The First Use of Poison Gase at Ypres, 1915: A Translation from the German Official History

While English-speaking historians know in detail about almost every event on the BEF’s front, the same cannot be said of our knowledge of the German side of the Western Front. This is not surprising, as comparatively few English language books have been written about the German experience on the battlefields of the Great War. Recent English language scholarship by Holger Herwig, Annika Mombauer, and Robert Foley, to name but a few historians, has enriched our understanding of the conflict. However, these works have tended to concentrate on political and diplomatic history, or in the case of Mombaurer and Foley, on high-ranking officers such as Helmuth von Moltke and Erich von Falkenhayn. This means that events at the tactical and operational level remain comparatively unexplored in English. This gap in the historiography has largely been shaped by the absence of primary source materials

The Myth of the Learning Curve: Tactics and Training in the 12th Canadian Infantry Brigade, 1916-1918

Canadian military historians generally accept that during the First World War the Canadian military improved over time. This idea of a “learning curve” suggests that Canadians began the war as inexperienced colonial volunteers and, as the Corps gained experience on the battlefield, commanders and ordinary soldiers alike learned from their mistakes and successes and improved combat tactics from battle to battle and from year to year.1 Several different approaches to this argument are evident in the literature. Tim Cook and Bill Rawling both published works in the mid-1990s that argue technology was the impetus behind this process of learning. On the other hand, Shane Schreiber, James McWilliams and R. James Steel have focused on what they see as the ultimate success of the learning curve: the August 1918 Battle of Amiens.2 However, while technology played an important role in the conduct of the war, and the Battle of Amiens was indeed a significant Allied victory, one question remains: where is the hard evidence that this learning curve exists? One of the best ways to find evidence of “learning,” a largely abstract process, is through an examination of training. Because training is meant to impart specific knowledge, during the Great War written training instructions and orders were spelled out in minute and explicit detail and the lessons that were to be learned from various exercises were highlighted. While many excellent works have been produced on the Canadian Expeditionary Force, there is still room for further scholarship. Until recently, training has been a sorely neglected subject in the historiography. In recent years historians such as such as Andrew Iarocci and David Campbell have begun to re-examine training as a means of measuring and evaluating the learning curve.3 This paper builds on the work of previous scholars and extends some of their arguments while challenging others. It examines the training of the 12th Canadian Infantry Brigade for the battles of the Somme and Amiens, as well as the official training manuals, to look at tactical change over time. It argues that while combat became more complex and “all arms” oriented, the basic tactical concepts of 1916 essentially remained the same in 1918. Except for terminology and the addition of new weapons, little changed in how the 12th Canadian Infantry Brigade was taught to fight between the Somme and Amiens. Indeed, while new weapons were utilized and emphasized in training, they were merely integrated into existing tactical doctrine and had little appreciable impact on what was envisioned as the key to battlefield success

The Forgotten Campaign: Newfoundland at Gallipoli

Gallipoli has no place in the collective memory of most Canadians and even among Newfoundlanders, Gallipoli has not garnered as much attention as the ill-fated attack at Beaumont Hamel. Although largely forgotten, Newfoundland’s expedition to Gallipoli was an important moment in the island’s history, one that helped shape the wartime identity of Newfoundlanders. Like other British Dominions, Newfoundland was linked to the Empire’s world-wide war experience and shared in aspects of that collective imperial identity, although that identity was refracted through a local lens shaped by the island’s unique history. Gallipoli was a brutal baptism of fire which challenged and confirmed popular assumptions about the Great War and laid the foundation of the island’s war mythology. This myth emphasized values of loyalty, sacrifice, and fidelity, affirming rather than reducing the island’s connection to Mother Britain, as was the case in the other Dominions. When in the early 1930s economic depression, financial mismanagement, and political gridlock led the government of Prime Minister Frederick Alderdice to end responsible government in 1934 and return governing authority to the British crown, Newfoundland’s war myth lost much of its meaning. After Confederation with Canada in 1949, Gallipoli was all but forgotten, but it has bled back into Newfoundlanders’ historical consciousness in recent years

The Horror at Home: The Canadian Military and the “Great” Influenza Pandemic of 1918

Using a variety of archival sources and statistics compiled from military hospital records, the author examines the origin and dissemination of influenza in Canada during the “Spanish” influenza pandemic of 1918. He argues that pandemic influenza did not originate with soldiers returning from the First World War but instead traces the spread of the virus to American soldiers on their way overseas. The author posits that in Canada, the disease was then disseminated by the movement of Canadian soldiers as the war effort was widened to include a new commitment to mount an expeditionary force to Siberia. The author concludes that the physical path of the 1918 influenza pandemic in Canada is best understood as the result of a widening of the war effort at the expense of public health rather than as the inevitable consequence of the war’s end.L’auteur examine ici les origines et la propagation de l’influenza au Canada pendant la pandémie de grippe espagnole de 1918. Pour cela, il a consulté diverses sources statistiques et archivistiques tirées de dossiers d’hôpitaux militaires. Il avance que les vecteurs de propagation du virus n’auraient pas été les soldats de retour de la Première Guerre mondiale, mais plutôt les soldats américains qui se rendaient outre-mer. L’auteur pose comme postulat que la maladie s’est par la suite propagée au Canada par l’entremise des soldats canadiens que l’on redéployait afin de constituer une force expéditionnaire en Sibérie. L’auteur conclut qu’en choisissant d’élargir l’effort de guerre au détriment de la protection de la santé publique, le Canada a favorisé la dissémination de la pandémie de l’influenza de 1918, qui n’aurait donc pas été une conséquence inévitable de la fin de la guerre

“A Calamity From Which No Relief Can Be Expected”: Empire, Authority, and Civilian Responses to the French Occupation of Newfoundland, June-September 1762

As customary socio-economic relationships between the inhabitants of Newfoundland broke down, normal patterns of exchange ceased to function during the 18th century. Because the island was a contested space – even in peacetime – existing economic and social connections enabled civilians to choose to resist, collaborate, or flee. While some were ruined, others maintained the status quo, and some even profited from new opportunities. In the end, re-capturing St. John’s was less important for pressing English claims in the area than reconstructing the economy and asserting control over the movement of people and trade within overlapping French and English transatlantic worlds.À mesure que les relations socioéconomiques coutumières entre les habitants de Terre-Neuve furent rompues, les courants d’échanges habituels cessèrent de fonctionner au cours du dix-huitième siècle. Parce que l’île était un espace contesté – même en temps de paix –, les rapports économiques et sociaux existants donnèrent aux civils le choix de résister, de collaborer ou de partir. Si certains furent ruinés, d’autres ne virent aucun changement dans leur situation et d’autres encore profitèrent même des nouvelles possibilités offertes. En fin de compte, il importait de reprendre St. John’s moins pour faire valoir les revendications des Anglais dans la région, que pour reconstruire l’économie et exercer un contrôle sur la circulation des personnes et des marchandises à l’intérieur des sphères d’influence française et anglaise d’outre-Atlantique

The treatment of evacuated war neuroses casualties in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919

The conventional historiography of the treatment of war neurosis in Canada is limited and suggests that shell shocked soldiers were diagnosed and assigned treatment based on their rank and social class. According to the literature this meant that officers and soldiers from the upper classes were diagnosed with neurasthenia and given rest and spa treatments while soldiers from the other ranks and lower classes were diagnosed with hysteria and treated with punitive therapies designed to convince them to return to the front lines. However, these conclusions were based on contemporary medical journals and have been formed with very little archival research. The author, using archival documents and statistical analysis, suggests that soldiers from the other ranks who were treated in England for war neurosis were rarely diagnosed with hysteria and were instead labelled with one or more of several diagnostic terms, the most prevalent of which were neurasthenia and/or shell shock . These solders were also typically treated with rest and spa therapies; punitive therapies were by far the exception to this type of treatment. The author posits that the pre-war understanding of the nervous disorders heavily influenced both diagnosis and treatment

Book Review: \u3ci\u3eInfluenza 1918: Disease, Death, and Struggle in Winnipeg\u3c/i\u3e By Esyllt W. Jones

Jone\u27s argument is convincing, even if the book relies a little too heavily on newspaper accounts. On the other hand, the author makes use of the unmined files of the Manitoba Mothers\u27 Allowance and the Winnipeg Children\u27s Home to catch a rare and fleeting glimpse of familial life during the pandemic. On the whole, Influenza 1918 is a stylistically mature, well-documented, and engaging book that delivers cogent and insightful analysis on a timely topic. It is the new standard for studies of the flu and epidemics in Canada and will serve as an excellent model for some time to come