If you look at the last years (1917,1918) of World War I, the Canadians were the leading force in the Victories against the Germans. Especially at Vimy Ridge which the Canadians managed to do what the British and French couldn't.
shareAre we the soul reason that the war was won? No. Did we totally own? Yes. Canadians were strong in ww1 we just 'got 'er done' We were tough. We still are tough but it was a nice effort all around that won it.
Oil: Never spy on the girl you love without it.
Klein_Returns on Wed Oct 15 2008 13:56:48
the Canadians were the leading force in the Victories against the Germans.
We did well, but we weren't indispensible. Had the BEF not had our four overstrength divisions available to them, they would have coped.
kodie16 2 days ago (Sat Oct 18 2008 17:31:22)
Are we the soul reason that the war was won? No. Did we totally own? Yes.
Sums it up well, I think.
stick_9 2 days ago (Sat Oct 18 2008 21:52:41)
we were not led by the British. Have you ever heard of Sir. Aurthur Currie?
Have you not heard of Field Marshal Julian Hedworth George Byng, 1st Viscount Byng of Vimy? He was the British Army Lieutenant General who commanded the Canadian Corps at Vimy. Throughout the war, most of the Corps staff officers were British and we served under British higher command throughout the war.
webstermr 1 day ago (Sun Oct 19 2008 07:16:26)
In actual fact, Sir Arthur Currie, a Canadian general in WWI, was the most successful general of the war. The man was a tactical and strategic genious who, had the war continued, would have been appointed supreme commander of all empire forces
So Lloyd George said to his biographer after the war. Lloyd George also was a notorious liar. There is no proof that he was actualy planning this. More likely, he was trying to minimize the contributions of British officers and potential political rivals. In fact, there were several Army commanders (an Army consists of several Corps), like Byng, who were more senior and better choices to replace Haig were that really desired.
The Canadian army was the only military force on the allied side to win major victories in WWI.
The Australians might disagree. For that matter, so would the British and French.
For our size, we did really well. We raised a good sized force which tended to perform better than comparably sized British units, much better, in fact, then in WWII or Korea. We got lucky once we shook down after the first year or so of war and got rid of the incompetents among the political appointees chosen to be our generals. We ended up with some really good people, like Currie. We don;t need to exaggerate, though, or to diminish the contributions and efforts of others.
the canadian army is probably one of the worst funded in the western world, so no we do not still kick ass nor did we ever really. We were led by the British in WW1 so under their direction, brave men risked their lives.
sharewow you are very ignorant. Our army greatly contributed to WW1 (specially considering that we had alot less soldiers than the other armies fighting) and we were not led by the British. Have you ever heard of Sir. Aurthur Currie? He was commanded our army to win vimmy ridge. Don't comment on something you know very little about. I know alot about this because I completed gr.10 history last year and researched this, you just guessed based on how American media currently portrays our army.
shareClearly you aren't a student of history. If you were, you would know how unbelievably wrong you are. Pick up a book and educate yourself. Ready "Vimy" or "Marching as to War" by Pierre Berton. For that matter read a high school history textbook - it will be enlightening.
In actual fact, Sir Arthur Currie, a Canadian general in WWI, was the most successful general of the war. The man was a tactical and strategic genious who, had the war continued, would have been appointed supreme commander of all empire forces.
The Canadian army was the only military force on the allied side to win major victories in WWI. The Canadian divisions were always sent into the trouble spots because nobody else could hack it. Our guys continued to kick ass in the second world war and Korea and they are kicking ass today in Afghanistan where the are inflicting casualties on the enemy at a rate of several hundred to one.
webster:
Indeed, I feel that The Contribution of the Canadians has been greatly overlooked except for MilHist afficionados---heck they didn't even have the Canadians & their beaches represented in 'The Longest Day'.
nickm
Kicking ass in Afghanistan? You mean torturing our prisoners and getting blown up for another American imperial war? Consensus among historians today is that WW1 was an imperial war for European conquests in Africa. It didn't serve any meaningful positive purpose and all those people who died, died for absolutely nothing. The war in Afghanistan will be exactly the same.
shareyes they died for nothing really... ww1 was a total waste of life... but canada still kicked the germans ass hands down...
as for ww2 and korea
so much Canadian achievement in the first world war as well as to some extent the second is overlooked because in history books not published in Canada the Canadian army is always lumped in with the Brittish. This is the case for Australia and New Zealand as well and for many other dominions colonies and such for example huge numbers of Africans served under the French and rarely do you hear anything of them. the battlefield of the first world war where some of the mose diverse places on earth in thier time.
as for saving the Brittish in manpower the sheer size of the former empire is what really saved them.
You mean torturing our prisoners
There has been no evidence that Canadian Forces have tortured or mistreated prisoners in our custody.
and getting blown up for another American imperial war?
No, killing Islamist totalitarians who attacked us in the West and creating conditions that will permit a better life for the Afghan people.
Consensus among historians today is that WW1 was an imperial war for European conquests in Africa.
Concenus among non-Marxist historians is a bit more illusive. Few, if any, are very fond of tired and simplistic Marxist-Leninist catchphrases as "imperial war".
It didn't serve any meaningful positive purpose
A Europe not dominated by the Germany that invaded Belgium for being in the way and that imposed Brest-Litovsk seems positive enough to me.
Exactly. These Taliban hugging terrorist loving "peace at any price" people make me ill.
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I think R0llDaveAAA must be serving in Afghanistan and helping Americans build a natural gas pipeline. Hooray for Canadians being the whipping boys of the Americans and conducting missions like this for corporate profits.
I've had conservative profs and teachers who agreed WW1 was imperialist. Liberal leaning profs and teachers would agree.
helping Americans build a natural gas pipeline.
Of course we are Comrade. Just remember to refresh the tinfoil on your hat occasionally and you'll see right through those nefarious Yankee Imperialists and their Running Dogs.
I've had conservative profs and teachers who agreed WW1 was imperialist.
Of course to you an NDPer is conservative, so it's not surprising that they use a Marxist term of art like "imperialist".
You're joking right? There is so much wrong with that statement that I don't even know where to begin. American imperial war? Did we forget about what happened on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001?
share" Did we forget about what happened on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001?"
12 Saudi Arabians crashed a plane into the World Trade Centre and Pentagon. So the US invades AFGHANISTAN and IRAQ. It makes perfect sense.
Canadian units did a fantastic job in WW1. At the start of the war, German units least liked to be opposite Scottish Highlanders, then, after their incredible work at Pozieres in 1916, the Australians had the reputation of being the toughest opposition. After Vimy Ridge, in 1917, the Canadians took the laurels, so much so that in 1918, as the counter attack started in August, the British army faked Canadian radio traffic all over the place to rattle the Germans.
But the British Army was predominantly British and the British did no less than their share of the fighting. Statistically, if you were German, the units you didn't want to be opposite were Guards, the Royal Welch and Lancashire Fusiliers. So although they were outstanding, Canadian units didn't win the war by themselves and Canadian Generals didn't necessarily outshine Brits and Ozzies.
I've visited most of the WW1 memorial sites in northern France. The Last Post at the Menin Gate is the most moving but the Canadian Memorial at Vimy is still the best, though the new musueum at Thiepval runs it close. They staff the memorial with high flying history graduates from Cananda who have a passion for their subject and do a fantastic job of proving how much the nation still cares.
I can't wait to see the film.
Canadian Forces have not tourtured anyone they have detained, infact strict guidlines are in place to prevent mistreatment of prisoners after being handed over to the Afghan Athorities.
WW1 was started when a Serbian Insurgent shot the Heir to the Thrown of Austria-Hungry bringing their Military down on Serbia, Russia came to the Defence of Serbia, then the Germans pre-emtive Attacked the Entant Allies of Russia, France. Britain came to the Defence of France and the rest is history.
Learn your history.
~Thanato
sfrm:
I THINK (not sure mind you!) that some Canadian UN 'Peacekeepers' in Somalia who got into some hot water for tying some Somali militiamen to a spit & turned them over an open fire in order to get them 'rat out' their homies...and the took pictures....
Not that I mind OR care, either way....you can grill some tangos on behalf of the US or on behalf of the Third World Scum who run the UN.
nickm
I THINK (not sure mind you!) that some Canadian UN 'Peacekeepers' in Somalia who got into some hot water for tying some Somali militiamen to a spit & turned them over an open fire in order to get them 'rat out' their homies...and the took pictures....
The Canadian Peacekeepers were Frustrated by the constant infiltration into their camp by Somali locals, who were accomplished, if petty, theives and were suspected to be junior members of the local authorities/militia/tribe/political party/gang. When caught, they had to be given back to the local authorities (milita/ etc . . .) who set them free, so the Canadian Commander unofficially encouraged his guys to give them a good beating before turning them loose. Sounds not too unreasonable in theory, but soldiers have no training or experience in "tuning up" criminals. He was likely thinking about back eyes and a few bruises that wouldn't require medical attention. Two low-ranking soldiers had Sidane Arone in custody. The one in charge. Master Corporal Claytom Matchee, was possibly suffering mental issues from the side effects or anti-malarial medication. They got carried away. It's almost certain they didn't intend to kill him, and probably didn't start off meaning to do him serious harm. Matchee tried to hang himself, but was saved from dying. He suffered enough brain damage that they were unable to bring him to trial and the charges were recently dropped. The other soldier, Corporal Kyle Brown, was convicted of manslaughter and spent nearly two years in prison.
R011:
Thank you for the background facts of the case; again I hasten to add that I wasn't that bothered by it given the circumstances...
nickm
I wasn't that bothered by it given the circumstances...
I was. It was excessive, undisciplined, unprofessional, and quite literally criminal. They disgraced themselves, tehir regiment, and the Canadian Forces.
R011Dave:
Damn, Dave, you are CERTAINLY a better man than me for that sentiment....
nickm
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wtf does Somalia and the Airborne Regiment have to do with the CF in Afghanistan.
~Thanato
One thing I am certain of about the Canadian military is that it has always been filled with brave skilled able people. My grandfathers' response to a question I asked him about Canadian pilots in World War II is that they were first class.
Anybody want a peanut ?
- Fezzik, " The Princess Bride " ( 1987 )
Rocky:
Amen RE: Canadian Fighter Pilots; Johnny Johnson, GB's Top Ace absolutely SWORE by the Canadians in his Spitfire Wing;
And let's not forget George Beurling--top Allied Ace in Malta; sure he was a sort of peculiar fellow but as a pilot & deflection shooter he was second to no one....
nickm
bump.
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There's a very good and touching video about the significance about Canada's contribution to World War One and whether Britain's dominion countries such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand boast too much about their contributions to the war effort and eventual victory for the Allies.Part of the English technique in holding the Empire together was to allow this to happen, encourage it even. In fact, if there were no feats of arms to praise, the English would get up interest in a sport and allow themselves to get walloped at it. So much so that these days and Englishman hardly dares call himself 'English' out of respect to the Scottish, Welsh and Irish peoples which England added to 'Great Britain' largely to stop the French and Spanish trying to bribe them to invade England.
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Haig's communiqué
Do you happen to have a copy? I'd be interested to see his exact words.
claimed the battle a British victory
Even if we discount the fact that people still thought of themselves as being British as well as being Canadian, Australian, or Scottish in 1918, Amiens was planned by Haig and carried out by Rawlinson.
the British 4th Army under General Rawlinson made a small commitment compared to the dominian forces during the advance
You do realize that the Canadian Corps was a subordinate formation of the British Fourth Army? A key part of that victory was played by the over five hundred tanks of the British Army's Royal Tank Corps.
I have all my respects to the British soldier during World War One who were always mostly under incompetent and adamant leaders and commanders
That's the common, post WWII revisionist, Blackadder version of the war, but it mostly isn't true.
Britsh general officers were mostly quite competent, in many ways more so than their Canadian counterparts. Canadians had to rely on British officers for staff work at the Corps level, and to some extent at division as well. Canadians also had their share of less then stellar performers who had to be fired - Maj. Gen. Garnet Hughes comes immediately to mind. Several British general officers had quite distinguished reputations coming out of the war, like Byng, commander of the Canadian Corps at Vimy, and Allenby, who beat the Turks in Palestine and Syria. It's no coincidence that the BEF was probably the best trained, best fed, best supplied, and most innovative force in the Great War.
Do keep in mind that the Hundred Days was not the initiative of a relatively junior Corps commander, but an operation organized by Field Marshal Haig and his staff two levels of command above Currie, and coordinated by Supreme Allied Commander Marshal Foch and his headquarters above them.
I understand the fact that the British Army was experienceing very poor morale after the March offensive of 1918
I've never heard that was the case, and the BEF victory at Amiens, Canadian led though it was, lifted it even higher.
where they had not won any significant battles afterwards against the Germans
Considering that they received about four hundred thousand casualties during the Hundred Days, I rather suspect they must have been doing something, and they were. The entire army group that was the BEF, not just the two corps of Canadians and Australians was involved in that campaign.
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No, but I'll search for it somehow. It'll take some time, though, and I'm not very sure I will find it.
Your cite is good enough. Thanks! Your point is made.
incompetent and adamant leaders and commanders. By this I mean General Sir Hubert Gough or General Sir Richard Haking or the obvious Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig
Haig? You mean the man who planned and commanded the Hundred Days offensive? The one who stopped the German MICHAEL offensive? The one who ensured the British Expeditionary Force had the best training and logistics in Europe? I'll give you that Passchendaele should probably have been halted sooner, but I suspect that's a decision easier in hindsight and without the political environment in which Haig had to work.
As for Gough and Haking (a Canadian as it happened), there were dozens of division, corps and army commanders in the British Army, and a similar number on various staffs. Obviously, some of them would be worse than others, but that doesn't make the few the norm.
These commanders even dreamt about charging in cavalry in the planned breakthrough during the Battle of the Somme!
And with what other mobile arm were they to exploit a breakthrough in 1916? DO recall which army invented the tank, the doctrine for its use, and successfully used it during the Great War.
I keep thinking we need some better WW1 history but in fact it's all there, it's just that no one reads it.
The key component in the misapprehensions about the British Army of 1918, which far from popular belief, actually has a fair shout at being the finest ever to take the field, is that the politicians who managed it were so keen to avoid responsibility for a repeat of the Somme casualty lists that they first tried to put it under French Command (so they could blame French politicians and generals for failure) and then they tried to prevent it from carrying out its own plans by witholdng manpower and when that failed and the Army actually won the war in the field, they made strenuous efforts to deny them any credit by joining the Germans in pretending that the Armistice was not an unconditional surrender, merely an inevitable end to an unsustainable conflict. The French and the Americans were more than happy to let them do it.
The idea that the army was badly led or that Haig was a donkey leading lions doesn't stand up to a moment's detailed scrutiny. Even the idea that Third Ypres was an unmitigated disaster is wrong. There were nine battles in Third Ypres, six of which achieved all their objectives and two of the six were almost walkovers. Paschedaele was one of the disasters. And what Haig was most criticised for, continuing the battle in winter when the rest of the combatants were busy planning their spring campaigns, actually won the allies the war, almost unexpectedly, one year later, when the Army crossed the Sambre-Oise canal and left the Germans with nothing to get behind short of the Rhine.
What you are calling The Battle of Amiens, I think, is the start of the 100 day counter attack at Villers Brettoneux which won the War and during which the British Army, including units from all over the Empire, advanced 100 miles on a 150 mile front breaking one fortified German position every two days, including the strongest defensive fortifications in history along the Hindenburg line.
During this period, the Army's staff work, the co-ordination of forces, munitions and supplies, the courage and determination to succeed has never been surpassed or even equalled. If the same level of tactical and strategic flexibility had been available to Eisenhower after D-Day, the Allies would have been in Berlin in November 1944.
I do not think that the Army was at all unwilling to credit the fantastic job done by Canadians, ANZACS, sepoys and the rest of the troops from the Empire. I actully think it made a good job of this. But British politicians wanted to suppress any credit the Army got for winning the war and put the High Command out to grass almost the moment it finished.
These commanders even dreamt about charging in cavalry in the planned breakthrough during the Battle of the Somme!
Cavalry division mostly fought dismounted until the war of movement returned in 1918. A Canadian Division launched three separate cavalry charges on the morning of 11/11/18 in and around Mons.
I get the impression that the Great War is viewed a bit differently Down Under than in The Great White North. I get the feeling that Australians think the Brits were out to screw them, and gave them dirty jobs that sometimes went badly, like Gallipoli, while we see it as a compliment that the Brits looked to us for the tough jobs, and we did them better than anyone else. I suspect that was reinforced in the Second World War when Australia was obviously given a lower priority than Europe, despite Japan being as close to them as the Germans were to England, and becuase Churchill was sometimes less than completely candid.
The Canadian Corps never got a Gallipoli. We did get a piece of Passchendaele, and some boasting rights because our bit went well with heavy, but not unreasonable casualties, and only lasted a couple of weeks. Others did worse at higher cost.
I get the feeling that Australians think the Brits were out to screw them, and gave them dirty jobs that sometimes went badly, like Gallipoli, while we see it as a compliment that the Brits looked to us for the tough jobs, and we did them better than anyone else.It's true that the Canadians and Anzacs were regarded as highly effective troops (by the British High Command AND the German High Command) but what isn't often factored into the equation is that there were a very large number of British units in the same category which kept the number and proportion of sticky jobs relatively balanced. British casualties outnumbered Australian casualties at Gallipoli 3-1, for example. share
A Canadian Division launched three separate cavalry charges on the morning of 11/11/18 in and around Mons.
The formation was the Canadian Cavalry Brigade composed of the two regular regiments, the Royal Canadian Dragoons, and Lord Strathcona's Horse (Royal Canadians), and the Fort Garry Horse.
I don't recall any significant cavalry actions on November 11th, but a squadron of Strats did conduct a mounted charge at Moreuil Wood on 30 March 1918. The OC, Lieutenant Gordon Flowerdew was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for it. This action is often (incorrectly) claimed to be the Last Cavalry Charge Ever.
The Canadian Light Horse were in an around Mons on the 10th and 11th November and took it into their heads, like a lot of units, that the future borders would be drawn where the front line was located. On the morning of the 11th they mustered the horse into three platoons who went around the lanes in Mons mopping up and finished the War miles into what had been German territory earlier that morning.
Hardly cavalry charges, I know (though their web page claims a swords out charge on October 10th - well after Moreuil) but a handy reminder that there were plenty of opportunities for mounted soldiery throughout WW1.
Thanks! CLH squadrons, if I recall correctly, were div recce units, so those kinds of actions would be well within their normal tasks on an advance.
Incidentally, I read a Canadian Army cavalry manual from the 1930's (probably a British manual actually). It still called for swords to be drawn by part of a troop during an advance to contact.
There are still Canadian military personnel in Mons. I heard a Canandian accent in a restaurant when I was there a couple of days ago. SHAPE is located just outside and though it doen't really feel like a garrison town there are lots of international soldiers gadding about.
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Even so, if I found it, how am I going to upload it to you when I wouldn't even be able to touch the document?
Rather depends on what your source was doesn't it? As I said, what you cited was good enough and I accepted it.
due to the repercussions of his belief in fighting to attrition.
You mean because Lloyd George starved him of troops after the losses from the Third Ypres offensive Lloyd George wanted.
but he wasn't a leader
That isn't what his contemporaries, including the troops under his aommand thought of him.
and didn't understand what effect technology had in modern war
Baloney. Haig was a leading proponent of tanks and aircraft as well as encouraging tactical innovation - particularly in small unit tactics and artillery techniques. If you mean he hadn't figured out how to coordinate forces once they crossed the start line and lost telephonic communication, then he was hardly unique.
What you mean he wasn't blessed with ninety years of hindsight Perhaps you could think of a better way to defeat the German Army? Maybe wait a year or two to absorb the western part of the former Russian Empire to overcome the efects of the RN blockade? . Even then, it's hard to see what other realistic option the Allied armies had beyond attrition and the hope that by improvng training, tactics, equipment, and doctrine the Allied armies could break through and end the slaughter sooner, with fewer overall casualties, rather than later.
And what gave him the right to think there was going to be a breakthrough in the first place in the age of rapid-loading howitzers and machine guns?
You mean besides the fact that breakthrough did, in fact happen? They happened more than once on the eastern front, nearly happened for the Germans in early 1918 and did happen for the Allies later that year.
there much better commanders who would have done a much better job, such as Plumer or Monash.
Plumer, perhaps. He was certainly a good army commander and no doubt could have been moved up a step. I'd also say Byng might be a candidate by 1918. Whether either would have done significantly better is a lot less certain. Monash, who had only just become a corps commander in May 1918, probably not. Indeed, he was only a brigade commander when Haig became an army group comamnder - that's four command levels above Monash.
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Sorry, but that's almost entirely incorrect. Somme and Passchendaele were at least as much dictated by Whitehall as Haig and while he wanted to stop both when results were not being achieved, London insisted they continue. Whatever L-G may have said afterwards, at the time he was all for it - he had a tendency to whitewash his own actions and blame others.
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It's nice to have all the common misconceptions about Haig collected in one thread. I particularly enjoy the one about him being hundreds of kilometres behind the line eating Tournedos Rossini and drinking Lafite '02 in his chateau. Haig mostly ran the war from a train which was always close to the action and was actually reprimanded before becoming CiC for his habit of 'trotting out to take a look' which nearly got him killed twice on horseback on the Menin Road. He was rarely seen two days together at HQ in Montreuil sur Mer. His presence there was always regarded as a visit.
But what we can all thank him for, and what no one else, including Plumer and Monash, would have been able to do, was on the fateful day in late March 1918, at the height of the defence of Amiens - when Petain decided to split the English and French Armies and fall back on Paris, Haig promptly got him sacked and replaced with Foch. Without his prompt and forceful action, at bets the war would have lasted another two years and at worst, since separating the two armies was the objective of Operation Michael, the Germans could have run a holding operation against the British and thrown all their weight against the French, potentially winning the war in 1918 or early 1919.
Haig is often called politically naive because he didn't care who had what job title. In 1918, this was politically astute. He was running an Anglo-German conflict in France and his skill as a strategist, tactician and co-ordinator were responsible for its successful outcome.
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On another note, I always wondered why Haig, who was Scottish, always wore essentially an English uniform
He was a cavalry officer commissioned into a non-Scottish regular cavalry regiment, the 7th (Queen's Own) Hussars. They do not wear a "Scottish" uniform. British general officers of that time also did not wear regimental uniforms, but a generic British Army one in service dress and a general officers pattern one in full dress.
[deleted]
He was born in Edinburgh (his family owned Haig and Haig distillery) but went to an English boarding school then to Oxford. There's a good chance that he lost the Scots accent he almost certainly had a a young child.
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Barrow had evidently suffered some serious PTSD, as we would say today, from his time as a prisoner of the Japanese, not to mention attentions of the screenwriter. I have no idea at all how Haig would have reacted, but most officers who survived and stayed in seem to have done well enough.
If he did get out of a similar situation OK, I rather suspect he'd have had Guinness' character sorted out soon enough. Haig had been a successful regimental (after serving on staffs for several years), corps, and army commander and one doesn't get to be an Army group commander by being soft or incompetent at lower levels. Haig did have a reputation for being more than a little tough-minded.
Interesting.
Point, but this guy was ruthless to be honest. He kept on pursuing the offensive late in the Somme, needlessly costing the lives of thousands of men, just to only have something to say at the Chantilly conference. It was futile. He didn't have to do this action but he did just to keep his spot as supreme commander of the BEF.
Sweeping Generalisations r'Us.
'Just to have something to say at the Chantilly conference"?? This is a truly massive misunderstanding of the man. You need to read his memoirs, or Ordeal of Victory by John Terraine.
Every year millions of Brits wear red poppies in their lapels at the start of November in commemoration of the fallen. They consist of a few red paper leaves and a green stem with a small black plastic centre holding it all together. You do know whose name is on that black plastic, don't you?
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Squeeth is a barking moonbat Marxist, but he's dead right about Haig. Jack Doyle seems to think Blackadder Goes Forth was a documentary. He obviously hasn't seen any real history.
sharehttp://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2008/20081110_war/interviews.ht mAbsolutely outstanding website. share
"Did the Canadians saved the British from losing WWI???"
Wouldn't the Canadians have lost WWI as well? Weren't we allies?
So many of the comments on this thread just consist of dick-waving *beep* It's at the level of "my Dad could beat your Dad". And let's not go into the appalling grasp of history that has been readily displayed for all the world to see. It makes me groan just to think of it.
As to the film. I've always thought it was tragic that the Canadians have never really been given their well deserved plaudits-I understand this. I'm Scottish. How many films are there about mad bastards in kilts? The Canadians were exceptionally brave and effective soldiers. They really were the dog's bollocks and we were very lucky to have them as allies. I have the utmost respect for their soldiering skills. Their story should be told. Unfortunately, this film isn't the one to do it.
It has been compared to Saving Private Ryan (SPR). This, I think is a good comparison. SPR was a visually stunning film in many respects, but the plot sort of wandered of and got stuck in a ditch somewhere. It would have been just another mediocre portrayal of the D-Day landings if it wasn't for the first 20 minutes.
Passchendaele is the same sort of film. Some very good battle scenes, but it ultimately fails to give the Canadian Army the recognition and the respect it richly deserves.
Canada had fearless warriors in WWI and II, as for the current state of our military, never would I compare combat missions in Afghanistan to all out global war. I still am proud of them, even when I don't agree with the purpose of being over there. War is old men talking and young men dying, like half my grandfather's family in WWII. Every Nov. 11th Canadians need remember their sacrifices.
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It was a given that Canada would enter the war when the UK declared war. The Germans were likely mildly surprised that we waited a week.
shareNo, we didnt save the British from losing, Geography did. In the end, the fact that Germany had a huge blockade, while Britain still had access to the wealth of the world (even if they were harried by U-boats) ensured that Germany was destined to lose a war of attrition. Sure, Canada played a role of some significance, but the thing to remember is that no victory or defeat was terminal save in terms of manpower and supplies. Even if the Germans won at both Verdun and the Somme, they still would not have broken the deadlock of the trenches. They would only have succeeded at pushing it further west at a cost that would lose them the war.
It seems tempting to follow world war one with the conventional thinking that there are decisive battles that mean victory, but in reality, every victory was Phyrric for both sides, and strategically unimportant aside from that fact. As a war, It was German Junkers and British Lords pissing men at eachother, seeing who would blink first.