6.4 Assessing Canada’s War
The British historian, Arthur Marwick, contributed to the study of 20th century war a model for assessing its impact. “Total war,” in military terms meant targeting factories and food production, and not just enemy armies. It meant, in that regard, that civilians who were supporting the enemy were legitimate targets as well. This was a change in military practice, especially in terms of the scale of casualties and damage that industrialized forces could inflict. Marwick took this understanding of war and modified it so that “total” described the engagement of the whole nation in the conflict.[1] Whether manifest in rationing, industrial employment, limitations on civil freedoms, or its impact on culture, 20th century wars have swept along far more than armies and munitions plants, even in Canada.
Marwick’s Principle looked at the changes wrought by war and measured them in four ways. First, there is what he called the extent of destruction involved, which can include the burning out of factory machines, the loss of productive capacity, and very definitely the loss of human life and ability. Second, there is the level of “participation” in a wartime society; Marwick pointed to instances where participation increases (women working in factories, getting the vote) and where it decreases (foreign-born Canadians thrown into internment camps), although he mainly shows how going through that change in participation levels can result in post-war changes in engagement, too. Third, and this pertains very definitely to the enormity of the human waste involved in industrialized warfare, there is the psychological impact, including the ways in which it challenges pre-war ways of thinking. Finally, there is war as a “test.” Total war is a crucible through which armies and ideas, systems, and values pass. Some survive intact, others prove wanting and are either reformed or they are allowed to die away. How did Canada fare in its first Total War?
Destruction and Loss
61,000 Canadians dead. Over 170,000 wounded. Newfoundland contributed an additional 1,305 dead and still more casualties. Twenty Canadians were shot by firing squads for the crime of desertion and another 180 condemned men were spared execution. There wasn’t much glory in this conflict, although Canadians seized upon the victories at Vimy and Passchendaele as symbols of national maturation, a culture of toughness, and indefatigable resolve. Certainly, the armed forces were forced to grow up. The militia-based model that Sam Hughes championed from 1911 to 1916 gave way to a more professional version. Borden promised grateful Britain 25,000 troops in the summer of 1914; by Armistice there were more than 600,000 men and women enlisted.
The fact that this took place under the auspices of the War Measures Act is significant. Canada went to war to defend liberal democratic values against what was characterized as a dictatorial Prussian militarism and, along the way, Ottawa strip