the nested dropdown lists back to their original.
Hi Paul
Many thanks for your response, I added :
.menu li,.menu li a{float:left} .menu li.eight,.menu li.eight a { float:none; display:block; overflow:hidden; text-align:center; } .menu li.eight a{ padding:8px 0; }
This makes the last item very long (more padding either side than the other links) I am sure this will be commented on.
I am also struggling to get the drop downs to work again after inserting the new css. (is this a z-index issue?)
Really appreciate your time with this.
I may be missing something, but I don't see any styles in your CSS to make the sub lists appear. E.g. you need something like
.menu li:hover ul {display: block;}
You'll also need to remove overflow: hidden; from here for the sub lists to be visible:
.menu {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
line-height: 100%;
font-size: 0;
position: relative;
z-index: 1000;
font-family: 'cronos_proregular';
text-transform: uppercase;
clear: both;
overflow: hidden;
Hi Ralph
Removing overflow hidden, now has the drop downs showing, any ideas about the last menu item being longer than the others? And making sure that the nav does not drop down on two lines?
The drop menu was working as I checked locally with the code I added and it seems you have added overflow:hidden to .menu as Ralph pointed out which stops it working.
Regarding the gap on the last item then the extra gap is to soak up the difference between browsers otherwise you will just have the menu dropping to another line again in some browsers.
You can inc rease the padding on the other elements slightly to compensate.
.menu li a {
color: #00381E;
[B] padding: 8px 6px;[/B]
text-decoration: none;
But you must leave breathing space as we have already established that browsers will render the same text/font at different widths which will sometimes amount to as much as 20px on the length of a long line.
One alternative is to use the display:table approach as I mentioned above or indeed change the design so that each menu item can wrap to two lines within the display:table-cell.
The other alternative is to supply widths for every menu item to make sure it fits exactly in that width and then just use text-align:center on the menu items and no side padding. That will allow each item to have a lot of breathing space on each side and should also cater for a couple of text resizes.
The biggest mistake in web design is trying to account for every pixel (without using explicit dimensions) and squeezing things into tight spaces where there is no room to move or increase in size without breaking. You should always expect that browsers will show your text wider or smaller than you are seeing it on your computer and cater for that eventuality.
While it may look nice to have menu items stretch across the page you have to accept the limits of browsers and code accordingly.:)
You also need to remove the left and right padding from the last item as shown in my first example or you are just back to square 1.
.menu li.eight a {
padding: 8px 0;
If you add padding to that element then you soak up the free space and the menu will drop. It needs no padding because it is centred in the available space.
Because the last list item now takes up the remaining available space, I'd suggest maybe adding a pixel or two of left padding to the other list items to even them out a bit.
And making sure that the nav does not drop down on two lines?
Try this:
.menu li.eight a{
Thanks for that and I understand what you are saying, does it render okay for you on Windows 7 Firefox, I also assumed I would have to take out this class that I had on the last menu item:
.menu li a.last{ padding:8px 7px; text-decoration:none; color: #00381e; }
Thank You
Oops, we are posting over each other. I was assuming your question related to the two words breaking over two lines, which the whtie-sapce rule can help with, although it means the menu might disappear off screen. Ideally, try to keep menu text as short as possible—preferably one word. Is there any chance that the text of these items could be simplified? (I can't read them.)
Thanks for all your help guys!
That rule would seem redundant now as the styles are all accounted for elsewhere so you can remove it.
The menu is working for me in Firefox windows 7 and you have about a 3 character breathing space now which sholud cater for browser differences but of course won't handle resized text..


text:
NCAA halts sale of athlete jerseys at online store
The forces of common sense, or at least equal treatment under whatever passes for NCAA law, have won a victory. The NCAA has announced it will no longer sell team-specific memorabilia and merchandise at its website, ShopNCAASports.com.
The issue came to light as the NCAA began investigating Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel for allegedly profiting off the use of his own name while selling autographs. However, as it turns out, the NCAA was also profiting off the use of Manziel's name through the sale of both uniform-style jerseys and direct-reference t-shirts. Multiple searches of various players' names on the shopping site took users directly to uniforms with those players' numbers.
[Y! Sports Radio: Ed O'Bannon discusses his suit against the NCAA]
When asked about the incongruity of such a policy, NCAA president Mark Emmert responded with humility and an awareness of the unfortunate appearance of impropriety. Kidding! Emmert acted in classic NCAA fashion: like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar who responds by saying that cookies are unhealthy and he was just reaching in there to throw them away. To protect the children, of course.
"There's no compelling reason the NCAA should essentially be re-selling paraphernalia from institutions," Emmert said in a Thursday conference call. "I can't speak to why we entered into that enterprise, but it's not something that's appropriate for us, and we're going to exit it."
Emmert's words couch the decision as a matter of market segmentation and business strategy, not hypocrisy. But it's impossible to see this as anything but the NCAA getting called out on its self-serving policies.
ShopNCAASports.com isn't technically an NCAA property; it's owned by Fanatics Retail Group and serves as an aggregator of several shops. But the site has the NCAA's imprimatur all over it. The NCAA is now, at long last, sensitive to public impressions that it may be taking unfair advantage of the labor of its workforce, as multiple lawsuits involving unfair usage of players' images are working their way through the courts.


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