By the end of 1914 the target for the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) was 50,000 by summer 1915 it was 150,000. Recruiting, handled by prewar militia regiments and by civic organizations, cost the government nothing. Unemployed workers flocked to enlist in 1914–15. Stopped buying in Canada in 1917, Flavelle negotiated huge new contracts with the Americans. By 1917, Flavelle had made the IMB Canada's biggest business, with 250,000 workers.
The resulting Imperial Munitions Board was a British agency in Canada, though headed by a talented, hard-driving Canadian, Joseph Flavelle. The British government insisted on reorganization. By summer 1915, the committee had orders worth $170 million but had delivered only $5.5 million in shells. Manufacturers formed a Shell Committee, got contracts to make British artillery ammunition,Īnd created a new industry. Was hoped that factories shut down by the recession would profit from the war. Since many farm labourers had joined the Army, farmers began to complain of a labour shortage. A prewar crop failure had been a warning to prairie farmers of futureĭroughts, but a bumper crop in 1915 and soaring prices banished caution. Between 19, the national debt rose from $463 million to $2.46 billion, an enormous sum at that time.Ĭanada's economic burden would have been unbearable without huge exports of wheat, timber and munitions. Canada's war effort was financed mainly by borrowing. In 1917 the government's Victory Loan campaign began raising huge sums from ordinary citizens for the first time. In 1915 he asked for $50 million he got $100 million. Since Britain could not afford to lend to Canada, White turned to the US.Īlso, despite the belief that Canadians would never lend to their own government, White had to take the risk. By 1915, however, military spending equaled the entire government expenditure of 1913. In patriotic fervour, Canadians demanded that Germans and Austrians be dismissed from their jobs and interned ( see Internment), and pressured Berlin, Ontario, to rename itself Kitchener.Ī Canadian perspective, from the Legion's Legacies.Īt first the war hurt a troubled economy, increasing unemployment and making it hard for Canada's new, debt-ridden transcontinental railways, the Canadian Northern and the Grand Trunk Pacific, to find credit. (See Wartime Home Front and Canadian Children and the Great War.)
Churches, charities, women's organizations, and the Red Cross found ways to "do their bit" for the war effort. A Military Hospitals Commission cared for the sickĪnd wounded. The Canadian Patriotic Fund collected money to support soldiers' families. Much of Canada's war effort was launched by volunteers. On 3 October, the First Contingent of 30,617 men sailed for England. Minister of Militia Sam Hughes summoned 25,000 volunteers to train at a new camp at Valcartier near Québec some 33,000 appeared. The Liberal opposition urged Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden’s Conservative government to take sweeping powers under the new War Measures Act. The shame produced by the picture.The war united Canadians at first. Though there is no explicit 'call to action' for the viewer on the poster, the tacit expectation is that the guilt would result in young men enlisting to fight in the hopes of being able to allay The propaganda hopes that young men will feel embarrassed to admit to their future children that they were 'too cowardly' to join the war effort. All of these techniques combine with the intention of generating theįeelings of shame and guilt in the viewer. Make the audience the target of the question so that they will wonder what role they will play in the contemporary conflict. Therefore, although the girl is talking to her father, the poster intends to directly address the viewer. The fact that the man's eyes are looking directly at the viewer. The use of the second person pronoun of "you" is a clear attempt to engage personally with the audience.
Spoken by the daughter, inquires about the man's role in the war. Thirdly, the text that accompanies the image, which is The fact that the man's son is more impressed with symbols of war than his own father begins to play on the audience's emotions. Secondly, the poster uses the symbolism of the toy soldiers, which the young boy is depicted as playing The use of this stereotypical character isĪn attempt to connect with British middle class men who had not yet joined the war effort. First of all, the main character is an idealised middle class British family man. It does this by employing a range of propaganda techniques. This propaganda poster produced by the British government in 1915 sought to persuade British citizens to enlist for military Demonstrating interpretation of propaganda posters in your writing: