BOOK REVIEW ESSAY

CLIO’S WARRIORS: CANADIAN either in fact or in memory. With 102,000 fatal casualties HISTORIANS AND THE WRITING and hundreds of thousands wounded, either physically OF THE WORLD WARS or mentally, both the national exertions and the grief by Tim Cook generated by the wars were incalculable. Yet, the same : University of Press, events saw the country transformed into a mature nation. in association with the Canadian War Museum, 2006 These wars are the governing event behind all else ISBN 13: 978-0-7748-1256-6 contained in the book. 326 pages Reviewed by Ron Haycock Cook explores the role of the official historians, their keeping of records, and the value and function he English philosopher W.H.Walsh once of archives. He also identifies the common ideas to be commented: “History is an altogether stranger woven throughout his text. Official histories are “those and far more difficult discipline than is authorized by an institution, group or person where often envisioned.” Certainly, after reading the same agent agrees to support the project financially.” Tim Cook’s excellent new book, Clio’s This usually implies that the official historian will have TWarriors: Canadian Historians and the Writing of the World “full access... to otherwise restricted records.” In Wars, one can see that within the swirl of historical the Canadian case, several themes emerge. The relationship writing, there is little doubt that history is also fascinating of official historians with their academic counterparts and complicated. Cook’s work is a was (and still is) fragile at best, and history of the history, primarily of often uneasy. Sometimes there were the official historians who recorded, accusations that official historians preserved, organized, analyzed, and wrote only about the lives of the saints finally wrote about the two most and not of the sinners; or they wrote momentous events to date in Canada’s books that were, as Liddell Hart history: the two world wars. In it, he flippantly once remarked with respect demonstrates that the practice of the to the British official histories, historians’ craft is just as susceptible “official but not history.” Fortunately to pressures as those affecting the this was not the case with the Canadian events about which they are writing. histories. There are reputations at stake, especially when the major players are senior There is little doubt that Canada’s officers still living, or are the government official historians had to steer their officials or the incumbent politicians way through the problems of writing who, mirroring Nikita Khrushchev’s contemporary history – a high-risk observation, think that: “Historians are path fraught with the dangers of dangerous people. They are capable of still living participants, both soldiers upsetting everything.” Sometimes, our and politicians. And so, their histories official historians must save Canadian were often guarded with respect to reputations from our friends, or, at least, making broad judgments, or assigning make sure that the story of the valuable personal blame. They also had to contributions of small allies within a great coalition collect and to process, to read and to analyze millions war are told – for senior coalition partners often seem of pages of information. For years, governments reluctant to do so. Moreover, that “story behind the story” preferred to keep the records closed to public scrutiny, is not dull. Indeed, Cook’s amazing ability to uncover so the official historians were the only people to see the the true excitement, using exhaustive and wide-ranging actual evidence. Consequently, they were in the unique primary and secondary historical materials in the unfolding and important position of controlling documents and narrative, makes this work a fascinating read. “shaping” the archives. All the official historians knew that no archive was neutral, and so, what In many ways, the key part of this book is the quickly evolved was a sense of stewardship. One early introductory essay. Six chapters and a conclusion that tendency was a myopic desire to make sure that the cover details of the official history from 1914 to 2000, last bit of evidence was collected so that the record ending with an assessment of the current state of military was closed until it was complete and protectively history in Canada that follow it. However, the overall “straight.” Sometimes that guardianship was exercised story does not commence with the historians themselves. so vigorously that it impeded the scope of historical Rather, it is the fact that the two world wars of 1914-1918 enquiry for years. Moreover, the official historians and 1939-1945 are the greatest events in Canadian established the first, and thereby formative, history. There is hardly an element of our society that interpretations of how perceived their own has not been touched in one way or another by those wars, world wars.

Spring 2007 ● Canadian Military Journal 105 BOOK REVIEW ESSAY

When the restrictions of general admission Beaverbrook wanted recognition of the magnificent to these archives was finally but slowly eased after contributions and terrible sacrifices made by the Canadian the Second World War, a new generation of non-official Corps. Through a steady stream of media releases, such or “academic” historians, as Cook labels them, reappraised as the series Canada in Flanders, Aitken created a the decades of official interpretation. That they were sense of Canadian distinctiveness and identity lest our able to do so was because their “official brethren” military efforts be buried and forgotten within the had compiled and defended the military archives – a fact history of the British armies. His, then, was not lost upon some but not on others. Moreover, in the the stuff that official history became. It was the stuff last few decades, there have been increasingly more that established the reputation and the uniqueness numerous re-examinations of the documents and of of Canada’s wartime performance. In addition, the official assessments. Cook cautions us that some Beaverbrook knew that a more critical history must of these “new viewers” have forgotten that “...the ultimately be written. As he said: “The world can historian’s duty is to understand events within the not be allowed to forget. Records are necessary to context of the time rather than by reading history knowledge. There can be no history without them.” backwards with the benefit of hindsight.” Nevertheless, Beaverbrook’s Canadian War Records organization this latter fact will ensure that those who do not set the precedent for the documentation of all of this make this error will keep military history under nation’s future conflicts. constant review as new interpretations are deconstructed and reconstructed in a healthy evolution. With academic Near the end of the Great War, fatefully, for both military historians currently widening the scope of good and bad, Lieutenant-Colonel A. F. Duguid study, the discipline has moved beyond the original emerged as Canada’s Official Historian of that war. administrative and campaign focus of the official Moreover, he remained in that position until the end historians to assess the impact of the world wars on of the Second World War, having been originally Canadian society. This broader application makes military commissioned to write an eight-volume official history history much more legitimate and attractive in academic of the 1914-1918 conflict. Nearly 20 years later, and history circles. Perhaps it eventually will change the after many embarrassing questions, in both Parliament minds of those in many civilian universities who, as and in public, Duguid had only managed to produce yet, have not fully accepted military studies into their one volume with companion notes. Cook unravels curricula. Nevertheless, military history seems generally this story with clarity and sympathy. Not a trained alive and well – and a great amount of the credit historian, Duguid spent most of the inter-war period must go to the official historians who first laid the as a steward and compiler of the details of the conflict. foundations and nurtured talented academic successors. He battled with the British official historian, Sir James Edmonds, whom Duguid felt had denigrated As for the general public, far from the predictions the role of the Canadians at the Second Battle of Ypres of some fearful or budget-driven politicians, Canadians n 1915, and Duguid won. He reacted to the American were truly interested in the official history of their wars. official historians in much the same way for their The public strongly endorsed their writing and bought ignorance and neglect of Canada’s war role. He even their books. Yet, while there were varying degrees of resisted, then set straight, Canadian senior soldiers success and even one spectacular failure in the writing such as Garnet Hughes, the wartime Minister’s son, of war history, all the government historians were and Sir Richard Turner, VC, both of whom wanted dedicated, hardworking, analytical historians who set the to put their own “saving spin” on why their commands standard for the gathering, preserving, and writing of had not performed particularly well in battle. Above military history in this country. As Tim Cook frequently all, he wanted to make sure the official history would notes throughout his text, they “formed, fashioned or be a testament to the sacrifice that the Canadian soldier challenged the canon of Canadian World War writing and made in the Great War, and he felt it his duty to make constructed memory.” he documented base as complete and accurate as possible. This was his greatest mistake, because he Cook’s various chapters look at the main personalities did not get down to actually writing the history. As a and forces in the unfolding of the official history for the result, Canadians went into the next war with no history world wars. For the Great War, Sir Max Aitken, later of the preceding war. Lord Beaverbrook, was the original progenitor of both the official historians and a marvellous collection When the next war did break out in 1939, Duguid of military records. Cook puts Beaverbrook in the remained as Official Historian, but soldiers and politicians context of the times, examining, for instance, the reason alike did not want him to repeat his relative inaction why he did what he did. Quite deftly, the author plays this time around. Therefore, in 1940, they appointed other influential personalities and wartime events into the 34-year-old expatriate Canadian and history the narrative, allowing us to see how it all came about. professor, Charles P. Stacey, then teaching at Princeton, In the end, like and Robert Borden, to handle records at the Canadian Military Headquarters

106 Canadian Military Journal ● Spring 2007 BOOK REVIEW ESSAY in London. Back in , Duguid was supposed to Second World War, The Canadian Army, 1939-1945: an get on with finishing his Great War volumes. In contrast, Official Historical Summary. It was an instant bestseller, by gathering professional historians around him overseas, and it won the Governor General’s Gold Medal for Stacey created the organization that compiled and cared Non-Fiction in 1949. Clearly, Stacey was not Duguid. for war records, and he wrote wartime narratives of the Still, when other official volumes appeared in the 1950s, activities of the army in Italy and in Northwest Europe. both Claxton and his successor, Ralph Campney, prevaricated Not only did they record events as they happened, but for years with respect to releasing them to the public, soon, Stacey’s team members – moving in the field with lest there was some damaging political fallout. troops in action – proved their worth by using their narratives as operational research tools in aid of the All through these years, there were other impediments fighting. When peace broke out in 1945, it was this to producing the official history of the war. Old and dynamic group of official historians, as Cook notes, current allies were secretive or reluctant to share the that formed the post-war historical team. vital top-echelon records needed to flesh out the Canadian story. The staff acquired during the war slowly drifted Cook also spends substantial time analyzing the back to academe, or to other civilian jobs. New staff separate course of the official air and naval historians. members had to be recruited, and there were never However, they were not nearly as efficient or as enough to carry out the main task of producing good numerous, nor did they have the same enthusiastic professional military history for the public. On top support of their senior RCAF and RCN officers as of this came the tedious tasks of answering endless did Stacey’s Army Historical Section, either during government and public inquiries. To cut through these hostilities, or afterwards. problems, on several occasions, Stacey threatened to resign, and more often than not, he had to use his Stacey was appointed Official Historian in 1945, other well-established connections in “end runs” replacing Duguid, whose decision not to pursue his designed to preserve the official history projects, and Great War history during the second global conflict was to offset the cloak of secrecy that permeated government perhaps his most consequential act. It cost him a circles, denying public access to military historical records. demotion, and, in 1947, the Minister cancelled the scheme altogether. Duguid was bitter, and Stacey was At the same time, the historical section continued his greatest critic. Years later, in 1962, Stacey wrote to encourage the writing of military history. The high that Duguid had “wasted years of time and thousands quality of the official histories, and the acknowledgements of dollars of public money... Duguid’s shortcomings they received from academe and the public alike, came close to being a national scandal, and as his indicated that the official historians were the leaders successor as Director, I found them a millstone around in the discipline. For his part, and similar to his successors, my neck for years.” Cook does not agree with this C.P. Stacey continued to recruit talented young people excoriating assessment, mirroring the opinions of others into his shop, and just as quickly, it became the incubator at the time. Duguid “may have failed to produce an of future military historians, who would later take historical series,” but, as Cook writes, “he did not fail their places in the civilian universities, teaching military as guardian of the CEF’s memory and reputation.” Nor history. As Cooke concludes, Stacey was, “ a master should he be judged in historical hindsight. In 1962, historian whose command of military history was nearly long after Duguid’s retirement, Stacey’s deputy director, unrivalled.” Colonel G.W.L. Nicholson, produced a single volume history of the CEF, and he paid due respect to Duguid’s By the early 1960s, both Stacey and Nicholson had pioneering efforts as keeper of the Great War records. left the directorate for academe – Stacey going to This directional habit permitted the 1962 official the University of Toronto. There, he wrote the last of the compilations to appear so quickly and to be so thorough. official army histories, Arms, Men and Governments, which dealt with governmental war policies. In 1965, In the decades immediately after the Second World faced with further budget cuts and the need to make War, the fortunes of the official historians led by progress on the air and naval histories, Defence Minister Paul Stacey encountered similar forces as had those of Duguid Hellyer amalgamated the three historical services in in the aftermath of the earlier struggle. Once again, a new Directorate of History (D.Hist). Two professional there were more reputations to consider. There were historians in succession would head this new directorate. soldiers who wanted the history, but not necessarily The first was Syd Wise, a former RCAF officer, followed its criticism. Defence Minister did not by W.A B. Douglas, who was still serving in the navy. think anyone would read an official history, so why, They committed the directorate to producing the air he offered, should the Department pay for its production? and naval Second World War official histories. By 1980, But, by 1948, the Directorate Historical Section, as the first of three air force volumes had appeared, and it was then called, had surprised one and all when it others soon followed. Then came the work on the navy published the first volume of the Official History of the histories. This was about two-thirds completed in the

Spring 2007 ● Canadian Military Journal 107 BOOK REVIEW ESSAY mid-1990s, when the directorate was once again power, he was not critical enough of the senior staff savaged by governmental financial cuts. Staff numbers when such criticism was merited. were gutted to a third of their former complement. There was also a name change, as the historians were Having said all that, Tim Cook also demonstrates forced into another amalgamation with the government the importance of these official historians as leaders, heritage offices, ultimately becoming the Directorate experts, incubators, and protectors of the study and of History and Heritage (DHH). In spite of these setbacks, writing of military history in Canada. Much of what the official historians decided to get additional historical is done in the discipline today can be traced to their information released to the public as quickly as possible. pervasive influence. Given this monumental contribution, Thus, they speeded up the production of excellent any criticism appears minor. In addition, the official military history for the public, who, in turn, were historians established the first images that Canadians more anxious than ever to read it, now that various had of themselves in their world wars. As such, they Second World War event half-century anniversaries were helped the nation identify itself, and in so doing, to occurring with ever-increasing frequency. As had been mature. While they wrote much about campaigns and the case with Duguid’s coverage of the earlier conflict, military organizations, they also set the stage for the memory of the Second World War was starting to new, wider military history that looked at wars’ impact fade from public awareness. In 2003, the first volume upon Canadian society. They also taught a whole generation of the naval history was released to very good reviews, and to ask the essential question: “Why?” This also, in my the second of three planned volumes emerged in 2007. opinion, created an environment for the healthy and appropriate revisionism and re-examination that now And so, as Cook demonstrates, the cycle of permeates the wider military history community. The official history-recording continues, especially since popularity of their works puts paid to any cynical Canada embarked on operations in the Gulf and in comment that Canadians are not interested in their Afghanistan, following years of peacekeeping all over martial past. The records they so carefully compiled the world. The quality of the work of the official and retained have provided the basis of ongoing historians has never waned. Yet, one might criticize deconstruction and reconstruction of the meaning and them on several counts. For example, Duguid failed significance of the world wars. The official historians to complete the Great War volumes, and yet he kept the resisted attempts to censure their writings, and, after records cloistered, tucked away from other scholars the Second World War, they were the primary instruments in and from public scrutiny. Undoubtedly, this policy getting records made available to other scholars, and direction prevented a Canadian military history of to the public. They did not write sycophantic history. the Great War from emerging in a timelier manner, The fact that their work stands up well after many and in a better state. But perhaps Stacey was too harsh decades is ample evidence of that, and so is the opinion of in judgment upon Duguid. After all, it was Duguid first-class scholars who continue to read those histories. who compiled all those documents, and he ultimately In the end, history is, as Cook notes, all we have. ensured that the CEF’s reputation was not maligned, And “we are not yet finished with the world wars, and they, and that it got its due recognition in the face of its it would appear, are not yet finished with us.” tremendous sacrifices. It is difficult to write military history, or history of any kind for the first time, and it Scholarly, well-written, very analytical, and never is even harder to do it for a young nation. Perhaps dull, Tim Cook’s book is marvellous. All Canadians Stacey was – as Tim Cook says – passing a judgment should read it because it reminds us that we are with historical hindsight. Stacey had a “top down” looking at national memories of ourselves as Canadians. view of official history, and he did not bring the individual soldiers’ war often into his writings. Cook also notes that while Stacey managed the “art of the possible” for Doctor Ronald G. Haycock is a Professor of History and War the sake of the Official History in steering between Studies, and a former Dean of Arts at the Royal Military College soldiers’ and politicians’ sensitive reputations and of Canada.

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