A Cape Bretoner at War: Letters from the Front 1914-1919 (original) (raw)
Related papers
Corps identity: the letters, diaries and memoirs of Canada's great war soldiers
2008
The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze the role published diaries, letters and memoirs of Canadian soldiers played in shaping, consolidating, and preserving the "myth of the [Great] war experience" in Canada. In Death So Noble, Memory, Meaning, and the First World War, Jonathan Vance argues that, during and shortly after the First World War, Canadian politicians, artists and historians created this myth to soften the horrible realities of the trenches. To justify and explain the deaths of more than 60,000 Canadians, the war was most often portrayed as a positive, if costly, experience that led a colony to full nationhood. At the same time, Canadian soldiers were described as backwoodsmen; natural soldiers who evinced a strong disdain for army discipline. -- Although Vance's interpretation of the Great War legacy in Canada has been well received, the role that Canadian soldiers played in the creation of this legacy has yet to be examined. One approach to this en...
Canadian Historical Review, 1989
IN RECENT DECADES tWO historians of Canada during the Seven Years' War, Guy Frdgault and WilliamJ. Eccles, have attacked their predecessors' adulation of Louis-Joseph, Marquis de Montcalm, by portraying him as a poor strategist, a mediocre tactician, and a defeatist. However true this might be, they also portray the French officer corps, including their commander, as contemptuous of Canadians and irregular warfare.' During the course of the Canadian campaign, Montcahn and his officers did demonstrate a general lack of respect for the petty raiding of la petite guerre and an ambiguous attitude towards the Canadian soldier. This, however, was less a rejection of irregular warfare than an expression of their belief that a more structured and This article was adapted from a military-oriented chapter of my •a.a thesis, 'On a Distant Campaign: French Officers and Their Views on Society and the Conduct of War in North America during the Seven Years' War' (Queen's University, •986), which was written under the direction of Dr George A. Rawlyk with the assistance of a SSHRC Special •a^ Scholarship. I wish to thank Dr Rawlyk and Dr James S. Pritchard of Queen's University's Department of History for the valuable comments and advice which they offered during the writing of this paper. For historians who favour Montcalm see Francis Parkman, France and England in North America, part 7: Montcalm and Wo./fe, u vols. (Boston •884); Henri-Raymond Casgrain, G uerre du Canada, • 7 5 6-• 76o: Montcalm et Le'vis, • vols. (Quebec • 89 •); and Lionel-Adolphe Groulx, Histoire du Canada depuis la ddcouverte, • vols. (Montreal •95o). For highly critical perceptions of the French general see Guy Fr•gault, La Gue•w de la conquOte (Montreal • 955); William J. Eccles, 'The French Forces in North America during the Seven Years' War,' Dictionmy of Canadian Biography (ncB), m, xv-xxiii; W.J.
Introduction: Canadian Perspectives on the First World War
Histoire Sociale / Social History , 2014
FEW EVENTS had more impact on Canada than the First World War. A thumbnail sketch would include unprecedented government economic intervention, new national social programmes, accelerated urbanization and industrialization, new rights and roles for women, growing autonomy from Britain, intensified integration with America, bold challenges to civil liberties, and the flowering of Canadian nationalism. For decades, the common refrain was that Canada entered the war as a colony but emerged from it as a nation. Sacrifices and accomplishments on the battlefield and massive contributions on the home front buoyed national pride and confidence. This awareness intensified Canada’s demand to stand as an equal to Britain, a conviction that led to a separate signature for Canada on the Treaty of Versailles, a separate seat for the dominion at the League of Nations, acceleration of the shift from Empire to Commonwealth, and Canada’s autonomy over its own foreign policy with the 1931 Statute of Westminster. But the First World War also brought to the fore complexities based upon factors such as region, ethnicity, class, gender, and ideology that, as never before, threatened national unity.
2015
On the world wars at home, we were conscious of just scratching the surface. In part, brevity reflected scholarship: the many issues, great and small, that generations of historians have failed to elucidate, or those on which popular myth, passionately argued, still crowd out sober judgement. In part too, we self-censored, trying not to repeat entries elsewhere in the book. Even in skimming trees we covered plenty, although arguably – especially for World War I – not quite enough. Industry, women, local history, the economy, home defence, governance, administration, and wartime politics in both wars could all stand more room than time and sheaf space easily allowed. Of the summative challenges we faced in the book, these entries were among the greatest. Résumé : Nous étions conscients d’à peine aborder le sujet des guerres mondiales au pays. La concision reflétait en partie l’état de la recherche : les nombreux sujets, petits et grands, que des générations d’historiens n’ont pu écla...
This paper discusses the First World War as a, defining event for Newfoundland arguing that The War continues to be a living part of its continuing cultural framework as seen by living memorials such as Memorial University and others.
Two Letters Concerning Home Leave for the Newfoundland Regiments in World War II
Newfoundland & Labrador Studies, 2022
Crocker once to the call that echoed round the world last September. This call was, of course, in no sense a command. It was a call to your own hearts, a call to voluntary service in a noble cause; and your answer has been clear and firm. 3 Eden went on to note the many Newfoundlanders who had volunteered for naval service, for the RAF, and as loggers. He also recalled the Royal Newfoundland Regiment's "distinguished" service at Gallipoli and in France during World War I as well as the fact that the youngest recipient of the Victoria Cross was a Newfoundlander. 4 In the letter he sent to Eden four years after these events, Gunner Wilfred Isaiah Hann recalls his own arrival in Liverpool as a part of the second contingent of Newfoundland troops on 22 May 1940. 5 This second contingent comprised 212 men from Corner Brook, Grand Falls, and other parts of Western and Central Newfoundland. 6 Gunner Hann recalls to Eden how, shortly after his arrival in Liverpool, he "happened to see an old issue of a local paper with [Eden's] speech." He explains that "The words that interested me most were these; 'If you ever have any complaints do not hesitate to let me know.'" The remainder of Hann's letter, which compares the situation of the Newfoundland troops with those of other Dominion forces, comprises a petition for the granting of home leave for the 166th Regiment, whose members by that time had been away from Newfoundland for more than four years. Near the end of his letter, Gunner Hann raises the additional issue of local leave for the regiment but writes that home leave is his main concern. Gunner Hann, my own maternal grandfather, was born in Grand Falls on 23 or 24 November 1918 to Ella May (née Wiseman) and Permanius Hann. Sadly, Ella May died that same week from the Spanish flu. 7 As a result, Wilfred Isaiah (or Bill, as he was known) and his brother Harold, who was just two years old at the time, were adopted by relatives also living in Grand Falls. The couple's two eldest children, Eric and Elsie, stayed with and were raised by their father, who married Mary Osmond, mother of daughter Dulcie, in 1921. According to undocumented family lore, Bill was actually on the verge of being adopted