This essay is about the first world war from Canada's point of view. It tells about what was happening to Canada during the First World War

World War I

The Date?

1914-1918

Who was the Prime Minister at the time?

Robert Borden was the Prime Minister at the time.

Who was involved?

All people in every country fighting

What happened?

The First World War started out with the assassination of the Austrian Archduke. From there on, it was only a matter of days before ally after ally was dragged into the war. Seeing as Canada was still a "colony" of Britain, she was forced into the war as well.

Maintenance of the Canadian Corps through four years of attrition on the Western Front demanded a supply of soldiers which a volunteer enlistment system could not provide. Canada was then forced to start conscription, eventually, in August 1917, it got the whole involved in an intense political disturbance. Therefore the nation was being split at home even as war overseas brought the greatest expression of nationalism in its history to that time.

(W.W.I - 1914 - 1918) Mark II female Tank Number 5...

English: (W.W.I - 1914 - 1918) 6-inch Naval gun on...

English: Canadian machine gunners dig themselves i...

This came at great cost.

From a population of about 8 million, over 600 000 served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, and almost 60 000 lost their lives, 87 percent of these as a direct result of enemy action in France and Flanders. More than 154 000 were wounded, some several times, and this doesn't include the mental and emotional casualties, which no one recorded. Soldiers and civilians, after four years of hard work and rationing, gave in to the influenza epidemic that followed the war. Scarcely a community, large or small, in Canada had escaped the dreadful effects of the war without casualties and broken lives.

The scope of the conflict also caused very big changes in the economy and in society as a whole. Not only did Canada's armed forces need to be equipped still up until this time on a completely new...