How well did the Canadians perform in WW1? I've been told they were arguably the best soldiers and consistently performed well.
What about WW2?
How well did the Canadians perform in WW1...
Hunter Flores
Wyatt Myers
i read goring had dinner with Canadian PoWs because he liked them so much or something
Nolan Carter
They and the other Dominions (Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Newfoundland) all produced some of the best soldiers in the Empire.
But it wasn't due to any inherent soldierly abilities, it was more due to good officers, good training, national formations (units being kept together in national divisions and corps were possible) and these formations not being shuffled around like French, British or German divisions.
This allowed for consistency of training and staff work which mattered a hell of a lot to how well a unit performed in battle and so the Canadians, together as a corps since 1915, were able to train and fight together to an extent unseen in the rest of the BEF until the Australian corps came together.
Having Currie at their head and not being absolutely dominated by British political interests also gave the Canadians more freedom to chose how to fight their battles, something as a group British generals lacked.
I'm currently doing my PhD thesis on the British dominions during WW1 but have pretty good general knowledge of WW1 as well if there are any questions.
Charles Baker
Everyone says their own soldiers were the best in those wars (as is only natural and understandable, of course). I'm Australian and we hear/say the same about our own soldiers. As another poster said, all of the White Dominions (Australia, New Zealand, Canada, etc) fought exceptionally well in both wars, on a pretty much equal level.
Jeremiah Gutierrez
I've been told a big factor was Australians and Canadians lived and were fed better than the British, because a lot more were farmers and they didn't live in inner city slums and starve as children. Is this true?
Cameron Morris
when Hitler invaded France in WW2, he gave explict orders to not damage the Canadian memorial at Vimy Ridge, and posted an SS honor guard there after the French surrendered, because he feared the Canadian warrior
Logan Robinson
It was a factor some of the time, particularly early on. But it was better nutrition as a child that made the difference. More than 2/3's of all Aussie soldiers came from cities and large towns, so the farmers thing is largely a meme, except for the Light Horse regiments.
The size thing was particular early on when their were minimum restrictions on height and size of ANZAC volunteers. These were eased pretty quickly but the 1st Aust Division was noticeably taller and bigger than their British counterparts.
Adam Sanders
I don't think you have much knowledge about the Canadians in WWI, if you're claiming they operated independently of bong command. The bongs executed multiple Canadians for various offenses, and never bothered notifying Canadian command or anybody in Canada. If anything embodies the notion of cuckoldry, that does.
Blake Morales
I know more about WW2 than WW1, and that one of the reasons the Canadians were considered good in that conflict was the all volunteer army. Did they have that in the first war, or were they still conscripting?
Evan Gomez
They were conscripting, which resulted in riots, same in Australia.
Levi Bennett
There are no best or worst soldiers, difference in tactics, luck and supplies matters not the soldier himself.
Refute this
Colton Howard
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
the Quebecois didn't want to go to war so they chimped out when the Canadian government tried to conscript them
Grayson Fisher
While true, I don't think it was because he feared the Canadians.
It was more his love for WWI times.
Times he claimed was the best in his life.
Cameron Hill
I wasn't saying they operated completely independently, I'm saying that because Currie answered to the Canadian government and the CEF was paid for by Canada it gave Currie the ability to say no to his army commander or Haig to operations he didn't want to participate in. I don't mean that they could just not take part in an attack, but they were able to have it postponed, changed or moved to suit themselves much more easily than an English commander could. Currie on one point demanded an attack be postponed or he would resign, which cowed his army commander into giving way. No British general could ever dream of doing such a thing.
They were still well and truly part of the BEF, but they had a degree of autonomy, shared by Australians and New Zealanders to a lesser extent, that wasn't available to other British units.
"Junior but sovereign allies’: The transformation of the Canadian expeditionary force, 1914–1918" by Desmond Morton gives a good coverage of the point I'm trying to make here. If you want a copy I can email it to you.
Canada didn't bring in conscription until 1917 and the time spent in training and transport meant that conscripts didn't begin arriving at the front until the late stages of the war. So for the Canadians it was volunteers that did the majority of the fighting.
Australia and India were the two British Empire nations who relied entirely on volunteers throughout the entire war, although Australia tried and failed twice to introduce conscription.
Ayden Cruz
They performed awfully in WWII and had terrible morale.
Benjamin Rivera
The Irish were the best soldiers. This is fact.
Grayson Mitchell
I would probably argue something close to this. Training, experience, logistics and leadership matter more than the individual man.
Yeah, the conscription referenda were really bitterly fought in Australia, it divided the government and split the Labor Party. The Prime Minister Billy Hughes thought that the soldiers vote would be overwhelmingly for conscription so he set the date for their results to be publicised a week or more before the national vote. However the margin of victory was so small that he buried the results for fear that it'd hurt his cause.
Joseph Walker
Canadians fought exceptionally well during WW1, though this may have had to do with the fact that Canadian units were always kept up to full strength, and made up mostly of volunteers.
Canadians had a tougher time in the Second World War, as they tended to get rough assignments (operations under Monty's command during the Caen offensives, siege operations along the coast, fighting in Holland), and didn't perform as well as a result.
Like all Dominion and British troops in Europe, they have a shit reputation with the Americans, which has hurt them in the English speaking world.
Jace Lee
Gonna dump some WW1 pics and hang around if there are some other questions?
Justin Green
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Thomas Torres
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Wyatt Watson
Damn.
That's also a map on Battlefield 1.
Ryder Garcia
Yeah, Vaux was one of the main forts of Verdun so it's been portrayed a few times.
David Green
Slipknot era 1916.
Landon Richardson
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Carter Garcia
The Germans feared the eternal Canuck
Jeremiah Cook
Fuck those Royalist protestant cunts
Eli Baker
Wasn't there an incident where a bunch of Canadian soldiers chimped out and literally crucified somebody?
Jaxson Sanders
The Crucified Canadian is one of the best known WW1 myths.
en.wikipedia.org
Never happened though.
Thomas Richardson
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Asher Nelson
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Justin Perez
>believing maplenigger lies
Parker Taylor
I understand the point you're attempting to make, but I don't think the facts support your point. I'll refer you back to the fact that the bongs executed multiple Canadians without consulting any Canadian, or even informing Canada of the proceedings prior to these executions, or after. It was many, many decades before the truth came out. Suggest you reconcile that fact with your assertion that Canada had some special freedom of action. They had no such. If anything, the Oz had a bit of that, but all were colonial subjects and were treated as such, as lesser beings.
Brayden Gutierrez
Could the central powers have won the war?
Lincoln Thompson
the eternal canuck is at it again
Chase Lewis
Being British, in WW1 the Anglos were more willing to use Canadians and other Empire troops in risky assaults than English soldiers. Naturally, this gave the Canadian (and ANZAC) units a reputation as reliable shock troops, although they weren’t specialized for it like would’ve been in the German or Russian armies.
This reputation stuck into WW2. I recall hearing that on the Western front, the 3 units that would typically not take prisoners were the SS, the American airborne units, and the Canadians.
Ironic that here in America Canadians being polite and very nice is a big stereotype.
Aaron Baker
they held the line pretty damn well at Passchendale (yea I know I butchered it) and as far as i could tell had a bit better training than the average brit soldier in ww1
However in ww2 they were not a major factor towards winning any battles.
In fact a few times they fucked up taking some towns in France and had to ask nearby airborne units for help who would then subsequently take the village/town
And not to shit on the Canadians but the US Marines were by far the most effective units in ww2.
Isaac Davis
If you want to google that you would come up with longer more detailed answers than anyone could give you on Veeky Forums. They came very very close to it in 1918 and they did achieve victory on the Eastern front as a matter of fact.
Nathan Ward
>>And not to shit on the Canadians but the US Marines were by far the most effective units in ww2.
FUCK meant to say
>most effective units in WW1
Jacob Gutierrez
Canadians did take prisoners in ww2, but during normandy SS executed some of them and afterwards Canadian soldiers took it out on any captured Waffen SS. Don't think they widely executed wehrmacht tho, especially since a lot around Normandy were impressed from other parts of Europe.
Landon Johnson
ofc US troops were most effective, they were fresh, had the benefits of sitting it otu and observing what worked so better training and tactics, they had good equipment and were facing exhausted germans who had been at war for 4 years and just been broken trying to take Paris. Not really hard to cut through that mob lmfao
Bentley Ross
Can you back that up? American troops didn’t arrive in large numbers until late into 1917 and still spent some time learning the tactical lessons which other combatants had long had.