Canada in World War I

[3] Canada's sacrifices and contributions to the Great War changed its history and enabled it to become more independent, while also opening a deep rift between the French and English speaking populations.

[14] The Canadian Japanese Association in British Columbia put forward a volunteer reserve force of 227 men, some of whom were later admitted into the military.

[26] After arriving from Salisbury Plain in England, the Canadian forces were instructed to prevent the Germans from reinforcing the sector of Neuve Chapelle.

[27] Although the British were unable to exploit their advantage due to poor communication, it taught Canadians that artillery bombardment was too light to suppress the enemy trenches; that better artillery observation points were necessary; that reserves were too few to follow up success quickly; and most importantly, that the procedure of transmitting information and sending orders to the advanced troops was slow and difficult, and that the systems of communication were much too vulnerable.

[29] As thick clouds of yellow-green chlorine drifted over their trenches the French colonial defences crumbled and the troops, completely overcome by this terrible weapon, died or broke and fled, leaving a gaping four-mile hole in the Allied line.

The attack went very poorly for the Newfoundlanders, resulting in massive casualties – of the 801 men that made up the regiment just the day before, only 68 reported for roll call on 2 July, and every officer that had gone over the top had been killed.

[34] In the major offensive which began at dawn on September 15 the Canadian Corps, on the extreme left of the attack, assaulted on a 2,200-yard sector west of the village of Courcelette.

As British Prime Minister Lloyd George wrote, "The Canadians played a part of such distinction that thenceforward they were marked out as shock troops; for the remainder of the war they were brought along to head the assault in one great battle after another.

Shortly after 7:00 a.m., the 1st Canadian Division had taken half of its second objective, the Red Line, and moved a brigade forward to mount an attack on the remainder.

[47] The advance briefly halted, the artillery barrage remaining stationary for 90 minutes to give troops time to consolidate the Blue Line and bring supporting machine guns forward.

[48] Shortly before 1 p.m., the advance recommenced with the Brown Line being secure around 2:00 p.m.[49] By this point only the northern half of Hill 145 and "the Pimple", a fortified highpoint outside of Givenchy-en-Gohelle, remained under German control.

[50] Supported by a significant amount of artillery and the 24th British Division of I Corps to the north, the 10th Canadian Brigade attacked the hastily entrenched German troops and captured "the Pimple" on 12 April, bringing an end to the battle.

The first was near the enemy salient on August 8 where the Canadian Corps (along with the New Zealanders, Australians, French and British) was charged with the task of spearheading the assault on the German forces in Amiens.

With their tender, HMCS Shearwater, they became the first warships to transit the Panama Canal flying the White Ensign (the RCN's service flag).

In June 1918, the Canadian hospital ship HMHS Llandovery Castle was deliberately sunk by a U-boat which machine gunned survivors on the water.

On 5 September 1918, the Royal Canadian Naval Air Service (RCNAS) was formed with a main function to carry out anti-submarine operations using flying boat patrol aircraft.

[76] Leading the campaign against conscription was Quebec nationalist Henri Bourassa and Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who argued that the war pitted Canadians against each other.

[77] In the subsequent election of 1917, Borden was able to convince enough English-speaking Liberals to vote for his party, and the Union government won 153 seats, nearly all from English Canada.

Amazingly, the German government did not reject the proposal because of the impracticality, but because it did not wish to damage relations with the United States by violating American neutrality.

[81] Taken more seriously was the proposal to sabotage trains carrying Japanese troops which, the German General Staff and foreign office were convinced, would soon arrive in France through Canada.

His agent, a Captain Böhm, recruited 10 people to enter Canada from Maine and blow up five eastern bridges, but cancelled the mission after only three appeared at the rendezvous point and agreed to the plan.

Von Papen next formed groups of German reservists in several American cities to attack Canadian bridges and, if the Japanese took the Panama Canal, its locks.

The saboteurs did not have uniforms, however, and the general staff told the foreign office on 11 February 1915 that wearing cockades and armbands would not protect them from being shot as francs-tireurs.

They worked in banks, insurance firms, civil service, and as gas jockeys, street-car conductors and fish cannery workers.

When prime minister Robert Borden ordered compulsory military service in May 1917, many women were called upon to run farms, build aircraft and ships, and work in munitions factories.

These historians focus on Henri Bourassa, who resigned from Wilfrid Laurier’s cabinet to protest the decision to send Canadian troops to fight in the South African War.

[86] Historian Oscar Skelton noted that Alexander Galt, a Canadian government official, negotiated treaties with foreign countries such as Spain and France in the 1880s with only the token participation of British diplomats.

Geoffrey Hayes, Andrew Iarocci, and Mike Bechthold point out that about half of the CEF members who fought at the famous battle of Vimy Ridge were British immigrants.

[94] Historian José Igartua argues that the hybrid imperialist-nationalist identity in English Canada collapsed in the 1950s and 1960s, not during or immediately after the First World War.

It was in this period that Canada adopted its current flag and began to oppose Britain on substantive foreign policy issues, as it did in the 1956 Suez Crisis.