Conscription During World War I - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Conscription During World War I

How Canada handled the problem of dwindling enlistmentsSlide2

Conscription

For the first three years of the war, the Canadian government relied on volunteers to fight

At the start of the war, most able bodied men rushed to volunteer to fight so that they could have the opportunity to travel overseasSlide3

Why Fewer Enlisted

From 1915-1917, Canadian soldiers gained a high reputation within their alliance for courage and bravery

As a result, they were often chosen for the toughest and most dangerous assignments during battlesSlide4

After

Vimy

Ridge

In April 1917, Canadian soldiers had one of their greatest military victories of all time defeating the Germans at Vimy RidgeThat month over 10,000 Canadian soldiers were killed in battle but only 5,000 new recruits enlistedThe volunteer system was no longer bringing in enough people to sustain the war effortSlide5

PM Borden Breaks His Promise

At the start of the war, Prime Minister Robert Borden made a promise to the Canadian people not to introduce conscription

Conscription – a system to make able bodied men join the armed forcesBecause of the lack of recruits, Borden is forced to break that promiseSlide6

Borden’s Plan

In order to break his promise, Prime Minister Borden calls an election on the issue of conscription

If he wins the election, he can prove that conscription is the ‘will of the Canadian people’

The election becomes one of the fiercest and angriest in the history of CanadaSlide7

People Against Conscription

French Canadians

At the start of the war, many French Canadians volunteered to fight overseas

Sam Hughes hated Roman Catholics (many Quebecois were Catholic) so he made their lives difficult in training for the warFrench soldiers were forced to train in EnglishBorden Fired Hughes in 1916 but it was too late to gain favour in QuebecSlide8

People Against Conscription

French Canadians

French Canadians did not have the same ties to Europe and did not see it as their duty to protect Britain

Most felt that it should be up to the individual person whether or not they decided to go to warSlide9

People Against Conscription

Western Canadians

Most people who settled in Western Canada came to Canada to escape from the European wars

In some of their homelands, the governments could force men into the armyThey thought they had escaped that in CanadaSlide10

People Against Conscription

Farmers

They felt their part of the war effort was to provide people with much-needed food

Who will do the work if the men are at war?Slide11

What The Government Did

Prime Minister Borden asked the Leader of the Opposition Wilfred Laurier to form a coalition or union government to present a unified front on conscription

Laurier could not do this because even though he supported the war effort, he was against conscription

Several Liberals joined the Conservatives to form the Unionist Party in favour of conscriptionSlide12

The Election of 1917

The Unionists won the Election of 1917

153 seats for the Unionist Party

82 seats for the LiberalsOnly 20 of the 82 seats the Liberals won came from outside of QuebecThe results did not reflect the Canadian populationHad the votes of soldiers and their families been omitted from the polls, nearly half of the population voted against conscriptionSlide13
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The Aftermath of Conscription

This issue caused a lot of bad blood between French and English Canadians

There were bloody riots in Quebec

This caused a division that still exists in Canadian society