A Canadian Chaplain in the Great War: Revisiting B.J. Murdoch’s the Red Vineyard

An annotated edition of the 1923 war memoir of a young Catholic priest in France from the author of A Canadian Nurse in the Great War.

Benedict Joseph Murdoch’s The Red Vineyard was a captivating autobiographical tale of a young man’s experience as a chaplain during the First World War.

As a young Roman Catholic priest from Chatham, New Brunswick, Murdoch became chaplain to the 132nd Infantry Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF), serving in Europe from 1916 to 1918. He was a sensitive and perceptive young man with an eye for detail; his war writing tells us not only of nurses and wounded soldiers; he also draws attention to the beauty of the French countryside.

The Red Vineyard was first published in 1923 and is one of only two Canadian first-hand accounts of chaplaincy in the Great War. It is republished here in full, with scholar and author Ross Hebb’s valuable running commentary as well as an insightful introduction and epilogue, a helpful timeline, and a guide to persons mentioned in the work.

Murdoch’s text reveals things we would not expect. Murdoch is exceptional in relating his combat stresses and his own signs of an ever-deepening condition of PTSD--well before discussions of veterans’ mental health were commonplace. Hebb includes never-before-revealed details, including a letter from Murdoch’s RC military chaplaincy superior stressing Murdoch’s mental state and his need for a significant rest.

More than a war diary, A Canadian Chaplain in the Great War offers an exceptional window into the world of the time.