Military history of Canada

[1] However, Inuit groups in the extreme northern Arctic typically avoided direct warfare due to their small populations, relying on traditional law to resolve conflicts.

[36] To secure a favourable peace, the French sent the Carignan-Salières Regiment in 1665,[15] the first uniformed professional soldiers station in Canada, and whose members formed the core of the Compagnies Franches de la Marine militia.

[53] La Tour's governorship ended in 1654 when English forces under Robert Sedgwick seized the territory exhausted by years of civil war and neglect by the French court.

[33] A naval expedition sailed in 1690 to capture Quebec City but arrived just before the St. Lawrence River froze in mid-October, leaving little time to achieve its objective due to poor organization.

[88] The treaty that ended the war marked a major change in European relations with the maritime Algonquians, as it granted the British the right to settle in traditional Abenaki and Mi'kmaq lands.

While maritime Algonquians swiftly allied with the French, many Indigenous groups in the Great Lakes region hesitated to join, preferring to maintain trade ties with the British.

[103] After Beauséjour, the British worked to consolidate control over Acadia, neutralizing the Acadians military potency and disrupting supply lines to Louisbourg, starting with the Bay of Fundy campaign in 1755.

The three-month siege culminated in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in September 1759, where French general Louis-Joseph de Montcalm led a numerically inferior force out of the walled city to face the British.

[115] In the conflict, a 300-strong battalion of French Canadians, led by former Troupes de la Marines, was raised and sent to Fort Detroit as part of Brigadier-General John Bradstreet's expedition.

[115] After the Seven Years' War, the Thirteen Colonies became restive over taxes imposed by the British Parliament, with many questioning its necessity when they no longer needed to pay for a large military force to counter the French.

[116] Five British provincial corps, augmented by additional unincorporated units and Loyalist associators, were raised in the Canadian colonies to assist in its defence and to harass the American frontier.

[130] Despite successfully defending Quebec and Nova Scotia, British military defeats in the Thirteen Colonies led to their surrender in 1781 and the subsequent recognition of the independent US republic in the Treaty of Paris of 1783.

[139] The American retreat facilitated Brock's alliance with Shawnee chief Tecumseh and provided him with the excuse to abandon his orders to maintain a defensive posture within Upper Canada.

[159] From the 1820s to the 1840s, the British built up several fortifications to serve as strong defensive points against potential invasions, including the citadel and ramparts in Quebec City, Fort Henry in Kingston, and the Imperial fortress of Halifax.

[169] The Upper Canada Rebellion, led by William Lyon Mackenzie, primarily comprised disaffected American-born farmers who opposed the preferential treatment of British settlers in the colony's land grant system.

The attacks sparked a month-long armed standoff in the British Columbia Interior, after a group predominantly made up of American prospectors marched from the colonial capital of New Westminster to quell the resistance in the Crown's name.

[185] By the mid-1860s, British North American colonies faced mounting pressure to assume their own defences as the UK sought to alleviate themselves of the cost of defending them and to redeploy troops to more strategic areas.

Although some questioned the need to unite post-American Civil War, subsequent raids by Fenians made more people in British North America favourable to Canadian Confederation, which was eventually realized in 1867.

Consequently, British forces withdrew from Canada, except for Halifax and Esquimalt, where garrisons of the Pacific and North America and West Indies stations remained for reasons of imperial strategy.

[191] Recruitment of RMC officer cadets into the British military declined in the early 20th century due to efforts by Frederick William Borden, the Canadian minister of militia and defence.

[200] In the late 19th century, Louis Riel spearheaded two resistances against the Canadian government amid its efforts to settle western Canada and negotiate land transfer treaties with multiple First Nations.

[215] Laurier aimed for a compromise to preserve Anglo-French relations,[215] but faced pressure from his imperial-minded cabinet to send a token force of 1,000 soldiers from the Royal Canadian Regiment of Infantry.

[227] Lord Dundonald, the final British Army General Officer Commanding the Canadian Militia, implemented reforms that granted Canada its own technical and support branches.

[230] At the turn of the century, Canada asserted greater control over its defences with the passage of a new Militia Act in 1904, appointing a Canadian Chief of the General Staff.

[136] The greater degree of autonomy Canada saw after the First World War, coupled with public reluctance to participate in further imperial conflicts, led the Canadian government to refuse a British request for military aid during the 1922 Chanak Crisis.

[274] Although Canada was a significant contributor to the war, it played no major role in its strategic planning, as Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King refrained from involvement.

The fall of Belgium and France to Germany in June 1940 led Canada to drastically expand its military spending and armed forces, and implement conscription for home defence.

[322] On October 15, 1970, five days after the second kidnapping, the Quebec government requested military aid under the National Defence Act, with soldiers deployed to strategic locations in Montreal hours later.

[329] However, in a countercurrent to the movement of American draft dodgers and deserters to Canada, around 12,000 Canadians and Canadian-American dual citizens enlisted with the United States Armed Forces and served in combat roles in Vietnam.

Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa invoked Section 275 of the National Defence Act on August 8, requesting military support in "aid of the civil power",[336] after one police officer and two Mohawk were killed.

Ceremonial Guard stand watch over Canada's national memorial , The Response , with the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the foreground.
Indigenous weaponry on display at the Canadian Museum of History
Skirmish between Martin Frobisher 's men and Inuit , c. 1577–78 .
Map of European claims on North America at the end of the 17th century, with European forts and settlements also shown. English claims are coloured in pink, while French claims are coloured in blue. The English and French had conflicting claims around Hudson Bay and Newfoundland .
Algonquin , French, and Wyandot forces besiege a Mohawk fort during the Battle of Sorel in 1610.
Iroquois warriors attack an Algonquin fort defended by a Franco-Indigenous force at the Battle of Long Sault , 1660
New France's governor general, Louis de Buade de Frontenac , with First Nations allies, 1690
English forces under Samuel Argall raiding the French settlement of Port-Royal in 1613.
Françoise-Marie Jacquelin defends Fort Sainte Marie with other supporters of Charles de Saint-Étienne de la Tour during the decisive engagement of the Acadian Civil War in 1645.
Route of the Dutch fleet raiding North America from 1672 to 1674.
The batteries of Quebec City bombard the English fleet during the Battle of Quebec in 1690.
The Hudson's Bay Company garrison at York Factory surrendering to French forces following the Battle of Hudson's Bay in 1697.
Map of European claims on North America from the Peace of Utrecht in 1713 to the Treaty of Paris in 1763, with European forts and settlements also shown. British claims are in pink, while French claims are in blue. Purple areas were territories the French ceded to the British in 1713.
The New England raid on Grand Pré in June 1704. The raid was carried out in retaliation for an earlier New French-First Nations raid on Deerfield .
The French- Mi'kmaq raid on Grand Pré in 1747
The British siege of Louisbourg in 1745. The fortress was captured after several weeks.
The Royal Navy capture of the French ships Alcide and Lys in 1755. The ships were carrying war supplies to the Acadians and Mi'kmaq.
Map of North American military campaigns during the Seven Years' War .
A raid on an Acadian village during the Gulf of St. Lawrence campaign in 1758. The conflict saw the forced removal of the Acadians from Acadia.
The British burn the French warship Prudent and capture Bienfaisant during the 1758 siege of Louisbourg
Surrender of the French Army in 1760, shortly after the fall of Montreal .
British regulars and Canadian militia shatter the American column in fierce street fighting in the Battle of Quebec in 1775.
Members of the British 84th Regiment of Foot in Nova Scotia. The regiment was raised in the Canadian colonies for service during the American Revolutionary War .
The American raid on Lunenburg in 1782. Raids by American privateers devastated the maritime Nova Scotian economy.
The surrender of a US garrison at Fort Detroit , after British regulars, Canadian militiamen, and First Nation warriors besieged the fort in 1812
Death of General Isaac Brock , as the York Militia moves forward during the Battle of Queenston Heights in 1812. [ 142 ]
Loyalist Laura Secord warns the British of an impending American attack on Beaver Dams , 1813.
The death of Tecumseh by US forces during the Battle of Moraviantown in October 1813.
HMS St Lawrence , a first-rate ship of the line launched in September 1814. The St Lawrence provided the British an advantage in the latter stages for the battle for Lake Ontario .
The Battle of Seven Oaks in 1816, fought between Hudson's Bay Company officials and Métis voyageurs trading with the North West Company
A steam engine moving stones up the promontory of Quebec for the construction of the Citadelle of Quebec , 1827
The 100th (Prince of Wales's Royal Canadian) Regiment of Foot receiving their regimental colours from Albert Edward, Prince of Wales , 1859
Depiction of the Battle of Saint-Eustache in 1837, a decisive engagement during the first uprising of the Lower Canada Rebellion .
The Battle of Montgomery's Tavern on 5 December 1837, the first confrontation of the Upper Canada Rebellion
Anderson Ruffin Abbott in 1863. Abbott was one of many Canadians who volunteered with the Union Army during the American Civil War.
Volunteers of the Canadian militia who were mobilized during the Fenian raids in June 1866.
Members of the 50th Canadian Battalion engage the Fenians at the Battle of Eccles Hill in 1870
Departure of British forces from Quebec City in 1871. British forces withdrew from most of Canada in 1871, several years after Confederation .
The first graduating class of the Royal Military College of Canada in 1878. Cadets were recruited into the British military and the Canadian militia in the 19th century.
Uniforms used by the Canadian Militia in the late 19th century.
Members of the Yukon Field Force in Vancouver in 1898. The Yukon Field Force was a garrison of the Active Militia's Permanent Force .
The Wolseley expedition near Kakabeka Falls . The British-Canadian military expedition was undertaken in 1870 to retake Upper Fort Garry .
The Battle of Batoche in 1885 was a decisive engagement during the North-West Rebellion where Canadian soldiers defeated a force of indigenous and Métis people .
The Nile Expedition travelling by boat to relieve the siege of Khartoum
Troops from the Royal Canadian Regiment of Infantry prepare to attack Boer position during the Battle of Paardeberg in 1900.
Injured Canadian soldiers and a nursing sister in South Africa during the Second Boer War , 1901.
An exhibit of infantry equipment used by the Canadian Militia , c. 1900s
HMCS Rainbow in Vancouver, shortly after its recommissioning with the Canadian Naval Service in 1910.
A Canadian postcard from 1918 encouraging the purchase of Victory Bonds . It depicts a soldier standing in a poppy field and includes a line from the war poem " In Flanders Fields ".
Canadian forces repelling a German attack during the Battle of Kitcheners' Wood , an engagement during the Second Battle of Ypres in April 1915.
Canadian troops advance up a road during the Battle of Cambrai in 1918
Billy Bishop in a Nieuport 17 . Bishop was the war's top flying ace from Canada and the British Empire.
Edward VIII unveiling the Mother of Canada on the Vimy Memorial in 1936. The memorial was dedicated to CEF personnel killed during World War I.
Troops of the Canadian Siberian Expeditionary Force with a truck, 1919
The Canadian Air Force of 1918 at RAF Upper Heyford , with Sopwith Dolphins as part of the No. 1 Fighter Squadron
The Ikka Machine Gun Company of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion , c. 1937–38
Wait for Me, Daddy , taken by Claude P. Dettloff , in October 1940. The photo depicts the British Columbia Regiment (Duke of Connaught's Own Rifles) , marching to embark onto SS Princess Joan .
Canadian soldiers on exercise in Hong Kong prior to the Japanese invasion of the colony in 1941
A landing craft with the Royal Winnipeg Rifles heads for Juno Beach during the Normandy landings in June 1944
Royal Canadian Navy sailors man a gun aboard HMCS Assiniboine , while escorting an HX convoy to the UK
Pilots of No. 1 Squadron RCAF in the UK, October 1940. The squadron was deployed to the UK in June 1940, shortly before the Battle of Britain .
Members of the Royal Canadian Air Force Women's Division . During the Second World War, women were recruited into the military to fill non-combat roles.
A map depicting the early warning systems for North America. Three early-warning radar lines in Canada were built during the 1950s to detect incoming Soviet bombers heading for the continent.
Two snipers of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry in Korea during the Korean War .
Members of the 27th Canadian Infantry Brigade , a brigade created for service in West Germany , disembark in Rotterdam , 1951
Two RCAF CF-100 Canucks from RCAF Station Grostenquin fly over Sardinia in 1962
A soldier in Montreal during the October Crisis in 1970
A POW is interviewed by a Canadian officer with the ICCS and a Provisional Revolutionary Government official in 1973.
Canadian Forces personnel pictured behind two civilians of the Sûreté du Québec during the Oka Crisis in 1990.
HMCS Protecteur supporting coalition forces during the Gulf War
A formation of coalition aircraft flying over Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War , 1991. A Canadian CF-18 Hornet is visible in the right foreground.
A security checkpoint operated by Canadian soldiers at Belet Huen Field in Somalia, 1993
A Canadian Airborne Regiment member in a foxhole in Somalia. The conduct of the regiment in the country became a national scandal in Canada .
Two CF-18s with Operation Echo depart Aviano Air Base in Italy in 2000, in support of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia .
HMCS Charlottetown after it conducted a boarding of a vessel in the Arabian Sea in 2008. Charlottetown was deployed in support of Operation Altair , a naval anti-terrorism operation
Canadian soldiers on their way to provide security for a site in northeast Kandahar in April 2002
Canadian soldiers of the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team on patrol in 2008.
RCAF CF-18 Hornets waiting to refuel from a British tanker, during the First Libyan Civil War in 2011.
A RCAF CF-18 Hornet breaks away from a USAF KC-135 Stratotanker , while on mission in support of Operation Impact .
a person in a military uniform wearing a United Nations blue helmet
Canadian peacekeeper in 1976 wearing the distinctive flag of Canada and UN blue helmet