The First World War changed Canada, and most of the world, ending an era of Empires, creating, or enlarging a sense of national identity for peoples around the world. It killed anything from 11 million to 40 million people, including an estimated 13 million civilians. The wide range in estimates indicates how brutal a period it was between 1914 and 1918, with so many dead that no-one is sure of exact numbers. It was also possibly the most pointless conflict in human history, set off because of the rivalry between three cousins, all grandchildren of Queen Victoria, and the competition between the empires over which the three ruled. Czar Nicholas II of Russia, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, and King George V of Great Britain allowed their countries and empires to go to war needlessly and two of three lost those empires, one lost his throne, and one, Nicholas, was murdered along with his wife and children in the anarchy and revolution which was a direct result of the war.
It has been said that WWI created a new sense of Canadian identity, based on involvement in battles such as Vimy Ridge and Passchendaele. In fact, Canadians had already been developing a sense of nationality since at least the Fenian invasions of the 1860’s, Confederation, and the Boer War, when Canadians first served abroad in war. The effect of WWI on this developing nationality was something that more gradual. When the Imperial British Government in London declared war in August, 1914, Canada was automatically included. The Canadian Parliament had no say in the matter.
The drive to enlist Canadian men in the army and navy emphasised the Empire as the main context in which the war was seen: Canadians were part of the greatest Empire the world had ever seen and should be proud to serve its King-Emperor. In reality, the majority of those who enlisted in Canada were new immigrants from Britain, and not Canadian-born. It took time for that to change, and a remarkable aspect of that change was the very high percentage of Indigenous people who served in France and other theatres of war on behalf of Canada. By the end of the war, Canada had reached a completely different status within the British Empire. Because of the role played by Canadian soldiers and generals, as well as the part played in the war councils of the Empire by the Canadian Prime Minister, along with other Dominion leaders, there was a new-found confidence and assertiveness which had not been in evidence before 1914.
Between 1918 and 1939, constitutional developments within Canada and the Empire resulted in the rise of what became the Commonwealth, with a new emphasis on the importance, and equality, of member nations. When war was declared again by the British Government in 1939, Canada was not automatically included. The Canadian Parliament deliberately waited a week before making its own declaration of war on Germany, the first time this country declared war on its own initiative.
This issue of the Times marks Remembrance Day 2024, 110 years after that first declaration in August, 1914. We focus on the local citizens who found themselves far from home and family during those four years of horror, especially those who never came back. But we also have to remember the even greater number who survived the war, but not without severe mental and physical wounds, wounds which often never fully healed. We may now be more aware of the impact of Post‑traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), something unknown to those impacted by WW1 in theory, though certainly not in reality.
World War 1 affected the entire country, civilian and military, and all ages. It was perhaps the first war that involved all sectors of the nation, with local women knitting socks and scarves, children gathering things to sell and send, the Red Cross and local communities putting on concerts and events to raise funds for the war effort. And there were the funerals: not necessarily, and not often, with an actual body to bury – they were under the mud of the trenches or in the vast war graves that spread over the French and Belgian countryside. But every town, every village, had its own Cenotaph with the names of the local boys and men who had died. And there was the poppy, the symbol of loss and remembrance, and the poetry and other memorials which, however maudlin at times, sought to put into words the deep and unfathomable change that had overtaken the world.
But, here and now, we remember a few of the boys and men who were part of that awful event.
