canada in world war i - · pdf filemore than 60,000 canadians died in world war i. ......
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Canada in World War I
1914 - 1918
Sound
1
Introduction
Robert Borden became prime minister of a peaceful and prosperous Canada in 1911.
On August 4, 1914 Britain declared war on Germany taking Canada into a long and bloody conflict.
More than 60,000 Canadians died in World War I.
Canada emerged from the war with a strong sense of national identity.
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Causes of World War I
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Causes of World War I
A war between the major European powers was, in the opinion of some historians, inevitable and long overdue.
The causes were many and complex but certain fundamental issues can be identified.
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Fundamental Causes I
The Triple Alliance was comprised of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy.
Entangling Alliances
The Triple Entente consisted of France, Russia and Britain.
War would automatically pit most of these nations against each other.
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Fundamental Causes II
The European nations had built up large armed forces against the possibility of war.
The launching of HMS Dreadnought had resulted in a naval arms race between Britain and Germany.
Militarism
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Fundamental Causes III
The European powers had large colonial empires which reached around the world.
Britain had one of the largest but Germany was a very young nation and also wanted a “place in the sun.”
Imperialism
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Overseas Empires of European
Powers
January 1914
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Fundamental Causes IV
Nationalism was an intense love of country and was directly linked to imperialism and militarism.
France had lost the two small territories of Alsace and Lorraine to Germany in 1871 and was driven by nationalism to recover these “lost provinces.”
Nationalism
The French Flag 9
The Balkans
This region on Europe’s southern flank was aptly named the “powder keg of Europe.”
It was dominated by the small but intensely nationalist state of Serbia.
Austria-Hungary, a deeply divided multi- ethnic nation, feared the influence of Serbia on her southern border.
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Assassination at
Sarajevo
In 1908, much to the annoyance of Serbia and her longtime ally Russia, Austria-Hungary annexed the two small territories of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In June of 1914 the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne and his wife were shot dead in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, by a Serbian terrorist.
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The Timetable of War
Austria-Hungary with the support of her ally Germany issued an unacceptable ultimatum to the Serbs.
Russia mobilized her armies in support of Serbia.
Germany, fearing a Russian attack ,set in motion the Schlieffen Plan which required an attack on Russia’s ally France through neutral Belgium.
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Schlieffen Plan
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The Timetable of War II
Britain, fearing for her naval interests in the North Sea and wishing to support the tiny nation of Belgium, declared war on Germany.
The Schlieffen Plan failed to accomplish the defeat of France with the result that the armies became locked in a bitter struggle on the Western Front.
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Review Questions
1. What is meant by the term alliance?
2. Which countries were allied by the Triple Alliance?
3. Which countries were allied by the Triple Entente?
4. Why was Germany annoyed by Imperialism?
5. Which armies had increased in size between 1870 and 1914?
6. Describe the Schlieffen Plan.
7. Why were the two crises important factors?
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Canada and World War I
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Preparing for War
Prime Minister Borden assured Britain of Canada’s full support.
The Canadian people were behind their prime minister in his promise.
Parliament quickly passed a War Measures Act giving the government extraordinary powers.
A nation wide recruiting campaign was organized by Sam Hughes, the Minister of Militia.
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The Canadian Expeditionary
Force
A large training camp was established at Valcartier, Quebec.
Troops were armed with the questionable Ross Rifle and outfitted with equally questionable Canadian manufactured equipment.
Over 30,000 Canadians sailed for England in late September of 1914.
The first Canadian troops arrived at the front in February of 1915.
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First Ten Men to War 1914
Medicine Hat, Alberta
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Valcartier Pass
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Documentation - A Canadian
Recruit – John Inglis Boyd
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The Diary of Stanley Brown -
November 1917
We left Montreal on Nov. 20th Tuesday
on S.S. Megantic.Only the 79th and
some R.F.C (Royal Flying Corps) men
went on board there. We anchored
(and) went on board on the evening
before. We left the docks at 5:30 A.M.
and that evening about 5 P.M. we
anchored near Sorel for the night.
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A Soldier’s Diary - From Folkestone, England
to France - February 8, 1918
Left Folkstone aboard Victoria
about 10 A.M. Rough crossing
channel. Arrived at Boulogne at
12:30. Came out to Etaples on
motor lorries arriving about 4
P.M. Good supper around 7 P.M.
in evening. Wrote S.
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Life on the Western Front
25
The Western Front
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Life in the Trenches
Front line trenches faced each other across no-man’s land.
They were often wet and rat infested.
A tour in the trenches usually lasted six days followed by twelve days of respite behind the lines. 27
Life in the Trenches II
At night patrols were sent out across no-man’s land to probe enemy defenses and cut his barbed wire.
Dawn often brought attacks when men were ordered “over the top.”
Once into the open ground of no-man’s land they were cut down by machine gun and artillery fire.
The wounded were often left to die where they fell.
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The Battle of Ypres
Canadians in the Ypres salient in April of 1915 were subjected to the first German gas attack with deadly chlorine.
French colonial troops in the line with the Canadians broke and ran.
The Canadians held the line for three days suffering terrible casualties.
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Ypres Salient 1915
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The Battle of the Somme
In July of 1916 nearly 60,000 British troops were killed or wounded in a few hours.
At Beaumont-Hamel 310 men out of 684 of the Newfoundland Regiment died in a few minutes of an ill planned attack.
The campaign on the Somme shattered three Canadian divisions at the cost of 24,029 lives.
German Helmet
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Vimy Ridge
By 1917 Canadians had earned a well deserved reputation as shock troops.
Vimy Ridge was a German strong point which dominated a vital area of the front.
Several French and British attacks had failed to drive them from the high ground.
In April 1917 the Canadians were ordered to take Vimy Ridge.
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Vimy Ridge II
One of the most able subordinates of the British commander was a Canadian named Arthur Currie.
Currie planned every last detail of the assault including a rolling barrage of artillery.
Over 3,500 Canadian lives were lost but the Germans were driven from the ridge
Today, Canada’s war memorial stands proudly on Vimy Ridge.
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The Mud of Passchendaele
Arthur Currie predicted that 16,000 Canadians would die in this battle.
Passchendaele, one of the worst battlefields of the war, was described as a “featureless desert of yellow mud.”
15,654 Canadians soldiers died in the capture of this very questionable military objective.
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The Battle of Passchendaele
Canadian Pioneers laying trench mats over mud. Battle of Passchendaele, 1917. Library and Archives Canada.
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The War in the Air
Canada’s pilots flew with their British counterparts.
Names like Billy Barker, Raymond Collishaw and Roy Brown became household words.
The most famous of Canada’s air aces was Billy Bishop of Owen Sound, Ontario.
Bishop shot down 72 German aircraft setting a record for the war.
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Canada’s War Memorial on
Vimy Ridge
.
37
The Home Front
38
Contributions by Ordinary
Canadians
The Canadian Patriotic Fund collected money for soldiers’ families.
The Military Hospitals Commission set up hospitals to care for the wounded.
The YMCA organized canteens and support services for soldiers on leave.
The Red Cross provided humanitarian aid and kept track of wounded soldiers.
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Families were Separated
by the War
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Financing the War
The costs were enormous and to meet these expenses government introduced a temporary tax on personal income in 1917.
Victory bonds were offered for sale at an interest rate of 5%.
The sale of bonds vastly exceeded expectations and raised $500 million in 1917.
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Victory Bonds
By 1918 the war was costing Canada over one million dollars a day.
Large sums were raised through the sale of Victory Bonds. 42
Food
The produce of Canada’s agricultural industry was one her most vital contributions to the war.
Farmers profited from the sale of wheat to war-torn France and Britain.
Over use of soil or grain mining was to help cause the dustbowl conditions of the 1930s.
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Enemy Aliens
German and immigrants from the Austro-Hungarian Empire were looked on by many Canadians with hostility and suspicion.
In 1915 over 8,000 “enemy aliens” were interned in camps.
The city of Berlin, Ontario was forced to change its name to Kitchener.
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The Armaments Industry
Canada was a major manufacturer of weapons and ammunition.
Col. Sam Hughes, the Minister of Militia, founded a Shell Committee to coordinate orders from Britain.
The Shell Committee was marked by corruption and inefficiency and was soon replaced by the Imperial Munitions Board headed by Joseph Flavelle.
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Women and the War Effort
By 1915 women were filling jobs in all of Canada’s industries.
Many Canadian women served overseas as nurses and ambulance drivers.
There were many reforms improving the lot of women but the vote was denied to most until 1917.
Women’s groups campaigned against the use of alcohol.
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The Halifax Explosion
1917
In 1917 war came suddenly and violently to Halifax, a naval port and departure point for overseas convoys.
Ships formed up in Bedford Basin and passed out though the harbour narrows on their way to the open sea.
The Mont Blanc a French munitions ship collided with the Imo a Norwegian ship in the Narrows.
The resulting explosion destroyed most of the north end of Halifax and killed or injured 11,000 citizens.
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Halifax After the Explosion
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The Conscription Crisis of 1917
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Quebec and Recruiting
Quebec had supported the war in 1914 and many hoped that the war might encourage national unity.
Recruiting in Quebec was difficult because many men married young and were often employed in labour intensive farm jobs.
There were no separate French speaking units until late in the war.
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Source of Volunteers in
Proportion to Population
% of Volunteers in Proportion to Population
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
British Colum
bia
Alber
ta
Sas
katche
wan
Man
itoba
Ontar
io
Que
bec
NS, N
B, P
EI
Pe
rce
nt
(%)
51
Native Canadians
Nearly 4,000 of the 11,500 Native Canadians eligible for war service enlisted.
They were much sought after for their skills as infantry and snipers.
Johnny Norwest, a Cree sniper, personally killed 115 of the enemy before losing his own life in 1918.
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Conscription and The
Military Service Act
Mounting casualties forced the government to introduce a conscription bill in 1917.
All men between the ages of twenty and forty-five could now be forced to enlist.
There was widespread opposition to the Military Service Act particularly in Quebec.
Borden was forced to fight the election of 1917 on the issue of conscription.
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Casualties and Enlistments
1917
-5,000.00
10,000.0015,000.0020,000.0025,000.0030,000.0035,000.00
Janu
ary
Mar
chMay
July
Sep
tembe
r
Nov
embe
r
Tro
op
s
Casualties
Enlistment
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The Khaki Election of
1917
Borden entered the election with a Union Government.
This was a coalition of Conservatives and English speaking Liberals.
Debate on the conscription issue divided Canada.
Borden’s victory was assured by the War Time Elections Act giving votes to female relatives of soldiers and the Military Voters Act which allowed soldiers to vote outside their home ridings.
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Results of the
1917 Election
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Liberal Union
P.E.I
N.S.
N.B.
Quebec
Ontario
Manitoba
Sask.
Alta.
B.C.
Yukon
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What was Achieved by the
Military Service Act?
404,395 men were called up.
380,510 men applied for exemptions.
20,000 men reported for training.
In all only 24,000 conscripted men saw service in France.
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The End of the War
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The Last Days
Germany was exhausted on the front and suffering from starvation at home.
Russia withdrew from the war in 1917.
The United States entered the war on the side of Britain and France in the same year.
A final German offensive, Operation Michael, was launched prior to the Americans arriving in numbers, but it failed.
On November 11, 1918 an armistice was signed and a terrible war drew to a close.
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World War I Casualties
0
1,000,000
2,000,000
3,000,000
4,000,000
5,000,000
6,000,000
Dead Wounded
France
British Empire
Russia
Italy
USA
Germany
Austria-Hungary
Turkey
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Canadian Culture and World War I
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Mary Riter Hamilton
1873 - 1954
Several Canadians including Maurice Cullen, A.Y. Jackson and Kenneth Forbes were commissioned by the Canadian War Records Office to paint the battlefields.
Some of the most powerful paintings were produced after the war by Mary Riter Hamilton, an artist from Winnipeg.
She went to France in 1919 and painted the battlefields where Canadians had fought.
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The Sadness of the Somme by Mary Riter Hamilton
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Canadian Monument Passchendaele
Ridge by Mary Riter Hamilton
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Canadian Artillery in
Action by Kenneth Forbes
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John McCrae
1872-1918
John McCrae was a Canadian doctor who went overseas with the Canadian Medical Corps in 1914.
He wrote one of the best known poems of the Great War.
In Flanders Fields and Other Poems was published posthumously in 1919.
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In Flanders Fields
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
In Flanders Fields Museum 68
World War I
and
Canadian Nationalism
69
The War and Canadian
Autonomy
After Vimy the Canadian Corps was commanded by Arthur Currie a Canadian from Victoria, B.C.
In 1916 the British War Cabinet was expanded to become the Imperial War Cabinet which included all of the Dominion prime ministers.
Canada placed her own signature on the Treaty of Versailles and took a separate seat on the League of Nations.
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Conclusion
The war had cost 60,000 Canadian lives but many historians believed that Canada had become a nation on the slopes of Vimy Ridge.
Never again would Canada go to war because of a British declaration.
Canadian industrial power was considerably expanded.
The war had severely strained national unity.
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Additional Web Sites
The Heritage Minutes http://www.heritageproject.ca/media/minutes/default.htm
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Image Credits
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Image Credits
Slide # 1 Canadian War Amps
http://www.waramps.ca/Operation/idx-wwi.html
Slide # 2 National Archives of Canada PA 028128
Slide #14 National Archives of Canada PA 028128
Slide #16 Private Collection, R.W. White
Slide #17 -#21 Private collection, R. W. White
Slide #30 National Archives of Canada PA 001370
Slide #33 Canadian War Amps
http://www.waramps.ca/Operation/idx-wwi.html
Slide #35 Private collection, R. W. White
Slide #37 Private collection, R. W. White
Slide #39 National Archives of Canada C-097748
Every effort has been made to credit images and sound used in this
presentation. All images and sound clips not otherwise credited have
been obtained from clip art collections or are believed to be in the public
domain. The authors would be pleased to correct any omissions.
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Image Credits
Slide #43 Canadian War Amps
http://www.waramps.ca/Operation/idx-wwi.html
Slide #45 National Archives of Canada C-003624C
Slide #52 National Archives of Canada PA-028128
Slide #54 Private collection, R.W. White
Slide #60 Canadian War Amps
http://www.waramps.ca/Operation/idx-wwi.html
Slide #61 National Archives of Canada and The Estate of Mary Riter Hamilton
Slide #62 National Archives of Canada and The Estate of Mary Riter Hamilton
Slide #63 National War Museum 8158 (Accession # 19710261-042)
Slide # 67 National Archives of Canada PA-001370
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