Podcasts about Canadian Expeditionary Force

Larry Ostola talks to Gregory Kennedy about his book, Lost in the Crowd: Acadian Soldiers of Canada's First World War. In December 1915, Acadian leaders in New Brunswick expressed concerns about their soldiers being "lost in the crowd" within the Canadian Expeditionary Force during World War I. They successfully lobbied for the creation of a French-speaking, Catholic, and Acadian-led national unit. Over a thousand Acadians from the Maritimes, Quebec, and the U.S. Northeast joined this effort. In Lost in the Crowd, Gregory Kennedy uses military archives, census records, newspapers, and soldiers' letters to explore the experiences of Acadian soldiers and their families before, during, and after the war. He highlights their enlistment rates, compares their experiences with English-speaking soldiers, and examines underreported issues like underage recruits, desertion, and army discipline. Kennedy also uses the 1921 Census to analyze the long-term impacts of the war on soldiers, families, and communities. The book offers a fresh approach to military history by focusing on the Acadians, a francophone minority in the Maritimes, reshaping our understanding of French Canadians in World War I. Gregory M.W. Kennedy is professor of history and dean of the Faculty of Arts at Brandon University and the author of Something of a Peasant Paradise? Comparing Rural Societies in Acadie and the Loudunais, 1604-1755. Image Credit: McGill-Queen's University Press If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society's mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada's past.

Details of our associated ‘on the ground' tour in France: https://battleguide.co.uk/nsq-tour In this episode, alongside guest historian Jesse Alexander we'll continue our exploration of the remarkable story of the Canadian Expeditionary Force on the Western Front. We'll look at famous actions in 1917 and 1918, and consider what the war means for Canadians today. Do you like our podcast? Then please leave us a review, it helps us a lot! Support the Show: https://www.patreon.com/BattleGuide Support via Paypal: https://battleguide.co.uk/nsq-paypal E-Mail: ⁠podcast@battleguide.co.uk⁠ Website: https://battleguide.co.uk/nsq Battle Guide YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BattleGuideVT Our WW2 Podcast: https://battleguide.co.uk/bsow If you want to keep your finger on the pulse of what the team at Battle Guide have been getting up to, why not sign up to our monthly newsletter: ⁠https://battleguide.co.uk/newsletter Twitter: @historian1914 @DanHillHistory @BattleguideVT Credits: - Host: Jesse Alexander, Dr. Spencer Jones & Dan Hill - Production & Editing: Linus Klaßen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, alongside guest historian Jesse Alexander we'll explore the remarkable story of the Canadian Expeditionary Force on the Western Front. We'll look at its formation, training, performance on the battlefield, and explore whether the CEF was one of the true ‘elite' formations of the First World War.  WW2 Both Sides of the Wire! - Podcast: https://battleguide.co.uk/bsow Host: Jesse Alexander & Prof. Matthias Strohn Do you like our podcast? Then please leave us a review, it helps us a lot! Support the Show: https://www.patreon.com/BattleGuide Support via Paypal: https://battleguide.co.uk/nsq-paypal E-Mail: ⁠podcast@battleguide.co.uk⁠ Website: https://battleguide.co.uk/nsq Battle Guide YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BattleGuideVT Our WW2 Podcast: https://battleguide.co.uk/bsow If you want to keep your finger on the pulse of what the team at Battle Guide have been getting up to, why not sign up to our monthly newsletter: ⁠https://battleguide.co.uk/newsletter Twitter: @historian1914 @DanHillHistory @BattleguideVT Credits: - Host: Dr. Spencer Jones & Dan Hill - Production & Editing: Linus Klaßen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Become A Subscriber & Get Exclusive EpisodesDid you know that in its 170 year history, the Victoria Cross, Britain's highest medal for valour, has been awarded to 5 Americans?Four were members of the Canadian Expeditionary Force during World War One.But the very first American to receive the VC was serving in the Royal Navy, at the time of the American Civil War, in a tiny and forgotten action in Japan.This is the story of that man, William Seeley, and the bombardment of Shimonoseki in 1864.Get my free weekly history newsletterSupport the show

About one-third of all Indigenous men aged 18 to 45 enlisted, or tried to enlist, in the Canadian Expeditionary Force to fight in the First World War. They fought bravely and became known throughout the front lines for their kills with rifles. Despite this, when they returned home they had their land taken away and given to other soldiers, and they were denied many of the benefits white soldiers received. Support: patreon.com/canadaehx Merch: www.canadaehx.com/shop Donate: canadaehx.com (Click Donate) E-mail: craig@canadaehx.com Twitter: twitter.com/craigbaird Mastadon: @canadaehx@canada.masto.host Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cdnhistoryehx YouTube: youtube.com/c/canadianhistoryehx Want to send me something? Craig Baird PO Box 2384 Stony Plain PO Main, Alberta T7Z1X8 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The history of the First World War is well known to many people, but our next guest is telling - for the first time - stories of soldiers you may have never heard about. Sarah Worthman is a freelance researcher focusing on queer history. Her new report is called "2SLGBTQ-plus Persecution and the First World War: The Untold History of the Canadian Expeditionary Force." It's a dark look an how queer people were treated in the military at the time. Worthman spoke with the CBC's Melissa Tobin.

After finishing up their training, the 10th Battalion, with the rest of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, were deployed to France. The 10th would find themselves in the Ypres Salient, near the town of Sint-Juulien, where they would receive a baptism in blood.  Visit our website: https://www.canadianhistorypodcast.caVisit us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/canadianhistoryVisit us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/canadianhistorywithstevenwilsonCheck us out on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNfOI7uxJ04GIn7O_b1yarACheck out our GoFundMe: https://gofund.me/ca5ddea0We are on Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@canadianhistorypodcast “Sinking” by Philip Ravenel, used under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On July 1 Pat and Matt were joined by guest Rob Enfield, the brains and face behind the brilliant YouTube channel, British Muzzleloaders. Rob gave us a great run down of the lead up to the Battle of the Somme and the bloodliest day in the history of the British Empire, July 1, 1916.Now Rob is back to expound on the Somme Campaign! The rest of the story and the months long endeavor to make something of the brutal fighting that occured there. Rob also dives into the specifics of some of the smaller engagements in the overarching Battle of the Somme and discusses the unique position of the Canadian Expeditionary Force during this campaign.So join us as we go back to the trenches of the Western Front and dig in with Rob from British Muzzleloaders!The History Things Podcast is brought to you by TR Historical, your one-stop shop for all your historical fang gear needs. Shop TRHistorical.com and use the promo code: HISTORY THINGS to receive 10% off your next purchase. Make sure to tell them Pat & Matt sent you!Want to stay up to date on the latest news and happenings here at The History Things Podcast? Make sure to follow us on social media at @TheHistoryThingsPodcast (Facebook, Instagram, & YouTube) and to leave us a 5star rating and review on your favorite podcast app! All questions, comments, and compliments can be sent to HistoryThingsPodcast@gmail.com

La Jolla, California. 1947. We're at 6005 Camino de la Costa at the home of Raymond Chandler. It's been three years since the fifty-nine year-old wrote a full length novel. Instead he's worked on two screen plays. Chandler co-adapted Double Indemnity with Billy Wilder, and penned The Blue Dahlia. Both earned him Academy Award nominations. Looking for more income, his agent has negotiated a deal for Chandler to help bring a thirteen-week summer series to NBC. It'll sub for Bob Hope on Tuesday nights. The main character? Chandler's detective Philip Marlowe. To date Marlowe had been the focal point of four novels and four films — including two almost simultaneously released this past winter. This will, however, be the first time that Philip Marlowe comes to radio's airwaves in a regular show. Tonight, we'll go back in time and spotlight that summer's highest-rated replacement series The Adventures of Philip Marlowe, starring Van Heflin. ___________ Raymond Chandler was born on July 23rd, 1888 in Chicago, Illinois. He spent his early years in Nebraska until his father, an alcoholic railway civil engineer, abandoned the family. In 1900 his Irish mother Florence moved with Raymond to England. Chandler went to Dulwich College in London. In 1907 he became a naturalized British subject and took a job as an Admiral, but resigned. He grabbed a reporter position at the Daily Express and later the Westminster Gazette. Unhappy in England, Chandler wanted to be a writer, so he returned to America in 1912. He settled in San Francisco, where he took a correspondence course in bookkeeping. His mother joined him there soon after. They moved to Los Angeles in 1913, where he strung tennis rackets, picked fruit, and found steady employment with the Los Angeles Creamery. But then, The U.S. and Canada finally joined World War I. In 1917 Chandler enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force. He saw combat in the trenches in France and was twice hospitalized with Spanish flu. He was in flight training with the Royal Air Force when the war ended. He returned to Los Angeles and began a love affair with Cissy Pascal, a married woman eighteen years his senior. She amicably divorced her husband in 1920, but Chandler's mother disapproved of the relationship and refused to sanction the marriage. For the next four years Chandler supported both. His mother passed away in 1923. Raymond married Cissy on February 6th, 1924. Having begun in 1922 as a bookkeeper and auditor, by 1931 he was a highly paid VP at the Dabney Oil Syndicate. But he suffered frequent mental health breakdowns. He drank too much, skipped work, was promiscuous with female employees, and he publicly threatened suicide. Chandler was fired in 1932. Detective and suspense shows had been on radio since the medium's inception. They were often similar to dime store novels. Sherlock Holmes began in 1930. Chandler taught himself to write pulp-style fiction by analyzing a novelette by Erle Stanley Gardner. His first story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in Black Mask Magazine in 1933. His lead character was called “Mallory.” It took him five months to finish the story. Erle Stanley Gardner wrote entire stories in three or four days. He later said, “Wandering up and down the Pacific Coast in an automobile, I began to read pulp magazines. This was in the great days of Black Mask. It struck me that some of the writing was pretty forceful and honest, even though it had a crude aspect. I decided that this might be a good way to try to learn to write fiction and get paid a small amount of money at the same time. I spent five months on an eighteen-thousand word novelette and sold it for one-hundred-eighty dollars. After that I never looked back, although I had many uneasy periods looking forward.”

Photo:   "Artillery, prior to loading aboard ship at Quebec", Montreal Daily Star, p.3, 29 September 1914 Photograph taken by J. A. Millar from an album depicting scenes of the Canadian Expeditionary Force at Valcartier Camp, at Quebec, and at Gaspe Harbour immediately prior to sailing to Britain in 1914. Millar was a staff photographer of the Montreal Daily Star and produced the album in 1915.   ..   ..  .. 8/8   Nick Lloyd, The Western Front: A History of the Great War, 1914-1918 – March 30, 2021. Hardcover. A panoramic history of the savage combat on the Western Front between 1914 and 1918 that came to define modern warfare. The Western Front evokes images of mud-spattered men in waterlogged trenches, shielded from artillery blasts and machine-gun fire by a few feet of dirt. This iconic setting was the most critical arena of the Great War, a 400-mile combat zone stretching from Belgium to Switzerland where more than three million Allied and German soldiers struggled during four years of almost continuous combat. It has persisted in our collective memory as a tragic waste of human life and a symbol of the horrors of industrialized warfare.

It was the first major battle of the Canadian Expeditionary Force and while they had only a diversionary role, 200 Canadians would be wounded and another 100 would die. Today, I'm looking at this battle that started the war for many Canadian soldiers.  Support: patreon.com/canadaehx Merch: www.canadaehx.com/shop Donate: canadaehx.com (Click Donate) E-mail: craig@canadaehx.com Twitter: twitter.com/craigbaird Mastadon: @canadaehx@canada.masto.host Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cdnhistoryehx YouTube: youtube.com/c/canadianhistoryehx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During the First World War, more than 3,000 women volunteered with the Canadian Expeditionary Force. This force was created by Canada for service overseas, with nurses working as fully enlisted officers in the specifically created all-female rank of Nursing Sister. Their dedication to their work, their country, and most importantly to their patients, earned them public respect and serves to measure their contribution to the Canadian war effort.

May 3rd 1917 saw the Canadian Expeditionary Force attacking the Arleux Loop. Robert Combe had a part to play that day.

Shell shock has become a stand-in for the experience of all soldiers of the First World War. And it has also become one of the most popular topics of inquiry for historians of the First World War. Mark Humphries, associate professor history at Wilfrid Laurier University and Director of the Laurier Centre for Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies, has contributed another addition to the ever-growing literature on the topic with his new book on shell shock in the Canadian Expeditionary Force during the First World War. Looking at the experience of doctors and patients as well as the medical management system that developed overseas, he investigates how shell shock was managed and mismanaged and how the search for a solution remained elusive. References Mark Osborne Humphries, A Weary Road: Shell Shock in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914–1918. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018. 

Major J.A. Ross realizes to his horror that the army has no idea where the soldiers of the Canadian Expeditionary Force on the front lines actually are. His discovery sets off a series of political machinations that will change the leadership of the Canadian Army for better and worse.

July 30, 2018 - Our time machine travels back to the Western Front of the Great War, and enlists with the 60th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, which captured the villages of Vimy and Petit Vimy, in the pivotal battle for Vimy Ridge. Author Rick Pyves contacted 2,500 living relatives of the soldiers through Ancestry, uncovering 86 personal recollections and letters as well as over 200 photos for Courage, Sacrifice and Betrayal - The Story of the Victoria Rifles of Canada, 60th Battalion in the First World War.  One of those relatives is our own resident genealogist, Catherine, who offers her research services through HistoryAuthor.com/FamilyHistory. Her grandfather's first cousin, Private Charles Henry Mainwaring, gave his life in the 60th Battalion at only 20 years old. Rick Pyves is an avid historian and a genealogist who, like Catherine, also hails from Canada. His first book -- Night Madness: A Rear Gunner’s Story of Love, Courage, and Hope in World War II -- weaves his father’s tale into a touching love story in one man’s very personal war. Visit RichardPyves.com or follow @RichardPyves on Twitter for more on this view of the First World War War from the nation Winston Churchill called "The Great Dominion."    

Since 2014, there has been an outpouring of literature on the First World War that has moved the field in exciting new directions. Over thirty books have been released by Canadian academic presses over the past almost four years, including titles on conscription, shell shock, and the memory of the war. But before these books were published, Mark Humphries wrote an intriguing 2014 article in the Canadian Historical Review about the historiography of the First World War in Canada and where he thought the field should lead next. Among several other revealing insights, he urged future scholars to adopt a transnational approach that would challenge the exceptionalist literature that characterizes Canadian First World War history-writing. But where has the field gone since? Mark has some thoughts. Mark is the director of the Laurier Centre for Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies, the Dunkley Chair in War and the Canadian Experience and an Associate Professor in the Department of History at Wilfrid Laurier University. References Tim Cook. Clio’s Warriors: Canadian Historians and the Writing of the World Wars. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2006. ------. The Secret History of Soldiers: How Canadians Survived the Great War. Toronto: Allen Lane, 2018. Patrick Dennis. Reluctant Warriors: Canadian Conscripts and the Great War. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2017. Richard Holt. Filling the Ranks: Manpower in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914–1918. Kingston & Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2017.  G.W.L. Nicholson. Official History of the Canadian Army in the First World War: Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914–1919. Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1962. Pierre Nora. “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire.” Representations26 (1989): 7–24. Gary Sheffield. Forgotten Victory: The First World War: Myths and Realities. London: Headline, 2001. Hew Strachan. The First World War: To Arms. Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Places of worship offered somewhere to pray for the safe return of family and friends. They become a place to recruit men to join the Canadian Expeditionary Force.

Flo talks to Canadian military historian David Borys about the Canadian Expeditionary Force and their experience of World War 1. In particular, they speak about the guts of Arthur Currie, the myth of the Canadian Stormtroopers, First Nation soldiers and the French Canadian soldiers. Check Out Cool Canadian History: coolcanadianhistory  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Francis 'Peggy' Pegahmagabow was a Nishnaabe soldier serving in the Canadian Expeditionary Force. He was a deadly sniper, excellent scout, and brave soldier, recipient of the Military Medal plus two bars. After the war he became a leading Nishnaabe activist challenging the Canadian governments continued marginalization of Canada's First Nations.

When Canada went to war against the Central Powers in 1914 many First Nations men sought to enlist. While unofficially excluded at first, the high casualty rates suffered by the CEF forced the government to change its position. Thousands would serve with distinction for a country that had spent decades pushing them to the margins of Canadian society.

Many have fallen down the rabbit hole of over-researching. Telling the entire story is tempting, but it is an unattainable standard. Reconstructing the past out a series of texts simply cannot measure up to the multifaceted and dynamic realities of an all-encompassing history. And so it is imperative that historians abandon this idealized goal––if not for the sake of time, at least then for one’s sanity. Dr. Geoff Hayes, an associate professor of history at the University of Waterloo, visited us this month to talk about his new book Crerar’s Lieutenants. But before we discussed its content, Geoff talked about the challenges of the project, from the initial search to the eventual discovery of a satisfactory framework, and the necessity of imposing self-limitations on one’s historical research. Crerar’s Lieutenants unfolded over a period of many years, during which several drafts of the eventual manuscript were written. And with each revision, a new story was told. It wasn’t until he began to explore the Junior Army Officer through the lens of gender and masculinity though that Geoff finally found a framework that he felt was appropriate. It was an arduous journey to the final manuscript, but a fruitful one that led him to discover the military’s ideal Junior Army Officer, and how the real-life officers negotiated these ideals while fighting on the battlefields of the Second World War. References Hayes, Geoffrey. Crerar’s Lieutenants: Inventing the Canadian Junior Army Officer, 1939­–45. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2017. ------. The Lincs: A History of the Lincoln and Welland Regiment at War. Waterloo: Laurier Centre for Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies, 1986. ------. Waterloo County: An Illustrated History. Toronto: Ontario Historical Society, 1997.  Humphries, Mark. “War’s Long Shadow: Masculinity, Medicine, and the Gendered Politics of Trauma, 1914–39.” Canadian Historical Review 91, no. 3 (2010): 503–31. ------. A Weary Road: Shell Shock in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914–1918. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018. McGeer, Eric. Varsity’s Soldiers: A History of the University of Toronto Contingent, Canadian Officers Training Corps, 1914–1968. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018.

The Conscription Crisis was the central political conflict of the First World War, affecting not only the Canadian government but having an immediate impact on over 400,000 Canadians who were registered for conscription with the intention of being sent overseas. Historians have focused on national divisions between English and French, rural and urban, and the working and middle class, but what has often been lost in these debates are those most directly impacted by conscription – the conscripts themselves. With four of his own ancestors conscripted and casualties of the First World War, Patrick Dennis, in his recently released book, Reluctant Warriors, sheds new light on both the events which led to the decision of the Canadian government to enact conscription in 1917, and the vital contribution made by these conscripts during the Hundred Days campaign of 1918. Guest host Kyle Pritchard sits down with Patrick to discuss his research on the experiences of Canadian conscripts and the present-day legacies of conscription. References  Byers, Dan. Zombie Army: The Canadian Army and Conscription in the Second World War. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2016. Dennis, Patrick M. Reluctant Warriors: Canadian Conscripts and the Great War. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2017. Holt, Richard. Filling the Ranks: Manpower in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1918. Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2017. Granatstein, J.L., and J.M. Hitsman. Broken Promises: A History of Conscription in Canada. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.

In this episode we speak with LAC employee Tim Hack about the amazing journey he undertook to reconnect with his great-grandfathers, who fought on opposite sides of the First World War. Tim came across the Canadian Expeditionary Force files right after starting work at LAC. This discovery inspired him to retrace his great-grandfathers’ footsteps across northern Europe. Listen to his audio diary from the trip, as well as our pre- and post-trip interviews with him.

The Battle of Vimy Ridge was fought in April 1917 during the First World War. Four divisions of the Canadian Expeditionary Force attacked the German stronghold of Hill 145 on the morning of 9 April, and three days later, had successfully pushed the German army off of the ridge. Since those cold and wet April days one hundred years ago, Vimy has for many Canadians emerged as a symbol of Canadian nationhood. Ian McKay and Jamie Swift last year published The Vimy Trap: Or, How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Great War. Its exploration of the “childish irrationalism” of ‘Vimyism,” has been met with much praise; one recent view maintains that the Vimy Trap is a “necessary book.” But not all the reviews have been positive. Dr. Geoffrey Hayes of the University of Waterloo has concerns with the book’s arguments and approach. References Fussell, Paul. The Great War and Modern Memory. Oxford University Press, 1975. Mckay, Ian and Jamie Swift. The Vimy Trap: Or, How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Great War. Toronto: Between the Lines, 2016.  Vance, Jonathan F. Death So Noble: Memory, Meaning and the First World War. Vancouver: UBC Press, 1997. Winter, J.M. Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Welcome to the very first peek into Gordon’s Gun Closet, where we hope to entertain and educate while chatting about a noteworthy weapon of history, distant or recent. This week we take a look at the ups and downs of the Colt New Service revolver, the quintessential handgun of late 19th and early 20th century Armies. Show notes and links: hickok45 - Colt New Service Revolver Chapter 2 (youtu.be) The X-Files - Season 10 - Internet Movie Firearms Database (imfdb.org) Foyle's War (foyleswar.com) Colt New Service Colt M1877 Colt M1878 - "Double-Action Army" Colt M1889 - "New Navy" Military history of Canada - the Canadian Expeditionary Force to the South African War, 1899 North-West Mounted Police M1911 pistol M1917 revolver Colt "Shooting Master" (coltautos.com) American Rifleman | A Look Back: The Colt New Service Revolver (americanrifleman.org)