A Military History of Canada

by MORTON, DESMOND

• ISBN13: 9780771065149
• ISBN10: 0771065140
• Edition: 4th
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2000-06-01
• Publisher: McClelland & Stewart

Summary

Is Canada really "a peaceable kingdom" with "an unmilitary people"? Desmond Morton says no. This is a country that has been shaped, divided, and transformed by war there is no greater influence in Canadian history, recent or remote. Through the Cold War, the Gulf War, and after, Canadians had to make difficult decisions about defence and foreign policy, and these events have shaped the country, developing our industries, changing the role of women, realigning our political factions, and changing Canada's status in the world.

Author Biography

<b>Desmond Morton</b> is the author of thirty-one books on Canada and is a frequent contributor to the CBC, Radio-Canada, the <i>Toronto Star</i>, the <i>Montreal Gazette</i>, and the <i>Ottawa Citizen</i>. He lives in Montreal.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	vii
Introduction	ix
I THE ANCIEN REGIME	1	(40)
Indian Warfare	1	(5)
Colonial Survival	6	(4)
Frontenac's Wars	10	(8)
A Military Society	18	(5)
Clash of Empires	23	(10)
Crisis and Fall	33	(8)
II THE BRITISH EMPIRE	41	(44)
American Revolution	41	(6)
Loyalist Colonies	47	(8)
War for Survival	55	(7)
Struggle for a Stalemate	62	(8)
British Garrisons	70	(7)
Imperial Doubts	77	(8)
III THE YOUNG DOMINION	85	(45)
A Canadian Responsibility	85	(8)
Militia and Defence	93	(6)
Canada's First War	99	(8)
Imperial Defence	107	(8)
South Africa and After	115	(7)
Militarism, Navalism, and War	122	(8)
IV THE GREAT WAR	130	(43)
``Canada Is at War''	130	(7)
Apprentice Army	137	(8)
Nation at War	145	(6)
Conscription Crisis	151	(7)
War of Attrition	158	(7)
War Wounds	165	(8)
V THE WORLD WAR	173	(52)
Ending a Truce	173	(6)
Phoney and Total War	179	(7)
A People's War	186	(7)
The War From Canada	193	(8)
Canadians in Britain	201	(7)
Liberation of Europe	208	(9)
Conscription and Victory	217	(8)
VI THE LONG COLD WAR	225	(45)
Reconstruction	225	(7)
NATO and Korea	232	(7)
Nuclear War and NORAD	239	(8)
Integration and Unification	247	(7)
The Trudeau Detente	254	(9)
The End of the Cold War	263	(7)
VII THE AWKWARD PEACE	270	(25)
A Change of Era	270	(2)
Divided Country, Unstable World	272	(5)
Peacekeeping and Peacemaking	277	(4)
Cuts and Conflicts	281	(4)
The Somalia Inquiry	285	(5)
Soft Power?	290	(2)
Doing Something Right	292	(3)
A Reading List	295	(17)
Appendix I	312	(1)
Appendix II	313	(1)
Index	314

Excerpts

9/12, 2001

On Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001, Captain Mike Jellinek of the Canadian navy took command of the watch at the subterranean headquarters of NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, near Colorado Springs. By American law, NORAD still looked outward, not inward, chiefly at former Cold War enemies, evidence to its critics of military preoccupations outdated more than a decade after the collapse of the Berlin Wall. An airliner hijacking was reported near Boston, in NORAD’s northeastern sector. Local jet fighters had been scrambled. Jellinek phoned NORAD’s commander. Could
he react? Yes. Before the first hijacked airliner tore into the World Trade Center in New York, Jellinek had fighters vectored on its heading. If passengers on the fourth airliner had not fought their captors and crashed into a Pennsylvania field, NORAD interceptors would have met them over Washington. A Canadian had launched Operation Noble Eagle. Could anyone have saved the three thousand who would die? It was not a question NORAD had to answer.

It ordered every civilian aircraft out of North American skies. Combat air patrols swept over every major city. Non-conforming aircraft would be destroyed. Canadian airports filled with diverted international flights; communities took in marooned strangers without a second thought. Rallying his shocked and frightened country, President George W. Bush declared an unlimited war on terror. Any nation that did not wholeheartedly back the United States in this war would be treated as an enemy. Meeting in an emergency session on Wednesday, September 12, NATO representatives dealt for the first time in their sixty-two-year history with the proposition that had originally created the organization: an attack on one member was an attack on all.

That same morning, September 12, Canadians awoke to learn that the United States had slammed its borders shut, stopping four-fifths of Canada’s foreign trade, eliminating 43 per cent of its gross domestic product. This was an economic disaster on the scale of two simultaneous Great Depressions. Huge columns of trucks snaked back from major border crossings. Border cities, economies built on just-in-time deliveries, ground to a halt. By noon, cities farther away felt the crunch. Much that followed in Canada reflected the 9/12 crisis.

Canada had gone to war in 1914 because the British Empire had declared war. British Canadians, at least, responded as British patriots. That experience persuaded W. L. Mackenzie King and most other
Canadians that next time “Parliament would decide.” In 1939 and 1950, Canada’s Parliament had decided on war. It would do so again in 2001, but this time most Canadians understood that the price for
neutrality was unacceptable. Canada’s 1988 decision to link its trade as well as its defences to its hugely powerful neighbour left the Chrétien government no choice but to reassure President Bush that Canada would do all it could to back the American war. Many countries echoed that pledge; few had Canada’s practical obligation to respect it.

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Excerpted from A Military History of Canada by Desmond Morton
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