www.ns.legion.ca 57 continued ... Officers' Collar Badge The 25th Battalion was assigned to the 5th Brigade, 2nd Canadian Division, along with the 22nd (the famed "Van Doos"), 24th and 26th Battalions. Brigade personnel was recruited entirely from Eastern Canada - specifically Quebec, Montreal, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia - and trained at Shorncliffe for three and a half months, eight hours a day, along with regular four-hour "night operations" training. On September 15, 1915, the 5th Brigade traveled from Folkestone to Boulogne, France, moving by train the following day from Port de Brieques to St. Omer, France. After a five-day march in their newly issued "Kitchener boots", the 25th reached the front lines in Belgium. On the night of September 22-23, 1915, the "Mackenzie Battalion" took up combat positions near Ypres, Belgium, becoming the first Nova Scotian battalion to see combat in the war. The regiment spent its first "tours" in trenches H and I of the Kemmel Sector of the Ypres Salient, a strategic piece of high ground that protruded into German lines. Its members passed the autumn and winter of 1915-16 in this precarious location, gaining valuable experience "in the line". Their military skills would be severely tested in several 1916 battles. In April 1916, the 25th was assigned to defend the front lines in a sector referred to as the "St. Eloi craters". The battalion moved into several large depressions created in late March 1916 when British forces detonated several large mines planted beneath the German front lines. The 25th occupied this precarious location in a rotation that lasted for almost six weeks. The lack of properly constructed trenches left the men dangerously exposed as they were subjected to hostile fire on three sides. German forces attacked one crater five times during one particular night, but the battalion successfully repelled each assault. When finally relieved, the unit's manpower had been reduced to the point where soldiers from other regiments were brought in to assist in evacuating wounded personnel. As with many other regiments, the members of the 25th sought diversions to distract them from the perils of their circumstances. While serving in Belgium, the battalion purchased a two-week-old goat from a Belgian farmer for the grand sum of two francs. Suitably named "Robert the Bruce" and trimmed in MacKenzie tartan, the animal served as battalion mascot for the duration of the war. The goat was trained to prance in front of the battalion's 25th Officers Capt. William A. Livingstone, MC & Bar (left) and Major Guy McLean Matheson, DSO, MC, MM
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