Conscription During World
War I
How Canada handled the problem of
dwindling enlistments
Conscription
• For the first three years
of the war, the Canadian
government relied on
volunteers to fight
• At the start of the war,
most able bodied men
rushed to volunteer to
fight so that they could
have the opportunity to
travel overseas
Why Fewer Enlisted
• From 1915-1917,
Canadian soldiers gained
a high reputation within
their alliance for courage
and bravery
• As a result, they were
often chosen for the
toughest and most
dangerous assignments
during battles
After Vimy Ridge
• In April 1917, Canadian soldiers had one of
their greatest military victories of all time
defeating the Germans at Vimy Ridge
• That month over 10,000 Canadian soldiers
were killed in battle but only 5,000 new
recruits enlisted
• The volunteer system was no longer bringing
in enough people to sustain the war effort
PM Borden Breaks His Promise
• At the start of the war,
Prime Minister Robert
Borden made a promise to
the Canadian people not to
introduce conscription
Conscription – a system to
make able bodied men join
the armed forces
• Because of the lack of
recruits, Borden is forced
to break that promise
Borden’s Plan
• In order to break his promise, Prime Minister
Borden calls an election on the issue of
conscription
• If he wins the election, he can prove that
conscription is the ‘will of the Canadian
people’
• The election becomes one of the fiercest and
angriest in the history of Canada
People Against Conscription
French Canadians
• At the start of the war, many
French Canadians volunteered
to fight overseas
• Sam Hughes hated Roman
Catholics (many Quebecois were
Catholic) so he made their lives
difficult in training for the war
• French soldiers were forced to
train in English
• Borden Fired Hughes in 1916 but
it was too late to gain favour in
Quebec
People Against Conscription
French Canadians
• French Canadians did not have the same ties
to Europe and did not see it as their duty to
protect Britain
• Most felt that it should be up to the individual
person whether or not they decided to go to
war
People Against Conscription
Western Canadians
• Most people who settled in Western Canada
came to Canada to escape from the European
wars
• In some of their homelands, the governments
could force men into the army
• They thought they had escaped that in Canada
People Against Conscription
Farmers
• They felt their part of
the war effort was to
provide people with
much-needed food
• Who will do the work if
the men are at war?
What The Government Did
• Prime Minister Borden asked the Leader of the
Opposition Wilfred Laurier to form a coalition or
union government to present a unified front on
conscription
• Laurier could not do this because even though he
supported the war effort, he was against
conscription
• Several Liberals joined the Conservatives to form
the Unionist Party in favour of conscription
The Election of 1917
• The Unionists won the Election
of 1917
– 153 seats for the Unionist Party
– 82 seats for the Liberals
• Only 20 of the 82 seats the
Liberals won came from
outside of Quebec
• The results did not reflect the
Canadian population
• Had the votes of soldiers and
their families been omitted
from the polls, nearly half of
the population voted against
conscription
The Aftermath of Conscription
• This issue caused a lot
of bad blood between
French and English
Canadians
• There were bloody
riots in Quebec
• This caused a division
that still exists in
Canadian society