The Wartime Letters of Leslie and Cecil Frost, 1915–1919.

Sidney Allinson is a Victoria-based communications consultant, Canadian
news correspondent for Britain’s The Army Quarterly and Defence, and
author of The Bantams: The Untold Story of World War I.

Leslie Frost was best known as one of Canada’s most influential provincial leaders during his 1949–1961 tenure as premier of Ontario, but his military service during the First World War is largely forgotten. Now, that aspect of his life is explored in this collection of wartime letters written by him and his brother, Cecil. Extracts from these letters have been thoughtfully edited by R.B. Fleming, a research associate at Trent University, in order to reveal the typical experiences endured by junior Canadian infantry officers in trench warfare.

Unlike many compendiums of letters, this one turns out to be unusually informative and interesting. Both Frost brothers were observant and articulate, able to convey both the physical conditions of battlefields and the human reactions to carnage. They were staunchly patriotic—a straightforward martial pride in Canadian nationhood that is now generally sneered at. Even as a young man, Leslie Frost in particular had a way with words, an ability that would later help build his successful career in politics. Despite the horrific brutality of the brothers’ experiences, their letters somehow also convey a remarkably gentle outlook, which suggests a gentler world far removed from present-day cynicism.

A side interest in the text is the surprisingly efficient postal service. It took only five days for the Frost brothers’ correspondence to travel between England and the front lines in France. A letter to Canada took just three or four weeks.