World War I

1. World War I Canadians in battle

2. Training the troops • The task of training and supplying the troops and ensuring they were ready for war went to the minister of the militia, Sam Hughes. • Hughes established a training center in Valcartier, Quebec. • Basic training was given to 32,000 enthusiastic Canadian and Newfoundland troops.

3. Sam Hughes: Minister of the Militia • The outbreak of war in August 1914 prompted the highly energetic Hughes to co-ordinate the recruitment of Canadian troops for dispatch to the battlefields of the Western Front. He boosted Canada's pre-war regular force of 3,000 with militia troops in addition to the fruits of widespread voluntary recruitment. • Hughes oversaw the construction of a training facility, Camp Valcartier, in under three weeks, followed later by additional camps. Within a matter of weeks the first Canadian forces were ready to sail for Europe from Quebec City. The departing troops were given a pep talk by Hughes prior to their departure.

4. Training the Troops • Pre WWI, Canada was a patchwork of regions with few transportation and communication connections. • Wartime training brought diverse Canadians together as a group. • Boot camp built bridges between them and fostered a sense of national identity, a sense of being Canadian.

5. The army that was formed for these volunteers was known as the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) • The troops were enthusiastic, but ill prepared and ill equipped. • Example: The Canadian made Ross Rifle often jammed from dirt or mud when fired rapidly. It was later replaced by the British Lee Enfield Rifle

6. The War Measures Act • After the breakout of WWI, Prime Minister Borden realized that in order to meet the demands of the war the government need more control over the country’s affairs. • Borden introduced the War Measures Act in 1914 • It granted the government the authority to do everything necessary “for the security, defense, peace, order, and welfare of Canada.”

7. The War Measures Act • It gave the government the power to strip ordinary Canadians of the civil liberties. • Mail could be censored • Habeas Corpus was suspended (ensures that a prisoner can be released from unlawful detention—that is, detention lacking sufficient cause or evidence) • Anyone suspected of being an enemy or a threat to the government could be imprisoned of deported. • 8579 immigrants from G and AH Empire were held in internment camps

8. The Schlieffen Plan • Germany’s bold plan for a two-front war. • France to the west was the Western Front, and Russia to the east was the Eastern Front • Almost worked: German troops were 35km from Paris

9. Battle of Ypres • Some of the bloodiest battles of the early war were fought in and around the Belgian city of Ypres, in the Flanders district. • Presumably it was British desire to secure the English Channel ports and the British Army's supply lines. • The Battle of Ypres actually includes three battles. They were fought in Ypres, Belgium. The town of Ypres was always under attack from the Germans because it was a key point in keeping them from the English Channel.

12. First Battle of YpresOctober 30 – November 24, 1914 • The first Battle of Ypres was fought in 1914. It was fought between the Germans on one side and the allies of France, England and Belgium on the other. It was a victory for the Allies • The Allied powers ….old Triple Entente…..entente meaning ‘friendly understanding) won the battle after 34 days of fighting, it started trench warfare on the western front. • 6053 Canadian causalities in 48 hours, over 2000 died

13. First Ypres • This was the last major German option, after their defeats at the First Battle of the Aisne and First Battle of the Marne. • The Ypres campaign became the culmination of the Race to the Sea.

14. Second Battle of YpresApril 22 - May 25, 1915. • For control of the strategic Flemish town of Ypres in western Belgium • The Germans used a new weapon, gas. They used poisonous chlorine gas, it was heavier than air and flowed over the ground and into allied trenches. • The deadly chlorine gas used against the defending French troops; terrified French soldiers fled. Gas had worked as it had got them to leave their positions. • The situation was saved by Canadian troops who used handkerchiefs soaked in urine as gas masks and launched a counter-attack on the Germans. It was successful and the Germans lost the gains they had made.

15. Second Battle of Ypres • After five weeks of fighting the battle was going nowhere for either side, the Germans ended it. The Allies had 60,000 casualties, the Germans had a total of 35,000 casualties. • The result of this battle: Stalemate

18. Third Battle of YpresJuly 31 - November 10, 1917. • The battle was between British and their allies against the German Empire. • The battle took place on the Western Front, for control of the ridges south and east of the Belgian city of Ypres in West Flanders. • Passchendaele lay on the last ridge east of Ypres, five miles from a railway junction at Roeselare, which was a vital part of the supply system of the German Fourth Army

19. Passchendaele • An extreme amount of rainfall and artillery fire turned the battlefield into a muddy swamp. It was almost impossible to march across. • The Germans, who were in concrete bunkers, killed a lot of the Allied troops with mustard gas and machine guns. • The Canadians took the village of Passchendaele after months of fighting. PASS OUT MAP

20. The Battle of the SommeJuly 1 – November 18, 1916: • General Douglas Haig (Britain’s commander in chief) launches a massive attack along low ridges near the Somme River. • Newfoundland was a • dominion of the British • Empire (not yet part Of Canada)

21. Battle of the Somme • Fought by the armies of the British and French empires against the German Empire on either side of the River Somme in France. • The first objective to be obtained by the combined British and French offensive was to relieve pressure on the French Army at Verdun. The second objective is to inflict as heavy losses as possible upon the German armies.

22. Notable for the importance of air power and the first use of the tank. • One of the largest battles of World War I. More than 1,000,000 men were wounded or killed, making it one of humanity's bloodiest battles • Results: British-French Victory

24. Battle of Beaumont hamelJuly 1, 1916: • The early morning opening battle of the Battle of The Somme near the towns of Beaumont and Hamel • Artillery was to soften up infantry targets but either missed or was ineffective. • Germans knew of the coming of Allied attack

25. Battle of Beaumont hamel • The newfoundland troop were to attempt to march in formation uphill through barbed wire in broad daylight, 900 meters to enemy lines and then fight. • Thousands of soldiers from Britain and Newfoundland climbed out of their trenches, across No Man’s Land (the space between trenches) • and walked through a hail of machine gun fire, toward the German Line. • The battle was over in less than an hour and 733 of 801 Newfoundlanders were killed or wounded