Yankees Who Fought for the Maple Leaf: a History of the American Citizens

University of Nebraska at Omaha DigitalCommons@UNO Student Work 12-1-1997 Yankees who fought for the maple leaf: A history of the American citizens who enlisted voluntarily and served with the Canadian Expeditionary Force before the United States of America entered the First World War, 1914-1917 T J. Harris University of Nebraska at Omaha Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/studentwork Recommended Citation Harris, T J., "Yankees who fought for the maple leaf: A history of the American citizens who enlisted voluntarily and served with the Canadian Expeditionary Force before the United States of America entered the First World War, 1914-1917" (1997). Student Work. 364. https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/studentwork/364 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UNO. It has been accepted for inclusion in Student Work by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UNO. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “Yankees Who Fought For The Maple Leaf’ A History of the American Citizens Who Enlisted Voluntarily and Served with the Canadian Expeditionary Force Before the United States of America Entered the First World War, 1914-1917. A Thesis Presented to the Department of History and the Faculty of the Graduate College University of Nebraska In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts University of Nebraska at Omaha by T. J. Harris December 1997 UMI Number: EP73002 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI Dissertation Publishing UMI EP73002 Published by ProQuest LLC (2015). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code ProQuest ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 Acceptance Page Thesis Acceptance Acceptance for the faculty of the Graduate College, University of Nebraska, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts, University of Nebraska at Omaha. Committee Name Department/School ( ON o') ^ ----- Chairperson^ -~ -Z ^ ^ ^ c^ /lAc: H }srtD vy(UA/0) Date ^7o\r^YnittLK^ /3 A3 3 7 — ;-------- zr~ Abstract This thesis examines the American citizens who enlisted voluntarily and served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force before the United States entered the First World War. This study provides an overview of the CEF’s recruitment of Americans, the motives and consequences for Americans enlisting in the CEF, the CEF’s five “American” overseas infantry battalions, named the “American Legion,” which were designed to recruit American citizens, and the combat experiences of Americans serving in the CEF on the Western Front from 1914-1917. This thesis was based on the Canadian Department of Militia and Defence’s records of the CEF, Canadian war service records, the CEF’s enlistment records, American Department of State documents, personal papers and letters, autobiographies, and published accounts. While the United States government remained neutral during the First World War, Canada’s expeditionary force to France and Belgium provided an opportunity for at least forty-one thousand American citizens to serve in an Allied army. Americans provided the CEF with a supplemental source of voluntary manpower, but their presence also raised political and military issues in Canada, diplomatic agitatations between Great Britain, Canada, and the United States, and American citizenship questions for the CEF’s American volunteers. The Americans who served in the CEF before April 6, 1917, represented those citizens of the United States who disagreed with the Wilson administration’s decision to remain neutral for the first thirty-two months of the war. Acknowledgments First, I would like to thank the National Archives of Canada and the Canadian National Library in Ottawa, Ontario. While researching at the National Archives of Canada, their research and reading room staff, particularly Tim Wright, were instrumental in providing information and guidance to sources. Without their tireless assistance and direction this master’s thesis would not have been possible. I would also like to give a special thanks to Dr. Bruce M. Garver from the Department of History at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, who was enthusiastic about my project, advised and monitored my progress, and served as precise proofreader. Members of my thesis committee also need to be recognized for their contribution. From the University of Nebraska at Omaha Dr. Harl A. Dalstrom and Dr. Walter M. Bacon Jr. and from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln Dr. Peter Maslowski. For preparing me to write academic papers, I would like to thank the entire Department of History faculty from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, especially Dr. Oliver B. Poliak, Dr. Jerold L. Simmons, and Dr. Dale A. Gaeddert. Many relatives and friends provided me with financial and moral support during the months of researching and writing this thesis. I would like to thank my father, James A. Harris, who traveled with me to Ottawa and aided me with my research there, and my mother, Anna Mae Harris, who repeatedly encouraged me to “shoot the wolf closest to me.” Finally, I acknowledge a great indebtedness to Kristy Vanderhoof who had to endure my daily frustrations and in turn pacified my anxieties. Table of Contents Introduction.......................................................................................1-12 Chapter One...................................................................................... 13-54 The Canadian Expeditionary Force’s Recruitment of American Citizens Figure 1 - CEF Recruiting Advertisement .................. 40 Chapter Two......................................................................................55-91 Enlistment of Americans in the Canadian Expeditionary Force: Motivations, Consequences & Numbers Table 1 - Number of Americans in the CEF ................60 Figure 2 - CEF Attestation Paper.........................75 Chapter Three................................................................................... 92-126 The Canadian Expeditionary Force’s “American Legion,” 1915-1917 Chapter Four.....................................................................................127-159 American Combat Experiences in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1915-1917 Conclusion......................................................................................... 160-167 Appendix............................................................................................168-169 Concise History of the CEF’s American Legion Endnotes.............................................................................................170-197 Bibliography 198-213 1 Introduction This thesis discusses the American citizens who volunteered and served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force before the United States government entered the First World War on April 6, 1917. By examining the Canadian government’s administration of enlisting and recruiting American citizens in the CEF, the motivations and consequences for enlisting in the CEF, the history of the CEF’s “American Legion,” and the combat experiences of Americans fighting for the CEF in France and Belgium, this thesis aims to resurrect an important aspect of World War I that has heretofore received insufficient attention from historians. In relation to the other scholarly works on this subject, three authors specifically address the history of the American citizens in the Canadian Expeditionary Force. Numerous publications account for the Americans who served in foreign armies other than the CEF in the First World War, and a sparse collection of American and World War I histories refer to Americans who enlisted into Canada’s armed forces, but the latter’s descriptions infrequently go beyond acknowledging the fact that Americans did serve in the CEF. Fred Gaffen’s Cross-Border Warriors recounts the history of Canadians and Americans who served in one another’s armed forces from the American Civil War to the Persian Gulf War. Gaffen provides a limited amount of material covering the Americans in the CEF. Most of his text contains extensive sections of quotations from one wartime memoir and several Canadian war records of Americans who fought for the CEF. Ronald G. Haycock’s article in Military Affairs, however, provides an admirable history of the Canadian Expeditionary Force’s “American Legion,” which was organized to exclusively recruit American citizens. The same author’s subsequent book about the Minister of Militia and Defence, Lieutenant-General Sir Sam Hughes, reiterates the same information about the CEF’s “American Legion.” Both accounts briefly detail the history of the American Legion’s five overseas infantry battalions and the Canadian Department of Militia and Defence’s inability to mobilize these five regiments as an example of Hughes’ inept administration of the Department of Militia and Defence. Eric Smylie’s master’s thesis, “Americans Who Did Not Wait: The American Legion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1915-1917,” examines the five American Legion battalions and the diplomatic and political controversy

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