Canada and the Great War: Western Front Association Papers (review)

In 2001, the Western Front Association (WFA), a world-wide organization devoted to the study of the First World War, sponsored its first Canadian conference in Ottawa. The WFA is interested in the Great War in all its aspects and is not, as its name might suggest, focused solely on events on the Western Front. With one exception, the essays in this volume are conference proceedings and cover a variety of subjects, the only connecting theme being the impact of the war on Canada and Canadians.

If this volume is any indication of Canadian scholarly interest in the First World War, the war is in good hands. The twelve essays are uniformly well written and informative, and a younger generation of scholars is well represented: Jeff Keshen, in a good piece of comparative history, comments on the impact of the war in Canada and Australia; Andrew Horrall examines Charlie Chaplin as image and entertainment for Canadian troops; and Tim Cook looks at the important work undertaken by Lord Beaverbrook to collect and preserve the records of the war. Other conference participants, including John Hurst and Patrick Brennan, took the biographical route with good papers on Dr John McRae and Lieutenant Colonel W.A. Griesbach respectively. John Armstrong relates the story of his grandfather's experience in the Halifax Explosion of 1917 - a troubling experience that remained with him for the remainder of his life - through a series of family letters. More traditional aspects of the First War have not been forgotten. Syd Wise reassesses the importance of the Battle of Amiens, while Roger Sarty looks at the broader implications of Canadian naval co-operation with the United States. Chris Terry and Owen Cooke examine aircraft and the use of aircraft in the Siberian expedition of 1918-19.

The two remaining papers deserve special mention. Although Newfoundland was not a province at the time, the inclusion of John Parson's paper on Newfoundland in the Great War serves as a reminder that Newfoundlanders made a valuable contribution to the war and suffered terrible losses at Beaumont Hamel on 1 July 1916. After reading Parsons one can understand why the memory of that one day means so much to Newfoundlanders. Laura Brandon's short history of the Vimy sculptures - models prepared by Walter Allward in preparation for the Vimy Memorial - is a reminder that the records of the war, in whatever shape or form they may take, have not always been treated with the reverence that is due. Renewed interest in the war in recent years, the construction of Canada's new war museum, and the passing away of the last of the Great War veterans all serve to remind us that the war had and continues to have a profound impact on Canada and Canadians. The essays in this volume are evidence enough that the First War has entered our consciousness as one of our great defining moments, and we realize that the Western Front extended far beyond France and Belgium and influenced our country, our communities, and our citizens in ways that we have yet to discover.