The Canadian WI Challenge

Why would Canada suddenly be neutral in 1917? Did you mean to write 1914, ie. the year the war started?

Apart from that, even as just a WI, "Canada not fighting with Britian in World War I" is so ASB, you'd have to be talking about a different country than the one we knew in OTL. I mean, especially after 1917, you'd have even the bloody Yanks fighting and dying on Britain's side, but the Canadians stay back home twiddling their thumbs? I daresay that any Canadian citiziens living in the UK at that time would run the risk of being lynched in the streets.


Yes. 1914.


I'd still like to read an ASB Canada TL about this (Liberal victory in 1911 leading to neutral Canada).


U.S. had a good chance of being neutral (but Wilson and Roosevelt cannot be President).


Edit: I think I'm giving more of what I'd be interested in reading than what is likely to occur.
 
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Yes. 1914.


I'd still like to read an ASB Canada TL about this (Liberal victory in 1911 leading to neutral Canada).


U.S. had a good chance of being neutral (but Wilson and Roosevelt cannot be President).


Edit: I think I'm giving more of what I'd be interested in reading than what is likely to occur.

I think you're gonna need more than a victory for Laurier(aka the guy who sent Canadians into the Boer War) to get a neutral Canada by 1914. You're either gonna have to go back a lot earlier in history(eg. wank the Upper and Lower Canada Rebellions), or postulate some MAJOR snafu in Canada-UK relations after the 1911 election(eg. a British battleship sinks a Canadian civilian liner in peacetime, killing hundreds, the UK government for some reason refuses to apologize, Laurier withholds Canadian troops from the war effort).

I recall reading somewhere that the Brits tried to rope MacDonald into some African misadventure(the Sudan, I think), and Sir John A. refused. But 1914 is a bloodbath right on Britain's doorstep, much closer to being viewed at the time as an existential crisis for the Empire.

As to what DOES happen if Canada declares neutrality in the Great War, well, political reality would pretty much dictate than the announcement of neutrality be immediately followed by the declaration of a Canadian republic, plus the renunciation of whatever economic or military privileges Canada still enjoyed with the UK.

Looking into the future, there is NO WAY that the UK ever decides that handing Newfoundland over to the Canucks is a good idea.
 
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At the time as well, unless you were a Pur Laine Québecquois, being part of the British Empire was a big deal. On a national scale, withdrawl would have been an absolutely toxic positon- not so much a foot bullet but ordering the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery to commence a barrage on your foot.
 
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