Byng of Vimy: General and Governor General

Trevor S. Raymond is a teacher and librarian with the Peel Board of Education and editor of Canadian Holmes.

“Why am I sent to the Canadians?” asked General Julian Byng in 1916,
when he was transferred to the head of the Canadian Corps on the Western
Front. “I don’t know a Canadian. Why this stunt?” But only 16
years later Byng was given receptions across Canada that Williams
describes as “near to rapturous,” for Byng had become “as near to
being a national hero as anyone could be.” Byng is remembered in
Canadian history principally for his role in two important events. The
first was forging the Canadian Corps into “the most durable and
effective formation on the Western Front” and leading it to its
capture of Vimy Ridge, a battle that marked the beginnings of Canadian
nationhood. The second, unfortunately more remembered, was the political
battle he waged with the wily Mackenzie King in 1926, the so-called
King–Byng Affair.

To the student of Canadian history whose familiarity with Byng is
limited to these two episodes, this biography will prove a revelation,
for these two events represent but a small part of his life. We read of
his early military studies; enduring friendship with George V; 1894
travels with Winston Churchill, who became his assistant adjutant during
the Boer War; and extraordinary achievement in organizing a successful
withdrawal from the disaster at Gallipoli. Eight of the book’s 18
chapters are devoted to Byng’s war years. Vimy Ridge gets one chapter.
Discussing the wartime controversies in which Byng was embroiled,
Williams argues that Byng has been unfairly treated by historians; it is
almost as if they “were going out of their way to conjure up failures
for which they could blame Byng,” he writes at one point.

The two chapters devoted to Byng’s Ottawa years are thoroughly
fascinating, drawing on King’s diaries (whose value as historical
sources Williams briefly questions), as well as diaries and letters of
others. King comes out very badly, not just in the constitutional
crisis, but for some extraordinary incidents at Rideau Hall. In a letter
to John Buchan, himself a future governor general, Lady Byng describes
King as a “scurvy cad” and finds his behavior “disgusting beyond
words.” King, in turn, refers to Lady Byng in his diary as “a
viper.”

Two years after returning to England, “a broken man” in the words
of Pauline Vanier, Byng very reluctantly agreed to become Commissioner
of the Metropolitan Police. Morale was low, corruption was rife, and the
force seemed unable to police London effectively in the hedonistic
1920s. Byng’s reforms eventually won high praise from politicians who
had publicly attacked his appointment.

The author’s experience both as an army officer and in the foreign
service helped him greatly, but preparing this biography was difficult.
Byng was a very private person who wrote no memoirs, and all his
personal papers were destroyed when he died, as were those of Lady Byng
later. Two important sources were the papers of a protégé of Byng’s,
Georges Vanier, and papers of and interviews with Pauline Vanier; an
additional value of the book is its considerable information about the
young Vaniers, who themselves would one day occupy Rideau Hall.

The reissue of this fine 1983 biography, for which Williams deservedly
won a Governor General’s Literary Award, is welcome indeed.