World War One and Canada

By Anthony Livingston
During the years 1914 1918 Europe was devastated by the first industrial war, World War One. It began with the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of AustriaHungary. The battleground was the borders of Germany and France. The war was fought between two alliances, Triple Entente and Triple Powers. The alliance Triple Entente consisted of France, Russia, and the British Empire, where as Triple Powers consisted of Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Germany. But the three major players in the war were France and Britain, on one side and Germany, on the other. But since Canada was a dominion of Britain, at the time, Canada was obliged to fight in the war but that doesnt mean that it benefit Canada at all. In fact it would be easy to say that World War One was not beneficial to Canada. This is because the war caused Canada great economic troubles, and Canada suffered many casualties, Canada was split in two. To start, World War One caused Canada to suffer great problems in the economy. For years Canada was in debt because of the great cost of war. The average cost per Canadian was four hundred dollars. It left Canada in debt for the 1920s 1930s. There was also a Post War depression during the years 1919 1922. There were no jobs and unemployment had increased sharply as the economy switched from war time economy to peace time economy. This was a major crisis that almost ruined the country. Therefore, World War One did not benefit Canada because it caused Canada to suffer severely in economy. However, the loss in economy was nothing in comparison to the casualties Canada suffered. It is said that Canadas contribution to the war was the greatest made by any of the countries in comparison. At the end of the war 63,000 Canadian soldiers died and 175,000 were wounded. An example of the great cost of this war is the Battle of the Somme it alone claimed 24,000 Canadian soldiers. The Battle of Passchendaele was another terrible battle fought in mud and rain. It was later became a symbol of the whole war because of how pointless it was. This Battle also claimed its share of casualties. Over 15,000 Canadian soldiers were killed or wounded during this battle. For this reason World War One can be seen as non-beneficial to Canada because a multitude of Canadian men died to fight a useless war. Finally, World War One split Canada in two. Canada was torn between the French speaking Canadians and the English speaking Canadians. Even before the war started the views of FrenchCanadians were being ignored by the English-Canadian Prime Ministers. That and the fact that the English-Canadians try to be more British then the British caused great contentions between the two. But when World War One broke out and Great Britain called on Canada to help it, caused a enormous rift between the French-Canadians and the English-Canadians. This was because the French-Canadians thought that Britain should be able to fight it's own war and that the war had nothing to do with Canada and it's citizens. Whereas the English-Canadians were all for the war with their mind set that if Great Britain is doing great then Canada will do fine. But then in the 1917 election, after the harsh battles fought that year, the issue of conscription was brought up and the voters were faced with two sides; pro-conscription and anti-conscription. The French-Canadians voted for anti-conscription and the

English-Canadians voted for pro-conscription furthering the rift between them. This caused the FrenchCanadians to be bitter for years. It is now obvious that world War One caused a great splitting of Canada. In conclusion, World War One caused many problems for Canada, such as great economic troubles, a severe drop in population, and a giant split of the country. It is obvious that World War One was not beneficial to Canada and in order to prevent this from happening again French-Canadians and English-Canadians must work together to prosper.