Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919

Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919
Author: G.W.L. Nicholson
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Total Pages: 709
Release: 2015-11-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0773597905

Colonel G.W.L. Nicholson's Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919 was first published by the Department of National Defence in 1962 as the official history of the Canadian Army’s involvement in the First World War. Immediately after the war ended Colonel A. Fortescue Duguid made a first attempt to write an official history of the war, but the ill-fated project produced only the first of an anticipated eight volumes. Decades later, G.W.L. Nicholson - already the author of an official history of the Second World War - was commissioned to write a new official history of the First. Illustrated with numerous photographs and full-colour maps, Nicholson’s text offers an authoritative account of the war effort, while also discussing politics on the home front, including debates around conscription in 1917. With a new critical introduction by Mark Osborne Humphries that traces the development of Nicholson’s text and analyzes its legacy, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919 is an essential resource for both professional historians and military history enthusiasts.

Montreal at War, 1914–1918

Montreal at War, 1914–1918
Author: Terry Copp
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2021-12-08
Genre: World War, 1914-1918
ISBN: 1487541554

Montreal at War tells the story of how citizens in Canada's largest city responded to the challenges of the First World War. Drawing from newspapers, journals, government reports, and archival records, Terry Copp - one of Canada's leading military historians - raises important questions about how the Canadian war experience has been interpreted, and the ways in which hindsight has privileged some voices over others. Painting a picture of life in Montreal during the first years of the twentieth century, Montreal at War addresses responses to the outbreak of war in Europe and the process of raising an army for service overseas. It details the shock of intense combat and heavy casualties, studies the mobilization of volunteers, and follows the experience of battalions from Montreal to the Battle of Vimy Ridge. The crisis of conscription is described in the context of national and local developments, and great attention is paid to the experiences of both the army overseas and civilians at home. Challenging long-held assumptions, Montreal at War aims to understand the war experience as it unfolded, approaching history from the perspective of those who lived through it.

The Canadian Corps in World War I

The Canadian Corps in World War I
Author: René Chartrand
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 50
Release: 2012-12-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 178200906X

This book describes the organization, lists the units and illustrates the uniforms and equipment of the four Canadian divisions which earned an elite reputation on the Western Front in 1915-18. Canada's 600,000 troops of whom more than 66,000 died and nearly 150,000 were wounded represented an extraordinary contribution to the British Empire's struggle. On grim battlefields from the Ypres Salient to the Somme, and from their stunning victory at Vimy Ridge to the final triumphant 'Hundred Days' advance of autumn 1918, Canada's soldiers proved themselves to be a remarkable army in their own right, founding a national tradition.

Unwanted Warriors

Unwanted Warriors
Author: Nic Clarke
Publisher: UBC Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2015-10-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0774828919

Unwanted Warriors uncovers the history of Canada’s first casualties of the Great War – men who tried to enlist but were deemed “unfit for service” by medical examiners. Condemned as shirkers for not being in uniform, rejected volunteers faced severe ostracism. Nagging guilt, coupled with self-doubt about their social and physical worth, led many of these men to divorce themselves from society ... or worse. Nic Clarke draws on the service files of 3,400 rejected volunteers to examine the deleterious effects that socially constructed norms of health and fitness had on individual men and Canadian society. He considers the mechanics of the military medical examination, the psychical and psychological characteristics that the authorities believed made a fighting man, and how evaluations changed as the war dragged on. He also brings to light the experiences of those who deliberately claimed disability to avoid service – a minority within the large population of rejected volunteers who felt denigrated, if not emasculated, by their exclusion from duty.

Bibliographie de la Vie Militaire Au Canada, 1867-1995

Bibliographie de la Vie Militaire Au Canada, 1867-1995
Author: O. A. Cooke
Publisher: Directorate of History and Heritage, Department of National Defence = Direction--Histoire et patrimoine, Ministère de la défense nationale
Total Pages: 548
Release: 1997
Genre: History
ISBN:

Canadian military history and military matters have not been well represented in general in retrospective bibliographies of Canadian or in international military bibliographies. What has been attempted in this document is a bibliography of published primary sources and secondary works on Canadian military topics, excluding poetry and fiction, covering the period from Confederation to the present. Entries in the bibliography represent printed monographs, books and pamphlets, and serial titles. The prime criteria of inclusion were that the work be chiefly or uniquely both Canadian and military in its contents. Many in-house publications, of the training pamphlet or regulations type, have been included, but only insofar as they tell us something of the armed forces themselves, rather than details of tactical doctrine or of pieces of equipment. Works by or about Canadians serving with the armed forces of other countries have been included, as well as materials relating to the military history of Newfoundland since 1867.

Reluctant Warriors

Reluctant Warriors
Author: Patrick M. Dennis
Publisher: UBC Press
Total Pages: 333
Release: 2017-09-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 0774836008

During the “Hundred Days” campaign of the First World War, over 30 percent of conscripts who served in the Canadian Corps became casualties. Yet, they were generally considered slackers for not having volunteered to fight. Reluctant Warriors is the first examination of the pivotal role played by Canadian conscripts in the final campaign of the Great War on the Western Front. Challenging long-standing myths about conscripts, Patrick Dennis examines whether these men arrived at the right moment, and in sufficient numbers, to make any significant difference to the success of the Canadian Corps. He examines the conscripts themselves, their journey to war, the battles in which they fought, and their largely undocumented sacrifice and heroism. Reluctant Warriors sheds new light on the success of the Military Service Act and provides fresh evidence that conscripts were good soldiers who fought valiantly and made a crucial contribution to the war effort.