Transcript Canada WWI part onex

World War I
Canadians in battle
Training the troops
• The task of training and supplying the troops and ensuring they were
ready for war went to the minister of the militia, Sam Hughes.
• Hughes established a training center in Valcartier, Quebec.
• Basic training was given to 32,000 enthusiastic Canadian and
Newfoundland troops.
Sam Hughes: Minister of the Militia
• The outbreak of war in August 1914
prompted the highly energetic Hughes
to co-ordinate the recruitment of
Canadian troops for dispatch to the
battlefields of the Western Front. He
boosted Canada's pre-war regular
force of 3,000 with militia troops in
addition to the fruits of widespread
voluntary recruitment.
• Hughes oversaw the construction of a
training facility, Camp Valcartier, in
under three weeks, followed later by
additional camps. Within a matter of
weeks the first Canadian forces were
ready to sail for Europe from Quebec
City. The departing troops were given
a pep talk by Hughes prior to their
departure.
Training the Troops
• Pre WWI, Canada was a patchwork of regions with few transportation
and communication connections.
• Wartime training brought diverse Canadians together as a group.
• Boot camp built bridges between them and fostered a sense of
national identity, a sense of being Canadian.
• The army that was formed for these volunteers was known as the
Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF)
• The troops were enthusiastic, but ill prepared and ill equipped.
• Example: The Canadian made Ross Rifle often jammed from dirt or
mud when fired rapidly. It was later replaced by the British Lee
Enfield Rifle
The War Measures Act
• After the breakout of WWI, Prime Minister Borden realized that in
order to meet the demands of the war the government need more
control over the country’s affairs.
• Borden introduced the War Measures Act in 1914
• It granted the government the authority to do everything necessary
“for the security, defense, peace, order, and welfare of Canada.”
The War Measures Act
• It gave the government the power to strip ordinary Canadians of the
civil liberties.
• Mail could be censored
• Habeas Corpus was suspended (ensures that a prisoner can be
released from unlawful detention—that is, detention lacking
sufficient cause or evidence)
• Anyone suspected of being an enemy or a threat to the government
could be imprisoned of deported.
• 8579 immigrants from G and AH Empire were held in internment
camps
The Schlieffen Plan
• Germany’s bold plan for a two-front war.
• France to the west was the Western Front, and Russia to the east was
the Eastern Front
• Almost worked: German troops were 35km from Paris
Battle of Ypres
• Some of the bloodiest battles of
the early war were fought in and
around the Belgian city of Ypres,
in the Flanders district.
• Presumably it was British desire
to secure the English Channel
ports and the British Army's
supply lines.
• The Battle of Ypres actually
includes three battles. They
were fought in Ypres, Belgium.
The town of Ypres was always
under attack from the Germans
because it was a key point in
keeping them from the English
Channel.
First Battle of Ypres
October 30 – November 24, 1914
• The first Battle of Ypres was fought in 1914. It was fought between
the Germans on one side and the allies of France, England and
Belgium on the other. It was a victory for the Allies
• The Allied powers ….old Triple Entente…..entente meaning ‘friendly
understanding) won the battle after 34 days of fighting, it started
trench warfare on the western front.
• 6053 Canadian causalities in 48 hours, over 2000 died
First Ypres
• This was the last major German option, after their defeats at the First
Battle of the Aisne and First Battle of the Marne.
• The Ypres campaign became the culmination of the Race to the Sea.
Second Battle of Ypres
April 22 - May 25, 1915.
• For control of the strategic Flemish town of Ypres in western Belgium
• The Germans used a new weapon, gas. They used poisonous chlorine
gas, it was heavier than air and flowed over the ground and into allied
trenches.
• The deadly chlorine gas used against the defending French troops;
terrified French soldiers fled. Gas had worked as it had got them to
leave their positions.
• The situation was saved by Canadian troops who used handkerchiefs
soaked in urine as gas masks and launched a counter-attack on the
Germans. It was successful and the Germans lost the gains they had
made.
Second Battle of Ypres
• After five weeks of fighting the battle was going nowhere for either
side, the Germans ended it. The Allies had 60,000 casualties, the
Germans had a total of 35,000 casualties.
• The result of this battle: Stalemate
Third Battle of Ypres
July 31 - November 10, 1917.
• The battle was between British and their allies against the German
Empire.
• The battle took place on the Western Front, for control of the ridges
south and east of the Belgian city of Ypres in West Flanders.
• Passchendaele lay on the last ridge east of Ypres, five miles from a
railway junction at Roeselare, which was a vital part of the supply
system of the German Fourth Army
Passchendaele
• An extreme amount of rainfall and artillery fire turned the battlefield
into a muddy swamp. It was almost impossible to march across.
• The Germans, who were in concrete bunkers, killed a lot of the Allied
troops with mustard gas and machine guns.
• The Canadians took the village of Passchendaele after months of
fighting.
PASS OUT MAP
The Battle of the Somme
July 1 – November 18, 1916:
• General Douglas Haig (Britain’s commander in chief) launches a
massive attack along low ridges near the Somme River.
• Newfoundland was a
• dominion of the British
• Empire (not yet part
Of Canada)
Battle of the Somme
• Fought by the armies of the British and French empires against the
German Empire on either side of the River Somme in France.
• The first objective to be obtained by the combined British and French
offensive was to relieve pressure on the French Army at Verdun. The
second objective is to inflict as heavy losses as possible upon the
German armies.
• Notable for the importance of air power and the first use of the tank.
• One of the largest battles of World War I. More than 1,000,000 men
were wounded or killed, making it one of humanity's bloodiest battles
• Results: British-French Victory
Battle of Beaumont hamel
July 1, 1916:
• The early morning opening battle of the Battle of The Somme near
the towns of Beaumont and Hamel
• Artillery was to soften up infantry targets but either missed or was
ineffective.
• Germans knew of the coming of Allied attack
Battle of Beaumont hamel
• The newfoundland troop were to attempt to march in formation
uphill through barbed wire in broad daylight, 900 meters to enemy
lines and then fight.
• Thousands of soldiers from Britain and Newfoundland climbed out of
their trenches, across No Man’s Land (the space between trenches)
• and walked through a hail of machine gun fire, toward the German
Line.
• The battle was over in less than an hour and 733 of 801
Newfoundlanders were killed or wounded