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THE CANADIAN HOME FRONT. DURING WORLD WAR ONE. This is a picture of the scene outside the "Star" office after Britain had officially declared war against Germany, midnight August 4th, 1914. Instantaneously, Canadians gathered in the streets, singing and cheering.
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THE CANADIAN HOME FRONT DURING WORLD WAR ONE
This is a picture of the scene outside the "Star" office after Britain had officially declared war against Germany, midnight August 4th, 1914.
Instantaneously, Canadians gathered in the streets, singing and cheering. • Everyone wanted to be a hero and everyone wanted to go to war. • Some suggest that those parading and singing in the streets were people unlikely to be affected negatively by the war. • Others sat quietly in their homes, afraid and uncertain of the future that war would bring. • People cheered because war meant steady employment for all and it put an end to the depression that was imminent in 1914.
RECRUITMENT • Canadian Wartime Propaganda • Propaganda: information, ideas, or rumours deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc. • Design approaches in Canada during the First World War were often heavily word based, using simple, descriptive images to convey their messages.
Whether sentimental reminders of the need to support "the boys" at the front, or jingoistic, viciously drawn attacks on "the Hun" (Germans), the wordiness and period imagery of the posters can require decoding to understand them. • Historical references, or allusions to then-current events, would have been very clear to contemporary readers.
THE CONSCRIPTION CRISIS • In 1917, enlistment was shrinking and soldiers were being wounded and killed. It was estimated that Canada needed 100 000 reinforcements to fulfill its commitments at the front. • After Borden was in England in 1917, he knew it was time for drastic action, and said this on May 18, 1917 in the House of Commons:
Conscription cont’d… • “All citizens are liable to military service for the defence of their country, and I conceive that the battle for Canadian liberty and autonomy is being fought today on the plains of France and Belgium. The time has come when the authority of the state should be invoked to provide reinforcements necessary to maintain the gallant men at the front.”
Conscription Cont’d… • Previous Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier, leader of the opposition, was strongly opposed to conscription. • Laurier knew that conscription would completely alienate Quebec and feared it would tear Canada apart: • “The law of the land declares that no man in Canada shall be subjected to compulsory military service except to repel invasions or for the defence of Canada.”
Conscription cont’d… • Anti-conscription riots broke out in Montreal. Unions threatened to strike. Quebecers thought they were being asked to support Britain, not Canada. • June 1917: Borden introduced the Military Service Act in June, passed in August. • All men between the ages of 19 and 45 were to enlist. • However, Borden first formed a Union Government and called an election for December 17, 1917 to discover if the country supported conscription, to make it seem “the will of the people.”
Conscription cont’d… • 1917: government also passed the Wartime Elections Act - extended the federal vote to women for the first time! • …however, this franchise was only extended to the wives, sisters, and mothers of soldiers, who were sure to support conscription and Borden. • The vote was also extended to soldiers at the front by means of the Military Voters Act – the soldiers voted 90% in favour of Borden, and conscription!
Conscription cont’d… • Borden’s Union Government won the election…but split the country. • Ontario, BC, and the Maritimes: supported Borden • Quebec supported the Liberals, who opposed conscription. • The West was divided: farmers did not want to lose vital workers to the army.
Conscription cont’d… • Spring 1918: anti-conscription riots broke out in Quebec City. When the federal government sent in police, violence ensued and 4 people were killed. • More than 400 000 men were conscripted, but the vast majority appealed to be exempted or did not show up to recruitment offices, and by the end of the war, only 24 000 conscripts served at the front.
Pacifism • Several religious communities believe that going to war is sinful. • These groups were promised freedom in Canada after fleeing religious persecution. • Mennonites, Dukhobors, and Quaker immigrants are pacifists and oppose war or military activity. Canada guaranteed all of these communities the right to live in nonviolence, and allowed them to be exempt from military service.
Boys on the Home Front cont’d… • As the war progressed and farm workers became scarce, the government encouraged boys aged 15-19 to become “Soldiers of the Soil.” They received an official uniform and a medal in recognition of their service.
MINORITIES IN CANADA • At the beginning of the war, Canadians cast a disapproving eye at people entering Canada from other countries, and so Borden passed the “War Measures Act”, giving the government sweeping powers to arrest and detain “enemy aliens.” • Democracy and freedom also became victims of the war.
MINORITIES IN CANADA cont’d… • The photo: a picture of "alien enemies" arriving at the Petawawa Internment Camp during WWI. More than 8,500 immigrants from "enemy" countries (e.g., Ukrainians, Poles, Hungarians, Germans, Croats, Serbs, Slovaks, Turks, and Bulgarians) were placed in internment camps across Canada. • Many immigrants were interned for attempting to leave Canada, posing a security threat to the war effort, or were interned for acting suspiciously, but most of these people never showed a threat to their adopted country.
Minorities cont’d… • Immigrants were forced to do work at the Petawawa Internment Camp during WWI. Many labour bosses in Canada laid off immigrant workers and hired Canadian-born workers in an attempt to be patriotic, so unemployment was high among the immigrant population of Canada during WWI. • Internees were paid only 25 cents for a full day of work (e.g., building roads, building and repairing buildings, and clearing the rugged land of the northern Canadian frontier).
Minorities cont’d… • 2nd photo: a picture of internees carrying their beds into the crowded barracks where they slept at the Internment Camp. In the war’s 3rd year, Canada's labour force became desperate for workers, so many of the internees or "enemy aliens" were released to work in factories and on farms, oftentimes far from their families.
Aboriginal Fighters • Canada’s First Nations, while small in number, were effective. At first, however, officials discouraged Aboriginal Canadians from fighting, because of racist views and because they felt Aboriginals might have been mistreated if they were captured. • Approximately 4000 Aboriginal Canadians fought in the war, particularly valued as scouts and snipers, two of the most dangerous and important combat positions in the war.
Aboriginal Canadian Fighters cont’d… • Francis Pegahmagabow, “Peg,” is credited with 378 hits on enemy soldiers. • Henry “Ducky” Norwest, a Cree, had the best sharp-shooting record in the British forces, with 115 observed “kills.” • However, Canada was slow to recognize the efforts of Aboriginals, and the Canadian government has only recently erected a special war memorial in Ottawa dedicated to their memory and contributions.
For much of the war it was against the law in Canada for a married man to enlist without the written permission of their spouse, and many women refused to give their husbands permission to enlist. • In response, these types of posters tried to make Canadian women feel guilty for not offering their men to the war effort. This type of propaganda was common during WWI because of the almost instant respect and honour that a soldier and his family gained by going off to war. • Women were often seen walking through the streets trying to encourage all able bodied men to enlist.
What did women do? • For the most part, female artists were given women’s work as subjects, but during the war that work itself evolved as hundreds and thousands of wives, mothers and daughters performed tasks usually carried out by men. • Caring for the Dead and Wounded • 60 000 Canadians died in WWI. However, thanks to excellent care/prompt treatment, 93 percent of the wounded survived. The role of the stretcher bearers, who administered initial first aid on the battlefield, was critical. So was the dedication of the nursing sisters and doctors who worked in makeshift hospitals, at times in the line of battle.
Over 3000 women became army nurses and ambulance drivers, and were called “Bluebirds” because they wore blue cloaks.
A picture of some Canadian nurses during WWI at Christmas time (Ward 33). The hospital is decorated in hopes of cheering up the wounded. One of the biggest tasks of a WWI nurse was to comfort the wounded and give them hope of a healthy return home.
A military hospital: photo taken around Christmas time, 1914. Military hospitals were almost always overcrowded and understaffed during WWI, often without enough beds for the wounded.
Women’s efforts cont’d… • Women filled the gap left in factories by young men who joined the army by making guns, shells and aircraft, and these were skilled jobs - before the war, skilled work was only for men. • Women also became streetcar drivers, secretaries and office managers to replace men in civilian jobs.
TIME LINE: THE FIGHT TO VOTE • 1916: Women in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta won the right to vote in provincial elections. • 1917: The Military Voters Act granted the vote in federal elections for Canadian nurses serving in the war. The Wartime Elections Act gave the vote in federal elections to close female relatives of soldiers. Women in BC and Ontario can vote. • 1918: Prime Minister Borden’s Union government gave the vote to women over 21 for federal elections • 1920: Canadian women earned the right to run in federal elections and become members of Parliament.
