History Commons^™

A Marriage Of Intersecting Needs: The Procurement Of The Canadian Patrol Frigates By The Pierre Trudeau Government, 1977-1983, Garison Ma

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In December 1977, the Liberal government of Pierre Elliot Trudeau authorized the Department of National Defence to begin the acquisition of new warships for the navy. The decision to acquire fully combat capable warships was a shocking decision which marked the conclusion of a remarkable turnaround in Canadian defence policy. The navy, which had grown into a substantial and capable force during the early Cold War in the 1950s, had been in a steady decline since the mid-1960s as a result of the shifts in defence policy, cuts in personnel, and still deeper cuts to the capital funding needed to …

The Ghost Story Of The Great War: Spiritualism, Psychical Research And The British War Experience, 1914-1939., Kyle Falcon

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation examines the role of the Great War in shaping British spiritualism and psychical between 1914 and 1939. Spiritualism can be defined as the belief in the survival of the human personality and the possibility of communication with the dead, particularly through the séance. Psychical research represented a more scientifically oriented and research focused approach to the supernatural. These movements originated in the nineteenth century as traditional religious authority waned. Meanwhile, scientists had harnessed unseen forces to make wireless communications possible, while others probed the mysterious world of the unconscious mind through trance. Spiritualism and psychical research flourished in …

The Forgotten Front: British Home Defence And The Invasion Scare Of 1914, Alexander Maavara

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Few issues have impacted the British people more than the historic fear or threat of invasion. From the Napoleonic Wars to the Second World War, the most “heroic” periods of British history have been those when the island faced possible invasion and destruction. This thesis seeks to address a gap in the history of Great Britain by examining the impact of Britons’ fear of invasion on British civil-military relations prior to and in the initial stages of the First World War. Following the 1911 Agadir Crisis, Britain’s defence establishment acknowledged the political and social influence that the fear of invasion …

Venus In The Trenches: The Treatment Of Venereal Disease In The Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919, Lyndsay Rosenthal

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation examines the treatment of venereal disease (VD) in the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF). The Canadians had one of the highest rates of infection during the war with 15.8 per cent of servicemen being diagnosed with VD. These figures generated concern among Canadian officials about the negative impact this could have on both public health and opinion. Overseas officials needed to develop policies and procedures to control the spread of the disease. When strict disciplinary measures did little to address the issue, the military experimented with more lenient ones rooted in science and medicine. Even with these measures in …

The Science Of Defence: Security, Research, And The North In Cold War Canada, Matthew Shane Wiseman

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation examines the development and implementation of federally funded scientific defence research in Canada during the earliest decades of the Cold War. With a particular focus on the creation and subsequent activities of the Defence Research Board (DRB), Canada’s first peacetime military science organization, the history covered here crosses political, social, and environmental themes pertinent to a detailed analysis of defence-related government activity in the Canadian North. Three contextual chapters on the history of federal defence research in Canada provide the foundation for a close study of defence research projects pursued and supported by the Canadian government. The dissertation …

"Death Knows But One Rule Of Arithmetic": Discourses Of Death And Grief In The Trenches, Brittany C. Dunn

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Death was ubiquitous in the First World War and while contemporaries acknowledged this, soldiers’ experiences of death and grief have been largely ignored in the Canadian historiography. This thesis seeks to address this gap in the literature by examining how English-Canadian soldiers responded to and coped with death on the Western Front. It argues that combatants developed and adapted multiple methods of coping, which ranged from humour to emphasizing ideals of sacrifice to emotional distance, in response to the horrific conditions of the trenches. This thesis explores both private and public discourses of death using contemporary diaries, letters and trench …

A Sickly Season: The Royal Canadian Navy And The Mainguy Commission, Keith D. Calow

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

ABSTRACT

This dissertation examines the proceedings of the Mainguy Commission, which was established in 1949 to investigate and report on a series of three “incidents” of collective disobedience which had taken place aboard Canadian warships in the early months of that year. The “incidents” were the culmination of a series of challenges that the senior staff was already endeavouring to address internally. Media and political attention to the indiscipline, however, brought the minister to insist that there be a public enquiry.

Historians who have examined the report of the Mainguy Commission have generally accepted that in calling for the Canadianization …

The Reinvention Of The Canadian Armed Forces Chaplaincy And The Limits Of Religious Pluralism, Michael T. Peterson Rev. Dr.

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The Reinvention of the Canadian Armed Forces Chaplaincy offers an analysis of how an historically Christian religious organization, one prominently sited within an important Canadian institution, adapted to pluralism. This research is the first to examine Canada’s military chaplaincy since Benham Rennick’s (2011) more broadly focused study of the role of religion in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). My study is the first to focus specifically on the chaplaincy and on the ways in which it has sought to develop and maintain a pluralist identity. I trace the process by which a legacy Christian institution developed a self-image as a …

A "Weapon Of Starvation": The Politics, Propaganda, And Morality Of Britain's Hunger Blockade Of Germany, 1914-1919, Alyssa Cundy

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation examines the British naval blockade imposed on Imperial Germany between the outbreak of war in August 1914 and the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles in July 1919. The blockade has received modest attention in the historiography of the First World War, despite the assertion in the British official history that extreme privation and hunger resulted in more than 750,000 German civilian deaths. This revelation of a humanitarian disaster may be the main reason why the British government delayed public release of the history for nearly thirty years after its completion in the 1930s. Yet scholarship has focused …

The Rise And Fall Of Canada's Cold War Air Force, 1948-1968, Bertram C. Frandsen

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This thesis examines the expansion of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) under the St. Laurent government with the concept of the Big Air Force that emerged from the defence re-armament programme announced on 5 February 1951. During this critical Cold War period, the RCAF became Canada’s first line of defence, making an essential contribution to the collective defence of Western Europe through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Concurrently, the RCAF underwent tremendous expansion in Canada contributing to North American defence, along with significant increases in its training, maritime and transport capabilities. The RCAF developed into the largest military service …

“…Tamquam Civili Causa” – The Reception Of Vegetius And Frontinus In Geremia Da Montagnone’S Compendium Moralium Notabilium, Aaron J. Bolarinho

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This thesis explores the transmission of the Epitome Rei Militaris of Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus and the Strategemata of Sextus Iulius Frontinus in the Compendium Moralium Notabilium. Completed by Paduan judge Geremiah of Montagnone in around 1310, the Compendium Moralium Notabilium is a large medieval florilegium contemporary with Thomas of Ireland’s Manipulus Florem. The Compendium is distinct from typical medieval florilegium due to its lay author, its internal organisation, and its inclusion of many classical Roman and Greek authors as well as common Italian proverbs and secular liturature. The Compendium also includes over 199 distinct selections from the military manuals …

Commanding The Green Centre Line In Normandy: A Case Study Of Division Command In The Second World War, Angelo N. Caravaggio

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This thesis examines the experiences of the 4th Canadian Armoured Division as it prepared for and carried out its role in the battle of Normandy and the libeation of France in 1944. The factors that limmited opportunities to practice the formation in large-scale exercises are noted as are the methods used by the General Officer Commanding, Major-General George Kitching, to compensate for the limitations. This thesis argues that through the development of an effective commander-staff dynamic Kitching, his staff and his subordinates commanders, were able to meet the challenges and chaos of combat in the final stages of the Normandy …

Working Italy’S Passage: The Italian Army And The Allies’ Hopes For It In The Co-Belligerency, 1943–1944, Kate Betts-Wilmott

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In World War II, when Italy surrendered to the Allies in September 1943, the Italian prime minister offered all that was left on Italy’s meager resources to the Allies to help fight the German forces in Italy. Three years of war, as part of the Axis, not to mention the catastrophic mismanagement of the armistice with the Allies left Italy materially exhausted. Italy was only able to equip and field one brigade, the 1st Italian Motorized Brigade Group that they increased to a corps several months later, the Corps of Italian Liberation (CIL), despite teh fact that the Italian Army …

The Sense Of Duty: Canadian Ideas Of The Citizen Soldier, 1896–1917, James A. Wood

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation examines the amateur military tradition as it developed in Canada between 1896 and 1917, tracing the evolution of a citizen soldier ideal which had an enormous impact on the country’s experience of the First World War. Prior to 1914, the central dilemma of Canadian military development was to create an army that was both inexpensive and made only limited demands on its soldiers in time of peace, but that could be expanded in war to a strength that was adequate for the defence of the country. Before the First World War, a militia of part-time citizen soldiers seemed …

Golden Pheasants And Eastern Kings: The German District Administration In The Occupied Soviet Union, 1941–1944, Stephen A. Connor

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

No abstract provided.

The Creation Of The Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service And Its Role In Canadian Naval Intelligence And Communications, 1939-45, Julie Anne Redstone-Lewis

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This study explores the establishment of the Women’s Royal Naval Canadian Service (WRCNS) on the basis of its British counterpart, and the subsequent restructuring of the service better to suit Canadian needs during the Second World War. This development paralleled and complemented other efforts on the part of the Canadian navy to become more autonomous from British’s Royal Navy. Many Canadians, and the government itself, had profound reservations about the employment of women in military service, but within the navy, as in the other armed forces, these reservations were overcome by much needed skills available among the women who volunteered. …

Operational Research In Raf Bomber Command, 1941-1945 (Britain), Randall Thomas Wakelam

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The concept of strategic bombardment of targets by aircraft grew out of the long range bombing which took place in the First World War. By the eve of the Second World War, Royal Air Force officers and many politicians in Britain were convinced that the 'bomber would always get through.' Events in the opening months of the war proved otherwise. Bomber Command met severe losses during daylight raids and was forced to adopt night tactics. It was realized by mid-1941 that, operating in the dark, crews could not often find their targets with existing tactics and equipment. Worse, losses continued. …

Battalion Leadership In The Essex Scottish Regiment And The 4th Canadian Infantry Brigade During The Second World War, John James Maker

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This thesis project began with the general idea of examining leadership at the battalion level in the Canadian Army during the First World War. After having been brought to my attention some time later, the Essex Scottish Regiment during the Second World War piqued my interest. This unit received the highest number of casualties of any Canadian unit throughout the Second World War, yet I had not heard or read anything significant about it. I had read gallant histories of the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry and the Black Watch, of the Regina Rifles and the Calgary Highlanders; none of these …

Canadian Theatre: The Battle Of St. Lawrence And Its Aftermath, May-October 1942, Andrew Paul Burtch

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The Battle of the St. Lawrence is one of the least discussed engagements in Canadian naval history. The vast majority of those who have dealt with it write off the battle as simply a defeat for the Canadian war effort. On closer examination, however, it becomes clear that the Battle of the St. Lawrence and its aftermath, the closure of the St. Lawrence to shipping, are much more complex. The RCN and the RCAF accomplished much in coastal defence with very little resources, and though no U-boats were killed in the engagement, Canadian naval and air units working in combination …

The Occupation Of Groningen, Netherland, September 1944-April 1945 And The Liberation Of The City Of Groningen By The 2nd Canadian Infantry Division, April 13-16, 1945, Ralph Dykstra

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This thesis analyses the operations conducted by the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division in the liberation of the city of Groningen, Netherland in the last full month of the Second World War. As a secondary objective this treatise also gives meaning to the term liberation by analysing the nature of German occupation of Netherland and the reaction of the people to that occupation. In April 1945, it was well known to the Allies that the war was drawing to a close. The German armies were retreating on every front and it was obvious that the end was near. The advance of …

The 'Mad Fourth': The 4th Canadian Infantry Battalion At War, 1914-1916, Andrew Iarocci

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

No abstract provided.

Operational Research And The Royal Canadian Air Force Eastern Air Command's Search For Efficiency In Airborne Anti-Submarine Warfare, 1942-1945, Dean C. Ruffilli

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This thesis analyses the contributions of operational research to the work of the Royal Canadian Air Force Eastern Air Command during the Second World War. The efforts of the handful of Canadian operational researchers in the Allied campaign against the German U-boat force, although having produced only modest results, did make a small but important contribution to the war which have been neglected by historians. The use of aircraft against submarines began during the First World War when both technologies were still in their infancy. Although initial results were poor, the handful of sinkings by aircraft demonstrated its potential as …

'Our Glory And Our Grief': Toronto And The Great War (Ontario), Ian Hugh Maclean Miller

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation studies the impact of the Great War on Toronto, Ontario. What happened in the city? How were the enormous sacrifices of the war rationalized? Why did English-Canadians support it? What did citizens know about the war? The dissertation draws upon a wide and varied source base. Every issue of the following newspapers was examined: the six Toronto daily papers, The Weekly Sun, Maclean's, The Industrial Banner, Everywoman's World, The Labour Gazette, and the religious periodicals of major religious denominations in the city. In addition, extensive searches were conducted in the City of Toronto Archives, the Archives of Ontario, …

Behind The Scenes At Naval Service Headquarters: Bureaucratic Politics And The Dismissal Of Vice-Admiral Percy W. Nelles (John Joseph Connolly), Richard Oliver Mayne

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

No abstract provided.

Victims And Criminals: Schutzmannschaft Battalion 118 (Belarus, Ukraine), Natalia Petrouchkevitch

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The issues of the Second World War have always been an important motive in state propaganda in the former USSR. Growing up in the Soviet Union I learned to associate my patriotic feelings with heroism and sacrifice of Soviet people during the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945. Moreover, personal accounts of the war and occupation that I heard from the members of my family almost completely agreed with the official version of wartime history of the USSR. The Soviet accounts stressed that the struggle against invaders was almost unanimous, and many cases of passive responses to the war or collaboration were …

Tactical Air Power In The Normandy Campaign: The Role Of 83 Group (France), Christopher Robert Evans

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

There is now over a half century of historiography regarding tactical air power in the Normandy campaign in the Second World War. Within this body of material there exists two schools of thought; by far the largest and most popular is that which argues tactical air power was effective, even decisive, in winning the campaign, primarily in the role of ‘tank-buster’. A more moderate school has attempted to refine this and instead argue that tactical air power, while effective, was not decisive, and contributed to the campaign by producing a negative ‘morale effect’ on the enemy. ln each case the …

To Close With And Destroy: The Experience Of Canloan Officers In The North West European Campaign, 1944-1945 (World War Ii), Brian G. Rawding

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Since the end of the Second World War the relative performance between the Allied and German Army during the North West European Campaign has become the subject of extended debate. In almost every instance, however, academics have preferred to determine conclusions without extensive examination of the soldier’s experience. This thesis is an attempt to help redress this discrepancy. Through the experiences of Canloan officers serving with the Second British Army, it is evident that the tactical reality was often more complex than has been accepted This is illuminated through the fact that the conditions of service both prior and after …

Quasem Ilep'. I Canadian Corps Breaks The Gothic Line: Summer, 1944, Lee A. Windsor

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

No abstract provided.

Admiral Sir Reginald Drax And British Strategic Policy: Festina Lente, Robert Lynn Davison

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

No abstract provided.

The Canadian Officers' Training Corps: Support For Military Training In The Universities Of Canada, 1908-1935, Daniel Thomas Byers

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

No abstract provided.