Was Conscription the right choice in 1917?

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Was Conscription the right choice in 1917?
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Canadas contribution so far

• Prime Minister Borden initially pledged 25,000
  troops 30,000 volunteered
• There has not been, there will not be,
  compulsion or conscription. -1914
• High unemployment a short war?
• Independent battalion groups

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• Oct 1915 Borden increases
• commitment to
• 250,000 men
• Jan 1916
• 500,000 men
• Is this realistic?

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French-Canadians

• Regulation 17 Restrictions on language
• 3 of volunteers were Fr-Can,
• scattered amongst English
• Bitter about assimilation,
• Imperialist war
• Little or no loyalty to Britain or France
• Nationalist Leader Henri Bourassa

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Recruitment/Propaganda

• Will we wait until
• ours burns?
• Lets enroll and quickly

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• This is the moment
• to act.
• Dont wait until the Germans come to reign
  destruction here in Canada.
• Be men!
• Do not stay behind.

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Why did Canadians ingeneral stop volunteering?

• Farming families needed their sons
• People heard about the horrors
• of war
• Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele

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A matter of honour

• 1917 Borden at Imperial War Conference
• David Lloyd George urges Borden to commit more
  men
• Borden visits Canadian soldiers

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The Election

• Borden realizes Canadas capacity to help but
  knows volunteers will not be enough
• Military Voters Act
• Wartime
• Elections Act
• Wilfred Laurier
• Conservatives
• opposed

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Outrage!

• Riots in Quebec 1918
• French-English tensions
• Only 48,000
• conscripts went
• overseas
• was it worth it?

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Outcome

• Conscription Crisis represented the impossibility
  of reconciling French English views
• Quebec became anti-Conservative
• Canada deeply divided

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Assignment

• Write a letter to the local newspaper in 1917
  arguing for or against conscription
• Choose the perspective of a
• -French-Canadian (anti-conscription)
• -British-Canadian with son in war (pro)
• -other Canadian (farmer, labourer, etc)
• 1 page, due tommorow