Download or read book Shoestring Soldiers written by Andrew Iarocci and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2008-09-26 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Great War was a pivotal experience for twentieth-century Canada. Shoestring Soldiers is the first scholarly study since 1938 to focus exclusively on Canada's initial overseas experience from late 1914 to the end of 1915. In this exciting new work, Andrew Iarocci challenges the dominant view that the 1st Canadian Division was poorly prepared for war in 1914, and less than effective during battles in 1915. He examines the first generations of men to serve overseas with the division: their training, leadership, morale, and combat operations from Salisbury Plain to the Ypres Salient, from the La Bassée Canal to Ploegsteert Wood. Iarocci contends that setbacks and high losses in battle were not so much the products of poor training and weak leadership as they were of inadequate material resources on the Western Front. Shoestring Soldiers incorporates a wealth of research material from official documents, soldiers' letters and diaries, and the battlefields themselves, surveyed extensively by the author. It marks an important contribution to the growing body of literature on Canada in the First World War.

Download or read book Canada s Army written by J. L. Granatstein and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2011-01-01 with total page 605 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Canada's Army traces the full three-hundred year history of the Canadian military from its origins in New France to the Conquest, the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812; from South Africa and the two World Wars to the Korean War and contemporary peacekeeping efforts, and the War in Afghanistan. Granatstein points to the inevitable continuation of armed conflict around the world and makes a compelling case for Canada to maintain properly equipped and professional armed forces."--pub. desc.

Download or read book Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914 1919 written by G.W.L. Nicholson and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 2015-11-01 with total page 709 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book It Can t Last Forever written by David Campbell and published by Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press. This book was released on 2017-10-12 with total page 731 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 19th Battalion was an infantry unit that fought in many of the deadliest battles of the First World War. Hailing from Hamilton, Toronto, and other communities in southern Ontario and beyond, its members were ordinary men facing extraordinary challenges at the Somme, Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele, Amiens, and other battlefields on Europe’s Western Front. Through his examination of official records and personal accounts, the author presents vivid descriptions and assessments of the rigours of training, the strains of trench warfare, the horrors of battle, and the camaraderie of life behind the front lines. From mobilization in 1914 to the return home in 1919, Campbell reveals the unique experiences of the battalion’s officers and men and situates their service within the broader context of the battalion’s parent formations—the 4th Infantry Brigade and the 2nd Division of the Canadian Corps. Readers will gain a fuller appreciation of the internal dynamics of an infantry battalion and how it functioned within the larger picture of Canadian operations.

Download or read book Clio s Warriors written by Tim Cook and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 2011-11-01 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Clio's Warriors examines how the Canadian world war experience has been constructed and reconstructed over time. Tim Cook elucidates the role of historians in codifying the sacrifice and struggle of a generation as he discusses historical memory and writing, the creation of archives, and the war of reputations that followed each of the world wars on the battlefield. Only recently have military historians pushed the discipline to explore the impact of war on society. In analyzing where the practice of academic military history has come from and where it needs to go, Clio's Warriors plays a vital role in the ongoing challenge of writing critical history.

Download or read book Expeditionary Forces in the First World War written by Alan Beyerchen and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-09-03 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When war engulfed Europe in 1914, the conflict quickly took on global dimensions. Although fighting erupted in Africa and Asia, the Great War primarily pulled troops from around the world into Europe and the Ottoman Empire. Amid the fighting were large numbers of expeditionary forces—and yet they have remained largely unstudied as a collective phenomenon, along with the term “expeditionary force” itself. This collection examines the expeditionary experience through a wide range of case studies. They cover major themes such as the recruitment, transport, and supply of far-flung troops; the cultural and linguistic dissonance, as well as gender relations, navigated by soldiers in foreign lands; the political challenge of providing a rationale to justify their dislocation and sacrifice; and the role of memory and memorialization. Together, these essays open up new avenues for understanding the experiences of soldiers who fought the First World War far from home.

Download or read book Deserters of the First World War written by Andrea Hetherington and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2021-07-07 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of First World War deserters who were shot at dawn, then pardoned nearly a century later has often been told, but these 306 soldiers represent a tiny proportion of deserters. More than 80,000 cases of desertion and absence were tried at courts martial on the home front but these soldiers have been ignored. Andrea Hetherington, in this thought-provoking and meticulously researched account, sets the record straight by describing the deserters who disappeared from camps and barracks within Great Britain at an alarming rate. She reveals how they employed a range of survival strategies, some ridding themselves of all connection with the military while others hid in plain sight. Their reasons for desertion varied. Some were already living a life of crime whilst others were conscientious objectors who refused to respond to their call-up papers. Boredom, protest, troubles at home or physical and mental disabilities all played their part in men deciding to go on the run. Andrea Hetherington’s timely book gives us a vivid insight into a hitherto overlooked aspect of the First World War.

Download or read book Reluctant Warriors written by Patrick M. Dennis and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 2017-09-22 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Fight Or Pay written by Desmond Morton and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One Canadian in eight volunteered to fight between 1914 and 1918 and more than half of them were enlisted. Soldiers left their families behind to the tender mercy of a tight-fisted government and the Canadian Patriotic Fund, a national charity dominated by its wealthy donors. In time, the soldiers were remembered as the sacrificial heroes who won Canada a respected place in the world. The women who paid in loneliness and poverty were as easily forgotten as their letters, soaked in blood and Flanders mud. Fight or Pay tells the story of what happened to the soldiers' families and their quiet contributions to a fairer deal for Canadians in peace and war.

Download or read book Old Enough to Fight written by Dan Black and published by James Lorimer & Company. This book was released on 2013-09-18 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 15,000 and 20,000 underage youths, some as young as ten, signed up to fight in Canada's armed forces in the First World War. They served in the trenches alongside their elders, and fought in all the major battles: Ypres, the Somme, Passchendaele, Vimy Ridge, and the rest. Many were injured or suffered psychological wounds. Many died. This is the first book to tell their story. Some boys joined up to escape unhappy homes and workplaces. Others went with their parents' blessing, carrying letters from fathers and mothers asking the recruiters to take their eager sons. The romantic notion of a short, victorious campaign was wiped out the second these boys arrived on the Western Front. The authors, who narrate the fighting with both military professionalism and humanity, portray many boys who, in the heat of battle, made a seamless transition from follower to leader to hero. Authors Dan Black and John Boileau combed the archives and collections to bring these stories to life. Passages from letters the boy soldiers wrote home reveal the range of emotions and experiences they underwent, from the humorous to the unspeakably horrible. Their parents' letters touch us with their concern, love, uncertainty, and often, grief. Meticulously researched and abundantly illustrated with photographs, paintings, and a collection of specially commissioned maps, Old Enough to Fight is Canadian military and social history at its most fascinating.

Download or read book Race to the Front written by Kevin D. Stubbs and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2002-09-30 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When war broke out in Europe in 1914, nearly every combatant foresaw a short decisive conflict. Experience would soon prove, however, that this belief was sorely misplaced. Eventually, excessive economic dislocations would topple every authoritarian regime. Only the intervention of the United States would save the British and the French from collapse. This book traces the trilateral struggle between the Entente, the Central Powers, and the United States to determine the outcome of the war. Stubbs focuses on a few essential factors vital to understanding this three-way race: the acquisition of war materiel, food, human resources, and the movement of each. In an analysis of coalition strategies, it is not enough to study the memoirs and memoranda of General Staffs or political figures engaged in war. One must also examine the roles played by each population, their industries, economy, means of transportation, and the financial decisions that make such strategies possible. In short, the material foundations of war set the boundaries within which strategic maneuvers occur. Ultimately, the United States determined the outcome of the First World War, not simply because it provided the last untapped reservoir of manpower, but due to its overall economic contributions to the allied effort.

Download or read book Behind the Front written by Craig Gibson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-03-27 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Until now scholars have looked for the source of the indomitable Tommy morale on the Western Front in innate British bloody-mindedness and irony, not to mention material concerns such as leave, food, rum, brothels, regimental pride, and male bonding. However, re-examining previously used sources alongside never-before consulted archives, Craig Gibson shifts the focus away from battle and the trenches to times behind the front, where the British intermingled with a vast population of allied civilians, whom Lord Kitchener had instructed the troops to 'avoid'. Besides providing a comprehensive examination of soldiers' encounters with local French and Belgian inhabitants which were not only unavoidable but also challenging, symbiotic and uplifting in equal measure, Gibson contends that such relationships were crucial to how the war was fought on the Western Front and, ultimately, to British victory in 1918. What emerges is a novel interpretation of the British and Dominion soldier at war.

Download or read book The Seabound Coast written by William Johnston and published by Dundurn. This book was released on 2011-01-14 with total page 1292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Commended for the 2011 Keith Matthews Award From its creation in 1910, the Royal Canadian Navy was marked by political debate over the countrys need for a naval service. The Seabound Coast, Volume I of a three-volume official history of the RCN, traces the story of the navys first three decades, from its beginnings as Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Lauriers tinpot navy of two obsolescent British cruisers to the force of six modern destroyers and four minesweepers with which it began the Second World War. The previously published Volume II of this history, Part 1, No Higher Purpose, and Part 2, A Blue Water Navy, has already told the story of the RCN during the 19391945 conflict. Based on extensive archival research, The Seabound Coast recounts the acrimonious debates that eventually led to the RCNs establishment in 1910, its tenuous existence following the Laurier governments sudden replacement by that of Robert Borden one year later, and the navys struggles during the First World War when it was forced to defend Canadian waters with only a handful of resources. From the effects of the devastating Halifax explosion in December 1917 to the U-boat campaign off Canadas East Coast in 1918, the volume examines how the RCNs task was made more difficult by the often inconsistent advice Ottawa received from the British Admiralty in London. In its final section, this important and well-illustrated history relates the RCNs experience during the interwar years when anti-war sentiment and an economic depression threatened the services very survival.

Download or read book The Apathetic and the Defiant written by Craig L. Mantle and published by Dundurn. This book was released on 2007-02-12 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Canadian soldiers have served their country for centuries, and for the most part they have done so honourably and loyally. Yet, on certain occasions, their conduct has been anything but honourable. Whether by disobeying their legal orders, terrorizing the local population, or committing crimes in general, some soldiers have embodied the very antithesis of appropriate military conduct. Covering examples of unsavoury behaviour in the representatives of our military forces from the War of 1812 to the immediate aftermath of the First World War, The Apathetic and the Defiant reveals that disobedience and mutiny have marked all of the major conflicts in which Canada has participated. Canadian military indiscipline has long been overshadowed by the nation’s victories and triumphs ... until now.

Download or read book Propaganda and Censorship During Canada s Great War written by Jeff Keshen and published by University of Alberta. This book was released on 1996-07 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: They expected the brave and Christian conquering heroes manufactured by the opinion-makers, rather than the combat-scarred, weary, and often embittered men who disembarked back in the Dominion. It took another decade of less-filtered information - ten years of pain and dislocation for returned veterans - before the Great War imagined by Canadian noncombatants began to resemble the war really experienced by Canadians overseas.

Download or read book The Great War written by Kellen Kurschinski and published by Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press. This book was released on 2015-10-23 with total page 623 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Great War: From Memory to History offers a new look at the multiple ways the Great War has been remembered and commemorated through the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. Drawing on contributions from history, cultural studies, film, and literary studies this collection offers fresh perspectives on the Great War and its legacy at the local, national, and international levels. More importantly, it showcases exciting new research on the experiences and memories of “forgotten” participants who have often been ignored in dominant narratives or national histories. Contributors to this international study highlight the transnational character of memory-making in the Great War’s aftermath. No single memory of the war has prevailed, but many symbols, rituals, and expressions of memory connect seemingly disparate communities and wartime experiences. With groundbreaking new research on the role of Aboriginal peoples, ethnic minorities, women, artists, historians, and writers in shaping these expressions of memory, this book will be of great interest to readers from a variety of national and academic backgrounds.

Download or read book Canada and the British World written by Phillip Buckner and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 2011-11-01 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Canada and the British World surveys Canada's national history through a British lens. In a series of essays focusing on the social, cultural, and intellectual aspects of Canadian identity over more than a century, the complex and evolving relationship between Canada and the larger British World is revealed. Examining the transition from the strong belief of nineteenth-century Canadians in the British character of their country to the realities of modern multicultural Canada, this book eschews nostalgia in its endeavour to understand the dynamic and complicated society in which Canadians did and do live.