Canada offered aid immediately Prime Minister Robert Borden offered a force of 25000 trained and equipped men to the war effort Even Laurier the official opposition said that Canadians were behind the Mother Country of Britain p32 ID: 684630
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Slide1
Canada Goes to War
Canada Automatically entered WWI as part of the British EmpireSlide2
Canada offered aid immediately
Prime Minister Robert Borden
offered a force of 25,000
trained and equipped men to the war effortEven Laurier, the official opposition, said that “Canadians [were] behind the Mother Country” of Britain (p.32).Volunteers were asked for, and were offered $1 per day10, 000 men volunteered almost immediatelyThe army swelled from 3,000 to more than 30,000 soldiers when Canada joined the warSlide3
Canada offered aid immediately
80% of the August 1914 volunteers who claimed to have had military training in fact had none.
Their eagerness to fight and serve seemed to be enoughSlide4
Volunteerism
People volunteered due to a sense of
patriotism.
devotion/support for one’s country; national loveThe war seemed like a “great adventure,” and was romantic because warfare had not been seen in generationsThere was no understanding of the devastating losses and hardships to comeEveryone believed that this war would be short, and the “boys” fighting would be
home by Christmas.Slide5
Training the Troops
Sir Sam Hughes
(Minister of Militia) was given the enormous task of training and supplying the troops
Uniforms, weapons, rations etc War profiteering was an issue (p.34)He was known as an energetic, albeit inefficient organizerProne to awarding contracts based on patronage and cronyismSlide6
The Ross Rifle
Troops were issued with the Canadian-made
Ross Rifle
Great for hunting, it was known to jam after rapid fireBegan to be called “the Canadian club”Soldiers soon took to discarding their Ross Rifles in preference for the weapons of fallen allies (like the Lee-Enfield carried by the British )Slide7
Basic Training
Camp
Valcartier
in Quebec was built in only four weeks to house and train Canada’s soldiers.After only four months, Canada’s enthusiastic, but ill-prepared young men were sent on to England, and from there, to the front line in FranceSlide8
CEF
Canadian troops were kept together and formed the
Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF)
. The CEF was kept together rather than being integrated into the larger (and far more experienced) British armyImportant to Canada’s sense of national identity and pride, and its autonomy