Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Canada WW1 started 100 years ago today

100 years ago today Great Britain and all the Commonwealth decared war on Germany in the war to end all war.
After a very slow start and many tragic errors the Canadian Corp as well as the Anzac Corp would become the elite fighting forces on the Western front.
More than 60000 Canadian would die before it ended.
May they rest in peace.

To those 60 thousand Canadians that didn't make it home....

a salute of respect and remembrance for the sacrifices they made...

may history never forget their deeds of bravery... and what they did for future generations' freedoms...

It's a horrible thing the way the Commonwealth troops were used as cannon fodder by the Brits.

In the end the Commonwealth troops including the Canadian Corps seem to have taken much deserved pride in their role as Shock Troops. They were all volunteers and had come to fight. Great lengths were taken to conceal the movement of the CC as the Germans knew the positioning of Canadian Core would indicate the location of a new offensive.

As they shoukd. However, anyone who thinks that the Gallipolis campaign was anything other than a waste of ANZACS is off their rocker.

tangozulu;
Thanks for the timely reminder sir, I was just talking about this to one of my nieces and her husband yesterday.

It's staggering when one considers that the population of Canada was only 7.9 million then and only somewhere around 11% were of British heritage - but we ended up mobilizing 620,000 before it was said and done.

Of that number, according to most stats 39% would be killed or wounded. The Wiki page says 67,000 Canucks died over there.

As you noted, we gave what many consider to be a significant contribution too - folks like this fellow alone put a dent into the Germans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Pegahmagabow

Many historians believe that we began to truly form our national identity there in those muddy trenches and I for one agree with that assessment.

They are all gone now, but here's to all who went over there on behalf of a comparatively new nation and gave their all.

All the best to you and yours for the rest of the summer tangozulu and thanks again.

Dwayne

In your face, Archduke Loser! In all seriousness, the wars of the last 100 years have been instigated and fought at the behest of a select few to enrich themselves and their friends, and to shift balances of power to their future benefit.

Many thanks to our brave Canadian brethren present, past and future.

Our BFF's through thick and thin for the past 100 years...

RIP to those that gave the ultimate sacrifice for our common interests and cause

Thanks for remembering... I've done some research on my paternal grandfather; Pvt. David Allardice, 1087335, 1st Bn. Canadian Machine Gun Corps, enlisted at Lindsay, Ontario April 23rd, 1917. Discharge is dated as Feb. 26, 1919. On the way home from France he managed to stop in Dundee, Scotland where he was born & raised, marry his old girl friend, and bring her to his home in Rochester NY where they lived the rest of their lives. It was a terrible war that he only spoke of a few times to his children. His unit had been gassed a couple times and he saw a lot of other carnage but I only knew him until I was about 10 years old and he seemed a happy, hard working guy who was well adjusted. I have his ribbons and a medal of appreciation that the city of Rochester NY gave to all the guys who came home from that one.

I had the pleasure of reading a book written by Hazel Fullford.
She told of an uncle that served in the Canadian Army in WW1.
He was a "POW" in Germany, the author said the Canadians were treated worse even than the English.
The German guards thought the English had no choice, but the Canadians were looked at as mercenary's.

Thought I do not know the numbers it is no secret that many Americans headed North to join the Canadians Army in WW1. I'm sure they were a welcome addition. This was repeated though to a lesser extent in WW2 untill Pearl Harbor.

Canadians also headed south.

My grandfather, born a Canadian, fought in the trenches of France as a Lieutenant in the US army during WW1.

A coworker, friend, of mine is Canadian and served a deployment in Iraq in the U.S. Army.

Thanks neighbors, sorry for your losses.

many Americans served in the Canadian Army during both world wars,60.000 Canadian served in Viet Nam

Unfortunately they fought under British commanders, who were fighting the last war, saw them as an only slightly more acceptable kind of wog, and who sent British troops to their deaths over and over again, charging in the open against machine guns, let alone a bunch of colonials. Some of those generals were obviously psychotic and certainly incompetent.

This process always occurs in wars, weeding out the quartermasters who are great peacetime commanders, but can't do anything but doctrine when the bullets start to fly, but WWI probably had the most massive change of military technology. The machine gun for fire power, the airplane for spying out enemy positions, breach loading artillary, so many things that grind men up.

Of course, it could have been worse, they could have been fighting under French generals.