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May 31, 2014 - July 10, 2018
The Colonies Grow Up – As Long As They’re White
Canada:
By 1867 the country’s all joined together again and allowed to govern itself.
Australia:
1901, the Aussies are ready to rule themselves.
New Zealand:
Ready to govern itself by 1907.
Rum goings-on in Jamaica
Lion Tamers
What about the Irish?
The Anglo-Boer War: A hell of a lesson and a hell of a shock
Borden and the Great War
We are preparing to annex Canada, and the day is not far off when the American flag will float over every square foot of the British North American possessions — clear to the North Pole. — Champ Clark, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, celebrating the proposed free trade deal
Marching Off to War
World War I (1914–18), or the Great War as it was known, was a heartbreaking and pointless conflict.
When it began, the Great War was waged between two opposing alliances: The Allies: Great Britain, France, and Russia Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire (Turkey)
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and India entered the war on the British side, and Italy and Japan later joined the Allies as well.
“Back by Christmas!”
More than 30,000 men volunteered — two-thirds of whom were recent British immigrants, off to fight for their homeland. Hughes armed them with elite weapons: the Ross rifle, a long-barrelled, Canadian-built gun designed for precision firing. It was a disastrous choice. The rifles jammed in mud and overheated when fired in quick succession. Thousands of Canadian boys died in vain trying to fire them. Hughes, stubborn to the end, refused to replace the rifles until the situation had reached scandalous levels. But none of that was known to the men who piled pell-mell onto ships, cheering and
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Enemy aliens
Make absolutely sure that you omit no power that the government may need. — instructions given to O’Connor by the Liberal Opposition
Gas attack at Ypres
Thus, in their first appearance on a European battlefield, the Canadians established a reputation as a formidable fighting force. — historian Patricia Giesler
Battle of the Somme
Vimy Ridge
We went up Vimy Ridge as Albertans and Nova Scotians. We came down as Canadians. — a war veteran remembering Vimy Ridge
Whenever the Germans found the Canadian Corps coming into the line, they prepared for the worst. — British Prime Minister David Lloyd George
Passchendaele
In the air
One-third of all fliers died in combat.
Billy Bishop of
He once went head-to-head with Germany’s “Red Baron,” Manfred von Richthofen, and fought him to a standstill in what has been called “the greatest aerial dogfight in history.”
The Canadian ace Roy Brown is credited with shooting down the Red Baron. Richthofen, with 80 kills to his credit, was in hot pursuit of another young Canadian flier named Wilfred “Wop” May, when Brown swooped down from behind, riddling the Baron’s red triplane with bullets. Slumped over, dead at the controls, the Red Baron crashed into the mud.
The Conscription Crisis
Regulation 17
The majority won, and the Military Service Act, giving the government the right to draft men into the army, became law on August 29, 1917.
Union government
The 1917 election was the most bitter in Canadian history, viciously fought on both sides. — historian Michael Bliss
“The Prussians next door”
Acts of war
War Measures Act (1914):
Income Tax (1917):
Military Service Act (1917):
Military Voters Act (1917):
Wartime Elections Act (1917):
Canada’s 100 Days
Breakthrough at Amiens
The Canadians were ending the war by destroying the German army. — military historian Desmond Morton
November 11
“In Flanders Fields”
