Review of No Free Man: Canada, the Great War, and the Enemy Alien Experience by Bohdan S. Kordan

Roy, Richard

English

Scholars Commons

Canadian Military History
Volume 27 | Issue 2 Article 11
10-17-2018
"No Free Man: Canada, the Great War, and the
Enemy Alien Experience (Book Review)" by
Bohdan S. Kordan
Richard Roy
This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Canadian Military
History by an authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.
Recommended Citation
Roy, Richard (2018) ""No Free Man: Canada, the Great War, and the Enemy Alien Experience (Book Review)" by Bohdan S. Kordan,"
Canadian Military History: Vol. 27 : Iss. 2 , Article 11.
Available at: https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol27/iss2/11
30 Book Reviews
Bohdan S. Kordan. No Free Man: Canada, the Great War, and 
the Enemy Alien Experience. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s 
University Press, 2016. Pp. 394.
Bohdan Kordan writes extensively on internment in Canada during 
the Great War with this being his fourth major effort in this area. 
There is value in this book for what it brings to light and where it 
points to for future research.
Kordan seeks to contextualise the enemy alien experience in 
Canada during the Great War. He has conducted extensive and 
detailed research into the Canadian internment programme and 
has translated that effort into a highly readable text. The first 
four chapters are the strongest part of this work. They are soundly 
structured and flow well from the start of the war and the origins of 
the internment programme to the armistice and the final deportation 
of those perceived as undesirable from Canada. There are highly 
entertaining segments of the Canadian experience brought to life 
in Kordan’s narrative. He relates well the spy hysteria during the 
war—a phenomena that predated it. He highlights the long-standing 
Canadian fear of invaders perched across the United States border 
which echoed worries from the War of 1812, the Hunters’ Lodges 
and the Fenians. He sympathises with the struggles of General 
William Otter to make his organisation effective while his best men 
were being siphoned off to Europe. He also reveals the perpetual 
interplay between regulations, new or old, and their interpretation 
and enforcement to specific cases—whether you wish to call these 
proceedings callous or merely bureaucratic. Especially interesting is 
the maneuvering of municipalities in the early days of the war to 
force the federal government to accept the burden and responsibility 
for the unemployed, and the subsequent competition between federal, 
provincial and business entities to take advantage of the labour of the 
internees. Kordan provides good detail of the programme in all its 
phases and particularly of the problems of the work camps.
However, there are flaws in this work. There are two similar 
structural flaws. First, in each chapter there are repetitive paragraphs 
and pages and the chapters are not properly concluded. Second, 
Chapter 5 is merely a rehash of the other chapters with little or no 
new perspective or analysis and, after 268 pages, it does not refocus 
and reinforce the main arguments of the book but rather drags it 
to an end. In addition, the author is self-referential for a complex 
1
Roy: "No Free Man (Book Review)" by Bohdan S. Kordan
Published by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2018
  31C A N A D I A N  M I L I TA RY  H I S T O RY
unproven concept (p. 277); given to over-generalising with unproven 
or limited data (pp. 131, 271); dismissive due to presentism and a 
lack of historical context in places (p. 56); and occasionally muddles 
whose voice, the historical actor’s or the author’s, is speaking (p. 263).
This work could have been improved if the author had approached 
some of the issues from a broader context and made more use of 
comparative analysis. Kordan’s focus is so narrow at points that 
it is unclear that Canada was simultaneously engaged in a global 
struggle for survival while it was running an internment operation. 
More context would have been useful in examining charitable and 
industrial practices in Canada as well as in discussing emergency 
legislation and government organisational practices and norms. For 
instance, the author laboriously points out the clauses in the Hague 
Convention concerning work but does not consider whether Canadian 
charitable practices would have demanded work-for-food anyways 
from civilians, a practice imposed on the western Cree in the 1880s 
and the enduring norm of the British Poor Laws and workhouses. 
Many were interned due to unemployment but industrial conditions 
in Canada receive little attention. Greater explanation of the work 
conditions in Canada may have supported the stated harshness of 
the camps. The historiography on working conditions in Canada is 
extensive, including works by Ian Radforth, John Mellor, William 
Kilbourn, Duncan McDowall, Michael Bliss, and Craig Heron. 
Similarly, the activities of the Imperial Munitions Board, so crucial 
to the Canadian industrial effort during the war, are not mentioned 
whatsoever though they had a critical influence on unemployment and 
workers’ ability to move between employers. Further, governmental 
culture could have been more fully explored in two areas. First, this 
was the “first” Great War. It developed in unpredictable ways and 
demanded new and unforeseen governmental approaches (p. 46). It 
is unsurprising, therefore, that things were not organised smoothly, 
and some things were bungled—this included the interpretation of 
new emergency regulations and the measures taken to enforce them. 
Nor in this context was Canada the first government to prioritise 
security over individual rights, long a common practice in emergency 
situations. Second, the British governmental tradition of parsimony, 
well-transplanted to Canada, should be no surprise to scholars 
and should not be viewed as a plot so much as a norm, a usage of 
bureaucracy, especially for long serving officers such as General Otter.
2
Canadian Military History, Vol. 27 [2018], Iss. 2, Art. 11
https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol27/iss2/11
32 Book Reviews
The author’s analysis could have been improved with greater use 
of comparative data. What little data he does use relates to the “carte 
blanche” he seems to grant Germany in its treatment of prisoners, 
which I would suggest many, including Desmond Morton, might 
refute. Civilians were interned across Europe and elsewhere and even 
a cursory examination of these other programmes could have helped 
put the Canadian experience into better context. Morton, in his 
works on Canadian prisoners of war and veterans, makes extensive 
use of statistical analysis to further his arguments. Kordan, who 
often leaves the impression that he is over-generalising from a small 
sample, much less so. He is also silent on how the camp complex 
influenced future Canadian government policy. If he had touched 
on the use of work camps during the Depression and internment 
activities during the Second World War, it might have helped gauge 
the utility and influence of the Great War programme.
Internment in Canada during the Great War remains a 
complex issue. There should be little debate that legitimate enemy 
reservists and prisoners of war should have been interned. That the 
unemployed, who were primarily Ukrainian, were interned as well 
was initially a response to the overwhelmed charitable capacities of 
the various municipalities and later to heightened security concerns. 
The Canadian militia was the only federal institution capable of 
supervising such a large undertaking. Much of the camp experience of 
the internees, therefore, reflected that institution’s cultural practices 
ranging from sentries patrolling wired perimeters to the application 
of military discipline. Overall a total of 8,579 enemy aliens were 
interned, but the tide had largely ebbed by mid-1916 with most of 
those who were detained being released to work programmes across 
the country. From late 1916 until the end of the war, approximately 
2,500 internees, mostly German and those enemy aliens deemed to 
be either hostile or agitators, were held. Internment was one of a 
multitude of programmes the Canadian government implemented in 
the Great War. It affected only a small fraction of people compared 
to those who fought in the trenches and only a fraction of the German 
and Ukrainian communities.
This book provides good detail on most aspects of internment 
operations in Canada during the Great War. It is revealing and useful 
in this sense. In seeking to contextualise the enemy alien experience 
in Canada during the Great War, Kordan has been successful 
for those Ukrainians interned, not so much for those not of that 
3
Roy: "No Free Man (Book Review)" by Bohdan S. Kordan
Published by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2018
  33C A N A D I A N  M I L I TA RY  H I S T O RY
nationality, and not for those Ukrainians not interned. This book 
must be read with caution. Have no doubt, though for the most part 
a balanced presentation, this is redress literature in which Kordan, 
like Lubomyr Luciuk and others, seeks reparations for the Ukrainians 
interned during the war. This in fact is the theme of most of Kordan’s 
writings. Many of the more unbalanced arguments presented in this 
brand of historiography have been thoroughly demolished by Orest 
Martynowych decades ago in the Journal of Ukrainian Studies. 
Besides describing the programme so well in the first four chapters, 
this book is useful in where it directs historians to future research. 
An exploration and analysis of Canada’s long-term use of both camps 
and emergency regulations would be of great value.
richard roy, independent researcher
4
Canadian Military History, Vol. 27 [2018], Iss. 2, Art. 11
https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol27/iss2/11


No Free Man: Canada, the Great War, and the Enemy Alien Experience (Book Review)  by Bohdan S. Kordan

Wilfrid Laurier University

Canadian Military HistoryVolume 27 | Issue 2 Article 1110-17-2018"No Free Man: Canada, the Great War, and theEnemy Alien Experience (Book Review)" byBohdan S. KordanRichard RoyThis Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Canadian MilitaryHistory by an authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended CitationRoy, Richard (2018) ""No Free Man: Canada, the Great War, and the Enemy Alien Experience (Book Review)" by Bohdan S. Kordan,"Canadian Military History: Vol. 27 : Iss. 2 , Article 11.Available at: https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol27/iss2/1130 Book ReviewsBohdan S. Kordan. No Free Man: Canada, the Great War, and the Enemy Alien Experience. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2016. Pp. 394.Bohdan Kordan writes extensively on internment in Canada during the Great War with this being his fourth major effort in this area. There is value in this book for what it brings to light and where it points to for future research.Kordan seeks to contextualise the enemy alien experience in Canada during the Great War. He has conducted extensive and detailed research into the Canadian internment programme and has translated that effort into a highly readable text. The first four chapters are the strongest part of this work. They are soundly structured and flow well from the start of the war and the origins of the internment programme to the armistice and the final deportation of those perceived as undesirable from Canada. There are highly entertaining segments of the Canadian experience brought to life in Kordan’s narrative. He relates well the spy hysteria during the war—a phenomena that predated it. He highlights the long-standing Canadian fear of invaders perched across the United States border which echoed worries from the War of 1812, the Hunters’ Lodges and the Fenians. He sympathises with the struggles of General William Otter to make his organisation effective while his best men were being siphoned off to Europe. He also reveals the perpetual interplay between regulations, new or old, and their interpretation and enforcement to specific cases—whether you wish to call these proceedings callous or merely bureaucratic. Especially interesting is the maneuvering of municipalities in the early days of the war to force the federal government to accept the burden and responsibility for the unemployed, and the subsequent competition between federal, provincial and business entities to take advantage of the labour of the internees. Kordan provides good detail of the programme in all its phases and particularly of the problems of the work camps.However, there are flaws in this work. There are two similar structural flaws. First, in each chapter there are repetitive paragraphs and pages and the chapters are not properly concluded. Second, Chapter 5 is merely a rehash of the other chapters with little or no new perspective or analysis and, after 268 pages, it does not refocus and reinforce the main arguments of the book but rather drags it to an end. In addition, the author is self-referential for a complex 1Roy: "No Free Man (Book Review)" by Bohdan S. KordanPublished by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2018  31C A N A D I A N  M I L I TA RY  H I S T O RYunproven concept (p. 277); given to over-generalising with unproven or limited data (pp. 131, 271); dismissive due to presentism and a lack of historical context in places (p. 56); and occasionally muddles whose voice, the historical actor’s or the author’s, is speaking (p. 263).This work could have been improved if the author had approached some of the issues from a broader context and made more use of comparative analysis. Kordan’s focus is so narrow at points that it is unclear that Canada was simultaneously engaged in a global struggle for survival while it was running an internment operation. More context would have been useful in examining charitable and industrial practices in Canada as well as in discussing emergency legislation and government organisational practices and norms. For instance, the author laboriously points out the clauses in the Hague Convention concerning work but does not consider whether Canadian charitable practices would have demanded work-for-food anyways from civilians, a practice imposed on the western Cree in the 1880s and the enduring norm of the British Poor Laws and workhouses. Many were interned due to unemployment but industrial conditions in Canada receive little attention. Greater explanation of the work conditions in Canada may have supported the stated harshness of the camps. The historiography on working conditions in Canada is extensive, including works by Ian Radforth, John Mellor, William Kilbourn, Duncan McDowall, Michael Bliss, and Craig Heron. Similarly, the activities of the Imperial Munitions Board, so crucial to the Canadian industrial effort during the war, are not mentioned whatsoever though they had a critical influence on unemployment and workers’ ability to move between employers. Further, governmental culture could have been more fully explored in two areas. First, this was the “first” Great War. It developed in unpredictable ways and demanded new and unforeseen governmental approaches (p. 46). It is unsurprising, therefore, that things were not organised smoothly, and some things were bungled—this included the interpretation of new emergency regulations and the measures taken to enforce them. Nor in this context was Canada the first government to prioritise security over individual rights, long a common practice in emergency situations. Second, the British governmental tradition of parsimony, well-transplanted to Canada, should be no surprise to scholars and should not be viewed as a plot so much as a norm, a usage of bureaucracy, especially for long serving officers such as General Otter.2Canadian Military History, Vol. 27 [2018], Iss. 2, Art. 11https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol27/iss2/1132 Book ReviewsThe author’s analysis could have been improved with greater use of comparative data. What little data he does use relates to the “carte blanche” he seems to grant Germany in its treatment of prisoners, which I would suggest many, including Desmond Morton, might refute. Civilians were interned across Europe and elsewhere and even a cursory examination of these other programmes could have helped put the Canadian experience into better context. Morton, in his works on Canadian prisoners of war and veterans, makes extensive use of statistical analysis to further his arguments. Kordan, who often leaves the impression that he is over-generalising from a small sample, much less so. He is also silent on how the camp complex influenced future Canadian government policy. If he had touched on the use of work camps during the Depression and internment activities during the Second World War, it might have helped gauge the utility and influence of the Great War programme.Internment in Canada during the Great War remains a complex issue. There should be little debate that legitimate enemy reservists and prisoners of war should have been interned. That the unemployed, who were primarily Ukrainian, were interned as well was initially a response to the overwhelmed charitable capacities of the various municipalities and later to heightened security concerns. The Canadian militia was the only federal institution capable of supervising such a large undertaking. Much of the camp experience of the internees, therefore, reflected that institution’s cultural practices ranging from sentries patrolling wired perimeters to the application of military discipline. Overall a total of 8,579 enemy aliens were interned, but the tide had largely ebbed by mid-1916 with most of those who were detained being released to work programmes across the country. From late 1916 until the end of the war, approximately 2,500 internees, mostly German and those enemy aliens deemed to be either hostile or agitators, were held. Internment was one of a multitude of programmes the Canadian government implemented in the Great War. It affected only a small fraction of people compared to those who fought in the trenches and only a fraction of the German and Ukrainian communities.This book provides good detail on most aspects of internment operations in Canada during the Great War. It is revealing and useful in this sense. In seeking to contextualise the enemy alien experience in Canada during the Great War, Kordan has been successful for those Ukrainians interned, not so much for those not of that 3Roy: "No Free Man (Book Review)" by Bohdan S. KordanPublished by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2018  33C A N A D I A N  M I L I TA RY  H I S T O RYnationality, and not for those Ukrainians not interned. This book must be read with caution. Have no doubt, though for the most part a balanced presentation, this is redress literature in which Kordan, like Lubomyr Luciuk and others, seeks reparations for the Ukrainians interned during the war. This in fact is the theme of most of Kordan’s writings. Many of the more unbalanced arguments presented in this brand of historiography have been thoroughly demolished by Orest Martynowych decades ago in the Journal of Ukrainian Studies. Besides describing the programme so well in the first four chapters, this book is useful in where it directs historians to future research. An exploration and analysis of Canada’s long-term use of both camps and emergency regulations would be of great value.richard roy, independent researcher4Canadian Military History, Vol. 27 [2018], Iss. 2, Art. 11https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol27/iss2/11

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No Free Man: Canada, the Great War, and the Enemy Alien Experience (Book Review) by Bohdan S. Kordan

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