The Acting Overseas Sub-Militia Council and the Resignation of Sir Sam Hughes

THE ACTING OVERSEAS SUB-MILITIA COUNCIL AND THE RESIGNATION OF SIR SAM HUGHES* "My way of doingthingsis to obtain results,not necessarilythe creation of bodies organizedby order-in-council. "• "To get rid of a minister who will not conform... is simple."• NE of the most important problems which the First World War brought to Canada was the question of how Canadian troopsabroadwereto be controlledby the Canadiangovernment. Though Canadian troopshad servedin and with the British forces at home and abroad in the years before 1914, there was at this date still no clear conceptionof the part Canada's military forces would play in a great Europeanwar. Beyonda plan to mobilize a cavalry brigade and an infantry divisionfor servicewith the British forces,there was no estimate of manpowerpotential, or provision for the mobilization of additional formations. Neither was there any plan for the control of suchforcesas Canada might provide. In the past no control had been needed. Even the contingents sent to South Africa had been paid and administeredby the imperial authorities"after their arrival there, Canadamerelymaking up the differencebetweenthe Imperial scaleof pay and her own."a In 1914, however, there was almost universal agreementthat Canada should maintain and exercise some control over the soldiersshesentto war. But there wasno agreement--not even a plan to provoke disagreement--on how, or by whom, or to what degree,this controlwas to be exercised. With no plan to follow, with no precedentsto guide, and confronted with the immense and novel problemsof a nation thrust into war, it might be expected that the initial improvisation of a method to control Canadian troops abroad would be followed by disorder, dissatisfaction , and demandsfor reorganization,and that this cyclemight be repeateduntil a comparatively satisfactorymethodwasevolved., Coupled with this question of controlling Canadian troops. *This articleisbased onfilesin thecustodyof the C.E.F. Section,PublicArchives of Canada. Other sourcesconsultedinclude the diariesof Sir GeorgeFoster, held by the librarian of the University of Toronto; thoseportionsof the BordenPaperswhich couldbe uncovered;the unpublished manuscriptfor the second volumeof the Canadian OfficialHistory; and unpublished monographs in the possession of the CanadianArmy's HistoricalSection. Specialnoteismadeof a monograph written by Mr. E. Pye, of the HistoricalSection,on the Sub-Militia Council,which,althoughnot useddirectly,was helpful in approachingthe questioninitially. •Montreal Gazette,Nov. 15, 1916, Hughes to Borden, Nov. 1, 1916 (this correspondence was subsequentlyreleasedto the press). •A. B. Keith, The Dominions as SovereignStates(London, 1988), 246. aC. P. Stacey, The Military Problemsof Canada (Toronto, 1940), 68. 1 2 THE CANADIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW abroad wasthe related one of how the slowmachinery of Cabinet government was to be adapted to exercisesuch control. In the Cabinet systemthe normal method of imposingpolitical policies on the military is through the minister of militia and defence. Policy is formulated in the Cabinet and enforced in the Army through the minister giving his directivesto the Militia Councilor directly to the chief of the General Staff, the adjutant-general, or other headsof branchesat Militia headquarters. This simple procedurewasnot directly applicableto the control of a large Canadian army overseas,becausethe distanceseparating Canada from the basein England and the front in France, coupledwith the difficulty of communication made control by the Cabinet in Ottawa both difficult and unsatisfactory. Besidesthese physical difficulties,the peculiar personality of the minister of militia and defence, Colonel the Honourable Sam Hughes (later Honorary Lieutenant-General,the HonourableSir SamHughes,K.C.B.), was such that he made Cabinet control of his actions often difficult and sometimesimpossible. When the Conservativeparty, led by Sir Robert Borden,came to powerin 1911,the new prime minister,rather againsthisbetter judgement 4appointed ColonelHughes,the member for VictoriaHaliburton , Ontario, to the militia portfolio.5 ColonelHughesheld this post from that time until the eventsrecountedin this article brought about his resignation in 1916. He was a man of great ability, immenseenergy, and strong enthusiasms, but possessed of a singularaptitude for uttering the wrong phraseat the wrong time. A man of intenseegotism,he was capable of unyielding loyalty, howevermistaken,for hisfriendsandequallybitter hatred for those he consideredenemies. Headstrong and imperious, he was inclined to make and announcedecisions without submitting them to the Cabinet, or even to the prime minister, and he was stronglydisposed to ignorethe line of demarcationbetweenpolitical authority and military command. There seemslittle doubt that, asthe...