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Overview
Homefront
In 1915, when Prime Minister Robert Borden announced that Canada was at war the
reaction was unanimiously, naively, positive. Young men couldn't sign up fast
enough and Sam Hughes, the Minister of the Militia, found that Canadians, especially
British-born Canadians, were happy to serve in "Sam's Army" even if
it meant days of mindless drilling at the newly (and barely) built Valcartier
Camp in Quebec. Everyone thought the war would be over by Christmas, that no
nation could sustain for long a war fought with the heavy, costly equipment and
weapons of an industrial age.
They were wrong. The Great War ground through days and young men like a clanking
beast. The disastrous Battle of the Somme that wore on from July 1 to November
31, 1916, spawned a snowstorm of "regret to inform" telegrams that
fell all over Canada. By the end of the year Canadians were growing weary, angry
and heartsick. |
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Nothing
Doing Without Victory Bonds
When
the war started Canadians embraced the conflict with patriotic fervor and patriotism.
They even helped the war effort by, in effect, loaning the government money by
buying Victory Bonds. By war's end, that enthusiasm would be wore thin. |
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