World War I By Numbers

1.  At the beginning of the war, ambulances were still horse drawn.  By war's end, the Red Cross had provided 2171 motorized ambulances for the wounded.

Photo courtesy http://farm5.staticflickr.com. 

2.  Fifty-eight thousand British soldiers were killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme.

3.  The world's worst train disaster occurred in December of 1917 in France when 600 soldiers were killed.

Photo courtesy http://danger-ahead.railfan.net. 

4.  The Russians suffered the most casualties at 9,150,000.

5.  The Germans lost 1,808,000 soldiers, more than any other nation.

6.  The United States only participated in the war for nineteen months, entering the conflict when the German Navy sank the Lusitania.

Photo courtesy www.cityofart.net. 

7.  Flamethrowers, first used by the Germans, could be thrown as far as 130 feet.

8.  Artillery barrage and mines exploding could be heard hundreds of miles away.  In 1917, explosives detonated in Ypres, Belgium could be heard in London, England, 260 kilometres away.

9.  The most successful flying ace was Manfred Von Richtofen (The Red Baron) who shot down 80 planes.  He died in France in 1918 after being shot down by an enemy plane.

Photo courtesy www.overthefront.com. 

10.  Thirty different types of poisonous gas were used during the Great War.  It was first used by Germany (68,000 tons) and then Britain and France (51,000 tons).

The Cunard Line

The Aquitania leaves Liverpool on her maiden voyage circa 1914 courtesy http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/reflecting-one-greatest-ocean-liners-7233961.

Samuel Cunard, raised in Halifax, was the son of a German Quaker and an Irish Roman Catholic who fled the United States during the American Revolution, part of a large group of United Empire Loyalists.  During the War of 1812, Cunard fought on the British side with the second battalion of the Halifax Regiment.  The young man was a highly successful entrepreneur who was one of 12 people to greatly influence the affairs of Halifax.

In 1830, Cunard founded the Halifax Steamboat Company which ran a steamship between Halifax and Quebec.  Seven years later, Cunard travelled to the United Kingdom where he made a successful bid to run a trans-Atlantic mail service.  The result was Cunard Steamships Limited.  In 1840, the company's first steamship, the Britannia, sailed from Liverpool to Halifax and then on to Boston.  Cunard's ships soon earned a reputation for speed and safety.  However, that reputation came with a hefty cost; Cunard fled creditors in Halifax by 1843, unable to pay his bills.  By the following year, however, the entrepreneur started to turn a profit.

The Cunard Line has owned several famous ships over the decades.  The Carpathia (1901) came to the rescue of the Titanic when it sank in 1912.  The Lusitania (1906) was torpedoed by German U-boats and sunk in 1915.  The Aquitania (1914) served in both World War I and World War II.  The Queen Mary (1936) transported royalty, movie stars and war brides across the Atlantic.

Britannia sails from Liverpool to Halifax circa 1840 courtesy http://postalhistorycorner.blogspot.ca/2014/02/canadian-letter-rates-to-united-kingdom.html.

The Maharaja's of Eaton's

Maharaja:  a Hindu prince or king in India ranking above a raja. 

Timothy Eaton, eager to fill the pages of his catalogue, sent buyers overseas to purchase the highest quality goods:  fine china from England, tweed suits from Scotland, rugs from the Orient, crystal from Czechoslovakia, high fashion from France.  As early as 1893, Timothy opened a foreign buying office in London, England.  Five years later, he opened one in Paris, France.  Offices were added in Manchester and New York in 1911; in Zurich, Switzerland in 1912; in Belfast and Leicester in 1913; and in Yokohama (1918) and Kobe (1919).

While most of the trips were a success, disaster struck when some buyers purchased tickets to the Titanic; a buyer named Mr. Graham went down with the ship (http://alinefromlinda.blogspot.ca/2011/09/unused-ticket-to-titanic.html).  The First World War interrupted Eaton's buying sprees in Germany.  Three buyers drowned when the Lusitania was torpedoed in 1916.  An Eaton's buyer was killed in the Tokyo earthquake of 1923.  However, most buyers came home to Canada safely.  Their purchases helped make the Eaton's name synonymous with quality.