Conscription
Nobody really wanted conscription in 1917. It came nonetheless, because of the ugly statistics of a war whose scope the world had never imagined possible. Canada's one-corps ''army,'' battle after battle, took heavy casualties. At Vimy alone there were more than 10,000. Canadian losses were outstripping enlistments, something as much as two to one. To provide reinforcements, said Prime Minister Borden, there must be conscription.
Most Quebecois were opposed. So were many English Canadians, especially farmers and unionists. Wilfrid Laurier, the Liberal leader and main spokesman for Quebec – but a statesman who served all Canada – believed conscription would help little, and merely ''take in a few farmers and schoolboys.'' Labour leaders in western Canada demanded conscription of wealth before manpower. Three thousand Ontario farmers joined in a protest against cancellation of draft exemptions. They argued that a reduction in the already small farm labour force would result in a decrease in food production.
Borden called an election – for which the rules were changed; Canada had no female suffrage but this time soldier's mothers, wives and sisters voted. Most presumably opted for Borden – for conscription – and his Union government won 153 seats to the Liberals 82.
Conscription was a failure. There were appeals and exemptions in all provinces. Everywhere men of draft age took to the woods or fled to the United States. Conscription had produced fewer than 25,000 reinforcements when, on March 29, 1918, rioting broke out in Quebec City. For three days anti-conscriptionists battled the military (a battalion sent from Ontario); in a bitter climax of rifle and machine-gun fire and a cavalry charge, four civilians were killed, five soldiers and many civilians wounded and 58 persons arrested.
Canadian unity too lay severely wounded, a victim of the conscription nobody had really wanted. Mason Wade, in The French Canadians, wrote that ''English Canada overestimated Quebec's rebelliousness, while Quebec made too much of 'Anglo-Saxon brutality' in enforcing conscription and repressing the riots.''
The myth took shape that only Quebec had opposed conscription. That is myth, not history.
Source: Unknown
Read the above article and answer the questions:
- Definition of conscription:
- Why was Borden forced to consider conscription by mid 1916?
- Which groups were opposed to conscription? What were their reasons?
- What does the article suggest was the reason for Borden's win in the election of 1917?
- Borden legislated conscription in the controversial Military Service Act. What are some reasons for the failure of conscription in Canada?
Canada's Crisis of Commitment: Conscription
As in Australia and New Zealand, in Canada both major political parties were outspoken in their support for the war. The Conservative prime minister, Sir Robert Borden, said that 'as to our duty, we all agreed: we stand shoulder to shoulder with Britain and the other British Dominions in this quarrel, and that duty we shall not fail to fulfil as the honour of Canada demands'. Sir Wilfrid Laurier, leader of the Liberals and spokesman for the majority of French Canadians, claimed that 'this war is for as noble a cause as ever impelled a nation to risk her all upon the arbitratment of the sword'.
Such assertions hid a fundamental division in Canadian society which was to loom larger as the war progressed. The so-called Anglo-Canadians, together with British-born immigrants, had a vastly different outlook from that of the insular, tightly-knit community of French speaking Canadiens. Naturally enough the French speaking settlers felt less attachment to the British empire than their countrymen. Less obviously, but equally important, the French community retained fewer ties with their own 'mother country' and their support for the war was, on the whole, passive rather than overly enthusiastic. This situation was not helped by the attitude of the administration. The minister of militia, Sam Hughes, made no pretence of his disgust as the low recruiting figures from the French speaking provinces. Efforts to create specifically Canadien forces were usually obstructed; English was uniformly adopted as the language of command; and Canadien recruits seemed to suffer almost insuperable difficulties when it came to promotion.
These problems lay in the future, however, when Canada, in common with the rest of the empire, embarked on her struggle of unprecedented magnitude. Borden's greatest tasks, as he saw them, were two fold. First he had to mobilize the nation for war, second to ensure that his country participated in the direction of the effort to which he committed so many of his resources.
Raising sufficient troops was far from easy. Canadian traditions were non-military and her pre-war permanent army numbered a mere 3000. No doubt a feeling of security due to the nearness of her powerful neighbour with its protective Monroe Doctrine played its part in this lack of preparedness, but it meant that Canada felt the wartime dislocation even more severely than other countries.
In view of her traditions Canada's achievements were formidable. Though the target of 500,000 troops had become evidently unattainable by 1917, Canada played her full share in the war effort. Lloyd George's verdict on the quality of the Canadian troops after their exploits on the Somme in 1916 was that they 'played a part of such distinction that thenceforward they were marked out as storm troops; for the remainder of the war they were brought along to head the assault in one great battle after another. Whenever the Germans found the Canadian Corps coming into the line, they prepared for the worst'.
Canada's Crisis of Commitment: Conscription
1.On the Surface
2.Beneath the Surface: Conflict
3.In Canada
4. Enlistment
5.Canadian Men