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The war pulled Canada from a two-year economic depression by boosting economic activity and reducing unemployment. It also strained the country's fragile, resource-based economy and its mostly unregulated industries. Wage and price inflation, scarcity, profiteering, and labour shortages led to growing efforts by government to manage resources in support of the war.

Appeals to Voluntary Effort

Government at first appealed to voluntary efforts. It asked the public to reduce the consumption of scarce commodities, including fuel, to produce more food, and not to hoard essential items. In most cases, it avoided trying to set prices or regulate commercial activity.

Rising prices for Canadian commodities such as wheat were good for farmers and exporters, but inflation eroded the purchasing power of many families. In busy, fast-growing cities energized by war employment, prices rose faster than wages, leading to labour unrest and strikes. Inflation posed special hardships for people on fixed incomes or those who did not benefit from the competition for skilled workers. Women living at home on the fixed salaries of soldier-husbands overseas often faced difficult social choices: a lower living standard; or entry into the growing paid labour force and daycare for their children.

More Involvement, but Little Regulation

In the summer of 1917, Ottawa resorted to more direct efforts, appointing food and fuel controllers to encourage production, avoid waste, and manage shortages.

A new Board of Grain Supervisors coordinated bulk sales of the West's most important product, wheat, at high fixed prices to European markets. By early 1918, the new Canada Food Board licensed and monitored food sales in public establishments and encouraged food or ingredient substitutes for high-demand items. Propaganda posters urged "fuel-less Sundays", "meatless Fridays", and the elimination of wasteful shopping and cooking practices. Newspapers published special "war menus". Provinces and municipalities managed local hydro and power shortages, sometimes by short-term closures in schools and factories.

These measures represented more government coordination and control than Canadians had ever experienced. Many of them proved temporary, ending in either 1918 or 1919, but in some areas, such as taxation, social welfare, and the responsibility for veterans, the state assumed powers it would never again relinquish.

Keep exploring with these topics:

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The Home Front - Food, Fuel, and Inflation | Canada and the First World War

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Canada's contribution to the First World War led to growing autonomy and international recognition, but at great cost.

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The two world wars of the 20th century were total wars that involved the whole nation, and the "home front" became a critical part of Canada's effort. The home front refers to the civilians, including women, men, children and teenagers, who worked in various ways to help the country cope as tens of thousands of soldiers fought overseas - young men normally employed in factories, on farms and in the cities.

Farms and Factories

In the First World War farmers broke new land and, with state assistance, began to mechanize their operations. Mechanization was one attempt to make up for the shortage of farm help caused by enlistment and by the drift of workers to cities in search of employment in the war industry. City teenagers were sent into the country to assist with the harvest.

At the same time, the booming war factories were in desperate need of skilled tradesmen, too many of whom had been allowed to enlist before their greater value at home had been recognized. One result was that large numbers of women were brought into war factories, and "aliens"- immigrants who were often unacceptable for military service because of their nationality - took factory jobs. Another result of the labour scarcity was that wages rose, although not as much as the cost of living. Yet because conditions in the plants were often terrible, labour unrest was widespread.

Prohibition and Women's Suffrage

Prohibition on alcohol was a popular measure because it seemed to be a sacrifice that could help the war effort. Women's suffrage, the awarding of voting rights to women, was widely seen as a reward to Canadian women for their help in the war effort. The income tax, an inconceivable measure in 1914, became necessary to help the state finance the staggering costs of war. Even price controls and controls on coal and steel could be justified on the grounds of necessity.

The war had changed much, not least the attitudes of the public. If Prohibition was popular in Canada, it seemed mean-spirited when an attempt was made to apply it to soldiers at the front. But some attitudes died hard. For example, the puritanical morality of the day could scarcely deal with the explosion of venereal disease the war produced. One study at the time attributed the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases to the sudden prevalence of factory girls in the city. Such women were labelled "a disintegrating social force" who spread disease to middle-class men who might in turn infect their wives. The woman, not the man, seemed to be to blame, an attitude that persisted into the 1940s.

Second World War

The home front during the Second World War was much better organized than it had been in the First. In late 1941, the Wartime Prices and Trade Board (WPTB), established in 1939, was given charge of a sweeping system of Wage and Price Controls. This made the rising costs of the First World War an impossibility and, while not everyone was pleased by controls, the public could see the fairness of the system. This was true also with the use of the nation's labour. The institution of National Selective Service in early 1942 effectively controlled the destiny of all men and women, told them who could join up to fight overseas and who could not, where they could work, and when they could change jobs. The WPTB also devised major rationing schemes that distributed meat, butter, oil and gas, and other scarce goods. Inevitably there was a black market for such products but most people regarded it as a social crime.

Children Help at Home

The shortage of consumer goods meant that workers, despite earning good wages for the first time after 10 years of the Great Depression, had little to buy, and the state acted to acquire as much of the people's savings as possible. In the First World War, the minister of finance had been astonished at how much money war bond campaigns raised for the government; by the Second World War, the sums were vastly greater as individuals and companies, in addition to paying higher taxes than ever before, put their money at the service of the war effort. Even school children were urged to purchase war savings stamps, each showing a tank or airplane, for 25 cents. Children also did their bit by collecting cooking fat, bones or milkweed, all of which were necessary for the war effort, while their parents planted victory gardens on waste patches of land, or contributed their old pots and pans for melting down into weaponry.

Opinion surveys demonstrated that by 1944 Canadians had become supporters of a continuation of wartime controls into peacetime. That was undoubtedly a reflection of their concern for the future and their fear of renewed economic depression, but it was also a striking vote of confidence in the fairness of the system the federal government had created. The relatively smooth transition to peace also showed the care with which Ottawa had planned.

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The two world wars of the 20th century were total wars that involved the whole nation, and the "home front" became a critical part of Canada's effort. The home front refers to the civilians, including women, men, children and teenagers, who worked in various ways to help the country cope as tens of thousands of soldiers fought overseas ­- young men normally employed in factories, on farms and in the cities.

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York University - Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies

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Department of History | World War I, Episode 3 | Women at War

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At the time of the First World War, most women were barred from voting or serving in military combat roles. Many saw the war as an opportunity to not only serve their countries but to gain more rights and independence. With millions of men away from home, women filled manufacturing and agricultural positions on the home front. Others provided support on the front lines as nurses, doctors, ambulance drivers, translators and, in rare cases, on the battlefield.

One observer wrote that American women "do anything they were given to do; that their hours are long; that their task is hard; that for them there is small hope of medals and citations and glittering homecoming parades."

On The Homefront

The nations at war mobilized their entire populations. The side that could produce more weapons and supply more troops would prevail in the end. Women took on new roles in the work force, notably in war production and agriculture.

In 1914, the German armaments producer Krupp employed almost no women. By 1917, women made up nearly 30 percent of its 175,000 workers and a nationwide total of nearly 1.4 million German women were employed in the war labor force. Britain also stepped up its arms production by expanding the employment of women. In July 1914, 3.3 million women worked in paid employment in Britain. By July 1917, 4.7 million did. British women served in uniform as well in the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force. In fact, the last known surviving veteran of World War I was Florence Green of the RAF, who died in 2012.

As women took traditional male jobs in the United States, African American women were able to make their first major shift from domestic employment to work in offices and factories. Recent research also shows that a limited number of African American women served overseas as volunteers with the YMCA.

"The women worked as ammunition testers, switchboard operators, stock takers. They went into every kind of factory devoted to the production of war materials, from the most dangerous posts in munition plants to the delicate sewing in aeroplane factories."

- Alice Dunbar Nelson, American Poet and Civil Rights Activist, on African American women's efforts during the war, 1918

But even women in more traditional roles contributed to the war effort. Every housewife in the U.S. was asked to sign a pledge card stating that she would "carry out the directions and advice of the Food Administrator in the conduct of my household, in so far as my circumstances permit." This meant canning food for future use, growing vegetables in the backyard and limiting consumption of meat, wheat and fats. Most of all, women were expected to bolster the morale of their families at home and loved ones overseas.

Doctors, Nurses and Ambulance Drivers

The Salvation Army, the Red Cross and many other organizations depended on thousands of female volunteers. The American Red Cross operated hospitals to care for war casualties, staffed by nurses, hundreds of whom died in service during the war. Thousands of women also served in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps and the Navy Nurse Corps. While the American Expeditionary Forces were still preparing to go overseas, U.S. Army nurses were sent ahead and assigned to the British Expeditionary Force. By June 1918, there were more than 3,000 American nurses in over 750 in British-run hospitals in France.

While nurses were accepted at the Front, women physicians faced obstacles putting their hard-earned skills to work. When these women were rejected from service in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, many sought other opportunities to serve the war effort: as civilian contract surgeons, with the Red Cross or other humanitarian relief organizations and even in the French Army.

The Medical Women's National Association, for example, raised money to send their own doctors overseas to work in hospitals run by the American Red Cross. By the end of the war, nearly 80 women doctors from this organization were at work in the devastated regions of Europe, caring for civilians and soldiers and treating diseases such as influenza and typhoid.

During the last Allied offensive in the summer and fall of 1918, many woman doctors, nurses and aides operated near the front lines, providing medical care for soldiers wounded in combat.

"I had just given this poor boy anesthesia when a bomb hit. We were supposed to hit the floor, but he was out and didn't know what was going on. I took a tray and put it over our heads. It wasn't because I was brave. I was just scared."

- Medical Corps anesthetist Sophie Gran. Gran was one of the first woman anesthetists with the A.E.F. in France and the only woman anesthetist with Mobile Hospital Unit #1. She went on to become the first president of California Association of Nurse Anesthetists in 1931.

The automobile age was just getting underway in WWI, and motorized ambulances became key to medical treatment on the battlefield. Many women who knew how to drive volunteered to go overseas to serve as ambulance and truck drivers or mechanics. They delivered medical supplies, transported patients to hospitals and drove through artillery fire to retrieve the wounded.

Many of the women drivers of the Red Cross Motor Service and other ambulance groups used their own cars, including Marie Curie. Curie invented a mobile X-ray unit, radiological cars nicknamed "little Curies," and ultimately trained 150 women to be X-ray operators on the battlefront, of which Curie herself was one - an act that she believed contributed to her later death from radiation exposure.

Edith Cavell

Learn about the life and death of the British nurse who helped soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium.

Female Yeoman

Despite thousands of new recruits, the U.S. Navy was short-handed at the beginning of World War I. Vague wording in a section of the Naval Act of 1916 outlining who could serve created a loophole: women were able to join the ranks as Yeomen, non-commissioned officers. Around 12,000 women enlisted in the Navy under the title, "Yeoman (F)."

Most women Yeomen served stateside on naval bases, replacing men who had deployed to Europe. While many female recruits performed clerical duties, some worked as truck drivers, mechanics, radio operators, telephone operators, translators, camouflage artists and munition workers. They had the same responsibilities as their male counterparts and received the same pay of $28.75 per month.

The "Hello Girls"

Aiming to improve communications on the Western front between the Allied Forces, General John J. Pershing called for the creation of the Signal Corps Female Telephone Operators Unit. The unit recruited women who were bilingual in French and English to serve as telephone switchboard operators on the Western front. The women received physical training, observed strict military protocol, wore identity discs and worked very close to the front lines. These female recruits were nicknamed the "Hello Girls" (a term which some of them felt disparaged their efforts) and became known for their bravery and focus under pressure. However, upon their return to the United States after the end of the war, the "Hello Girls" did not receive veteran status or benefits. It wasn't until 1977, when President Jimmy Carter signed legislation, that the few surviving women telephone operators received recognition of their veteran status.

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With millions of men away from home, women filled manufacturing and agricultural positions on the home front.

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Serving a "Country that Didn't Want Them": Indigenous Soldiers

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Serving a "Country that Didn't Want Them": Indigenous Soldiers

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Indigenous war veterans served a ‘country that didn’t want them' | Historian on Remembrance Day

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"So after about a month, the sergeant major sent for me, he said 'You haven't pulled this off, it's just as bad as before you came, which means you can't do the work.' 'Oh no it doesn't', I said, 'I can't do the work if the men won't listen to me. The men just don't take any notice of me, I can't do anything about it.' He said 'Do you mean to say if you had other staff you could get this office right?' And cheeky me said 'Yes!'. Jane Ann Jones' account of what it was like working in an office full of men is just one of many women's experiences of the first world war.

To mark the centenary the Observer's political editor, Toby Helm wrote a moving story of his grandfather's wartime experiences that had only recently been discovered by his family. We realised that many Guardian readers have their own wartime stories to tell so asked you to share your letters, diaries and photographs from any relatives or friends who were involved. There are now more than 800 contributions that have been submitted via the Guardian's content sharing platform, GuardianWitness. Amongst them are some fascinating stories about the wartime experiences of women, whether they were in active service or in some supporting role at home or abroad.
Submitted by great great niece Xanthe Pitt
Grace Mitchell started training as a nurse in Peterborough infirmary, aged 23. When the first world war started she was a staff nurse in the Cottage Hospital in Beckenham, Kent. She had also signed up to be a member of the Territorial Force Nursing Service (TFNS). During the whole of her nursing career Grace kept an album of photos, many taken on her Box Brownie camera. Many of these images were related to her time in the TFNS.

After the start of WW1 Grace was called up on 21 November 1919 to work in the 3rd Southern General Hospital in Oxford. It was officially opened on 16 August 1914 and had at least ten different branches in Oxford, with wards occupying both university and city buildings including The Examinations Schools, The Town Hall and the New College Shelter, all of which feature in Grace's album.

In early May 1917 she moved to France where she was nursing at Unit 56 General Hospital in Etapes. This was a Base Hospital and was part of the casualty evacuation chain, further back from the front line than the Casualty Clearing Stations (CCS). The British hospitals were generally located near the coast. They needed to be close to a railway line, in order for casualties to arrive and be near a port where men could be evacuated for longer-term treatment in Britain.

From September 1918 until her demobilisation in May 1920 she worked at several Casualty Clearing Stations, these were further back from the front line than the Aid Posts and Field Ambulances. CCSs moved quite frequently and many CCS moved into Belgium and Germany with the army of occupation in 1919. On 26 September 1918, Grace was with 49 CCS at Grevillers, south of Arras, France, 12 February 1919 with 54 CCS at Remy Siding, near Poperinge in Belgium and in April 1919 she moved with 21 CCS to Bonn in Germany. A photo of Grace with various officers and nurses from CCS 21 is included in her Album. At the time of her Demobilisation on 27 April 1920 she was with 36 CCS, Cologne, Germany.

The TFNS was established in 1908 to support the Territorial and Reserve Forces. Candidates had to be over 23 years of age and have completed three years training, and from 1913 they could volunteer for overseas service. During the first world war there were about 7000 Nurses, of which about 2280 went overseas. The records of about 6400 of these nurses are held in the National Archives in WO399, including those of Grace in WO399/13351.

Grace's Album is now in the care of the Wellcome Trust in the Wellcome Library Collection in London, and is available to view in person on request.

In later years, Grace lived with her sisters Jesse and Blanche and brother Archie in their home in Theydon Bois until she died in 1950, aged 63.
Submitted by great nephew Graham Thompson
In 1914, Annie Louisa Streeter aged 17 worked at Johnsons Bell Foundry in Union Road, Croydon, making 6" shells for the war in France. She met her future husband Robert Ulrickson, an American soldier and after Robert was sent to France, Annie joined the Women's Royal Air Force (WRAF) as a Rigger. She was still with them when Armistice was declared. She married Robert after the war and lived in Kansas, USA.

Annie kept memoirs and this extract describes Armistice day.

I was looking out of the office window and saw our Sergeant Major running around in a Union Jack and waving his arms. He was shouting "The war is over. Everybody not on important duty can take the day off." So Agnes Carter got permission to drive her motorcycle up to London (35 miles) to see what was going on there. It was complete bedlam. People were dancing in the streets. Trafalgar Square was full of medical students who had set fire to a drum of tar that had been put there for repairs. Agnes was afraid to leave her bike and sidecar so she drove it over to her Aunt Maude's and went back to Trafalgar Square. We didn't have much money with us - we hadn't stopped to think what we might need. The celebration went on all day and into the night. We left for Croydon about midnight. She dropped me off at my folks - they had already gone to bed. I took just off my coat and dropped it onto the bed. Got up early the next morning and went to work. There was a lot of drinking on the job that day.

Ruby Chapm ish Red Cross Nurse working on an ambulance train
Submitted by granddaughter Sheila Brownlee with notes from British military nurse historian Sue Light
Ruby Cockburn worked on the No 16 ambulance train as a British Red Cross service nurse which collected the wounded from the front line during the Battle of Somme in 1916.

The train was fitted with wards, kitchens, a dispensary, office, store rooms and accommodation. Coping with large amounts of wounded men on the move made work incredibly intense. When not needed Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) staff sometimes went off on long walks or played cricket and football with teams from other trains. Unlike military nurses, Red Cross nurses were allowed a degree of freedom when it came to mixing with men. Sometimes personnel returned to find the train no longer in the sidings and having to hitch a ride to get back on it.

In 1918 Ruby was awarded a Royal Red Cross 2nd class. After the war she married Lieutenant Philip Chapman in June 1919 and they moved to Yorkshire. Ruby was widowed in 1923 and moved down south to support her young daughter. She died in the late 1960s surrounded by family in Bournemouth.
Submitted by son Bob Milton
In 1914 the International Committee of the Red Cross suggested that wounded military and naval personnel who were captured should be repatriated through neutral Switzerland, with the first repatriations taking place in March 1915.

WJ Milton, Royal Sussex Regt, was wounded and captured in September 1914 at Vendresse, France, at the first battle of the Aisne. In 1916 there was a PoW exchange and he was sent to Mürren, Switzerland where many more wounded PoWs were exchanged and interned in the following months. Mother and wives were allowed to visit the PoWs provided they were accompanied by the Red Cross. WJ Milton's wife visited him in 1917 and was later discharged in November of the same year unfit for further military service.
Submitted by great grandson Stephen Jarvis
Mary was always known as Nellie. She lived in Birmingham and was a factory worker. She was married in 1909 aged 17 and gave birth to her first child, a week after her 18th birthday. Nellie had five children but one of them died in 1912 at 8 months old from 'marasmus', a form of severe malnutrition.

When her great grandson, Stephen Jarvis asked her about the first world world war, she told him that his great-grandfather was called up in 1916 and she accompanied him to to New Street train station to see him off. All the other women were there waving goodbye to husbands, sons and brothers. Many of the women were sobbing. Nellie had tears in her eyes too - the result of the peeled onion she had brought with her in her pocket to make her eyes water so the other women would think she too was weeping. She couldn't cry because she was actually glad to see the back of her abusive husband.

Nellie's husband was killed in action in August 1916 on the Somme, she was aged just 24, and had four children aged from six to newborn. She never remarried. Nellie died in 1972 aged 80.

Ethel 'Betty' Stonehous e: MI5 Military permit officer
Submitted by grandson Dr David L. Gosling

Ethel worked for MI5 between 1915 and 1920. She was a Military Permit Officer and is thought to have been an adjutant who supervised soldiers' leave - a responsible task as soldiers who disappeared or didn't return from leave were regarded as deserters and shot. She kept some memorabilia from her time in the service, including a programme for a pantomime-style revue possibly put on by the staff for an unspecified and undated occasion. It's entitled 'Hush-Hush'. The following poem was on page 10 of the programme.

Ave Atque Vale When we have gone our different ways And idle memory sometimes strays To dim remember'd wartime days When women toe'd the line, We may from out some dusty nook Produce this little Office book And open it to take a look For sake of auld lang syne. We'll think of when we had the 'flu, The days we had to 'muddle through', And all the work we used to do To snare the wily Hun, Of times when strafs were in the air And worried secretaries would tear Great handfuls of their flowing hair And swear at everyone. We'll think with something like regret Of all the jolly friends we met; The jokes that we remember yet Will once again revive. Here's to the book that's just begun! May it recall to every one The jokes and laughter and the fun We had in M. I. 5.
Submitted by grandson Ian Rathbone

When Ruby Vears' husband-to-be Arthur Rathbone was called up in 1916 she decided to volunteer after a public appeal to women to work on the buses. She paid a ha'penny to join the London and Provincial Union of Licensed Vehicle Workers.

Ruby was proud to have worked on the buses and for doing her bit for the war effort. She felt it was important to the war as it meant she was helping people go to work. She enjoyed working as it provided her with independence and helped take her mind off things. At first she had problems with counting the money and used to ask a friend to help her count it at the end. However, once she received training she found she was less frightened about handling the money.

She worked long hours on open top buses so she felt the cold a great deal. Roads were quite rough at times and she blamed a wrist pain she used to get in later years on having her arm wrenched when coming down the stairs when the bus would abruptly stop.

Ruby's family say she would probably have carried on working but when she got married women were told they were no longer required in jobs which the returning men needed. After the birth of her child she returned to doing embroidery work as a homeworker. She didn't want to work in a sweatshop so accepted that she had to work long hours for less money. Eventually, her husband Arthur got a job on the buses which he ended up doing for the rest of his working life.

Jane Ann Jones: Women's Army Auxiliary Corps
Submitted by great niece Laura Albins
Jane Ann Jones joined the Women's Auxiliary Corps in 1917 aged 21 and worked in a Chateau sending messages back to England. Her daughter recorded some of her wartime memories, in this extract she describes what it was like working in an office full of men.

So I got into this office, it was in Calais, and it was in a dreadful mess, you couldn't find anything. Everybody who filed things had their own ideas. They didn't seem to have strict rules about how to do these things. And so the RSM said to me, you know how these things should be conducted, so we'll leave it to you to reorganise it and do it. Well, these men that I was working with were older than I was, been in the army longer and took no notice of me - they weren't nasty, they just grinned and took no notice of me and I couldn't do anything about it. And so I thought, well I'll just let things go, I can't do anything about it. So after about a month, the sergeant major sent for me, he said 'You haven't pulled this off, it's just as bad as before you came, which means you can't do the work.' 'Oh no it doesn't', I said, 'I can't do the work if the men won't listen to me. The men just don't take any notice of me, I can't do anything about it.' He said 'Do you mean to say if you had other staff you could get this office right?' And cheeky me said 'Yes!' So one by one, within two or three days, the whole office was changed, and I had men who didn't know the job or didn't even think they knew how to do the job and they had to ask me how to do it, so I soon got the office straight, you know, having no one to tell me off or ignore me. So that's how I got this office stuff straight, you know, through getting rid of the staff I had.

Jane Ann Jones was awarded an OBE for her services in 1920.
These stories are part of GuardianWitness' World war one memories: women during the war exhibition in the Guardian gallery at Kings Place. It is open to the public and runs until Friday 28 November

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Women during WW1 - readers' stories: 'I can't do the work if the men won't listen to me'

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To mark the centenary of the first world war we've been asking readers to share their photos and memories of the wartime experiences of the women in their families. You can see all the contributions - or submit your own - via GuardianWitness

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The story of Canada's WWI all-Black military battalion | Articles | CBC Kids

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Remembrance Day

September 01, 2022

November 11 is Remembrance Day. We honour the brave men and women who served in the military during times of war. They defend the rights and freedoms that we are fortunate to have.

When did they go to war?

The First World War started in 1914 and lasted four years. It was fought at sea, on land and in the air.

It was the first time in history that millions of people from many countries fought at the same time.

Who were they?

At the start of the war, many young Canadians volunteered to join their country's armed forces. However, many Asian and Black men were told that they could not enlist (sign-up). Some battalions (military units) during the First World War did not welcome everyone.

Although many Black men had been turned away, they remained eager to show loyalty to their country.

The No. 2 Construction Battalion was formed for Black men to serve as part of the Canadian army. They would not be in a combat role. But the men in this unit were proud and excited to help win the war for Canada and the other countries that were fighting on the same side.

It became one of the most important military units in Canadian history.

Who were the soldiers in the battalion?

Over 750 Black men enlisted in the No. 2 Construction Battalion. Most of the men were Black men from Nova Scotia and Ontario. Others came from across Canada. Men from the Caribbean who were already in Canada also enlisted. And over 160 men from the United States joined.

When the battalion sailed for England in 1917, there were 595 men.

The importance of their work

No. 2 Construction Battalion served in the forests of southeast France. They did not serve at the front, but their work was still very important for the war.

They worked with white Canadian loggers to help with the production of lumber. They helped to cut down trees, take them to the mills and helped run the mills. Then they took the finished products to the railway station.

So the mills were able to produce far more wood, and it was in very high demand. It was important for the soldiers on the front lines.

The wood was used to make trenches and observation posts. Without the wood, the trenches would have caved in. The soldiers would have had to walk through deep mud.

The wood was also used for wooden walkways through the mud of the battlefield. Some was even used as railway ties for supporting railway tracks.

The legacy that they left behind

No. 2 Construction Battalion was Canada's largest ever all-Black military unit. Here are some of their great accomplishments:

Rev. William Andrew White was the only Black officer in No. 2 Construction Battalion. He became a minister at the Cornwallis Street Baptist Church in Halifax and hosted a popular radio broadcast.

Lionel Ethelbert Cross was an outstanding lawyer in Toronto helping both Black and white citizens.

Did you know?

Black soldiers have played a major role in Canada's military history for over 200 years!

They helped the British fight off the Americans in the War of 1812.

They assisted in stopping the rebellion in Upper Canada in 1837.

They formed the first military unit in British Columbia, in 1860.

Soldiers like William Hall, James Post and Lancelot Joseph Bertrand received many of the highest honours and awards given to soldiers.

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The story of Canada's WWI all-Black military battalion | Articles | CBC Kids

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Remembrance Day September 01, 2022 November 11 is Remembrance Day. We honour the brave men and women who served in the military during times of war. They defend the rights and freedoms that we are fortunate to have. The First World War started in 1914 and lasted four years.

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Black soldiers had to fight to be able to fight on behalf of Canada - but academics say their unique plight often goes unrecognized.

"When we talk about veterans, we don't talk about Blacks," said Kathy Hogarth, a University of Waterloo associate professor whose work focuses on marginalized populations in Canada.

"If we begin to talk about Blacks, we have to add another layer because there was another fight to even get into fighting for our country."

In the First World War, Black men faced barriers when trying to enlist in the Canadian military.

It was dubbed the "white man's war."

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But that didn't last long.

In 1916, amid shortages, they were segregated into a battalion and given non-combat duties. The No. 2 Construction Battalion, which became known as the "Black Battalion," was the subject of protests and opposition.

Black men, rejected on the basis of their skin colour, were later subject to conscription, and often held against their will.

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"Blacks fought for the freedom of Canada, while at the same time, Canada was fighting for the erasal of Blacks," Hogarth said.

Once the war ended, soldiers returning home were honoured. Black Battalion's efforts were not recognized until 1982.
Coverage will be available on globalnews.ca, Coverage will be available on globalnews.ca, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. This will include the No Stone Left Alone special followed by Global National special from Ottawa at the National War Memorial.
They were eventually recognized thanks to the efforts of the Black Cultural Society of Nova Scotia and a man named Calvin Woodrow Ruck, who eventually went on to become Canada's third Black senator.

Ruck's granddaughter, Lindsay Ruck, told Global News that the work of the Black Battalion was unrecognized to the extent that her grandfather himself - a Black man living in Nova Scotia - wasn't aware of their story until years after the war.

"A lot of their family members didn't even know that they served in the Black Battalion because they didn't even come home and tell their stories, they didn't share anything because they weren't seen as real Canadian soldiers," she said.

"But they fought to fight."

Ruck said her grandfather learned about the battalion in the 1980s, when he saw a man wearing a pin that symbolized the service.

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"He asked what the pin was for, and the man said it was because he served in the Black Battalion, and that was the first time my grandfather heard about that."

After hearing about the battalion, which had never been honoured, her grandfather pushed for them to be recognized in a banquet.

By then, only a few survivors remained.

"They were not actually there to receive that recognition, because they had passed. It took so long for us to get there," Ruck said.

Ruck's grandfather later went on to write a book, titled, The Black Battalion 1916-1920: Canada's Best Kept Military Secret.

Canadian War Museum photography exhibit depicts price paid in war by soldiers

"He would go to visit these different men and their families, try to find out more about them, but it was really hard because there was so little written about them," she said.

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"He tried to put something together to honour them."

In 1993, he successfully pushed for a commemorative cairn in Nova Scotia to honour the men.

On the 100th anniversary of the battalion, Ruck wrote the foreword to her grandfather's book as a new edition was released.

But she says there's more work to be done - the story of Black soldiers in Canada is relatively unknown.

"This isn't something that would come up in history class. This was something that was so separated from history that it's not included in the curriculum, she said.

That's a problem Hogarth also recognizes in Canada's education systems, which she said focuses on "partial truths."

"It's disheartening that we can't educate on the full truth of your history," Hogarth said.

Who is Viola Desmond? The first Canadian woman to grace front of banknote

"Our education systems need to be revamped to acknowledge the contributions of many, in addition to the white individuals who built this nation."

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She noted the problem extends far before and beyond what happened in the First World War. Black soldiers endured racism while fighting in pre-Confederation wars, in the Second World War and others.

In the Second World War, many Black soldiers again faced resistance. However, thousands of Black men and women ultimately served.

Shortcomings in Canada's education system can also be traced back to who is telling Canada's history, said Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, a sociology professor at the University of Toronto.

"I think we need to look at who has been writing the narrative of this country," he said. "That's not to say there are not black historians, but I think Black people are perhaps underrepresented and certainly from major institutions."

He said that means there is often less documentation of Black soldiers and other non-white individuals who fought in the world wars.

Owusu-Bempah said Black soldiers weren't honoured in the same way as others - but Canadians can change that now.

"It would be nice to see the efforts of Black soldiers recognized by Canada."

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'They fought to fight': How Black Canadians battled racism to serve the country | Globalnews.ca

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Black soldiers had to fight to be able to fight on behalf of Canada - but academics say their unique plight often goes unrecognized. "When we talk about veterans, we don't talk about Blacks," said Kathy Hogarth, a University of Waterloo associate professor whose work focuses on marginalized populations in Canada.

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What Were Indigenous Soldiers Fighting For?

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What Were Indigenous Soldiers Fighting For?

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Throughout the 20th century, many Indigenous people enlisted in military service to fight wars, risk their lives and make monumental sacrifices on Canada's behalf. But during those years, the country wasn't so kind to the peoples who had been here long before Canada's borders were even drawn.

So why did Indigenous people - especially First Nations living under the control of the Indian Act - choose to fight?

It's a question John Moses, a member of the Delaware and Upper Mohawk bands from Six Nations of the Grand River, and a Canadian Armed Forces veteran, has been reflecting on for many years.

Moses comes from a long line of military veterans - members of his family served in the First World War, the Second World War and other operations since. He has also co-authored a book on the history of Indigenous people in the military.

The reasons Indigenous people fought "varied according to the conflict and it varied from Indian reserve community to Indian reserve," Moses told Rosanna Deerchild, host of CBC Radio's Unreserved.

For example, "there were those who volunteered to serve for the perceived material benefits of regular food and clothing and payment."

But for Moses's father, Russ Moses, joining up also served as a kind of escape. The elder Moses was a survivor of the Mohawk Institute Residential School in Brantford, Ont., also known as the "Mush Hole."

"He had been at the Mush Hole under exceptionally severe wartime and post-war conditions from 1942 until 1947 ... marked by severe discipline, malnutrition, overwork and a lack of proper clothing," Moses said.

"By the time he left the residential school, I think in many ways, both figuratively and literally, he wanted to put as much distance as he could between himself and the Six Nations community and the Mush Hole. And his way up and out of that circumstance was to join the Royal Canadian Navy."

The clothing was better, the food was better and the discipline was less severe than in residential school, Moses explained. Enlisting was also an opportunity for Russ Moses, who served during the Korean War, to see the world.

"In a sense, I think he wanted to replace old memories with new memories, even if that included going to war."

'Second-class citizens'

According to A Commemorative History of Aboriginal People in the Canadian Military, which John Moses co-authored, First Nations peoples were not forced to enlist. Those who served in the First and Second World Wars did so voluntarily.

Veterans Affairs Canada states that more than 4,000 Indigenous people served during the First World War. By the end of the Second World War in 1945, at least 3,000 First Nations people had served in uniform, along with an unknown number of Inuit and Métis people. (Based on self-identification figures taken from the Department of National Defence, approximately 2,700 Indigenous people served in the Canadian Armed Forces in 2019.)

Moses wants Canadians to understand that Indigenous people didn't sign up for military service because they were deferential toward the monarchy.

"In no situation did Indigenous peoples render service out of, you know, this quaint, naive sense of subservience to the British Crown," he said. "The issue of whether to serve, and how, is hugely divisive [in Indigenous communities]."

If they had mixed feelings about fighting for Canada, those feelings were only exacerbated when they got back. Upon returning from war, Russ Moses and other Indigenous veterans were treated like "second-class citizens," Moses said.

"[My father] was denied entry into a bar in Hagersville, which is a small town outside the Six Nations ... he was in naval uniform and denied service," he said. "They knew he was from the reserve and said, 'We're sorry, but we can't serve you here.'"

Indigenous soldiers weren't afforded the same rights and benefits after their service - such as access to housing and financial and health supports - as non-Indigenous veterans.

First Nations people were still treated as "wards" or "minors" of the state; it wasn't until 1960 that they were enfranchised and able to vote in Canada.

Nation-to-nation relationship

Anishinaabe sniper Francis Pegahmagabow, from Wasauksing First Nation near Parry Sound, Ont., remains the most highly decorated soldier in Canadian military history after fighting in (and surviving) the First World War.

There were many reasons why he enlisted, but in the eyes of author and poet Armand Garnet Ruffo, one motivation was Pegahmagabow's respect for the nation-to-nation relationship between First Nations and the Crown.

Ruffo is Ojibway from Chapleau, in northern Ontario, and a professor at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont. In 2018, he was enlisted for a different kind of service: writing a libretto about Pegahmagabow's life before, during and after the war for a musical production called Sounding Thunder: The Song of Francis Pegahmagabow.

Ruffo had to learn about Pegahmagabow's life, but also about Indigenous rights during that time and the bigger historical moment of the First World War.

"Indigenous people were doing their part just as [the Crown] had to do its part to support those treaties and honour them," Ruffo said.

Brian McInnes, Pegahmagabow's great-grandson, said he believes his ancestor fought in the war because he felt the need to stand alongside the Allied countries, which included Great Britain, France, the United States and, of course, Canada.

"To stand strong and to stand brave and to defend that greater good from harm, because it's fragile," he explained. "I think that's a responsibility that he, like so many other Indigenous peoples of that age and before - and fortunately after - have continued to think about and honour."

'It's important to honour the people'

McInnes is an educator and a scholar and his book Sounding Thunder: The Stories of Francis Pegahmagabow was an important resource for Ruffo in his writing.

McInnes believes that, with whatever threat the First World War presented to people living within Canadian borders, his great-grandfather wanted to defend and preserve his homelands.

"When it comes down to it ... these are still lands that Indigenous peoples feel a love and connection to, regardless of what nation-state perhaps claims it politically," he said.

While McInnes and Ruffo are remembering Pegahmagabow's life through writing, Indigenous communities across Canada are finding other ways to commemorate their war veterans.

Donald Maracle is the chief of Tyendinaga Mohawk Council, which is part of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte. With funding from the Last Post Fund - an organization that ensures dignified funerals and burials on behalf of Veterans Affairs Canada - Maracle's community embarked on a project to finally etch in stone the names of soldiers whose graves had been unmarked for decades.

"Some of them did it for adventure," Maracle acknowledged. But he said they also fought because they valued peace.

"You know, if Germany had got control, especially during the Second World War with Hitler, and taken over as a dictator of the world, where would the dust settle? I'm sure that was first and foremost in their minds."

The project to mark the graves of Indigenous soldiers in Tyendinaga is one effort among many that are needed to show proper respect to Indigenous veterans. "There's a lot of catching up to do," Maracle said.

"It's important to honour the people ... who gave their lives for the freedom and peace that people oftentimes in this country take for granted," he said. "It was purchased at a very high cost of human life."

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What were Indigenous soldiers fighting for? | CBC Radio

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Throughout the 20th century, many Indigenous people enlisted in military service to fight wars, risk their lives and make monumental sacrifices.

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How World War I’s Legacy Eclipsed the 1918 Pandemic | HISTORY

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Both World War I and the 1918 influenza pandemic were devastating events in history. So why did memorials for one event overshadow the other?

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The most damaging pandemic of influenza - for Canada and the world - was an H1N1 virus that appeared during the First World War. Despite its unknown geographic origins, it is commonly called the Spanish flu. In 1918-19, it killed between 20 and 100 million people, including some 50,000 Canadians.

Telephone operators in High River, Alberta, wear face masks during the Spanish flu pandemic, October 1919.

Why Was the 1918 Pandemic Commonly Called the "Spanish" Flu?

The name Spanish flu emerged as a result of media censorship by the military in Allied countries during the First World War. These countries suppressed public reports of the viral infection and the death of soldiers. However, in Spain, which was neutral during the war, the media was able to widely report the high incidence of death from the illness. The virus became associated with Spain as a result.

The origins of the pandemic are debated. Four locations are often considered the source of the initial outbreak: England, France, China or the United States.

How Did the 1918 Flu Differ from the Regular Flu?

Unlike most strains of influenza, which are dangerous for those with reduced immunity (e.g., the elderly, the very young and those with pre-existing conditions), the 1918 flu tended to kill the young and hearty. Pneumonia contracted by a patient weakened by influenza, rather than influenza itself, was the major cause of death. A long-term consequence for some victims was the development of a parkinsonian syndrome, including a marked tremor.

How Did the Flu Spread in Canada?

The 1918 flu pandemic arrived in Canada with returning troops and made its way into even the remotest communities. Some entire villages were wiped out by the disease. Labrador, Quebec and First Nations reserves were particularly hard hit. Some areas unsuccessfully tried quarantine. All medical facilities and personnel were soon overtaxed and volunteers organized infirmaries in schools and hotels.

What Was the Impact of the 1918 Flu Pandemic in Canada?

The pandemic brought not only death but social and economic disruption as well. Children were left parentless and many families found themselves without their chief wage earner. Armies on both sides of the First World War were temporarily debilitated. Businesses lost profits because of lack of demand for their products or because they were unable - as a result of a reduced work force - to meet the demand. Municipal governments, in an attempt to halt the spread of the disease, closed all except necessary services. Provinces enacted laws regarding quarantine and enforced the wearing of masks in public. Although the Canadian population unhappily accepted these restrictions, it defied the federal government's request that First World War victory celebrations be postponed until 1 December 1918. The establishment of the federal Department of Health in 1919 was a direct result of the Canadian epidemic.

The influenza strain, although decreasingly virulent, remained active in Canada until the mid-1920s. It has since been identified as an H1N1 virus ( see also H1N1 Flu of 2009 in Canada).

Epidemic (noun)

A widespread outbreak of an infectious disease in one part of the world at a particular time.

Pandemic (noun)

An outbreak of an infectious disease that affects a large proportion of the population in multiple countries or worldwide. Pandemics arise from epidemics.

Quarantine

The separation of a group of people from a population and the restriction of their movement to prevent the introduction and spread of a disease.

Virus

An organism, too small to be seen with a typical microscope, that can multiply inside the cells of its host and usually causes disease.

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The most damaging pandemic of influenza - for Canada and the world - was an H1N1 virus that appeared during the First World War. Despite its unknown geographic origins, it is commonly called the Spanish flu. In 1918-19, it killed between 20 and 100 million people, including some 50,000 Canadians.

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The Influenza Pandemic of 1918
The influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 killed more people than the Great War, known today as World War I (WWI), at somewhere between 20 and 40 million people. It has been cited as the most devastating epidemic in recorded world history. More people died of influenza in a single year than in four-years of the Black Death Bubonic Plague from 1347 to 1351. Known as "Spanish Flu" or "La Grippe" the influenza of 1918-1919 was a global disaster.

The Grim Reaper by Louis Raemaekers

In the fall of 1918 the Great War in Europe was winding down and peace was on the horizon. The Americans had joined in the fight, bringing the Allies closer to victory against the Germans. Deep within the trenches these men lived through some of the most brutal conditions of life, which it seemed could not be any worse. Then, in pockets across the globe, something erupted that seemed as benign as the common cold. The influenza of that season, however, was far more than a cold. In the two years that this scourge ravaged the earth, a fifth of the world's population was infected. The flu was most deadly for people ages 20 to 40. This pattern of morbidity was unusual for influenza which is usually a killer of the elderly and young children. It infected 28% of all Americans (Tice). An estimated 675,000 Americans died of influenza during the pandemic, ten times as many as in the world war. Of the U.S. soldiers who died in Europe, half of them fell to the influenza virus and not to the enemy (Deseret News). An estimated 43,000 servicemen mobilized for WWI died of influenza (Crosby). 1918 would go down as unforgettable year of suffering and death and yet of peace. As noted in the Journal of the American Medical Association final edition of 1918: "The 1918 has gone: a year momentous as the termination of the most cruel war in the annals of the human race; a year which marked, the end at least for a time, of man's destruction of man; unfortunately a year in which developed a most fatal infectious disease causing the death of hundreds of thousands of human beings. Medical science for four and one-half years devoted itself to putting men on the firing line and keeping them there. Now it must turn with its whole might to combating the greatest enemy of all--infectious disease," (12/28/1918).

An Emergency Hospital for Influenza Patients

The effect of the influenza epidemic was so severe that the average life span in the US was depressed by 10 years. The influenza virus had a profound virulence, with a mortality rate at 2.5% compared to the previous influenza epidemics, which were less than 0.1%. The death rate for 15 to 34-year-olds of influenza and pneumonia were 20 times higher in 1918 than in previous years (Taubenberger). People were struck with illness on the street and died rapid deaths. One anectode shared of 1918 was of four women playing bridge together late into the night. Overnight, three of the women died from influenza (Hoagg). Others told stories of people on their way to work suddenly developing the flu and dying within hours (Henig). One physician writes that patients with seemingly ordinary influenza would rapidly "develop the most viscous type of pneumonia that has ever been seen" and later when cyanosis appeared in the patients, "it is simply a struggle for air until they suffocate," (Grist, 1979). Another physician recalls that the influenza patients "died struggling to clear their airways of a blood-tinged froth that sometimes gushed from their nose and mouth," (Starr, 1976). The physicians of the time were helpless against this powerful agent of influenza. In 1918 children would skip rope to the rhyme (Crawford):

I had a little bird,
Its name was Enza.
I opened the window,
And in-flu-enza.

The influenza pandemic circled the globe. Most of humanity felt the effects of this strain of the influenza virus. It spread following the path of its human carriers, along trade routes and shipping lines. Outbreaks swept through North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Brazil and the South Pacific (Taubenberger). In India the mortality rate was extremely high at around 50 deaths from influenza per 1,000 people (Brown). The Great War, with its mass movements of men in armies and aboard ships, probably aided in its rapid diffusion and attack. The origins of the deadly flu disease were unknown but widely speculated upon. Some of the allies thought of the epidemic as a biological warfare tool of the Germans. Many thought it was a result of the trench warfare, the use of mustard gases and the generated "smoke and fumes" of the war. A national campaign began using the ready rhetoric of war to fight the new enemy of microscopic proportions. A study attempted to reason why the disease had been so devastating in certain localized regions, looking at the climate, the weather and the racial composition of cities. They found humidity to be linked with more severe epidemics as it "fosters the dissemination of the bacteria," (Committee on Atmosphere and Man, 1923). Meanwhile the new sciences of the infectious agents and immunology were racing to come up with a vaccine or therapy to stop the epidemics.

The experiences of people in military camps encountering the influenza pandemic:

An excerpt for the memoirs of a survivor at Camp Funston of the pandemic Survivor

A letter to a fellow physician describing conditions during the influenza epidemic at Camp Devens

A collection of letters of a soldier stationed in Camp Funston Soldier

The origins of this influenza variant is not precisely known. It is thought to have originated in China in a rare genetic shift of the influenza virus. The recombination of its surface proteins created a virus novel to almost everyone and a loss of herd immunity. Recently the virus has been reconstructed from the tissue of a dead soldier and is now being genetically characterized. The name of Spanish Flu came from the early affliction and large mortalities in Spain (BMJ,10/19/1918) where it allegedly killed 8 million in May (BMJ, 7/13/1918). However, a first wave of influenza appeared early in the spring of 1918 in Kansas and in military camps throughout the US. Few noticed the epidemic in the midst of the war. Wilson had just given his 14 point address. There was virtually no response or acknowledgment to the epidemics in March and April in the military camps. It was unfortunate that no steps were taken to prepare for the usual recrudescence of the virulent influenza strain in the winter. The lack of action was later criticized when the epidemic could not be ignored in the winter of 1918 (BMJ, 1918). These first epidemics at training camps were a sign of what was coming in greater magnitude in the fall and winter of 1918 to the entire world.

The war brought the virus back into the US for the second wave of the epidemic. It first arrived in Boston in September of 1918 through the port busy with war shipments of machinery and supplies. The war also enabled the virus to spread and diffuse. Men across the nation were mobilizing to join the military and the cause. As they came together, they brought the virus with them and to those they contacted. The virus killed almost 200,00 in October of 1918 alone. In November 11 of 1918 the end of the war enabled a resurgence. As people celebrated Armistice Day with parades and large partiess, a complete disaster from the public health standpoint, a rebirth of the epidemic occurred in some cities. The flu that winter was beyond imagination as millions were infected and thousands died. Just as the war had effected the course of influenza, influenza affected the war. Entire fleets were ill with the disease and men on the front were too sick to fight. The flu was devastating to both sides, killing more men than their own weapons could.

With the military patients coming home from the war with battle wounds and mustard gas burns, hospital facilities and staff were taxed to the limit. This created a shortage of physicians, especially in the civilian sector as many had been lost for service with the military. Since the medical practitioners were away with the troops, only the medical students were left to care for the sick. Third and forth year classes were closed and the students assigned jobs as interns or nurses (Starr,1976). One article noted that "depletion has been carried to such an extent that the practitioners are brought very near the breaking point," (BMJ, 11/2/1918). The shortage was further confounded by the added loss of physicians to the epidemic. In the U.S., the Red Cross had to recruit more volunteers to contribute to the new cause at home of fighting the influenza epidemic. To respond with the fullest utilization of nurses, volunteers and medical supplies, the Red Cross created a National Committee on Influenza. It was involved in both military and civilian sectors to mobilize all forces to fight Spanish influenza (Crosby, 1989). In some areas of the US, the nursing shortage was so acute that the Red Cross had to ask local businesses to allow workers to have the day off if they volunteer in the hospitals at night (Deseret News). Emergency hospitals were created to take in the patients from the US and those arriving sick from overseas.

The pandemic affected everyone. With one-quarter of the US and one-fifth of the world infected with the influenza, it was impossible to escape from the illness. Even President Woodrow Wilson suffered from the flu in early 1919 while negotiating the crucial treaty of Versailles to end the World War (Tice). Those who were lucky enough to avoid infection had to deal with the public health ordinances to restrain the spread of the disease. The public health departments distributed gauze masks to be worn in public. Stores could not hold sales, funerals were limited to 15 minutes. Some towns required a signed certificate to enter and railroads would not accept passengers without them. Those who ignored the flu ordinances had to pay steep fines enforced by extra officers (Deseret News). Bodies pilled up as the massive deaths of the epidemic ensued. Besides the lack of health care workers and medical supplies, there was a shortage of coffins, morticians and gravediggers (Knox). The conditions in 1918 were not so far removed from the Black Death in the era of the bubonic plague of the Middle Ages.

In 1918-19 this deadly influenza pandemic erupted during the final stages of World War I. Nations were already attempting to deal with the effects and costs of the war. Propaganda campaigns and war restrictions and rations had been implemented by governments. Nationalism pervaded as people accepted government authority. This allowed the public health departments to easily step in and implement their restrictive measures. The war also gave science greater importance as governments relied on scientists, now armed with the new germ theory and the development of antiseptic surgery, to design vaccines and reduce mortalities of disease and battle wounds. Their new technologies could preserve the men on the front and ultimately save the world. These conditions created by World War I, together with the current social attitudes and ideas, led to the relatively calm response of the public and application of scientific ideas. People allowed for strict measures and loss of freedom during the war as they submitted to the needs of the nation ahead of their personal needs. They had accepted the limitations placed with rationing and drafting. The responses of the public health officials reflected the new allegiance to science and the wartime society. The medical and scientific communities had developed new theories and applied them to prevention, diagnostics and treatment of the influenza patients.

Return to the Top

Graphs of the Influenza Epidemic Impact

The Public Health Response

Authoritative Measures
Preventative Measures
Prophylaxis
The Scientific and Medical Response

Clinical Descriptions
Treatment and Therapy
The Etiology of Influenza
Bibliography

by Molly Billings, June, 1997 modified RDS February, 2005

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The Influenza Pandemic of 1918 The influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 killed more people than the Great War, known today as World War I (WWI), at somewhere between 20 and 40 million people. It has been cited as the most devastating epidemic in recorded world history.

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SYNOPSIS

The American military experience in World War I and the influenza pandemic were closely intertwined. The war fostered influenza in the crowded conditions of military camps in the United States and in the trenches of the Western Front in Europe. The virus traveled with military personnel from camp to camp and across the Atlantic, and at the height of the American military involvement in the war, September through November 1918, influenza and pneumonia sickened 20% to 40% of U.S. Army and Navy personnel. These high morbidity rates interfered with induction and training schedules in the United States and rendered hundreds of thousands of military personnel non-effective. During the American Expeditionary Forces' campaign at Meuse-Argonne, the epidemic diverted urgently needed resources from combat support to transporting and caring for the sick and the dead. Influenza and pneumonia killed more American soldiers and sailors during the war than did enemy weapons.

In the fall of 1918, U.S. Army and Navy medical officers in camps across the country presided over the worst epidemic in American history, but the story was not new. War and disease have been linked throughout history as armies, weapons, and human pathogens have met on the battlefield. The conquistadores brought with them diseases that devastated the New World; typhus plagued Napoleon's armies; and typhoid fever humiliated the American Army during the Spanish-American War. But now U.S. Army and Navy personnel knew how to test and sanitize water supplies, vaccinate troops against typhoid and smallpox, and treat or prevent other infections. Modern bacteriology, it seemed, had tamed many diseases. Navy Surgeon General William C. Braisted proudly stated that "infectious diseases that formerly carried off their thousands, such as yellow fever, typhus, cholera, and typhoid, have all yielded to our modern knowledge of their causes and our consequent logical measures taken for their prevention."1

Twentieth-century warfare, however, had evolved to an even more deadly scale as industrialized armies of millions battled on the plains of Eastern Europe, the cliffs of Gallipoli, and in the deadly trenches of the 550-mile-long Western Front. When the European arms race exploded into war in 1914, the empires shocked themselves and the world with the killing power of their artillery and machine guns, their U-boats and mines, and their poison gas. These new weapons generated new, horrible injuries that took life and limb in a flash or festered into gangrenous wounds that could further maim and kill. The carnage traumatized some men into shellshock, and poison gases burned and suffocated others so horribly that nurses dreaded caring for them because they could provide little comfort. War diseases-notably the soldiers' nemeses diarrhea, dysentery, and typhus-flourished, and the trenches offered new maladies such as "trench foot," an infection caused by wearing sodden boots and standing in water and mud for days on end, and "trench fever," a debilitating fever transmitted by body lice.

Then, in the fourth dreadful year of the war, as the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) assumed fighting strength and prepared their first great offensive against the Germans, the flu struck. By the War Department's most conservative count, influenza sickened 26% of the Army-more than one million men-and killed almost 30,000 before they even got to France.2,3 On both sides of the Atlantic, the Army lost a staggering 8,743,102 days to influenza among enlisted men in 1918.4 (p. 1448) The Navy recorded 5,027 deaths and more than 106,000 hospital admissions for influenza and pneumonia out of 600,000 men, but given the large number of mild cases that were never recorded, Braisted put the sickness rate closer to 40%.5,6 (p. 2458)

The Army and Navy medical services may have tamed typhoid and typhus, but more American soldiers, sailors, and Marines would succumb to influenza and pneumonia than would die on the industrialized battlefields of the Great War. The story of the influenza epidemic in the military is often lost in the historical narrative of the Great War, included merely as a coda to that four-year horror, coinciding with the final battles and the Armistice. But an examination of medical reports and War Department and Department of the Navy documents from the war reveals that the war and the epidemic were intertwined.7 World War I and influenza collaborated: the war fostered disease by creating conditions in the trenches of France that some epidemiologists believe enabled the influenza virus to evolve into a killer of global proportions. In turn, disease shaped the war effort by rendering much of the Army and Navy non-effective and diverting resources, personnel, and scarce human attention and energy from the military campaign. The exigencies of war also thwarted many of the efforts such as crowd mitigation and quarantines to control the epidemic. The influenza epidemic in the U.S. military therefore provides a cautionary tale about the power of war to change the health environment and the power of disease to influence the conduct of war.

GOING TO WAR

The United States at first hung back from the killing in Europe, as many Americans believed it was not their fight. But under increasing pressure from Britain and France, and angered by German U-boat attacks that threatened American commerce and security, and the revelations in the Zimmermann Telegram that Germany was urging Mexico to attack the United States, President Wilson abandoned neutrality and in April 1917 asked Congress for a declaration of war.

The U.S. economy was already booming as farmers and manufacturers shipped foodstuffs and military supplies to the belligerent nations. Now the United States would also generate its own military force that would help overwhelm the enemy and bring about the armistice of November 11, 1918. Congress quickly established a draft, and more than 4,600 Selective Service draft boards screened 10 million men to find the strongest and most fit soldiers and sailors. The military grew from just 378,000 strong in April 1917 to more than 4.7 million by war's end, with an Army of 4.1 million and a Navy of 600,000. Seventy-two percent of enlisted forces were inducted, and the military population reflected the country's ethnically diverse and racially segregated society. An estimated 20% of Army draftees were foreign-born and the troops spoke at least 46 languages, some 5,700 were Mexican aliens, and 12,500 were American Indians.8 (p. 367-409) More than 400,000 African Americans served in the Army, some in two black combat divisions but most in labor battalions. The Navy employed only 5,300 black sailors, confining them to positions as cooks and stewards.9

War mobilization drew millions of civilians into military institutions and extended the military into all corners of the country. To train and supply these men, the Army and Navy expanded existing facilities and directed training activities at various civilian organizations. Military camps, arsenals, air fields, and supply depots sprouted up in every state. The Army began training recruits in the fall of 1917 at 32 large camps, each home to 25,000 to 55,000 troops. Soldiers also went to specialized camps for training in specific fields such as artillery training at Camp Knox, Kentucky, railway operations at Camp Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis, military engineering at Camp Forrest, Georgia, and medical unit training at Camp Crane, Pennsylvania. The War Department also operated some 40 air fields for aviator training and 10 embarkation and debarkation camps.8 (p. 677--78) The Navy expanded its training capacity from 6,000 recruits to more than 100,000 at stations on both coasts, the Gulf of Mexico, and Lake Michigan, and also had specialized training centers such as the Navy gas engine school and the aviation ignition school at Columbia University in New York. In addition to the training camps, in the summer of 1918 the War Department established the Student Army Training Corps (SATC), intended to augment the work of the Reserve Officers Training Corp (ROTC) and prevent war mobilization from emptying institutions of higher education. Under the program, more than 500 colleges and universities trained officer candidates and provided technical instruction in fields such as auto mechanics and radio operation. By the Armistice, about 158,000 young men had enrolled in SATC programs.8 (p. 556) This expansion of military institutions created a virtual network of young adults across which influenza could and would travel ( Figure 1 ).

Source: War Department (US). Annual report, 1919. Washington: Government Printing Office; 1920. p. 1519.

As the Army grew, the Army Medical Department raced to meet its needs. Military medicine was more like public health medicine (which managed large populations) than private medicine (which focused on care for individuals). By necessity, line officers cared less about who was sick or on leave than who they could send into battle. This was called the "effective" rate-how many men were available in a given unit to work and fight. Medical officers therefore tried to keep non-effective rates as low as possible, and measured their success statistically more than by individual patient care. The Army Medical Department tracked sickness in camps, combat units, labor battalions, ports, and ships by the day, week, month, and year, and compared its record with civilians, earlier wars, and other armies. Army Medicine also combined the old sanitation model of clean water and fresh air with the new public health approaches of educating soldiers on how to stay healthy and prevent disease. Army Surgeon General William C. Gorgas came out of the sanitary tradition and stressed good food, clean water, fresh air, and no crowding, but like other Progressives, also saw the Army as an opportunity to instill young men with middle-class values such as good personal hygiene.10

World War I was largely a ground war, so the Army bore the brunt of the fighting. While some 55,000 Marines served with the AEF, most of the Navy's responsibilities involved patrolling for U-boats, sweeping for enemy mines, escorting troop and cargo ships across the Atlantic, and mining the North Sea against the German Navy. Mobilization got off to a slow start in the United States, and a year after the declaration of war, the AEF in Europe numbered fewer than 400,000. By May 1918, however, hundreds of thousands of soldiers were crossing the Atlantic each month to build a combat force of two million by November. This transport of an army to another continent and back was one of the great achievements of World War I and demonstrated the power of the American government and economy. But such triumph also carried danger because as the doughboys traveled "Over There," they did not travel alone.

A LETHAL VIRUS

Influenza sailed with American troops across the Atlantic and when it exploded in late August and September in Europe and the United States, medical officers found themselves on the front lines of an epidemic worse than any of them had ever seen or imagined. Many were among the most knowledgeable and skilled physicians in the country and had just recently entered military service. They did their best to save those stricken by influenza, but could do little more than provide palliative care of warmth, rest, and a gentle diet, and hope that their patients did not develop pneumonia.

One of the tragedies of the influenza epidemic is that by the 1910s, the medical profession held many of the scientific and epidemiological tools to understand the nature and extent of the damage influenza and pneumonia were wreaking on their patients, but lacked the tools to effectively fight them. While virology would not emerge until the 1930s, physicians could identify many of the bacteria causing the deadly pneumonias that were killing their patients, but without antibiotics they could do little to fight the infections. Thus, as the epidemic struck their camps, hospitals, ships, ports, or divisions, many medical officers documented what they saw, as if trying to define that which they could not control. They ran tests and did autopsies, recorded their laboratory and clinical findings, compared morbidity and mortality rates across time and with other units, and tried to stay healthy themselves. They wrote detailed reports to their superiors and published myriad articles on the influenza of 1918-1919. These studies and reports would provide some of the most extensive documentation on the pandemic, informing civilian and military researchers alike as they struggled for years after the war to understand what had caused the epidemic and its widespread suffering.2,4,5,7

As they conducted their analyses, military medical officers soon understood that the wave of influenza that had run through many U.S. training camps during the spring of 1918 constituted a first wave of the pandemic. Fourteen of the largest training camps had reported influenza outbreaks in March, April, or May, and some of the infected troops carried the virus with them aboard ships to France.12 In the late spring and summer, influenza visited all of the armies of Europe, including the AEF, but because influenza was common in the military, and few patients became critically ill, medical officers were not alarmed. But by the late summer some saw the emergence of a new, lethal influenza.

Captain Alan M. Chesney, medical officer with an AEF hospital at Valdahon, an artillery training camp behind the front lines in France, documented the evolution of a more virulent influenza from his vantage point. A physician who was later dean of the Johns Hopkins Medical School, Chesney noted that three different infantry brigades of 4,000 men occupied the post in succession, "thus every three or four weeks there occurred a marked change in the population of the post." He theorized that "the history of the epidemic, therefore, resolved itself into distinct periods corresponding to the various brigades which entered the post," and "the frequent changes in the population of the post, brought about by the short stay of each brigade, exercised considerable influence upon the course of the epidemic of influenza."

During Chesney's first documented period, the month of June to July 27, the 5th Artillery Brigade had 77 "relatively mild" cases of influenza. During the second phase, July 27 to August 23, 200 men of the 58th Artillery Brigade became ill, about 6.5%. None of them died, but the outbreak was serious enough that the next brigade cleaned out the barracks, even washing the walls, before they moved in. Despite this precaution, during Chesney's third phase, August 23 to November 8, more than one-third of the 6th Artillery Brigade, 1,636 soldiers, contracted influenza and 151 died. Chesney concluded that "...these successive outbreaks tended to be progressively more severe both in character and extent, which would speak for an increasing virulence of the causative agent."13

Medical officers such as Chesney wanted clean barracks and also worried about crowding. Surgeon General Gorgas had recommended that Army housing provide 60 square feet per man, but did not often prevail. As Gorgas told one training camp commander, "We know perfectly well that we can control pneumonia absolutely if we could avoid crowding the men, but it is not practicable in military life to avoid this crowding."14 The Medical Department even asserted that "there is to be expected a definite relation between the degree of crowding and the amount of respiratory infection."2 (p. 111) But if it was difficult to control crowding in the training camps, it was impossible in the battlefields. Evolutionary biologist Paul Ewald has argued that trench warfare and its crowded conditions enabled an especially aggressive and deadly influenza virus to gain footing in humans.15 As soldiers in the trenches became sick, the military evacuated them from the front lines and replaced them with healthy men. This process continuously brought the virus into contact with new hosts-young, healthy soldiers in which it could adapt, reproduce, and become extremely virulent without danger of burning out. From there, according to a Navy report, "It is reasonable to suppose that late in August influenza of severe type was spread from French, Spanish, and Portuguese seaports to the Orient, South Africa, the United States, and South America."5 (p. 2427) As Chesney and Ewald suggest, the influenza of 1918 was a product of trench warfare, and the influenza that attacked the 6th Artillery at Valdahon would travel the highways of war, circling the globe.

INFLUENZA IN THE CAMPS

Braisted pinpointed the arrival of the epidemic in the United States to Tuesday, August 27, 1918, at Commonwealth Pier in Boston "...when three cases of influenza were committed to the sick list." The next day produced eight cases, and on August 29, 58 cases were reported, 15 so ill they were transferred to the U.S. Naval Hospital in Chelsea.5 (p. 2427) Within 48 hours, three medical officers who had seen the patients also fell ill.5 (p. 2473-4) Influenza reached civilians in Boston and on September 8, arrived "completely unheralded" at the Army's Camp Devens, outside of the city. Within 10 days, the base hospital and regimental infirmaries were overwhelmed with thousands of sick trainees.16,17

Ten days after the epidemic struck, hospital admissions began to fall but pneumonia took hold, and Camp Grant's daily death toll began to climb. It reached double digits on October 1 with 14 deaths, then 30 the next day, 46 the next, and 76 on October 4. The mortuary was designed to handle only four deaths a day. On Friday, October 4, with more than 100 bodies in the mortuary camp, officials negotiated with local undertakers to take the bodies at $50 each, but when someone produced a flatbed truck to remove the dead, the Army quickly provided more dignified closed trucks. The number of dead broke 100 on October 5 and reached a horrifying high of 117 deaths on October 6.4 (p. 750-4) The last day the Camp Grant death toll exceeded 100 was October 9, but the decline was too late for its commander. Col. Charles B. Hagadorn, a West Point graduate and career officer who had served in Russia and the Panama Canal Zone, was acting camp commander when influenza struck. Although Camp Grant's sickness and death rates were no worse than other camps and better than some, fellow officers later told reporters that Hagadorn had been showing the strain of the epidemic.26,27 Troubled as more than 500 soldiers died of pneumonia under his command, on October 7, he committed suicide with a pistol shot to his head. In the end, Camp Grant suffered 10,713 influenza victims, including 1,060 deaths in a population of 40,000.4 (p. 749)

Across the country, medical officers noted the rapidity with which the epidemic hit each camp, in some cases reaching its highest number of cases within 10 days ( Figure 2 ).5 (p. 2429) The steep gradient of the flu attacks can be seen in the headlines of The Camp Dodger, the weekly newspaper of Camp Dodge, Iowa, which strobe the trajectory of the epidemic. The flu struck on September 29, so its first mention is an October 4 headline: "Dodge Battles Spanish 'Flu'; Impose Quarantine, Cases Number 1500, One Death Reported." The next week's front page announced, "Flu Epidemic Subsiding; Fewer New Cases; Death Rate Is Low," and the following week's headline read, "Peak Flu Scourge Has Passed." Influenza disappeared from the front page of the October 25 edition, and the November 1 front page noted, "Services in Memory of Dodge Dead; Soldiers and Civilians Will Pay Tribute Sunday to Victims of Epidemic."28⁻31 And that was it. Although Camp Dodge would have one of the worst records among Army camps with more than 13,700 hospital admissions and 700 deaths, the epidemic had passed and the Armistice dominated the news.4 (p. 2017)

Source: Ayres LP. The war with Germany: a statistical summary. Washington: Government Printing Office; 1919. p. 127.

Influenza reached all Army training camps in a month, arriving September 8 at Camp Devens, September 13 at Camp Upton, September 21 at Camp Grant, September 26 at Camp Cody, and then on to the West Coast, arriving October 8 at Camp Fremont, California, and October 9 at Camp Lewis, Washington.2 (p. 138) War Department training reports show that as influenza arrived at each camp, it "interfered with," "curtailed," "brought to a standstill," or even caused the discontinuation of training activities as recruits and instructors fell ill.32 The deadly second wave of the epidemic lasted about four weeks in individual camps and ran its course in the Army in about eight weeks, roughly from September 15 to November 15, 1918. The high-water mark for deaths in the United States came the week of October 4 and in the AEF, the week of October 11.4 (p. 2755) Navy and Army officers observed that the U.S. camps had higher morbidity and mortality rates than shipboard sailors or AEF soldiers and Marines; one report set hospital admissions for influenza at 167 per 1,000 in the AEF compared to 361 per 1,000 in the U.S. camps.4 (p. 1469) Officers believed this was because deployed personnel had been exposed to influenza in an earlier wave and therefore had some immunity to the second deadly wave.5 (p. 2414)

In some camps, African American soldiers had lower morbidity but higher mortality rates than white soldiers, and some medical officers erroneously attributed this to racial weakness and susceptibility. But segregation, ironically, may have shielded some black units from influenza infection, and the higher mortality could have been due to African Americans' often inferior living conditions and medical care in the military. Segregation in the Army was rarely "separate but equal." One study of the army rations allocated to men at camps Grant, Dodge, and Funston over four months revealed that the 366th Infantry of the Ninety-second Division, one of the black combat divisions, received less protein and fewer calories than the white units, even though they were on the average taller and heavier than their white counterparts.33 Private Robert Stevens of Louisiana, with the 803rd Pioneers, a black unit that fought in the Meuse-Argonne, also remembered that when several hundred men in his regiment were sick with pneumonia, they had only one medical officer.34

In Europe, influenza attacked Allied and German armies alike, filling field hospitals and transport trains with weak, feverish men all along the Western Front. On October 18, the AEF chief surgeon reported that "...influenza and pneumonia continue to prevail in all parts of the A.E.F."35 Influenza cases outnumbered combat casualties. According to one tally, 227,000 soldiers were hospitalized for battle wounds in 1918, but half again as many AEF soldiers-340,000-were hospitalized for influenza.4 (p. 1429-41) The epidemic struck during the climax of the American military effort, compromising the AEF's performance in its largest campaign of the war, the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. Influenza clogged transportation lines along the battlefront, choked hospitals, killed thousands of soldiers, and rendered many more non-effective. The flu depleted and demoralized troops, and may have diverted military and political leaders from fighting the war to combating disease. It ultimately killed more American military personnel than did enemy machine guns and artillery ( Figure 3 ).

Source: Ayres LP. The war with Germany: a statistical summary. Washington: Government Printing Office; 1919. p. 123.

A.E.F. = American Expeditionary Forces

THE ARMY AND NAVY RESPOND

As he watched the epidemic unfold, Acting Army Surgeon General Charles Richard warned the Medical Corps that "...no disease which the army surgeon is likely to see in this war will tax more severely his judgment and initiative."36 His office distributed numerous bulletins on influenza and pneumonia to Army personnel and fired off daily memos to Army Chief of Staff Peyton March and others making recommendations on the epidemic.37,18 Concerned about influenza spreading on crowded troopships, Richard advised March against sending troops from infected camps to France until the epidemic was over in their region.18 March approved this recommendation, which at first affected only a few training camps. But as the epidemic widened, Richard called for canceling all draft calls for registrants destined for infected camps and minimizing transfers between camps. "Epidemic influenza has become a very serious menace," he told March, "and threatens not only to retard the military program, but to exact a heavy toll in human life, before the disease has run its course throughout the country."18,38 March's office instructed camp commanders to reduce crowding and increase medical personnel, but halted only some of the draft calls, so that in late September new recruits were still entering training camps. Only the Provost Marshall's cancellation of the October draft finally eased pressure on the camps.39

Richard also recommended a one-week quarantine of all troops prior to embarkation and reducing the capacity of troopships by one-half. Desperate to build up the forces in France, March rejected these suggestions in favor of rigorous pre-boarding physical screening to control the epidemic. Richard countered: "It is impossible for medical officers to state with any degree of safety that any particular command is free from infection, or that it may safely embark on troopships for overseas service." He then recommended "that all troop movements overseas be suspended for the present, except such as are demanded by urgent military necessity."18 Richard was willing to suspend war mobilization to protect the health of the soldiers. March agreed to a 10% reduction in crowding on troopships, but that was all. The controversy reached the White House when President Wilson asked March why he refused to stop troop transport during the epidemic. March described the Army's screening precautions and invoked the exigencies of a war of attrition, pointing out "...the psychological effect it would have on a weakening enemy to learn that the American divisions and replacements were no longer arriving."40 Troop shipments should not be halted for any reason, he told Wilson, and the president deferred to his judgment. March and Wilson had no intention of retarding U.S. participation in the war. By mid-October, however, the practice of taking men from camps that had already weathered the epidemic did finally reduce the influenza rates on troopships and in the AEF.

Sickness rates in U.S. camps ultimately ranged from 10% at Camp Lewis, Washington, to 63% at Camp Beauregard, Louisiana, averaging between 25% and 40%; death rates ranged from less than 1% at many camps to 3.3% at Camp Sherman, Ohio.2 (p. 138) But the sickness rates probably understated the problem because they captured only those soldiers who reported sick and received medical attention. Army investigators found that some regimental physicians did not send soldiers to hospitals unless they had temperatures higher than 101 degrees.4 (p. 3794) Many stricken soldiers may have just stayed in bed with or without knowledge or permission of their superior officers. Others may have gone home when they got sick, either with leave or AWOL. "One of the boys played wise and got sick while he was home," Charles Johnston, a soldier at Camp Funston, Kansas, wrote home in early October. "He is down with pneumonia, so will have a prolonged visit while home. Think I will try that when I come home, eh!" Several days later Johnston reported, "There have been hundreds of boys taken A.W.O.L. since [the camp was] quarantined."41 The situation became so bad that the War Department ordered the investigation of absentees from government service.42

While the implementation of treatment and prevention measures varied from camp to camp, medical officers generally tried "all preventive measures which seemed logical," according to Braisted. Quarantines were almost impossible to maintain and had little effect. The Navy, rushing to transport troops across the Atlantic, imposed modified quarantines at many stations but "...invariably this measure failed to prevent the introduction of influenza."5 (p. 2486) As the Army Medical Department explained, "...to be of avail in excluding influenza, quarantine must more nearly approach perfection than proved practicable in the large camps of the war."2 (p. 116) Other prevention measures included daily inspections and temperature-taking, patient isolation, face masks and gowns for attendants, good ventilation, screening between beds, prohibition of indoor gatherings, nose and throat sprays for the healthy, and experimental vaccines. In assessing these measures, however, Braisted concluded that "each particular preventive measure failed in some instances to accomplish recognizable results."5 (p. 2483) The Army Medical Department similarly admitted that "the best result to be expected from any or all of these measures is a slowing of the progress of an epidemic rather than any considerable diminution in the number of cases."2 (p. 123-4)

The Great Lakes Naval Training Station in Rockford, Illinois, provided an example of a failed measure. When it offered masks to personnel, only 96 out of 674 hospital corpsmen wore them and they experienced a higher influenza rate than those who did not wear masks-8.3% compared with 7.9%.5 (p. 2490) Great Lakes was by far the largest Navy camp, with a population of 44,000, and influenza arrived with "explosive violence" on September 16 and within 30 days generated 9,623 cases.5,11 (p. 2430) Harney Stover, a sailor from Indiana training at Great Lakes, explained to his mother that influenza "affects most men pretty hard for the first few hours. They turned ashen gray and usually faint." He commented that "at the rate it is spreading, everyone will have had it and be well in a week," but he was overly optimistic.43 Within weeks hundreds of his fellow trainees would die, as would many of those who were caring for them.5 (p. 2452) Although only one Navy nurse had died during the war to date, 25 succumbed to the pandemic, seven of them at Great Lakes camp: Theresa Burmeister, Myrtle Grant, Edith Hokanson, Emma Kotte, Alice Lea, Garnet Olive Peck, and Amber Story.5 (p. 2071)

Stover escaped the flu but chafed at the quarantine. He was furious when a local mayor objected to lifting it. "When we get liberty once more the mayor of Waukegan is going to have his darn little town run off the map and get tar and fethered [sic] himself." But if it was difficult to contain the influenza virus, it was harder to contain sailors and soldiers. When false rumors of an armistice hit the camp, "the whole station went wild," wrote Stover. "In the next Regiment, they tore the doors off 2 barracks trying to get out...It was almost an hour before the Provost Guards could make everybody get back in their barracks."43

When the Armistice finally came on November 11, it was impossible to maintain quarantines, but by then influenza had passed through most camps, leaving much to celebrate and to mourn. Influenza would again sweep American military camps in the United States and Europe in early 1919, but would be less virulent than the previous wave and find less fuel, as demobilization rapidly depopulated the camps. While the U.S. military had helped to subdue the Germans, the medical profession had failed to conquer an even more deadly, unseen enemy. Now in peacetime, thousands of physicians left military service to return to civilian life, taking with them their searing experiences of war and disease, victory and defeat.

REFERENCES

22. Kolata G. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1999. Flu; pp. 30-1. [ Google Scholar]

43. Burch M. 'I don't know only what we hear': the soldiers' view of the 1918 influenza epidemic. Indiana Med Hist. 1983;4:23-7. [[ PubMed] Google Scholar]

Articles from Public Health Reports are provided here courtesy of SAGE Publications

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The U.S. Military and the Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919

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The American military experience in World War I and the influenza pandemic were closely intertwined. The war fostered influenza in the crowded conditions of military camps in the United States and in the trenches of the Western Front in Europe. The virus ...

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A small number of Canadians vocally opposed the war, despite the intense pressure in most English-speaking parts of the country for its unqualified support. The women's suffrage movement, organized labour, farming organizations, and socialist groups were well represented in the ranks of peace activists.

J.S. Woodsworth

Popular Methodist minister James S. Woodsworth was an outspoken critic of the war and, later, of conscription. At a time when most churches, including his own Methodist Church, actively supported the war and compulsory service, Woodsworth received great notoriety for refusing to use his pulpit to encourage recruitment. This anti-war stance cost Woodsworth his position as Secretary of the Canadian Welfare League, and he left the Methodist Church over its lack of commitment to pacifism and other social issues, including working class poverty.

"Radical Pacifism"

Woodsworth's rejection of the war and the means used to fight it found support among some socialists, farmers, and organized labour. Unlike liberal pacifists, many of whom supported the war as a necessary evil to defeat European militarism, radical pacifists tended to see the war in starker terms. They viewed it as evidence of a corrupt and unjust social order that could only be fixed by sweeping social and political reform. They linked this critique with broader calls for social justice, the 'conscription of wealth' before men, and expanded rights for agriculture, labour, and immigrants. Most shared the disdain of Francophone nationalists and draft resisters for Canada's seemingly uncritical support of the British Empire. In appearing to reject not just the war but the very governments and societies that had produced it, radical pacifists encouraged broad opposition to their views.

Pacifists who held to their convictions during the war often did so at great personal risk. Theirs was not a popular position, even among unionized workers, farmers, or mainstream socialists. Activists voiced their opinions through organized demonstrations, published pamphlets, and the public support of conscientious objectors. Some pacifists attracted attention and controversy by urging a negotiated peace. Others echoed the views of most Canadians in condemning wartime profiteering and business corruption.

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Voices for Peace - Peace Activists | Canada and the First World War

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Canada's contribution to the First World War led to growing autonomy and international recognition, but at great cost.

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In Canada, pacifism is rooted in two traditions. One is sectarian pacifism, the historic nonresistance of pacifist religious sects that have tried to remain separate from the mainstream of Canadian society. By the beginning of the 20th century, the Quakers, Mennonites, Hutterites and Doukhobors had been guaranteed the right to live according to their pacifist beliefs. They received specific exemptions from military obligations, and thus their immunity became entrenched in Canadian law and custom. Sectarian pacifists have provided the largest and most consistent pacifist witness, particularly as conscientious objectors during both world wars.

The second tradition, which attracted popular support, is the liberal Protestant and humanitarian reform tradition, based upon the pacifist teachings of Jesus and belief in the irrationality of war and the brotherhood of man. The various expressions of liberal pacifism in Canada began with the progressive peace movement at the turn of the century, which emphasized international arbitration and conciliation as the best way to achieve world order. Nearly all political, church, farm, labour and women's groups had endorsed that principle before the outbreak of WWI. During the war, however, the liberal peace movement disintegrated, leaving only a few committed pacifists such as J.S. Woodsworth and William Ivens, renegade Methodist ministers who openly broke with their church in opposition to conscription. (Most anticonscription sentiment, notably in Québec, was not based upon pacifist belief.)

Liberal Pacificism Resurfaces

The postwar resurgence of liberal pacifism was fueled by both disillusionment with war and support for the League of Nations and disarmament. While Woodsworth and Agnes Macphail pressed the peace issue in Parliament, and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom led a campaign to abolish cadet training and militarism in schools, an interwar peace movement gained momentum. By the early 1930s it had expanded into a broad front representing various religious and political persuasions, but it was united by the Depression in the quest for socioeconomic justice as well as peace. Under Woodsworth's leadership, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation became the major political expression of this pacifist-socialist alignment.

At mid-decade, however, social radicals began to abandon pacifism for the fight against fascism in Spain, and by WWII even the CCF altered its traditional neutralist foreign policy, leaving only Woodsworth in Parliament to voice the pacifist position. The movement narrowed to a few Christian pacifists, primarily United Church ministers in the Fellowship of Reconciliation, who publicly reaffirmed their pacifism in the controversial "Witness Against War" manifesto and were repudiated by their own church leaders. Although sectarian pacifists had remained aloof from the interwar peace movement, they co-operated with liberal pacifists during the war in an effort to ensure the exemption of conscientious objectors from military service.

Populist Appeal of Pacifism

The dawn of the atomic age increased the urgency and popular appeal of pacifism, and the ranks of the postwar peace movement swelled. Since the new "nuclear pacifists" believed it was nuclear weapons that made war unthinkable, they emphasized nuclear disarmament and the easing of tensions between the USSR and the West. The new movement was initially dominated by the leftist Canadian Peace Congress under the leadership of James Endicott, as it launched a "Ban the Bomb" campaign and circulated the Stockholm Appeal, an international petition against nuclear weapons promoted by the Soviet-backed World Peace Council.

By the early 1960s, however, the Canadian Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Voice of Women generated wider public support by exposing the hazards of radioactive fallout from the testing of nuclear weapons. Major pacifist groups endorsed the call for global test ban treaty as well as the campaign to block the deployment of nuclear armed missiles on Canadian soil. Then, by mid-decade, pacifists turned their attention to the Vietnam War and joined in antiwar protests and petitions, assisted American draft dodgers and organized humanitarian assistance for Vietnamese civilians.

Antinuclear Campaigns

With the end of that war pacifists again focused on the escalating nuclear arms race and in the 1980s such organizations as the Canadian Physicians for Social Responsibility, Project Ploughshares and Operation Dismantle further broadened the base of the peace movement in Canada. Particularly noteworthy was the increasing public involvement of the Mennonite community as both sectarian and liberal pacifists were swept up in the antinuclear campaign.

Attention Refocuses

The end of the Cold War in the early 1990s again caused pacifists to refocus their attention on other issues, namely those of human rights, social violence and environmental degradation, in their continuing effort to eliminate the causes and manifestations of violent conflict.

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Pacifism is an outlook based upon religious or humanitarian belief that condemns war and social violence as inhuman and irrational, if not absolutely and always...

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How Does Conscription Work?

Under conscription, all males of a certain age must register with the government for military service. In some countries, females are also conscripted. Once registered, these people may be "called up" for military service. Some people may be exempt (or excused) from mandatory military service. This could include people in certain occupations or who suffer from physical or mental illness or disability.

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Does Canada Have Conscription?
Canada does not currently have conscription. Although some countries have mandatory military service (e.g., Switzerland, Sweden, Israel), it is unlikely that Canada will reintroduce the draft. During theFirst and Second World Wars, conscription created deep divisions in the country. This experience has contributed to deep unease about the practice among Canadians.

Conscription in the First World War

In the South African War (1899-1902), several thousand Canadians volunteered to fight for the British Empire overseas. Conscription for Canada's limited war effort in South Africa had therefore not been necessary. The same was true during the early years of the First World War, when huge numbers of Canadian volunteers - 330,000 overall from 1914 to 1915 - willingly enlisted to fight against the Germans in France and Flanders (Belgium).

By late 1916, however, the relentless human toll of the war and the terrible casualties (soldiers wounded or killed) at the front in Europe were beginning to cause reinforcement problems for the Canadian commanders overseas. Recruitment at home was slowing, and the manpower and enlistment system was disorganized.

For Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden, the first necessity was to assist the men in the trenches. In May 1917, when he returned to Canada from the Imperial War Conference in London and from visits to the trenches, he had decided that compulsory service was necessary. He announced his decision in Parliament on 18 May.

Union Government

Borden was concerned that opponents of conscription, including the Liberal Party, would join forces to defeat the Conservative government in the general election that December. Borden decided the best way to bring conscription about - while placating Quebec, where support was weak - was to bring his francophone opponent into a wartime coalition. On 25 May, he offered to form a coalition government with Liberal leader Sir Wilfrid Laurier, promising the Liberals equal seats in Cabinet in exchange for their support for conscription.

After consulting his supporters, Laurier rejected the proposal on 6 June. Quebec would never agree to conscription, he believed, and if he joined the pro-conscription coalition, French Canada would be delivered to the hands of such Quebec nationalists as Henri Bourassa ( see Francophone Nationalism in Quebec).

After enormous difficulty, the Military Service Act became law on 29 August 1917. It made all male citizens aged 20 to 45 subject to call-up for military service, through the end of the war.

Virtually every French-speaking member of Parliament opposed conscription, and almost all the English-speaking MPs supported it. The eight English-speaking provinces also endorsed Borden's move, while the province of Quebec opposed it.

In October, after months of political manoeuvering, Borden announced a Union Government - a coalition of loyal Conservatives, plus a handful of pro-conscription Liberals and independent members of Parliament.

Did You Know?
The Military Service Act (MSA), passed by Parliament in August 1917, initially included Status Indians and Métis men between the ages of 20 and 45. At that time, "Status Indians" were First Nations peoples with official Indian status registered with the Department of Indian Affairs. However, because of challenges from First Nations leaders thatconscription violated treaties between the Crown and Indigenous peoples, as well as complaints that men without the federal franchise (right to vote) should not be forced to fight in overseas wars, Indigenous peoples (both treaty and non-treaty peoples) were exempted from the MSA in January 1918. Even though they were not conscripted in 1917 and 1918, more than 4000 First Nations men volunteered for overseas service between 1914 and 1918-not including the manyMétis and First Nations soldiers who volunteered without identifying as Indigenous.

Wartime Elections Act

In the controversial Wartime Elections Act, which became law on 20 September 1917, the right to vote in federal elections was extended to nursing sisters (women serving in the Canadian Army Medical Corps) and to close female relatives of military men. Canadian women had previously been denied the right to vote in federal elections ( see Women's Suffrage in Canada). By extending the vote, the Act was meant to entice voters who were likely to support the developing Union Government and conscription.

At the same time, the Wartime Elections Act removed the right to vote from thousands of people who were likely to vote against conscription. This included immigrants from enemy countries who had become citizens after 1902 - unless those citizens had a son, grandson or brother on active duty in the Canadian military. The law also removed the right to vote from all conscientious objectors (those who refused to go to war because it was against their religious, moral or ethical beliefs).

Election of 1917

The federal election of 1917 was divided. While neither French- nor English-speaking Canadians were unanimous in their views on the subject, English Canada, broadly speaking, gave Borden his mandate to put conscription into effect. The Union Government won a majority, with 153 seats, including only three from Quebec. Laurier's Liberals won 82 seats, 62 from Quebec.

The process of call-ups began in January 1918. But out of the 401,882 men registered for conscription - and though certain exemptions from call-up were lifted in the spring of 1918 - only 124,588 men were added to the strength of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. Only 24,132 of those made it to France by the war's end.

As a political measure, conscription was largely responsible for the re-election of the Borden government. However, conscription left the Conservative Party with a heavy liability - and feelings of betrayal - in Quebec and in the agricultural West (where the call up took people away from family farms).

1918 Anti-Conscription Riots

Anti-conscription riots broke out in Quebec. In 1918, the government used the War Measures Act to quell the anti-conscription Easter Riots in Quebec City between 28 March and 1 April 1918, proclaiming martial law and deploying over 6,000 soldiers. Rioters attacked the troops with gunfire and with improvised missiles, including ice and bricks. The Easter Riots grew increasingly violent and resulted in as many as 150 casualties, including four civilians killed when soldiers returned fired on armed rioters.

Conscription in the Second World War

Two decades later, as the threat of a new war in Europe became serious, the question of military conscription again caused lively political debate. However, in March 1939, both the Liberal Party and Conservative Party accepted a program rejecting conscription for possible overseas service.When Canada declared war in September 1939, the government renewed its pledge not to conscript soldiers for overseas service.

In June 1940, as Belgium and France fell to Nazi Germany, the public began to call for a more concerted Canadian war effort. In response, the government passed the National Resources Mobilization Act on 21 June, providing for enlistment only for home defence. Registration took place almost without incident, except for the public opposition of Montreal mayor Camillien Houde, who was interned for four years after he urged constituents to ignore their call-up papers ( see Internment in Canada).

In 1941, as recruitment slowly progressed, more people spoke out in favour of conscription, first within the Conservative Party and later among English-speaking Canadians in general. To appease supporters of conscription, Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King decided to hold a non-binding referendum asking Canadians to release the government from its anti-conscription promises.

In Quebec, the Ligue pour la défense du Canada was established in order to campaign for the "no" side. On 27 April 1942, 72.9 per cent of Quebec residents voted "no." In all other provinces the "yes" vote triumphed by some 80 per cent. The government then passed Bill 80, authorizing conscription for overseas service if it was deemed necessary. Quebec's Bloc populaire, formed in response to the Mobilization Act, continued to fight against conscription by presenting candidates for the August 1944 provincial elections and the June 1945 federal elections.

After D-Day operations and the Normandy campaign in 1944, J.L. Ralston, the minister of national defence, was convinced of the need for overseas conscription. Unexpectedly high casualties on the front, combined with a large commitment of manpower to the Royal Canadian Air Force and Royal Canadian Navy, left the Canadian Army short of recruits.

King, who had hoped he would not have to invoke Bill 80, replaced Ralston with General A.G.L. McNaughton, who did not support conscription. On 22 November, however, the Prime Minister acknowledged the open pro-conscriptionist sentiments of many of his anglophone Cabinet ministers (who threatened to resign over the matter) and reversed his decision. He announced that conscripts would be sent overseas.

DID YOU KNOW?
In Hollywood movies of the era, zombies were the soulless and mindless living dead. After conscription during the Second World War, the term was used to describe the 60,000 men drafted under the National Resources Mobilization Act who had not volunteered for active service overseas. It was a derogatory term used to shame conscripted soldiers.

Only 12,908 conscripted soldiers, disparagingly known as zombies, were sent to fight abroad - a tiny number compared with the hundreds of thousands of Canadian volunteers, including French Canadians, who fought overseas. Only 2,463 reached the front lines before Germany surrendered in May 1945. Still, this second conscription crisis worsened relations between anglophones and francophones in Canada, though to a lesser extent than during the First World War.

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Under conscription, all males of a certain age must register with the government for military service. In some countries, females are also conscripted. Once registered, these people may be "called up" for military service. Some people may be exempt (or excused) from mandatory military service.

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Voices of the First World War - Episode 23 - Conscientious Objectors

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War is wrong. Killing is wrong. We will not participate in war.

WHAT IS A "CONCHIE"?

In both the First and Second World Wars, young men from across Canada were expected to serve in the military and to fight overseas. While Canada's efforts in both wars began as an entirely voluntary endeavour, the high losses suffered by those fighting abroad necessitated the imposition of conscription in both wars. But what of those who believed, due to religious, spiritual, or personal reasons, that fighting in war was immoral? Conscientious objectors, or "conchies", to war and violence have existed for thousands of years, often the victims of persecution and violence for their beliefs.

In Canada, conscientious objectors have been officially recognised in one form or another since 1793. Among "conchies" the most common reason for their beliefs were religious. Numerous religious sects, most notably Mennonites, Quakers, and Seventh-Day Adventists, applied for and received official recognition from the Government as conscientious objectors, exempting them from military service.

FIRST WORLD WAR

In 1917, the Military Service Act implemented conscription in Canada. While the law had exemptions for conscientious objectors, each man was forced to argue his case in front of a local tribunal. While many peaceful sects had been officially recognised by the Government, many members still found it difficult to prove their right to object to the tribunal. Those who objected to fighting but did not belong to one of the recognised sects had a far more difficult time convincing the tribunals, who often considered conscientious objection an act of cowardice. If an individual still refused to serve when their claim had been denied, they faced trial by military tribunal, and a potential prison term. More than 100 such individuals were still behind bars in January 1919.

SECOND WORLD WAR

During the Second World War, conscription was again introduced in Canada in 1940. The issue of conscientious objectors was raised; in this war, "conchies" would need to serve in some form or another. As the established pacifist churches objected to military service of any kind, an Alternative Service program was established. Under this program, men from the various pacifist denominations worked in agriculture, on infrastructure projects, in forestry, and in many other sectors of the economy. Several "conchie camps" were established across the country. Many men from Ontario found themselves in work camps in British Columbia for much of the war, away from their families and friends.

From 1939 to 1945, more than 262,000 military-aged males avoided being conscripted into the Canadian armed forces. In all, the 10,782 men who successfully applied for conscientious objector status made up only 4% of this total. The vast majority of those who stayed out of military service during the war did so because they were employed in what the Government considered to be "vital industries". While conscientious objectors were often the subject of discrimination and were branded as cowards, they served their country by working in the very same "vital industries." Conchies working in Alternate Service Camps worked predominantly in agriculture, industry and other fields which ensured that Canada had the food, resources and industrial goods necessary to wage war. Many were forced to leave their families to work in a faraway place, just like those in uniform. Their contribution to the war effort and eventual victory was also vital.

WHAT IS A "CONCHIE"?

In both the First and Second World Wars, young men from across Canada were expected to serve in the military and to fight overseas. While Canada's efforts in both wars began as an entirely voluntary endeavour, the high losses suffered by those fighting abroad necessitated the imposition of conscription in both wars. But what of those who believed, due to religious, spiritual, or personal reasons, that fighting in war was immoral? Conscientious objectors, or "conchies", to war and violence have existed for thousands of years, often the victims of persecution and violence for their beliefs.

In Canada, conscientious objectors have been officially recognised in one form or another since 1793. Among "conchies" the most common reason for their beliefs were religious. Numerous religious sects, most notably Mennonites, Quakers, and Seventh-Day Adventists, applied for and received official recognition from the Government as conscientious objectors, exempting them from military service.

FIRST WORLD WAR

In 1917, the Military Service Act implemented conscription in Canada. While the law had exemptions for conscientious objectors, each man was forced to argue his case in front of a local tribunal. While many peaceful sects had been officially recognised by the Government, many members still found it difficult to prove their right to object to the tribunal. Those who objected to fighting but did not belong to one of the recognised sects had a far more difficult time convincing the tribunals, who often considered conscientious objection an act of cowardice. If an individual still refused to serve when their claim had been denied, they faced trial by military tribunal, and a potential prison term. More than 100 such individuals were still behind bars in January 1919.

SECOND WORLD WAR

During the Second World War, conscription was again introduced in Canada in 1940. The issue of conscientious objectors was raised; in this war, "conchies" would need to serve in some form or another. As the established pacifist churches objected to military service of any kind, an Alternative Service program was established. Under this program, men from the various pacifist denominations worked in agriculture, on infrastructure projects, in forestry, and in many other sectors of the economy. Several "conchie camps" were established across the country. Many men from Ontario found themselves in work camps in British Columbia for much of the war, away from their families and friends.

From 1939 to 1945, more than 262,000 military-aged males avoided being conscripted into the Canadian armed forces. In all, the 10,782 men who successfully applied for conscientious objector status made up only 4% of this total. The vast majority of those who stayed out of military service during the war did so because they were employed in what the Government considered to be "vital industries". While conscientious objectors were often the subject of discrimination and were branded as cowards, they served their country by working in the very same "vital industries." Conchies working in Alternate Service Camps worked predominantly in agriculture, industry and other fields which ensured that Canada had the food, resources and industrial goods necessary to wage war. Many were forced to leave their families to work in a faraway place, just like those in uniform. Their contribution to the war effort and eventual victory was also vital.

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In both the First and Second World Wars, young men from across Canada were expected to serve in the military and to fight overseas.

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The Military Service Act became law on 29 August 1917. It was a politically explosive and controversial law that bitterly divided the country along French-Engli...

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The federal government decided in 1917 to conscript young men for overseas military service. Voluntary recruitment was failing to maintain troop numbers, and Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden believed in the military value, and potential post-war influence, of a strong Canadian contribution to the war.

A Momentous Debate

The 1917 conscription debate was one of the fiercest and most divisive in Canadian political history. French-Canadians, as well as many farmers, unionized workers, non-British immigrants, and other Canadians, generally opposed the measure. English-speaking Canadians, led by Prime Minister Borden and senior members of his Cabinet, as well as British immigrants, the families of soldiers, and older Canadians, generally supported it.

The conscription debate echoed public divisions on many other contemporary issues, including language education, agriculture, religion, and the political rights of women and immigrants. It also grew into a test of one's support for, or opposition to, the war as a whole. Charges of disloyalty, cowardice, and immorality from avid pro-conscription advocates were matched by cries of imperialism, stupidity, and bloodlust by the anti-conscription camp.

The campaign's viciousness sometimes obscured the debate's complexity. Many anti-conscription advocates fully supported the war, for example, while not all pro-conscription voices argued their case by using linguistic or racial smears to diminish their opponents.

Conscription Prevails

The conscription debate raged through most of 1917 and into 1918. The required legislation, the Military Service Act, worked its way through Parliament during the summer to be passed in late August. It made all male citizens between the ages of 20 and 45 subject to military service, if called, for the duration of the war.

Conscription was the main issue in the federal election that followed in December, a bitter contest between Conservative / Unionist Sir Robert Borden and Liberal Sir Wilfrid Laurier. Borden, running on a 'Unionist' pro-conscription ticket that attracted many English-speaking Liberals, won decisively, but lost heavily in Francophone areas of Quebec.

Wartime Elections Act Changes Who Can Vote

The government had helped pave the way for electoral victory with legislation in the fall that enfranchised likely allies and disenfranchised likely opponents.

The Wartime Elections Act gave the vote to the wives, mothers, and sisters of soldiers, the first women permitted to vote in Canadian federal elections. These groups tended to favour conscription because it supported their men in the field.

The Act then denied the vote to many recent immigrants from enemy countries ("enemy aliens"), unless they had a family member in military service. At the same time, the Military Voters Act extended the vote to all military personnel and nurses, including women, regardless of their period of residence in Canada.

Borden's margin of victory in December was greater than the votes delivered by either of these controversial measures, but each had been highly successful. More than 90 percent of military votes, for example, were Unionist.

Conscription's Results

A broadly popular but divisive measure, conscription polarized provinces, ethnic and linguistic groups, communities, and families, and had lasting political effects on the country as a whole. For many Canadians, it was an important and necessary contribution to a faltering war effort; for others, it was an oppressive act passed dishonestly by a government more British than Canadian.

Farmers sought agricultural exemptions from compulsory service until the end of the war. Borden's government, anxious for farmers' votes, agreed to limited exemptions, largely for farmers' labouring sons, but broke the promise after the election. The bitterness among farmers, many of them in the West, led to the development of new federal and provincial parties.

French-speaking Canadians continued their protests as well, and young men by the tens of thousands joined others from across Canada in refusing to register for the selection process. Of those that did register, 93 percent applied for an exemption. An effort to arrest suspected draft dodgers was highly unpopular across the province and, at its worst, resulted in several days of rioting and street battles in Quebec City at Easter, 1918. The violence left four civilians dead and dozens injured, and shocked supporters on both sides.

Conscription had an impact on Canada's war effort. By the Armistice, 48,000 conscripts had been sent overseas, half of which served at the front, providing crucial soldiers for the Hundred Days campaign. These reinforcements allowed the Canadian Corps to continue fighting in a series of battles, delivering victory after victory, from August to the end of the war on 11 November 1918. More than 50,000 more conscripts remained in Canada. These soldiers would have been required had the war continued into 1919, as many expected it would.

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Recruitment and Conscription - Conscription, 1917 | Canada and the First World War

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The federal government decided in 1917 to conscript young men for overseas military service. Voluntary recruitment was failing to maintain troop numbers, and Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden believed in the military value, and potential post-war influence, of a strong Canadian contribution to the war.

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The Conscription Crisis
French Canada erupts in anger when the federal government forces its men to go to war

During First World War, the issue of military service touched the soul of French Canada, sparking violence and bloodshed and ripping open the country's linguistic divide.

The issue of conscription or mandatory military service tore Canada apart during the First World War. Pictured here, soldiers standing by a sign denouncing men who did not sign up for the war. (Courtesy of the City of Toronto Archives, SC244726)

When war erupted in 1914, it caused a patriotic fervor in English Canada. Volunteers flocked to recruiting stations and everyone got into the war effort at home, determined to contribute to the British Empire's battle in Europe.

In stark contrast, French Canada felt removed from Britain's plight. They felt little attachment to the Imperial mother country and viewed the Canadian army as an almost entirely English Canadian institution.

French-English tensions were already running high; French Canadians were still enraged that Ontario has banned French as a language of instruction in its schools in 1913.

Of the 400,000 Canadians who volunteered for service in WWI, fewer than one in 20 were French. Of English Canadian volunteers, 70% were recent immigrants from Britain

French Canada felt confident it could remain removed from the action in Europe because Prime Minister Robert Borden had promised no obligatory military service known as conscription.

After visiting wounded Canadian soldiers in a British hospital in March 1917, Prime Minister Robert Borden retreated from an earlier promise of no conscription. (National Archives of Canada, PA000880)

By 1917 - after almost three years of fighting - the numbers of dead and wounded mounted overseas. In addition, voluntary enlistment by Canadians dropped drastically as jobs became plentiful at home.

On May 18, 1917, Prime Minister Borden retreated from his earlier promise and introduced a conscription bill, the Military Services Act.

While some English Canadians opposed conscription, nowhere was the outcry greater than in French Canada.

The archbishop of Montreal, Monseigneur Bruchési sent a warning to Prime Minister Borden.

"Dear Sir Robert, Do you not think, in light of our population, that we have largely done our share? The people are agitated. ... In the province of Quebec; we can expect deplorable revolts. Will this not end in bloodshed?"

Wilfrid Laurier, now Leader of the Opposition, was also convinced that conscription would tear the country apart.

"Is it not true that the main reason advocated for conscription - not so much publicly as privately, not shouted but whispered - is that Quebec must be made to do her part, and French-Canadians forced to enlist compulsorily since they did not enlist voluntarily?"

Borden ignored the warnings. The Military Service Act was passed in the House of Commons on July 24, 1917, thanks to the support of nearly all English-speaking Members of Parliament, and in spite of the opposition of nearly all French-speaking MPs.

On May 18, 1917, a conscription bill was introduced in Parliament provoking a general outcry from French Canada. Pictured here, an anti-conscription parade at Victoria Square in Montreal on May 24, 1917. (National Archives of Canada, C-006859)

On August 28, conscription became law and was followed by two days of violence in Montreal. Store windows were smashed and tramway rails ripped up. One hundred and fifty policemen were called in to disperse the crowd, and four were wounded, along with two demonstrators. The following evening, a demonstrator was killed in Philips Square.

But the worst was yet to come.

On Easter weekend 1918, a 23 year-old man named Joseph Mercier was arrested at a Quebec City bowling alley, for not having his conscription registration papers on him. The incident sparked retaliation: a crowd looted the offices of the army registrar, pitched files out in the snow and smashed the windows of English shops.

On Easter Monday, April 1, 1918, after days of rioting, Ottawa sent soldiers into Quebec City. On rue Bagot, they tried to drive the demonstrators back but met with a hail of rocks.

"We heard the thud of hooves of an Ontario cavalry regiment, driven at breakneck speed into rue Saint Sauveur," observed Frank Scott, a soldier on leave in Quebec. "Rioters had put out the street lamps; the Lower City was shrouded in mist and darkness that night. Suddenly, I could make out the fire of several heavy machine guns. It was deafening and gave the impression that a massacre was taking place at the foot of the cliff."

In all, four unarmed civilians were killed and dozens injured. English and French Canada hadn't been so divided since Louis Riel was hanged in 1885.

A few months later - November 11, 1918 - the war ended but the fallout of the conscription issue would continue long after. For many years the Conservative Party, which had brought in conscription, found it hard to get votes in Quebec.

The conscription crisis stuck in the minds of French Canadians in the decades to come. The memories fueled the flames of growing French nationalist passions and created a permanent wedge in Canada's linguistic divide.

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The Conscription Crisis French Canada erupts in anger when the federal government forces its men to go to war During First World War, the issue of military service touched the soul of French Canada, sparking violence and bloodshed and ripping open the country's linguistic divide.