Canada mobilized for war on the homefront between 1914-1918. Women took over jobs in factories and on farms while men fought overseas. The government created programs to support families, raised funds through war bonds, and established agencies to oversee munitions production. Over 600,000 Canadians served and nearly 60,000 died. While women gained the right to vote, returning soldiers faced disillusionment about the true horrors of war as depicted in the poem "Dulce et Decorum Est."

1. Canada & The Homefront

4. Gearing Up For War
Canadian Patriotic Fund
 Outfitting at private
expense
 To help families
struggling to live on
privates pay of $1.10 a
day

5. Soldier boys – On the Farm
Soldiers of the Soil
When men went to war
women were
responsible to harvest
crops
12,000 young boys
became knows as the
Soldiers of the Soil

6. Berlin, Ontario?
 “Enemy Aliens” – Canada came to hate anything
German
 They pressured the Government to fire German
and Austrian immigrants who held government
jobs
 No Teaching German in Schools
 No Beethoven
 City of Berlin, Ontario to be renamed Kitchener
(British Secretary of War)

7. Part of German National Anthem
 Germany, Germany above all,
over everything in the world,
When it steadfastly holds together,
offensively and defensively.

8. $$VICTORY$$
 Savings bond created
by the Government
 Generate revenue to
pay for the war effort
 We still have them
today – “savings
bonds”

9. Munitions – “Gotta get me a Ross
Rifle!”
 Munitions – another
significant contribution
to the war effort
 Shipped millions of
dollars worth of shells
and explosives
 More than 250 000
Canadians worked for
munitions industry

10. Shell Committee and IMB
 Shell Committee set up by Minister of
Militia, Sam Huges
 It’s job was to bid for British artillery-shell
contracts and find Canadian manufacturers
to fill the orders
 Friend’s of Huges were dishonest
 Borden agreed, set up the IMB (Imperial
Munitions Board)

11. Women & WWI
 So many men gone to war Canada was
crying for workers

12. What did Women do?
 30 000 women worked in munition factories
 Aircraft factories, machine shops, metal
foundries, shipyards
 Overseas jobs – nurses
 Once war was over women were expected
to return home to their traditional roles

13. Women get the vote!!
 1914 women still
denied the right to
vote
 During the war Borden
changed his mind
 At first only certain
women were
enfranchised

14. VOTE!
 The Wartime Elections Act of 1917 gave
Canadian nurses with the armed forces and the
wives, sisters, and mothers of Canadian soldiers
a vote in upcoming federal election
 During election campaign Borden pledged to
extend the vote to all women if elected
 After the war Borden extended the vote to women
over age of 21

15. Military Casualties in World War I 1914-1918
Belgium 45,550
British Empire 942,135
France 1,368,000
Greece 23,098
Italy 680,000
Japan 1,344
Montenegro 3,000
Portugal 8,145
Romania 300,000
Russia 1,700,000
Serbia 45,000
United States 116,516
Austria-Hungary 1,200,000
Bulgaria 87,495
Germany 1,935,000
Ottoman Empire 725,000

16. Canada
Total Enlisted 619 636
Total Deaths 59 544
Total Non fatal 172 950
Total Population 7.5 million

17. Dulce et Decorum Est – Truly honorable to die
for one’s country
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we
cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our
backs
And towards our distant rest began to
trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their
boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame;
all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that
dropped behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! - An ecstasy of
fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and
stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick
green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking,
drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could
pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his
face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted
lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent
tongues, -
My friend, you would not tell with such high
zest
To children ardent for some desperate
glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.