The Military Services Act 1917

• Called all fit males 18-45 to register

• Exceptions: – those for whom service would cause great

family hardship – those who were performing vital wartime

functions in Canada– Conscientious objectors – those whose moral

code forbad violence of any kind

Election of 1917

• Borden called the election with Conscription for overseas service as the primary issue

• Wartime elections Act and Military Voters Act affected the vote

• Borden and the Conservatives formed a coalition (Union government) with pro-Conscription Liberals

This 1917 election poster equates a vote for Laurier, the Liberal

leader, with a vote for Germany.

The Conscription Crisis

Which of the followinga) supports the argument for Conscription in 1917b) did NOT support the argument for ConscriptionC) is (or was) irrelevant to the issue

• ENLISTMENT/CASUALTY RATE FOR 1917• Month Enlistments Casualties• January 9,194 4,396• February 6,809 1,250• March 6,640 6,161• April 5,530 13,177• May 6,407 13,457

June 6,348 7,931July 3,882 7,906August 3,117 13,232

• September 3,588 10,990October 4,884 5,929November 4,019 30,741December 3,921 7,476

    On October 3, 1914 a convoy of ships carrying nearly 33,000 Canadian troops departed for Britain. In December 1914, Canadian P.M. Sir Robert Borden announced solemnly that "there has not been, there will not be, compulsion or conscription".

    In the first two years of the war, over 350,000 Canadians had enlisted.

  

Canada’s population was just over 8,000,000 in

1914.

•  

Unemployment had been high in 1914-1915, and this perhaps had prompted the initially heavy flow of enlistments, especially from economically-troubled Western Canada. By 1916, the booming wartime industrial and agricultural economies combined to provide Canadians with other options and employers competed with recruiting officers for Canada’s available manpower.  

 

By the end of 1916, the Canadian Expeditionary Force’s front-line units required 75,000 men annually just to replace losses, which were extremely heavy among the infantry.

• In April, 1917, the United States entered the war on the side of Britain and France (and Canada, of course)

There was a revolution in Russia in 1917.  The Russians would soon quit the war and Germany would be able to bring her full force to bear in the west.

Conscription Crisis

The Background• "When Prime Minister Robert Borden returned from a series of meetings with

the Imperial Staff in the spring of 1917, he was convinced that conscription (compulsory military enlistment) was needed in order to maintain the strength of the Canadian Corps in France.

• Voluntary enlistment had dropped off sharply. At the beginning of 1916, the average rate of enlistment was 30,000 a month, but this figure had declined to 6,000 a month by the end of the year. Borden felt that compulsory service was necessary for Canada to maintain its commitment to the war in Europe.

• Conscription was a politically divisive issue. Resistance was strongest in Quebec, where a majority had opposed Canada's involvement in a "European" war, but such reservations were not limited to the French-Canadian population.

• Organized labour bitterly opposed compulsory enlistment, fearing that it would lead to the conscription of workers for war industries.

• Many farmers were concerned that compulsory enlistment would create a shortage of agricultural labour at a time when they were hard pressed to meet the demands of wartime consumption. Consequently, conscription-which the Borden government had introduced with the passage of the Military Service Act in August 1917-became the dominant issue in the December 1917 federal election.

• Prior to the election, the Borden government passed the Military Voters Act and the Wartime Elections Act. The Military Voters Act gave the right to vote to all military personnel regardless of gender and contained provisions that would allow them to assign their vote to any constituency in Canada. The Wartime Elections Act extended the franchise (vote) to all wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters of servicemen and, at the same time, disenfranchised many voters of enemy-alien birth who had immigrated to Canada after 1902. These two pieces of legislation increased the number of voters most likely to support conscription and eliminated ones unlikely to support compulsory service.

• French Canadian perspective was led by Henri Bourassa

• The Pro-imperialist perspective was led by Robert Borden

• In the middle, who else but Wilfrid Laurier.

Henri Bourassa• The following statements were made

by Henri Bourassa during the 1917 conscription debate:

• 1. “It is useless to disguise the truth: two million French-Canadians are united against conscription…”

• 2. “All Canadians who want to fight conscription…must have the courage to say….Canada has done enough.”

• 3. “with regard to our allies: How many soldiers would France, and even England, send to America if Canada were attacked by the United States?”

• 4. “What England needs most are not soldiers, but bread, meat, and potatoes.

Robert Borden• 1. “We are in a crisis situation. We face

one of the greatest emergencies in world history. We need more men to stop the Germans. The number of men required will not be less than 5,000 and will probably be 100,000."

• 2. “Hitherto we have depended upon voluntary enlistment…But I return to Canada impressed at once with the extreme gravity of the situation and with a sense of responsibility for our further effort at the most critical period of the War. It is apparent to me that the voluntary system will not yield further substantial results.”

• 3. “ All citizens in this country benefit from Canadian laws and freedom. All citizens in this country have an equal obligation to support the defence of this country.”

Wilfrid Laurier• 1. “As to the present Military Service Act my policy will be not to

proceed further under its provisions until the people have an opportunity to pronounce upon it by way of a referendum.”

• 2. “It is a fact that cannot be denied that the voluntary system, especially in Quebec, did not get a fair trial…it is no answer to say as is now often said, that we must have Conscription or “quit”…Australia rejected Conscription and Australia did not “quit”. Australia is still in the fight under the voluntary system.”

• 3. "Is it not true that the main reason advocated for conscription - not so much publicly as privately, not shouted but whispered - is that Quebec must be made to do her part, and French-Canadians forced to enlist compulsorily since they did not enlist voluntarily?"

• 4. “Now in this year of 1917, the Prime Minister and his party wish to pass a law that will introduce conscription to Canada. If this law is passed, young men between the ages of 18 and 21 and who are unmarried, will receive a notice in the mail that will require them to report for army duty. If this bill is passed, the government will have broken its promise to the Canadian people."

• 5. "I, Wilfrid Laurier, and my Liberal Party are opposed to conscription. Canada is not in danger of attack from Germany, and therefore, we do not need to force young men into the army."

• 6. "Some people have accused the French Canadian race, of which I am a member, of being cowards and disloyal to Canada. That is not true. Over 16,000 French Canadians have already enlisted in the armed forces and have gone over to Europe to fight. French Canadians do not have a large amount of loyalty to France, one of the countries fighting on our side in the war.”

• 7. “…they have little enthusiasm for helping France today. The loyalty of French Canadians is to Canada - a country in which they have lived for over 300 years. French Canadians will approve conscription to defend Canada, but not to defend a country 3,000 kilometres away."

• 8. “…many English Canadians…have an emotional attachment to their mother country. Therefore, it is not surprising that over 300,000 English Canadians have volunteered for the Canadian armed forces and have gone over to Europe to help out England. I applaud the many volunteers who have willingly made sacrifices to help win this war.

Result

• Ultimately, the bill passed and support for the act was confirmed by the late 1917 federal election, in which Borden’s Union government (made up of members of his Conservative party and members of the Liberal party who supported conscription) was elected. The Union Government won nearly 2/3 of the seats in the House of Commons. The Liberals found electoral success in Quebec only, where they won 62 out of 65 seats. In stark contrast, in Ontario, the Union Government held 74 of 82 seats.

•  

The first group of conscripts were called in January 1918. There were slightly more than 400,000 Class I registrants; that is, unmarried and childless males aged 20-34. Nationally, almost 94 percent of these men applied for various exemptions from service (98 percent in Québec) and the appeal boards established to review these cases granted nearly 87 percent of their requests (91 percent in Québec).

  

Some Interesting Results

• Some 28,000 others (18,000 in Québec) simply defaulted and went into hiding to avoid arrest by military or civilian police. Conscription was unpopular among those called, regardless of region, occupation or ethnicity.

The tension in Québec was palpable. At the end of March 1918 a mob destroyed the offices of the Military Service Registry in Québec City. Conscript troops were rushed from Toronto and on April 1 they opened fire with machine guns on a threatening crowd, killing four

demonstrators and wounding dozens of others.  

• The extent of the violence shocked the country. Religious leaders and civic authorities successfully appealed for calm. The rioting stopped, but the bitter memories would linger for decades.

Of the 620,000 men who served in the CEF, about 108,000 were conscripts. Fewer than 48,000 of these proceeded overseas and, before the war ended in November 1918, only 24,000 actually served at the front.

 

Sound and Fury – What effect did Conscription really have

on the Canadian war effort?

• Click link to see Prezze• http://www.tvdsb.ca/webpages/evendent/

chc2d.cfm?subpage=178858

• Link to 8 min election video• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v

=FX85Afumru8• CHC2D read page 69-70 answer #5• CHC2P read 46-49 #1,4