Fight or Pay: Soldiers' Families in the Great War (review)

Desmond Morton has once again demonstrated his talent for weaving national narrative in this finely crafted account of the experience of soldiers' families during the First World War. Morton's extensive understanding of the war immeasurably enriches his treatment of soldiers and civilians alike in Fight or Pay: Soldiers' Families in the Great War.

Taking his title from Herbert Ames's unofficial slogan of the Canadian Patriotic Fund, Morton sets out to tell the story of how soldiers' wives and families survived the war. He examines, through each phase of the war, the effect of enlistment on a man's family, and then explores the public and private responses to those effects.

The government in 1914 was ill-prepared for war; the logistical problems of organizing the volunteers for the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) were enormous. How to deal with the dependants of soldiers was one of many dilemmas facing Sam Hughes in the summer of 1914, and it was a problem he was more than willing to outsource. The Canadian Army Pay Corps (CAPC), who began the war with only fifteen officers, would become responsible for administering pay and benefits, including Separation Allowances (SA). Morton reveals the intricacies of the attitudes of the military towards soldiers' families and the myriad issues surrounding benefits that faced the CAPC, including who were entitled and how much they deserved.

But as Morton so clearly demonstrates, military pay and allowances would be insufficient. The implications were brought into stark relief by the story of John Grant, who starved to death in 1915. Paralyzed at work, he was left alone and penniless when his sons enlisted, and then his wife died. As a father, he was not entitled to SA (43). The government could not be expected to pay the full cost of supporting soldiers' families. The gap was filled by patriotic individuals across Canada. Morton deftly illuminates the ways that charitable organizations across Canada met the challenge. He focuses primarily on the efforts of the CPF and the work of Ames, its chief architect, and crafts a detailed account of the efforts of the patriotic fund.

Whether Morton is recounting the personal story of a John Grant, the administrative development of the CAPC, or the fundraising campaigns of the patriotic funds, the detail that he incorporates is remarkable. This is, without question, one of the strengths of this work; it also illuminates one of its weaknesses: Morton's talent and enthusiasm for narrative contrasts sharply with his seeming reluctance to fully analyse the stories that he uncovers. This limitation is all the more disappointing because he clearly recognizes and identifies key analytical issues such as the class nature of support and the ways that CAPC and CPF policies reinforced gender, race, and class norms, some of which were challenged by the exigencies of war. For instance, he clearly understands the importance of Helen Reid's '"black book" of wives who have disgraced their calling,' but he leaves any deeper exploration of the gender and class implications to other scholars (123). Reid's commitment to and development of a third responsibility (social welfare) of the CPF speaks to several middle-class perceptions about the war's impact on the working-class men and women. Similarly, Morton states that in 1914–18 'it was a man's world,' but he fails to really engage the idea that both the CPF and capc treated soldiers in less than a 'manly' way. This was particularly the case for enlisted men from working-class or impoverished circumstances. The class implications of the criticism of the CPF by the Next of Kin Associations in Alberta could be more fully analysed as well (182).

Morton acknowledges the work of scholars in the field, in particular that of Margaret McCallum, but he does not seem to incorporate those studies into the balance of the study as fully as he might. Further, his bibliography suggests that he did not fully engage the British scholarship...