How Did The First World War Affect Canada

The First World War was a monumental and detrimental global influenced conflict that brought about the destruction of at least ten-million lives, and forever changing millions more. While nearly a war fought fully on European soil, the nations involved were not near-relatively restricted to European countries. Of these various non-European nations, consisted that of Canada, a dominion of Great Britain. To that point in time, Canada was a young developing subsidiary of the British crown, as Confederation had only been signed in 1867. With this in mind, not even did the European landscape, experienced by the history of conquests of empires and oppression, endure a crusade as deadly such as the Great War between 1914-18, as compared to Canada,
On July 28th, 1914, the Archduke of Austria, Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated, sparking the sequence of events that begun The First World War. Shortly thereafter, two enemy alliances were formed; the Central Powers and the Entente (Allies). Specifically, the main states behind the Central Powers were that of Germany, The Ottoman Empire, Austria and Bulgaria, with the support of belligerent states. On the other hand, the core of the Allied Forces consisted of Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, and the United States, and similarly to the Central Powers, many supporting states also provided blood, lives and men. The First World War endured four gruelling years, with not only millions of casualties inflicted, but also imposing deep ripple effects on families and the home-front. This war was to become known as the ‘trench war,’ as fighting on the ground consisted of soldiers in dugout mud trenches, heavy artillery barrages, and men charging into no-mans land, which was itself a desolate landscape between the trenches, scarred by combat, death and seemingly endless explosive craters. To this point, the aspect of predominant trench-warfare has been debated as prolonging the war, as well as being the root of the deadliest conflict in history to that end, and planting the roots for the Second World War to later transpire. Furthermore, the four-year Great War not only represents that of death and bloodshed of the
In the early stages of the French campaign, the Corps were unfounded at best. Stretching from 1915 to 1917, the Corps had been struggling to find their place, and prove their status as an elite fighting force. It was then, in 1918, that the Canadian Corps developed a reputation, and a specific attack plan that would distinguish them from other forces. Particularly, the development of the set-piece attack is a dominant factor in the Corps defining themselves, which can be described as, “a deliberate, closely timed attack under the cover of an intense rolling artillery barrage.” This strategy was used effectively in the battles of Lens, Passchendaele, as well as Amiens, with the integration throughout the remainder of the war of new military technology such as tanks, smoke, and machine guns, thereby consistently evolving the set-piece attack, and improving effectiveness. Secondly, the war brought significant Canadian military advancement in terms of strategic and political philosophies, in which some amateur and unexperienced behaviour of planning and effectiveness were beginning to wear off, and the groundwork was laid for the elite fighting force they would later become. For instance, experience led to the replacement of the Ross Rifle in 1916, which had proven to be a large issue, hence being replaced by the superior Lee-Enfield. The predominant idea