Brittany Dunn With the end of the First World War in November 1918 and demobilization following soon after, hundreds of thousands of servicemen returned to Canada and civilian life. Veterans approached their relationships with the government as they applied for state assistance in various ways, but ex-officers typically wanted to avoid dependence on the state, feeling it compromised their status… Read more »
By Eric Story What happened to Canadian veterans after the Great War? In the minds of many, shell shock and physical disfigurement loom large. These two images of veterans have attracted so much attention in both academic writings and cultural representations that they have become representative of the entire population of returning ex-servicemen.[1] However, a group of researchers at the… Read more »
Thomas Vennes Early on the morning of the 4th of May 1916, a military column in French West Africa set out to quell a rebellion. Their mission was one small part of World War I in Africa, about which little is said in Canada. This post helps illuminate the under-appreciated global and colonial ramifications of the First World War. The… Read more »
By Jackson Pind If you drive north from Highway 401 in southern Ontario along county road 45, you will come across the reserve of Alderville First Nation, nestled on the shore of Rice Lake. If you travel in this direction, which summer cottagers and scenic adventurers often do, you will notice a striking monument in the middle of the endless… Read more »
By Elliot Hanowski Did the horrors of the Great War cause Canadian soldiers to lose their faith? Or is it true that there were no atheists in the trenches? The war has generally been seen as a powerfully disillusioning experience. Books such as Paul Fussell’s widely influential The Great War and Modern Memory portray the war as the origins of… Read more »
Nic Clarke The Battle of Vimy Ridge (9-12 April 1917) is held by many Canadians as a pivotal moment in the formation of a distinct Canadian identity, and, indeed, Canada’s transformation from British dominion to independent state. At first glance this belief is not hard to understand. Fighting together for the first time, the four divisions of the Canadian Corps… Read more »
By Nic Clarke Nic Clarke is an historian at the Canadian War Museum who has researched Canadian Expeditionary Force policy concerning the physical fitness of recruits, and the implications of rejection for volunteers. The following is an excerpt from his recent book on the topic, Unwanted Warriors: The Rejected Volunteers of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2015). We publish… Read more »
By Mike Bechthold The loss of a loved one during the First World War was often conveyed by a telegram beginning with the life-altering preamble, “Deeply regret to inform you….” This simple piece of paper heralded the deaths of sons, fathers, husbands, and brothers leaving families to pick up the pieces. Rudyard Kipling, writing of the loss of his son… Read more »
Reviewed by Anne Marie Goodfellow Hands up if you’ve heard of the Canadian Rangers. Don’t worry, I hadn’t heard of them either before reading this book. The Canadian Rangers are a component of the Canadian Forces (CF) who operate at a local level with community volunteers in Canada’s sparsely populated northern and coastal areas. As an anthropologist with a good… Read more »
By Greg Kennedy I recently had the opportunity to participate in a roundtable discussion held by the Department of Political Science here at the University of Moncton. The topic was “Current Foreign Policy and Defence Challenges in Canada” and the roundtable included Jocelyn Coulon, an expert on Canada’s involvement with United Nations peacekeeping operations as well as Jean-François Caron, a… Read more »
