Pro Patria 2006 contained a article I wrote examining some soldiers of the Regiment who had been conscripted under the Military Service Act (MSA) of 1917. That article can be seen on my website here:
Not All Were Volunteers; The RCR and the Military Service ActWhen I wrote that article, based on available information, I also predicted that it was
"not possible with available resources to determine exactly how many men conscripted under the Military Service act served with The RCR."Now, thanks to further research on
The RCR in the First World War, I am able to further expand on our understanding of MSA soldiers in the Regiment. Since writing that article on the MSA soldiers of the regiment who were casualties of the war, I have compiled a nominal roll of The RCR in the overseas battalion of the Regiment (i.e., it does not identify those members of the Regiment who remained in Depot, headquarters and instructional posts in Canada during the First World War).
That nominal roll allowed a re-examination of the soldiers in the service number ranges which included soldiers conscripted under the MSA. While these are normally assumed to have been in the 3-million and 4-million series of numbers, I did discover a soldier with a 2-million service number who was also a MSA soldier. Examining the online Attestation papers of each of the 500+ soldiers with 2, 3 and 4-million service numbers permitted the following to be added to the article:
Calling the Roll; Identifying the MSA Soldiers of The RCR
In 2006 when I first wrote this article, I assessed that identifying how many MSA soldiers had served in The RCR wasn't then possible to determine. Since writing that statement, and having transcribed the Regiment's Part II Daily Orders (which recorded soldiers taken on strength among other things), I have been able to determine the number of RCR soldiers who were, in fact, MSA conscripts.
Transcribing the Part II Daily Orders offered the opportunity to not only record the information they included, but also to build a CEF nominal Roll for the overseas battalion of The RCR. Of the approximately 4800 (all ranks) on my CEF nominal roll, I identified 460 men in the 3 and 4 million service number ranges. within which MSA conscripts were numbered.
Having checked the online Attestation Paper (AP) for each of these soldiers with "3-million" and "4-million" service numbers, this is how they formed up:
336 MSA Soldiers (73%) * 318 MSA draftees (i.e., MSA attestation paper including MSA number)
* 18 MSA Defaulters (i.e, likely men who had not reported when ordered, but showed up later at a recruiting station)
113 Volunteers (24.6%) * 45 Volunteer, regular AP (Special 63rd Regt Draft)
* 28 Volunteer, regular AP (Special Draft from Composite Battalion)
* 19 Volunteer, regular AP (Special 66th Regt Draft)
* 9 Volunteer, regular AP
* 8 Volunteer (MSA AP, no MSA number)
* 3 "Reported Voluntarily"
* 1 Volunteer, "not registered" on MSA form
There were also 11 men with no online Attestation Paper (2.4%)
MSA Soldiers in the "2-million" menFurther research also identified a soldier in the "2-million" range of service numbers that was an MSA recruit. The CEF nominal roll for The RCR identifies 59 men with "2-million" service numbers. Of these:
* 9 were MSA soldiers
* 46 were Volunteers, regular AP
* 4 had no AP on line
As a result of this further research into the Military Service Act soldiers of The Royal Canadian Regiment, and accepting that those 15 men without online APs will require a confirmation by checking each service record, we can now state that there were at least 345 Military Service Act conscripts posted to The RCR during the First World War.
