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.

Filling the Ranks

Filling the Ranks
Author: Richard Holt
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Total Pages:
Release: 2017-04-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0773549102

Manpower is the lifeblood of armies regardless of time or place. In the First World War, much of Canada’s military effort went toward sustaining the Canadian Expeditionary Force, especially in France and Belgium. The job was not easy. The government and Department of Militia and Defence were tasked with recruiting and training hundreds of thousands of men, shipping them to England, and creating organizations on the continent meant to forward these men to their units. The first book to explore the issue of manpower in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, Filling the Ranks examines the administrative and organizational changes that fostered efficiency and sustained the army. Richard Holt describes national civilian and military recruitment policies and criteria both inside and outside of Canada; efforts to recruit women, convicts, and members of First Nations, African Canadian, Asian, and Slavic communities; the conduct of entry-level training; and the development of a coherent reinforcement structure. Canada’s ability to fill the ranks with trained soldiers ultimately helped make the Corps an elite formation within the British Expeditionary Force. Based on extensive research in British and Canadian archives, Filling the Ranks provides a wealth of new information on Canada"s role in the Great War.

The 24th Battalion, C.E.F., Victoria Rifles of Canada, 1914-1919

The 24th Battalion, C.E.F., Victoria Rifles of Canada, 1914-1919
Author: R C (Robert Collie Fetherstonhaugh
Publisher: Hassell Street Press
Total Pages: 390
Release: 2021-09-10
Genre:
ISBN: 9781015266964

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

The Brigade

The Brigade
Author: Terry Copp
Publisher: Stackpole Books
Total Pages: 392
Release: 2007
Genre: History
ISBN: 0811734226

Battalion- and company-level account of the vital contributions of Canadian soldiers to victory in Europe in World War II Based on war diaries, casualty reports, and after-action interviews The author is one of Canada's preeminent military historians Consisting of the Calgary Highlanders, the Black Watch, and the French-speaking Règiment de Maisonneuve, the 5th Canadian Infantry Brigade landed in France in early July 1944 as part of British General Bernard Montgomery's 21st Army Group. That summer, the brigade participated in hellish battles in Normandy, including Caen and VerriÃ(c)res Ridge. The 5th went on to distinguish itself in Belgium, where it endured foul weather and fierce resistance near Antwerp in October 1944, and ended the war with bloody streetfighting in the towns of Holland.

Shock Troops

Shock Troops
Author: Tim Cook
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 996
Release: 2016-08-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 0735233101

Shock Troops follows the Canadian fighting forces during the titanic battles of Vimy Ridge, Hill 70, Passchendaele, and the Hundred Days campaign. Through the eyes of the soldiers who fought and died in the trenches on the Western Front, and based on newly uncovered Canadian, British, and German archival sources, Cook builds on Volume I of his national bestseller, At the Sharp End. The Canadian fighting forces never lost a battle during the final two years of the war, and although they paid a terrible price in the killing fields of the Great War, they were indeed, as British Prime Minister David Lloyd George exclaimed, the shock troops of the Empire.

For King and Kanata

For King and Kanata
Author: Timothy Charles Winegard
Publisher: Univ. of Manitoba Press
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2012
Genre: History
ISBN: 0887554180

"The first comprehensive history of the Aboriginal First World War experience on the battlefield and the home front. When the call to arms was heard at the outbreak of the First World War, Canada's First Nations pledged their men and money to the Crown to honour their long-standing tradition of forming military alliances with Europeans during times of war, and as a means of resisting cultural assimilation and attaining equality through shared service and sacrifice. Initially, the Canadian government rejected these offers based on the belief that status Indians were unsuited to modern, civilized warfare. But in 1915, Britain intervened and demanded Canada actively recruit Indian soldiers to meet the incessant need for manpower. Thus began the complicated relationships between the Imperial Colonial and War Offices, the Department of Indian Affairs, and the Ministry of Militia that would affect every aspect of the war experience for Canada's Aboriginal soldiers. In his groundbreaking new book, For King and Kanata, Timothy C. Winegard reveals how national and international forces directly influenced the more than 4,000 status Indians who voluntarily served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force between 1914 and 1919--a per capita percentage equal to that of Euro-Canadians--and how subsequent administrative policies profoundly affected their experiences at home, on the battlefield, and as returning veterans."--Publisher's website.

Toronto’s Fighting 75th in the Great War 1915–1919

Toronto’s Fighting 75th in the Great War 1915–1919
Author: Timothy J. Stewart
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press
Total Pages: 722
Release: 2017-09-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 177112184X

Foreword by His Royal Highness Charles, Prince of Wales Hospital ships filled the harbour of Le Havre as the 75th Mississauga Battalion arrived on 13 August 1916. Those soldiers who survived would spend almost three years in a tiny corner of northeastern France and northwestern Belgium (Flanders), where many of their comrades still lie. And they would serve in many of the most horrific battles of that long, bloody conflict—Saint Eloi, the Somme, Arras, Vimy, Hill 70, Lens, Passchendaele, Amiens, Drocourt-Quéant, Canal du Nord, Cambrai, and Valenciennes. This book tells the story of the 75th Battalion (later the Toronto Scottish Regiment) and the five thousand men who formed it—most from Toronto—from all walks of life. They included professionals, university graduates, white- and blue-collar workers, labourers, and the unemployed, some illiterate. They left a comfortable existence in the prosperous, strongly pro-British provincial capital for life in the trenches of France and Flanders. Tommy Church, mayor of Toronto from 1915 to 1921, sought to include his city’s name in the unit’s name because of the many city officials and local residents who served in it. Three years later Church accepted the 75th’s now heavily emblazoned colours for safekeeping at City Hall from Lieutenant-Colonel Colin Harbottle, who returned with his bloodied but successful survivors. The author pulls no punches in recounting their labours, triumphs, and travails. Timothy J. Stewart undertook exhaustive research for this first-ever history of the 75th, drawing from archival sources (focusing on critical decisions by Brigadier Victor Oldum, General Officer Commanding 11th Brigade), diaries, letters, newspaper accounts, and interviews.

The Canadian Corps in World War I

The Canadian Corps in World War I
Author: René Chartrand
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 133
Release: 2012-12-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 1782008454

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.