Conscription Crisis of 1944
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The Conscription Crisis of 1944 was a political and military crisis in Canada during World War II. It was related to the Conscription Crisis of 1917, but was not as politically damaging.
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Background
Canada declared war on Germany on September 10, 1939, and sent one division to Europe, which had no chance for combat before France was completely overrun by Germany. In the election of 1940, Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King pledged to limit Canada's involvement in the war, and especially promised not to impose conscription. This promise helped Mackenzie King's Liberals win the election. Most Canadians preferred King's pledge, even as it became obvious the war would drag on for years.
Volunteers continued to sign up for military service, but, as in World War I, Britain-born Canadian residents volunteered more often than English and French-Canadians combined. As in the First World War, young French-Canadians who were looking for adventure or a way to escape the boredom of farm life flocked to the few traditional French-speaking regiments of the Canadian army, such as the Regular-Army Royal 22e Régiment, and several reserve regiments that were mobilized. In the Infantry, barracks life and most training was in French and only the command and radio language was in English.
In the rest of the military, however, units were anglicized, because of the predominance of the radio, and the heavy technical instruction in English-only training centres. The Régiment de Trois-Rivières, a tank unit, was reorganized and fought as an English-speaking unit (the Three Rivers Regiment).
The waste of French-speaking soldiers, sailors and airmen is demonstrated by the career of one of the "Three Rivers" French-speaking officers, Jean Victor Allard. In frustration with the anglicisation of his unit and the side-lining of French-Canadians (including himself), he transferred to the Infantry where he quickly rose to command a battalion and a brigade in World War II, a brigade in Korea, a British Division in post-war NATO and then became Canada's first French-Canadian Chief of Defence Staff.(See Memoirs of Jean Victor Allard).
Again, as in World War I, the somewhat Francophobic Canadian military tradition maintained the practise of refusing the use of French for command, making inadequate effort to channel French-speaking recruits into French-speaking units, and avoiding the expansion of the French-speaking sector of the Army. Units such as the Royal 22e Régiment, Les Fusiliers Mont-Royal, the Régiment de la Chaudière and the Régiment de Maisonneuve all had outstanding records during World War II. If they had been concentrated into the same brigade (as French-Canadians requested and as now currently exists in the Canadian Armed Forces), it could have become a focus of pride for French-Canada, encouraging the war effort and political support in Quebec. These units were, however, distributed among the various English-speaking divisions of the Canadian Army overseas.
The perception of an anti-French military culture regenerated memories of the shoddy 1914-1918 treatment of French-Canada's soldiers. In fairness, there was acceptance from the start, in the Infantry at least, that some French-speaking units would be allowed. This was significantly different from the previous war, where the creation of the 22nd Infantry Battalion (French-Canadian)¸ required large rallies of French-Canadians, accompanied by political pressure, to overcome Minister Sam Hughes' abhorance of the idea. This greater acceptance of French-Canadian units under their own leaders, as well as acceptance of informal use of their language, undoubtedly diminished the ferocity of Quebec's resistance to the war effort.
In June of 1940 the government adopted conscription for home service in the National Resources Mobilization Act, which allowed the government to register men and women and move them into jobs considered necessary for wartime production, but did not allow them to be conscripted for overseas service. Men conscripted into the Army under the NRMA could, however, be forced to serve anywhere within North American, including the Aleutian Islands.
The Plebiscite of 1942
By 1941 there were enough volunteers for five overseas divisions. The Canadian army saw little fighting, except at Hong Kong in 1941 and Dieppe in 1942. In both battles, it provided units for ill-advised (in hindsight) British-planned operations and suffered high casualties and defeat. Meanwhile the Conservatives were pressuring King to introduce conscription. In April of 1942 King held a plebiscite, which asked the population not to support immediate conscription, but rather to allow the government to rescind its promise made during the 1940 election, so that it could introduce conscription whenever it felt necessary. King's famous quotation on the issue, "conscription if necessary, but not necessarily conscription," reflected the ambiguous nature of the plebiscite. Unsurprisingly, the plebiscite was supported by most English Canadians, who voted 80% in favour, but hardly at all by French Canadians, especially in Quebec, where anti-conscription groups (including one led by Henri Bourassa, the most vocal opponent of conscription in 1917) helped 72.9% of the population vote against the plebiscite. The government then passed Bill 80, repealing the sections of the NRMA that did not allow for overseas conscription. However, many Canadians still did not support immediate conscription; there were a few riots in Montreal, although these were not on the same scale as the 1917 and 1918 riots. Even in Toronto, a strongly pro-conscription region, Conservative Arthur Meighen was defeated in a by-election after promising to help introduce conscription.
- See Referenda in Canada for detailed results of the 1942 vote.
Introduction of Conscription
After campaigns in Italy in 1943 and the Battle of Normandy in 1944, combined with a lack of volunteers, Canada faced a shortage of troops. Colonel James Ralston argued in favour of finally introducing conscription, interpreting King's statement on "necessity" to mean the necessity of maintaining an army in the field. King disagreed, interpreting his remark to refer to the necessity of conscripts to win the war. King's French-Canadian ministers, and Quebec in general, did not trust Ralston, and King felt it was politically sensible to replace him as Minister of National Defence with the anti-conscription General Andrew McNaughton in November of 1944. Unfortunately, MacNaughton was unable to produce large numbers of volunteers for the army, although there were numerous volunteers for the navy and air force. King's cabinet threatened to resign and bring down the government. King finally accepted conscription on November 22. French-Canadians, who preferred a King government to a Conservative government led by Meighen, tacitly accepted the decision. Meighen was still considered an enemy in Quebec, as he had drafted the hated Military Service Act in 1917, while King was respected for doing all he could to avoid conscription.
However, only 13 000 men were sent overseas, most of whom were from the home service conscripts drafted under the NRMA, rather than from the general population. Home service conscripts, who had been waiting for two years to be sent overseas, were by this time called "zombies" by many pro-conscription Canadians. The "zombies" had had few opportunities to do anything productive in home service, and they were one of the strongest pro-conscription groups in the country. Few of them saw combat in Europe, only 2463 men reached units on the front lines. Out of these, 69 conscripts lost their lives. These numbers are relatively low, as the war was over within a few months of their call-up. Politically, this was a successful gamble for King, as he avoided a drawn-out political crisis and remained in power until 1948.
Sources
- R. MacGregor Dawson. The Conscription Crisis of 1944. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1961.
- R. Douglas Francis, Richard Jones, Donald B. Smith. Destinies: Canadian History Since Confederation. Toronto, Harcourt Canada, 2000. ISBN 0-7747-3665-8
- J.L. Granatstein. Conscription in the Second World War, 1939-1945: A Study in Political Management. Toronto: The Ryerson Press, 1969. ISBN 0770002498
- J.L. Granatstein and J.M. Hitsman. Broken Promises: A History of Conscription in Canada. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1977. ISBN 0195402588
- Jean V. Allard. "Mémoires du Général Jean V. Allard". Ottawa, Les Éditions de Mortagne, 1985. ISBN 2-89074-190-7
External Links
- World War 2 Newspaper Archives - Conscription in Canada (http://warmuseum.ca/cwm/newspapers/canadawar/conscription_e.html)