Enlistment in the Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914-1918
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Canadian Military History Volume 24 Issue 1 Article 23 2015 Enlistment in the Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914-1918 Chris Sharpe Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh Part of the Military History Commons Recommended Citation Chris Sharpe "Enlistment in the Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914-1918." Canadian Military History 24, 1 (2015) This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Canadian Military History by an authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact [email protected]. : Enlistment in the Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914-1918 Enlistment in the Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914-1918 A Re-evaluation1 CHRIS SHARPE Abstract: Critical analysis of Canada’s recruitment for the war effort has three main themes. The first is that the government undertook to raise an expeditionary force too large to be maintained by voluntary enlistment. As a result, conscription for overseas service had to be imposed, creating enduring rifts between regions and linguistic groups. The second is that too few Canadian-born men enlisted. The third is that the low enlistment rate among French-Canadians was a national embarrassment. This paper examines the regional patterns of enlistment, evaluates the arguments advanced to explain the French-Canadian ambivalence to the war, and concludes that conscription was necessary v a l u a t i o n s o f C a n a d a ’s military contribution to the First World War generally incorporate three themes: that voluntary Eenlistment fell short of the need; that Canadian-born men did not do their fair share; and that the shortcomings of the national effort 1 The first version of this paper appeared thirty years ago. See C.A. Sharpe, “Enlistment in the Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914-1918: A Regional Analysis,” Journal of Canadian Studies 18 (1984), 15-29. No new data have become available since then although efforts to refine our knowledge of Great War enlistments are ongoing. For example, see Jonathan F. Vance, “Provincial Patterns of Enlistment in the Canadian Expeditionary Force,” Canadian Military History 17 (2008), 75-78. This paper consolidates and refines some of the data on Canada’s military contribution to the War and corrects some errors of calculation. It also integrates some of the new scholarship relevant to a critical evaluation of the three themes outlined in the opening paragraph. © Canadian Military History 24, no. 1 (Winter/Spring 2015): 17-60 Published by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2015 1 Canadian Military History, Vol. 24 [2015], Iss. 1, Art. 23 18 : Enlistment in the Canadian Expeditionary Force were largely the fault of the province of Quebec which had the lowest enlistment rate in the country. In what might be characterised as a typical, self-deprecating Canadian attitude, the never-ending debate over these questions continues to cast a shadow over the legacy of what has been described as the “Shock Army of the British Empire.”2 This paper is a critical evaluation of these themes. THE COMMITTMENT When His Majesty’s Government announced a state of war with Germany on 4 August 1914, Canada, as well as the Dominions of Australia, New Zealand, and Newfoundland, was also at war. Until the 1931 Statute of Westminster, the autonomy of dominions extended only to internal affairs. They had no role in formulating foreign policy, no authority to declare war or make peace, and had played no part in the cascade of diplomatic exchanges which led to the catastrophe. None had been consulted before the declaration of war. All Canada reserved was the right to decide the form and size of her contribution. Hoping to demonstrate that the country was a valuable part of the empire and deserving of more recognition than she had hitherto been awarded, the government placed great significance on battlefield successes.3 The most iconic was Vimy Ridge, where the Canadian Corps achieved a tactical victory which had eluded all previous attackers.4 The emergence of Canada as a nation is still frequently tied to this event. Speaking at the Vimy Memorial in 2007, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said “every nation has a creation story to tell. The First World War and Vimy are central to the story of our country.”5 The immediate Canadian response to the declaration of war was enthusiastic. The size of the initial rush of recruits can be explained 2 Shane B. Schreiber, Shock Army of the British Empire: The Canadian Corps in the Last 100 Days of the Great War (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1997). 3 Jeffrey A. Keshen, “The Great War Soldiers as Nation-Builders in Canada and Australia,” 3-26, in Canada and the Great War, Briton C. Busch, ed. (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003), 20. 4 Terry Copp, “The Military Effort, 1914-1918,” 35-61, in Canada and the First World War: Essays in Honour of Robert Craig Brown, David MacKenzie, ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 51. 5 Margaret MacMillan, The Uses and Abuses of History (Toronto: Penguin, 2008), 68. https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol24/iss1/23 2 : Enlistment in the Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914-1918 S H A R P E 19 in part by the widespread belief that the fighting would be over by Christmas.6 It also reflected the high levels of unemployment in urban-based manufacturing industry, and the prospect of poor harvests, especially in the Prairies. By the end of 1914 almost 60,000 men and women had offered themselves for service in the newly- created Canadian Expeditionary Force (c e f ). Although more than seventy percent of these men were British-born the fact that native- born Canadians were initially unenthusiastic about fighting for king and empire was not an issue in 1914. But it was soon to become a source of national concern.7 With the benefit of hindsight, the story of Canada’s commitment to the war effort might be called ‘two divisions too many’. The political and cultural problems which followed the imposition of conscription in 1917, and the century-long anguish over whether Canadians made an adequate military contribution to the war effort might never had occurred if the government had not made what many have argued was a hasty and ill-advised decision about the size of the expeditionary force that it was prepared to send overseas. War planning is an inexact science and in the fall of 1914 no Canadian politician or soldier could realistically have predicted that the war would last more than four years, and cost almost 67,000 Canadian lives. But if Prime Minister Robert Borden had been less concerned with his efforts to expand Canada’s role in imperial affairs, and more inclined to listen to the advice he was given by his military advisors, the Canadian war effort might not have been extended beyond the country’s ability to maintain it on a voluntary basis. Two days after war was declared the Cabinet authorised the creation of an active service force. On 8 August Sir George Perley, acting Canadian high commissioner in London (and soon to become the minister of overseas forces of Canada), advised Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden that Lord Kitchener, British minister of war, was 6 The hope and, indeed, expectation that the war would be short was shared by more than just the first groups of eager recruits. European civilian and military leaders expected, and had planned for a short, decisive war, knowing that a conflict prolonged by the increasing advantages of defenders, would raise the spectre of defeat and inevitable social upheaval. See Margaret MacMillan, The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914 (Toronto: Allen Lane, 2013), 334. 7 Ronald G. Haycock, Sam Hughes: The Public Career or a Controversial Canadian, 1885-1916 (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier Press, 1986), 202. Published by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2015 3 Canadian Military History, Vol. 24 [2015], Iss. 1, Art. 23 20 : Enlistment in the Canadian Expeditionary Force very grateful for the “splendid offer” of Canadian troops, and “hopes you can send him full division of twenty to twenty-five thousand. Says he can use all you think best to send.”8 Although the authorised strength of the force was set at 25,000 on 10 August, Kitchener got more than that. On 3 October a thirty-ship convoy departed for England carrying 31,200 Canadian soldiers— the largest military force that had ever crossed the Atlantic as a unit.9 The authorised strength of the c e f was doubled to 50,000 on 7 November. At this point Major-General Gwatkin, the sensible old British soldier who was chief of the Canadian General Staff, told Prime Minister Borden that maintaining a field force of this size was the maximum contribution the country ought to undertake, since nobody knew how long the war might last and the required ratio of enlistments to men at the front would be at least three to one.10 Perley warned Borden that Canada should not commit to providing more divisions than she could reinforce and suggested that two full divisions with reserves, totaling twelve to fifteen thousand men, was likely the practical limit. Borden also heard from the Deputy Minister of Militia and Defence Colonel Eugene Fiset who advised “having regard to what war wastage means, it would be better to concentrate effort on the raising and training of reinforcements than to go on adding to the number of units at the front.”11 All this sage advice was ignored. At the end of May 1915 the War Office, taken aback by the number of casualties sustained during the German spring offensive, announced that His Majesty’s Government would “accept with deep gratitude an 8 C.P.