page_title: Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry
section_title: Early history and First World War (1914–1919)
hierarchical_section_title: Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry / History / Early history and First World War (1914–1919)
caption_attribution_description: English: Princess Patricia of Connaught
context_page_description: Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry is one of the three Regular Force infantry regiments of the Canadian Army of the Canadian Armed Forces. It is named for Princess Patricia of Connaught, daughter of the then Governor General of Canada. The regiment is composed of three battalions, for a total of 2,000 soldiers. The PPCLI is the main lodger unit of Canadian Forces Base Edmonton in Alberta and CFB Shilo in Manitoba, and attached to 3rd Canadian Division; as such it serves as the "local" regular infantry regiment for much of Western Canada. The Loyal Edmonton Regiment, a Reserve Force battalion, is affiliated with the PPCLI but is not formally part of it. As part of this affiliation, the LER carries the designation '4th Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry'.
  The regiment is a ceremonial structure, and the three battalions are independent operational entities, under the 1 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group. Although the regimental name includes the phrase light infantry, two of its battalions are mechanized infantry, and the unit has never been organized as a traditional light infantry regiment.
context_section_description: At the outbreak of World War I, when Canada was lacking regular military forces, the then-Captain Andrew Hamilton Gault raised the Patricias. Hamilton Gault offered $100,000 (around 2 million in 2006 Canadian Dollars) to finance and equip a battalion in order to participate in the Canadian war effort overseas. The government temporarily accepted his offer on August 6, 1914, and officially authorized it on August 10, 1914. The Department of Militia and Defence contributed to the equipment of the unit. The charter of the regiment was signed on August 10, and the Governor General of Canada, The Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, approved the existence of the regiment.
  A sandstone slab memorial at Lansdowne Park was dedicated to the founding of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry at this location in August 1914.
  Lieutenant-Colonel Francis D. Farquhar was instrumental in assisting Hamilton Gault in founding the regiment. Colonel Farquhar, Military Secretary to Canada's Governor-General, asked the Duke of Connaught for permission to name the regiment after his daughter, Princess Patricia of Connaught. She was pleased to accept this honour and thus the Princess Patricia's were established. The name Light Infantry in the battalion name was chosen by Captain Gault, who served during the Second Boer War and liked the impression of an irregular force that the name inspired.
  Farquhar and Gault moved expeditiously to mobilize the regiment. The day after authority was granted, August 11, 1914, the two men began an aggressive recruitment campaign. Due to the patriotic outpouring following the August, 4 declaration of war, some 3,000 applicants were recruited within eight days. By August, 19 a full complement of 1,098 had been selected, of those, 1,049 had previously served in South Africa or in the British Army. Lieutenant-Colonel Francis D. Farquhar, DSO, became the first commander of the battalion.  The regiment's first formal parade was conducted on August, 23 in Ottawa during which Princess Patricia presented the regimental standard.
   Princess Patricia, the Colonel-in-Chief, designed and made by hand the regimental flag to be presented on that occasion. It is a crimson flag with a circular royal blue centre. In the circle are gold initials V P which stands for Victoria Patricia. The regimental standard became known as the "Ric-A-Dam-Doo". This flag was carried in every regimental action during World War I. It was not officially adopted as a regimental colour and consecrated as such until after the First World War.
  As a Canadian regiment mobilized in a time of wartime shortages, the regiment was equipped with weapons from a variety of sources. Private soldiers initially carried the Canadian .303 Ross rifle, while officers, gunners, and noncommissioned officers normally carried the 1914 Colt Canadian-contract .45 M1911 pistol.
  The regiment left Ottawa on August, 28 and boarded the SS Megantic in Montreal, Quebec. However, because of enemy action in the Atlantic Ocean, the regiment had to deboard at Lévis, Quebec. During the period of Training at Lévis, following extensive tests on the Ross rifle, the Patricias issued the first of what would be many damning reports of the suitability of the Ross rifle for combat. The regiment finally left on September, 27 from Quebec City on board the Royal George for England in company with the rest of the first Canadian contingent.
  Upon arrival at their camp on the Salisbury Plain, England on October, 18 the regiment was first stationed at Bustard Camp near Stonehenge. On November, 16 the unit joined the 80th Brigade of the British Expeditionary Force at Winchester. At that time the regiment abandoned the troubled Ross rifle in favour of the British Lee–Enfield.  On 20 December, the regiment departed for the port of Southampton with the rest of the brigade and embarked for France arriving the next day. On this date the PPCLI was the only Canadian infantry unit on the battlefield, only the 1st Canadian Medical Corps was there before.
  The Patricias first took their place in the trenches on Janu
caption: Princess Patricia of Connaught
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