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Authors: Pierre Berton
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the country’s finest honour for what Marie, in her diary, called “a prodigious feat of unselfish energy.” Suddenly the man from the Yukon was the Saviour of Romania, providing that country with a hero when it most needed one.
None of this was lost on the British army hierarchy or the bureaucrats and politicians in Canada who had struggled to put a damper on Boyle’s activities and vainly tried to keep him under close control. The elusive Boyle was hard to pin down. Every time the War Office tried to reach him, he had slipped away on a new adventure. The British ambassador in Petrograd considered Boyle a meddling freelancer with no military authority and at the end of December 1917 had wired his Foreign Office urging that he be recalled. The British in turn put pressure on Canada, and as a result the Duke of Devonshire, as governor general, issued an order unique in Canadian military history requiring him to come home. But where was Boyle? Somewhere in eastern Europe where the British couldn’t reach him. By the time he reappeared in Jassy to a tumultuous welcome, the authorities were forced to backtrack. The British ambassador in Jassy was told to retain Boyle “so long as his services were considered useful.”
This was the climax of Boyle’s career. He had helped negotiate the Russian–Romanian peace treaty, had risked his life to save some of the country’s notable citizens, and had brought back the nation’s archives and currency. The Bolshevik leaders of Russia held him in greater esteem than did the Canadians. As Bruce Lockhart, the unofficial British agent in Moscow, reported to the Foreign Office in April, “Trotsky has frequently asked about him and would be glad to make use of his services.”
To the snobbish military establishment he was nothing more than a civilian and a nuisance. He continued to wear his uniform long after hostilities had ceased, a stubborn insistence that galled one highly placed Canadian staff officer who described him as “a bluffing adventurer … who should not receive official encouragement.” Every effort was made to force him out of this trademark costume, but he had an answer to that. He had switched to civilian clothes just once, he said, but that act had nettled George V, who admired him, often inviting him to breakfast at Buckingham Palace. The King told him that as his sovereign he was ordering him to get back into the uniform that he had earned by his work for the Allied cause. At least that is the story Boyle told, and no one had the temerity to check it with the crusty monarch.
Boyle went on wearing the uniform for two more years in spite of further attempts to stop him. When much of Romania was under German occupation he had made a point of going everywhere in khaki. “Tell him to take off that uniform or I shall have him shot,” Mackensen, the commanding German field marshal, told the Romanian war minister. Boyle’s response was forthright. “Tell him that no German living will compel me to take off my uniform. I carry a single action Colt, and I am a man of my word. I promise to drill holes in the first German be he general or private who lays violent hands on me.” They left him alone from that moment.
Why this insistence on wearing the uniform? Other field officers sometimes wore mufti on informal or private occasions. Not Boyle. For him, the pleated serge with the lapel buttons of gleaming Klondike gold and the yukon shoulder flashes identified him not just as a Canadian but as a special kind of Canadian—a Northerner from the most glamorous corner of the Dominion, known the world over. It made him unique. No other officer bore that form of identification. It gave him status, and in eastern Europe it gave him authority.
There was more to it than that. Here, in the company of strangers, these magical symbols, combined with his field officer’s crown and pip, served to give reassurance to a man whose financial edifice was tottering. They reminded
None of this was lost on the British army hierarchy or the bureaucrats and politicians in Canada who had struggled to put a damper on Boyle’s activities and vainly tried to keep him under close control. The elusive Boyle was hard to pin down. Every time the War Office tried to reach him, he had slipped away on a new adventure. The British ambassador in Petrograd considered Boyle a meddling freelancer with no military authority and at the end of December 1917 had wired his Foreign Office urging that he be recalled. The British in turn put pressure on Canada, and as a result the Duke of Devonshire, as governor general, issued an order unique in Canadian military history requiring him to come home. But where was Boyle? Somewhere in eastern Europe where the British couldn’t reach him. By the time he reappeared in Jassy to a tumultuous welcome, the authorities were forced to backtrack. The British ambassador in Jassy was told to retain Boyle “so long as his services were considered useful.”
This was the climax of Boyle’s career. He had helped negotiate the Russian–Romanian peace treaty, had risked his life to save some of the country’s notable citizens, and had brought back the nation’s archives and currency. The Bolshevik leaders of Russia held him in greater esteem than did the Canadians. As Bruce Lockhart, the unofficial British agent in Moscow, reported to the Foreign Office in April, “Trotsky has frequently asked about him and would be glad to make use of his services.”
To the snobbish military establishment he was nothing more than a civilian and a nuisance. He continued to wear his uniform long after hostilities had ceased, a stubborn insistence that galled one highly placed Canadian staff officer who described him as “a bluffing adventurer … who should not receive official encouragement.” Every effort was made to force him out of this trademark costume, but he had an answer to that. He had switched to civilian clothes just once, he said, but that act had nettled George V, who admired him, often inviting him to breakfast at Buckingham Palace. The King told him that as his sovereign he was ordering him to get back into the uniform that he had earned by his work for the Allied cause. At least that is the story Boyle told, and no one had the temerity to check it with the crusty monarch.
Boyle went on wearing the uniform for two more years in spite of further attempts to stop him. When much of Romania was under German occupation he had made a point of going everywhere in khaki. “Tell him to take off that uniform or I shall have him shot,” Mackensen, the commanding German field marshal, told the Romanian war minister. Boyle’s response was forthright. “Tell him that no German living will compel me to take off my uniform. I carry a single action Colt, and I am a man of my word. I promise to drill holes in the first German be he general or private who lays violent hands on me.” They left him alone from that moment.
Why this insistence on wearing the uniform? Other field officers sometimes wore mufti on informal or private occasions. Not Boyle. For him, the pleated serge with the lapel buttons of gleaming Klondike gold and the yukon shoulder flashes identified him not just as a Canadian but as a special kind of Canadian—a Northerner from the most glamorous corner of the Dominion, known the world over. It made him unique. No other officer bore that form of identification. It gave him status, and in eastern Europe it gave him authority.
There was more to it than that. Here, in the company of strangers, these magical symbols, combined with his field officer’s crown and pip, served to give reassurance to a man whose financial edifice was tottering. They reminded
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