Punching Above Our Weight, page 7
Certainly, as the 20th century progressed, Canadians became aware of a growing militarism both within the British Empire and throughout Europe. Germany’s ascension as a major European power coupled with a series of diplomatic crises led many in Canada to clamour for greater military preparation. Perhaps no movement better reflected this nascent militarism than the cadet program. In 1908, the first province to wholly embrace cadets was Nova Scotia, Frederick Borden’s native province, where every male teacher was expected to have some sort of military training while all teachers were expected to qualify for drill and physical training. Instructors, arms, books, and examinations were all provided by the federal government with bonuses and monetary prizes awarded to both teachers and students who displayed cadet excellence. By 1911, six provinces, including both the Catholic and Protestant education committees of Quebec, had enrolled in this federal program. By 1913, 40,000 boys had signed up for the cadet initiative, up from 9,000 in 1908.
Two Canadian nursing sisters and a Miss L. Trotter (centre) in South Africa, 1900.
Yet 40,000 boys in a country of seven and a half million people does not a militaristic nation make. Many people were opposed to the cadet movement; protests rang out from farm organizations, trade unions, pacifist religious sects, and conscientious objectors newly arrived from all over Europe. Even Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier decried any sort of movement toward “the vortex of militarism,” as he saw it.13 Nonetheless, it was also clear that Europe was edging closer to war and that subjects of the British Empire could very well be called upon. The issue of imperial defence once again began to split Canadian public opinion.
Creating a Canadian Navy
No other debate characterized the controversy of imperial defence in the years leading up to the First World War as much as the debate over the navy. The unveiling of the powerful dreadnought-class vessel by the British in 1905 had suddenly made numerous ships obsolete within the Royal Navy and thus gave rivals an opportunity to catch up. In March 1909, it was announced in the British House of Commons that the Royal Navy risked losing supremacy on the high seas in the face of an aggressively expanding German navy. Now London began asking for naval help from its colonies.
Canada had no navy in 1909. The closest thing to it were armed patrol vessels operating along the coasts for the Fisheries Protection Service. These were meant to keep poachers out of Canadian waters while at the same time project some sense of Canadian sovereignty. One ship, CGS Canada, even sailed to Bermuda and cruised the Caribbean for three months, visiting ports, delivering salutes, and training with a local British naval squadron.
HMCS Niobe, circa 1910.
HMCS Rainbow in Burrard Inlet, 1910.
Traditionally, the belief was that if Canada’s coastlines were ever seriously threatened the Royal Navy would come to defend them. Even after Canada took over responsibility for Halifax, that belief persisted, since it only took about five days for ships to sail from Great Britain to Canada’s East Coast. Pacific defence was more unsure once the Royal Navy’s Pacific squadron was called back to the British Isles. Yet Canada had very few serious threats to its waters or its borders, which led to many Canadians disregarding any serious need for a navy. Regardless, by the end of 1909, Laurier was pressured by London to enhance Canada’s naval capacity. While the British government wanted a substantial commitment in naval construction, Laurier was able to settle on a compromise of four cruisers and six destroyers for an estimated cost of $11 million.14
When news of Laurier’s proposed navy reached the public, Canadian naval commitments became wrapped up in broader French-English tensions and Liberal-Conservative rivalries. For French Canadians in Quebec, the navy was seen as a tool to draw Canada deeper into British imperial commitments. As with the arguments made during the Second Boer War, Quebec nationalists decried any government steps that automatically drew Canada into another British war. The navy, many in Quebec believed, meant committing Canada to such a conflict.
For Conservatives, despite what at first seemed to be bipartisan support for a Canadian navy, Laurier’s navy was seen as too small and ineffectual to make any serious difference for Canada or the British. Many in the Conservative Party argued that what Britain really needed were financial contributions to continue building modern dreadnoughts, not some “tinpot navy” that would make little difference among oceanic belligerents. Laurier found himself in a very difficult political position, one that proved his undoing.
The Naval Service Act was passed in early May 1910 amid raucous debate. Canada’s navy was officially created, becoming the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) in August 1911. Two destroyers — HMCS Niobe on the East Coast and HMCS Rainbow on the West — were given to Ottawa by London and began service almost immediately. Many of the personnel from the Fisheries Protection Service provided the nucleus for the crews, yet shortages persisted and Royal Navy sailors and officers were seconded to make up for the lack of trained officers and sailors. Rear-Admiral Charles Kingsmill, from Guelph, Ontario, a 40-year veteran of the Royal Navy, was appointed as the Canadian navy’s first director and helped oversee the establishment of a naval college at Halifax.
From day one, however, the navy became a political target on the back of Wilfrid Laurier. In a rare show of co-operation, Quebec nationalistes such as Henri Bourassa banded together with Conservatives to attack Laurier and his government, one side claiming it betrayed the French-Canadian people, the other that it betrayed the British Empire. When Laurier’s party lost a Quebec by-election in November 1910, he realized how much the naval issue had weakened his political hold on what was his most crucial base of support. Despite some last-minute political wrangling, Laurier could not shake the two-pronged attack of Conservatives and nationalistes, and in the election of 1911, he and the Liberals were defeated.15
Robert Borden, the new Conservative prime minister, set about rescinding the naval bill and instead proposed a contribution to the British of $35 million to support the construction of three new dreadnought battleships. When this was blocked by the Liberal Senate, Laurier’s navy died. Recruiting stopped, the vessels of the Fisheries Protection Service continued their coastline patrols, and the Niobe and the Rainbow languished on their respective coasts. When war came in 1914, Canada’s East Coast was defended by the Royal Navy while Canada’s West Coast was jointly protected by the Royal Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy, much to the chagrin of the strongly anti-Asian population of British Columbia.
3
The First World War: 1914–1916
The reasons for the outbreak of the First World War are complex, but it was, in essence, the result of decades of tension between various European rivals. Germany, which had only formed as a country in 1871, had by the early 20th century positioned itself as the dominant continental military power. As such, the leader of Germany, Kaiser Wilhelm II, sought to increase Germany’s global power through the acquisition of overseas territories. Germany even briefly flirted with the idea of building a navy that could potentially challenge Britain. While the naval-building program never achieved such a level, Germany’s ascendancy became a problem for both Great Britain and France. Great Britain was not going to allow Germany to challenge its imperial global hegemony, while France saw Germany as an existential continental land threat. This common enemy led to the two ancient foes entering into an alliance with Imperial Russia, thus forming the Triple Entente. Effectively, if war broke out, Germany would find itself threatened now on both its western and eastern flanks. To counter this, Germany secured a pact with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Italy, and, later, the Ottoman Empire — what historians have labelled the Central Powers.
When Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was assassinated by a Serbian radical on June 28, 1914, Austria demanded restitution from Serbia. Russia backed Serbia, Germany supported Austria, and the series of alliance systems clicked into place, dragging Europe and then the wider world into the first global industrial total war. While conflict erupted in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, the main theatre of war was in Europe where fronts opened along its eastern, southern, and western borders. When Germany steamrolled through Belgium on its way to invading France, Britain entered the conflict, ostensibly defending Belgian neutrality. With its declaration of war against Germany on August 4, Canada, as a member of the British Empire, was once again at war.
Within Canada the response to war hinged on where you lived, what you did, and where you were from. Generally speaking, it was in the urban centres of Canada where enthusiasm for war seemed strongest. As well, surprisingly, considering French Canada’s antipathy toward imperial participation, news of the outbreak of war appeared to receive support in both English and French Canada,1 though that waned within French Canada over the coming months. Within English Canada support was, not amazingly, highest among those who were born in Great Britain and those first-generation Canadians descended from British immigrants, while support was more diminished among those Canadians descended from non-British immigrants.2
Minister of Militia and Defence Sam Hughes, 1914.
In those excitable days of early August, these nuances of support were buried behind tens of thousands of young men and boys flocking to recruiting stations desperate to get to Europe before the conflict was over. The man most associated with this early phase of Canadian military recruitment was the controversial, eccentric, bombastic, megalomaniac Sam Hughes, minister of militia and defence. Born near modern-day Bowmanville, Ontario, Hughes was the Conservative MP for the Victoria riding in Ontario, today part of the Haliburton–Kawartha Lakes–Brock federal constituency.
Hughes was a Tory, an Orangeman, both a British imperialist and an ardent Canadian nationalist, a lifelong militia member, a crack shot, and a firm believer in the effectiveness of citizen soldiers. He had served during the Fenian raids but was denied service in the North-West Resistance. In 1899, his enlistment was once again denied, but he went to South Africa, anyway, finding service with the British Army. Despite proving himself quite a capable soldier on the battlefield, he was an absolute pest off it and was eventually dismissed from service. The overbearing officer had written several letters condemning the British military for cowardice. These were published in Canada and South Africa. This, combined with a penchant for disobeying orders, led to his brief tenure in South Africa coming to an end. None of this, however, stopped him from campaigning unsuccessfully to be awarded the Victoria Cross.
Back in Canada, Hughes’s reputation was far more intact. He was a diehard Conservative and a fanatic cog in the Conservative Party political machine. When Robert Borden won the 1911 federal election, Hughes was a natural choice for the ministerial post as head of the militia. After war broke out in 1914, Hughes saw it as his divine mission to ensure that Canada contributed as much as it could to the war in Europe. That involvement, however, was going to be tightly controlled by Hughes.
The first step for Hughes was to scrap the mobilization plan already in place, one drawn up in 1911 and modified as recently as early 1914. Instead of forming Canada’s first contingent from already existing militia units and using the already functioning base at Petawawa, militia commanders were ordered to send recruits to Valcartier, just north of Quebec City. The problem was that there was no camp at Valcartier. Even as the first recruits were arriving, the camp was being carved out of the wilderness, from barracks to latrines to rifle ranges. Nonetheless, Valcartier was to be Hughes’s own mini-kingdom.3 He personally appointed officers, promoting and demoting at will, and oversaw all aspects of the training process while touring the grounds in his colonel’s uniform, accompanied by an honour guard of cavalry.
East end of grounds at Camp Valcartier, September 1914.
Hughes scrapped the traditional regimental names in favour of a new numbered battalion system, a decision that did not go well with the long-service members. He quickly damaged the recruitment of French Canadians by demanding that only English be spoken. Hughes also rejected the application of one of the most capable officers in the entire Permanent Force, François-Louis Lessard, a French-speaking Catholic from Quebec City who had served with the Royal Canadian Dragoons during the Second Boer War. Yet the chaos and inefficiencies within Hughes’s recruitment system were hidden beneath the enthusiasm and eagerness of the tens of thousands of young men who enlisted. It seemed as if a ready supply of Canadian volunteers would be endless.
By late 1914, the First Canadian Contingent set sail for Europe. The makeup of this group spoke heavily to the demographic nuances of Canada’s support for the war. There were 36,267 men in the first contingent — 23,211 of these, or 64 percent, were born in Great Britain; 1,245, or 3.5 percent, were French-speaking Canadians. While most recruits were British-born, two-thirds of the officers were Canadian-born, drawn primarily from the militia. After arriving in England in October 1914, the force was eventually transformed into the 1st Canadian Division, made up of three brigades, each with four battalions, each battalion with around 1,000 men. Also included were three brigades of field artillery, each consisting of four batteries of four guns each. Along with these six brigades were the required ancillary services such as signallers, engineers, service corps, and medical personnel.
One segment of the population that controversially found its way into the ranks were adolescent boys. Despite the initial recruitment age set at 18 (later raised to 19), it is estimated that more than 20,000 adolescents served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, as it came to be called. While most of these lads were 16 and 17 years of age, one 10-year-old successfully enlisted, while a 12-year-old even made it into the trenches. Many of these underage soldiers were able to enlist because they carried with them letters of permission from their parents. Others simply forged documents or outright lied about their age. The ability for these boys to enlist depended entirely on the local situation. Different recruiting sergeants at different recruiting stations turned a blind eye to these youngsters if they still had a quota to meet. Some of these underage recruits found themselves on a train or boat back home once their parents found out and demanded their return. Far more of them spent the war in Europe. It is likely that upward of 2,300 underage soldiers were killed during the conflict.4
Hughes was far too busy to worry about underage recruits. He was adamant that a Canadian command the first contingent. Instead, the commander of Canada’s 1st Division was British-born Lieutenant-General Edwin Alderson. His brigade commanders, however, were Canadian. The 1st Brigade was handed to Lieutenant-Colonel Malcolm S. Mercer, a Toronto lawyer and officer in the Queen’s Own Rifles. The 2nd Brigade was given to Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Currie, a real-estate and insurance broker in Victoria, British Columbia. Despite being a Liberal, Currie, who was an artillery officer in the militia, was friends with Hughes’s son, Garnet, which was enough to get him appointed. The 3rd Brigade went to the most accomplished of the three brigade commanders, Brigadier-General Richard Turner, who had won the Victoria Cross at Leliefontein and was running his family’s grocery business in Toronto when war broke out.
The insistence of Hughes for a Canadian commander was symptomatic of his overall reputation taking a beating in England. His attempt at creating a Canadian air force failed miserably and was met with derision by the British. Hughes’s insistence on Canadians wearing Canadian-made gear also became a fiasco. The cold and wet weeks training on Salisbury Plain, the training ground in England, eventually led to the inadequate Canadian boots and kit being replaced with British-made substitutes. The MacAdam Shield-Shovel, designed by Hughes, was meant to be a shovel that stopped bullets; it could barely lift dirt or stop a bullet. The shovels were quickly melted into scrap metal. Even the Canadian-made trucks and wagons that arrived with the first contingent were found to be unsuitable for life at the front and thus replaced. When the Canadians finally got to France, the only piece of equipment they still had from Canada was the Ross rifle, a weapon Sam Hughes was personally fond of. Despite being a great sporting rifle, it proved to be wholly unsuitable to the dirty and muddy conditions of the Western Front. It jammed frequently, and despite Hughes’s insistence on it being kept, was officially replaced in 1916, though many Canadians had already discarded their Rosses for any British Lee-Enfield they could find.
Map of major Canadian battles along the Western Front, 1914–18.
DescriptionFrom north to south the map lists the following Canadian battles on the western front: Passchendaele, Sorrel, Ypres, St. Eloi, Festubert, Mons, Hill 70, Vimy, Arras, Cambrai, Beaumont-Hamel, Courcelette, and Amiens.
The type of war these young men entered was like nothing they could have ever imagined.5 The lethality of industrial technology had outpaced almost all tactical thinking of the day. Artillery was so powerful and accurate that it could kill from miles away, and machine guns turned battlefields into bullet-swept killing zones. Simply put, it was no longer safe above ground and soldiers began digging in. By the end of 1914, a complex series of interconnected trench lines stretched from the North Sea all the way to the border of Switzerland. Each side’s trench was protected by thick belts of barbed wire. Separating the two sides was no man’s land, a pockmarked hellish landscape where the detritus of war was deposited. As the months went on, the trench systems got deeper, the barbed wire thicker, and the body count higher. The very nature of modern war had become defensive. Soldiers in their trenches held a distinct and brutal advantage over an attacking enemy exposed above ground to the modern killing technology of the day.
