Canada's Great War, 1914-1918

by Brian Douglas Tennyson

  3. Granatstein and Hillmer, For Better or For Worse, 83.

  4. Quoted in Granatstein and Hillmer, 86.

  5. Quoted in Granatstein and Hillmer, 88.

  6. Cited in Frederick Lewis Allen, Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s (New York: Perennial Books, 1964, First published 1931), 151.

  7. Granatstein and Hillmer, 88.

  8. Douglas MacKay, “The Americanization of Canada,” The Century Magazine 112, no. 2 (June 1926): 193.

  9. Granatstein and Hillmer, 88.

  10. Quoted in Granatstein and Hillmer, 89.

  11. Granatstein and Hillmer, 89.

  12. Granatstein and Hillmer, 90.

  13. In recent years, both federal and provincial governments have provided subsidies and tax incentives to encourage film production in Canada. Many millions of dollars have been spent, and there is no denying that a vibrant film industry does now exist, but a complicated and sometimes controversial set of regulations has been required to determine what constitutes a “Canadian” film. Because most films made in Canada are made for television and are really aimed at the much larger and more lucrative American market, they generally avoid any distinctive Canadian references. Meanwhile, Canadian theatres rarely show Canadian films, for the same reasons that applied in the 1920s.

  Afterword

  The world has drifted from its old anchorage and no man can with certainty prophesy what the outcome will be.

  —Robert Borden, 1918[1]

  The Great War was a rare dividing line in the history of Western civilization. By 1918 empires had been destroyed or fatally weakened, long-established dynasties toppled, and the map of Europe redrawn. At least thirteen million people had died, Bolshevism—soon renamed Communism—had become a powerful and to many a threatening force in world affairs, and the very concept of peace and security was gone, never to be recovered.

  The world of 1919 was radically different from the world of 1914, not just because of the destruction and slaughter, but because values had changed. No doubt values would have changed over time anyway, but the war dramatically accelerated the process, not just in Europe but in North America, and even in Africa and Asia. Many hoped and even tried to rewind the world back to where it had been before the war, but it was an impossible task. Rather incredibly, the nostalgia for that era, which realistically was not a golden age for the vast majority of people, lingers even today, a response to the turbulent century that followed.

  The war encouraged people to think that a cataclysm of this magnitude must have some meaning or must be made to have some meaning. Surely the incomprehensible slaughter and destruction should produce a new and better world—hence the enormous appeal of Wilson’s declaration that this was a war to end war—and many were prepared after 1919 to try to make sure that it did. And so politics would never be the same, at least not in Canada, where since 1921 there have always been three and sometimes more political parties offering their visions to the voters.

  While the 1920s were difficult, unstable years, not the prosperous carefree era so often portrayed in novels and films, the political and social history of Canada since 1919 has been one of significant progress in terms of government intervention in the economy and the evolution of social programs. The Liberal Party dominated the next half century, the socialist CCF (later New Democratic Party) won control of three provincial governments, and even the Conservative Party eventually thought it wise in 1942 to rename itself the Progressive Conservative Party.

  A total of 619,636 men and women served in the Canadian armed forces in the war, but this figure does not include the 15,000 British reservists living in Canada who returned home to serve in their units or the approximately 23,000 Canadians who enlisted directly in the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service.[2] Nor does it include men and women from Newfoundland, because it was not part of Canada until 1949. These are remarkable numbers for a country which had only 1,526,133 men of military age in 1914.

  Of those 619,636 men and women, 424,589 served overseas and another 8,825 served in the Royal Canadian Navy. Of the 424,589 men and women who served overseas, 60,932 lost their lives, killed in action or dying from wounds, accidents, and illness. More than 300 of them were Aboriginals. Another 1,388 others died while serving in the British flying services. As well, 172,950 were wounded or injured.

  In other words, 235,270 of the 424,589 men and women who served overseas—55.4%—were killed, wounded, or otherwise injured in the war. In fact, the casualty rate was even higher than this because only about 345,000 of the Canadians who went overseas ever made it to France. Using this number, the effective casualty rate was really 68.1%.[3]

  Clearly, Canada had made a huge contribution to the Allied war effort, much larger than anyone had expected in 1914 when it was hoped that the war would be brief. The country’s pre-eminent military historian, C. P. Stacey, later declared that “the creation of the Canadian Corps was the greatest thing Canada had ever done.”[4] This achievement reflected the fact that most Canadians became convinced that the very survival of the British Empire and the values which they believed it represented were threatened. The idea of victory by Germany and the values which it was thought to represent was simply unacceptable. It is worth noting, however, that about half of the men who volunteered to serve in the Canadian army during the war were recent British immigrants going home to fight for “their” country. More than 57,000 others were Americans.[5]

  Canadians frequently repeat the shop-worn cliché that the war stimulated Canadian nationalism. The reality is that it stimulated two nationalisms: English Canadian and French Canadian. English-Canadian nationalism had evolved considerably since the prewar years and was more inclined now to see Canada as an autonomous nation within the commonwealth. But its sense of identity remained English-speaking, predominantly Protestant, and consciously not American. French-Canadian nationalism reflected a sense of isolation not only within Canada but also within North America, and a profound conviction that its rights and values were under continual attack by the English-speaking Protestant majority. While there were many on both sides who appreciated the other’s language and culture and worked to bridge the gap between them, it was undoubtedly true that Canada had become, as the novelist Hugh MacLennan put it, a nation of “two solitudes.”[6]

  Even so, English and French Canadians shared a stronger sense of their unique identity. Many French Canadians might have said that English Canadians were finally catching up to them in their recognition that they were not British or French but Canadian. In the spring of 1919, Sir Arthur Currie told King that the Canadian troops were returning home “with feelings for England and affection for her; but with a feeling also that they are just as good as any men they have found on this side.”[7]

  Canada had played a significant role in saving the empire, even if the empire emerged from the war seriously weakened. Borden clearly reflected the wishes of most Canadians when he used that massive contribution as leverage to press Canada’s claim to be recognized as a sovereign autonomous state. Borden readily acknowledged that it was “the valor, the endurance and the achievement of the Canadian Army in France and Belgium which inspired our people with an impelling sense of nationhood never before experienced.”[8]

  What Borden sought and largely achieved was autonomy within the imperial structure, an idea that seems incomprehensible today but made sense to many people at that time. But what Borden also sought was for Canada to use that status to play a major role in imperial foreign and defense policy as a middle power on the global stage. This, it was clear, would help to maintain the empire as a major power but would also enable Canada to be more influential than it could be on its own. Most Canadians supported Borden’s first objective, but not his second, which was out of tune with the times.

  King, the Laurier Liberal who governed Canada almost continuously from 1921 to 1948, demonstrated in the 1920s that he was more in tune with postwar attitudes when he dedicated himself to establishin
g Canada’s right to determine and conduct its own foreign policy. The point was not that he wanted a different foreign policy, but that he wanted an independent foreign policy, even if that policy was to adhere closely to British foreign policy. Thus, he refused throughout the troubled 1930s to guarantee Canadian support if another war should break out, and when it did, King waited a week after Britain went to war to issue Canada’s declaration of war, primarily to make clear to the world that it was acting independently.[9]

  The 1920s and 1930s, in Canada as elsewhere, were a period of mourning for and commemoration of the staggering sacrifices made by so many Canadian men and women in the Great War. Memorials were built in virtually every city, town, and village throughout the country, and, following the British lead, November 11 became an annual day of national remembrance known as Armistice Day until 1931, when it was renamed Remembrance Day. The extraordinary popularity of the Canadian John McCrae’s 1915 poem “In Flanders Fields” throughout the English-speaking world led Canadian veterans to adopt the red poppy as their emblem in 1922, and millions of Canadians continue to wear them every November.

  Also in 1922, the French government ceded to Canada 250 acres of land at Vimy Ridge, where a spectacularly moving memorial monument was subsequently built to commemorate the sacrifices made by Canadians not just at Vimy but throughout the Great War. The Vimy memorial is not the only Canadian monument in France (or Belgium), of course, but it is the most important one. It is the one to which Canadians are the most attached because the battle for Vimy Ridge was the first major battle fought by the entire Canadian Corps and Canadians tend to see that victory as marking their country’s true birth as a nation.

  The Vimy memorial was unveiled in July 1936 by King Edward VIII—who abdicated the throne five months later—in the presence of thousands of visitors, including 6,000 Canadian veterans. As Tim Cook describes it, “the twin soaring pillars of stone reach to the skies, representing France and Canada joined together in friendship, as well as forming, along with the sculpture’s base, an unmistakable upper portion of a cross. On and around the memorial are twenty figures representing faith, justice, peace, honor, charity, truth, knowledge, and hope, as well as the allegorical mother, Canada, mourning her fallen sons.”[10] On its ramparts are inscribed the names of 11,285 of the Canadian soldiers who died in the war and have no known grave.[11]

  Nine years earlier, on November 11, 1927—Remembrance Day—a much smaller and less publicized ceremony had taken place to unveil another significant memorial. This monument was situated in Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, the final resting place of American veterans. The purpose of this ceremony was to unveil a monument commemorating the 2,138 Americans[12] who lost their lives while serving in the Canadian forces during the Great War.

  Prime Minister Mackenzie King had requested permission in the spring of 1925 to erect this monument, and President Calvin Coolidge had promptly given it. Now, two years later, the Canadian minister of national defence, J. L. Ralston—a veteran—was there, along with Vincent Massey, Canada’s newly appointed minister in Washington and Canada’s first international diplomatic representative. So too were President Calvin Coolidge, Secretary of State Frank Kellogg, and Secretary of War Dwight Davis.

  The Canadian government sent more than 200 soldiers, representing the Royal Canadian Regiment and the Royal 22nd Regiment, the pipe band of the 48th Highlanders, and six trumpeters from the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery and the Royal Canadian Dragoons. The American honor guard was made up of men from the 12th Infantry Regiment and the 3rd Cavalry Regiment.

  The ceremony was not widely reported at the time, and unlike the Vimy Ridge memorial, most people—Canadians and Americans alike—are unaware of the monument and what it represents.[13] However neglected, it stands proudly in America’s national military cemetery, and more names have been added over the years to commemorate more Americans killed in later wars while serving in the Canadian armed forces. As Dwight Davis said in his remarks at the unveiling of the monument, it will “always be a source of pride to the citizens of the United States,” a symbol “of that friendship which has been sealed by the blood of our heroic sons.”[14]

  1. Borden diary, November 11, 1918, quoted in English, Borden, 157.

  2. It is a curious fact that no two sources agree on just how many men served in the Canadian army during the war or even how many were killed. These figures are from Cook, Shock Troops, 611–12. The problem, particularly with regard to fatalities, is complicated by the fact that some only count those who died during the war, while others count men who died not long after the war as a result of injuries received during the war. The Canadian government’s official cut-off date for counting casualties is April 30, 1922. As odd as it sounds, names are still being added as relevant post-war deaths are discovered. Thus, the current official total is actually 66,755 men and women who died during the war or up to April 30, 1922, from war-related causes. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission further complicates the situation by including men who served in militia regiments but never left Canada and died in accidents or from illness.

  3. As well, 3,846 Canadians were taken prisoner during the war, almost all of whom (3,478) returned home, many of them having survived brutality, food shortages, and heavy (illegal) labor in German mines and labor camps. Morton and Granatstein, Marching to Armaggedon, 250.

  4. Stacey, Canada and the Age of Conflict, 238.

  5. More than 18% of all the men recruited for the CEF between June 1917 and September 1918 were recruited in the United States. Richard Holt, “British Blood Calls British Blood: The British-Canadian Recruiting Mission of 1917–1918,” Canadian Military History 22, no. 1 (Winter 2013): 27.

  6. This was the title of his 1945 novel based on the conflicting values and attitudes of French Catholics in Quebec and English-speaking Protestants in the rest of the country during World War I. Two Solitudes (Toronto, 1945) won the Governor General’s Award and remains MacLennan’s best-known novel.

  7. King diary, quoted in Stacey, 238.

  8. Borden, Letters to Limbo, 6.

  9. This was not his only motive. During that week, Canada purchased huge quantities of military supplies from the United States, which was only possible under U.S. neutrality laws because Canada was not yet a belligerent power.

  10. Cook, Shock Troops, 627.

  11. The names of another nearly 7,000 Canadian soldiers who have no known grave are inscribed on the Menin Gate Memorial at Ypres. It is not, I think, generally realized by most people that because of the extraordinary use of artillery in the war and the appalling physical conditions, huge numbers of soldiers simply disappeared, either blown to pieces or lost in the mud.

  12. Fred Gaffen, Cross-Border Warriors (Toronto: Dundurn, 1996), 39.

  13. In another of the many usually minor cultural misunderstandings which frequently bedevil the two nations, Arlington National Cemetery provided no maintenance over the years and eventually the Canadian Department of Veteran Affairs had to assume responsibility for it.

  14. Quoted in Gaffen, 39. Heroic they were: of the seventy-one Victoria Crosses awarded to Canadians in the war, five actually went to Americans serving in the Canadian army. Lieutenant George Harry Mullin of Portland, Oregon, earned his at Passchendaele in October 1917 while serving in the Princess Pats. Corporal Frederick George Coppins of San Francisco and Sergeant Raphael Louis Zengel of Faribault, Minnesota, earned VCs at Amiens in August 1918 while serving in the Alberta Dragoons and 5th Battalion respectively. Captain Bellenden Hutcheson of Mount Carmel, Illinois, and Lance Corporal William Henry Metcalf of Waite Township, Maine, both earned the VC during the battle for the Drocourt-Quéant Line in September 1918, Hutchison while serving in the CAMC attached to the 75th Battalion, and Metcalf while serving in the 16th Battalion.

  Notes

  Select Bibliography

  Anon. Canada in the Great War. 6 vols. Toronto: United Publishers, 1919–21.

  Armstrong, Elizabeth. The Cri
sis of Quebec 1914–1918. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1974. First published 1937.

  Armstrong, John G. “The Unwelcome Sacrifice: A Black Unit in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1917-19,” in Ethnic Armies: Polyethnic Armed Forces from the Time of the Habsburgs to the Age of the Superpowers, ed. N. F. Dreisziger. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1990, 178–97.

  Auger, Martin F. “On the Brink of Civil War: The Canadian Government and the Suppression of the 1918 Quebec Easter Riots.” Canadian Historical Review 89, no. 4 (2008): 503–40.

  Baldwin, Harold. “Holding the Line.” Chicago: A. C. McClurg, 1918.

  Berton, Pierre. Marching as to War: Canada’s Turbulent Years 1899–1953. Toronto: Anchor Canada, 2002.

  Bird, Will R. And We Go On. Toronto: Hunter-Rose, 1930. Reprinted as Ghosts Have Warm Hands. Toronto: Clarke Irwin, 1968.

  ———. Thirteen Years After: A Great War Veteran Revisits the Old Battlefields. Toronto: Maclean, 1932.

  Bishop, Arthur. True Canadian Heroes in the Air. Toronto: Prospero Books, 2004.