Punching above our weigh.., p.1
Punching Above Our Weight, page 1
Copyright © David A. Borys, 2024
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Punching above our weight : the Canadian military at war since 1867 / David A. Borys.
Other titles: Canadian military at war since 1867
Names: Borys, David A., 1981- author.
Description: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20240378121 | Canadiana (ebook) 2024037813X | ISBN 9781459754126 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781459754133 (PDF) | ISBN 9781459754140 (EPUB)
Subjects: LCSH: Canada. Canadian Armed Forces—History. | LCSH: Canada—History, Military.
Classification: LCC FC226 .B67 2024 | DDC 355.00971—dc23
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Contents
Introduction 1 The Expanding Nation
2 Fighting for the Empire
3 The First World War: 1914–1916
4 The First World War: 1917–1918
5 The Interwar Years
6 The Second World War: The Conflict at Sea and in Air
7 The Second World War: The Conflict on Land
8 International Challenges: The Cold War and Korea
9 The Era of Peacekeeping
10 A Tumultuous 21st Century: From Peacekeepers to Peace Enforcers
In Summary
Acknowledgements
Appendix 1: Cast of Characters
Appendix 2: Timeline
Appendix 3: Military Formations
Notes
Select Bibliography
Image Credits
Index
Introduction
Canada is not a nation of pacifists. It has never been a country that decried war as some unthinkable policy. Yet, for some reason, many Canadians are uncomfortable with the idea that we have been and can be a military people. Some find it surprising that Canada has gone to war many times. Some even find it distasteful that we still commemorate those wars. True, Canada has not participated in war as often as some of our strongest allies, especially our neighbour to the south, yet our history is rife with conflict. Despite that, common misconceptions exist within Canada’s public and academic spheres. One of these is that this nation has no discernible military history to speak of. Another is that our military has had no significant impact on our development as a nation. A third is that our military history is easily defined by only a few key events or ideas from the 20th century — Vimy Ridge, the disasters at Hong Kong and Dieppe, the liberation of the Netherlands, peacekeeping, et cetera. And finally, that our military history is simply not important. The fact is that the record of Canada at war is an account of the country itself, and the social, political, and economic developments throughout our history cannot be easily, comfortably, or accurately separated from the military chronicle of this nation.
The history of conflict in the land that came to be known as Canada is, of course, much older than the nation itself. Before Europeans arrived, large Indigenous confederacies dominated huge tracts of territory coast to coast, competing with one another for trade, resources, and power. When the first Europeans appeared along the east coast, they encountered the powerful Wabanaki Confederacy, which had been formed due to the threat posed by another mighty coalition to its west — the Five Nations Confederacy.
After the first Europeans disembarked on the St. Lawrence River, they found themselves in the middle of a desperate conflict as the Indigenous communities along that river attempted to hold back the growing strength of the Five Nations. For much of the 17th century, this confederacy posed the greatest threat to the French presence along the St. Lawrence. The Europeans who arrived in North America were co-opted into these long-standing conflicts, and the technology these newcomers brought with them was sought after to tip the scales.
As more and more Europeans arrived, the First Nations became caught up in the intruders’ dynastic conflicts in North America. Despite the ravaging effects of disease in tipping the power balance toward the European colonizers, the First Nations continued to play a role in all the major clashes on the continent, even as their powerful confederacies declined.
During the 18th century there were six conflicts in the part of North America that would become Canada: three major European dynastic wars (the War of the Spanish Succession, the War of the Austrian Succession, and the Seven Years’ War) as well as two localized ones and a war for independence. Battles erupted on land and at sea in the regions that today make up central and eastern Canada. With the end of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1713 and the Treaty of Utrecht, the British gained a foothold in French-controlled Acadia and established the colony of Nova Scotia. Tension persisted in this region as the Acadian population and the powerful Wabanaki Confederacy, led by the Mi’kmaq, resisted British expansion, and brutal frontier violence erupted regularly over the next several decades. The mistrust the British placed in the Acadian population and their perceived menace to British hegemony led to the British deporting them en masse in the early years of the French and Indian War. This event marked a significant moment in the developing Acadian identity as well as in the history of Nova Scotia (and eventually New Brunswick). With the Acadians out of the way by the early 1760s, the British began settling Nova Scotia with English-speaking Protestants, though in the ensuing decades thousands of Acadians returned to the Maritimes.
Along the St. Lawrence River, in the colony of Quebec, the French and Indian War proved equally decisive in altering the human geography of what became Canada. The British were able to inflict a significant defeat upon the French at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham and thus capture the stronghold of Quebec. Despite the French returning the next year and decisively defeating the British in the Battle of St. Foy, Quebec remained in British hands and the Royal Navy ensured it was protected. The British had thus secured their hold on the St. Lawrence River, and when the French and Indian War ended in 1763 (as part of the global Seven Years’ War), the French were forced to recognize British suzerainty over almost the entirety of their former North American possessions. Now the British colony of Quebec consisted of a large French-speaking Catholic population governed by a small number of English-speaking Protestants representing the world’s most powerful empire.
Yet that formidable empire soon faced a serious reshaping of the North American map when in 1776 American colonials along the eastern seaboard rose in defiance of their British political masters and declared independence. The American Revolution threw the continent once again into war, and the colonies of Quebec, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland chose the Crown over this new republic. In 1783, the war concluded, and the United States of America was born. War had fashioned the United States, but it also created a new British North America. At first this included the four British colonies along with the vast expanse of territory known as Rupert’s Land, but in the aftermath of the American Revolution, thousands of British loyalists fled from the new republic northward. They settled in such large numbers on the east coast that a new colony had to be formed: New Brunswick. By the end of that century, the arrival of so many English-speaking Protestants also led to the splitting of the colony of Quebec into a French-speaking Lower Canada and a new English-speaking Upper Canada. The Canada of 1867 was now taking shape.
In the decades leading up to Canada’s formation, warfare remained a reality of North American life. The War of 1812 saw British, First Nations, and both English- and French-speaking colonists defend against repeated invasion attempts by the United States. The successful defence of British North America contributed to an emerging sense of colonial identity in the disparate British colonies as people began to refer to themselves as Nova Scotians, New Brunswickers, and Canadians. Among the French-speaking Canadien population of Lower Canada, some of the key battles of the war proved significant in contributing further to a unique identity that had already been shaped so dramatically by the French colonial experience.
Identity played a key role in the rebellions of 1837 and 1838, particularly in Lower Canada where many, though certainly not all, French Canadians rose against a colonial government ignoring their demands for greater pol
Punching Above Our Weight picks up the story around the time of Confederation. It touches on the sharp skirmishes with Fenian agitators and then explores the events of the Red River and North-West Resistances. It is during these events that the earliest Canadian military operations were conducted, albeit by a fledgling military against an even more fledgling opponent.
The book then expands on some of the first international military involvements by Canadian soldiers, largely in defence of the British Empire. Canadian voyageurs helped guide a British expedition along the Nile River to relieve the besieged city of Khartoum during the Mahdist War. A decade and a half later, Canadian soldiers were once again on the same continent, this time in South Africa fighting the Boers. Despite the controversial final two years of that war, highlighted by a British-imposed concentration camp system, the Second Boer War contributed to a growing sense of Canadian nationalism — though a largely Anglo one — as a result of celebrated victories at places such as Paardeberg and Leliefontein.
At the conclusion of the Second Boer War in 1902, no one could have foreseen the dramatic transformation the nation would undergo over the next 43 years as a result of two world wars. It was the First World War that tested the fabric of nationhood and the ability for the Canadian military to fight a prolonged and casualty-heavy conflict overseas. While Canadians served in both Britain’s Royal Navy and its Royal Flying Corps, it was the soldiers of the Canadian Corps that became the ultimate expression of Canada’s war effort. By November 1918, the corps had become an elite fighting formation and had developed a fearsome reputation among its enemies, with its commander, Arthur Currie, considered one of the ablest on the Western Front. Yet this incredible military success, capped off by the tremendously bloody yet successful Hundred Days Campaign, came at a horrific cost in casualties and nearly split the country apart over the issue of conscription. Nonetheless, the First World War was a defining moment in the story of the Canadian nation, helping to propel Canada onto the international stage and toward a redefined sovereignty within the British Empire.
The interwar period proved chaotic for Canada’s military. An immediate postwar recession saw violent outbreaks of labour discontent with veterans found on both sides of the battle lines. A brief economic boom was then followed by a traumatic economic collapse. The interwar period thus witnessed dramatic reductions in defence spending, and when war came again the Canadian military was woefully unprepared for the fight to come.
Despite Canada’s unpreparedness, the Second World War brought about the apogee of the nation’s global military participation. The country’s army, air force, and navy expanded to an unbelievable size, peaking at 1.1 million soldiers, sailors, and aircrew, including nearly 51,000 enlisted women. While the Royal Canadian Navy served around the globe, no naval victory was more important than that of the Battle of the Atlantic in which Canada’s navy helped secure the vital supply lines to Great Britain. Royal Canadian Air Force personnel (pilots and ground crew) also served with distinction in almost every theatre. Dogfights over the Mediterranean, anti-submarine operations off the coast of Great Britain, flying transportation routes in Burma (today’s Myanmar), reconnaissance flights over enemy lines in Northwest Europe — which this author’s grandfather participated in — are just some of the areas where Canadian aircrew proved themselves. Most controversially, was the significant role played by the No. 6 Group, RCAF, Canada’s largest contribution to the air war, which participated in the merciless bombing campaign of Germany. While two disasters, Hong Kong and Dieppe, marred the Canadian Army’s start to the war, by 1945 Canadian infantry had fought its way through Sicily and up the Italian mainland, stormed the beaches of Normandy, and liberated swathes of occupied Northwest Europe.
In the tense environment of the postwar world, the Canadian military maintained the largest peacetime force in the country’s history, and it wasn’t long before this military faced its first Cold War test. During the Korean War, Canadian pilots fought in the skies of MiG Alley, Canadian naval vessels patrolled up and down the Korean Peninsula, and the Canadian infantry fought off waves of North Korean and Chinese attackers at places such as Kapyong and “The Saddle.”
In the aftermath of the Korean War, anxiety over a potential conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union led to Canadian politicians leaning heavily on the United Nations to find ways of preventing localized conflicts from drawing in the superpowers. This ultimately led to Lester B. Pearson’s proposal of a U.N. peacekeeping force in the Sinai Desert during the Suez crisis, which, in turn, established the model for interpositionary peacekeeping that the Canadian military and public embraced for much of the rest of the 20th century. Blue-helmeted Canadian peacekeepers served around the world in places such as Haiti, the Congo, Cyprus, the former Yugoslavia, and numerous other war-torn regions.
However, by the 1990s, this “peacekeeping myth” was fractured by a horrific scandal in Somalia and the revelation of a daylong battle between Canadian soldiers and Croatian forces near the town of Medak. What was left of the myth of peacekeeping was completely dismantled when Al-Qaeda executed a series of terrorist attacks on American soil. In the aftermath of 9/11, the Canadian military was once again at war, this time in Afghanistan. While 40,000 Canadians served, and the Canadian military performed its role admirably, the legacy of this conflict is still hotly contested.
Punching Above Our Weight seeks to provide a modern interpretation of Canada’s history at war. For those familiar with this subject, the last book to provide such a broad chronological approach was Desmond Morton’s excellent A Military History of Canada. It was a must-read for any serious student of the subject, but that book is now dated and out of print. It is with great hope that this volume encapsulates the history of Canada at war since 1867 while incorporating much of the new considerable literature that has characterized Canadian military history in the past 20 years. A tall task, indeed, but one that has hopefully been achieved here.
Thus, warfare has been a constant presence in the annals of this country. This is not to say that it is the only major impetus for change — far from it. But the history of war — like the story of politics, economics, gender, labour, culture, technology, society, et cetera — is a vital part of the building blocks that make up the brick wall of the Canadian narrative. To ignore the history of war in this country is to disregard a key part of our past and present.
1
The Expanding Nation
When the Dominion of Canada was formed in July 1867, its constitution, the British North America Act, gave the federal government powers over defence. In May of the next year, this was formulated in the Militia Act, which converted the pre-Confederation militia into an official body known as the Reserve Militia that in theory obligated all fit males between 18 and 60 years of age to serve. By 1869, this force was largely ignored and existed almost exclusively on paper. The Militia Act also created a Volunteer Militia, numbering approximately 40,000, consisting of volunteers who were eligible for 16 paid days of training each year. The country was divided into nine military districts in which these volunteers were recruited and trained as part of district-based militia battalions. There was no professional Canadian standing army at the time, for this the government relied upon the British Army. That became problematic in 1869 when the British government of Prime Minister William Gladstone announced it would be withdrawing most of its troops from Canada, though threats from south of the border delayed this withdrawal.
