Canadian History Commons^™

Understanding The Performance And Perception Of Odawa Warfare, 1615–1700, Eric P. Morningstar

Masters Theses

This research employs the ethnohistorical method to explore how the Odawa people perceived and carried out warfare from 1615 to 1700. While historians have examined the Odawa, these Native peoples have frequently not been the central focus in the secondary literature. Many primary sources also offer a vague answer as to how the Odawa conceived and carried out warfare. This study aims to clarify historiographical inconsistencies by quantitatively analyzing a database, constructed by the author, of specific primary references to known hostilities between the Odawa, other Native groups, and Europeans. The analysis includes specific variables germane to hostilities such as …

“Here Come The Canadians … To Restore Our Freedom To Us”: “And We Will Praise God, When The Canadians … Have Vanished Back To Canada”, Eric Mcgeer

Canadian Military History

The following editorials and articles, translated from the Nijmegen newspaper De Gelderlander, offer English-language readers insight into the concerns and perspectives of the Dutch as they dealt with the uneven transition from occupation to liberation and the welcome yet at times troublesome presence of the Allied forces, the Canadians in particular. Although the physical damage inflicted by the war was everywhere visible, it was the moral and psychological effect of the occupation on the young that formed the greatest source of concern, especially when those who had come of age during years of deprivation and disorientation encountered exotic young …

“We Are Now Getting A Canadian Occupation”: Liberators And The Liberated In The Nijmegen Salient, 1944-45, Eric Mcgeer

Canadian Military History

Liberation came at a high price to the already devastated city of Nijmegen during Operation Market Garden. It remained a frontline city for nearly seven months, during which time Nijmegen and the surrounding area came to be “occupied” by 1st Canadian Army. The presence of a friendly but foreign army was welcome but proved to be a mixed blessing as the local inhabitants sought to resume control of their lives in a time of shortages, suspension of normal morality and conflict between the Dutch themselves. The protracted stay of the Canadians after the war was frustrating for both the liberators …

Bringing Servicewomen Into Focus: Exploring Methods For Indexing Second World War Archival Photographs At Library And Archives Canada, Rebecca Murray

Canadian Military History

The Second World War saw women officially serving in the Canadian military in capacities other than nursing, breaking into roles historically held by men. The service of over fifty thousand Canadian women is documented in photographs held at Library and Archives Canada; photographs that allow historians to widen the lens on the traditional narrative, but only if they can find them. This article presents two methods for indexing archival photographs and highlights the particular challenges of identifying servicewomen in the archival record and bringing our aunties and grandmas into focus.

Soldiering On After The Armistice: Health, Work And Family In The Lives Of Some Canadian Army Medical Corps Nurse Veterans, Sarah Glassford

Canadian Military History

This article analyses the federal government pension files of forty Canadian women who nursed for the Canadian Army Medical Corps (CAMC), exploring aspects of their health, work and family lives in the decades immediately following the First World War. The sample exclusively features nurses with ties to the region of Southwestern Ontario but in demographic terms is also largely representative of the entire body of CAMC nurses. Collectively, the files depict nurse veterans who mobilized their medical knowledge and professional networks when faced with challenging health situations, pursued diverse postwar employment strategies, and in some cases played crucial roles in …

Canada’S Most Decisive Victory: An Analysis Of Canada’S Role In The Hundred Days Offensive, 8 August - 11 November 1918, Ryan Goldsworthy, J.L. Granatstein

Canadian Military History

Of Canada’s long military history, Vimy is the one battle that most Canadians will know. Some will be familiar with Passchendaele, D-Day or the disasters at Hong Kong and Dieppe. Canadians should know the Hundred Days because the battles that constitute that offensive were almost certainly the most important victories ever won by Canadian soldiers. This article analyses the various reasons for the stunning Canadian successes of that war-winning offensive: chiefly the Canadian experience and doctrine; the state of the enemy and the Allies; artillery and counter-battery fire (the most important tactical arm); and logistics and administration. Ultimately, as the …

Bearing Witness To Sacrifice: Death, Grief And Memorialisation In The Collections Of The Canadian War Museum, Teresa Iacobelli

Canadian Military History

This article presents a selection of artworks, archival material and artifacts from the Canadian War Museum (CWM) that illuminate how Canadians—soldiers and civilians— have experienced and endured war. By focusing on the themes of death, grief and memorialisation, these items convey how Canadians have borne the sacrifice of war, and the way in which those losses have been memorialised in ways both public and private.

Cet article présente une sélection d’oeuvres d’art, de documents d’archives et d’artefacts du Musée canadien de la guerre (MCG) qui illustrent la façon dont les Canadiens – soldates et civils – ont vécu et enduré …

“Such An Immoral Creature”: Widowed Women And The Board Of Pension Commissioners, Lyndsay Rosenthal

Canadian Military History

Widows’ pensions were a vital source of income following the loss of a spouse during and after the war. While soldiers enlisted with the promise that their families would be taken care of, accessing state assistance could be exceedingly difficult. In addition to proving their husband’s death was connected to their wartime service, widows also had to meet contemporary ideals about gender, sexuality and motherhood. These pensions provided more financial support than any other social welfare system available at the time. However, pension regulations governed widows’ daily lives and influenced major life events such as marriage and childrearing.

Indigenous Veterans Of The First World War And Their Families In The Prairie West, William John Pratt

Canadian Military History

This study of forty-five military pension files of Indigenous First World War veterans of the Treaty 4, 6 and 7 regions shows that the racist perspectives and structures of settler colonialism on the Prairies could prevent just administration of benefits. Pension files of Indigenous veterans expose the tragedy of their lives during and after the First World War. Many soldiers had lingering pains and ailments as a result of the war, as well as continuing problems shaking the gaze of settler colonialism, which seemed unable to view them as both Indigenous and veterans. Despite the numerous legal and cultural obstacles …

Je Ne Me Souviens Pas: Pensioned Veterans From French Canada’S 22nd Battalion, Serge Marc Durflinger

Canadian Military History

An examination of the pension files of men having served in the 22nd Battalion (canadien-français), the Canadian Corps’ only French-speaking line battalion, situates veterans into a specific ethno-linguistic and, more generally, socio-economic context. This article seeks to illuminate some of the many personal crises that could, and commonly did, afflict veterans, their families and their survivors. It demonstrates that beyond the devastation of serious physical or psychological wounding, many of Canada’s returned men, perhaps far more than we imagined, suffered persistent ill health, financial distress and family estrangement. Almost without exception, the sixty 22nd Battalion case files examined …

“Anxious To Be Restored”: Managing War Neuroses In Interwar Canada, Heather Ellis

Canadian Military History

Using newly available records from the Veterans Affairs Pension Files, doctors’ notes and Veterans’ Hospital records, this article explores how war neurosis was simultaneously a personal and public event. Veterans were required to describe symptoms that breached masculine ideals to demonstrate that their disability impacted their daily lives. Ex-servicemen were caught in a delicate balance between following the soldier ideal and describing their symptoms accurately. War neurosis not only impacted veterans in the private examining room of the pension administrator it also affected their ability to find and maintain employment and the lives of their family members. The more public …

A Generation Curtailed: The Lifespans Of Canada’S Pensioned Veterans Of The Great War, Jonathan Scotland

Canadian Military History

Despite long-time interest in links between the Great War and concepts of a Lost Generation, there have been few efforts to study veteran lifespans. The death dates of Canadian pensioned veterans recorded in the Department of Veterans Affairs pensions files, combined with those recorded in department’s death cards, offers an opportunity to quantify not just veteran life expectancy, but actual lifespans. The ensuing analysis of pensioned veteran lifespans suggests that research conducted in the mid 1930s by F. S. Burke for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which concluded that pensioned veteran life expectancy would exceed that of the average Canadian …

“When Wartime Friends Meet”: Great War Veteran Culture And The (Ab)Use Of Alcohol, Jonathan F. Vance

Canadian Military History

After the First World War, Canadian veterans created a culture that celebrated the camaraderie, sense of purpose, and light-hearted moments of their experience as soldiers. Much like the trench culture of the war years, it poked fun at misfortune, satirized the enemy, and presumed that a stiff drink could make any situation better. Veteran culture provided ex-soldiers in the 1920s and 1930s with the mutual support they needed to get through difficult times, but it was a milieu in which the excessive consumption of alcohol was accepted and even encouraged. This had little impact on the settled, well-adjusted veteran but …

“By Reason Of Age And Necessity”: Pension Claims Of Veterans Of The War In South Africa, Amy Shaw

Canadian Military History

Under the War Veterans Allowance Act (1930) some veterans of the War in South Africa (1899-1902) became eligible for support from the Canadian government. The terms of eligibility and the discourse around granting these pension allowances echo debates during the war itself, with a focus on the men’s physicality and an ambiguity about the country’s relations with the British Empire. The act required both military service and impecunity of the veterans it proposed to assist. The veterans’ interactions with the government, asserting both need and earned reward, position the Act as a significant point of transition in the country’s discourse …

“The Same Service As Our Soldiers”: Metropolitan-Colonial Military Discourse In New France, 1754-60, James E. Lemons

Student Publications

The Seven Years’ War represented a new chapter in American military history, introducing European cultures of warfare to the North American continent for the first time in generations. This led to significant intermixture, dialogue, and debate between Indian, colonial, and metropolitan military men, especially within the context of New France. While some historians have located the debate between Canadian and metropolitan French military cultures as an attempt by the metropolitans to impose their own ways forcibly onto the existing landscape, this paper contends that both sides were remarkably willing to alter their manners of fighting and adapt in a syncretic …

The Avenger - March 2023, Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale Museum

The Avenger

No abstract provided.

The Avenger - August 2022, Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale Museum

The Avenger

No abstract provided.

The Avenger - November 2021, Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale Museum

The Avenger

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Hitler’S Atrocities Against Allied Pows: War Crimes Of The Third Reich, Timothy Heck

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Hitler’s Atrocities Against Allied PoWs cannot be regarded as an academic study of the fate awaiting captured Allied servicemen and women. Its narrow focus, socio-political goal, and limited engagement with the historiography prevent it from serving as more than a survey text or springboard. Chinnery attempts to tie the individual fates to a larger argument that the German armed forces and their security force compatriots were systematically responsible for the abuses described in the book. While the individual cases are compelling and some have a clear connection to explicit policies, the book does not succeed in linking its other examples …

The Geopolitics Of Canadian Defense White Papers: Lofty Rhetoric And Limited Results, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

As the United States northern neighbor, Canada serves as a NATO ally and a strategic partner with Washington through the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). Canadian forces have fought honorably and bravely in concert with American forces in many wars. Canada's government, however, has been less consistent in promoting a credible vision of Canadian national security policy and geopolitical interests in its defense white papers. These documents have often contained idealistic rhetoric about adhering to a rules-based international order and defending freedom. In reality, Canadian governments of varying political parties have consistently failed to provide the sustained funding and …

The Avenger - January-March 2018, Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale Museum

The Avenger

No abstract provided.

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 …

Thunderstruck: Teaching Boy Scouts About History And Cannons, Gary H. Nobbs Jr., Andrew D. Nicholls

The Exposition

No abstract provided.

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 …

Instruments Of War: A Canadian Musician In A Rhode Island Regiment, Ryan M. Nadeau

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

Canada! America’s hat! Our friendly little brother to the north. The home of hockey and Tim Horton’s and your home, too, when that other political party elects their crazy candidate. All jokes aside, the United States has long had a close relationship with our northern neighbor, and the Civil War proved no exception. An estimated 30,000 to 50,000 Canadians fought during the war, typically on the side of the Union due to their geographic proximity and cultural sympathies. Of that number, approximately 5,000 were killed. [excerpt]

"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 Avenger - July 2014, Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale Museum

The Avenger

No abstract provided.

The Avenger - March 2014, Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale Museum

The Avenger

No abstract provided.

The Avenger - October 2013, Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale Museum

The Avenger

No abstract provided.