WI - Canada refused to fight in the First World War?

I'll offer a twist to the scenario. Imagine a Canada more concerned about her southern neighbor. (we can even keep the USA the same as OTL) The Canadian government sees all those German-Americans and German immigrants, adds that to old memories, and we'll add in a healthy serving of wartime paranoia. With the mother country focused in Europe, the Canadian government will raise an army, but the regiments are for home defense first.
 
I'll offer a twist to the scenario. Imagine a Canada more concerned about her southern neighbor. (we can even keep the USA the same as OTL) The Canadian government sees all those German-Americans and German immigrants, adds that to old memories, and we'll add in a healthy serving of wartime paranoia. With the mother country focused in Europe, the Canadian government will raise an army, but the regiments are for home defense first.

That is the premise in my world, I asked this question because I was curious of the effects of such an action
 
Let's take this scenario:
The Germans manage to deliver there weapons shipment to Irish and India separatist and from 1916 is full scale Civil war and uprise happening in Irland and India.
the British government divert Canadian troops to Irland and Australian and New Zealand troops to India to deal with situation.

Would Canadian government refused to fight in Irland and declare that's British Problem that British has to solve themselves ?
 
It would be enforced by the viceroy appointing someone else to be Prime Minister. Even if circumstances had led to some weird government having power and deciding to be neutral there would obviously be a loyalist faction represented in Parliament, and others who just want to be in power and the governor general would invite them to form a government. They may avoid facing the House for awhile but hey, Joe Clark governed as if he had a majority for awhile, and in a real emergency you can do it for far longer.

There has never been a case of a governor general intervening in such a way in a dominion, but it seriously never came up (the Irish Free State could have had that issue, but they abolished the post before it could become a problem). Newfoundland was essentially taken over directly by London because they were dysfunctional.

In the case of South Africa, in 1939 the Prime Minister wanted to hold an election on whether they should join the war. I believe what occurred was that the governor general refused his request and appointed the Prime Minister's deputy to the top job.

And that was post Statute of Westminster.

Also I suppose if we're casting about for examples there is the dismissal of the Australian PM in 1975, but there again it occurred in the context of a dysfunctional Parliamentary arrangement and not a disagreement over policy. Yes, I know about the conspiracy-ish theory on that one, but the fact remains that the official reason he was dismissed was a legitimate one, even if there were ulterior motives, which I can't disprove.

Anyhow it's been interesting but I think I will throw it back to the original poster rather than wander down this tangent longer. Still I appreciate your thoughts here and have never before stopped to ponder what might have happened in the Irish case. Very interesting.
 
Let's take this scenario:
The Germans manage to deliver there weapons shipment to Irish and India separatist and from 1916 is full scale Civil war and uprise happening in Irland and India.
the British government divert Canadian troops to Irland and Australian and New Zealand troops to India to deal with situation.

Would Canadian government refused to fight in Irland and declare that's British Problem that British has to solve themselves ?
If, out of the blue, the British asked Canada to suppress a rebellion in Ireland in the middle of World War I, otherwise sticking to our timeline, I have to think that the answer would be, "Um, aren't we needed in France?" Certainly Hughes would have fought to the death against the notion that the Canadian army was little more than Britain's colonial police auxiliary.

That said, the original poster has proposed a different timeline here where it might make sense. As best I can make out, this timeline would begin with a POD that begins to open a big divide between Canada and Britain. I have no idea what that causal event would be, but if we follow it down the line, then the most plausible way to "mildly" resist the British declaration of war in 1914 would be to mobilize troops but insist that they go to non-combat or non-front-line roles in order to "free up" other British soldiers for the offensive we were officially not participating in.

There is a long history of Canada taking this route in various ways, eg. the NRMA in early World War II, our initial plan to go to Europe at the start of the Korean War so that the Americans could go to Korea, and most recently, Chretien's idea to boost our presence in Afghanistan at the outbreak of the Iraq war.

Now, if we had gone that route, then it's possible that we would end up unintentionally being Johnny on the spot, as it were, when some urgent need for a military control presence arose and all the other fully equipped and trained divisions were off in Europe. That for instance is how the NRMA zombies ended up "liberating" the Aleutian Islands.

All of this is very vague and speculative.
 
That said, the original poster has proposed a different timeline here where it might make sense. As best I can make out, this timeline would begin with a POD that begins to open a big divide between Canada and Britain. I have no idea what that causal event would be, but if we follow it down the line, then the most plausible way to "mildly" resist the British declaration of war in 1914 would be to mobilize troops but insist that they go to non-combat or non-front-line roles in order to "free up" other British soldiers for the offensive we were officially not participating in.

There is a long history of Canada taking this route in various ways, eg. the NRMA in early World War II, our initial plan to go to Europe at the start of the Korean War so that the Americans could go to Korea, and most recently

Before begin of WW1 as Austria gave the ultimatum to Serbia, there were allot discussion in British government what to do ?
allot of Diplomat and politicians were for a "to keep out of this conflict" that Fraction has almost overcome the "Warmongers" fraction as German Empire invade Belgium on way to France.
do treaty Britain signed with Belgium almost 74 years earlier, the BEF was send to France to help the Belgians.

now in those few weeks between British government dispute and German Invasion, is ideal about POD were Canada is involve and they can say "Your say British Empire stay out of it and now we have to fight for some Belgians ? Not with Us!"
 
Before begin of WW1 as Austria gave the ultimatum to Serbia, there were allot discussion in British government what to do ?
allot of Diplomat and politicians were for a "to keep out of this conflict" that Fraction has almost overcome the "Warmongers" fraction as German Empire invade Belgium on way to France.
do treaty Britain signed with Belgium almost 74 years earlier, the BEF was send to France to help the Belgians.

now in those few weeks between British government dispute and German Invasion, is ideal about POD were Canada is involve and they can say "Your say British Empire stay out of it and now we have to fight for some Belgians ? Not with Us!"
Within whatever this hypothetical timeline, I could agree with you. And obviously, if Britain itself isn't going to war to defend Belgium, Canada won't be joining the war effort independently.

However, I would object that we can't set "Canada decides not to participate in the war" as the POD because there's no way to explain how that could happen. In our timeline there are a couple issues to overcome:

1.) British Canadian politicians believed that if England was at war, they were at war. Again, it's easier to imagine a scenario where Canada agrees to join the war effort but, gosh darn, we just can't find any soldiers to train or guns to equip them with or ships to send them over. Nobody on here has given us any evidence that there was a decision point in 1914 where the Canadian government seriously considered whether or not to join the war and what I have read previously indicates that in their minds there was simply no question that if Britain was at war Canada was also at war. Canada is only semi-independent in 1914.

2.) Even if politicians were hesitating, the public supported the war. The declaration of war didn't result in widespread public protests. In contrast, there were celebrations in many countries. In Canada as elsewhere, these were followed by a mass wave of enlistments. I can't imagine that a Conservative government will be doing well with its so-called base if it announces in Britain's hour of need that Canada's just going to sit it out.

Yes, the idea of going to war to defend the principle of Belgian neutrality is a bit of an unexciting pretext but I think everyone at the time understood that it was just that, a pretext.

I wonder how many people remember the American pretext for joining that war. (AHers will be far above the general public here, but I offer that as food for thought.)
 
I would like to know more about these training camps and the Legion of Frontiersmen :)

The Legion of Frontiersmen has a substantial online corpus, they were basically a paramilitary training force getting ready for a future war. They still exist, and could probably be a fun way to learn horseback riding and shooting. Probably not so useful skills for a conflict now than they were then of course.

The pre-war training camps I mentioned are something I would like to know more of too, I've never run across much anything online - all I know comes from reading microfilm of old papers back when I was an undergraduate. And though sympathetic papers would mention it, they wouldn't provide a whole heck of lot of details, but, reading between the lines, it's pretty clear they were training Canadians to serve with the Ulster Volunteer Force in blocking Home Rule. The interesting question is how many participated, and how high level was government involvement. Hughes would certainly have been aware of this, if for no other reason than that he probably had a subscription to The Protestant Sentinel. I had briefly contemplated pursuing an MA on the subject but never seriously enough to determine how much information remains accessible on the subject, let alone what scale it was. Still, I do recall multiple training camps for at least a couple years so I think there were at minimum thousands who'd received some training.

Though I am no expert on the Canadian militia of 1914, they were pretty darn weak in 1914. This 1948 article has a good summary of it. My understanding of the demographics of the, essentially voluntary, militia is that they were fairly imperialist and would be inclined to support the crown in any sort of constitutional crisis over the Prime Minister. http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.b...ilitia-TheMilitiaofCanada-Canadianhistory.htm

Still, a Canadian civil war during the 1910s is a fantasy, although it was a fantasy which was certainly nurtured by some of the more paranoid people of Canada.

If, out of the blue, the British asked Canada to suppress a rebellion in Ireland in the middle of World War I, otherwise sticking to our timeline, I have to think that the answer would be, "Um, aren't we needed in France?" Certainly Hughes would have fought to the death against the notion that the Canadian army was little more than Britain's colonial police auxiliary.

That said, the original poster has proposed a different timeline here where it might make sense. As best I can make out, this timeline would begin with a POD that begins to open a big divide between Canada and Britain. I have no idea what that causal event would be, but if we follow it down the line, then the most plausible way to "mildly" resist the British declaration of war in 1914 would be to mobilize troops but insist that they go to non-combat or non-front-line roles in order to "free up" other British soldiers for the offensive we were officially not participating in.

There is a long history of Canada taking this route in various ways, eg. the NRMA in early World War II, our initial plan to go to Europe at the start of the Korean War so that the Americans could go to Korea, and most recently, Chretien's idea to boost our presence in Afghanistan at the outbreak of the Iraq war.

Now, if we had gone that route, then it's possible that we would end up unintentionally being Johnny on the spot, as it were, when some urgent need for a military control presence arose and all the other fully equipped and trained divisions were off in Europe. That for instance is how the NRMA zombies ended up "liberating" the Aleutian Islands.

All of this is very vague and speculative.

I would think Hughes would have been quite keen on supressing a rebellion in Ireland given his activities with the Orange Order. I do agree that Canada could probably have avoided a (substantial) frontline involvement in return for rear area support and colonial garrison duty though. It would have been controversial, and probably not sustainable long term but is certainly something that could have been attempted.
 

cpip

Gone Fishin'
The pre-war training camps I mentioned are something I would like to know more of too, I've never run across much anything online - all I know comes from reading microfilm of old papers back when I was an undergraduate. And though sympathetic papers would mention it, they wouldn't provide a whole heck of lot of details, but, reading between the lines, it's pretty clear they were training Canadians to serve with the Ulster Volunteer Force in blocking Home Rule. ...
I would think Hughes would have been quite keen on supressing a rebellion in Ireland given his activities with the Orange Order...

Well, this was something I wasn't aware of! Thank you for posting about this.
 
The pre-war training camps I mentioned are something I would like to know more of too, I've never run across much anything online - all I know comes from reading microfilm of old papers back when I was an undergraduate. And though sympathetic papers would mention it, they wouldn't provide a whole heck of lot of details, but, reading between the lines, it's pretty clear they were training Canadians to serve with the Ulster Volunteer Force in blocking Home Rule. The interesting question is how many participated, and how high level was government involvement. Hughes would certainly have been aware of this, if for no other reason than that he probably had a subscription to The Protestant Sentinel. I had briefly contemplated pursuing an MA on the subject but never seriously enough to determine how much information remains accessible on the subject, let alone what scale it was. Still, I do recall multiple training camps for at least a couple years so I think there were at minimum thousands who'd received some training.

Though I am no expert on the Canadian militia of 1914, they were pretty darn weak in 1914. This 1948 article has a good summary of it. My understanding of the demographics of the, essentially voluntary, militia is that they were fairly imperialist and would be inclined to support the crown in any sort of constitutional crisis over the Prime Minister. http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.b...ilitia-TheMilitiaofCanada-Canadianhistory.htm

Fascinating. I know a bit about the militia but had not heard of this Ireland connection before. And if that really does have a broader base instead of just coming out of nowhere, then you may be right about Hughes, too.

Still, a Canadian civil war during the 1910s is a fantasy, although it was a fantasy which was certainly nurtured by some of the more paranoid people of Canada.

If there was a conflict one would imagine it would be between English Protestants and French Catholics, rather than between English Protestants and a Borden government that had inexplicably decided to sit out the war.

The militia gets together every year to go camping, drink beer, and practice shooting. Although people did go from the militia to the regular force to serve in Europe, it's really not intended to function the way the modern American or Canadian reserves do, it's not trained or equipped to do so, and it's hard to imagine the militia descending as an organized political force on Ottawa to demand that the country shape up and join the war effort.

(In part because, as we've already agreed, they wouldn't need to: a critical mass of MPs, and their voters, would never have accepted a Canadian declaration of independence from Britain in 1914.)

I would think Hughes would have been quite keen on supressing a rebellion in Ireland given his activities with the Orange Order. I do agree that Canada could probably have avoided a (substantial) frontline involvement in return for rear area support and colonial garrison duty though. It would have been controversial, and probably not sustainable long term but is certainly something that could have been attempted.

Agreed. Negotiating for rear duty is the sort of thing you do when you want to maintain political obligations on the one hand while minimizing your political fallout on the other. But at least in our timeline, the Borden government doesn't suffer negative political fallout from joining the war, so there would be no reason to look for that kind of way out.

Maybe in some alternative timeline where there was a more powerful independence movement led by Bourassa or something, and a Liberal prime minister with a Quebec base, the government would feel compelled to be creative like that.

Or maybe if we find a time machine and swap out Laurier for Chretien or King. "Ready, aye, ready if necessary, but not necessarily ready, aye, ready"?
 
Top