3.5.1 The First World War

Belonging to the British Empire made most Canadians proud. When the South African War came in 1899–1902 — the conflict people usually call the Boer War — more than 7,000 of them signed up, and over 260 lost their lives. The year 1900 brought two battles in which Canadians fought: Paardeberg, a name that means "Horse Mountain," and Lillefontein. Both ended in victory, and news of them lifted national pride back home.

Belgium and France came under German attack in 1914, and Britain then declared war. Ottawa answered by raising the Canadian Expeditionary Force, later known as the Canadian Corps. The country held only eight million people, yet more than 600,000 Canadians served, most of them as volunteers. The Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps took in over 3,000 nurses, nicknamed the "Bluebirds," and 2,500 of these women went overseas. In battle, Canadian soldiers showed themselves tough and inventive.

On the Western Front, Canada knew both tragedy and triumph. Vimy Ridge fell to the Canadian Corps in April 1917. The cost was heavy: 10,000 Canadians killed or wounded. That victory made their reputation for valour secure, and they earned the nickname "shock troops of the British Empire." A Canadian officer described the moment. The whole country, from ocean to ocean, was on parade, he said, and in those few minutes he watched a nation being born. Vimy Day falls on April 9.

Not everything done at home was honourable. Between 1914 and 1920 Ottawa interned more than 8,000 former subjects of Austria-Hungary as "enemy aliens." Most of them were Ukrainian men. They were held in 24 labour camps spread across Canada. Britain had advised against this policy, but Ottawa went ahead with it anyway. It is remembered today as a regrettable act.

In 1918 the Canadian Corps fought the war's last hundred days under General Sir Arthur Currie, the man called Canada's greatest soldier. Beside them fought French and British Empire troops. Their victory at Amiens came on August 8, 1918, and the Germans named it "the black day of the German Army." Then came Arras and Canal du Nord, then Cambrai and Mons. Austria and Germany surrendered, and the Armistice came on November 11, 1918. Canadian losses reached 60,000 killed and 170,000 wounded. National and imperial pride grew stronger, above all in English Canada.