They expected the brave and Christian conquering heroes manufactured by the opinion-makers, rather than the combat-scarred, weary, and often embittered men who disembarked back in the Dominion. It took another decade of less-filtered information - ten years of pain and dislocation for returned veterans - before the Great War imagined by Canadian noncombatants began to resemble the war really experienced by Canadians overseas.
The Canadian government censored the news during World War II for two main reasons: to keep military and economic secrets out of enemy hands and to prevent civilian morale from breaking down. But in those tumultuous times - with Nazi spies landing on our shores by raft, U-boat attacks in the St. Lawrence, army mutinies in British Columbia and Ontario and pro-Hitler propaganda in the mainstream Quebec press - censors had a hard time keeping news events contained. Now, with freshly unsealed World War II press-censor files, many of the undocumented events that occurred in wartime Canada are finally revealed. In Mark Bourrie's illuminating and well-researched account, we learn about the capture of a Nazi spy-turned-double agent, the Japanese-Canadian editor who would one day help develop Canada's medicare system, the curious chiropractor from Saskatchewan who spilled atomic bomb secrets to a roomful of people and the use of censorship to stop balloon bomb attacks from Japan. The Fog of War investigates the realities of media censorship through the experiences of those deputized to act on behalf of the public and reveals why press censorship in wartime Canada was, at best, a hit-and-miss game.
Main description: Much of the story about the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany has yet to be told. In Motherland in Danger, Karel Berkhoff addresses one of the most neglected questions facing historians of the Second World War: how did the Soviet leadership sell the campaign against the Germans to the people on the home front? For Stalin, the obstacles were manifold. Repelling the German invasion would require a mobilization so large that it would test the limits of the Soviet state. Could the USSR marshal the manpower necessary to face the threat? How could the authorities overcome inadequate infrastructure and supplies? Might Stalin's regime fail to survive a sustained conflict with the Germans? Motherland in Danger takes us inside the Stalinist state to witness, from up close, its propaganda machine. Using sources in many languages, including memoirs and documents of the Soviet censor, Berkhoff explores how the Soviet media reflected-and distorted-every aspect of the war, from the successes and blunders on the front lines to the institution of forced labor on farm fields and factory floors. He also details the media's handling of Nazi atrocities and the Holocaust, as well as its stinting treatment of the Allies, particularly the United States, the UK, and Poland. Berkhoff demonstrates not only that propaganda was critical to the Soviet war effort but also that it has colored perceptions of the war to the present day, both inside and outside of Russia.
Compared to the idea that Canada was a nation forged in victory on Vimy Ridge, the reality of dissent and repression at home strikes a sour note. Through censorship, conscription, and internment, the government of Canada worked more ruthlessly than either Great Britain or the United States to suppress opposition to the war effort during the First World War. Polarity, Patriotism, and Dissent in Great War Canada, 1914-1919 examines the basis for those repressive policies. Brock Millman, an expert on wartime dissent in both the United Kingdom and Canada, argues that Canadian policy was driven first and foremost by a fear that opposition to the war amongst French Canadians and immigrant communities would provoke social tensions - and possibly even a vigilante backlash from the war's most fervent supporters in British Canada. Highlighting the class and ethnic divisions which characterized public support for the war, Polarity, Patriotism, and Dissent in Great War Canada, 1914-1919 offers a broad and much-needed reexamination of Canadian government policy on the home front.
The First World War is often credited as being the event that gave Canada its own identity, distinct from that of Britain, France, and the United States. Less often noted, however, is that it was also the cause of a great deal of friction within Canadian society. The fifteen essays contained in Canada and the First World War examine how Canadians experienced the war and how their experiences were shaped by region, politics, gender, class, and nationalism. Editor David MacKenzie has brought together some of the leading voices in Canadian history to take an in-depth look into the tensions and fractures the war caused, and to address the way some attitudes about the country were changed, while others remained the same. The essays vary in scope, but are strongly unified so as to create a collection that treats its subject in a complete and comprehensive manner. Canada and the First World War is a tribute to esteemed University of Toronto historian Robert Craig Brown, one of Canada's greatest authorities on the Great War World War One. The collection is a significant contribution to the on-going re-examination of Canada's experiences in war, and a must-read for students of Canadian history.
This volume explores the military and socio-cultural history of World War I, adding new dimensions not only to the history of Canada's role in the war but to the war's role in shaping Canada. The topics covered are wide-ranging and eclectic, and include, among others, studies of the Battle of Amiens, the Halifax explosion, Charlie Chaplin and wartime propaganda in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, Newfoundland's contribution to the war effort, the leadership capabilities of Brigadier General Griesbach, and the wartime poetry of John McRae.
This text provides a comparative analysis of how the war has been remembered in film. It looks at how national cinemas were mobilised as part of the war effort and how, subsequently, film makers shaped the memory and legacy of the war in later years.
One Canadian in eight volunteered to fight between 1914 and 1918 and more than half of them were enlisted. Soldiers left their families behind to the tender mercy of a tight-fisted government and the Canadian Patriotic Fund, a national charity dominated by its wealthy donors. In time, the soldiers were remembered as the sacrificial heroes who won Canada a respected place in the world. The women who paid in loneliness and poverty were as easily forgotten as their letters, soaked in blood and Flanders mud. Fight or Pay tells the story of what happened to the soldiers' families and their quiet contributions to a fairer deal for Canadians in peace and war.
Curating the Great War explores the inception and subsequent development of museums of the Great War and the animating spirit which lay behind them. The book approaches museums of the Great War as political entities, some more overtly than others, but all unable to escape from the politics of the war, its profound legacies and its enduring memory. Their changing configurations and content are explored as reflections of the social and political context in which they exist. Curating of the Great War has expanded beyond the walls of museum buildings, seeking public engagement, both direct and digital, and taking in whole landscapes. Recognizing this fact, the book examines these museums as standing at the nexus of historiography, museology, anthropology, archaeology, sociology and politics as well as being a lieux de mémoire. Their multi-vocal nature makes them a compelling subject for research and above all the book highlights that it is in these museums that we see the most complete fusion of the material culture of conflict with its historical, political and experiential context. This book is an essential read for researchers of the reception of the Great War through material culture and museums.
For decades, people living in adjacent communities along the Canada–US border enjoyed close social and economic relationships with their neighbours across the line. The introduction of new security measures during the First World War threatened this way of life by restricting the movement of people and goods across the border. Many Canadians resented the new regulations introduced by their provincial and federal governments, deriding them as “outside influences” that created friction where none had existed before. Engaging the Line examines responses to wartime regulations in several border communities, including Windsor, Ontario; Detroit, Michigan; and White Rock, British Columbia. This book brings to life the repercussions for these communities and offers readers a glimpse at the origins of our modern, highly secured border by tracing the shifting relationship between citizens and the state during wartime.
