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My regt's battle honours for WW1
Battle Honours (43)
EARLY

SOUTH AFRICA, 1899, 1900

THE GREAT WAR

Ypres, 1915, 1917
VIMY, 1917
Gravenstafel
Arleux
ST. JULIEN
Scarpe, 1917, 1918
Festubert, 1915
Hill 70
MOUNT SORREL
PASSCHENDAELE
SOMME, 1916
AMIENS
Pozieres
Drocourt-Queant
Flers-Courcelette
Hindenburg Line
Thiepval
CANAL DU NORD
Ancre Heights
PURSUIT TO MONS
Ancre, 1916
FRANCE AND FLANDERS, 1915-1918
ARRAS, 1917, 1918


World War Two

BOURGUEBUS RIDGE
Woensdrecht
FAUBOURG DE VAUCELLES
South Beveland
VERRIERES RIDGE -- TILLY-LA-CAMPAGNE
WALCHEREN CAUSEWAY
THE RHINELAND
Falaise
THE HOCHWALD
Clair Tizon
Xanten
FORTE DE LA LONDE
The Rhine
Dunkirk, 1944
Groningen
Antwerp-Turnhout Canal
OLDENBURG
THE SCHELDT
NORTH-WEST EUROPE, 1944-194

   

As regards the Ross Rifle, Sir Sam Hughes or General Sam Hughes Minister of Militia and Defence from October 1911 to November 1916. His decisive action profoundly influenced the organization of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. Sure of himself, he led his department in a manner that often brought controversy. Some of the measure he took were successful, others were failures. Sir Sam Hughes was eventually forced to tender his resignation.
The Ross Rifle was a wonderful single action weapon and a finely crafted Canadian hunting rifle, untested in rapid use and mud and water. The weapon overheated, jammed and misfired under trench conditions. As well, Sam Hughes was a big promoter of the rifle and chose it on unsound reasoning (thoughts of friends and relations filling military contracts millions were to be made in the munitions industry of WWI). Sam Hughes was also affectionately know as "Sam Shoes" for his acquisition of thousands of military boots, from friendly producers. When the boots arrived in Europe, they had cardboard soles not the leather soles as requisitioned.
Many Canadian soldiers, in the first few monthes of action in WWI, fell to the flawed weapon, so much so, that the Candians grabed the enfields of the British dead and many were charged under military law for improper kit and uniform even though the British weapon probably saved their life.

As regards the laspe in time between the first expeditionary force in 1914 and the first battle in or near Ypres in April 1915. In 1914 30 000 volunteer troops were initially sent from the recruitment camp in Val Cartier, Quebec. They had received basic training and upon arrival they received further military instruction on Salsbury Plain, if I recall correctly.

To further a comment the 30 000 of the volunteers many of whom were born in Britain happened to join the Canadian forces because they were recent immigrants to Canada. Between 1896 and 1911, 3 million new immigrants came to Canada about 1 million settled in the new prairie provinces (Alberta and Saskatchewan) as farmers. One million of those 3 million immigrants were British, 700 000 were American and the rest were a smattering of European and East European.

   

That's basicly all I could find on that subject too.

I don't think they did This during the second did they?

   

I don't know much about what the Yanks did in the Great War.

I know that they declared war in April 1917, The saw thier first action in May 1918 along the Marne River. I'm not sure of exact numbers but these are close.....Total # of Americans...1.2 million(?)....with about 120,000 casualties. I don't know how many died, versus how many wounded, but the numbers usually average 2 wounded to every 1 death.

Please correct me if I'm wrong eh

Vimy, by Piere Burton is a very imformative book eh!

   

In WWII, as far as I understand, there were no Canadians excuted under British command. In WWII Canadians were in charge of their own forces. I have done some search on the matter and have found no decisive conclusions to the courts martial executions in WWII. I know by WWII the Brits had removed such statutes from their books. However, it was not until 1998 that Canadian military removed military death penalty from their books. Whether this was in practice up until that time I am unaware.

   

19/268 and already at Page 2! Now we can proudly say we're really cooking! I tip my hat to you forum vets (and informative history teachers) for helping with the start of this informative and interesting thread! ^_-

Need to log out for the day, but will definitely return with feedback, questions, perhaps a little side-topic regarding an interesting thing I discovered with the poppy quarter....

And eventually with some historical contributions of my own.

I leave you with some food for thought about American participation in WWI:


The numbers of US casualtiles indeed vary among sources, with some quoting the mid 50,000 range and others settling on your 120,000 mark -- the most accurate is estimate is probably +50,000 KIA and another +60,000 dead due to other causes (1918 "Spanish" Flu outbreak for one, but can't discount accidents and death from wounds). The number of wounded is indeed about 200,000, although some crossover did occur as mentioned above (death from wounds) depending on how these numbers were recorded at the time. The number of MIA is +5,000.

Total # of American military personnel mobilized to this war was roughly around 4.4 million -- but as the name implies, this number includes active soldiers, reserve units, medical staff, vessel crewman, etc.).

This source proves useful though sickening at the same time:

Source List and Detailed Death Tolls for the Twentieth Century Hemoclys

As stated earlier, the Americans entered the field in May 1918, but mainly served to supplement the French Army in conjunction with other British (and respective commonwealth countries, I'm sure) and Italian divisions. They participated in at least 5 major offenses before the end of the war:

Cantigny (May)
Belleau Wood (June)
Marne River (July)
St. Mihiel (September)
Meuse River (November)

Though the American tactical contribution was small (and their contribution in American textbooks a tad overblown), an acceptable conclusion was that the SIZE of the American forces was what dealt an important psychological blow to the Central Powers. Being its own soverign state probably helped the US garner more attention too, given that Canada, New Zealand, Australia, India and all the other British commonwealths and colonies at the time were probably conveniently lumped under "Great Britain" by the record keepers.

   

These were sharp end of the stick numbers. But as you point out, diferent number keepers, different numbers.

Exactly....by everyone but themselves.

Dam!

   

The American contribution amounted to tipping the scales as the US equaled fresh troops. After the Russian's capitulated (Russian Rev. Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, March 1918) The Germans had 200 000 troops for a final push against the allies. The final push was meant to be an endrun around the mobilizing and intransit American forces, hoping to force an Entente surrender. The German's were quite successful, but not enough, they pushed allied forces (not the Canadians as the German command wanted quick and assured success) to within 200 Km of Paris. US forces arrived causing great demoralization within the German ranks (as well Germany was on the brink of destruction prior to American involvement because of civilian starvation and protest - a war weary state). Would the Entente have won without American military involvemnet? If not many military thinkers of the time supposed the war would have ended in 1920 or 1921. I am of the mind that the US represented fresh troops, a morale booster and a sizeable military counter balance to the final puah of the Germans in the late spring and early summer of 1918. Let us not forget that the US may have not been physically involved in the war until 1918 however financial dedication throgh the war seemed to have favoured the Entente.

   

Hey,

Evidently, I’m late to the thread, but I thought I’d add some great sources for Canadian participation in WWI:


1.“Marching to Armageddon” Morton and Granatstein

2. “Short History of WWI” Stokesbury

3. “A Military History of Canada” Morton

4. “Decline of Politics” English

   

Canada at the time was considered its own nation (a dominion) in all regards except for control over foreign affairs. As Britain declared war, so to did Canada, as our foreign affairs were under British direction. At the peace table, Versailles 1919, Canada was granted a seat at the table. However, Canada was not granted a vote as the US argued that Canada would side with Britain.
US contribution 4.4 million out of a population of approx. 102 million
Canada's contribution 600 000 out of a population or approx. 8 million
Australia's contribution 320 000 out of a populatio of of approx. 5 million
NewZealand contribution 111 000 out of a population of approx. 1 million
NB that Aust. and NZ were jointly known as the ANZAC combined together in Eygpt prior to Galipoli.
India's contribution 300 000 out of a population of approx. 300 million (the info on this one is skecthy let me know if you know anymore about this)

   

Gallipoli is to Australia/New Zealand as Beaumont Hamel is to Newfoundlander's.

Interesting to note that the Newfie's were posted in Gallipoli before going to France....allthough they never went into combat, they suffered about 700 casualties while there, quite a small number compared with A.N.Z.A.C.

   

And Haig’s disastrous Somme offensive was to the British, Canadians, Australians (and other combatants as well) – July 1st 1916, still remains the most horrific (in terms of casualties) day in the British Army’s history.

   

Yup, Lions led by donkeys.

To see the impact the Great War had just travel around any part of the UK. Even the smallest village has a war memorial to the millions of wasted young men.

Pretty sad stuff. any you guys ever read any of Wilfred Owen's poems? Look them up on the net. Powerful stuff. He was an Infantry Lt with the Manchesters. He was killed a few days before the armistice and documented his feelings of the hell that was that war in poems.

On a tangent, Pierre Berton please troops! Not Burton!

Hey histTeach, nice motto!

   

americans are under the false pretext that they won the world wars!nothing could be further from the truth!sure they might have shortened the second world war by a couple of months but they had no impact on the first world war!

   

Personally, I’m not a fan of Burton (I respect his ability to popularize history – he deserves full credit for introducing our past to citizens), but his book on Vimy isn’t palpably flawed. I prefer Morton and Grantatstein – I find that they can pepper good scholastic history in a readable prose (plus, their work is generally historically sound).

   

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